A Prospect of Vengeance

missing; the tiller was lashed amidships; the navigation lights and the instruments were switched on, but the battery was almost flat. And the inflatable dinghy was rolled up and still in its locker.

He hadn't understood a great deal of that, but it had become clearer as the experts and the friends of the missing man had added their evidence and their theories bit by bit.

The Jenny III had evidently been Philip Masson's pride-and-joy ('Mr Masson, a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, and former Royal Marines Officer, who had won the Military Cross in Korea' — as an ex-Marine, it was no surprise that he had the smell of the sea in his nostrils, of course).

He had kept her at Lymington during the summer. She was an old Folkboat (overall length 25 feet, waterline 19.68, beam 7.22; displacement 2.16 tons), built in the '50s in traditional style, and made to last. Probably, he could have afforded something better (or so said Elwyn Rhys-Lewis, his grieving friend and a fellow yachtsman) —

'But she suited him. He often sailed her single-handed, you see, and he had her fitted out accordingly, with all the halyards led aft to the cockpit, a downhaul on the jib, and a system of cleats to hold the tiller in place if he had to go below. But she was a good sea-boat — she'd stand up to dummy2

anything the sea would throw at her. After all, Blondie Hasler sailed a Folkboat in the first single-handed race, back in 1960

— '

Elwyn Rhys-Lewis had been a good witness; maybe even a bit too good, in building up the picture?

So he had underlined Elwyn Rhys-Lewis in his notebook, for possible further consideration.

But this pride-and-joy had been kept in immaculate order, anyway — with a fair amount of help from old George White, over at Hamworthy. George was apparently a shipwright of the old school, and what he didn't know about wooden boats wasn't worth knowing. So that was why Philip Masson always laid the Jenny III up at Poole during the winter, said Mr Rhys-Lewis.

'We shall never know exactly what happened. But, thanks to the evidence which we have heard, a fair reconstruction of what may have happened is possible,' the coroner had concluded at last.

That Friday evening, the deceased went down to Lymington, for his Rover car was found in the car park. He must have gone straight on to his boat, though no one remembers seeing him. But we have heard that he made no secret of his intentions to sail her round to Poole as soon as possible, having already left it a little late in the season owing to pressure of work in London.

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'There was, we have heard, a stiff south-westerly wind blowing that Friday, with the threat of worse forecast. These were not ideal conditions for the passage he planned to take, but nothing that he and his boat could not handle. At all events, he probably heard the late night forecast of a low pressure area building up in the Atlantic, and he must have decided to make a night passage.

'In that event, he probably motored her down from Lymington to Hurst Point. Or (as we have heard) may have sailed, even though he would have had to tack all the way.

But he would have had an ebb tide under him, at all events.' (This coroner sounded as though it hadn't been his first sea tragedy, Ian had noted there.)

'Mr Rhys-Lewis and Mr White are both agreed that he would then have hoisted sail, prudently putting a tuck in the main.

And once round Hurst he would have proceeded on the port tack, taking the inshore channel to pass north of the Shingles. With a south-westerly wind he would have made good progress for two or three miles, and gone over to the starboard tack once he was sure of clearing the Shingles.

'It is at this point, one may suspect, that something went wrong, and we must attempt to recreate the situation from the little evidence we have.

'The deceased would most probably have been intending to head out to sea on a southerly course, and once clear of the Shingles to have gone about, and sailed across Poole Bay until he picked up the Fairway. By then the tide would have dummy2

turned, so he would have had a fair run into Poole entrance.

Daylight would then not have been far away, so he would have timed it exactly right to arrive at Poole Bridge for the early morning opening. With a mooring waiting for him in Holes Bay, he would have intended to go ashore at Cobbs Quay, and then taken a taxi back to Lymington, as he had done before on such occasions.

'But this he never did. We must surmise, rather, that when he went on to the starboard tack, probably somewhere off Barton in Christchurch Bay, the jib sheet shackle came adrift.

It is significant that when the boat was found the jib was flogging and the sheets lying on deck, with the pin gone from the shackle.

'That, for an experienced yachtsman, would have been only a minor annoyance. All he had to do was to find a spare shackle, clamber up to the foredeck to fit it, return to the cockpit, and then sheet in and carry on.

'Being perhaps a little further inshore than he cared to be, he would have lashed the tiller and sailed towards open sea under mainsail alone as he hunted out a shackle and fitted it to the jib.

'It is at this moment, also, that he should have taken those precautions which should have been second nature to him —

'

(This was where the coroner had ceased to be a yachtsman, dummy2

and had become all-coroner, sad and solemn and wise-after-the-event. But it had been good old Elwyn Rhys- Lewis who had been more convincing earlier.)

('Yes, of course he should have put on a lifejacket, and a safety-harness — or both — before he went up on the foredeck. But there are times when you just go ahead and get the job done . . . And how long would he have lasted in a cold sea on a November night — dangling over the side and unable to climb back? I remember chaps in the navy who didn't want to learn to swim — they said it only prolonged the agony.')