The Shipping Forecast

Thames - Part 7

Henry and I rushed up on deck and stood looking around in the dark. A line of surf lay just astern, running roughly north-south. Ahead, to the west, flashing lights betrayed the buoys of the Thames Estuary. South were the lights of Margate and the Kent coast.

"Must be the Kentish Knock, or maybe Long Sands." The Bandit had settled with its bows into the wind, heading south. She was thumping slightly in the waves. It was nothing to worry about - yet, but it meant we were stuck. I looked to the east for signs of the pursuing fishing boat but couldn't see anything. That didn't mean it wasn't out there, however. "What was the arrangement for delivering the goods?" I asked.

"Anchor in the Medway on the 25th or up to three days after. Raise a blue ribbon at the cross-trees and await contact. Don't raise the pratique flag or do anything to attract the attention of customs. That was it really."

"And if no-one came?"

Henry looked at me askance. "Why wouldn't they come?"

I decided not to argue with Henry's misplaced optimism. There were more pressing matters at hand. "We need to get off this sandbank. The tide is rising, so we should be able to make our way over, so long as the sea remains calm and we don't tear out bottom out on a wreck."

I began to arrange the sails to that we would drive over the sandback as the tide rose beneath us. I felt more reckless than I might otherwise have done, no doubt because the boat wasn't mine and I couldn't find it in my heart just then to care for her greatly. My own life and safety was threatened more by being found helpless stuck here on a sandbank than quietly slipping away to some dark, remote anchorage.

Almost an hour after we struck, I was beginning to relax a little. There was no sign of the trawler, and the Bandit was by my reckoning almost at the top of the bank - a little longer and we would be over. But just then the sound I had dreaded hearing reached my straining ears. A dull thump-thump-thump of a steam engine, coming up from the south. I looked at our own sails - ghostly white against a dark, moonless sky. A thin overcast dimmed the stars, which was a blessing. Would it be enough to prevent us being seen? I peered through the dark towards the sound, trying to make out anything that confirmed my fears.

Beside me, Henry unwrapped the gun he'd brought up from the cabin and made it ready. I placed my hand on it as Henry raised it, pointing in the general direction our pursuers were coming from. "Please Henry," I whispered. "Don't do anything rash. It may an innocent fisherman, out on the banks."

"A fisherman showing no lights?" answered Henry. Of course, he was right - only someone not wanting to be seen would be out in a busy waterway risking collision by not having any navigation lights showing. "There's a loaded pistol in the chart table," said Henry.

I ducked back down into the cabin and rummaged blindly in the chart table. My hand found what felt like the pistol and brought it up on deck with me. The sound of the trawler's engine was louder now, and before long its bow wave could be seen a few hundred feet away from where we sat, stuck. Other noises too now - voices low and urgent; the sound of ropes running through blocks, metallic clanks and bangs.

"Damn, they've found us!" I shouted. There was no need to keep quiet now. It was obvious the trawler was heading straight for us. Lights appeared on its deck and then a spotlight, painfully bright, shone directly on us forcing me to shield my eyes from the glare. "We need to get the Bandit to the other side of the bank, quickly!"

Henry and I began to do what we could to make the yacht bounce its way across the sandbank and into deeper water. Henry trimmed the sails to gain as much help from the wind as possible while I ran below, tucking the pistol into my coat pocket, and began moving everything heavy to the starboard side. It was only after shifting the boxes of gold that I realised there was a more immediate means of getting us over.

"Henry! We have to lighten the load! Where's the bottles of spirits you mentioned?"

"Beneath the seats, under the quarter and in the cockpit lockers. The tobacco's in the forepeak and under the floorboards." Henry sounded panicked. "Charles, they're launching a boat!"

"Throw it overboard! All of it!"

I pulled open the under-seat lockers and found them full of bottles. In the darkness I couldn't tell what they were. I grabbed two by the neck in each hand and launched them over the side from the cabin ladder. Henry was rummaging through the locker in the cockpit and throwing its contents overboard as fast as he could. By the third trip to the lockers and back I was breathing hard and my hands and arms ached from the effort.

"Charles, they're getting closer!"

I threw the bottles I had in my hands overboard and come up on deck. Backlit in the glare of the searchlight, I could see a small tender being rowed directly toward us, perhaps six men in total. One man in the bows was staring intently at us as they drew nearer. Behind them, the trawler had stopped, not able to come any closer. Henry stopped throwing bottles over the side and picked up the machine gun he's brought up earlier.

"Is that loaded?" I asked him.

"I don't think so. I'm hoping it will scare them." Even Henry didn't seem convinced by this argument. Then I remembered the pistol I'd taken from the chart table.

"Let's give them a fright then," I said, taking the pistol from my pocket. Holding it up, I yelled, "Don't come any closer!"

A man replied with a derisive shout with a thick German accent, "Don't be a fool. I know you have no ammunition!"

"Oh god!" mumbled Henry beside me. "It's von Moyton!"

"Well, let's give Mr von Moyton something to think about!"

I aimed the pistol just over the heads of the men in the tender, now no more than fifty feet away, and pulled the trigger. The pistol 'chuffed'. A red firework shot out of the end, flew a few feet above the heads of the men in the tender at high speed, arcing up and then down towards the trawler behind them. It was a flare gun! There was a bang, and the searchlight went out, the rocket flare ricocheting upwards into the sky and bursting into a bright red light that lit up the sea for hundreds of feet around. For twenty seconds or so, the flare shone brightly, falling slowly back the sea before fizzing out when it impacted the surface. Suddenly, it was pitch dark again. The Bandit lurched, thumped once or twice on the sandbank, and then turned her bows towards the west. We were over!

Henry scrambled for the sheets to get the sails set and I grabbed the tiller. I steadied our course and headed into deeper water. Henry shouted something obscene to von Moyton and threw a bottle. There was a sound of smashing glass and a shout, followed a second later by a sharp report as someone fired a gun. The shot went wild, thankfully, but it focussed our minds and we both kept quiet as we sailed away into the darkness.