The Changes Trilogy (32 page)

Jonathan, reeking of engines, came and plumped himself down beside her. She could feel his nerves humming with the happiness of action.

“All set,” he said. “Tim and Lucy are staying. They've brought a load of cans out of the warehouse, and a couple of sacks of corn for the ponies. Scrub won't mind canal water, will he? It's less oily outside the docks. And I've found four drums which we can fill for the sea journey—it oughtn't to be more than a day to Ireland.”

“What do you want me to do?” said Margaret.

“Two things, one easy and one difficult. The easy one is help start the engines. The difficult one is scout ahead and get the bridges open. That
could
be tricky. You see—”

“
Must
I help with the engines?” said Margaret.

There was just enough light flickering through the engine room roof to show how he looked at her, sideways and amused, but kind.

“Not if you don't want to,” he said. “But we won't be able to manage if you don't do the bridges. I've just done the first one—it was different from the others—hydraulic—but I managed.”

“I'll do the bridges.”

“I've got two good maps of the whole canal—they were pinned up in offices—so we can each have one. Otto and I are going to aim for about six knots—nearly seven miles an hour—because you won't be able to keep ahead if we try to do more. That means we'll have something to spare if we're chased, provided we don't pile up a wave in front of us down the canal. You'll have to average a fast trot.”

“The towpath's quite flat, except for one bit,” said Margaret. “We should be able to do that.”

“It's not as easy as it sounds, because you'll be stopping at the bridges. And you'll have to go carefully around the bends, especially the ones just before the bridges, in case you gallop into trouble. I found a bolt of red flannel which I've cut some squares off for you to take. If there's something wrong you can go back a bit and tie a square to a bush by the bank, so that we've time to stop. If it's something serious, Caesar will have to tow us through.”

“He'll get terribly sore. He hasn't worn a collar for years.”

“Poor old Caesar,” said Jonathan, as though it didn't matter. “He'll have to put up with it. I think that story will work, provided they haven't spotted the smoke.”

“Smoke?”

“You'll see. I want to start in quarter of an hour. You could go on now and get well ahead, if you like.”

“I'd better wait and help you get Caesar aboard. He won't fancy it.”

“How do you know?”

“Like you know about engines.”

“Well, let's try now.”

Margaret was right. They climbed ashore, took the ladder away and slowly pulled
Heartsease
toward the quay until she lay flush against the stonework, her deck about two feet below the level where they were standing. Jonathan untied Caesar's reins and led him toward the boat, but one pace from the edge of the quay the pony jibbed and hoicked backward, so that Jonathan almost fell over. Then Margaret tried, more gently, with much coaxing and many words; she got him right to the brim before he shied away.

“I hate horses,” said Jonathan.

“Let's see if Scrub will do it,” said Margaret. She crossed to her own pony, untied him, pulled his ears, slapped his shoulders and led him toward the boat. He, too, stopped at the very verge. Then, with a resigned waggle of his head and a you-know-best snort, he stepped down onto the ironwork deck. Caesar lumbered down at once, determined not to be left alone in this stone desert. Margaret tied his reins to an iron ring in the deck, poured out a generous feed of corn for him and led Scrub ashore. Before she could mount there came a thin cry from the engine room.

“They're ready!” cried Jonathan. “Come and see!”

He scuttled down the ladder. Margaret knelt by the hatch and peered down to where the weird lamps flared with a steady roaring, while the auxiliary battered away at the night. Lucy was standing down at the far end, by the two further cylinders, her hands on a pair of cast-iron turncocks just above shoulder level. Margaret could see two nearer ones—
she
ought to have been standing there. Otto lay in the corner directly below her, and Jonathan made signs to him through the racket, meaning that he would do Margaret's job as well as his own. He pulled briefly at a lever beside the nearest cylinder, and a spout of oily black smoke issued from the four cylinders, just below the turncocks. He glanced around at Otto, who raised the thumb of his left hand. Jonathan pulled hard down on the lever and left it down. There was a deep, groaning thud, followed at once by another, and another, and the whole tug began to vibrate as though two giants were stumping up and down on its deck. Lucy was already twisting her turncocks when Jonathan pranced around beside her and started twisting his. The beat of the heavy pistons steadied; the roaring flames at their heads died away. Margaret straightened up from the clamorous pit and saw a slow cloud of greasy blackness boiling up from the funnel. When she looked back, Jonathan was already halfway up the iron ladder; she made way for him.

“Like a dream!” he shouted.

“What now?” said Margaret. She wanted to get off the boat as soon as she could.

“Lucy will stay down there, to set the engine to the speed I signal for. I'll steer from the wheelhouse. You move off and open the first bridge. We'll follow in five minutes, and you ought to be nearly at the second one by then.”

Margaret stood quite still. She knew there was something in the plan that didn't fit. She was just turning away when it came to her.

“Some of the bridges open from the wrong side!” she said urgently. “I'll have to wait till you're through and shut them before I can ride on.”

Jonathan shut his eyes, as though he was trying to draw the mechanism on the back of his eyelids.

“I'm a fool,” he said at last. “They seemed so simple that I didn't really think about them. We'll have to go slower and let you catch up.”

“Let's see how we get on,” said Margaret, and swung herself up into the saddle. She was cold, and there was a scouring northwest wind beginning to slide across the Vale, the sort of wind that clears the sky to an icy paleness, and keeps you glancing into the eye of the wind for the first signs of the storm that is sure to follow. But in the shelter of the docks the water was still the color of darkest laurel leaves, and smooth as a jewel.

Behind her the beat of the engines deepened. It was surprising how quiet they were, she thought, once you were a few yards away. But when she looked around she saw, black against the paling sky, the wicked stain of the diesel smoke. If it's going to be like that all the way, she thought, we'll rouse the whole Vale. But even as she watched in the bitter breeze the smoke signal changed; the black plume thinned and drifted away, and in its place the funnel began to emit tidy black puffs, like the smoke over a railway engine in a child's drawing; the wind caught the puffs and rubbed them out before they had risen ten feet—not so bad, after all.

This last time she decided to risk going right through Hempsted village, instead of dismounting and leading Scrub down through the difficult track to the canal. They'd always gone by the towpath and the empty house before, in case any of the Hempsted villagers should become inquisitive about their comings and goings. But now it wouldn't matter anymore. Hempsted slept as she cantered through. This was one of the bridges that opened from the easy side; she lifted the two pieces of iron that locked the bridge shut and cranked the whole structure open; it moved like magic, with neither grate nor clank.

If she had been good at obeying orders she would have mounted and ridden on, but she felt she owed something to the villagers of Hempsted, though she couldn't say what. At least they had left the children to work out their plot in peace—and that man
had
tried to warn her about the dogs. So she couldn't leave them cut off, bridgeless (no one would care to shut a wicked bridge like this, even if they could remember how). Besides, she wanted to watch
Heartsease
come through.

Jonathan slowed down the engines and shouted something from the wheelhouse as the tug surged past, but she waved to show she knew what she was doing, and swung the bridge slowly (how slowly!) back to its proper place. She heard the beat of the engines quickening and saw the black cloud boil up again. Just as she was bending to put the first locking-bar back she heard a shout. Without looking to see who it was, she slung herself into the saddle, shook the reins, and let Scrub whisk her onto the towpath. Now, over her shoulder, she saw a little old man in a nightshirt standing at the other end of the bridge shaking a cudgel. She waved cheerfully back.

Heartsease
was already around the next bend when Margaret caught up, the funnel still puffing its ridiculous smoke rings against the pearly light of dawn, the throaty boom coming steadily from the huge cylinders. She was surprised to find, as she cantered level with the boat, that even she felt an odd pride and thrill at the sense of total strength which the shape of the boat gave because of the way it sat in the water. She slowed to a trot to watch it.

At once Jonathan moved his hand on the brass lever that jutted up beside the wheel; the boom of the engines altered;
Heartsease
, no longer shoved by the propellers, began to lose speed as Jonathan edged her in toward the bank. He opened the door of the wheelhouse.

“It'll be all right,” he called, “provided you can keep that sort of speed up. You must think of a story, just in case you're caught on the wrong side with a bridge open. What about …”

“They wouldn't believe it,” Margaret interrupted. “We'll just have to swim. That old stableboy who came when the earl came told me horses can swim with a grown man on them. But Jo, try to keep your engine going the same speed all the time. It makes a horrid black cloud when you speed up. People could see it for miles, but you can't in there.”

“Thanks!” said Jonathan. He shut his door, signaled down to Lucy in the engine room, and, as the water churned behind the tug's stern and the black smoke rose again, steered out for the center of the canal. Scrub was happy to go. The wind was even colder now, out from the sheltering buildings.

Scrub was in good form, happy with the tingling early morning air and the excitement of having something to do. Margaret was sure he knew how much it mattered, that he sensed her own thrill and urgency. The towpath was a good surface, hard and flat underneath but overlaid with rank fallen grasses which softened the fall of his feet. She had to rein him in firmly as they took the bend at the end of the long straight, and he was fidgeting with the bit all the three hundred yards down to the next bend. Just around it was another bridge. This one opened from the wrong side.

Already it was almost a routine, she thought as she hitched the reins to the rail, hoicked up the locking-piece and began to crank. But as the bridge swung over the water there was a shrill burst of barking in the lane behind her.

Margaret panicked. In a flash she had untied the reins, flung herself up to the saddle and hauled Scrub around to set him up at the awkward jump from the end of the bridge to the bank. It wasn't impossibly far, but it was all angles. He took it as though he'd been practicing for weeks, and climbed up to the towpath. From there Margaret looked back.

The smallest dog she had ever seen, very scrawny and dirty, was yelping in the entrance to the far lane.

Jonathan had slowed
Heartsease
down, but even so the tug was almost at the bridge, and there was no way for Margaret to cross and finish her job. She was turning Scrub toward the bitter water, nerving herself for the shock of cold, when she looked up the canal and saw her cousin gesticulating in the wheelhouse—he had another plan, and he didn't want them to swim.

His hand moved to the big brass signal lever and pulled it right over. The tug surged on for a second, and then there was a boiling of yellow water beneath the stern as the propeller went into reverse.
Heartsease
suddenly sat differently, slowed, wavered and was barely moving, drifting through the water, nudging with a mild thud against the concrete pier on Margaret's side of the gap. The bridges were still high at this end of the canal, because the surrounding land was high: it was only the mast and the funnel which wouldn't slide under. Delicately, with short bursts of power from the propeller, Jonathan sidled round the projecting arm, just scraping the corner of the wheelhouse as they went past. Once through, he opened the wheelhouse door to lean back and watch the oily smoke fade as
Heartsease
settled down to her six-knot puff-puff-puff.

“Sorry!” shouted Margaret. “I was too frightened to think.”

“Not surprised,” he shouted back. “But it looked funny from here—you two great animals routed by that little rat of a dog. Couldn't you lean down and turn the handles from the saddle?”

“No. They're too low. How far is it to the next bridge? Scrub doesn't understand about maps—the flapping makes him nervous.”

“Half a mile. Then a mile and a half to the one after. Get ahead and come up to that one carefully, just trotting along. There used to be an inn there, and more folk'll be about by now.”

The next bridge opened from the right side and no one barked or shouted at her. Then came the stretch of bad tow-path, all muddy hummocks, so she took to the fields and cantered along on the wrong side of the hedge, wondering why the canal wasn't all in that kind of condition. The answer came to her at once, as she pictured the boiling khaki wake behind
Heartsease
. No ships had been using the canal for five years, so the water had barely moved; it had been when large engines had churned the surface about that the banks had needed constant looking after.

As she came up toward Sellers Bridge and the inn beside it, she settled Scrub to his easiest trot, and made sure that there was a square of red cloth loose at the top of her saddlebag.