Run Before the Wind

by Stuart Woods

  “Just reach down, turn the timer all the way, then leave it.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the car as soon as I can.” He walked off toward a bus stop, while she applied bright, red lipstick, tied a scarf about her head, put on dark glasses and opened the top two buttons of her blouse. She drove to the base and stopped at the front gate.

  “Good morning, sergeant,” she said to the guard, who was a corporal, in her broadest, upper-class drawl. “I wonder if you could direct me to the office of the public information officer? I want to see about using the tennis courts for a charity tournament.”

  “That would be in the main administration building, Ma’am,” he said, leaning down to the car and never taking his eyes from her cleavage. “May I have your name, please?”

  “Mrs. Wells-Simpson,” she replied and waited while he scrawled it on a clipboard, still looking down her blouse.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, saluting her smartly. “Pass through.”

  She drove to the administration building, which also housed the office of the base commander, and glanced at her watch. She had a bus schedule to keep, and she wanted to time it right. She parked in a guest space, reached down and turned the kitchen timer all the way clockwise, and got out of the car, locking it behind her. She walked rapidly down the road for two hundred yards to the bus stop. Ten of her sixty minutes passed before the bus came. She got off at the first stop outside the base, walked three blocks, and took another bus. Forty minutes after setting the timer, she was at the car, where Denny was waiting. By the time the bomb went off they were well on their way to Plymouth.

  They drove back to the caravan park and spent the afternoon listening to news of the explosion on the BBC, and making the trailer ready to move. Late in the afternoon Denny got into some dirty coveralls with the name of a garage on the back and put a five-gallon gasoline can and his tool kit into the trunk of the car, then they checked out of the caravan park and drove into Plymouth.

  They parked several blocks from the ferry and walked there by separate routes. Maeve arrived first and saw the Fortescue Vauxhall wagon already in the car park. She stood on the street, frequently glancing at her watch as if she were waiting for someone. Denny approached from the opposite direction, carrying the petrol can and toolbox. Maeve had another quick look about, then nodded at the Vauxhall. While she kept watch, he unscrewed the tank cap and emptied the gasoline into the car. That done, he opened the boot and set his toolbox in the rear, then lifted the floor panel which covered the spare wheel. After a quick glance at her he worked for, perhaps, two minutes, then closed the back of the car, taking his tool kit but leaving the petrol can inside. He wiped the door handle carefully with an oily rag, then left, walking quickly up the street.

  Good, Maeve thought. Anybody passing would think he had simply been called from a garage to put petrol into an empty tank. When she was sure that no one had followed him, she walked away in the opposite direction. They met at the car, stowed the tool kit, dumped the coveralls into a waste bin, and drove away, out of Plymouth toward the Tamar bridge and Cornwall, a holiday couple down from London with their caravan.

  “Is it all right?” she asked. “You didn’t do the ignition.”

  “Didn’t have to,” he chuckled. “I did a pendulum switch instead. The pendulum hangs vertically between two contacts. The car is parked on a bit of an angle. They’ll get in, and as soon as they drive onto level ground, the pendulum will swing and make contact.” He grinned broadly. “Big bang, petrol tank and all. They’ll barbecue.”

  “Good,” she said. She didn’t think Will Lee would come to the car with them; he never had; must be sleeping on the boat. It would annoy the bishop if an American politician’s son got blown away. Fortescue’s wife was a bonus—wife of the commander of the Plymouth Royal Marine detachment. She smiled to herself; couldn’t be bad. It was getting dark, now. They’d be back on the ferry soon, and she and Denny could stop thinking about Mark Robinson and get on with it.

  50

  THE FIVE OF US, Mark and Annie, Andrew and Roz Fortescue, and I sat in Wave’s cockpit with drinks and relished the early evening. The big yacht was now as Mark had dreamed of her—complete and provisioned for her first blue-water passage. Every detail of the boat was in perfect order, though that condition does not last long on any yacht. Every instrument worked, and the leak in the stern tube had been put right. We had been talking about the car bomb at the Poole Royal Marine installation that morning, in which a number of marines and civilian workers had been killed and most of the main administration building destroyed. Mark and Andrew had both lost acquaintances in that attack and Andrew would be attending funeral services on Monday. The Irish Freedom Brigade, which I well remembered from the Berkeley Square explosion, had telephoned a newspaper and claimed responsibility.

  Mark set his braced leg on the opposite cockpit seat and changed the subject. “You know, there’s something about this time that I really like, when everything has been done that can be done, when a yacht is ready for anything, and when there’s nothing to do but have a drink and enjoy the anticipation.” He laughed. “In fact, this is almost the only time it’s ever happened; usually before a race there’s nothing but chaos, and things are still being screwed down and bolted on while you’re jockeying for position on the starting line.” He raised his glass. “I give you a toast to those who made it possible—us!”

  We drank to that. God knew the Fortescues deserved inclusion. Roz’s help with provisioning and Andrew’s contribution of Royal Marine manpower had made the four days slip by smoothly and without panic. I glanced across the river and saw the ferry depart the opposite shore.

  “Last ferry in five minutes,” Roz said. “Willie, why don’t you come back to the base and have a hot bath and a last night ashore? We’ll all go down to the Barbican and have a good dinner. We might even find you a girl.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. I had been living on this boat and on Toscana for weeks, now. It would be nice to sleep in a bed again, and the only girl I had even spoken to in Plymouth had been the one I’d nearly knocked down near the boatyard. Something about her had been terribly familiar, but I had been unable to think of what it was. Probably I had just seen her somewhere in Plymouth.

  “We’d better get a move on,” Annie said and began collecting glasses and tidying the cockpit. We checked the boat’s lines to see that they would allow for the rise and fall of the tide, then stepped ashore. Watching Mark make the maneuver, I was amazed at how agile he was with the crutch and brace. It was as if he’d been using them since childhood. We walked slowly toward the ferry dock, chatting among ourselves. The Fortescues’ car waited on the other side for us.

  We bought our tickets, went aboard, and sat down. Then Mark stood up again. “I don’t want to leave her,” he said.

  “What?” Roz puzzled.

  “We’ve had so many problems along the way, I just don’t want to leave her alone tonight. I don’t want anything else to go wrong.”

  “Neither do I,” I said and stood up, too.

  “Annie,” Mark said, “why don’t you go on back with Andrew and Roz? Willie and I will sleep aboard tonight and see you in the morning.”

  “All right,” Annie replied, “if you’re really worried about the boat.

  “I know there’s no real reason to worry,” Mark said, “But I would.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Annie came back. “Why don’t we all stay aboard tonight? Roz and I can cook—we’ve certainly enough food aboard—and God knows there’s plenty of room, too.”

  Andrew and Roz looked at each other. “Okay?” Andrew asked her.

  “Okay,” Roz replied.

  We left the ferry as the helmsman revved his engine for the departure. I felt immediately better, just as Mark obviously did. We hadn’t come all this way to have something happen to the boat at the last minute, just because we weren’t around. Later, I would wonder if maybe we hadn’t felt somet
hing else besides concern for the boat.

  Annie and Roz whipped up a spaghetti dinner; that and much wine were consumed with gusto. We got to bed early, Mark and Annie, aft in the owner’s cabin; Andrew and Roz forward in the larger of the two guest cabins, and I in the smaller one. We fell asleep to the sound of the river lapping against Wave’s hull.

  We were up early and had a hot breakfast. Remembering my seasickness after Cowes aboard Toscana, I took it easy.

  Mark looked at me across the saloon table. “Nervous?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Lots of butterflies.”

  “Me, too. It’s always this way; a combination of fear and excitement, I guess.”

  “Fear? You? But you’ve done a lot of this sort of thing.”

  “Sure, but the fear is always there. Will I ram somebody at the starting line? Will I be run down by a merchant ship? Will I come back from this one? Once you’re out there it goes away—at least, most of it does. But fear’s a good thing. Sharpens the senses, makes you more aware.”

  If that were the case I would be very sharp this morning. Andrew and Roz prepared to leave.

  “Why don’t you come out with us?” Mark asked them. “We’ll have a couple of hours of thrashing about, getting used to her before the gun. You can grab a ride back with one of the spectator boats.”

  “Fantastic,” Andrew said. “We’d love to have a sail.”

  And so we all remained aboard for a while longer. At half past nine we cast off from the quay at Spedding’s boatyard and stowed our fenders and mooring warps. We wouldn’t be needing them for another ten days or so. We motored down the river and, out in the harbor, just in front of the Royal Western Yacht Club, the sponsoring organization, we set sail, to waves and cheers from the crowd on the terrace. For an hour and a half, we sailed about the harbor, while Mark got the feel of his new boat. He planted himself in the cockpit, the braced leg jammed into a corner, and tacked the boat again and again, without help from us, then practiced reefing the roller headsails.

  “She’s a dream,” he grinned. “I’ll get some practice reefing the main a bit later.

  “No rush,” I said. “There’ll be three of us aboard, remember?” I knew he wouldn’t be happy until he felt he could do everything aboard.

  At quarter to noon, the fifteen minute gun went off on the Royal Navy ship that served as committee boat. “All ashore that’s going ashore,” Andrew called below to Roz. He whistled and waved at one of the Royal Marine runabouts that had been keeping the spectator fleet away from the starting line. They came alongside. “Will you take us off, sergeant? We’ll need a lift to the Cremyl ferryport on the Plymouth side after the start.”

  “Right, sir!” the man called back and held his big rubber assault boat steady against the rail while Andrew and Roz climbed aboard.

  “Good luck!” they both cried as the runabout moved away. “See you in a few weeks!”

  We waved them off and turned to our work. The twenty-odd entrants in the race, of which Wave was the biggest, reached up and down the starting line, trying for position, while a hundred or more spectator craft ran about, jockeying for a better view. The ten-minute gun went, then the five-minute. With Mark braced at the helm, me grinding the self-tailing winches and Annie keeping time with a stopwatch, we positioned ourselves at the starboard end of the line.

  “Thirty seconds!” Annie called out.

  We put in our final tack and started for the line, which was very close, now.

  “Fifteen seconds!”

  We picked up speed.

  “Five, four, three, two, one …” The starting cannon aboard the nearby ship went, loud in our ears. Perhaps half a second later Wave’s bows sliced across the starting line.

  “Beautiful!” I screamed.

  “Bloody good luck!” Mark screamed back.

  Since we had never practiced, it must have been, but that didn’t make it feel any less good. We tore out into the English Channel, neck and neck with a large trimaran. The big multi-hulls, four or five of them in the race, were going to be our competition. In the right conditions, they could beat us. A mile or so out, Andrew and Roz appeared briefly in the Royal Marine boat, waved, then turned back for Plymouth.

  Mark kept us on the starboard tack, making for the Eddystone Light, some ten miles offshore, which was the first mark of the race. The next mark was the finish line, off Horta, on the island of Faial, in the Azores, some twelve hundred miles down the North Atlantic Ocean. We made the Eddystone in a bit more than an hour, having averaged nearly nine knots in the fresh breeze. As we tacked around the tall lighthouse, a faint boom hit our ears.

  “I hope the Royal Navy’s not having gunnery practice out here today,” Mark laughed, looking around for the source of the noise. Then he pointed in the direction of Plymouth. A column of black smoke was rising from the town.

  “Jesus,” I said. “What’s that?”

  “Looks like it could be one of those oil tanks down by the river.”

  Then one of my jib sheets came adrift, leaving the sail flapping, and we forgot about everything else while we retrimmed for the next long tack down the English Channel.

  51

  WE WERE not out of the English Channel yet when I discovered that Mark and I had entirely different views of what we were doing. I had been looking forward to a cruise to the Azores; Mark had been looking forward to a race.

  We were hard on the wind down the Channel, and Mark liked it that way. “This is what we need if we’re going to beat the multi-hulls,” he said, grinning. “They don’t like sailing close to the wind in a chop. First of all, they aren’t all that close-winded, and second, while we go through the waves, they go over them, up and down, up and down. I promise you, there are blokes on trimarans all around us puking their guts out right now.”

  I had avoided that fate by eating and drinking carefully the evening before and at breakfast, but there was no getting away from Mark’s racing frame of mind. All the way down the Channel, we were tuning everything, making minute adjustments in sail trim, increasing or decreasing tension in the rigging to make sure the mast was standing up absolutely straight on both tacks, watching wind and waterspeed instruments to be sure she was sailing equally fast on either tack. Mark wanted a position fix every hour, so we were constantly taking bearings on landmarks when close to shore, and on the RDF equipment when we weren’t. Annie kept us in food and drink and spelled us at the helm when we were both working. Mark wouldn’t allow the use of the self-steering.

  “We’ve got to make every tenth of a knot we can while conditions favor us,” he said. “If the wind frees, the bigger multi-hulls will be past us like a shot. The self-steering steers a nice, average course, but it won’t take us as consistently close to the wind as a good helmsman.”

  By the following evening, we were off the continental shelf, out of the green water near land and into water that was a blue I had never seen, a color that comes to the sea only when the bottom drops away to a depth that might as well be bottomless, and the water reflects a blue sky. With our escape from the heavily trafficked shipping lanes of the Channel, the need for a constant lookout decreased, and we were finally able to begin to catch up on the sleep we had lost nearer land. I was becoming a better helmsman out of sheer practice, but I was also discovering that the self-steering gear had a big advantage—it never got tired. We settled into a routine of using it on night watches and steering for long periods during the day. Even then, we would occasionally latch it in so that we could all sit down and enjoy a meal together.

  I don’t think I had ever eaten better. Annie had splurged on the best of everything, the tenderest cuts of meat, the most expensive cheeses, and first-rate wines. We wanted for nothing.

  The headwinds held, too. The prevailing wind for that part of the ocean was southwesterly, and we were sailing southwest. Mark exulted in it; Annie and I grew tired of living at fifteen degrees of heel. I wondered how she managed to keep up her standard of cooking while leaning again
st a safety strap on one tack, or pushing herself off the cooker on the other.

  We had at least some sun on most days, but the occasional squall called for shortening sail. I practiced taking sun sights with the sextant, and Mark taught me the drill for reducing a sight to a position line, using the nautical almanac and the marine sight reduction tables.

  Mark was having difficulty standing steadily on deck in order to reef the mainsail, something he would have to do alone on his singlehanded passage back. Finally, three or four days out, he asked Annie to toss a package to him from the chart table, then he sat down, struggled out of his baggy shorts, and started to unbuckle the waist strap that held the leg brace in place.

  Annie was horrified. “Mark, you know you can’t do that,” she cried. “It’s too early to go putting all your weight on the knee.”

  “Look, Mark, I know it’s tough, but it’ll get better. You’ve still got a couple of weeks before starting back.”

  Mark held up a hand to quiet us and began unwrapping the package. “I got a fellow in the brace shop to make this up for me. Designed it myself.” He pulled out an odd-looking thing made of leather and steel and padding.

  “And did the doctor approve your design?” Annie asked.

  “I forgot to show it to him,” Mark said, buckling the thing on. He tried standing, played with the straps and buckles for a minute or two, then stood and put his weight on the weak leg. “Not bad,” he grinned. “Not bad at all. Maybe I should have shown it to the doctor; he might have liked it.

  He showed us how it worked. Instead of running the length of the leg, like the brace, it ran from the lower thigh to the upper calf, with a hinge at the knee. He could lock it in a straight position, or at a ninety-degree angle for kneeling, or at two stops in between. He showed us how quickly he could change the angles. The front side was thickly padded with foam rubber and covered in leather, so that kneeling on deck wouldn’t damage the knee. I was impressed. I looked at Annie; so was she.