impossible to miss. The speed of the ship increased, soon she was offshore, weaving back and forth in evasive action. For a moment he almost welcomed the air raid. Nobody would have time to bother about the dog now.
PART II
THE TWINS
CHAPTER 12
“O LD B ILL’S TAKING Shropshire Lass over.”
“Imagine that! At his age, too!” said the voice of a woman.
The twins, with hundreds of other Dover townsfolk, were standing beside the barricades on the Admiralty Pier searching for their father. Off and on the Williams family had been standing there three days, watching the exhausted troops tumble off the battered boats and onto the waiting trains drawn up in the station. At those two sentences behind them in the crowd, they looked at each other.
If Mr. Bennet was taking Shropshire Lass across to Dunkerque, they were going too.
Mr. Bennet, a neighbor on the Folkestone Road, was the former Chief Engineer of a P & O liner that journeyed from Southampton to the Far East. A bachelor, he had retired to his old mother’s house in Dover, in order to be with her. Actually he wanted to be near the sea. He liked to say that since leaving the company, he spent more time on the water than when he made a living there.
Mr. Bennet’s life on retirement was centered about one thing— Shropshire Lass. She was a beautiful boat, made according to his specifications the previous year by Leyton in Portsmouth. Built of teak on oak, she had a 30 h.p. Thorny-croft engine that could make eight or nine knots, slept four people, and had a galley where he liked to cook the dishes of the East to which he was accustomed. The year before war broke out, when the twins were fourteen, he had taken them on a shakedown cruise along the south coast, and by the end of that summer they felt they knew the vessel as well as Mr. Bennet did.
So three hours later, hidden behind a bulkhead forward, the twins heard shouts outside, listened to the engine turn over, and felt the boat move slowly from the harbor, gathering headway. They waited half an hour until they could feel the choppy waters of the Channel going thump-thump on the boat’s bottom, and finally, stiff and cramped, climbed out of the cabin and up to the deck.
It was brisk and windy, but as usual Mr. Bennet at the wheel was in his shirt sleeves and suspenders. As usual he had his faded P & O officer’s cap on one side of his forehead. A life preserver was slung negligently over one shoulder. His back was to the twins, for he was talking with the commander of a passing motor torpedo boat.
“Hope you can rely on that engine,” the naval officer shouted through a megaphone. “If it packs in and you lose contact with the convoy, heaven help you. We can’t.”
Mr. Bennet waved confidently and turned back to the wheel. His mouth opened when he saw the twins standing there, rather grimy and dirty. For a minute he said nothing.
Richard and Ronald stood blinking in the sunshine, feet apart, trying to shift with the roll of the boat, slightly dazed by the glare from the water after the semidarkness below.
“Well! Well, I’m damned. And who gave you lads permission to ship with me this time, eh?”
The twins, watching the shore line recede, were still dazzled by the sunlight, by the vast flotilla of boats, large and small, all around, everyone headed east. They observed the dinghy astern, wondering whether he might order them to row ashore.
“And who gave you permission to come along?” His annoyance increased as he talked, and they knew he was getting angry. The Chief Engineer of the P & O Rawalpindi was used to handling lascar seamen and the tough gang in the engine room; he could lose his temper greatly to his advantage, as they were aware. When he needed something fixed on his boat, it was usually done, and promptly.
“Who said you might stow away, eh?” he continued. “That’s what I’d like to know. Tell me, how shall I ever explain to your mother if anything happens to you? This
PART II
THE TWINS
CHAPTER 12
“O LD B ILL’S TAKING Shropshire Lass over.”
“Imagine that! At his age, too!” said the voice of a woman.
The twins, with hundreds of other Dover townsfolk, were standing beside the barricades on the Admiralty Pier searching for their father. Off and on the Williams family had been standing there three days, watching the exhausted troops tumble off the battered boats and onto the waiting trains drawn up in the station. At those two sentences behind them in the crowd, they looked at each other.
If Mr. Bennet was taking Shropshire Lass across to Dunkerque, they were going too.
Mr. Bennet, a neighbor on the Folkestone Road, was the former Chief Engineer of a P & O liner that journeyed from Southampton to the Far East. A bachelor, he had retired to his old mother’s house in Dover, in order to be with her. Actually he wanted to be near the sea. He liked to say that since leaving the company, he spent more time on the water than when he made a living there.
Mr. Bennet’s life on retirement was centered about one thing— Shropshire Lass. She was a beautiful boat, made according to his specifications the previous year by Leyton in Portsmouth. Built of teak on oak, she had a 30 h.p. Thorny-croft engine that could make eight or nine knots, slept four people, and had a galley where he liked to cook the dishes of the East to which he was accustomed. The year before war broke out, when the twins were fourteen, he had taken them on a shakedown cruise along the south coast, and by the end of that summer they felt they knew the vessel as well as Mr. Bennet did.
So three hours later, hidden behind a bulkhead forward, the twins heard shouts outside, listened to the engine turn over, and felt the boat move slowly from the harbor, gathering headway. They waited half an hour until they could feel the choppy waters of the Channel going thump-thump on the boat’s bottom, and finally, stiff and cramped, climbed out of the cabin and up to the deck.
It was brisk and windy, but as usual Mr. Bennet at the wheel was in his shirt sleeves and suspenders. As usual he had his faded P & O officer’s cap on one side of his forehead. A life preserver was slung negligently over one shoulder. His back was to the twins, for he was talking with the commander of a passing motor torpedo boat.
“Hope you can rely on that engine,” the naval officer shouted through a megaphone. “If it packs in and you lose contact with the convoy, heaven help you. We can’t.”
Mr. Bennet waved confidently and turned back to the wheel. His mouth opened when he saw the twins standing there, rather grimy and dirty. For a minute he said nothing.
Richard and Ronald stood blinking in the sunshine, feet apart, trying to shift with the roll of the boat, slightly dazed by the glare from the water after the semidarkness below.
“Well! Well, I’m damned. And who gave you lads permission to ship with me this time, eh?”
The twins, watching the shore line recede, were still dazzled by the sunlight, by the vast flotilla of boats, large and small, all around, everyone headed east. They observed the dinghy astern, wondering whether he might order them to row ashore.
“And who gave you permission to come along?” His annoyance increased as he talked, and they knew he was getting angry. The Chief Engineer of the P & O Rawalpindi was used to handling lascar seamen and the tough gang in the engine room; he could lose his temper greatly to his advantage, as they were aware. When he needed something fixed on his boat, it was usually done, and promptly.
“Who said you might stow away, eh?” he continued. “That’s what I’d like to know. Tell me, how shall I ever explain to your mother if anything happens to you? This
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