Run Before the Wind

by Stuart Woods

“Coming along quite nicely. He’s down the hall having the plaster off his leg just now. I’m glad you caught me here, because we’re moving into a flat on the base tonight.” She gave me the address and phone number. “If the knee has healed properly from the surgery I’ll be working with him twice a day on physiotherapy. I’ve been taking a short training course at the hospital while he’s been recovering.”

  “No idea yet how effective the surgery was?”

  “The Xrays look very good, the doctor says. Now we have to see how he responds to the therapy. How’s it going at your end?”

  I told her about Connie’s presence on the scene. “I feel a lot better about it with some help at hand. I’m reckoning to be in Plymouth with this bloody boat no later than the fourteenth of July. There’ll be some work to do still, I’m sure, but if you can get the provisioning organized in advance, that’ll help a lot. Do you think Mark’s going to make it?”

  “With luck, yes.”

  “And without luck? If he isn’t able to make it, will he be able to accept it?”

  “You don’t understand. Not doing the race is just not a possibility in Mark’s mind. He’ll do it lying down, strapped on deck, if necessary, then return singlehanded for his qualifying cruise.”

  We continued to talk a couple of times a week, and Mark improved steadily. He took quickly to the therapy, and a couple of weeks later, a leg brace fitted, was walking awkwardly with a crutch. Apparently, Annie had been right about his recuperative powers.

  By the end of the first, full week in July Connie and I were near-ing completion of our multitude of tasks on the boat. The electronic gear was mostly hooked up—God knew if it would work when it had to—and all the essential equipment was installed and working. Connie’s varnishing job was sensational; the ship was looking shipshape.

  But two essential jobs remained, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to do either of them. We might motor to England in the condition the boat was now in, but we couldn’t sail unless we got the mast into her. Depending on the engine entirely would be dangerous. It would be foolhardy to take a sailboat that distance unless she could sail. And we were still without the seacock being connected under the galley sink. I had found the fitting buried in the jumble of gear, but the boat would have to be removed from the water to install it. I could hardly do it while a stream of water poured from the bare hole in the hull. Both these jobs, the mast and the seacock, demanded that the boat be taken to a yard, but if I did that I risked some lawyer slapping a lien on her.

  After a great deal of worrying, I thought I might have a way to do the seacock without swamping the boat. I had once watched in a marina while a man tipped a boat nearly to the horizontal by making the halyards fast to the dock and then winching until she heeled sufficiently to lift a through-hull fitting above the water. We couldn’t do that with this boat, because she didn’t have a mast in her. She had something else, though. She had a keel.

  I got a spool of heavy, plaited, nylon anchor warp on deck, took an end ashore, and ran it through the heaviest block I had and made that fast to a stout oak. I made a loop in the end, tied a slipknot in it, and took it into the water. At the waterline of the boat I took a series of deep breaths, packing air into my lungs, then dove. It only took me a couple of dives before I was able to get the loop around the keel at its bottom and pull the slipknot tight so that the line wouldn’t ride up the keel and cost me leverage. Then I got back aboard, led the other end of the line through a pair of strategically placed blocks and around one of the main winches, and, with Connie tailing, began to grind. It was slow work, with the winch in its lowest gear, but the boat began to heel. The warps taken ashore from her other side kept her from drifting sideways. Slowly, but surely, the keel swung up, and the through-hull fitting peeked above the waterline, high and dry. In another hour I had the seacock installed, the line freed from the keel and the boat floating upright in her shady berth. I felt like a bloody hero.

  On the tenth of July I telephoned Mark. “How’re you doing?”

  “Listen, all I need is you here with that boat. How are you doing.”

  “She’s finished, Mark. Done. All except the mast.”

  “The seacock?”

  I told him how I had managed it.

  “Bloody marvelous. I’d never have thought of that.”

  “There’s still the mast, though. There’s no possible way to do it where she lies, now.”

  “Right. You’re going to have to go to the yard. You’d better call Finbar.”

  “That way we risk losing the boat again.”

  “Not necessarily.” I could hear him grinning. “Now listen.”

  We spent the rest of the day provisioning the boat for the trip to England and generally tidying up. We packed most of the sails away, leaving at hand only the main and headsails we’d be most likely to need. Early Sunday morning I telephoned Finbar.

  “Willie! Are you back?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” I replied. “Listen, Finbar, I need you and Harry to help me tonight.”

  “Of course.”

  “High water’s just after one tomorrow morning. I want to bring Toscana up the creek and have you haul her at about ten, when the tide’s risen enough for her to get up there. You’ve storage space for her there, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Good, Mark will want to leave her there for the rest of the season and through the winter. Oh, and there’ll be another job to do. I want to get the mast into the boat.”

  “Which boat?”

  “The boat, Finbar.”

  “Jesus, I thought she was in England!”

  “That’s what everybody thinks, and they have to go on thinking that until the mast is in her. Now don’t ask any more questions, okay?”

  “Sure, sure, I’ll see you tonight, and don’t worry, not a word to anybody!” He sounded positively gleeful.

  By late in the afternoon we had finished; everything that could be done had been done. The big boat was, but for her mast, ready for sea and provisioned for the sail to England. What light gear and charts we needed from Toscana were aboard. The remainder of the smaller boat’s gear we had packed in boxes for storage ashore, along with her neatly folded sails. I was surprised at what an organizer I had become in Mark’s absence; I was even more surprised that we were so ready and, what was more, had a few hours to spare.

  I shoved a cassette into the boat’s newly installed tape player; it was Wave, an album of guitar and strings by the Brazilian, Antonio Carlos Jobim, something we had listened to often during sails aboard Toscana. I grabbed a bottle of wine and joined Connie, who was stretched on deck in a dapple of late afternoon sunshine that came through a gap in our canopy of trees.

  “That’s nice,” she said, cocking an ear to the music and taking a glass of wine. “I remember that from last summer, when we cruised down to Castletownshend.”

  “Hold it,” I said. “Don’t drink yet.” I walked to the rail and tipped a bit of wine into the water. This was the first bottle opened aboard the new boat, and I didn’t want to get off to a bad start.

  “I remember that, too,” she laughed. “‘Give Poseidon his, and maybe he won’t want you.’”

  “What else do you remember about that cruise?” I asked.

  She laughed again. “I remember somebody shouting at us late one night when we were anchored in Castletownshend. We were rocking the boat, I believe.”

  I sat down beside her and bent to kiss her on the neck. “Why don’t we rock the boat again? Christen the new one?”

  She shrugged away. “Don’t. I can’t do that.”

  “Oh, Connie, are you still so angry with me?” I had apologized for New Year’s more than once, but she always changed the subject.

  “No, I’m not angry anymore.”

  “Is it the other guy, the one I saw you with at the Spaniard?”

  She smiled slightly. “Terry? Well, he is quite a fellow.”

  That stung badly. “I thought
… I know I wasn’t honest with you before, but I thought we had something that could ride that out.”

  She was silent, but a tear rolled down a cheek.

  “Connie, there’s this … this bond between us.” If I had ever doubted this, it had become clear to me during our weeks together working on the boat.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Well, what are we going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know.” She got to her feet. “What time do you want to start up the harbor?”

  “We ought to start getting the boats out of here a bit after eight, I guess.”

  She stepped across the deck and started down the plank to shore. “I’ll be back then,” she said over her shoulder. I thought she was still crying.

  A moment later I heard the van start and drive away. Well, I thought, I still had the sail to England with her. Maybe, alone together at sea, we could start to talk to each other. I dumped the rest of the wine overboard. “Here,” I said to Poseidon, “have the lot.”

  46

  CONNIE RETURNED ON TIME, dried-eyed, but quiet. I thought she had probably gone back to her place to pack for the passage to Plymouth, but she came aboard empty handed.

  “Where’s your gear?” I asked.

  “Gear?” She looked surprised.

  “Won’t you need some things for the trip to England?”

  “I’m not going to England.”

  Now it was my turn to look surprised. “But … ”

  “You never said anything to me about going to England with you.”

  “Well … I just assumed …”

  “Never assume,” she said, then looked about her. “All right, how do you want to do this?”

  “Wait a minute, Connie,” I protested, “This is one hell of a big boat, you know.” I spread my arms to indicate her size.

  “You built her for singlehanding, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but …”

  “Then singlehand her.” She tossed me Toscana’ bow line. “Hold her bows in while I reverse the engine. That’ll point her stern into the channel.” She hopped aboard the smaller yacht, taking the stern line with her, then started the engine and put it into reverse. Toscana began to back into the channel. “I’ll wait while you untie,” she shouted back. “Then you lead the way.”

  I came to life, started the engine, and began bringing the big yacht’s lines aboard. Soon she was in the channel, and I put her in forward and started into the main harbor. Toscana tagged at our heels all the way up. There was still plenty of light, and I could see Connie, expressionless, standing at the helm, steering. We passed a couple of yachts from the Royal Cork, and people came on deck to look at the big boat and wave. Now the news was out, but before anybody could do anything about it, we’d be gone, she and I.

  We reached the mouth of the creek just before ten, with the last of the light. I waved Connie ahead and yelled for her to go alongside the quay. Finbar and Harry were waiting and took her lines. I circled in the mouth of the creek while they loosened Toscana’s backstay, slipped straps under her, and plucked her from the water with the yard’s ancient crane. Finbar set her expertly on a waiting cradle. She looked a bit forlorn out of the water, with her dirty bottom. I had had some of my best sailing aboard her, and I wouldn’t see her again. I would miss her.

  The smaller yacht out of the way, I came slowly alongside, unused to docking such a large boat and feeling my way to be sure there was enough water under her keel. Finbar and Harry had to have a look below before proceeding.

  “Jesus, Will, she’s in good nick; you’ve done a fine bit of work on her,” Finbar said.

  I warmed to the praise. “Thank Connie for the varnishing,” I said. “And God only knows if everything will work.” I already knew the log was working; I had tried that out on the trip up.

  The four of us fell to, unlashing the mast from the decks and attaching the upper ends of the rigging, prefabricated in Cowes, to the mast. That done, Finbar manned the crane, hooking up to a bridle we fashioned near the upper spreaders. He slowly lifted the top of the mast from the decks while Harry and I kept the lower end from doing damage. After considerable maneuvering we got the lower end properly positioned above the opening in the big yacht’s decks and Finbar ever so gently lowered the mast, while Harry and I worked below, settling the mast into its step on the keel and relaying hand signals to Finbar through Connie. In half an hour we had the mast in place. Finbar and Harry attached the stays and shrouds, while I made the electrical connections for the mast lights and wind indicator at the masthead. When I had screwed the last junction box shut, I walked to the chart table, took a deep breath, and turned on the Brookes & Gatehouse wind instruments. The needle quickly showed five to six knots of wind. I exhaled in a rush.

  I switched everything on, just to see the dials register. Everything registered. At least I had found the right wires. I turned to the main switchboard and flipped on the masthead light, then peeped fearfully up the hatch. On. Triumph.

  On deck, the rigging was in place. We tightened everything, then bent on the mainsail. “Finbar,” I said, “I’ve got to leave for England tonight. Do you think you and Harry could come down into the harbor with me and do some tuning?” Translated, this meant, I’m not at all sure I can sail this bloody thing. Help me learn how.

  “Wouldn’t miss the chance,” Finbar grinned. “I don’t suppose we’ll get another.”

  With the yard’s workboat in tow we motored down into the main harbor and cut the engine. A full moon was rising and helped us find blocks and winch handles and sheets. Somehow, my newly organized mind had forgotten to get the running rigging, the ropes that controlled the sails, in place. After half an hour of scrambling we got the main up, then the genoa staysail and the yankee. The boat was cutter rigged, and each of the headsails was set on an aluminum stay that could be turned with a reel and a winch, furling the sails like window blinds from the cockpit, an ideal singlehanded rig. The yacht began to sail for the first time.

  In ten knots of wind she swept across the smooth waters of the harbor, Connie at the helm, while Finbar, Harry, and I scrambled about the decks, tensioning the rigging to its ideal state and making adjustments. We tacked back and forth, went upwind and downwind, checking everything we could think of. Finally, we all went back to the cockpit. I put in a couple of tacks, singlehanded, to get the drill right, then we all settled back and I latched in the self-steering. The silence and the moon and the breeze and the flat water were glorious. So was the boat.

  Finbar glanced at the big windvane, steering us steadily toward Crosshaven, something about which he had had his doubts.

  “Bloody thing works, don’t it?” We all laughed with him, then his face took on an expression I had never seen on it before. He looked up and down the mast, at the sails and over the side at the yacht’s clean way through the water. “We did it right, didn’t we?”

  At the mouth of the Owenboy River, just down from Cross-haven, we hove to, and Finbar, Harry and last, Connie climbed into the workboat. I held her hand as she stepped down, and when she was in the boat I didn’t let go. I mustered every ounce of feeling I had in me and said, “Come with me.”

  She gripped my hand tightly and looked up at me. “I can’t,” she said. There were tears streaming down her face.

  Finbar started the boat’s engine. “Can’t or won’t?” I shouted over its rumble.

  She pulled her hand free, sat down in the boat, and looked up at me, saying nothing. The boat began to move away from me toward Crosshaven and the Royal Cork, Finbar and Harry waving and shouting luck.

  I watched, frozen in place, until its stern light mingled with the village lights of Crosshaven, then I wore the big yacht around onto the starboard tack and, catching the freshening southwesterly, sailed for Roche’s Point, the Atlantic Ocean, and England.

  47

  MAEVE MOVED HER CART briskly through the supermarket, choosing items quickly and without much thought. Neither of them was picky
about food, which was just as well, since she couldn’t have done much in the way of cooking in the caravan where they were living. It had turned out to be ideal; they moved the good-sized trailer every two or three days from one caravan park to another, mingling with the horde of holiday makers that streamed into the West Country at this time of year. In these parks, and in their year-old Ford Cortina, they were indistinguishable from a hundred other middle-class tourists, down to Devon and Cornwall for a bit of July sun. The caravan made an ideal cache for weapons and explosives, too, in the compartments under the floor that Denny, with his boatbuilding skills, had built. He had also rigged the trailer so that they could blow it at a moment’s notice, should it become necessary.

  Maeve stopped short in the laundry detergent section, riveted by something she had heard from the other side. “Oh, Mark would love that!” a woman’s voice had exclaimed. On that and little more than instinct, Maeve wheeled the cart quickly around and into canned fruits and vegetables. Two women, one short, slender, with dark hair, the other a tall, sun-bleached blonde, were pushing two heavily laden carts toward the checkout counter. Maeve forgot her own half-completed shopping and followed them. She had never seen Annie Robinson before, but she had a hunch.

  They rattled on about this and that as their groceries were checked through. Maeve tried to sneak a look at the tall woman’s checkbook, but could not read the imprinted name, just the bank, Coutts & Company, London. Maeve watched impatiently as they wheeled out their two carts and loaded the contents into the rear of a Vauxhall estate wagon, while her own purchases were being totaled. She managed to get to her own car before they pulled out of the shopping center car park, then followed while they made two other quick stops, at a launderette and a dry cleaner’s, where they picked up clothes, then continued behind them as they drove through Plymouth. Soon, past a block’s length of chain link fence, they turned into a gate and were waved through by an armed Royal Marine. Maeve made a U-turn, stopped outside the gate and rolled down her window.

  “Excuse me, corporal,” she called out to the guard, smiling and taking care to sound as English as possible. “Was that Mrs. Pember-ton-Robinson in the estate car just now? I thought I recognized her.”