by Isobel Chace
The fascinating colors of the corals excited her most, however. A cave made of coral was every bit as fascinating as a place in a fairy story. Going around, she would count off the different types in her mind, breaking off a piece when she failed to recognize it. There was a lace-work coral, leather-work coral, mushroom coral, organ-pipe and the fire coral Monique had warned her about, and dozens of others she could not put a name to, gorgeously colored homes of millions of tiny fish.
At last her watch told her that it was time to go up. Nick gathered the specimens he had captured into a single net and began the slow business of taking them up to the surface. She floated up beside him, admiring the neat way his hands held his equipment, making no unnecessary movements to frighten his captives.
It was quite a business transferring the fish into the tanks that had been provided for them. It seemed that fish in buckets, fish in the washing-up bowl, even fish in saucepans, were going to litter the decks for ever, but order was slowly restored and they were arranged in different aquariums according to size and' temperament. To Charlotte’s delighted eyes it seemed that no better decoration could ever have been found for the saloon than the lighted tanks. Wherever one looked there was something of interest to see, though her own special favorite was a sea-hedgehog that had been brought up by mistake and who blew himself up like a balloon whenever anyone went near him.
“Are you off to change?” Nick asked her, when he came into the saloon and saw her gazing at her favorite.
She turned and smiled at him.
“I suppose so,” she said, “if I can tear myself away.”
He laughed.
“Not wishing yourself back in Paris?”
She shook her head, and he looked ridiculously pleased.
“That’s good,” he said. “Though I must say civilization has its uses. I’m afraid I can’t give you flowers this time, so you’ll have to make do with this.”
He brought his hand out from behind his back and she saw that he had collected a perfect coral flower for her. It looked like a petrified rose, pink and quite beautiful.
“For me?” she whispered.
He nodded.
“It’s a most unusual formation,” he said, frowning down at it. Then he smiled suddenly. “It reminded me of you. A reward for courage if you like.”
She took it, but she couldn’t thank him properly. Whatever happened, though, she knew that she would treasure it all her life. It would be a tangible reminder of so many things; of a kitchen table covered with lilies of the valley; of onion soup; and of a certain look in his eyes.
But, much as she would be glad of these memories in the future, she refused to allow herself to dwell on them now. She hugged her towel closer around her and smiled up at him.
“It was charming of you, Nick,” she mocked him lightly. “Thank you very much.”
She didn’t dare look up and meet his eyes, but as she padded along the corridor to her cabin she could hear him humming beneath his breath, and she needed no words to know what the song was the sea-shanty. “Oh, Shenandoah! I love your daughter.” Didn’t he know any other songs?
Fahad was a curry expert. If it was so hot that the perspiration dripped down one’s face, then it was a good curry, he stated positively. Afterwards one would feel wonderful and the heat of the sun would seem no more than that of the moon. They would see.
The meal was made worse by the fact that during the day the butter had gone rancid and there was nothing else to spread on their bread to ease the burning sensation of the spices.
“Perhaps we could lose the curry—overboard,” Jock suggested hopefully, his eyes full of tors. He felt he deserved better, for after all, he had acquitted himself pretty well under water that afternoon.
“If we drank cold water,” Monique suggested tentatively, but the water—straight from the famous tanks of Aden was almost, if not quite, as unpleasant as the rancid butter. Perhaps in time they would grow accustomed to the strong bitter tang, but until they did it had to be heavily disguised with some other equally strong flavor to make it even palatable.
“We’ll just have to wait for it to get cold,” Charlotte said. “A lot of the sting will have gone out of it then.”
With one movement everyone laid down their spoons and pushed back their chairs.
“We can eat any time,” they said. “We’ve got all night!”
Jock looked across the table at Charlotte.
“How about coming up on deck and singing to me in the moonlight?” he suggested. “The experts will want to get on with their studies and they won’t want us.”
Charlotte hesitated. She ought to practise, she knew, but she was tired and she didn’t want to be alone with the young New Zealander. She could feel Monique’s watchful eyes on her and was aware too of Nick’s studied indifference. Perhaps she should go with Jock. She remembered wryly the fate of the woman who had been Nick’s secretary before he had had to make the job over to her. She didn’t want him to guess that she, too, had fallen victim to his charms.
“I’d love to,” she smiled across to Jock. “Can you play our hand organ, or shall I try to accompany myself?”
“I’m afraid I can’t play anything,” he apologized. “Does it matter?”
“Of course not!” she assured him warmly. And it didn’t matter very much, because she was quite sure that he wouldn’t know one note from another when she sang either.
She had never seen anything so lovely as the silver sea that night. The light from the moon lay in a broad band across the black waters that glinted mysteriously with luminous lights. It was the perfect night for romance, she thought wryly. The moon, the sea and a man. Only he was the wrong man.
She balanced herself on the railings and amused herself by tracing the intricate patterns the ropes made against the sky with her eyes.
“What would you like me to sing?” she asked. Jock screwed up his face and thought for a moment.
“I guess you’ll think me frightfully ignorant,” he said, “but I don’t know the names of too many songs. S’pose you sing whatever comes to mind,” Charlotte threw back her head. She must know hundreds of songs, she supposed, but, obstinately, only one would come to her mind. She would not sing it! Why, Nick might hear, and that would never do! She would sing something from La Boheme. She made a false start and began again'. “Sorry—wrong key,” she explained briefly. But it was no good. The only song that she could sing that night was a sea-shanty, and she wouldn’t sing that for a thousand pounds. It was a man’s song anyway. How could a woman go courting Shenandoah’s daughter?
“I’ll sing tomorrow,” she said. “The night’s too beautiful, it’s brought a lump to my throat.”
His arm slipped round her, and she said nothing because she supposed that in a way she had asked for it, agreeing to come up on deck with him alone.
“That’s what I hoped you’d say,” he admitted with a smile. His teeth showed white and strong in the moonlight. “I’ve been thinking, and I reckon that we Kiwis ought to stick together.”
“Oh, yes? Which part are you from?” she asked.
“Pegasus Bay. Just outside Amberley. And you?”
She smiled.
“I’m not really a New Zealander at all, but we lived just outside Auckland, my mother and I.” Her voice became dreamy as she remembered the house where they had lived—a typical wooden house of the older type. It had been there long before they had moved the capital down to Wellington because the South Island had complained that Auckland was too far away. In those days it had been an important house, where even the Governor-General had visited. Now it was just another house in a row of other houses, but somehow it had never lost its gracious atmosphere and it had been home to Charlotte for as long as she could remember.
Jock’s arm tightened about her and he lifted her down from her perch so that she was standing beside him.
“Is this moonlight doing something to you?” he asked her.
She moved away from h
im.
“No.” She looked up at his disappointed face. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“It’s okay. I didn’t really think I had much of a chance, but you sure look pretty standing out here in the moonlight.”
Charlotte heard footsteps on the other side of the deck. It was Nick and Monique. She didn’t have to look at them to know, she just knew. Besides, she could hear the tapping heels of Monique’s new shoes.
“What are you doing in the British Army?” she asked. She would not look across, but she could imagine the way that Monique would be standing close to Nick.
“Oh, that!” Jock slapped his hand down on the railing. “You’ll laugh, but actually I’m waiting for my polo ponies to grow up. Dad and I run a couple of places—sheep mainly. But I wanted to see a bit more of the world than a sheep dip, so I put in a manager to do my bit for a couple of years, and here I am. In two years’ time the ponies should be just right and I’ll be home again!”
She heard the clatter of Monique’s heels going down below again, and a few seconds later Nick sauntered over to them.
“Don’t let the interrupt anything,” he said caustically.
Jock grinned.
“Nothing to interrupt, sir. Wish there was!”
Charlotte felt a moment’s irritation. She would have liked Nick to think that she could play his game. That she could kiss and part just as easily!
“Your father wants to hear, your mystery voice,” Nick told her. “He can’t place the fish and he wants to hear your recordings.”
Charlotte’s eyes shone with anticipation. “Really?” she said. “Oh, Nick, I shall be so ashamed if nothing comes out! Has he croaked at all in his new home?”
“Not once, so you see all science is waiting on you.”
“I suppose,” she went on in a deliberately casual voice, “that we’ll get lots more recordings of fish talking.”
Nick laughed.
“Very few! Hardly any fish have anything at all in the way of ears. I think we can put today’s recording down to beginner’s luck!”
Which had her all the more anxious to know what had actually been recorded on tape.
She hurried down the companionway and got the recorder out of her cabin, putting it carefully down on her chair in the saloon.
“I don’t know exactly where it begins,” she told them all. “Nick has something on the first part. I’m afraid we’ll have to hear that first.”
“Nothing private, I hope,” Monique drawled.
Nick shrugged.
“Just my latest hobby,” he said. “You’re all welcome to hear.”
It took a few minutes to release the tape-recorder from its waterproof covering and to detach the hydrophone. When it was ready, Charlotte pressed one of the buttons and the wheels started to move, gathering momentum as they wound themselves back to the beginning of the tape.
"Now,” she said. “Are you all ready?”
There was complete silence in the saloon, everybody’s eyes fixed on the instrument. She pressed the second button and once again the wheels began to turn. At first there was nothing, but then a voice began to sing. Sweet and rich, it rose and fell without effort. Opera, Maori songs, everything almost that she had sung since she had come on board. And Nick had been recording her! Nick, who wouldn’t come and listen to her! She couldn’t believe it.
His eyes met hers and he smiled.
“You still haven’t got that aria quite right,” he told her. “Listen and you’ll hear it for yourself.”
He was quite right, of course. She was still changing that one passage.
“But why wouldn’t you listen with the others when I sang?” she demanded when it came to an end.
He held up one imperative hand.
“Ssh,” he said. “Mystery voice coming up.”
The singing died away and was followed by a few squeaks and some instructions from Nick on how to use the hydrophone. Charlotte leaned forward in her excitement.
“Now,” she whispered.
Seamus turned up the volume slightly and they heard a definite croak followed by a series of others.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “I still don't know what it is. There are fishes that croak, but I can’t think of any name that would suit this fellow.” He stopped the machine, wound it back a little way and started it again. “I wouldn’t like to say for sure, but I think that’s a find, Nick,” he said at last.
“You mean we’ve discovered a new fish?” Charlotte demanded.
“Something like that,” he agreed.
Monique was the first to recover. She got daintily to her feet and approached the table.
“Well,” she said, “now that’s all over, do you think this curry will be cold enough to eat? I have an aching void somewhere in my middle.”
Charlotte was cleaning her teeth in the galley when she heard Nick come down from turning off the Calor gas for her.
“Why didn’t you listen to me with the others?” she asked him again humbly.
“You’ve too big a voice. One doesn’t listen to a concert piano by standing right beside it.”
“I didn’t know you listened at all,” she told him. “I was rather hurt.”
He dried up the glass she had been using and put the tea-cloth carefully back on its nail. Then he turned her round to face him and looked at her speculatively.
“You look cute without any make-up,” he told her.
She held her breath.
“Do I?” she asked.
“You do. Hardly the prima donna type at all.”
He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Go to bed!” he ordered her.
“But, Nick—”
He pushed her out of the door with harsh hands.
“I said go to bed!” But his face softened when he saw her troubled face. “Who’s flirting now?” he demanded, and with a little gasp of laughter, she fled.
C HAPTER THIRTEEN
Fahad and Youssef would wake at five o’clock every morning, wash their hands and spread out their praying mats, bowing down to Mecca the requisite number of times, and then five seconds later they were fast asleep again, their cotton blankets wrapped well round their heads so that no glint of sun could pierce their self-elected darkness. And, every morning, Charlotte would step carefully over them so that she could turn on the Calor gas and make a cup of tea. At first she had been afraid that they would have been insulted had they known of her presence, but she was reassured when one day she felt Fahad’s eyes on her and realized that they were not really sleeping at all, but only putting off the evil moment of having to get up, in exactly the same manner as the Europeans were down below.
She herself thought it was a pity to miss the best hour of the whole day by staying in bed. Once she had seen a dhow sailing past them and had waved madly to the wild-looking crew. It had come out of the morning mist, dark and mysterious, and had floated across a pearl-colored sea towards her.
It was so old a ship—who knows, who knows?
—And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain
To see the mast burst open with a rose
And the whole deck put on its leaves again.
The familiar lines of Flecker came to her mind and stayed with her all that day. She had tried to tell Monique something of what she had felt, but the French girl could see nothing romantic about a squalid wooden boat, no matter what time of day it had been sighted. Seamus and Monique were both realists, she had thought, lacking that touch of magic that gave even the mundane fleeting moments of beauty. Her mother had had that gift, but had wasted it, choosing to think that it was a sign of softness and therefore to be despised.
But this morning there was nothing to see. Already the sun was dispersing the last traces of the early morning mist and the decks had almost dried after the heavy dew of the night. She must be later than usual, she thought, as she struggled with the stiff brass taps, for usually she could see the marks her bare feet left on the damp timbers, looking impossibly
small, as somehow footprints so often do.
From force of habit she paused on her way back to the companionway and dropped the dip-stick into the water tanks to see how much water they had. No matter how they tried to conserve it, it was still astounding the amount they used. And it was getting low, she noticed. She would have to tell Nick. He wouldn’t be very pleased, for he had badly wanted to finish exploring the area he had marked on the chart before they put in at Aden again. Jock wouldn’t be pleased either. He had had only two weeks of his holiday and he wouldn’t want to waste any of it shopping for supplies, or sweltering with heat while he waited for other people to do it.
Nick was already up and about when she had finished making the tea. She poured him out a cup and sat down opposite him with a cup of her own. He looked up and smiled at her.
“You look happy,” he said. “All starry-eyed and soft-hearted!”
“I feel happy,” she replied a little smugly.
And so she did. There had been a new understanding between herself and Nick these last few days. Under water, where their tongues couldn’t say things that they would later regret, they found that they worked well together. She had been quick to pick up his signals and quicker still to understand when he needed her help and When she would merely be in his way.
“And would it have anything to do with having young Jock on board?” he asked wryly. “Conjuring up familiar voices of the past?”
She blew thoughtfully on her tea.
“Maybe,” she said.
There was a silence between them, a silence that grew gradually intolerable.
“Actually,” she burst out, “he comes from the South Island. I’ve never been there.”
Nick casually swatted a fly that had been bombarding him—a persistent Middle Eastern fly that had none of the manners of its European relations.
“But he still reminds you of home,” he persisted.
