Trustee From the Toolroom by Nevil Shute Read Free Book Online Page A

himself. He had been blessed with money from the start and he had tried to use it wisely and to save it for his child so that she should grow up in the way of life he was accustomed to. That she should go to the council school and be fed and clothed by charity was quite unthinkable.
    Joanna did not follow him in all of this. For twenty years she had lived as a naval officer's wife and she had absorbed a good deal of it, but she had come from a labourer's home and had gone to the council school herself in Renfrew. She had raised herself when she went on to the stage with a serious, well-managed troupe of girls; she had raised herself again when she had married John Dermott. In many ways she was now more conservative than he. The slum streets and the council school were not terrifying novelties to her for she had come from them, but she had long been determined that Janice was going to have no part of them. She had borne Janice into a different world, a world of naval officers and impoverished noblemen in Northern Ireland, and she was going to stay there.
    As the full daylight came they could see the binnacle, and see that the wind was now about west-south-west by their compass. At the same time, it had risen higher than ever, and was now screaming in their ears, deafening them, so that John judged it to be Force 10 or more. The sky cleared with the morning so that they could see much farther than before, and away to the south there seemed to be a line of blue sky just above the sea. John pointed it out to Jo, and put his lips to her cold ear. ' That'll be the eye of the storm,' he shouted. \ ' Passing south of us ?'
    He nodded. There were no great waves now, just a smoking, hissing sea flattened by the insensate torrent of the wind. To talk was an effort and a strain; it was better to conserve their strength. They sat in silence, each busy with their thoughts turning over slowly in their stunned minds.
    John Dermott was thinking always of the ship. She was still sound and practically undamaged. The mainsail and the trysail were still lashed firm upon the boom, ready for use. No sails could stand a minute in such wind; it was no good thinking about them. There was one resource still left to them, however. They still had a little engine.
    He had scant faith in it, but it was there. In dead calm weather it would give the ship a speed of about four knots for going in and out of harbour or up windless estuaries, but the wind was now blowing sixty knots or more. This puny little engine, if he could make it work, could not affect the major issues of their course, yet if he could get it going it might serve to pull them out of trouble somehow. It was the last resource still left unused.
    He gave the helm to Jo and went below, shutting the companion after him. In the light of bis torch he saw that the battery had been thrown from its crate when the ship broached to and was lying on its side; everything was streaming with seawater. He stood the battery, upright, checked the leads, and tried a light switch. There was the faintest of red glimmers from the filament, which faded as he watched.
    There was no help in the starter. He wiped the magneto and the plug leads with a wet handkerchief, having searched in vain for a dry cloth, and tried her on the handle. For a quarter of an hour he laboured over her, and never got a kick. Finally he gave up the effort and went back on deck. There was no help in the engine.
    While he was below, Jo sat at the helm in dull despair. The huge efforts needed to pull the tiller continuously one way or the other to keep the ship stern-on to the seas were draining the last of her strength; she could still make them mechanically but she was now near collapse. There was no ending to this storm and would not be for days and days and days; the ship might see it through if she had fresh hands at the helm, but they would not. She was near failure now, she knew; half an hour longer, or perhaps an hour, and she would