The Maggie by James Dillon White Page A

by the previous night’s drinking.
    Marshall looked at him with reluctant respect, the big nose, humorous eyes, the ragged beard that stuck out jauntily through every depression. ‘How far is it to go?’
    â€˜To Oban, sir. Well, it’s a gude long journey, a gude long journey.’
    â€˜According to my map it’s only thirty miles.’
    â€˜Maybe so, maybe so.’ The Skipper nodded seriously. ‘But I wouldn’t want to drive the auld Maggie , ye understand? We’ll take it slow but steady.’
    Marshall turned deliberately to face him. ‘Look, MacTaggart. I know exactly what this old tub will do, I know she’s about the slowest thing that ever put to sea, but I want my cargo in Oban today . Unless you go fifty miles or so off course even you can’t prevent that.’ He took out a small folding compass. ‘But I’m warning you, I can check a straight course as well as you. So don’t try any tricks!’
    The Skipper turned away, offended. ‘Ye don’t have to speak to me like that, Mr Marshall. To go a long way off course with the deliberate intention of missing the CSS boat at Oban – why it’d be – it’d be dishonest.’
    Marshall walked away to the stern. ‘Well, don’t run the risk that I might think that of you.’
    â€˜Of course,’ the Skipper said to himself, ‘there might have to be a wee deviation now and then. For rocks or a big ocean liner or maybe a shipwreck.’
    The Maggie , with steam up, was about to go. The mate and the boy were casting off. A girl watched them wistfully from the jetty.
    â€˜Goodbye, Hamish.’
    The Skipper and McGregor, who was standing beside the wheelhouse, were watching Marshall in the bows. McGregor was not like the Skipper; he could acknowledge defeat.
    â€˜Ach, what’s the use?’ he was saying. ‘He’ll have us in Oban by teatime even if we drift half the way. Fraser’s boat won’t be waiting to pick up his stuff before evening.’
    Leaning out of his wheelhouse the Skipper said, reflectively, ‘It’s thirty miles to Oban. A great many things can happen in thirty miles.
    McGregor took up his meaning at once. ‘The engine . . . ?’
    He may have spoken too loudly, for Marshall glanced back and then came along the boat to join them. ‘I was just thinking,’ Marshall said, ‘about the things that might happen to prevent our reaching Oban by this afternoon. Engine trouble, for example.’ He caught their quick, nervous glances. ‘I think I should tell you, gentlemen, I built a better engine than that when I was eight years old.’
    The Puffer moved out of harbour into the open sea. There was nothing to hinder her progress, no squall, no current, no crossing boats. They waffled steadily along some three miles off the south coast of Mull. To Marshall, sitting in the bows, it seemed that their progress was infinitesimal. The mate was reclining against the hatchway with his concertina. The boy was peeling potatoes in the galley. McGregor stood on the engine-room steps with his elbows on the deck. Only the Skipper seemed to have any part in sailing the boat, and his efforts, a slight turn of the wheel every few minutes, could hardly be called strenuous. After an hour Marshall was fuming with impatience, but there was nothing he could complain about. The bows seemed to be cutting sharply enough through the water, and the course, from frequent checkings on his compass, was correct. The boy came on to deck and listened to the mate’s concertina.
    â€˜Mr Marshall, sir . . .’
    Marshall turned and saw the Skipper beckoning him from the open window of his wheelhouse. He went back suspiciously. ‘Well?’
    The Skipper said, ‘I have a feeling there’s some fog coming on.’
    â€˜Fog!’ Marshall looked at him in astonishment.
    â€˜It might be wise to put her in