We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

  “And we must get a telegram off to your Mother at once,” said Daddy. “I think we’d better go ashore.”

  The pilot spoke in Dutch to the man in the motor-boat. Then he turned and looked first at Daddy, but spoke with grave respect to John.

  “Capten,” he said, “you will better take your boat drough de lock into de inner harbour. Den you will be able to lie alongside. Now if you cast off from de buoy, dis man will tow you. Better lower de mainsail, what you dink?”

  “Can I give you a hand, Skipper?” said Daddy, and a minute or two later the mainsail was lowered, Daddy and John were putting tyers round it, and the Goblin, steered by the pilot, was being towed down the harbour.

  “I can’t believe it’s Daddy really,” said Titty.

  “Of course it is,” said Roger.

  “I know,” said Titty, “but I can’t believe it all the same.”

  CHAPTER XXII

  IN A FOREIGN PORT

  THE PILOT STEERED, shouting a word now and then to the man in the little motor-boat who was towing the Goblin round to the lock. Susan, Titty, and Roger watched their father quietly helping John to stow the mainsail. It had been a long time since they had seen him, but Daddy had not changed a bit. He looked the same and he was the same, taking everything as it came, just as if it had been carefully planned that they were to cross the North Sea and meet him in a Dutch harbour. No one could have guessed from looking at him that it had been any sort of surprise to him to look down from the upper deck of a Dutch liner at a little yacht coming in, and to see his son standing on her foredeck. He was behaving as if he had expected nothing else, and Titty, watching him, found herself smiling in the funny quiet way Mother sometimes smiled when she talked of the things Daddy had done long ago. Daddy was certainly very unlike anybody else. Captain Flint could be counted on in the same sort of way, but even Captain Flint, if he had met them all in some place where he had least expected them, would have called them all by name, Captain John, Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and would have asked at once about the parrot and Gibber, and whether the ship’s boy was hungry, and then he would have been in a hurry to know all about it, how it had all happened, and so on. But Daddy, in the presence of the pilot, was asking no questions at all. He had come aboard just as if he had left them only for a few minutes instead of being away in the China Seas for ages and ages. Titty could hardly believe he had ever been gone, as she saw him hauling aft a bunt of sail and waiting, saying nothing, while John, equally silent, put a tyer round the part that was already rolled up. Silent they both were, John and Daddy, but she knew by the way they looked at each other across the sail they were stowing how glad they were to be together.

  Susan was happier than she believed she could have been before getting back to Pin Mill, but she was in a fever to get that telegram off to Mother, and could think of nothing else. She would have been happier still if Daddy had asked a hundred questions, had learnt all the truth at once, and, like her, was in a frantic hurry to get to the telegraph office.

  The huge gates of the lock were open and the Goblin, turning in from the outer harbour, slipped slowly along under steep grey walls with a high-water mark of green slime. Faces were looking down on them from above, smiling Dutch faces under flat, uniform caps. Daddy on the foredeck had coiled the rope John had used to tie up to the buoy. He threw it up and one of the locksmen caught it.

  “What about fenders, skipper?” said Daddy. “I’ve brought one forrard, but you’ll want another amidships.”

  IN THE LOCK AT FLUSHING

  John, after a smiling glance at Daddy, called out, “Susan, Mister Mate, let’s have another of those fenders.”

  The pilot, rummaging in the rope locker aft, threw the best warp he could find up to another of the locksmen. The Goblin came gently to rest against the wall of the lock. The fenders held her off and saved her paint. Her little tug lay just ahead of her. The lock gates were already closing astern.

  “Look at the jelly fish,” cried Roger, “and the crabs.”

  Titty, Susan, and even John, who had a lot on which to think, looked down between the Goblin and the wall to see a crowd of small jelly fish, waving rings of filmy threads, hollowing themselves and filling themselves out again, moving slowly along in short jerks, while crabs of all sizes were climbing up under water, sideways, with busy, flickering legs, coming nearly to the surface and then dropping back out of sight.

  The water began to rise and swirl in the lock, and the Goblin rose with it, swinging about so that John and Daddy and the pilot were kept busy fending her off from the wall.

  Meanwhile the pilot was talking in Dutch to the locksmen, who were shortening the ropes as the Goblin rose. The locksmen called to other people somewhere up there on the top of the lock, and presently a crowd of heads were looking down at the little boat that had come across the North Sea with so strange a crew. And then a man in blue uniform pushed through the others and saluted, and asked for the captain and the ship’s papers. Daddy looked at John.

  “I know where he keeps them,” said John, and hurried aft and down into the cabin, to come up again with a long envelope marked “SHIP’S PAPERS,” which he passed up to the harbourmaster.

  The harbourmaster pulled out the papers and looked at them, and then looked in a puzzled way at John and then at Daddy.

  “Which of you is Mr Brading?” he said.

  “He’ll take you for a pirate,” said Daddy quietly, but there was no need for John to say anything or even to begin to explain that Jim Brading wasn’t there. The pilot was doing all the talking, and the harbourmaster was listening to him, every now and then looking all over the ship, at John and then again at Daddy. Was there going to be some awful trouble? The harbourmaster was asking questions. Daddy was filling a pipe as if nothing else mattered. Suddenly the harbourmaster reached down and handed the papers and their envelope back to John.

  “Tonnage?” he asked.

  “4.86,” said John, who by this time knew by heart the figures carved on the main beam down in the cabin.

  “Name?”

  “Goblin.”

  “From?”

  “Harwich.”

  “That will be all right, Captain,” said the harbourmaster, saluting again. “Welcome to Flushing!” He handed down a slip of pale buff paper. “The pilot says you leave again today or tomorrow …”

  John looked at Daddy.

  “What sort of weather forecast have you got?” asked Daddy, looking up at the harbourmaster with a smile.

  “Wind veering north and east… Smooth sea.”

  “Better take our chance, eh, Captain?” said Daddy.

  “Let’s start today,” said John.

  “At once,” said Susan, and then, “We must send the telegram off first.”

  “No dues to pay,” said the harbourmaster. “The lock will open for you when you want to leave. Day or night. You will find a good berth by the pilot-boat…”

  “I will show de Capten,” said the pilot.

  The water stopped rising. The gates at the other end of the lock opened. There was a sudden buzz from the motor-boat, fussing to be off.

  “All clear.”

  The warps came tumbling down. John coiled one, and, in the cockpit, Roger did his best to coil the other. The motor-boat went slowly ahead. The tow-rope tautened. They were moving again, out of the lock into the inner harbour. Children were fishing from some stone steps. There was a battleship, long and grey, flying the Dutch flag. A long, black barge with a tug ahead of her, and a high deckhouse in her stern with tubs of scarlet geraniums by way of a garden, was moving slowly towards the lock. The motorboat led them away to port, where a street ran along the side of the harbour, with trees and green grass between the roadway and a row of wooden piles with white tops standing well out in the water. A gangway ran all along the piles, and a long row of all kinds of small vessels were tied up there, yachts and plump Dutch traders, spick-and-span with clean paint and shining windows in the deckhouses on their poo
ps. Last in that long row was a black steamer, exactly like the pilot steamer they had signalled to in the morning, except that she had a different number on her bows. There was a space ahead of her, not big enough for a Dutch trader, but quite big enough for the Goblin, and presently the motor-boat had turned in a half-circle and brought her round, and the Goblin slid up against the piles, which, almost as if they were expecting her, had big black motor tyres slung in front of them as fenders. Daddy and John made fast to the piles. Daddy gave some money to the man in the motor-boat who had come up alongside. The motor-boat shot off again back to the lock.

  The pilot shook hands with all of them, beginning with Susan, then Titty, then Roger, then John, then Daddy, and then John again.

  “No need to buy charts, Capten,” he said. “I will bring you chart for de Nord See. No need to pay nodings.”

  “Oh, I say,” said John.

  “Plenty in my house,” said the pilot. “My sister’s son a capten too, and we will give you one to take you home. So long, Capten. I will see you later.” He took his oilskin bundle, stepped across to the gangplank that ran along the piles, and saluted. Daddy stepped across with him, and asked him a question.

  “Half ebb and you will be all right,” they heard the pilot say. And with that he was gone, across one of the smaller gangplanks that led from the piling to the green grass and the street. In a minute or two he was out of sight.

  TIED UP IN HARBOUR

  Roger bounced ashore and stamped firmly on the gangway, opened his eyes wide at finding he was not so safe on his feet as he had thought, and came aboard again in a hurry.

  “I’ve been in Holland,” he said uncertainly.

  “Daddy, what about that telegram?” said Susan.

  “We must make up our minds what we’re going to say,” said Daddy. “Will you lead the way below.”

  *

  “Jim Brading? Haven’t heard of him.”

  They were finding it difficult to explain to Daddy just how little Mother knew, and how it had happened that they had come sailing into Flushing just as he was leaving on the liner for Harwich.

  Daddy was sitting on the port bunk with John and Susan. Susan had him firmly by one arm, but John kept getting up every now and then, unable to stay sitting down when there was so much to say and such a hurry to get it all said. Roger and Titty and Sinbad were on the starboard bunk. At least Titty and Sinbad were, but Roger kept hopping up to look out of the portholes at the shipping in the harbour, and at small Dutch boys paddling about in canoes. He was seldom in one place for very long, though he was listening to what was being said and sometimes putting in a word himself.

  They explained Jim Brading.

  “And then what happened? He went ashore and you drifted off in the fog. H’m. And when the fog lifted … he’ll have found his boat gone and his crew with it … He may have gone to see if anybody had seen anything of you at Pin Mill…”

  “And Mother …” Susan’s voice shook.

  “She’ll be in an awful stew,” said Roger.

  “Jim too,” said John.

  “He will, poor chap,” said Daddy. “The only hope is that he’s in too much of a stew to tell her. He’d go to the harbourmaster first for news of his boat…” And then another idea seemed to strike Daddy. “Funny he didn’t make a shot at coming off to you in the fog,” he said. “Is he a seaman?”

  “Jolly good,” said John. “He brought the Goblin from Dover all by himself.”

  “H’m. Something may have happened to keep him ashore.”

  They looked at each other.

  “I don’t know what could have,” said John. “He only went to the dock for petrol.”

  “He’d been gone a long time before the fog came,” said Titty.

  “Got to bear it in mind,” said Daddy, pulling out his pocket-book and making notes for a telegram.

  “We’ve got to let your Mother know you’re all right,” he said, crossing out some words and writing others instead of them. “And Jim too, in case he’s gone to Pin Mill. But we won’t worry her with the North Sea, just in case he hasn’t. And anyhow we don’t want your Jim coming over on the night boat when we’re on our way back. And with the forecast the harbourmaster gave me, we ought to be off this afternoon … Can you stick another night passage?”

  “Of course we can,” said John.

  “Did you get much sleep last night?”

  “We got some,” said Susan. “John didn’t get much.”

  “Nor did you,” said John, “but we’re all right.”

  “Titty and I got lots,” said Roger.

  “There’s another thing,” said Daddy. “Your telegram mustn’t come from Holland or your Mother’ll be throwing fits.”

  “But we must send one,” said Susan.

  “We will,” said Daddy. “But we’ll have it sent from nearer home. What about this?” … He read out what he had written in clear capital letters that John and Susan read for themselves … “CAPTAIN CURTLEDGE SHOTLEY ENGLAND PLEASE SEND FOLLOWING TELEGRAM UNSIGNED QUOTE WALKER ALMA COTTAGE PIN MILL. … That’s the right address? … She’s at Miss Powell’s, isn’t she? … GOBLIN AND CREW ALL WELL RETURNING TOMORROW UNQUOTE ANSWER NO QUESTIONS TED WALKER. Curtledge is an old friend. He’ll do it all right. Your Mother’ll be pretty mad with you, but I can’t help that. Better have her mad than worried. Any suggestions? Eh, Titty?”

  “Put in about Sinbad. So she’ll really feel nothing can have gone wrong.”

  “Good idea.” Daddy smiled, and altered the telegram. “Now, the telegram she’ll get’ll read like this: WALKER ALMA COTTAGE PIN MILL GOBLIN AND CREW INCREASED BY KITTEN ALL WELL RETURNING TOMORROW NIGHT … That gives us a bit more time. We don’t want to have her expecting us first thing in the morning.”

  “Aren’t you going to send her a telegram yourself?” said Titty.

  “Lucky I haven’t already,” said Daddy. “I sent one yesterday from Berlin. I meant to send a wireless from the boat.” He wrote another telegram: “WALKER C/O MISS POWELL PIN MILL IPSWICH ENGLAND SO FAR SO GOOD TED … She’ll see I’ve got as far as Flushing, and if she makes enquiries she’ll know I’ve missed today’s boat. We’re all in a scrape together, but that’s the best I can think of to get us out of it.”

  “Let’s send the telegrams off at once,” said Susan.

  “All in a scrape together.” It was the most extraordinary thing, but, though he had never said so, they all knew that for some reason or other, Daddy was rather pleased with them than otherwise. There was something in the way he looked at John.

  “Come on,” said Daddy, glancing up at the Goblin’s clock. “You can tell me the rest of the yarn later on.”

  “What about Sinbad?” said Titty. “I’d better stay with him.”

  “Don’t you want to see Holland?” said Daddy.

  She did, but she couldn’t leave Sinbad to wander off ashore and get lost, or to fall overboard and be drowned in harbour after so very nearly being drowned at sea.

  “I don’t mind staying,” she said.

  Daddy pulled open a drawer under Titty’s bunk in the forecabin. “Here you are,” he said. “We’ll empty all this on the bunk till we come back. Make a bed for it with a towel … And we’ll leave the drawer not quite shut. If it’s going to sea again at once it’ll do it no harm to have a little sleep.”

  “He’s nearly asleep already,” said Titty.

  “It’ll do,” said her father. “Now then, has your Jim Brading a milk-can aboard? Bring it with us. If that kitten’s got any sense, it’ll like honest cow’s milk better than condensed.”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  DUTCH AFTERNOON

  ALL FOUR OF them nearly fell into the water in crossing the gangplank from the piling to the shore. The black tarred plank seemed to ripple like a strip of tape, now coming up to meet their feet before their feet expected to meet it, and now doing just the opposite. John staggered, fixed his eyes on the shore, and walked along the plank as if he were on a particularl
y uncertain kind of tight-rope. Susan swayed hurriedly after him. Titty stopped dead for a moment, and went on moving each foot about six inches at a time. “It would be all right if only I had four feet,” said Roger, and, remembering the ways of Gibber (who was now spending his time spinning nautical yarns to the other monkeys in the Zoo), took hold of the edges of the plank with his hands, and so came ashore four-footed in perfect safety.

  “Come along,” said Daddy. “You’ll soon get your shore legs again.”

  “Hurry up,” said Susan. “Every minute matters till we get those telegrams sent.”

  On the other side of the road, just opposite the place where the Goblin was moored, there was a small shop, with a lot of wooden sabots hanging in the doorway. Roger, now standing on his hindlegs, pointed them out, but did not stop. Daddy was already striding along the road.

  “Do you know the way to the Post Office?” asked Titty.

  “Unless they’ve moved it since breakfast-time,” said Commander Walker. “I had a walk round after my train got in. To stretch my legs after sitting still for twelve days …”

  “Twelve days?” said Titty.

  “And nights?” said Roger.

  “As a matter of fact I slept a good part of the days as well as the nights,” said their father. “So I’ll be quite glad of a night watch at sea for a change … Now, tell me, John, what made you come to Flushing?”

  “I didn’t really try for anywhere,” said John.

  “Did you set a course at all?”

  “About south-east,” said John. “We tried to stick to that but we couldn’t help wobbling a good deal.”

  “Why did you choose that?”

  “It looked about right for getting clear of the shoals in the fog,” said John. “You see we had a chart of Harwich, and when we were near that Cork lightship the chart showed shallow places almost everywhere except that way.”

  “You were a bit lucky,” said his father, “but it wasn’t a bad idea.”