Читать книгу The Big Six - Arthur Ransome - Страница 8

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Twice during the night they were waked.

The first time it was the noise of oars, long after dark.

Joe heard it and slipped out of the hot cabin into the cold night air, wondering who it could be, moving on the river at such a time. The rowers had gone by, upstream, but he could hear the regular drip drip of their oars and the creak of rowlocks, which, he thought, needed a bit of greasing. Presently the noise grew louder again. The boat had turned and was coming back. Dimly, in the dark, he thought he could see something moving on the water.

“Who’s there?” he called.

“River patrol.”

“What?”

“Watching to see no more boats get cast adrift. So don’t think you can do it without being caught.”

“We didn’t ...”, began Joe.

“What are you waiting up for?” said the voice.

The boat drifted by. Someone struck a match to light a cigarette and Joe caught a glimpse of a face.

“I know you, Jim Towzer,” said Joe. “I can see you.”

“No need to see you to know you,” come the voice out of the dark. “Just you try casting our boat off again and see what you’ll get. What’s the time, Jack?”

Another voice answered him.

“Half an hour after midnight, and they’re up, watching for a chance. We’ll report that. Come on, Jim.”

The oars dipped again and the boat slipped away into the night.

Joe crawled back into his bunk.

“What was it?” said Bill.

“Them Towzers watching the river,” said Joe.

“Good luck to ’em,” said Bill sleepily. “Hope they catch the chap whoever done it and then we’ll be let alone.”

“They think it’s us,” said Joe.

“Good night,” said Bill. “Lucky you ain’t waked that Pete.”

Two hours later they were waked again, this time by a gentle lurch of the Death and Glory.

“Chimney’s cold,” said a voice Joe knew well.

“They’ll be asleep likely.”

“Better make sure, Mr. Tedder,” said the first voice. “They may be ashore and casting somebody’s boat off this minute.”

There was a bang on the roof of the cabin.

“What’s that?” Pete started up and bumped his head.

“Tedder and George Owdon,” said Joe in a whisper.

“All right, Joe,” said Bill. “I’ll see to ’em. You went out last time.” But Joe was already out of his bunk and feeling his way into the cockpit. A torch flashed in his face.

“Only one of them,” said George Owdon.

“Pete and Bill in there too?” asked Mr. Tedder.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bill. “Have you caught somebody?”

“Not likely if you’re all three here,” said George Owdon. “Unless it’s Tom Dudgeon.”

“Tom never ...”

“Shut up,” said George. “Everybody knows Tom did. Is Pete in there?”

“I’m here,” said Pete coming out and blinking in the light of the torch.

“Better go to bed again,” said Mr. Tedder. “Just had to make sure where you was. This casting adrift’s got to stop.”

“Look here,” said Joe. “We was asleep, we was.”

“Go to sleep again,” said George.

“No harm done,” said Mr. Tedder. “But I tell your Dads and I tell you, you’d be better in your beds at home.”

“Well, there’s one thing,” said Joe, settling angrily into his bunk. “There won’t nobody come waking us to-morrow night. Wind come west and we’ll be away down the river.”

“Dead calm now,” said Bill.

“There’ll be wind in the morning.”

“We can’t start till that fisherman come for his baits,” said Pete.

“You go to sleep,” said Bill. “If you count to be up early. Good night.”

“Good night!” grunted Joe. “Good morning.”

As is often the way in fishing, getting up early was waste of good time that might have been spent in bed. Pete began fishing soon after seven. It was a still day, without a breath of wind, and until the sun grew hot you might have thought that there was not a fish in the river. After breakfast Bill and Joe went to their homes to collect stores, milk, cheese, bread and bacon. They also went to Pete’s home to tell his mother, too, that they were going to take the Death and Glory a little way down the river. On their way back they went to Mr. Tedder’s garden to pull a few weeds and collect some worms, for fear Pete should run short. Mr. Tedder came out to them.

“You?” he said. “Sorry I had to wake you last night. My Missus say I didn’t have no call to. But we can’t take chances not with police work. And see here. If there’s any more boats cast off I can’t have you coming and digging worms in police headquarters.”

“Shall I put ’em back?” said Joe.

“You can keep ’em,” said Mr. Tedder hurriedly, looking in the tin. “But we don’t want no more boats messed about. Owners mad, and natural too, and it all come on the police.”

“We never touch a boat,” said Bill.

“Don’t you touch ’em no more,” said Mr. Tedder.

“Wish Tom’d never cast that Margoletta adrift,” said Bill as they went back to the staithe.

“There was nothing else he could do that time,” said Joe.

“Nobody forget it,” said Bill. “Don’t seem nobody never can forget a thing like that.”

“Drat ’em!” said Joe. “Anyways we’ll be out of this to-night.”

“Come a bit of wind,” said Bill.

All that morning Pete fished, more and more desperately, while the others tinkered in the cabin (doing no hammering for fear of scaring the fish) or watched from the staithe for the coming of the Cachalot, dreading to see her before Pete had caught his dozen.

Pete looked at nothing but his float. “A penny a bait and twopence for good ’uns.” If only they had been biting as they had been biting yesterday when he was putting them back as fast as he caught them. At nine o’clock he caught his first fish, a good one. At half-past ten he caught another, not so good. Then came a long string of little ones not worth taking. Every penny earned would help in buying stores for the Death and Glory so that they would be able to go to distant places and not have to run home every other day for supplies. He spoke never a word, dropping the little ones sadly back into the river, welcoming the rare twopennies with a slow grin. He never even looked round, though once or twice he was too late in striking because of things said about casting boats adrift by people who stopped on the staithe behind him and watched, as people always do watch a fisherman, to see whether he was catching anything or not.

Dinner time came and he had five possible twopennies in the keep-net and three others that he thought might almost do. There was happily no sign of the Cachalot. The water was as smooth as glass, there was not a cloud in the sky, and the smoke from Horning chimneys trickled straight up in the still air.

“It’ll be engines, not sailing,” said Joe, wetting a finger and holding it up to see if he could feel a breath of wind.

“Come on in for grub, Pete,” said Bill from the cabin.

“Gimme mine out here,” said Pete. “That old float bob just now.”

All afternoon he fished on, and did better. But now the other two were no longer hoping the Cachalot was not in sight but were wishing she would hurry up. The day was going, there was still no wind, and even if the engines were doing their very best, the Death and Glory was a slow old boat.

“We’ll never get nowhere if he don’t come soon,” said Joe.

Towards five o’clock Joe suggested that they had better start without waiting for him.

“Perhaps he ain’t coming at all,” said Bill.

“He say to wait for him here,” said Pete.

“We can tell someone to tell him we’ve gone on down river.”

“If we tow them baits in the keep-net we’ll drown the lot,” said Pete.

“How many’ve you got?” asked Bill.

“I put in one since you count,” said Pete. “And there was sixteen then. Seventeen there’ll be. And a dozen of ’em good twopennies.”

“How many he want?”

“Dozen or so, he say. But he may not want the little ’uns.”

Nobody wanted to lose all the money that was swimming about in the keep-net.

“Tell you what,” said Joe. “We’ll have all ready for shifting so we can be off as soon as he come for ’em.”

“What if he don’t come at all?” said Bill.

“There he is,” shouted Joe. “Go on, Bill, get them ropes aslip. Put your rod up, Pete. Shift that keep-net, so he won’t mash it coming alongside. I’ll hang our fenders over.”

The little fishing cruiser was rounding the bend above the staithe.

“We got ’em,” shouted Pete.

The owner of the Cachalot waved his hand. He took his little cruiser below the Death and Glory, turned her and brought her creeping up alongside with his engine ticking over. Bill took his bow warp, Joe hauled in on a rope the fisherman threw him from the stern, while Pete, lifting the keep-net in the water, showed it half full of silver, splashing roach.

“Well done you,” said the owner of the Cachalot. “How many have you got?”

“Seventeen,” said Pete, “but there ain’t but twelve big ’uns.”

“They look just what I wanted. Let’s have the net and I’ll empty them into the bait can.”

In another moment a stream of fish was pouring into an enormous bait-can in the Cachalot’s cockpit.

“Seventeen, you said?”

“Only twelve big ’uns,” said Pete.

“Twopence each for the big ones. That’s two shillings. And five at a penny.... I’ll take them too. Call it half a crown. All right?”

“Rather,” said Pete.

The fisherman of the Cachalot handed over a sixpence and two shillings to the fisherman of the Death and Glory.

“All ready to slip?” said Joe. “We’ll be off right away.”

“Hullo,” said the owner of the Cachalot. “Are you off on a voyage too?”

“We was only waiting till you come,” said Joe. “No wind, worse luck, so we got to get going.”

“Where do you want to go.”

“Down river.”

“I’m going to Potter Heigham. I’ll give you a tow if you want one.”

“Gee Whizz!” said Joe.

“Wouldn’t we?” said Bill.

“All the way to Potter?” said Pete.

“Why not?” said the fisherman. “It’ll be too late for me to fish to-night. So there’s no hurry. Have you got a tow-rope? No. Better use mine. Here you are. Don’t make fast till she’s taken the pull....”

“We know about towing,” said Joe.

“Pete,” said Bill, who was holding the bow warp of the Cachalot. “There’s your Mum by the Post Office. Tell her where we’re going and she can tell ours. We say we was only going a little way down....”

Pete leapt ashore and raced from the staithe to the street. He ran full tilt into somebody coming round the corner of Jonnatt’s boatshed.

“Sorry,” he said, and dashed across the road.

“You look where you’re going,” said George Owdon.

Pete took no notice, but shouted to his mother, “Mum! We’re off to Potter. Tell Joe’s Mum and Bill’s.”

“Potter?” said his mother. “You’ll never get there to-day.”

“Got a tow,” said Pete.

“You’ll go to bed in proper time,” said his mother. “Bill and Joe promised me that. Have you got plenty of food?”

“It’s only for one night,” said Pete, who saw himself being stopped and loaded up with stores while the Death and Glory went off without him. “We got lots enough for that. We got to be back to-morrow. Coot Club meeting. That Dot and Dick are coming.”

“Don’t you do nothing foolish,” said his mother.

“Hi! PETE!”

The shout came from the Death and Glory, and Pete raced back and jumped aboard just as the Cachalot moved out into the stream. Bill was easing the tow-rope round the little bollard on the foredeck of the Death and Glory. Joe was at the tiller. The Death and Glory stirred and slipped away from the staithe. Bill made fast. In the wide bend by the inn the Cachalot swung round with her tow. The Death and Glory was on her way, water rippling under her bows, the tow-rope taut, chug, chug, chug sounding from the Cachalot’s engine, and the well-known banks of the home reach slipping by on either side.

“Nobody’s going to come waking us to-night,” said Bill.

It was as if in leaving Horning they were leaving their troubles behind them.

“Remember when the Come Along tow us up to Acle from Breydon Water?” said Pete, and stopped suddenly. He remembered very well that long and glorious tow, but that had been after the salvaging of the Margoletta, and it was just because of that old story of the Margoletta that people were so ready to think that if a boat was cast adrift the Coot Club must have something to do with it.

No need now to remember things like that.

Down the long reach they went, past Dr. Dudgeon’s house with its golden bream for a wind vane high above the roof. There was Tom hard at work with the lawn-mower.

“Hey, Tom,” shouted Joe. “We’re going to Potter.”

Tom looked up and saw them.

“Going to Potter,” shouted Joe.

“Potter?” shouted Tom. “I say, Joe. Dick and Dot are coming to-morrow.”

“We’ll be back,” shouted Joe. There was no time for more. Already the Cachalot, with the Death and Glory close astern of her, was passing Mr. Farland’s. On they went past the Wilderness, on and on, past the old windmill, past the ferry, past the inn. They came to the notice on the bank, telling boats not to move at more than five miles an hour through Horning. The fisherman looked over his shoulder, saw they were all right and waved a hand. The noise of the Cachalot’s engine changed to a rapid brrrrrrr.

“Full steam ahead!” said Joe gleefully, and Bill laughed, moving his arms backwards and forwards, as much as to say he was glad that for once he wasn’t an engine.

On they went, past the vicarage with the water-hens and the black sheep on the lawns by the waterside, past the dyke leading to Ranworth, past Horning Old Hall, past the mouth of the Ant, past the old ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey, on and on, recognising place after place, wind-pump after wind-pump, straight reach, sharp bend, one land-mark after another.

“How’s this for her first voyage?” said Joe.

“There’ll have to be an east wind to-morrow,” said Bill, thinking that the farther they went the farther they would have to get home.

“Fare to be,” said Joe. “Calm like this and a clear sky.”

“Isn’t, we’ll be rowing all day,” said Bill.

“Shurrup,” said Joe. “Easterly wind to-morrow and we’ll make it easy. Come on, Pete. You steer for a bit. But keep her nose close on him or you’ll have her sheering anywheres.”

Pete took the tiller, set his feet wide apart and settled to his job. Plumb on the stern of the Cachalot he must keep the Death and Glory’s little flagstaff with the three-cornered flag of the B.P.S. He could do it, just as well as Bill or Joe. Um! Perhaps not quite as well as Joe. Ouch! She was off a bit then. Starboard an inch ... Now port ... Now steady. This was something like steering, going at such a lick.

They met or passed a few sailing yachts and small cruisers, not many, for the letting season was nearly over and most of the holiday-makers were back in the towns from which they came. The sailing yachts were being slowly quanted along, for there was no wind to fill their sails.

“Lot of hard work to-morrow if there don’t come an easterly,” said Bill as they met one of the unfortunates grimly poling up against the stream.

“Got an easterly in my pockut,” said Joe.

“Don’t you go saying to-morrow you’ve let it get away,” said Bill.

Joe patted his pocket. “Never you fear. I’ll keep him. Let him out just when we want him. You see if I don’t.”

The sun was already low, shining from behind them as they came down the river to Thurne Mouth, with its signpost pointing the way, down the Bure to Acle and up the Thurne to Potter Heigham. As they turned left and went up the Thurne it threw their shadows on the reeds. Bill had taken over the steering and Pete pointed at the shadows that seemed to be racing them, trying to keep his pointing finger on the shadow of himself as it skipped from one high clump of reeds to the next.

Dusk was falling as they came to the first of the Potter Heigham bungalows. The master of the Cachalot reduced speed. Just for a second or two he shut off his engine altogether, to be able to hear what they said, and shouted back to them to ask where they wanted to stop.

“This side the bridge,” shouted Joe.

They went slowly on, the fisherman of the Cachalot putting his engine out of gear every time they passed other fishermen sitting on the bank in front of their bungalows, watching their floats in the quiet water. They came round the last bend and saw the low arch of the bridge ahead of them, and the big boatsheds, and on both sides of the river a line of moored yachts, one or two with awnings up, but most of them with bare masts and no sails on their booms, waiting to be laid up. One look at the crowded staithe was enough for Joe.

“We’ll never get a place along there,” he said. “We better go through. Hey!” he shouted.

The master of the Cachalot may have heard him or may not, because of the noise of the engine. Anyhow, he looked back and pointed at the row of moored boats.

“Through the bridges,” shouted Joe, pointing upstream. “Give us time to lower. You take her Pete. Bill and I’ll have the mast down in two ticks.”

The fisherman waved a hand to show he understood, and kept the Cachalot hardly moving while Bill and Joe ran forward over the cabin-top, cast off the forestay and slowly let the stumpy mast fall aft, Joe keeping his weight on the stay while Bill moving along the cabin-top, eased the mast gently down.

The fisherman was watching, and when Joe signalled “Ready,” headed the Cachalot for the low, narrow stone arch of the bridge.

“You take her, Joe,” said Pete.

But there was no time to change helmsman. The Cachalot was already nosing in under the arch. The Death and Glory followed her.

“Keep her straight,” said Joe. “She’ll clear.”

“Look out for the chimbley,” yelled Pete.

“If the mast clear, that do,” said Bill.

Joe, crouching on the fore-deck and Bill, back in the cockpit, were ready to fend off. They put out their hands and touched the old stones of the arch as they went through.

“Phew!” said Pete with relief when they were out again, and he glanced back over his shoulder. “It never do look as if there’d be room.”

A minute later they had passed under the railway bridge. They were looking for a place to moor. The Cachalot began to work towards the bank. They passed one possible place and then another. The fisherman pointed ahead. Joe, who was standing on the foredeck with rond anchor ready in his hand, pointed to the right. The two boats were hardly moving. Just before they touched, Joe and the fisherman jumped ashore.

“All right here?” asked the fisherman.

“Thank you very much,” said the Death and Glories.

“Going to fish here?” asked Pete.

“Higher up,” said the fisherman. “A bit below that dyke that goes to the Roaring Donkey. I was up there last week and lost a good one. Come along in the morning and see what your baits are worth.”

“We’ll come,” said Joe.

“Well, good night to you,” said the fisherman, pushed the Cachalot’s nose from the bank, stepped aboard and went slowly up the river.

They watched him out of sight.

“Let’s hurry up and go into Potter,” said Pete.

“What for?” said Bill.

“We got half a crown to spend. And we might see Bob Curten.”

“Shops closed,” said Bill. “No. Let’s light up and get our grub and have all snug. Young Bob’ll be home with his Mum.”

They planted their rond anchors, stood for a moment on the bank, admiring the Death and Glory safely moored at the end of her first long voyage as a cabin boat, set the mast up again, and then settled down for a quiet night in a new place.

“Wonder if he catch anything,” said Pete.

“Have to get up early if we’re going to see,” said Joe.

They lit the stove and made the cabin as hot as they could bear it. Joe let his white rat out for a run, and played tunes on his mouth organ while the others were watching the kettle and cutting bread and cheese. They had supper and, last thing before going to bed, went out into the cockpit for a breath of cool air.

“No wind yet,” said Bill.

“In my pockut for to-morrow,” said Joe.

“That Tedder’s waking someone else to-night,” said Pete.