“Don’t talk such nonsense,” I said angrily. “They can land anywhere they like. They aren’t in charge of the Olympic.”
He turned on me. “What would you do, then?”
I laughed unpleasantly. “Me? I’m going for a sail in my tug.” Outside, the wind howled noisily around the house; it was rising to a full gale. “It’s a nice night for a pleasure trip,” I said sarcastically.
“You’ll never find them in the darkness, on a night like this,” he replied. “They may be anywhere at sea.”
“You bloody fool,” I said. “What wind is it?”
Stenning answered: “It’s about south-east.”
I went on: “They’re in a sailing vessel, possibly with an auxiliary. That’s all the evidence. Where can they go to get away from here? They can’t beat up against a gale like this. Even with an auxiliary they’ll not lie seven points from the wind. God, man, you know that!”
“That’s right,” said Stenning. “I see what you’re getting at.”
Norman looked from one to the other. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“Oh, come in here,” I said impatiently. I marched him into the model room and ripped a chart out of the drawer and laid it on the drawing-board. Then with pencil and parallel rule I drew quick lines. “There’s the wind. There’s the most southerly course that he can lie, going east. He gets embayed with Portland—he can’t help but go ashore if he goes that way, somewhere near Bridport. You’d better watch the coast from here to Portland, just in case he’s a damn fool.”
I paused, and drew rapidly. “That’s the course that he can lie going west. He should be able just to scrape around the Start. Then he must bear up for the Lizard if he’s going to get away. He can lie to in the Irish Sea till this blows out, and then go where he wants.” I took a quick glance at the barograph, and at the isobar chart of the day before. “This wind may last for thirty hours or more. It’ll move into the south a point or two at dawn; he’ll have to keep close-hauled for the Lizard. He’ll have all that he can do to make it. You want to watch the coast from here down to Penzance.”
Norman said: “You mean that you’d go westwards in the tug?”
I packed the chart and barometric chart together, and put in a rule, a pencil and protractor. “I do,” I said. “He can no more change his road than if he had a motor-car. I shall come up on him some time in the forenoon within sight of the Eddystone.”
“I see,” said Norman thoughtfully. “What then? Can you board him?”
I shook my head. “Not in this sea,” I said. “He’s armed, too. I can only hang on to him, and trust you to get in touch with me before nightfall. I shall have a signal lamp, but no wireless.”
I turned to him. “Give me a sergeant and a constable. I think that I can find him and hang on to him, and I think you’ll find us to-morrow afternoon between the Lizard and the Start, a bit towards the Lizard. I’ll signal the Eddystone if I get near enough. Warn them.”
“All right,” he said at last. “I think you’d better go. Be careful, though. I’ll let you have a sergeant and a man.”
I turned to Stenning. “Will you come? I’ll want a hand from time to time, I fancy, on a night like this.”
There was no time to be lost. I went to the telephone and rang up the night watchman at the yard, and told him to go along and warn the tug’s engineer that we were putting out in half an hour. He was to rouse him at his house, and tell him to bring down what food he had; we should be out all night and the next day. Then I went up with Stenning to my room and changed into sea-going kit. Coming down I found my sergeant and his constable waiting in the hall; the sergeant was a stranger to me, but I had seen the constable about the town from time to time. Neither of them had any arms, and I did not think we would need any. Our only function could be to find our quarry and hold on, mark where he went.
Then to the larder to collect what food there was, and to the stables in the rainy bluster of the rising gale. It was about half-past one when we were in the Bentley on our way down to the yard.
It was a filthy night. I drove in a cold, numbed sort of way. I do not think I was particularly excited: I only remember a slowly growing anger that was turning to cold hatred of the people who had done this violence in my house. I was not especially sorry for the victims, that I can remember, for the Superintendent or for Billy or for Fedden. All these were in the game and subject to its chances. But as I drove down to the quay I think I knew that I was going to kill the people who had shot at Mollie, if God gave me strength.
The engineer was waiting for us at the tug; he had been quick enough. I swung out of the car upon the quay and turned to him. “Morning, Fleming. We’re putting out at once.” I turned to Stenning. “Tell him what it’s about, and get on board and get her started up.” Then to the policeman: “Give a hand, and get that stuff aboard.” And I went down into the little cuddy of the tug, and pinned the chart down on the table, and laid off our course to clear the Start.
Behind the bulkhead a great heave and rumble told me that the port engine was alive. I went on deck and forward to the wheel-house; as I passed the engine hatch I stopped and peered down. Stenning was there with Fleming, a lighted blow-lamp in his hand; they were labouring to get the starboard engine under way. I went forward and uncast the lashing from the wheel and stripped the cover from the binnacle, lighted the binnacle light and saw that it was filled with oil. Then a low increase in the rumble told me that the starboard engine was alive; I rang Stand By and Stenning rang it back to me. Then he appeared on deck.
I leaned from the wheel-house. “Cast off your stern rope now,” I called; Stenning jumped aft and presently I heard him cry: “All gone!” The bow ropes were cast off and I rang Slow Ahead; the vessel stirred and slid quietly from the wharf into the main stream of the tide.
I worked her up to full speed as we went down the harbour, while Stenning and the police made all fast upon deck. I called up Stenning to the house and warned him to get everything secure and battened down, but Stenning knew as well as I did what we should find beyond the Range. He got her pretty well squared up, showed the police the cuddy and put them down there, and came up to the house with me.
For a summer gale it was a devil, that night. Out in the Range the wind was straight onshore, blowing the tops off the short waves and crashing them against the wheel-house as we steered. It was pitch dark and difficult to see more than the bows. I held on till we took one green over the bows and Stenning stirred beside me, but he didn’t speak. Then we took another rather worse; I put my hand down to the telegraph and rang Half Speed.
She took the sea more easily that way, and we went out to the open, rolling and pitching with a short, uneasy motion that was worse than anything I can remember in that way. She is rather an unusually short boat, with a good wide beam and little draught; in that heavy sea she got a screwing action on her every now and then that I would back to turn the strongest stomach up. Throughout that night and the next day we were all sick. The policemen were the worst; they lay for the majority of the time in coma in the cuddy, which got in a filthy state. Fleming stuck it like a man, coming up now and then out of his engine-room to vomit on the sea-swept deck. Stenning and I stuck by the wheel and did our stuff, soaked to the skin and trembling with cold, out of the lee-side window of the house. The vessel was a wonder in a seaway; when we slowed down she hardly took a drop on board, but I have never sailed in anything that had a motion like she had.
I took her out to give a wide berth to the land that night. When I judged Downend to be well abeam I turned and brought the sea on to her quarter, and set her on a course to pass some three miles off the Start. That took me well clear of the Skerries Bank and all the broken water that we should find there; whatever our quarry in the bawley might be going through, I had no fancy to get into any further trouble than we could avoid. The turn gave her a fresh set of motions in the wind-swept, screwing waves, and set us vomiting again.
All night we carr
ied on like that, cold and alert, eating a little now and then and vomiting it up again. Dawn found us off Bolt Head with Salcombe on the beam, and on a straight course from the Lizard to the Start. As I expected, with the dawn the wind went round a bit; I judged that with the wind we had, about Force 8, their vessel would have all that she could do to lie the course, even assuming that they had a good big engine holding her nose up to the wind. So far as I could see, that course would take us four miles south of the Eddystone lighthouse.
We went rolling and screwing on our way. At seven o’clock I gave the wheel to Stenning and went aft. In the engine-room Fleming, white as a sheet, was trying to brew tea in the incessant motion of the ship; he smiled as I came down and said that he was quite all right, and wanted no relief. If he could make a drop of tea he would bring it up to the wheel-house. I went aft to the cuddy and found both policemen on the floor, sunk in a sort of coma after vomiting. They were in a bad way and no good to us at all; I left them there, and went back forward to the house carefully, on the soaked and heaving deck. In general the visibility that morning was about two miles.
At about half-past eight, in a short lull between the squalls, I saw the vessel dead ahead.
She was about two miles away, close-hauled and shrouded in the mist, lying sensibly the same course as ourselves. I judged her to be of about twenty tons; she had a trysail set and heavily reefed down. I only saw her for a minute or so; Stenning saw her first. Then she was covered in a rain-squall, but we knew that we were on her track.
I judged that we were then about five miles south-east of the Eddystone. I was unwilling to close with the vessel to a range of less than half a mile; I had no wish to have a hail of machine-gun bullets flying at us through the scud, and that was pretty certainly what we should get if we went close. I carried on our course, and twenty minutes later, when the squall passed by, we saw her closer, little more than a mile off.
I had a good view of her then. She was a bawley, and I saw three men. They were crouched in a heap on deck about the stern; if she had any cockpit it was a shallow one. As I tried to keep her in the dancing field of my binoculars I got a strong impression as of glasses staring back at me. Then the rain came again, and blotted her from view.
I held a discussion on her then, bawling to Stenning in the clamour of the gale. We decided to lie off and head a little to the north, aiming to pass within signal distance of the Eddystone and to pass the bawley some two miles to the north. Then we would lie to and intercept her course. I had in the back of my mind that we might head her off and make her bear away, and once she ran down wind I knew that she would never round the Lizard till the wind went down. We should have got her then imprisoned in the Bay, and we could take her when we wished.
I altered course more to the north. We saw her once for a few moments when she was abeam, and they probably saw us; a quarter of an hour later we picked up the Eddystone. Stenning is better with the signal lamp than I, and he went aft to rig it in the cuddy.
I sent a short message for them to transmit to Norman, saying we were in touch, and got a short acknowledgment from that windswept tower. I did not dare to hang about for a reply but got the vessel on her course again, a course that would bring us out some three miles ahead of the bawley, by my figuring. We held on this one till about twelve o’clock, and then hove to upon the windswept waste to wait until the vessel came. I did not keep stationary, but slowly patrolled a two-mile line at right angles to her course.
We waited for two hours on that sickening, squalid beat, cold and wretched and soaked through to the skin. Fleming contrived to make soup and brought it up to us with sea biscuits to eat with it; I kept mine for an hour or two and felt the better for it, but Stenning was not so fortunate. We sent Fleming aft to do what he could for the policemen. He took them aft something to eat, but I don’t know that it did them any good to speak of. Stenning and I stayed in the wheel-house taking turns at the helm and on the watch, and at about ten minutes to two we saw the bawley again.
She was coming up to us; we lay dead in her course. We saw her in a lull between the squalls, perhaps two miles away. I put the tug to slow and waited in her path; the rain came down again and blotted her from view. We lay there waiting, straining our wet eyes into the scud. In half an hour that squall let up a bit and visibility improved; we stared around, but she was nowhere to be seen. By all the rules she should have been somewhere close to us by then if she had held on to her course.
Then Stenning picked her up. She had squared right away and she was running to the north, making towards Fowey perhaps, or Looe. I turned to Stenning and grinned sourly, and Stenning grinned at me. “Turned him,” I shouted, and he nodded back.
If the wind held we had him then. Already he was too far down the wind to hope to beat up round the Lizard, unless he had the luck of a good shift into the east. Rather than sail up close to us he had chosen to take his chance of dodging us inshore; I knew then that we were hounds, and we could put him where we liked. I turned the vessel and we wallowed after him in that unpleasant sea, the aft cabin battened down upon the police and trailing a little oil upon the water as we went to still the combers that slid under us. It was bad country, but the hounds were running heads up by that time.
I gave the wheel to Stenning and became immersed in mental calculations of the tides. I did not think that he would try to land. His object must be to attempt to put us off, to keep out of our way till nightfall came, when he would try to beat away around the Lizard into safety. He had about seven hours of daylight left to do it in.
We came up on him and followed perhaps three miles away. Visibility improved throughout the afternoon; the rain got less, but there was no diminution in the wind. I kept as far from him as possible while keeping him in view; I meant that he should still feel free to dodge about. I knew that while he thought that he was free I could manoeuvre him to where I wanted him to be.
He held on for the land, and by about three-thirty he was close inshore, between Fowey and Looe. He turned eastwards then as if to make Rame Head and Plymouth.
Stenning turned to me. “Just dodging about up and down the coast till dark,” he shouted.
I nodded, and swung the vessel on a course for Plymouth that would bring us out ahead of him. “Slip downstairs and see what time high water is at Dover,” I said to him.
He stared at me in astonishment, but went, and I stayed at the wheel, brooding over the murder in my house.
Stenning came back. “High water at Dover eleven-eighteen,” he said.
I nodded. “Say five-thirty here.” He nodded his assent, puzzled, and I glanced at my watch. Then after a little thought I turned the vessel a point more to the east; it would be time enough if our friend turned west again at four-fifteen.
And at four-twenty he did so. We were right in his path then and some three miles ahead of him, just off Rame Head. He put his vessel right around, and headed back the way that he had come; I laughed, and turned also, and followed him, heading four points to seaward of his course to convoy him along the coast again. “Dodging about,” said Stenning. He glanced at me uneasily. “They’ll get away as it gets dark, if someone doesn’t come and give a hand.”
I twisted my cracked lips into a smile. “Don’t worry,” I replied. “They’ll all be dead by dark.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, startled.
“Just that,” I said, and fell to brooding over the doings of the night again.
He stared at me, but said no more, and we went wallowing upon our course in the late afternoon. “He’s got to turn once more,” I said presently. “Just once. Slip down and get the chart that covers Dodman and the Shackles, will you?”
He brought it, and I handed him the wheel and fell to studying the chart. The Dodman point lies between Fowey and Falmouth, and the Shackles Reef lies flung out from it like a scythe, eight cables long. The tide runs in a race around those rocks in the first hours of the ebb, a full two and a half knots. I studied the win
d. It had gone back a point into the east; I turned to the rain-sodden chart and set the point where our good friend should turn again.
At five o’clock I altered course, and made as if to steer for Looe. That made me cross behind him, not much nearer than two miles, and gave him encouragement to carry on.
And then I started to close up. I followed in his wake along the coast till it was evident that he could lie the Dodman and get down to Falmouth; then I went out to sea and passed him, and lay to by the Thresher Rock that marks the seaward limit of the Shackles, and is buoyed. Through the blown scud the clamour of the bell came mournfully to us over the waves; in the blown drifts of rain we saw the bawley labouring to us. “This is the end of it,” I said to Stenning; “if he turns. You’d better get those policemen up on deck for them to see.”
Over a mile away we saw the bawley come up to the wind, shiver in irons for a moment, and lay off on the other tack. “He’s going back along the coast again,” cried Stenning. “What do you mean by saying it’s the end?”
I smiled against the beating of the gale. “He’s got a three-knot tide now setting him upon the Shackles. No vessel ever built could beat against that in this wind. In half an hour he’ll be ashore. Look at it for yourself.”
He grasped the chart and stood there bending over it. “Good God!” he said. “He’s embayed already, and he doesn’t know it!”
“That’s right,” I said.
He raised his head and stood there staring at me. “You put him there.”
I met his stare. “Yes,” I replied, “I put him there. You’d better go and get those policemen up on deck.”
He turned and went away aft, and I stood there watching in the fading evening light. It was ten minutes before they realised the hole that they were in. Then they shook out two reefs and tried to drive her out in little tacks as their sea room got less and less.
At seven-twenty-five I closed right up and drifted down a lifebuoy to them, carrying a light line. I had no faith that anything that we could do would help them then, but it would please the coroner. The line broke when they got the buoy, before they could pull in the hawser that I had laid out.