Roger rushed down into the cabin, nearly tumbling over Titty, who was giving Sinbad a good feed of milk while they were still in the smooth water of the inner harbour. He rushed back with the foghorn, hauled out the plunger and drove it in. There was a mighty roar. Almost at once they saw the lock gates opening.
“Shove her out of gear,” said Daddy. “Go on, Roger. You’re the engineer.”
The Goblin slid slowly in, and John and Susan were ready with the fenders, and Daddy threw the warps up to the locksmen as the little ship once more came to rest under that steep grey wall.
“You not stop long in Holland, Capten,” said one of the locksmen, looking down.
“We’d like to but we can’t,” said John, when he saw that the locksman was speaking to him and not to Daddy.
Just then there was a clatter of wooden shoes on stone, and all the Dutch children who had been helping in the inner harbour, and had raced round by land, arrived, panting and smiling to watch the Goblin put to sea.
Daddy and the pilot had gone down into the cabin while they were waiting for one pair of gates to close and the other to open. Daddy was fixing the North Sea chart on the table with two lengths of string. He had rummaged in the shelves and found Jim Brading’s parallel rulers and protractors. He had pulled Jim’s Nautical Almanac from its place and was looking up the tides. There would be no trusting to luck about the Goblin’s navigation on her voyage home.
“Hi,” called Roger. “The gates are opening to let us out.”
In another moment the pilot was climbing up a ladder in the side of the lock, after shaking hands once more with all the crew.
“Goodbye, Capten,” he said. “You will take me for pilot, I hope, when you come dese ways again.”
“Goodbye, goodbye … And thank you very much indeed.”
They could hardly believe that they had been so nervous when he had come aboard, with John waiting alone for him in the cockpit and the others shut down below to make native noises for their very lives.
“Goodbye … Goodbye, English,” shouted little Dutch boys, running along the edge of the quay.
Daddy called out, “Ahead!” and Roger shifted the gear lever; “Full!” and he opened the throttle. The chug, chugging of the engine quickened to a livelier, louder tune, and the Goblin passed through the gates and was at sea.
Titty held up Sinbad, who, after all, had seen less of Holland than any of them, and the Dutch children waved their caps and called, “Goodbye, English,” till the Goblin was almost out of hearing.
“We’ll come across again some other time,” said Daddy, as if he knew they were all thinking that though they had been in foreign parts they had not stayed there very long.
“Nothing matters now except getting back quick,” said Susan.
“Another time we’ll bring Mother and Bridget with us,” said Titty.
They were rounding the outer pierhead.
“If you’ll take her, Skipper,” said Daddy, “I’ll make sail, though we shan’t get much wind till we’re clear of the land. We’ll keep the engine going.”
Chug, chug, chug, hummed the little engine, and in the afternoon sunshine the Goblin, with the ebb-tide to help her, soon left Flushing astern. Up went mainsail, jib and staysail, and with Daddy to swing on the halyards they somehow looked a good deal better than when John had had to hoist them as best he could alone. The wind had veered as the harbourmaster had said it would. It blew soft over the roofs of the old Dutch town. The windmills were turning slowly. The flags were fluttering on the promenade pier. The Goblin, running easily in the channel under the land, heeled a little as she began to feel her sails.
“She’s going beautifully,” said Roger.
“She’s going home,” said Titty.
“Better leave that buoy to port, Skipper,” said Daddy, and, after glancing round at the set of the sails, dived down into the cabin to have another look at the chart.
CHAPTER XXIV
HAPPIER VOYAGE
THE GOBLIN WAS a happier ship now that she was homeward bound. Instead of knowing that she was going further and further into unknown seas where she had no right to be, everybody aboard her wanted her to go just as fast as she could. It was awful to think of Mother and Bridget and Jim waiting at Pin Mill not knowing where she was. But the sending off of those telegrams had made everybody feel better, and it was as if the Goblin herself were doing her best to help, hurrying, hurrying home to rejoin her lawful master. Not a moment was wasted. The chug, chugging of the engine, horrible noise though all of them (except perhaps Roger) thought it in the ordinary way, was now a cheerful song of haste, as the Goblin foamed along under the lee of the land before heading out through the channel into the North Sea.
The wind blew harder as they left the land behind them, and the tall tower of West Kapelle light, built on the top of a church, turned once more to a pencil rising out of the sea, grew smaller, vanished as the night came up, and at last flashed out far astern, a dim loom in the sky, to remind them of the Holland they had left.
For a long time they kept the engine running, really because of that encouraging bustling noise.
“Roger,” said Daddy at last, when he had lit the navigation lamps, and put them in their places, red and green, in the port and starboard shrouds, “Roger, you’re the engineer. Nip down and turn the petrol off. We’ll be going as fast without it.”
Roger nipped down, turned off the petrol cock and waited. The noise of the engine changed as Daddy shut down the throttle and pushed the gears into neutral. “Chug … chug … chug …” The noise of the engine faded into silence, and they heard instead the steady swish of the water past the Goblin’s sides.
“Going fine,” said Daddy. “And now, to bed with the lot of you. Roger and Titty first.”
“Two more mugs to wipe,” said Susan sleepily.
Susan was happier than she had been since Jim had anchored the Goblin in the sunshine off Felixstowe Dock. She had been afraid that she would be sea-sick again on the homeward voyage, but she had not been long enough ashore to lose her sea-legs, and she had not been sick at all. She had felt a bit peculiar just at first, but by the time they left the land she was better again, and knew that she was cured for this time at any rate. Why, she had been able to sit at the top of the companion, above the throbbing engine, to boil a kettle and make tea, and to hold a big saucepan steady on the stove while a tinned steak and kidney pudding had been hotting up inside it. She had even been able to eat her share of the pudding.
Titty, with Sinbad to look after, had not had time to think of sea-sickness or headaches, and now, when Daddy said it was time for bed, she took the kitten into her bunk, and in two minutes they were asleep together.
Roger had had a busy time. Twice he had burrowed down under the cockpit floor to give an extra turn to the greaser on the stern tube. Once he had poured a little more oil into the crank case. Besides that, while John was steering, he had helped Daddy to pour paraffin into the navigation lamps, a smelly job from which his sisters shrank.
“I’m not a bit sleepy,” he said, but orders were orders, and he rolled into his bunk, was comfortably wedged in with the trysail by Susan, and fell asleep while he was still amusing himself by wriggling his toes under the blankets.
Susan was next to bed, and she, too, fell almost instantly asleep. She had slept longer than John the night before, but she was very tired. Seasickness was not the only misery from which she had escaped. Daddy was here, in the Goblin, and she no longer had that dreadful feeling that it was somehow her fault that they were at sea. They were going home as fast as they could, and Susan fell asleep almost as happily as if they had never left Harwich harbour.
John lingered in the cockpit.
“You too, old chap,” said his father, and then, “But first take the tiller while I make sure about those tides. West by north …”
“West by north it is,” said John, and steered while Daddy slipped down below to say good night to the rest of the crew
, or rather not to say it, since he found all three were already asleep, and to rule a few lines on the chart, fixed on the table under the cabin lamp. John glanced down the companion to see Daddy using the parallel rulers and making notes on a scrap of paper. It was easy steering when you knew you had nothing to worry about and were going below in a minute or two.
“I could go on all night,” said John as his father came up, glanced at the compass, and went forward over the cabin top to see that the navigation lights were burning properly.
“Dare say you could,” said Commander Walker, “but I think you’ve done your whack and earned your watch below. I’ve been sleeping for the best part of a fortnight.”
“Good night, Daddy,” said John, taking a last look round into the night.
“Good night, old skipper,” said his father.
Two minutes later John was in his bunk. He dozed off at once, but woke a moment or two later, feeling for the tiller, afraid he had let the Goblin off her course. He was on the point of shouting out when he remembered that he had a trusty seaman at the helm. He lay there, looking up out of the lighted cabin at that square of darkness outside the companion. To the right of it he could see the glimmer of the little candle-lamp that lit the compass. But in the opening there was nothing but the dark. Then, suddenly, there was the red glow of a lit match shielded by his father’s hands. He saw his father’s face as he lit one of the Dutch cigars. The match went out, but there was the cigar-end red hot in the darkness. Now and then, as Daddy took a puff at the cigar, that red-hot end glowed brightly enough to let John see Daddy’s face behind it. Then it faded slowly. Then it slipped sideways and disappeared. Then, glowing bright once more, it showed again.
John lay there, tired but content. Gosh, how awful it would have been if Daddy had not been able to jump ashore as the liner was leaving Flushing for Harwich. He would have been at Pin Mill by now, and Mother would have known that they were alone at the other side of the North Sea. Now, with Daddy aboard, the only thing that mattered was getting home quick. John listened to the water swirling by at the other side of the planking. He put his hand on the planking as if to feel that hurrying water. The Goblin was doing her best. And Daddy had known without any explainings that they had done theirs. Almost it had seemed that he was pleased with them. “You’ll be a seaman yet, my son.” John said those words over again to himself, as if they were a spell. And then he heard another noise beside the swirl and rush of the water so close at hand as he lay in his bunk. Daddy was singing to himself up there in the cockpit, out in the dark with the glow of the compass lamp, the glow of his cigar, the wind and the starry night. He was singing very low, more like humming than singing, the old sea songs they had all learnt in the nursery.
“Away to Rio … Away to Rio …
Oh, fare you well, my bonny young maid,
For we’re bound to Rio Grande …”
And then a little louder, beginning to forget his sleeping crew …
“There’s a Black Ball barque a-coming down the river,
Blow, bullies blow.
There’s a Black Ball barque a-coming down the river,
Blow, my bully boys, blow.”
And after the end of that song Daddy seemed to have forgotten that he was not alone in the ship, for he was singing very heartily, steering with one hand, with the red glow of the cigar in his other hand weaving circles in the dark …
“In the Black Ball line I served my time,
To me hoodah. To me hoodah.
In the Black Ball line I served my time,
Rah, hurrah, for the Black Ball line.
Blow, my bullies, blow,
For California O.
There’s plenty of gold
So I’ve been told
On the banks of the Sacramento.”
There was stirring in the fore-cabin.
“Sh! Sinbad,” John heard Titty whisper. “It’s all right. It’s only Daddy.”
“John,” whispered Susan. “He can’t think it was our fault, or he wouldn’t be singing like that.”
“He’s been away from home a long time,” whispered Titty. “He’s singing because he’s nearly back.”
Roger never woke, and presently the others dropped off again to sleep.
Roger’s turn to wake came later in the night, when something cold and hard tapped him lightly on the head. He had too much hair for the parallel rulers, that had slipped off the table, to do him any harm. But he woke with a start to find Daddy peering at the chart with a pocket torch. The cabin lamp, turned low, did not give enough light to let Daddy read the notes the Dutch pilot had scribbled in red ink beside the little pictures of the lightships.
“Sorry, old chap,” said Daddy.
“Who’s steering?” said Roger.
“Steering herself at the moment.”
“Are we nearly home?”
“About half way. But the wind’s dropping a little. You go to sleep …”
“Call me if you want to start the engine,” said Roger sleepily.
“I will,” said his father, reached over Roger to put the rulers in the rack, and was gone.
*
A splash of sunlight was playing round the cabin. It came in through the open companion, danced over the clock and the barometer, and through into the fore-cabin, and danced out and back again as the Goblin rose and fell.
“Show a leg, the watch below!”
Gosh! Daylight already … broad daylight and the sun shining. The watch below were out of their bunks, rubbing their eyes and, in the case of Sinbad, calling loudly for breakfast. They hurried into their clothes and up on deck to find a blue, sunlit sea, and right ahead of them a lightship. Away to the south a feather of smoke showed where a steamer must be.
“Where are we?” asked John.
“Coming in to the Sunk lightship,” said Daddy. “Here, you can take over. Keep her going for the lightship. I want to stretch my arms. And what about breakfast, Susan? Think the kettle’ll stay put? Hullo, Pussy … Hungry?”
“Very … Aren’t you, Sinbad?” said Titty.
“We’ll have breakfast in peace, and then turn the engine on,” said Daddy. “Wind’s been dropping for some time, and if Roger’ll get her greased up …
“How long before we see land?” asked Susan.
“Not long now … but we’ll see it sooner with the engine earning its keep.” Daddy left the cockpit and sat on the top of the cabin, and stretched his arms and yawned. “That’s right, John … Head up a little bit to allow for the tide.”
Titty went below to feed the hungry Sinbad. Roger lifted the board in the cockpit and burrowed down to get the screw cap from the stern tube, fill it with grease as he had seen Jim fill it, and screw it down again. Susan lighted the stove, put the kettle on, and sat at the top of the companion-steps to see that the kettle did not slip off. John, in the light north-easterly wind, was finding the steering very different from the struggle it had been in the rough water and hard squalls of the outward passage.
They were eating their breakfast in the cockpit as they passed close under the stern of the Sunk lightship. It was a proper breakfast of cocoa, Dutch bread and English butter, potted meat and Pin Mill eggs. If they had been by themselves, Susan would have taken the easy way and boiled those eggs, but she remembered something from the last time Daddy was home, and she took the big frying-pan that had served as a bell in the fog, and melted the last of the butter in it, and broke six eggs into the butter and stirred them with a fork, only once letting a little slop over to hiss and splutter on the stove. Daddy, sitting on the cabin roof, did not see what she was doing, but when breakfast was ready, and she handed the mugs of cocoa out into the cockpit, and then five deep saucers full of scrambled egg, he laughed.
“I’d been counting on scrambled eggs tomorrow,” he said. “I didn’t expect them today. Good ones, too. Thank you, Susan.”
As they passed the lightship they exchanged “Good mornings” with the men on board who came and l
ooked down over the stern to see the little ship go by.
“Fare to be good weather now,” called one of the men. “Had a good crossing?”
“Nothing to complain of,” shouted Daddy.
“Pretty bad, night before last,” shouted the man.
“It jolly well was,” said John quietly.
“Did you see them on the way out?” asked his father. “You must have passed them pretty close.”
“We only heard them,” said John. “We didn’t see any of the lightships till that one in the middle of the night.”
“We couldn’t see anything in the fog,” said Susan.
“Only buoys,” said Roger. “Just in time not to bump them.”
MEETING THE SAILING SHIP
“We heard the lightships making their noises,” said Titty.
On they went, and Daddy altered course just a little, after having another look at the chart and the clock and the Nautical Almanac.
“About half flood,” he said. “We’ll have the tide with us to carry us in.”
By the time they had finished breakfast the Sunk was far astern.
“Come on, Susan,” said Daddy. “We’ll do the washing up in the cockpit, but we’ll have that engine going first.”
Yes. Daddy was in a hurry too. And a minute later the engine began its quick chug, chug, chug, the wash suddenly lengthened, and a foaming narrow wave spread from the bows of the Goblin.
“We shan’t be long now,” said Daddy. “A bob for whoever first sights the Cork.”
Roger, who had been on the very point of speaking, held out one hand and pointed ahead with the other.
“Jove,” said Daddy, after taking a look through the glasses, “you’re right. Good eyes. Well, another bob for whoever first sights land.”