Chapter 16: On the Canal

Abba

What had happened to Kari and Sarita? Had they been caught? Scary thoughts rushed through my head.

Where were they? I was getting more and more worried. I cycled slowly, looking around.

Nothing.

I must have gone quite some distance when I suddenly heard panting behind us.

The idea of being chased at that time of the morning was frightening. I put on speed.

"Abba!" The inimitable sound of Kari's voice was welcomed more than you can imagine, except for the fact that she had called out, and others might hear. Where was Sarita?

Clearly, I had communicated my anxiety to Victoria, and she was almost petrified. She held herself stiffly between my arms.

Slowing down, I whispered to her, "We're OK, it's Kari."

"What have you got there?" she gasped. "We were looking out for you, but we didn't think that it was you. It didn't look like you. We hid: we hid the bikes and ... everything. Is everything all right? We took the trailers off and put them ... Did it go alright? We think we saw the fire. It was very late if it was you. You weren't caught?" She gabbled one question after another, the answers often evident but the questions revealing the deep anxiety that my late arrival had caused.

I'd never thought to tell them to stay hidden, had I? I was an IDIOT!

"Well, I'm afraid you will have to un-hide them, get the trailers fastened up and follow me."

"Can you help us? They're heavy!"

"No. Hurry."

"Abba?" she was pleading for help. This girl on my crossbar huddled up inside my jerkin needed me more than they did. I never understood but Kari could not see what I had hidden within my arms.

"Kari, if I say something what did I tell you? Do it!"

The admonition took her aback, "No arguing!" I repeated. And I turned my attention to Victoria as Kari reluctantly turned around and cycled back, "That's my girlfriend who was attacked by the nasty man. I'm sorry I'm being bossy but we are in a hurry and I'll let you into a secret, I thought I'd lost her. We should have seen her nearer the canal boats, earlier."

"It's all right," announced Victoria, a smile on her face. She was worried but SHE was trying to put ME at my ease.

It must have been about ten minutes later that I heard them come up behind me, panting with exertion. I twisted the pedal round to the top, pushed down hard and set off going again further along the towpath without waiting for my girls to catch me up. Let them chase me. We had little time if I had read the sky right and morning was soon to be on us.

I knew they were both pissed off, I wasn't helping pull the heavy trailers but I knew it was not for long and I had a lot more to do before dawn.

Heh, they had had it easy the last few hours. I asked myself if I would really have preferred to be them, stuck waiting for me hiding in the cold, not knowing where I was and expecting my arrival hours earlier.

No, they had not had it that easy.

We had travelled a good three-quarters of a mile before I came to a low bridge. Here, I dismounted, at the far end under the arch. We were sheltered from any inclement weather. From casual passers-by too, we were only visible from anyone on the towpath or, of course, on the canal itself.

Sarita was first to arrive, not having had to hitch back up the pair of smaller trailers and pull their weight. She had no idea what the bulky thing was in between my arms. I lifted Victoria off the crossbar, bundled up now in my oversized duvet coat, she was snuggling to me for warmth.

"This is Victoria, Mummy," I addressed Sarita, the moment she dismounted.

Sarita stared at me that I had been so reckless as to pick up a stray. I could feel her condemnation.

Her reaction pissed me off. I'm afraid I never explained anything to her because of that. She was a stray too, if all was said and done and so was Kari.

It was stupid really. I changed my mind. She needed to understand, "Victoria's met some nasty men who did naughty things to her. Kari met them too, earlier." I was trying to give Sarita as much information as I could without using words like 'killing' and 'rape'.

But of course, the little one raised her head, "They raped me," and she started crying.

I had wanted to avoid that. "This is Sarita, she's going to sit down here and hug you so you get to know her. Then we'll see if we can't get you somewhere a bit more comfy out of this cold."

I was already passing her over and at first she was loath to accept Sarita's arms. I saw the girls had now dressed in their warm feather jackets, too hot to cycle in. I unzipped Sarita's jacket. She looked puzzled as I opened the front and pushed Victoria in, where it was warmer.

Before Kari arrived, I had grabbed a sleeping bag from the trailer and put it on the stone paving under the bridge and signified Sarita should sit on it.

"You, Sarita, will have another wait, half an hour or so. I'm sorry, just stay here."

All this time I was rummaging around for some food and a bottle of water which I placed next to the girls, "You, Victoria, will have to keep Sarita company because she's frightened of the dark."

"You're not leaving me?"

"Never, I'm just arranging to get somewhere comfy and warm and it takes time. I won't be far away, just back there where Kari was waiting for us. This is Kari again. She's going to help me. Aren't you?"

Kari followed my lead and nodded vigorously though perplexed and obviously frozen stiff. "Of course I am," but she regarded me with a frown as much as to say, 'What the hell are you doing?'

I couldn't be bothered unfastening another trailer so I simply told Kari to get on my crossbar. I was getting rather tired now and as we cycled back down the towpath, retracing our steps, I explained what we wanted. "You have got your Swiss army knife?"

She grinned. This was right up her street.*

We left the bike near where my friends had remained hidden for a few hours and then went back to the marina on foot. I don't know if they call a port for leisure canal-boats a marina or not.

We walked forwards slowly, quietly listening at every boat. I took the opportunity to sit down. I was soon chilled but I left this part up to the expert.

I saw; she went onto four or five barges, sorry, canal boats. She crept about carefully like a sneak thief at night.

I saw the flash of a torch reflected inside a couple of the narrow boats but, after that, nothing. I had to trust the person delegated to the task to get on with it.

After being aware of her torch flickering momentarily on the deck and reflecting on the windows inside, I saw that she had completed her reconnaissance. She disappeared down into one cabin and returned with a few things, beckoning vigorously for me to approach.

I went up to the bank next to where she was and she passed me a long rope and signified I wait for more items. I draped the rope around my neck and waited until she leaned over the side of the boat and thrust a heavy box in my arms.

It almost fell in the water.

She glowered at me. I could feel the glare! This was a box of canned foods. I had no idea what to do with it. And in the morning gloom I understood we were to put it on a black and gold painted vessel moored near the end of the marina in the direction we were bound.

She placed some more things on the tiny stern deck or cockpit as I later learned that it was called. She took the trouble to refasten the hasp on the one from which we had stolen stuff. She clicked the padlock to again. Clever girl, I'd not have thought of that. No casual person would notice these vessels had been broken into. We wanted to do everything without our visit here being noticed.

We had not finished.

I returned, this time to another moored vessel and she again loaded me up. She even threw a few blankets and pillows on for good luck, so much that I could hardly stagger to the target vessel.

As I waddled back down the quayside, she was refastening other locks to cover up our foray. Finally she came to me with her arms full and jumped on the cockpit of the black vessel and put her things down and took my load from me.

She led the way to the vessel she had selected. The narrow doors at the rear had already been opened by her. She put the objects we had sourced onto the cockpit here. "Put them below," she insisted and she led the way, flashing her torch, and then she disappeared up to the front.

I have no idea what she was doing but the next thing was, she beckoned me out of the vessel and to the bow.

"I've disconnected the electricity."

"Good," I responded in a whisper. This was not the time to tell her I didn't even know there was any electricity.

Throwing the long rope to me, she declared in whispers, "You're pulling it, but there's no one on the vessels at this end of the marina so you can get on that vessel and pull us past it. Don't fall in."

In the meantime she was taking in the mooring ropes and pushing the vessel out into the channel, sitting on the side and pushing out with her legs. I saw why.

It struck me that I was no professional thief but I had no qualms about taking this vessel. In all probability the owner had succumbed to the disease. If he hadn't, then of what use would he find his pride and joy? If he did want to come back on the canal, then he had his pick of any other boat on the moorings.

It was worrying that I took all this in my stride with little concern as I was already on the outer side of the next vessel. There were only four or five inches for my feet to grip but there a grab-bar along the roof of the cabin at about waist height. I staggered along this tiny walkway, pulling the bow of her vessel into mid-canal, moving only half a pace at a time.

Then I jumped on the quayside, along the towpath to the next moored vessel and back onto this one. Here, I found Kari was already at the front end of the one we were towing, sitting on the edge, ready to fend off any contact with her feet.

She waved me on to keep the vessel moving through the water. Yet, even when I regained the towpath, the vessel behind came only at a snail's pace. It was hardly moving through the water. But at least our silent departure had not raised any alarm.

I would like to say we got off quickly but it was a very slow job. Once we were past the moored vessels, I threw the rope over my shoulder and leaned down low, forwards striving to heave the vessel behind me. The narrow gauge of the rope was cutting into my shoulder blade.

The towpath was aptly named! I considered a horse would do this far better than I could.

The speed I was making was less than walking pace, even though I was putting a lot of effort into it. Kari saw what was happening and she suddenly appeared behind me, grabbing the rope and putting all her weight into helping me. It was great. Within a few minutes we were up to walking pace, and then I was walking quickly.

"Keep it up." And she had to jump onto the bow of the vessel and push it away from the bank, for it really needed a steersman. I envied her as she eased herself along the gunwale to the rudder at the stern.

I just kept on going, trying to think of nothing else. Once the momentum had built up it was not hard to keep up the speed. We were progressing at a reasonable walking pace I think. But I was leaning forward using a running action, running hard at walking speed causing my already-overworked legs to tire.

It wasn't too difficult just to keep it moving. Like a fool, I plodded along striving to keep up the momentum. I had forgotten the bicycle we had left. I had to slow down and go back to her, the rope in my hand. "The bike?" I started, then I saw it had been slung onto the roof of the canal boat.

Kari hadn't forgotten. She must have steered the boat into the bank, jumped off, recovered the bike and then regained her course, all without my noticing.

Dumbo! I really was a dumbo, I wasn't thinking straight. Tired and cold!

She made an underarm lashing motion with her hand "Go, varlet, heave, slave." It was about time we had some humour.

It must have been at least ten minutes before I heard the inimitable sound of an electric starter motor. I paused only to see her figure rise up and wave me on. Slavedriver!

Twice more I heard the starter and when I looked around she was nowhere to be seen.

I thought my legs would give in, they were wobbling now.

The next time the motor started up, the engine purred into action.

There was relief as I suddenly discovered that there was no weight on my rope. I knew that the last thing I wanted to happen was for the screw to get entangled with it. So, as she throttled back, and drew close to the side of the canal, I jumped onto the bow and dropped the rope there in case we should need it later.

Grasping the hold bars on the edge of the roof, I eased my way, sidestepping, back to the cockpit. It was further back than I expected. Were barges, sorry narrow boats, that long?

"Now go and coil that rope. We don't want it tangled for when we want to use it again," she demanded.

I could hardly move, I was so knackered. I took a deep breath. But she was right.

I was all set to sidle all the way back when she suggested, "Go through the cabin. There are doors to the forward deck. When you get there, roll up the canvas awning that covers the side facing this bank. I'm sure that we can store the bikes there. We may have to take some wheels off but they'll be out of sight there."

It was dark in the cabin and I flashed my small torch a couple of times, making a long trek to the forward part of the vessel

I emerged again into the cold, onto a tiny triangular forward deck where there were wooden seats set against the curved sides. Some half a dozen could sit in the outdoors on a good day there. They would have to be friendly.

I followed her instructions, coiled the rope and then turned to roll up the canvas which had covered one side like a tent.

By the time I returned through the long boat, probably a traipse of over fifteen metres, the captain was eager to be off again.

"You were gone a long time."

"A fiddly job; rolling that canvas up and..."

"Stupid! You should just have thrown it over the apex bar." She giggled at me, pushing me to towards the rudder, "When you see the bridge, slow down like this."

She indicated the throttle, showing me that it clunked into various speeds, "You have to take it into neutral long before you arrive and then you move the engine into 'astern' otherwise, you'll mange the gears. I'll show you later what to do. The moment you see any problem, click it into a slower speed. I'll hear and come up straight away."

As she passed me the controls, she slipped off her large warm jacket. She draped it over my shoulders and gave me a real good kiss, "Fuck! You're frozen! I never knew. You should have said something."

I glanced at my watch. It wasn't there. Where was it? The poor girls! It must be well over an hour we had been away. In the distance I heard a church clock chiming. I never counted the tolls. The sky was changing to a lighter grey. Mid-December? that was about eight o'clock, eight-thirty?

No wonder my legs were aching. Yesterday morning we'd pedalled the trailers up about seven miles then returned and restarted off about ten. We'd travelled about four hours or so. I reckoned we'd made good time, about fifty miles before we came across the rogue rozzers*. That must have been no later than midnight? It was at the most, two hours before the time the cars went up in flames. I must have been cycling around for three hours or more, up and down those bloody moors. Was it longer than that? No wonder my legs felt as if they were dropping off.

I had to shake my head to concentrate on Kari, "Now, remember this is the throttle, there's neutral, you go slower like this," and she showed me again, "And try, very gently using the steering. It's a long vessel but very easy on the controls. Very gently, try out the response to the rudder, only a little because it takes a bit to respond. You'll take a few minutes to get the hang of it." My mind had been wandering.

With that, she disappeared to return two minutes later. By that time I had my arms in the sleeves of her jacket. She draped a duvet, she had found, around my shoulders and gave me another sizzling kiss, pressing her breasts into me as she did so. That made me feel better.

It was not five minutes later that I came in sight of the bridge. I immediately reduced the speed. That appeared to make no difference to our progress through the water. When she emerged and directed me to slow down even more.

"Neutral," she ordered, "and be ready to go astern on the lowest setting." The steering was OK. "You stand up where they can see you," she ordered.

A sensible suggestion as Sarita, I appreciated, would be worried at the approach of a vessel. I hadn't told her what we were trying to do in case we did not succeed.

"Take that painter and find something to tie it to, even if Sarita has to hold it. We want everything aboard. The bikes at the front, the trailers back from the bow, everything else we'll put on here at the stern. The little girl gets on here."

Sarita looked daggers at us but Victoria was overjoyed at my return and would have fallen in the water, in her eagerness to get to me, if I allowed her to.

She clung again to me like a monkey. I found it difficult to descend the three steps to the inner deck level of the narrow boat. I know it was not much of a drop but she was a real encumbrance in the narrow space.

I liked the way that Kari, once she had a problem, sorted it out and organised everything. "You take the little one inside, otherwise she'll get in the way. Go right forward. Leave her in the forward saloon and go to the deck out the front to receive the bikes. Try to lay them in a way that you can put the third one on top and refasten the canvass later."

I thought she had finished her instructions, "Oh and keep all the doors closed."

I wondered why.

There were bulbs lit now to shed light on my progress. The first cabin we passed through was only some six feet long. I did not know what it was for but later found it housed the engine, electrics, heating system and access to the water tanks as well as the fuel. It was also a room for wet gear and storage.

Two paces across and two paces long, I went through the restricted width of the door at the far end and dutifully tried to close it behind me.

The moment I opened the next door the heat hit me. I don't think it was above 10° degrees(Celsius)* yet but after being in the open air where the temperature was about five or less, it was like heaven.

"Victoria, you'll have to get down. These doorways are impossible for a fat man like me, even on my own." I wasn't fat but I had to make the self-deprecating remark to instil a bit of light heartedness into the message.

Victoria was loath to give me up and argued, "You're not fat."

"I know, but I was just joking. Can you open the door for me and show me what's on the other side?"

There was a long double bed about five feet wide that we squeezed through, along a gangway of not much more than a foot in width beside the wide bed. At the foot of the bed there was more space.

Of course, the size of these cabins was really determined two hundred and thirty years earlier when the canals were built for the transport of heavy goods. I know my dad said they were still used in Yorkshire for coal and the like in the 1970's.

Building the canals was a great feat with only manual labour and the locks were expensive to build. They economised on the earlier ones by only having the stone-built locks seven feet wide. That means the vessels were six feet six inches on the outside and the inside was only six feet in width. I know, because Kari had just been spouting this off, ten to the dozen, like a walking encyclopaedia.

The bathroom was amazing. And I suddenly appreciated there were lights on in here too. I saw a double shower, wash basin and separate lavatory. Next was the utility area with washer, tumble drier and stuff which led by a work surface in the shape of a dog's back leg into the kitchen to access cupboards.

On the other side was the saloon some fifteen feet long. I could see immediately that the seating down both sides could be converted to beds in some fashion.

I later discovered the best combination was having a three-quarter bed on the far side nearest the bow doors. But that was not the option we used first. The other three sofas could be later easily pulled out to give comfortable large sized singles. But when I looked through and took this in I was most impressed. Kari had made a good choice as this was very luxuriously fitted out. It must have been exorbitantly expensive.

I made my way through the saloon to a pair of doors, three or four feet high up the wall leading out onto the forward deck. To reach the outside there was a tiny three-stepped stairway and the provision to open a hatch in the roof so you could emerge standing up. I didn't open that hatch so climbed up the ladder and crawled out into the cold air.

The forward 'deck' was tiny, almost triangular in shape extending just this side of the 'pointed bit'. I was later taken to task for calling it that. The bow was where I had coiled the rope. Outside the cabin doors it was now half-covered by the canvas awning.

Victoria would hardly let go of my hand but stood leaning against the steps that came up to her waist. She did not stop staring at me.

I think Sarita was holding onto one painter because the rope I had towed with was fastened to a stake in the ground beyond the bridge. I saw Kari must have fastened that stake into the ground.

Kari had already unfastened the trailers and they were lined up on the paved towpath under the bridge, opposite the saloon.

She first passed the bikes to me, "Try to leave the doorway clear so you can get back down." I realised that it would enable us to get back out too.

I did as she asked. It was possible, but only just! I loosely tied the canvas down and followed the insistent instructions of Kari.

Backing down the tiny ladder, I pulled the doors to and then moved to the side of the saloon. She was right, there was a feature I'd not noticed. Kneeling on the side bench I unlatched a second set of doors set at above chest height. It was rather like a window but had another hatch in the roof to make a wider entrance into the saloon direct from the towpath.

I pushed one shutter-like door back and it was immediate pulled open from the outside and the other one was pulled too and folded back against the exterior of the cabin wall. In front of me, I faced the kneeling figure of Kari. She was on the paved towpath under the bridge. She started unloading first Sarita's trailer. I took the things in, throwing items like sleeping bags to one side or slinging them to the front of the large cabin.

The more delicate packages and all the medical items, I put next to me on the bench and Victoria willingly took them to the long seating that stretched right along the far side of the cabin wall, where they could be dealt with later.

Next, there were the contents of Sarita's original trailer, the plastic water tank. And, like the first time, Victoria did what she was asked, taking everything I wanted. While I was disposing of the larger items she was neatly arranging all the water bottles. When it came to the torpedo, that took longer.

Kari gave a glance glace towards Victoria's direction and I saw her put the two automatics and the ammunition as well as the handguns on the towpath. OK, I later found out they were all automatics.

We soon altered the system. The cylinder was swivelled down towards its rear. Kari manhandled it towards the boat and wheeled it so that the open end was lower and it protruded through the side hatch aperture and it was an easy job to unload it directly into the cabin.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kari take the weapons and carry them up to the bow where I'm sure she dropped them under the canvas. I made a mental note to recover them later.

When it was finished, I carefully eased the cistern back and called upon Kari to start closing the hinged doors from the outside. She hinged one shutter after another. I closed and fastened them together, hoping that the temperature inside would soon build up again.

Next, as Kari instructed, I trundled through the whole length of the vessel to the stern with Victoria trailing behind. By the time I arrived at the steps to the cockpit, I saw four wheels removed from trailers already on the deck. I pulled them inside, as instructed, and neatly lined them up in the wet room. A bungee rope from the boxes would hold them in situ. But by the time I approached the steps again the final two wheels were ready to be stored.

I found bungee cords to secure all the wheels and had to get onto the cockpit deck. The large hot water tank, now empty, was manhandled across from the towpath and while I held it on to its end, Kari jumped aboard and slipped down to the wet room. I fed it to her and helped her place it vertically, again holding it tight with the one remaining bungee cord.

How she had time to chatter I do not know but 'Speedy Gonzales' alias Kari had everything sorted out. Sarita already knew that there was a large bedroom next to a bathroom that could be private from the rest of the accommodation. She needed the privacy to attend to Victoria.

"You," Kari indicated to me, "Take all the food here through to the galley and then come back bringing all Sarita's professional stuff. That first bedroom," she stated perfunctorily. Her eyes flew to Victoria meaningfully and I appreciated she meant all the medical stuff. "Bring back a few bottles of water too."

It took me a couple of trips and by that time Kari had the vessel on the move again. She even asked for Sarita's jacket as it was cold outside. "When you've done that, bring me a bottle of water."

I did so and appreciated it was just a ruse to get me alone. "Sarita wants to examine Victoria as she thinks she's still bleeding." She screwed up her face in sympathy.

'It doesn't help sitting on the crossbar of a bike for ten miles', ran through my mind. I felt guilty but common sense dictated that I had had no alternative.

"Where did you find her?"

"Near where we killed the police."

That did not make sense to her. The last time she had seen me. I was taking the car eight miles down the road. And she had even seen an explosion from that direction.

"But how?"

I had to go through it; telling her my map reading had been at fault and the road I'd been looking for was almost twenty miles away. "Then more police were coming and I had to scarper as the car was being set alight. The only way to go without being caught was back up onto the moors. Oh, by the way, the satnav's buggered."

I went on to explain, "I spent half the night up on the tops again and it was starting to snow." We both turned about and, in the grey morning light, we could see the hills behind, their tops covered by a white expanse of cold frost or snow. I think we both shivered in unison.

"I retraced the distance we descended from the Downland Moors and that was after going uphill and down dale in sleet and snow. I'm knackered."

"We were frozen too, waiting for you, worried and scared you'd been caught. We did see a distant glow in the sky and wondered if that was you."

"Probably was." My response was brief.

"Oh, Sarita tells me she wants us out of the way a bit while she gives the girl a shower. What's her name?"

"Sorry, didn't I say? It's Victoria. She was in a right state when I found her. I reckoned she'd have been killed if we hadn't come along last night." I said no more. I was so angry, fuming mad. I wondered if she'd have died of hypothermia if I'd not come along.

I was surprised about the shower. Hot water for the second time in three days, "The water?" it occurred to me, "in this boat?"

"Oh, it should be OK. I chose this because, it's not just very well fitted out but the owner was meticulous about maintenance. He keeps a log. It was topped up before the troubles started. The engine-room log said the water and the diesel for both engines were topped up, the fifteenth of November. And the water should even be OK to drink. There's a filtration system in the kitchen. The water heater looks really efficient too. When the water gets hot, you try it. It might be a boiler that heats the water as you use it and you might not need to wait."