Night Sky (69 page)

Quickly, she looked back at the compass. NW. She pulled the tiller towards her. NNW. Then, a sudden swing to N. She pushed the tiller away again. NxW – at last.
Stay there!

She glanced up again, and shivered. It was eerie, the darkness. Unnerving. It made her feel utterly remote, like being on a hilltop, quite alone. And then there was the silence. Though it was broken by the whisper of the wind and the swishing of the water and the occasional slap of a wave on the boat’s side, it was eerie too.

She shivered again, and couldn’t stop. With faint surprise she realised she was terribly cold. No time to get more clothes on. Later. Later.

NxW for an hour – then you’ll be safe
.

How much time had passed? She had no idea. It felt like hours. She looked at her watch, but it was far too dark to read it. She put her wrist down to the compass and, leaning forward, tried to see the hands by the reflection of the compass light. The thing was a stupid woman’s watch: it had a tiny face without numbers. Useless! She put her face closer. At last she thought she saw the hands. Midnight—?

An hour gone!

The compass had sheered violently off. She pulled on the tiller. Damn! Wrong way! Why did the blasted thing have to work
backwards
!

There: NxW. She put her wrist to the compass again and, steadying the boat, thrust her face down to the flickering light. It took half a minute to be sure, but yes: it was almost midnight. Nearly an hour gone! She’d wait another ten minutes to be on the safe side. Perhaps even more, to be absolutely sure. Then—! She felt the beginnings of relief. Over the first hurdle. Something anyway, to have got this far.

Half-smiling, half-miserable, she thought: Richard would be proud of me!

Then she remembered where he was and the despair settled on her like a lead weight.

Don’t … Don’t think …

Mechanically she glanced at the compass.

It wasn’t there.

Her heart went to her mouth. She gulped. It had gone – the
light
! The light had gone!

There wasn’t a flicker. She said out loud, ‘No! Dear God!’ And, clamping her hand over her mouth, thought: What on earth do I do
now
?

Relight the oil? But she had no match.

Think. What had Michel said? He’d mentioned something … A torch. Yes! Where? In a box. That was it, he’d said it was in a box. She knelt down, one hand still on the tiller, and felt around. Nothing. The other side, then. Floorboards … a rope … Further behind …

Her hand came to an upright wooden surface. She felt up to a top lip and a lid. It was a box, full of things: rough ropes, a square metal box, then – a round metal object. She almost cried out in triumph. Standing up again, she found the switch and a narrow beam of yellow light shot forward into the darkness. She was half-blinded. Fumbling she switched it off again. Far too bright.

She reached down into the box again and scrabbled around. At last she found a piece of cloth and, putting it over the torch, turned it on again, being careful to keep the beam pointing downwards. That was much better: the beam was reduced to a dull pool of light. She shone it at the compass. Not bad! Only NNW! She pulled the tiller towards her and the card swung back towards NxW. At last.

She switched off the torch. Mustn’t waste the batteries.

She let her body sag. The boat leaned slightly and she stepped backwards to regain her balance. The back of her knees came up against something hard and, feeling with her hand, she realised it was a seat. Of course: a seat for the helmsman. She sank back on to it and wedged her foot up against the compass post. It was much more comfortable.

She almost laughed.

She wondered if the full hour and a quarter had passed. Probably not: best to wait.

She tried to concentrate on the steering, to keep on course without having to shine the light too much. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Most of the time she just stared forward, trying not to see the darkness rearing up in front of her.

Finally she shone the torch on her watch. It was twenty past twelve. She clenched her fists and, looking up, said, ‘Thank you, God!’ She almost shouted the news to Peter, but decided not to: he was probably asleep by now.

What now?
Then anything between north-north-west and north-east
… Or was it north-west and north-east?

She couldn’t remember.

… No, he’d definitely said between NNW and NE.

Julie felt into the box for some rope and, resting the tiller against her knee, unwound a coil. Her fingers were dreadfully stiff from the cold and from gripping the tiller so tight. Eventually she managed to tie a loop on to the tiller. She went to the side of the boat and felt along it for an anchor point. She found one on the top of the rail: a wooden thing with a point sticking out either end. She’d seen them used for tying up ropes before. She took the rope and wound it several times round the wooden thing, which had a name she couldn’t remember.

Next she took the other end of the rope to the other side of the boat and tied it to another wooden anchor point. She shone the torch on the compass and watched. NNW moving towards NW. She let off one side of the rope and tightened the other, to move the tiller slightly across. The course held steady on NW. She loosened the right-hand rope a little more. The course came up to NNW and she tightened it again. The course was holding. More or less.

Taking the torch she quickly made her way along the left side of the boat towards the front. She knelt down under the small expanse of decking and shone the shaded torch on to the floor. In the reflected light she saw Peter, curled in a ball, sleeping peacefully. She felt his cheek: warm enough, but not as warm as she’d like.

She shone the torch around and saw, right in the point at the front, some dark material folded under a lobster pot. She crawled forward and pulled the material out. It was a sack. Under it was another. She went on pulling until she had four. She crawled back and put two over Peter.

Now the old man. He must be on the right-hand side somewhere. She was still blinded from using the torch and waited until her eyes readjusted to the darkness. Then she saw him: a dark shape huddled under the steep side of the boat. She went over and knelt down beside him.

He was very still. She asked tentatively, ‘Are you all right?’

Silence. Julie reached out and touched his arm.

There was a slight moan. She thought: Thank goodness, at least he’s alive! ‘Are you all right?’ she repeated.

‘Eh? Oh …’ The old man’s voice was low, rough. ‘Oh … Yes, yes … I’m all right.’ He tried to laugh. ‘I’m just not as young as I used to be, that’s all!’

‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m so sorry!’

‘No, no, dear girl. Please … please don’t apologise. I only wish I could help you. I’m of no use at all, I’m afraid. Perhaps later …’ His voice was weak now, and breathless.

‘No, you just stay there and rest. Don’t worry about me. Honestly, I can manage! Here—’ She put the two sacks over him. ‘Are you comfortable here, or would you like to go up to the front? It’s a bit more sheltered there.’

‘No, thank you so much. I’m all right … Thank you.’ There was a loud slap: a wave against the side. Julie said sharply, ‘I must go now – back to the steering … Just shout if you need me.’

And then she was gone. David pulled the sacks more tightly round his legs and wished he didn’t feel so ill. He closed his eyes and leant his head back against the side. Immediately, he felt disorientated and his head began to swim. He opened his eyes again. The boat was rocking gently from side to side. If it went on rocking, he thought grimly, he would be sick.

He burped slightly and felt a pang of acid in his stomach. So he was to suffer that too! His stomach chose its moments very well.

He closed his eyes and tentatively let his head fall to one side. He decided he would be more comfortable lying down. Taking the bag from round his waist, he felt in it and found his tablets. He took one and, putting the bag on the deck, lay down with his head on it. Yes: that was better. He didn’t feel so sick, lying down. He might even be able to sleep.

He would feel better later. Then he would give Julie a hand.

Julie untied the tiller and brought the boat back on course. Almost immediately she sighed with annoyance: she’d forgotten to get a sweater. But perhaps it wasn’t necessary; it didn’t seem quite so cold as before … Then she remembered that awful time on the fishing boat, and something Richard had said, about cold being the greatest danger of all, much more dangerous than the waves themselves, and she retied the tiller and set off towards the front.

Her bag was beside Peter, right up under the deck. She supposed Michel had put it there in case it rained. She undid the strap and felt around until she found the thick wool sweater. She took off the cowjacket, pulled the sweater on, and put the cowjacket back over the top. She felt warmer already. There was a scarf in the bag too; she rummaged around, found it, and tied it round her head.

Peter was sleeping peacefully. She went straight back to the tiller. When she shone the torch on the compass she almost laughed: the course had settled on NxW. She decided to leave the boat sailing by itself; the course was a good one and much steadier than anything she could achieve.

She sat on the helmsman’s seat and tried to think. How far was it across the Channel? She had no idea. How long would it take to get across? She had no idea of that either.

Brilliant!

Try again. It must be at least a hundred miles across the Channel – perhaps even two hundred. Say a hundred and fifty. How fast were they going? Goodness only knew! It felt as if the boat was going quite fast – perhaps fifteen miles an hour. No: on second thoughts, that was quite a rate. What was walking speed? Five miles an hour, four? A bit faster than that, say six then.

Six miles an hour. A hundred and fifty miles. Mental arithmetic: always one of her worst subjects at school. Sixes into one hundred and fifty …

Eventually she got there: twenty-five. Of course. Six twenty-fives made a hundred and fifty.

Twenty-five hours then, call it twenty-four.

Immediately she felt depressed.

It was a dreadfully long time. A whole day out in the middle of the sea, a day when they would be exposed like a goldfish in a bowl. There were bound to be German patrols … aircraft …

If they survived the day, then there’d be most of the next night, a night when the land would be getting closer and closer, rushing towards them. How on earth would she know where it was, the land? And how would she know when the boat was about to crash into it?

I can’t do this, she thought, I just can’t do it!

Silently she began to cry, the tears hot on her cheeks. It was all such a mess, the whole dreadful thing. Everyone at the village caught and dead or more probably tortured. Richard a prisoner. And here – Peter and the old man relying on
her
, probably the most incompetent person in the world!

Angrily, she wiped the tears away. Whatever happened, crying wouldn’t do any good.

Later, she realised a long time must have passed – several hours at least. Apart from shining the torch on the compass from time to time she stared ahead into the darkness, her mind half on what had happened at the beach, half on the nightmare she was living through now. One event seemed to lead on from the other, in a horrible dreamlike way.

For a while she dozed, perched uneasily on the seat, terrible pictures drifting in and out of her mind, the beach and the boat blending into a terrible fantasy of water and blazing lights and anger and suffering. The Germans were taking everyone away … Jean, Tante Marie, and Peter,
even Peter
—

Suddenly she was awake.

She looked blindly around, wondering what had woken her. The boat was still sailing along, the water hissing and gurgling past the hull. But the sky was different. It was clearer now: there were stars, thousands of them, carpeting the sky so that the sail stood out black against them. But there was something else and she couldn’t place it. She shone the light at the compass. NW – North-west. The course had changed a little. But was that it? No.

Then she had it. The wind, it was much fresher. She felt it cold against her face, pulling at her scarf. A muted fluttering sound came from above, like a thousand birds beating their wings. Now and then there was the creaking of wood against wood.

Yes, there was more wind. She could feel it now, in the motion of the boat. The movements were much quicker than before and, instead of rocking gently from side to side, the craft was tilted stiffly over at a slight angle, its nose going down and up, down and up, like a rocking horse.

The bow hit a wave with a
crump!
and Julie realised that it was the sound which had woken her. A fine spray floated back on the air and drifted onto her face. Shaking slightly, she shone the light at the compass again. Still north-west, but tending to veer off towards the west. Not good enough. She untied the tiller and moved it until the compass read nearer to North.

Immediately the fluttering sound changed to a flapping and there was a fierce rattling as something close to Julie’s head started to shake angrily.

She yanked the tiller back the other way. The flapping stopped, but when she looked at the compass the course was back west of North-West. Michel had specifically said she must steer between north-north-west and north-east. She was definitely
outside
that.

What should she do? She gripped the tiller, undecided. She could leave the boat on this course – but that
must
be wrong. The sails, then, she should stop them flapping. But how?

She tried bringing the boat back onto a northerly course once more, but the flapping started again, louder than ever. ‘Damn!’ She quickly pulled the tiller the other way. The flapping stopped. She breathed out sharply.

She stayed at the tiller steering north-west for a long time, frozen with indecision. She should do something to the sails – she knew
that
much – but what? And if she didn’t – God, she’d probably miss England altogether.