A Ravelled Flag (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  Stormy Weather

  Early December

  The beginning of December was seriously windy. Gales from the south-west tore across the country and, as the tides rose towards spring levels, most of the boat owners who’d been tempted to extend their sailing season hurried to take their yachts out of the water. Migrating birds began to arrive in great numbers. Exhausted and storm-tossed, they colonised the mudflats and salt marshes, calling to each other as they settled into their winter quarters.

  Vexilla moved in too. As soon as the paint on her eagle-eyes was dry and her name had been engraved and gold-leafed onto her rubbing strake, the men from the boatyard took time off to help Skye and Great Aunt Ellen lift her onto a trailer and pull her to the water’s edge. They offered a launch to tow her out but Gold Dragon said that she and her niece would manage.

  The Orwell was dotted with unused moorings. It looked bigger and wilder with the summer sailors gone and flocks of Brent geese, widgeon, turnstone and grey plover blowing in to take their place. Gold Dragon hitched Lively Lady behind Vexilla then set Skye to row both of them out to the nearest available buoy. When Donny got home he found his mother as tired, dishevelled and triumphant as if she’d recently returned from the tundra.

  But there, on the mooring, Vexilla had to stay while the waves came racing white-flecked up the river. The trees on the top of Pin Mill’s low cliff bent and howled but gave some shelter to the anchorage. The open water off Shotley would be much worse.

  “I remember the Stour from years ago. When the wind’s in this direction and it’s battling the tide, those waves come down like walls. Vexilla’d be swamped in minutes. Nimblefingers would never ship with me again.”

  Donny had finished reading Missee Lee. He wished he’d been a bit quicker.

  “Do you think it’s the Taicoon Chang on board the Hispaniola?” he asked Gold Dragon. “The one who had a tiger flag? The one who liked caged birds?”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous,” she snapped. “He’s a character in a storybook.”

  Donny gaped. “Huh? You said yourself that Missee Lee was History! Anyway, I’ve been there – in one of my dreams. We were escaping in the dark, through a gorge with whirlpools. It was well scary.”

  She shoved her hook into her pocket. “I don’t pay attention to dreams.”

  “Well, Mum does and I do too, a bit.” Then he remembered something else. “That Chinese cleaner. When she let me out of the stationery cupboard ... She warned me not to joke with the Tiger. I thought it was, you know, like some sort of Chinese saying or something ... ”

  “I absolutely do not know! What stationery cupboard? What cleaner? What else have you not been telling your mother and me?” The dark plait down the centre of her spine hung ramrod straight as she stiffened to her full height. “From the beginning with nothing left out.”

  Donny was taller now than she was but it didn’t feel like it.

  So he took a breath and told her everything: the attack in the DT room, the problems with the bike, the van, the bullies, the mugging, his fear.

  He was glad Skye wasn’t there. She’d gone ashore to check the communal mailbox. Even though she couldn’t read she’d learned the word-shape of Strong Winds’ address and so had made the job her own. There were hardly ever any letters – except fan mail for Polly Lee. Nothing official – nothing from the school or the health service; none of the brown SS envelopes he’d been dreading.

  “And how much have you told your friends?” Gold Dragon didn’t look calmer when he’d finished. If anything she looked crosser.

  “Well, bits ... to Anna. About the bike but otherwise ... not a lot.”

  “I trusted your Alliance! Of course we didn’t tell our parents everything when we were your age. But not to tell your friends! I hope they’ll roast you. It’ll save me the bother of a proper keel-hauling.”

  Her language told Donny that the squall was blowing out. “Um, not so easy with Strong Winds in all this mud – keel-hauling, I mean ... ”

  “You wait till I get us away from here,” she threatened. “Seriously Sinbad, if you keep people in the dark they can’t look out for rocks. And if the ship gets holed we all go down. Where are we now? Thursday. Good. Weekend ahoy and the forecast’s improving. I’m going to invite First Mate Anna and those two Amazons, to take you and Vexilla for a good long sail. Saturday. On the tide. You’re to tell them everything that you’ve just told me. Everything! And that’s an order.”

  Donny sighed. “I was probably about to tell them anyway. Are you planning to tell anyone?”

  “That we might be afraid of a storybook wolf? No. Not quite. But I am going to talk to the Reverend and Mrs Ribiero about your school journeys. And I’ll be giving them the lat and the long as to why I’m worried. It must surely soon be the end of term?”

  “Six more days, including tomorrow.”

  “Attendance 100 percent. Not that anyone’s noticed. Rotten apples, the lot of them.”

  “Sandra was okay.”

  “She’s been lying pretty low. Sinbad, we’re making leeway. You must tell your mother what’s been happening. Don’t keep trying to protect her. She can spot a set of villains when they heave over the skyline almost as quick as I can. I’m not surprised she’s been hitting the bottle with you holding out on her like this.”

  “Huh?”

  But Gold Dragon wasn’t talking any more. She’d said what she had to say and there were jobs to be done. There were always jobs to be done with three boats to look after.

  So Donny talked to his Allies and Great Aunt Ellen talked to hers. He got yelled at of course but they didn’t seem to think he’d been a total wimp.

  A transport rota was soon arranged to cover the final week of term – though Rev. Wendy said that if she were collecting he’d have to tag along to some of her carol services or help deliver cards.

  Christmas was something else he’d shoved into his mental nettle patch. He’d never had so little money or so many people for whom he wanted to buy presents. DT open nights had been re-started so he could probably finish the Jacob’s ladder he was making for Vicky as well as the weaving frame for his mum. Luke and Liam might like a couple of little Viking ships. Anna? Gold Dragon? The Ribieros? He hadn’t a clue.

  No more bike journeys until the New Year! That was worth any number of carol services. He’d have dressed up in full Santa kit if Rev. Wendy had asked him.

  Somehow, though, he forgot to have the heart to heart with Skye.

  There was still a fuzziness about her late at night and that smell lingered. The weather had improved, though, and Gold Dragon was taking her sailing in Vexilla almost every day. She’d get healthier, then they’d talk.

  They’d sailed round the Hispaniola. Polly Lee was scathing. “She’s no more a schooner than I am. Those masts have been added and the more you look at them the less convincing they seem. That ship was never built to sail. Knock off the masts; paint her battleship grey and you get a remarkable resemblance to an ex-Royal Navy gunboat.”

  “So does she belong to the Taicoon Chang from Missee Lee?”

  “Once and for all Donny, he is fiction and I am your great-aunt who has returned from the East. End of story.”

  “Okay, okay. Where else have you and Mum been sailing?”

  “Prospecting up the Stour. I thought we might have earned a change of scene over the Christmas holidays – if the bureau-rats remember we exist.”

  Thursday 14 December

  “A word in your shell-like, Donny.”

  It was the last DT session of term and Donny was assembling the various bits and pieces he needed to finish at home. Vicky’s Jacob’s ladder clattered down in a most satisfactory manner. He’d have to convince Gerald that the varnish he’d used was 100 percent non-toxic. If Vicky liked his present she’d want to chew it.

  There were several students hanging around
so the teacher beckoned him into the storage room. That old music folder of Anna’s was still there, he noticed.

  “Would you mind telling me why none of your family showed up at this morning’s Review Meeting? I had to request cover for two of my Year Eleven GCSE groups so I could get to Colchester to present your report. Then I found myself the only non-SS person there! Wherever were your mother and your great-aunt? They hadn’t even sent apologies. These things do matter, you know.”

  “Huh?” said Donny. “No-one’s invited us to anything. We haven’t seen Sandra for ages.”

  “Sandra’s been taken off your case. Months ago. You have an agency worker. A Mr Wang. He turned up all right. With his report. Finds you all very evasive, he says. Reluctant to Engage.”

  “Never seen him. We haven’t had a single letter or a visit or anything. It’s been quite good actually.”

  “So it may have been but no-one’s going to believe that. Denise Tune assured us that she’d had everything hand-delivered to Pin Mill. Mr Wang has been passing all official correspondence directly to your mother. He’s recorded everything – times, dates, mileage. Most transactions have also been witnessed – by some of your fellow-students.”

  Donny understood now why there had been no letters. As Great Aunt Ellen had said, Skye could spot a set of villains as fast as anyone.

  “I did the best I could. I told them that you’d achieved your attendance target; that your reasons for lateness were genuine and that you were fully up to date with your assignments.”

  This missed meeting was serious bad news.

  “What’s going to happen? We’ve done all the things they told us. And Great Aunt Ellen got someone at the Citizen’s Advice to check that her paperwork’s in order. What more do they want?”

  “I think you’re going to need a lawyer. I’m afraid there was some rather negative discussion of your mother’s ... health.”

  “You mean her drinking,” said Donny.

  “One of the many things I dislike about those SS meetings is that I come out speaking their language. Yes, that is what I mean. The doctor’s report was damning. And there were photographs.”

  “She never drank before she came down here.”

  “I’ve not met your mother and I don’t know what’s been happening to her – I’m not sure I know what’s been happening to you either. I do know that alcoholism’s a serious illness. If that’s her problem, she will need help.”

  “Well, I’m not asking my mum to spend any more time at that stupid doctor’s,” said Donny, suddenly angry at his tutor too. “If that’s the System, you’re dead right we’re not Engaging.”

  He seized Anna’s old folder from the shelf, marched back into the classroom and pushed it into his bag. Then he shoved all his work in as well and headed for the exit.

  Mr McMullen let him go. He’d been a boy that age.

  Donny turned back just before he left. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “No it isn’t,” agreed the tutor, “You and I had better have a proper talk after Christmas. Perhaps the holiday will do your mother good.”

  “Possibly,” said Donny. “Um, Happy Christmas then.”

  Right now all he wanted to do was go home and spend the evening working on his presents or reading something that simply meant what it said – like a tide table or his Great Uncle Greg’s Sailing handbook. He’d had it with conversations.

  Friday 15 December

  The boatyard manager came to talk to Great Aunt Ellen next day. Several of his customers had complained that the cords tying down their winter covers had been cut. They hadn’t worked loose; they’d been severed.

  It had started happening about the time that Donny, Skye and Gold Dragon had been working on Vexilla in the shed.

  The manager was a fair-minded man and he agreed that the timing could have been coincidental. Lots of people hadn’t covered their boats until they knew bad weather was on the way. So there hadn’t been much opportunity before, perhaps.

  He’d no evidence, he said, to connect the damage to anyone in particular. All the same he couldn’t deny that people had heard about the accident at Shotley. Snow Goose was in the yard. Her hull repair had been completed and the new mizzenmast was shaping up nicely in the shed. People knew Snow Goose and they knew what had happened to her and who had been responsible so they might quite likely put two and two together. And it wouldn’t be difficult to guess what answer they were coming up with.

  He’d done what he could to improve security but he couldn’t keep watch 24/7. It seemed only reasonable to give some warning.

  School holidays. Time to lie in bed and doze – or read. Time to put on Xanthe’s old wind-proofs and go sailing. Time to finish making presents for the kids, help Anna decorate a tree, play noisy games with Vicky or simply hang out with his friends.

  Three nights into Donny’s school holidays there was a violent outbreak of rope-slashing. This time it wasn’t only boat covers; it was mooring ropes as well. All along the line of houseboats and out into the river as well – except for Strong Winds and Vexilla.

  Skye was discovered the next morning, helplessly drunk, with Gold Dragon’s rigging knife sticking out of her anorak pocket.

  Miss Walker and her family were told to leave the Hard by the next possible high tide.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Winter Holiday

  Tuesday 19 December

  They only had forty-eight hours to wait until the spring tide would be sufficient for Strong Winds to float off.

  They were among the most miserable of Donny’s life. Not only was everyone angry and accusing but Skye was really ill. She had passed out during some brutal public questioning by Inspector Flint, who just happened to be on duty when the damage was discovered. He seemed to have forgotten that Skye’s deafness was not something that could be overcome by him shouting at her.

  Gold Dragon put herself between Flint and her niece. Then hooked Donny firmly by his waistband to prevent him from launching in.

  A bystander suggested that an ambulance should be called.

  Flint squashed that idea straight away.

  “Our National Health Service doesn’t need cluttering up by drunks,” he growled contemptuously. “I’ve always thought it was a mistake to do away with traditional village lock-ups.”

  “Perhaps you would like to reintroduce the stocks, officer?” Joshua Ribiero had arrived.

  “Alcohol in this quantity is a poison: it is not to be treated lightly. I am a doctor. If I were a lawyer – or a policeman – I would like to prosecute the person who supplied the vodka. Hospitalisation may yet be necessary but the first thing we can do is to return Ms Walker to her boat. She will require constant monitoring – for her own safety. I believe her family are the best people to provide this.”

  That night Donny learned what the expression ‘blind drunk’ actually meant. Skye wasn’t sick when she woke up: she was blind, she couldn’t see.

  That, added to her deafness and her virtual inability to speak, was truly terrifying. She couldn’t see Donny’s signing. She couldn’t understand what had happened. She wailed in the dark, fighting for escape. Only Donny could hold her quiet, though Joshua Ribiero and Great Aunt Ellen stayed with him, offering what help they could.

  Wendy and June stayed too.

  So, when Tony arrived with a duty SS worker, ready to remove Donny into the Safety of Residential Care, they were able to insist that he was already being supervised. By a vicar and a doctor and a magistrate – as well as his own great-aunt.

  When a crisis health team turned up, offering sedatives and restraints, they too were sent away.

  Skye slept at last – and Donny slept alongside her.

  Her sight returned, blurrily, in the morning and she managed to understand some simple questions. She couldn’t offer any answers though. Sh
e had no memory at all of whatever had happened the previous evening.

  Later that day she began to shake and to beg, mutely, for something to steady her. Donny thought that perhaps she should be given her happy pills but Gold Dragon said no. “They do her no good. They’re in the same league as the grog. I should have heaved them overboard weeks ago.”

  Perhaps surprisingly, Joshua agreed. “In the long term,” he said, “many of us have begun to question the repeated use of anti-depressant drugs. I do not believe that this treatment has been helpful to Skye. I can offer some short-term medication that may help her through the next few days, but after that I recommend nothing. Except reassurance, vigilance – and possibly chocolate.”

  “I’ll lay in supplies before we leave. Thursday night’s tide may be high enough to do it.”

  “It’ll be tight. You’ll need a crew. Both June and I are ready to volunteer. The girls can bed down at the vicarage again. How far do you intend to go?”

  “I’ll be glad to drop a mile or two down river. Enough to get us out of sight. It’ll be almost midnight before we get her off. If we do. After that we’ll take the next flood tide into the Stour. I have to stay near Donny’s school and we discovered a spot last week that gave Nimblefingers a good feel.”

  Donny’d been listening. “How do you know it did?” he asked her. “You can’t talk to my mum. You can’t sign.”

  “We’ve been sailing together,” said Great Aunt Ellen. “It’s different between us now.”

  Thursday 21 December

  Ice was forming on the deck, and the stars glittered in a cold clear sky when they warped Strong Winds away from Pin Mill Hard.

  Using the engine would have made the junk’s stern drop a few crucial inches deeper so Joshua and Donny put a spare anchor and a long length of cable into Vexilla and rowed out as far as they could towards the main channel.

  June kept watch over Skye.

  They dropped the anchor and returned to Strong Winds. Then they loosed the forrard mooring warps and Polly Lee began to winch the cable in. For a few tense moments nothing happened: the junk stayed stuck, the anchor line strained.