Читать книгу The Sea Scouts of the Kestrel - Percy Francis Westerman - Страница 9

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“Turn out, you fellows!” shouted Craddock. “All hands on deck! We’ve parted our cable, and there’s a heavy fog on.”

The rest of the crew tumbled out of their bunks and hammocks and hurried into their clothes. They accepted Peter’s statement without any hesitation, for it was one of the few hard-and-fast rules on board that on no account was a false alarm to be knowingly raised. Skylarking in its proper place was encouraged and harmless practical joking permitted; but each Sea Scout had been impressed with the seriousness of the harm that might occur by raising the nautical equivalent to the shout of “ ’Ware Wolf!” when there was not one.

In various stages of “undress uniform,” Scoutmaster and Sea Scouts gained the deck. The lads remained silent, waiting for Mr. Grant’s orders. He was frankly puzzled. The Kestrel had been anchored surrounded by yachts and boats in the crowded anchorage of Greenbank. It seemed incredible that she should have drifted any distance without fouling some of the craft in the tideway.

Craddock had reported that the cable had parted. Mr. Grant hoped that such was not the case. He had known of anchors being dropped with one of the flukes caught in the bobstay and with only the bight of the chain resting on the bottom. He rather wished such was the case now.

“Get the fog-horn, Wilson,” he ordered. “Two blasts about every minute, please. And, Craddock, you might heave the lead. The others prepare to make sail.”

Groping his way for’ard, for the fog was so thick that even the still burning riding-lamp ten feet above the deck was invisible, Mr. Grant grasped the cable and hauled in the slack. One look was sufficient. The last of the remaining links had been deliberately cut through with a hack-saw. The rest of the chain, together with the anchor, was lying on the bed of Falmouth Harbour—miles away, probably.

It was no time for feelings of resentment and anger. The Scoutmaster came aft.

“What water have we?” he asked.

“No bottom, sir,” reported Peter.

Mr. Grant gave an involuntary gasp of astonishment. The lead-line, 25 fathoms, or 150 feet, in length, was insufficient to touch the bed of the sea.

“Bend another line to it,” he continued.

“I’m doing it already, sir,” announced Craddock.

“Good! ... Now, how much?”

“Another four fathoms, sir,” reported the leadsman.

The Scoutmaster was on the point of going below, when Wilson stopped him.

“Why are we to give two blasts, sir?” he enquired. “Oughtn’t we to sound a bell or something like that? We’re supposed to be at anchor.”

Even in his worried state of mind, Mr. Grant did not hesitate to reply.

“It puzzled me what signal to make at first,” he answered. “Although we were anchored—that is to say, I thought we were—the Kestrel had obviously moved. In that case we are under way, and although we haven’t yet made sail, what wind there is is on our port beam. Consequently it is assumed that we are on the port tack; therefore, two blasts.”

“Where are we, sir?” asked Carline.

“That’s what I want to find out,” replied Mr. Grant. “I’m going below to look at the chart.”

Within the saloon the light was so dim that the lamp had to be lighted before it was possible to read the minute figures on the chart. Very soon the Scoutmaster’s worst fears were confirmed. Nowhere within Falmouth Harbour is a depth of twenty-nine fathoms to be obtained, even at the top of high-water springs. Obviously, then, the Kestrel had drifted with the tide right out of the harbour without colliding with any other craft and fortunately clearing the dangerous Black Rock that lies in the mouth of the harbour and approximately midway between the projecting arms of Pendennis and St. Anthony. According to the soundings, the Kestrel was somewhere on a line extending from the dreaded Manacles to the Dodman, and might be anywhere between those points, a distance of approximately fifteen sea-miles.

It was not an envious position for the Kestrel to be in. There was no wind, but a very heavy fog. She might or might not be in the way of vessels making for or leaving Falmouth Harbour. If she drifted northwards she would sooner or later pile herself up upon the iron-bound coast. The same condition would apply if she drifted west’ard. Provided a breeze sprung up, the best course was to make for the open Channel, but even then there was a risk of being run down in the busy steamer track that passed a few miles to the south’ard of the Lizard. To attempt to grope their way back to Falmouth, starting from an absolutely unknown position, was out of the question.

Effectually concealing his anxiety, Mr. Grant returned on deck. By this time the Sea Scouts, under Patrol Leader Brandon’s direction, had set all plain sail. Fortunately Frank had remembered the invisible riding-light on the forestay.

In the flat calm, although there was a light swell on, the canvas hung idly. From the cockpit only a part of the mainsail as far as the upper line of reef-points and a small portion of the mizzen were visible. The rest was swallowed up in the fog.

“This is the worst fog we’ve struck,” remarked Craddock, as he coiled up the lead-line for another cast.

“It is,” agreed the Scoutmaster. “Luckily we’ve plenty of sea-room.”

“Plenty of sea-room, sir?” echoed Peter. “Where are we?”

“That, exactly, I don’t know,” confessed Mr. Grant frankly. “What I do know is that we’ve drifted right out of Falmouth Harbour and are in the English Channel. As a rule fogs don’t last very long at this time of year. When the sun is well up there’ll be a breeze and the mist will disperse. Meanwhile we must take things as we find them and be thankful they are no worse.”

“I wonder what the Merlin is doing,” remarked Brandon.

“Still on her moorings, I expect,” hazarded Heavitree. “They’ll think we’ve given them the slip.”

“If the fog’s anything like it is here they won’t know we’ve gone,” rejoined the Patrol Leader. “Unless they hail us,” he added as an afterthought. “Wonder why the cable parted? We tested it carefully when we stowed it aboard the first time.”

“This is the reason,” announced Mr. Grant, producing the cut link from his pocket. “Someone has been monkeying about with the chain. It has been deliberately cut through with a hack-saw. When and by whom remains a question.”

“Blueskin?” enquired Symington and Talbot simultaneously.

“Perhaps, but unlikely,” replied the Scoutmaster. “I’m basing my idea upon the assumption that Carlo Bone has had a sea training. Some miscreant, probably the fellow who squirted petrol over the Kestrel, has an imaginary grievance against us. He’s been trying to destroy the yacht by the most underhanded methods imaginable. Failing to set her on fire, he cut through this link, knowing that it would still bear any ordinary strain, but not a heavy one. He was counting upon the cable parting while we were riding at anchor in some harbour during a stiff gale. Now, a seaman wouldn’t cut a link in that fashion—with the cut away from the yacht’s bows. He would saw through the other end of the link so that when it did part it would go with the outboard portion of the cable, and thus cover up all trace of his underhand work.”

“But it might have been Blueskin,” remarked Wilson.

“Yes, it might,” agreed Mr. Grant, “but having misjudged him once I don’t feel justified in laying the blame upon him. Not that we are likely to discover the culprit. Now I think we might see about a somewhat belated breakfast.”

While Talbot and Wilson, “the cooks of the day,” went below to prepare the meal, the others set about various tasks on deck. Craddock continued to heave the lead at about five minutes’ intervals, the soundings remaining fairly regular. Carline took over the manipulation of the fog-horn, standing by the now useless tiller in case a puff of wind should bear down through the barrier of fog.

Brandon and Heavitree assisted the Scoutmaster to bend the cable to the kedge. Fortunately there still remained between fifteen and twenty fathoms of the former, but in the absence of a long link there was no means of shackling it direct to the kedge—a small anchor of about twenty-five pounds in weight. Consequently the chain had to be made fast to the ring in the kedge by a “fisherman’s bend,” the end being stopped with wire to guard against any possibility of the knot slipping.

“Brekker nearly ready?” enquired Brandon, calling through the open skylight.

“It is,” replied Talbot, “but you won’t get any till you’ve cleared up below.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed the Patrol Leader, “I’d forgotten that! Come on, lads; let’s square up and make all ship-shape below.”

The saloon was in a bit of an untidy state. The Sea Scouts on their hurried exit for the deck had tumbled out of bunks and hammocks, leaving the former littered with blankets and the latter swaying to and fro from the deck-beams. The bedding was passed out, shaken, and folded; the hammocks unshipped and stowed in their accustomed places when not in use. Quickly the disordered saloon assumed a semblance of tidiness.

“Where’s Molly?” enquired Brandon.

No one knew. She had been last seen asleep in a box under Craddock’s bunk.

All hands below joined in the search. They called the pup by name, hunted high and low, but without success.

“S’pose she wasn’t in one of the blankets when we shook them overboard?” suggested Heavitree.

“Now you mention it, I think I did hear a sort of splash,” said Symington. “It was too thick to see.”

“Let’s hope not,” continued Heavitree. “She’s not big enough to climb the companion ladder.”

“What’s the matter, lads?” enquired Mr. Grant, entering the cabin and removing his dripping cap.

“We’ve lost Molly, sir,” announced Brandon dolefully.

The Scoutmaster sat down on one of the settees. As he did so a growl of protest came from the neighbourhood of his back. Turning, he raised one of the side-cushions. There, in a small recess formed between the two cushions, was the missing pup together with about nine-tenths of a shoe.

“Peter, old man!” sang out the Patrol Leader, “Molly’s been lost. We’ve found her making a meal of your shoe. Jolly careless of you to leave your gear all over the place.”

Craddock, from whom the news of his special pet’s disappearance had been hitherto kept, temporarily abandoned his sounding operations and came below.

“Naughty pup!” he said reprovingly.

Molly, no wise daunted, looked fearlessly up into her master’s face and struggled to give him a lick of devotion and affection.

“She wouldn’t be so brave a week ago,” remarked Brandon. “Don’t hit her, Peter.”

“No fear,” replied his chum. Then he critically examined the damaged footgear.

“Strikes me, old son, you’ve made a slight mistake,” he continued, addressing Brandon. “It’s not my shoe; it’s yours.”

The others roared at the Patrol Leader’s discomfiture, but Brandon took it in good part.

“That shows Molly’s sense of discrimination,” he retorted, taking the shoe from Peter’s hand. “It’s one of my second best. Where’s the other one, I wonder?”

He searched and discovered it in his kit-bag, together with one of his best shore-going pair. A further hunt failed to find the other. Molly, with her sense of discrimination, had taken two odd ones from the Patrol Leader’s kit-bag, and of these one had been thrown overboard by Symington when he had shaken out his blankets. To make matters worse the odd shoes were both lefts.

Breakfast was dispatched in grand style. The Sea Scouts were in high spirits. The fact that they were surrounded by fog hardly troubled them. They were afloat in one of the soundest craft imaginable for her size, and, what was more, they were bound for the Jamboree. If necessary they had sufficient provisions and fresh water for a week.

Nor was Mr. Grant perturbed. Now that he realised the Kestrel had plenty of sea-room, he had little to worry about. On a still day such as this, sounds could be heard for quite a long distance, and since the continual roar of the Channel swell against the iron-bound coast was inaudible he knew that any danger of the yacht being cast ashore by the strong and intricate currents of the district was a remote one.

Noon came, bringing with it no breeze to disperse the dense pall of mist. At times the fog lifted sufficiently to enable the bowsprit-end to be seen; at others it was a matter of difficulty to distinguish objects six feet away.

The while the Kestrel was underlying in the game of “chasing her own tail.” Absolutely drifting in a dead calm, she was powerless to answer to her helm. Her bows swung round very slowly through every point of the compass and continued to do so. Yet the while, judging by the drag of the lead-line when allowed to remain in the bottom, she was being swept in an easterly direction by the two-knot tide. Well away to the south’ard came an almost continual braying of many sirens. The steamer track was as yet a safe distance off.

By two in the afternoon the crew began to find time hang heavily on their hands. The reaction of having nothing definite to do following upon days of strenuous activity from morn to night was telling. They could see nothing beyond the limits of their floating home, and hardly that. There was plenty to be done by way of “finishing off” various jobs below, but the light was too dim to enable anything in that line to be attempted. They coiled down or “flemished” every rope on deck, spun yarns, tried to teach their overfed and decidedly sleepy mascot various tricks—all without success.

“Wish the fog would lift,” remarked Carline.

“And a breeze spring up,” added Heavitree, looking wistfully at the idle canvas.

The Scoutmaster, too, was puzzled, not only by the persistency of the fog, but by the absence of sound from any of the shore signal stations. In vain he kept listening for the fog signals from the Lizard. That dangerous headland might be only a few miles away and yet the sound be inaudible. Fog, he knew, plays strange tricks with sound. Frequently there are zones of silence over which sounds leap to be distinctly audible at a long distance beyond the source of emission. All he knew concerning the Kestrel’s position was that she was drifting slowly in a south-easterly direction, but that on the turn of the Channel tide—which by no means coincided with the time of high and low water on the shore—the yacht would be swept in the reverse direction and possibly be driven aground on the dangerous coast between the Lizard and the Manacles.

No wonder he wished fervently for the fog to lift.

The hours passed slowly. It was not until nearly eight o’clock that a faint breeze ruffled the water and the wall of vapour began to disperse.

“Hurrah! a breeze!” exclaimed Brandon, as the hitherto idly-playing main boom swung out and tugged gently at the mainsheet.

“What course, sir?” asked the Patrol Leader, as the Kestrel gathered way.

“Sou’-sou’-east,” replied Mr. Grant. “It’ll mean a night afloat, lads.”

“Good egg!” ejaculated Heavitree.

The Scoutmaster wasn’t so sure about it. Possibly there would be half a gale of wind when the fog did disperse; and until it did the Kestrel must have plenty of sea-room. To attempt to make a strange harbour in a mist and with only a few remaining hours of daylight was asking for trouble.

The breeze held; but the mist, although diminishing in density, continued to hang about in irregular patches.

“Keep your eyes skinned, lads!” continued Mr. Grant. “We ought to be seeing land on our port quarter.”

“Sail ahead!” sang out Craddock.