ON SATURDAY MORNING, the day of the race, all hell broke loose. The institution of British journalism, having got wind from a Plymouth police officer that an unfrocked, terrorist nun and an Irish peer had died in an explosion while wrestling in a holiday caravan, whipped up a conflagration of reportage the likes of which must never before have been visited upon Plymouth. At first, the newspapers had had to depend on their bemused yachting correspondents, the only reporters on hand; and the BBC, on a West Country camera team more accustomed to filming stories on the dairy industry, but by midnight the car park at the marina hosted a maelstrom of journalistic fervor. Innocent yachtsmen, caught doing their laundry late, found themselves backed against washateria walls, bracketed by spotlights, with microphones threatening their dental work. Sleepy sailors, conscious of the problem of water pollution and trying to make it to the shore-side heads, were pursued into the stalls by men and women with tape recorders, notebooks, and cameras.
Fortunately, the Plymouth police had posted men at the pontoon ramp to keep reporters away from the boats, so we remained aboard Wave, unmolested, during our interrogation by Special Branch. After that, when an enterprising journalist had stripped off, swum out to the boat, and had had to be repelled with a boathook, we cast off and took the boat back to Cremyl, where we spent the night on a mooring at Spedding’s.
We had a brandy and let ourselves wind down.
Mark sipped his cognac and put his feet on the saloon table. “Exciting evening, wot?”
“A little too exciting,” I replied.
“Do you suppose there’s any more danger from these people?” Connie asked.
“Who’s left?” Mark pointed out.
“They seem to have self-destructed,” I said.
“All terrorists do, eventually,” Mark said. “They’re like some species of fish who, when they’re prevented from finding another species to eat, feed on themselves.”
On that comforting note, we turned in. The following morning, an enterprising John Aslett, who had spent a busy evening on the phone, brought the inquest to us. Half a dozen local officials were brought out to Wave in a yard boat, arranged themselves about the saloon, and asked their questions. We were done in twenty minutes. Ten minutes after that, we were under way, headed down the river toward the harbor. It seemed a good idea to put some water between us and the horde of reporters still ashore.
For more than two hours we lazily tacked back and forth across the big harbor, sipping bloody marys and sunning ourselves. The only jarring note was the blank space in the air where Annie should have been. I kept expecting her to pop up through the main hatch, asking if anyone wanted a refill. We talked about the happy times in Ireland—the cruise to Castletownshend, the afternoons in Cork Harbour, the oysters and Guinness at Dirty Murphy’s, Drake’s Pool under a full moon. We agreed to meet in Newport; the cruise of Cape Cod and Maine was still on. And after that?
“The world,” Mark said. “Why not the world? I’ve got the boat for it, God bless Derek Thrasher. Always wanted to do a circumnavigation. Why don’t you two join me?”
I looked at Connie. “I think I may finally have to go and earn a living.”
“I’ve still got a job, you know,” Connie said to him.
“Well, I’ll be out there somewhere; we’ll keep in touch. Come and do some of the shorter legs on your holidays.”
“Great!” Connie and I said simultaneously.
By 10:30 the harbor was filling with boats, and by 11:30, the forty competitors and hundreds of spectator boats were thrashing about in the vicinity of the starting line. Connie and I got our gear packed and into the cockpit. The fifteen-minute gun went. John Aslett appeared alongside in a runabout. We tossed our duffles down to him. Connie gave Mark a long hug and got into the boat. Mark took my hand.
“Jesus, Willie,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears. So did mine. We embraced. I got into John Aslett’s boat.
We lay off the committee boat and watched Mark maneuver up and down the crowded starting line. With his usual keen timing he put Wave about with forty seconds to go and headed for the line. His start was so perfect that we wondered later if someone on the committee boat had simply decided to fire the gun when Wave’s bows touched the line. She was immediately in the lead. John put the throttle down and we ran alongside Wave for a moment.
“Win it, Mark!” I shouted over the few yards separating us. “Win it for Annie!”
“I’ll do my damnedest, Willie!” he shouted back.
“Be careful reefing the main!”
“Never fear!”
“How do you feel?” I called out, not wanting to break the contact.
He grinned broadly. “Like your fellow Georgian!” he shouted, “‘Free at last! Free at last! Great God Almighty, I’m free at last!’”
Then he was gone.