The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur - Страница 62

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That's it, lads, the first officer exhorted from stern. Keep it up- any activity would stave off despondency, their ultimate enemy -let's sing, shall we? Who'll give us a tune? What about Tipperary? Come along, then.

"'It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go-" But the wind and the sea grew stronger, and flung them about so that the oars would not bite, and one after the other the rowers gave up and slumped glumly, and the song died away and they sat and waited. After a while the sense of waiting for something to happen passed, and they merely sat. Long after midday, the sun broke through the low scudding cloud for a few minutes and they lifted their faces to it, but then the cloud obscured it again and their heads drooped like wild Namaqua daisies at sunset.

Then from the lifeboat alongside where Anna sat a voice spoke in a dull, almost disinterested tone. Look, isn't that a ship? For a while there was silence, as though it took time to understand such an unlikely proposition, and then another voice, sharper and more alive. It is, it's a ship! Where?

Where is it? A babble of excited voices now. There, just below that dark patch of cloud. Low down, just the top-'It's a ship!

A ship! Men were trying to stand, some of them had stripped off their jackets and were waving frantically and shouting as though their lungs might burst.

Anna blinked her eyes and stared in the direction they were all pointing in. After a moment she saw a tiny triangular shape, darker grey against the dreary grey of the horizon.

The first officer was busy in the stern, and abruptly there was a fierce whooshing sound and a trail of smoke shot up into the sky and burst in a cluster of bright red stars as he fired one of the signal rockets from the steRN locker. She has seen us! Look! Look, she's altering course! It's a warship, three funnels. Look at the tripod director tower, she's one of the "I class cruisers- By God, it's the Inflexible! I saw her at Scopa Flow last year- God bless her, whoever she is. She's seen us! Oh, thank God, she's seen us! Anna found herself laughing and sobbing, and clutching the carpet bag that was her only link with Centaine.

It will be all right now, my baby, she promised. Anna will find you now. You don't have to worry any more, Anna is coming to get you. And the deadly grey shape of the warship raced down upon them, shouldering and breaking the waters aside with her tall, axe-sharp bows.

Anna stood at the rail of HMS Inflexible in a group of the survivors from the lifeboats and watched that immense flat-topped mountain rise out of the southern ocean.

From this distance the proportions of the mountain were so perfect, the tableland at its summit so precisely cut and the steep slopes so artfully fashioned that it might have been sculptured by a divine Michelangelo. The men around her were excited and voluble, hanging on the rail and pointing out the familiar features of the land as their swift approach made each apparent. This was a homecoming of which most of them had many times despaired, and their relief and joy were pathetically childlike.

Anna shared none of it with them. The sight of land induced in her only a corrosive impatience that she knew she could not long abide. The drive of the great ship under her was too puny, too snail-like for her antici potion every minute spent out here upon the ocean was wasted, for it delayed the moment when she could set out on the quest which had in a few short days become the central driving force of her existence.

She fretted while the drama of sea and elements unfolded before her, while the wind which had crossed the wide sweep of the Atlantic free and unfettered, met the sudden constraint of the great mountain, and like a wild horse feeling the bit for the first time, reared and struggled in monstrous pique.

Before Anna's eyes a dense white cloud blossomed upon the broad flat summit of the mountain and began to boil over the sheer lip in a slow, gelatinous tide down the stark cliffs, and when the men around her exclaimed with wonder, she had only an insufferable desire to feel the land beneath her feet, and to turn those feet back into the north to begin the search.

Now the angry wind racing down the cliffs came again to the sea and ripped the placid sweet blue first to sombre gunmetal and then to foam-flecked fury. As the Inflexible came out of the lee of the mountain into the narrow roadway between Table Harbour and Roben Island, the southeaster struck her like a mallet, and even she was forced to make obeisance and heel to the power of the wind.

In the days of sail, many great ships had come this close to the mountain only to be blown out again with rigging in disarray, not to sight land again for days or even weeks, but Inflexible, once she had acknowledged its force, drove in through the concrete breakwater, and surrendered only to the attentions of the fussy little steam tugs which bustled out to meet her. Like a lover she kissed the wharf, and the crowd that lined it waved up at the decks, the women struggling with rebellious skirts and the men clutching their hats to their heads, the strains of the Marine band on the cruiser's foredeck rising and falling as the wind squalls gave Rule Britannia an unusual cadence.

As soon as the gangways were lowered, a group of figures hurried up them, harbour officials and naval officers in tropical whites and gold braid, together with a few obviously important civilians.

Now, despite herself, Anna felt a slight prickle of interest as she studied the white buildings of the town that were scattered along the foot of the high grey cliffs.

Africa, she murmured. So what was all the fuss about?

I wonder what Centaine- At the thought of the girl, all else was banished from her mind; although she still stared towards the shore, she saw nothing and heard nothing, until a light touch on her shoulder pulled her back to the present.

One of the ship's midshipmen, callow as a schoolboy even in his smart tropical whites, saluted her diffidently. There is a visitor for you in the wardroom, ma'am.

When it was obvious that Anna did not understand, he beckoned her to follow him.

At the door of the wardroom, the midshipman stood aside and ushered her through. Anna stood in the entrance and glowered around her suspiciously, holding the carpet bag protectively in front of her hips. Visitors and officers were already doing full justice to the ship's store of gin and tonic, but the cruiser's flag lieutenant saw Anna.

Ah, here we are. This is the worrian, and he drew one of the civilians from the group of men and led him to meet Anna.

Anna looked him over carefully. He was a slim, boyish figure dressed in a dove-grey three-piece suit of expensive material and superior cut.

Mevrou Stok? he asked, almost diffidently, and with surprise Anna realized that, far from being a boy, he was probably twenty years or so her senior.

Anna Stok? he repeated. His hair had receded in deep bays on each side of the smooth scholarly forehead, but had been allowed to grow feathery wisps down his neck and on to his shoulders.

We should take the scissors to you, she thought, and said [a, I am Anna Stok, and he replied in Afrikaans that she understood readily. A pleasant meeting, aangename kennis am Colonel Garrick Courtney, but I am saddened, as you must be, by the terrible loss we have experienced. For a few moments Anna did not understand what he was talking about. Instead she studied him more closely, and now she saw that his unbarbered hair had sprinkled the shoulder of his expensive suit with flakes of white dandruff. There was a button missing from his waistcoat and the thread dangled loosely. There was a grease spot on his silk cravat and the toe of one of his boots was scuffed.

A bachelor, Anna decided. Despite his intelligent eyes and the sensitive gentle mouth, there was something childlike and vulnerable about him, and Anna felt her maternal instincts stir.

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