Peter Duck: A Treasure Hunt in the Caribbees

by Arthur Ransome

  By the time they got back, supper was ready, and soon after that, knowing that they were to start with the morning tide, Captain Flint hurried his crew to bed.

  CHAPTER III

  TRIAL TRIP

  NOT ONE OF the crew had thought sleep at all possible that night and all of them were surprised when they heard a bumping on the deck above their cabins, and woke to find that it was already daylight. They had forgotten to put out the hanging lantern in the saloon and it swung there looking like a ghost. There was very little washing done below decks before Susan hurried up the companion and found that someone had already been ashore and brought a milk-can full of fresh milk, and also that someone had lit the oil-stove for her in the galley. The kettle was close on boiling. The others, after a lick and a scrub, came hurrying on deck, some by the companion, some up the ladder through the forehatch. They found that it was not only in the housekeeping line that a good deal had been done that morning. The Wild Cat somehow looked altogether different. The topping lifts had been set up and the booms lifted. Mainsail and foresail, lovely new creamy canvas, were cast loose ready for hoisting. The staysail was at the foot of the forestay, held in a bunch with a bit of thin twine that would break at the first pull on the halyards. The jib had been hoisted already, but in stops, rolled up, that is, and tied, so that a pull on the jib sheets would be enough to break it out.

  “This looks like business,” said Nancy.

  “I should just think it does,” said John.

  The other vessels in the harbour were all asleep. There was still dew on the rail and on the top of the deckhouse. But, early as it was, someone was already awake about the quays, for the pier head lights had vanished, and the thin morning sunlight was falling on a red flag hoisted on the flagstaff by the swing bridge to show anybody who might want to know that there was a depth of ten feet at least between the heads. Everybody looked across to the Viper, but the black schooner lay there beside the opposite quay without a sign that anybody was aboard her.

  Breakfast was almost as much of a scramble as washing. They had it on deck – just thick bread and butter and steaming mugs of cocoa. As soon as that was done, indeed, while some people were still eating their bread and butter, they crowded into the deckhouse to look at the chart already spread out on the table. Everybody leant over it while Captain Flint pointed out the way they were going.

  “The wind’s almost due east just now,” he said. “We’ll use that to throw her head off, but we won’t try going out under sail, not the first time with a new crew. We’d have to tack out against the wind and I’d like to be sure you all of you know your ropes before we start that sort of thing. No thanks, Susan. I’ve had enough, for now anyway. All hands on deck, and let’s see what sort of a job we make of getting up the mainsail. We’ll have it up now, though we’re going out with the engine. All right, Roger, we’ll be going down to look at it in a minute.” Roger was already lifting the trap-door in the floor of the deckhouse where there was a short ladder down to the stuffy little engine-room.

  “Throw her head off?” said John.

  “Hoist the staysail and hold him to wind’ard to force her head off the quay,” said Peter Duck.

  Everybody hurried out on deck.

  “Now,” said Captain Flint. “Mr Duck and I can hoist that mainsail between us. But we have to take one halyard at a time, and belay the peak1 while we’re hauling on the throat. Let’s see what we can do with the lot of you tallying on. Come on, then. Nancy and Peggy haul away on the peak with me. John, Susan, and Titty haul away on the throat with Mr Duck. All right, Roger. Room for you here. Titty’s shantyman. Pipe up, Able-seaman. Let’s have ‘A Long Time Ago.’ Mind everybody hauls together at the right words.”

  “Here you are, Cap’n John,” said Mr Duck. “Get a hold here, below my grip. You, too, Mister Mate.”

  Titty piped up:

  “A smart Yankee packet lay out in the bay,

  To me way hay, o-hi-o.

  A-waiting for a fair wind to get under way,

  A long time ago.”

  At the way and the hi and the long everybody hauled down with all their weight, and then shifted their hands up ready for another pull.

  “She was waiting for a fair wind to get under way,

  To me way hay, ohio.

  She was waiting for a fair wind to get under way,

  A long time ago.”

  Titty got the verses in the wrong order, but that made no difference. The gaff swayed up, lifting the canvas after it. A trail of wooden hoops climbed slowly up the mast after the gaff jaws.

  “If she hasn’t had a fair wind, she’s lying there still,

  To me way hay, ohio.

  If she hasn’t had a fair wind she’s lying there still,

  A long time ago.”

  “You’ve forgotten the lime-juice,” panted Roger. Titty went back a verse or two.

  “With all her poor sailors all sick and all sore,

  To me way hay, ohio.

  For they’d drunk all their lime-juice and could get no more,

  A long time ago.”

  Their pulls were perhaps not quite as long as they would have been if they had had longer arms. But Titty, with hardly any breath left for singing, managed to get the verses out somehow over again in a different order. The others had more breath and easier words, just singing out “A long time ago” and “To me way hay, o-hi-o” as they pulled. It took time, but there was the sail spreading up and up far over their heads.

  “Chockablock,” said Peter Duck at last, and belayed the throat halyard, while John, Susan, and Titty got their breath again.

  “Belay,” said Captain Flint, and Nancy and Peggy stood puffing and blowing and feeling the palms of their hands. “We won’t have the peak right up till we’re in the outer harbour. Well done, everybody. That’s the hardest job there is aboard a schooner. You’ll be able to get the staysail up yourselves. Now then, Roger, come along and let’s have a look at that engine of yours.” Roger and Captain Flint disappeared into the deckhouse.

  John and Susan coiled the throat halyard and hung the coils out of the way. That rope would not be wanted again until the time came to lower the sail.

  “What about washing up?” said Peggy. “Shall we just put all the mugs in a basket and do the washing up afterwards?”

  “You’ll have time now,” said Peter Duck. “Skipper and I’ll be a minute or two, what with all the warps to shift and the little donkey to get a-going.”

  “What little donkey?” asked Titty.

  “Sailorman’s name for the engine,” said Peter Duck. “Engines and donkeys is all one. One day they’ll pull and another day they won’t, do what you will with them.”

  “Sails won’t pull in a calm,” said Peggy, over her shoulder as she went off to the galley.

  “That’s not their fault,” said Peter Duck. “Give them wind and they’ll work right enough. But you can drown one of these here little donkeys with oil and paraffin, and it’ll do no more than cough and spit at you. Got no gratitude hasn’t donkeys. Listen, though, to that. Skipper’s got this one a-going.”

  There was a sudden chug, chug-chug from below. Then silence. Then chug, chug-chug again, and another silence. There was no more thought of washing up.

  “We’ll have time later,” said Susan.

  Peter Duck was up on the quayside, hurrying from bollard to bollard casting loose the warps. John and Nancy hauled them aboard. Peter Duck took one of the stern warps forward round a bollard on the quay and back again, throwing the end to John who made it fast.

  “We’ll be wanting to cast that loose in a minute,” said Peter Duck, seeing that John was making fast as if for ever.

  The noise below began again. “Chug, chug, chug, chug, chug,” and settled down till it was as regular as the ticking of a clock. Captain Flint and Roger, both very red in the face, climbed up into the deckhouse and out on deck.

  “All ready?” asked Captain Flint. “Good. Now then, Roger, you stand b
y this lever. When I say, ‘Full ahead,’ shove it as far forward as it will go.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Roger, his eyes sparkling, taking his place by a little brass lever just inside the deckhouse door.

  “Come on, you two captains, and hoist the staysail. The two mates stand by the wheel. Keep it just as it is, and hand over to Mr Duck as soon as she starts moving. All ready with the spring, Mr Duck?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Captain Flint hurried forward. John and Nancy had picked out the staysail halyard, seen that all was clear up the mast, and were ready to hoist the sail. Titty was with Peter Duck at the stern. He had given her a fat rope fender to hang over the side to save the Wild Cat’s green paint.

  Captain Flint sang out, “Up with the staysail,” and hand over hand, John and Nancy hauled it up. It flapped idly in the light wind coming straight in from the sea. Captain Flint hauled in for a moment on the port sheet, so that the staysail stiffened on the port side, and the wind, taking it aback, began slowly, ever so slowly, to force the bows of the Wild Cat away from the quay.

  “Haul in on the spring, Mr Duck!” Peter Duck hauled on the warp that he had led forward from the stern. The Wild Cat headed out from the quay.

  “Chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, cough, chug, cough, chug, chug,” went the little engine down below, and Roger, at the deckhouse door, was holding on to the lever and waiting for the word.

  Captain Flint let fly the staysail sheet. “Full ahead, engineer!”

  Roger pushed the lever forward, and the tune of the engine changed as the propeller began to do its work. Peter Duck let go one end of the warp, and Titty, who had brought her fender in now that it was no longer needed, hauled in the slack of the warp as it slipped round the bollard and fell between the Wild Cat and the quay. She soon had it aboard. Peter Duck took the wheel and spun it round. The Wild Cat moved slowly out of the inner harbour between the grey walls and out. The swing bridge was open for the Wild Cat to pass, and a milk-boy with a tricycle was waiting for it to close again, looking down at the little schooner and whistling as if to make up for the general quiet at that time of the morning. The Wild Cat moved slowly on, the little engine coughing away inside her, and spitting out of the exhaust pipe at the stern. She moved down between the long piers, and into the outer harbour.

  Captain Flint came aft, bringing John and Nancy at his heels.

  “Mr Duck,” he said, “I think you and I might be getting the foresail up now. John’ll keep her going straight for the pier heads.”

  John was on the point of saying he would rather wait to take the wheel until she was outside with plenty of room, but he was too late. He found himself with his hands on the spokes of the wheel, while Peter Duck and Captain Flint were already hurrying forward. Nancy was looking at him almost with envy. There was nothing for it but to hope that he would manage not to do something dufferish by mistake. He turned the wheel just a little first one way and then the other. The Wild Cat was moving slowly under the little engine, which was only just strong enough to shove her along. She seemed, however, to steer quite easily. John hoped Nancy had not noticed his experiments. Now he looked far ahead to the outer piers, with their queer little pagoda-like shelters with the lanterns on the top of them, set himself to steer exactly between them and almost came to believe that he had been doing this all his life. He saw Captain Flint take a sharp look round and then, as if quite at ease, turn back to his work. That was comforting, too.

  Peter Duck and Captain Flint were at the foot of the foremast. Peter Duck took the throat halyard, Captain Flint took the peak. They hauled away and the gaff of the foresail moved slowly up above their heads. Then there was Peter Duck swigging on his halyard till he had it bar taut, throwing his weight forward and pulling in the slack, and then making fast and taking a look up the mast to see that the blocks were all but touching. Captain Flint was still hauling on the peak halyard. The gaff cocked itself up, and the big creamy sail no longer swung loose, but stiffened until the crinkles in it ran up and down instead of across. Captain Flint belayed his halyard. Then they slackened away the topping lifts, so that the weight of the boom made itself felt, and the crinkles straightened out.

  They hurried aft to the mainmast, and the peak that had been left not fully hoisted rose up and up. It stopped. Again topping lifts were slackened away and there was the mainsail really looking like a sail at last.

  “Setting nicely,” said Peter Duck.

  John had been thinking of nothing but the steering. The little group of the others had been watching every detail of the setting of the sails.

  “It’s just like setting sail on Swallow,” said Susan, “only everything’s heavier.”

  “And you don’t have to haul down the boom,” said Nancy. “Come on. They’ll be sailing in a minute. They’ll be wanting someone to haul on the staysail sheet and the jib sheet. Let’s be there.”

  When Captain Flint turned from squinting up at the mainsail into the morning sunlight to see that all was really well with mainsail and foresail, he saw Nancy and Susan all ready, with the sheets of the headsails in their hands. “That’s right,” he said. “Stand by for a minute or two.”

  The Wild Cat passed out between the pier heads into the North Sea. On the pier heads a couple of men gave a cheery wave to her as she slipped out and lifted to the slight swell. Titty waved back, and so did Peter Duck. Roger did not even see them. Everybody aboard the Wild Cat was a little out of breath, except Peter Duck, though there had been no accidents and everything had been easy enough. Another time, things would be easier still.

  Captain Flint and Peter Duck were coming aft.

  “She’s clear enough now, sir,” Peter Duck was saying. “There’s the buoy. She’d lay the course now, lay it under sail.”

  “Now then, John,” said Captain Flint. “Let’s see you head her North-north-east. That’ll clear the buoy. Staysail and jib sheets there, forrard. On the port side. That’s right, Susan. A hard pull to break it out.”

  Things were happening fast.

  John twirled the wheel, and the compass card inside the little window just before him moved round. East … East by North … East-north-east … North-east by East … North-east … The mainsheet tautened with a jerk. Peter Duck was hauling in a little on the sheet of the foresail. The staysail was pulling. Nancy was making fast. The big jib was fluttering loose. Nancy turned to help Susan. It quietened and was pulling too. North-north-east. The Wild Cat was sailing.

  “Stop the engine, Roger,” called Captain Flint.

  Roger swung his lever to its middle position and then dived into the deckhouse.

  “I say, Rogie, do you know how?” asked Titty anxiously.

  “Of course I do,” said Roger. “He showed me.”

  He was gone. A moment later the chug, chug, chug of the engine came to an end. John and Titty looked at each other. The deck was certainly on a slant. There was the beginning of a noise under the forefoot. She was not moving slower but faster. Titty put her hand on the wheel and felt the tremor of the little ship. John was moving the wheel this way and that, meeting her as she yawed, and coaxing her to lay a steady course. Titty looked back at the lengthening wake astern. This was like sailing Swallow only somehow better. A touch on the wheel and this whole ship obeyed with the whole lot of them aboard, a regular house of a ship, with towering sails higher than lots of houses. There was a lump in Titty’s throat, and John’s lips were pressed tight together.

  Roger came up again from below, with a very dirty happy face, wiping his oily hands on a bit of cotton rag.

  “She went awfully well with her engine,” he said.

  John and Titty were almost glad to be able to laugh at him.

  Captain Flint and Peter Duck were hurrying about the deck, slackening away this rope, hauling that a little harder in, trying one thing and another, until they were satisfied with the set of the sails.

  And then, after passing the black and white bell buoy clanging away in the lone
ly morning, after passing the Newcome Spit buoy, striped red and white and round as a football, Captain Flint came aft and stood by, while John spun the wheel round and put her about. Peter Duck, Nancy, and Susan let fly the headsail sheets and then again they had to be hauled in on the other side, and once more there was careful trying until Captain Flint and the old seaman were thoroughly pleased with them. With all four sails drawing, the ship was beautifully balanced and she could be steered with a finger.

  This time they went well out to sea, before going about and heading northward up the coast until they brought Yarmouth abeam, and looking through the telescope could see the tall brick tower on Brush Quay, and the Britannia Pier, and the long spreading town. They held right on towards the red light-vessel with a thing like two spinning tops with their points meeting up at her mast-head. Most of the time John and Nancy took turns at the wheel, though everybody, even the engineer, was allowed to feel it. Titty brought the parrot on deck after a time, to enjoy the sunshine, and to have a real look at the sea. Roger let Gibber have a run, too, but Captain Flint said that the monkey was not to be allowed near the engine just now, because they would be wanting to use it again going into the inner harbour, and with monkeys you never really knew what might happen. At last Captain Flint put her about once more, eased off all the sheets and steered for the Corton light-vessel, with its ball cut in half and another ball on the top of it (“They have to have these things to tell one lightship from another”), and so for the Newcome Spit buoy and home again to Lowestoft Harbour.

  “Well?” said Captain Flint.