Coot Club

  “I wonder how far he’s got,” said Dorothea. “Probably started back. All right, Dick. It’s really you forgetting to pull.… And they’re only water-hens.…”

  Dick said nothing. He knew he had all but let his oar wait in the air while he watched two water-hens disappear into a shady hole among the reeds.

  “Upstream or down?” said Dorothea as they came at last to the mouth of the dyke. “Do you realise we’re in a boat by ourselves? Let’s go upstream. We might meet Port and Starboard.”

  “Upstream,” said Dick. “Let’s try and find No. 7.”

  “Let’s,” said Dorothea. “Starboard said the little ones are out of the eggs.”

  “We’ll keep a look-out for a coot with a white feather.”

  But long before they had come as far as that little reedy drain where the coot with the white feather was looking after her family of sooty chicks, they had other things than birds of which to think.

  They paddled slowly along, keeping near the bank, past the water-works and as far as the church reach, where they saw two coots, but without white feathers, and dozens of water-hens scurrying to and fro between the rough bushy bank on one side of the river and the green grass that was being clipped short by the black sheep on the other. Dick had a good look at the water-hens, noting their flashing tails, and the bright scarlet of their beaks when they lurked close under the overhanging bank while he and Dorothea paddled by. A yacht came sailing down the reach with the water bubbling under her forefoot. Tomorrow, thought Dorothea, they, too, would be sailing just like that. How very much better things had turned out than had seemed likely when first they came aboard the Teasel and Mrs. Barrable broke the news to them that they were not going to sail at all. “And we owe it all to No. 7,” said Dorothea. “And the Coot Club, of course.”

  “What?” said Dick.

  Dorothea had spoken aloud without meaning to. But Dick never got his answer. Dorothea lifted her oar from the water and was listening to a loud drumming from somewhere down the river.

  “Another of them,” said Dick. “I hope it doesn’t make an awful wash like the Hullabaloos. I wonder if we ought to land till it’s gone by?”

  “It’s just as noisy,” said Dorothea, and the next moment the cruiser swung into sight round the bend by the waterworks. “Dick,” she cried. “It’s them. The Margoletta. They’ve come back. No, don’t look at them. Go on looking at the black sheep.…”

  With a roaring engine and a tremendous blare of band music from the gramophone on its fore-deck, the big cruiser passed them. Its high wash, racing after it, lifted the tiny dinghy so suddenly that Dorothea clutched the gunwale and lost her oar. By the time she had got it again, the Margoletta was already out of sight, though the waves were still tearing angrily at the banks.

  “They’ll get him. He doesn’t know they’re here. He can’t possibly escape. Dick, Dick! What ought we to do?”

  Dick’s mind could be counted on to work fast as soon as it was interested. The difficulty was to get it interested when it happened to be thinking about something else. The Margoletta had done that, and Dick had already come to a decision while the little dinghy was still tossing on that brutal wash.

  “Come on, Dot,” he said. “We’ve got to find the others. They’ll know what to do.” He gave a hard pull. The dinghy swung round. “Come on, Dot, pull for all you’re worth.”

  “And Mrs. B.?”

  “No time to go back there. Come on, Dot. Pull! One, two. One, two.”

  But it was no good. Paddling easily together, when in no hurry, they could keep the dinghy more or less on its course. But, when the two of them were pulling as hard as they could, first one and then the other got in the stronger stroke, and the little dinghy seemed to be trying to head all ways at once.

  “Let me have the other oar.”

  Dorothea gave it up to him and sat in the stern.

  “I’m not going to bother about that feathering,” said Dick. He clenched his teeth and pulled, lifted his oars probably rather higher than the Death and Glories would have approved, shot them back, gripped the water with them and pulled again. There was a good deal of splashing, but those days of hard work on Ranworth Broad had not gone for nothing, and the little dinghy pushed through the water at a good pace. By giving a harder tug now and then on one or other oar, he managed to keep her heading up the river most of the time. Not always.

  “Look out!” said Dorothea. “You’ll be into the reeds again.”

  “Do like they told us they used to do,” he panted back. “Keep pointing always bang up the river. With a hand. Human compass. Then I can just watch your hand without having to turn round to know where I’m going.”

  Dorothea sat still with her right hand just above her knees pointing straight up the river, so that when Dick’s bad rowing made the dinghy swerve, he could see at once what had happened by looking at her pointing fingers. On and on he rowed.

  “That coot’s got a white feather,” said Dorothea.

  Dick looked round with eyes that hardly saw. He did not stop rowing. He was breathing hard. He could no longer keep his teeth together. As for looking at coots, he could hardly see Dorothea’s pointing hand only a foot or two before his face.

  “Swop places,” said Dorothea. “Let me row for a bit.”

  Dick pulled desperately on.

  “Scientific way,” said Dorothea. “Relay. First you then me, so that we can keep going at full speed.”

  It was the word “scientific” that persuaded him. With shaking knees he changed places with Dorothea. Try as he would, his hand trembled as he held it out for a compass-needle, pointing the way up the river. Dorothea, with fresh arms, sent the dinghy along faster, but even more splashily than before.

  “It’s a good thing the Death and Glories can’t see us,” she said, after a worse splash than usual.

  “Don’t talk,” said Dick. “It makes it worse later if you do.”

  Dorothea said no more. He was right. In a very few minutes she was far past talking. She felt as if her arms would come loose at the shoulder, as if her back would break, as if something in her chest was growing bigger and bigger until presently there would be no room for any breath. And, after all, what was the good? It was too late now. Nothing could save the outlaw from his fate. And then, suddenly, she saw Dick’s face change. What had happened? What was it he was saying? “Easy! Dot, go slow! Don’t go so fast. They mustn’t think we’re hurrying. Look here, let me row.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. They had passed the little windmill. Horning Ferry and the Ferry Inn were in sight. There, tied up to the quay-heading in front of the inn, lay the Margoletta. Three men and a couple of women were talking to a boy who was pointing up the river. They were just walking across the grass towards the inn. The cruiser had stopped. There was a chance yet, if only they could slip past and up into Horning, and tell Port and Starboard or the Death and Glories. The Coots would surely find some way of getting a warning to Tom.

  They changed places again. Dorothea sat in the stern trying not to pant so dreadfully, and not to look as hot as she felt. Dick, carefully feathering as Port had taught him, rowing as if he had nothing to think of but style, pulled steadily on, past the Margoletta, past the Ferry, past the neat little hut of the Bure Commissioners and the lawn and garden seat where the Commissioners can sit and watch the river that is in their charge.

  “Did you see that boy,” asked Dorothea, “talking to the Hullabaloos?”

  “No,” said Dick shortly.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” said Dorothea. She had forgotten for a moment that she was being a human compass, and Dick, who was pulling away again as hard as he could, had had a narrow shave of ramming the bank through watching a hand that was pointing at nothing in particular.

  A hard pull set him right, but he had no breath to waste on talk.

  The question now was where to look for the Coots. Dorothea hardly knew what to do. They had only been once through Horning, in the launch on the way f
rom the station. Tom’s house, she knew, had a golden bream for a weathercock. The twins’ house was next door. But which side? And she knew that if there was any chance of avoiding it, the grown-ups ought not to be dragged in. And then, grown-ups or no grown-ups, the question was settled for her. There was the golden bream swimming in the blue sky above the old thatched gable. That was the doctor’s house. That clump of tall reeds must be the opening to Tom’s dyke. And there on the doctor’s lawn was Mrs. Dudgeon, sitting in a chair and knitting, with the baby’s perambulator close beside her.

  Mrs. Dudgeon knew them at once, after seeing them in the Teasel the day Dr. Dudgeon had rowed down to Ranworth. She waved to them. “Almost like a summer day,” she said. “You seem to be doing very well. I thought you had only just begun to learn. My word, you look as if you were in a hurry.”

  Dick tried to answer, but had no breath. He could not get a word out.

  “We’re looking for Port and Starboard,” said Dorothea, “or any, of the Coots. It’s that cruiser. The Margoletta. They’re coming up the river. They’re at the Ferry now. And Tom’s gone to Wroxham. He doesn’t know they’re anywhere near.”

  Mrs. Dudgeon did not seem at all disturbed. “He looked in on his way up,” she said, “and had a second breakfast. I don’t think you need worry about those people. They’ll have forgotten all about him by now.”

  “Mrs. Barrable said the other day they’d made up their mind to find him … you know, when they told the policeman it was Joe and it wasn’t.”

  In her heart, however, Dorothea wavered. Perhaps, after all, there was no need for Tom to be an outlaw. But she remembered the Coots. She knew what they would say. At all costs they would want to let Tom have a warning.

  “You’ll find Nell and Bess up in the village, I expect,” said Mrs. Dudgeon. “They were here a few minutes ago, and then somebody came and honked like a coot, and off they went. I heard them running up the road. ’Sh. ’Sh!” She put out a hand to the perambulator.

  “I think we’d better go and find them,” said Dorothea.

  “They won’t be far away,” said Mrs. Dudgeon.

  Dick rowed on up the village, past the willow-pattern harbours, and the big boat-sheds.

  “There’s the Death and Glory, anyhow,” cried Dorothea. The old tarred boat lay against the staithe. A moment later they caught sight of Joe and the twins, all three looking at the notice-board, where people are told not to moor their boats for a long time.

  “Hi!” shouted Dorothea.

  “Hullo!” shouted Joe. He ran to the edge of the staithe to catch the nose of the dinghy as they came in. Putting his hand to his mouth, as if that would make a shout more like a whisper, he asked excitedly, “Have you seed that?”

  “What?”

  “They’ve papered him,” said Joe. “Reward.”

  “The Margoletta’s coming up the river,” said Dorothea.

  “Come and look at this,” cried Starboard.

  “But there’s no time to lose,” said Dorothea.

  Dick could not speak and the others did not seem to hear her.

  “Read what it say,” said Joe.

  “But Tom’s alone up the river,” said Dorothea.

  “Just look at it,” said Port.

  “Quick, quick!” said Dorothea.

  “Read what it say,” said Joe. “It weren’t there yesterday, but I see it just now as soon’s I tie up.”

  Dick climbed out on the staithe and hurried across to the notice-board. Dorothea was almost run across the gravel by Port and Starboard, who helped her ashore together.

  This was the notice they read:

  REWARD

  A REWARD WILL BE PAID TO ANY PERSON WHO CAN GIVE INFORMATION CONCERNING THE BOY WHO ON THE NIGHT OF APRIL THE TWENTY-SECOND CAST OFF THE MOORING ROPES OF THE MOTOR-CRUISER MARGOLETTA THEN MOORED TO THE NORTH BANK BELOW HORNING FERRY

  APPLY TO …

  (There followed a name and an address, that of Rodley’s, the boat-letting firm who owned the cruiser.)

  “Well,” said Starboard, “nobody’ll give them any information, anyway.”

  “George Owdon might,” said Port.

  “If he could talk to them,” said Starboard, “but even he wouldn’t like people knowing he’d done it.”

  “Anyway, Tom’ll have to look out. It’s a good thing the Hullabaloos are away the other side of Yarmouth.…”

  “But they aren’t,” Dorothea almost screamed. “We’ve been telling you. They’re here.”

  “Coming up the river,” said Dick. “Stopped at the Ferry.”

  “And Tom’s up at Wroxham,” said Dorothea. “They can’t help catching him if they go on. And there was a boy talking to them.”

  Joe made half a move towards the Death and Glory.

  “Pete and Bill away to Ludham,” he said. Not with the best of wills could he by himself get much speed out of the old ship’s boat.

  “We’ll go up the river,” said Starboard.

  “Where’s Bill’s bicycle?” asked Port.

  “I can get it,” said Joe.

  “You may catch Tom at Wroxham before he starts back.”

  Joe was gone.

  “You two’d better wait here. You can’t go really fast in that dinghy. And we’ve got two pairs of oars. Besides we must have someone on the look-out here to know what they do. Come on, Port!”

  “Think of some way to stop them, if you can,” said Port over her shoulder.

  Dick and Dorothea were alone on the staithe.

  There was the violent ringing of a bicycle bell. They were just in time to see Joe, head down, legs working like piston-rods, flash across the open space by the post office and disappear behind the inn.

  A few minutes later they saw the Farland rowing-boat, long, light and narrow, come shooting past the boat-sheds.

  “Go it! Go it!” shouted Dorothea.

  The twins hardly glanced at them as they swept by. Round the bend by the Swan Inn they held water with their starboard oars, and then away they went again and were out of sight in a moment behind the houseboats at the corner.

  “Mrs. Dudgeon was quite wrong,” said Dick.

  They read the notice again. Well, they had done their best. They looked anxiously down the river. The Margoletta was not in sight. Tom had a chance yet.

  CHAPTER XII

  UNDER THE ENEMY’S NOSE

  IT is a long way to row or sail in a small boat from Horning to Wroxham, but it is not much more than a couple of miles by road. In about half an hour from the time he left them, Dick and Dorothea heard the shrill “Brrr … brrr” of Joe’s bell as he came flying round the corner by the Swan, jammed his brakes on so that his wheels skidded on the gravel, and flung himself off beside them.

  “Missed him,” he panted. “By a lot. Tom’s been gone long before. Must be half-way down by now. Has that cruiser gone up?”

  “Not yet,” said Dorothea.… “Two or three others, small ones.”

  “Four.” said Dick.

  “And some sailing yachts.…”

  “Three going up and four going down.”

  “And a boat full of reeds.”

  “And a wherry under power.”

  “Here she come now,” said Joe, looking down the river.

  With a big spirting bow wave, the noise of some huge orchestra turned on as loud as possible through the loud-speaker, and a wash that was tossing all the yachts and houseboats moored along the banks, the Margoletta was roaring up from the Ferry.

  “Port said we were to think of a way to stop her,” said Dorothea.

  Joe, leaning on his bicycle, looked despairingly at the Death and Glory, lying there against the staithe.

  “Short of ramming her.…” he said.

  But they knew, all three of them, that there was nothing to be done, even in the Death and Glory, against that powerful monster that was making more noise than all the other boats on the river. And anyhow, they had no time. The next moment the Teasel’s dinghy was lifted by the wash a
nd flung violently against the quay-heading, Joe had dropped his bicycle and jumped to fend off the Death and Glory, and the Margoletta was already swinging round the corner by the Swan. Long after she had disappeared the three stood listening to the noise of her. Somewhere up there were Port and Starboard racing against time. Somewhere up there was Tom in the Titmouse sailing down from Wroxham, knowing nothing of the danger that was thundering to meet him.

  *

  Port and Starboard had no need to talk. For years they had rowed that boat together. Port rowed stroke and Starboard bow, each with two oars. Port set a steady rate after the first minute or two. She remembered that they might have to keep it up for a long way. Starboard watched a crinkle between her sister’s shoulders, keeping time with her as if they were parts of a single machine, only now and then glancing upstream to see that all was clear. Anybody who saw them might have thought they were rowing rather fast, but there was nothing to show what a desperate hurry they were in. On and on they rowed, past the notice that tells you to go slow through Horning, past the eelman’s little houseboat, up the long reach to the windmill and the houseboat moored beside it, on and on and on. Cruisers came up astern and passed them, kindly slackening speed a little to spare them the worst of the wash. Sailing yachts met them, sweeping down with a fair wind. And all the time they were listening for the unmistakable roar of the Margoletta, and at every bend of the river Starboard looked upstream hoping each time to see the Titmouse’s little, high-peaked sail. They passed the private broad with the house reflected in the water. They passed the entrance to Salhouse where, on any other day, they would have looked in to see the swan’s nest and the crested grebe’s. And then they heard it. No other boat on all the river would try to deafen everybody else with a loud-speaker. No other had an engine with that peculiar droning roar.

  “Too late!” said Port.

  “But here he is!” cried Starboard.