Road To The Coast

by John Harris

  ‘What are we going to signal with?’ Ash asked realistically. ‘The radio’s napoo.’

  ‘Flash her. Aldis lamp.’

  ‘Don’t be funny.’ Grundy pushed a scornful pimply face into the argument. ‘By the time they’d sorted out the first word, she’d be past the end of this bloody stream and round the corner. Lying here, we’d only see her for about a minute through the trees as she went across. Them willows are in the way.’

  ‘We’ve got rockets,’ Dodgin shrieked, his temper rising as the opposition grew stronger. ‘Signal rockets!’

  Dainty’s sunken face was growing angry, the anger driving out the hopelessness in his features. ‘Christ,’ he snorted. ‘With a town full of boats and launches just over there, you think any skipper’d be barmy enough to come down this lousy stream inquiring about rockets and flashing lights? Let them do it, they’d say. Let them have a bash. Would Phizacklea have turned off course? With a pilot on board as well? Would any captain? You’re off your onion. That dago knew what he was up to when he started this lark.’

  Dodgin stared at the old man, suddenly at a loss for words, then he turned his head and glanced through the porthole in the direction of the Punta de las Rosas. He took the cigarette end from between his lips and flung it to the deck bitterly.

  ‘That makes us nicely bottled up,’ he said.

  ‘And if the level falls,’ Grundy pointed out, ‘we’ll be on the bottom. I’ve seen ’em – even down in the delta – canting over on the mud, stuck for months.’

  Dodgin whirled furiously, looking for someone, something, anything, to lash out at, anything to expend his blind violent anger on; and as Grundy spoke he was reminded of another cause for rage that he hadn’t completely exhausted, and he settled on the mate like an angry wasp.

  ‘Well, whose fault is it?’ he demanded fiercely. ‘If somebody had been on the bridge where they ought to ’ave been, we might not be in the bloody creek at all. We might be out there, where they couldn’t hold us up.’

  Grundy backed away, wishing he’d held his tongue. The memory of the previous night had been fading a little in the general relief, but with Dodgin’s words his face fell as it all came back to him, as though his narrow little soul were still obsessed by the fact that out of all of them he was the only one who’d behaved in a way he need be ashamed of, that he’d been the only one who had broken down and dived for shelter when everybody else was emerging on deck to find out what was happening. He backed away from Dodgin now, his voice loud as though it might be strong enough to turn aside his criticism.

  ‘They won’t hold us,’ he said. ‘Not if we sign his rotten bit of paper! What’s a bit of paper?’

  ‘Bits of paper start wars,’ Dainty said portentously.

  Grundy gestured and they saw he had picked up the folded sheet that Dodgin had flung to the floor, the document Carroll had brought on board. ‘Christ,’ he said, his voice high and strained. ‘Somebody’ll sort it out. If that’s what we’ve got to do to get out of here, for Christ’s sake let’s do it and get going.’

  ‘I’m not signing,’ Dodgin shouted the words at the top of his voice, as though he felt that anger had to be manifested by every possible kind of violence.

  ‘Why not?’ Grundy demanded.

  Ash, who had said nothing during the argument, laid a hand on the mate’s shoulder and half-turned him.

  ‘I don’t think you’re aware of it, son,’ he said slowly, ‘but you’ve just been looking at something you clearly don’t understand much about. It’s called honour. It’s a terrifying sight when you see it, old boy, no matter whose face it’s on.’

  He lit a cigarette with steady hands and, watching him, Grace knew that whatever else he’d been, whatever else he’d done, he’d never been brought low or humbled by any of the misfortunes that had more than once left him on his uppers, without money and without much hope. Whatever else he’d done, he’d retained his dignity according to his lights, and a superabundant pride in himself.

  There was silence for a moment, as though none of them had any conception of what he was talking about, then Dodgin’s shrill voice took up the argument where they’d left off.

  ‘I don’t know about honour,’ he shouted, completely unaware of any finer feelings in himself. ‘But I do know this: My name’s not going to be on that piece of paper, and if yours is, Clarence Grundy, you yeller-bellied louse, I’ll personally undertake to slit your throat.’

  He seemed to sweep the room clear of people as he went out, like a broom picking up rubbish, and Ash and Grace and Teresa were left alone.

  Grace was still motionless by the pantry, her face white shocked by the violence of the argument. As the door slammed behind the others, she slid into a chair and for a moment the room was still. Then the ship’s cat, a ginger monster which had taken a fancy to her, crossed the room on stiff legs and jumped on to her lap. Instinctively she started to stroke it and the room became silent and still again.

  Teresa was the first to move. She crossed to where Ash was standing by the porthole, staring out at the river, and touching him shyly, stood waiting, her small face worried, for him to take some notice of her.

  ‘Will it be all right, Mr Ash?’ she asked.

  He looked down at her, startled at the question, as though he hadn’t realized she was there.

  ‘Will what be all right?’ he asked.

  Teresa gestured vaguely, having only half understood the argument she had heard.

  ‘I thought they said we couldn’t go.’

  She seemed on the verge of tears and Ash squeezed her hand quickly and lit a cigarette. Then, as he blew out the smoke in a great blue swirling cloud about his head, he ran his fingers through his hair and forced a smile for the child. ‘That? That was nothing,’ he said with a breeziness Grace knew that for once he didn’t feel. ‘They were only talking through their hats. You don’t want to take any notice of people like that. Just a load of boloney. You know what boloney is, don’t you? Tripe, rubbish, balderdash. We’ll sort it out somehow. It’s nothing for you to worry your head about.’

  His manner was distant and unconvincing and Teresa persisted in her questioning. ‘Will we get home?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure we will.’ Ash turned his head again and forced another smile. “It’ll all be sorted out before long. Just you wait.’

  ‘Mr Ash’ – Teresa seemed troubled and her face was touched by bewilderment – ‘can’t we just pull up the anchor and go? The engines are working. I heard the engineer say they were working.’

  ‘Sure, they’re working all right,’ Ash said shortly.

  ‘Well, why can’t we just go?’

  ‘Oh, lots of formalities to attend to.’ He seemed faintly irritated now and inclined to be brusque. ‘Got to have a pilot. Got to have permission.’

  ‘But I thought you went ashore to fix all that.’

  ‘I did. I did.’ He gestured angrily, almost as though he were shooing her away.

  ‘Well, you told me you had lots of influence. You told me you were a very important man.’

  Ash turned slowly towards her, then he glanced at Grace, the irritation in his face gone, and she found herself hoping he could find an answer to the question. But he didn’t try to. For once he didn’t even attempt to be non-committal.

  ‘Not me,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve got it wrong, Tess. I’m not important at all.’

  ‘But you said’ – Teresa’s face fell, disappointed, the hero-worship in her eyes dying.

  ‘I’m a commercial traveller,’ Ash said harshly, suddenly frighteningly frank and cruel. ‘Commercial traveller, chucker-out, chauffeur, yes-man and pimp to Duffy. That about covers the extent of my importance. Nil. Nothing. The bare nixey. That’s me.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ Teresa was trying hard to cling to the idea of magnificence with which she had invested him, trying to be loyal in spite of his gruffness. ‘I bet it was an important job, really. Wasn’t Mr Duffy important?’

  ‘Only to
the police. And even then he might have got along quite well without me.’

  Teresa was looking at him with unhappiness in her eyes, unable to keep on pretending to herself. ‘Wasn’t it true then?’ she asked. ‘All you told me?’

  Ash shook his head.

  ‘And you aren’t any of those things you told me you were, after all?’ her face was twisted with anguish. The adoration she had given him so willingly, so blindly and unquestioningly, was souring quickly and she was searching desperately for something to explain it satisfactorily to herself before it vanished for good.

  Ash looked at her, aware that he had gone too far in his self-denigration, that he had been too brutal, and the child was unable to adjust herself to the frightening stranger he had made of himself.

  ‘Well’ – he paused, searching for words that might put it right for her – ‘not exactly, not exactly.’

  ‘But surely’ – Teresa sighed, still unconvinced – ‘it’s wrong to tell lies.’

  Ash rubbed his nose vigorously, as though he were trying to hide his embarrassment. ‘Sometimes it seems very necessary,’ he said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘To protect people perhaps. That sort of thing.’ He began to regret his attempts to reassure her as he found himself stumbling into a deeper confusion of thought. He realized he was evading the issue, running away from it instead of facing up to it with honesty as he ought to have done, and he wondered if it wouldn’t have been wiser to continue to be realistic with her. He shrugged and became awkwardly silent, as though he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Teresa’s eyes had lit up, though, as she saw something in what he said which managed to explain to her, however vaguely, that what he had done, and the lies he had told, had had some reason behind them, that this apparent failure of his was really after all no failure at all.

  ‘Did you tell all those lies then to protect us?’ she asked eagerly. ‘I bet you did, didn’t you?’

  Ash glanced at Grace, a desperate look on his face. He had no wish to delude the child any more, but she was making it difficult now for him to be honest. Looking at the new brightness in her eyes, he abandoned the last of his defences and submitted. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said. ‘Why else?’

  Theresa flung her arms round him and hugged him. ‘I knew there must be a reason,’ she said thankfully.

  Ash seemed to have got control of himself again, almost as though he had stepped out of character with his attempt to be honest and had now thankfully slipped back to the normality of untruth. The old breeziness reappeared suddenly.

  ‘Look’ – he pushed the child away and made her stand in front of him – ‘do you trust me, Tess?’

  She nodded immediately, without pause, without doubt.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Grace felt a lump coming to her throat but she was unable to interrupt, or even help him.

  ‘And if I told you to do something – or say something – you’d do it? At once and no nonsense? On the dot? Without arguing? Without any questions? No flap? No panic? No argy-bargy?’

  The child nodded again.

  ‘OK.’ Ash thought for a moment. ‘Suppose I told you to tell anybody who asked that you’re my daughter. What would you think of that?’

  ‘I’d think you’d asked me to say it so we could get home quicker,’ Teresa said at once.

  Ash glanced at Grace once more and there was an odd unbelievable helplessness in his eyes, a trace of gratitude and a lot of new humility.

  ‘It’d be a lie,’ he pointed out to Teresa. ‘How’d you feel about that?’

  ‘I think it’d be all right. Just this once.’

  He sighed. ‘Fair enough. Well, I’m going to. Understand?’

  ‘I wish I could be,’ Teresa said fervently. ‘Why don’t you marry Grace and let me live with you? I’d rather have you for my father than anyone else.’

  Ash coughed. ‘That’s something we can attend to later,’ he said, ruffling her hair. ‘Let’s get back to what we were doing. From now on, then, your name’s the same as mine. OK?’

  He turned away slowly, then he swung round again at once and jabbed a finger at the child, holding it unwaveringly about an inch from her nose. ‘What’s your name?’ he shouted. ‘Quick! Come on! What is it?’

  Teresa paused for a fraction of a second. ‘Same as yours,’ she said, grinning.

  Ash laughed with genuine mirth and the strain seemed to go out of his face with it. He scooped her up with one great arm and held her in front of him, her feet off the deck. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’ll have to do for now. Remember it, though, if anybody asks you. Because’ – his face became serious again – ‘there might come a time when somebody will ask you and you’ve got to be ready. Fair enough?’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Dead serious? No kidding?’

  ‘Dead serious. No kidding.’

  ‘Just trust your Uncle Harry Ash. OK?’

  ‘OK – Uncle Harry.’

  ‘Right.’ He set her on her feet again. ‘Pop off now. See if you can catch me some fish.’

  As she left, Grace turned towards him and he faced her almost as though he were daring her to challenge what he had done.

  ‘She had me there,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you fix it? Me? Harry Hackforth Ash, shyster. Even Grundy’s got more influence than me.’

  There was an odd expression on his face as he spoke, one that might have been called wistful if his rocky arrogant face could have fallen into wistfulness.

  ‘You could have told her they wouldn’t keep their promises,’ Grace pointed out gently. ‘We all knew that. That would have been enough. She’d have accepted it.’

  ‘Maybe she would.’ He looked round at her. ‘But it would have seemed a bit like cheating, wouldn’t it? And it seems to be too late to start cheating now.’

  He threw away his cigarette end.

  ‘Maybe it’s because I like kids,’ he explained brusquely without waiting for her to reply. ‘I’ve just never had the opportunity to get used to ’em, that’s all.’

  She wanted to take his hand, in a frightened gentle way, as she saw the kindness that emerged through the raffish cheapness that had become his character over so many years.

  ‘She won’t mind,’ she said. ‘Not now. I doubt if she’d ever have minded for long, really.’

  ‘She’d got to know some time, anyway,’ he said roughly. ‘It’s a tough world, and just then for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a thing to tell her except the truth.’

  Eight

  The following morning was grey, building up in the distance with lowering clouds that stifled the heat and added to the feeling of depression that hung over them all.

  The ship was silent, rankly malodorous and echoing the footsteps of the crew as they moved about, and in the silence and the absence of anger, it was difficult to realize they were still involved in a fantastic comic opera situation, where they were the centre and core of a complicated blackmail.

  As Grace left the captain’s cabin, rain was falling, slowly at first, and then in a downpour which gurgled in the scuppers and dripped in streams from the broken ironwork where the shell had hit the bridge. No one looked up as she appeared in the doorway of the saloon and she caught a glimpse of an atmosphere of unreality that seemed like a left-over bad dream, like an echo of the thunder which seemed to have been lurching about the sky all night.

  Dainty and Grundy were sitting at the table, listless with defeatism, all Dainty’s fine pride gone. Only Dodgin’s restless spirit showed in his angry eyes.

  The wireless was blaring out from the pirate station at the rebel headquarters and Ash, as incredibly clean and indestructible as he always seemed, was listening quietly, his big body tensed, the only one of them all who was able to understand.

  Like Dodgin he had by no means accepted Carroll’s edict as the end of things and had spent what was left of the previous day prow
ling round the ship, his mind as restlessly occupied with escape as Dodgin’s. Already between them they had got the ship’s carpenter to work, painstakingly helping him as he started to patch the splinter-wrecked life-boat which was all that remained to them, Ash directing him with his brusque assumption of command and Dodgin bribing him with cups of sweet tea from his pantry. Neither of them had abandoned themselves to defeat and, in spite of their vast dissimilarity, they seemed to have been drawn together in their refusal to accept the inevitable.

  As Grace entered the saloon, the radio announcer’s voice seemed to have a raucous note of triumph in it and his words were hurried and excited.

  ‘As well as Puerto Belgrano,’ he was saying, ‘we now hold Bahía Blanca and control practically the whole of the Atlantic coast. Corrientes, Córdoba, Entre Ríos, San Luís, Chubót and Guión are now securely held and consolidation is taking place everywhere.’

  Ash frowned at the impressive string of names which meant only increasing danger to himself and Grace as the revolutionary forces spread across the country, then Dodgin twisted the knob again so that the voice blared out abruptly, making them all jump with the sudden violence of the sound.

  ‘An appeal to the workers to overthrow the present government,’ the announcer went on, ‘has informed them that the Army, Navy and Air Force have undertaken the revolt solely to overthrow the tyrant and not to take away their liberty. At any moment now–’

  ‘Di da di da di da,’ Dodgin said contemptuously, switching him off in mid-sentence.

  During the morning, the rain increased. The sky turned black after a short break between the showers, and the buildings ashore, the warehouses with their flapping corrugated sheets, the cranes, even the trees on the Isla des Flores, were sharply outlined against a leaden sky. Then, from the south-east, they caught the first breath of a wind that stirred the willows on the island and the point.

  It came roaring down on them, quite suddenly, sweeping every corner of the ship clear of its litter of rubbish as though it were vacuum cleaner. The rain returned with a demented energy, falling in floods as though the very sky had turned to water as the wind drove it horizontally and even upwards in a flying spray through the whipping fronds of the trees, bubbling it through the doors of the ship, pushing it on the draughts that howled down the chilly alleyways, pinning them below deck in a lashing downpour that blurred the shore.