The Maggie

by James Dillon White

  Marshall sat up alertily as he saw the long blue sausage of the loch. ‘This is it.’

  They dived sharply, like a kestrel on the kill, and the tiny boats lay defenceless on the expanse of water. As they pulled out of the dive they passed a ferry boat with a few passengers at the stern waving gaily. Then, keeping a level course above the blue rippled water they saw a big cargo boat, a tanker.

  ‘There she is!’

  They came down low and flew alongside the Maggie.

  ‘It’s her all right.’

  As the pilot pulled the plane into a steady climb Marshall studied his map.

  ‘Let’s see . . .’ He asked the pilot, ‘Where do you reckon they’re making for?’

  The pilot put his finger on the map. ‘It looks like they’re putting into Inverkerran for the night.’

  Marshall looked back speculatively at the Maggie, which was now only a dot on the expanse of blue. He said, ‘Tell me: if they thought I was going to Inverkerran, where do you reckon they would make for then?’

  The pilot considered. ‘Strathcathaigh, maybe.’

  Marshall frowned. ‘Look – this sounds silly, but if they thought I’d think they were going to Strathcathaigh because it looked as if they were going to Inverkerran – where would they make for then?’

  ‘My guess would be Pennymaddy.’

  Marshall nodded wearily. ‘Well, if there’s such a thing as a triple bluff, I’ll bet MacTaggart invented it. Okay, Pennymaddy it is.’

  (2)

  When they saw the plane the crew of the Maggie knew without doubt that they had been discovered. They watched it dive, a mile or two along the loch, then as it came low over the water, passing close to each boat in turn, they knew that it would not be long before it came to them. They turned in a slow, swinging arc as it flew alongside. Finally, as it rose again and flew off, they looked at each other with apprehension.

  The Skipper was scratching his beard. ‘Aye, he’ll have guessed we were making for Inverkerran.’

  The mate asked, ‘Will he no’ go there himself, then?’

  The Skipper shook his head. ‘Och, no. He’ll know we know he’s seen us. So he’ll be expecting us to make for Strathcathaigh instead.’

  The mate said, ‘Well, shall I set her for Pennymaddy, then?’

  ‘No. Because if it should occur to him that it’s occurred to us that he’d be expecting us to make for Strathcathaigh he’d be thinking we’d make for Pennymaddy.’

  ‘Well, shall I set her for Pinwhinnoich?’

  The Skipper smiled and relaxed. ‘Och, no. We’ll make for Inverkerran, just the way we planned. It’s the last place he’d be likely to think of.’

  (3)

  The airplane came down at Ardramessan, which was the nearest landing field to Pennymaddy. Marshall paid off the pilot, who facetiously wished him, ‘Good luck, sir. You’ll need it all!’ He hired a car to take him to Pennymaddy. After his experience with the pilot he sat anxiously beside the driver, jolting over the bad roads, suffering at each bump from a broken spring, waiting to see whether his companion was also a talker. He was. Knowing every curve and twist and hole in the road he could afford to give all his garrulous attention to his passenger. When they reached Pennymaddy Marshall could feel the threat of a nervous breakdown.

  He climbed stiffly out and walked along the jetty. ‘Wait here. I’ll have to see . . . I may need you again.’

  They waited two hours before it was clear that the Maggie was not coming there for the night.

  Marshall climbed grimly back into the car.

  ‘Where will it be now, sir?’

  ‘Strarcashay.’

  ‘Where, sir?’

  ‘Strarcashay.’

  The driver laughed aloud, despite his passenger’s hunched shoulders and heavy frown. ‘Oh no, sir. You mean Strathcathaigh.’

  ‘Whatever I mean, let’s go there.’

  Once more they jolted over roads that might have caused the most good-natured man to ride in silence. But not the driver. He came from a large family and his wife came from a large family. It seemed to Marshall that no one could reasonably have so many relations or know so much about their intimate lives. It was a relief to reach Strathcathaigh.

  His pleasure at leaving the driver, even for a few minutes, was diluted by the fact that the Maggie was not in the harbour. Marshall swore softly. He thought of the bad roads, the broken spring, the driver’s relations. Any lesser man would have given up.

  Marshall clenched his jaw and marched back to the car.

  ‘It’s a pretty place, sir – Strathcathaigh. Where would ye like to be going now?’

  ‘Inverkerran – in silence!’

  The long shadows were falling across the road as they came at last to the small fishing village of Inverkerran. Outside the cottages men in blue jerseys sat smoking in the evening sun. A fisherman was folding his nets. A dog barked at the seagulls on the shore.

  The car stopped. ‘This is Inverkerran, sir.’

  Marshall climbed wearily out and hobbled across the narrow street. He looked down at the boats in the harbour and instantly his expression changed to one of almost diabolical satisfaction. Riding gently on the deep water by the harbour wall was the Maggie.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Marshall walked quickly back to the hired car. He looked suspiciously up the single street of the village as though even now the Maggie’s crew might see him and escape. In an open doorway a small ragged-trousered boy stood with one hand against the lintel, the old fishermen watched as they puffed slowly at their pipes, a cat slunk nervously along a wall.

  The car driver was leaning cheerfully out of his window. Marshall asked, ‘Okay. What do I owe you?’

  The driver recaptured on his fingers the points of their nightmare journey. ‘Ardramessan to Pennymaddy, Pennymaddy to Strathcathaigh, Strathcathaigh to Inverkerran . . . That’ll be twelve pounds, sir.’

  ‘Twelve pounds!’ Marshall took out his pocket book and grimly counted the notes. ‘Well, there’s five pounds – and seven pounds for yourself. Right?’

  The driver smiled in an infuriating way and drove off up the village street. As it bumped and rattled across the cobbles Marshall could see, from the tilt of the chassis, just how badly the spring was broken.

  He turned briskly towards the harbour. A stone jetty stretched like a curving finger into the grey water, and, alongside, the Maggie rode gently on the swell. She looked deserted, but Marshall was determined to take no chances. Although there was no one on deck or in the wheelhouse, and the hawsers were still round the bollards, he did not let his attention wander for one second as he stepped cautiously along the pier. Once he was on board . . .

  He came to the ladder and stepped quietly down on to the deck. The boat really did look deserted. He walked to the aft hatchway and called, ‘MacTaggart!’

  He walked to the other hatch. ‘You – down there!’

  There was no movement or acknowledgment. It occurred to him that if he went down into the cabin, where they might well be hiding, they would have a chance to escape. Only a few seconds, but enough, he knew, for MacTaggart’s men. He decided to wait on deck.

  The minutes passed and the half-hour. Light was fading across the water and an evening mist was shrouding the mountains. A lamp appeared in a cottage window, and a mother’s voice called angrily, ‘Wully – come to bed!’ Waiting with grim determination on the wooden steps, Marshall wondered whether he was being overcautious. If the crew really were hiding on board they were showing more patience than he would have considered possible. MacTaggart, for instance, might be a canny man, a wolf hiding his cunning beneath the innocent visage of a sheep, but patient . . .? He went to the hatch of the captain’s cabin and shouted, ‘Hi there! MacTaggart!’ But there was no movement or sound other than the gentle slap-slap of water against the stone jetty and the creak of rope against wood.

  Marshall climbed awkwardly down the steps into the cabin. Quite deserted. Two bunks – both unmade, a tab
le littered with rubbish, a rickety chair, a whisky bottle – almost empty, dirty glasses, a pack of cards. The air was stale with tobacco smoke. The other cabin was also deserted, also unkempt. In the engine-room Marshall paused for a moment, looking round with an engineer’s interest. He came up shaking his head. To think that his cargo might have been risked on this! Of one thing he was certain: the Maggie would founder in the first storm. It was a miracle of luck, or, he admitted grudgingly, of seamanship, that she had remained afloat for so long.

  Now that he was sure that MacTaggart could not escape he began to think of other things – of food and drink, of soap and water and a clean towel. From the deck he could see the cottages straggling along the water’s edge and one larger building with a metal sign on the wall – the inn. He climbed up on to the jetty.

  As he walked briskly towards food and warmth he noted in his suspicious mind a boy who had come down on to the jetty. The boy seemed to be coming along towards the Maggie, but as he saw Marshall he hesitated. It took a few seconds for this fact to register properly with Marshall. Then he stopped suspiciously and looked back. He remembered a boy’s magazine in one of the cabins.

  As he stopped, the boy instantly changed course, away from the Maggie. With an elaborate air of innocence he began to walk away from it, kicking a stone and circling to get back towards the village. He passed Marshall, stopped with an obviously pretended interest by an upturned rowing-boat, and then sauntered casually back the way he had come.

  Marshall moved after him. He called, ‘Hey, sonny!’

  The boy walked on, pretending not to hear.

  ‘Hey!’

  The boy glanced back, and hesitated, but as Marshall came towards him he started to walk away more quickly. Marshall quickened his step and the boy broke into a trot. Marshall followed at a run.

  They came at a hard canter to the village pub. The boy turned the corner quickly with Marshall some twenty yards in the rear. As the boy ducked into the back door Marshall was coming down the side path. He went past the back door, round the next corner until he came again to the village street. He looked round cautiously and was just in time to see the Skipper and the engineman and the wee boy come dashing out of the front door and start on another circular tour. Marshall followed with grim pleasure.

  They were obviously not aware that he had seen them, and as he came round for the second time to the back of the pub he saw them trying in vain to wriggle out of sight behind a rhubarb patch. He stared at them in amazement. Even an ostrich had as much sense as this! The meagre cover would not have hidden a baby.

  As he came slowly forward the Skipper, realising at last that he was cornered, raised his head and looked wildly around. There was no escape. Then, rising and coming forward with outstretched hand, he said, in a tone of astonishment such as he might have used to greet a friend met casually in a Glasgow street, ‘Well, look who’s here! If it isna Mr Marshall himself!’

  With the half-ashamed air of schoolboys caught in an apple orchard they followed Marshall back to a telephone booth near the harbour. Hamish, the mate, scenting trouble, came from a cottage to join them. Darkness was settling in earnest now, and Marshall had difficulty in making his arrangements in the cramped area of the box. He was a big man and he found that there was scarcely room for a briefcase and map as well as himself. When he had found the number of the CSS offices in Glasgow he dropped the map; then he dropped the briefcase; the telephone flex was hopelessly entangled; the papers in his briefcase spilled on to the floor and he had to open the door with his buttocks before he could bend sufficiently to pick them up. The operator pretended not to understand his American burr.

  ‘Hello, hello! Is that the CSS office?’

  At last he was connected with Campbell, and, with the frantic urgency of one who cannot rest until the least possibility of disaster is averted, he made his arrangements. Round the box, in the thickening gloom, the Skipper and the engineman, the mate and the wee boy hovered like vampires.

  Marshall was shouting, ‘Yes, I’ve caught them – at Inverkerran. How soon can the other boat get here? Oban? – Yes, Mr Campbell, but that . . . I’d have to sail on the thing myself. I’m not letting those lunatics out of my sight – oh, all right, if it will save a whole day . . . Don’t worry. It’ll be there – what? What’s that? Yes, just a moment, operator.’ He opened the door quickly. ‘Give me a shilling, will you?’

  The Skipper fished deeply into his pocket and pulled out a few coppers and a wad of tobacco. He turned to McGregor and the mate but they hadn’t a shilling between them. They all looked at the boy, who reluctantly began to empty his pockets – a clasp-knife, a magazine, a half-eaten apple. Marshall hesitated, then shouted into the receiver, ‘It’ll be there.’

  He slammed down the receiver, and started down the jetty towards the Maggie. He seemed too angry to speak, and the crew followed him in glum silence. But the Skipper could not be downcast for long. He lengthened his stride and came up to Marshall’s shoulder.

  He asked, ‘But is it worth your while to go thirty miles south, Mr Marshall?’

  Marshall did not even turn his head, but the Skipper went on undaunted.

  ‘It’s sailing in the wrong direction, d’ye realise? And we could reach Kiltarra in two days easy, just like . . .’

  Still Marshall did not look round, but he interrupted in a voice carefully controlled, as though he were speaking to a child. Obviously he was still very angry.

  Marshall said, ‘MacTaggart, I can think of nineteen reasons why I should have you put in jail. You took fifty pounds under false pretences. You got Pusey arrested for poaching. You cost me two days’ worth of airplanes at sixteen pounds an hour and enough on taxis to buy a fleet of taxis . . .’

  The Skipper was genuinely sorry. He said, ‘If I’ve offended ye in any way . . .’

  Marshall raised his hands to heaven and started to climb down the steps to the Maggie. After he had climbed four or five rungs he looked up at the Skipper’s guileless countenance. With a terrible effort of self-restraint he said, ‘But if you want to know the real reason I’m taking this cargo away from you, it’s simply that nobody ever gets away with trying to make a monkey out of me!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the captain’s cabin Marshall was trying to recapture some of the time lost on this crazy adventure. Seated on a rickety chair he had spread the papers in his briefcase over the small table. The oil lamp above his head gave a meagre light. All evening he had been sitting here, on guard, trying to concentrate on his work, while the boat rose to the swelling tide, rose and fell, rose and fell. He tried not to think of tomorrow, when they must put to sea. He stood up irritably and tried to turn up the lamp wick. Normally he could concentrate anywhere – in a car, a train, a moving plane. But here in the silent harbour, with only the slapping waves, the bark of a dog, an occasional burst of song from the inn, he found himself turning the same problems over and over in his mind. He leaned back tiredly in the chair. You couldn’t carry efficiency in a briefcase. Then he sat up, determined not to be beaten. There were two whole days to be made up. Two whole days!

  For a few minutes he drove his tired brain forward. Then, at a distant but unmistakable sound, he hesitated again. Someone was coming along the jetty, someone singing. With laboured patience Marshall put down his pen.

  There were several minutes of scuffling and puffing before the Skipper got safely on to the Maggie. He was singing again as he negotiated the deck.

  ‘I’m ower young to marry yet . . .’

  Listening tensely Marshall heard him stumble over a bucket, fall, rise unsteadily, and stagger towards the lighted cowling of the hatch.

  ‘I’m ower young to marry yet,

  I’m ower young to marry.’

  He came slowly and with great difficulty down the ladder into the cabin, first his feet, then his legs, his whole swaying body. He reached safety at last and turned with expansive generosity and good nature towards his guest.

  ‘D�
��ye know any of the old airs, Mr Marshall?’ He sang in a melancholy voice, ‘I’m ower young to marry yet – hic.’ He steadied himself against the table. ‘Ach, ye should have come with us. We’d soon learn ye . . .’

  Unable to escape from the tiny cabin Marshall had his hand gripped warmly in the Skipper’s rough palm. MacTaggart said, with emotion, ‘I have been thinking about our small dispute of this evening, sir, and I realise that you spoke in anger. A bit of luck with the weather, and we’ll be sailing along to Glenbrachan just as smart as ye please.’

  He seemed to sense that Marshall did not want to be embraced. He looked vaguely round the cabin, trying to concentrate, in the aura of whisky, on what he was saying. He took two steps towards his bunk, sat down and made a half-hearted attempt to unfasten a bootlace.

  He continued, in a deep voice, slurring his words, ‘She’s a bonny wee boat, a bonny wee boat right enough. Aye, I was born aboard her, Mr Marshall, sixty-one years ago. Did ye know that? Born aboard the old Maggie. Aye, and I’ll die aboard her, too . . .’

  He leant back happily, his speech becoming more and more indistinct as he added, ‘After a respectable . . . interval.’ He passed into oblivion.

  Marshall picked up his pen and tried to concentrate on his work again. He frowned as he sorted out his papers. He fumbled in his briefcase.

  Like a bluebottle round the bone of his concentration the Skipper’s voice mumbled incoherently, drifted after a while into heavy breathing, and then became a series of vibrating snores.

  Infuriated beyond words, Marshall turned towards the recumbent figure on the bunk. The snores came from the very depths of slumber, rose, inflated, rattled out their challenge and died again into a brittle silence. For a few seconds there was a lull before the next one began. The smell of whisky seemed almost tangible in the small cabin. Marshall struggled vainly to open a porthole which hadn’t been opened for years. Nursing his injured hand he turned again to the unconscious Skipper, whose snores were coming smoothly now like the sound of an efficient but eccentric engine.