The Lighthearted Quest by Ann Bridge

had decided to ‘for the Bay’—in fact they were to stand her in good stead on many journeys in Morocco.
    The first time that Mr. Reeder, the mate, encountered her on deck thus equipped, he looked her up and down and said—“Jolly good boots. Where did you get the duffle-coat?”
    â€œBuntings, in High Street, Kensington,” said Julia—“they go in for war surplus.”
    She asked him about the shipping that dotted the horizon in all directions—the eastern approaches to the Bay seemed almost as full of traffic as Piccadilly—and had pointed out to her tankers, long, low, and ugly; tramps of various sorts, apparently all familiar to Mr. Reeder: “That’s a John Doe Line,” he would say of some spot on the skyline; “They’re small coal-boats.” Near the French coast, off Ushant, lively little fishing craft bobbed about on the grey-blue waters, causing Julia to opine that it must be frightfully difficult to avoid them at night, especially in fog.
    â€œNot any more—radar’s made all that easy,” he said.
    â€œOh,
have you
got radar?”
    â€œNaturally,” he said, rather huffily.
    â€œI wish I could see it,” said Julia.
    â€œYou must ask the Old Man about that,” said Mr. Reeder, repressively. “I’ve no objection to passengers on the bridge, infact I like the company, but it can’t be done unless he says so.”
    Of course Julia asked Captain Blyth at the very next meal, which was one of those rather indigestible spam-and-salad, cake-and-scone collations at the distasteful hour of five-thirty p.m., if she could go up on the bridge some time to watch the radar functioning.
    â€œYes. Better come up tomorrow night, when we shall be off Finisterre—then you’ll see the land on it as well as the ships.”
    They slogged down across the Bay, that evening and that night; next morning Julia awoke to see a rather thin watery sunlight seeping in at her cabin window. She scrambled hastily out of her bunk—a drawer, half-pulled out below it, she had learned to use as a ladder—and ran across to the window to look out. Yes, sun it was, albeit rather faint as yet; in London one had forgotten that such a thing as sunshine existed. And the sea was blue too—faintly blue; anyhow not that cold steely grey. She felt extraordinarily exhilarated as she climbed back into bed just as Andrews, the steward, tapped on the door with her morning tea; he came in wearing his usual rig-out of shirt-sleeves, no collar, a puce pull-over, and a dark stubbly chin. “It looks a nice morning, Miss,” he said—Andrews was evidently slightly exhilarated too.
    So was everyone else. A sort of joy pervaded the ship at the sight of the sun; it took the very practical form of doing some washing. A positive efflorescence of washing broke out on both decks, and at the midday meal there were prolonged arguments between Mr. Struthers, the lanky Chief Engineer, Mr. Freeman, the fair-haired second officer, and Reeder as to the best way of washing woollens—
Lux
or
Tide,
and how hot the water should be. The Captain contributed a story of a very nice young fella who had been given a cardigan knitted by his mother, which he had boiled in soda—everyone laughed politely. Julia decided to do some washing herself: by plaintively asking Mr. Reeder where and how she could hang herthings, as she had no clothes-pegs, she caused him to run a line for her across the boat deck under the bridge—“When your stuff’s ready I’ll hang it for you without pegs,” he said briefly.
    â€œReady in half-an-hour,” said Julia equally briefly; and half-an-hour later she watched with amusement the big bearded mate attaching her nylon effects to the line. He did this by a most ingenious method: inserting the point of the marlin-spike on his clasp-knife into the cord, he unlayed it enough to slip one corner of a