Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute

Author:Nevil Shute [Shute, Nevil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-47422-3
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Keith moved into the Mary Belle that evening. The installation of the new oil-drum was finished when he arrived and it was ready to be filled with water in the morning. There had been no opportunity to get Jack’s drum steamed out, that had once held kerosene, for the Cathay Princess was due to sail for Yokohama in the morning. Keith was to regret most bitterly that he had not taken action upon that earlier, when he drank his first cup of coffee.

They stowed the tins mostly beneath the bunks, the tins of biscuit going in the forecastle and the perishables in the one cupboard. The cooking equipment of the Mary Belle consisted of a frying-pan and two battered saucepans; there were two chipped enamel plates and an inadequate supply of knives and forks. Keith found them sufficient for his needs, however, because Jack Donelly ate mostly with his fingers.

They supped off tinned sausages and beans, cooked by Keith, followed by a half loaf of stale bread that he discovered in a locker, and a tin of jam. As he had suspected, Jack Donelly was a voracious eater; he ate everything in sight and then leaned back with a contented sigh. ‘You cook good chow,’ he said. ‘What you got in that wood box?’

‘A sextant,’ Keith said. ‘I’ve got some charts here, too.’ He opened the box, took out the sextant carefully, and gave it to his captain, who handled it gingerly.

‘I seen them in shop windows,’ he observed presently. ‘Marine stores and that. You know how to use it?’

‘Not very well,’ Keith said. ‘They put me in the way of the noon sight on board the tanker.’

‘Huh,’ Mr Donelly handed the mystery back to him. ‘Tells you where you are, don’t it?’

‘Not quite. Not unless you’re better at it than I am. But I think it may tell us how far we’ve gone.’

Jack Donelly said, ‘Well, I can tell you that.’ He turned to the soiled wooden bulkhead at his side and showed a long vertical line of pencil-scrawled figures. ‘That’s how far we went each day coming from San Francisco.’

Keith got up and examined the record with interest. ‘How did you know how far you went each day?’ he asked.

Mr Donelly said, ‘Well, each day after sunrise I’d sit down and put my thinking cap on and reckon we were doing five knots yesterday morning say four hours — well, that makes fifteen knots.’ He paused in thought, and then started counting on his fingers rather expertly. ‘No, that makes twenty.’ He went on, ‘Then around midday maybe it fell light and then I’d reckon up that. Then maybe I’d heave to in the night, catch up a bit on the sleep, ’n reckon on a knot or maybe a knot and a half. So then I’d tot it up for the day ’n write it down up there.’

Keith was deeply interested. ‘How did it come out?’ he asked. ‘I mean, how did it compare with the real distance when you got here?’

‘I never got it added up,’ Mr Donelly admitted.

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