The Race to Kangaroo Cliff

  Amanda stared down at the deck. “I felt so bad,” she said. “I was just too scared to tell him what really happened.”

  Poppy spoke firmly. The line of people was beginning to move, and she knew that they did not have much time to finish their conversation. “Then you’re going to end up feeling bad for a lot longer,” she said. “It’s your choice, Amanda – make a clean breast of it and get it over and done with, or feel bad about it for as long as you’re at school on the Tobermory. You choose.”

  After dinner, Mr Rigger announced the rota of watches. There had to be at least five people on deck throughout the night, keeping a look-out for signs of rising wind and ready, at a moment’s notice, to take the ship out of the bay if the wind shifted and made their situation dangerous. Procedures were set out: at the first sign of rain and wind, one of those on watch would go down below and wake the Captain and Mr Rigger, who would come up on deck and take charge.

  “Be vigilant,” warned Mr Rigger. “Storms can blow up in no time at all, and if you don’t act quickly you can be in serious trouble. There can be winds of over a hundred miles an hour.”

  Ben and Badger were on an early watch, along with Tanya, while Poppy, Fee and Amanda were on a watch that started just after midnight. They were to be on duty with Bartholomew Fitzhardy and Maximilian Flubber.

  “Oh no,” groaned Poppy. “I’m on with Flubber.” She did not mention the fact that Amanda Birt-whistle was on the same watch. That, she thought, could be awkward, but at least she and Amanda had spoken to one another.

  Badger laughed. “Have fun!” he said cheerfully. “We’ve got Shark. I’d much prefer to be on watch with Flubber than Shark.”

  Because they would have to get up just before midnight, Poppy and Fee went to bed early. Poppy had some difficulty getting off to sleep, knowing that a night watch was ahead of her, while Fee, who was tired, did not stay awake long. All too soon, their turn came to go up on deck. Poppy had set her alarm to wake them, and they both climbed out of their hammocks, drowsy and dishevelled, ready for duty.

  Fee and Bartholomew took up their position at the bow of the ship. Poppy, Flubber and Amanda were at the helm. Together they decided which direction they would cover: Poppy would look out for anything to stern, Amanda would be in charge of the starboard and Flubber would look after the port side.

  Separated from Hardtack and Shark, Flubber proved to be surprisingly friendly. He asked Poppy about her adventure with Will, and he listened widemouthed as she told him about hiding from the crocodiles up a tree. “I would’ve been really scared,” he said. “I don’t know how you did it. I think I would have shaken so much I would have fallen out of the tree.”

  Poppy was surprised to hear Flubber say that. She did not think she would ever hear Hardtack or Shark admitting to being frightened.

  “I think you would have been fine,” Poppy said.

  Flubber seemed pleased. “Still,” he said, “I’m glad you were all right.”

  He then offered Poppy and Amanda a piece of chocolate from a bar he had in his pocket. They both accepted, and this made Flubber smile. Poppy thought: He has quite a nice smile, this boy. See, he can’t be all bad.

  It was very quiet for the first forty minutes of the swatch. Then, with no warning at all, a wind arose. It did not start gently, but arrived with a suddenness that nobody had been expecting. First there was just wind, blowing hard and cold, howling loudly as it whipped across the surface of the sea. Then there was rain – a white sheet of water which raced across the deck like a suddenly drawn curtain.

  Poppy, who was standing near the helm, was joined by Amanda and Flubber, both of whom were struggling to avoid being swept off their feet by the force of the wind.

  “What are we going to do?” shouted Flubber.

  “We need to wake the Captain and Mr Rigger,” Poppy shouted back. “I’ll go …”

  She did not finish what she was saying. The force of the wind had suddenly increased and she had to grab hold of the wheel to save herself from being blown away. Flubber and Amanda had to do the same, all three of them hanging on for dear life, their clothes being almost torn by the sheer force of the squall. In such conditions, there was no chance of being able to cross the deck safely and go below to get the Captain and Mr Rigger.

  “We’ll just have to hang on,” yelled Poppy. “Whatever you do, don’t let go.”

  Up at the bow, Fee and Bartholomew had ducked beneath the gunnels – the high sides of the ship – and were getting some shelter there. They could not move either, and would simply have to stay where they were until the storm subsided.

  Poppy wondered if the Captain would be woken up by the movement of the boat. He was, but as he came up the companionway and onto the deck to help, he was pushed back by the sheer power of the wind. Like the others, he would be unable to cross the deck without being blown over. He was helpless, stuck where he was until the wind dropped and the wild lashing rain had subsided.

  They might have been able to ride out the storm had something not happened that every sailor dreads. The anchor was now taking the full strain. With each gust of wind, the Tobermory pulled more and more fiercely against the restraining chain, yanking it back and forth like a great metal whip. The pull of the ship was now just too great for it to remain where it was. With a great heave, the anchor freed itself and began to drag across the sea-bed. The Tobermory was now moving.

  Poppy saw immediately that the situation was extremely serious. The wind had shifted and was now pushing them slowly but surely towards the rocks at the edge of the bay. Unless they could bring in the chain and manage to move the boat out to sea, they were now facing certain shipwreck.

  Poppy thought quickly. The anchor chain was controlled from up at the bow. If she could signal to Bartholomew and Fee, they would be able to operate the windlass that brought the chain in. But would they be able to see her through the sheets of rain?

  Fortunately, they did, and interpreted her frantic hand signals correctly. Crawling to the windlass, Fee and Bartholomew began to wind in the chain. At the same time, Flubber turned on the engine and he, Poppy and Amanda began to struggle with the ship’s wheel.

  It was hard to control the wheel as the boat was tossed about by the storm. Poppy would never have been able to do it by herself, but together they managed to swing the wheel sufficiently to point the nose of the Tobermory out of the bay so it faced the open sea. It was very heavy going, but with the three of them to bring the manoeuvre off, they succeeded. Soon the chain was in and the Tobermory was making her way into deeper, safer water. And just as that happened, the storm began to abate. The wind dropped and stopped howling quite so fiercely, and the rain began to ease off. From having been a violent storm, it was now just an ordinary, even if still rather badly behaved, storm.

  Captain Macbeth was now able to come out on deck. As he joined the three bedraggled students at the helm, he shouted out praise. “Well done, all of you! Quick thinking!”

  Mr Rigger also came up on deck, and he and the Captain took control of the ship.

  “You go down below,” said the Captain to his bedraggled crew members. “Change into dry clothing and ask Matron to give you a mug of hot chocolate each. I imagine she’ll be wide awake by now after all this commotion.”

  As they made their way down the companionway, Poppy reached out and touched Amanda on the arm. “You were pretty brave up there,” she said.

  Then she turned to Flubber and said the same to him.

  Flubber thanked her, but said that in his opinion it was Poppy who had really saved the day. “I was only following orders,” he said. “And you gave me the courage to do what we did.”

  Amanda looked at Poppy. “I’m going to speak to the Captain tomorrow,” she said. “I made up my mind about what to do when we were battling the storm.”

  Poppy smiled. “I knew you’d do the right thing,” she said, and then added, “Thank you, Amanda.”

  And it was indeed the right thing. Next morn
ing the Captain listened carefully to what Amanda had to say, and at the end of it he accepted that she was sorry and had learned a valuable lesson about telling the truth. But he did more than that. Calling Poppy in, he told her he was sorry for having misjudged her so quickly. “I think we’ve all learned something,” he said. “Myself included.”

  As is often the case, the final stage of the race was the most exciting part of all. As they sped towards Kangaroo Cliff, they began to see more of the other ships. There was the Prince of Hamburg, her sails tightly and expertly trimmed, her crew poised ready to pull on the ropes that would give the canvas whatever tug it needed to get the most out of the wind. She seemed to be in the lead, although there was not much between her and the next two ships in the race – one of which was the Melbourne, the other being the Tobermory.

  Ben could hardly believe his eyes when he saw they were one of the first three. “I thought we’d lost any chance we had once we stopped to help Will,” he said to Badger.

  Badger was as surprised as Ben, but he had been speaking to Mr Rigger, who had explained to him what had happened. “Apparently, all the other ships had some sort of incident as well,” Mr Rigger told him. “Most of them were caught up in the storm last night. We were lucky – it didn’t set us back too much, but others weren’t that fortunate and were blown badly off course.”

  Then there had been medical emergencies on two of the other ships. One was a case of appendicitis, which had required the ship to stop altogether while a surgeon carried out an operation. But there had been complications and the ship had had to divert to a port to drop the patient off at a hospital. That had cost them several days. Sickness had broken out on board another ship, requiring it to remain at anchor for two days whilst the crew recovered.

  There were other things too that Mr Rigger had heard over the radio. The New Zealand ship, the Spirit of Hokianga, had sprung a serious leak and had spent a few days in a river delta while her hull was patched up. Then the Russian ship had lost her rudder and had to make, and fit, a temporary one before she could continue. All these misfortunes meant that in the final leg of the race the Tobermory now stood as good a chance as any of winning.

  The first sighting of Kangaroo Cliff was made by Tanya, who was on watch with Amanda up in the crow’s nest. When she shouted the news to the others, a great cheer arose from everybody on deck.

  “We’ll be there in no time at all,” shouted Ben.

  “And we’ve got a good chance of winning,” shouted Badger. “Look – we’re right with the front-runners.”

  “I told you never to give up,” said Mr Rigger proudly. “A race isn’t over …”

  Badger knew what was coming: “… until it’s over,” he added.

  “That’s right, young Tomkins!” exclaimed Mr Rigger. “You seem to know in advance what I’m going to say, but remember, if you have something worth saying then …”

  “… then you should always say it,” Badger said, with a smile.

  “Exactly,” said Mr Rigger. “That’s exactly what I was going to say!”

  Now, with just a very short distance to cover, the race had become a touch-and-go affair. The three leading ships, the Tobermory, the Melbourne and the Prince of Hamburg were neck and neck, spread out in a wide line, each doing much the same speed as the other.

  “Do you think it’s going to be a dead-heat?” Angela asked, as she stood at the railing with Fee, Ben and Badger.

  Fee shook her head. “Somebody will pull ahead at the last moment,” she said. “It’s going to be close, all right, but there’ll definitely be a clear winner.”

  “I hope it’s us,” Angela said. “Oh, I do so hope it’s going to be us.”

  It was impossible to say which of the ships would manage to put on that extra burst of speed needed to win. As she looked across at the other two ships, though, Fee noticed there were signs that the Melbourne was speeding up. But then, a moment later, the wind shifted a little and the Australian ship slowed down again.

  Poppy and Thomas were at the helm for this final stage, with Captain Macbeth and Mr Rigger standing immediately behind them, calling out orders. Suddenly the Captain seemed to notice something and turned to speak to Mr Rigger. Both of them looked over to starboard, towards the Prince of Hamburg. There was no mistaking the look of shock on both their faces.

  “Poppy and Thomas, Mr Rigger will take the helm now,” said Captain Macbeth urgently, as he unfurled a chart and examined it closely, the paper flapping wildly in the wind. Once again he conferred with Mr Rigger. Nodding his head to confirm the order the Captain had given him, Mr Rigger swung the wheel over to starboard, making the ship turn sharply, right into the path of the German boat.

  Fee was astonished. “Why is he doing that?” she asked.

  Her question was directed at nobody in particular, and for a moment it hung in the air before being answered by Badger.

  “I think he’s trying to get the Prince of Hamburg to swerve,” he said. “And look – that’s exactly what’s happening.”

  Faced with the prospect of the Tobermory straying into its path, the German ship had no choice but to turn as well. This change of direction took it slightly further out to sea, ending its chances of winning. But the Tobermory’s manoeuvre also put paid to any hope of victory for that ship. With her two rivals out of the running now, the Melbourne cruised decisively into the lead to win first place. The Prince of Hamburg was second and the Tobermory third.

  There was no hiding the disappointment Captain Macbeth’s crew felt. It had been so close, and had it not been for the Captain’s odd change of course at the last minute there would have been a perfectly good chance that they would have won.

  That thought was uppermost in the minds of all the students as they waited to be addressed by the Captain. They had now dropped anchor in the bay in front of Kangaroo Cliff and were waiting to have the debriefing that every crew has at the end of a race.

  “The first thing I’d like to say,” Captain Macbeth began, “is well done! Coming third in a race like this is a very good result, and I think you can all be proud of yourselves.”

  His words were greeted in silence. It might be true that third place was not a bad result, but how much better it would have been to be second, or even first – and both those results had been within their grasp.

  The Captain looked out over the heads of the students. Under his breath, he muttered to Mr Rigger, “I know how they feel.”

  The Captain cleared his throat. “You’ll be wondering about what happened towards the end,” he said. “Well, I’ve just been on the radio to the captain of the Prince of Hamburg and I’ve explained to him why I forced them to change course.”

  The whole ship’s company was listening attentively. There was not a sound to be heard other than the noise of the wind in the rigging.

  “I’m glad to say that the German captain completely understands,” continued Captain Macbeth. “And more than that – he thanked me for doing what we did.”

  Badger looked enquiringly at Ben. “Have you got any idea what this is about?” he asked.

  Ben shook his head. “None at all,” he replied. “Let’s see what he says.”

  Now came the explanation. “Just before I ordered Mr Rigger to turn to starboard,” said the Captain, “I realised the Hamburg seemed unaware of some submerged rocks directly ahead of her. Had she hit them, she would have been seriously damaged and probably would have sunk.”

  Ben held his breath. “So that explains it,” he whispered to Badger.

  The Captain continued. “They were so busy racing that I don’t think they had consulted their charts. We could have tried to contact them on the radio to warn them, but we didn’t have time. And there might have been nobody in their radio room anyway.”

  Mr Rigger, who had been standing next to the Captain, now took over. “The Captain did the right thing,” he said. “We had to save them from disaster, even if it meant losing our chance to win the race. And the only way
we could do that was by forcing them to turn.”

  “I know it’s disappointing,” continued the Captain. “I’m disappointed; Mr Rigger’s disappointed; the whole ship’s disappointed. But …” He paused, looking directly at the students standing before him. “But if there’s a choice between doing the right thing and winning a race, then I’m in no doubt whatsoever which you must choose.” He paused again. “Does everybody agree with me on that?”

  They did.

  “In that case,” said the Captain, “time to celebrate coming third. Cook has prepared some special ice cream, and I don’t want to keep you from that any longer.”

  A cheer went up for the Captain from the entire crew, who shouted at the top of their voices. They were proud their ship had a captain like Captain Macbeth and that they had the honour of serving under him.

  The race was over, but not the trip. There was still the long voyage home, which took them all the way across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and back across the Atlantic. All the while they were sailing, they had their normal lessons; all the way across the long miles of empty ocean they learned more about how to sail, how to cope with every sort of sea condition. They also continued to learn about many other things – how to get on with people, how to make friends, how to become braver, stronger and more confident.

  At last they sailed into Scottish waters and started the final leg of their journey – up through the Sound of Mull towards the colourful town of Tobermory itself. As the ship dropped its sails and came into harbour, a ferry that was taking on passengers sounded its horn in their honour. On the shore there were people waving, and a Scottish piper, wearing a kilt, greeted them with a bagpipe tune that had been played for many years to welcome people home.

  Now it was time for school holidays, and the crew of the Tobermory would all be making their way back to their parents or relatives for a month’s break.

  “I’m going to miss you, Badge,” said Ben, as they packed their kit-bags.