CHAPTER VII

POOLE

He found this out later in the day at the cost of considerable time.

Forgetfulness and carelessness as to details are not assets in the conduct of business dealings with a world that goes by time-table and is mostly inhabited by practical folk, to say nothing of sharks.

It was after four o'clock when he reached his destination.

The old, quaint town of Poole stands by a natural harbour all pockets and dents and much used by fishing boats and various sailing craft. The tide here ebbs and flows twice in the twelve hours and at low water the mud banks, the sand banks, and the slob lands emerge, or hint of themselves, beneath the swarms of chanting gulls.

Bobby had bought a cheap attaché-case, a toothbrush, and a suit of pyjamas on the way to the station. These he deposited at the _Anchor Inn_, whilst he started out to hunt for Samuel Hackett.

The waiter at the _Anchor_ knew of Sam, had seen him on the wharf that morning, and reckoned that he would be aboard his boat, which was anchored out towards Brownsea Island.

On the wharf Bobby fell in with an old longshore crab, who offered to take him out to "Muster" Hackett's boat for five shillings.

Bowler was his name, and on the row out Bobby, if he had listened, might have gathered not only the name of the oarsman, but his age and the age of his wife, the number of his children, the parlous state of Poole as a seaport, and the condition of the Christchurch salmon fishing.

But he was not listening. The great harbour in the evening light, with Corfe Castle against the sunset and the ring dottrels and curlews flighting around Brownsea Island, held his mind from all else.

The sea-marks rippling to the tide, that was just beginning to ebb, held his eye, and then the sandbanks at the mouth showed their gorse and yellow dunes as the boat drew up to a yawl, over the stern of which a man in a bo'sun's chair was hanging, paint brush in hand and busy at work.

It was Hackett.

"Hallo!" cried Bobby, as the boat drew up.

"Mind my paint!" cried Hackett. "Bring her round to starboard. Good lord, Bobby, where on earth have you sprung from?"

"Come to pay you a visit about something important. Can I come aboard?"

"_Can_ you come on board? One minute."

He got on deck, threw down the ladder, and helped the visitor overside. Then he ordered Bowler to take the boat back.

"But I've left my luggage at that inn place," said Bobby.

"You don't want luggage here," said Sam. "I can give you all you want, and you can have the dinghy to go back in whenever you want to go. You can stay the night, anyhow, can't you? This is the _Sandfly_. Ain't she a little beauty?"

Bobby looked around him, at the narrow deck, the taut standing-rigging, the neatly-coiled ropes. He saw nothing beautiful, but he did not say so.

She was a ten-tonner with a cockpit leading into a little cabin where the head-room was so low that Bobby had to stoop when standing. He sat down on a cushioned locker whilst Sam offered whisky and a box of Burma cheroots, which he fetched down from a net shelf. Whilst he fussed about, the visitor looked around him.

There was nothing here that could carry away in bad weather. Everything was plain but clean, and the only decorations were some photographs nailed to a bulkhead; photographs of ships and small yachts--the ruling passion.

"How long have you had her?" asked Bobby, referring to the _Sandfly_.

"Got her the season before last," replied Sam, soda-syphon in hand. "Say when. Got her at Cowes. Her only fault is, she's a wet boat. But you can't have everything unless you have money."

"Ever been a long distance in her?"

"Only to Cherbourg and Boulogne. She's too small for long cruising with comfort. That seat easy?"

"Quite. Look here, Sam, I've come down to you about a thing, one of the biggest things I've ever struck. What sized boat would you want for a cruise to the Mediterranean, a deep-sea expedition to the Greek Islands, taking a diver and all his traps, and five or six for a crew?"

"What on earth would you want with a diver?"

"Never mind that. I'll tell you in a minute. What I want to know first is the size of the boat."

"Well," said Sam, "a forty- or fifty-tonner would be best, ketch or yawl rigged for choice, and a good sea boat. The Mediterranean is the devil sometimes. But why do you ask?"

"I'll tell you, Sam, if you'll swear on the soles of your boots never to let it out. I can trust you, can't I?"

"I never talk."

"Well, it's this way."

Bobby, leaning forward, began his story. Sure of his man, he told everything from start to finish, and Sam, curled up on the opposite side of the table, his old pipe in his mouth, absorbed the tale.

But the romantic part of it seemed to leave him quite unmoved. The town under the sea, the treasures of art to be recovered from it, the dangers of the expedition--all these were nothing to Samuel Hackett.

"You'd want a forty-tonner at least," said he, when the story was over, "auxiliary-engined. Yawl for choice. You'd want a boat for the diving pump and a dinghy. What's this you said? Statues and things? Well, statues are pretty heavy, ain't they? Well, you might use the anchor winch or rig a tackle for getting them up, but you'd want storage room. What are you prepared to spend?"

"Well, how much do you think a boat like that would cost?"

"Oh, eight hundred to a thousand."

"Do you know of any boat that would do?"

Sam fell into a reverie.

"Well, if you're not particular as to appearances," said he, "there's the _Lorna Doone_. She's alongside the wharf at Poole now. Ketch over forty ton. Just been re-masted and the hull's as sound as I am. Purbeck, the chap that owns her, had her fitted out for cruising and only used her once this season, because of the masts, but they are right enough now. He's been hit on the Stock Exchange, and I believe he'd sell. He picked her up cheap."

"She'd do if she's sound. Sam, look here, supposing I could get her, or some other boat as good, will you come along and lend a hand?"

"Me!"

"Yes, you. It'll be no end of fun, and I'll make it worth your while. I'm on my beam ends. I know next to nothing about this sea business and you're an expert."

"No," said Sam. "I couldn't go. I can't leave the boat."

"But why on earth can't you?"

"Oh, I've a lot of repairs to do to her this winter. You don't know what a boat requires in that way. There's no end to be done to her. But I'll help you in any other way I can. I can get you the men you want, and see you right about stores, and all that. I can get you Glastonbury, the chief diver of the Poole Construction Board--or was till he quarrelled with them last June. He'd take on a winter job down south."

"But I don't want a man who will talk."

"Glastonbury isn't a man; he's a diving machine," replied Hackett. "And now come along and help me to get dinner ready."

In a microscopic galley for'ard of the hole where the sleeping bunks were, Sam produced eggs from a basket and eight slices of raw bacon wrapped in the financial page of the _Times_.

"There'll be enough for dinner to-night, and breakfast to-morrow morning," said Sam. "I'd have got beefsteak if I'd known you were coming. Hold on to this whilst I light the stove."

The stove smoked and stank, the place became filled with the lee-shore sound of frying bacon, a sound as of waves tearing the shrieking shale to their hearts, above which came the shouting of Sam giving directions as to the laying of the table in the cabin, and the gash-gash of eggs being sacrificed.

"You'll find the knives and forks in the starboard afterlocker. And the cloth!" cried Sam. "And the cups--we'll have coffee. I'll fetch the bread along."

Then as they dined, a rising breeze dispelling the perfume of paraffin and filling the cabin with delicious harbour scents and voices of guillemots and tern, shell-ducks, and dottrel, from the emerging mudbanks and sandpits, Sam took up the theme of the _Lorna Doone_, and the voyage down south.

Bobby noticed that he seemed more enthusiastic over the business than he had been an hour before. The thing had evidently sunk into his mind, arousing all the passions of the small yachtsman who is never so happy as when he is fitting out and fiddling over gadgets. He talked of the _Lorna Doone_ with enthusiasm. She had an auxiliary engine, it seemed, and a propeller shaft piercing the port quarter. The propeller, he explained, was not directly behind the rudder as in a steamer, but sticking out at an angle. It was a patent propeller that opened out like an umbrella when revolving, and closed up when not in use. She had water tanks capable of holding five hundred gallons. She had beautiful sleeping accommodation, a cabin aft of the main cabin, and a bath-room.

"But you'll see her to-morrow," said Sam. "I'll row you over after breakfast, and we'll find Purbeck at the inn."

They sat on deck after dinner, smoking and watching the lights of Poole, and the lights on the sandpit, talking but little--for everything that Sam had ever learned, at Oxford or London or from life in general, seemed to have been ousted for a general cargo of sea-craft lore ranging from the question of main sheet buffers to the burning subject of water-ballast as a substitute for metal.

Then they turned in.