The Nine-Spoked Wheel, page 16
Dr Arbolent’s own quarters were under the steering platform, aft. The only luxury he permitted himself was a table, at which he could sit and write. His sleeping-bench was precisely similar to those in the crew’s quarters, but instead of a foam mattress he had a canvas bag stuffed with wool.
There was no galley. For cooking, there was a charcoal brazier in a sandbox on the open deck, shielded from the wind only by the rather high bulwark, and by two removable hurdles. Dr Arbolent had given much thought to food. In antiquity, food at sea was probably limited to bannocks or gruel made from parched wheat, or some other parched grain (for flour does not keep at sea), sun-dried meat and fish, and whatever was to be had in the way of dried fruit. Since neither tea nor coffee had been invented, there would have been little in the way of hot drinks, though perhaps some kind of soup might have been available. The crew would normally have drunk water, thin beer, or wine if they could get it. Some concession had to be made to twentieth century diet, and it was decided to permit corned beef and biscuits, tea, coffee, cocoa and sugar.
Freemantle decided that if they could not sail, they could at least put in some practice at prehistoric shipboard living. In spite of Dr Arbolent’s rebuke, he regarded himself as the Lady Penelope’s sailing master, and the sailing members of the crew were ready enough to accept his leadership. He got them to experiment with the charcoal brazier. They found that once they could get it alight it could be kept burning, but that lighting it required a considerable quantity of firewood. Two of them were set to work collecting shavings and chippings from the boatyard and putting them into sacks in readiness for the voyage. The only cooking utensils permitted were two bronze urns. They sat awkwardly on the brazier, and it was generally agreed that they would be quite useless at sea. So Freemantle took independent action and got one of the crew, who in private life was a Sapper lieutenant, to alter the shape of the brazier to fit the urns. He felt that this did not at all invalidate the brazier as a cooking implement, but would make it both safer and more usable.
If marine demons are not to be defeated by newspapers, they can sometimes be defeated by miracles; and boatyards have a way of performing miracles when they really begin to feel pressed for time. The Lady Penelope’s pole mast was stepped on Monday, and Freemantle’s spirits rose: he began to hope that she could have her first sailing trial on Tuesday. But now a new snag appeared – the sail maker had not delivered the sail. After much frantic telephoning and a dash across country, the sail was collected on Tuesday afternoon and brought to Fishguard on Tuesday evening. Freemantle set to work to bend it to its spar at once. It would be awkward to handle, he thought, but should be capable of a really powerful drive: he was, indeed, considerably impressed by it. His doubts were on how efficiently they could get it to work. He told the crew to stand by for a sailing trial at first light on Wednesday morning.
Dr Arbolent observed these activities with benevolence: after his original snap at Freemantle he seemed quite willing to leave the practical side of things to him. His attitude to the actual handling of his boat was curiously detached: she represented a theoretical conviction which he was perfectly sure was right, and it was up to these professedly expert sailors to make her work. He spent his own time writing long articles for the Examiner to syndicate all over the world, and in perfecting his theories of Nine Point navigation. He told Freemantle that he would not take part in the first sailing trial himself. ‘If there are teething troubles,’ he said, ‘you have my full authority to deal with them as you think fit, provided that you employ no materials other than those I have specified.’ Privately, Freemantle was considerably relieved: he would far sooner be on his own.
*
The wind that Wednesday morning was a light south-westerly, about Force 3, which Freemantle reckoned would take them nicely into Fishguard Bay. He had read up everything he could find on dhow-rig and Arab seafaring, and had long sessions with the designer who had translated Dr Arbolent’s ideas into practical boatbuilding. The designer had done an exceedingly good job. To what extent prehistoric seamen made use of blocks no one could tell, but the designer interpreted the prehistoric mind as having had the sense and skill to construct workmanlike blocks out of hard yew wood. So he gave the rig an adequate number of good blocks. The hemp sheets, admittedly modern, were high-grade rope of the best Italian hemp and they ran sweetly. The big sail on its heavy spar was a formidable weight, but Freemantle had a strong crew, and they managed to get it to set quite nicely at their first attempt.
As they cast off from the mooring buoy Freemantle was thankful that he had kept his temper and not withdrawn from the expedition. This was quite something – a marvellous moment. The light wind took Lady Penelope gently into the bay towards Dinas Head. One of Freemantle’s main worries was how she was going to respond to her steering oar, but again, the designer had done his work well. The oar was hellishly heavy compared with a tiller, and Freemantle put two men on it. Once under way, however, Lady Penelope responded sweetly, and seemed capable of holding a good course.
They ran a couple of miles into the bay, and then came the tricky business of going about. They were a bit ham-handed with the unfamiliar rig, and twice they failed to get her round and she was caught in stays. But they had sea-room, and in the light wind this did not matter much. At the third attempt they got the great sail over in time for it to fill as she came round, and Freemantle breathed more freely. Yes, he thought, they could do it. Of course, conditions in that light wind were near-perfect, and it might be a very different matter in a blow. But the lateen sail was undoubtedly efficient, and, given practice, he was satisfied that they could handle her.
Practice, however, was what they were not going to get. Freemantle wanted to take her out again after breakfast, but there was another problem to be met: loading her with the great stones. Dr Arbolent had worked out methods of bringing sample rocks by the Cwm Gwaun route from the Prescelly Mountains, and had selected two good specimens, one weighing about seven tons, the other five. Laborious manhandling by keen volunteers had got the stones to the outskirts of Fishguard, but what nobody had allowed for was the built-up town and the modern docks. It would have been a simple matter to load the stones by crane, but Dr Arbolent wouldn’t have this: they must be loaded manually from a beach. This meant getting them to a beach, and it meant bringing in Lady Penelope to receive them. It also meant much tricky calculation about tides.
Loading took all the rest of Wednesday, and the whole of Thursday. Dr Arbolent’s system was to raise the stones by building up wooden platforms underneath them – levering up one end of a stone until a new plank could be put underneath it, then levering up the other end. To get them on board Lady Penelope, he planned to use the wooden platforms as rafts, manhandling the stones to the water’s edge at low tide, anchoring the rafts, and waiting for the incoming tide to lift them up. When the tide was high enough, Lady Penelope would be brought alongside, and the stones transferred into her.
This was straightforward enough in theory, but it turned out to be a hellish job in practice. Waves tended to tip over the rafts, and the stones had to be lashed down to stop their rolling off. Then there were the sheer physical difficulties of shifting the stones from their rafts into Lady Penelope’s hold. Her pole-mast had been a good stout tree, but her tackle was hopelessly inadequate to lift seven tons. The most it could be used for was to take some of the weight, while a human lifting party did the rest.
There were plenty of volunteers, but in the confined space on board the vessel they got in each other’s way. After hours of trial and error, which consumed a whole tide without succeeding in getting the stones on board, they devised a technique of sliding the stones over the narrow side-deck alongside the hold, while the weight was partly taken by the mast, partly checked by men standing on planks set across the hold and gripping ropes cocooned around the stone. It was a highly dangerous task, and the Examiner’s staff was thankful when it was finally achieved without anyone being killed. Mercifully, the weather held: it could not have been done at all in anything of a blow.
It was not until late on Thursday night that Lady Penelope, loaded with some twelve tons of stone, was towed back to her mooring. Freemantle hoped to put in another sail on Friday, but there were still many jobs to be finished by the builders. They worked as they could between invasions of reporters, photographers and TV crew. Freemantle had to content himself with making sure that two inflatable life-rafts and an inflatable dinghy came on board and were properly stowed.
*
Marryat took things easily on leaving Plymouth. He put into Fowey for the first night and stood himself a leisurely dinner ashore. Next day he made Penzance, and again spent the night in harbour. After rounding Land’s End he stood well out to sea, to give the northern coast of Cornwall, and North Devon, a wide berth. He had about 150 miles to go, and six days to do it in. There was not much wind, but what there was stayed in the south-west, giving almost ideal conditions for his passage north. He was in no hurry, and let Clio amble along gently at between four and five knots. A fine day was followed by a clear night. There was a good deal of other shipping about, so he decided to stay in the cockpit and keep Clio going instead of heaving to: if a big ship came too close, it was safer to have steerage way. Having hoisted his radar reflector, and seen that his own lights were bright, he settled down to watch the stars. With a reaching wind Clio almost steered herself, and needed only an occasional touch on the tiller to hold her course. At midnight he made himself a cup of coffee and drank it laced with a little whisky. He didn’t feel tired, and thoroughly enjoyed sitting relaxed at Clio’s helm, listening to the little noises by which she talked to him.
At dawn he decided to have breakfast, and before going below to the galley he automatically glanced round Clio’s rigging to make sure that everything was all right. Things were not quite all right. Working as much as he could with one arm, he seemed to have made rather a mess last night of securing the halliard that sent up the radar reflector. The wretched thing had become rather slack, and the reflector was fouling the lower starboard spreader. He went forward to free the halliard and clear it. He had released the halliard from the cleat and was looking up while he juggled with the reflector, when the wind gusted and Clio heeled over. Without thinking, he threw out his left arm to steady himself against the mast, and felt a violent stab of pain in his shoulder as his left arm momentarily took his weight. Reaching out to grab a shroud with his right arm he contrived to let go of the reflector-halliard, and the reflector came down with a crash, hitting his left shoulder as it fell.
For some minutes he sat on the deck, feeling sick. Then he pulled himself together and considered what to do. He could still move his left arm, so the damage, he hoped, was not really severe. But it was painful, and beginning to swell. With time in hand, it would be sensible to get it looked at by a doctor. Where would be the best place to make for?
His arm and shoulder might be hurting, but Clio’s needs came first. Painfully, he set about tidying up the reflector-halliard and securing the reflector itself. It was a job that normally would have taken about a minute, but working slowly with one hand, and moving his body as little as possible, it took him a quarter of an hour. Then, moving slowly and carefully, he went below and got a radio-fix. He had stood well out to sea before turning north after clearing Land’s End, and he was now roughly in the middle of St George’s Channel, about halfway between Cork and Milford Haven. He could make the South Wales coast easily enough, but he would need to round Pembrokeshire to get to Fishguard, and if the south-westerlies persisted, he would have a more or less onshore wind for the passage across St Bride’s Bay, and round St David’s Head. From where he was now, it would be almost as easy to make for Ireland. He was not much more than fifty miles south of Wexford, and at Wexford he would be better placed for the trip to Fishguard. It was not yet 6 a.m. – using the engine, he could make Wexford by early afternoon.
He didn’t much enjoy the passage, but Clio was on his side, and out to help. He was in Wexford by 3 p.m., and on explaining that he was singlehanded and injured, the port authorities were as friendly and helpful as they could be. The port medical officer examined Marryat’s arm and shoulder, and thought that with luck there had been no fresh break. But he couldn’t be sure without an X-ray. ‘You don’t want to take chances with a recently broken collar-bone,’ he said. ‘It may be no more than some bad bruising round it, but I think I’ll put you in hospital for tonight – you’ll be better off for a good rest, in any event. Your boat will be quite safe – the harbour master will get her berthed for you and keep an eye on her. I’ll give you a note to the hospital. Get your bag, and I’ll find someone to run you up to the hospital in a car.’
*
On Wednesday afternoon, when Dr Arbolent’s volunteers were making their first, and unsuccessful, efforts to load Lady Penelope with Prescelly stones, Inspector Revers was in his office, filing away the papers of a man who had just been sent down for seven years for a series of insurance frauds by arson. One of the farm fires he had caused had been particularly nasty: a number of animals had been burned to death, including a fine young Hereford bull, confidently expected to be a future champion. Revers was reflecting on the stupidity of criminals who leave fingerprints on paraffin containers in the vicinity of suspicious fires, when his telephone rang. It was the police at Andover, to say that a farmer had just brought in a hammer which his hedger-and-ditcher had found in a thick hedge on a lonely road about eight miles north of the town. ‘I’ll come over at once,’ Revers said. ‘Can you get hold of the man who found it, so that he can show me the exact spot?’
He went first to the Andover police station, where the hammer was handed over to him. It was a fairly heavy hammer, with an unusually deep claw. Round the bend of the claw were various marks, some of which were certainly rust. It had a wooden handle, with a small split in the wood about an inch from the end. A constable went with him to guide him to the farm. ‘It’s a bit isolated, sir, and not easy to find,’ he said.
At the farmhouse, Revers met the farmer who had taken the hammer to Andover, and an elderly, rather bent man who had found it. ‘Amos has trouble with his back,’ the farmer explained, ‘but for all that he’s still the best hedger in the district. There aren’t any young hedgers now, more’s the pity. That’s why we have to grub out so many fine old hedges – just can’t get the labour for them.’
Amos conducted them back along the private road leading to the farmhouse, and into a narrow lane running between banks of hedges, each flanking a deep ditch. Revers asked where the lane led. ‘Doesn’t lead anywhere in particular,’ Amos replied, ‘but it’s a through road, and useful to us. That way takes you to Collingbourne and the main road to Salisbury. T’other way you get to Weyhill and on to Andover. But it’s not used all that much.’
He showed them where he had found the hammer, about a quarter of a mile beyond the farm entrance. ‘Looks like it should have been in the bottom of the ditch,’ he said, ‘but it got caught in the roots of that old blackthorn. ’Twas a good old hammer, and I thought to keep it, but then I remembered hearing on the radio some time back that the police were looking for a hammer, so I took it to the gaffer. Don’t know if it’s the one you want, though.’
‘Well, I don’t know yet, either,’ said Revers. ‘But it’s a queer place for a hammer to be. We’ll get the experts to carry out tests, and maybe they’ll be able to tell us something. You did well to spot it, and you did very well to hand it in. I’m extremely grateful to you both.’ The farmer offered a cup of tea, but Revers wanted to get back, and went off as soon as he decently could.
On returning to headquarters Revers had the hammer photographed, and then he sent it by car to the forensic laboratory at Oxford, with a note asking that it should be examined urgently, particularly for possible blood stains. While he was waiting for the photographs to be developed, he studied the map.
He had gone into Dr Arbolent’s movements on the night of Jan Korsky’s murder as far as he could without raising suspicions that the archaeologist was being investigated. Dr Arbolent had spent the day in London, and dined with the Editor of the Sunday Examiner. He had then driven back to the Caponets, but apart from the fact that he must have got back late, Revers had not been able to establish when he got there. His room was in a wing of the old house, with a separate entrance, for which the Caponets had given him a key. If he was not in to dinner, they couldn’t say when he came and went. He had been there for breakfast in the morning, so he must have returned at some time during the night. If he had left London between nine and ten o’clock, he would have had plenty of time to kill Korsky. He could have come on the motorway to the junction for Hungerford and turned off there for the old airfield north of Pewsey. Assuming that he had used the hammer, how had it got into a hedge near Andover? Well, it wouldn’t have been difficult. Revers had already reasoned that anyone wanting to dispose of a hammer after a killing would throw it away some distance from the scene of the crime. A circular route from the Salisbury road via the lane from Collingbourne would get him back from Andover to Newbury, and from Newbury to Marlborough, and home along the A4. This would have the additional advantage of being a normal route from London, so that in the unlikely event of the car’s being seen and recognised by anyone, its presence on the road late at night would be entirely explained. Then Revers shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Everything was just as before – Dr Arbolent could have done all or any of these things, but there was not the slightest scrap of evidence that he had.
