The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

THREE MILES UP by Elizabeth Jane Howard

There was absolutely nothing like it.

An unoriginal conclusion, and one that he had drawn a hundred times during the last fortnight. Clifford would make some subtle and intelligent comparison, but he, John, could only continue to repeat that it was quite unlike anything else. It had been Clifford’s idea, which, considering Clifford, was surprising. When you looked at him, you would not suppose him capable of it. However, John reflected, he had been ill, some sort of breakdown these clever people went in for, and that might account for his uncharacteristic idea of hiring a boat and travelling on canals. On the whole, John had to admit, it was a good idea. He had never been on a canal in his life, although he had been in almost every other kind of boat, and thought he knew a good deal about them; so much indeed, that he had embarked on the venture in a light-hearted, almost a patronising manner. But it was not nearly as simple as he had imagined. Clifford, of course, knew nothing about it, but had admitted that almost everything had gone wrong with a kind of devilish versatility which had almost frightened him. However, that was all over, and John, who had learned painfully all about the boat and her engine, felt that the former at least, had run her gamut of disaster. They had run out of food, out of petrol, and out of water; had dropped their windlass into the deepest lock, and, more humiliating, their boathook into a side-pond. The head had come off the hammer. They had been disturbed for one whole night by a curious rustling in the cabin, like a rat in a paper bag, when there was no paper, and, so far as they knew, no rat. The battery had failed and had had to be recharged. Clifford had put his elbow through an already cracked window in the cabin. A large piece of rope had wound itself round the propeller with a malignant intensity which required three men and half a morning to unravel. And so on, until now there was really nothing left to go wrong, unless one of them drowned, and surely it was impossible to drown in a canal.

“I suppose one might easily drown in a lock?” he asked aloud.

“We must be careful not to fall into one,” Clifford replied.

“What?” John steered with fierce concentration, and never heard anything people said to him for the first time, almost on principle.

“I said we must be careful not to fall into a lock.”

“Oh. Well there aren’t any more now until after the Junction. Anyway, we haven’t yet, so there’s really no reason why we should start now. I only wanted to know whether we’d drown if we did.”

“Sharon might.”

“What?”

“Sharon might.”

“Better warn her then. She seems agile enough.” His concentrated frown returned, and he settled down again to the wheel. John didn’t mind where they went, or what happened, so long as he handled the boat, and all things considered, he handled her remarkably well. Clifford planned and John steered: and until two days ago they had both quarrelled and argued over a smoking and unusually temperamental primus. Which reminded Clifford of Sharon. Her advent and the weather were really their two unadulterated strokes of good fortune. There had been no rain, and Sharon had, as it were, dropped from the blue on to the boat, where she speedily restored domestic order, stimulated evening conversation, and touched the whole venture with her attractive being; so that the requisite number of miles each day were achieved, the boat behaved herself, and admirable meals were steadily and regularly prepared. She had, in fact, identified herself with the journey, without making the slightest effort to control it: a talent which many women were supposed in theory to possess, when, in fact, Clifford reflected gloomily, most of them were bored with the whole thing, or tried to dominate it.

Her advent was a remarkable, almost a miraculous piece of luck. He had, after a particularly ill-fed day, and their failure to dine at a small hotel, desperately telephoned all the women he knew who seemed in the least suitable (and they were surprisingly few) with no success. They had spent a miserable evening, John determined to argue about everything, and he, Clifford, refusing to speak; until, both in a fine state of emotional tension, they had turned in for the night. While John snored, Clifford had lain distraught, his resentment and despair circling round John and then touching his own smallest and most random thoughts; until his mind found no refuge and he was left, divided from it, hostile and afraid, watching it in terror racing on in the dark like some malignant machine utterly out of his control.

The next day things had proved no better between them, and they had continued throughout the morning in a silence which was only occasionally and elaborately broken. They had tied up for lunch beside a wood, which hung heavy and magnificent over the canal. There was a small clearing beside which John then proposed to moor, but Clifford failed to achieve the considerable leap necessary to stop the boat; and they had drifted helplessly past it. John flung him a line, but it was not until the boat was secured, and they were safely in the cabin, that the storm had broken. John, in attempting to light the primus, spilt a quantity of paraffin on Clifford’s bunk. Instantly all his despair of the previous evening had contracted. He hated John so much that he could have murdered him. They both lost their tempers, and for the ensuing hour and a half had conducted a blazing quarrel, which, even at the time, secretly horrified them both in its intensity.

It had finally ended with John striding out of the cabin, there being no more to say. He had returned almost at once, however.

“I say, Clifford. Come and look at this.”

“At what?”

“Outside, on the bank.”

For some unknown reason Clifford did get up and did look. Lying face downwards quite still on the ground, with her arms clasping the trunk of a large tree, was a girl.

“How long has she been there?”

“She’s asleep.”

“She can’t have been asleep all the time. She must have heard some of what we said.”

“Anyway, who is she? What is she doing here?”

Clifford looked at her again. She was wearing a dark twill shirt and dark trousers, and her hair hung over her face, so that it was almost invisible. “I don’t know. I suppose she’s alive?”

John jumped cautiously ashore. “Yes, she’s alive all right. Funny way to lie.”

“Well, it’s none of our business anyway. Anyone can lie on a bank if they want to.”

“Yes, but she must have come in the middle of our row, and it does seem queer to stay, and then go to sleep.”

“Extraordinary,” said Clifford wearily. Nothing was really extraordinary, he felt, nothing. “Are we moving on?”

“Let’s eat first. I’ll do it.”

“Oh, I’ll do it.”

The girl stirred, unclasped her arms, and sat up. They had all stared at each other for a moment, the girl slowly pushing the hair from her forehead. Then she had said: “If you will give me a meal, I’ll cook it.”

Afterwards they had left her to wash up, and walked about the wood, while Clifford suggested to John that they ask the girl to join them. “I’m sure she’d come. She didn’t seem at all clear about what she was doing.”

“We can’t just pick somebody up out of a wood,” said John, scandalised.

“Where do you suggest we pick them up? If we don’t have someone, this holiday will be a failure.”

“We don’t know anything about her.”

“I can’t see that that matters very much. She seems to cook well. We can at least ask her.”

“All right. Ask her then. She won’t come.”

When they returned to the boat, she had finished the washing up, and was sitting on the floor of the cockpit, with her arms stretched behind her head. Clifford asked her; and she had accepted as though she had known them a long time and they were simply inviting her to tea.

“Well, but look here,” said John, thoroughly taken aback. “What about your things?”

“My things?” She looked inquiring and a little defensive from one to the other.

“Clothes and so on. Or haven’t you got any? Are you a gipsy or something? Where do you come from?”

“I am not a gipsy,” she began patiently; when Clifford, thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed, interrupted her.

“Really, it’s none of our business who you are, and there is absolutely no need for us to ask you anything. I’m very glad you will come with us, although I feel we should warn you that we are new to this life, and anything might happen.”

“No need to warn me,” she said and smiled gratefully at him.

After that, they both felt bound to ask her nothing; John because he was afraid of being made to look foolish by Clifford, and Clifford, because he had stopped John.

“Good Lord, we shall never get rid of her; and she’ll fuss about condensation,” John had muttered aggressively as he started the engine. But she was very young, and did not fuss about anything. She had told them her name, and settled down, immediately and easily: gentle, assured, and unselfconscious to a degree remarkable in one so young. They were never sure how much she had overheard them, for she gave no sign of having heard anything. A friendly but uncommunicative creature.

The map on the engine box started to flap, and immediately John asked, “Where are we?”

“I haven’t been watching, I’m afraid. Wait a minute.”

“We just passed under a railway bridge,” John said helpfully.

“Right. Yes. About four miles from the Junction, I think. What is the time?”

“Five-thirty.”

“Which way are we going when we get to the Junction?”

“We haven’t time for the big loop. I must be back in London by the fifteenth.”

“The alternative is to go up as far as the Basin, and then simply turn round and come back, and who wants to do that?”

“Well, we’ll know the route then. It’ll be much easier coming back.”

Clifford did not reply. He was not attracted by the route being easier, and he wanted to complete his original plan.

“Let us wait till we get there.” Sharon appeared with tea and marmalade sandwiches.

“All right, let’s wait.” Clifford was relieved.

“It will be almost dark by six-thirty. I think we ought to have a plan,” John said. “Thank you, Sharon.”

“Have tea first.” She curled herself on to the floor with her back to the cabin doors and a mug in her hands.

They were passing rows of little houses with gardens that backed on to the canal. They were long narrow strips, streaked with cinder paths, and crowded with vegetables and chicken huts, fruit trees and perambulators; sometimes ending with fat white ducks, and sometimes in a tiny patch of grass with a bench on it.

“Would you rather keep ducks or sit on a bench?” asked Clifford.

“Keep ducks,” said John promptly. “More useful. Sharon would do either, though. Wouldn’t you, Sharon?” He liked saying her name, Clifford noticed. “You could be happy anywhere, couldn’t you?” He seemed to be presenting her with the widest possible choice.

“I might be anywhere,” she answered after a moment’s thought.

“Well you happen to be on a canal, and very nice for us.”

“In a wood, and then on a canal,” she replied contentedly, bending her smooth dark head over her mug.

“Going to be fine to-morrow,” said John. He was always a little embarrassed at any mention of how they found her and his subsequent rudeness.

“Yes. I like it when the whole sky is so red and burning and it begins to be cold.”

“Are you cold?” said John, wanting to worry about it; but she tucked her dark shirt into her trousers and answered composedly:

“Oh no. I am never cold.”

They drank their tea in a comfortable silence. Clifford started to read his map, and then said they were almost on to another sheet. “New country,” he said with satisfaction. “I’ve never been here before.”

“You make it sound like an exploration, doesn’t he, Sharon?” said John.

“Is that a bad thing?” She collected the mugs. “I am going to put these away. You will call me if I am wanted for anything.” And she went into the cabin again.

There was a second’s pause, a minute tribute to her departure; and, lighting cigarettes, they settled down to stare at the long silent stretch of water ahead, and their thoughts. John thought about Sharon. He thought rather desperately that really they still knew nothing about her, and that when they went back to London, they would, in all probability, never see her again. Perhaps Clifford would fall in love with her, and she would naturally reciprocate; because she was so young and Clifford was reputed to be so fascinating and intelligent, and because women were always foolish and loved the wrong man. He thought all these things with equal intensity, glanced cautiously at Clifford, and supposed he was thinking about her; then wondered what she would be like in London, clad in anything else but her dark trousers and shirt. The engine coughed; and he turned to it in relief.

Clifford was making frantic calculations of time and distance; stretching their time, and diminishing the distance, and groaning that with the utmost optimism they could not be made to fit. He was interrupted by John swearing at the engine, and then for no particular reason, he remembered Sharon, and reflected with pleasure how easily she left the mind when she was not present, how she neither obsessed nor possessed one in her absence, but was charming to see.

The sun had almost set when they reached the Junction, and John slowed down to neutral while they made up their minds. To the left was the straight cut which involved the longer journey originally planned; and curving away to the right was the short arm which John advocated. The canal was fringed with rushes, and there was one small cottage with no light in it. Clifford went into the cabin to tell Sharon where they were, and then, as they drifted slowly in the middle of the Junction, John suddenly shouted: “Clifford! What’s the third turning?”

“There are only two.” Clifford reappeared. “Sharon is busy with dinner.”

“No, look. Surely that is another cut.”

Clifford stared ahead. “Can’t see it.”

“Just to the right of the cottage. Look. It’s not so dark as all that.”

Then Clifford saw it very plainly. It seemed to wind away from the cottage on a fairly steep curve, and the rushes shrouding it from anything but the closest view were taller than the rest.

“Have another look at the map. I’ll reverse for a bit.”

“Found it. It’s just another arm. Probably been abandoned,” said Clifford eventually.

The boat had swung round; and now they could see the continuance of the curve dully gleaming ahead, and banked by reeds.

“Well, what shall we do?”

“Getting dark. Let’s go up a little way, and moor. Nice quiet mooring.”

“With some nice quiet mudbanks,” said John grimly. “Nobody uses that.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, look at it. All those rushes, and it’s sure to be thick with weed.”

“Don’t go up it then. But we shall go aground if we drift about like this.”

“I don’t mind going up it,” said John doggedly. “What about Sharon?”

“What about her?”

“Tell her about it.”

“We’ve found a third turning,” Clifford called above the noise of the primus through the cabin door.

“One you had not expected?”

“Yes. It looks very wild. We were thinking of going up it.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to explore?” she smiled at him.

“You are quite ready to try it? I warn you we shall probably run hard aground. Look out for bumps with the primus.”

“I am quite ready, and I am quite sure we shan’t run aground,” she answered with charming confidence in their skill.

They moved slowly forward in the dusk. Why they did not run aground, Clifford could not imagine: John really was damned good at it. The canal wound and wound, and the reeds grew not only thick on each bank, but in clumps across the canal. The light drained out of the sky into the water and slowly drowned there; the trees and the banks became heavy and black.

Clifford began to clear things away from the heavy dew which had begun to rise. After two journeys he remained in the cabin, while John crawled on, alone. Once, on a bend, John thought he saw a range of hills ahead with lights on them, but when he was round the curve, and had time to look again he could see no hills: only a dark indeterminate waste of country stretched ahead.

He was beginning to consider the necessity of mooring, when they came to a bridge; and shortly after, he saw a dark mass which he took to be houses. When the boat had crawled for another fifty yards or so, he stopped the engine, and drifted in absolute silence to the bank. The houses, about half a dozen of them, were much nearer than he had at first imagined, but there were no lights to be seen. Distance is always deceptive in the dark, he thought, and jumped ashore with a bow line. When, a few minutes later, he took a sounding with the boathook, the water proved unexpectedly deep; and he concluded that they had by incredible good fortune moored at the village wharf. He made everything fast, and joined the others in the cabin with mixed feelings of pride and resentment; that he should have achieved so much under such difficult conditions, and that they (by “they” he meant Clifford) should have contributed so little towards the achievement. He found Clifford reading Bradshaw’s Guide to the Canals and Navigable Rivers in one corner, and Sharon, with her hair pushed back behind her ears, bending over the primus with a knife. Her ears are pale, exactly the colour of her face, he thought; wanted to touch them; then felt horribly ashamed, and hated Clifford.

“Let’s have a look at Bradshaw,” he said, as though he had not noticed Clifford reading it.

But Clifford handed him the book in the most friendly manner, remarking that he couldn’t see where they were. “In fact, you have surpassed yourself with your brilliant navigation. We seem to be miles from anywhere.”

“What about your famous ordnance?”

“It’s not on any sheet I have. The new one I thought we should use only covers the loop we planned. There is precisely three quarters of a mile of this canal shown on the present sheet and then we run off the map. I suppose there must once have been trade here, but I cannot imagine what, or where.”

“I expect things change,” said Sharon. “Here is the meal.”

“How can you see to cook?” said John, eyeing his plate ravenously.

“There is a candle.”

“Yes, but we’ve selfishly appropriated that.”

“Should I need more light?” she asked, and looked troubled.

“There’s no should about it. I just don’t know how you do it, that’s all. Chips exactly the right colour, and you never drop anything. It’s marvellous.”

She smiled a little uncertainly at him and lit another candle: “Luck, probably,” she said, and set it on the table.

They ate their meal, and John told them about the mooring. “Some sort of village. I think we’re moored at the wharf. I couldn’t find any rings without the torch, so I’ve used the anchor.” This small shaft was intended for Clifford, who had dropped the spare battery in the washing-up bowl, and forgotten to buy another. But it was only a small shaft, and immediately afterwards John felt much better. His aggression slowly left him, and he felt nothing but a peaceful and well-fed affection for the other two.

“Extraordinarily cut off this is,” he remarked over coffee.

“It is very pleasant in here. Warm, and extremely full of us.”

“Yes. I know. A quiet village, though, you must admit.”

“I shall believe in your village when I see it.”

“Then you would believe it?”

“No he wouldn’t, Sharon. Not if he didn’t want to, and couldn’t find it on the map. That map!”

The conversation turned again to their remoteness, and to how cut off one liked to be and at what point it ceased to be desirable; to boats, telephones, and, finally, canals: which, Clifford maintained, possessed the perfect proportions of urbanity and solitude.

Hours later, when they had turned in for the night, Clifford reviewed the conversation, together with others they had had, and remembered with surprise how little Sharon had actually said. She listened to everything and occasionally, when they appealed to her, made some small composed remark which was oddly at variance with their passionate interest. “She has an elusive quality of freshness about her,” he thought, “which is neither naïve nor stupid nor dull, and she invokes no responsibility. She does not want us to know what she was, or why we found her as we did, and, curiously, I, at least, do not want to know. She is what women ought to be,” he concluded with sudden pleasure; and slept.

He woke the next morning to find it very late, and stretched out his hand to wake John.

“We’ve all overslept. Look at the time.”

“Good Lord! Better wake Sharon.”

Sharon lay between them on the floor, which they had ceded her because, oddly enough, it was the widest and most comfortable bed. She seemed profoundly asleep, but at the mention of her name sat up immediately, and rose, almost as though she had not been asleep at all.

The morning routine which, involving the clothing of three people and shaving of two of them, was necessarily a long and complicated business, began. Sharon boiled water, and Clifford, grumbling gently, hoisted himself out of his bunk and repaired with a steaming jug to the cockpit. He put the jug on a seat, lifted the canvas awning, and leaned out. It was absolutely grey and still; a little white mist hung over the canal, and the country stretched out desolate and unkempt on every side with no sign of a living creature. The village, he thought suddenly; John’s village: and was possessed of a perilous uncertainty and fear. I am getting worse, he thought, this holiday is doing me no good. I am mad. I imagined that he said we moored by a village wharf. For several seconds he stood gripping the gunwale, and searching desperately for anything, huts, a clump of trees, which could in the darkness have been mistaken for a village. But there was nothing near the boat except tall rank rushes which did not move at all. Then, when his suspense was becoming unbearable, John joined him with another steaming jug of water.

“We shan’t get anywhere at this rate,” he began; and then—“Hullo! Where’s my village?”

“I was wondering that,” said Clifford. He could almost have wept with relief, and quickly began to shave, deeply ashamed of his private panic.

“Can’t understand it,” John was saying. It was no joke, Clifford decided, as he listened to his hearty puzzled ruminations.

At breakfast John continued to speculate upon what he had or had not seen, and Sharon listened intently while she filled the coffee pot and cut bread. Once or twice she met Clifford’s eye with a glance of discreet amusement.

“I must be mad, or else the whole place is haunted,” finished John comfortably. These two possibilities seemed to relieve him of any further anxiety in the matter, as he ate a huge breakfast and set about greasing the engine.

“Well,” said Clifford, when he was alone with Sharon. “What do you make of that?”

“It is easy to be deceived in such matters,” she answered perfunctorily.

“Evidently. Still, John is an unlikely candidate you must admit. Here, I’ll help you dry.”

“Oh no. It is what I am here for.”

“Not entirely, I hope.”

“Not entirely.” She smiled and relinquished the cloth.

John eventually announced that they were ready to start. Clifford, who had assumed that they were to recover their journey, was surprised, and a little alarmed, to find John intent upon continuing it. He seemed undeterred by the state of the canal, which, as Clifford immediately pointed out, rendered navigation both arduous and unrewarding. He announced that the harder it was, the more he liked it, adding very firmly that “anyway we must see what happens.”

“We shan’t have time to do anything else.”

“Thought you wanted to explore.”

“I do, but—what do you think, Sharon?”

“I think John will have to be a very good navigator to manage that.” She indicated the rush and weed-ridden reach before them. “Do you think it’s possible?”

“Of course it’s possible. I’ll probably need some help though.”

“I’ll help you,” she said.

So on they went.

They made incredibly slow progress. John enjoys showing off his powers to her, thought Clifford, half amused, half exasperated, as he struggled for the fourth time in an hour to scrape weeds off the propeller.

Sharon eventually retired to cook lunch.

“Surprising amount of water here,” John said suddenly.

“Oh?”

“Well, I mean, with all this weed and stuff, you’d expect the canal to have silted up. I’m sure nobody uses it.”

“The whole thing is extraordinary.”

“Is it too late in the year for birds?” asked Clifford later.

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“I haven’t heard one, have you?”

“Haven’t noticed, I’m afraid. There’s someone anyway. First sign of life.”

An old man stood near the bank watching them. He was dressed in corduroy and wore a straw hat.

“Good morning,” shouted John, as they drew nearer.

He made no reply, but inclined his head slightly. He seemed very old. He was leaning on a scythe, and as they drew almost level with him, he turned away and began slowly cutting rushes. A pile of them lay neatly stacked beside him.

“Where does this canal go? Is there a village further on?” Clifford and John asked simultaneously. He seemed not to hear, and as they chugged steadily past, Clifford was about to suggest that they stop and ask again, when he called after them: “Three miles up you’ll find the village. Three miles up that is,” and turned away to his rushes again.

“Well, now we know something, anyway,” said John.

“We don’t even know what the village is called.”

“Soon find out. Only three miles.”

“Three miles!” said Clifford darkly. “That might mean anything.”

“Do you want to turn back?”

“Oh no, not now. I want to see this village now. My curiosity is thoroughly aroused.”

“Shouldn’t think there’ll be anything to see. Never been in such a wild spot. Look at it.”

Clifford looked at it. Half wilderness, half marsh, dank and grey and still, with single trees bare of their leaves; clumps of hawthorn that might once have been hedge, sparse and sharp with berries; and, in the distance, hills and an occasional wood: these were all one could see, beyond the lines of rushes which edged the canal winding ahead.

They stopped for a lengthy meal, which Sharon described as lunch and tea together, it being so late; and then, appalled at how little daylight was left, continued.

“We’ve hardly been any distance at all,” said John forlornly. “Good thing there were no locks. I shouldn’t think they’d have worked if there were.”

“Much more than three miles,” he said, about two hours later. Darkness was descending and it was becoming very cold.

“Better stop,” said Clifford.

“Not yet. I’m determined to reach that village.”

“Dinner is ready,” said Sharon sadly. “It will be cold.”

“Let’s stop.”

“You have your meal. I’ll call if I want you.”

Sharon looked at them, and Clifford shrugged his shoulders. “Come on. I will. I’m tired of this.”

They shut the cabin doors. John could hear the pleasant clatter of their meal, and just as he was coming to the end of the decent interval which he felt must elapse before he gave in, they passed under a bridge, the first of the day, and, clutching at any straw, he immediately assumed that it prefaced the village. “I think we’re nearly there,” he called.

Clifford opened the door. “The village?”

“No, a bridge. Can’t be far now.”

“You’re mad, John. It’s pitch dark.”

“You can see the bridge though.”

“Yes. Why not moor under it?”

“Too late. Can’t turn round in this light, and she’s not good at reversing. Must be nearly there. You go back, I don’t need you.”

Clifford shut the door again. He was beginning to feel irritated with John behaving in this childish manner and showing off to impress Sharon. It was amusing in the morning, but really he was carrying it a bit far. Let him manage the thing himself then. When, a few minutes later, John shouted that they had reached the sought-after village, Clifford merely pulled back the little curtain over a cabin window, rubbed the condensation, and remarked that he could see nothing. “No light at least.”

“He is happy anyhow,” said Sharon peaceably.

“Going to have a look round,” said John, slamming the cabin doors and blowing his nose.

“Surely you’ll eat first?”

“If you’ve left anything. My God it’s cold! It’s unnaturally cold.”

“We won’t be held responsible if he dies of exposure, will we?” said Clifford.

She looked at him, hesitated a moment, but did not reply, and placed a steaming plate in front of John. She doesn’t want us to quarrel, Clifford thought, and with an effort of friendliness he asked, “What does to-night’s village look like?”

“Much the same. Only one or two houses you know. But the old man called it a village.” He seemed uncommunicative; Clifford thought he was sulking. But after eating the meal, he suddenly announced, almost apologetically, “I don’t think I shall walk round. I’m absolutely worn out. You go if you like. I shall start turning in.”

“All right. I’ll have a look. You’ve had a hard day.”

Clifford pulled on a coat and went outside. It was, as John said, incredibly cold and almost overwhelmingly silent. The clouds hung very low over the boat, and mist was rising everywhere from the ground, but he could dimly discern the black huddle of cottages lying on a little slope above the bank against which the boat was moored. He did actually set foot on shore, but his shoe sank immediately into a marshy hole. He withdrew it, and changed his mind. The prospect of groping round those dark and silent houses became suddenly distasteful, and he joined the others with the excuse that it was too cold and that he also was tired.

A little later, he lay half conscious in a kind of restless trance, with John sleeping heavily opposite him. His mind seemed full of foreboding, fear of something unknown and intangible: he thought of them lying in warmth on the cold secret canal with desolate miles of water behind and probably beyond; the old man and the silent houses; John, cut off and asleep, and Sharon, who lay on the floor beside him. Immediately he was filled with a sudden and most violent desire for her, even to touch her, for her to know that he was awake.

“Sharon,” he whispered; “Sharon, Sharon,” and stretched down his fingers to her in the dark.

Instantly her hand was in his, each smooth and separate finger warmly clasped. She did not move or speak, but his relief was indescribable and for a long while he lay in an ecstasy of delight and peace, until his mind slipped imperceptibly with-her fingers into oblivion.

When he woke he found John absent and Sharon standing over the primus. “He’s outside,” she said.

“Have I overslept again?”

“It is late. I am boiling water for you now.”

“We’d better try and get some supplies this morning.”

“There is no village,” she said, in a matter of fact tone.

“What?”

“John says not. But we have enough food, if you don’t mind this queer milk from a tin.”

“No, I don’t mind,” he replied, watching her affectionately. “It doesn’t really surprise me,” he added after a moment.

“The village?”

“No village. Yesterday I should have minded awfully. Is that you, do you think?”

“Perhaps.”

“It doesn’t surprise you about the village at all, does it? Do you love me?”

She glanced at him quickly, a little shocked, and said quietly, “Don’t you know?” then added: “It doesn’t surprise me.”

John seemed very disturbed. “I don’t like it,” he kept saying as they shaved. “Can’t understand it at all. I could have sworn there were houses last night. You saw them, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well don’t you think it’s very odd?”

“I do.”

“Everything looks the same as yesterday morning. I don’t like it.”

“It’s an adventure you must admit.”

“Yes, but I’ve had enough of it. I suggest we turn back.”

Sharon suddenly appeared, and, seeing her, Clifford knew that he did not want to go back. He remembered her saying “Didn’t you say you wanted to explore?” She would think him weak-hearted if they turned back all those dreary miles with nothing to show for it. At breakfast, he exerted himself in persuading John to the same opinion. John finally agreed to one more day, but, in turn, extracted a promise that they would then go back whatever happened. Clifford agreed to this, and Sharon for some inexplicable reason laughed at them both. So that eventually they prepared to set off in an atmosphere of general good humour.

Sharon began to fill the water tank with their four-gallon can. It seemed too heavy for her, and John dropped the starter and leapt to her assistance.

She let him take the can and held the funnel for him. Together they watched the rich even stream of water disappear.

“You shouldn’t try to do that,” he said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Gipsies do it,” she said.

“I’m awfully sorry about that. You know I am.”

“I should not have minded if you had thought I was a gipsy.”

“I do like you,” he said, not looking at her. “I do like you. You won’t disappear altogether when this is over, will you?”

“You probably won’t find I’ll disappear for good,” she replied comfortingly.

“Come on,” shouted Clifford.

It’s all right for him to talk to her, John thought, as he struggled to swing the starter. He just doesn’t like me doing it; and he wished, as he had begun often to do, that Clifford was not there.

They had spasmodic engine trouble in the morning, which slowed them down; and the consequent halts, with the difficulty they experienced of mooring anywhere (the banks seemed nothing but marsh), were depressing and cold. Their good spirits evaporated: by lunchtime John was plainly irritable and frightened, and Clifford had begun to hate the grey silent land on either side, with the woods and hills which remained so consistently distant. They both wanted to give it up by then, but John felt bound to stick to his promise, and Clifford was secretly sure that Sharon wished to continue.

While she was preparing another late lunch, they saw a small boy who stood on what once had been the towpath watching them. He was bare-headed, wore corduroy, and had no shoes. He held a long reed, the end of which he chewed as he stared at them.

“Ask him where we are,” said John; and Clifford asked.

He took the reed out of his mouth, but did not reply.

“Where do you live then?” asked Clifford as they drew almost level with him.

“I told you. Three miles up,” he said; and then he gave a sudden little shriek of fear, dropped the reed, and turned to run down the bank the way they had come. Once he looked back, stumbled and fell, picked himself up sobbing, and ran faster. Sharon had appeared with lunch a moment before, and together they listened to his gasping cries growing fainter and fainter, until he had run himself out of their sight.

“What on earth frightened him?” said Clifford.

“I don’t know. Unless it was Sharon popping out of the cabin like that.”

“Nonsense. But he was a very frightened little boy. And, I say, do you realise——”

“He was a very foolish little boy,” Sharon interrupted. She was angry, Clifford noticed with surprise, really angry, white and trembling, and with a curious expression which he did not like.

“We might have got something out of him,” said John sadly.

“Too late now,” Sharon said. She had quite recovered herself.

They saw no one else. They journeyed on throughout the afternoon; it grew colder, and at the same time more and more airless and still. When the light began to fail, Sharon disappeared as usual to the cabin. The canal became more tortuous, and John asked Clifford to help him with the turns. Clifford complied willingly: he did not want to leave Sharon, but as it had been he who had insisted on their continuing, he could hardly refuse. The turns were nerve-racking, as the canal was very narrow and the light grew worse and worse.

“All right if we stop soon?” asked John eventually.

“Stop now if you like.”

“Well, we’ll try and find a tree to tie up to. This swamp is awful. Can’t think how that child ran.”

“That child——” began Clifford anxiously; but John, who had been equally unnerved by the incident, and did not want to think about it, interrupted, “Is there a tree ahead anywhere?”

“Can’t see one. There’s a hell of a bend coming though. Almost back on itself. Better slow a bit more.”

“Can’t. We’re right down as it is.”

They crawled round, clinging to the outside bank, which seemed always to approach them, its rushes to rub against their bows, although the wheel was hard over. John grunted with relief, and they both stared ahead for the next turn.

They were presented with the most terrible spectacle. The canal immediately broadened, until no longer a canal, but a sheet, an infinity of water stretched ahead; oily, silent, and still, as far as the eye could see, with no country edging it, nothing but water to the low grey sky above it. John had almost immediately cut out the engine, and now he tried desperately to start it again, in order to turn round. Clifford instinctively glanced behind them. He saw no canal at all, no inlet, but grasping and close to the stern of the boat, the reeds and rushes of a marshy waste closing in behind them. He stumbled to the cabin doors and pulled them open. It was very neat and tidy in there, but empty. Only one stern door of the cabin was free of its catch, and it flapped irregularly backwards and forwards with their movements in the boat.

There was no sign of Sharon at all.