The Boat Girls (20 page)

The baby was a mottled red with a wizened face like a monkey's.

‘He's beautiful, Molly. But are you all right?'

‘Me? Course I am. Sister Mary said I were ever so good fer a first one. Next time it'll be easier, she says. Nothin' to it.'

But already some of the bloom had gone, gone with the birth of Abel. However easy the births, Molly's youth would fade away.

‘Will you stay here long?'

‘Oh, no. We'll let go in a day or two. Saul says we'll take it easy at furst, though.'

‘But shouldn't you rest in bed for longer than that?'

‘Gracious, no. Me mam never did. Nor Saul's mam, neither. No time fer that on the boats. Yer'll be off tomorrer, though.'

‘We're going to let go as early as we can, before the others. Get a good road, if we can.'

‘Jack Carter's 'ere, in't 'e? Jack'll beat yer to it, love. Allus does.'

‘He's still trying to mend his engine.'

‘It'll be done by morn. Knowin' 'im.'

‘There's another pair of boats arrived, too. Some Joshers. They were in the Boat Inn just now. Three brothers, I think.'

‘That'll be the Quills. Nasty bits of work, they are. Drink like fishes an' allus lookin' fer trouble. Saul 'ad a fight with 'em once when
they took our lock. Give 'im a black eye, they did.'

‘We're going to see if we can get ahead of them in the morning.'

‘They'll never let yer.' Molly sank back, suddenly looking tired. ‘No sense in tryin'.'

Just before dawn, with only the faintest glimmer of pearly light in the east, they were up and dressed. There was no sound or sign of life from the other boats, nobody about on the towpath. They untied the mooring ropes, shafted the boats away from the bank and poled them silently past the Quills' pair and a short way down the cut, beyond a row of willows. Frances gave the engine a sound kick before she and Prue swung the flywheel. One, two, THREE. Ros pushed over the compression lever at exactly the right moment, the engine fired and settled to its steady beat. They were off and away, Frances steering the motor with Prue in the cabin ready to lock-wheel later on, and Ros steering the butty behind. They chugged towards the opening of the Blisworth tunnel in the side of the hill. Frances shifted the water can to the middle of the cabin top and laid the chimney pot on its side so neither would get knocked off by the slope of the roof.

She had never cared for the tunnels: the scary feeling of being sealed off from life, as if in a tomb, the icy drips and drops, the eerie light from
the ventilation shafts, the deafening beat of the engine. She switched on the headlight and
Orpheus
entered the underworld.

The cut continued straight at first, then there was a bend and the nerve-racking plunge into two miles of Stygian darkness. Forty minutes, or more, to reach the other end. The light at the motor's fore-end shone feebly on black water and on brickwork encrusted with a strange orange fungus. Without the chimney in place, the smoke and fumes from the engine blew in her face, making her eyes stream. Steering was always tricky and every so often the motor hit the wall with a mighty, echoing boom. And tunnels held special terrors. The engine could fail, boats could get stuck, people could fall off, roofs could fall in. And the mind started imagining all sorts of ridiculous things . . . phantom boats, underground caverns, rivers that lured the unwary deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth. The boaters loved frightening tales, and the Blisworth tunnel was said to be haunted by the ghost of an old legger who had drowned walking a boat through.

The first of the five shafts appeared ahead – a narrow beam of pale and eerie light filtering down from above.
Orpheus
passed through it slowly, foot by foot, before returning to the dark. If Frances turned around she would be able to see
Eurydice
as she went through, but her mind was
still playing silly tricks. Don't turn round. Don't look back or the butty and Ros might vanish for ever.

By now, the Quills must be catching up. They would move fast – much faster than she could go, bumping her way inexpertly along. They might catch them up in the tunnel, ram them into the wall and force a way past, and the noise of the engine would make it impossible to hear them coming. She took the motor a little faster – as fast as she dared – put the tiller over too far and scraped her knuckles painfully against rough brick.

And then the headlight failed. It went on and off several times and finally went out, leaving pitch blackness ahead. The motor, continuing regardless, crashed heavily into a wall, bounced away and headed for the other side, the stern hitting afterwards like the smack of a whale's tail. She slowed the engine to idle and Prue's anxious voice called up from the cabin.

‘What's happened?'

‘The light's conked out.' She tried to sound calm. ‘Must be a loose connection.'

Whatever the trouble was, after a minute or two the headlamp suddenly went on again and she carried on. A flickering mote of light had appeared ahead and she heard the sepulchral echo of a horn. Not some underworld being, she told
herself sternly, or a ghostly legger, but the headlight of another pair approaching. Passing in a tunnel left no room for mistakes. It was easy for the motors to collide or for the two buttys to get entangled. She slowed the engine, answered with her motor's horn and steered
Orpheus
as close to the right-hand wall as possible. Ros, she prayed, would be doing the same thing with
Eurydice
behind. The mote of light grew and grew until she could make out the fore-end of the approaching boat, hugging the opposite wall. They crawled past each other, separated only by inches. The steerer, a hunched shape, was so close that she could have stretched out and touched him. She saw his nod and nodded back; the usual polite exchange of words would be inaudible above the combined racket of the two engines. As the butty glided by, the boatwoman nodded too, and shouted out the kindly and useful bit of information that they'd made Bugby ready for them, which meant that there was no other pair ahead to stop them going straight in.

Had they mistaken her for a real boater in the darkness? Not likely. The boat people noticed everything on the cut, knew where all the boats were and who was on them. They would have known exactly who she was.

Further on, the darkness began to lighten at the tunnel's end and when they emerged into the
world again, the sun was up and the day had begun. Six more bridges before the canal divided at Gayton Junction where they must take the left-hand arm. She consulted Pip's essential information in her notebook. Rothersthorpe, then Bugbrooke, then Hayford . . . the cut wound its way in a series of bends and wiggles towards the Buckby locks, still twelve miles away at least. At any moment she expected to hear the sound of the Quill brothers' motor boat and to see them come storming round the corner, but Ros kept putting her thumb up as though there was nothing whatever to worry about. Then, just past the Stowe Hill boatyards, just as she was beginning to believe that all was well, the engine began to cough and splutter and to pour out black smoke from the exhaust pipe. She drifted to a stop by a bridge-hole and a workman called from the bank.

‘Yer blades is blocked up, luv. Got a bladeful of summat, you 'ave.'

He wore a cloth cap and blue overalls and looked like somebody who might be able to do something. Pip had warned that all kinds of things could get caught up besides the snubber – old bits of rope, wire, clothes, rags, tyres, branches, dead cats . . .

‘Can you help us, do you think?'

‘Dunno 'bout that.'

She gave him her best smile. ‘Please . . . we'd be very grateful.'

‘Give it a try.' He spat on the ground. ‘Can't promise nowt, though.'

The stern of the motor was manoeuvred close to the bank. He poked about with the short shaft underneath. Nothing much seemed to be happening, and presently he was joined by another man, and then a third. It was barbed wire, they said at last, and it'd take time to cut it all loose. It were in a right mess.

After a while, as expected, the Quill brothers' boats came up and passed them by. One of them shouted something but Frances kept her back turned and pretended not to hear. It was another half-hour at least before the propeller blades were free and they could go on their way. The Quills would easily reach Buckby first and start their climb. And unless another pair came up from the opposite direction afterwards, all seven locks would now be against them – the very fate they'd planned for the brothers.

Two miles further on they rounded a sharp left-hand bend and there was the Quills' motor with its nose buried deep in the mud bank. The three brothers were very busy with long shafts and lines, but, by the look of it, they'd got themselves well and truly stemmed up. If it had been anyone else Frances would have offered to tow them off,
but not the Quills. She steered
Orpheus
past at full speed.

But their triumph was short-lived. Before long they heard the clattering beat of an engine pushed deliberately to its limits, and saw that the brothers were behind them once again and catching up fast. The cut ran straight for the final mile to the first lock and Frances steered the motor down the middle, leaving no room on either side for the Joshers to pass unless they wanted to risk getting stuck in the mud again. They started blowing their horn and yelling at her to get over, but she took no notice.

The lock was ready for them, as the boatwoman in the tunnel had promised. The gates were wide open and all Frances needed to do was go straight in. They reached the concrete marker on the bank which officially gave them the right of way and Frances slowed, steering the motor to the right, ready to enter the lock. The Joshers were close behind, engine hammering, and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the fore-end of their motor nosing close alongside, heard the steerer bellowing at her.

‘Loose us by, else yer'll be sorry. Stupid bloody cow! Git out of our way.'

She shouted back. ‘It's our lock. You get out of ours.'

He didn't and in another moment he'd be past
if she didn't stop him. She wrenched at the tiller and
Orpheus
's fore-end lurched across his path. The Josher boat thudded into the motor's side and swung round close enough for one of the brothers to leap across onto
Orpheus
. He snatched at the tiller, shoving Frances aside so hard that she overbalanced and fell into the cut. When she surfaced, the Quill brother was reversing to clear the way to the lock. His head was turned away to look over his shoulder when Prue, brave Prue, emerged from the cabin, brandishing the poker, and set about him. Taken by surprise, he flung up his arms to defend himself, toppled over and joined Frances in the cut. They both swam for the bank and reached it at the same time. Somebody yanked her out onto the towpath and kicked the Quill brother back in. When she'd scrambled to her feet and wiped her wet hair out of her eyes, she saw that it was Jack Carter.

The other two brothers were coming along the towpath, one of them swinging a windlass menacingly, with the Carters' black dog snapping and barking at their heels and nimbly avoiding their kicks. The third was climbing out of the cut.

‘Don' just stand there, woman! Git in an' git the bloody gates shut!'

Jack Carter yelled it over his shoulder as the three brothers fell on him and she ran for the lock.
Prue had brought the motor in exactly right and Ros the butty, in its turn. The gates were slammed shut, paddles dropped, paddles drawn, and water gushed into the deep lock. Back on the towpath a furious fight was taking place.

One Quill was thrown into the cut, another fell to his knees, but the third was still on his feet, windlass raised. And then the little old Carter grandmother came trotting along in her bonnet and long skirts and button boots. She carried a short shaft in her hand and she hurled it like a javelin. It hit the third Quill in the middle of the back, knocking him flat to the ground.

The lock was full. They opened the top gates and as Frances jumped back onto the motor, Freddy ran up, grinning.

‘Jack's took care of 'em. Seen 'em off proper. 'E said to tell yer to git a bleedin' move on an' not 'old 'im up no more.'

She scrambled into dry clothes as they worked their way frantically up to the seventh lock with Jack Carter's pair following. After the way he'd saved them from the Quills, she ought to have waited at the top and let him go by, but, stubbornly, she didn't. It was too good a chance to prove themselves, to show him they weren't as hopeless as he thought. At the Norton toll office, after Buckby, their trip card was marked and the boats gauged, checking that their load was
all present and correct. They fled through the Braunston tunnel and on down the six Braunston locks. The Carter boats were only one behind them and Freddy kept biking up to lock-wheel for his brother. The bike was man-sized and he rode it very fast, standing on the pedals. He gave them a hand with gates and winding gear and the benefit of his wise advice.

‘Let 'er swing, miss. Nice 'n' easy. No call ter shove so 'ard. Dig yer 'eels in, if she's a booger. That paddle's still oop, so yer won't be goin' nowhere. Forgot yer iron, miss. Left it on the beam. 'Ere it is.'

‘We've got to manage on our own,' Frances told him. ‘You mustn't help us.'

He nodded, understanding. ‘Not doin' so bad, an' all. Considerin'.'

A long pound followed with more bends and treacherous mud. If they got stemmed up, Jack Carter might give them a snatch . . . or he might not. There was no way of knowing how a boater would behave – not if he was being held up, as he surely was. At Napton Junction they turned to the right. The Wigrams three came next and then the flight of ten downhill locks at Itchington, and then the Radford ten, followed by the Leamington pound, and all the time Jack Carter was chasing them, breathing hard down their necks. It was after seven by the time they tied up for the night
above the Warwick locks and they were aching all over – backs, arms, legs begging for rest. With the engine stopped there was blissful silence. Peace after hours of racket, and in a pleasant mooring with tall trees and a nice old pub close at hand called the Cape of Good Hope. There were other boaters already there and presently Jack Carter arrived and tied up along the bank.