Читать книгу Peter Duck - Arthur Ransome - Страница 19

CHAPTER VIII

FIRST NIGHT AT SEA

ALL THAT DAY they sailed on with the north-east wind driving them southwards, past Walberswick, with its church tower and windmill, past Aldeburgh and Orfordness, and then from one lightship to another across the wide mouth of the Thames estuary. They passed the Shipwash lightship, with its ball at the mast-head, and the Long Sand, with its diamond, and then changed course a little so that they passed close by the Kentish Knock, which had a small ball on the top of a large one. They passed so near the Kentish Knock that they waved their hands to a man on the deck of the light-vessel and he waved his hand to them. Then they changed course again, steering a little west of south, for the Elbow buoy off the North Foreland. It was not a very clear day and for a long time they had been out of sight of land, and when they saw the North Foreland, with its steep chalk cliffs and the white lighthouse above them, they felt already like ancient mariners making a landfall after a long voyage.

They had had a fairly rough passage, too, but as the day wore on, Nancy and Titty had begun to feel better. The others had said nothing to them about their misfortune. None of the others had been seasick, but they could not be sure that they would not be, later on. Gradually, during the day, they had learnt how to keep their balance on the swaying deck of the little schooner. They had learnt the whereabouts of all the best things to which it was possible to hang on while moving about. Captain Flint had divided them into watches, too. He was taking the port watch, because in the saloon he sat in the arm-chair at the port end of the table and Peter Duck, who sat in the arm-chair at the starboard end, was to take the starboard watch. Lists were made by John and copied out on a sheet of paper pinned up inside the deckhouse:

Port Watch	Starboard Watch
CAPTAIN FLINT	MR. DUCK
NANCY	JOHN
PEGGY	SUSAN
TITTY	ROGER

These lists looked all right, but Titty and Roger were not to keep regular watches, but to make themselves useful when wanted, and, as Captain Flint said, they couldn’t expect the mates to do the cooking and be on duty at the same time and half the night as well. But it was a good thing to have the list so that all knew their proper places.

“But aren’t we going to stop somewhere for the night?” asked Peggy.

“What for?” said Captain Flint.

“Sailing in the dark?”

“Why not? It’s a grand night and a fine wind, and we’re lucky to have it.”

It was just about Roger’s bedtime, and a late bedtime at that, when they had the North Foreland abeam. Roger wanted to be allowed to stay up, but Susan and Captain Flint would have none of it, though it was agreed that Roger should be waked if the engine was wanted during the night. Titty, too, was sent off to bed, but she did not mind because she had got well enough to have some Yarmouth bloater for supper (she had only sucked an orange for dinner, like Nancy, though the others were eating hot mutton chops) and she thought that if she lay down at once she might be able to keep herself from being sick. At dusk she took a last look round on deck, and a last look at the black schooner that had followed them down the coast all day, and then, determined to be better in the morning, hurried down below and was lying flat in her bunk just as soon as she had been able to get there. Susan and Peggy were allowed to stay up some time, partly on the excuse of doing a little washing up, but when they had had a good look at the rows and clusters of flickering lights that marked Broadstairs and Ramsgate, they too were urged to go below.

“I’d send the whole crew to bed,” said Captain Flint, “but four eyes are better than two, and we’ll be sailing through the Downs to the bottle-neck of the Channel, and there’ll be a lot of shipping. I’m taking the first watch tonight, and Mr. Duck and John’ll be wise to get all the sleep they can now, for they’ll be on duty at midnight when Nancy and I’ll be going to our bunks. How are you, Nancy?”

“Quite all right,” said Nancy stoutly.

“Fine,” said Captain Flint. “Put an extra sweater on and keep the rest of this watch with me.”

The four of them went below, Susan and Peggy to settle down for the night, Nancy to get some warm things, and John to lie down after borrowing Susan’s alarm clock, setting it to go off at ten minutes to twelve and putting it under the pillow of his bunk.

Mr. Duck had lit the side lights some time before they were needed. He had gone forward to have a look at them, to see that they were still burning brightly, green to starboard, red to port, to show any other vessel she might meet in the darkness which way the Wild Cat was going. He was busy now making sure that the lamp inside the deckhouse should throw its clear light on the compass so that the steersman, from outside, could see it plainly through the little window. As soon as he was satisfied with that, he put his head out of the deckhouse door and looked aft, as Titty had, to see if the following schooner was still there. There were a good many lights about, and he did not stay to make sure.

“You’d better get your sleep, Mr. Duck,” said Captain Flint. “You’ve only an hour or two.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the old seaman. He took his old head in again, laid him down on the starboard bunk in the deckhouse and began to snore, an easy, comfortable, mellow snoring, as soon as his head touched the rolled-up coat that he always liked better than a pillow.

Nancy came on deck with a scarf wound round her neck and an oilskin coat over her sweater.

“Hullo,” she said, as she came round the deckhouse to the wheel and heard that steady snore, “Mr. Duck’s asleep.”

“Good man he is,” said Captain Flint. “That’s the way to do it. Waste no time in counting sheep but go to sleep as you hit the pillow and wake up ready for any job that offers. That’s the sailor’s way.”

“What’s that light over there? Playing tricks.”

“Over where?”

“Broad on the port side,” Nancy chuckled.

“That’s better,” said Captain Flint. “North Goodwin lightship. Three flashes together once a minute. We’re going inside the Goodwins. Come along now and take the wheel and see what you make of compass steering in the dark. South by west’s the course.”

“Sou’ by west it is,” said Nancy, taking over the wheel.

“That’s the style,” said Captain Flint, and though Nancy could not see his face, she knew he was smiling. “Keep your mind on the compass card and on steering a straight course and you’ll have no time to be seasick.” And with that he left her to it and went forward along the deck, to listen to the water under the Wild Cat’s forefoot and the wind in the rigging and to feel that he too, like Peter Duck, was glad to be at sea again. “Go anywhere,” the old man had said. And why not? He came aft again.

“And what did you think of that yarn of Mr. Duck’s last night?” he said.

“Jolly good story,” said Nancy.

“Yes,” said Captain Flint rather tamely.

But Nancy did not notice his disappointment. She had quite enough to think of with the steering wheel in her hands, and the compass card in its bowl behind the window restlessly swinging. The line at the back of the bowl never marked the same point of the compass for ten seconds together. Now south, now south-south-west, and Nancy busy with the wheel trying her hardest to steady it on a point between the two. And Captain Flint had much to think of, besides the strange tale of buried treasure. Every now and then he would dive into the deckhouse, make a mark on the chart on the table there and hurry out once more. Every time he opened the deckhouse door Peter Duck’s snoring sounded louder.

“There’s something grand about that snoring,” said Captain Flint at last.

“We hardly need those foghorns,” said Nancy, “not if we can count on him to be asleep at the right moment.”

On and on through the summer night, the Wild Cat hurried on her way. It was as if she, too, were glad to be out of harbour at last and bound for somewhere or other. Her green starboard light glowed on the foam that churned away to leeward. The cool wind plucked at the steersman’s hair under her stocking cap. She turned to Captain Flint who was standing beside her dimly lit by the light from the compass window.

“I should never have thought she’d go so fast with such a little wind.”

“But it isn’t a little wind,” said Captain Flint. “It’s a rattling good one, and you would think it half a gale if we were going the other way and had to beat against it.”

On and on the Wild Cat hurried through the Downs. Here and there were the riding-lights of coasters anchored in shelter, waiting to go north with the change of the tide. Through the Gull Channel the little schooner passed, and Captain Flint and Nancy saw how the Brake lightship, straining at her anchor, pitched as the seas passed under her, so that the red light flashing from her mast seemed to be trying to scratch half-circles in the sky. Other light-vessels were in sight for a time. There was the East Goodwin flashing out once every ten seconds away on the other side of those dangerous sands. There was the South Goodwin with its two flashes twice a minute. There was the blaze of Deal town, and the South Foreland light, high above the cliff, flashing ceaselessly, urgently, once every two and a half seconds, was unmistakable away there on the starboard bow. Each lightship and lighthouse had its own message to give in the language of flashes, and Captain Flint, checking the flashes with his stopwatch, knew where he was as well as if it had been broad daylight. Then, besides these lights, which were the signposts of the sea, there were all the moving lights of the traffic making use of them, white mast-head lights above red and green sidelights showing the steamships and reds and greens with no mast-head lights showing the sailing vessels. The nearer the Wild Cat came to the Channel the more lights there were to be seen as big and little ships crowded together entering or leaving the North Sea. A huge liner bound for the East out of London river came racing southwards towards the Channel, a tremendous mass of lights like a runaway town in the dark.

Now and then Captain Flint took over the wheel, and left Nancy to count flashes and watch the moving lights, but she felt safer from seasickness when she was thinking of the steering of the ship.

At midnight the South Foreland light was abeam. There was no sign of John, and they had only to listen to hear the steady snore of Peter Duck still sounded from the deckhouse.

“What do you say, Nancy,” said Captain Flint. “Time to call the starboard watch. But we can carry on a bit longer without jibing, and when we do jibe we’ll want their help and they’ll want ours. Shall we let them sleep till we’re fairly round the Foreland?”