The Big Six: A Novel

  “Well, if none of ’em did it, who did? We tie her up all right. The boat couldn’t have cast herself adrift….”

  The men moved off towards the inn.

  George Owdon and his friend came sauntering back and sat on the wall by the pump as if they had nothing better to do than to stare at the Death and Glories. But, now that they knew that their fathers at least did not think they had had anything to do with the loosing of that cruiser, the members of the Coot Club did not care what George Owdon and his friend might be thinking of saying.

  “That make sixpence for one tooth,” said Pete.

  “Better loosen another,” said Joe.

  “What about getting at that pie?” said Bill. “Come on in, Tom. We’ve enough for four.”

  “I’ve got to be home by one o’clock,” said Tom, looking anxiously up the river. “Good. Here he is, coming down now.”

  A small black tarred boat, wide in the beam and pointed at both ends, was rounding the bend by the inn, rowed by an old man with a mane of grey hair that hung down on his shoulders from under an old black hat.

  The old man came rowing up to the staithe and brought his old boat in close astern of the Death and Glory.

  Tom took a flying leap to the staithe to meet him.

  “How go?” said the old man.

  “Fine,” said Tom. “What about tonight?”

  “Bit late for you,” said the old man. “Tide’ll be working up till after twelve and eels won’t be running till tide turn.”

  “That’s all right,” said Tom. “I’ve got leave. Can we all come?”

  “We’ll lend a hand,” said Joe.

  The old eelman laughed. “Come if you like,” he said. “But come quiet. Midnight. Not after. But who’s to wake you? Sleeping you’ll be when old Harry draw his setts.”

  “We won’t,” said Tom.

  “Not us,” said Bill.

  “Midnight then,” said the old man, “for them as wakes.”

  He stumped off across the staithe to do his bit of shipping.

  “Who’ll come and dig me out?” said Tom.

  “I’ll do that,” said Joe.

  “I’ll put the string out,” said Tom. “But you’ll have to be jolly quiet. We’ve our baby sleeping in the next room.”

  “Bat quiet,” said Joe. “And you can’t beat bats for that.”

  “And now I’ve simply got to bolt,” said Tom, and was gone.

  “What about that Pete?” said Bill. “We promise his Mum …”

  “Get a bit of sleep in early,” said Joe.

  For a long time they had wanted to spend a night at the eel setts when the eels were working down the river. They had often visited the eelman by day, in the derelict old hulk in which he lived beside his nets, but they had never before had a chance of seeing him at work. When you sleep in houses people are not too pleased if you slip out at midnight, but now that they were living in the Death and Glory, Joe, Bill and Pete could for the first time make their hours fit their business.

  False suspicions about the casting adrift of their neighbour of last night bothered them no more. They had something else to think of as they sat in their cabin eating their meat pie. They were talking not of boats but of eels as they finished up the doors of the cupboards and fastened on the home-made leather hinges.

  They forgot about the bother over the cruiser until late in the afternoon when a stranger, coming from somewhere down the river, sailed up to the staithe and moored his boat, a tall white-sailed cutter, just where the cruiser had been. The first coat of paint on the chimney had dried and Joe and Bill were standing by while Pete put on the second. All three of them turned to watch. The stranger tied up his yacht, stowed her sails, called out to ask when was the next bus to Wroxham, and was strolling off the staithe when he met George Owdon and his friend who just then rode up on their bicycles. The stranger half turned and looked back at his yacht and then at the Death and Glories. They could not hear what he said.

  “Well, don’t say we haven’t warned you.” George Owdon’s rather high voice sounded across the staithe.

  The stranger nodded and walked off.

  George Owdon and his friend came nearer.

  “You’re to leave that boat alone,” said George.

  “We haven’t touched her, have we?” said Joe.

  “You’d better not,” said George.

  “Patching everything on us,” said Bill.

  George and his friend got on their bicycles and rode away.

  A little later, the old eelman came back to the staithe laden with his parcels. He got into his boat and pushed off. Beside the Death and Glory he rested on his oars.

  “Who’s been pushing off boats?” he said.

  “Don’t know,” said Pete. “But it weren’t us.”

  “I tell ’em so,” said the old man. “I tell ’em so. Well, see you midnight if so be you ain’t sleeping. Mind you come quiet. When eels run they’re like other folk, want to have the river to themselves. You can fright eels easy, same as other fish.”

  After an early supper they turned into their bunks. Joe wound up the old alarm clock that was still working as a clock though not as an alarm. “Anybody who wake after eleven wake the ship,” he said.

  “Better leave the lantern burning,” said Pete.

  CHAPTER III

  EEL SETT AT NIGHT

  “CLOSE on twelve,” said Joe. “I’m off to fetch Tom.” He opened the door and let the cool, night air into the cabin, where, for the last hour, the Death and Glories had been stewing round their stove. Joe wiped the sweat from his face as he came out into the cockpit.

  “Phew! That’s cold,” he said. He shone his dimming torch over the side. “Tide’s still flooding,” he said. “Plenty of time, if Tom don’t sleep too hard.” He shut the others in with the warmth, stepped ashore and, as soon as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, set off at a steady jog trot through the sleeping village. He slowed up at Dr. Dudgeon’s gate and, on his toes, crept round the house till he stood by the Coot Club shed close under Tom’s window.

  He felt for a dangling string and could not find it. Had Tom forgotten? He switched on his torch and by its faint red glow saw the end of the string swinging just above his head. He took firm hold of it and gave it a hearty tug. Nothing happened. He tugged again. He picked up a handful of gravel and threw it up against the window. Some of it came down again on his upturned face. He spat a bit of gravel from his mouth. Drat that Tom! And then a whisper came from above him.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Coots for ever!”

  “And ever!”

  “String must be stuck,” said Joe. “Thought I’d break it if I tug harder.”

  “Sh!” whispered Tom. “You tugged hard enough. Nearly had my leg off, but I couldn’t shout. I’ll be down in half a minute. Stand clear….”

  A sea-boot dropped and then another. They seemed to make a dreadful noise as they landed on the path in the quiet of the night. Tom waited, listening. Then an oilskin coat floated down, slipping sideways like a huge bat. Then came the two ends of a doubled rope.

  “Got them?” whispered Tom. “Give them a pull. Both ends at once.”

  Joe tugged.

  “Hold them steady,” came a whisper from above. “I’m coming.”

  The ropes jerked. Joe held on till a pair of feet were kicking near his head. A moment later the President of the Coot Club was standing on the ground beside him.

  “Where are those boots?”

  “I got one,” said Joe. “And the oily.”

  “Here’s the other,” said Tom, pushing his stockinged feet into them. “I’ll just get rid of the rope. They’ll be awake before I come back.” He pulled on one end of the rope and went on pulling, hand over hand while the other end climbed up into the darkness and presently dropped at his feet. Nothing was left to show that the President of the Coot Club had chosen that way of coming out instead of using the stairs and the front door. Tom coiled the rope and put
it in the shed. “Let’s have that oily,” he said, and bundled it up to carry under his arm.

  They went quietly round the house and into the road.

  “Come on,” said Joe, and began to trot.

  “We’re not late are we?” said Tom, trotting beside him.

  “Tide’s not turned yet,” said Joe, “but we want to get up there before it do.”

  “I wonder if it’s a good night for them,” said Tom.

  “You never know with eels,” said Joe.

  They kept up a steady, easy trot along the deserted road. There was no moon, but it was not inky dark and they could see the shapes of the houses against the sky.

  “Weren’t you scarey coming along here alone?” said Tom.

  “I ain’t young Pete,” said Joe, and suddenly stopped short.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “What’s that light?” said Joe. “Somebody’s up late.”

  “Where?”

  “In there. It’s gone…. Listen….”

  They had come as far as the first of the big boatsheds that lay between the road and the river. At this time of year, with the season ending, boat after boat was being hauled up into it to lie under cover through the winter. They knew that men had been working late there. But this was midnight and all the village ought to be asleep, except for Tom and Joe, the other two who were waiting for them at the staithe and the old eelman who was going to let them see him lift his nets.

  “There can’t be anyone in there,” said Tom.

  “What’s the light for then?”

  “It was a star shining in the window.”

  “Stars not bright enough tonight,” said Joe. “More like a bike lamp or one of our torches. It flash off sharp while I look.”

  “Nobody’s got any business in there anyway,” said Tom.

  On tip toe they crossed the road and looked into the shed through an open door. All was black dark.

  “Listen,” said Joe.

  “Only an old rat,” said Tom. “Come on, Joe. He’ll have all the eels out of the river before we get there.”

  “Not with the tide still coming up,” said Joe.

  “Come on,” said Tom.

  “Run quiet,” said Joe.

  They ran on, as quietly as seaboots would let them, past dark, sleeping houses, past one after another of the boathouses looming huge between the road and the river, past Mr. Tedder’s and came at last round the corner of Jonnatt’s big shed to see two cabin windows glowing brightly by the staithe.

  Joe slapped the cabin roof.

  The door opened, a puff of hot air came out and with it the heads of Bill and Pete.

  “You been a long time coming,” said Bill.

  “We’re here now,” said Tom.

  Joe was already casting off the Death and Glory’s mooring ropes.

  “All clear,” he said. “Stand by for engines.”

  Pete and Bill took the oars from the cabin roof. Joe pushed off and came aboard.

  “See she don’t touch that yacht,” he said. “Go astern on port engine. I’ll fend her off. Now then. Ahead both engines. Keep her in the middle of the river. Look out, Tom. Let’s go in the cabin. No room for four in the cockpit when she’s under power.”

  He dived into the cabin. Pete and Bill were standing in the cockpit, facing forward to work their oars. One nudge from an oar was enough for Tom. Bumping his head as he went in, he crawled after Joe.

  “Gosh! You’ve got it warm in here,” he said, blinking in the light of the hurricane lantern and looking at the glowing stove.

  “Just snug,” said Joe.

  “Let’s have a bit of air in,” said Tom, opening the door which Joe had carefully closed, and sitting as near it as he could.

  “Tell you what,” said Joe, lamenting the hot air pouring out, “we’ll sit on the cabin-top. Then we can shut her up to keep warm while we’re with old Harry. We’ll be there in a minute. He say not to come too near.”

  “Good,” said Tom.

  “Hi!” called Joe through the door. “Half speed with engines. Don’t crack us on the head while we get out.”

  Pete and Bill lifted their oars from the water and held them steady for a moment while Tom and Joe came out and crawled forward out of their way. Then they set to work again. The Death and Glory was moving up the short reach above the inn, past dim, lightless bungalows. Tom and Joe, sitting on the top of the cabin, peered forward into the darkness.

  “We must be pretty near the bend now,” said Tom.

  “There’s his light,” called Joe. “Easy with starboard engine. Full ahead port engine….”

  The Death and Glory swung slowly round the bend of the river. A distant glimmer light, reflected from the water, showed where the old eelman had his houseboat and his nets.

  “Don’t go too near,” said Tom.

  “I know that,” said Joe, straining his eyes. “But we got to hit the right place…. Easy both….” The Death and Glory slid silently on. “Half speed…. Easy….” Joe stood on the foredeck holding to the mast and peering at the wall of reeds that showed a little darker than the sky. “Port engine ahead…. Easy….”

  There was a brushing sound as the Death and Glory nosed her way into the reeds. She stopped as her stem cut gently into the soft mud, and there was a sudden loud squelch as Joe jumped ashore with rond anchor and mooring rope.

  “Gone in?” asked Tom.

  “Not over my boots,” came Joe’s voice out of the darkness. “She’ll be all right here.” The dim glow of a torch showed where he was stamping the rond anchor into the mud.

  “Bring our lantern,” called Joe. “We’ll dowse it before we get too near.”

  “I’m going to put some more on the fire,” said Pete.

  “Buck up,” said Tom.

  The four of them, one behind the other, led by Bill with the lantern, squelched their way through the reeds. The ground quivered as they put their feet down. Every now and then a splash told where a foot had gone into the water. Suddenly the eelman’s light showed close ahead of them.

  “Dowse that lantern,” said Joe, and Bill blew it out.

  “Who go?” A hoarse deep voice spoke out of the dark.

  “Us,” called Tom.

  “Made sure you’d be sleeping,” said the voice. “But tide’s not turned. You’re on your time. We’ll not be lifting yet awhile. Mind your step now. Give me your hand….”

  They were on slippery mud almost touching the black tarred side of the eelman’s old hulk. Once upon a time it had been a boat, but it would never swim again unless in a flood. It had been turned into a hut years ago, with a couple of windows, and a stove and a chimney almost as simple as those of the Death and Glory. In this old ark the eelman lived and mended his nets and watched the river, and baited his eel lines, and made his babs, when the weather was right for that kind of fishing. But the eel sett, a net stretching from one side of the river to other, lowered to the bottom when boats were going by and lifted when the eels were running, was his serious business, and the members of the Coot Club had long been waiting for a chance to watch him at it.

  “There’s a step on the side,” he said. “Come in now, and better bump heads than stamp feet. Eels don’t fare to run with elephants stamping round.”

  The old eelman’s cabin was higher than the Death and Glory’s. Even Tom could stand upright in it except in the low doorway. There was a bunk along one side, with a patchwork bedspread over it. There was a table under one of the windows. There was a bench beside it. An old Jack Tar stove was in the middle of the floor, nearly red hot, with a big black kettle singing on the top of it. A long-barrelled, ancient gun hung from a couple of nails on the wall over the bunk. There were shelves with all kinds of gear, weights for nets, coiled eel-lines with their twenty or thirty hooks stuck in a cork that rested in the middle of the coil. On the table was a big pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, with all the metal work painted white to keep off the rust. The walls were covered with pictures of Queen V
ictoria’s Jubilee, pictures cut out of newspapers, brown and smoky with age, pictures of soldiers off to South Africa, and pictures of the Coronation of Edward the Seventh. The old man’s interest in history seemed to have stopped about then, for there were no pictures of anything that happened later.

  The four Coots stowed themselves where they could, Tom and Joe on the bench, Bill and Pete on the eelman’s bunk. The old man himself poured water from the kettle into a huge enamel teapot. He stirred it with a spoon and put it on the stove beside the kettle.

  “How soon will you be lifting the pod?” said Tom.

  “Lifting?” said the old man. “Tide’s only turning now. Got to raise the sett first. Give the ebb time to run and eels with it and we’ll see.” He took three mugs from nails on the wall of the cabin, filled each mug nearly up with tea as black as stout, slopped some milk in and added a big spoonful of sugar. “Two to a mug now, and one for me,” he said. “Take a drink of that now. Why young Pete’s gaping. Take a drink of that and keep awake and I’ll nip out and haul up.”

  The hot, bitter tea scalded their throats, but after a drink of it, even Pete no longer wanted to yawn or rub his eyes. The old man looked out into the dark. “I’ll haul now,” he said. “Tide’s going down. No. You stay here. Don’t want you slipping all over.”

  He was gone. The four Coots came out of the cabin. At first they could see nothing. But they heard the creak of an old windlass. Then, dimly, they saw that the eelman was crossing the river in his boat. They heard creaking from the other side. Then they saw that he was coming back, though they could not hear the noise of oars. Presently, he was with them again, went into the cabin, told them to shut the door behind them, poured himself out another mug of tea, blew the steam from it and drank.

  “You ain’t never seen pods lifted?” he said. “Seventy year tomorrow I see ’em first.”

  “Seventy years,” said Tom.

  “My birthday tomorrow,” said the old man.

  “Today or tomorrow?” said Tom.