Heartsease

VII

JONATHAN thought for almost a minute, biting the back of his knuckle while his breath steamed in the early moonlight. Then he picked up his side of the big bucket and helped her edge it through the paddock gate and tilt the water into the trough.

“Til ride down tomorrow night,” he said, “and warn them to get ready. Then we can both go down two nights after that and start the towing in the dark. We’ll be halfway to Sharpness before they even miss us, and they’ll never guess which way we’ve gone.”

“We must say good-bye to Aunt Anne somehow,” said Margaret.

“I’ll write her a letter. I’ll do it tomorrow so that I don’t have to do it at the last minute, and I’ll hide it in my room. Cheer up, Marge, she’ll feel better when we’ve gone because she’ll stop worrying about us. That’s why she’s been so ill, knowing what’d happen to us if we’re found.”

“But she doesn’t know what we’re doing,” said Margaret.

“She knows we’re doing something, though.”

Margaret remembered the haggard face, and the bony hands that had banged her to and fro in bed.

“Yes,” she said.

He was in his room all next afternoon, toiling away (Margaret knew) at his half-taught, baby-big handwriting. He would tell Aunt Anne everything, too, because she had a right to know the truth, a right to know the real reasons why he had to go. Margaret went to bed feeling guilty in the awareness that he was keeping himself awake so that when the house was still he could climb out and ride the tiring journey down to their companions; but she was quickly asleep. Perhaps she stirred and frowned when the board outside on the landing creaked as someone trod on it in the darkness, or perhaps the stirring and frowning were caused by the first waves of terror as she began on the old, horrible dream about the bull.

But this time the dream never finished. Instead she was wide awake, staring at darkness, heart slamming, because something out of the real world had woken her — a shouting and stamping on the stairs, three hammering paces on the landing, and the door of her room opening like a thunderclap. Uncle Peter towered there, a lantern in one hand and in the other several sheets of paper, all different sizes.

“What’s this? What’s this?” he bellowed and shoved the papers under her nose. She put out a hand to take them, though she knew quite well what they were, but

he snatched them away. His face was so tense with rage that she could have counted the different muscles of his cheeks. Rosie hovered in the doorway behind him.

“What’s what?” quavered Margaret — no matter how scared she sounded, because she would have been scared even if she’d known nothing.

“A letter!” he shouted. “A letter to your Aunt! Jo wrote it. Says he rescued that witch and he’s going to get him away from Gloucester Docks in a filthy wicked boat! What d’you know about it, my girl?”

“Where did you find it?” asked Margaret in a wobbly voice.

“Rosie brought it to me,” he growled. Rosie’s acid tones took over.

“I was leaning on my sill,” she said, “looking out at the night, when I saw Master Jonathan ride away into the dark of the lane. So I puzzled what he might be about, and went along to his room to see if there was nothing there to tell, and sure enough I found this letter, so I took it to the master. No more than my duty, was it?”

“No,” said Margaret. “I’m sure you did right. Have you told Aunt Anne, Uncle Peter?”

“None of your business!” he shouted, so she knew he hadn’t. “He talks about we —we did this, we’re planning that. You're in it!”

“Oh no, Uncle Peter! You can’t think that. I don’t know anything about machines — I hate them and I wouldn’t understand them anyway. Don’t you think he might mean Lucy and Tim?”

Uncle Peter peered for a moment at the paper, too

dazed with anger to read or think. Then he shoved his face close against Margaret’s, so that she could smell his cabbagy breath, and stared into her eyes.

“Maybe,” he growled deep in his throat, “maybe not — we’ll know the morning. He says he’s not planning to be off these two days, so likely he’ll be back by dawn. Till then I’ll just lock you in while I go and rout Davey Gordon out. Rosie can watch out of the parlor window, so there’ll be no nonsense like you tying your sheets together and climbing down, see!”

“Of course not!” said Margaret.

He took his face away and stood brooding for a moment at the lantern.

“Dear Lord in Heaven,” he said softly, “have I not been tried enough?”

When he’d gone, followed by Rosie, she sat in the dark pierced through and through with pure despair. First she thought, if I stay where I am it’ll look as though I had nothing to do with it. Second, and much stronger, came the thought, I must warn them — if I dress I might just be able to get down from the window and run to Scrub before Rosie catches me. I’ll have to ride him bareback, because there’ll be no time to harness him, and I doubt if he’ll like that, but it’s the only chance.

She was putting a big jersey on and still trying to think of a way to distract Rosie from the parlor window when the door scraped faintly — the bolt was being drawn back. Margaret stiffened at the creak of the hinges; now she was going to be caught fully dressed, with no possible lie to account for it.

“Marge, Marge,” whispered Aunt Anne’s voice, “get dressed as quick as you can.”

“I am dressed.”

“Oh, thank heavens. He was too angry to think of locking your pony up. You’ve just time to saddle up and ride to warn Jo. I’ll keep Rosie busy while you get through the kitchen.”

“No,” said Margaret, “I’ll climb down from Jo’s window — she can’t see that side of the house. Then you can bolt the door after me and go back to bed and seem too sick to move, and they won’t know what’s happened.” “Marge, please, Marge,” said Aunt Anne, “if the Changes ever end, bring him home.”

“He’ll come anyway,” said Margaret. “I’m sure.”

“And Marge, remember Pete’s a good man, really. A very good man.”

“I know. I like him too.”

As she tiptoed down the passage she heard a noise like sobbing, but so faint that the grate of the closing bolt drowned it.

Scrub was waiting for her at the paddock gate, as if there was nothing he wanted more than a midnight gallop. As she tightened the girth of the heavy sidesaddle she heard a new noise in the night — men’s excited voices. That meant the lane was blocked, so she swung herself into the saddle and set Scrub’s head to the low place in the far wall, which she’d often eyed as a possible jump if it hadn’t meant going over into Farmer Boothroyd’s land. But tonight she didn’t care a straw for old and foolish feuds.

Scrub must have thought about the jump too, for he

took it with a clean swoop, like a rook in the wind. Then came a good furlong down across soft and silent turf to the far gate; then the muddy footpath along the bottom of Squire’s Park; a steep track up, and they were out in Edge Lane.

Potholed tarmac, unmended through five destroying winters, is a poor surface for a horse to hurry over in the dark, especially when it tilts down like a slate roof between tall hedges. In places Margaret could risk a trot, for they both knew the road well by now, but mostly there was nothing for it but a walk. Luckily Scrub had sensed the excitement and urgency of the journey, so he didn’t loiter; but the dip to the stream was agonizingly slow and the climb beyond slower still. Then they could canter along the old main road — though they nearly fell from over-confidence in the pitchy blackness beneath the trees; the descent to the Vale was slow again, before they could hit a really fast clip along the bottom.

Margaret did sums. Caesar was a slower pony, and Jonathan wouldn’t be hurrying as much as she was. But he’d left at least an hour before she had — probably two hours. Suppose he spent half an hour at the docks, making arrangements (he’d have thought it all out in his head on the way down, and would know exactly what he wanted) — she’d gain at least half an hour on him on the journey, almost a whole hour; so they’d meet on the big road at the bottom, or the bridge, or the towpath if he’d dallied. She began to strain her ears for distant hooves. The far cry of a dog made her shiver with sudden terror, but it might have been miles away.

The iron bridge rang beneath Scrub’s shoes, but that was the only sound in the wide night. She must have missed him; he’d found some clever way home, across fields. Desperately she hurried Scrub along the matted grass of the towpath, leaning low over his neck and peering forward for the place where they turned up past the deserted house into the road.

“Marge!” called a voice out of the shadows behind her. She reined back; hooves scuffled, and a small shape led a larger shape out into the unshadowed path behind her.

“I thought it must be you,” said Jonathan. “What’s happened?”

“Rosie found your letter and took it to Uncle Peter.”

“But I hid . . . Oh, never mind. It all depends what they do. We’d best go back to the tug and talk to the others.”

They led the ponies through the ruined garden.

“If they come down here and find us,” mused Jonathan, “we’ll be done. We could run away, but we’d have to leave Otto, and Tim will be hard to hide. We could turn the horses loose and all hide in the city, but then we’d be worse off than before. But if we can start the engine, and if the canal is deep all the way down, we can get clear away, provided they don’t try to cut us off. In a chase we’ll go faster than they do, and keep going, and that should give us about two hours at Sharpness. That would be enough if the tide’s right, and Otto’s worked a tide table out. We’ll have to see.”

“Couldn’t we start to tow her down while you’re working on the engines?” said Margaret. “That would save time.”

“Not worth it. We’ve got to run the auxiliary for at least an hour before we can start the main engine, and if we try to do that while we’re towing through the countryside people will come swarming out and catch us helpless. Once we go, we must go fast, because of the noise. But you’ll still be useful, you two.”

She could hear from his voice that he was grinning in the dark.

“You’ll have to ride ahead and open the bridges,” he said.

“Yes, I think I can do that; nobody lives near them, except for the two at that village down at the far end.”

“It’s called Purton on the map. We might be able to stop and tow her past there. You’re going to have to ride fast, Marge — she does nearly ten miles an hour, flat out, Otto thinks.”

“That’s too fast. We could do it for a bit, but we’d never keep it up.”

“I’ll talk to Otto,” said Jonathan.

The tug lay still and lightless, a dull black blob on the shiny black water, but Davey yapped once, sharply, as they came along the quay. They heard a quick scuffle as Jonathan crossed the ladder — Tim, presumably holding the muzzle of a struggling pup.

“It’s all right,” said Jonathan’s cheerful voice, pitched just right for everyone to hear, “it’s me again.”

The scuffling started again, then stopped with the ludicrous gargle of a dog who has been all set to bark and finds there is no need. The hatch from the cabin, where Lucy slept amid Jonathan’s loot, rose.

“Forgotten summat, Master Jonathan?” said her soft purr. “Why, you’ve a body with you, Miss Margaret is it? There’s trouble then?”

“I think it’ll be all right, Lucy, provided we start tonight. Father found the letter I wrote to Mother.”

Lucy came swiftly out of the hatch and looked into his face.

“And I’ll lay he took it straight up to Mus’ Gordon,” she said.

“Yes, he did,” said Margaret.

“I must take Tim away, then,” said Lucy.

“You can if you want to,” said Jonathan, “but I’m going to try and start the engines and run down to Sharpness. It’s sixteen miles, so we should do it in three hours. If we get the engines going just before dawn I’ll be able to see to steer, and Marge can ride ahead and scout and open the bridges. You’ll be no worse off if you have to run from Sharpness than from Gloucester.”

“I’ve been looking at them maps,” said Lucy. “If they’ve a morsel of sense they’ll head to one of the bridges halfway down and catch us there.”

“Yes, I’ve thought of that,” said Jonathan, “but it’s not their style. I said in my letter we weren’t going for two days, so they’ll wait for us to come home tonight, and when we don’t they’ll come blinding down here in the morning. If we get a start we’ll be far away by the time they reach here. You think it out while I talk to Otto; if you still want to leave us, you should go at once,

but we won’t need to start the auxiliary for another two hours.”

“I don’t like it, neither way,” whispered Lucy, and settled chin in hand on the bulwarks.

“You go and lie in her bed, Marge,” said Jonathan. “I shan’t need you until dawn.”

“What about the ponies?”

“Tie them up on the quay. I’ll keep an eye on them.” “Scrub’s all taut inside — he knows something’s up. He needs a roll.”

“Oh, goodness!” said Jonathan angrily. “He’ll have to roll on cobbles then.”

Margaret scrambled across the bridge, thinking so that’s why Caesar is such a broody and difficult character—Jo’s never understood him. All horses get tense, after any sort of expedition, and need to work it off, to unwind. She tethered them side by side to a rusty ring set in the quay, fetched Tim’s bailing pan and a bucket, and dredged up nasty oily water from the dock for them to drink. She fondled Scrub’s neck for a while to calm him, tried to be nice to Caesar (who sneered sulkily back) and crossed the ladder again. The blankets were warm and Lucy-smelling, but the boards beneath them were so hard that they seemed to gnaw at her hip — small chance of going to sleep; but in a minute she was in the middle of a busy dream, senseless with shifting scenes and people who changed into other people, all hurrying for an urgent reason which was never explained to her.

She was woken by clamor for the second time that night. But now it was not Uncle Peter roaring up the

stairs, but a noise which England hadn’t heard for five years, fuel exploding inside cylinders to bang the pistons up and send the crankshaft whanging round — the auxiliary engine pumping air into the big storage bottles, to provide the pressure which would start the main diesel.

On deck, light glimmered through the glass roof over the engine, a new light whose nature she didn’t remember. She knelt at the hatch and peered in: on top of each of the tall cylinders a roaring flame spread across the metal; the auxiliary clattered away; Jonathan was walking down the narrow gangway by the engine peering at the blowlamps — in their light she could see a smear of oil down both his cheeks, like war paint. He must have felt the cold air when she raised the hatch, for he glanced up and gestured to show that he was coming out in a moment. She still felt the repugnance against engines which had been half her thinking life, so she moved away and sat on the bulwarks, looking at the clifflike warehouses which at this chill hour loomed so black that even the night sky seemed pale. It was pale, too. The stars were fewer and smaller. Soon they would fade, and the tug would rumble out through that strange interworld between dark and day.

Jonathan, reeking of engines, came and plumped himself down beside her. She could feel his nerves humming with the happiness of action.

“All set,” he said. “Tim and Lucy are staying. They’ve brought a load of tins out of the warehouse, and a couple of sacks of corn for the ponies. Scrub won’t mind canal water, will he? It’s less oily outside the docks. And I’ve found four drums which we can fill for

the sea journey — it oughtn’t to be more than a day to Ireland.”

“What do you want me to do?” said Margaret.

“Two things, one easy and one difficult. The easy one is help start the engines. The difficult one is scout ahead and get the bridges open. That could be tricky. You see . . .”

“Must I help with the engines?” said Margaret.

There was just enough light flickering through the engine room roof to show how he looked at her, sideways and amused, but kind.

“Not if you don’t want to,” he said. “But we won’t be able to manage if you don’t do the bridges. I’ve just done the first one — it was different from the others — hydraulic — but I managed.”

“I’ll do the bridges.”

“I’ve got two good maps of the whole canal — they were pinned up in offices — so we can each have one. Otto and I are going to aim for about six knots — nearly seven miles an hour — because you won’t be able to keep ahead if we try to do more. That means we’ll have something to spare if we’re chased, provided we don’t pile up a wave in front of us down the canal. You’ll have to average a fast trot.”

“The towpath’s quite flat, except for one bit,” said Margaret. “We should be able to do that.”

“It’s not as easy as it sounds, because you’ll be stopping at the bridges. And you’ll have to go carefully round the bends, especially the ones just before the bridges, in case you gallop into trouble. I found a bolt of red flannel which I’ve cut some squares off for you to

take. If there’s something wrong you can go back a bit and tie a square to a bush by the bank, so that we’ve time to stop. If it’s something serious, Caesar will have to tow us through.”

“He’ll get terribly sore. He hasn’t worn a collar for years.”

“Poor old Caesar,” said Jonathan, as though it didn’t matter. “He’ll have to put up with it. I think that story will work, provided they haven’t spotted the smoke.” “Smoke?”

“You’ll see. I want to start in quarter of an hour. You could go on now and get well ahead, if you like.”

“I’d better wait and help you get Caesar aboard. He won’t fancy it.”

“How do you know?”

“Like you know about engines.”

“Well, let’s try now.”

Margaret was right. They climbed ashore, took the ladder away and slowly pulled Heartsease towards the quay until she lay flush against the stonework, her deck about two feet below the level where they were standing. Jonathan untied Caesar’s reins and led him towards the boat, but one pace from the edge of the quay the pony jibbed and hoiked backwards, so that Jonathan almost fell over. Then Margaret tried, more gently, with much coaxing and many words; she got him right to the brim before he shied away.

“I hate horses,” said Jonathan.

“Let’s see if Scrub will do it,” said Margaret. She crossed to her own pony, untied him, pulled his ears, slapped his shoulders and led him towards the boat. He too stopped at the very verge. Then, with a resigned waggle of his head and a you-know-best snort, he stepped down onto the ironwork deck. Caesar lumbered down at once, determined not to be left alone in this stone desert. Margaret tied his reins to an iron ring in the deck, poured out a generous feed of corn for him and led Scrub ashore. Before she could mount there came a thin cry from the engine room.

“They’re ready!” cried Jonathan. “Come and see!”

He scuttled down the ladder. Margaret knelt by the hatch and peered down to where the weird lamps flared with a steady roaring, while the auxiliary battered away at the night. Lucy was standing down at the far end, by the two further cylinders, her hands on a pair of cast-iron turncocks just above shoulder level. Margaret could see two nearer ones — she ought to have been standing there. Otto lay in the corner directly below her, and Jonathan made signs to him through the racket, meaning that he would do Margaret’s job as well as his own. He pulled briefly at a lever beside the nearest cylinder, and a spout of oily black smoke issued from the four cylinders, just below the turncocks. He glanced round at Otto, who raised the thumb of his left hand. Jonathan pulled hard down on the lever and left it down. There was a deep, groaning thud, followed at once by another, and another, and the whole tug began to vibrate as though two giants were stumping up and down on its deck. Lucy was already twisting her turncocks when Jonathan pranced round beside her and started twisting his. The beat of the heavy pistons steadied; the roaring flames at their heads died away.

Margaret straightened up from the clamorous pit and saw a slow cloud of greasy blackness boiling up from the funnel. When she looked back, Jonathan was already halfway up the iron ladder; she made way for him.

“Likea dream!” he shouted.

“What now?” said Margaret. She wanted to get off the boat as soon as she could.

“Lucy will stay down there, to set the engine to the speed I signal for. IT1 steer from the wheelhouse. You move off and open the first bridge. We’ll follow in five minutes, and you ought to be nearly at the second one by then.”

Margaret stood quite still. She knew there was something in the plan that didn’t fit. She was just turning away when it came to her.

“Some of the bridges open from the wrong side!” she said urgently. “I’ll have to wait till you’re through and shut them before I can ride on.”

Jonathan shut his eyes, as though he was trying to draw the mechanism on the back of his eyelids.

“I’m a fool,” he said at last. “They seemed so simple that I didn’t really think about them. We’ll have to go slower and let you catch up.”

“Let’s see how we get on,” said Margaret, and swung herself up into the saddle. She was cold, and there was a scouring northwest wind beginning to slide across the Vale, the sort of wind that clears the sky to an icy paleness, and keeps you glancing into the eye of the wind for the first signs of the storm that is sure to follow. But in the shelter of the docks the water was still the color of darkest laurel leaves, and smooth as a jewel.

Behind her the beat of the engines deepened. It was surprising how quiet they were, she thought, once you were a few yards away. But when she looked round she saw, black against the paling sky, the wicked stain of the diesel smoke. If it’s going to be like that all the way, she thought, we’ll rouse the whole Vale. But even as she watched in the bitter breeze the smoke signal changed; the black plume thinned and drifted away, and in its place the funnel began to emit tidy black puffs, like the smoke over a railway engine in a child’s drawing; the wind caught the puffs and rubbed them out before they had risen ten feet — not so bad, after all.

This last time she decided to risk going right through Hempsted village, instead of dismounting and leading Scrub down through the difficult track to the canal. They’d always gone by the towpath and the empty house before, in case any of the Hempsted villagers should become inquisitive about their comings and goings. But now it wouldn’t matter any more. Hempsted slept as she cantered through. This was one of the bridges that opened from the easy side; she lifted the two pieces of iron that locked the bridge shut and cranked the whole structure open; it moved like magic, with neither grate nor clank.

If she had been good at obeying orders she would have mounted and ridden on, but she felt she owed something to the villagers of Hempsted, though she couldn’t say what. At least they had left the children to work out their plot in peace — and that man had tried to warn her about the dogs. So she couldn’t leave them cut off, bridgeless (no one would care to shut a wicked bridge like this, even if they could remember how). Besides, she wanted to watch Heartsease come through.

Jonathan slowed down the engines and shouted something from the wheelhouse as the tug surged past, but she waved to show she knew what she was doing, and swung the bridge slowly (how slowly!) back to its proper place. She heard the beat of the engines quickening and saw the black cloud boil up again. Just as she was bending to put the first locking-bar back she heard a shout. Without looking to see who it was, she slung herself into the saddle, shook the reins, and let Scrub whisk her onto the towpath. Now, over her shoulder, she saw a little old man in a nightshirt standing at the other end of the bridge shaking a cudgel. She waved cheerfully back.

Heartsease was already round the next bend when Margaret caught up, the funnel still puffing its ridiculous smoke rings against the pearly light of dawn, the throaty boom coming steadily from the huge cylinders. She was surprised to find, as she cantered level with the boat, that even she felt an odd pride and thrill at the sense of total strength which the shape of the boat gave because of the way it sat in the water. She slowed to a trot to watch it.

At once Jonathan moved his hand on the brass lever that jutted up beside the wheel; the boom of the engines altered; Heartsease, no longer shoved by the propellers, began to lose speed as Jonathan edged her in towards the bank. He opened the door of the wheel-house.

“It’ll be all right,” he called, “provided you can keep that sort of speed up. You must think of a story, just in case you’re caught on the wrong side with a bridge open. What about . . .”

“They wouldn’t believe it,” Margaret interrupted. “We’ll just have to swim. That old stableboy who came when the Earl came told me horses can swim with a grown man on them. But Jo, try to keep your engine going the same speed all the time. It makes a horrid black cloud when you speed up. People could see it for miles, but you can’t in there.”

“Thanks!” said Jonathan. He shut his door, signaled down to Lucy in the engine room, and, as the water churned behind the tug’s stern and the black smoke rose again, steered out for the center of the canal. Scrub was happy to go. The wind was even colder now, out from the sheltering buildings.

Scrub was in good form, happy with the tingling early-morning air and the excitement of having something to do. Margaret was sure he knew how much it mattered, that he sensed her own thrill and urgency. The towpath was a good surface, hard and flat underneath but overlaid with rank fallen grasses which softened the fall of his feet. She had to rein him in firmly as they took the bend at the end of the long straight, and he was fidgeting with the bit all the three hundred yards down to the next bend. Just round it was another bridge. This one opened from the wrong side.

Already it was almost a routine, she thought, as she hitched the reins to the rail, hoicked up the locking-piece and began to crank. But as the bridge swung over the water there was a shrill burst of barking in the lane behind her.

Margaret panicked. In a flash she had untied the reins, flung herself up to the saddle and hauled Scrub round to set him up at the awkward jump from the end of the bridge to the bank. It wasn’t impossibly far, but it was all angles. He took it as though he’d been practicing for weeks, and climbed up to the towpath. From there Margaret looked back.

The smallest dog she had ever seen, very scrawny and dirty, was yelping in the entrance to the far lane.

Jonathan had slowed Heartsease down, but even so the tug was almost at the bridge, and there was no way for Margaret to cross and finish her job. She was turning Scrub towards the bitter water, nerving herself for the shock of cold, when she looked up the canal and saw her cousin gesticulating in the wheelhouse — he had another plan, and he didn’t want them to swim.

His hand moved to the big brass signal lever and pulled it right over. The tug surged on for a second, and then there was a boiling of yellow water beneath the stern as the propeller went into reverse. Heartsease suddenly sat differently, slowed, wavered and was barely moving, drifting through the water, nudging with a mild thud against the concrete pier on Margaret’s side of the gap. The bridges were still high at this end of the canal, because the surrounding land was high: it was only the mast and the funnel which wouldn’t slide under. Delicately, with short bursts of power from the propeller, Jonathan sidled round the projecting arm, just scraping the corner of the wheelhouse as they went past. Once through, he opened the wheelhouse door to lean back and watch the oily smoke fade as Heartsease settled down to her six-knot puff-puff-puff.

“Sorry!” shouted Margaret. “I was too frightened to think.”

“Not surprised,” he shouted back. “But it looked funny from here — you two great animals routed by that little rat of a dog. Couldn’t you lean down and turn the handles from the saddle?”

“No. They’re too low. How far is it to the next bridge? Scrub doesn’t understand about maps — the flapping makes him nervous.”

“Half a mile. Then a mile and a half to the one after. Get ahead and come up to that one carefully, just trotting along. There used to be an inn there, and more folk’ll be about by now.”

The next bridge opened from the right side and no one barked or shouted at her. Then came the stretch of bad towpath, all muddy hummocks, so she took to the fields and cantered along on the wrong side of the hedge, wondering why the canal wasn’t all in that kind of condition. The answer came to her at once, as she pictured the boiling khaki wake behind Heartsease. No ships had been using the canal for five years, so the water had barely moved; it had been when large engines had churned the surface about that the banks had needed constant looking after.

As she came up towards Sellers Bridge and the inn beside it, she settled Scrub to his easiest trot, and made sure that there was a square of red cloth loose at the top of her saddlebag.

She remembered the pub from her first exploration — a large, white, square building with broken windows. It hadn’t looked as if anyone lived there, but she slowed to a casual trot as a gentle curve brought the bridge into view. The whole narrow world — the world between the enclosing banks of the canal — seemed empty of people, but who could say what enemies mightn’t be about beyond them? As she wound at the handle she felt the blank windows of the ruined inn watching her, she felt the vast silence of the Vale listening like a spy to the slow clack of the cogs beneath her. This bridge was slightly different from the others: even though it opened from the “good” end, it turned on a pivot so that when it was open she was left with an awkward leap down to the bank. She decided it was safer to close it, but by the time she had watched Heartsease pass and had cranked the bridge shut she was shivery and sweating.

The next bridge was already open, and now the land fell away on either side of her so that she could feel the teeth of the wind out of Wales —and the banks would no longer hide the tug. Now they would be parading their wicked engine before all the watching Vale, twenty miles wide. At the bridge after that all went well, though it opened from the wrong side, but as Margaret was cantering on she heard a shrill cry and looked back to see a woman brandishing a saucepan while an arthritic old man hobbled away down the lane — for help, probably, for somebody young and strong to pursue them. Margaret bent over Scrub’s neck and let him stretch to a full gallop; she was sure they

could outrun any pursuit, provided they weren’t halted in their flight. Hungry, she felt into her saddlebag as soon as they were past the tug, and found a hunk of Rosie’s bread to gnaw.

It was two miles to the next bridge, a flimsy affair for foot traffic, where the canal crossed the narrow little barge canal from Stroud, all reeded and silted. Then a short stretch to Sandfield Bridge, which opened from the “good” side; then nearly a mile more to the bridge between Frampton and Saul. That one lay amid brooding woods which screened the next expanse of country, and it was already open. Frampton, she remembered, lay only a furlong from the canal, and beyond the woods was a long straightaway through windswept and shelterless country; so, as she was now well ahead of the tug, she took Scrub down the embankment, dismounted and led him along by the overgrown gardens of Saul Lodge. The canal here ran ten feet higher than the land. She was completely under cover as she walked below the stretching arms of the pine trees to a point, thirty yards on, where the curve was finished and she could climb up again until only her head showed as she spied out the long straightaway.

For five endless seconds she peered round a clump of withered nettle stems.

Then she had wrenched the startled pony round and was running back along the awkward slope. Up onto the path the moment it might be safe; into the saddle; galloping back and reaching at the same moment for the square of red cloth. Heartsease was only fifty yards the other side of the open bridge; desperately she waved her danger signal.

The water creamed under the stern as the propeller clawed at it to slow the tug down, but already they were through the bridge and Margaret could see that the momentum would take the tug round the curve before she could be stopped. Jo twirled the wheel and the bow swung towards the towpath; two seconds later it slid into the bank with a horrid thud. She jumped from her pony and ran along the path, but before she came to the place the still-churning engine had lugged the boat out into midstream again. Jonathan moved the lever to the stop position and opened the wheelhouse door.

“I hope that was worth it,” he called.

“Oh, Jo, we’re done for! Come and see! Can you turn the engine off without making smoke?”

He fiddled with the lever and the wheel, so that a quick spasm of power sucked Heartsease backwards to lie against the bank. Margaret caught the rope he threw and tied it to a thornbush; he scuttled down the engine room hatch, and almost at once the puff-puff-puff from the funnel died away. Lucy came up behind him, her face all mottled with oil and dirt, but stayed on the deck while he leaped ashore. Caesar fidgeted with his tether in the stern.

Margaret led Jonathan along under the embankment. The children peered again round the hissing nettle stems, down the mile-long line of water which rippled grayly in the sharp wind, to where Splatt Bridge sat across the dismal surface like a black barricade.

There were people on the bridge, about a dozen of

them, tiny with distance but clearly visible in the wide light of the estuary. Above them rose a spindly framework with a hunched blob in the middle.

“What on earth have they got there?” said Jonathan. “Mr. Gordon’s litter.”