Bullock came up from the saloon hatch and the Captain shopped his whistling.
“Good morning, sir,” Bullock said.
“Good morning, Mister. Walk for’ard with me for a moment. I wish to take a look at the anchors.”
The two men went down the ladder from the poop, paced slowly towards the fo’c’sle, conferring with heads close together. There was, Halfhyde knew, nothing about the anchors that needed examination: McRafferty wished for privacy in his conversation, and Halfhyde’s guess was that the talk was about the passenger waiting in Iquique, the passenger acquired through Bullock’s contacts. McRafferty had not spoken of the matter again to Halfhyde; he was possibly worried now in case the passenger should not wait for a delayed sailing ship and seek a steamer instead to take him to Sydney.
Halfhyde smiled at the girl in the deck chair: by this time he knew her name to be Fiona, but it would be both impolite and rash for him to use it. She returned his smile, and some colour came in her face. There was no opportunity for conversation, for at that moment Halfhyde found evidence of a wind, a light one, from the north, and he called for’ard to the Captain. McRafferty waved in acknowledgement and came running aft with the First Mate, who was already shouting for the hands to stand by the braces. The wind failed them again after they had made a little progress, and once again they lay becalmed, but not for long. As though that wind had been a harbinger, a fresher blow came and kept up steadily and for long enough to clear the doldrums, to the relief of all hands. Within a couple of days the Aysgarth Falls had picked up the south-east trades and had begun the tack down towards the tip of the South American continent, into the offshore area where the Pampero blew from the pampas of the Plate, with its rapid fall in temperature, its teeming rain, its thunder and lightning that played around the masts and yards and sent frightening crashes down through the ship to shake her very frames. Then, as they dropped further south and came into the westerlies roaring around Cape Horn, the winds that blew without cease right around the world in the High South Latitudes, life became an apparently endless battle against wind and sea, and the call from the poop was constantly for all hands, with every man working to fight the ship round into the South Pacific, enduring a frozen, wet hell as McRafferty tried to find the elusive shift of wind that would carry him into gentler waters. It was a grey, dreary time of no hot food, no fires to dry out clothing, frozen fingers pulling the nails out on the ropes, sea-sores, nipped flesh and gashed arms and legs. Goss, the saloon steward, was kept busy with his medical chest, putting on plasters and bandages with the assistance of Fiona McRafferty, temporarily released from purdah in the interest of sending the hands back to duty as soon as possible.
Halfhyde became one of her patients, having suffered a deep cut on his right forearm as it was caught by a stranded wire in the standing rigging. While she cleaned the wound with soap and precious water Halfhyde tried to draw her into conversation during one of Goss’ absences from the saloon, asking her how many times she had made the passage of the Horn.
“Oh,” she said lightly, “I can’t remember. A lot of times. I’m quite used to it.” She hesitated, then went on, “Father told me you had been round—once, I think he said.”
“Twice. Out and home. Outward bound aboard a battleship, the Meridian. It’s easier in steam. You can disregard the wind.” The short exchange ended when Goss came back; the steward’s cold, unresponsive manner seemed to make the girl close in on herself and become formal, as though she knew he would carry tales to her father.
At last, the shift of wind came and was taken full advantage of and soon after this the Aysgarth Falls was round Cape Horn and into easier waters, though still tacking into the teeth of the westerlies, which called for expert handling of the canvas. Both McRafferty and Bullock showed their qualities: both were first-class seamen, as Halfhyde had been quick to recognize from the start. But now he began to recognize something else: McRafferty, though always the master when it came to the handling of his ship, gave the impression that he was playing it carefully where Bullock was concerned. Just little things; a touch of arrogance in the First Mate’s manner that was inappropriate towards the Captain, arrogance that brought no rebuke although McRafferty looked put out; muttered conversations out of hearing of the hands, when McRafferty’s face developed a scowl and he seemed ill-at-ease. Halfhyde had the notion that the First Mate had some kind of hold over the Captain, and once again he thought about the passenger waiting in Iquique.
SOMEONE ELSE had got wind of that passenger: the seaman named Float, the knife-bearer who
