Maiden Voyage

FIFTY-TWO

The excitement on the upper promenade decks which Harry had failed to notice as he descended to the automobile hold was caused by a frantic report that a first-class passenger, a lady, had been seen to leap off the rail of the boat deck into the sea.

She had been spotted by only two passengers, a retired brigadier and his wife who never took breakfast because they believed it was bad for the liver. They had seen her climb up on to the rail, her white negligee flapping in the Atlantic breeze, and then dive with arms outstretched, a seagull, a flying crucifixion, into the boiling foam of the ship's wake. They had immediately rushed to the bridge, and announced, "Lady overboard!"

All the time that Harry had been working on his timing clock, although he hadn't realised it, the Arcadia had been turning in a fast 180-degree turn, while passengers crowded the rails in an attempt to catch sight of the lady's body in the water. The rumour went flying around that it was a high-society suicide, and newspaper reporters scoured the passenger lists and drank even more whisky and water than usual as they tried frantically to guess who it could be.

Sir Peregrine was informed of what was happening, but he only said, "I see. Perhaps you'd better tell Mother."

Edgar went immediately to the wheelhouse, where he was joined after a few minutes by Catriona and Mark Beeney.

"What's happening?" asked Catriona. "I heard that somebody's gone overboard."

Rudyard Philips said, "It's not confirmed yet. But Brigadier Repson says he saw her jump off the rail of the boat deck."

"Did he have any idea who it was?" asked Mark.

Edgar shook his head. "'He can't see too well, at a distance. But it was a lady, he said, in a white nightgown."

"Can't you assemble the passengers for a roll call?" asked Mark.

"We will later, if we can't find her and we have to call off the search. But just at the moment, I'd prefer it if every single passenger was keeping a lookout for her. It's surprising what some people can see. Things that even a trained sailor might miss."

Mark said, "It couldn't have been that French opera-singer lady, could it? She tried to commit suicide right at the beginning of the voyage."

Rudyard, without turning around, said, "That thought did occur to me, too, Mr. Beeney, but I called her and checked. It appears that she's much happier now, and that she's lost all of her suicidal tendencies."

"Well, nothing like the love of a good man," remarked Edgar obliquely.

Rudyard answered this comment with a small, sour smile.

There was nothing more they could do in the wheelhouse, so Mark and Catriona went outside and joined the other passengers who were craning and bobbing their heads around for a first sight of the lost lady in white. Their chances of seeing her, however, were millions to one. There was a strong current running, and a fresh midmorning wind was getting up. If the seventy-five foot drop to the ocean from the rail of the boat deck hadn't concussed the lady and drowned her, she would probably have gone under from tiredness and exposure by now. At any time of the year, the North Atlantic has never been recommended for its swimming conditions.

"I hope to God it's only a mistake," said Catriona.

"Whatever it is," Mark told her, "I just pray that they get a move on. I've got a large bet riding on today's mileage."

Catriona was shocked. "Some poor woman's life is at risk, and all you can think about is your stupid bet?"

"You're not going to succeed in making me feel guilty about it," said Mark. "Anybody who dives off the boat deck does it because they want to kill themselves. If that's the case, why don't we all just go on our merry way and leave the poor woman alone? If you're really set on suicide, which she must have been, then the last thing that you want to happen is for someone to come and rescue you."

Just then, with the perfect timing of true fate, a steward handed Mark a sheet of writing paper on a silver tray. "Only received this a minute ago, sir, from the ship's post office." Mark tipped him a half-crown, and then tore open the letter with his thumb. It read:

"My darling Mark, as you read this I shall already be looking down on you from Heaven, if there is such a place! I haven't always been very sensible. I know that, and I haven't always been good to you and to other people. But I hope that you will forgive me for having loved you so dearly, and for losing heart at last when it became quite clear that you would never be completely mine. You mustn't feel guilty for what I have decided to do. It is my own choice entirely, and it is the way that I prefer to seek my oblivion, rather than pining for the rest of my life like the old lady in the Listerine mouthwash advertisement who still cannot work out why her fiance cancelled their wedding, all those years ago. You see? I still have a sense of humour, my darling. And a sense of proportion, too, for I know that you will never really love me, although I cannot for the life of me think why. Just promise me this: that you will think of me now and again, and perhaps drop a wreath into the Atlantic at this spot whenever you cross it. Yours hopelessly, Marcia."

Mark took only the flicker of an eye to understand what the letter meant. His cheek muscles tensed and twitched, and as he folded the letter up and tucked it back into its envelope, he looked a terrible shade of beige, as if his suntan was nothing more than a blotchy foundation cream.

"Mark—" said Catriona, taking his arm.

He held up the envelope. "It's Marcia," he said. "It's Marcia who jumped overboard. She's drowned herself, and all because of me."

He folded up, like a marionette with cheap wooden hinges, and sat down hard on one of the promenade-deck benches. "I can't believe it," he said. "She always said that she loved me. But I never thought that she really meant it. It was all just like a play. I never once dreamed—"

Catriona sat down beside him. She felt desperately sorry for him; but at the same time she couldn't help thinking that the only serious rival she believed she had for Mark's affections had now suddenly disappeared. God, was she a witch for thinking that?

She said, "It couldn't have been all your fault. She must have been a bit strange in the head, too. Some people do the most peculiar things, and all because they're just a little unbalanced."

"Unbalanced?" said Mark, bitterly. He opened the letter again and passed it to her, so that she could read it. "I suppose you could call that unbalanced, but it seems pretty calm and rational to me."

Catriona touched his sleeve. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to say that—"

He made a face. "It doesn't matter. It's a shock, that's all. We'd better go up to the wheelhouse and tell Mr. Philips who it is."

There was a new arrival in the wheelhouse, and when she saw him, Catriona instinctively backed out of the door again and remained outside on the deck while Mark spoke to Rudyard Philips. It was George Welterman, in a yellow straw skimmer, and a blazer striped with red and black. He looked moody and irritable, and from the expression on Edgar's face, Catriona could guess that he had been giving everybody at Keys a difficult time.

Rudyard came to the wheelhouse door. "I've just told Mr. Beeney that we're doing our best to find the young lady," he told Catriona confidentially. "But I have warned him that the chances of us locating her are very slim."

"He owns his own ships," said Catriona. "He must know that as well as you do."

Mark glanced towards her from inside the wheelhouse. There was an expression on his face which told her that he might have known it, but perhaps, at this moment, he wasn't yet ready to believe it.

"I'm sorry," said Catriona. "It's been a terrible shock."

George Welterman said loudly, "Mr. Philips! How many miles are we going to sail back?"

"Until we find the girl," put hi Edgar. "Or at least until we're quite positive that she must have been lost."

George drummed his fingers on the varnished woodwork in a testy, spasmodic rhythm. "You realise you're going to lose all possible chance of winning the Blue Riband? This is the second time we've had to turn back."

"The Blue Riband is secondary to the safety of this ship and her passengers, Mr. Welterman," said Rudyard.

"Well, well," said George, "speaking like a commodore already, are we?"

Catriona, who had caught most of this conversation, suddenly found herself saying in a clear voice, "Mr. Welterman!"

George slowly swivelled his head towards her, his eyes bland but childishly threatening, Catriona hadn't looked at him face-to-face since he had assaulted her, and she had forgotten already how eerie those eyes could be. Her throat felt tight, and she became suddenly sensitive to the Arcadia's hesitant, nervous rolling.

"Mr Welterman," Catriona repeated, "I would prefer it if you addressed any comments you may have about the officers of this ship to the management, and not directly to the officers themselves. Now, will you kindly leave the bridge. It is out of bounds to all but invited passengers during the hours of daylight, and out of bounds to all passengers during emergencies."

George Welterman said, "You're joking, of course, Miss Keys. I'm the European director of International Mercantile Marine.'

"This ship is registered in Liverpool in the name of the Keys Shipping Line, and I am telling you to get off the bridge," said Catriona. Her voice sounded as brittle and sharp as a broken sliver of glass, although inside herself she was very close to angry tears.

George glanced uneasily at Edgar Deacon. But Edgar remained expressionless, neither confirming Catriona's instruction nor countermanding it. He did, however, take one neat step back, like a man who anticipates a fight brewing and doesn't want to be caught in the line of fire.

George let out an explosion of amusement that was more of a whinny than a laugh. "It's preposterous, of course! Edgar? Tell her it's preposterous."

But now Rudyard stepped forward. "I'm afraid Miss Keys is right, sir. The company regulations are quite clear. You'll have to leave the bridge."

There was a hideous moment when George Welterman's face went through as many contortions as a melting waxwork. Then he said with threatening softness, "Very well. If that's the way you people want to play it. But I warn you—I warn you—this won't be forgotten."

Catriona said, "We won't forget it either, Mr. Welterman." At that moment, she hated him more than anybody she had ever hated in her life. In fact, she hadn't hated anybody at all until she had met him. And yet, the curious thing was, he had gone through agony so that he could bear on his chest the name of the woman be had loved.

He raised his straw skimmer as he left the wheelhouse and gave Catriona a sarcastic nod of his head. "I'll see you at luncheon, Miss Keys?" he inquired, but she turned her face away.

It was Douglas Fairbanks who first saw Marcia in the ocean, thereby completely redeeming himself for his fluffed rescue of Lucille Foster. He let out a great Thief-of-Baghdad—style whoop and cried, "There, Captain! There she is! Just off to starboard?"

Without hesitation, Rudyard, tersely, said, "Full astern all," although it would still take the Arcadia nearly a mile of seaway to come to a complete stop. Then, as the cheers and shouts of the passengers rose all around him, Rudyard went out on to the bridge deck and stood with both hands on the railing to see for himself where his one lost passenger was.

"She's floating!" somebody shouted. Then the distinctive voice of Baroness Zawisza cried out, "She's not floating, you idiot! She's swimming!"

And miraculously enough, on the glassy swell of the ocean (through a sea which, if you were on board the Arcadia, looked almost preposterously flat, and yet which, if you were trying to swim in it, looked like the Himalayan mountains in ceaseless motion) there was Marcia Conroy in a clinging white negligee, the Ophelia of the Arcadia, doing a slow but entirely competent sidestroke.

"My God," said Mark, right next to Catriona. "My God, she's alive!" He looked at Catriona and he obviously didn't know whether to cheer or to cry.

Rudyard called to Dick Charles, "Lower nets to starboard! Then lower a boat! And double-quick!"

It was a remarkable sight, on that mid-morning in June, in mid-ocean: the largest ocean liner in the world drawing slowly to a stop within a hundred yards of a single woman in white splashing her way through the waves as if she were exercising at her local swimming baths.

"She never told me she could swim," said Mark in amazement. "I mean, not as well as that."

Catriona held his hand, happy that Marcia was still alive, but guilty, too, because of the way she had felt only half an hour before, when she had first learned that Marcia was missing. She couldn't stop the tears that filled her eyes and she had to wipe them with her fingers. Mark noticed, but then he was on the verge of crying, too.

Soon the huge ocean liner was drifting slowly within fifty yards of the spot where Marcia was floundering her way through the sea. None of the passengers could yet be sure that she had seen the ship, because she hadn't looked up from the water or acknowledged their arrival in any way at all. But they cheered frantically, and waved their hats, and several well-meaning men threw down life jackets and deck chairs, until the chief steward managed to persuade them that a blow on the head from a deck chair could succeed in drowning Miss Conroy where the Atlantic Ocean had failed.

The lifeboat was still being winched down when Rudyard Philips did an extraordinary thing. He suddenly tossed aside his cap, loosened his necktie, and unbuttoned his uniform.

"Mr. Philips?" asked Edgar.

But Rudyard didn't reply. Instead, he bent down to take off his shoes, which he kicked back into the wheelhouse. Then he quickly unbuttoned his shirt.

"Mr. Philips, you're not thinking of diving in after her?" said Edgar. "Mr. Philips, that's the most ridiculous—"

It was too late. With a face set as straight as a bust of Liszt, Rudyard climbed the rail, balanced for a moment with his toes right on the edge of the highly varnished wood, and then swallow-dived the entire seventy feet down into the sea.

There was a cry of surprise and delight from everybody on the starboard side of the ship as Rudyard arched gracefully through the air, and then hit the water with a clean splash of spray. It was a perfect dive, like a diagram out of Chums on "How To Swallow-Dive." Everybody clapped as he emerged and started swimming strongly towards Marcia, and even Jack Dempsey cheered.

Rudyard reached Marcia in two or three minutes. The sea was freezing, and she was on the point of total exhaustion. Her sodden clothes, which like Ophelia's robes were "heavy with their drink", were about to drag her under. As Rudyard pulled her head back into the classic life-saving position, she gargled, and cried out, "Sidestroke medal!"

Rudyard told her breathlessly, "Relax," and began propelling both of them backwards towards the ship. The lifeboat had now been launched and, with Ralph Peel at the prow, was being rowed rapidly towards them. The chilly salt waves splashed over Rudyard's face, and he choked and spat to stop himself from swallowing too much brine.

There was more applause as Marcia was lifted dripping from the sea, and held up in Ralph Peel's arms, the rescued maiden. The news photographs of the event, most of the journalists reckoned, would have to be judiciously retouched, since Marcia's negligee, when wet, was almost completely transparent. But what a humdinger of a story! "Beautiful British Debutante Rescued After Mid-Atlantic Plunge." And they would always have a set of uncensored prints for themselves. The man from the Daily News was already hogging the wireless room, his brown leather golf brogue wedged against the door, transmitting his story to New York; while the society correspondent of the New York Daily Graphic was fretting outside on the boat deck, just in front of the lady from the Los Angeles Examiner, Marjorie Driscoll, whose story, headlined "Desperation Dive of Star-Crossed Society Sylph", would earn her the sobriquet of "sob sister of 1924".

But none of these eager newshounds were there to see the real high tragedy of the rescue. None of them saw Rudyard Philips release his hands from the side of the lifeboat, and vanish beneath the surface. In fact, it was two or three minutes before anybody realised he was missing, and by then it was far too late.

Rudyard hadn't known what he was going to do until he saw Marcia Conroy in the water. But then, as if he had been visited by a divine revelation, it had all seemed perfectly clear. Suddenly, he could choose honour instead of ignominy; glory instead of demotion. Marcia was his passenger, she was his personal responsibility, and so as the captain of the Arcadia he was duty bound by all the rules of the sea to save her. That was the way to solve everything: to die in the course of his duty. That was the way to be remembered for ever as the captain of the the ship which he would never be appointed to command. Wouldn't Toy be sorry that she had deserted him for Laurence? And what tears Louise Narron would weep for him! Sir Peregrine, even sir Peregrine in his paralysed dotage, would remember him with fondness and regret; and Ralph Peel would forgive him for taking the old man's side during the storm.

He would be better off drowned. It would be better for himself, and better for everyone who knew him. He felt as if his very existence had been preventing other people from living their lives happily, and so the only answer was to cease to exist. That was why he had tossed aside his cap, unbuttoned his uniform, unlaced his shoes, and dived into the ocean. He hadn't done it to rescue Marcia (although he was obliged to, because she was his alibi), but to breathe in as much briny seawater as he could and let his cold weighted lungs sink him to the bottom of the ocean.

Rudyard's last impressions were of the sea slapping against the side of the lifeboat, of Ralph Peel kneeling forward to lift Marcia out of the water. He could hear cheering, but somehow it seemed strangely distant, like the cheering of a football crowd six or seven streets away. He thought: they're cheering for me. That's the way to die. At sea, under a sunny sky, to the sound of applause. Then he slowly opened his hands so that he sank away from the lifeboat, and allowed himself to drop just below the surface of the waves.

He heard the booming of the ship's turbines, amplified through the water; he heard the metallic tinkling of bubbles. Then he exhaled, every ounce of breath that he could, and breathed in the Atlantic. It was one of the strongest acts of will of his whole life, to inhale seawater, but he did it until his lungs were flooded. He sank down, his brain already dying from oxygen starvation, and he turned as he sank, as if he were flying in slow-motion through the crisscross sunlight of a dream, and then down into darkness, where no living man could go, and where his face took on a greyish pallor because the sunlight could no longer penetrate. He descended through a silvery shoal of herring, and then deeper still, where it was cold beyond imagination, and where the fish took on forms that were only appropriate in nightmares.

In the pocket of his trousers was the wireless message from Toy, which he would take right to the bottom with him.

Louise Narron, on the first-class promenade deck, was the first to realize that Rudyard had disappeared. She cried out, "Ou est Rudyard? Where is Mr. Philips? Mr. Peel! Where is Mr. Philips?"

The sailors in the lifeboat looked all around them, and then at each other. "Not in the boat, sir!" one of them told Ralph Peel. Angrily, Ralph Peel shouted back, "Then where the hell is he? Rudyard! Where the hell has he got to!"

They rowed around the Arcadia for more than a half-hour, while George Welterman stood alone on the foredeck in his red and black striped blazer, watching them with simmering impatience. It was 11:20 now, and unless the Arcadia made at least thirteen miles more progress on her course before twelve noon, he was going to lose his bet. Maurice Peace, who had bet a lower figure than the bridge's estimate, sat in a deckchair eating a banana and meditating on the generosity of fate. He had always wanted a luxury automobile, and a as long as the Arcadia remained stationary, it seemed as if he was going to get one. He hadn't even been obliged to resort to the paraffin-soaked rags in his blue canvas holdall. He handed his empty banana to a passing steward, and tipped the man a pound.

At 11:28, George Welterman lost his patience altogether. He came up to the bridge, where Ralph Peel was now in charge, and demanded, "Mr. Peel! We must now be on our way! Some of us have appointments to keep in New York!"

"We'll make up most of the time, sir," said Ralph. "Just at this moment we're searching for our first officer."

"Can't you understand that he's drowned?"

"It appears that way, sir, but we are simply carrying out a routine search, according to the rules."

"Well, damn the rules, Mr. Peel. That man has obviously been lost. An idiot could see that. We have to get under way."

Ralph Peel turned and looked George Welterman up and down. There was nothing tactful or compromising about Ralph when it came to dealing with obstreperous passengers; he saved all his hairy charm for pretty young heiresses and flirtatious dancers. Men passengers were nothing but a nuisance, to be carried for commercial reasons only.

"I am the second officer on this vessel, sir, and just at this moment I am in command."

"Get me Mr. Deacon," George ordered.

"I'm afraid you'll have to find him yourself, sir. I'm directing a search for a missing member of the crew."

"Get me Mr. Deacon, damn you!" George screamed at him. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"

Ralph was completely unimpressed. As Dick Charles said later, "He didn't even turn one of his sixteen million hairs." He simply said to George, "If you have any complaint, sir, the normal procedure is to write to the shipping line in Liverpool or New York. The normal procedure is not to shriek like a baboon."

George, furious as he was, realised that he wasn't going to get very far with Ralph. So he stormed along the boat deck to the lift, and descended, muttering and cursing to himself, to A deck, where he stalked down the corridor to Edgar's stateroom with such ferocity that several people turned to stare at him after he had passed them by. He beat on Edgar's door with his fist, and then pushed it open.

Edgar was sitting with Percy Fearson, urgently discussing who they were going to appoint in place of Sir Peregrine. As George Welterman came in, he stood up.

"George! You don't look too pleased with life."

"I am not," said George, throwing his straw skimmer across the room, and then planting his fists on his hips. "This ship has delayed long enough. I want you to order your officers to get her under way, and I mean now."

"As a matter of fact," said Percy Fearson, "we're searching for a missing crew member. We'll be under way in five or ten minutes."

"Do you think I don't know that?" George snapped back at him.

'But if we're going to move at all, we're going to have to make another thirteen miles at least by twelve o'clock, or you and I and Keys Shipping are in a whole lot of hot water."

"I don't understand," said Edgar.

"It's very simple," George told him. "I made a bet last night with Mark Beeney that this ship could make six hundred and thirty-five miles today, by noon. At least thirteen miles more. So far, she's covered just a few yards under six hundred and twenty-two."

Edgar put down the papers he was holding and stood up. "Am I hearing you correctly, George? You want us to abandon the search for Rudyard Philips because you have a bet?

George lifted his head defiantly. "It's not just an ordinary bet, Edgar. There's a great deal at stake. Keys Shipping included."

Percy Fearson glanced at Edgar anxiously.

"You've bet Keys Shipping?" asked Edgar.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. I've bet that if the Arcadia doesn't cover six hundred and thirty-five miles today, I'll withdraw my offer for Keys. In fact, I've guaranteed it."

"You can't gamble something like that!" Edgar exclaimed. "We already have draft agreements!"

George shrugged. "Agreements are only made to be broken. Why do think we have lawyers?"

"This is impossible," said Edgar. He was clearly very angry. "We have only a half-hour to make thirteen miles from a dead stop. We'll never do it. We don't even have enough steam up to reach full speed."

"Either you make up those thirteen miles, or everything's off," said George.

"You're talking through your hat," said Edgar. "You're just as committed to this sale as we are."

"Nonetheless, that was the bet I made."

"But of all the damn-fool things to do!" Edgar protested.

George went to the porthole and stared out at the ocean. The sunlight turned his face into a dusty white death mask. "Perhaps I wanted to lose. Perhaps I wanted to see you ruined. I don't think anything would give me greater pleasure than to see you buried at last under the collapsing pillars of your own worm-eaten empire."

"But everything we've arranged—"

George gave a slow, disinterested shrug. "You still have a lot to learn, don't you, Edgar, in spite of your sharp Anglo-Indian manners. You're a good man, though. Not quite in my class, but good. What you lack in spontaneity I believe you make up for in acumen."

Edgar glanced up at the clock. "I don't think there's any hope of us making thirteen miles by noon."

"Well... in that case the only way to protect the sale is for you to make no headway at all. Another passenger has put in a low-field bet of six hundred and ten; and it would be better for him to win, rather than Mark Beeney. With him, I have bet only five thousand pounds. I shall expect you to underwrite that sum personally, of course, if I lose it. But wouldn't you rather lose five thousand pounds than the whole of this deal?"

It was then that the deep throbbing of the ship's engines began to reverberate through the decks again.

"Well?" asked George.

Edgar said, "I can't delay her any longer; we'll never take the Blue Riband if I do. I've asked Mr. Peel to circle the area once more, and then we're going to be on our way," said Edgar.

"It depends which is the more important to you," said George.

Percy Fearson took his pipe out of the pocket of his Harris Tweed jacket and said, "This fairly turns my lights over, this does. I always said that I hadn't got the stomach for business, and believe me I don't. Not when it comes to dirty little squabbles like this. You bet the whole caboodle, did you, Mr Welterman? And now you come crying for help when it looks as if you're going to lose. By heck. That's all I can say. My old father would have taken his belt to you."

But Edgar said, "Quiet, Percy, We're not here to talk about the rights or the wrongs of it."

George went to the cocktail cabinet and helped himself to a large Coon Hollow bourbon. "You people should be running church outings," he said sourly, "not a luxury shipping line. Look at you. You're so much in debt your bank has to order red ink by the tanker. You're paddling around the middle of the Atlantic with a ship worth ten million pounds and a passenger list worth two hundred times that amount, and what are you doing? Looking for one man who was dumb enough to jump into the sea when he didn't even have to, and who must have drowned a half-hour ago."

The Cartier enamel dock on the wall of Edgar's stateroom said 11:32. Edgar put his hands into his pockets and then said, "We're going to continue to search for Mr. Philips for another ten minutes, George, and then we're going on. On this shipping line, human life comes before anything. Money, schedules, anything. If we lose the shipping line because we tried to find someone lost at sea, then that's the way it'll have to be."

"More fool you," said George, swallowing his drink in one gulp and picking up his hat.

"I have a suggestion, though," said Edgar, quietly. "It could be officially announced that the Arcadia has managed to run six hundred and thirty-five miles today; and we could then make every effort to catch up that extra five miles during tomorrow's sailing. We haven't yet taken her as fast as she can possibly go. We still have six thousand horsepower in reserve, over and above our registered horsepower. That's my estimate, anyway. So you could still win your bet."

Percy Fearson looked up, his face scandalised. George Welterman paused as he was about to place his straw skimmer on his head. Then he nodded and left the stateroom without a word.