A Rogue by Compulsion by Victor Bridges (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📖

he grabbed hold of the tow rope and swiftly hauled the dinghy alongside.

"I'll pick him up, Tommy," I said quietly. "You look after the boat: you know her better than I do."

He nodded, and calling to Joyce to take over the tiller sprang up on to the deck ready to lower the sails. I cast off the painter, all but one turn, and handing the end to Joyce, told her to let it go as soon as I shouted. Then, pulling the dinghy right up against the side of the boat, I waited my chance and dropped down into her.

I was just getting out the sculls, when a sudden shout from Tommy of "There he is!" made me look hurriedly round. About twenty yards away a man was splashing feebly in the water, making vain efforts to reach an oar that was floating close beside him.

"Let her go, Joyce!" I yelled, and the next moment I was tugging furiously across the intervening space with the loose tow rope trailing behind me.

I was only just in time. Almost exactly as I reached the man he suddenly gave up struggling, and with a faint gurgling sort of cry disappeared beneath the water. I leaned out of the boat, and plunging my arm in up to the shoulder, clutched him by the collar.

"No, you don't, Bertie," I said cheerfully. "Not this journey."

It's a ticklish business dragging a half-drowned man into a dinghy without upsetting it, but by getting him down aft, I at last managed to hoist him up over the gunwale. He came in like some great wet fish, and I flopped him down in the stern sheets. Then with a deep breath I sat down myself. I was feeling a bit pumped.

For a moment or two my "catch" lay where he was, blowing, gasping, grunting, and spitting out mouthfuls of dirty water. He was a little weazened man of middle age, with a short grizzled beard. Except for a pair of fairly new sea-boots, he was dressed in old nondescript clothes which could not have taken much harm even from the Thames mud. Indeed, on the whole, I should think their recent immersion had done them good.

"Well," I said encouragingly, "how do you feel?"

With a big effort he raised himself on his elbow. "Right enough, guv'nor," he gasped, "right enough." Then, sinking back again, he added feebly: "If you see them oars o' mine, you might pick 'em up."

There was a practical touch about this that rather appealed to me. I sat up, and, looking round, discovered the Betty about forty yards away. Tommy had got the sails down and set the engine going, and he was already turning her round to come back and pick us up. I waved my hand to him—a greeting which he returned with a triumphant hail.

Standing up, I inspected the surrounding water for any sign of my guest's belongings. I immediately discovered both oars, which were drifting upstream quite close to one another and only a few yards away; but except for them there was no sign of wreckage. His boat and everything else in it had vanished as completely as a submarine.

I salvaged the oars, however, and had just got them safely on board, when the Betty came throbbing up, and circled neatly round us. Tommy, who was steering, promptly shut down the engine to its slowest pace, and reaching up I grabbed hold of Joyce's hand, which she held out to me, and pulled the dinghy alongside.

"Very nice, Tommy," I said. "Lipton couldn't have done it better."

"How's the poor man?" asked Joyce, looking down pityingly at my prostrate passenger.

At the sound of her voice the latter roused himself from his recumbent position, and made a shaky effort to sit up straight.

"He'll be all right when he's got a little whisky inside him," I said.
"Come on, Tommy; you catch hold, and I'll pass him over."

I stooped down, and, taking him round the waist, lifted him right up over the gunwale of the Betty, where Tommy received him rather like a man accepting a sack of coals. Then, catching hold of the tow rope, I jumped up myself, and made the dinghy fast to a convenient cleat.

Tommy dumped down his burden on one of the well seats.

"You've had a precious narrow squeak, my friend," he observed pleasantly.

The man nodded. "If you hadn't 'a come along as you did, sir, I'd 'ave bin dead by now—dead as a dog-fish." Then turning round he shook his gnarled fist over the Betty's stern in the direction of the vanished launch. "Sunk me wi' their blarsted wash," he quavered; "that's what they done."

"Well, accidents will happen," I said; "but they were certainly going much too fast."

"Accidents!" he repeated bitterly; "this warn't no accident. They done it a purpose—the dirty Dutchmen."

"Sunk you deliberately!" exclaimed Tommy. "What on earth makes you think that?"

A kind of half-cunning, half-cautious look came into our visitor's face.

"Mebbe I knows too much to please 'em," he muttered, shaking his head.
"Mebbe they'd be glad to see old Luke Gow under the water."

I thought for a moment that the shock of the accident had made him silly, but before I could speak Joyce came out of the cabin carrying half a tumbler of neat whisky.

"You get that down your neck," said Tommy, "and you'll feel like a two-year-old."

I don't know if whisky is really the correct antidote for Thames water, but at all events our guest accepted the glass and shifted its contents without a quiver. As soon as he had finished Tommy took him by the arm and helped him to his feet.

"Now come along into the cabin," he said, "and I'll see if I can fix you up with some dry kit." Then turning to me he added: "You might get the sails up again while we're dressing, Neil; it's a pity to waste any of this breeze."

I nodded, and resigning the tiller to Joyce, climbed up on to the deck, and proceeded to reset both the mainsail and the spinnaker, which were lying in splendid confusion along the top of the cabin. I had just concluded this operation when Tommy and our visitor reappeared—the latter looking rather comic in a grey jersey, a pair of white flannel trousers, and an old dark blue cricketing blazer and cap.

"I've been telling our friend Mr. Gow that he's got to sue these chaps," said Tommy. "He knows who they are: they're a couple of Germans who've got a bungalow on Sheppey, close to that little creek we used to put in at."

"You make 'em pay," continued Tommy. "They haven't a leg to stand on, rushing past like that. They as near as possible swamped us."

Mr. Gow cast a critical eye round the Betty. "Ay! and you'd take a deal o' swampin,' mister. She's a fine manly little ship, an' that's a fact." Then he paused. "It's hard on a man to lose his boat," he added quietly; "specially when 'is livin' depends on 'er."

"What do you do?" I asked. "What's your job?"

Mr. Gow hesitated for a moment. "Well, in a manner o' speakin', I haven't got what you might call no reg'lar perfession, sir. I just picks up what I can outer the river like. I rows folks out to their boats round Tilbury way, and at times I does a bit of eel fishing—or maybe in summer there's a job lookin' arter the yachts at Leigh and Southend. It all comes the same to me, sir."

"Do you know Cunnock Creek?" asked Tommy.

"Cunnock Crick!" repeated Mr. Gow. "Why, I should think I did, sir. My cottage don't lie more than a mile from Cunnock Crick. Is that where you're makin' for?"

Tommy nodded. "We were thinking of putting in there," he said. "Is there enough water?"

"Plenty o' water, sir—leastways there will be by the time we get up. It runs a bit dry at low tide, but there's always a matter o' three to four feet in the middle o' the channel."

This was excellent news, for the Betty with her centre-board up only drew about three feet six, so except at the very lowest point the creek would always be navigable.

"Is it a safe place to leave a boat for the night with no one on board?" inquired Tommy.

Mr. Gow shook his head. "I wouldn't go as far as that, sir. None o' the reg'lar boatmen or fishermen wouldn't touch 'er, but they're a thievin' lot o' rascals, some o' them Tilbury folk. If they happened to come across 'er, as like as not they'd strip 'er gear, to say nothin' of the fittings." Then he paused. "But if you was thinkin' o' layin' 'er up there for the night, I'd see no one got monkeyin' around with 'er. I'd sleep aboard meself."

"Well, that's a bright notion," said Tommy, turning to me. "What do you think, Neil?"

"I think it's quite sound," I answered. "Besides, he can help me look after her for the next two or three days. I shall be too busy to get over to the creek much myself." Then putting my hand in my pocket I pulled out Joyce's envelope, and carefully extracted one of the five-pound notes from inside. "Look here, Mr. Gow!" I added, "we'll strike a bargain. If you'll stay with the Betty for a day or so, I'll give you this fiver to buy or hire another boat with until you can get your compensation out of our German friends. I shall be living close by, but I shan't have time to keep my eye on her properly."

Mr. Gow accepted the proposal and the note with alacrity. "I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you, sir," he said gratefully. "I'll just run up to my cottage when we land to get some dry clothes, and then I'll come straight back and take 'er over. She won't come to no harm, not with Luke Gow on board; you can reckon on that, sir."

He touched his cap, and climbing up out of the well, made his way forward, as though to signalize the fact that he was adopting the profession of our paid hand.

"I'm so glad," said Joyce quietly. "I shan't feel half so nervous now
I know you'll have someone with you."

Tommy nodded. "It's a good egg," he observed. "I think old whiskers is by way of being rather grateful." Then he paused. "But what swine those German beggars must be not to have stopped! They must have seen what had happened."

"I wonder what he meant by hinting that they'd done it purposely," I said.

Tommy laughed. "I don't know. I asked him in the cabin, but he wouldn't say any more. I think he was only talking through his hat."

"I'm not so sure," I said doubtfully. "He seemed to have some idea at the back of his mind. I shall sound him about it later on."

With the wind holding good and a strong tide running, the Betty scudded along at such a satisfactory pace that by half-past twelve we were already within sight of Gravesend Reach. There is no more desolate-looking bit of the river than the stretch which immediately precedes that crowded fairway. It is bounded on each side by a low sea wall, behind which a dreary expanse of marsh and salting spreads away into the far distance. Here and there the level monotony is broken by a solitary hut or a disused fishing hulk, but except for the passing traffic and the cloud of gulls perpetually wheeling and screaming overhead there is little sign of life or movement.

"You see them two or three stakes stickin' up in the water?" remarked
Mr. Gow suddenly, pointing away towards the right-hand bank.

I nodded.

"Well, you keep 'em in line with that little clump o' trees be'ind, an' you'll just fetch the crick nicely."

He and Tommy went forward to take in the spinnaker, while, following the marks he had indicated, I brought the Betty round towards her destination. Approaching the shore I saw that the entrance to the creek was a narrow channel between two mud-flats, both of which were presumably covered at high tide. I called to Joyce to wind up the centre-board to its fullest extent, and then, steering very carefully, edged my way in along this drain, while Mr. Gow leaned over to leeward diligently heaving the lead.

"Plenty o' water," he kept on calling out encouragingly. "Keep 'er goin', sir, keep 'er goin'. Inside that beacon, now up