IX
BUOYING THE CHANNEL
THE day was hot, really hot, as days very seldom are on the Connacht coast. Dr. Whitty was bathing off the end of the pier and enjoying himself greatly. Michael Geraghty sat on the edge of the pier with his legs dangling over the water and gazed gloomily at the doctor. From time to time he struck a match and lit a damp plug of tobacco which lay at the bottom of the bowl of his pipe. There came after a while to be quite a flotilla of matches in the water round the steps of the pier. Two of them stuck to the doctor's legs when he dragged himself at last on to dry land. He picked them off and dropped them into the sea again.
"I wish," he said, "that you'd get out of the habit of using a whole box of matches to light your pipe. Why won't one do you?"
"The times," said Michael Geraghty, "are mighty dull."
"I don't see," said Dr. Whitty, "that that's any reason for wasting matches. In fact I should say that a wave of commercial depression such as you hint at ought to lead sensible men to consider small economies."
"What's troubling me most," said Michael Geraghty, "is them two anchors. I'm sorry now that ever I bought them, though I don't deny but I got them cheap."
Dr. Whitty was rubbing himself vigorously with a rough towel.
"What anchors?" he said.
"Them two anchors that I bought the time of the wreck. The customs officer was selling what was left of the ship, and I got the both of her anchors for five shillings. They're good anchors. You wouldn't see better. But what's the use of them in a place like this?"
"Was that the time we had the clergy up talking Latin and Greek to Affy Hynes?"
"It was," said Michael Geraghty, grinning.
Dr. Whitty slipped his shirt over his head. Then he fished a pipe out of his coat pocket, pressed the tobacco into the bowl and sat down on the steps of the pier. The sun was shining very brilliantly and he liked the feel of its heat on his bare legs.
"Hand over that box of matches," he said, "if there are any left in it."
"They're good anchors," said Michael Geraghty. "Devil the better you'd see. But where's the use of them lying in the shed at the back of the house?"
"Why don't you sell them if they're as good as all that? You couldn't get less than five shillings for them whatever happened."
"Sell them! It's thankful I'd be to sell them if I could. But who'd buy them?"
"Advertise in The Irish Times," said the doctor. "There must be somebody in the world somewhere who wants a good anchor."
"It wouldn't be a bit of use. The carriage of them things to any place where they might be wanted would be more than they'd cost when they're new. What with carting them all the way to Dunbeg and the railway rates, which has the people of this country robbed"
"There's a commission sitting on railway rates this minute," said the doctor. "If you were to threaten the company that you'd bring up the case of your two anchors, you might get them carried cheap in an empty truck."
"I would not," said Michael gloomily. "Don't I know I wouldn't? And there'd be the price of the advertisement to be considered."
Dr. Whitty pulled on his trousers and collected together his boots and socks. Then he said—
"Why don't you sell them to the Government?"
"Is it the Lord Lieutenant?"
"Well, not exactly the Lord Lieutenant personally. You could hardly expect him to invest his hard-earned savings in old anchors just to oblige you. When I said the Government, I meant the Board."
"What Board?"
"Any Board. It doesn't seem to me to matter what Board buys them so long as you get your price. You've plenty of choice. There's the Prisons Board, the Agricultural Board, the National Board of Education "
"Talk sense," said Michael Geraghty. "What would one of them school inspectors be doing with an anchor if he had it?"
"That would be his affair. He might take it round with him for the purpose of giving the children an object-lesson in navigation. But I wouldn't be inclined to try the Education Board first of all. You might fall back on it if all the others failed. But I'd begin with the Congested Districts Board."
"I might try them."
"They're a good Board," said the doctor, "engaged in every kind of miscellaneous work. They'd be able to find some use for almost any sort of odds and ends"
"The anchors is good anchors," said Michael stiffly. "I wouldn't be trying to get the better of a Board by selling them rotten stuff."
"You would not, of course; and I wouldn't help you if I thought you were perpetrating any sort of swindle. In fact, I'll step round as soon as I've finished dressing and take a look at the anchors, so as to be sure they're all right. If we were going to deal with the Education Board it wouldn't so much matter, but the Congested Districts Board is as likely as not to tie some floating objects to the anchors and sink them in the sea, so we'll have to make sure beforehand that they'll bear the strain."
Dr. Whitty fastened his collar and made a neat bow of his tie. Then he smoothed his wet hair with both hands and put on his hat. Michael Geraghty rose slowly to his feet, and the two men went together through the town to the shed at the back of Michael's house.
"Those," said the doctor, "seem to me very large anchors. They are much bigger than I expected"
"They are big, of course. She was a three-master from San Francisco that they belonged to first of all."
"I'm afraid," said the doctor, "that we can't approach the Congested Districts Board directly about the purchase of those anchors. They'd shy at the enormous size of them."
"I was thinking that myself."
"But there's no reason why we shouldn't get at them obliquely. After all, there'll be much less suspicion excited if we pretended that we weren't selling anchors. The proper way to get at a Board of that sort is to start a public agitation in favour of some purely philanthropic scheme and then slip in the anchors at the end in a way that they won't be noticed. The thing for us is to hit on some work of public utility which will involve the use of anchors. Now what sort of things can be done with anchors?"
"If so be," said Michael, "that the Board had any notion of establishing a fishing station here, they'd be wanting to have an old hulk in the bay to hold the ice for packing the mackerel in, and she'd have to be anchored."
"That's not a bad idea. But I doubt if it would work out satisfactorily. The chances are that any hulk they'd bring here would have her own anchors. Nice fools we'd look if we saddled the town with a fishing station and had all the people running into debt to buy boats and nets and things, and then at the latter end found that we hadn't got rid of the anchors. But there must be other things besides ice hulks which require anchoring. What about a lightship?"
"A lightship?"
"Yes. I suppose you could build one if you got the order, and fit it out with anchors?"
"I'm not sure could I. I never seen one of them things."
"You could do it all right if you tried. After all, it wouldn't be any harder than building a pier, and you did that. A lightship is just the sort of thing that's wanted here. We could quote that wreck to show the necessity for it."
"How would it be," said Michael doubtfully, "if we was to ask for a buoy? I'd be easier in my mind working with buoys, which is what I know something about."
"Right," said Dr. Whitty. "We'll have buoys. We'll have the channel up to the pier marked out with two large buoys."
"It would take more than two buoys to mark out that channel," said Michael, grinning. "Sure the rocks is as thick as fleas on a dog's back."
"It doesn't matter how many they put. Let them put fifty if they like. Our point is that there must be at least two fastened to the bottom of the sea with really first-rate anchors. That is our irreducible minimum. You see the way the thing works out, don't you, Michael? These Boards which spend public money are always most frightfully conscientious about effecting small economies. When we get them to agree to buoy that channel they'll simply jump at your two anchors in order to save the expense of dragging others all the way from Dublin."
"I see that."
"Very well. Go you now and write a proper petition to the Board. When you have it written take it round and get everybody to sign it. Get the priest and the rector and the old colonel first of all. I'll drop in on the colonel as I pass the house and tell him to expect you. Get Thady Glynn and the League fellows. They won't refuse."
Michael Geraghty wasted no time after the doctor left him. He sent a message down to the school requesting the presence of his eldest daughter at once. She was, he said, urgently required at home. He realised that he was not very sure of the way to spell certain unusual words likely to be required in the petition, and Molly wrote a very good hand. Early in the afternoon he had his document ready for signature.
Honourable Members of your Board
"Dear Sir,—It is the unanimous desire of us, the inhabitants of Ballintra, signed herewith, to have the channel leading up to the pier, lately built by your honourable Board, marked out plain with buoys. Now I say at once that of all the blessings which your honourable members have conferred on us, the people of the congested districts, this would be the greatest and at once the most needed. To do this, I have practically worked it out, and it would require two buoys, and you can see at once the untold blessing it must prove to the poor. Then again, see the advertisement it must prove to the district in opening direct communication by sea with tourists and the public generally. I again impress the great urgency there is in the establishment of the scheme, and I assure you I shall do a man's part in making it a huge success. I should mention that the officials of your honourable Board in discharge of their duties will not be near so liable to be drowned provided you grant the buoys, same to mark the worst of the rocks, which as situated presently is a constant danger to boats and ships. The price of the buoys would not be much in the eyes of your honourable members. The anchors for same being all that would come expensive, and them not very if properly worked." The gentlemen whose names appear below includes all the principal men of the district, without religion or politics, and there will be more of them if more is wanted by the honourable Board. But where would be the use?"
At about six o'clock in the evening Michael Geraghty called on Dr. Whitty. He carried the petition in his hand.
"I dunno," he said, "will it be any use posting it to the Board at all."
"Why not?"
"The priest won't sign it, and no more will Mr. Jackson. I didn't try the rest of the people, for what good would they be if the clergy held back?"
"Nonsense," said Dr. Whitty. "They must sign."
"I tell you they won't then, neither the one of them nor yet the other."
"You must have gone about it in some silly way and got their backs up. I saw the colonel this afternoon, and he promised he'd sign. Did you try him?"
"I did not. What was the good?"
"Well, run up with it to him now and get his signature. I'll step round in the meanwhile and see the two clergymen."
Mr. Jackson, when Dr. Whitty walked up to the Rectory, was mowing his lawn and looked hot.
"Give me a turn at that," said the doctor. "I'll finish off round the flower-beds while you sit down and rest yourself."
"It's very good of you," said the rector, "but I couldn't think of allowing you to"
"Nonsense," said the doctor, seizing the machine, "I shall enjoy it. By the way, I hope you agree with Colonel Beresford about the necessity for having the channel up to the pier properly buoyed."
"Colonel Beresford?"
"Yes. He's using all his influence with the Congested Districts Board to get it done. Michael Geraghty is forwarding a sort of petition."
"I saw that," said the rector, "but I didn't know that Colonel Beresford"
"The colonel didn't actually write it out," said the doctor, "but he's signing it."
"It struck me as rather an illiterate document. I hardly cared to put my name to Not that I've any objection to buoying the channel. I merely felt that Did you read the petition?"
"No, I didn't."
"It's expressed in such an odd way. If it was written out again in decent English"
"I see what you mean; but, if you'll excuse my saying so, you're making a mistake. The colonel and I were particularly anxious to have it expressed in that sort of way. You know the Congested Districts Board, of course?"
"Not personally."
"Ah! Well then you wouldn't understand. The fact is, that Board particularly prides itself on being in direct touch with the people. It likes all petitions to come from the people, and tries to avoid having anything to do with the educated classes. That's the reason we got Michael Geraghty to draw up the thing himself."
"Oh!" said the rector. "I hadn't thought of that. Of course, if Colonel Beresford thinks that's the wisest plan"
"That's right," said the doctor. "I'll send Michael round with it again this evening, and you'll sign."
He finished off the mowing and walked on to the Presbytery.
"I'll not put my name to any such thing," said Father Henaghan. "Do you want to make a public fool of me?"
"I do not. Is it likely I'd want to make a fool of you and Mr. Jackson and the colonel, not to mention myself?"
"Well, then, what did you send Michael Geraghty round with that paper for? Didn't you know"
"Look here now, Father Henaghan," said the doctor, "be sensible. What was that paper?"
"So far as I could make out it was meant to be a petition to the Congested Districts Board."
"It was. Now, what do you suppose generally happens to petitions sent to public Boards?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I'll tell you. Some clerk or other takes them and enters the name of them along with a number in a large book. When he does that he goes home to his tea, and nobody ever hears anything more about them. That's the ordinary, well-written, sensible-looking petition. There's simply no use sending it in at all. But what do we do? We draw up a petition which strikes the clerk who reads it as out of the common. Instead of indexing it and going home, he passes it on to some kind of official above him. He thinks it an excellent joke, and shows it to some one else. In the end it gets to the really influential people—the bishops and men of that sort who actually run the Board. Then it's attended to."
"All the same I don't see"
"Surely you're not opposed to having the channel up to the pier properly marked out with buoys? You can't mean that. You ought to have more sense than to be setting yourself against the will of the people in a matter of the kind. Let me tell you, Father Henaghan, there's lots of men in Ireland at the present moment only too anxious to get a hold of some sort of excuse for attacking the clergy. If it comes out that you refused to take any part in the movement for buoying out the channel, your action will be represented in a most unpleasant way. Besides, after all, you must want to have the channel buoyed."
"I don't care whether it is or not. There isn't a boat goes up to that pier once in the twelve months. What good will it be?"
"That's not the way to look at it at all. What you ought to be asking is: What harm can it possibly do?"
"I don't suppose it'll do any harm, because I don't suppose it'll ever be done."
"Very well then, you'll sign the petition. It's for your own good that I'm pressing you. Mr. Jackson is signing it, and it won't look at all well if you refuse."
When the petition had been dispatched with about thirty signatures attached to it, Dr. Whitty had another interview with Michael Geraghty.
"Michael," he said, "it won't do for you simply to sit down and wait for the Board to come along and buy your anchors. You must stir yourself and work things up a bit."
"Is it a public meeting you have in your mind?"
"It is not. A public meeting is an excellent thing in its way, but I strongly suspect that the Board will send down my old friend Eccles to look into this matter. You remember Eccles, don't you?"
"I do," said Michael. "He was the gentleman that wanted a bit added on to the end of the pier."
"Exactly, He's not by any means a fool; and a public meeting wouldn't impress him in the least. What we want for him is a few wrecks."
"Wrecks, is it?" said Michael doubtfully.
"Yes. Wrecks—wrecked boats lying on the rocks on the way to the pier. The rocks that we want to have buoyed. Are there any old boats you could get the loan of for a few days?"
"There is, of course."
"Very well, get them. Get half a dozen if you can. Row them out and put them on the rocks, one on each rock that you can find near the pier. When you have them there I'll photograph them, and send copies of the pictures up to the Board. That will prepare Eccles' mind for what he may expect when he gets down here. When he arrives, we'll take him out in a boat and run him on to a rock just to show him how dangerous the place really is."
"I wouldn't care to do the like to any gentleman."
"He can swim," said the doctor. "You needn't be the least anxious about him, and, anyway, it won't come to swimming if you manage properly."
In due time Mr. Eccles arrived. Dr. Whitty met him at the railway station, and invited him to luncheon.
"After that," he said, "I'll take you down to the pier. I asked a few people to meet you there—Father Henaghan, and Mr. Jackson the rector, and Colonel Beresford, and Michael Geraghty. Unfortunately none of them could come except Michael, but he'll explain to you exactly what has to be done."
"Whitty," said Mr. Eccles after luncheon, "I don't mind telling you beforehand that the Board is going to mark out that channel of yours. It won't make a bit of difference now whether you tell me the truth or not, but I'd like to know, as a matter of curiosity, why the devil you want the thing done. It won't bring any money worth speaking of into the place. We'll send down all the things we want from Dublin, and your friend Geraghty, who seems to be at the bottom of the swindle, won't earn a penny over it."
"If it's a swindle," said the doctor, "why on earth is your Board doing it? You ought to have stopped them. You're their marine adviser, aren't you?"
"I tried to stop them," said Mr. Eccles, "but that infernal petition of yours was too much for me. The part about the benefits which the honourable members had conferred on the people fetched the Board like anything. There are two or three of the honourable members who can really see a joke, and they insisted that the channel should be marked out. Now I've been quite frank with you, and I expect you to tell me the inner meaning of the move."
"The fact is," said Dr. Whitty, "that the channel is frightfully crooked and dangerous. Boats are continually running on rocks, and though there have been no lives actually lost as yet, there's no saying when some poor fellow with a wife and family depending on him will get drowned. You saw those photos I sent up to the Board, I suppose."
"Yes, I saw them."
"I suppose you think they were faked. Well, you're wrong, quite wrong. Every one of them represents an actual boat on a real rock."
"Three of them," said Mr. Eccles, "appeared to me to represent the same boat on different rocks."
"Quite so," said Dr. Whitty. "That particular boat ran on to three rocks; but the others were all different boats. Most of them are still on the rocks, and Michael Geraghty is going to take you out this afternoon and show you the wrecks. You'll believe they're there if you're allowed to touch them, I suppose."
"Thanks, but I don't think I'll go boating with Michael Geraghty. I don't particularly want to supply you with a photograph of another wreck."
"Michael can't swim a stroke, so you needn't be afraid. He'll be careful."
"All the same I won't go. All I came down here for was to find out for my own satisfaction the truth about this business. If you won't tell me, I must just go back to Dublin and send down the perches which the Board has ready for your rocks."
"Perches!" said the doctor.
"Yes, perches. Iron posts with round iron shields on top of them, painted red or black. The usual things for marking out channels."
"It wasn't perches we asked for," said the doctor, "but buoys."
"I know that; but buoys would be ridiculous on rocks that are uncovered at low tide. What you want is perches."
"It's not perches we want, but buoys. Perches would be no kind of use to us one way or another. If it's perches you're going to put up, you may as well save yourselves the trouble, for we won't have them. It must be buoys or nothing."
Mr. Eccles lit his pipe. Then he sat without speaking for nearly ten minutes. He was thinking deeply.
"Whitty," he said at last, "you have me fair beaten. I'm damned if I see what good buoys will be to you. I mean to say buoys as distinct from perches—not that I see what you expect to gain by having either."
"It's buoys we want," said Dr. Whitty, "and so, of course, it's buoys you'll give us in the end."
"I'm not at all sure about that. What the Board has decided on is perches."
"That was before the Board knew how strong the public opinion of the district was in favour of buoys."
"I don't think," said Mr. Eccles, "that the Board is at all likely to change its mind."
"If it doesn't, it will stultify itself, and will act in a frightfully immoral and fraudulent way. Hitherto, Eccles, in spite of your cynical and bureaucratic spirit, your Board has been honourably distinguished among all the other Boards of the country as being the only one which possesses the confidence of the people. It has boasted of the fact, and drawn immense sums from the Imperial Treasury on the strength of its being a really popular Board. When it comes out in Parliament, as it certainly will come out, that it has deliberately flouted local opinion, and has forced a lot of beastly perches which nobody wants down the throats of a decent set of intelligent and progressive people, who asked for a few buoys—when that happens its reputation will be gone, and it will be hauled over the coals for obtaining money under false pretences, saying it was in sympathy with the wishes of the people when it really offers factious and contemptible opposition to a perfectly reasonable demand."
"Look here, Whitty, I make you a fair offer. Tell me honestly why you prefer buoys to perches, and I'll do my best to get you buoys."
"I'll tell you with pleasure. You offer us a dozen or so great iron perches "
"Fourteen, to be quite accurate."
"Very well, fourteen. We ask for two simple buoys."
"Two?"
"That's all we insist on. Two buoys. Now, supposing each buoy costs the same as a perch. It won't, as a matter of fact, cost as much—I'll explain why in a minute. But supposing each buoy costs as much as a perch, by adopting our scheme the Board will effect an economy of twelve-fourteenths—in other words, six-sevenths of the total amount to be spent. Public money, you recollect, Eccles. Your Board may like wasting money; but we have a highly developed civic conscience, and we'd rather see the sum we don't actually want our- selves spent on some other deserving district. Are you listening to me?"
Mr. Eccles had crossed the room, and was staring out of the window, drumming a tune on the panes of glass with his finger-tips.
"No, I'm not," he said; "but I will as soon as you begin to talk sense."
"A further economy will be effected," said Dr. Whitty, "by adopting our buoy scheme, because the Board will be able to save the carriage for the anchors of the buoys. It happens, by the merest chance, that there are in the town at the present moment two remarkably fine anchors which the Board can buy."
Mr. Eccles stopped playing tunes on the window and turned round.
"Belonging, I suppose," he said, "to your friend, Michael Geraghty?"
"Yes," said Dr. Whitty, "to Michael Geraghty, who is perfectly willing to sell them at a reasonable price."
"Why on earth couldn't you have told me that before?"
"I wasn't quite sure," said Dr. Whitty, "that you'd see it in the proper light."
"I don't; but I admire it greatly. If I could I'd stop the whole thing, and give you and Michael Geraghty three months each in jail—but"
"Don't be violent, Eccles. That sort of language isn't at all suitable in the mouth of a Government official."
"As I can't do that, and as my Board is bent on making an ass of itself"
"It's not. It's living up to its reputation and being popular."
"I shall recommend it to mark out the channel with buoys instead of perches. I suppose if I send you down two good buoys you'll be satisfied."
"And buy the anchors."
"And buy the anchors, of course. You'll be able to plant out the buoys yourselves without help."
"Oh yes, we'll manage that."
"And for goodness' sake, Whitty, get those boats off the rocks. They're a perfect disgrace to the neighbourhood where they are.
"They'll be taken off to-night," said Dr. Whitty. "There's a spring tide at six o'clock which will float them all, and we have arrangements made for bringing them home."