Peter Duck

by Arthur Ransome

  “Fit to go anywhere, she is.”

  “Down Channel and across the Bay?”

  “Down Channel?” said Peter Duck. “I’d take her round the Horn.”

  “We’ve to carry our sail till we’re well inside the heads,” said Captain Flint. “Will you take the wheel while we go in? We’ll jibe her now, and bring the booms across.”

  There were a few minutes of frantic bustle, while John brought her head round and Captain Flint and Peter Duck eased the booms over and Nancy and Susan tended the headsails. Then, Peter Duck took the wheel and the Wild Cat, with a fine flurry of foam under her forefoot, and the wind almost dead astern, headed in for the harbour.

  Just as the Wild Cat was coming to the pier heads, she met a schooner shooting out, a black schooner, bigger than the Wild Cat, and carrying a great spread of sail.

  “Isn’t that the Viper?” said Captain Flint.

  “That’s her,” said Peter Duck.

  “There’s Black Jake steering her,” said Nancy.

  “There’s the red-haired boy,” said Titty. “And what a lot of men!” There were three or four grown men busy on deck.

  The two schooners passed within a few yards of each other, the Wild Cat coming in and the Viper going out.

  As they passed they saw that Black Jake, who was at the wheel, was staring hard at them, as if he knew them but for some reason found it hard to believe that they were there.

  But there was no time then to wonder about Black Jake and the Viper. There was too much to do aboard the Wild Cat. The moment she was in the outer harbour, Captain Flint luffed up into the wind and began taking sail off her. He dived below and started the engine, but had a few fathom of chain ranged free on the foredeck in case the engine played them a trick and they needed the anchor in a hurry. He took in jib and staysail, lowered foresail and mainsail, and then, at half speed, the Wild Cat moved slowly up the harbour through the inner piers, and back to her old berth. The man at the swing bridge waved to them as they passed through and the cheerful, kindly harbourmaster shouted a “Good day” to them.

  “It’ll be quite lonely with no Viper to look at,” said Titty when they had turned right round in the inner harbour, and at last were once more tied up to the quay.

  “Jibbooms and bobstays but here she comes again!” exclaimed Nancy.

  The black schooner was even then gliding through into the inner harbour.

  “What’s she come back for?” said John.

  “Must have forgotten something,” said Peggy.

  “Our red-haired friend looks a little worried,” said Captain Flint.

  Roger waved to him, but Bill did not wave back. Black Jake was close to him, and perhaps Bill thought he had better not. There seemed, too, to be something of a quarrel going on among the Viper’s crew. Presently she was tied up once more alongside the south quay.

  “We’ve looked at her enough,” said Captain Flint. “Come on, all of you, and help to stow sails, or the Viper’ll be neat and tidy first in spite of the start we’ve had.” But the Viper did not seem just then to care about being neat and tidy. Her crew went off along the quay, and left her just as she was. As for the Wild Cat, everybody was so proud of her after that trial trip, that even Roger forgot to remind Susan that it was rather late for dinner until all the sails had been stowed and ropes coiled and the whole ship so neat that no one could have known she had been at sea that morning.

  1 “Belay” means make fast. The throat is the end of the gaff nearest to the mast. the peak is the other end. – NANCY.

  CHAPTER IV

  WASHING THE ANCHOR

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER supper, the whole ship’s company were on deck enjoying the quiet of the evening after the busy day. During the afternoon, they had filled up the tanks with fresh drinking-water, so that they had enough for a long cruise. “With all the water ballast we’ve got under the flooring we could sail round the world,” said Captain Flint proudly. They had taken aboard a lot of fresh meat, butter, eggs, vegetables and bread. There was no point in using the tinned things if they did not need to. They had bought a grand lot of fresh fruit and half a dozen of those big Dutch cheeses, red as giant cherries, because they happened to see them in a window. Everybody knew that tomorrow they were going to set sail in earnest and now, with the ship so well provisioned, feeling that they could go anywhere, and were already no longer dependent on the land, they were all gathered together up in the bows of the ship talking of places to visit.

  Polly, the ship’s parrot, was singing out “Pieces of eight” and reminding people that he was a Pretty Polly, and crawling beak over claw up the forestay and down to the bowsprit and along the top of the rail. Gibber alone was below decks. He had been given a bag of monkey nuts that Captain Flint had bought in the town, by way of a little extra for him, and as he did not quite trust the others, he had taken the bag down below and was eating the nuts in his bunk. Captain Flint was sitting on the capstan smoking his pipe. Peter Duck was smoking his, and putting a whipping on the end of a new warp. The others were hanging about and dropping in a word or two now and then and mostly all at the same time. Captain Flint had a chart of the Channel with him and he was showing them how they would be going across the mouth of the Thames and between the Goodwins and the coast, and past Dover, and within sight maybe of Cape Gris Nez. It grew dusk, and hard to see the names on the chart, and, as nobody seemed to want to go in, he sent Peggy to the deckhouse to bring the hanging lantern. Far away, beyond the bridge, from one of the boats in the Trawler Basin, came the noise of an accordion. Someone over there was playing “Amsterdam.” Everybody in the Wild Cat was so much interested in the chart and in Captain Flint’s plans for visiting the Channel ports and then perhaps crossing to Brest and going down across the Bay to Cape Villano and Vigo, and perhaps even to Madeira if they got a spell of fine weather, that nobody was thinking about the Viper and Black Jake, though there had been some talk a little earlier about the oddness of her returning to port.

  *

  At the other side of the narrow inner harbour lay the Viper in her old berth, and Black Jake was sitting on a hatch, looking across at the Wild Cat in the gathering dusk. He was alone on deck. Bill, the red-haired boy, was curled up on some sacking in the forecastle, forgetting in sleep the aching of his bones. Black Jake had taken it out on Bill that morning when he had come on deck and found the Wild Cat’s berth empty and the Wild Cat nowhere to be seen. He had been surly with his crew, too, when he had got them together in a hurry from their lairs in the town. And they had all turned furiously against him when, after all the work of hoisting sail and warping the ship out, they had met the Wild Cat, with Peter Duck at her wheel, coming back to Lowestoft, and Black Jake had turned about and brought the Viper in again. They had tied up to the quay once more, but then had stumped off back to their taverns leaving the whole ship in disorder, with sails lowered and not stowed. And Black Jake sat there alone on deck, biting his nails, and staring over the water at the Wild Cat.

  What were they talking about, over there, on the foredeck of the little green schooner? Could he be mistaken, when he himself had seen Peter Duck bring his dunnage aboard? What else could it mean when Peter Duck, after sticking to his wherry for so many years, had made up his mind to go to sea again? “Three captains aboard and two mates.” That fool of a boy had learnt that much anyhow, and what could it mean but the one thing. It was no ordinary voyage when so many officers were shipping together. That a voyage was planned he was sure enough. He had seen the stores going aboard, steadily, day by day, and such masses of them. As much as he had thought necessary for the Viper. No wonder, if they were bound for the same place. And then he thought of Peter Duck again. Black Jake bit his nails and scowled. The beauty of the evening meant nothing to him. He did not hear the old tunes played on the accordion in the Trawler Basin. He did not hear when the accordion-player rested, and some Irishman with a fiddle set sea-boots dancing on the decks of the trawlers. There was no room in his mind for anythin
g but the one question: What was it that was being planned between old Peter Duck and that fat man who owned the little green schooner? Was Peter Duck after all these years going to tell that fat man over there what he had always refused to tell to Black Jake, or indeed to anyone else? What was that chart they were looking at? If he could get a sight of that it might be the answer to his question. If he could only hear what was being said as they crowded round the capstan head and peered into the chart. And then the great anchor caught his eye, hanging from the bows of the Wild Cat, its chain disappearing into a hawse-hole on the level of the deck. Black Jake stopped biting his nails. He stood up and walked to the stern of the Viper. Below him the Viper’s dinghy was lying. He looked up and down the deserted quays. He took one more glance across the harbour to the little group in the twilight on the foredeck of the Wild Cat, looking at the chart by the glimmer of a lantern. Then he swung himself over the side, lowered himself down the warp into the dinghy, cast off, leaving the warp dangling in the water, and rowed noiselessly away.

  He did not row straight across to the Wild Cat. Someone might have seen him. He rowed up the inner harbour as if to visit one of the moored ketches. No one saw that dark figure in the dark boat slipping silently along in the shadow of the quay. No one saw him work his way across to the other side among the anchored vessels. No one saw him paddling slowly, idly, as if for no purpose at all, under the quay where the Wild Cat was moored. He passed close under the bows of a rusty black trawler, waiting her turn on the slip. Above him in the twilight was the square green stern of the Wild Cat. He shipped his oars and, more quietly than ever, clawed his way along her steep, green side. The anchor was above him at last. He took his dinghy’s painter, made a loop in it and hooked it over a fluke of the anchor. The tide was flowing in and the slight current kept the dinghy steady where he needed it. He took a hold of the anchor, as high as he could reach. Quietly, quietly, he pulled himself up. A knee was on the anchor. He took a higher grip. A foot was on the anchor. He gripped the chain above. Slowly he raised himself. His head, at last, was level with the hawse-hole. What was that they were saying? Under his breath he cursed the chattering parrot.

  *

  Something like four fathom of anchor chain had been ranged on deck. The anchor had not been used after all, but it had not seemed worth while to stow the chain again as it was likely to be wanted in the morning if it seemed best to anchor while making sail. Nothing makes more noise than getting chain up from below, and perhaps Captain Flint, knowing how early he would have to be to catch a helping tide down the coast, had already made up his mind not to wake the younger part of his crew before he could help it. Anyhow, there was the chain on deck ranged forward of the capstan. Two turns and a half hitch had been taken round the samson-post,1 and besides, a small belaying-pin had been stuck through a link of the chain when it ran between small bollards on deck on its way to the hawse-hole. There was no danger of the anchor slipping before this pin had been taken out and the chain unfastened. Some very small noise made Peter Duck look down at the chain. It may have been that a link shifted and clanked against another as Black Jake hoisted himself up. It may have been, as Titty still believes, that Black Jake’s ear-rings jingled. Anyhow, something did catch the attention of Peter Duck and made him look at the chain. And something did catch the attention of Titty, so that she noticed that something was wrong with the parrot. The parrot was on the rail along the top of the bulwarks, flapping his wings and chattering and looking down. He had stopped saying “Pieces of eight.” He was not even saying “Pretty Polly.” He was just chattering, as if he were afraid or angry.

  “What’s the matter with …?”

  But Titty never finished her sentence. She caught the eye of Peter Duck. That was enough. The others went on talking.

  “Yo, ho, ho for the Canaries,” said Nancy.

  “Or the Azores,” said John.

  Titty, with her mouth open and her sentence unfinished, saw Peter Duck bend quietly and unfasten the chain from the samson-post. She saw him pick up a mallet. And still the parrot chattered and flapped its wings.

  She saw Peter Duck swing the mallet and strike the belaying-pin out of the link. Four fathom of chain flew with a roar through the hawse-hole. There was a crash of breaking wood and a tremendous splash, as the anchor, with Black Jake upon it, dropped, smashed the dinghy and plunged to the bottom of the harbour.

  *

  Everybody rushed to the side and looked down. Bits of broken dinghy showed in the dusk. And then a dark head came to the surface.

  “Black Jake again!” cried Titty.

  “Who else?” said Peter Duck.

  They watched him swim across to the Viper. They saw the dark figure, dim in the dusk, swarm up the warp over the Viper’s stern.

  “Gosh!” said Nancy.

  Captain Flint spoke as quietly and calmly as if someone had dropped a teaspoon. “What happened, Mr Duck?” he said.

  “Anchor went with a run, sir,” said Peter Duck. “It just seemed to me it could do with a bit of washing. So I knocked the pin out and let it go. Black Jake was on it.”

  “On it?” said Captain Flint, looking, for the first time, a little astonished.

  “He was listening through the hawse-hole,” said Peter Duck.

  “There’s something very funny about all this,” said Captain Flint.

  “You may well say that,” said Peter Duck. “Worse than funny, you might say.”

  The others were staring first at Captain Flint and then at the old sailor.

  No one else in the harbour seemed to have noticed that anything had happened. The fiddler was still scraping out a jig tune in one of the vessels over by the market. Foot passengers were crossing the swing bridge. A light showed for a moment on the Viper and then vanished.

  “He’ll have to change everything he’s got on,” said Susan.

  “And then he’ll come charging round with a policeman or two because of our anchor smashing his dinghy,” said Peggy.

  “What a galoot you are,” said Captain Nancy to her mate. “How can he go to the police? He’d have to explain how he happened to be on our anchor and squinting through our hawse-hole ….”

  “Then he’ll do something else,” said John.

  “It’s as if he’d got something against us,” said Susan.

  “Well, he has now, even if he hadn’t before,” said Nancy cheerfully. “He must have got a nasty shock when he went down with the anchor.”

  “But, but, but …” said Roger, but got no further.

  “What’s the fellow after?” said Captain Flint.

  “It’s a long yarn, is that,” said Peter Duck.

  “Let’s have it,” said Captain Flint.

  Peter Duck looked up at the quay above them, dark in the gathering dusk.

  “You never know who might be listening,” he said.

  “Come along to the deckhouse,” said Captain Flint. “We can take a look out now and again to see that no one’s near enough to listen.”

  “Better so,” said Peter Duck.

  “Come on,” said Titty eagerly. There was almost a stampede along the decks, as Captain Flint, taking the lantern with him, walked aft with Peter Duck.

  “What about your bedtime, Roger?” said Susan.

  “Oh, I say,” said Roger. “Just this once .…”

  And so it happened that the whole ship’s company were crowded into the deckhouse when Peter Duck, sitting on the edge of his bunk, began to spin his yarn.

  1 The samson-post is a very strong post that goes right through the deck and down to the keel. – NANCY

  CHAPTER V

  PETER DUCK SPINS HIS YARN

  EVERYONE HAD GROWN accustomed to Peter Duck. He seemed, somehow, to be part of the ship, and they themselves seemed to have lived in the Wild Cat for a long time. They would have been startled if anyone had suddenly reminded them that the Swallows had come aboard for the first time only three days before, and the Amazons less than a week before them.
But now, as they waited for the old sailor to begin, and he sat there on the edge of his bunk, pushing the dottle of tobacco into his pipe with a horny thumb, he seemed different. The light of the lantern hanging under the beam fell on the same old kindly wrinkled face, but it was as if those shrewd old eyes of his were looking at them out of another world. This, perhaps, was because he was remembering things that had happened a very long time ago

  “By my thinking,” he said at last, “there’s nothing there to make much of a do about. A little money maybe, and if any man were to have it in his own pocket he’d find it burning a hole there, and he’d spend it likely on what he’d be sorry for, and in the end he’d be worse off than if he’d never had the handling of it. By my thinking that’s what it is, and I’ve been sorry enough that ever I tell that yarn to my wife that’s dead now, and my three daughters when they was little girls, thirty years ago maybe or more. It’s been a plague to me ever since, not but what most folk know by now that I’m not going to do a thing about it …”

  “About what?” said Roger.

  “Treasure?” said Captain Flint.

  “About whatever it is,” said Peter Duck. “Whatever it is I saw buried down at the foot of a coconut palm, fifty, sixty, or maybe seventy years ago.”

  “But where were you?” asked Roger.

  “In the coconut tree, of course,” said Peter Duck, “in the coconut tree, just waking out of my night’s sleep.”

  Another idea struck Roger. “Did you snore then, too?” he asked.

  “Roger,” said Susan severely.

  “He does now,” said Roger. “Beautifully.”

  “I reckon I didn’t then,” said Peter Duck slowly, “or they’d have heard me and buried it in some other place. And maybe they’d have buried me too,” he added after a pause.