“Aye, aye, sir,” said John desperately, trying to remember what Jim had told him about rolling up the jib, and at the same time watching the towering stern of the Flushing-Harwich liner already clear of the pontoon. The Goblin, with the flood tide taking her up, was already far beyond the steamer berths.
“And now, you, boy, go forrard and watch … I will not shout … No. No. I will say nodings. And you will say nodings. And your capten, he will …” The pilot closed both eyes. “Ah, no,” he said. “He wake … but come not on deck. He play de national hymn, is it not so, mynheer? God save de King!”
And indeed the penny whistle was at work once more, this time with great confidence, the performer no longer needing to hang on to anything even with an elbow, and the tune being one that he could play without need for experiment.
“Go forrard, boy. We will surbrise him.”
John, puzzled a little at being called sometimes “Boy” and sometimes “Mynheer,” though he rightly guessed that the pilot meant “Mynheer” more or less as a joke, went forward thinking miserably of Daddy on his way to England. Mother and Bridget would be meeting him at Harwich alone with all their plans gone wrong. And in a very few minutes now they would have to let the pilot know the truth.
AHOY! AHOY!
The short length of rope he had used when he had tried to anchor was still on the foredeck, coiled round the windlass. He uncoiled it, made one end fast and cast loose the other end which had been tied to the anchor. The Goblin was gliding up the harbour. They were passing some moored lighters. John could see no mooring buoy. And then he saw it, some way ahead, a big black buoy with an iron ring on the top of it. He glanced back at the pilot. The pilot nodded. Then the big hand made a sharp gesture, downward. John struggled with the staysail halyard. He had belayed it firmly, for fear it should come adrift, and now, when he wanted to free it in a hurry his fingers had to fight with a tight half hitch of stiff rope. It was free at last and down came the sail. Yes. The pilot was signalling to furl the jib. He had let the sheets fly, and the jib was flapping idly like a flag. John stooped, risking a blow from dancing blocks, and took hold of the furling rope. What had Jim done? Simply pulled? John pulled as hard as he could, and the sail rolled up, and the blocks danced no more. Quick. Quick. Already the Goblin was rounding up towards that buoy. John glanced aft again. The pilot, standing in the cockpit, made a ring with finger and thumb and poked the end of the mainsheet through it. John understood. The buoy was nearer and nearer. He could not reach it from the deck. He slipped down by the stemhead, under the bowsprit, got his feet on the bobstay, and hanging on to the bowsprit with one hand, waited with the end of the rope ready in the other. Nearer and nearer. The Goblin was losing way. Would she reach the buoy? Another foot would do it. Another inch. John reached out, put the end of the rope through the ring on the buoy, grabbed it again, hauled some slack through the ring, and a moment later had clambered back on deck and was making fast.
“So,” said the pilot. And then he winked at John. “NOW, CAPTEN!” he shouted at the top of his voice, and thumped with a large flat hand on the sliding hatch of the cabin.
The seventeenth verse of “God Save the King!” came to a sudden stop.
CHAPTER XXI
SURPRISES ALL ROUND
FROM THE MOMENT that Susan closed the cabin doors and pulled across the sliding hatch, those below decks could hear nothing of what was going on in the cockpit. Through the portholes they caught a glimpse of the rowing boat leaping in the waves. They felt the bump as she came alongside. They heard the heavy thud of the pilot’s bundle on the cockpit floor. But they did not hear the pilot’s cheery “Want me to take you into Flushing?” They did not know how John had managed to talk to him. They tried to see what he had done with his boat, but the Goblin had turned away and left it astern and they could see nothing of it. They knew only that the pilot was aboard. Otherwise John would have opened the hatch and told them they could come out.
“It must be all right,” said Susan, after a few breathless minutes. “We’re sailing on again.”
“Where to?” said Roger.
“John must know,” said Susan. “He’s managed the pilot somehow.”
“I wish we knew,” said Roger.
“What about the native noises?” said Titty.
“Sorry,” said Roger, and, wedging himself in a corner of the lee bunk, let himself go on the penny whistle.
“Will they hear it?” said Susan doubtfully. “We can’t hear them.”
WHAT THEY SAW THROUGH THE PORTHOLES (I) THE PILOT STEAMER
“It’s pretty deafening,” said Titty. “I expect they can. Sinbad’s stopped purring. He doesn’t like it at all.”
“Cats aren’t musical,” said Roger, stopping to take breath.
“Sinbad may be,” said Titty. “That’s twice you’ve got the wrong note. Never mind. It’s the noise that matters. They’ll hear it. The compass porthole’s open.”
“But we don’t hear them,” said Susan.
“They’re not trying to make us,” said Titty. “But we’d better help. Let’s bang with our hoofs. It’s all right, Sinbad. Don’t be frightened. Look here, Susan. Will you do the stamping? It jerks him too much if I do.”
“We’d all better stamp,” said Susan. “Put him on the floor for a bit.”
For a long time they worked hard, stamping three pairs of feet and occasionally banging on an empty biscuit tin, while Roger whistled on and on, for once with the full approval of his audience.
The land, seen through the portholes, was coming nearer, no longer a wavy yellow line along the edge of the sea, but real land, houses, spires, a beach, and windmills. The motion of the Goblin was getting easier. Roger and Titty knelt on the bunks to look out, but it was hard to thump the floor while kneeling on a bunk, and harder still to play the penny whistle.
“It’s Holland all right,” said Roger, on seeing the windmills.
“Keep on playing,” said Susan. She, too, looked out at the approaching land. But a new and dreadful thought had struck her. She dug into the knapsack stowed under the pillow on her bunk and pulled out her purse.
“We’ll have to pay the pilot,” she said. “Pilots don’t take people in for nothing. We’ll have to pay him even if he doesn’t grab us for salvage. And we may not have enough. And even if we have there may not be any left for the telegram.”
“What do pilots cost?” said Roger.
“I don’t know,” said Susan. “And a telegram from Holland to England may cost pounds. Titty, how much money have you got?”
“I’ve got two shillings and sevenpence,” said Roger, stopping in the middle of a bar.
“Oh good,” said Titty.
“But it’s at home,” said Roger, and his sisters turned impatiently away.
Titty and Susan emptied their purses. Susan had very nearly five shillings. Titty had a shilling, a sixpence, four pennies, one halfpenny, and a half-crown postal order that had been sent her by her godmother to buy a new drawing-book. “If only I’d changed it before we started,” she said.
“John may have some,” said Susan.
“I don’t believe he has,” said Roger. “Anyhow not much. He had to get next month’s pocket-money in advance when he was buying his new knife.”
“Keep on playing,” said Susan. “We’ll have to ask the pilot to wait. The telegram’s got to go first. We’ll have to ask Mother to send us some money for the pilot. We’ll have to ask him to wait.”
“He can’t take us out to sea again if we’re once in harbour,” said Titty.
“But how on earth are we going to explain?” said Susan, and counted the money again.
“People bathing!” cried Titty.
“Look at the flags on that pier,” said Roger.
“Don’t stop playing,” said Susan. “We’d play if we could, but we can’t.”
“Oh, all right,” said Roger, played through “Swanee River” at breakneck speed, and cut the chorus in half to bring the ot
hers across the cabin to look at a huge buoy.
“We’re close in,” said Titty.
“We’re not at sea any more,” said Susan. “If only we knew what to say to him.”
Grey stone walls and battlements showed up on the port side, forts with guns above their ramparts, houses with steeply rising roofs, women with enormous white sunbonnets, men with wide blue breeches, children – Dutch children – riding bicycles. Then, right past their noses, John’s feet went by. He was on his way to the foredeck.
“We must be just arriving,” said Susan.
“Oughtn’t we to go and help?” said Roger.
“Not until he calls us,” said Titty. “I say, Susan, we’d better have the money all ready to show the pilot when we come on deck.”
“He’ll only think it’s all for him,” said Susan. “And we must send that telegram.”
“We’re in the harbour,” cried Roger. “Gosh! What a ship!”
The Goblin had rounded the end of the breakwater and was moving past the steep black sides of a big liner.
“Two funnels,” said Roger.
The tremendous blare of a siren high above them set. their ears throbbing even in the closed cabin.
“She must be just starting,” said Titty.
“Will we get out of the way in time?” said Roger.
And then, suddenly, they heard John’s voice, shouting in desperate excitement.
Was he shouting for them? No. He couldn’t be. That siren blared out again. John’s feet pattered across the cabin roof. He must be talking to the pilot. Then they saw his feet again, going forrard past the portholes. What was happening now? Looking out forrard through the portholes at each side of the mast they saw the red staysail come down, and John bundling it to one side. They saw the jib roll up. They saw John, to Susan’s horror, let himself down over the bows and disappear. They saw him come scrambling back with the end of a rope and make it fast. The Goblin was no longer moving. They saw that the huge, two-funnelled liner had left the quays and was steaming slowly out, dwarfing the tugs and ferryboats, and making even this big harbour look small.
And then came that thundering bang on the sliding hatch above the companion. A big voice roared:
“NOW, CAPTEN!”
The hatch slid back. The doors were pulled wide, and they saw the Dutch pilot looking in at them, and John’s worried face behind him.
“How do you do?” said Susan, too bothered even to think of trying French.
WHAT THEY SAW THROUGH THE PORTHOLES (II) FLUSHING
“How do you do?” said Titty.
“Can we come out now?” said Roger, looking at John.
They came out: first Susan, then Titty with Sinbad, and then Roger, who had stopped for one moment to hide the penny whistle away in the shelf over his bunk.
“Susan,” said John, “Daddy’s on that steamer. He saw us, and shouted, but it was too late.”
“Daddy! Oh no. It can’t be.”
They stared miserably at the big steamship, now slowly turning beyond the breakwater, to head for the North Sea and home. This was the worst thing that had happened yet. So near, but he might as well have been a hundred miles away. The liner loosed a last long hoot on her siren. It was like a jeer. She was gone, and Daddy with her, and they saw her masts go by, moving faster and faster, beyond the distant piers.
The pilot was looking past them down into the little cabin.
“So many children,” he said. “But where is de capten?”
John looked at Susan, but said nothing. He could not think of anything to say. It was Susan who made the decision. “We’d better tell him everything,” she said, and then, turning to the pilot, she began. “There isn’t one. At least John is really. You see we didn’t mean to come. And now we have to send a telegram, and will you please tell us how to send it and how much it will cost, because I’m not sure if we’ve got enough money. Of course we will have when we’ve telegraphed. Mother’ll send us some from home.”
John watched Susan gratefully. She was quite right, and she was doing it much better than he could have done. But he would have to ask how much they ought to pay the pilot.
The pilot’s mouth had dropped open. He was staring at Susan. Then, leaning down into the companion, he looked right forrard, through both cabins.
“No capten,” he said. “No capten! Four children … and dat small cat …” He was looking at the kitten that was blinking back at him out of Titty’s arms.
“We rescued Sinbad on the way,” said Titty.
“Four children alone … and you cross de Nord Sea … four children … and it blow yesternight … I would not cross de Nord Sea mine self in so small a boat … And I dink de capten too merry in de cabin … And de capten was all de time you, mynheer,” and he suddenly startled John by taking him by the arm, and holding him, as if to have a better look at him. “And you fool de old pilot. He dink de capten down below … wid de bottle perhaps … and you de boy … Dere is not one boy in all Holland dat take a boat across de Nord Sea.”
They were all watching the pilot’s face. He seemed to be quite pleased at being taken in by John, and he had not said anything about salvage, but Susan, with her money and Titty’s clasped in her hand, knew how very little it was. What would the pilot say when he knew too? Not one of them noticed the “Brrrrrr” of a motor-boat that was humming up the harbour towards them. Too much depended on what the pilot would say. With Daddy already on his way to Harwich, it was more than ever important to get a telegram to Mother sent off at once.
“Ahoy!”
They started almost as if something had run into the Goblin.
“Ahoy!”
The little motor-boat was circling round to come up alongside, and sitting in it, holding on his grey felt hat, was …
“DADDY!” they all four shouted at once.
In another moment he was aboard. The Dutchman in the motor-boat handed John a painter, and John was making it fast while the motor-boat dropped astern.
“Hullo!” said Daddy. “What’s all this? Whose boat? I never thought of anyone bringing you across to meet me.”
“We didn’t mean to go to sea,” said Susan.
“It was in the fog,” said John.
“We couldn’t help it really,” said Susan, and, looking at Daddy, with his weather-beaten, brown face, and the wrinkles round his eyes, some from laughter, some from looking into wind and sun at sea, she knew that whatever had happened everything was all right now. The relief was too much for her. She felt her lip moving in spite of herself, a hotness in her eyes, and, worst of all, a wetness on her cheek. She choked a sob, and bolted down into the cabin.
“Hold up, old girl,” said Daddy, but Susan was out of sight, pressing her face into a pillow.
“It isn’t her fault,” said John. “She was dreadfully ill part of the time.”
“Across de Nord Sea dey come,” said the pilot. “By demselves across de Nord Sea. I would never have believe it. But I see it mine self. Dey fly de pilot flag for me, and I come, and, de capten here, he was steering de ship alone.”
Daddy’s eyes ran quickly here and there over the rigging and then back to John and Titty and Roger. He did not show that he was surprised in any way. All he said was, “You must tell me about it some time. Lucky I saw you coming in just in time to make a pierhead jump the other way. A minute later I couldn’t have done it. What do you propose to do now?”
“Have you got plenty of money?” said Roger. “We haven’t much, and Susan wants to telegraph to Mother, and we haven’t paid the pilot.”
Daddy turned to the pilot. “Of course,” he said. “Well, pilot, what’s your fee for bringing in the liner?”
Susan, ashamed of her flight, had wiped her eyes, and came up the companion-ladder. She offered Daddy the handful of small change.
But the pilot thumped his knee with an enormous hand.
“Nodings,” he shouted. “Nodings. You haf dam fine children, mynheer … I give my congratulations to
your wife … No … No … I tell you I will not take a guilder … No … I will take nodings at all …”
“Have a drink, anyway,” said Daddy, and hesitated, looking at Susan. Was there a drink on board?
“There’s the medicinal rum,” said Titty. “Sinbad only had the tiniest drop.”
“I’ll get it,” said Susan. Once more she dropped down into the cabin and came up again at once with two mugs and that flat bottle labelled “For medicinal purposes only.” Daddy looked at it, read the label twice, pulled out the cork, sniffed at the mouth of the bottle, and poured out the doses.
The pilot and Daddy looked at each other, touched mugs and drank. Then the pilot turned to John.
“Your good health, Herr Capten. I am proud to have pilot your vessel into Flushing. I will remember it all my life. Your health, Herr Capten.”
John turned a very deep red under his sunburn, spluttered, caught his father’s gravely smiling eyes and said, “Thank you very much.”
The next minute Daddy was talking to the pilot about tides. Then he turned to John. “What charts have you aboard?”
“Only English ones,” said John. “Harwich to Southampton.”
Daddy’s eyes flickered, but he only said, to the pilot, “I suppose I can buy a North Sea chart in the harbour.” Then he turned to the others and asked, “When did you last have something to eat?”
“We had hot cocoa and tongue,” said Roger, “a long time ago.”
We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea Page 22
