Appleby on Ararat

by Michael Innes

  Miss Curricle looked up from cautious overtures to George. “Only in a sense,” she said. “Here we are almost again. But at least this launch may decently be described as a craft. I never felt that an inverted café was adapted to navigation. And I inherit from my dear father a distaste for improvisations. You may not have felt the same. I have been told that Australians have a fondness for what they call making do. But for my part I say: simplicity, yes – but the ramshackle, no.”

  “We’re not ramshackle,” said Diana indignantly. “But if you had to live on the back-blocks–”

  “Live on the what?” asked Mr Hoppo courteously.

  Appleby sighed. The horizon was very empty. Only directly behind them the island showed like a smudge on the ocean. Good-bye to Ararat. They were running due west and he turned to stare out over the prow. There was only the path of the declining sun. Of that land which had once miraged up over the horizon there was no sign. But then it had been vaguely spoken of as a hundred miles away. There could be no landfall yet.

  The sea was sullen, and working under a sky still faintly copper to the zenith; a haze was coming up from the north. Most of the guests had retired not too happily to the little cabin; fortunately their escape had been attended by no casualties worse than a gash or a scrape. And there was plenty of water and plenty of biscuit. Mudge had seen to that. Immediate anxiety must be concentrated on petrol and the weather. On that, and perhaps the possibility of something unwelcome appearing on the horizon. For concealed somewhere in the bungalow or about the island those people must have powerful wireless communication. Or would they? Could one have wireless without giving such a secret depot away? Appleby moved aft to where Mudge stood at the wheel.

  “Say something over a hundred miles,” he said. “And then perhaps fifty miles circling round until we actually spot land. Have we anything like that range?”

  Mudge shook his head. “Nothing like it, Mr Appleby; it would be a picnic if we had. She’s going at the economic speed now. But the swell takes it out of her. Eighty miles out of port all told. After that we might rig something to do about a couple of knots.” Mudge’s meditative eye went over his right shoulder. “And there’s something coming up.”

  “Storm again?”

  “No, sir. A kind of fog not uncommon in these parts. May hang about for days and give us no chance to raise a bit of an island at all.”

  “Awkward.”

  “We’re well found, Mr Appleby.” Mudge was eminently placid. “Did you ever read Warton’s The Pleasures of Melancholy? Screech-owls, sir, and mouldering caverns dark and damp. The gloomy void and hollow charnel. The still globe’s awful solitude. Wan heaps. Atmosphere, Mr Appleby. The solemn noon of night. There’s expression, sir. The solemn noon of night. Elevated, Mr Appleby; elevated, indeed.”

  Appleby thought it might more justly be termed depressed. But there was something soothing in Mudge’s sombre-liveried culture-talk. And Mudge was going on to speak – more appropriately but hardly more cheerfully – of Falconer’s The Shipwreck when there was a shout from Hoppo in the bows. “Whale!” Hoppo was shouting with vigour. “Whale!”

  Miss Curricle, now on established conversational terms with George, looked up with justifiable alarm. Several people came out of the cabin. Appleby turned and followed Hoppo’s pointing finger. And this time it was certainly a whale. The creature was blowing not a mile away; and presently a second whale could be distinguished behind it. In the emptiness there was something companionable in their mammalian spoutings; the launch was heading for them as if pleased to pass the time of day. And now more whales could be seen; it must be a school of considerable size; it occurred to some of the guests to express alarm. But Mudge would not be deflected from the course he was steering due west, and the launch ran on unconcerned. It looked as if there would be a close-up view of the monsters as they puffed and vaguely shouldered the sea. And then, quite suddenly, the impending fog came down and they were travelling blind.

  Mudge slackened speed. The guests retired again to the cabin. It had been broad daylight and soon it would be dark; meanwhile the fog produced an effect of untropical twilight upon the sea. It thickened until even the sound of the engine seemed muffled; over the bows the sun sank behind it in a dully diffused orange glow; from the cabin came a mumble and murmur of talk. And Appleby felt suddenly depressed. Perhaps it was Mudge on the pleasures of melancholy beginning to seep in; perhaps it was a sense that there lay something repetitive and dismally familiar in this wandering in cockle-shells about the Pacific. He was aroused by Miss Curricle’s voice issuing from the gloom before him. “Mr Appleby,” it said conspiratorially, “pray come here.”

  He crossed the boat. Miss Curricle was pointing with a disapproving finger beneath a thwart. “I have no wish to cause needless alarm. But I have just distinguished an object which it is, I fear, impossible to contemplate without disquiet. In short, Mr Appleby, a bomb.”

  Appleby peered. It was one of the enemy’s grenades without a doubt, and must have landed plumb in the launch during the bombardment. Appleby looked at it with all the disquiet which Miss Curricle could have required. With the movement of the boat the thing was rocking gently on its base. It had all the appearance of being about to topple over at the next big swell. Appleby steadied it gingerly with his foot and called Glover. That Glover was not of a pre-grenade era he was uncertain. Still, he must be appealed to in lethal matter of this sort.

  And Glover eyed the unambiguous object with respect. “A dud,” he said. “There’s just one thing nastier than a live bomb, and that’s a bomb in a state of suspended animation. Better get it overboard.” He stooped to put his hands cautiously about it; then he stopped, peered, chuckled and picked it up. “We’re slandering it: little chap never had a chance.” He held it out before Appleby and a misdoubting Miss Curricle. “Like a Mills bomb – only bigger. You pull out a split pin before you throw. And an arm of the pin has broken off.”

  “Safe?” asked Appleby.

  “We can easily make it safe. You have only to find a bit of wire while I hold down the lever.”

  “Then I think we’ll keep it.” He smiled. “And rank the launch as an armed auxiliary. A pity we haven’t got an ensign.”

  Night and the sea fell together. The guests, grateful for an ocean of dim, dark-yellow glass, slumbered in the cabin. All around the fog was absolute, unstirred by any breath of wind.

  The only sounds were a lap of water at the bow and a gurgle at the stern – this and the throb of the engine. Mudge looked at his instruments. “Best lay to, Mr Appleby,” he said. “By rights we should put out riding lights. But I doubt if whales and grampuses and the like would attend to them.”

  “The whales! You don’t think they’re about still?”

  “Bless you, sir, I can hear them now.”

  Glover, crouched by the binnacle, grunted incredulously. “Hear them, my man – what d’you mean? Lowing? Growling?”

  The sound of the engine died away, the lapping at the bows sank to a whisper. They listened. The night was utterly still. Oil might have been poured upon the water; there was only a long low swell which gently lifted the launch without breaking the sleeping surface about it. They strained their ears and heard nothing; relaxed and realised that there was something which they had been hearing all the time. It was low and vast, as if the ocean sighed, weary of its own ceaseless flux. It was like a multitude of moans blended – as if one were hearing the muted despair of some circle of souls among the damned. It was the lazy, deep, long-drawn breathing of the whales.

  And it was all about them. The launch floated amid a vast slumbering archipelago of living creatures, invisible beneath the fog which was their chilly blanket. For those who go down to the sea in ships, Appleby reflected, the story of Jonah may be an impossibility plausible enough. Islanded in the fog among these vast respirations, one could almost imagine oneself i
n the belly of the monster now.

  “They must be dashed near.” Glover, with an old campaigner’s caution, spoke in a low whisper. “What about turning about and making off? Awkward if one took a lunge at us. Or suppose they like rubbing noses and we got in between.”

  Appleby laughed softly. “If only there were a tree.”

  “Eh? How the devil could there be a tree?” Glover quite failed to catch the allusion.

  “As in the Swiss Family, sir. Hoppo’s suggestion.”

  “Tscha! That was savages. No disgrace to bolt from brute beasts. But they seem to be all round us; best to lie low, no doubt. Hope that dog’s asleep.”

  “We’ll be all right, sir.” Mudge was placid as before. “Short of a harpoon they’re very sluggish, is whales. Ruminative might be the word. A great deal of reflection in them, I’d say at a guess. And if you want to see one, sir – why, there you are.”

  They swung round at his words. Hard by the launch’s starboard side, and where moments before there had been only a curtain of fog and night, there loomed and glided a shape vast, black and glistening. Absurdly, it seemed to tower in air like very Leviathan, as impossible as a creature of the Just-So stories. And then in an instant it was veiled and had vanished – vanished with a vast low plop like a pebble dropped in a well.

  By the dim light of the binnacle Colonel Glover could be seen mopping his brow. Appleby still stared fascinated into the vacancy where the whale had been. It was like sailing the ocean of some mediaeval cartographer in which the monsters of the deep disported themselves familiarly around pygmean barques and galleons. To port he heard a hiss and ripple of broken water; another of the creatures must have returned to the surface from a nocturnal plunge. But this one remained invisible, and presently there was only the deep, low breathing of the slumbering school.

  An hour passed – an uncanny hour during which it was difficult to believe in dawn. But dawn would come, and there was some petrol left, and conceivably they might make land. There were plenty of islands, Mudge said, though thinly scattered; they would come upon one with luck – an inhabited one if they had more luck still. He heard a slither in the darkness; it was Diana stumbling across the little deck from some hatch where she had curled herself. “Mr Mudge – John: whatever noise is that?”

  “Whales, Diana. And setting you an example in the way of a good night’s sleep. They don’t even snore.”

  “Whales! I don’t believe it.” She stopped and stared into darkness. “Look!”

  “I told you so.” He turned round. Even closer than before, a vast shape had loomed up to starboard. It was a dull grey and rolling slightly. The water could be heard running down its great flanks.

  Childishly Diana clapped her hands. “That island,” she said; “it didn’t have Hoppo’s hippo after all. So this just must be Hoppo’s whale.”

  Appleby laughed. “Very well,” he said. “It’s Hoppo’s whale. Mudge says–”

  He stopped. For out of the darkness Hoppo’s whale was speaking.

  “Achtung!” it said.

  24

  That Hoppo’s whale should incontinently take to itself the character of Balaam’s ass was a thing sufficiently astounding to ensure some seconds’ silence. And by that time the truth was apparent and silence most evidently golden. Appleby leant down and flicked off the tiny light over the instruments. “Mudge,” he whispered, “that coil of rope by the painter: how long is it?”

  “Twenty fathom.”

  Appleby disappeared like a spectre towards the bows. The submarine appeared to be not under way, but the swell had carried the launch the few yards that made it invisible. There was the faintest splash forward and then silence except for the low heavy breathing of the veritable whales. Diana thought of how George might wake up and bark, of how Mr Rumsby might wake up and vacantly curse the night. But everything remained utterly still; there was no further voice from the sinister craft beside them; Mudge and Glover were unmoving shadows by her side. Minutes went past. The launch rocked gently; Mudge was leaning out, hauling; Appleby, dripping and gasping, was on the deck. They waited, and time seemed to linger about them as if trammelled in the fog.

  Diana heard Mudge’s whisper. “Clear of the screws and elevators, Mr Appleby?”

  “Jumping wire.”

  Silence again. She waited, expecting some terrific explosion. But when sound came it was the faint deep throb of diesel engines. A voice called an order; the fog so muted it that it might have been the harsh cry of a bird. The noise of the engines rose, grew fainter. It could barely be heard. Silence. And then with a jerk the launch moved through the water.

  Diana gasped. They were in tow. “John,” she whispered cautiously, “I thought you would be doing something with that grenade.”

  She could just see him stir beside her. “No use. It might conceivably damage the steering-gear; nothing more. We want an open hatch.”

  “Will the rope hold?” asked Glover. “Forty yards seems rather a lot. Not that we couldn’t do with a wider berth. Awkward if the fog clears.”

  “It should hold, sir. She’s not likely to cruise beyond ten knots.” Mudge was professionally knowledgeable. “We’ve just got to keep quiet and sit tight. Shh!”

  The figure of Mr Hoppo had emerged from the darkness, calling out with the somewhat uncertain cheerfulness which romantic adventure had induced in him. He stopped short at Mudge’s hiss. “Whatever–?”

  “Submarine,” Diana whispered. “John has tied our painter to a submarine. And we’re going for a ride.”

  “An enemy submarine?”

  Appleby sat down by the darkened binnacle. “Well, they don’t speak English. And we shall soon know.”

  “Dear me. If I remember my Greek a painter is really something with which one snares wild animals; it seems appropriate enough.” Hoppo giggled, discreetly low. “Had not we better go round and enjoin silence? My memories of this launch are such that I feel they may set a gramophone going at any time.”

  “That dog,” said Glover. “Perhaps best put him overboard, poor little beggar. Might give the show away properly.”

  “No, sir.” Mudge was respectful but firm. “From a sailor’s point of view I couldn’t advise it. No good ever came of killing a living thing about a boat, begging your pardon. You may recall a poem about an albatross, sir. Picturesque, for the most part. But with a reflective strain to that effect, sir.”

  “Very well.” Glover’s agreement was perfunctory; he appeared to be thinking of something else. “I’ll go round and warn the men, if Mrs Kittery will do the same by the women.”

  Hours went past. The launch, silent, glided through the calm invisible waters as if propelled by a spirit of power. Faintly the sound of the diesel engines could be heard from time to time. Presently, perhaps, they would halt and the submarine would go forward in short, cautious pushes. And that would be the ticklish period. Appleby and Mudge had ready a pair of sculls; Diana had her hand on the tow-rope; immediately this slackened for more than a second they must silently and strongly pull. Otherwise with their light draft they might conceivably come up with the submarine as it stopped.

  Dawn would have to be reckoned with soon; and the fog alone would be the riskiest cover to their manoeuvre then. But the darkness was still entire; the hours were lengthening themselves; the faint ripple at the bows sank as speed was reduced, and reduced again, on the craft before them. Presumably the cautious approach to fog-bound land – eerie in any circumstances – had begun. The launch moved; Diana would softly call; as softly they would pull at the oars. The submarine was nosing forward, stopping, nosing forward again. Once they heard a voice, startling in its brisk confidence, come clear down some crevice or funnel in the fog. Which meant, perhaps, that the fog would be breaking soon.

  Glover was whispering in Appleby’s ear. “Something on my mind. Are you proposi
ng an operation for the destruction of this enemy force?”

  Appleby turned in the darkness, surprised. “Yes.”

  “I don’t know that I like it. Dashed good job, of course. But–”

  “Our people must take the risk. They were warned of extreme hazards in the voyage.”

  “I’m not thinking of that.” Glover appeared to have difficulty in expressing himself. “Mind you, it was all right with that fellow Dunchue. An officer, no doubt, and a brave man. But hanging about that island pretending to be tight he was just a spy. Quite right to have done with him. But these fellows are regular sailors in a man-of-war. I doubt if they should be attacked except by armed forces of the Crown. Worrying, Appleby – dashed worrying.”

  “Well, sir, you are the armed forces of the Crown, are you not?”

  “Retired list, my dear man. And then there’s the question of uniform. Attacking force oughtn’t to be in civilian clothes.”

  “I see.” Appleby meditated suggesting that wars were no longer conducted on quite these lines. But he thought better of it. And Mudge broke in.

  “Mr Appleby, sir, I’m much in the same position as the colonel. Naval reserve, sir. I’d be back now, if I’d seen my way to it. And I can do something in the way of uniform, having always kept my old kit in my own locker forward. Nowhere safe from those copper-coloured vermin at the hotel.”

  “Give me your oar, my man, and cut along.” Glover appeared greatly relieved. “Hullo, what was that?”

  The submarine had given tongue – a melancholy sound like the last cry of a creature that has been long in pain. And from somewhere beyond came the call of an answering siren – a low blare, blurred and muffled.

  “Of course,” said Appleby, “it may be a depot ship. But I think it will be the island. And I’m not sure whether our first or second approach to it is the crazier. I can see a light. It must be something pretty powerful to pierce this fog.”