The Nine-Spoked Wheel, page 15
Dr Arbolent explained the construction of his boat. No iron was allowed, but some of the fastenings could be of bronze, since he believed that bronze-working from Cornish tin and Welsh copper had originated in Britain long before it was known in the East. The main fastenings, however, were provided by wooden pins and strong lashings of the fibrous roots of the yew, which, he pointed out, made not only for strength, but also gave the hull flexibility in a seaway. Caulking was to be a compound of wool, and tar derived from opencast coal seams. The boat was to be rigged with one huge lateen sail, and he had no hesitation in using canvas, because he believed that linen-weaving from flax had also originated in Britain. Cordage, he admitted, was a problem he had not yet completely solved. The tombdrawing indicated that the mast was stayed. Flax might have been used for rope-making, but that did present certain difficulties. On the other hand, since he was certain that long voyages were made, the prehistoric seamen must have had adequate rope of some sort. Possibly there were certain prehistoric grasses which could have been used, or they might have depended on plaited leather thongs. Since the perishable nature of vegetable fibres made it unlikely that any rope of the period could have survived, and since there was not time for long experiments with the various materials that might have been used, he intended to use hemp. Some might feel that this was an anachronism, and he freely admitted that he respected such a point of view. But questions of safety arose, and he hoped that his use of modern hemp rope would not be regarded as reflecting on the authenticity of his voyage. ‘I am confident,’ he said, ‘that later research will enable us to say with some certainty what materials these wonderful prehistoric ancestors of ours used to make cordage for their ships. For the moment, I do not know. I do know that the ships existed, and that they could sail. I hope I may be forgiven this one departure from a precisely accurate reconstruction of the past. In every other respect the Lady Penelope will be an exact replica of a vessel which put out from Fishguard Bay on some August morning around 2500 BC.’
He proposed to carry no compass, and to navigate as he believed these ancient mariners had navigated. ‘We have met,’ he said, ‘their symbol of the Nine-Spoked Wheel. Consider this a little more deeply. It is a wheel, yes, but it is also a symbol so sacred that its properties must derive from something more vital than the wheel of a cart. Consider it as a circle divided into nine segments – is it not superior in accuracy to the later circle divided into merely four cardinal points that we use for North, East, South and West? It is commonly believed that the mathematical division of a circle into 360 degrees derives from Babylonia. I don’t accept this. I believe that the Babylonians acquired the device from the West – and never understood how to make full use of it! Consider the number 36: it is wonderfully flexible, being divisible by 3, 4, 6, 9, and 12. The Babylonian mathematicians never developed its property of being divisible by 9, which, to my mind, very strongly suggests, if it does not actually prove, that they could not themselves have invented the 360 degree circle. In my view the Nine-Spoked Wheel was a directional device, giving not merely four quarters (our North, East, South and West) but nine directional segments. Alas, I cannot yet say what these were called, but as we learn more of the language of the inscriptions I have discovered, I hope we may come to know what these early points of the compass – far more precise than our own crude cardinal points – were called. Given such an instrument as a nine-point directional circle, and the knowledge of the sun, moon and stars that we know the ancient world had, I am confident that navigation would present few really difficult problems. I have worked out a course from Fishguard Bay around the coast of Pembrokeshire into the Bristol Channel, which I shall follow by means of the Nine Point system alone. And I assure you that I shall deliver my precious cargo of blue stones from the Prescelly Mountains safely in Bristol.’
*
All this added greatly to Dr Arbolent’s fame with the public, but the editor of the Sunday Examiner had some private reservations. Dr Arbolent might be a brilliant pre-historian, but he had little or no experience of practical seamanship. The newspaper had invested a lot of money in Lady Penelope, and more in Dr Arbolent himself. It would do the story no good if they came to grief, or had ignominiously to be rescued. The question of a crew for Lady Penelope had yet to be decided. Dr Arbolent thought that the original vessel would have carried a crew of around twelve, and the editor insisted that eight of these should be yachtsmen of proved experience, including at least one competent navigator. The editor also felt that Lady Penelope’s equipment should include radio, a compass, a sextant, and a set of modern charts.
Radio was a necessity, anyway, for Dr Arbolent to transmit the story of his voyage to the paper, and since without radio there would be nothing like the publicity that he could have with it, he accepted this. But he jibbed at carrying compass, sextant and charts. In the end it was agreed that they should be carried, but kept locked in a sealed box, to be used only in emergency. He made no difficulties about the editor’s stipulations concerning his crew – indeed, he thought them sensible, though he insisted that he alone was to be in command. The paper invited applications for crewing on Lady Penelope, and had 1,500 replies within three days. A shortlist was prepared by the newspaper’s staff, and the candidates were then interviewed by the editor, Dr Arbolent, and the commodore of a famous ocean-racing club. The eight finally selected included a leading ocean-racing skipper, and five men and two women, all with impressive experience of sailing.
Dr Arbolent was left to choose the lay members of the Lady Penelope’s complement himself. Announcing that he thought it right that those who had shared in the labours of the dig should share in its triumphant climax, he invited George Armitage, two of the archaeological students, and Juliet – to add, as he put it magnanimously, a representative of the great Western civilisation of the United States.
*
Juliet was overjoyed, Marryat markedly less so. They had had supper in Marryat’s cottage, and as it was a beautiful, warm evening they had taken coffee into the garden, where there was a bench under a huge old walnut tree. During supper they had come as near as they had ever come to having a row, and Juliet was now penitent. ‘Of course I understand how you feel, Tony,’ she said ‘but there are going to be eleven other people on board as well as Dr Arbolent. It’s a big strong boat and I don’t see that I can possibly come to any harm. You must understand that it’s a wonderful chance for me. Things like this just don’t happen in Agostine County, Iowa.’
‘Oh Julie,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry I got het up. I’m not your father—’
‘You certainly are not! You’re nothing like old enough, for one thing.’
‘—I’m not your father, but I do love you very much. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be worried about you. It’s a damnable coast, and goodness knows how that weird tub is going to sail. But I’m not going to say any more.’ He put his good arm round her shoulders and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
‘Oh, Tony, that wasn’t much of a kiss!’ She pulled his head down to her, and kissed him on the mouth. ‘There! I shall have to teach you!’ He held her to him and began to kiss her fiercely. She snuggled up to him for a moment, then pushed him away. ‘Not now, Tony,’ she said. ‘You’ll upset the coffee cups! No, Tony darling, please, no. One day, perhaps, but not now. Besides, it’s time you took me back to the camp.’
‘All right, Julie. Sorry.’
‘You needn’t be all that sorry.’
‘Perhaps you don’t know what I’m sorry for.’
They both laughed, and Juliet got up. ‘I’ll help you with the washing up, Tony, and then you must take me back.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. I’ve got to have something to take my mind off things when I have to come home without you. I do wish you weren’t going – going anyway, but going on that trip particularly.’
‘So does nearly half of me. But the other half feels that I’d be a coward not to go. I feel that I’d be letting down Daddy, and America, and you, too, Tony. Try to understand that.’
‘I do, Julie. But I know much more about the sea than you do, and I can’t help being worried. But I’ve said I’m not going to say any more. When do you have to go to Fishguard?’
‘On Saturday.’
‘And you sail on Saturday week! And the boat’s not even launched!’
‘It’ll be all right. She’s going to be launched on Saturday, and there’ll be time for several days of sailing trials. The whole crew is going to be at Fishguard for a week. And you’re coming to Bristol to meet me when we get in. Let’s look forward to that.’
*
Marryat did not look forward to the coming fortnight. The passage from Fishguard to Bristol would be about 200 miles, and given reasonable weather, even a not very fast sailing boat should do it in three days or so. But the Lady Penelope was not a normal sailing boat, and although she would have a competent crew he doubted whether many of them had much experience of dhow-rig. Still, they’d be a strong crew, and really it wasn’t all that far. But Marryat had far more reasons than Julie knew for distrusting Arbolent, and he disliked the whole project intensely. He was also getting more and more bothered about whether he ought to express publicly his profound doubts about the inscriptions and the whole edifice built on them. But he had to be fair. He had wished himself on Arbolent for private reasons – he had not been called in to express a professional opinion on anything. He believed Arbolent to be a murderer and he thought it probable that Arbolent had tried to kill him, with Julie’s death thrown in as a casual makeweight. Merely thinking of the man made him grit his teeth in anger. But there was precious little evidence to justify his feelings – the police had made no move against Arbolent, and if they didn’t have enough evidence to act, what could he do? They might all be wrong. He was not wrong about the inscriptions – he was absolutely sure that they had been faked. One day they’d have to be submitted to professional scrutiny, and there was no doubt of the outcome of that. But so far everything had been wrapped up in that damned newspaper, which seemed to think it owned the lot, and preserved its copyrights jealously. It might own Arbolent’s articles and photographs, but it didn’t own the Wansdyke Great Barrow, or the stone circles at Avebury. They were national property, and there’d have to come a time soon when the Sunday Examiner was told where it got off. But the whole story was such a sensational success and such an immense fillip to national pride, that for the moment the newspaper seemed to have everything going its own way.
Marryat felt ill-at-ease, and unhappy. Juliet was off to Fishguard, and much as he wanted to follow her he decided that it wouldn’t do – she’d be immersed in the community of the crew, and his presence could only be a nuisance. Then he thought, why not go to Fishguard by sea?
*
Marryat had been brought up in small boats. He was born in South Devon, and his father had owned a succession of elderly sailing boats, and had spent every moment he could pottering about in them. Marryat had started crewing for his father almost as soon as he could walk, and as he grew up he had acquired various dinghies and small cruisers of his own. Three years ago he had bought a twenty-eight-foot yawl, which he called Clio, after the Muse of History. He had sailed her twice to the Mediterranean to serve as floating headquarters on archaeological expeditions, and it was mere chance that she wasn’t in the Aegean now: he had planned to take her to Greece, but as things turned out he couldn’t get away from Cambridge in time and had to go by air instead. So Clio was at Plymouth, but she’d been hauled out and anti-fouled in the spring in readiness for the Greek cruise, and she was more or less in commission. It wouldn’t take long to make her ready for sea. He’d enjoy sailing her to Fishguard, it would give him something to do and help to take his mind off other things.
He had no charts in his rented cottage, but he had a diary with a set of maps in it. The scale was tiny, but good enough for rough reckoning. He scaled off a passage from Plymouth to Fishguard, and made it something under 300 miles. He could certainly do it in the time: even if he met headwinds all the way. Clio had a good diesel auxiliary, and he could always use the motor.
What about his left arm, though? It was still far from reliable, and he considered the question of a crew. Apart from the difficulty of getting hold of anyone at short notice, he didn’t want a crew: he wanted to be alone, to recover, if he could, some peace of mind. Did his arm really matter? He had done much singlehanded sailing, and normally he could handle Clio perfectly well on his own. His arm was all right now for driving a car, and provided he remembered not to put any sudden strain on it, there ought not to be any trouble. Having come to a decision he wrote a note to Juliet, got in his car, and went off. It was better to drive through the night than to lie awake thinking, and it would be a joy to be on board Clio again. There was a West Coast of England Pilot among the books on the shelf above Clio’s chart table. He didn’t have a chart of the approaches to Fishguard, but he could get that in Plymouth. He could also shop for stores in the afternoon, and have Clio ready for sea some time in the afternoon.
IX
The Best-Laid Plans . . .
NOT EVEN THE most powerful of newspapers can wholly defeat marine demons. It has been justly observed that no boat that has ever put to sea has been completely ready to sail, and the Lady Penelope was no exception. So much of her construction was unorthodox, so much equipment had to be made specially, that all the money in the world could not prevent delays. She was duly launched on the Saturday a week before the planned start of Dr Arbolent’s voyage, but that was because she had to be. Lady Cawprint had come to Fishguard to perform the launching ceremony, the Minister of Education had accepted an invitation to attend, and the Sunday Examiner had laid on a tremendous party for the occasion. So it had to be held. Shipwrights worked through the night, and the Lady Penelope’s hull looked finished enough to move from her slipway, after the breaking of a bottle of British cider (not foreign champagne) on her bow. But in fact she was very far from being ready, and the yard manager’s heart was in his mouth the whole time lest some unfinished bit should fall from her as she moved.
None of this worried the distinguished guests, and Dr Arbolent was on top of his form. He made a speech congratulating everybody and promised that the voyage he was about to make would confirm Britain’s rightful place in the history of civilisation. There were no inhibitions about serving champagne at the luncheon that followed the launching, and it was a thoroughly successful party.
By no means everyone, however, was as happy as the champagne-generated gaiety suggested. The yard manager’s fears did not leave him, and Roger Freemantle, the ocean-racing skipper who had volunteered to join the crew, was another whose doubts were not quieted by champagne. He was frankly horrified by the state of the vessel which was due to undertake a fairly formidable voyage just one week from that day. He had realised, of course, that time was short, but he had understood that the Lady Penelope would be ready for sailing trials within a day of her launching, and that there would be at least six days to work up the crew, and familiarise them with her unusual rig. Looking at her that morning it seemed to him doubtful if her mast could be stepped, let alone rigged, within a week.
The Examiner had taken over the whole of a big holiday hotel on the coast a few miles from Fishguard to accommodate Dr Arbolent and his crew, and the small army of reporters, photographers and promotion men engaged in organising publicity for the voyage. Freemantle had expected to spend the afternoon on board, helping the riggers and getting to know the run of blocks and sheets. Instead, the crew were all taken off to the hotel and invited to enjoy its facilities. In some concern he managed to pin down Dr Arbolent for a moment.
‘I’m sorry to worry you, sir,’ he said, ‘but could we have a conference with the yard people this evening to discuss just how they propose to arrange sailing trials?’
‘But what for?’ said Dr Arbolent. ‘They have been given all the necessary dates, the boat has been launched, and there is no reason to suppose that they will not fulfil their contract – a most valuable contract for them, I may add.’
‘Yes, sir, I know. But you must have seen for yourself that much work is still required on the hull, to say nothing of the rigging.’
‘My boy, you must stop being foolish. Of course this vessel is not like the yachts you are doubtless more accustomed to. She has been built for a specific purpose, and I shall carry it out. I hope it will not be necessary for me to remind you who is in command. And now you can see that I am extremely busy – you really must try not to interfere with things you don’t understand.’
Freemantle contemplated withdrawing from the expedition on the spot, but bit his tongue instead. It would not look well to withdraw from a job he’d volunteered for. He shrugged his shoulders and went off to see if he could borrow some golf clubs. The hotel had its own links, and clubs, it turned out, were no problem. When he asked what it cost to hire what he wanted, he was told politely that there were to be no bills for anything during that week: the hotel and all its facilities were at the disposal of the Sunday Examiner’s guests, and even drinks in any of its bars were to be on the newspaper.
*
Dr Arbolent’s arrogance was justified in one respect. In looking at Lady Penelope Freemantle had undoubtedly been influenced by his knowledge of modern yachts, and some of the work that he thought of as not even begun was not, in fact, going to be needed at all. She was not to be fully decked, and what looked like a huge hole aft of the mast step and extending to the small steering platform in the stern was her hold. Then she had next to no accommodation. Second or third millennium seamen had presumably been content to doss down on bare boards. Accepting that twentieth century man could not emulate his prehistoric forbears in all their characteristics, Dr Arbolent had permitted sleeping benches, with foam mattresses, to be installed in the decked space for’ard. There was also twentieth century woman to be taken into account. Left to Dr Arbolent, Lady Penelope would have carried no women, since it seemed improbable that there were many female sailors 4,000 years ago. But the Sunday Examiner’s position as a champion of women’s rights had to be considered, and he had accepted the Editor’s decision that there should be some women in his crew. To accommodate them – Juliet and the two ocean-racing girls – a narrow cabin had been fitted in on the port side of the decked space, separate from the main sleeping compartment, and with a wholly modern convenience reached through a door at one end – a small marine lavatory. For the men there were much more primitive arrangements in the heads.
