The Seven Gifts (16 page)

The little dolphin felt a glow in his heart
that he had not known since he could remember. He felt a joy that
he had not believed possible. And he felt a certainty of purpose
that he never thought he would find.

Men were adrift on this ocean, in constant
danger from rocks and storms. Alone in a hostile world.

But to the little white dolphin it was home:
it was his world and he knew and understood it. It was for him to
guide these men to safety. That was the tradition. That, surely,
was his purpose.

Way above him, with needle-sharp eyes, the
Fairy Tern floated on the wind currents, her long narrow wings
still, curved to the flow of the air. And still she stayed with
him.

Through all the following days and nights,
as the white dolphin patrolled the seas in search of ships in
danger, the Fairy Tern remained overhead. Unseen and unknown she
continued to accompany him; as though her task were not yet
done.

And this day she watched as
the little white dolphin sped through the waves towards the
stricken and wallowing
Malachi
Jones
. The Master of the
Malachi Jones
had always
paid lip service to the charming idea of a white dolphin speeding
to the rescue in times of trouble, but now that it actually seemed
to be happening to him the superstitious side of the old seaman
sent an involuntary shiver through his body at the prospect of yet
more inexplicable events.

He stared numbly out of the bridge window,
wondering what on earth a little white dolphin could possibly do to
save them from the horror that hung still over his poopdeck. Then
he saw Pilot Jack - for that was the name sailors had given him -
leap skywards ahead of the ship in a cloud of roiling
phosphorescence, then plunge back in the water and swim away in the
direction of the land away on his port side.

“He wants us to follow him," said the Mate
in awed tones from the other side of the bridge.

“Well we can't go in there," the Master
barked. “This coast is riddled with uncharted rocks and sandbanks.
We wouldn't get half a mile without piling up on something."

“That's as maybe," muttered the Mate through
nervous clenched teeth that had already bitten halfway through the
stem of his pipe. “But how long are we going to last out here?" His
point seemed to be stressed by the great leering red eye that
suddenly fell from the sky and stared directly into the face of the
Master.

“Oh my God!" growled the Master. “Pass me
the binoculars, quick!" Then, trying to ignore the horrendous eye
that glowered no more than ten feet from his head, he focused the
glasses on the dim white shape of the speeding dolphin.

And his heart leapt in sudden hope as he saw
the dolphin weaving and jinking as he went, where before he had
been swimming straight.

“Bloody hell," he muttered. Then he yelled:
“The dolphin's following a channel, I swear it. He's showing us the
way through the rocks. If we can get in there surely this damn
thing won't be able to follow us." He turned to the Mate. “Take the
wheel, mister, and follow that dolphin!"

The old
Malachi Jones
staggered over the next
wave then almost rolled her funnel into the back of it as the Mate
wound the wheel hard over to port in an effort to get her round
before the next wave should catch her beam on. The tired old engine
shrieked in protest as the prop came out of the water and raced in
thin air, then suddenly she was on course astern of the dolphin.
The seas were on her quarter now and she rolled heavy and uneven,
like a drunk falling out of a pub. But she was headed for dangerous
waters, and all aboard prayed that the beast would not be able to
follow. They also prayed that the white dolphin really was guiding
them through the safe channel.

Half a mile ahead of the ship there stood a
white wall of boiling, breaking water where the waves piled up and
broke against the hidden rocks and banks. Neither the Master nor
the Mate could see a way through, and the latter's knuckles were
white against the dark, battered varnish on the spokes of the
wheel. The Master called the Bosun to take the other side of the
big wheel to help the Mate. Even if there was an entrance through
that breaking water, it would be a battle to get the ship through.
The old bucket did not handle very well at the best of times, being
fat and weed-strewn, with an engine that chuffed most of its power
out of the funnel.

But as the ship was almost into the breakers
the Master saw Pilot Jack suddenly turn hard to port and disappear
round the back of a huge standing wave whose crest was continually
breaking higher than the bridge.

“Get after him!" he yelled
at the Mate, who was already hauling on the wheel. The Master leapt
forward and put his back beneath a spoke and heaved in unison with
the other two. The
Malachi Jones
shuddered round slowly, too slowly as the Master
could see all too clearly, and the great white wave loomed up over
the bridge like a sheer rock face. Then, as she hung athwart the
face of the following wave, it suddenly broke and flung the ship
bodily sideways past the white monster.

“Hard-a-starboard!" yelled
the Master in desperation as he spotted a slick of flat water right
behind the standing wave, in which the white dolphin lay as though
waiting for them. The
Malachi Jones
rolled violently to port, dipping her bridge
window right into the wave that now rolled under them, then she
seemed to just ping through the gap like a flicked coin.

“Hold her steady, mister," came the cry from
the Master, as he saw Pilot Jack bound off ahead into the mess of
rocks, shoals and white water that lay between them and the shore.
They were committed now; there was no hope of turning back and
finding their way out. He did not even know what lay over on the
shore; could only hope and pray that there was a safe haven and
that the dolphin would lead them into it. He stared out of the
bridge window, an arm firmly wrapped round the compass to steady
him against the vicious rolling and lurching that the steep, high
seas were causing in his ship. The night was black and the waves
were white, and it was a seaman's nightmare.

As they staggered and lurched their way
deeper into these wild, breaking seas in pursuit of the white
dolphin, the Master gradually became aware that he had not seen any
large red eyes for a while. He looked astern of the ship and there
was no sign of the monster. He picked up the binoculars and scanned
the sea astern of them, and finally saw a dim green glow way in the
distance.

“We've lost the beast!" he cried out. “Left
him out in the deep water. Thank God!" He pulled the bung out of
the radio room voice-pipe and shouted down: “You can come up now!
The beast has gone." And a moment or two later the radioman came up
onto the bridge with old George.

“How are you feeling?" the Master asked
him.

George shook his head groggily. “Alright.
I'm alright." Then he looked around. “What's happened?"

The Master told him what had been going on,
then pointed ahead to Pilot Jack, who was swimming steadily no more
than twenty yards from the ship. “... and there he is," he finished
off, in hushed tones such as one might use when speaking in a
church.

George looked stunned, clinging grimly onto
the Master's chair and staring out at the white dolphin. Then he
stared at the white water and the broken irregular seas that
crashed into the ship from all directions. Then he stared back out
to sea, to where the Master had said the beast was. George was
petrified, but he was not sure what of; there seemed to be so much
around him that he should be terrified of and the old man could not
cope with it all. Finally he gave up thinking about any of it and
simply clung vacantly to the chair - it seemed the only secure and
solid thing in his life at that moment.

The Master meanwhile was inspecting the
approaching shoreline through his binoculars, and it looked wild in
the steadily worsening weather. He could see huge clouds of spray
hung along the cliffs like rain as, in the gradually dawning
twilight, the waves rolled in, foaming white across the rocks, to
explode in cascading sheets against the sheer face of the cliffs.
He could see no sign of harbour or shelter in the direction the
dolphin was taking them. Yet somehow he felt untroubled; perhaps it
was because of the certain knowledge that he now had no choice but
to follow their self-appointed pilot.

The cliffs grew ever larger - and George
ever more frightened - as the old ship wallowed her way ever closer
to that forbidding shore, a welter of black, jagged rocks and
flying white spume. And still no sign of a gap.

Pilot Jack had fallen back
a little until he was just visible under the plunging bows of
the
Malachi Jones
.
How he avoided that lethal stem as it reared up on the waves and
crashed into the troughs, twisting its way towards the breakers,
George had no idea.

Suddenly the little dolphin accelerated away
from the ship, leaping ever higher, and vanished round the back of
the nearest razor-edged rock pinnacle. A moment later he reappeared
and resumed his station close ahead of the ship. He repeated this
manoeuvre twice, as though to make sure he had been seen. His speed
must have been phenomenal for he seemed to be away barely a moment,
although it felt like a lifetime to George.

The Master tapped the old man on the
shoulder and pointed to the narrow gap.

“There's our haven," he said. “Behind there
somewhere." He reached over and rang the engine room telegraph to
slow speed ahead, so as to give him some power in reserve for any
rapid manoeuvring that might be needed. The Master's caution had
been sharpened by a lifetime at sea.

The dolphin remained close ahead of them as
he piloted the ship so close to the pinnacle that George could
almost have reached out and touched it. The water boiled through
the gap and around the rocks, and the Master put two men on the
wheel again to keep the ship running straight.

As they rounded the rock, George nearly
fainted again. He had been expecting calm waters - a wide,
land-locked and sheltered harbour. But all he could see were more
rocks, more breakers, more cliffs. Even the Master began to worry
as he felt a strong surge sucking his ship uncontrollably towards a
tiny steep beach between the cliffs, upon which the surf pounded
like a steam hammer.

In the broadening daylight he could see on
the beach a small group of men, gathered round a signal fire. They
were waving wildly at the ship, beckoning it towards the beach.

“Look!" cried George. “There must be shelter
there somewhere. We're saved!" He turned to look at the Master,
relief flooding through his old body like a tide.

But the Master stood white-faced at his
side, one eye on the men at the fire ahead of them and one on the
white dolphin, who was leaping wildly from the water and racing
away on their starboard side towards the mouth of a huge cave in
the rock face.

The old seaman's brain was whirling. They
could not both be right - the men on the beach calling him one way
and the dolphin leading him another. In that tight, rock-strewn
hole he had perhaps three seconds in which to make a decision,
before he wrecked his ship with all hands.

He glanced at the beach. Rescuers? Or
Wreckers? These had been rife along the Snow Queen's coast. But he
had never heard of a dolphin leading a ship into danger. He made
his decision.

He leaned over the bridge wing and yelled
down to the fo'c'sle hands to let go the starboard anchor at short
stay, ordered the wheel put hard a-starboard and the engine to full
ahead. All more or less in the one breath. Then he gripped the
front of the bridge wing and watched.

As the anchor took hold in the seabed, a
huge curling wave picked up their stern and carried it forward. The
ship lurched hard round to starboard virtually on the spot, the
anchor holding the bow while engine and wave combined to drive the
stern round and past it. Then the stern sank into the following
trough, down and down until it hit the bottom with a sickening,
grinding crunch. George felt the whole ship shudder and rattle.
Then she bounced clear, and with the engine screaming at full speed
the little ship began struggling forward, now pointing towards the
cave entrance.

The anchor was hove in rapidly and the
engine slowed again, and the Master, streams of perspiration
running down his face, conned his ship in towards the cave, close
behind the dolphin.

George, white and trembling
in every nerve, clung terrified to the rail as the
Malachi Jones
bore in
towards the black hole ahead of them, yawing wildly almost beam on
to the face of the next approaching and breaking wave. The Master
frantically ordered full port wheel to try and hold her straight,
then everything went black as they vanished into the hole in a
welter of white water.

It seemed only a moment
later that they rocketed out into a vast, sheltered, tree-lined
lagoon. The wave rolled in harmlessly behind them, all its violence
broken by the walls of the tunnel. George wept with relief as the
Master quietly rang down for dead slow ahead, then he gripped the
rail firmly to try and stop his hands shaking. Ahead of them Pilot
Jack swam slowly towards a small cluster of houses on the north
shore, and a short while later the
Malachi
Jones
lay safely and peacefully at anchor.
The dolphin lay alongside the ship, breathing heavily and rolling a
little in the slight swell that was all that remained of the seas
they had come through.