Читать книгу Great Northern? - Arthur Ransome - Страница 9

ON A HILL above the cliff a boy in Highland dress turned from watching the deer in the valley to look out over the sea. He saw a sail far away. It was no more than a white speck in the distance and presently he turned his back on it and settled down again to watch the deer.

The Sea Bear, with Nancy at the tiller, was lolloping comfortably along in bright sunshine, heading towards the rocky coast of one of the islands of the Hebrides. She was an old Norwegian pilot cutter and had been borrowed by Captain Flint (Nancy’s and Peggy’s Uncle Jim) for himself and his crew of Blacketts, Walkers and Callums. The Minch can be a stormy sea, but they had been lucky in their weather and now after a happy fortnight of good sailing with almost every night spent in a different harbour they were going to put her aground in a sheltered cove, scrape off the barnacles and weed, put a fresh coat of paint on her below the water-line and take her back to the port on the mainland from which they had started, to hand her over to her owner all spick and span and ready for him to take to sea again at once.

“Nobody much likes lending boats,” Captain Flint had said. “The least we can do is to let Mac have her back better than before we had her.”

“Then, perhaps, he’ll lend her to us again,” Roger had agreed.

Nancy was at the tiller. Peggy, her mate and sister, was in the cockpit beside her, ready to give a hand with a rope if need be. Captain Flint was smoking a pipe, sitting on the cabin skylight, watching for the square-topped hill that would show them the way to the cove they had to find. Roger was sitting on the forehatch, keeping a look out and wondering how soon the others would agree that the wind, which had been dropping since the early morning, had weakened so far that it would be worth while to start the engine. The rest of the crew were down below, in the cabin, except for Susan, who had been keeping an eye on the clock and had just gone forward into the fo’c’sle, to light a Primus stove and to put a kettle on it for the ship’s company’s tea.

The cabin had been little changed since the days when the Sea Bear had been a working pilot cutter. There were still the six berths of the pilots, built as it were in the walls of the ship, above the long settees. Going to bed, as Titty had said, was like getting into a rabbit hutch. But, once you were in, you could shut yourself off from everybody else by pulling a curtain across. Many a tired pilot must have slept in one of those bunks while the other pilots, only a yard or two away, were playing cards with each other under the cabin lamp. Further aft were two more bunks, one on each side, close to the companion ladder and handy for going on deck. They had been used in old days by the men whose business it was to take the cutter to sea to meet the big ships coming in, put pilots aboard them and pick up other pilots from the big ships outward bound. John and Captain Flint slept in these bunks. Nancy, Peggy, Susan, Titty, Dorothea and Dick had each one of the cupboard bunks in the main cabin while Roger, being the smallest, had a bunk in the fo’c’sle which once upon a time, no doubt, had belonged to a Norwegian ship’s boy.

John, feet wide apart to steady himself, was leaning over the chart table by the companion ladder, looking now at the big chart that showed the coasts on both sides of the Minch, the Scottish mainland and the Outer Hebrides, and now at a much smaller chart that showed in detail the tiny cove for which the ship was making. Mac, the owner of the Sea Bear, had left a lot of these little charts aboard her. John and Nancy spent happy hours looking through them and, when Captain Flint had said that he meant to give the ship a scrub before handing her over they had brandished this particular chart before him. “Look at this,” Nancy had said. “Mac didn’t bother about taking her to a harbour for scrubbing. Look at that anchor and look at that cross and what he’s scribbled in pencil in the margin … ‘Scrubbed Sea Bear’ … Let’s do the same. She’s got her own legs. There’s no need to take her into a harbour and lean her up against a pier.” Rather unwillingly, Captain Flint had agreed.

Titty was lying on her stomach in her cupboard bunk, sucking a pencil and bringing up to date her private log of the voyage, a rather different log from the business-like one kept by John and Nancy, which was all courses and distances run and remarks on changes of wind and weather. It was a good deal easier to write lying on your stomach in a bunk than sitting at the cabin table while the Sea Bear was crashing her way to windward. (Not that she was crashing very hard at the moment, with only a failing wind to drive her, but there had been times when she had crashed very hard indeed and Titty had got into the way of writing her log in her bunk.) Dorothea was also writing, but her writing had nothing to do with what happened aboard ship. She had wedged herself into a corner by the mast, leaning back against the bulkhead that divided cabin from fo’c’sle, and was making up her mind whether the villain in her new story should have a black beard and earrings or be clean-shaven with a scar across his cheek.

Dick, who had been appointed Ship’s Naturalist, was sitting on the starboard settee, with a pencil in one hand while with the other he was keeping the Pocket Book of Birds and his notebook from sliding off the cabin table. He was making a list of the birds seen during the cruise and telling himself that the voyage had been a success in spite of his disappointment at not seeing the particular birds for which he had been keeping a look-out. “I say,” he had said when he had first heard of the northern port from which they were sailing and the islands they were to visit, “we’ll be seeing Divers.” “With brass helmets,” Dorothea had said, “going down under the sea and coming up with bars of gold from sunken wrecks.” “Not that kind of Diver,” he had explained. “Birds. Red-throated and Black-throated. We might even have a chance of seeing a Great Northern, though they’ll most of them be in Iceland by now.” All through the cruise he had been watching for them, and now, with the cruise all but over, he was consoling himself by remembering how many others he had been able to add to the list of birds he had seen with his own eyes … gannets, guillemots, terns, petrels, fulmars, puffins, razorbills, mergansers, and so tame some of them. He was almost sure that some of his photographs of gulls would come out all right, and perhaps, though it had been taken from a long way off, that one of a shag in the act of swallowing a fish. But he had seen no Divers, and if, tomorrow, they were all going to be hard at work scrubbing the ship, there would be no other chance.

“I say, John,” he asked, “you know the lakes shown on that chart? How far are they from the place where we’ll be anchored? Can I have a look?”

John dropped on the settee beside Dick and held the little chart so that they could look at it together. It showed an inlet in the coast-line, divided into two by a promontory and a line of rocks. There was flattish country to the south, a cliff and hills to the north, and inland were a number of small lochs, two of them drained by a stream that came out at the head of the cove that was marked with an anchor and a cross on the shore. On those lochs, Dick thought, there might be Divers to be seen. John was interested not in the lochs but in a neat sketch at the head of the chart showing the outline of the hills behind the coast, with a dotted line ruled straight down from one corner of a square-topped hill, and a note written beside it, “N. end of Sq. Top bearing W. ½ N. leads to cliff on N. side of Entrance.”

MAC’S CHART OF THE COVE

We put in some of the names. (Not very well. Sorry.) N.B.

There was a sudden stamp of feet on the foredeck. Roger’s voice shrilled out, “Sail HO! … At least, not sail. Motor boat … Starboard quarter …”

It was the first vessel to be sighted that day. John, the little chart still in his hand, was up the companion ladder in a flash. Dorothea wriggled round the table to follow him. Titty rolled out of her bunk and made a dead heat of it with Dorothea. Even Susan, after a careful glance at the stove to see that the flame was neither too high nor too low, banged at the underneath of the forehatch, in case Roger was on the top of it, pushed it up and climbed out. Dick, who had glanced back to his bird-book, where it said that Black-throated Divers were to be found on mountain lochs near the coast, looked up to find that he had the cabin to himself. Everybody else was on deck.

There was a lot of chatter up there. People were taking turns with glasses and telescope. “Look here, it’s my turn now. I spotted her first.” That was Roger. “Only a motor boat, anyway.” That was John. “She’s going to pass us pretty close.” That was Nancy. “You carry on, Nancy. We’ve the right of way. You’ve nothing to worry about. She’ll pass under our stern.” That was Captain Flint. “She’s coming up a terrific lick.” That was Roger. “Probably carrying dispatches.” That was Titty. “Or taking a doctor to one of the lighthouses.” That was Dorothea.

Dick hardly heard the chatter. He was looking at the coloured pictures in his bird-book, showing the Divers he had never seen. Tomorrow would be the very last chance. The chatter on deck meant nothing to him until, suddenly, he heard his own name.

“It’s Dick’s boat.” That was Peggy’s voice. “Dick! Take a look. Where is he? Hey! Dick!”

Dorothea called down the companion ladder. “Dick! Dick! Hurry up. It’s your bird-man and he’s going to pass us quite close.”

Dick was already working his way along the slanting cabin floor and reaching for the ladder. Dorothea pushed the glasses into his hand as he came on deck. He had no need of them to recognize the bird-man’s boat. He knew her the moment he saw her, but, balancing as best he could and trying to hold the glasses steady, he used them to read at least some of the many letters of her name. “P.T.E.R….” The Sea Bear lurched and the glasses were pointing at sky instead of boat … He swung them down and read the last lot of letters … “A.C.T.Y.L.” Yes, she was the Pterodactyl all right, on her way back. Earlier in their cruise they had seen her in that harbour on the other side of the cape and Dick had told the others what her name meant, PTERODACTYL, a sort of half-bird half-lizard, prehistoric, of course, and extinct. And then, while they were ashore, coming along the quay, all laden with provisions, they had seen her moving out, and had stopped to watch her. “Off again after his birds,” a longshoreman had said. “Shetlands, he’s bound for. Looking for birds. His fourth trip this year.” “What did you say he was?” Dick had asked. “One of those bird chaps,” the man had said. “Tell him of a rare bird and he’ll go five hundred miles, they say. Pays good money, too, to anybody who tells him where to find one.” Dick had watched the big motor yacht slip away beyond the pierheads and, after they were back aboard their ship, he had climbed the rigging to the cross-trees and caught just a glimpse of her outside, already no more than a white speck of flying spray, on her way to the far northern nesting places of the sea birds. Some day, perhaps, he too would have a boat like that. He would have a whole library of bird-books in her, and a dark room for photography, and a camera with a telephoto lens to take photographs of birds without having to come near enough to disturb them. He would have given anything to have been able to go aboard the Pterodactyl and talk with a real bird-man who was doing all the things that he, Dick, would like to do. The others had laughed at him (all except Roger, who liked engines) and had said that she was only a motor boat anyway, and that you could go to look for birds in a sailing vessel and have all the fun of sailing as well. Every time they had seen a motor boat after that, someone had said, “There’s a ship for Dick,” but he had not minded their teasing. The Pterodactyl, even if she was moved by a motor, belonged to a bird-man who was using her just as Dick would like to use a vessel of his own, big enough to live in, as a travelling observation post. With a boat like that, you could migrate with the birds.

The Pterodactyl crossed the bows of the Sea Bear with twenty or thirty yards to spare.

“Beastly rude,” said Nancy.

“Quite within his rights,” said Captain Flint. “Going at that lick, he’ll be thinking of us as practically standing still. All the same it would have been better manners not to rub it in. “

Dick, with the glasses, was trying to catch a glimpse of the bird-man himself. But the Pterodactyl was steered from inside a deckhouse and he could not see who was at the wheel. There was no one on deck as the big motor yacht drove on her way, foam flying from her bows.

“He’s probably seen lots of them,” said Dick to himself

“Seen what?” said Peggy.

“Dick’s thinking about birds,” said Dorothea.

“Divers,” said Dick.

“An hour’s time and that boat’ll be in port,” said Captain Flint, glancing into the companion at the clock that was screwed to a beam so as to be easily seen from on deck. “That is, if she’s going back to …” (For a very good reason the name of the harbour where they had first seen the Pterodactyl will not be mentioned in this book.)

“If we’re going in there to get petrol before starting across you’ll be able to see her again,” said Dorothea to her brother.

“Of course she may be going somewhere else,” said Dick.

“Let’s start our engine,” said Roger, who had come aft and had very much disliked seeing the Pterodactyl moving so much faster than the Sea Bear.

“Shiver my timbers,” said Nancy. “What are you doing here? You’re on the look out. Get away forrard and shut up about engines.”

“You’ll be calling for engines yourself pretty soon,” said Roger, and scrambled forward again. “The wind’s getting weaker and weaker.”

Captain Flint looked about him. “Roger’s about right,” he said. “Looks like a change coming. It’s a paltry wind. But there’s no petrol to spare, except just for getting in. With that calm yesterday we ran the tanks pretty nearly dry. Never mind. We haven’t got far to go. We ought to be getting a sight of that hill any time now.”

Roger was back on the foredeck. Susan was once more in the fo’c’sle watching a kettle that had begun to steam. Dick was trying not to lose the vanishing speck of the bird-man’s boat. Nancy was glancing now at the compass, now at the sails, keeping them full but not too full, intent on getting the very best out of the old cutter. All the others, Captain Hint, Peggy, Titty, Dorothea and John, were looking at the blue hills ahead of them.

“Square Top,” Roger suddenly shouted, pointing along the bowsprit.

“I can’t see it,” said Titty.

“Where?” asked Dorothea.

“Might be it,” said John. “Just coming up now.”

The skyline ahead of them was changing. Hills near the coasts were lifting to hide the bigger hills beyond them. John gave the little chart to Peggy and went up the port shrouds to the cross-trees to get a view from higher up.

“Square Top all right,” he shouted.

Captain Flint took the chart from Peggy.

“Fine on the starboard bow,” called John, and came quickly down to have another look at the chart.

“Looks like it,” Captain Flint was saying. “That little sketch must have been made from just about where we are now. How’s she heading, Nancy?”

“West and a half north,” said Nancy.

“And we’re coming in on the right bearing. Couldn’t have struck it luckier.”

“Good for the Sea Bear,” said Titty.

“Carry on just as we’re going,” said Captain Flint, “and this tack will bring us close off the entrance.”

A hand, Susan’s, showed in the companion way and took hold of the rose knot worked in the end of the bit of rope that dangled from the clapper of a small ship’s bell.

“Ting … ting …”

“Two bells! Five o’clock. Tea!” called Nancy, almost as if she wanted to hurry the others off the deck.

“We’ll get it over,” said Captain Flint. “We’ll be in in no time if only the wind lasts out.”

Roger, at the first “ting” of the bell, had opened the fore-hatch and was already disappearing below. Susan’s hand came up again through the companion, this time carrying a mug for the steersman. Peggy took the mug and put it on the leeward side in a corner of the cockpit where it could not slide about. Susan passed up a huge rock bun. Peggy handed it on.

“Shall I have mine on deck too?” she asked.

“No need,” said Nancy.

Titty and Dorothea went down and Peggy after them.

“Go on, John,” said Nancy. “You’ll get a better view when we’re a bit nearer … Get along down, Dick. Your Pppppppterodactyl’s out of sight.”

Dick took a last look towards that long lump sticking out from the coast-line away to the south. It looked almost like an island, but he knew it was really a cape, the Head, that hid the harbour where they had first seen the bird-man’s boat. He could not see the motor yacht any longer. He followed John down the companion.

Nancy, at the tiller, was alone on deck. The clink of mugs and plates sounded from below. She took a gulp of tea and then a mighty bite of the rock bun. This was better than going into any harbour with buoys and lighthouses and shops and quays. Sailing towards an unknown coast, watching for a tiny break in the coast-line, she had the ship to herself and wished that tea in the cabin would last for ever.

Sitting at the cabin table, Dick saw two tea-leaves floating in his mug. He dipped them out.

“Strangers,” said Titty.

“Perhaps your Divers,” said Dorothea. “Perhaps you’re going to see them after all.”

Dick, as a scientist, did not believe in tea-leaf prophecies. “There’s not much hope left,” he said.

“You never know,” said Dorothea.

Nobody wants to stay below when the ship has made a good landfall and is coming in towards an unknown anchorage chosen by the crew and not by the skipper. Nancy did not have the ship to herself for very long. Nobody dawdled over tea and presently they were all on deck once more, watching the coast coming nearer and nearer, watching the square-topped hill, glancing at the compass, comparing the cliff, now clear to see, with the little drawing of it on Mac’s chart, and eager for the first glimpse into the little cove where the Sea Bear had once been scrubbed and was going to be scrubbed again.

“Got it!” called John who had taken his telescope up to the cross-trees. “Just to the left of the cliff … Low ground to the south of it. Plumb on the bowsprit end.”

Presently they were all able to see it from the deck, the narrow inlet close under the cliff, the ridge above the cliff stretching up to the hills, and, north of the ridge, some cottages and a grey house.

“Conspicuous house,” said Peggy, looking at the chart.

“Anyhow,” said Titty, “it doesn’t show any houses where we’re going.”

“Those houses don’t matter,” said Dorothea. “They’re in a different valley, over the top of that range. They won’t even be in sight.”

“I can’t see them very well even now,” said Roger.

There is no certainty at sea. At the very last minute, with the cove opening before them, things were changing fast. Away to the south the Head was showing less and less clearly. The wind was slackening. The Sea Bear was moving slower and slower. The sunlight had weakened. Something odd was happening to the coast. The tops of the hills inland showed sharp and still clear but it was as if a white veil hung over their lower slopes.

“I told you we ought to start the engine,” said Roger.

Captain Flint took a worried look round.

“We may have to change our plans,” he said suddenly. He went down the companion ladder, and, looking down, they could see him busy with parallel rulers on the Admiralty chart.

“Oh look here,” said Nancy, “he can’t be thinking of giving up now.”

“Why, we’re nearly there,” said Titty.

Suddenly the sails flapped. Nancy had to change course to fill them again. The air was suddenly cooler. It was as if somebody had turned down the light of the sun.

“I can’t see the Head,” called John.

There was a yell from below. “Hey, Nancy! What are you changing course for?” Captain Flint had glanced up from the chart table at the tell-tale compass under the cabin roof.

“Wind’s changed,” said Nancy. “Mist or fog coming. And we can’t see the Head. “

Captain Flint came storming up the companion ladder. He took one glance at the cliff ahead and jumped for the starboard jib-sheets.

“Ready about!” he called. “Helm down!”

The Sea Bear swung very slowly round. A gentle breath was coming from the north-west.

“Fair wind for the Head,” said Captain Flint. “What about using it and doing our scrub in harbour tomorrow?”

“And not go into the cove at all?” said Nancy. “But you promised we should.”

“Well, look at it,” said Captain Flint.

Already there had been another change. The square-topped hill was standing in a mist that hid its lower slopes. It was like an island in a white sea. The white sea was rolling towards them. It had covered the low-lying ground and was eddying round the foot of the cliff.

“Fair wind for the Head,” said Captain Flint again. “And Dick’ll be able to have another look at his boat … Eh, Dick?”

“But it’s the very last chance of seeing Divers,” said Dick.

“Look here,” said Nancy. “This wind’ll be dead against us once we’re round the Head and we’ll be beating all the way up to the harbour with rocks on both sides of us …”

“That’s true enough,” said Captain Flint. He looked south towards the invisible Head and then up at the cliff. Mist was already pouring over the top of it.

“We’re nearly in already,” said Nancy.

“It’s pretty late,” said Susan.

Captain Flint stooped and glanced at the clock. “Slack tide,” he said. “I wouldn’t try it otherwise. But the fog’ll be on us in a minute.” Once more he pulled out his pocket compass and took a bearing of the square-topped hill, now no more than a grey ghost above the mist. “All right, Nancy,” he said. “You win. Lower all sail! We’ll start the engine, Roger. And I hope to goodness the petrol lasts long enough to take us in.”

“Oh, good!” said Titty.

“Aye, aye, Sir,” said Roger, and, as he followed the skipper below, “I told you we’d be wanting it.”

There was a whirr from below as the engine started and a steady throbbing as it was warming up. Captain Flint was on deck again in a moment. The staysail was already down. Peggy and Susan, working together, were bringing in the jib. Captain Flint gave John a hand with the topsail and took the weight of the boom on the topping lift. “You and Susan take the peak halyard,” he said. “I’ve got the throat. Lower away.” This was all old drill to the crew of the Sea Bear and in a very few minutes all sails had been lowered and the old cutter was wallowing uncertainly in the swell.

“Nancy’s the best hand with the lead. John takes the tiller. Slow ahead, Roger!”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

The Sea Bear began to move again as the engine changed its tune.

“West and a half north, John, and as steady as you can.”

“West and a half north it is.”

“But what are we going to do?” said Dorothea.

“We’re going in,” said Nancy, taking the lead and its line out of a locker in the cockpit.

“If we can,” said Captain Flint.

The coast had disappeared altogether. The square-topped hill had been swallowed up. The chug … chug … chug of the engine was driving the Sea Bear slowly forward into a wall of white wool.

The boy high above the cliff had seen the mist coming. It had filled the valley and hidden the deer he had been watching. He felt a cold breath on his forehead. The wind was changing. He had written up his diary for the day and eaten all he meant to eat of the cake he had brought with him. A faint sound of bagpipes was calling him home. He put his diary and what was left of his cake in the biscuit box he used as a safe, pushed it well out of sight at the back of his private hiding-place and, as the mist reached him, set out carefully to pick his way among the rocks and heather. No one on land saw the Sea Bear lower her sails. No one heard the quiet throb of her engine as she crept slowly on towards the cliff.