To Davy Jones Below Read online

  “But even the big liners of the other lines, like the Mauretania, they have funny-sounding names. I’d’ve rather sailed on … Dickie, someone’s knocking.”

  “Come in, come in!” called Gotobed, striding to open wide the door. “Ah, Mrs. Petrie, come and meet my wife. You know the Fletchers, don’t you? Arbuckle, happen you or Petrie can help us. Fletcher and I are afraid to open the champagne for fear of sending the cork ricocheting around the room, to the danger of the ladies.” He laughed heartily.

  “Phillip’s your man,” said Arbuckle.

  “Aye, o’ course, the technical wizard. Just the lad we need.”

  Daisy went over to Alec while the introductions were performed, but she observed the participants. Phillip was, as ever, the courteous English gentleman. Gloria, usually outgoing in the American manner, was reserved. Arbuckle looked on with the impassivity of a good butler.

  Phillip came to join Alec and Daisy at the table. “Have to make the best of a bad job,” he said in a low voice, dealing efficiently with the champagne’s wire headdress. “No good getting into a stew over spilt milk.”

  “No,” Daisy agreed, “nor locking the stable door after the cows have come home.”

  He gave her a slightly puzzled look, then concentrated on easing out the cork.

  Pop!

  “Ooh, I do love bubbly!” Mrs. Gotobed cried. “I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to get it on this ship. As I was just saying to Mrs. Fletcher, I wanted to go on one of the big, fast liners, but Mr. Gotobed simply wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Not on your life,’ says he, ’not when my friend Arbuckle’s booked on the Talavera.’”

  Though this was uttered in a tone as much playful as complaining, Arbuckle didn’t take it kindly.

  “I prefer smaller ships,” he grunted. “For one thing, if I must be one of a crowd, I’d rather it was a small crowd. And then, I saw the Vaterland’s arrival and departure from New York on her maiden voyage.”

  Phillip looked round from pouring the champagne. “It must have been quite a spectacle.”

  “It was the largest vessel in the world when it was built, wasn’t it, sir?” Alec asked, handing round glasses. “I remember something about its having trouble leaving New York.”

  “Trouble! It was darn near disaster. The Germans enlarged her in the building just so as to beat Cunard’s Aquitania, with no regard for common sense or engineering principles. The noospapers were full of her expected arrival, with the New York World calling her a ‘sea monster’ in huge headlines. Thousands gathered in Hoboken to watch. Waal, she steamed up the Hudson and came abreast her pier. Then a string of barges cut across her bows.” Arbuckle’s pause was a masterpiece of the raconteur’s art.

  Sipping her champagne, Daisy watched Mrs. Gotobed’s face. At first bored, she was quickly caught up in the story.

  Arbuckle continued. “The pilot ordered the engines cut. The wind and tide and current were all against her, and she started moving broadside downstream. Being so long, she had no room to manoeuvre. They didn’t dare restart the engines. More and more tugs joined in—twenty—five in the end, I heard—and they finally managed to stop her just before she went aground on a mud-bank.”

  “Cripes!” exclaimed Mrs. Gotobed. “And it was worse when it left New York?”

  “Much worse.” Arbuckle actually smiled at her. “She backed out of her berth much too fast, zipped across the river, and got stuck in the mud between two piers on the other side. The engines were reversed at high speed to try to get her off. A couple of small ships docked nearby were sucked from their moorings, hawsers snapping, then flung back against the piers and badly damaged.”

  “Cripes!”

  “At the same time, the wash of those great engines swamped a coal barge. The captain of that managed to jump to the nearest pier, but the engineer of a nearby tug was drowned.”

  “Good heavens!” said Daisy.

  “Did the Vaterland get out of the mud?” asked Mrs. Gotobed, agog.

  “Yes siree, she pulled out, turned, and steamed off downriver, calm as you please. She was just too big to notice the difficulties of anything smaller. But you wouldn’t get me travelling on anything that size, let alone investing in ’em.”

  “I’d give something to see her engines,” said Phillip. “More champers, anyone?” He refilled glasses.

  “I can fix it for you to take a look, son,” promised his father-in-law. “She’s sailed under the American flag since the War as Leviathan. She’s not doing too well, I guess. Prohibition is in effect on board all U.S. ships. I’m as patriotic as the next man, but you won’t catch me sailing in her.” He hoisted his glass. “Here’s to my good pal, Jethro Gotobed, and his blooming bride. May they have many happy years together.”

  As Fletchers and Petries joined the toast, Gotobed looked delighted, his wife relieved. Daisy thought “blooming” was an unfortunate choice of adjective. She was not sure whether the American realized its significance in English slang, but as neither of the principals took it amiss, all was well.

  Arbuckle seemed to have resigned himself to his friend’s faux pas, a changed attitude which was bound to make the voyage much pleasanter.

  The Talavera’s comparatively small complement of passengers meant that first, tourist, and third classes all shared the same public facilities.

  “Real democratic,” Arbuckle observed to Daisy as they entered the extravagantly named Grand Salon, “but you won’t mind that. They clear away the tables after dinner for concerts and dancing and such. I fixed with the Purser to seat us at the doctor’s table. He’s an interesting guy.”

  “The doctor!” pouted Mrs. Gotobed. “We paid for a suite; don’t we get to sit with the Captain?”

  “We were invited to the Captain’s table eastbound,” Gloria told her. “He hardly said a word. Gee, most evenings he didn’t even turn up to dinner. The crossing was kind of rough, and he had to be on the bridge.”

  “Cripes, I’m glad we’ve got fine weather. I dunno if I’m a good sailor or not and I don’t want to find out!”

  No one pointed out to her that they were still in the Irish Sea, with three thousand miles of Atlantic to cross.

  “Where ignorance is bliss … ,” Daisy whispered to Alec.

  “I wouldn’t mind being ignorant. I’m in the same boat. I don’t know if I’m a good sailor and I’d rather not have to find out.”

  “I was all right on a roughish Channel crossing when I was a child,” Daisy said doubtfully.

  “Don’t anticipate trouble, darling. And don’t listen to the story the blooming bride is presently recounting.”

  Mrs. Gotobed had embarked on an all too vivid description of the revolting symptoms suffered by a dear friend on a ferry from Ireland. Daisy, normally the least high-nosed scion of the nobility, decided there was common and then there was common, and Mrs. Gotobed was really too, too frightfully vulgar.

  Gotobed’s gentle hints failed of their purpose. Fortunately, the Chief Steward came over to take them to their table.

  Dr. Amboyne was already there, standing behind his chair as he waited to see what the Purser had thrown to his lot. His weatherbeaten face broke into a smile as he saw Arbuckle approaching. They shook hands.

  “You remember my girl, Gloria?” Arbuckle introduced the rest of his party.

  In turn, Dr. Amboyne presented them to the passenger already seated on his right. Miss Oliphant was a lady of middle years, somewhere between forty-five and sixty—her round, pink, chinless face was smooth, though her hair, worn in a coronet of braids, was pure silver.

  Her brown eyes bright as a sparrow’s, she said cheerfully, in the precise accents of a schoolmistress, “Oh dear, you are all travelling together? I am quite the interloper!”

  “Not at all, not at all,” Gotobed assured her. “It’s for us to do our best not to overwhelm you.”

  “I am not easily overwhelmed,” she retorted.

  He laughed as he pulled out the chair opposite her for his wife. “Good for
you, Miss Oliphant.”

  Daisy noticed that his Yorkshire vowels, having reappeared in the intimate setting of his own suite, had once more vanished. Intrigued, she wondered whether the phenomenon was due to a conscious decision or if he had merely, among friends, relaxed his vigilance over his speech. Arbuckle described him as a canny old bird—a smart cookie—in all but his relations with women, so probably he knew exactly what he was doing.

  The remaining empty seat was taken by Arbuckle’s secretary, a dark, silent, self-effacing man who appeared to be coming down with a heavy cold. Menu cards were studied and discussed. A steward came to take their orders, including Gotobed’s for more champagne.

  As soon as he left, Mrs. Gotobed took up the story of her friend’s travails where she had left off. This time, she did not get far.

  “The symptoms of mal de mer are indeed most distressing,” Miss Oliphant interrupted firmly. Daisy was convinced she had been a schoolmistress. “However, certain herbal remedies are remarkably effective. I am a herbalist by profession. Once, and in some societies still, many might consider me a witch.”

  Mrs. Gotobed gaped at her. So did Gloria, who had been talking quietly with Phillip and had only caught the last few words.

  “Here, I say …,” Phillip blurted out.

  Miss Oliphant smiled at him kindly. “I do not deal in spells, Mr. Petrie. Besides, I see you and Mrs. Petrie have no need of love potions.”

  Phillip and Gloria both blushed. Everyone else laughed, except Gotobed, who looked thoughtful. Perhaps he wondered whether Miss Oliphant might be persuaded to provide a love potion for his blooming bride, Daisy thought. She noticed that Dr. Amboyne’s laugh was rather forced.

  So did the witch. “I do not mean to set up in competition with you, Doctor,” she assured him. “I am more of a theoretician than a practitioner. I am going to America to study herbs used by the Indian tribes in hopes of discovering some of genuine utility.”

  She and Amboyne continued to discuss medicine over the hors d’oeuvres.

  Alec asked Phillip about the engines, whose steady throb underlay life on board, felt as much as heard. Phillip and Gloria were both full of enthusiasm, the former for the technical wonders, the latter for the sheer splendour of the huge, shining machinery.

  “Shall we see if we can take a tour?” Alec asked Daisy.

  “Yes, let’s, darling.” She sighed. “This soup is divine, but after a seven-course dinner every day, I shall have to let out all my clothes when we reach New York.”

  “We’ll dance all night,” Gloria proposed. “We get an extra hour at midnight westbound, remember. And we’ll play deck tennis every morning.”

  Silently, Daisy groaned.

  The dancing started that evening, as soon as the dinner tables had been cleared away and a small dais erected at one end of the Grand Salon. Here a three-piece band, piano, violin, and cello, and a tenor singer settled among a forest of potted palms to play fox-trots, tangos, Charlestons, and, for the old-fashioned, waltzes.

  Daisy was not keen on dancing. She was certain she had two left feet, though she could just about manage a waltz, which she had been taught at school. Her War work, in the office of one of the military hospitals near home, had enabled her to avoid what was left of the London social season (to her mother’s despair). Throughout their courtship she had successfully evaded displaying her ineptitude to Alec.

  Now she could see no escape.

  At least her humiliation was postponed—a waltz, “Dearest One,” had just begun when they reentered the Grand Salon. Alec swept her masterfully into his arms and whirled her around the floor. So firm was his lead that she had no time for doubts.

  Intoxicated with the motion, not to mention four glasses of champagne, she gasped, “Darling, I didn’t know you were such a marvellous dancer!”

  Sadness flashed across his face. He and Joan must have loved dancing, Daisy thought. It vanished in a second and he grinned down at her.

  “I’m a marvellous waltzer,” he corrected her. “I’m none so bad at the polka, two-step, and valeta, and I’ve been known to trip my light fantastic way through a schottische. But I’ve never tried a fox-trot, let alone a tango.”

  “We could sit them out,” Daisy suggested hopefully.

  “Consider the alternatives, love. You can abstain from seven courses at dinner, not to mention breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, and, I gather, a midnight snack to keep us happy. You can run around the deck several dozen times daily to work off your overindulgence. Or you can spend your time in New York with a needle and thread.”

  “Beast!” Daisy groaned.

  A one-step was next. Alec swore it was easy, and a sceptical Daisy discovered even she could do it. A fox-trot followed, to the tune “Melody Girl.”

  “We’ll sit and watch for a bit before we tackle it,” Alec suggested. Daisy was not about to argue.

  They found a pair of free chairs. Many of the older couples were sitting out the dance at the small tables left around the perimeter, but among those on the floor were the Gotobeds, moving smoothly together in fine style. Gloria and Phillip were also worth watching.

  A group of men heading for the nearby Smoking Room blocked their view. With them was a reed-thin girl with a very short, fair bob, very long, dark lashes, very red lips, and a very high hemline, higher even than last year’s extreme fashion.

  “But, darling,” she was complaining in a high, languid voice, “I simply must have a cigarette, and some old stick’s bound to rag if I smoke in here.”

  “Judas Priest, don’t be a bore, Birdie,” said the man she addressed. He was tall, thin, sleek, and, despite his American accent, dressed in the best of English gentlemen’s tailoring. “You can’t go with us, so can it.”

  “Why not? I play poker as well as you do, Chester.”

  “It’s gentlemen only, baby. Ever hear of smoking-room stories? If you wanna smoke that bad, go up on deck.”

  A dull flush mounted her cheeks beneath the white powder. “On my own?”

  “Take your momma. Tell her I said,” he jeered, and moved on with his friends.

  She took two hesitant steps after them, then was intercepted by a ship’s officer with the face of a kind and intelligent monkey. “I don’t believe you’d enjoy it in there, Lady Brenda,” he said tactfully. “May I send for your wrap and escort you up on deck? It’s remarkably warm for the time of year.”

  Hearing him, the American turned back to say, “Go ahead.”

  “Well, I will then,” said Lady Brenda sulkily. “It’ll serve you right if I …”

  “Oh, you won’t, you won’t,” he stated with calm certainty, and followed the others through the door.

  “I could slaughter you,” she hissed, fists clenched, then turned with a sweet smile to the officer. “Thank you, Mr. Harvey, I’ll accept your offer.”

  As they went off, Daisy returned her attention to the dancers. To her astonishment, she saw Arbuckle prancing away with Miss Oliphant.

  “Alec, look, the witch!”

  “If she can do it, so can we. As far as I can see, everyone does different steps anyway. As long as we keep time, more or less, we shouldn’t make absolute asses of ourselves.”

  Not absolute, perhaps, but Alec’s lack of certainty left Daisy floundering, though she did her best to follow his lead. Fortunately several other couples had tentatively joined in without much idea of what they were doing.

  At the end, the pianist stood up and announced, “There will be a fox-trot lesson in here tomorrow after lunch.” Everyone laughed.

  Daisy flapped her hand at her hot face. “What a pity fans are out of fashion!”

  “Shall we go out and look at the stars?” Alec suggested.

  Up on the boat-deck, they found several people strolling about or leaning against the rail. Some were bundled up in coats and hats against the autumnal nip in the air, some just in evening dress, presumably warmed by dancing or drinking.

  Daisy and Alec found a semi-priv
ate spot between two adjoining life-boat davits. A near full moon shone down from the star-filled sky, painting a path across the smooth, black swells. Daisy didn’t get much chance to admire the scene, though; and in spite of a chilly breeze from the east, which ruffled her shingled hair, she remained remarkably warm for the time of year.

  Eventually she disentangled herself and said, “Darling, must we really dance all night?”

  “I can think of more enticing activities,” Alec admitted, pulling her back into his arms for another kiss. “Let’s go down, love. We can always get up early and walk a mile or two before breakfast.”

  As they emerged from their nook, another couple preceded them towards the companionway. Their silhouettes, against the light by the steps, were easily recognizable, one by her knee-length skirt, the other by his uniform.

  “Did you hear what she said?” Daisy asked softly. “About slaughtering that American chap?”

  “Silly child!”

  “He was a brute. Don’t you think it sounded as if he had some sort of hold over her? I wouldn’t blame her for poisoning his pottage.”

  “Great Scott, Daisy, please! We’ve been given an extra week of honeymoon. Let’s just enjoy it without attempting to solve other people’s problems or, heaven forbid, falling over any bodies.”

  “Darling, I am enjoying it,” said Daisy.

  4

  The Fletchers did not get up early. By the time they appeared on deck, the Talavera had passed the Fastnet lighthouse and was ploughing through great Atlantic rollers. The south coast of Ireland was fading on the starboard bow. The weather remained unusually benign for mid-October, but Dr. Amboyne, taking the air, reported that quite a few passengers had failed to emerge from their cabins that morning.

  “It always happens as soon as we move from the Bristol Channel into the Atlantic,” he said with a heartless grin. “Some can’t take even this calm. There’s really nothing I can do for them except advise tea and toast and fresh air. Not many take my advice.”

  “Miss Oliphant said she has a remedy,” Daisy reminded him.