We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

by Arthur Ransome

  “We’re hardly moving,” said Roger.

  “Tide’s against us,” said Jim. “But it’s all right. She’s creeping over it.”

  Slowly, though the water was swirling past the Goblin’s sides, they drove up, past the Spit buoy, past Harwich town, past the Trinity House steamer, past a group of anchored barges.

  “See those vessels?” said Jim. “The red ones, with lanterns half-way up the mast, lightships in for repairs. There’s the Galloper. Her place is thirty miles out … There’s the Outer Gabbard. Each one shows a light of its own, you know, flashes so that you can tell which it is, and each has its own fog signal.”

  “We’ve seen ones like them,” said Titty, “in Falmouth. Daddy used to say they came in for cough lozenges when their throats got sore.”

  “I was forgetting you knew all about them,” said Jim. “Have you heard the Cork yet? That’s our local nightingale.”

  “Four moos a minute,” said Roger. “John timed them, the evening we came. Miss Powell told us what it was.”

  “If there’s any mist you’ll hear it better tonight,” said Jim. “It’s a good deal nearer when you’re down here. Close by those piers, Susan. We’ll anchor just beyond the last of them. Well, what do you think of Shotley? If your father’s going to be stationed here I expect you’ll get some sailing in some of those boats. They all belong to the Navy.”

  SHOTLEY PIER

  They looked up at the buildings on Shotley Point, houses, a water tower, and a flagstaff on the naval school as tall as the mast of a sailing ship. On one of the black, wooden piers were a lot of grey naval cutters and whalers and gigs. If Daddy’s coming to Shotley meant sailing in those boats, and living somewhere up there, able to look down on Harwich harbour and on the ships coming in and out, things were going to be very good indeed. They looked at the place as people look at a stranger with whom they know they are going to have a lot to do.

  Slowly the Goblin crept by the first of the piers.

  “Only just enough wind,” said Jim. “Can’t take off sail till the last minute. Keep her going just as she is, close past the far pier. Bring her into the wind when I shout. I’m going forrard to get the anchor ready.”

  “Can I come too, to see how you do it?” said John.

  “Come on.”

  Susan, Titty and Roger were alone in the cockpit. Susan was steering just as well as she knew how.

  “They’ll want those headsail sheets cast off at the last minute,” she said, not taking her eyes off the pier ahead. “You take one, Titty, and Roger the other, and be ready when he shouts.”

  Up on the foredeck Jim was stocking the big anchor, and ranging a lot of chain on deck, while John sat on the cabin roof watching everything he did.

  Jim was lowering the anchor over the bows. “You have to be careful the stock doesn’t catch on the bobstay,” he said, and John took a good grip of the forestay and looked over Jim’s shoulder and saw how the anchor hung free at the Goblin’s forefoot, all ready to let go.

  “Now for the staysail,” said Jim.

  From the cockpit the others watched, Susan doing her best not to think of anything but her steering. The staysail came rattling down. John was bundling it out of the way, while Skipper Jim was standing up judging the distance they had gone beyond the pier.

  “Straight into the wind,” he called. “Cast off the jib sheet.”

  “That’s yours,” said Titty, and Roger cast it off. The jib was rolling up on itself. The boom swung slowly over the cockpit. Jim was stooping again. There was a sudden rattle and roar as the chain ran out, and the anchor went down.

  “We’ve arrived,” said Titty.

  “Susan’s still steering,” said Roger.

  Susan with a sigh of relief let go of the tiller.

  “Who’s for the shore?” called Jim Brading from the foredeck.

  CHAPTER V

  SLEEPING AFLOAT

  “WHO’S FOR THE shore?”

  “I am,” shouted Roger.

  “Let’s all go,” said Titty.

  But Susan looked through the cabin to the clock that was fixed on a bulkhead under the barometer.

  “Hadn’t they better have supper first?” she said. “It’s after their time and Mother’s sure to ask.”

  “Right, Mister Mate,” said Jim. “If supper won’t take too long to make, John and I’ll be getting the sail stowed and the lamps filled. What are you going to give us?”

  “There are all those sausage rolls,” said Susan.

  “What about hotting up tomato soup?” said Jim. “You’ll find a row of tins in the starboard cupboard.”

  “Good,” said Roger.

  “I’ll do the lamps right away,” said Jim. “I’ve got to fill the cooking stove and it’ll last for a couple of days. Let me just get the mainsail down.”

  The big red sail came down and the boom was lowered into its crutches. The sail was loosely stowed and tied. “No need to put the cover on,” said Jim. “We’ll be hoisting it again in the morning.” Then from somewhere under one of the cockpit seats Jim pulled out a paraffin can and poured a lot of oil into the reservoir of the cooking stove. Susan lit the burners and put a kettle on one to boil up some water for tea, and sitting on the companion-steps with a long spoon kept the tomato soup stirring slowly round a saucepan on the other. Meanwhile, Jim filled the cabin lamp and the riding light. He shook the big oilcan. “Enough to fill the riding light again tomorrow,” he said.

  “What about the red and green ones?” said Roger, who had been looking at them, roped in their places in the fo’c’sle. “Didn’t you say they’d burnt out?”

  “We shan’t need them,” said Jim. “It isn’t as if we were going to sea. We shan’t be sailing at night.”

  *

  Though it was quite light outside, it seemed already dark in the cabin. Jim lit the cabin lamp and a mellow light shone on the faces of his crew. Supper was over. Everybody had thought well of the tomato soup and agreed with Roger that nobody who had not tried would believe how much nicer sausage rolls tasted in a ship’s cabin than when eaten anywhere else. Susan had washed up, passing the wet things to be dried by Titty and Roger.

  “Lucky they’re Woolworth’s unbreakables,” Jim had laughed as one of the bright red plates had slipped out of Roger’s fingers, bounced on the floor and rolled away to hide itself somewhere under the engine. He had gone down on hands and knees to look for it with a big electric torch. “What a torch!” Roger had said, and then as Jim scrambled to his feet again with the torch and the plate, he had exclaimed at the red light coming through the plate. “Good as a port light,” Jim had said, and had held the plate in front of the torch and lit up everybody’s face in turn with a warm red glow. “Grand torch,” he said, flashing it on and off. “It makes as good a stern-light as anybody could want. I had to show it to a steamer two or three times the night before last.”

  “Do tell us about it.”

  “About what?”

  “The voyage from Dover,” said John.

  “Nothing much to tell,” said Jim, putting the plate away, dropping the last of the spoons into the spoon-box and showing Susan just where it had to go in the cupboard so that it shouldn’t rattle. Earnestly watched by all of them, he filled and lit his pipe.

  “Tell it, anyway,” said Roger.

  “You were all alone,” said Titty.

  “I know old Goblin pretty well,” said Jim. “Nothing in being alone, except that I couldn’t get any sleep. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t had to hang about so long outside.”

  “Outside what?”

  “The shoals,” said Jim. “There was a bit of fog and I didn’t want to come nosing in all blind. I don’t like shoals when I can’t see the buoys. Look here, you’d better have a squint at the chart. Heave up, John. You’re sitting on them.”

  John got up, and Jim Brading rolled up the end of the mattress on the port bunk and pulled out a couple of charts.

  “Have you got charts of e
verywhere?” asked Titty.

  “No,” said Jim. “Only Southampton to Harwich. Uncle Bob’ll bring any others we’re likely to want when he comes. He’s got hundreds. Here you are. Here’s the Downs. Oh. You know you were asking about Ellwright and the pirates. Here’s where he got stuck. Just off Ramsgate. See those dotted lines. Shoals. He got on in a fog. He’d have been all right if he’d only kept clear of the coast. Jolly sight safer out at sea.”

  He spread the chart on the table and heads bumped together as they looked at it in the light of the cabin lamp. Jim Brading turned on his big torch and flashed a brilliant white circle on the chart to make the dotted lines of the shoals and the tiny drawings of the buoys show up better.

  “But what about the pirates?” said Titty.

  “Longshore sharks,” said Jim grimly. “Well, poor old Ellwright was aground here, where my finger is. Calm weather, too. Pretty safe. He had only to put a kedge out and wait for the tide to rise. But some longshore sharks came off to him in a boat when the fog lifted, and offered to pull him off and tow him in. He had to get back to work next day, and he was jolly pleased, and they had him off in two minutes and towed him into the harbour, and he thanked them and was going to give them ten bob …”

  “Gosh!” said Roger.

  “And they wouldn’t take it,” said Jim. “They said they’d salvaged the boat, and that she would have broken up if they hadn’t towed her off, which wasn’t true, as he only went aground for lack of wind.”

  “You mean they wouldn’t take anything?” said Titty.

  “Jolly decent of them,” said Roger.

  “Wasn’t it?” said Jim. “No. They wouldn’t take his ten bob. They wouldn’t take a pound. They put in a claim for salvage, a third of the whole value of the boat, and as the poor chap hadn’t any money, he had to sell his ship to pay them. You see, he’d let one of them come aboard, to fasten a rope or something, and the man took the tiller and that was that … So if ever you get into trouble, never take a tow from anybody if you can help it, and never ever let anyone come aboard. Bang their hands with a boathook. Do anything you like, but keep them off. If they see a chance of claiming they’ve saved your ship, they’ll take it.”

  “He had to sell his ship?” said Roger.

  “Yes,” said Jim, “and by the time he’d paid the sharks, and their lawyers and his lawyers, he’d next to nothing left. He hasn’t got a ship any more.”

  “What beasts!” said Roger.

  “One way of making a living,” said Jim. “No. The only people to take aboard are pilots, and you don’t want even to take a pilot if you can help it. I never do. Can’t afford it.”

  “Where are the shoals off Harwich?” said John. He was almost more interested in that than in the sad tale of the loss of Jim’s friend’s boat. After all he was actually sitting in the cabin of the Goblin, and the Goblin, only two nights before, had been out at sea waiting to come in.

  “Other chart,” said Jim, and spread the second chart on the top of the first. “There’s Harwich. Here’s Shotley, where we are now… and that … and that … and that are the shoals outside … Shoals all over the place … West Rocks and the Gunfleet and the Cork Sand … this bit is uncovered at low water … Shoals all over the place. The big ships come in like this. They make for the Cork light-vessel … through this big opening between the shoals, and then slip along between the Cork Sand on one side and the Platters and Andrews on the other. Well, Goblin likes to do the same, specially in fog or dark … No fun for a little boat to crash into an unlighted buoy. Easily sink her, even if she didn’t go aground. No. Only one motto for the Goblin. When in doubt keep clear of shoals … Get out to sea and stay there.”

  John listened, telling himself that he too would have that motto, when at last he should have a ship of his own. He too would do the same … He gripped an imaginary tiller … Shoals to the right … Shoals to the left … Out to sea …

  “What did you do?” asked Roger.

  “Just jilled about,” said Jim, “outside everything, first on one tack and then on the other, till things cleared. Then I made the Sunk light-vessel, then the Cork, and so to Beach End buoy (you’ll see that tomorrow) and into Harwich harbour and up the river to Pin Mill, where I made a bad shot at picking up my mooring and was glad of help from some jolly good sailors who were hanging about in a dinghy …”

  “How did you know we weren’t pirates?” said Titty.

  “Or sharks?” said Roger.

  “Just guessed,” said Jim, laughing.

  “Lucky for us,” said Roger. “Or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “And for me,” said Jim. “Look here. It’s getting dusk outside, and we’ll put up the riding light. No good having a barge coming along to bring up and sending us to the bottom in the middle of the night.”

  “And then let’s go and telephone,” said Susan. “It’s getting on for nine, and we ought to try to get some milk for breakfast.”

  A few minutes later, when the riding light, burning palely in the dusk, had been hung from the forestay, the Imp was pulled alongside. It was a close fit for five. John and Roger sat in the bows, Susan and Titty in the stern, while Jim paddled them off to the wooden steps of Shotley pier, which had seemed quite small when they had sailed past in the Goblin, but towered above them when they came close under it in the Imp.

  “Can I tie her up?” asked Roger. “I always tie up Swallow.”

  “All right,” said Jim, and watched while Roger made fast the end of the Imp’s painter.

  They walked ashore along the uneven planking of the old pier. They had come only a few miles from Pin Mill, but it felt like landing in a different country.

  “What’s that bag for?” asked Roger, looking at a rolled-up green kitbag in Jim’s hand.

  “Pop,” said Jim. “I’d forgotten the Goblin’s cellar’s getting rather low.”

  “Grog,” said Titty.

  “They’ve a very good brand of grog in Shotley,” said Jim. John looked at Susan.

  “We ought to pay for it,” said Susan. “I’m sure Mother’d want us to.”

  “I’ve got enough for that,” laughed Jim. “Besides, Uncle Bob’ll be here on Monday.”

  They went to the inn, and watched a dozen bottles of ginger pop being stowed away in Jim’s green kitbag. The landlady took the milk-can from Susan and filled it. Then she took them to a little room where there was a telephone, and Jim rang up Miss Powell’s at Pin Mill, and put two pennies in the box. They stood round him, listening to his half of the talk, guessing for themselves what was being said at the other end.

  “Is that Miss Powell? How are you? Jim Brading. Can I speak to Mrs Walker … How do you do? … We’ve anchored for the night by Shotley pier … Yes, Shotley … Very well indeed … Yes, they’ve had supper … They’re all here … going to bed as soon as we get back aboard.”

  “Let’s all say Good night,” said Titty.

  “We’ll have to be jolly quick,” said Roger. “Or it’ll be another twopence.”

  The telephone was passed from hand to hand. Each one of them said “Good night,” and heard Mother’s voice, oddly near, yet far away, saying “Good night” to these mariners who had come ashore from an anchored ship. Jim took the telephone again.

  “We’ll ring up again tomorrow if we have a chance,” he said, “and we may come up to have a look at Ipswich with the flood tide. We’ll signal as we pass Pin Mill … I beg your pardon … Who? Susan? …” He turned to Susan. “It’s Bridget, with something to say to you.”

  Susan took the telephone and listened for a moment. “Take care of her,” she said. “Good night, Bridgie,” and passed the telephone back. Jim was saying “Good night” too. “I’ll be as careful as ever you could wish … Good night.”

  “They gave us quite a long time for two minutes,” said Roger.

  “What did Bridget want?” asked Titty.

  “Only to say that she was going to sleep in Mother’s room,” said Susan.

&nbs
p; They were silent as they left the inn and started back to the pier. It was funny how that single sentence made them feel almost like deserters. Bridget was sleeping in Mother’s room because the expedition in the Goblin had left Alma Cottage a rather lonely place for both of them.

  *

  It had been still dusk when they went into the inn, but those few minutes had made a difference. Lights had sprung up everywhere. There was a string of blazing lamps over the Parkeston quays at the other side of the river. There were lights in Harwich town, and lights far away across the harbour in Felixstowe. The flashes from the buoys that had been hardly visible by day kept sparkling out, now here, now there, the white flash of Shotley Spit buoy, the red one of the Guard buoy, and others of which they did not know the names. There were riding lights on all the anchored barges and on the ships in the harbour. The wind had dropped to nothing, and long glittering lanes led from every light across the smooth water. And there, a little way above the pier, lay the Goblin, she too with a light on her forestay, and the glimmer of the cabin lamp showing through her portholes.

  They climbed down the steps in the dusk, found the Imp, and pushed off.

  “We’re going to sleep in her,” said Titty, almost under her breath, as they drifted silently towards the Goblin with her riding light, and her tall mast dimly showing against the darkening sky.

  “Pretty soon, too,” said Susan. “It’s after your bed-time already.”

  They climbed aboard.

  “Take the painter a moment, John, while I hang a bucket from the Imp’s bows.”

  “What for?”

  “To catch the tide, so that she won’t come nuzzling round, knocking us up in the middle of the night.”

  It was done, and the Imp went astern, to lie quietly, a black blot on the dark water.

  Roger, as soon as he was aboard, had dodged down below and scrambled up again through the forehatch. The others were still in the cockpit when the penny whistle broke into the quiet night … “We won’t go home till morning … We won’t go home till mooooorning.” The musician, sitting on the cabin top, was getting through it with expression, but as fast as he could before he should be stopped.