“You’re going to let us go,” said John.
“He may have thought better of it,” said Mother.
“But if he still wants us …”
“It almost looks as if I shall have to,” said Mother. “But I wish I could ask Daddy …”
“Daddy’d say, ‘Go …’”
“I believe he would,” said Mother.
“Mother’s going to let us go,” shouted Roger as they met the others at the door.
“Wait till he asks you,” said Mother.
They looked far away at the trim white Goblin lying to her mooring with the little black Imp lying astern of her. Yes, Jim Brading was aboard, or the dinghy wouldn’t be there. But there was no sign of anybody stirring.
“He’s still asleep,” said Mother. “Let’s go in and have our breakfast.”
They were eating bread and marmalade when something large darkened the window and they saw Jim Brading looking in.
Bridget was off her chair first and ran to the door.
“Come in, please,” she said.
“Did you have a good sleep?” asked Roger as seriously as he knew how.
“Splendid, thank you, and a good swim round the ship this morning. I’m all right now. Mrs Walker, I am most awfully sorry about the way I went to sleep on the table last night.”
“Rubbish,” said Mother. “It was a charming sight and we all enjoyed it. Come in and sit down. Roger, get another cup out of the cupboard. There’s plenty of coffee in the pot. Well, now you’ve seen these animals in the morning light, you won’t want four of them in your little ship. I’ve told them you won’t, so you needn’t be afraid they’ll be disappointed.”
Roger was on the point of protesting, but did not. He waited, cup in hand.
“How soon can they come aboard?’’ said Jim.
*
Five hours later John, Susan and Jim Brading were resting in the cockpit of the Goblin after a hard morning’s work and a luncheon of bread and cheese and ginger beer. “No good starting with a fresh lot of things to wash up,” Jim had said, “just when you’ve scoured the sink and got everything spick and span.” So they had flung their crumbs to the gulls, washed their plates and swilled out their mugs over the side, wiped them and put the plates in the cupboard where they belonged and hung the mugs once more on the hooks over the sink. Mrs Walker and the others had gone to Ipswich to get stores … “The fo’c’sle feeds itself, of course,” Mrs Walker had said … and Jim, Susan and John were sitting in the cockpit and keeping an eye on the shore where the tide, as it was not long after high water, was lapping against the walls of the Butt and Oyster.
Jim was smoking a pipe with a good deal of care, not letting go of it with his fingers for more than a minute at a time. The others were watching him with respect.
“I only began it these holidays,” Jim confessed. “My uncle made me promise not to till after I left school.”
“Do you like it?” asked Susan.
“It’s very nice after work,” said Jim.
“It must use an awful lot of matches,” said Susan, as yet another was thrown overboard to join the long trail of dead matches that was floating with the tide.
“Tobacco’s a bit damp,” said Jim. “Bother it. It’s gone out again.”
“I found a tin of brass polish when I was tidying the place where the lamps are,” said Susan. “Do you think it would be all right if I had a go at that porthole.” She was looking at the porthole through which the steersman could see the compass, which was hung inside the cabin, over the sink.
Jim puffed out some smoke and looked at the porthole as if he was seeing it for the first time.
“It has gone a bit green,” he said. “You simply can’t keep them bright. I don’t think I’ve touched it this year. But, you know, Uncle Bob and I will never be able to live up to all this tidiness after you’ve gone.”
John said nothing. He knew Susan. They had had a busy morning, ferrying all the blankets and pillows lent by Miss Powell, and four small knapsacks, each with night things and a bathing suit and a change of clothes. When all this had been dumped down the companion-way into the cabin, it had looked as if there would never be room to turn round. But they had given Susan a free hand down there, while they rowed ashore twice more to fill the water-carrier at the tap in the boat-builder’s yard, and, when they had emptied the second lot of water into the tank under the cockpit floor, they had looked down into the cabin and found it strangely empty. All the blankets had been rolled up into neat bundles. There was one at the head of each bunk. And Susan was on her knees with a bucket and a swab, cleaning the cabin floor, and looking very much as if she did not want to be interrupted. So they had left her to it and gone to work on deck. “Better learn the ropes,” Jim had said. Three times they had hoisted the mainsail and lowered it again, and the last time John had been allowed to do it by himself, Jim watching and saying nothing, except right at the end, when he reminded John to slacken away the topping lift so that the sail should take the weight of the boom. Then Jim had explained the reefing gear, and taken a little brass crank from a locker in the cockpit, and brought it forward and fitted it in its place, and shown John how to reef, by turning the crank and easing off the main halyard inch by inch at the same time, so that the boom turned slowly round and round, winding up the sail. Then John had learnt the trick of the rolling jib, and how to make the foot of the staysail fast, and how to clip its hanks on the forestay. By that time the warm August sun had taken the damp out of the flag halyards, so that they had gone slack and the burgee on its stick at the masthead was swinging about all cockeye, and Jim had told John to tighten it up, and had shown him how to lower it hand over hand so that it came down without jerks, how to hoist it in the same way, and how to make the halyards fast with a rolling hitch. And now, sitting in the cockpit, after all that pulling and hauling, John was looking up at the mast, and the blocks that were hard to see up there in the bright sunlight, and reminding himself what each block was for and where its rope went. There were more ropes in the Goblin than in any little boat he had ever sailed, but after spending half the morning pulling, making fast, casting off, overhauling and making fast again, John, very happy, was beginning to hope that he might not be quite useless as a crew. As for Susan, when she had scrubbed the floor, and arranged the bunks, with pillow, blankets and a knapsack at the head of each, tidied the shelves, cleaned the cooking stove, and cleared out quantities of dirt from odd corners, she had got, so to speak, into her stride, did not want to stop, and, even while watching for the others from the cockpit, liked to feel that the time was not being wasted. A proper go with brass polish and rag would make the compass porthole fit to look at.
FIRST AID
“Here they are!” Jim Brading was the first to see the borrowed dinghy, with Mother, Bridget, Roger and Titty aboard, putting off from the hard. “I say, your mother knows how to handle a boat.”
“She’s jolly good at it,” said John.
Mrs Walker was rowing, working the boat neatly through a crowd of other dinghies anchored off the hard. Roger was in the bows. Titty and Bridget were in the stern sheets.
“They’ve got a lot of parcels,” said Susan. “I’ll have to finish that porthole another time.” She slipped down into the cabin and put the brass polish back in its place in the forepeak. She came up again. It seemed a pity that her tidy cabin was going to be upset almost at once, but she supposed all that stuff would stow away somewhere.
Jim stowed his half-smoked pipe, that had gone out again, carefully away in one of the cockpit lockers.
Mother shipped her oars as the loaded dinghy slipped up alongside.
“Let’s have that painter, Roger,” said Jim. “Hullo! What’s that you’ve got in your hand?”
“Penny whistle,” said Roger. “At least it cost more than a penny.”
“He would buy it,” said Bridget.
“Well, Captain Flint’s got an accordion in the houseboat,” said Roger.
“Can you play it?” said Jim.
“Just a bit,” said Roger. “I left mine behind at school.”
“Luckily,” said John.
“Unluckily,” said Roger. “I can play it, really. A boy at school taught me.” He looked round a little doubtfully. Nobody said he couldn’t, but Mother laughed and said, “Mr Brading’ll always be able to throw him overboard if he makes too much noise. May Bridget and I come aboard to say goodbye to the crew? We’d like to see the ship they’re going to sail in.”
“Please do,” said Jim. “Come on, Bridget.”
“I’ll come next,” said Mother, “and then Titty can hand up the parcels. Don’t squash that bag with the sausage rolls. Or the one with the doughnuts, and do take care of the pork pie.”
“We’ll never get all this eaten,” said Jim. “I mean, it’s very good of you, but …”
“You don’t know what these people can do till you’ve seen them try,” said Mother. “There’s this evening, and all tomorrow, and most of the next day.”
“Come down and look at the cabin,” said Susan, who wanted Mother to see it while it was still tidy. “Look at the stove, two burners, and a real sink on the other side.”
“She’s a most comfortable little ship,” said Mother, going down the companion-steps and looking round her.
“Titty and I are going to sleep here,” said Susan, showing her the fore-cabin. “And Roger’s going to be there, and John here.”
“And poor Mr Brading?” said Mother. “It looks quite a hard floor.”
“I can sleep like a log anywhere,” said Jim, looking down from the cockpit, adding with a grin, “even with my head on somebody else’s supper-table.”
“And look how the backs of the bunks open,” said Susan. “Huge cupboards behind.”
“What,” said Mother. “Stewed pears, and peaches, spaghetti and tomato, pea soup …”
“Uncle Bob and I mostly live out of tins,” said Jim.
“It’s wonderful what good things you can get in tins nowadays,” said Mother. “What’s this … a whole shelf of steak and kidney puddings?”
“They’re very easy to hot up,” said Jim.
“The things I’ve brought you are much tamer,” said Mother.
“Doughnuts,” said Roger, “and sausage rolls, and rock buns, and a lot of ham all ready for eating.”
“Here’s the pork pie,” said Bridget, who had climbed down into the cabin, using only one hand while she clasped the pork pie to herself with the other.
“Lots of apples,” said Roger, “and the right sort of chocolate, in squares. And two dozen eggs and a whole pound of butter.”
“And two loaves of bread …” said Titty.
“I ought to have thought of that,” said Jim. “But I mostly eat biscuits and so I forget. Uncle Bob always brings a loaf.”
“Cherry cake,” said Roger.
Susan had cleared a shelf in one of the cupboards, and was packing the parcels away as they came down.
“Better keep the ham outside the cabin,” said Mother.
“I’ll put it in one of the cockpit lockers,” said Jim.
“And what about the bread and the cake?”
“There’s a bread-tin specially for them in the cupboard under the sink,” said Susan.
“And now,” said Mother, when she had seen everything, and all the provisions had been put away and the cupboard doors closed, and the cabin was once more the tidy place that Susan had made it, “have you got a chart? Do show me just what you’re going to do.”
Jim pulled his chart of Harwich harbour from under one of the mattresses. “Keeps them flat,” he explained as he let the mattress fall back into its place. He spread the chart on the table and explained.
“Where are we now?” said Mother.
“Here,” said Jim, pointing with a finger. “There’s Pin Mill, and this is the river going up to Ipswich. We might go up there tomorrow and look at the docks. Then going the other way it comes down to meet the Stour at Shotley.”
“They’ll like to see Shotley,” said Mother.
“The two rivers together make Harwich harbour,” said Jim, “and those buoys … Beach End and Cliff Foot … show where the harbour ends and the sea begins.”
“And you won’t go out beyond them?” said Mother.
“No,” said Jim.
Time passed very quickly while they were looking at the chart and talking of what they were to do, and how, in the Goblin, John and Susan were to be first and second mate and Titty and Roger were to be able-seamen.
“I hope they’ll do what they’re told,” said Mother.
“We’ll have to,” said Titty cheerfully, “or he’ll stiffen us out rusty corps and dump us to the fish like the man in the poem.”
“He has my full permission,” said Mother.
“Oh I say,” said Roger, and then, “But perhaps he hasn’t got an iron belaying pin.”
“I expect he has,” said Mother, and then, seeing Jim glance up at the clock, she went on, “How time does fly in a boat. Come on, Bridget. Why, where is she?”
A faint grunt came from the fore-cabin, where Bridget had curled herself up in Titty’s bunk and was pretending to be asleep.
“No, no, no,” said Mother. “No stowaways … though I must say I almost wish I were coming too.”
“Let’s,” said Bridget.
Mother looked at Jim Brading’s face and laughed. He had said nothing, but she knew what he was thinking. The Goblin was going to be a pretty tight fit for five, and as for cramming in another two, the thing simply could not be done.
“They don’t want us,” said Mother.
“We do really,” said Jim, “only …”
“I know,” said Mother. “The extra sardine bursts the tin. And you ought to be off. Bridget and I will leave you a clear deck.”
Jim glanced at the clock again, and out through a porthole at the hard, half of which had already been left dry by the tide.
“It’s all right,” he said, “so long as we have the ebb down to Shotley Spit.”
“Anybody for the shore?” called Roger from the cockpit.
“Coming, coming,” said Mother.
Mother climbed down into the borrowed dinghy and the stowaway was helped down by the skipper. Mother had already kissed goodbye to mates and able-seamen alike.
“Now Susan,” she said, “and you too, John. No night sailing … No going outside the harbour … And back the day after tomorrow … You don’t want to risk not being here to meet Daddy … Promise.”
“We promise …”
“I promise too,” said Jim. “It’s high water at four on Friday. I’ll have them here at Pin Mill in time for tea.”
“We’ve all promised,” said Susan.
“That’s all right,” said Mother. “Have a good time. And if you land at Harwich or Shotley or Ipswich or other outlandish ports, you might telephone to Miss Powell’s …”
“And send picture postcards,” said Bridget.
“I say,” said Titty, “do let’s send a postcard to Nancy and Peggy and the D’s.”
“I’ll send one for one tonight …”
“I’ve got some postcards,” said Jim. “But only plain ones.”
Mother and Bridget waited alongside while Jim dug out a postcard. Titty drew a picture on it of the Goblin under full sail in enormous waves. She wrote the address, “Aboard the Yacht Goblin, Pin Mill. Master …” “You sign your name here.” Jim signed. “Mates and crew …” “And now we’ll all sign.” The pencil was passed from hand to hand. Titty added, “We’re afloat now and just going to SAIL.” She addressed the postcard to Captain Nancy Blackett, at Beckfoot, and handed it down to Mother. “It’ll cheer them up a lot,” she said. “They never thought we’d get any sailing so soon. And anyhow not sleeping in a boat.”
Roger dropped the coiled painter into the bows of the borrowed dinghy, and Mother pulled clear and watched while skipper and crew set to work, hoisting the mainsail, unrol
ling the jib, getting the staysail all ready to hoist as soon as they should be under way. Mother grew happier every moment as she saw how easily everything went and what a good capable skipper Jim was … There was no hurrying. Nothing had to be done twice …
There was a pause. Skipper Jim came aft to the tiller. He was looking aloft and around. Yes. Everything was ready. The mainsail was set, and the boom slowly swinging to and fro. The jib was flapping. They were ready.
“John!”
“Sir!”
“Will you be ready to cast off the mooring. Take the buoy clear of the bowsprit shrouds. Drop it clear of the side when I sing out. We’ll go off on starboard tack, and round under the blue boat’s stern.”
“Aye, aye, Sir!”
“Isn’t it funny to hear John saying, ‘Aye, aye, Sir!’” said Bridget.
“He’s quite right,” said Mother. “He’s mate in this ship, not skipper.”
The wind was filling the mainsail and the Goblin began to creep up. Her head was being pulled round. The sail flapped. The boom swung slowly across and the mainsail filled again.
“Now,” sang out Jim, “cast off!”
There was a splash as the mooring buoy dropped into the water.
“All gone, Sir!” shouted John.
“Up with the staysail,” called Jim. “Haul in the port jib sheet, Susan. That’s right. She’s sailing.”
The Goblin swung round, gathered speed, cleared the stern of the blue Coronilla and headed out through the fleet as John sent the staysail up hand over hand. Two heads bobbed up out of Coronilla’s cabin as the tall red sail of the Goblin swept by.
“Going for a sail? Lovely day for it.”
“Only in the harbour,” called Jim.
“Goodbye,” called Mother and Bridget, waving from the dinghy. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, fare thee well,” called Titty.
“Goodbye, goodbye,” shouted the others.
They were fairly off. John hurried aft along the side deck, and waved as soon as he was safely in the cockpit. In another moment the Butt and Oyster disappeared behind an anchored barge. They were clearing the last of the yachts. Titty, Susan and Roger looked back to see Mother and Bridget in the dinghy making for the hard.