Getaway

by John Harris

  “Think we’re all right here?” Willie addressed him as he folded the canvas to use it as a mattress. “Safe, I mean.” He glanced up at Frankie’s thin exhausted face as he spoke.

  “Sure. Sure.” Joe started upright and answered drowsily. “We all-a right. Good anchor. Strong cable.”

  “Can’t it drag?” With his growing knowledge of seafaring, Willie was anxious and uncertain.

  “Why’s it going to drag?”

  “I dunno.” Willie listened to the wind for a while. “Sounds tough up there, Joe. Isn’t there something we ought to do? Maybe find a more sheltered spot, for instance.”

  “Nothing more sheltered than this.”

  Willie cocked his head again. “It just sounds to be blowing harder than anything I’ve heard before, that’s all, and it’s blowing right in the direction of the rocks.” He pawed among the charts and produced one of MacGillicuddy’s battered books and opened it. “It says in the Pacific Pilot, ‘Mariners should take every precaution when anchoring in Ania Bay during a south-easterly gale–’ It’s a south-easter now, Joe.”

  Joe grunted. “That ol’ book is out of date,” he said, trying to discourage conversation, and Willie’s face became taut and worried. “Isn’t there anything we ought to do, Joe?” he asked.

  “Mebbe. Mebbe not. I guess we OK.” Joe irritably thrust the suggestion aside, wishing Willie would go to sleep. “Wind ain’t too strong yet. We got a bit of shelter.”

  Willie glanced at the barometer. “It’s dropped further,” he pointed out and Joe shrugged, furious with him for his tirelessness. The thought of the gin burned his throat and made him lick his lips again and again.

  Willie rubbed his aching eyes and tossed the book back to the table.

  “You going to sleep?” he asked the old man.

  “S’all-a right,” Joe mumbled. “Comfortable. Go sleep in a minute.”

  Willie twitched Frankie’s blanket nearer to her chin and, putting out the light, curled up under the table with Joe’s overcoat. Joe sat on the box in the darkness, feeling the ship quivering under the wind, while all the time the waves chattered at the planking like hordes of small wild animals fighting to break through, and the groans of the boat came to him like the sighs of an old lady resting her aching bones.

  Satisfied at last that Willie was asleep, Joe rose silently to his feet and tiptoed to the ladder that led to the deck and heaved himself up. He was surprised at the strength of the wind which almost buffeted him over the side before he had become accustomed to it. Needles of flying rain stung his skin and, as he glanced upwards, he saw the glimmer of stars in a break in the scudding clouds before they closed again and the lagoon was in darkness.

  Slowly he picked his way forward to the little paint locker, clinging to the stays or the lashed boom. As he unfastened the hinged hatch, the wind snatched at it and whipped it upwards against his forehead with a resounding crack that sent him rolling on the deck.

  For a moment he sat on the quivering boards, seeing stars and half-stunned, while the wind tugged at his shirt and whipped his hair, then he became aware of the hatch cover rattling against the deck like a tattoo, the catch jingling its shrill accompaniment, and he frantically scrambled to his knees and flung himself stomach-down on top of it.

  His mouth open, his breath coming in gasps, the wind blowing his hair into his eyes, he listened for signs of life from below, and it was a good two minutes before he moved again, convinced that the others had not awakened. Slowly, hanging on all the time to the quivering hatch cover in case it escaped him again, he lowered himself into the blackness of the locker, thankful to be out of the beating of the wind. Feeling with his feet, he found the deck and, closing the cover silently after him, he sank down among the empty paint tins and old rope and pulleys.

  At last, his excitement, that excitement that had been growing on him all evening, took hold of him. He scrambled to his knees, heedless of the puddles that saturated his trousers. Sending an empty tin flying with his heel, he felt under the canvas for the bottle of gin and heaved a sigh of relief as his fingers found its squat shape and drew it to him.

  Stretching out on the deck, his back against the quivering bulkhead, aware that on the other side Rosa lay asleep and pleasantly elated by his daring and a sense of defiance, he ripped away the silver foil from the neck of the bottle and removed the stopper.

  As the alcohol ran into his stomach for the first time in weeks, the rawness of it made him cough and he went red in the face with his efforts to avoid making a noise.

  “Old-a bastard,” he muttered, as he thought of Captain Seagull and his sly eyes. “He make it himself.”

  Then the first warmth from the gin flowed through his body and he felt better immediately, willing at once to forgive. He tossed aside the silver foil in his hand with an expansive gesture and took another swig at the bottle as thoughts of Surry Hills flooded back to him. As clearly as if he were there he saw the flat-faced tenements with their cast-iron balconies and their plaster stained with damp, and he felt a nostalgic longing for home that brought tears to his eyes.

  Stupefied by the gin, the stuffy locker and his own emotions, he took another swig at the bottle and felt better at once. He snuggled further down and put his knees up, wedging his back against the bulkhead.

  “Sweet Mother of God,” he murmured ecstatically. “This is good.”

  It was the sound of the wind that woke Rosa from her sleep. It had a deep hollow whine that came out of the bowels of the sea in a ghostly echoing note as it howled across the vast miles of ocean, tearing at atolls, bays and islands, ripping the sand from under the whipped palms, bringing the driving rain to wash away soil until huge pines, caught by the shrieking banshee, were flung out of the ground and smashed down in a welter of mud and water. Great rolling waves as big as houses and topped by smoking spray marched across the sea, shuddering against the immovable rocks with a force that atomized them into mist high above the bending trees, sending the spume and the spindrift scudding across the narrow islands. Houses, stores, people, animals were beaten to the earth and held there, and the rain that pounded down in the path of the wind turned the soil into a sea of mud runnelled through with torrents of water that dug away foundations and drowned in their path the chickens and the pigs.

  At Apavana, the fringing reef took the worst onslaught of the waves and the encircling arms of the hills the worst of the blow. But along the skyline the young palms that had sliced the racing clouds to ribbons lay flat along the ground so that years later they would rear upwards towards the sun, permanently deformed. The surface of the sheltered lagoon was lashed into a vapour that rose and sped away across the water like thin rolling clouds, flung over the inland sea by the eddies off the mountains that stood silent and majestic against the worst the blast could bring.

  The whine of the storm rose in its intensity, screeching through the bulging shrouds of the Boy George like a mad thing caught in the ropes and trying to tear itself free. The little vessel creaked and groaned under the stress until it seemed to shout aloud in pain, while the waves banged and thumped on the forefoot like a thousand and one lost souls trying to fight their way out of the hell of the storm.

  Rosa sat up in the darkened cabin, suddenly chilled and frightened. Outside, the yell of the hurricane had risen to a shriek and the Boy George jolted and rolled at the end of her cable in torment, rising swiftly only to be checked and flung nose-down again into the waves with sickening lurches that burst them into flying spray, and almost flung Rosa off the bed.

  “Joe,” she called in alarm. “Joe!”

  “What is it, Mama?” Only Willie’s voice answered her, calm and reassuring.

  “Where’s Joe? Light the lamp.”

  She heard a match scratch in the darkness and saw it flare in front of Willie’s face, illuminating it in uneasy lines. Frankie sat up, blinking sleep out of her eyes, her shoulders white and angular in the lamplight, the little wooden cross a dark medallion on her breast
. “What’s going on, Mama? What are you bawling about?” she asked.

  The wick of the hurricane lamp caught and the cabin glowed a bright yellow in which grotesque shadows leapt as the lamp swung on its hook in the deckhead to the lurching of the ship.

  “Where’s Joe?” Rosa stared at the wooden box where her husband had been dozing when she had fallen asleep, jerked now by the vibration to the other side of the cabin. “He was here. Where’s he gone?”

  Her words were drowned as the wind rose to a crescendo and the Boy George lurched violently again so that they all braced themselves to keep upright, and the blanket slid from Frankie’s bunk to the floor.

  “It’s sure blowing, Mama,” Willie commented, turning his eyes upwards to the lamp painting its smoky whorls on the deckhead. “We’ll be dragging the anchor.”

  “Where’s Joe?” Rosa repeated in a panic, for some reason thinking of the old man as he had come courting her years before, with a white straw hat and a celluloid collar, and bearing a posy of flowers already wilting in Sydney’s summer heat.

  “Stop worrying, Mama,” Frankie said, swathed now in a jersey that was too big for her, one hand clutching the table to keep her balance. “He’s probably up top trying to do something.”

  “He’ll be fixing the anchor,” Willie said quickly. “I reckon we’d better stop yapping and go and help him. I’ll bring the lamp.”

  “I can’t hear him,” Rosa said, her voice rising as she bent to heave her slippers on.

  “You’d be lucky to hear anything with that row that’s going on,” Frankie pointed out. “I dunno how we slept through it.”

  As they stumbled on deck, the howling wind flattened their cheeks and plucked at their lips and ballooned the jersey on Frankie’s thin body. The lagoon was in darkness with no sign of the great round moon through the closely packed clouds. They could hear the pounding of the waves against the reef and could sense rather than see the wounded surface of the water.

  “Gawd,” Willie yelled. “Keep your heads down or you’ll be over the side.”

  “EEEEooooeeee!” The wind, wet and warm as a bathroom door opening, came roaring across to them, funnelling through the entrance to the bay, a monstrous crazy thing tearing at their clothes and hair, and buffeting back at them, even in its own path, as it rebounded from the mountains and circled the bay in gusts, heeling the Boy George over on her side as the eddies hit her on the beam. The standing rigging swung out in great arcs, humming like plucked harp strings, while the halyards rattled and slapped at the mast in a devil’s tattoo.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Rosa crossed herself quickly, awed by the strength of the storm, and clutched for a handhold.

  “We’ve moved,” Willie was crouching in the bows, with his arm round the forestay, peering across the water to the dark distant shadow of the land and the solitary light they could see there. “The anchor’s dragging. I said it would.”

  “Much?” Frankie had her arms tight round him for support, peering over his shoulder. Rosa huddled in the shelter of the mast, her fingers clawing at the wood.

  “Yeah,” Willie shouted. “I reckon so. If we move much more we’ll pull it into deep water. The bottom shelves here. Joe showed me on the chart. If we get off that, the anchor won’t touch bottom and we’ll be carried across there–” Willie flung out his arm towards the other side of the lagoon “–and then we’ll lose her. It’s blowing straight across to the rocks. I said we oughta put out an extra anchor. She’s dragging all the time and we can’t wait all night. If she goes, she’ll go like stinko and we shan’t be able to stop her.”

  Rosa suddenly remembered their mission on deck. “Where’s Joe?” she said again, brushing her hair out of her eyes for the hundredth time. “He must have gone overboard.”

  “Not he.” Frankie threw back her head and shouted. “Pop! Pop! Where are you?”

  Only the shriek of the wind in the rigging answered her.

  “He must be somewhere,” Willie said, his voice lost in the gale that seemed to rumble across the lagoon like an express train. Then the blast caught his thin shirt, tore it free from its buttons and wrenched it from his back. He was startled for a moment, then he stripped the last shreds from his arms and sent them flying after the rest of the garment.

  “He went overboard,” Rosa was moaning again. “The wind took him. He’s drowned.”

  Willie was at a loss what to reply.

  “Take it easy, Mama,” Frankie said uncomfortably.

  Rosa began to talk softly to herself swaying against the wire shroud she clung to, leaning on the wind, the clothes pressed flat against her body. “He was trying to help us and he went overboard. Mary, Mother of Mercy, protect us!”

  “Listen, Mama,” Frankie shrieked to her. “Pop wouldn’t go over that easy. He knows the boat too well. Maybe he got locked in the engine room.”

  “Sure.” Willie joined in on the same note of hope. “He probably went to get something and the hatch slammed shut and the catch fell. It will, if you’re not careful. Maybe he’s tinkering around down there. Let’s look before we start panicking.”

  Fighting to keep his feet, he lifted the hatch cover and stuck his head below, his heart sinking as he saw there was no light.

  “Joe,” he shouted. “You there?”

  There was no answer and he cocked a leg over to the ladder. “I’ll look, Mama. Maybe he slipped and banged his head.”

  He swung the lamp below, calling Joe’s name. “He’s not here,” he said uneasily above the wind.

  “Let’s look in the paint locker,” Frankie suggested. “He might have gone in there for something.”

  As they moved forward, the tortured waves bubbled alongside, streaming away astern in white streamers of foam as the bow cut into the wind-driven surface of the lagoon. The Boy George lurched and bucked again and Willie, on his hands and knees for safety against the blast, pawed at the winch round which they had taken the turns of the anchor cable. “He’s not put out another anchor, Mama,” he yelled.

  “He fell overboard lifting it on deck.” In her sense of guilt, Rosa had the whole thing pictured clearly in her mind. She could even see Joe, his grizzled hair flattened round the bald spot on his head by the wind as he clutched the anchor to his belly and staggered about the deck. “He’s not so nimble any more.”

  “Hold it!” Willie was bending now by the hatch of the paint locker. “This thing’s unfastened and I know I battened her down.”

  He was answered by a rattle as the wind lifted the hatch and from below he heard the faint sound of a snore.

  “Mama,” he shouted. “He’s in here. He’s breathing heavily. He must have been knocked out or something.”

  Rosa handed him the lamp and they tumbled into the paint locker after him, and the thumping of the waves against the bow sounded louder than ever in the dark little cabin up in the eyes of the ship, a mere cupboard that stank of old paint and dusty rope and tallow.

  Joe was still propped against the rotten canvas and the anchor cable, one foot through the handle of a paint tin.

  On his face was a broad, happy smile. His dentures were hanging loosely in his mouth, and his head was nodding gently to each swing of the Boy George.

  “He’s unconscious,” Rosa said. “Joe! Joe!”

  With Willie kneeling alongside her, she started rubbing her husband’s hands, patting his cheeks and whispering endearments. “Joe, old dear. Say you’re all right.”

  Frankie, standing behind, sniffed and bent to pick up something from the shadows, then she nudged Rosa and held out her hand. “Mama,” she said gently.

  Rosa turned, glancing up at her. She saw the expression on the girl’s face, and her gaze travelled down her lifted arm. From Frankie’s fingers dangled the gin bottle with the remains of its contents in the bottom.

  “A bottle of grog. The old bum’s not hurt. He’s drunk, Mama. He must have got this from that bloke in Taio Bay. I thought he was careful with that sack of beans. He put ’em down
on deck like they were dynamite. He must have had this in it. He must have got at Willie’s dough.”

  Rosa gazed at her, uncomprehending, then she pulled herself slowly upright, fighting to keep her balance in the heaving little cabin. Vaguely ashamed of her panic, she stared at her husband, shocked that she should have been so weak as to weep for him.

  She gave Joe a shove so that he rolled over on his side and finally sprawled on his belly. Smiling, he tucked one hand under his chin and snored comfortably.

  “Drunk,” she said. “You damned old stiff. You dirty, double-crossing, thieving old fool. Pinching our money. Getting drunk when we need your help. I wish you had gone overboard.”

  Willie watched her storming for a while, then he took the bottle from Frankie and tossed it on to the canvas and straightened up. The wind’s shriek seemed louder and now, in the bow of the ship where they could feel every kick and lurch of the boat, the movement of the Boy George seemed particularly violent. “Mama,” he said anxiously. “I reckon we ought to do something about that anchor before it’s too late.”

  “Can we do it on our own – without him?” Frankie indicated Joe sprawling at their feet in the shadows cast by the lamp.

  Willie turned towards her, swaying on his feet. “Looks like we got to, kid,” he said. “Do you know what to do?” He held the lamp higher to look at her face.

  She stared back at him, frightened and unsure of herself and her skill. “I think so, Willie. Maybe I do. We can fix something.”

  “Willie–” Rosa had forgotten Joe in her anxiety for the boat “–what should we do? Do you know?”

  “Not too rightly, Mama. I can only think of things Joe’s told me and things I’ve read. We ought to put out another anchor. I know that. Load it in the dinghy with the cable and row up forrard and toss it overboard.”

  “It’s too late for that, Willie,” Frankie said quickly. “We can’t do that. The wind’s too strong. We’d never be able to pull the dinghy. We ought to use the engine. Go ahead on it and put out the other anchor when we got the first one abeam. Then let her fall back. That’s the only safe way. We can keep the engine running slow ahead all night, in fact, to hold her up to the anchor. Have we got enough fuel?”