He felt suddenly confident. He raised himself to his feet and stood on the foredeck, holding on by shrouds and halyards, while the deck lifted beneath him, dropped away, and lifted again. The Goblin was safe now. They could run on all night like this. They could run on for ever. Hullo! Was that Susan calling? He turned, stepped on a rope, took his foot off it, found he had a bight of it round his ankle, kicked, let go with one hand to get rid of it, and, as he slipped and fell, heard Susan’s piercing shriek …
*
It had been worse for Susan watching him than for John working his way along the cabin roof. It would have been worse still if she had not been steering and finding it as much as she could do. But he had reached the foredeck safe and she had felt very much happier. Then she had seen his hand turning the crank by the mast. She had seen the sail growing smaller. She had felt the steering easier with the shrinking of the sail. And then, suddenly, there was John on the cabin roof again, reaching up at mast-hoops. What for? What for? Why couldn’t he just wind up the sail and come back, quick, to the safety of the cockpit? He was down on the foredeck again. The winding was going on once more. It stopped. She saw him jerk the brass crank off and feel for his pocket with it. And then she saw him get to his feet and stand there, swaying with the leaping boat, with his hands on shrouds and halyards.
“John!” Her call was indignant. What on earth was he doing that for?
“John!” Her angry call turned unexpectedly into a call for help. She was going to be sick again. She choked. Something buzzed in her head. Spots dithered before her eyes. Yes. She was going to be sick now, at once … He must come, quick, to take the tiller for her.
“John! … OH!” Her call for help turned to a shriek of terror. John was gone. One moment he, had been standing on the foredeck, swaying with the motion of the Goblin. The next moment he was gone. A clutching hand, missing the shrouds … the life-line jerking taut. He was gone. Without knowing what she did she threw up both hands, loosing the tiller. She looked at the seas racing past the Goblin’s side. And then, when she thought he had gone for ever, she saw a black sou’wester beyond the cabin top, a hand at the ropes by the mast. He was still aboard. In awful shame at having let it go, she grabbed the tiller once more. She never saw John’s struggle when, after he had slipped and all but gone over the side, held by his life-line that had caught against the shrouds, he had fought for a grip, got a hand to the end of a halyard and somehow (he himself never knew how he did it) scrambled back to his old place beside the mast. Susan never knew the effort it cost him to stand up once more, just for a moment, so as not to feel himself beaten, before sitting again on the cabin roof and working aft, carefully but wasting no time at all, towards the safety of the cockpit.
ALL BUT O.B.
*
“Where’s John?” said Roger, scrambling out on all fours, and tumbling head first into the cockpit.
By the time he had picked himself up, John had swung his legs over the coaming.
“Sorry, Susan,” he said. “It’s all right. You steered awfully well. Look here. It’s all right now. Nothing’s happened …”
“John! Oh, John!” said Susan.
“What happened?” said Roger.
“Nothing happened,” said John. “I slipped. The life-line works beautifully. I’d have been all right even if I had gone overboard.” With hands that shook a little in spite of nothing having happened, he untied the rope he had knotted round his middle, coiled it carefully and put it away in the rope locker.
Titty, climbing out, looked from John to Susan and from Susan to John. She was just going to ask a question, but did not ask it. She felt that the ship was suddenly full of happiness. John was grinning to himself. Susan was smiling through tears that did not seem to matter.
“Let’s have the tiller,” said John. “How’s she steering? Gosh, that reefing’s made a difference. I can hold her with one hand, almost. I ought to have reefed long before.”
“Let me go on for a bit,” said Susan. “I can manage it easily now.”
“You did jolly well. It was pretty beastly with the full sail. But I say, didn’t you shout? Just before I went and slipped. I thought I heard you.”
“I was going to be sick,” said Susan. “I knew I was going to be sick … and John … It’s very strange. I don’t feel seasick any more.”
“Good,” said John. “Once it’s over, you’ll probably never be sea-sick again. How’s Titty?”
“All right,” said Titty.
“She lit the cabin lamp,” said Roger. “I was just going to light the candle lamp for the compass. May I?”
“Go ahead,” said John. “I can’t see the compass even with the hatch open. And look here. Dig out the big torch. We’d better have it up here for the night …”
“What about our red and green lights in the dark?” asked Titty.
“No oil in them,” said John.
“How long does the night last?” said Susan. “How long will it be till dawn?”
“Don’t know,” said John. “A good long time. But it doesn’t matter. You can feel she’s all right now.”
CHAPTER XIII
WOOLWORTH PLATE
THE NIGHT CLOSED down on them, making the little world of the Goblin smaller than it had been even in the fog. They grew accustomed to the dark. It was still blowing very hard. The seas lifting them along were no less big. But now that the mainsail was only half its proper size steering was no longer such a battle. It was dreadful to think of Mother and Bridget at Pin Mill not knowing what had become of them. It was dreadful not knowing what had happened to Jim, and dreadful to think of him not knowing what had happened to his ship. But even Susan, who could not forget these things for a moment, began to share John’s confidence. As he had said, you could feel the Goblin was all right. Best of all, John had not fallen overboard. All four of them were together. And sooner or later the night would end, the sun would rise, the wind would ease, and they would get back to Harwich. Titty was herself again, her headache gone, enjoying the swoop and rush of the Goblin in the darkness. Roger, except that for a long time he had been wondering if nothing was going to be done about supper, was sitting in the top of the companion, watching the candlelight on the compass, and seeing the card swing slowly this way and that, so that the lubberline was first one side of south-east and then the other. John, whose arms were stiff with steering, knew now that so long as things got no worse he was going to be able to stick it out.
“Whoa, old lady,” he muttered to himself, as an extra hard puff asked for an extra bit of beef on the tiller.
“Steady,” he muttered. “Now then … not too far …” as a curling white wave rolled up out of the darkness, and he brought the Goblin almost straight before it till its crest had gone creaming past.
Roger looked through into the lamplit cabin to see the clock. He turned and spoke over his shoulder to the huddle of dark figures in the cockpit.
“Susan,” he said. “It’s ten o’clock. Don’t you think I might dig out a bit of chocolate. I know just where it is.”
“Ten o’clock,” exclaimed Susan. “Look out of the way, Rogie. It’s time everybody had something to eat …”
“I’ll get it,” said Titty.
“Sit still,” said Susan. “Let me come past.”
“I say, Susan,” said Roger. “Are you sure you won’t be sick if you go down?”
“I’m all right,” said Susan. “I ought to have gone down ages ago. John can’t steer all night without something to eat.”
Roger made himself small to let her get by, and then, looking down into the cabin watched her struggle with the locker door, saw her flung sideways into the lee bunk, saw her sit there a moment, and then pull herself together and reach once more into the locker. She had a handful of those red Woolworth plates. The Goblin rolled, and she fell back into the lee bunk. The locker door slammed. She was up again now and reaching into the locker on the other side. Then he saw that she had got hold of the pork p
ie … and a knife. She was cutting the pork pie in four … Gosh! That made good slices. Roger knew that he was hungrier even than he had thought. Suddenly there was Susan pushing one of the red plates at him with a slice of pork pie ready on it.
“Take it,” she said. “Quick. That’s John’s.”
“Pork pie,” said Roger, handing it on.
“Right,” said John. “Shove it on the seat so that I can get at it.”
Roger watched Susan again. The Goblin lurched sharply, and in saving herself she almost dropped the paper with the other three helpings of pork pie. The three plates on which she had meant to put them slipped to the floor of the cabin. She let them lie.
“Look here,” she said. “I’m putting yours in the sink. You’d better do without plates.”
“Can we start?” said Roger.
“Yes,” said Susan, half tumbling back in the cabin, after reaching up to put the paper full of pork pie in the sink, where it was lit up by the compass lamp. She seemed in rather a hurry, as she lifted a mattress, and a board beneath it, and began pulling bottles of ginger pop from the store under the bunk.
“You’ll have to drink out of the bottles,” she panted, as she put them in the sink with the bits of pork pie. “No good having mugs flying about as well as everything else.” Then she came up the companion-steps, and stood on the top one, with her head above the sliding hatch, holding on to both sides and taking great gulps of air.
“Aren’t you going to have any?” asked Roger, with his mouth full.
“Not just yet,” said Susan.
“Ow!” said Roger.
“What’s the matter?”
“Only the bottle trying to knock out my best teeth,” said Roger.
“Keep your lips over your teeth,” said Titty, “and let the grog just trickle in.”
*
No. Susan was not going to be sea-sick, but trying to get things out of those cupboards and from under the bunks when you were being flung about and had to hold on where and how you could was enough to make anybody feel peculiar. But she was not going to be sea-sick. She faced into the wind and felt better almost at once. It was blowing so hard that she soon felt she had all the air she wanted. She turned round and looked forward over the cabin roof, when the wind picked up her sou’wester from behind and tried to blow it past her ears.
At first, on coming up out of the lighted cabin, she had been almost blind in the darkness. Presently she was able to see a little more, but not much, just wave-crests, pale splashes rolling up beside the Goblin and racing ahead. She stared forward, holding on firmly to the sides of the hatch, and letting her body swing with the motion of the ship. One moment it seemed that she must be looking down a steep slope as the Goblin lunged into the trough between two seas. The next moment she was looking up, as a sea passed under the Goblin and tossed her bowsprit skywards. Suddenly, when the Goblin was on the top of a sea, she thought she saw the sparkle of a light. It was gone on the instant as if someone had struck a match and blown it out in a single movement. Again the Goblin lifted. Again in the darkness ahead came the glimmer of a light, no, two lights, close together.
“John,” she cried. “Lights ahead.”
“Is it land?” said Titty.
“It can’t be,” said John. “We must be clear of everything now.”
“There they are again … Gone … No, there they are …”
“Where?” said Roger, with a mouth full of pork pie slightly salted with spray.
“Which side?” said Titty.
“Right ahead,” said Susan. “There they are again. Two of them. Close together.”
“I can’t see anything,” said John, who for hours had been keeping his eyes fixed steadily on the glowing card of the compass.
“Keep on looking,” said Susan … “There they are …”
“Got them,” said John a moment later. “Fishing boats probably. Keep an eye on them as well as you can.”
On and on the Goblin raced through the dark. Roger and Titty were steadily munching their pork pie, and now and then getting a few drops of ginger beer into their mouths as well as a lot on their chins. Even Susan had begun her supper. John, with his plate wedged beside him, was tearing off a bit with his fingers and cramming it into his mouth whenever he could spare a hand from the tiller. He tried to see ahead under the mainsail, but it was not much good. Meanwhile, lights or no lights, he had to ease the Goblin along on her way through these tumbling seas.
“They’re much nearer,” said Susan. “I can see them all the time.”
“There’s a red light,” said Roger. “Lower down.”
“And a green,” said Titty.
“Steamer,” said John. “Those first two must be her masthead lights. Coming this way.”
“Perhaps she’s going to Harwich,” said Titty.
“Perhaps Daddy’s on board her,” said Roger.
“Mother said she didn’t think he could come till Saturday,” said Titty.
“It’s very nearly Friday now,” said Roger, peeping in past Susan to see the clock in the lighted cabin.
Susan groaned. Very nearly Friday, and Mother had heard nothing from them since they had telephoned on Wednesday evening from Shotley. And they had promised to be back by tea-time on Friday. And Jim … And there they were, further and further from home.
“I can see lights on her decks,” said Roger. “And portholes.”
And with the sight of those lighted decks and glowing portholes a new idea came into Susan’s mind. She had agreed that they should keep on as they were going and turn back only when things cleared up. The mere thought of turning back head to wind and sea was enough to let her know that it would be more than she could bear, even though she had not been sea-sick since that awful moment when John had so nearly gone over the side. But now, the sight of that steamer, full of people, stewards, stewardesses, officers who knew exactly where they were going, changed everything once more. Before, they had been alone and it had been enough to keep the Goblin afloat, waiting for daylight and better weather … it had been enough that they were still all four of them together, and that John was still there as he so easily might not have been … But now, there was that steamer, with rescue at hand, and people to help …
“John,” said Susan. “Let’s sound the foghorn at them to show we’re in distress.”
“But we aren’t,” said John. “Not now … It’s ever so much better than it was.”
“Couldn’t they tow us back?”
“No,” said John. “Just remember what it was like when old Swallow was towed behind the Beckfoot motor launch and Nancy went too fast by mistake … And, anyway, Jim said, ‘Never take help.’”
“But they wouldn’t have to come on board,” said Susan.
“We simply can’t,” said John.
“All right,” said Susan. “Let them just take Titty and Roger, and they could tell Mother what’s happened … and Jim. Yes. Look here, John, we simply must. How do we stop them?”
“She’s coming straight for us,” said Roger. “Perhaps she’s seen us and knows. Oh, I say, there goes your pork pie …”
John’s voice rose to a shout.
“But she can’t see us. We’ve got no lights. We’ve got to get out of the way. Where’s the big torch? It’s slipped down somewhere. Oh never MIND the pork pie …”
He let the tiller swing down. The Goblin turned towards the wind. A sea took its chance and slopped up over the quarter, splashing down into the cockpit on Roger and Titty who were fumbling round on the floor for the torch and John’s plate and finding only bits of pork pie he had not eaten.
The steamer was coming straight at them, as Roger had said. There were the masthead lights high in the darkness. Below them were other lights, the shaded lights of the upper decks, the glow of portholes, and the two lights that really mattered, a round green eye and a round red one … coming nearer and nearer.
“She’ll be right on the top of us if we don’t look out,” said J
ohn. “Where is that torch?”
“I’ve got the torch,” cried Roger, and a sudden bright glow lit John’s feet in the cockpit.
“Here’s the plate,” said Titty. “I’ve put it on the seat.”
“Give me the torch,” said Susan, and grabbed it and pointed it towards the steamer.
Red and green the two blazing eyes of the steamer came on.
“Foghorn!” said John.
“I’ve got it,” said Roger.
“White is for a sternlight,” said John. “We ought to be showing a red light to port.”
“But we can’t,” said Susan, frantically waving the torch.
“We can … We can …” cried Titty. “Where’s the Woolworth plate? Here you are, Susan. Susan! Put it in front of the torch like Jim did last night … Let the light go through it …”
“Quick, Roger,” said John. “Go on! … Beef!”
The white, narrow beam of the big torch turned suddenly to a bright red glow as it poured through the half-transparent scarlet plate that Susan held before it. At the same moment a blare of noise came from the foghorn as Roger drove home the plunger. Titty, to this day, thinks that aboard the steamship they could hardly have heard the foghorn, loud as it sounded beside her in the cockpit. Roger, to this day, doubts if, without the foghorn, the steamer’s look-out would have noticed the fiery glowing of the Woolworth plate. However it was, over all the noise of wind and water they heard a shrill whistle and a single short hoot of the steamer’s siren.
“She’s seen us,” said John, with a gasp of relief “The green’s gone.”
The green starboard light of the big steamship had vanished. The red port light glowed nearer and nearer. A huge wall, blacker than the blackness of the night, towered above them. The steamer’s bow wave lifted them and dropped them. Rows of shining portholes raced past. The darkness throbbed with the noise of engines. Just in time, the red glowing plate had been seen, or the foghorn heard, and the steamer had altered course.