The Big Six: A Novel

by Arthur Ransome

  “We could do,” said Pete doubtfully.

  “We will tomorrow anyway,” said Tom. “We’ll be waiting for you in Titmouse as soon as we’ve done breakfast.”

  “I say,” said Dorothea. “We ought to go home. We only got here today and the Admiral’s letting us go off before breakfast tomorrow.”

  *

  The Death and Glories tidied up after the feast. It was a grim tidying.

  “Wish I never catch them baits,” said Pete. “If I never catch them baits, that Cachalot wouldn’t have give us a tow, and we’d never have been at Potter when them fools cast their boats off.”

  They shut up the table and put it away and made ready to settle in for the night.

  Last thing, a thought struck Joe.

  “Come on,” he said. “We don’t want Sir Garnet going off. Let’s have a look at her warps.”

  “Nobody’d touch a wherry,” said Bill.

  The three of them clambered out on the staithe and felt in the darkness along the mooring ropes of the big vessel lying below them. Each one was well made fast to a mooring ring, each one made fast as it should be, with a fisherman’s bend.

  “She’s all right,” said Joe. “You don’t catch Jim Wooddall making slip knots by mistake. I just want to make sure no one been monkeying round since he leave her.”

  Dimly, in the dusk, they could see the great mast of Sir Garnet towering into the sky. Dimly they could see the long low bulk of her beside the staithe. They felt better. She was the finest, the most famous wherry on the Broads, and whatever other people might be thinking of them, her skipper, Jim Wooddall, was still their friend, and her mate, old Simon, had asked them to keep an eye on her.

  “She’s all right,” said Joe again. “Come on, young Pete. We promise your Mum to see you get to bed.”

  In the middle of the night, Pete started up in his bunk in the fo’c’sle and hit his head under the deck.

  “What’s up?” said Bill sleepily.

  “Dream,” said Pete, talking fast. “You and me we moor up that old pike stem and stern, and he start flapping his tail. He knock me down with his tail and he shift his head and I see he were coming unmoored and I try to get to him and I got the cramp and can’t stir, and he shift, and he shift, and I see the rope slipping….”

  “Shurrup,” said Bill. “You eat too much of that pudding.”

  CHAPTER X

  BREAKFAST AT DR. DUDGEON’S

  DICK and Dorothea came round the corner of the house just as the gong was ringing for breakfast. Tom, coming downstairs eight steps at a time, met them in the hall.

  “Tom!” exclaimed his mother, from the dining-room, as he reached the ground floor with a final bump.

  “All right, Mother. No victims to hear me.” The doctor’s patients were not in the habit of calling before breakfast.

  “What about me?” said his father. “And our baby? And one of these days you’ll break your ankle and be a victim yourself, and won’t I make you pay for it. Hullo you two. Glad to see you.”

  In another minute they were all seated in front of their porridge bowls, and Mrs. Dudgeon was pouring out coffee while “our baby”, a good deal bigger and more human than he had been in the spring, lay in a cot in a corner of the room, and smiled and bubbled at his father.

  “Where did you say you were going?” asked Mrs. Dudgeon.

  “Ranworth,” said Tom. “Coot Club expedition. The Death and Glory’s coming too.”

  “Keep an eye on those young Coots of yours,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “Tedder looked in last night after you’d gone to bed. He’d been talking on the telephone with Mr. Sonning at Potter Heigham.”

  “But they hadn’t done anything,” said Tom. “It’s all a mistake. They just moored above the bridges, spent the night there and came back yesterday. They never touched another boat.”

  “Mr. Sonning tells quite another story,” said his father. “He says they were seen going up through Potter Heigham Bridge. That’s all right. But then, after dark, when there was no one about, they came down and cast off half a dozen boats moored by his sheds. All his men were busy getting hold of the boats next morning and your three had disappeared. And then, it seems, they came down through Potter astern of a motor boat and were away before anybody could stop them.”

  “I’m dead sure they didn’t touch any boats,” said Tom.

  “They were as surprised as anything when the policeman came and told them about it,” said Dorothea.

  “I don’t think they’re that kind of lad,” said Mrs. Dudgeon.

  “No more did I,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “But you must admit it looks rather funny. One coincidence is likely enough … But three! …”

  “Oh, but look here, Dad,” said Tom. “I’m sure they didn’t cast off that cruiser, and that other boat at the staithe … why I was with them when they found her, and nobody would have thought we’d had anything to do with it if only George Owdon hadn’t seen us bringing her back to the staithe and tying her up.”

  “Yes, I know,” said his father. “But what about the other boats cast off that night? They’ve been about each time boats have been cast off here, and when they go to Potter the same thing happens there. And you know, Tom, at the back of my mind I can’t help remembering that cruiser you cast off yourself, and I can’t help thinking they’ve been acting on the principle that what was right for you is right for them.”

  “Oh, but I say,” said Tom. “You said yourself you didn’t see what else I could have done. The Margoletta was moored right on the top of our coot’s nest. Her chicks….”

  “It’s no good going into old history,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “But you just keep your eye on those lads and give them a hint that casting off boats isn’t cricket as a general thing.”

  Mrs. Dudgeon changed the subject by asking what they were going to do at Ranworth, and Dick, who had hung his camera over the back of his chair while at breakfast, told her they were going to take photographs of some of the old nests, just for practice so as to be sure they made no mistakes later on when they were going to photograph the birds actually sitting.

  They had finished their porridge and were busy with bacon and eggs when Dr. Dudgeon, who was, as usual, eating his breakfast and reading the newspaper at the same time, suddenly laughed.

  “Your Coots again,” he said. “Listen to this. Somebody must be pretty angry to be writing a letter about them to the paper.”

  He read aloud:

  “Sir,

  Hitherto this district has had a good reputation, with the exception of one seaport town which I need not name and which, thanks to its excellent and public-spirited corporation, has done much to remove the blot on its scutcheon (Browning) made by the behaviour of certain longshore pickers up of unconsidered trifles (Shakespeare). Latterly however I understand that I am only one of many sufferers from an outbreak of hooliganism that is afflicting a district once well known for its civilized amenities to the benefit of the boating public. Boat after boat properly moored in places legitimately set aside for that purpose has been sent adrift to the risk of its own damage and that of others. I am informed that it is well known that this is the work of a regular gang of boys masquerading under other auspices. Their names are known. That they are allowed to continue their activities unhindered is a poor testimonial to our so-called police. May I suggest that they should devote more time to their duty and less to the winning of prizes at agricultural shows.

  I am, Sir,

  Yours, etc.,

  Indignant.”

  “That’s a hit at poor old Tedder,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “It was his marrow won the silver medal, wasn’t it? I don’t think ‘Indignant’ means that the gang of boys are successful gardeners, though that is what he actually says.”

  “I wonder who ‘Indignant’ is,” said Mrs. Dudgeon.

  “He can’t be one of the Potter Heigham people,” said Tom, “because that was only yesterday morning. He might be the owner of that boat we salvaged when she was adrift with
her mast in the trees. He ought to be jolly grateful instead of calling the Coots a gang.”

  “Well,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “He’s certainly gone the right way about making things hot for them. That touch about Tedder’s prize-winning will stir him to the marrow.”

  “Dad!” exclaimed Tom.

  Mrs. Dudgeon smiled. Dorothea laughed aloud. Dr. Dudgeon said he was sorry. He had not meant it for a pun.

  “It was an awfully good one,” said Dorothea.

  “Thank you,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “Now, if I’d been able to put ‘(Shakespeare)’ after it, in brackets, like Indignant, it would perhaps have been appreciated even by my own family. Have some toast, Dorothea, and will you have marmalade, or honey? ‘Our so-called police’ is another shrewd touch. I think you’ll find Mr. Tedder coming round to take out summonses….”

  “Oh no, Dad,” exclaimed Tom. “He can’t. You mustn’t let him. They’ve not done a single thing. It was just bad luck, their happening to be somewhere about when someone else was casting boats off, or leaving them not properly tied up or something.”

  “Mr. Tedder won’t get his summonses unless he can produce his evidence,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “You can be sure of that. But I am not quite so sure as you are that he won’t be able to get it. And it isn’t only Tedder who’ll be after them. If they’ve…”

  “They haven’t,” said Tom.

  “If anyone’s been casting off Sonning’s boats at Potter, he won’t stand it, and you know who his solicitors are.”

  “Not Uncle Frank?” said Tom.

  “Well, he’s in the firm, and if Mr. Sonning stirs up Farland, Farland & Farland you’ll have Uncle Frank after whoever it is and pretty determined to get them.”

  “But he’s Port and Starboard’s father, and they’re Coots. He’d know it wasn’t the Death and Glories anyhow,” said Dorothea.

  “He may not have quite the opinion of your young friends that his daughters have,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “Well, let’s hope they don’t get into any more trouble. Where are they now?”

  “At the staithe,” said Tom. “Or on their way here. We’re all going to Ranworth together.”

  “Any other boats at the staithe?” said Dr. Dudgeon.

  “No,” said Tom. “No small ones. Only Sir Garnet, and nobody’d dare to send a wherry adrift….” Tom stopped suddenly. From where he sat at the breakfast table he could see out of the window across the open lawn to the river. At the side of the lawn there were bushes, and over those bushes he had seen something moving.

  “She’s coming down now,” he said. “Bill told me old Simon said they were going down through Yarmouth today. They must be quanting. No sail up. I can see her vane above the trees. You’ll see her in a minute. Here she comes…. I say…. Come on, Dad, QUICK!”

  Dr. Dudgeon was out of the door almost as soon as Tom. Sir Garnet was coming down the river as Tom had said, but she was coming down broadside on and there was nobody aboard her. No one was at the helm. No one was walking her side decks with a long quant. Her gaff and big black sail were still stowed as they had been the night before. She was coming down the river by herself.

  Tom and his father raced across the lawn. Dick and Dorothea raced after them. Mrs. Dudgeon watched them from the window.

  “She’s coming close in,” said Tom. “She’ll touch…. She’ll …”

  There was a sudden long scrunch as the stem of the great wherry, pointing rather upstream than down, hit the wooden piling along the edge of the lawn. As she touched, Tom jumped aboard. There was enough spring in the piling to throw her off again, and, as she drifted on, she was further and further away.

  “Steady, Tom,” called Dr. Dudgeon. “Don’t try to jump back. Make fast lower down if you get a chance.”

  But Tom was not listening. His father was a fisherman but Tom was a sailor first of all. He had seen Sir Garnet’s mooring rope hanging over her bows and was hauling it in and coiling it on his arm just as fast as he could. Another five yards and he would be too late…. Another three yards…. “Stand clear, Dick,” he shouted. “Catch, Dad.” The coil of rope came spinning through the air, uncoiling as it came. Dr. Dudgeon caught it.

  “Hang on, Dad, hang on…. Take a turn round that post…. Ease her…. Well done, Dad.”

  A wherry drifting with the stream is a heavy thing to stop, and Dr. Dudgeon could not have held her without the post to help him. But he had got a turn round it and had only had to ease out a foot or two of rope before the stern of the wherry began to swing in, and her bows came again towards the piling. Tom leapt ashore to fend off. Dick and Dorothea were fending off too. Between the four of them they had stopped her and made her fast. Another minute and it would have been too late. She would have drifted below the Coot Club dyke and they might not have had a second chance.

  “Well,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “I’m glad of one thing. I can give evidence myself that you and Dick and Dorothea had no hand in casting her off. But what about those others? I wonder if she’d have gone adrift if I’d had the whole Coot Club to breakfast instead of only you three.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t touch her,” said Tom. “Joe was as pleased as Punch because old Simon had told them to keep an eye on her.”

  “And here she is,” said Dr. Dudgeon.

  “Gosh!” said Tom. “Look here. I’d better take Titmouse straight up to the staithe to say we’ve got her.”

  “Quicker to run,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “And the sooner the better. You find out what those Coots of yours were doing. And get word to old Simon or Wooddall if he’s about. Put things right as quick as ever you can.”

  But as Tom turned to go he glanced up the river. A dinghy with two men in it was coming down and by the way the oars were splashing anybody could see that they were in a hurry.

  “It’s Jim Wooddall,” he said, and a minute or two later the wherryman, very red, brought his dinghy alongside the lawn and jumped out, followed by his old mate.

  “What’s this?” said Jim angrily. “I know you cast off that Margoletta, but casting off Sir Garnet! What have we done for you to play a trick like that?”

  “Steady, Wooddall,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “Tom was having his breakfast and happened to see the wherry drifting down and you may thank him for jumping aboard and mooring her for you. He had nothing to do with casting her off.”

  “Then it’s them lads,” said the wherryman. “And if their Dads don’t wallop the hides off ’em I’ll…. Simon, ye old gaum, where did you leave that warp?”

  “On the hatch-top I coil him,” said old Simon. “You see me do that, and wicked he were too, for all our towing….”

  They looked this way and that over the wherry. The big coil of new rope had disappeared.

  “Pushed over, likely,” said Jim Wooddall. “And they sons of boatbuilders…. Ought to be in jail they ought…. Forty fathom of new coir rope.”

  “It’ll float, won’t it?” said Tom, looking downstream.

  “Not two minutes longer than anyone see it,” said Jim. “Why, I just bought that rope …” All the time he was looking round Sir Garnet. Old Simon had taken the dinghy’s painter aboard and was looking anxiously along the other side of the wherry.

  “No damage,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “Bit of tar perhaps, and she may have shifted some of my piling. But it’s lucky it’s no worse.”

  SAVING SIR GARNET

  “She ain’t hurted herself nowheres,” said Old Simon coming ashore again.

  “No thanks to them lads,” said Jim Wooddall. “You ought to teach ’em better, young Tom. Going to the bad they are, straight as the New Cut.”

  “And that lie straight as a crow fly,” said old Simon.

  Jim glared at him. “If you’d have slep aboard,” he said. “Come on now. Cast off that bow rope and we’ll swing her and up sail. We got to get down to Yarmouth and maybe find that rope as we go. Going through to Norwich, we are, or I’d have something to say to them lads. There ain’t never been goings on like this, and when I come back….
What’s that Tedder doing? ‘Police Station’ up over his door and that close again the staithe and Sir Garnet cast off as if there weren’t no police nearer than Kingdom Come.”

  He calmed suddenly.

  “Well, Tom,” he said. “The Doctor can speak for you, and I’m glad I were wrong. I never would have thought it till I see you with her. And thank you kindly for pulling of her up. She’d likely have been into the ferry by now and me with damage to pay out of my pocket. I ’pologise, Doctor. Ought to have knowed it weren’t your son. But as for them three by the staithe…. Now then, Simon….”

  “I’m pretty sure they didn’t do it,” said Tom.

  “I’m sure they didn’t,” said Dorothea.

  Dick was nervously cleaning his spectacles. He put them on again. “Why should they want to do it?” he said.

  “Doggone it,” said Jim Wooddall. “You’ll be saying next I cast her off myself. If they ain’t done it, who did? And when I get back…. Easy now, Simon.… So she go….”

  The great wherry’s bows had swung out and round with the stream. Old Simon was aboard and winding at the winch. Jim Wooddall who had taken a stern warp to the post on the lawn, now let it slip, hauled it in and took the tiller. The big black sail lifted, the gaff swinging as it went up. Sir Garnet, the fastest wherry on the river, was on her way.

  The little group at the edge of the lawn watched her go.

  “Well, Tom,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “I don’t wonder Jim Wooddall was a bit upset. It might have been a serious thing for him. And he’s known those lads since they were born, and you see what he thinks about them.”

  “But he thought first it was Tom,” said Dorothea, “and we know it wasn’t.”

  “Wrong once may be wrong twice, you mean,” said Dr. Dudgeon. “Well, I hope so. Your Coots ought to be above suspicion, and I’m afraid they’re not. And if they’ve been taking Wooddall’s rope…. Hullo. Here the culprits are, and I’ll leave them to you….”