The Cilla Rose Affair

Chapter One

Chapter One

April 1966

"Isn't she lovely? Dusty Springfield—you only wanna be with me? What a surprise, because funnily enough—I Only Want to Be With You. This is mad Mark Braden, bobbing up and down in the water at a comfortable wavelength of 308 metres—broadcasting to Greater London, the Home Counties, the South, Midlands, East Anglia and Northern Europe. What a mouthful. Graham Stanshall's up next—keep those lovely cards and letters coming and I'll see you all again tomorrow night. This is Colourful 308, Radio Seasound, Britain's most listened-to pop pirate—and here they are, our very own Fab Four—The Beatles—I Feel Fine."

Evan Harris was listening to his oldest son's transistor radio. It was a miserable night, a cold and wet night, and the seas were rough. It was a horrible night to be making a journey like this, but the journey was necessary, and he was It.

The tender ploughed through the rising waves, bucking the swells, dipping and crashing. Through the driving rain Evan could see, off to starboard, the swaying lights of the Cilla Rose, her decks, her portholes, her 200 foot mast. She was an old minesweeper, converted after the war to cargo, refitted again in the 1960's to join the legion of illegal broadcasters anchored in England's coastal waters.

The captain of the supply boat made two passes at the Cilla Rose. On the third try, he was successful, and lines were hurled out to secure a mooring.

"Come on, then, if you're going aboard."

Evan stowed the radio in the pocket of his thick winter duffel, and accepted the steady helping hand of one of the tender's crew. He stepped gingerly over the chasm, with the sea spuming up between the two bows, and landed safely on the wet wooden deck.

"Half an hour," the sailor warned him. "If you're not back in time, here you stay."

* * *

"Tender's here." Graham Stanshall poked his head inside the tiny, windowless control room.

"Cheers, mate." Mark collected the litter of his airshift—stacks of taped adverts, IDs and jingles, record albums and singles, scraps of scribbled copy—and vacated his post. Outside, he could hear the crew from the supply boat making their way along to the galley for tea and chat. At the other end of the ship, next week's provisions were being off-loaded. Mark left his colleague in the gangway and climbed topside to see what the tender had brought aboard.

"Hallo, Evan." A friend from shore. "Come out to keep an eye on me? Always glad to see a pal. Stinking night for it, though." He lit a cigarette, turning his back to the rain and shielding the flame from the wind with his hand. Evan caught the silent look of warning in his colleague's eyes. "Want a tour?"

"All right," he agreed, easily.

"Mind how you go on the stairs, then—she tends to roll quite a bit when the sea's coming up."

* * *

Mark unlocked the door to his cabin and held it open. "Home sweet home. Cramped but comfy. All the mod. cons."

It was a tiny room, with a radiant heater plugged in beside a narrow cot, a multi-duty table littered with magazines, oranges, cigarettes, an electric fan. Mirror on the wall over the sink. Chest of drawers. Cupboard. Lifejacket.

Evan hung onto a wooden handrail in the corridor. He was no stranger to the sea. It coursed through his body, courtesy of a fiery, red-headed Irishman of a grandfather who had been the captain of a merchant sailing vessel. He felt the surge of Connor Harris's salty blood in his veins and tasted and smelled the tang of the open waters in the ship's wood and steel and pitch and paint.

He loved the sea.

Unfortunately, the sea did not much love him.

A Dramamine would have helped, but Dramamine had side effects, and he could not afford to be drowsy, his reflexes slowed, his mind off-guard.

"What do you do during storms?" he said, gripping the railing. "Take up the anchor?"

Mark was digging through a drawer. "One of them. She's got two—one forward, one aft. We haul one up when it starts to get rough and ride 'round in circles til it stops." He found what he was looking for: a missal-sized book, of the sort one would expect to find in the darkest depths of the second-hand shops along Charing Cross Road. Its cloth cover was worn, its colour fading to grey. Muirhead's Short Blue Guide to London.

Evan slipped the book quickly into the pocket of his jacket as a bearded DJ appeared from the cabin next door, lugging a duffel bag.

"Simon Darrow," Mark said, stepping back out into the companionway, shutting his door again and locking it. "The most recognizable voice in Britain."

"Yes, I've heard of you." Evan shook his hand.

"Evan Harris," Mark added. "The actor."

"I've heard of you, too," Darrow said. They walked together down the hallway. "Heard any updates on that gale warning?"

"It's been extended to all of the south-east," Evan said.

Darrow flashed a grin at Mark. "You're in for a rough night, my old mate."

"You cheerful sod. Enjoy your shore leave, won't you? I was just telling my pal here all about Seasound."

"We're the Number Two pop pirate in the country," Simon Darrow said, pushing the door to the deck open and pulling up his hood. "Our main competition comes from Caroline, anchored fifteen miles in that direction —" He nodded towards Frinton-on-Sea. "There's another ship nearby—Atlanta. And there's that old wartime defence fort off Whitstable at Shivering Sands."

"Radio City," Mark supplied. "The brainchild of Screaming Lord Sutch."

The wind and the rain had increased appreciably. Evan steeled himself for the return journey over the pitching decks as one of the other DJ's with shore leave braved the leap. "Makes you wonder where we'll all be thirty years from now, though, doesn't it?"

"Earning big fat paycheques in London, I hope," Mark said. "The government's doing its level best to scuttle the pirates at the moment—but you watch. Once we've lured all the listeners away from old mother BBC and begun to show a profit—they'll start up their own bloody music stations."

He held the duffel bag as Darrow leaped over the chasm onto the tender, then pitched it across to his colleague's waiting arms.

"Have a safe trip back," he said, to Evan.

"You take care of yourself," Evan answered. There was danger, still, in Mark's eyes.

He made the crossing, and the lines were loosed, and the tender pulled away, growling into the storming night.