Sea Lord

  I almost let her go, but I made myself hold on to her burned flesh. I tried to keep her head above water, but my kicking was becoming more and more feeble so that more and more water broke over my face to sting my eyes and fill my throat. I told her once more that I loved her. She neither made a sound, nor moved.

  A helicopter appeared in the sky. I cursed this new hallucination because now I only wanted to die in peace. The helicopter made a huge clattering noise, disturbing me, and I swam feebly away from it in the hope of finding a place of great quiet and slow gentle dying. Again the illusion was crystal clear, even to such details as the helicopter’s shadow sweeping over us and the water churning beneath the blade’s downdraught. I saw the winchman peering down, but I fought the illusion because I dared not cling to such imaginary hopes, yet the mind persisted, and I hallucinated the rope dropping down and touching the water to discharge the helicopter’s static electricity. I cursed the dream.

  A wave swamped us. I choked, but this time there was no air to breathe. I had gone underwater. I still clung to Jennifer, but now I was drowning and she was drowning with me. I opened my eyes and found peace. The water’s surface was like a sheet of waving silver above me. No helicopter disturbed that pretty sight. My pain had gone, my ears were filled with the long, hollow booming of the sea, and there was peace and gentleness and a shot-silk silver sky of coalescing wonder.

  Then the great shape hammered the silver black, and it seemed that a man was in the water, huge and thrashing and intrusive, and I closed my eyes to get rid of the dream and I let Jennifer go as I drifted away to nowhere and nothing, because it was all over now; it was all over and I was finished and everything was ended.

  Part Four

  Ulf, of all people, bloody Ulf, was telling me that Sunflower’s mast was too high and mounted too far aft. He was saying to wake up and move the thing. I tried to tell him to shut up, but his voice droned on. You’re all right, Johnny, he said, you’re not going to die because death is just a mentally induced self-deception, and I told him to stuff his opinions and then I saw that Ulf was dressed all in white and had a black face, and I wondered how the hell he’d ever got into heaven to become a white-robed angel, and I felt a vague surprise that everyone in heaven was black, though it did seem a fairly heavenly solution to an earthly problem, then I wondered how I’d ever got permission to enter heaven myself. “There’s been a mistake,” I said.

  “You’re all right now,” said the hallucination of Ulf which resolved itself into a black-bespectacled doctor who was bending over me. “Move your hand,” he said, “that’s good.”

  My left ankle and calf were a mass of pain, like the time I’d been stung by a jellyfish off the Malaysian coast. I hissed and jerked as the pain struck me, then tried to explain it. “Jellyfish,” I said.

  “My name’s Mortimer,” the doctor said, “Doctor Mortimer. And you’re the Earl of Stowey, yes?”

  “John,” I said, “call me John.” A siren was wailing somewhere, and the sound reminded me of Jennifer’s screaming. I turned my head to see I was in a small brightly lit room and there was no sign of Jennifer. “Is she alive?”

  “She’s alive,” the doctor said, but I was already responding to the drugs that were sparing me pain. I slept.

  It had been the mackerel boat which saved our lives. They had seen the smoke churning up, turned back to investigate, and seen Sunflower burning. They had called the coastguard on Channel 16, who had summoned the Royal Naval Air Service. It had taken just eight minutes from the time that the skipper of the mackerel boat had made his emergency call to the arrival of the helicopter. It had seemed like an hour. Even now, looking back, and having read the coastguard’s log, I cannot believe it was only eight minutes.

  My legs were badly burned, I’d inhaled smoke, and my hands and forearms were scorched. It could have been much worse. For Jennifer it was, though just how bad, in those first days, I wasn’t told.

  Harry Abbott was my first visitor. I was barely conscious or coherent. I gathered that as soon as the police heard of the burning boat they had feared it might be Sunflower, and had sent a man to the hospital to identify us. I tried to tell Harry it was attempted murder, but he must already have assumed that because I later learned that a police guard stayed in the corridor outside my ward all the time I was in the hospital. I do remember that Harry brought me some grapes that he ate himself. I asked about Jennifer and he just shrugged and said she’d been flown to a big London hospital that specialised in burn victims.

  Charlie came the next day. I had never seen him so troubled. I tried to tell him that I was all right, that I would walk again, but Charlie seemed to think he had let me down. “I should have found those two blokes and fucking killed them.”

  “You tried, Charlie.”

  “Bastards.” He sat beside the bed. “Bastards.”

  “I’m going to find them,” I said, “and I promise you they’ll wish they’d never been born.”

  “Bastards.” He was too restless to stay seated and began pacing the floor. “What happened?”

  I told him about the severed gas pipe. “They did a proper job, Charlie,” I said bitterly. “They must have cut the gas pipe in the engine compartment, then pushed the broken end into the hole in the bulkhead.” They had also done it without dislodging the feed tap inside the cabin, because otherwise Jennifer would have seen the break.

  “Didn’t you lock the engine compartment?” Charlie asked.

  “It was only a cheap padlock.”

  “There you go,” he said hopelessly. It was Charlie who had first taught me how to open a locked padlock; you just brace the loop against something solid, then tap the keyhole end with a hammer. If the lock doesn’t jump open first time, tap harder. There are expensive makes that won’t respond to the treatment, but I’d lost my good padlock when the two men had pulled Sunflower off the grid and my replacement had been a run-of-the-mill lock.

  “And the liferaft didn’t work,” I added.

  “Jesus.” He was horribly depressed, but he forced himself to talk optimistically about the boat which would replace Sunflower. He said we’d pick her out together, equip her together, and make her maiden voyage together. “But this time we’ll make sure there’s a gas alarm in her.”

  I shook my head. “There won’t be another boat, Charlie.”

  “Of course there will!”

  “I can’t afford one, and I won’t take your money. You’ve given me enough already.”

  “You’ll take what you’re given, Johnny.” He stopped his pacing and stood staring out of the window. “Bastards,” he said softly, then he turned ruefully towards the bed. “I told you not to get involved.”

  “I’m involved now. I’m going to kill those two. For Jennifer’s sake.”

  He smiled. “Like that, is it?”

  “It’s like that.”

  He grimaced. “I often wondered when you’d fall, Johnny. I get Yvonne and you end up with a millionaire’s stepdaughter.”

  “If she lives, and if she wants me.”

  “You saved her life,” he said as though that gave me full rights over that life.

  “No,” I said disparagingly. Yet I probably had saved her. The helicopter pilot came to tell me as much, and so did Harry Abbott on his second visit. He listened glumly as I described the fire, and to my conviction that the gas pipe had been deliberately cut.

  “I didn’t think to guard the boat,” Harry said ruefully, “only you.” He seemed genuinely upset at what had happened.

  “I want those two, Harry.”

  “We’re looking for them, Johnny, we’re looking for them.”

  “And Elizabeth, if she’s behind it.”

  “Who else?” He lit a cigarette and stared moodily at the bandages on my ankle. “Mind you,” he went on, “she’s taking damned good care to keep a long way out of it.”

  “Out of it?”

  “She’s done a runner. I went to question her, see, but her husband says he thin
ks she’s in France. Thinks!” Harry said disgustedly. “I’ll not be able to nail her, Johnny, not unless I can find Garrard and persuade him to talk.”

  “Then find him, Harry, and give me a few minutes alone with him when you do.”

  “You know I can’t promise you that.”

  I took a cigarette off him. My precious pipes were gone, as was everything else. Doctor Mortimer, my black angel, had forcibly suggested I use the opportunity to give up smoking, but I’d failed again. “How the hell does Elizabeth have the money to go to France?” I asked Harry.

  “I asked her husband that. He says she sold your mother’s house.” Harry frowned pensively. “That Lord Tredgarth, he’s a miserable sod, isn’t he?”

  I didn’t want to talk about Peter Tredgarth. “Tell me how Jennifer is, Harry.”

  He didn’t answer for a long time, then he shrugged. “Bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Don’t ask me, Johnny, because I don’t know.”

  I found out the next day when Helen, Lady Buzzacott, came to visit me. I was sitting in an armchair by the bed and tried to stand when she came into the room. She told me not to be so silly and to stay seated. She put a bunch of grapes on the bedside table. “Why do the English always take grapes to hospital patients? It’s really a ridiculous habit, but quite unbreakable. I was getting quite frantic because I hadn’t bought you any, so I made Higgs drive through the town centre and stop outside a fruiterer. So there they are, and you’ll probably tell me you hate grapes.”

  “I like grapes.”

  She sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re looking better than I expected, John.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Whatever for?” She asked the question too lightly.

  I opened my eyes. This was difficult. This was a meeting I had been dreading, but I had to say my piece and I had to let her know that I meant what I was saying. “I’m sorry for taking Jennifer out in the boat. I’m sorry that I didn’t check the gas line before we sailed. I’m sorry I didn’t pump the bilges. I’m just sorry about what happened.” I had begun to cry, so closed my eyes again. “I’m just sorry, Lady Buzzacott. It was my fault.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said, “but I don’t blame you.”

  I couldn’t say anything. I was blubbing like a child. I felt entirely responsible for what had happened to Jennifer. I’d taken a lovely girl and I had turned her into burnt meat.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Helen Buzzacott said very clearly. “Of course you can look back and see a score of things you might have done to prevent it happening, but that isn’t the point, John. The point is that you did nothing to cause the accident. All you did was go for a day’s sailing, and I can’t think of anything more innocent than that.”

  “Shit,” I said, and reached for a paper handkerchief.

  “And Jennifer’s going to be all right,” Helen said.

  I looked at her through a blur of tears, but said nothing.

  “Or rather we hope she’ll be all right,” Helen amended the statement. “The burns are really quite frightful, but I’m told they’re very skilled at these things nowadays.” She spoke in a very matter-of-fact voice, but it was clear that she had suffered agonies for her daughter in the last few days. “Of course it will take a lot of time, and a horrible amount of surgery, but she’s got a very pompous doctor who says that in the end she’ll be as good as new. Of course one can’t tell if he’s just telling professional lies, but he’s certainly a very expensive liar if he is.” Tears were glinting on her cheeks. She tried to ignore them. “They’re starting the first skin grafts tomorrow, but I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I should be asking about you.”

  I pushed the box of paper handkerchiefs towards her. She took one, then caught my eye. “Shit,” she said through the tears. She blew her nose, sniffed, and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know, John. I looked at her and I think it’s impossible that she’ll ever recover. She’s no hair left, but her face isn’t too bad. It seems she crouched down and put her face in her hands, you see. Her hands are quite shocking, and I gather they’re the most difficult to repair properly, but at least she can wear gloves, can’t she?” She was crying again. “Then her legs and her back are very bad. Her bottom is awful, but the pompous man says it really will be all right, and I can’t do anything but believe him. Hans says she should go to Switzerland, but I can’t see why.”

  “Nor can I,” I said fervently.

  “Hans says they’ve got very good cosmetic surgeons there, but I think he’s just being xenophobic. He did go to see Jennifer, but he found it rather upsetting. She’s been on one of those air beds like an upside-down hovercraft. It’s too silly, really.” She blew her nose again. “She’s not entirely compos mentis, but she did ask after you.”

  “Tell her I’m fine, and very sorry.”

  “I won’t tell her you’re sorry. You can do that yourself. And are you fine? Doctor Mortimer says you’re an appalling patient. He says you won’t give up smoking.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You should, but I didn’t think you would so I went to Dunhills and bought you some pipes. I don’t know anything about pipes so I’ve probably done the wrong thing, but here you are.” She gave me a big bag full of the most expensive pipes. “I chose some tobacco at random,” she went on, “the man in the shop said you’d probably be very particular, but I just bought what smelt the nicest.”

  I took the tobacco. “You’re very kind.”

  “You did save my daughter’s life.”

  “And risked it,” I said bitterly.

  “Don’t start all that again. Leon spoke with the helicopter crew and heard all about what you did. You’re a very brave man.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “I won’t argue.” She took a deep breath. “I came here to cheer you up, and all I do is weep. Poor John.”

  “Poor Jennifer.”

  “She’s a tough creature. She takes after her father, I think. She’s certainly too good for that bloody Swiss man.”

  “I agree with that.”

  “But Leon doesn’t. He’s very keen on the marriage. He never had children of his own, you see, so he rather thinks of Jennifer as a daughter. I keep telling him that all Hans ever did was to inherit a vast business. Any fool can inherit money.”

  “While it takes a sensible man to make it?” I asked, and reflected that I had made none.

  Helen smiled mischievously. “A sensible man marries it, John, but I think you know that already. Now I won’t tire you any more. I know Leon wants to see you soon. He’s made some arrangements for your younger sister and I’m sure they’re perfect, but you need to take a look for yourself.” She balled up the scraps of paper tissues, then collected her handbag. “If you’ve got nowhere to go when you leave hospital, then you’ll be very welcome at Comerton.”

  “I shall be fine, don’t worry. And give my love to Jennifer.”

  “I already have.” She stood up. “Let us know where you are, and don’t hesitate to ask if you need somewhere to stay.”

  I left the hospital a week later. I went with Charlie and, because I felt safe in his company, I told Harry to take away the police guard. Charlie drove me to his house where I limped upstairs and lay down on the bed. My legs still hurt like the devil, but, apart from the one ankle, the scarring would be minimal. I flinched when I thought of Jennifer, and the ordeal she faced, so that evening I phoned Comerton Castle and asked for Lady Buzzacott. Sir Leon came to the phone instead and told me his wife was with Jennifer in London. And where was I? he asked. I gave him Charlie’s number, there was a pause as I imagined him writing it down in his small leather-bound book, then he said he wanted to see me.

  “Of course.”

  “I want your approval for the arrangements I’m proposing for the Lady Georgina. Will tomorrow be convenient?”

  I wasn’t certain I really felt fit enough, but nor did I thi
nk I could bear a day of Yvonne’s long face, so I said tomorrow would be fine.

  “Shall I send a car?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to.” I was not only homeless, but penniless as well.

  The car came in the morning. The driver took me to the Mendip Hills where, in a sheltered south-facing village, we turned into a long driveway which led to a large white-painted Victorian house. Sir Leon himself met me at the front door and introduced me to a fresh-faced man of about my age. “This is Doctor Grove,” Sir Leon said, “the medical doctor of Lovelace House.”

  Sir Leon was touchingly anxious that I should approve of Lovelace House. “I had my staff do a great deal of research,” he told me, “and I assure you that Lovelace met our most stringent requirements.”

  It was, so far as I could tell, ideal. Lovelace House was privately run, outrageously expensive, and self-evidently caring. Many such places, catering to the lunatic members of rich or titled families, are scarcely more than prisons, but at Lovelace each patient had a private suite, personal nurses, and as much freedom as their condition would allow them to receive. Whenever we met a patient in one of the airy corridors I was gravely and courteously introduced. A Marchioness enquired whether I had planted the banana tree yet, I replied no, and she told me my employment was in severe jeopardy. I bowed, then limped on to see the suite that had been reserved for Georgina. Wide French windows opened on to a terraced lawn, beyond which empty paddocks stretched to the wooded hillside. The view was not unlike that from the windows of Stowey, and I said as much. “Except for the horses, of course.”

  “Is the Lady Georgina fond of horses?” Doctor Grove asked.