Free Seagulls in My Soup by Tristan Jones Page A

up after we’ve made a hundred thirty miles from Algiers. Let’s see . . . If we stay at twenty knots all night we should just about see the light at six in the morning. How do you think the engines will hold up?”
    â€œThey are in first-class condition. How do you say—A1 at Lloyd’s?”
    â€œI wish I were at Lloyd’s right now,” said I under my breath. Aloud I said, “We’ll have to check the lube oil every hour.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAnd the circulating water, too. We don’t want any fuck-ups on this little run, do we?”
    Reynaud nodded, his face grim.
    â€œWhy don’t you and Tony check the engines every hour,” I went on. “You can alternate and rest in between checks. He can make the first check at midnight.”
    â€œWhat about you . . . Won’t you be tired?”
    â€œOh, I’ll be all right. I’m used to long hours at the helm, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.”
    â€œWell, it sounds reasonable. Will you tell Tony?”
    â€œYes, and you check below at one, three, and five, OK?”
    â€œOK.”
    â€œPierre . . . What are we going to do if they catch up with us?”
    â€œLeave that to me,” replied Reynaud darkly. “You just keep the boat on course.”
    â€œRight.”
    All through the windless night we roared over the slight swell, showing no lights. At about two in the middle watch the clouds uncovered the moon. I suggested to Reynaud that we heave-to for a moment, so we could reduce the engine noise and try to check if we were being chased. This he agreed to, and as
Aries
wallowed away, slowly rocking this way and that, we all three stood on the bow and searched the southern horizon, straining our ears in the semi-silent night. We saw nothing, and Reynaud seemed pleased—but I noticed that he took great care never to turn his back on either Tony or me, nor to come too close to us when we were on deck.
    I passed over to the port side and gazed steadily to the southeast, where a dark mass obscured the horizon. It was a rain squall, and even then a slight breeze was rising from the direction of the clouds.
    â€œWe’d better wait for this squall to pass over,” I called to Tony and Reynaud.
    The Frenchman rushed over to my side, then shuffled away out of arm’s reach. “Where?” he asked.
    I pointed to the blacker blackness in the black.
    â€œThere,” I said. Then, as my eyes adjusted completely to the darkness, I forgot the threatening evil so close to me; forgot all thoughts of overpowering Reynaud, and watched the beauty of inanimate things—water and wind—turn to life. Soon the sound of the steadily increasing wind, like a huge beast drawing greater breaths, a sound sorrowful and startling at the same time, passed over
Aries
as she wallowed in the now-deepening troughs. I found myself searching with one hand, in the dark, for something to steady myself against. The sound traveled toward us across the starless space between the rain and
Aries,
passed directly above us, then ceased for a moment, just as suddenly as it had begun. As if the sea, too, had drawn an anxious breath of apprehension, a long, slow movement lifted and let down the waters under us.
    Very shortly a mini-chaos was let loose on the surface of the sea. It seemed to leap out of the darkness between water and sky onto the backs of the slowly heaving swells; then it lifted upon the crests a livid opacity of foam, as if it were driving a multitude of pale ghosts before it—and the squall was upon
Aries
in a spitting, spluttering welter of rain and spray.
    Aries,
for a moment, remained jolt-upright, like a duchess whose bottom has been pinched by a footman. Then she suddenly lay over, away from the hard blast of the squall. Then it was that I wished we were under sail; for a sailboat, reefed down, would have laid to that wind and scooted ahead