The Race to Kangaroo Cliff

by Alexander McCall Smith

  After they had each checked their equipment, they rolled over backwards into the water and began to swim down again to the bottom. The jaws of the clam were still tightly shut. Taking Miss Worsfold’s diving knife from its sheath, Thomas soon cut through the nylon strap that was caught in the clam’s jaws. Making the ‘all okay’ signal with his left hand, he retrieved the abandoned oxygen cylinder and he and Poppy slowly returned to the surface, pausing halfway to avoid any chance of the bends.

  “Well done,” said Miss Worsfold with a smile as they dragged Amanda’s oxygen cylinder into the boat. Then her expression changed. “You know, though, I’m going to have to report this incident to Captain Macbeth.”

  Poppy looked anxious. “But everything worked out all right,” she said. “Amanda wasn’t hurt – nobody was.”

  Miss Worsfold frowned. “That’s not the point. The Captain has to know about every incident involving safety. That’s the rule.”

  Poppy looked away. Amanda had broken the rules by going off on her own. But was she herself partly to blame for not keeping a closer eye on Amanda? She did not want to get Amanda into trouble, but neither did she want to take the blame herself.

  She made one last plea to Miss Worsfold. “Can’t we just forget about it, Miss Worsfold? Just this time? And I promise you, it’ll never happen again.”

  Miss Worsfold shook her head. “No, Poppy, we can’t,” she said. “Rules are not there to be broken. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask both of you to come with me to the Captain’s cabin once we get back to the Tobermory.”

  Fee did not see Poppy again until they were well on their way to Cairns, where the Tall Ships race was due to begin. She found her sitting by herself at the foot of one of the masts, shaded from the sun by the shadow cast by the main boom. Fee saw at once that there was something unusual about the other girl’s manner. Poppy was usually cheerful and enthusiastic; now, though, she looked downcast and worried.

  Fee sat down next to her friend. “Something wrong?” she asked.

  Poppy shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just fine.”

  But Fee could tell that she was not. She wondered whether Poppy was upset at having to say goodbye to her parents in Sydney. You can get used to being away from home – almost to the point of not thinking about it all that much – but then something brings it all back to you and you start to feel homesick. “You can tell me, you know,” she said. “Are you missing your mum and dad?”

  The question seemed to surprise Poppy, who looked up suddenly. “Missing them? Of course I miss them. Everybody misses home, don’t they?”

  “So, is that what’s making you look so miserable?” asked Fee.

  Poppy looked down at the deck once more. It seemed as if she were debating with herself whether or not she should take Fee into her confidence. Then she raised her eyes and Fee could see that she was close to tears.

  “It’s so unfair,” said Poppy. “It wasn’t my fault, you know. It wasn’t my fault at all.”

  Fee had heard about the diving incident – news spreads like wildfire on a ship – but she did not know the details. Was this what Poppy was talking about? But surely Poppy had nothing to do with what happened, thought Fee. Hadn’t it all been to do with Amanda getting caught by a giant clam – or something equally odd?

  She waited for a moment to see if Poppy was going to say anything more. When she did not, Fee asked her to tell her exactly what had happened. Was it true that Amanda had almost drowned because her leg had been caught in the jaws of a giant clam?

  Poppy frowned and shook her head. “It wasn’t like that at all,” she said. “I’ve heard those stories of divers being trapped that way – but it’s impossible, you know. It would be hard to fit your leg inside. But you could get a belt or a strap caught. That’s what happened to Amanda.”

  Fee shivered. The idea of being caught so far under water and being unable to get up for air was the very worst kind of nightmare.

  “Thomas saved her life, you know,” Poppy continued. “We both looked for her and then he shared his air with her while she came up. He was a real hero.”

  Fee agreed. But why would anybody have blamed Poppy for this? What had it got to do with her? If anything, she deserved to be praised for her part in the rescue.

  Poppy explained. “Miss Worsfold told us that we had to report to the Captain,” she began. “It seems there’s a rule that he has to be told about every incident. So we went along – Thomas, Bartholomew, Amanda and I – and told him what had happened.”

  “And what did he say?” asked Fee.

  “He sat and listened,” answered Poppy. “Then he shook his head. Like this.” Poppy demonstrated.

  “Why?” asked Fee. “Was he cross with you? Because I don’t think that he —”

  Poppy did not let her finish. “You know how he looks when you’ve done something you shouldn’t?”

  Fee did. The Captain had a way of looking disappointed – as if you had somehow let him down. He did not look like that very often because he was a kind man and tried to put people at their ease, but sometimes his irritation showed when it had to.

  Poppy continued with her story. “He asked why Amanda was by herself when she saw the giant clam.”

  “And why was she?” asked Fee. She knew enough about diving to know that you never dived by yourself if you could avoid it.

  Poppy replied that she thought Amanda had drifted off because she was not paying attention. “Not that I’m blaming her,” she added. “It’s really easy to do that if you’re looking at fish. You don’t realise you’re drifting with the current, and before you know it, you’re far away.”

  “So it was her fault,” said Fee. “In a way, that is. As you say, it happens quite easily – but it was still her responsibility to pay attention.”

  Poppy nodded. “I didn’t move,” she said. “Amanda was the one who allowed herself to drift.” She paused. “But she lied about it.”

  Fee drew in her breath. “What? She said she didn’t drift?”

  With a further nod of her head, Poppy confirmed what Fee had said. “Before I could say anything, she told the Captain she had signalled to me that she was going off after the fish and that I had signalled back to say I would come too.”

  “And she didn’t?”

  “No,” said Poppy. “She didn’t. I’m absolutely positive she didn’t.”

  Fee asked what happened next.

  “I couldn’t believe my ears,” said Poppy. “I looked at her and she just looked back at me as if daring me to deny it.”

  “And did you?” asked Fee.

  “I tried to,” said Poppy. “But then the Captain held up a hand and told me to keep quiet. Then he shook his head again and said that it sounded to him as if we had both failed to pay attention and that we were both to blame.”

  The unfairness of this shocked Fee. From what she had heard, it was clear that it was all Amanda’s fault and Poppy had done no wrong. She was astonished that Amanda Birtwhistle should tell a lie to get herself out of trouble. That was the sort of behaviour one might expect from somebody like Hardtack, not from a girl like Amanda.

  “The Captain gave us a lecture,” Poppy went on, “about safety. Then he said that as punishment we wouldn’t be allowed to dive for the rest of the voyage. He said we were lucky not to have had a tragedy on our hands and he hoped we had learned our lesson.”

  Fee was eager to hear what Poppy had said to Amanda afterwards.

  “When we left the Captain’s cabin,” Poppy said, “I asked Amanda what she had been thinking about. I told her that what she had said was a complete lie and it had got us both into trouble.”

  “And what did she say to that?” asked Fee.

  “She denied it. She said that she hadn’t told any lies and that she had signalled to me and I had signalled back. She said that I must have forgotten.” Poppy paused. “But you know what? I don’t believe her. She wouldn’t look at me when she spoke – that’s always
a sign of being ashamed.”

  Fee was silent. Being on board a ship with a lot of other people taught you lots of lessons. And one that she was learning now – and learning very quickly – was that although it is a good thing to trust people, there are times when your trust can be misplaced. Poppy had trusted Amanda, only to discover that the other girl was prepared to make up a false story to get herself out of trouble. How could anybody do such a thing? she asked herself. The answer, it seemed, was simply that some people can do things like that quite easily. It made Fee sad to think this, because she wanted the world to be a fair place. But sometimes, she realized, it was anything but fair.

  They were now not far from Cairns, and by mid-afternoon the Tobermory had sailed into the large bay in front of the town and dropped anchor. The rattling of the great anchor chain as it snaked down into the water was normally a welcome sound as it meant that there would be swimming or exploring, or some other exciting activity. Of course, diving lessons were popular, as Matron had been a champion diver and liked nothing more than to demonstrate her skills and help others master the art of entering the water without too much of a splash.

  But as they had sailed into the bay there was something else to attract their attention. There, lined up at anchor and bobbing up and down with the gentle swell, was a fleet of large sailing ships – their competition in the great race that was to start in Cairns and finish at Kangaroo Cliff near Darwin, far away on the northern coast of Australia. Distances are huge in Australia and it would be a long voyage between those two places. Just how long it would take depended not only on the wind, which was unpredictable, but also on the skill of the crew. A strong wind in a favourable direction is not much use if the people on board do not know how to take advantage of it, so a race such as this would be a real test of helming, or steering, the boat, of trimming the sails so they would pick up every ounce of push that the wind gave, of using the currents, and of the crew’s ability to keep going day and night, without taking their eye off the task in hand.

  Once the anchor had dropped and settled into the sand below, Mr Rigger called the whole company to a meeting on deck. Once all had assembled, the Captain came up from his cabin to address them. He congratulated them on a good voyage – nothing was said about the diving incident – and then went on to point out the other sailing ships at anchor around the bay.

  “Every one of these ships,” he said, “is a training ship – just like the Tobermory. And each of them is crewed by people just like you.”

  They all looked at the ships across the bay, imagining what the other crews would be like. Fee asked herself whether each would have its equivalent of Hardtack and Co. Would they also have a teacher who could dive as well as Matron or an officer with a moustache like Mr Rigger’s?

  The Captain was now pointing to the largest vessel in this group of ships, which was flying a large black, red and yellow flag.

  “Where’s that ship from?” asked the Captain. “Anybody know?”

  Ben was not sure, but thought he would guess. “Holland?” he called out. “I think that’s the Dutch flag.”

  It was a perfectly reasonable guess, but it brought a hoot of derision from Geoffrey Shark. “Dutch flag?” he shouted. “You need glasses, MacTavish! Can’t you tell the German flag when you see it?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know the difference between Holland and Germany,” called out Maximilian Flubber.

  There was some laughter at this, but not much. Ben glowered back at Shark and Flubber, his ears burning with embarrassment.

  “None of that, please!” snapped the Captain. Looking directly at Shark, he continued, “MacTavish made a reasonable suggestion, Mr Shark. But perhaps you’d care to tell us what the flag on that other ship is.” He pointed at a ship lying beyond the German vessel. “Well, come on, Geoffrey. You tell us.”

  Shark’s eyes narrowed. “France?” he ventured.

  This brought a hoot of laughter from a number of people.

  “No,” said the Captain. “Wrong. That’s a Russian ship.” He paused. “So don’t be too quick to laugh when other people get things wrong.”

  Ben felt a bit better now that Shark had been embarrassed too, but there was not much time to think about this as the Captain was now describing the strengths and weaknesses of the other entrants in the race. There were sixteen ships in all, although some of them were too small to pose much of a challenge to the Tobermory. The German boat, the Prince of Hamburg, would be the main competition. The Tobermory should be able to hold its own against the Russian boat, the Black Sea Belle, which was heavier and therefore slower than the Tobermory. Two other strong competitors were the Melbourne, from Australia, and the Spirit of Hokianga, from New Zealand. Although they were sleek and fast, they were smaller and might find the going heavy when faced with rough seas.

  “If we want to win,” Captain Macbeth continued, “we’ll have to give it everything we’ve got.” He paused and looked out over the heads of the ship’s company standing before him. “Are you prepared to do that, everyone?”

  There was only one answer, and they gave it: “Aye aye, sir!” This was the naval way of saying yes – and they meant it.

  With the main business of the meeting over, Bartholomew Fitzhardy asked Captain Macbeth whether they could go swimming. The Captain smiled when he heard the question. “Not if you want to stay alive,” he said. “Matron knows why,” he added.

  Badger looked puzzled, but Matron’s response soon made it clear.

  “I’ve been here before,” she said. “It was for an international diving competition back in my diving days. And I met a diver then who had a very narrow escape.”

  They all waited for Matron to say more.

  “Crocodiles,” she said. “This diver I met had been doing a display of cliff-diving and had a bad shock when she opened her eyes underwater and saw a large crocodile coming straight towards her. She said she had never swum so fast in her life and she got out of the water just in time.”

  The Captain nodded. “Yes, crocodiles,” he said. “I believe I warned you about them before. This is crocodile territory, I’m afraid.”

  “But this is the sea,” Bartholomew protested. “And look, there are plenty of boats about.”

  The Captain shook his head. “Remember, these are saltwater crocodiles,” the Captain reminded him. “Out on the reef it’s safe enough, but inshore it’s a different matter. It may be rare for them to be in the harbour here, but they could be. And I don’t think it’s worth taking the risk. So, no swimming until we’re well away from these waters.”

  It was disappointing, as it had been a hot day and people would have welcomed the chance to cool down in the water. But they were sensible and realised that the Captain’s advice was good. Or most of them did. Hardtack, who earlier had said that he was not scared of what he called “overgrown lizards”, smirked at the Captain’s warning and gave his friends Flubber and Shark a knowing look. Poppy noticed it, and whispered to Fee, “I bet they’re planning something.”

  “Who?” asked Fee.

  Poppy nodded in the direction of Hardtack and his friends. “Those three.”

  Fee raised an eyebrow. “Do you think they’d be stupid enough to go swimming here?”

  “They might be,” said Poppy. “Those three have done some pretty stupid things in their time.”

  “If they do,” she whispered to Poppy, “it could be the last mistake they make.”

  Poppy sighed. “I wouldn’t wish a crocodile attack on anybody, even Hardtack. So I just hope they’re not going to do anything dangerous.”

  Fee said nothing but had a bad feeling that that was exactly what they were going to do.

  Poppy found it hard to get to sleep that night. She was finding it difficult to forget what had happened in the Captain’s cabin when Amanda Birtwhistle had so unfairly landed her in trouble. It is never pleasant to be punished, but if the punishment is for something you have not done, that it is even worse. Poppy was astonished t
hat Amanda should think she could get away with her story. She could fool others, perhaps – because nobody else had been there – but Amanda must have realised Poppy herself knew the truth. How could Amanda look at herself in the mirror and not cringe with embarrassment at the thought that the face looking back at her was a dishonest one?

  Poppy had found herself standing close to Amanda when they were both lining up for dinner in the mess hall. Amanda had avoided her. In fact, she had pretended not to see Poppy at all – and that simply confirmed what Poppy already thought: Amanda was ashamed. And well she might be.

  Fee had spotted what was going on. “Amanda’s trying not to look at you,” she whispered to Poppy over the dinner table.

  Poppy nodded. “I know,” she said.

  “I wonder if she’s going ignore you for the rest of the trip,” Fee speculated. “What if you’re both on helming duty at the same time? What if you’re both turning the wheel together?”

  Poppy had to smile. “That could be hard. She would have to pretend she was steering with a ghost.”

  “Or if you bumped into one another in a passageway,” Fee went on, “she’d have to pretend that there was nobody there. Or if you spoke to her …”

  “She’d have to act as if she were deaf,” interrupted Poppy. “She’d have to ask, ‘Did somebody say something?’”

  It was all very well, of course, for the two girls to joke about this, but Poppy felt really hurt by what had happened. She toyed with the idea of going back to see the Captain and telling him that what Amanda had said was untrue, but thought this would not make any difference. Captain Macbeth was always prepared to listen, and everybody knew that he was a fair man, but what could he do in these circumstances? He was being given two completely different versions of events and had no way of telling which one was true. No, there was no point in speaking to him.

  By lights out, Poppy felt no better. Lying in the dark, she stared up at the cabin ceiling and went over everything in her mind, getting angrier and angrier by the moment. Then she tried not to think about it, but this did not work very well. She thought of where they were – of the other ships in the harbour and the Tall Ships race – but whenever she did Amanda somehow came into the picture. She saw Amanda at the wheel of one of the small boats, looking up at the Tobermory and pretending not to see her. She saw Amanda climbing up the rigging of the German training ship, then looking back towards the Tobermory, but very deliberately not catching Poppy’s eye.