Читать книгу Chums of the "Golden Vanity" - Percy Francis Westerman - Страница 7
ОглавлениеA Night at Sea
For the rest of the afternoon the chums were busily engaged in preparing for the voyage. Gordon, having taken them on board and explained in glowing terms the sea-worthiness of Arran Dhu and the lavishness of her equipment, went ashore and took the first available train to London.
The lads' first task was to overhaul sails and running gear to find out where each rope led, and for what purpose it was intended.
"I reckon she's slow in stays," remarked Geoff. "She'll be a brute to handle if we have to beat out of here, but with plenty of sea-room——"
"Yes, sea-room's the thing!" ejaculated Bernard. "On a wind she'll sail herself. What do you say to getting under way to-night? The wind's sou'westerly. When does the tide serve?"
An inspection of the Nautical Almanac in conjunction with the chart showed that the first of the east-going stream commenced at a little after eight o'clock.
"Just the thing," agreed Geoff. "It will give us an opportunity to provision the ship. We'll listen to the weather forecast; if it's all right, we'll make a start at once."
They rowed ashore, made their way to the nearest provision shop, and bought enough tinned stuff to last them a month!
"Saves the fag of having to cook," explained Geoff. "Now, is there anything more we want?"
Bernard thought not. They retraced their way to where they had left the dinghy. Garge, his broad back propped against the stone wall, smiled benignly.
"Your'm off, I'll allow?" he inquired.
"Yes, this evening," replied Geoff. "Is she easy to handle?"
"Quiet as a lamb," asserted the man. "Wunnerful seaboat she be. I knowed 'er when Mr. Trefuses 'ad 'er. Lie-to? Sartain sure. The only thing wrong with that there 'ooker is 'er owner, an' I don't go much on 'im."
A certain sense of loyalty towards the absent Mr. Gordon who had so generously lent them the yacht restrained the chums from asking for further explanations.
They rowed off to the Arran Dhu, had a good meal ("You never know when you'll have the chance to get another," remarked Bernard philosophically), and awaited the hour fixed for their departure.
In plenty of time they stood by for the weather report. The Arran Dhu's radio equipment was installed with its aerial running from the starboard chain-plate up to the masthead and down to the corresponding chain-plate on the port side, whence it led to the set fixed to the for'ard bulkhead of the saloon. Thus the aerial could be kept in position while the yacht was under way. The so-called "earth" was merely a copper wire trailing overside into the water.
"'Winds sou'westerly, moderate to light. Further outlook: a period of fine sunny weather is likely to continue for some days.' Good enough!" declared Geoff. "Let's get sail on her!"
He gave a comprehensive glance round to reassure himself that all was snug below, and that there was nothing likely to go adrift when the yacht heeled. Then he followed his chum on deck.
Together they commenced to hoist the heavy mainsail.
"May as well reeve the reef-earrings," said Bernard. "They mightn't be wanted, but if they're there they're there! . . . A swig on the peak-halliards, old son! At that! Slack away the topping-lift. My word, that sail sets well! Nothing much to complain about there!"
Staysail and No. 2 jib were then hoisted. Leaving Geoff to tend the headsheets, Bernard went aft to the tiller.
"Head sails a-weather! Let go!" he shouted.
The Arran Dhu had been lying at moorings, thus doing away with the necessity of weighing and stowing anchor. Geoff, taking care that the buoy-rope was not foul of the bowsprit shrouds, cast off the mooring-chain. The yacht's head paid off. Her jib and staysail sheets were trimmed a-lee. Slowly she gathered way.
The voyage had begun.
For the next five minutes it was an anxious time for the youthful helmsman. They rapidly gathered an understanding of her "stiffness" and slowness.
In the early days of his youth, Bernard's somewhat didactic father had taken great pains to impress upon his son the paramount importance of doing one thing at a time and doing it well. This advice had been so often reiterated that it had become tedious. Bernard had tried, after a fashion, to live up to the precept, with the result that he was apt to be slow in his movements and painstaking in his methods.
Five minutes in charge of Arran Dhu knocked that precept into the limbo of shattered illusions. He had to be here, there, and everywhere. A pull on a sheet here; a leap to clear a kinked line there; then back to the tiller in order to put it hard down to prevent the yacht poking her bowsprithead through the shrouds of an anchored craft. Then the tiller had to be temporarily abandoned in order that the dinghy's painter might be shortened lest that hefty yet important object should foul the buoy of a large ketch.
As it was the Arran Dhu's boom-end missed the ketch's bowsprit by inches; and, having given the young helmsman cold shivers, she proceeded to do her best to get in irons, midway between a steam-yacht and a large motor-cruiser.
"Put your hellum down!" yelled a brass-bound man on the steam yacht. "Let 'er come abart!" shouted a Cockney hand on the motor-yacht.
Arran Dhu refused to answer. Absolutely in irons, she drifted on the now strong tideway, grazing past both craft with little more than a fender's breadth to spare.
By this time Geoff had snugged down for'ard and come aft.
"What's up with her?" he inquired.
Bernard shook his head.
"Hanged if I know," he replied. "I have never handled such a brute. Headsheets to wind'ard, old son. Sooner we get way on her the better."
By this time Arran Dhu had drifted rather than sailed clear of the anchorage. Sulkily she paid off, gathered way, and pointed her bows towards the open sea.
Before Black Rock was abeam, Bernard had "got the hang of things". In other words, he discovered that the old-fashioned craft could not be "pinched"—that is to say, sailed close to the wind. She would not point so high as a short-keeled yacht, or even the centre-board boats to which the chums were accustomed. But, given liberal weather-helm, Arran Dhu would be reasonably tractable.
"What's the course, Captain?" asked Geoff, when St. Antony bore a mile to the nor'ard.
"Due east," replied Bernard. "You take the helm, I'll go below and get the kettle on the stove. Yes, she's doing very well now."
Arran Dhu was certainly moving. There was a steady sou'westerly breeze and favourable flood-tide. With eased sheets the cutter was doing a good five knots, while the dinghy, straining at her two-inch Manila painter, was frothing noisily through the grey-blue water.
Already it was close on sunset. In the cabin it was too gloomy to see much, so Bernard lighted the two gimballed lamps before attending to the stove.
What a transformation those lamps made! The mellow light harmonized with the cushions and curtains. There was a pleasing and characteristically yachty smell of varnished teak, and a subtle odour of tarred rope. From without came the sound of plashing water as the old boat drove sedately through the waves. Through the open skylight wafted the sound of the wind as it hummed in the tautened weather rigging. The while there was a pleasing, rhythmic motion that made the swing table and the gimballed lamps sway in unison as the Arran Dhu kicked her heels to the quartering seas.
"This is absolutely IT!" thought Bernard enthusiastically.
Presently: "Grub's ready!" he sang out. "Are you coming down?"
"No," replied Geoff. "You carry on. I'm all right. When you've finished I'll have my grub."
Bernard ate his meal in silence, ecstatically happy.
"Bring the side-lights when you come up," called out the helmsman.
Reflecting that these should have been lighted and placed in position before, as it was now well past sunset, Bernard brought the lamps from the lamp-room and went on deck.
"Hallo!" he exclaimed, "what's the wind doing?"
"Falling light," replied his chum, relinquishing the tiller. "No matter; we're afloat. Who cares?"
Left to himself Bernard nursed the almost unresisting tiller. The breeze was dropping steadily. The Arran Dhu was hardly making way through the water. Astern the dinghy wallowed sluggishly, the bight of her painter dipping again and again into the oily sea, and throwing a cascade of phosphorescent spray every time the rope took up the towing strain.
Bernard glanced at the compass-card in the electrically lighted binnacle-hood. The yacht's bows were still pointing east. So far the dying breeze had remained true.
Shorewards the lights of the various fishing-hamlets had vanished into a sort of watery haze. Although overhead the stars shone brightly a kind of low-lying mist seemed to be closing down upon the yacht.
At length the wind petered out. Arran Dhu rolled sluggishly, her canvas slatting from side to side, the heavy boom bringing up with a jerk as the mainsheet took up the strain. Alternately the flapping foresail was tinged with red and green as the fabric swung into the arc of the sidelights. Through the frosted glass of the skylight the lamps in the saloon gleamed cosily. A clatter of metal announced that Geoff had finished his meal, and was engaged in the prosaic task of washing-up.
Then it was that Bernard realized the impotency of a sailing-craft when deserted by the breeze. There was a sense of utter helplessness in being becalmed in the open seas on a dark night, and without power to move the yacht. A motor, which both chums had scornfully derided, would now have been welcome. True, there were sweeps, but what purpose was there in tugging at the heavy ash oars which at their best would urge the heavy craft along at only a little over a mile an hour?
Bernard began to be conscious of a decided drop in temperature. There was a chilliness in the air that seemed different from the normal change following sunset. It was a damp cold that, in spite of the lad's thick sweater, seemed to strike to the very marrow of his bones.
"Pass up my oileys, Geoff!" he sung out.
"Right-o!" replied his chum. "What do you want them for? Is it raining?"
"No; it's beastly cold," was the laconic response. "Better bring yours, too, while you're about it."
Geoff appeared carrying both semi-rigid, self-adhesive lumps of yellow canvas that claimed to be non-sticking oilskin coats.
"It is dark, isn't it?" remarked Geoff. "How's her head, cap'n?"
He peered at the compass card. The lubber's line was against NW by W.
"Bit off your course, aren't you?" he remarked.
"Try and get her round, then," said his chum. "We're just drifting, nothing more."
To emphasize his remark, the dinghy ranged up alongside the yacht's port quarter. At the risk of having his fingers jammed, Bernard grasped the dinghy's gunwale and pushed her clear of the sluggishly rolling Arran Dhu. The while the boom was charging from side to side, threatening to deal a stunning blow to either or both lads.
This sort of thing continued until nearly midnight. The sky was now completely overcast. Big drops of rain pattered on the deck or splashed as they struck the heaving, crestless waves. The rain increased in density, until, in spite of the darkness, the sea all around the wind-starved yacht was ghostly white with the rebounding drops and the noise of the creaking gear was drowned by the sound of the vertically falling downpour.
Then, its volume increasing until it outvoiced the sound of falling rain, came a long-drawn moan.
Each lad glanced at the other. Bernard sprang to his feet.
"Let go your headsheets," he shouted. "We're in for it! It's a squall!"
