Читать книгу Swallows & Amazons - Boxed Set - Arthur Ransome - Страница 99

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Anybody who had not known the truth and had just seen the Wild Cat and the Viper, sailing down Channel that bright summer morning, would have thought that they were friendly ships cruising in company. For the black schooner no longer kept its distance from the green, but sailed nearer and nearer, coming up first on one side and then on the other, luffing into the wind and waiting for the Wild Cat, and then swooping after her again. It was as if Black Jake wanted to show them that his was the faster vessel and that he did not mean to leave them.

Nobody liked it. Until that morning after leaving Cowes it had not occurred to any one of them, except, perhaps, to Peter Duck, that there was anything in the Viper of which they might have reason to be afraid. After all, what was she but another vessel, bowling down Channel, and sharing with them the same good wind? The English Channel is one of the great highways free to all the world. The Viper had as much right to be sailing down it as the Wild Cat. If she followed the Wild Cat from curiosity, why, as Nancy said, “A cat may look at a king, and why shouldn’t a viper look at a cat?” “Specially a wild one,” said Titty. But when it came to Black Jake’s being so sure of them that he waited for them by the Needles, and then came sailing after them without any pretence that he was doing this by accident, nobody liked it at all.

It was like being followed about by some stranger in the street. The thought of it spoilt altogether what should have been a delightful bit of sailing. They had a grand run across the bay and past St. Alban’s Head, far enough off-shore to keep outside the race, but just not too far to let them see, through the glasses and the telescopes, the old ruined chapel on the top of the hill. Then, from a long way out to sea, they saw the long, low wedge of Portland Bill. Here, too, they passed outside the race, where, sometimes, the sea goes almost mad, flinging itself all ways at once, so that even in calm weather little ships keep clear of it if they can. But always, close to them, sailed their strange unwelcome consort, so near that they could see Black Jake at the wheel, and three or four other men, and once caught sight of the red-haired boy hurrying along the deck.

“This is a bit too much of a good thing,” said Captain Flint at last. “I’ll show him we don’t want his company.”

“We might try it,” said Mr. Duck, and he called all hands on deck.

Next time the Viper was a little ahead of the Wild Cat, Captain Flint suddenly put the helm down and luffed up under the Viper’s stern. The crew rattled in the sheets. Up she came into the wind. Jib and staysail were let fly. The Wild Cat paid off on the other tack and was heading back up Channel, for Portland and the Wight.

“He couldn’t have a plainer hint than that,” said Captain Flint.

“She’s coming round,” said Titty.

The Viper was doing exactly what the Wild Cat had done, and was heading up Channel in pursuit of her.

“We can’t go back because of him,” said Nancy. “Let’s just take no notice at all.”

“Hang the fellow,” said Captain Flint.

“In Execution Dock,” said Nancy.

“Jangling,” said Titty, “in a lot of rusty chain.”

And again they flung themselves on the sheets, and the Wild Cat went about once more, and settled down on her course for the Start. The Viper instantly came up into the wind and, as they passed her, they heard a jeering laugh. Black Jake was not to be shaken off by hints.

They were well on their way across the wide mouth of Lyme Bay, with the Viper still in close attendance, when the wind suddenly freshened. They saw the Viper heel right over as the first squall struck her, and even in the Wild Cat Susan and Peggy came up from the saloon in a hurry to know what was happening.

“What are you two doing down there?” Nancy asked, hanging on to the windward shrouds as the startled mates put their heads out of the companion-way.

“Counting up the stores,” said Susan.

“Good for you,” said Nancy. “I’d been hoping you would.”

“Well, try to keep her a bit steadier,” said Susan. “It’s lucky everything’s in tins.”

For a minute or two the mates stayed on deck. It was as if some sudden miracle had been worked with the smiling blue sea of the morning. The wind was still coming from the north-east, but, after two or three fierce squalls, it had settled down to blow much harder than they had yet known it.

The sky had clouded, the waves were dark but for the white tops that blew across in white spray from one wave to the next.

“What about the engine now, Roger?” said John.

“I don’t want to use the engine when she’s really sailing,” said Roger.

“Will she stand it?” said Captain Flint.

Peter Duck looked up to windward, and looked up at the bending masts, and aft at the long wake of white foam.

“She’ll carry what she’s got and not a stitch more,” said Peter Duck. “Nine knots she’ll do with this, and maybe ten. Aye. She’ll stand this. Stiff enough. And we’ll get the shelter of the Start.”

“I’d been thinking of Brixham,” said Captain Flint.

“We’ll be down by the Scillies to-morrow if this holds. We’d best be making the most of it. Blowing itself out. That’s what it is. And after that we’ll likely get it hard from the west.”

The Wild Cat, after those first squalls, settled down to run like a scalded cat as well as a wild one. With this great wind blowing over her quarter, Captain Flint held her steady on her course, and she fairly tore through the water.

And with the strengthening of the wind, the Viper seemed at first to have enough to think of without attending to the Wild Cat. She, too, seemed to be settling down to make the most of it. She raced away, a splendid sight, with the white spray leaping high from under her bows. The sailors of the Wild Cat, watching the Viper flying along like that, almost forgot how much they hated her. At dusk, she seemed to change her course, and they saw her heading northward, and then the dark came down and they saw her no more.

It was not until the middle of that night that they had news of her again.

It was just at the beginning of Peter Duck’s watch. John and the old seaman had come on deck sharp at midnight, to take over, and Nancy and Captain Flint should have been on their way to their bunks. But Captain Flint had taken Mr. Duck with him into the deckhouse again, to have a look at the chart and the barometer. They had gone in only for a moment, and with the wind that was blowing, Captain Flint had thought it as well that there should be two at the wheel. So Captain Nancy and Captain John were holding the ship on her course. It was a pitch dark night and they could see nothing outside the bulwarks except the flashing lights on Start Point and the Eddystone Lighthouse. Sky, land, and sea were all black, though patches of star-sprinkled sky showed now and then between the black clouds overhead. But there was nothing to worry about. Far away over the water, there were the lighthouses flashing their cheerful messages. The two captains knew where they were. They had a course to steer. The compass card glowed bright inside the window, and beyond it, if they stooped, they could see Captain Flint’s hand, with a pencil in it, pointing to something on the chart. The sidelights were burning steadily. The shrouds were thrumming in the wind, and the Wild Cat was churning along at a really splendid pace.

And then, suddenly, a new noise came out of the darkness. It was the noise of water under the bow of another ship. It was a noise very close at hand. There was a shout somewhere to windward.

“Call them,” said Nancy, and John thumped hard on the deckhouse door. Peter Duck and Captain Flint came tumbling out in a moment.

“There’s a ship,” said John, “close to us.”

“Without lights,” said Nancy.

At that instant, the Wild Cat came suddenly on an even keel. Her sails slackened and flapped dully. The green glow of her starboard light gleamed dimly on canvas where had been nothing but the blackness of the night. For one moment they all saw the glimmer of a light, not more than a dozen yards away. Another vessel, larger than theirs, was racing beside them in the dark.

“Keep your course,” said Peter Duck, and John and Nancy felt his firm hand on the wheel.

“Wild Cat, ahoy!” A voice came out of the darkness, so near that it almost seemed that someone was talking just across the starboard bulwarks.

“Don’t answer,” said Peter Duck.

The voice came again, a jeering, lilting voice, like the voice of a chanty-man singing his words before the crew join in.

“Peter Duck! Peter Duck!”

“Don’t say a word to them,” said Captain Flint.

The voice came again, a hard voice, jeering as before.

“Where are you bound for, Peter Duck?”

John felt Nancy grip his arm.

The voice came again.

“Better ship along with us, Peter Duck.”

And then from among that little group at the wheel of the Wild Cat came a voice that John and Nancy had never heard before, though it was the voice of Captain Flint, whom Nancy had known all her life. It was a roar more than a hail.

“Haul your wind there! Haul your wind, or, by crumbs. I’ll sink your ship!”

There was a noise of sudden quarrelling in the other vessel. A deckhouse door swung open, and then closed again, throwing for a moment a light on struggling men.

“Lookout,” cried Peter Duck. “Her stern’ll swing aboard us.”

“Where’s that fender?” said Captain Flint half under his breath, groping along the bulwarks.

Luckily it was not needed. Almost the vessels touched, but not quite, as the Viper drew ahead and hauled her wind. Voices came again, already farther off.

“Away to Rio. Away to Rio. Oh, fare you well, my bonny young maid, for we’re bound for Rio Grande!”

“They’ve been getting at the rum,” said Peter Duck.

Nancy loosened her grip on John’s arm, and John, in the darkness, knowing that she could not see, allowed himself to rub the place.

“I say, Uncle Jim,” said Nancy, “would you really have sunk them?”

“How could I?” said Captain Flint.

How could he, indeed? But, from that moment, John and Nancy knew that something had changed aboard the Wild Cat. Something had happened to bind Peter Duck and Captain Flint together. The Viper was an enemy now, for both of them, and not for Peter Duck alone. Captain Flint was not the sort of man to stand Black Jake’s playing monkey tricks in the dark, tricks that might easily have damaged the Wild Cat’s new paint, and, if there had been any nervousness in her steering, might even have ended in a serious collision.

“Time you went below, Nancy,” said Captain Flint.

“All right,” said Nancy, “but I’m coming up when it’s our watch, and anyhow you’ll call me if they come again.”

“You shall have your whack at them if they try to board,” said Captain Flint. He said it with a laugh, but anybody could tell from the way he said it that he no longer thought of the English Channel as so safe a highway that nothing of that kind was likely to happen.

That was the last they saw or heard of the Viper that night. She raced off again into the dark, and though Captain Flint took no more rest, so that there were three of them on deck keeping a keen look out, not knowing what next might come into Black Jake’s dark mind, they saw no lights nor any other sign of her. It was not until Nancy came on deck again, sleepy-eyed, but eager for news, that they saw the black schooner again. She must have crossed their bows in the dark and waited for them, for when they first caught sight of her, in the first pale light of a grey morning, she was a couple of miles away to the south-east or perhaps rather more.

That great wind had swept them along at a tremendous pace. They had seen the flashing light on the Lizard first over the starboard bow and then abeam, and now it flashed out for the last time when they had already passed it and looking astern could see the steep cliffs of the Head, cold and grim against the dawn.

“Where are we going now?” said Nancy.

“To have a look at the Land’s End and the Scillies,” said Captain Flint. “And then, if the wind holds and that fellow won’t leave us alone, we’ll give him a run up to Ireland.”

“We’d best get quit of him,” said Peter Duck.

But the wind had blown itself out, as Peter Duck had thought it would. After sweeping them down from one end of the Channel to the other, it dropped to nothing. They had hardly steerage way through the water when the tide, running out of the Channel, carried them past the Land’s End. The mates, the able-seaman, and the boy were dawdling over breakfast, hearing from Nancy of that wild business of the night that they had missed by being asleep. Captain Flint, Peter Duck, and John were on deck, looking at the lighthouses at the Longships and on the Wolf Rock, and at the black schooner which seemed, in spite of the lack of wind, to be creeping up to them again when, with only a few minutes’ warning, they lost sight of everything in a thick blanket of white fog.