“You haven’t put in egg-cups,” said Roger, “because we don’t have any.”
“Botheration!” said the mate, dumping the knapsacks on the ground and turning to run back to the camp. “I’ve forgotten the salt.”
There was really nothing much in this to bother the captain, but it did bother him all the same. He was in a hurry to sail, and had been waiting a long time, and perhaps it was just that little bit of bad luck in the mate’s forgetting the salt and keeping back the ship for two minutes more that made the captain not quite so careful as usual.
At last everything was stowed, the crew aboard, and Swallow was pushed off, stern-first. And then it was discovered that in her haste the mate had forgotten to bring her torch.
“We shan’t want it anyway,” she said.
“No one’s going back for it now,” said John. “Do hold the tiller amidships while I paddle her out.”
“It’s all right,” said Titty, “we’ve got the other three.”
“There’s quite a lot of wind,” said the mate, when they were clear of the rocks outside.
“That’s why I was in a hurry,” said the captain. “Now then, see that the mainsheet is free, so that the boom can swing right out. I’m going to hoist the sail up now. Are you ready?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the mate.
John snipped his oars, hooked on the yard, and swayed up the brown sail. The boom swung out free, so that the sail was no more than a big flag. John hurried aft to the tiller. He hauled in ever so little on the mainsheet, so that the sail held the wind and Swallow began to move. Then, putting the tiller up, he let her bear away until she was heading straight for Horseshoe Cove. The little pennant flew out straight before her from the masthead. The water creamed out from under her forefoot as she gathered speed.
“Shall I go forward now to be look-out?” asked Roger.
“No,” said John, who was beginning to feel how strong the wind was. “We want all the weight aft. Both you and Titty come as far aft as you can.”
The wind was dead aft and stronger with every yard that they moved out of the shelter of the island and the hills on the eastern shore of the lake. With Susan beside him in the stern-sheets, and the boy and the able-seaman crowded aft on the bottom boards at their feet, it was all that John could do to keep the Swallow steady on her course. The wind pressing on her sail seemed to be trying to lift her rudder out of the water and that did not help to make steering easy.
“She’s going faster than a motor boat,” said Roger.
“Oughtn’t we to have reefed?” said the mate.
“The Amazons hadn’t,” said the captain, with his teeth tight clenched, hanging on to the main-sheet with one hand and holding the tiller as hard as he could with the other, doing his utmost to keep Swallow from yawing about.
“What’s that you’re saying, Titty?” asked the mate.
“I was telling Roger the bit about the old-man who meant to hang on,” said Titty; “the bit daddy read to us at Falmouth.”
“Well, her canvas won’t bust,” said John, “and she’s got a jolly strong mast.”
But he spoke too soon.
If the wind had been steady, it would not have been so bad, but it was never the same strength for long together. Every now and then came a harder puff, so sudden and so strong that it forced the nose of the boat round before John could meet her with the tiller and put her back on her course again. Every time that this happened it began to look less and less likely that John would be able to carry out his plan of sailing into the cove without having to jibe twice over, once to bring the sail across to the starboard side, and then again to bring it back to the port side for running into the cove. Each of these gusts that was a little too hard or too sodden for John left the Swallow further to the north of her proper course, and this meant that the wind was no longer directly from aft but was blowing over the quarter from the same side as that on which was the sail. The little pennant was no longer blowing directly forward over the stem, nor was it blowing out with the sail, when it would have shown that all was safe. There was the sail out to port, and there at the masthead was the little pennant fluttering to starboard, showing that there was a danger that the wind might catch the leach of the sail and swing it right over. A jibe of that kind, not done on purpose, was what John was trying to avoid. He had made up his mind that he could get across without having to jibe at all.
“We ought to be able to do it,” he said aloud, and really because he began to be not quite sure.
“Remember the rock we saw yesterday,” said Susan.
“The Pike Rock,” said Titty.
“We’re much more likely to hit the rocks on this side if we get a gust like that one just as we are going in,” said John. “We ought to have reefed, really. It’s blowing much harder than it was a few minutes ago. But it’d be an awful job to bring her head to wind and reef here. Besides we’re very nearly there. I’m sure she’ll do it …”
“There are the Amazons,” called Roger.
With his eye all the time on that warning pennant at the masthead and watching for a tremble in the leach of the sail, John saw Nancy and Peggy waving on the rocks at the entrance to the cove. That settled it. He could not give up his plan now. In another minute he would have done it and been safe between the headlands. Another twenty yards. The leach of the sail was ashake. Another ten. Could he do it, or could he not? He could. Surely he could.
“Look at the waves breaking on the Pike Rock,” said Roger.
And at that very moment, off the mouth of the cove, only a few yards from safety, the wind, leaping at them in a last furious gust, caught the wrong side of the sail and whirled it across.
“Keep your heads down,” shouted John, but for that there was no need. Titty and Roger were crouched in the bottom of the boat and the mate had ducked in time. So had John himself. The boom crashed over, but broke no heads. But John had been pulling hard on the tiller to keep the Swallow on her course. She was moving very fast. The moment the sail lifted there was nothing to balance the rudder. A moment later and the full force of the wind caught the sail on the other side, not working against the rudder but working with it. The Swallow spun round, out of all control, and ran with a loud crash on the Pike Rock. The rock stopped her dead. The mast broke off short above the thwart and fell forward over her bows, taking the sail with it.
There was a shriek, but it was from Peggy Blackett on the rocks at the entrance to the cove. There were no shrieks in Swallow.
It had all happened too quickly. Everybody had been jerked forward as the boat struck the rock. Everybody was holding fast to whatever happened to come nearest, thwart, gunwhale or tiller. Roger spoke first, as the Swallow slipped back off the rock.
“The water’s coming in,” he said.
It was not so much an exclamation as a plain statement of fact. Swallow was badly holed below the waterline in the bows. The water was spouting in and she was filling fast. Already the water was nearly up to the thwarts. Hundreds of times they had had imaginary shipwrecks. This was a real one.
“Over you go, Roger, and swim ashore,” said Captain John. “Go on. Don’t get caught in the halyards. Go over this side. Hop out.”
Roger looked at the mate and then at John to see if he meant it. Then he looked at the shore. It was only a few yards away. Peggy was standing on the headland down at the water’s edge. Nancy had disappeared.
“Go on,” said John. “Don’t wait. She’ll be gone in a minute.”
Roger rolled himself over the side. For one second he hung on to the gunwhale. “Isn’t it a good thing I went on with the swimming lessons in the winter?” he said, and then splashed off on his way to land and safety.
“Now then, Titty. You, too, Susan. Be quick.”
Susan and Titty went overboard one after the other. Titty swam ashore as fast as she could, holding something above the water as she swam. Susan trod water for a moment, waiting for John.
“Come on, John,” sh
e said.
But John was fumbling under water in the bows of the boat. “Look out,” he shouted. “Be quick, out of the way.”
He stood up with Swallow’s little anchor and threw it as hard as he could throw towards the headland. The effort of throwing it overbalanced him, and he slipped. At that moment the boat lurched sideways as the water came over the gunwhale. John tumbled out, and kicked himself off with a foot against the sinking Swallow. He was not a second too soon.
SHIPWRECK
Nancy, as soon as she had seen what had happened, had rushed round to the Amazon, which lay, beached, in the cove, had grabbed a coil of rope that she used as a stern warp when mooring in the harbour on the island, and had come racing back to the southern of the two headlands, opposite the rock on which the Swallow had run. She had hoped to throw the rope as far as Swallow, so that John could, catch it and between them they could pull Swallow ashore before she sank. But the wind was against her, and the rope did not reach the Swallow. However, it fell close to Roger, who caught hold of it and was rescued in the most proper way, Nancy and Peggy together hauling him in hand over hand. Susan and Titty splashed their way ashore close behind him. After them came Captain John.
There was nothing of the Swallow to be seen, except a couple of floating oars and one of the knapsacks, drifting in between the Pike Rock and the headland.
“She’s gone, she’s gone!” said Titty, standing dripping on the rocks and looking at the place where Swallow had been.
“We had to swim for our lives,” said Roger.
“It was horrible,” said Peggy.
Captain Nancy looked at Captain John. For once she had nothing to say.
“I’ve got the telescope,” said Titty at last.
“Good old Titty,” said Captain John.
Captain John knew all the bitterness of a captain who has lost his ship. Now that it was too late he was telling himself that he ought to have guessed that the wind would be so much stronger. Yes, it was clear that he ought to have reefed. If he had reefed, the jibe would not have mattered so much. Besides, it was not as if they had been racing. He could quite well have sailed some distance down the lake with the sail out to starboard and then jibed carefully or even come up to the wind and gone about so as to reach the entrance to Horseshoe Cove with the sail out to port just as he wanted it for running in. It was all his fault. And now Swallow was gone and it was only the third day of the holiday. What was it his father had said about duffers? Better drowned. John thought so too. And then a new flock of black, wretched thoughts came crowding in like cormorants coming to roost. Swallow belonged to the Jacksons at Holly Howe. What would they say? It was all very well for Peggy and Roger to chatter about shipwrecks. He knew what Titty was thinking as she stood there dripping, looking at the waves breaking on that hateful rock. For Titty and himself, Swallow was something alive. And now, with Swallow gone, how could they live on Wild Cat Island? How could anything lovely ever happen any more? What would mother say? After all, they might easily have been drowned. Mother was very good at understanding things, but wouldn’t even she put an end to exploring for this summer at least? Things looked worse and worse whichever way he looked. It was as if the summer itself had been the cargo of the little ship and had gone with her to the bottom of the lake.
“Hullo, what’s become of Susan?” said Peggy suddenly, looking round for the other mate.
And just then they heard her whistle, shrill, but not quite as clear as usual, from inside the cove.
CHAPTER VI
SALVAGE
MATE SUSAN always knew the right thing to do, and she knew now that even if it were the end of the world nobody who could help it ought to hang about in wet clothes. The right thing to do was to make a fire and to make it at once. While the others were still thinking about what had happened, Susan had gone at once to yesterday’s fireplace on the beach, where the stream ran out into the cove. There were dry, charred sticks left there from yesterday’s fire, and she gathered a few dead leaves and built her usual little wigwam over them of dry twigs and scraps of reed as if this had been a picnic instead of a shipwreck. She couldn’t help dripping wherever she moved, but she kept the twigs as dry as possible. Then she felt in the pocket of her shirt for the box of matches which she carried there, together with her mate’s whistle. The matchbox came to pieces in her fingers. The matches were soaked. The wetting did not hurt the whistle, though there was a good deal of water in it, but it was no good even trying to strike wet matches. Susan blew the whistle instead.
“Go and see what the mate wants,” said Captain John. Roger went off as hard as he could go.
The others were still out on the point, watching to see if anything else would float up from the wreck and drift ashore. Both the oars had been rescued in this way, and Peggy was using one of them to catch another piece of flotsam, the knapsack full of towels and bathing things. It was waterlogged and almost sinking. Peggy scooped it towards the shore with the oar and as soon as she could reach it picked it up and went off with it after Roger.
“Captain John,” said Nancy Blackett at last, “why was it you threw the anchor out just before she went down?”
“Because I want to try to get her up,” said John. “If we can get hold of it, it’ll help us to get her into shallow water.”
“She wants matches,” they heard Roger shout.
Nancy felt in her pocket, but they heard Peggy call out, “I’ve got some.”
As soon as she had lit the fire and seen the first flames licking up among the sticks, Susan took the rescued knapsack from Peggy and emptied the wet bathing things and towels out on the beach. “That’s lucky,” she said. “Off with your things, Roger, and get into your bathers. Then you can go on getting as wet as you like while I’m getting your clothes dry. We’ll all change. What are the others doing?”
“They’re out on the point,” said Peggy.
Susan blew her whistle hard two or three times.
“She wants us too,” said Titty.
“Coming,” shouted John and Titty. Nancy and he hurried over the rocks from the point and joined the others by the fire.
Roger was already struggling out of his wet clothes.
“You’d both better change,” said Susan.
“I’m going to, anyway,” said John. “I’m going down to have a look at her.”
“And you must, whatever you’re going to do,” said Susan to the able-seaman. “And then turn to and get more wood.”
“That’s the way, Mister Mate,” said Nancy Blackett. “Keep your crew on the jump and there’ll be no time for mutiny.”
In the end the Amazons changed too, for company’s sake, and then, running about like savages, they gathered wood and built up a fire big enough for a corroboree. Susan took the rope that had been used for rescuing Roger, and made it into a clothes-line. They squeezed as much water as they could out of their sodden clothes and then hung some of them on the line, and spread others on the stones near the fire.
Presently Susan said that the fire was big enough, and John and Nancy went off again to the point off which Swallow had gone down.
“Can we go too?” asked Roger.
“The moment you begin to feel cold,” said Susan, “go into the water and swim as hard as you can.”
Titty and Roger went off after the others, leaving the two mates with the fire. They reached the point in time to see John dive in, bob up again, and swim towards the Pike Rock. Suddenly he turned half over and went under without a splash. The wind was veering to the south now, and not as hard as it had been. It was as if it felt that after sinking Swallow it might take a rest. But there was still a good ripple on the water and the morning sun was in the eyes of the watchers on the point, so that they could not see at all what John was doing.
He was under a long time, but came up at last close to the Pike Rock. He rested there, holding to the rock with one hand. With the other he held up Susan’s black kettle.
“Hurrah,” cried Nanc
y.
“Susan,” called Titty, “he’s got the kettle.”
John pushed off from the rock and swimming with one hand and carrying the kettle in the other, keeping it under water so that it was not heavy, he swam ashore.
“Did you see the eggs?” asked Susan. She and Peggy had come running from the fire when they heard Nancy’s shout.
“Or a frying-pan?” asked Titty. “I had a frying-pan as well as the basket of eggs.”
“The frying-pan’s there all right,” said John, “but I didn’t see the eggs. They must have floated out in the basket and then been swamped. Half a minute and I’ll go down again. It’s not as deep as I thought it would be.”
He swam out again and went under, coming up with the frying-pan, which he threw ashore.
The next time he dived he brought up the knapsack with the day’s food in it. He brought it to the top of the water and then kicked himself ashore, swimming with his legs only.
Susan opened the knapsack anxiously. “The pemmican’s all right,” she said, as she pulled out the tin, “and the spoons and the knife and the marmalade, and the butter …. But the bread and the seed-cake are all soppy … and the sugar’s soaking through everything.”
“We’ve got some bread,” said Nancy, “but we counted on you for the tea.”
“What about the milk?” said Susan.
“The bottle’s all right,” said John, “but the milk’s just a cloud in the water.”
“We can get milk at Swainson’s farm,” said Peggy. “We often do. It’s not far.”
“Is Swallow very much hurt?” said Titty. She had been wanting to ask each time John came up.
Swallowdale Page 6
