Читать книгу Swallows & Amazons - Boxed Set - Arthur Ransome - Страница 95

Table of Contents

“Hullo! What’s happening?” Nancy was the first to wake as a heavy warp slapped on the deck above her head.

“My engine’s going,” said Roger half-asleep. He woke, feeling the throbbing of the hull and hearing the chug, chug, chug of the little engine that already he looked on as his own, rolled out of his bunk, reached up to tug at John, and then, in his pyjamas, ran out of the cabin, through the saloon, and wriggled round the companion stairs.

“She’s moving,” said Titty.

“Keep your head out of the way. I’m coming down,” said Susan.

“Listen.” John, sitting up in his bunk, called out from his cabin. “There’s a headsail flapping.”

That noise stopped and there was a sharp creak and the groan of blocks.

“That’s the boom going over,” called Nancy.

“She’s slanting the other way,” said Peggy.

“Heeling, you mean,” said Nancy. “Yes, she is.”

“They must have got the sails up without us,” said Titty.

“Somebody’s started my engine,” said Roger indignantly, coming back after having a look at it.

There was a general rush and scramble below decks. John, Susan, and Roger came up on deck through the companion out of the saloon. Nancy, Peggy, and Titty came up the ladder out of the forehatch. They came on deck in the summer morning, to find sunshine and a strong north-easterly breeze clearing away the light morning mist. The Wild Cat, with her engine running in case of trouble, was tacking out of harbour under jib and mainsail.

“Why did you start without us?” said Roger. “Who’s engineer?”

“You are,” said Captain Flint, “and in another minute or two you can stop her. But keep out of the way now. Stand by to go about, Mr. Duck.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Captain Flint spun the wheel, and the Wild Cat swung round, while Peter Duck let fly the port jib sheets.

“Smart enough,” he said, finding Nancy all ready to haul in on the other side as the sail blew across.

“Well, but why did you start without us?” said Nancy.

“Ask the skipper,” said Peter Duck. “But you ain’t got left behind.”

“We thought we’d take our chance of a little practice without you,” said Captain Flint. “Tide served. And it seemed a pity to waste any of this wind.”

“We heard you walking up and down all night,” said Titty.

“Ready to repel boarders,” said Nancy.

“But that man didn’t come again,” said Peggy.

“No. He didn’t,” said Captain Flint, glancing back over his shoulder towards the inner harbour. “And if he wants to come now, he’s too late. And now, you scallywags, what do you think our ship looks like with all of you slopping about in pyjamas all over the place? A floating dormitory. All pyjamas go below. Get dressed as quick as you can. We shall be in fairly quiet water going down the Pakefield, but after that we’ll probably catch it. Much more wind than yesterday.”

“We must stay on deck just till we’re outside the harbour.”

“Tally on to the foresail halyards then, and help Mr. Duck.”

“Smartly now, my hearties,” cried Nancy, as they ran forward to help Mr. Duck hoist the foresail.

“Slack away foresail sheet,” said Mr. Duck, seeming almost to forget that the six Swallows and Amazons in their pyjamas were not some sort of native crew. “Handsomely now. Belay. Now then. You three on the throat. T’other three on the peak. Hoist away. Up she goes. Hoist away. Belay peak halyard. Haul away on the throat. Swig away there. Let me get a hold. So. Belay. Haul on the peak. Handsomely now. So. Belay. Slacken away topping lifts. Not that, Cap’n Nancy. That’s right. Coil down halyards. Haul in the sheet. . . .”

As he spoke he hauled in the sheet himself, with John and Nancy tallying on to help him.

“Staysail halyards!” he called, and Nancy and John flew forward again. In a very few moments the staysail was up and drawing.

“A year or two of practice and you’ll be a goodish crew,” said Peter Duck.

“Ready about!” came Captain Flint’s voice from the wheel.

There was a bit of a bustle for a moment, letting go sheets and hauling in again on the lee side as the sails came over. Then all was quiet once more, and the crew gathered aft by the wheel where Roger and Titty were already, Titty watching the jetty slip by as the Wild Cat headed for the harbour mouth, and Roger hopping in and out of the deckhouse, waiting to be allowed to shut down the engine, or move the lever to full ahead, or do something else that really mattered in the engine line.

“All right, Roger,” said Captain Flint. “Stop her!”

The chug-chug of the little engine came to an end. Roger came on deck again.

“The engine wants some more cleaning,” he said.

“Job for you and Gibber,” said Captain Flint. “But get dressed and let’s have breakfast over first.”

Roger was gone.

“Hurry up, you others,” said Captain Flint. “We’re hungry. Besides, I want to be free to look at charts and things, and some of you will be wanted to take the wheel.”

Nancy, John, Susan, and Peggy disappeared in a bunch.

“What are you waiting for, Titty?”

Titty was looking back at the harbour they were leaving. Far away there, beyond the swing bridge, in the inner basin, loose grey canvas was climbing up among tall masts and rigging.

“The Viper’s hoisting her sails,” said Titty. “I do believe she’s coming after us.”

Captain Flint glanced over his shoulder.

“It may be some other vessel,” he said. “You can’t tell from here. What do you think, Mr. Duck?”

“Able-seaman’s right, sir, seems to me. Aye, they’re getting their sails up.” He took the telescope from the rack close inside the deckhouse, and looked through it towards the inner harbour. “Aye,” he said, “they’re setting their sails, sure enough. They’ve a halyard unrove, I reckon. I can see that young Bill up at the mast-head.”

“Good luck to them,” said Captain Flint. “They can set them and welcome for all we care.”

But Peter Duck kept the telescope to his eye, watching that fluttering grey canvas, until the Wild Cat was well outside the pier heads.

“Skip along, Titty,” said Captain Flint, and Titty disappeared below, to change from pyjamas into something more fitting for an able-seaman to wear on a schooner bound down Channel.

Below decks things were very unsteady. Dressing was not so easy as it had been when the Wild Cat was tied to the quay. Slap. Slap. Bang. The waves hit the bows of the little green schooner in a cheerful, welcoming manner, as she came out of the sheltered harbour to meet them. There was a good deal more noise than there had been during the trial trip, and members of the crew, dressing in the cabins, looked at each other doubtfully. Then, suddenly there was a sharp change in the motion, and, as the Wild Cat heeled over on the starboard side, shoes, clothes, hairbrushes and human beings slid unexpectedly across the floor. Roger sat down. Captain John had forgotten that he was not in harbour, and had stood an enamelled mug of toothwater on the little shelf that served as a table. It went flying. John tried to save it, tripped over Roger, and fell head first into the lower bunk.

Susan was farthest on with her dressing, and did not seem to mind the motion. She just leant back against the bunks and went on brushing her hair. Titty slipped sideways. The floor of the cabin sloped uphill. Titty seized some clothes and a pair of canvas shoes. “I’m going to finish my dressing on deck,” she said hurriedly, climbed up the slope of the floor, got out of the door and stumbled up the companion-way.

Nancy, in the cabin of the Amazons, said nothing. She just looked at Peggy. A queer expression came into her eyes, as if she were looking not so much at Peggy as through her. She picked her shoes up out of the muddle on the floor, then dropped one of them, tried to catch it, slipped, recovered herself, made up her mind she would get that shoe later, and almost fell out of the cabin door and round on the stairway of the companion. She felt better as soon as her head was above deck. This would never do, she thought. She must have been mistaken in thinking she felt so bad. She put on the shoe she had with her, took two or three good sniffs at the wind and then went back after the shoe she had left. She found Susan and Peggy side by side on the bottom step of the companion-way, putting on their own shoes with difficulty and laughter, but talking quite happily of cooking on the swinging stove because the other would be on too much of a slant. It was bad enough having to step over them. But she did it, worked herself round into her cabin, found her shoe and came out again, grabbing at the saloon table to steady herself. “Hullo, Nancy!” said Peggy. “Isn’t this jolly?” But Nancy did not answer. She had meant to get her shoe, and she had got it, but this talking would have been too much. She got across the saloon, and through into the fo’c’sle, to get her head up through the fo’c’sle hatch into the fresh hard air. For once, Nancy, the Terror of the Seas, did not feel at all like a captain. She hardly felt it would be safe to say, “Shiver my timbers!” Her timbers felt a bit shivery already. And the funny thing was that Peggy, who was afraid of thunder and things like that, seemed not to be bothered at all by the unusual motion.

On deck things settled down quickly. Old Peter Duck was moving here and there, seeing that everything was as it should be. Coiled halyards that had shown signs of straying had been recoiled and stowed in places where they were willing to stay. The anchor had been brought inboard and secured in its place. He was busy now lashing down the little rowing dinghy. The fenders that had been used to protect the new green paint of the Wild Cat from the dirty quays of Lowestoft were all inboard, each in its place, ready for next time it would be needed, but not one of them left hanging over the side to make good sailors laugh. Peter Duck, busy about this and that, seemed happy to have his feet once more on a slanting deck, lifting and swaying along at sea, after so many years on the level deck of his old wherry moving steadily along smooth inland waters.

And the land was slipping by. The Wild Cat was off at last and making the most of the good north-easter, running down inside the shoals, past Claremont Pier, and the hospital and Kirkley Church. Pakefield Church was abeam. Out to sea a coasting steamer was hurrying south, from Newcastle or Grimsby or Hull, hurrying, but not moving as fast as her own smoke which was blowing before her in a long low dirty cloud. Fishing ketches were leaving the harbour, and some of the trawlers, and far away on the horizon there were two or three little plumes of smoke, showing where there were steamers so far away as not to be in sight. One by one the rest of the crew climbed up on deck, hung on to anything that came handy and looked about them. The trial trip had been in smooth water compared with this. Now they were off at last and learning what it was like to be at sea. To-day there was a real wind. The land seemed to sway up and down as they rushed along. Sometimes the Wild Cat would lift to an even keel as a sea passed under her, and then the land would drop to the bulwarks. Then over she would go again, and the land seemed to leap up the sky, and in the place where it had been a moment before there would be the grey water sweeping along by the lee rail.

Presently Captain Flint called John to the wheel.

“Take over, will you, while I deal with that Primus for them? Steer for that buoy. Black and white, with a cage on the top of it. Steer close by it, leaving it to port.”

John gulped, but said “Aye, aye, sir,” as stoutly as he could. A moment later he was feeling the ship, meeting her as she yawed, looking anxiously back at her rather waggly wake, and trying to do with a real ship at sea what he had learnt to do very well with the little Swallow on the lake in the North. But it was not easy in this hard wind and uncertain sea. There she was again, heading the wrong side of the buoy. Oh, bother it, and now too far the other way! And there was Nancy watching. This would never do. He must keep that piebald chequered buoy just showing on her port bow. Gradually the Wild Cat steadied down and John grew confident enough to look at Nancy who, he feared, had all this time been looking critically at him.

But Nancy was not thinking about him, or about the steering, or even about the Wild Cat. She had a queer staring look, as if she were trying to do some difficult sum in mental arithmetic. John could hardly believe that this was the same Nancy who was always so free with her “Hearties” and “Shiver my timbers!” and so ready to call other people tame galoots and to teach them all there was to be known about the sea.

“Come and look, Nancy,” called Peggy’s voice from inside the galley in the forward part of the deckhouse. Nancy pulled herself together, and clinging to the bulwarks worked herself along to the galley door. It opened.

“Come in, but shut the door quick. It’s too blowy from that side,” said Peggy. “Just look at the Primus, swinging in rings, like the compass, so that the kettle keeps steady whatever the ship’s doing.”

Nancy let go the bulwarks and fell against the deckhouse. She pulled the galley door open again and put her head in, but quickly drew it back. In the tiny galley there were Peggy, Susan and Captain Flint. Captain Flint had been showing them how to deal with the Primus, and he had used rather too little methylated spirit, besides pumping a little too soon, so that the Primus had smoked a bit. It was burning all right now, and the kettle was boiling and the galley was full of steam and the smell of paraffin. And there were Peggy and Susan in the middle of that smelly fog, cheerfully cracking eggs into a bowl and making coffee in an enormous coffee-pot.

Nancy shut the door quickly and dragged herself back to the bulwarks, throwing her head up to get all the wind on it she could. This was terrible. Everybody seemed to be all right except her. Right forward she could see Roger eagerly asking questions and Peter Duck as steady on the slanting deck as if he had grown there and had roots, explaining something about getting the anchor inboard. Was the sea always like this? She could hardly bear the thought of going below, and yet she desperately wanted something hot to drink. When at last she saw Peggy and Susan, shouting with laughter, dodge out of the galley door and round to the companion taking damp towels to lay on the saloon table, Nancy began to wish she was back at home.

The damp towels, of course, were spread on the saloon table to keep plates and things from slipping about, and a minute or two later the two cooks were carrying down a great mess of scrambled eggs and the coffee-pot and a big can of milk. Damp towels, however, were not enough, and Captain Flint went below to fit the fiddles to the table. Fiddles for tables aboard ship are wooden frameworks that divide up the table into small partitions so that if things slide they cannot slide far. “Feeding-boxes,” said Roger, “and one for each of us.” Then, when everything was ready, Peggy came up on deck to bang mercilessly on a big bell. Peter Duck came aft and took the wheel from John. John hurried down the companion to join the others. Roger had come down by way of the forehatch. Captain Flint was sitting in the arm-chair at the port end of the table. Nancy, feeling as if someone had hit her on the head with a club, somehow found her way to her place at his right hand. Breakfast began.

“Hullo, where’s Titty?” said Captain Flint.

Titty had been looking over the stern towards Lowestoft, watching to see if the Viper came out. It had been a hard job to hold the telescope steady. At last she had given up trying and had put the telescope back in its place in the deckhouse. That had been enough to make her quite sure she did not want to leave the deck again, even for breakfast. All she wanted was to stay still and breathe as much air as possible. Even the sunshine seemed to her to have turned a queer unpleasant colour.

“What’s become of Titty?” said Captain Flint, between mouthfuls, down in the saloon.

“I’ll go and tell her,” said Nancy.

“I’ll go,” said John.

“I want to go,” said Nancy fiercely, and she staggered up off the bench and somehow got out of the saloon and up the companion. Captain Flint looked gravely after her but said nothing.

Nancy came out on deck and found Titty in the stern, still watching the sailing vessels come out of Lowestoft.

“Come down to breakfast, Titty,” said Nancy bravely, and then suddenly gave up. Titty, looking round, saw Captain Nancy struggle forward round the lee side of the deckhouse, grip the bulwarks and hang her head over the rail.

In a moment Titty joined her. If Nancy, the Captain of the Amazons, that notable timber shiverer, could be seasick, then anybody could be without shame, and for some minutes a captain and an able-seaman, sharing their misery, hung over the side together.

NANCY AND TITTY SHARING THEIR MISERY

Peter Duck, his grey beard blowing in the wind round his weatherbeaten old face, an old stocking cap crammed down over his ears, gripped the spokes of the wheel, moved them this way and that, and, with his eyes looking far ahead, seemed to see nothing and to hear nothing that did not concern the steering of the ship. The whole crew of captains and mates and everybody else could have been seasick over the side without disturbing him in the least. But he did, now and then, look back at a group of sailing vessels leaving Lowestoft, that was already far astern.

Presently Captain Flint came up the companion with a mug of hot coffee in each hand. He found the sufferers and told them that some of the most famous of sailors were always sick at the beginning of a voyage in spite of spending most of their lives at sea. Nancy cheered up a little. Titty said she didn’t believe it would have been so bad if she hadn’t been looking the wrong way trying to see if the Viper was coming after them or not.

“And what about the Viper, Mr. Duck?” asked Captain Flint, going aft to take the wheel and send Mr. Duck down to breakfast.

“There’s several vessels come out,” said Mr. Duck. “All in a bunch. It’d be hard to say if one of them’s the Viper. But if she isn’t out yet, she’ll be coming. You may lay to that, sir. Black Jake wouldn’t come in after us yesterday and not come out after us to-day. He ain’t going to lose sight of us, not if he can help it.”

“Oh, come, Mr. Duck, these things don’t happen nowadays.”

“Black Jake’s his own law,” said Peter Duck. “He knows I’m aboard here, and if he’s got it in his head that I’m taking you to that place I told you of, he’d sail round the world after us.”

“Well,” said Captain Flint, “if one of those vessels is the Viper, and she’s after us, she’d have turned south by this time.”

“Look you there,” said Peter Duck, and Captain Flint snatched up the telescope from the rack inside the door.

One vessel had left the little group of sailing craft heading eastwards from Lowestoft. This vessel was now alone and heading south.

“Schooner,” said Captain Flint. “All lower sail set. Main topsail just going up. It’s our old neighbour.”

“I’d be surprised,” said Peter Duck, “if you was to say it wasn’t so.”