The Maggie

by James Dillon White

  ‘And what treachery are ye scheming now?’ She shied away from the whisky. ‘I’ll no’ drink wi’ ye. It wouldna surprise me if it was drugged.’

  The Skipper shook his head sadly and proceeded to pour out two stiff measures. He said, with conscious pathos, ‘Ye don’t trust me, Sarah. Ach, ye’re right. And ye’re right to take the boat, for it’s time I was giving it up. A man can only give so many years to the sea. The best man there is has to be put ashore at the end.’ He put his hand dramatically on his heart. ‘And I didna write to ye because I thought ye might worry yourself . . . but I’ve no’ been well . . .’

  Believing none of this, his sister suddenly swung her handbag at him striking his shoulder a solid blow. She said scornfully, ‘You’re as strong as a horse!’

  ‘No, no.’ The Skipper looked round at the familiar objects of his tiny cabin and nodded sadly. ‘Aye. I was born aboard the Maggie, sixty years ago, and I’d always hoped – that one day I would die aboard her.’

  For the first time Sarah felt uneasy. She eyed him reflectively as she sipped her whisky. ‘There’s no need to talk like that.’

  ‘But we’re both already overdue for the breaker’s yard,’ the Skipper said, topping up her glass. He turned away, apparently overcome by emotion, and covered his face with his hands.

  Sarah protested doubtfully, ‘Ye’ll no’ get round me like that, d’ye hear, Peter MacTaggart?’

  In terrible despair the Skipper confessed, ‘I said to myself, if only we could do this job, if only we could get this three hundred pounds, then ye might agree to wait for the rest. But I was afraid to come and see ye till I had the money to hand to ye.’

  ‘Three hundred pounds?’ asked Sarah, drinking quickly.

  ‘Aye.’ He shook his head. ‘But ye might never get it. The Maggie’s no’ sound. If she sank on the way . . .’

  ‘Ye’d never let her sink! Whatever’s to be said against ye, you’re a seaman like your father.’

  ‘I’m an old man, Sarah.’

  She poured herself another drink. ‘Ach, will ye stop talking like that! What’s the matter wi’ ye? I may have been o’er-hasty . . . Let me think.’

  On the open deck Hamish embraced McGregor, and McGregor embraced the boy. They were still talking and laughing quietly together a quarter of an hour later when the Skipper and his sister emerged from the cabin. McGregor, who was Sarah’s sworn enemy, was profoundly affable, bowing, scraping, smiling, almost falling overboard, as she pushed her massive body through the hatch. She glared at him suspiciously and then turned to her brother, who was following her out of the hatch.

  ‘But mind ye, it’s me to handle the business.’

  The Skipper touched her arm reassuringly. ‘Of course, Sarah. It’s right that ye should. I’ll take ye to the CSS office in the morning. It was through them we got the cargo.’

  She crossed the deck and wheezed up the first rungs of the ladder. Then she paused as a new suspicion threatened her peace of mind. ‘How am I to know you won’t sneak away before morning?’

  ‘Sarah!’ The Skipper was hurt. ‘Besides, the tide is falling, we couldna get out before nine in the morning.’

  She said firmly, ‘I’ll be here at eight.’

  The crew watched with admiration and excitement as the Skipper climbed up beside Sarah on the dock. He said praisingly, ‘Ye’re nae so copious aboot the body as when I last saw ye. It becomes ye.’

  She turned away, pleased. ‘Och, ye old flatterer!’

  The Skipper took a pace forward and kissed her on the cheek. He said, ‘I canna tell ye what it means to me having your encouragement. It strengthens me, Sarah.’

  She called, sentimentally, ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night to ye, Sarah.’

  As she turned, a few paces away, she saw him standing alone, an old, tired, almost broken but not quite defeated man who was determined somehow to carry on. Warmed by emotion and the unaccustomed whisky she climbed slowly up the hill.

  As soon as she had disappeared into the darkness the Skipper became a changed man. He skipped down the ladder like a mountain goat and called in a hoarse whisper, ‘Get ready to get under way! The sooner we’re out of here the better. Ach, the auld battle-axe!’

  The crew accepted the emergency. McGregor slid down to his engine-room, Hamish loosened the ropes on the bollards. It was not long before the Maggie was chugging quietly away from the dock: its dark, unexpected shape pushed out into the river and the ripples of its wake spread across the quiet waters. Only the boy seemed unhappy. For a moment he stood near the bow, watching the black mirror of water. Then, turning, he walked up to join the others – the mate coiling a rope, the engineman at his hatch, the Skipper leaning from the window of his wheelhouse.

  The boy called, ‘Captain, sir?’ He voiced his doubts with deference. ‘What you said about the tide, sir . . . Is that no’ true? Are we no’ a bit late trying to get down this way?’

  They turned on him with a unanimity that suggested they secretly held the same doubts.

  ‘Haud your whisht! What do you know about it?’

  ‘Ye’re no’ the Captain yet, laddie.’

  ‘Ye’re getting over-cheeky. Get forrard and make us some tea!’

  Crestfallen, the boy went back towards the fo’c’sle hatch in the bows, but he had still some yards to go when he was flung violently off his feet. With a scraping noise and a violent shudder the ship ground to a standstill.

  Chapter Six

  (1)

  Calvin B. Marshall, General Overseas Manager of World International Airways, was a man dedicated to efficiency. Time was more to him than money. Telephones, dictaphones, electric buzzers, loudspeakers, teleprinters: these were the weapons with which he fought against the erosion of precious hours and minutes. From early morning until late evening his office bustled with swift, efficient movement and the hubbub of urgent conversation. The telephone was a fractious master whose impatient ring must be instantly answered.

  In such a kingdom Pusey was a lord high chamberlain. He would do, or try to do, anything that was ordered. As he came with a worried frown from the manager’s room Marshall’s voice sounded angrily through the outer office: ‘. . . know as well as I do that we can’t afford mistakes. The first principle of sound business administration . . .’ Pusey closed the door, leaving the three departmental managers to their fate.

  ‘Mr Campbell’s on the line now, Mr Pusey.’ Miss Peters, Marshall’s smart young secretary, held out the telephone.

  ‘Thank you.’ He came fussily across, but as he lifted the receiver to his ear it was plain that his attention was still on the glazed door where Marshall’s shadow, the forceful gesticulating hand, could be seen.

  ‘Hello! Mr Campbell?’ He heard the broad Scottish acknowledgment four hundred miles away in Glasgow. ‘Mr Campbell, I was rather anxious, so I thought I’d call you. I trust the cargo got away all right.’

  ‘What cargo would that be?’

  ‘Why the cargo on the boat, of course.’

  ‘What boat?’

  ‘What boat! The boat I chartered yesterday!’ He tried to keep calm, but the seed of panic was there in his brain. Miss Peters, standing efficiently at his side, looked at him enquiringly, ready with pencil and notebook, a directory, another telephone. Marshall’s voice still boomed terror through the door.

  In Glasgow Campbell was saying, ‘You found a boat, then? Well done!’

  ‘Found a boat!’ Pusey put one hand over the mouthpiece as he turned to Miss Peters. ‘Really, this man is utterly impossible!’ Into the telephone he said, ‘Surely you’ve heard from your Captain MacTaggart.’

  Campbell was saying, ‘This laddie’s off his head,’ only he didn’t trouble to cover the mouthpiece. He said, ‘D’ye mean to say ye made arrangements with MacTaggart?’

  Pusey was covering his eyes with his free hand. ‘Really, Mr Campbell, in all my experience . . .’ His whole body stiffened with feminine indignation as laughter came echoing from the re
ceiver. ‘I’m so glad you find it humorous!’

  The voice on the telephone spluttered an apology. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Pusey. Only Captain Jamieson here heard me use MacTaggart’s name. He was telling me about all the fuss down at Broomilaw.’

  ‘Fuss? Broomilaw? Do you think you could possibly explain?’

  ‘Yes, well . . .’ There was a moment of indistinct talk as though Captain Jamieson was finishing the story, and then Campbell bellowed again with laughter. ‘Ye mean it’s still there?’

  Pusey pursed his lips and waited.

  At last, as the laughter died down, Campbell came back on the line. ‘Mr Pusey, I really must apologise. Only, I must tell you – MacTaggart has nothing to do with our organisation. He’s master of an old Puffer – aye, the Maggie. And d’ye mean to say ye put your cargo on his boat?’ He began to laugh again. ‘Ach, the chances are ye’ve seen the last of it! But I can give ye a piece of information about it. Something I’ve just heard. Early this morning . . .’

  As he recounted with gusto the truth about MacTaggart and about the Maggie and her crew poor Pusey listened with growing horror. His eyes widened. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. ‘Oh, no . . . Oh, no . . . but that isn’t possible!’ Adding to his horror the door of Marshall’s room opened and the three executives came out, self-consciously, like schoolboys who had felt the cane. Pusey’s wild stare followed them across the office, then back again as the intercommunication set on Miss Peters’ desk clicked to authority. ‘Send Pusey in.’

  The sound of his master’s voice seemed to fill Pusey with almost animal terror. His lips trembled. His eyes bulged. Blindly putting the receiver down on Miss Peters’ desk he stumbled across the room towards Marshall’s office, and Campbell’s laughter followed him like a banshee call from another world.

  On first sight Calvin B. Marshall was the man that Pusey had always imagined him to be – fierce, cruel, utterly ruthless, yet on watching him dispassionately you could see from the eyes and the sudden unexpected quirk to the mouth that he was a man of humour, possibly even kindliness. He waited at his desk impatiently – for he had just given a justifiable rebuke to three senior executives – and to Pusey he seemed like a Grand Inquisitor ready to begin the torture. On the mahogany top of his desk lay the evidence of his authority – a welter of papers, graphs and charts, some silver-plated trophies, including a model of a four-engined World International Airways aircraft. There was also a large leather frame holding a photograph of his wife.

  In a querulous voice Pusey began his tale of woe. He was so near to tears that Marshall had difficulty in understanding exactly what had happened.

  ‘. . . and he gave me his signature!’ Pusey cried.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He signed the inventory.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So naturally I – I chartered the boat.’

  ‘And?’

  Pusey burst out, with rising hysteria, ‘They weren’t who they said they were. And Campbell says the cargo’s not on the boat, it’s in Glasgow, and the man I spoke to – he hasn’t a boat at all, but something called a Puffer! And instead of being well on its way to Kiltarra it was stuck on the subway, and not even the right boat . . .’

  ‘Just a moment!’ Calvin B. Marshall was quite calm, but he was looking as though he feared for Pusey’s sanity. ‘Just let me get one thing straight. You say . . . a boat is stuck on the subway?’

  (2)

  It was. The Maggie was perched about fifty yards from the north bank of the Clyde with her bows down and her stern ludicrously propped up, well out of the water. Her propeller was showing, and the dinghy, which was attached by a painter, was hanging vertically from the stern. A police boat was lying alongside, and another boat, with three figures in it, was going out from the bank. On the bridge and along the embankment a growing crowd of Glaswegians enjoyed the spectacle and encouraged the crew of the Maggie with ribald witticisms.

  Sitting despondently in the engine-room hatchway McGregor ignored their taunts. Beside him the mate lay stretched out on the deck, asleep. Only the boy gave moral support to the Skipper, who was leaning from his wheelhouse to continue his argument with a policeman.

  ‘You’d no right to put out at that state of the tide!’ the policeman was saying as he climbed, discomfited, into his patrol boat. ‘You may have damaged the . . .’

  ‘And what about the damage to my ship!’ the Skipper demanded indignantly.

  As the patrol boat moved gently in the swell, a rowboat pulled steadily across the oily water towards the Maggie. There were three men aboard, the owner, pulling laconically at the oars as though, having passed his life with seafaring men, he had lost the capacity for surprise, and two pressmen who were looking towards a story with incredulous delight. As the owner shipped his oars, the photographer took his camera from its case and squinted up at the Maggie. The reporter stood up and hailed the Skipper.

  ‘Captain MacTaggart, I’m from the Star. Would you care to make a statement?’

  For the benefit of the policemen the Skipper shouted, ‘Ye can say I’m considering bringing an action.’

  The reporter grinned. ‘Good for you, Captain! What’s your destination?’

  ‘Kiltarra.’

  The policemen, deciding regretfully that there was nothing to be done, sailed upstream, their launch cutting neat ripples through the water. Taking this as a moral victory for the Maggie the onlookers raised a cheer.

  ‘What are you carrying?’ the reporter called.

  The Skipper, hanging out of the wheelhouse, raised his voice so that it would carry to the scoffers on the bank. ‘A very valuable cargo what belongs to Mr Calvin B. Marshall, of World International Airways . . .’

  ‘Are you now?’ Visibly impressed, the reporter made a note. ‘And you’re going to Kiltarra, Captain?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘As soon as you’re – afloat?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘How do you propose to get her off, Captain?’

  ‘How d’ye think? I’ll wait for the tide.’

  Along the bank and the bridge the audience, growing restless, continued their catcalls. ‘Ahoy! Captain Carlsen! Are ye hanging on?’ The Skipper and his crew bristled with indignation as they waited for the tide.

  Chapter Seven

  One reason for Calvin B. Marshall’s success was that when things went wrong he was not afraid of making himself responsible for putting them right. Within an hour of hearing Pusey’s miserable story he was on a plane bound for Glasgow.

  It was a BEA plane – belonging to their chief rivals – but even he, the General Overseas Manager of World International Airways, could find nothing to criticise. They had left Northolt punctual to the minute, and now reclining in a deeply cushioned seat, with the green map of England rolling pleasantly below, he could feel for the first time a certain satisfaction in this small adventure. For the moment he was relaxed. In the next seat – a silk stocking, a neat shoe, the open notebook on her knee – sat the efficient Miss Peters. Across the gangway Pusey sat and perspired.

  Mr Marshall felt sorry for Pusey. So far as he could tell from his garbled story, this unscrupulous Skipper MacTaggart had tricked him into sending the cargo – Marshall’s cargo – by some wretched little boat called a Puffer. Mercifully, the boat had run aground before it had cleared Glasgow docks. Marshall, who could always admire initiative, looked forward to meeting MacTaggart. He bore him no grudge. A short flight to Glasgow, an hour there to settle the matter: he could be back in London in the morning. He remembered that tomorrow evening his wife was giving a dinner party.

  He must have dozed then, for when he opened his eyes the plane was stationary on the tarmac and Pusey was touching him deferentially on the arm. ‘If you’re ready, sir. I’ve hired a car.’

  They drove to the centre of Glasgow. The commissionaire of the Central Hotel touched his hat as he opened the door. Pusey and Miss Peters fluttered round two porters who were carrying the bags. Speed and efficiency.
Marshall dropped two coppers to a newsvendor standing at the kerb.

  ‘Puffer aground on subway – ‘‘Will sue’’ says Skipper.’ Below the caption, an ancient boat, ludicrously upended, held the centre of the page. Marshall smiled as he followed the porters to his suite.

  In a few minutes – for he would waste no time even on an adventure – he had washed and was ready to tackle all the shipping companies and skippers in Glasgow. He called Pusey. ‘Get this man Campbell on the phone. We’ll start with him.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’ Before Pusey could fumble through a directory, Miss Peters had handed him a slip with the telephone number of the CSS offices. Campbell was in and ready to take the call.

  ‘Ye’re in Glasgow, Mr Pusey? Well, I must hand it to ye for quick work.’ A chuckle; then, ‘Have you seen the Star?’

  ‘The Star?’

  ‘It’s our newspaper. There’s a picture in it would interest you. The puffer Maggie – the boat your cargo’s on.’

  While Pusey was listening to this, Marshall, following the trend of conversation, had pushed the front page of the Star before him. Pusey had time to read the headline and gain an impression of the photograph. ‘Very humorous, Mr Campbell, I’m sure!’

  ‘No offence, Mr Pusey. I’m glad ye decided to come. There’s two people here would like to see ye.’

  ‘Indeed!’

  ‘Aye. There’s a reporter called Fraser, from the Star, and there’s a good lady who says she owns the Maggie.’

  ‘Really! Well, I must say that, considering it was your fault that this fraud was perpetrated in the first place, I think it’s your duty to come here.’

  Campbell said with just a hint of Scottish granite, ‘Well, I don’t know if I like your tone, Mr Pusey.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘I don’t think I understand you when you say that the CSS bears any responsibility in the matter.’