Coot Club

by Arthur Ransome

  The little motor-cruiser passed them, and the people on board waved to them, going full speed again as soon as they could see that their wash would not bother the rowing boats.

  “They’re not all like the Hullabaloos,” said Starboard.

  “Wouldn’t it be awful if they were?” said Dorothea.

  “Feathers for Ginty!” called Starboard suddenly. “Pick them up, Twin!” She was pointing at a little fleet of curled white swan’s feathers, some in mid-stream, and some close against the reeds. “Mrs. McGinty looks after us,” she said, seeing Dorothea’s puzzled face. “She always wants swan’s feathers. For a cushion or something. She’s been collecting them for years.” Port, in the Titmouse, dropped astern, rowing from feather to feather.

  Port was a long way astern of the fleet when, just as they were turning into the long straight dyke that leads to Ranworth Broad, Dorothea heard again the noise of a motor-cruiser. This time she said nothing, but looked at Starboard. Starboard had heard it too. Mrs. Barrable turned round.

  Starboard nodded.

  The captain of the Death and Glory was looking over his shoulder. He, too, had heard.

  Tom, for a moment, stopped quanting as they turned the corner.

  “They’re a long way off,” said Starboard.

  “They come at such a lick,” said Tom, racing forward with the quant. “They’ll see us for certain,” he panted as he came aft again. “We’ll never get to the Straits in time.”

  Dorothea looked ahead to where the long narrow dyke disappeared among the trees, over which, far away, showed the grey square tower of Ranworth Church. The Straits must be those trees, if the Broad was beyond them.

  “Titmouse ahoy!” shouted Tom suddenly, but there was no answer, and they could no longer see the river except just where the dyke left it.

  “She’s all right,” said Mrs. Barrable. “They’re looking for you in a punt. They aren’t looking for a girl. Or for the Titmouse.”

  “We’ll be all right too, if we can get to the Straits,” said Starboard. “Let me have a go at the quant.” But no. Tom would have felt even worse if he had not had the quant to push at, to feel he was doing something in driving the Teasel along. As for the engines of the Death and Glory, their panting could be heard by everybody.

  “If only there were two quants,” said Starboard.

  “They’re simply bound to look down the dyke,” said Tom, and they’ll see the Death and Glories towing, and if they’ve got any sense at all they’ll come and have a look.”

  Nearer and nearer behind the reed-beds came the noise of the Margoletta. Everybody except Starboard – and even she glanced over her shoulder every other moment – was looking back towards the river, watching for the Margoletta to show in the opening at the mouth of the dyke. Who would show there first, Port or the Hullabaloos? And, oh, how far it seemed to those trees.

  “There she is,” said the Admiral.

  “But she’s rowing quite slowly,” said Dorothea. “She can’t not have heard them. And she’s not turning in. She’s at the other side of the river, picking feathers.… But there weren’t any feathers there.… Or were there?”

  “Well done, that Port of yours,” cried the Admiral. “I should never have thought of it. Dick, where are those glasses? Well done, Port,” said Mrs. Barrable again. “Well done! Well done!”

  There was the huge bulk of the Margoletta passing the mouth of the dyke. The Teasel and the Death and Glories were all in full view of them. But not a single one of the Hullabaloos was looking their way. Mrs. Barrable was silently clapping her hands. “They’re wondering what on earth that girl is doing. And they can’t look both ways at once.”

  The Margoletta passed the mouth of the dyke, and went roaring on down the river. And the crews of the Teasel and the Death and Glory saw Port in the Titmouse, taking short lazy strokes with her oars, disappear behind the reeds as if she were going on upstream.

  “Dodged them all right this time,” said Tom, “thanks to Port.”

  In another minute or two the Teasel was in the Straits, with trees on either side of the narrow dyke. The dyke bent to the left and divided into two, one branch blocked with posts and chains, the other slowly widening towards a sheet of open water, still as glass, except for birds swimming and stirring the reflections of the reeds.

  “Where do you want to stop?” asked Tom. “The staithe?”

  “Much quieter here,” said Mrs. Barrable.

  “There’s a good place for mooring,” said Starboard, pointing to a little bay.

  “Easy!” shouted Tom. “Casting off the tow-rope!”

  Splash! The end of the tow-rope fell in the water, and Joe in the Death and Glory, was hauling it in, hand over hand. The Teasel slid slowly on in dead smooth water. Tom seemed to be everywhere at once, getting ready anchors and warps.

  “Will that do?” called Starboard, as the Teasel slid alongside a low grassy bank.

  Tom jumped from the foredeck. Starboard jumped from the counter. Dick, Dorothea and the Admiral were, for the moment, passengers only. The Teasel was moving no longer. A moment later she was moored in her new berth.

  “Well done everybody,” said the Admiral.

  “Even William,” said Dorothea. “At least he didn’t bark and he easily might have.”

  “Narrow squeak that were,” said Joe. Bill and Pete were too much out of breath even to speak. They grinned and wiped their foreheads and blinked the sweat out of their eyes.

  And then there was the sound of oars from among the trees, and there was Port with the Titmouse.

  “Well done, Port!” everybody shouted at once.

  Port looked happily over her shoulder, steadied the Titmouse with her oars and stopped rowing.

  “I knew they’d be looking down the dyke if I turned in,” she said. “So I dropped a few of Ginty’s swan feathers under the other bank and picked them up again one by one. The Hullabaloos nearly swamped me, they came so near to see what it was I was getting. Water-lilies in April I expect they thought.”

  “They’d have seen us for certain if they hadn’t been looking at you,” said Tom.

  *

  “You can’t start sailing today,” said Starboard, when everything had been tidied up. “But what about rowing? Have you done much?”

  “Not yet,” said Dick.

  “Well, what about hopping into that dinghy and seeing what you can do?”

  “By the way,” said the Admiral, “I suppose he can swim?”

  “We both can,” said Dorothea. “Dick got first prize at school for men under twelve.”

  “Boys,” said Dick, but every one had understood.

  Dick, with earnest face, lowered himself into the Teasel’s dinghy. Starboard untied the painter and dropped it into the bows for him. He found the rowlocks hanging each by its seating. He put them in their places, laid the oars in them, and with little gentle strokes set himself moving. He took a harder pull and the little light dinghy spun round and nosed into a clump of reeds. He got free again. The crew of the tugboat were looking on. So was Dorothea, dreadfully afraid that he would have that same misfortune that he had had that time when the others had let him row a few yards on the lake in the north.

  “Dick,” she said anxiously, “‘Dip them well in,’ Peggy said. Don’t catch another lobster.”

  There was a shout of laughter from the Death and Glory.

  “You mean a crab, my dear,” said the Admiral. “But they’re much the same thing. Indigestible on shore and awkward in a boat.”

  “He’s doing jolly well,” said Starboard.

  “There’s more room in the Broad,” said Bill, as Dick rammed another clump of reeds.

  “We’ll come, too,” said Joe. “Throw yer arms out straight and you’ll be racing us tomorrow.”

  And Dick paddled away into the open Broad as straight a course as he could, in spite of the horrid way in which the oars slipped in and out so that they seemed to be all lengths at once.

  “Poor D
ick,” said the Admiral. “Three masters at once.”

  “You want to learn, too?” said Starboard.

  “Awfully,” said Dorothea.

  “Take her in the Titmouse,” said Tom.

  “Your turn, Twin,” said Port, and climbed aboard the Teasel, while Starboard and Dorothea took charge of Tom’s little ship.

  Learning if not to sail, at least to row, had actually begun.

  When they came back, hot and aching after that first lesson, they found the Teasel looking more as she had looked when first they saw her. Port and Tom had rigged her awning, and William, impatient for tea and the chocolate he expected, welcomed them noisily aboard. The kettle was boiling, and if Mrs. Barrable had twice as many guests as she had asked, she was glad of it, and there was plenty of food to go round.

  “It’s the most gorgeous lake,” said Dorothea. “We’ve rowed all round it. It’s full of good hiding-places.”

  “And birds,” said Dick.

  “And there’s that place where the chains go across,” said Dorothea. “He could escape down that if they came here. And that other place where they’re cutting reeds. Anybody could be an outlaw hidden in here for weeks and weeks while people were hunting for him outside.”

  “You could, you know,” said Starboard. “Those Hullabaloos can’t be about for ever, and we could bring supplies.”

  “It’s a good idea,” said Port. “They’re sure to catch you if you just hang about Horning.”

  “You’ll have disappeared, just like the Teasel,” said Dorothea.

  Tom looked from one to the other. All this romance was rather puzzling. He had got into trouble with some unpleasant people who had hired the Margoletta. He had to keep out of their way because if they caught him it would be hard to prevent his father, the doctor, from being dragged in. It was most unlucky, just when the Titmouse was ready for distant voyaging. But somehow this Dorothea, and even Port and Starboard, who were Norfolk Coots and usually as practical as himself, were talking of his misfortune as if it were some kind of exciting story.

  “If they did come in here to look for him,” said Dorothea, “he could hide among the reeds like a water buffalo, with only his nose above water.”

  “Jolly cold,” said Tom.

  “Tell you what,” said Joe. “They can’t come up this way without they come by Ludham, or by Acle or by Potter Heigham, and we know chaps in all them places. We’ll tell ’em to telephone to Dad’s yard, to give us a warning if that lot come through. Then we’ll know where they be.”

  “But we don’t know where they are now,” said Tom. “They may be close to. They may have stopped just round the corner.”

  “Um,” said Starboard. “It wouldn’t do to run right into them.”

  “I must get home, anyhow, and tell Mother what I’m going to do,” said Tom.

  “Look here,” said Starboard. “We’ve got to get back early. We’ll take a passage with the Death and Glories, and tell Aunty you’ll be late. Then you can dodge back home when it’s beginning to get dark.”

  “Much the best plan,” said Mrs. Barrable.

  And presently the Death and Glory, with Port and Starboard pulling an oar apiece and the three small Coots taking turns in the steering, disappeared behind the trees. Tom waited in the Titmouse, tied alongside the Teasel, fitting hinges to locker doors, with Dick and Dorothea watching and passing him screws at the right moment.

  At the first hoot of an owl over the marshes he said “Good night” to his new friends. By dusk all yachts and cruisers on the Bure are tied up or hurriedly looking for moorings for the night. But the bye-laws say nothing about little boats, and though there was still no wind, he hoped to get home not too dreadfully late for supper.

  “Do you think he’ll come back?” asked Dick.

  “He simply couldn’t find a better place to lurk,” said Dorothea.

  “He’s got a very nice dyke,” said Mrs. Barrable, “without stirring from his own home. We shan’t see him again tonight. I expect he’ll try to get here tomorrow before the Hullabaloos wake up in the morning.”

  But last thing, when they had done their washing up after supper, and Mrs. Barrable had tired of telling them what the Broads had been like in the wild old days of forty years ago, and it had long been dark, and Dick and Dorothea climbed out on the counter, to stand there and watch the stars, and to listen to the night noises in the reed-beds, they caught sight of a pale glimmer away under the trees where the dyke divided.

  “He’s back,” said Dick.

  “Far away, at the edge of the marshes,” said Dorothea, more to herself than to Dick, “the watchers saw the glimmer of the outlaw’s lonely light.”

  Mrs. Barrable leaned from the well, and herself saw that lit awning of the Titmouse reflected in the water under the trees.

  “Humph,” she said, “I thought that mother of his was rather nice. She must be very nice indeed.”

  The light went out, and there was nothing to show that any other boat was in the Broad beside the Teasel.

  “He’s got good sense, too, that boy,” she added. “And you’d better go to bed yourselves, when even outlaws set you such a good example.”

  1 To quant is to pole a boat along. A quant is a long pole used for quanting.

  CHAPTER X

  LYING LOW

  First Day

  DICK and Dorothea in the little fore-cabin of the Teasel slept until a Primus stove in the well burst into a sudden roar as Mrs. Barrable set it going to boil the breakfast coffee. They hurried out to feel the side-decks wet with dew and cold to their bare feet, but their first glance across the water towards the other side of the Straits showed them that Tom in the Titmouse had long ago begun his day. The awning of the little boat had been turned back at the stern, and they could see the outlaw himself leaning out and washing up a plate.

  “Won’t he be coming here for breakfast?” asked Dorothea.

  “He must have had his ages ago,” said Mrs. Barrable. “He was scrubbing his face when I first looked out. Hurry up and scrub yours and then, as soon as you’ve had something to eat, you can row across and ask him where we get fresh milk. I’ve opened a tin for now.”

  Half an hour later, when they had stowed the Teasel’s awning, and Mrs. Barrable was setting up her easel in the well to paint a picture of the Broad, Dick and Dorothea began their first lesson in sailing. There could not have been a better day for it. Sunshine, a crisp air, and a wind not strong enough to be dangerous, but quite strong enough to send the Titmouse flying through the water so that any mistake in the steering showed at once. They beat up to the staithe, took the milk-can to the farm, brought it back filled, went to the little shop and post office and sent off post cards to Mr. and Mrs. Callum. One sentence was the same on both cards: “We have begun to learn to sail.” Then, with a fair wind they flew back across the Broad to the Teasel, handed over the milk-can to Mrs. Barrable, heard William noisily exploring among the bushes, fended him off when he arrived at a gallop and wanted to join them in the Titmouse, and were off once more to go on with the sailing lesson.

  Up and down they sailed in the sunshine, first one and then the other at the tiller, while Tom held the main-sheet so that nothing could really go wrong. They very soon stopped catching their breaths every time a harder puff of wind sent the Titmouse heeling over, and Tom said they would do all right as soon as they had learnt that when you are steering you must think of nothing else. He said this after Dick had had a long turn at the tiller. Dick was careful enough when there was nothing to look at, but keen as he was on being able to sail, the sight of a bird was too much for him, and as Ranworth is full of birds of all kinds, the Titmouse, with Dick at the tiller, had sailed a very wriggly course.

  But it was not much better with Dorothea. Her mind, too, kept slipping away. She was sailing, yes, and all of a tremble lest she should do something wrong, but she could not help thinking of the outlaw and the Margoletta, and of the Admiral quietly painting in the well of the Teasel, but
at the same time ready to give warning of approaching Hullabaloos. How would it be to make a real sentinel’s post in one of the taller trees at the outer end of the Straits? What would happen if suddenly, now, this minute, the Margoletta, full of enemies, were to come roaring out into the Broad? “The boy outlaw leapt overboard and swam for the reeds, bullet after bullet splashing in the water round his head.…”

  “Look out, Dot, we’ll be aground.”

  And there was the boy outlaw close beside her, grabbing at the tiller. The Titmouse spun round only just in time, and they felt the centre-board move stickily in the mud and then break free again.

  Half-way through the morning Port and Starboard came rowing out of the Straits with two bits of urgent news, one that the first of No. 7’s eggs had hatched, and the other that while Tom had been busy teaching Dick and Dorothea how to sail, other people had been doing their best for Tom. Far and wide, it seemed, the alarm had been given, and all over the Broads the outlaw’s friends were alert and on the watch.

  “It’s all fixed up,” said Starboard. “Joe’s taken Bill’s bike and gone down to Acle to fix up with a boy there to keep a look-out. Bill’s gone up to Potter Heigham on the bus (Coot Club funds, of course), and Pete’s got a lift into Wroxham to see what he can find out at Rodley’s about how long that lot are going to have the Margoletta.”

  While they were talking, Dick, with Tom’s help, was keeping the Titmouse sailing to and fro within easy distance of the rowing-boat. At first the twins hardly realised that it was a visitor who had hold of the tiller.

  “Jibe her this time,” said Tom.

  “Jibe?” asked Dick, puzzled.

  “Swing her right round toward the side where the sail is.… I’ll haul in the sheet.… Go on.… Right round.… Till the boom swings over.… There it goes.… Mind your heads.… Steady her again.”

  “I say,” said Port, “you are getting on.”

  The twins had to go back at once, because they had to get the Flash ready for a race that afternoon.