Johnson Johnson 04 - Dolly and the Doctor Bird (19 page)

By the time I got back, I discovered two other people wanted to go, and Johnson had volunteered to take us in
Dolly
. Spry ferried us out in the launch: myself, Trotter, a picturesque investment broker from Nassau whose first name was Harry, and a middle-aged beautician in a wide floppy hat who was referred to simply as Violet of New York.

Climbing
Dolly
’s companionway behind her broad, Paris-dressed pelvis, I wondered privately who was supposed to be standing guard over Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe while Johnson, Spry, and myself slaughtered amberjack. Johnson himself responded to my hints and raised eyebrows with an expanse of impossibly vacant bifocals. I held my own embittered counsel and was rewarded ten minutes later when the launch departed and returned to
Dolly
once more bearing Edgecombe.

With him, in zebra-striped surf shorts and towel, was my friend Wallace Brady. So Edgecombe was with us, but also with two of our suspects, Trotter and Brady. In which case he might have been better off alone with Krishtof on Crab Island. I wondered which of them had persuaded Sir Bartholomew to come: Johnson or Brady.

The anchor came up. Johnson put the big six-cylinder engine into gear and we began gently to motor out of the anchorage. Then he turned her into the wind and the sails ran up as Spry broke them out, helped by Sir Bartholomew Edgecombe and Trotter.

But for my father’s paranoia, we should have had a family yacht at Loch Rannoch. It seems odd to spend all one’s childhood on a rock in the sea and know as little as I did about sailing. But at least I knew how to fish. And to shoot.

The seventy thousand square miles of Bahamian waters are full of extraordinary fish, from striped grunts to queen trigger-fish. Or take the wahoo, if you can catch it. It can manage 40 mph on a good day, and the world record is 149 lbs. “I once caught a wahoo,” said Sergeant Trotter dreamily, as
Dolly
lay on her side. “But I’d rather have bonefish. A nice quiet afternoon in the shallows, lying flat in a skiff with the sun on me plumbago…”

The silence, after the pounding of the Mercedes-Benz engine, was like the bliss of a warm water bath to a cripple. The sea lay clear as shellac underneath us, jade and turquoise; cerulean and peacock, sheared white by the blade of our bow. The island skeined past, low and green and feathered with palms. A sea bird flew by. The light from
Dolly
’s mainsail, spilled straight from the sun, ached into my eyes, and I put on my dark glasses. We had all moved, redisposing ourselves in the sun and the air and the silence, our voices sounding small and lonely and clear. Harry the broker was already oiled and stripped to his trunks, lying prone on the foredeck; and I saw that Wallace Brady had settled beside Johnson and was untangling a fishing line in long, muscular hands, without speaking. In his tanned face, his strange light eyes remained pale as a fish’s.

We had passed his bridge, its white caissons glittering in the sunshine: the thump of the generators traveling over the water, and the distant voices of men from the pile driver and supply boats on the far side. Brady had stood up and waved, and someone waved back. Where he sat now, I saw he still had a bruise on his chin where Johnson had hit him. On the other hand, I noticed Johnson had a cut lip where Krishtof Bey had followed through first.

The walking wounded were insensibly growing. If you counted James Ulric’s asthma, the only unblemished scout in the Save Edgecombe Club was the Begum.

Now I can realize how far I had been reduced, deliberately reduced, below my own high intellectual watermark. Then I merely felt pleased that I had exchanged my wig for a neat cotton turban, and holding my face up to the sun, listened to Violet of New York discoursing about the glandular troubles of civet cats, while Bart Edgecombe made conversation with Trotter about his tattoos.

Then Edgecombe turned his gray head to me and grinned, and said, his voice public, his eyes conspiratorially private, “I rather like the way Johnson keeps throwing us together. Or is it you and Wallace Brady he’s throwing together?”

“I can feel thrown together,” I said heavily, “without any outside help whatsoever.” I dislike double talk. I dislike haphazard danger. I dislike not being in anyone’s confidence.

I asked Johnson how he felt after his sea bath, and he said fine. I turned my back on him. Someone switched on a stereo cassette of that cello piece by Saint-Saëns and all the men started to warble it. Spry came around with Royal Hawaiian Macadamia nuts, fifteen shillings for three and a half ounces, and a tray of strong Planters’ Punch. I helped myself freely to everything and watched
Dolly
run gently north and west before the soft southeast wind to the fishing ground.

It was a short sail, as we had to be back. Edgecombe guided Johnson into the currents, their heads together over the chart, and too soon for the sluggards
Dolly
went about and, idling, dropped all her canvas. Then we were lying in the full sun again under bare poles, and Spry was handing out fishing tackle and lures. Violet, holding onto her hat, went below and returned with a jam jar of shrimps and Rodney Trotter, who had brought his own rod. The handsome Harry, now sitting beside me, was gazing speculatively at the undynamic figure of Johnson.

“Now who,” he said, “would have expected such mad efficiency?”

The bifocals turned and got him into alignment. “I only look like this,” explained Johnson, “because there wasn’t enough zinc in my egg.”

Bart Edgecombe, baiting his hook, grinned without turning. “And he only looks efficient,” he said, “because
Dolly
’s a cow. A cutter for imperious youth, a yawl for respectable middle age, and a ketch for the old and feeble. Old Balinese proverb.”

“My ethos can stand it,” said Johnson. “Is this tub drifting too fast? We’re just about at slack water.”

“The wind has freshened,” said Brady. “Does it matter?” And indeed, we seemed in no need of sea room: the 200-foot mast on Great Stirrup Cay was the nearest sign of the Great Harbour Cay group of islands, far on our left as our bows pointed upwind and south.

I stared at it through my dark glasses and said, “What is it? A radio mast?”

“The tracking station,” said Edgecombe mildly, after a moment. I hadn’t heard of it. I suppose it was public knowledge that one of them lay in these islands. But I realized now why Bart Edgecombe had chosen to live where he had. And remembered afresh, as we gently rocked there on the warm turquoise sea, that somewhere there was a gun at his head.

Brady said, “We
are
drifting.” And Johnson, who had pulled out the chart, said: “Yes. I think the anchor. Come on, Bartholomew. You’ve got to work for your bloody beads and striped blanket. Is this the right place?”

“Yes, but Brady’s right. There are shoals to the northeast back there, and some coral heads beyond that, and out west. If the tide’s on the turn I should watch it, but you’ll be perfectly safe with your anchor. Anyway, the chart’ll give you your bearings.”

“All right. Let it go,” Johnson said. His pencil, poised, made a mark on the chart among several beer rings. Spry moved forward, but Edgecombe, already in the bows, had picked up the anchor. Brady and Trotter, in the cockpit, were arguing about British and American scarphing. They both sounded knowledgeable.

The second anchor for this kind of ketch weighs about ninety pounds, so Spry told me later, and when it is heaved overboard, the three-quarter-inch cable for it comes flying up from the fo’c’sle through navel pipe and fairleads and over a chain gypsy, which spins it out over the stempost. Even when performed with precision, in a well-maintained boat with greased winches, it is not an exercise which is ever quite foolproof. The chain can cross link on its way up from the locker, or as it is rendering around the chain gypsy. A projecting shackle pin can cause an abrupt jam. Coming into a crowded anchorage, you can find your anchor stuck, halfway to the bottom. Or jammed higher up, and kicking a hole in your hull. Or pulled up short as it flies through the air so that it plunges rolling back toward you and the deck, its iron flukes twisting.

That was what happened to Bart Edgecombe. The chain jammed and then somehow ran back, almost before the anchor got over the side. It kicked back; and in a moment those ninety pounds of galvanized iron would have been down on the deck and scooping Edgecombe’s legs over the side.

He didn’t have time to escape, but he did what anyone would have tried to do: he fended it off with his hands. I heard him shout and saw the blood spurting. The anchor crashed on the deck. Brady jumped out of the cockpit and in two strides got hold of Edgecombe’s arm; he had a handkerchief out, already scarlet with blood. Trotter followed, looked for me, and choosing his priorities, dropped and began grimly to tear at the windlass. Spry, after a movement from Johnson, went forward to help him.

By that time, I was beside Edgecombe myself. I think my main preoccupation as I took his arm wasn’t the long open wound, tearing through the fascia and anterior brachial muscles and ending around the base of the thumb; even though I registered that it had somehow missed a main artery, and equally that it would be as ugly a scar, at the very best, as any arm lesion I ever had seen. It was the fact that in this disaster-fraught climate, pure accident could claim its share. No one had pushed Edgecombe; no one had been anywhere near him; no one could have caused the fault in the chain. It was, as usual, merely Fate kicking.

But nothing was said, or could be said: thought was for later. Meanwhile the medical box was produced, and aided — surprisingly— by the face-lifted Violet, I made a workmanlike job of the tear. The medicine chest was impressive and included surgical needles and silk in a stoppered glass tube, as well as dressings and mercury sublimate. Johnson produced a blanket and bowls of warm water and brandy. He also had ampoules of morphine and three new syringes wrapped in foil, but I shook my head and he packed them away. Edgecombe didn’t need them, and there was no need to advertise their existence. I wondered what other scenes, in other ports,
Dolly
had survived with the help of that competent chest.

Spry made some tea while we cleaned up, and Edgecombe and Johnson had a brief talk in the saloon, Edgecombe’s bandaged right arm cross-slung before him.

Trotter appeared suddenly at the top of the companionway and said, “We’ve freed the gypsy. Do you want to get under way? She’s still drifting.”

“You haven’t had your fishing yet. Beltanno and Violet…” Edgecombe was getting over the shock, although his face was still pale under the bright reddish tan. “I couldn’t have done better if I’d been run over by a trolley in Guy’s. Look, J.J., there’s no need for a fuss. I’m as comfortable here as I’d be anywhere else. Get your anchor out and go on with your fishing.”

Johnson looked at me. I said, “No, I want him back. He’d better have an antitetanus shot, for one thing. And he ought to rest properly.”

“Then I’ll go back in the launch,” said Bart Edgecombe wearily. It was, I suppose, what they had planned. It left both Trotter and Brady on
Dolly
. And only Krishtof Bey to worry about at the castle.

I said, “That’s a good idea. And it’s faster. I’ll take him, if you’ll show me what to do.”

“No, the launch is heavy. It needs a man,” Johnson said.

Trotter, waiting patiently at the top of the companionway said, “I’ll steer, if you like. Provided Sir Bart here can pilot.”

Edgecombe looked quickly at Johnson and said, “I don’t mind, but perhaps Harry or someone would be better. They get more chances for fishing than Trotter.”

Trotter looked surprised and a little impatient. “No, I’ll take him,” he said. “No trouble at all. I’ll help Spry to get the Avenger unshipped.” He disappeared.

We couldn’t talk because Violet of New York was still there, screwing rings onto the pegs of her fingers. Johnson said to me, “Beltanno, you’d better go with him. Maybe one or two of the others would like to get back as well. Violet?”

“You want me back,” Violet said. She had repowdered her face, which had the fine texture of hospital rubber sheets; her eyelashes were painted dark blue. She didn’t fuss. She picked up her jar, and said philosophically, “I guess that’s the sort of life that shrimps have. You want them, Beltanno? They taste real good on toast with a little sesame seed.”

I took the jar and she smoothed down her hat and followed by Johnson led the way up on deck. There was a heavy splash, and then a rattle from the fo’c’sle as the anchor chain ran out. I could hear feet overhead and pulley blocks squeaking as the launch was winched down into the water. I put the jar on the table.

There was no doubt that Edgecombe ought to go back. His pulse rate was higher than I had hoped for, and he was lying inert with his eyes not quite closed. The man called Harry appeared silently on the stairs, and I said, “How fast is that launch?”

“It’s fifty miles an hour, dearie. He’ll be on Crab in ten minutes,” said Harry. I could hear Johnson’s voice above, talking to someone persuasively. He could be very persuasive, could Johnson. Harry said, “Listen, dearie. Would you rather I went back with Sir Bartholomew?”

It was one way, I suppose, of finding out which of the men I was interested in. Or maybe he thought that he knew. I said, “No. It’s all right,” just as Brady appeared on the steps and said:

“We’re ready, if you can show us how to carry him. Violet’s going.”

Edgecombe roused at once and got to his feet. Between us we got him on deck and down the gangway into
Dolly
’s white launch. Violet was already ensconced there, her face tucks showing in the clear light. Brady got down beside her and steadied Edgecombe as we lifted him down.

We were still in the slack of the tide and there was a slight jopple, enough to make the boat lurch more than it should. Edgecombe arrived in the well of the boat, stumbled, and put out a hand. Brady, not expecting it, lost his balance and saved himself by gripping the engine casing. There was a roar, and the engine, which had been idling, went into gear.

We saw the launch shoot backward, graze
Dolly
’s virginal sides, and then as Brady frantically grabbed at the lever, stop and plunge nose outward away from the yacht. The lashing on deck unfurled like gray smoke and vanished. We saw Violet’s arms batten her hat, and Edgecombe fall, and Brady, his eyes white with fright, try to regain his balance and wrench at the launch’s controls. He throttled down, and started to bring the launch back. I saw Edgecombe move in the bottom, and Violet straighten her hat.