Chapter Three #3
“And old Jessup’s a wine merchant. What a stroke of luck! It gives me somewhere to start looking. As soon as my papers arrive,” he added sheepishly.
“Let’s hope it’s soon,” said Daisy in heartfelt tones.
THIRD SEA INTERLUDE
They hired men with the scythes so sharp
To cut him off at the knee.
They rolled him and tied him by the waist,
And served him most barbarously.
They hired men with the sharp pitchforks,
Who pricked him to the heart,
And the loader he served him worse than that,
For he bound him to the cart.
“Welcome aboard Barleycorn,” grunted the seaman who had helped Patrick to descend from Iffie. A couple of others were busy stowing sacks and crates. “Skipper’s in the wheelhouse.”
Taking this as an invitation—or perhaps an order—Patrick made his way cautiously forward by starlight, making for the blacker black rectangle in the bow. The wheelhouse was much lower than he would have expected. He couldn’t imagine how a man might stand upright inside.
Beneath his feet, the deck surged as the Barleycorn put on speed, her engines running smooth and quiet. Having found his sea legs weeks ago aboard Iphigenia, Patrick adjusted easily to the motion.
“And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead …,” he sang silently to himself.
“Then little Sir John sprung up his head, and soon amazed them all.”
Whoever had christened the bootleggers’ boat had a sense of humour, though somewhat lacking in common sense. Her name would surely arouse suspicion in anyone who knew the old ballad.
He was quite close to the wheelhouse before he could make out the windows, faintly illuminated by the binnacle lamp within.
But glancing back, he saw the wide white curve of the wake.
If Coast Guard vessels were about, they could hardly miss that signal.
Then, the very absence of required lights would be cause enough to stop her.
The wheelhouse roof was just above his waist level. Stooping, he peered through the side window and saw the silhouette of a mariner in a peaked cap. He knocked.
The man at the wheel gestured to him to enter. He had to crouch to enter and climb down a short ladder to reach the deck inside.
“Sir, I’m Patrick—”
“No names,” growled the skipper.
“Right-oh. I mean, aye, sir. But I’m supposed to be meeting a man….”
“The Irishman.”
“Is he aboard?”
“Nope. Waiting ashore.”
“Oh.” While not exactly gushing, the skipper didn’t seem actually hostile. Patrick ventured a question. “May I ask why the wheelhouse is lower than the main deck?”
“So there’s somewhere to duck down when the bullets start flying.”
“Gosh, I’d hoped the stories I’ve heard were exaggerated. The Coast Guard actually shoot to kill?”
“Ayup. Leastways, I don’t say they mean to kill, but when you turn a machine gun on a manned ship, accidents happen.”
“I suppose so.”
“Even with bulletproof glass and armour plating.”
“Which she has?”
“Purpose-built.”
Patrick was silent for a moment, contemplating the degree of adventure he was encountering. “Are you … er … are we expecting to meet any Coast Guard ships?”
“Regular patrol cutter hereabouts is paid off. Shore station likewise. But there’s no knowing where they’ll pop up. We can outrun ’em, given half a chance, even their new cutters.”
“I thought your engines sounded sweet. Where do you intend to land the stuff?”
“No names. We’ll get you where you’re bound. You don’t need to know how.”
“Sorry!”
Patrick expected to be dismissed ignominiously to join the crew. However, the nameless captain ignored him henceforth. After waiting for a few minutes, he found a stool and sat down, leaning back against the rear window. He even managed to sink into an uneasy doze without falling off the stool.
He dreamt he was standing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, with motor-car horns blaring all around him. The noise woke him.
A brilliant white light flooded the small cabin. The moon? No, much too bright, and it moved with a disconcerting unsteadiness. “What …?” he asked, confused.
“Get down! Last thing we need is them to find a limey aboard. Go nap on those sacks.” The captain pointed at a pile in the corner. “Pull one over you. If you’re questioned, you’re my sister’s deaf-mute boy.”
“Aye, sir.” As Patrick ducked below window level and scuttled over to the sacks, a Klaxon horn bellowed again, followed by a loud-hailer.
“Ahoy, Barleycorn! U.S. Coast Guard. Stand by to be boarded.”
The beam of the searchlight remained on the wheelhouse.
“Damn their eyes!” the captain swore. “It’s illegal to throw a searchlight on the bridge of a ship!
Pity I’m in no position to report them, though if it comes to trial…
.” He let roll a slew of oaths but throttled back the engine.
He hauled himself up the short ladder to the main deck.
Huddled among the sacks, which smelled of a curious mixture of fish, spirits, and tar, Patrick heard only fragments of the ensuing conversation.
“… Double-crossing whoreson skunk …”
“Hey, take it easy. Me and the boys just figured …”
“… Had a deal …”
“… Spare a coupla crates …”
Concluding that he was not going to be arrested in the immediate future, Patrick stopped cowering and made himself as comfortable as possible on his odiferous bed. He was half-asleep again by the time the captain returned with another man.
“Greedy bastard’s made us run late,” the captain growled. He resumed his post at the wheel and the purr of the engines swelled. “It’ll be daylight before we’re in signalling distance.”
“What we need’s one of those radio transmitters,” said the other in the dogmatic tone of one who was repeating oft-unheeded advice.
“That’s what the limey’s here for.” Without turning his head, the captain asked, “You awake, son?”
“Yes, sir.” Patrick scrambled to his feet.
“You’re here to set up radio codes, that right?”
“That’s right, sir. We’ve heard your Coast Guard is intercepting uncoded messages from ship to shore, so my father hired a top-notch cryptographer—a chap who worked for the War Office during the War—to set up a code for us.
It’s not hard to use, and it can be changed at irregular, prearranged intervals, so they won’t get a chance to work it out.
I’m going to set it up with Mr…. uh …” He recalled the warning against naming names. “With our buyer’s agent.”
“What did I say, skipper? These days, you gotta have radio.”
The captain gave an unenthusiastic grunt. When nothing more was forthcoming, the seaman went out and Patrick subsided on his pile of sacks again.
When next he roused, day was breaking. A light mist swirled over the sea. The captain still stood at the wheel, steady as a rock. Feeling chilly, Patrick yawned and stretched. He was dying for a cuppa, but he knew one didn’t ask New Englanders for tea.
“Good morning, sir.”
The captain, now revealed as a tall, lean man with a long, seamed face fringed with grizzled whiskers, hooked a laconic thumb over his shoulder. “Bread and cheese in the locker.”
“Thanks. Will you have some?”
“Ayup.”
With the half loaf and hunk of cheese in the locker, Patrick found a thermos flask of coffee and a couple of battered tin mugs.
Having acquired a seaman’s knife aboard the Iphigenia (for which he now felt a nostalgic affection), he cut a doorstep of bread and a slab of the cheese.
The coffee smelled very strong. He poured a cup and carried the makeshift meal to the captain.
When Patrick tasted the coffee, he discovered the aroma disguised a healthy slug of whisky.
It wasn’t the breakfast he’d have chosen, but it warmed him through.
Evidently, the captain of the Barleycorn believed in his work, unlike the Boston Irishman, who, according to Patrick’s father, was a teetotaller.
An Irishman, a Catholic Irishman, who didn’t drink was oddity enough.
A teetotaller who broke the law to import booze for his fellow citizens boggled the mind, Patrick mused, gnawing on his bread and cheese.
Love of money was the root of all evil, they said.
Not, of course, that he considered dealing in high-quality alcoholic beverages to be an evil.
A young seaman burst into the wheelhouse. “Skipper, Jed spotted a destroyer astern!”
Startled, Patrick choked on a crumb.
The captain swore a brief but pungent oath. “He’s sure?”
“Just a glimpse, but he’s using the spyglass.”
“Did they see us?”
“She ain’t hailed us. Nor shot at us … yet.”
“Which way’s she heading?”
“Dunno, skipper. He couldn’t tell.”
“This fog’s going to burn off soon as the sun rises. So much for the weather forecast! Tell the boys to hold on to their hats. We’ll run for it.”
By the time Patrick got over his choking fit, the heavy-laden Barleycorn was ploughing through the swells at her top speed. The mist turned to gold as the sun’s first rays touched it, and soon its wraithlike wisps dissipated.
The young seaman returned, bursting with excitement. “She’s turning, skipper. She’s spotted us for sure. A mile and a half astern, Jed says. D’you want us to chuck the stuff overboard?”
“Send a hundred thousand bucks’ worth of good liquor to Davy Jones’s locker? Not danged likely,” said the captain grimly. “We’ll give her a run for her money.”