Текст книги "The Bedlam Detective"

Автор книги: Stephen Gallagher

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

THE MEETING ENDED EARLY. SEBASTIAN STOOD ON THE PAVEMENT outside the Portman Rooms, and from there he watched the women coming out. He’d hesitated to enter, thinking that he’d be conspicuous, but now he saw that a small number of men had been in attendance. Evangeline Bancroft was one of the last to emerge, arm-in-arm with another young woman of around her own age. This second woman suddenly hesitated on the steps, as if remembering something; with an apology she disengaged herself and hurried back inside.

This left Evangeline alone in the lighted half circle at the foot of the entranceway steps. Seeing an opportunity as she waited for her companion’s return, Sebastian started toward her.

“Excuse me,” he called out, and as she spun around to face in his direction he was surprised to see her draw a short length of heavy chain from her bag.

“I suggest you pass on by,” she called back. “And don’t imagine I’m afraid of you.”

He stopped, with his hands raised.

“I can see as much,” he said. “You misunderstand. My name is Sebastian Becker. Surely you remember me?”

She peered at him suspiciously, and he moved more fully into the light.

“Mister Becker?” she said.

There followed a few moments of silence. Then the dull clink of the polished chain as Evangeline Bancroft gathered it up and returned it to her bag.

He said, “We parted on bad terms. You were right to criticize my honesty. I beg forgiveness. Will you give me a chance to explain myself and make amends?”

Her companion emerged at the same time as two others. After a brief exchange of words, Evangeline sent her off with them.

“We’ve learned the wisdom of watching out for each other’s safety,” Evangeline explained.

She consented to let him walk her to her train. The evening was clear and the pavements not too crowded, the stars overhead blotted out by the smoke of a million September stoves and fires.

She said, “How did you find me?”

“You were part of a suffragist demonstration in Downing Street six years ago.”

“I was never arrested.”

“No, but the police have a record of your name. I went to the address they had, but it was out of date.”

“That was a hostel for young women. I have my own rooms now.”

“I know. So I found you this way instead.”

She said, “I was new to life and London and full of anger then. It’s an incident that could damage me in my present position.”

“Not through me,” Sebastian promised. “I know you think I meant to draw you into a plan to gain control of Sir Owain’s fortune. But I can assure you, it’s not his wealth I’m interested in. You know they’re set to hang a tinker for this latest attack.”

“But he’s confessed.”

“He’ll say anything that he thinks will gain him favor with his interrogator.”

“Mother said he had the girls’ clothing on his cart.”

“That’s true. But not the clothes they were wearing.”

“How so?”

“I saw the clothes. They don’t match the description that Florence Bell’s mother gave before the search. I think that when the detectives showed her the evidence, she changed her story.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I’m not saying she lied. And I’m not saying the dresses don’t belong to the girls. But the rag-and-bone man had a peep show for the children. They’d bring him old clothes, and he’d let them look through the spy holes while he pulled a string to make the puppets dance. What if Florence and Molly had traded him their castoffs without telling Mrs. Bell? And Mrs. Bell, at the sight of them, was moved to correct her own memory?”

“If the tinker didn’t kill them, who did?”

“I believe it could be the same man responsible for your own misfortune,” Sebastian said.

THE BELOW-GROUND buffet in the station concourse was open for tea, toast, or a three-shilling supper. Evangeline declined them all. She sat forward on the edge of her seat and did not unbutton her coat. The buffet was paneled in rich, polished wood, with stained glass in the concourse windows and electric light from bronze fittings. Their table was not in the best spot, but it was separated from the others and they would not be overheard.

Evangeline began, “Grace Eccles was my best friend. We didn’t choose each other, we just made a pair. Chalk and cheese. Mother didn’t approve. She was never a snob, but she’s always been proper.”

“What about your father?”

“My father died when I was very small. I don’t remember much about him at all. He was in the foreign service and they sent him out to India. He was supposed to send for us when he got settled, but a fever took him six weeks after the boat landed. Mother got a telegram to say he was dead. A week after that she got a letter from him, the last one he wrote. I’ll always remember that.”

“Stepfather?”

“You’re looking for a man to blame for my situation.”

“Just trying to understand it better.”

The waitress brought coffee, and Evangeline waited until she’d gone before continuing. As she started to speak again, she undid the top button of her coat and unwound the scarf from around her neck, reaching up and over her head to do it.

“People misjudge Grace,” she said. “They always have.”

Evangeline told of how her mother had reason to disapprove of her daughter’s friendship with Grace Eccles. Grace’s father was a man of poor reputation, though Grace loved him as much as any daughter ever could. Grace’s mother had run off with another man. Her father had been a hard worker and a Saturday-night drinker before that, and became an all-week drinker thereafter. This didn’t sit well with Lydia Bancroft, who was a member of the Temperance League.

Evangeline said, “The story is that Grace’s father was making his way home from the Harbor Inn one night and swore he saw something cross his path in the moonlight. Big and black and it looked at him with yellow eyes. He said they shone out like lamps. You can imagine what everyone thought. But the more people ridiculed him, the more he insisted. Until the story found its way into the paper, and then he shut up. The reporter let him think they were going to take his side. But they only mocked him like everyone else.”

“I read the article.”

“Where?”

“In the post office book.”

“That would be the one. To this day, every visitor gets to read it. They destroyed him with that. But Grace never doubted him. Stood up for him at school. She fought with boys as equals and beat them, too. She was always determined to prove him right and clear his name.

“So the two of us hatched this plan. The idea came from Grace, but she needed me for the camera.”

The fine hairs rose on the back of Sebastian’s neck. “You had a camera?”

“The Advertiser made an offer to encourage visitors. One hundred pounds for a genuine picture of the Arnmouth beast. Grace didn’t care so much about the money. She just wanted to prove something for her father. It was my father’s Box Brownie. He’d bought it for Mother to make photographs of me, so she could send them to him as I grew. I don’t think she ever got to use it.”

Evangeline explained how she and Grace had each lied to their lone parent, each saying that she’d be spending the night at the other’s house.

“We had blankets and some food tied up in a tablecloth, and a little lantern with a candle in it. Grace knew where there was a dead lamb, up near some old mine workings, and we had some bread and cake to throw around as extra bait. For some reason we thought that might bring out the beast of the moor.

“We found a sheltered place to set up camp. It had been a building, but the roof had fallen into the cellar and there were only three walls standing. You could look up and where there should have been a ceiling, you could see the stars. I think I remember looking up and seeing something move across them. Something dark, like it was making them go out. Like a figure standing over the world. But I could be inventing that.”

Evangeline went quiet for a few moments, recalling the memory.

“And then?” Sebastian prompted.

“Then I was at home,” she said. “In my bed, in my bedroom, with the curtains closed even though it was daytime. And that felt all wrong. I could hear voices through the floor. When they came upstairs I pretended to be asleep. But I think my mother knew. She touched my shoulder and I pretended to wake up. It seems I’d been awake before, from the way they talked to me. But I don’t remember.”

“Were you in physical pain?”

“I prefer not to discuss that.”

“Forgive me. Was this when Sir Owain appeared at your house?”

“His was the voice that I woke up to hear. Is that why you’re pursuing him? I’ve read detective stories. Is he your suspect?”

“Do you find the idea completely beyond belief?”

“Before I went out to the Hall, I’d have said it was. Until then all my memories were of a man who acted like a father to the whole town. But now there’s that doctor of his … watching over him and guiding what he says. It’s like they’ve made a private world up there. Just the two of them. They’re on their guard when you enter it and they can’t wait for you to leave. And there’s something … I don’t know, there’s an atmosphere in that house. It made my flesh creep.”

She sat back in her chair and picked up her scarf. As she’d been speaking, she’d absently folded and refolded it into the neatest of squares. Now she shook it out again. “Will you tell me what you discover?”

“If there’s a way I can reach you.”

“I’ll reach you. Tell me where.”

Sebastian took out his pocket pad and scribbled a few lines on a blank page. Then he tore out the sheet and held it out to her.

“Here’s where I pick up my messages,” he said. She read it, and then looked at him.

“A pie stand?” she said.

“A man has to eat.”

“Not quite the Criterion Grill.”

“I’m not quite your Criterion type. Thank you.”

“For what?” Evangeline said, rising to her feet, and he quickly scraped back his chair to rise with her.

“Your patience and your openness,” he said. “I’d expected less. But I can see that you’re an unusual young woman.”

“I would like—someday—to be not so unusual. Outwardly I live a life of independence. Inwardly I live in fear. In my life there is no intimacy. I don’t know how I can even say this to a stranger.”

“With a stranger it’s often the way,” Sebastian said.

FRANCES WAS STANDING BY THE WINDOW WHEN HE GOT HOME. She had the lamps turned low and was looking out across the rooftops of the borough. She’d once told Sebastian that it eased her eyes to look at distant things, when too much concentration on close work had tired them.

She looked toward the door as he came into the room. For a moment, in this light, he was reminded of some familiar painting. But he couldn’t have said which one. Sebastian wasn’t a gallery man, and got most of his art from magazines.

She said, “Elisabeth’s reading. I’ve been trying to get Robert to his bed. He insisted on waiting for you.”

“You should have left him to it,” Sebastian said, hanging his overcoat on the stand. “He’s old enough, and capable.”

Frances gave a brief, tight smile.

“Tell that to Elisabeth,” she said, and moved to gather up her sewing.

As she was leaving the room, Sebastian’s son was trying to enter with an armload of books and documents. He was so eager that he forgot to be polite, and did not step back to let her through.

“Father,” he said, “I think I have earned my money.”

“That’s very good to hear, Robert,” Sebastian said. “Can we talk about it in the morning?”

“But I’ve been waiting for you. Didn’t Frances say?”

Sebastian began to frame a reply. But Robert was bursting with energy, and Sebastian had none with which to resist. So he said, “All right.”

Robert started to clear a space on the table for the papers he’d brought. Sebastian saw that they included Sir Owain’s book. It was bristling all around with slips of paper, like a hedgehog.

“The author’s observations of the seasons are very precise,” Robert said. “And I think the few actual dates he gives may be accurate. Unless he’s fabricated Christmas.”

“How is Christmas significant?”

“From one date I can work out another. He refers to five days on the river, two days in camp, a week spent wherever. With enough detail like that I can make out a rough chronology.”

“Can you indeed,” Sebastian said.

“I made you this to explain everything.”

In the cleared space, Robert unrolled a makeshift chart made from several sheets of paper gummed together. He placed a book on either end of it, to pin it down. The chart was somewhere between a vertical time line, and a family tree. Robert’s writing was minuscule and filled many boxes, between which he’d drawn connecting lines.

He said, “Over on the left-hand side are all the dated events that I can pin down exactly. On the right are those story events that clash with the calendar and can only be false. I’ve positioned all the other events somewhere in between them on a scale of credibility. Farthest to the left is your certain truth; over to the right is your certain fiction. Most things lie somewhere in between. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to a simple answer. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Sebastian’s head swam.

“This is … very well done, Robert.”

But Robert, who was odd but no fool, could see that his father hadn’t yet grasped the point.

“It’s not just an exercise, Father,” he said.

“Of course not.”

“It’s practical,” Robert persisted, “For example. Match your firm dates to shipping records and you can track down the crew of the rescue ship that took Sir Owain to safety.”

Suddenly, Sebastian understood.

It was brilliant. With patient analysis, Robert had deconstructed the author’s method and performed a fractional separation of fact and fiction, with a precise grading of all the shades in between. It was detailed and obsessive, and—professionally speaking—a significant piece of detective work.

“That’s very impressive, Robert,” was all he could say. “Thank you.”

“And I don’t want the money,” Robert said. “It’s my contribution. To help us get by.”

Happy now, Robert went back to his room.

Alone, Sebastian paced for a while. Then he added a piece of coal to the fire, which was beginning to die. He wasn’t ready for sleep yet, and with the fire gone the room would quickly lose its heat to the night. This was one of those occasions when he could be dazed by Robert’s flights of intellect.

He thought he might tell Elisabeth. But when he went to check, she’d turned out her light. He backed off quietly, not wanting to risk disturbing her.

Back in the sitting room, he picked her rug off the chair and shook it out. Elisabeth’s recovery seemed worryingly slow. Sebastian wasn’t sure whether to blame her actual injury or the degree to which it had shaken her, but he’d seen no real improvement since the day he’d brought her home. She hardly slept. Any movement or disturbance during the night would cause her pain.

He took the poker from the grate and gave the fire one last rake-over. Then he wrapped the rug around himself and settled into a chair for the night.

The river now widened so that in places it looked like a long lake; it wound in every direction through the endless marshy plain, whose surface was broken here and there by low mountains. The splendor of the sunset I never saw surpassed. We were steaming east toward clouds of storm. The river ran, a broad highway of molten gold, into the flaming sky; the far-off mountains loomed purple across the marshes; belts of rich green, the river banks stood out on either side against the rose-hues of the rippling water; in front, as we forged steadily onward, hung the tropic night, dim and vast.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT,

Through the Brazilian Wilderness

JOHN MURRAY, 1914

No less than six weeks were spent in slowly and with peril and exhausting labor forcing our way down through what seemed a literally endless succession of rapids and cataracts. For forty-eight days we saw no human being. In passing these rapids we lost five of the seven canoes with which we started and had to build others. One of our best men lost his life in the rapids. Under the strain one of the men went completely bad, shirked all his work, stole his comrades’ food and when punished by the sergeant he with cold-blooded deliberation murdered the sergeant and fled into the wilderness.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, LETTER OF 1 MAY 1914

TO GENERAL LAURO MULLER

MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, RIO DE JANIERO

THE TRAFALGAR TAVERN, ON THE GREAT BEND IN THE THAMES at Greenwich, was a large Georgian inn with dining rooms downstairs and a ballroom above. It had balconies and a terrace that overlooked the river, and to save her from waiting alone on the public embankment, the management allowed Evangeline to take a seat and watch for the ferry from there. The balconies were said to be copies of the stern galley of the HMS Victory. The river was low, and pauper children were picking for coal on the mud banks directly beneath her terrace view.

There was a train off the rails at Deptford, so she was hoping to see Sebastian Becker among the Greenwich steamer’s next batch of passengers. They had agreed a time to meet, and he was late.

A waiter came out onto the terrace. He wore a long white apron, like a Parisian serveur. He said, “Will there be any fink, madam?”

“Nothing, thank you,” she said. “I see a mist beginning to rise. Is it likely to get much worse?”

“I daresay it will,” he said. “On the other hand, it may not.”

“Does it interfere with the steamer service?”

“Sometimes it do, sometimes it doesn’t.”

“That’s very helpful,” she said. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he said, and went back inside.

Evangeline’s law chambers handled some maritime business, and through records and by telegraph she’d been able to make some progress in fleshing out the real-life details of Sir Owain Lancaster’s movements at sea, as deciphered by Becker’s son from the man’s fictionalized narrative.

Though there was nothing improper about it, there was a clandestine element to her support for Becker’s inquiries. She preferred not to have it known that she was helping him, or how he’d managed to trace her. Evangeline’s arrest at the Downing Street protest had been the result of an early militancy; she’d been swept up in the Women’s Social and Political Union when a stenography student, and, at that young age, she’d been eager to compel change by the most immediate means. But now the nature of her employment put her in an awkward position, forcing her to balance conscience and necessity. Three years ago she’d given up the WSPU for the more pacifist Women’s Freedom League. She remained committed, and continued to wear the discreet badge of her allegiance. But she’d break no more windows, and would take care to avoid the risk of another arrest. It was wrong that her employers might dismiss her for political reasons, but dismiss her they would.

Looking toward the Pool of London from the Trafalgar’s terrace, she thought she could see a plume of white. She suspected that it might be from the smokestack of the London Bridge passenger steamer, but it was hard to be sure. The smoke was barely distinguishable from the general heavy mist that lay across the busy waterway today. The vessels that had passed close to the inn on their way upriver had weight and substance, their timbers groaning faintly as they glided by almost close enough to hail; ships farther off were more like pencil sketches of masts and rigging, lightly made on coarse paper.

Through the naval register, Evangeline had traced the British merchant vessel stationed off the South American coast and assigned to transport and collect the Lancaster expedition party. Its captain now had another command, and was at sea. But the master’s mate had been injured, and retired from the service; a former navy man, he taught navigation and seamanship to officer cadets at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

It was, indeed, the steamer. As it came about to the pier, Evangeline made her way through the inn to the river walk, and was almost at the pier gates when Sebastian Becker emerged through them.

“I know I’m late,” he said when he saw her. “Forgive me.”

Evangeline said, “I was curious to see who’d come rolling in first. You or the fog.”

SEBASTIAN SAVED his explanation. He saw no reason to burden Miss Bancroft with his troubles. His wife had suffered a bad night, and he’d felt unable to leave her without first arranging for one of the Evelina nurses to call by.

From the pier it was no more than two hundred yards’ walk to the West Gate of the Royal Naval College. Built as a hospital on the site of a palace, the complex had been run down as such and its great Corinthian halls and domed buildings converted to other uses. All of the pensioners were long gone, and a part of the college was now dedicated to the instruction of naval officers. One hall was a museum, and many of the suites of rooms stood empty.

To enter the railed boundaries of the college was like walking into a small renaissance town, but with broader streets and English weather. A glance from the main avenue toward the building known as the Queen’s House brought an arresting, disconcerting sight: in the square before it stood a full-sized three-masted corvette, landlocked but fully rigged, under full sail with boys manning her yards. In the Queen’s House was the Royal Naval School, the so-called cradle of the navy, where boarded a thousand sons of British seamen and marines. The training vessel Fame had been assembled by shipwrights on solid ground and had nets strung, circus-style, to catch any white-suited unfortunate who might fall from the rigging in the course of his training.

They made their way to the Painted Hall, a public space within the college where anyone might linger between ten o’clock and four. The hall’s polished wooden doors led them into an immense ornately painted chamber, its walls a riot of trompe l’oeil on plaster. Fifty feet above them was a ceiling of even greater dark detail and intensity, paintings in which gods and angels and eighteenth-century heroes fought, flew, and frolicked in one seething mass. A century before, Lord Nelson had lain in state here for the three days before his funeral. Some ten thousand souls were said to have been pressing at the gates on the morning they were opened.

The floor was gray marble. If any part of the interior was not painted, it was gilded. A few visitors browsed at the far end of the enormous room. Sebastian had a cadet sent out with a message for the man they were to meet. With barely a glance at the glories around her, Evangeline said, “I had a letter from Mother.”

“Is she well?”

“She says that the day-trippers have started returning. Not in spite of the murders. Because of them.”

“It happens,” Sebastian said.

“I think it’s awful,” Evangeline said. “The tearooms have stayed open, and old Arthur and some of the others make a few shillings by guiding parties up to the spot where the bodies were found. The people openly admit the reason for their visit. Paying their respects, they call it. They didn’t even know the girls! Yet they’ve read all the newspaper stories and want to gawk at where they lay. What kind of respect is that?”

“I’ve seen it before at the scene of a tragedy,” Sebastian said. “People making a day out of it. They get all the exercise of grief, without personally having to suffer anything.”

“I don’t know who’s worse,” Evangeline said. “Them for making the journey, or those who welcome their money.”

HIS NAME was Albert Wilder, and he’d been the master’s mate on the expedition’s support vessel. Another cadet fetched them to him, in an empty classroom overlooking a cobbled yard. A man of some thirty-odd years, Wilder had been aged by suffering and yet seemed in no way infirm. He wore the instructor’s uniform of double-breasted jacket and peaked cap. He removed the cap in acknowledgment of Evangeline’s presence.

The classroom had a plain wood floor and no desks, only a single square table and a couple of benches. Crowded into the room were four huge and fully detailed ship models, the largest of them with a masthead almost touching the ceiling. These were no toys, but were for the purpose of instruction. On a raised platform stood a complete and functioning ship’s wheel.

Sebastian said, “Thank you for this interview. Did my note give a sufficient explanation?”

“It did,” Wilder said, “though I wondered if you might be better served by reading the surgeon’s log for the return voyage.”

“We’re pursuing everything, Mister Wilder,” Sebastian said. “And I’d like to hear whatever you may have to say.”

He saw Wilder glance at Evangeline. “There are some disturbing details,” Wilder said. “How plainly should I speak?”

The question was addressed to Sebastian, but Evangeline answered it.

“As plainly as the story requires,” she said. “Make no special consideration for me.”

They sat on the cadet students’ benches, and Albert Wilder told them his tale.

HE SAID, “From the moment I saw the nature of Sir Owain’s preparations, I believed that I was looking at a disaster in the making. I’ve lived a modest life, but I’ve observed something about prominent men. They become convinced that their success in business proves the superiority of their opinion in all other things. It doesn’t matter what your skills are, or what it is that you do. They’ll not hesitate to tell you how you ought to be doing it.”

Evangeline said, “I take it you weren’t impressed by Sir Owain?”

“I found him charming, in what little contact I had with him. But when I saw the way that he’d equipped his expedition, I knew that it was doomed in one way or another.”

Sebastian said, “Others must have seen what you saw and reached the same conclusion. Did no one warn him of it?”

“There’s no advising a man who’s rich enough to take a coastal feeder out of service and have it at his disposal for most of a year. Sir Owain was determined to conquer the interior in high style.”

At this point, Wilder paused for a moment. He seemed to feel that he was getting ahead of himself. After regathering his thoughts, he began at the beginning.

He said, “Our company was based in Liverpool. Our sea routes were all along the eastern side of South America, from Venezuela down to Brazil. Our officers were mostly British and our crews a mix of all nations. Are you familiar with the landscape of South America?”

Evangeline said, “Only to recognize the shape of it on the globe.”

Wilder faltered a little. Consciously or not, he’d been addressing himself almost exclusively to the other male present.

With an attempt to include Evangeline, he said, “Our orders were to meet Sir Owain’s party in Caracas and transport them and their equipment to a set-down point on the coast. From there, they’d journey overland to the source of one of the Amazon’s tributary rivers. From the headwater they’d travel all the way down the river in boats, taking measurements as they went.”

“Measurements of what?” Sebastian said. “I’ve never fully understood the purpose of the expedition.”

“Sir Owain was developing a system for aiming big guns by the stars. He was compiling a set of tables that required observations from specific points on the globe. I didn’t understand his system then, and I don’t understand it now. And I teach navigation for a living.”

“Do go on,” Evangeline said.

Wilder said, “When we arrived at Caracas, all of his cargo was lined up on the docks and waiting for us. It took us most of a day to load. One net alone was filled with crates of fine wines and pâtés, and English cheeses soldered into tins. One crewman swore that he looked between the bars of a crate and saw a child’s playhouse and a rocking horse packed in straw. Someone came up the gangplank with a crystal chandelier, holding it up high like a birdcage. They had carpets for their tents and a fully equipped field kitchen with a French chef to go with it. A box the size of a small pantechnicon was said to contain a selection of outfits for Sir Owain’s wife. Sir Owain’s personal luggage included a mahogany gun case, which no doubt explained the two springer spaniels that we hoisted on board in a cage.”

“He took the family pets?” Sebastian said.

“His gun dogs. His plan was to shoot birds, and he had hopes of bagging a jaguar. The dogs were let out on their first night on land, and one of them didn’t return. The other one wouldn’t leave the camp after that, but within a week something had come in and taken it.”

Evangeline said, “With all that cargo, how large was the party?”

“Thirty Europeans in the main party, with a hundred and fifty Portuguese-speaking laborers set to join them for the land and river journey. As well as the guides and quartermasters he had an astronomer, a chief engineer, and a surveying team with an instrument maker to maintain and repair the survey equipment. He had a mapmaker and a botanist who doubled as the expedition’s doctor. It seemed as if Sir Owain’s plan was to overcome all challenges by simply assembling the full weight of modern civilization and driving it through them.”

“All the same,” Sebastian said. “Who’d take a woman and child into such a situation?”

“I think he took a landowner’s attitude to the world. Wherever he might care to go, he would have it tamed to his purpose like one vast country garden. He and his family would picnic in the jungle, if he so chose.”

“For most men,” Evangeline observed, “planting a flag will usually suffice.”

“We sailed along the coast to the point he’d selected for the start of the land journey. His Portuguese-speaking camaradas had a camp set up and had been waiting there for a month at half pay. They set about the unloading with eagerness, happy to break the tedium and impatient to start earning their full rate. But as the riverboats were disembarked, and the gangs of men struggled to manage the weight and the bulk of them, I could see looks being exchanged.

“Over the boats, for one. They were of a badly chosen design. The Amazon is a broad, slow river that’s easy to navigate. Its tributaries are anything but. They twist and drop through falls and rapids, and the only way to make progress is to leave the water and carry your boats and cargo down to the next calm stretch. These boats were made of steel, and very heavy. It took six men or more just to lift one.