Sea Lord

standing on a thwart I could just see over the sill of the quayside.

A dark-painted van, with no lights, was being driven slowly into George’s yard. I did not move. It was possible, even likely, that these were some of George’s friends who had permission to use his warehouse. The van was probably loaded with stolen goods. The only reason I was suspicious was that George had not given me any warning. Usually, when some mayhem was imminent, he would tell me not to worry if I heard something go bump in the night.

The van braked to a halt. Its motor was cut.

I slid my special boathook out of its brackets.

The van’s front doors opened quietly. Two men climbed out. George always left a light burning outside his office door and, in its glow, I could see that one of the men was burly and bald, the other thin, commanding, and black-haired. It was Garrard and Peel, who now stood beside the van staring to where Sunflower’s masts reared above the grid. And how the hell, I wondered, had they found me? It had to be George. Doubtless he had done a favour to someone by betraying my whereabouts, and I promised myself that I’d kick his fat hide to kingdom come when I had the chance. I supposed it was my own fault for telling George that the painting was worth at least twenty million quid. George’s cupidity must have overwhelmed his love of a lord.

The two men would have seen me if I’d tried to climb up over the quay. I did not want them to see me. They thought I was fast asleep, and I wanted them to continue in that blissful ignorance. I glanced towards Sunflower’s dark cabin, wondering whether I had time to fetch my rigging knife, but knew I dared not waste a second.

For to hesitate would be to trap myself. The two men were already walking softly towards Sunflower as I slid over her stern and lowered myself to the grid. The water was black beneath me. I could hear the men’s footsteps as I lowered myself again, this time into the black, filthy, and freezing water. I shivered, then pushed away from the grid’s piles towards one of the decrepit fishing boats at the end of the small dock. The weighted boathook tried to drag me down, but I did not have far to go, and the impetus of my push carried me to the dock’s side wall where a rusty ring gave me a handhold. I pushed on again, this time hiding in the impenetrable shadow between the fishing boat and the wall.

A torch beam slashed down into the dock, flicked across the water, then settled on Sunflower. The beam was dazzling for a few seconds, then was switched off. I was struggling forward, ducking under the thick tyres which George used as fenders. I needed to round the dock’s corner to the river wall where an iron ladder climbed to the quayside.

I heard one of the men drop down on to Sunflower’s deck. The torch was switched on again. They had abandoned stealth by now, but their bird was flown, planning his own ambush. I was hurrying for I did not want to give the two men time to search Sunflower, and thus undo all my repair work. I cleared the fishing boat, hauled myself forward on its bow mooring rope and turned the corner into the tug of the tide’s current. For a second I feared I would be swept downstream by this last feeble ebb, but I lunged the boathook forward and managed to snag one of the ladder’s rungs. The hook made a dull clunking noise, but the two men were making enough noise of their own, and did not hear me. They were talking. The noise I feared was the splintering sound as they began to search Sunflower’s half-repaired cabin, but so far they only talked.

I climbed the ladder’s rusted rungs. The torch beam slashed over my head like the loom of a lighthouse. I froze.

“The bastard’s gone.” That was Garrard’s distinctive voice. I heard him grunt as he hauled himself back to the quay’s top. “Try the office.”

I heard the office door rattle, but it was locked and the big bald man made no attempt to force it. The torch beam began circling the yard again. I climbed to the top of the ladder, waited till the light was probing the rubbish tip behind the warehouse, then rolled into the shadow of one of the many junk piles which littered George’s yard.

I would have preferred it if the two men had been on board Sunflower, for then, given the advantage of the quayside, I would have been above them. I’d contemplated trapping them there and, using the boathook as a weapon, forcing some answers from them. Instead both men were roaming the yard. I thought that if I stayed motionless they might abandon the search and leave me in peace. It wasn’t that I was scared of a fight, but there’s no point in fighting superior odds unless it’s really necessary, and so I stayed still.

Garrard stayed by Sunflower and told Peel where to search. The bald man thus clambered futilely about George’s yard while Garrard idled on the quay above my boat. And while he idled he discovered the rope that I’d tied from the upper spreaders to the ringbolt.

Garrard had a smaller torch and, in its light, he examined the bow and stern ropes and the spring lines, then flashed the beam up to trace the rope that was taut at the spreaders. He walked to the workshop wall and tugged on the rope and he saw how the added tension dragged the mast towards him. He tested the rope again, and I knew what was passing through his evil mind. Without that tether, Sunflower’s balance would be very precarious. She was resting on her long, deep keel and, though she weighed a good few tons, it would not take much effort to unbalance her. It was just about low tide and, with one good push, she would fall like a truck into the shallow waters eight feet below her. Her mast would break and God knew what other damage would be done.

Garrard plucked down my notice which warned no one to touch the rope and tore it into two. I tensed, ready to charge at him, but instead of drawing his knife and slashing the rope he lit a cigarette and leaned against the workshop wall. It seemed he had no intention of destroying Sunflower, just as, strangely, he showed no sign of wanting to search her. It appeared the two men had only one interest this night: finding me.

“Bugger’s gone.” Peel trudged disconsolately into view.

They spoke softly for a minute or two, too softly for me to hear anything they said. Both their torches raked once more round the yard, the beams scything over my head, but for some reason neither man searched the low heap of metal behind which I was hidden. They did shine their torches down into the moored boats, but it was clear they had given up any hope of finding me.

“Fetch the van,” Garrard said.

Peel started the van and switched on its headlights. In the strong light I could see Garrard was dressed in his horsy cavalry twill, waistcoat and tweed jacket. I could also see that his right hand was bandaged from the savaging I’d given it with the boathook. He looked like the kind of man I used to know well: loud-voiced and confident, always to be found at a racecourse where he’d have known the stable lad of an unfancied horse in the third race which was worth a bob or two on the nose. Such men had knowing eyes and bitter resentments. They could be good companions for an afternoon, but not for longer.

Peel put the van into gear. The bandage on Garrard’s right hand was not inconveniencing him for, almost casually, he drew his knife and reached up to Sunflower’s tethering rope. The knife must have been razor sharp, for it sliced through the half-inch rope without any apparent effort.

I tensed again in sudden flaring panic.

I could see, in the van’s headlights, that Sunflower had not moved. I had her leaning towards the dock, which offered a margin of safety, but my heart was flogging like a wet sail in a headwind all the same. Garrard watched her, half expecting to see the yacht crash down into the Stygian blackness beneath, but she stayed upright. He crushed his cigarette under his right shoe, opened the passenger door, and the van drove away.

I waited. The van disappeared behind the workshop. I heard the yard gates open, the van growl through, then the gates crash shut. I listened as the van drove up the street, paused at the main road junction, then accelerated away.

Silence.

The wind was lifting the cut rope into the night, but Sunflower, good Sunflower, was stable and solid.

I stood up slowly. I was freezing cold. I was wearing nothing but one pair of sodden jeans and my muscles were stiff as boards. I took the wet jeans off, walked to the quayside, and tossed them down into Sunflower’s cockpit. This was no time to be worrying about being naked, my priority was