HOW?
Bobby got a bus from Oxford Circus to Charing Cross. It was after
twelve when he reached Cadogan Street and turning on the electric light
in his sitting-room, sat down to smoke, to think, and to plan.
It seemed to him that he had never come against the real things of life
till now. Up to this he had followed the grooves worn and polished by
other men. Even in story-writing he had followed custom, the advice
of experts and the leading of his literary agent. Here was a business
in which no other people were engaged, where there were no rules to
follow, and where a mistake might land him in worse than difficulties.
He would have to manufacture his own mechanism, guide it and direct it.
The most essential part of that mechanism was its human element.
He had fished with the Devonshire men of Plymouth and Brixham, and
the thought of them had sprung to his mind at Behrens', but it was
some years now since he had been on the Devonshire coast, and he had
forgotten the very names of the men he had known there, but he had not
forgotten certain facts about the Devonshire fishing people. They were
like a huge family; they knew one another's affairs, and a man going
off to the Mediterranean on a job like this would be sure to talk of it
when he got back.
And it was not a question of one man. He would want half a dozen.
Half a dozen men chattering on their return would mean that the port
authorities, who are all in touch with the fisherfolk, would know
of the matter in a week. Bribery would be no use; Bobby had enough
imagination to see that a gallon of cider would be enough to undo the
business, no matter how much money was spent on bribery.
Well, failing Devonshire, where else could men be found? The docks?
He knew enough of the docks to understand that this would be a very
difficult place to work. There were loads of men to be found on the
East India Dock Road, or down in Lambert Road, Canning Town. But what
sort of men? Men from the deep-sea ships, steamboat men, who knew
nothing of the handling of small sailing craft; men whose characters
might be good or might be bad.
Then, leaving the men aside, how about the vessel? Where could he go
for a boat to suit his purpose?
At two o'clock in the morning, by which time the whole proposition had
taken on the colours of a nightmare and Behrens the appearance of a
fiend, Bobby was knocking out the ashes of his last pipe, when before
him rose like an angel the picture of Samuel Hackett.
Sam, bronzed and weather-beaten, just as he had seen him in the
restaurant; Sam, with his old coat and scrubby beard and his absolute
indifference to all things earthly but his "boat" and the sea; Sam, who
lived as the gulls live in Poole Harbour; the man of all men to help,
or at least point out where help might be obtained.
Bobby put out the light in his sitting-room, switched on the light in
his bedroom, and went to bed, feeling that the weight of a world had
been taken from his shoulders.
Sam, from a man, had become an inspiration, a refuge, a star. Fantastic
fears assailed Bobby as he lay awake in the dark revolving the picture
of Hackett in his mind, suggestions that Sam in his peregrinations in
search of a suit of oilskins might have been run over by an omnibus, or
that he might fall sick, or be drowned before Bobby could get at him.
No mother was ever more anxious for the safety of a child; yet a few
hours ago news of the death of this precious one would scarcely have
moved him.
Then, under the alchemy of drowsiness, the vision of Sam turned
into the picture of Martia Hare, and then came sleep, profound and
dreamless, as it only comes to the young.