Читать книгу We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea - Arthur Ransome - Страница 16

CHAPTER VI

“NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY HAPPEN”

SPLASH! Splash! Splash! Splash!

It was seven o’clock in the morning and they had been waked by a shout down the forehatch, “Rouse up there, the watch below. Anybody want a dip? No time to spare, if we’re going down the harbour before the tide turns.” Jim was already on the foredeck, in bathing things. There had been a hurried rush to join him.

“Now then,” he said, and dived.

But there were four splashes only. John, Susan, Titty and their skipper came up with the taste of salt water in their mouths, shaking their heads and blowing like seals.

“Come on, Roger,” said John.

“It’s waste not to use the ladder,” said Roger.

Jim had slung a rope ladder over the side, and fastened it to the shrouds to make it easy for people to climb aboard again. Roger meant to use it both ways.

“Go on, Roger! Head first!” said John.

But Roger was already on the lowest step of the ladder and was feeling the water with the toes of one foot.

“It isn’t very cold, really,” he said.

“It’s boiling,” said Titty. “Come on.”

Roger lowered himself into the water, let go of the ladder, and swam to join her.

“Don’t forget the ebb,” said Jim, bobbing up close beside them. “Keep close to the ship, and keep swimming. I don’t want to have to come rowing after you in the Imp if you get swept away. Go on. Swim hard, against the tide. Just a dip and out again. We can have another later on. . . There’s no time now. We ought to be sailing.”

Susan was already at the ship’s side, hanging on to the ladder.

“Out you come, Roger,” she said. She climbed up with the help of the shrouds, grabbed one of the towels she had left on the foredeck, and began a rub down.

One after another they joined her, and the foredeck rained with water.

“Come on, Titty,” said Susan. “We’ll get into our clothes in the cockpit. No good bringing half the North Sea into the cabin.”

“It isn’t the North Sea,” said Titty. “It’s only the river.”

“Just as wet,” said Susan cheerfully. She had been a bit bothered about that bathing from the anchored Goblin. Roger had been able to swim for some time now, but swimming in deep water, with the tide ready to carry you away if you gave it a chance, was very different from swimming in the lake. She was a good deal relieved to have everybody safe back aboard. Now she would get those burners lit and make them start the day properly with a solid breakfast.

But that was not to be. She was hardly dressed and down in the cabin filling the kettle before Roger, a pink savage with a towel round his middle, crawled aft along the cabin roof and looked down at her through the companion-hatch.

“I say, Susan,” he said. “Please pass up my clothes and John’s. Jim’s got into his already and they’re just going to hoist the mainsail.”

“Oh, look here,” said Susan. “They can’t start with nothing to eat after bathing.”

“I thought so too, “ said Roger. “But Jim says there isn’t time to wait for it.”

Susan put her head out, to see Jim, fully dressed, and John a kilted savage like Roger, busy with the ropes at the foot of the mast.

“You must have breakfast first. . . ” she began, but they were thinking of quite other things.

MORNING DIP

“Good,” said John. “Susan’s ready.”

“Hang on to that crutch, Mate Susan,” called Jim, “and slack away a little mainsheet.”

In a ship, orders are orders, and Susan took hold of the crutch, and Titty, who had been squeezing bathing clothes over the side, let out some mainsheet, and they saw the boom cock up over their heads.

“Breakfast,” began Susan again. “You must have some thing to eat before starting.”

“Have it when we’re under way,” called Jim. “Here you are, John, hold on to that while I get the main up. Susan! Can you just cast off that tyer, just above your head?”

The mainsail, fold on fold, was lifting off the cabin top. Roger had scrambled out of the way. The sail was up. Susan heard Jim say, “Slacken away the topping lift. That’s right. . . ” and then, “Hullo, there, Mate Susan. Stand by the tiller, will you? A.B. Titty, will you be ready to harden in the port jib sheet. . . ? No. No. Not until I’ve got the anchor off the bottom. Where’s that mop, A.B. Roger?”

The next moment she heard the rattle of the chain coming in. It was no good talking to them about breakfast. The chain was coming up, fathom after fathom. Roger had untied the mop, and John was dipping it over the side and washing the Shotley mud off the cabin. “Now then, Roger, let the jib unroll. Yes. That’s it. Just cast it loose. She’s up and down now.” Jim was looking over the bows. He was hauling again. “Anchor’s up,” he shouted. “Back the jib, John.” The chain was coming easily now, hand over hand. There was a sudden lank. “That’s right. Hold the jib out to starboard till she pays off. That’ll do. Let draw. Haul in your jib sheet, A.B. Titty.”

They were off. The boom had swung across, the mainsail had filled and the Goblin was sailing. Susan, at the tiller, was steering out to clear the Shotley piers, past which the tide was carrying them. Jim, wiping the mud off his hands on the wet mop, raced aft, cast off the mainsheet and pushed the boom out by hand.

“Not enough wind,” he said.

“But we’re moving,” said Titty.

“Mostly tide,” said Jim. “Look at the mainsheet.”

The boom was swinging in again, and the mainsheet hung in loops, dragging in the water. There was not wind enough to pull it straight. Still, the Goblin had steerage way, and the tide was helping her, sweeping down towards the harbour.

“Can’t somebody else steer?” said Susan. “They’ve simply got to have their breakfasts. It’ll be all right if they have just cornflakes and milk, to begin with. . . ”

“Not down in the cabin,” said Titty.

“You can have it in the cockpit,” said Susan.

“I say, Jim,” said Titty. “Do you think I might steer just for a bit.”

“Go ahead,” said Jim. “You can’t do much harm with the wind like this.”

But Susan had hardly slipped down the companion-steps, to get plates and spoons and cornflakes, before she remembered something else that ought to come before breakfast.

“Nobody’s cleaned their teeth,” she said. “Can they have fresh water for it?”

Jim laughed. “Half a glass each,” he said. “But salt water to spit into. Aboard ship fresh water’s liquid gold.”

So a bucket was dipped overboard, and, while Susan was ladling cornflakes into the plates, the crew of the Goblin cleaned their teeth, John taking the tiller when it was Titty’s turn.

“There’s lots more to do, Mate John,” said Jim. “We haven’t half got the mud off the foredeck. Better not put your shoes on till we’ve done washing down.”

No one could have guessed, looking at the Goblin sailing slowly past Harwich out of the mouth of the Stour, what a lot was being done aboard. There was hardly a ripple on the water. A misty sun was climbing over Felixstowe. Smoke was rising from the chimneys of Harwich, where people ashore were cooking their breakfasts. The smoke climbed almost straight up and then drifted idly away. The movement of the tide shook the reflections of the anchored barges and of the ships in the harbour and of the grey jetties and houses of the town.

“If you’ve done with that bucket,” said Jim, “we’ll have it forrard for sloshing water on the deck.”

“There’s a barge with its riding light still burning,” said Roger.

“Sleeping late,” laughed Jim. “They’d be up and moving if there was a bit of wind. But I dare say there’ll be wind later. Or fog. Or both. You never know what’s coming with a day that starts like this.”

As he spoke a long wall sounded from out at sea.

“Beu. . . eueueueueueueu!”

“Cork lightship,” said Jim. “They’ve got enough mist out there to give them their twopence an hour.”

“Twopence an hour,” said Roger.

“They get twopence an hour extra while that row’s going on in their ears.”

“First course. Cornflakes and milk,” said Susan, passing up the filled plates one after another. “Who’s ready?”

“I am,” said Roger.

“Everybody,” said Jim. “What about yourself ?”

“I want to get the stove lit. . . Tea and eggs,” said Susan.

“No hurry,” said Jim. “We’re not going to start our breakfast if the cook isn’t tucking into hers.”

So Susan came up too, and deck-washing came to an end, and the crew of the Goblin made themselves comfortable, sitting on the cabin top and in the cockpit, with deep plates full of milk and cornflakes.

“Beu. . . eueueueueueueu. . . ”

Every fifteen seconds that long wall sounded from somewhere beyond Felixstowe, somewhere out at sea.

“But it isn’t foggy here,” said Roger.

“It may be outside,” said Jim. “It’s nothing like as clear as it was last night. You won’t be able to see the lightship even when we get down to the Beach End buoy. On a clear day you’d see it easily. And we ought to be able to see the Naze from here.”

They had passed the Guard buoy now, and were heading down as if for the sea. Now and again a gentle little puff filled the mainsail, and by watching floating weed they could see that they were moving through the water as well as past the land. A seaplane roared overhead and came down on the water in a long swoop, sending the spray flying. “Like a swan coming down in Rio Bay,” said Titty. Far ahead of them they could see the two buoys, Beach End and Cliff Foot, that marked the way out for the steamships. Beyond those buoys the sea seemed gradually to lose itself in mist. It was hard to tell where sea ended and mist began, though here, in the harbour, they could see quite clearly the houses of Felixstowe on one side and Harwich on the other.

“It doesn’t look as if it could ever turn into waves,” said Titty, staring across the wide stretch of almost oily water.

“I’ve seen it just like glass,” said Jim. “And then, an hour or two later, I’ve been taking in reefs and having a job to keep the sea where it belongs.”

“Where’s that?” said Roger.

“Not in the cockpit,” said Jim with a grin.

Not in the cockpit. They looked at the cockpit, comfortable and deep, with its high coamings, with the deck outside them and the water so far below. It seemed impossible that ever the sea could come heaping up and throwing itself aboard.

“Has it ever come in here?” said Titty.

“Hasn’t it?” said Jim.

“What do you do when it does?” asked John.

“Pump it out,” said Jim, and he showed them the small square lid in the seat, and the pump handle just below it, and let Roger pump for a little, just to feel what it was like.

Light though the wind was, and fitful, the last of the ebb took them down the harbour at a good pace. Those outer buoys, at first dim black specks in the distance, were now clearly different. One, with a pointed top, was the Beach End buoy. The other, flat-topped, was called Cliff Foot. Roger was told he had earned full marks by remembering that Beach End must be the starboard hand buoy and Cliff Foot the port hand buoy for vessels coming in. Not even Susan wanted to go below deck just now when they were coming nearer and nearer to the place at which harbour ends and sea begins.

“Are we going right down to the buoys?” asked John.

“I promised you shouldn’t go further,” said Jim, “and it really isn’t worth while going so far a day like this. There’s nothing to see. . . ”

“But sea,” chuckled Roger.

“Not much of that with this mist,” said Jim. “Never mind. We’ll go up to Ipswich this morning, and it may be clearer when we come back.”

“Did you mean it when you said we’d signal to them as we go by?” asked Titty.

“Why not?” said Jim. “We’ve got the flags. . . But Mrs Walker won’t have a code book.”

“She knows the flags,” said John.

“Good,” said Jim. “We’ll hoist O and K to the cross-trees to show her that everything’s all right.”

“May we look at the flags?” asked Titty.

“They’re in a roll in the shelf over your bunk,” said Jim, and a minute later Titty had brought up the white canvas roll and opened it, and they were looking at the neatly folded flags, each in a labelled pocket of its own. She found the O, red and yellow, and the K, yellow and blue.

“Do you ever use them?” asked John.

“Only for fun,” said Jim. “Uncle Bob likes to have them just in case he wants a pilot or something.”

“What’s the flag for a pilot,” asked Titty.

“S,” said Jim.

Titty pulled out the S flag, a dark blue square with a wide white border.^* She folded it and put it away. “We shan’t want a pilot flag on this voyage,” she said regretfully.

“I never take a pilot anyhow if I don’t have to,” said Jim, thinking of something else. He stood up and looked round the sky.

“We’ll have to get that staysail up without waiting for the deck to dry,” he said. “And we’ll have to turn back in a minute. There’s hardly enough wind to beat the tide, and I don’t want to drift out beyond the buoys. . . ”

“Let’s turn now,” said Susan.

“Oh I say, let’s go as far as the buoys,” said John.

“Clang!”

“What’s that?” Susan, Roger and Titty all asked at once, in different tones.

“Somebody ringing at us?” said Titty.

“Breakfast gong,” said Roger.

“It’s the Beach End buoy,” said Jim. “There isn’t enough of a ripple to set it properly booming. Look here, John. I’ll have that staysail up. Will you go through the cabin and pass it up through the forehatch?” He went forward along the side deck.

“Bring her round, Titty,” he said.

“But nothing happens,” said Titty, putting the tiller across first one way and then, desperately, the other. The mainsail hung idle and half the mainsheet was slowly sinking. The wind had dropped to a dead calm and the Goblin had not even steerage way.

A bundle of red staysail appeared through the forehatch.

“No. Stow it away again,” said Jim. “There’s no wind at all.”

He hurried aft, looking over his shoulder at the buoys, the ebb was still running and the buoys were coming rapidly nearer.

“Feet out of the way everybody,” he said. “Got to start up Billy. That’s it. Feet out of the way.”

“Can I be engineer?” said Roger.

“All right. Get the spanner out of that starboard locker. Got to give a turn to the grease cap on the stern tube. Always have to do that before starting.”

He lifted a board in the floor of the cockpit, reached down with Roger trying to look over his shoulder, came up again, wiped his hands on a lump of cotton waste, and put the board back into place.

“Hope to goodness Billy has the sense to start when he’s wanted,” he said, as he dropped down the companion, into the cabin.

“Clang!”

“We’re nearly out of the harbour already,” said Susan.

“You try to steer,” said Titty, and John took the useless tiller.

From below in the cabin came talk of grease and oil, Roger’s voice, “Oh let me pour it in,” and Jim’s, “Buck up, then,” and “Keep clear while I swing her.” They had almost reached the Cliff Foot buoy when there was the noise of the engine being turned over, and suddenly the quiet of the windless morning was broken by a slow chug, chug, that quickened, chug, chug, cough, chug, and steadied again.

Jim, followed by Roger, shot up from below.

“Good old Billy,” he said. “Just in time to keep our promises.” He leaned out over the transom, to see that the water was coming out of the exhaust as it should, hauled in the Imp’s painter, for fear it should get wound up by the propeller, and turned to Roger. “Now then, engineer. Put her ahead. Shove that lever right forward.”

“Look out for your leg, Titty,” said Roger, and as Titty took her leg out of the way he pushed forward the lever that stuck up out of the cockpit floor. The engine took up the work, and Jim let go the Imp’s painter and fiddled with the throttle. The chug, chug quickened.

“She’s moving,” said Roger, looking over the side.

“That’s right, John. Swing her round. We’ll go close up the Felixstowe side.” He was rattling in the mainsheet, and made it fast with the boom well in. They could hear the relief in his voice.

“What would have happened if the engine hadn’t started?” said Titty.

“We’d have drifted out to sea,” said Jim.

“Which way?”

“Out by the Cork lightship,” said Jim. “The ebb runs about north-east. We shouldn’t have gone very far because it’s practically low water and the flood would have brought us back. But I promised your mother we shouldn’t go outside the buoys.”

“We all promised,” said Susan, looking astern at the Cliff Foot buoy.

“Beu. . . eueueueueueu,” sounded the foghorn from the lightship.

“Thank goodness the engine did start,” said Susan, and then, in an altogether happier voice, she said, “I’m going to light the stove now, and we’ll have the rest of breakfast. Boiled eggs, I think, and tea.”

“Good,” said Jim. “We’ll lower the mainsail and roll up the jib. No good pretending to be sailing. We’ll run up to Ipswich with the motor.”

“Can I try steering her?” said Roger.

“Go ahead,” said Jim. “Keep her straight for the mills by Felixstowe Dock. Yes. Those high buildings.”

“I can’t see while everybody’s just in front of me,” said Roger, feeling that for the first time he was in command.

Except, perhaps, Roger, not one of them would in the ordinary way have been glad to feel that the Goblin had her motor running. But today, even John, who cared for nothing but sail, was grateful to the little engine chug-chugging away under the companion-steps. It had saved them at the very last minute and was taking them quickly further and further way from the danger of a broken promise.

John and Jim quite cheerfully rolled up the jib, took the weight of the boom on the topping lift, and let the useless mainsail down on the cabin top. Jim put a couple of tyers round it, for neatness’ sake, leaving it all ready to hoist again as soon as there should be some wind.

The stove in the galley at the side of the companion broke into a cheerful roar. Susan passed up a saucepan for salt water in which to boil the eggs.

“Will she go any faster?” said Roger, talking very loudly, because of the noise of the engine.

Jim grinned and bent down and opened the throttle. The Goblin shot forward, the water foamed past her sides, and the Imp, towing astern, had a good bow wash of her own.

“Gosh,” said Roger. “We’ll be at Pin Mill in two minutes.”

“About an hour,” said Jim.

Already the Goblin was pushing up the channel close to the pierheads of the dock at Felixstowe. They could read the name of the Pier Hotel, and could see a red motor-bus by the dock gates.

“Water’s boiling,” said Susan. “How many eggs shall I put in?”

Down there, at the foot of the companion-way, she was close to the engine, and, in the cockpit, they could not hear a word that she was saying. They leaned forward to listen.

“How many eggs for the skipper?” she shouted.

“TWO!” shouted Jim.

“SOFT OR HARD?”

“HARDISH.”

Looking down, they could see her putting the eggs, one by one, into the saucepan of bubbling water. She was just putting the saucepan back on the stove when they looked suddenly at each other. The noise of the engine was changing. That quick, whirring, chug, chug, chug slackened, faded out, stopped, went on once more, and finally, after a few half-hearted chugs, died altogether. For a moment there was silence. It was broken by Roger.

“Oh I say, Susan, you’ve gone and stopped the engine.”

“I haven’t touched it,” said Susan from below.

Jim jumped down and gave a few turns to the starting handle. The engine coughed, chugged twice, and stopped once more. He climbed out into the cockpit, swept Titty off the starboard seat, lifted a little lid, like the lid over the pump, unscrewed a cap beneath it, and peered down into the petrol tank.

“Bone dry,” he said. “What an idiot. I must have used more than I thought the night before last. I ought to have filled up before starting. Hi, Roger, look out. . . ” He glanced round at the Felixstowe pierheads and then the other way. The Goblin was still moving. He swung her round slowly and let Roger have the tiller again.

“Keep her heading like that, on Harwich Church spire. She’ll carry her way till she’s out of the channel. We’ll anchor the shelf . . . ”

Susan had come up from below. All four of them stood in the cockpit, while the Goblin, steered by Roger, slipped silently, more and more slowly, past a large flat-topped buoy which they could read “NORTH SHELF.” Jim had run forward, and they could hear chain being hauled up on deck.

“She’s hardly moving,” called John.

There was a great splash and then a rattle of chain as the anchor went down. Jim made fast and came aft.

“What are we going to do?” asked Roger.

“Wait for wind,” said John.

“Get some petrol,” said Jim. “There’s a garage between here and Felixstowe, and if I can catch that bus it won’t take ten minutes.” He was rummaging under the cockpit seat and presently pulled out an empty petrol tin. “Couldn’t have run out of petrol at a better place,” he was saying. “I never use Billy if I can help it, but I hate to feel he isn’t on duty and ready if he’s wanted. Next time I miss my moorings, there may not be a boatload of sailors to take a rope for me. I’ll just a couple of gallons and then we’ll be all right. Blooming donkey I was, not to have looked in the tank yesterday.”