We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

“We can’t be really,” said Roger.

  “We probably are,” said Titty.

  They stared forward into the fog to see what John and Susan were doing. They heard a bump of the anchor on the deck. They could see John working it over the bows, and then both John and Susan, one behind the other, paying out rope. The “Clang! … Clang!” of the buoy was sounding more and more faintly, and the queer thing was that it kept on sounding in a different place. Now it was over the bows, now broad on the starboard beam, now over the port quarter, now on the bows again. “It’s no good,” they heard John say. “Deep water … Not long enough …” “Perhaps it’s come to pieces again,” said Susan. And there they were, the two of them, hauling as if in a tug-of-war, till they had the anchor once more at the stemhead.

  “They’re in an awful hurry,” said Titty.

  “Susan’s in a stew,” said Roger.

  “They both are rather,” said Titty.

  “They’re putting the anchor down again,” said Roger.

  “Which way is the sea?” said Titty.

  “Over there …”

  “It can’t be … I can hear the noise of a train … The sea must be the other way …”

  “But the train’s this side now …”

  The “Beu … eueueueueueu” of the lightship settled the question for a moment, but its very next bleat sounded somewhere else.

  “John,” called Roger. “Why are all the noises moving round?”

  “She’s twirling about in the tide,” came the answer. “Look here, Susan … We’d better have one more shot …”

  “She’s quite bobby about,” said Roger.

  “Yes,” said Titty. She had noticed that already. The coming of the wind had made a little difference even in the harbour, but now small smooth-topped waves seemed to come sliding along out of the fog first from one direction and then from another, and the Goblin’s mast swung this way and that, and Titty found herself trying to breathe in time with the lurching of the boat. Very strange and rather bothering it was.

  “Jim’ll have a long way to row when he comes after us,” said Roger.

  “Yes,” said Titty again. It wasn’t exactly that her head was aching, but the skin across her forehead was somehow tight. Was it the fog, or was she really not seeing things very clearly? What were they doing on the foredeck? Still hauling in. No, they had let the anchor down twice. They must be hauling in again. And Susan was trying to hold on to things. The Goblin really must be lurching a bit. Well, Roger had said so too. It couldn’t be only in her head. Suddenly she heard John saying very clearly, “I can’t help it. It’s no good leaving it dangling. I’ve lost him one anchor already. I’ll have it on deck all ready to let go.” And then Susan, “We promised we wouldn’t go outside the harbour.” And then John again, “We didn’t mean to. Come on, Susan. Do help. I must go and look at that chart and try to see where we are …” And then they were hauling in the rope, and the anchor bumped on the deck, and she could see John bending over it, making it fast and coiling a rope. Susan was working her way aft again, with both hands on the rail on the roof of the cabin. Roger pulled at Titty’s elbow.

  “Susan’s going to cry,” he whispered.

  “Look the other way,” said Titty.

  But there was no need for that. Susan was not going to give in without a struggle. Talking to John was one thing. Talking to Titty and Roger was something altogether different. Susan gave her head a shake, and as soon as she was safely back in the cockpit asked Titty why she had stopped banging the frying-pan. Titty gave the frying-pan a beating and felt better.

  Then she heard John’s voice calling from inside the cabin. Funny she had never noticed that he had slipped down through the forehatch.

  “Susan. Where’s that chart showing Harwich? The one we were looking at with him last night.”

  Susan took a deep breath and went down the companionsteps to join him.

  Titty and Roger were once more alone in the cockpit.

  “Do you think I ought to play the whistle or not?” said Roger. “I say, Titty, what do you think they’ll do?”

  *

  Down in the cabin John had lifted the mattress on the port bunk, and, keeping it out of the way with his head, was turning over one chart after another … Spithead Approaches … Selsea Bill … Owers to Beachy Head … Beachy Head to Dungeness … Plans of Newhaven and Shoreham … Langston and Chichester Harbours … Dover to Dungeness … He seemed to get his fingers on every chart except the one he wanted.

  “Susan,” he called. “I can’t find it …”

  “He put it under the mattress on the other side,” said Susan. “He was going to use it today going up to Ipswich …”

  John banged down the mattress he had been holding up. Susan was lifting the other and he had the chart out in a moment. He laid it flat on the cabin table and stared at it for a full half minute before he saw that he had it upside down. His cheeks burned. But it was all right. Susan had not noticed. It would never do for her to think that he was worried too.

  A tremendous tattoo on the frying-pan sounded from the cockpit and Roger put his head in and called down:

  “Ought I to whistle? Titty says I’d better ask.”

  John looked up. He answered Titty’s tattoo instead of Roger’s question.

  “We’re not at anchor,” he said grimly. “We ought to be sounding a foghorn, not a bell.”

  “I know where it is,” said Roger. He came scrambling down into the cabin, pushed his way through, and hauled a long, green-painted foghorn out from its place behind a spare pair of sea-boots. “How does it work?” He found the brass knob on the end of the long piston rod. He pulled it out and pushed it in again.

  “It won’t hoot,” he said.

  “Of course it will,” said John. “Pull it right out and try pushing steadily.”

  The cabin was suddenly filled with a deafening blast of noise.

  “Nobody’ll be able to help hearing that,” said Roger.

  “Take it on deck,” said John. “Hi! Titty! Stop banging the frying-pan. Take turns with the foghorn, and hoot for all you’re worth if you hear anybody else hooting.”

  He went half way up the companion and looked round into the fog. Nothing to be seen. He came down again and found Susan staring at the chart.

  “I can’t see which is land and which is water,” said Susan. “And, anyway, what can we do?”

  “There’s where we were anchored,” said John, pointing with a finger. “There’s the dock where he went in, and there’s that flat-topped buoy. And we must have drifted right down here … unless there’s another buoy called Beach End somewhere else. There can’t be. That must be the one we saw. And he said the ebb tide goes north-east … We must be about here …”

  “Beu … eueueueueu” came the bleat from the lightship as if to remind him.

  “We must be drifting towards the lightship … Look. It’s marked here … I say, what’s the matter, Susan?”

  “Let me get past,” said Susan. “I’ve got to go on deck.”

  He made way for her, and almost as if she were blind she groped for the companion-steps and climbed hurriedly up to the cockpit.

  John stared after her. No. It couldn’t be that Susan was going to be sea-sick. There wasn’t really much motion … not as much as they had had in Swallow scores of times. And then, he suddenly found himself grabbing at the table. Perhaps, after all, there was a bit of a swell.

  “I say, Susan,” he called. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes … But don’t stay down there. Do hurry up and come out.”

  It was no good talking about hurrying up. It was not as if he had had charts to look at every day. Maps are easy, with the roads marked in red and the rivers marked in blue. Charts are different altogether. Land and sea are so much alike. He was glad Jim had let him have a look at this one last night. The plain part was land, though you would not think so, because there were no roads marked on it. That thick line marked the edge of high water
… or was it low water? And those dotted lines marked the shoals, and Jim had said that the shaded bits out at sea in the middle of the dotted lines meant shoals that were dry at low water. And the others might be even worse, lurking just below the surface. And what a lot of them there were. And buoys, too. There were little pictures of buoys on the chart, with letters beside them, “R” or “B” or “B.W. Cheq.” That last he guessed must mean Black and White chequered. The little picture, that made the buoy look like a leprosy flag, and was marked “B.W. Cheq,” showed that clearly enough.

  All the time, the bleat of the Cork lightship, four times every minute, reminded him that the Goblin was not still but moving. And there seemed to be shoals everywhere. With names to them. There was the Andrews and the Platters and the Cutler and the Cork. There were others, too, without names. “Get out to sea and stay there” Jim had said last night. If only Jim was aboard and in command. But if he had been, everything would have been all right. Where had he said was the safe way? … By the Cork light-vessel. It must be here, and John put his finger on what looked like a broad, clear road leading out to deep water between the threatening shoals.

  Just at that moment a lot of noises came together. There was the “Beu-eueueueueu” of the lightship, a sudden blast on the foghorn up in the cockpit, and then a shout from Titty.

  “There’s another buoy.”

  “Where? Where?” That was Susan.

  “Over there. It’s gone now. A speckled one.”

  John jumped for the companion-steps and with his head out above the cabin roof stared round into the grey nothingness of the fog.

  “What shape was it?” he asked.

  “Square, I think,” said Titty.

  “I never saw it at all,” said Susan.

  Roger was pulling out the handle of the foghorn as far as it would go. He let drive. The foghorn blared so loud that it seemed impossible that nobody should answer it. But the only reply that came out of the fog was the regular bleat from the lightship.

  “It’s a lot nearer than it was,” said Susan.

  John had dropped down again into the cabin. A square buoy, speckled, Titty had said. He hunted frantically on the chart for a picture of a square buoy. He found one, then another, then a third. And buoys meant shoals. And shoals were everywhere. What was the right thing to do? What would Jim do? What would Jim think he ought to do? Drifting like this with the tide, waiting for the awful scrunch under the keel that would mean she was aground. He thought of wrecks on the Goodwins. He thought of the Goblin heeling over, lifting and bumping. He almost saw her planks stove in and sand and brown water swirling into her.

  There was a yell from on deck, almost a shriek.

  “There’s another buoy! A big one!”

  “It’s going to hit us!”

  “John! John!”

  He was up in the cockpit in a moment, bumping his head on the way but hardly feeling it. He saw this buoy all right. A huge cage buoy, with a flat top and a lantern on it, had loomed out of the fog and was coming at them amidships. It was twenty yards off … fifteen … ten …

  John grabbed the useless tiller and waggled it, as long ago he had waggled the tiller of the tiny Swallow, trying to move her in a flat calm.

  “Grab the lifebelt, Susan,” he shouted. “It’s going to bust her like an egg-shell.” He flung himself forward, tore the lifebelt free and dropped it in the cockpit, while he tried to get at the boathook. Titty grabbed the mop. But there was no time for fending off. There was no time for anything, and all four of them held their breaths, waiting for the crash of the huge iron buoy into the slim wooden side of the Goblin.

  The crash never came.

  The Goblin, slowly turning in the tide, came end on just in time. The monstrous buoy slid past with hardly a foot to spare, while Titty frantically poked at it with the mop. It was ten yards off … fifteen … twenty … It faded into the fog.

  “Gosh!” said Roger.

  “Oh, John!” cried Susan.

  John made up his mind.

  “We can’t go on like this,” he said. “If we can’t steer, we haven’t a chance of dodging, and we may come full wang into the next one.”

  “But what are we going to do?”

  “I’ve got to get some sail on her.”

  “Would he want you to?”

  “It’s the only thing to do. We’re helpless, drifting like this. And it isn’t only buoys. We might have to dodge a steamer any minute. And if we aren’t sailing we can’t get out of the way.”

  FENDING OFF WITH THE MOP

  “But do you know how?”

  “I think so,” said John. “I did it all right yesterday when he was watching, and he’s left everything all ready for hoisting. I’m sure I can get the mainsail up somehow. Well enough to get her moving so that we can steer. And the jib’s only rolled up. It’s easy to let it unroll.”

  “Can I come and help?” said Roger.

  “Sit still,” said Susan.

  *

  From the cockpit they watched John slither along the cabin roof to the foredeck. They saw him pull first at one and then at another of the ropes until he had made sure of having found the right one. They saw him pulling on it hand over hand. The head of the mainsail shook itself free of the mass of red canvas and began to climb the mast. It stuck. John was scrambling aft to cast off a tyer half way along the boom. Susan and Titty, ill as they were feeling, jumped to cast off other tyers close above their heads. The sail was all loose now, and a great fold of it suddenly filled with wind, billowed up, and flopped down again. John was hauling away again. Up went the big sail, foot after foot up the mast, bellying as it rose. Again it stuck.

  “It’s that backstay stopping it. Let it go loose …”

  “Backstay? Backstay? Which one?”

  “That’s the one. Starboard side.”

  John was hauling again. For a moment the flapping sail hid him. It climbed to the top of the mast. They saw him again, now swinging his weight against the halyard, just as they had seen Jim Brading do … Swigging … That was the word … Nothing to do with grog, Jim Brading had told Roger who, of course, had asked. Now John was making that rope fast. He was busy with another. The boom dropped a little. The sail smoothed out. The Goblin heeled over.

  “What do I do, John?” shouted Susan. “She’s pulling.”

  “Slack away some mainsheet.”

  He was stooping now to loose the furling rope of the jib. The jib suddenly unrolled and began to flap.

  “Haul in the sheet. This side. Stop it flapping.”

  “This one, Titty,” said Roger.

  “I know! Come on! Help! It’s pulling like I don’t know what.”

  The two of them hauled in the jib sheet as well as they could. The sail quietened. The Goblin was sailing once more. John, getting his breath again, was coiling away the halyard on the foredeck and stowing it at the foot of the mast.

  “Come and take her,” called Susan. “I don’t know which way to go.”

  “How’s she heading now?” asked John, hurrying aft along the side deck.

  “I can’t see anything,” said Susan.

  “Look out of the way, Roger,” said John, jumping down into the cockpit, and Roger slid across to the lee side of the cockpit while John peered through the porthole that Susan had polished so carefully to see the compass just inside. The card carefully to see the compass just inside. The card was swinging … north-west … north-west by north … north-west again … But hadn’t Jim said the tide would take them north-east to the Cork lightship? And they were heading north-west …

  John jumped for the mainsheet and began slacking it out hand over hand as fast as he could.

  “Let her pay off, Susan. Let her pay off. Right off … More. Quick. We’re heading straight for the shoals along the shore.”

  He made the sheet fast and took the tiller. The regular bleats of the lightship were ahead of them now and no longer broad on the beam. He watched the compass card … North-west …
north by west … north … north by east … north-east … north-east by east. He looked up at the fluttering burgee, dim in the fog at the masthead. It was blowing straight out before the mast.

  “John,” said Susan. “If you’re sure the land’s over there, why not go straight for it and get ashore somehow or other?”

  All three of them looked at him.

  “We can’t,” said John. “We’d only wreck the Goblin. And already I’ve lost his anchor.”

  “I believe we ought,” said Susan.

  “We can’t,” said John, almost angrily. “Go and look at that chart. We might easily hit rocks ever so far out from the shore, and in the fog we wouldn’t know which way to swim.”

  “Mother’d be wanting us to try …”

  “I don’t believe she would … And Daddy wouldn’t, anyway. Look here, Susan. So long as the Goblin’s all right, we’re all right. But if we go and smash her on a rock or something, anything might happen. We’ve only got to keep clear of things. The fog can’t last for ever … Keep a look out for anything you can see. Anything …”

  The Goblin was sailing steadily now, with a gentle, swishing noise, as she drove through the water. John steered, glancing up and down, between the compass and the ghost of the burgee fluttering high overhead. Susan, Titty and Roger tried their best to see into the fog. Every quarter of a minute the Cork lightship moaned its “Beu-eueueueueueu …” And each melancholy bleat sounded a little nearer than the last.

  CHAPTER X

  OUT TO SEA

  IT WAS WORSE for Susan than for any of the others. John was having a tricky time steering with the wind dead aft, afraid every moment that there would be a jibe, and that the boom would come swinging across. Titty and Roger were peering into the fog keeping a look out for another of those huge iron buoys that were as dangerous as rocks. But Susan was thinking of Jim Brading desperately rowing to and fro over the place where he had left the Goblin. What would he do when he found that the Goblin had gone? Telephone to Mother at Pin Mill? … The thought of Mother answering the telephone and hearing that Jim Brading, in whose charge they were, did not know what had become of them, came at her like a blow. They had been allowed to sail with Jim Brading only because everybody had promised that they would not go outside the harbour. And here they were sailing blindly a bigger boat than they had ever sailed before. Mother would never have trusted them alone in a boat like the Goblin, even inside the harbour on a calm day of sunshine and clear weather. And here they were outside the harbour, sailing faster every minute, in a thick, choking fog and rising wind. They could not have broken that promise into smaller bits.