The signal sped through the water, miles and miles in the blink of an eye, faster even than the torpedoes, those underwater missiles that the new dreadnoughts had been armed with. But where was this word being sent to? Who would be able to hear it? Who would be able to answer it?
No one, of course. The sea was full of fish, not people. What was her father thinking of, making Jones send a signal over and over which no one could answer? Marina would much rather contact Miss Smith and tell her all her adventures.
‘Wait . . .’ the signal repeated. She was about to pull the headset off, but thought she caught another noise, another part of the message. ‘Stay quiet . . .’ And then, something more puzzling, that made no sense. ‘Your lost pearl . . .’
What a stupid message. If that was even what she heard. Perhaps it was just the buzzing and whirring of the insides of the signals machine.
But just as Marina admitted to herself that Jones had the most boring job in the world, listening to blips and drips of sound, she heard something.
A breath. A note. A snatch of song.
Her throat went tight. Her chest felt as if it were bound with rope. Marina couldn’t breathe. She pushed off the listening equipment.
‘I just need to . . .’ She stumbled a little as she stood up.
‘Are you going to be sick?’ Jones asked. ‘Do you need a bucket?’
‘No . . .’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I thought I heard something.’
‘What?’
But how could Marina explain?
Agonized, ragged sobs . . . dark water . . . a space too small to move . . . Torture. It was the sound of torture. She had never once heard any creature being tortured, but she had recognized the sound immediately.
‘I just need fresh air.’
14
Marina leant over the side of the Sea Witch and watched the streamers of white foam. What had just happened? What had she just heard?
She took a deep breath of air. One thing was clear: she had embarrassed herself in front of Jones. No wonder the navy wouldn’t take girls on their boats if just listening to signals made them feel so ill they had to rush out on deck.
‘Are you feeling better?’ Jones had followed her out. ‘You look very pale. Like you’ve seen a ghost.’
She turned away, embarrassed. She couldn’t explain what she had felt. It would make her look foolish.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I just felt a bit sick.’
‘It’s very stuffy in that room,’ he said, looking relieved. ‘I’m not good in small spaces either. That’s why I couldn’t stay down the pit. But as long as I know there’s some sky above me, I don’t go beserk.’
It was an odd thing to say, Marina thought.
He smiled at her, shy again. ‘You sure you’re not going to be sick? It’s just I can’t leave the machine. There’s a signal due.’
‘I feel much better.’ She smiled as brightly as she could. ‘And thank you for letting me help you. Even though I wasn’t much help.’
‘It’s nice to have some company.’ He shrugged, his cheeks pink from the wind or from his own awkwardness – it was hard to tell which. ‘And we’re all members of the crew.’
Members of the crew. That didn’t seem like such a simple thing now. She was on a boat, with her father. But where was the boat going, and what was her father going to do? No one had explained and she felt that no one would do so even if she asked.
Boats were going missing in the seas to the north and her father was heading for that very place. Was the Sea Witch in danger? And what of that mysterious message he was sending in a secret code? Who was that intended for?
How Marina wished that she could talk to Miss Smith about this: she knew so much about Admiralty business; perhaps she could explain to Marina what the Sea Witch was getting tangled up in.
The sun set; the sky flushed pink and the sea answered with its own rosy glow. Marina heard the mournful strain of an accordion and a man’s voice singing.
‘As I sailed out one day, one day . . .’
The song spiralled out over the water, like smoke.
‘And being not far from land,
I spied a mermaid sitting on a rock,
With a comb and a glass in her hand . . .’
Marina closed her eyes as the music lapped around her. It was Brown who sang this sad ballad of sailors who saw a mermaid and knew they would surely drown. They bravely took turns to bid farewell to their loved ones.
‘Then up stepped the captain of our ship,
‘And a well-speaking man is he.
‘He says: ‘I have a wife, my boys, in fair Plymouth town,
‘But this night and a widow she shall be.’
When Marina climbed into her hammock that night, she found no sleep there. The light, pulsing noise of her father’s coded signal seemed to reach her even though she wore no listening equipment. She put her hands over her ears, but still it found her.
‘I’ll get no rest down here,’ she said to the dogs as she swung her legs over the side of her hammock and scrambled back up on deck.
Endless waves illuminated by sequins of starlight. They rose and fell, and Marina rose and fell with them. This movement no longer made her feel sick; instead she welcomed each glittering, silver, moonlit wave. The sea spread out around her – another country, another realm, although one that could never fully be conquered,
