Coot Club

  *

  The noise of the engine had stopped. The shouting of the Hullabaloos was growing fainter as the Margoletta drifted up the channel with the tide.

  “It’s going to be a jolly near thing,” said Starboard, who was looking through the glasses at the sinking cruiser already far away.

  Far away up the channel the Death and Glory had drawn level with the Margoletta. Her ragged old sail was coming down. From the Teasel, nothing could be heard of what was being said, but it was clear that some sort of argument was going on. They could see Joe pointing at the Margoletta’s bows. They could see the five Hullabaloos, crowded together on the roof of the Margoletta’s after-cabin, waving their arms, and, so Starboard said, shaking their fists. The two boats were close together, drew apart and closed again. A rope was thrown and missed and coiled and thrown once more.

  “But why don’t they take those poor wretches off?” said Mrs. Barrable.

  Starboard laughed.

  “Boat-builder’s children,” she said. “They won’t be thinking about people when there’s a boat in danger. All they’re worrying about is not letting the Margoletta go down in the fairway. You’ll see. They’ll tow her out of the channel before they do anything else.”

  She was right. The Death and Glory moved towards one of the red beacon posts on the south side of the channel, towards which the cruiser had drifted. The cruiser, at the end of the tow-rope, was following her, stern first, her bows nearly underwater. The Death and Glory left the channel, passing between one red post and the next. The Margoletta followed her. She stopped.

  “Aground,” said Port.

  “Safe enough now,” said Starboard. “Well done, Joe.”

  They saw Joe jump aboard the wreck, moving on the foredeck almost as if he were walking in the water. They saw him lower the Margoletta’s mudweight into the Death and Glory. They saw the Death and Glory pulling off again, to drop the weight into the mud at the full length of its rope. Then, and then only, when the Margoletta was aground on the mud in shallow water and safe from further damage, were Joe and his fellow salvage men ready to clutter up their ship with passengers. “Idiots!” said Starboard, watching through the glasses. “All trying to jump at once.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Barrable, as the distance widened between the salvage vessel and the wreck, and she saw that all the Hullabaloos were aboard the Death and Glory, “I’m very glad that’s over.”

  “Of course,” said Dorothea, “in a story one or two of them ought to have been drowned. In a story you can’t have everybody being a survivor.”

  “If it hadn’t been for the Death and Glories,” said Port, “there wouldn’t have been any survivors at all. The Margoletta would have gone down in the deep water and the whole lot of them would have been drowned. What’s Joe going to do with them now? It looks as if he’s putting up his sail.”

  “He can’t do anything against the wind,” said Starboard. “The Death and Glory never could. And with the tide pouring up … Hullo! Tom’s afloat!”

  “Get the tow-rope ready on the counter,” shouted Tom.

  All this time the water had been rising. Just as the last of the Hullabaloos had left the wreck of the Margoletta Tom had felt the Titmouse stir beneath his feet. He had her mast down in a moment. Her sail had been stowed long ago. Tom got out his oars and paddled her round to the stern of the Teasel. William, welcome in spite of his muddiness, scrambled back aboard his ship. Tom made the tow-rope fast.

  “Try shifting from one side to the other,” he said.

  The Teasel’s keel stirred in the mud. The creek by which she had left the channel in the fog had filled, and Tom with short sharp tugs at his oars made the tow-rope leap, dripping, from the water.

  “She’s moving,” said Dick.

  “She will be,” said Starboard, pushing on the quant, while Port hung herself out as far as she could, holding the shrouds, first on one side of the ship and then on the other, and Mrs. Barrable, Dick and Dorothea shifted first to one side and then to the other of the well.

  “She’s off.”

  The Teasel slid into the creek. A moment later the tow-rope had been shifted to her bows and Tom was towing her back towards the channel. In a few minutes she was once more on the right side of the black beacons, drifting up with the tide, while Port and Starboard were hoisting her mainsail. The tow-rope, now more or less clean, was hauled in, hand over hand. Tom came aboard, and the little Titmouse became once more a dinghy towing astern.

  “Let’s just see if she’ll do it,” said Starboard, looking away down Breydon to the long, railway bridge. If only they could get through that bridge they might, after all, be home in time for tomorrow’s race.

  Port was busy with a mop. “Foredeck’s clear of mud,” she said. “What about that jib?”

  Dick and Dorothea were already bringing it carefully from the cabin, while the Admiral was keeping a firm hold of the muddy William, for fear he might print a paw upon it.

  Up went the jib, and the Teasel went a good deal faster through the water, away across the channel to a red post on the further side. Round she came and back again. She had not gained an inch. Once more Tom took her across the channel. Once more he brought her back. No there was no doubt about it. This time she had lost ground. The wind was dropping, and the tide pouring up was sweeping her further and further from Breydon Bridge.

  “It’s no good,” said Tom. “We’ll just have to go back to the pilot’s and have another shot at getting through Yarmouth tomorrow.”

  “We’re done,” said Port. “It’s too late now. We’ll never get home by land tonight.”

  “And the A.P.’ll have no crew,” said Starboard.

  The Teasel, a melancholy ship, swung round and drove up with the tide to meet the Death and Glory.

  The Death and Glory was desperately tacking to and fro across the channel, losing ground with every tack, even though Bill and Pete were rowing to help her sail. On the southern side of the channel, beyond the red posts, the tide was rising round the after-cabin of the Margoletta. A black speck in the distance, the Margoletta’s dinghy was drifting towards the Reedham marshes.

  “Joe,” shouted Tom, when within hailing distance of the Death and Glory, “you can’t get down to Yarmouth against this tide. We can’t, either. Going back to the pilot’s?”

  And at that moment Dorothea looking sadly back towards Yarmouth saw something moving on the water far away.

  “There’s another motor-boat,” she said.

  “Hullo,” said Starboard, “I do believe it’s the Come Along. Where are those glasses?”

  Well above Breydon railway bridge a yacht was hoisting the peak of her mainsail. The Come Along must have brought her through from the Bure, for there, already more than halfway between that yacht and the Teasel, there was the little tow-boat, with the red and white flag, coming up Breydon at a tremendous pace. Old Bob had seen that something was amiss.

  Joe saw the motor-boat, too, and was afraid his salvage job would be snatched from him when all the work was done.

  “Them Yarmouth sharks,” he said, and looked at the wreck. But the tide had carried him too far away already. Even with the help of those stout engines, Bill and Pete, he could not get back to stand by the wreck before this boat from Yarmouth reached it.

  The Come Along seemed to be close to them almost as soon as they had sighted her. She circled once round the wreck, and then made for the Death and Glory, probably because Old Bob saw that the old black boat was carrying the shipwrecked crew.

  “You leave her alone,” Joe was shouting at the top of his voice. “She ain’t derelict. Don’t you touch her. You leave her alone!”

  “Take us into Yarmouth,” yelled the Hullabaloos.

  “She ain’t derelict,” shouted Joe. “She’s out o’ the fairway. We’ve put her in shallow water, an’ laid her anchor out. She belongs to Rodley’s o’ Wroxham, an’ you leave her alone.”

  Old Bob shut down his engine to listen. He laughed. “
All right, Boy,” he called. “She’ll take no harm there. I’m not robbing you. Good bit o’ salvage work you done. And where’re ye bound for now?”

  “Down to Yarmouth,” shouted the man who had been at the wheel of the Margoletta. “We want to get ashore.”

  The Come Along swung alongside the Teasel.

  “Good day to you, ma’am,” said Old Bob to the Admiral. “Was you going down to Yarmouth, too? And so you found your ship all right?” he added, seeing Port and Starboard smiling down at him.

  “I suppose there’s no chance now of getting through Yarmouth until tomorrow morning,” said the Admiral.

  “The tide seems to be running very hard.”

  Old Bob laughed again. “Take ye through now,” he said. “Tide or no tide. When the Come Along say ‘Come along,’ they got to come along. I’ll be taking this party down to Yarmouth and I’ll be taking you at the same time. If you’ll be ready to have your mast down for the bridges. You’ll have the tide with you up the North River.”

  “They’ll be in time,” cried Dorothea.

  “We’ll do it yet,” said Starboard.

  “Never say dee till ye’re deid,” said Port.

  “Perhaps we ought to pick up that dinghy for them,” said Tom, pointing it out in. the distance.

  “You be getting ready,” said Old Bob. He was off again, chug, chug, chug, chug, to catch the Margoletta’s dinghy before it had drifted ashore.

  “Oh, can’t you let the blasted dinghy go?” shouted one of the Hullabaloos. But Old Bob did not hear him.

  All was bustle aboard the Teasel. Tom sailed her to and fro close hauled, waiting for Old Bob to come back. Port and Starboard were ready on the foredeck to lower the mainsail. Dick and Dorothea were stowing the jib once more in the cabin. Presently the Come Along came chugging back, bringing the Margoletta’s dinghy. Old Bob brought the Death and Glory’s long tow-rope and threw it to Tom aboard the Teasel. Then he threw the end of Come Along’s tow-rope across the Teasel’s foredeck. Starboard caught it and made it fast.

  “All ready?” shouted Old Bob. “Mind your steering.”

  Slowly he went ahead. First the Teasel and the Titmouse felt the pull of the little tug. Then the Death and Glory swung into line astern of them. They were off.

  Down came the Teasel’s mainsail.

  “Come on, Tom,” said Starboard. “What about getting the mast down? You’ll want to take the heel-rope, won’t you? Port’ll take the tiller.”

  Tom went forward. And then, for a moment, he forgot that he had a mast to lower. He was looking at the after-cabin of the Margoletta, a melancholy island in the water. For some minutes they had heard nothing of the loud-speaker. Now, suddenly, they heard it again.

  “We now switch over.… The Hoodlum Band … Relayed from …” There was a pause, and then a sudden torrent of noise that broke off short almost as soon as it had begun. “Blaaar. Taratartara.… Tara. Tara.… Blaaaaaar!” And then silence, except for the loud chugging of the Come Along.

  “Who’s turned it off at last?” said the Admiral.

  “I expect it’s the water,” said Dick. “It must have come as high as the batteries and made a short circuit.…”

  “Thank goodness it has,” said Starboard on the foredeck close beside Tom. They settled down to the business of lowering the Teasel’s mast, while Breydon Bridge, once so impossibly out of reach, came nearer and nearer.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  FACE TO FACE

  “COME on and take the tiller, Tom,” called Port.

  Tom heard her. He was standing on the fore-deck, with an arm over the foot of the lowered mast, looking at the Come Along, at Old Bob hunched up in the stern of her hugging his tiller, at the dinghy of the wrecked Margoletta, and ahead at the long iron railway bridge and Yarmouth town. But he hardly saw the things he was looking at. He had failed after all, and the others did not seem to know it. All this time he had kept out of the way of those foreigners and now, in the end, there could be no escape for him. The others aboard the Teasel were thinking of wreck and rescue and getting through Yarmouth and up the river in time for tomorrow’s race. But he could think of one thing only. With every yard they made down Breydon they were nearer to the moment when the Hullabaloos would have to know whose son it was that had cast off their moorings and sent them drifting down the river. His father had told him to keep out of their way, and now there they were, all being towed down Breydon together. He could not bring himself to look at them. But, through the back of his head, as it were, he could see them, towing astern, in the Death and Glory, too, after all that those three young bird preservers, pirates and salvage men had done to help him to keep clear. Well, he could not exactly wish the Hullabaloos had all been drowned. He himself would have gone to help them if he had been able to get Titmouse off the mud.

  “Come on, Tom,” said Port.

  He went aft, and stood there, steering with a foot on the tiller. He could not help glancing down into the little Titmouse, spattered all over with the mud poor William had brought with him after heroically taking the life-line from ship to ship. Close astern of the Titmouse was the Death and Glory. He wondered if the Hullabaloos, crowded together in the old black boat, could see the name that had been painted out on the Titmouse’s stern. It seemed now that he might just as well have left it as it was.

  “Look! Look!” cried Dorothea. “Joe’s got his white rat on his shoulder.”

  In spite of himself, Tom had to look round.

  Right in the bows of the Death and Glory were Bill and Pete, looking over at the flurry of foam from her fast towing. In the middle of the boat were the Hullabaloos, and in the stern, steering, with a face of simple happiness and pride, was Joe. His white rat crawled slowly from one shoulder to the other round his neck, but Joe’s eyes never shifted from the stern of the Teasel, and his steering was as steady as Tom’s own.

  The Hullabaloos were far past minding being in a boat with a white rat. Men and women, looking all the more wretched for their gaudy clothes, they huddled together in the Death and Glory, miserable, angry, and silent after all that frantic shouting. Far away up Breydon a speck on the silver water at the side of the channel was all that could be seen of the Margoletta.

  THE COME ALONG SAYS “COME ALONG!”

  After all, even if while they had her they had used her to make things uncomfortable for other people, upsetting old ladies in their houseboats, throwing dinghies against quays and tearing down the banks with their wash, even if they had carried their horrible hullabaloo into the quietest corners of the Broads, they now were shipwrecked sailors. They had lost their ship. And, in a way, Tom felt it was his fault. If only he had not been there in the Titmouse, if he had not let William get loose and bark, indeed, if only he had not managed to dodge them for so long, they never would have sent their vessel crashing into a Breydon beacon.

  Tom began to think how awful he would have felt if he had wrecked the Teasel in such a way … or the little Titmouse. The thought was so upsetting that he gave the Teasel a sudden sheer that surprised young Joe in the Death and Glory, and made Old Bob in the Come Along look reprovingly over his shoulder.

  Through Breydon Bridge the Come Along towed them, and round the dolphins and into the mouth of the North River, where the tide was running up. Old Bob signalled with his arm. He was swinging round to bring them head to tide alongside the quay. The moment was very near now when Tom would have to meet his enemies face to face.

  “It’s all right,” said Dorothea, who seemed, alone, to guess what was in his mind. “The outlaws rescued their pursuers and everything was all right.”

  But was it? There was only one thing to be done, as far as Tom could see. As soon as they were tied up to the quay he went and did it.

  The Hullabaloos had come ashore from the Death and Glory. They were standing on the quay, explaining. Old Bob was explaining, too, to some fishermen, and telling a friend to telephone up to Rodley’s at Wroxham, to say what had happened to the Margolet
ta. A lot of other people seemed to be there, which made it rather worse for Tom.

  He went straight up to the Hullabaloos, to the red-haired man who had been steering when the Margoletta crashed into the post.

  “I’ve come to say I’m very sorry. I’m very sorry about the wreck, of course. Anybody would be. But I mean I’m very sorry about casting off your moorings that time. I wouldn’t have done it if only the nest hadn’t belonged to a rather special bird. But I oughtn’t to have done it at all.…”

  The man stared at him, turned as red as his hair, and suddenly shouted at him, “Blast your special bird … and that friend of yours at Horning who sent us wild-goose chasing up and down … the two of you laughing in your blasted sleeves.… You may think it a joke.…”

  Tom did not think it a joke, and he could not understand what the man meant about a friend of his at Horning. Surely not George Owdon? But, before he could answer, while the man was still raging on, one of the older fishermen cut him short.

  “Stow that now,” he said. “What ye shoutin’ about? Fare to me that if it hadn’t a been for these young folk ye’d be too full o’Breydon water to be talkin’ to ’em like that. Let be, say I, and be thankful for a dry skin.…”

  “Shut up, Ronald,” said one of the other Hullabaloos. “You’ve made a mess of things, and the less said the better.”

  “Isn’t there a hotel in this beastly place?” said one of the two women, the one who had been rude to Mrs. Barrable that first day. “Need you keep us waiting here to be stared at by everybody?”

  A boy on the quayside led them off, a melancholy, cross procession, in their white-topped yachting caps and gaudy shirts, and berets and beach pyjamas. “Rammed a post on Breydon, they did,” the boy explained again and again to the people they passed, as he piloted them off the quay and along the crowded streets.