Coot Club

by Arthur Ransome

  “The Hullabaloos would have come through by now if they were coming,” said Tom.

  Dorothea looked back towards Breydon. There was not another boat to be seen.

  “Of course, they may come tomorrow,” said Tom, “whatever they do today. Those beasts can get about so fast. But we’re all right for now. What I was afraid of was their coming down while I was towing in the Titmouse.”

  “It seems to me,” said the Admiral, “that we get about pretty fast ourselves.” She shaded her eyes to look over the water ahead of them towards the evening sun. “What do you think, skipper? Where shall we tie up for the night?”

  “Let’s go on sailing for ever,” said Dorothea. “We could take turns in being awake.”

  “Let’s go on as far as ever we can,” said Tom. “While the wind holds.… That man at Potter Heigham got all the way from Hickling to …” He dived into the cabin for the map.

  “All right, Dot,” said the Admiral. “You take the tiller. Keep as near the middle of the channel as you can. Not too near the red posts.”

  Tom came out again with the map and glanced at the long line of red posts on the port side, and the long line of black posts on the starboard side, leading away into the distance. All was well. He opened the map and ran his finger along the Waveney River. “We can’t get as far as Beccles,” he said doubtfully. “Nobody could.… There’s St. Olave’s Bridge to go under.… Mast has to come down again.… But we’re getting pretty good at that … then two swing bridges … we may get held up by some beastly train.… But we’ve got a grand tide with us, and the wind’s holding, and it won’t be dark for a long time yet.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” said Mrs. Barrable.

  “You’ll be at Beccles tomorrow, Admiral,” said Dorothea. “Won’t she, Tom?”

  “Depends on the wind,” said Tom. “Look here, Dot, keep away from the red posts. We don’t want to have to tack if we can help it.”

  “I say,” cried Dick suddenly. “Isn’t that a spoonbill, there, with hunched-up shoulders, and another, dipping in the mud where that trickle is? … White, like storks.”

  “They must be,” said Tom. “Let’s have the glasses a minute. I’ve only seen them once before. This goes down in the Coot Club book.”

  “And in the log,” said the Admiral.

  “And those are curlews,” said Dick. “Aren’t they? Or are they whimbrels? I say, can’t we anchor here and stay the night?”

  “We may have a dead calm tomorrow,” said Tom. “And the Teasel’s doing far too well to stop.”

  “Anyhow,” said Dorothea, her eyes fixed on the row of posts with the water swirling past them, “we must try to get somewhere so that we can send off post cards to tell Port and Starboard where we’ve got to. Am I far enough away from the posts now?”

  The Teasel sailed on up the broad channel of Breydon Water. The rising tide was spreading farther and farther over the mudflats on either side. Herons were stalking about knee-deep far away by the embankment. One rested for a moment on the top of a red post and then, as the Teasel came nearer, floated away with steady flaps of its long wings and a sharp indignant squawk. There was a constant chatter of quarrelsome gulls, besides the warning calls of the nervous greenshanks, the long whistling cry of the curlew and the restless shrilling of the sandpipers.

  It did, indeed, seem a pity to be leaving that wild place, but, as Mrs. Barrable said, they would be seeing it again on their way home. And now the channel began to bend to the south, Tom was able to ease off the main-sheet, and the shores, closing in, showed that they were nearing the upper end of Breydon. They were reading the numbers on these big red and black beacon posts, and had already reached the forties. Away to the right was a long wall of tarred piling. More black piles stood out into the water at the mouth of the Norwich river (the Yare). There was a lonely inn, the Berney Arms, standing above the river. Far away over the land they could see the smoke of the steamship.

  “Which way do we go?” asked Dorothea at the tiller.

  “Up the Waveney,” said Tom. “Follow the red posts round.”

  There were still mudflats away to the left and behind them, on a lump of rising ground, Mrs. Barrable pointed out the ancient remains of the Roman fort of Burgh. But nearer at hand was something that interested them still more. An old sailing vessel with no masts, just the hull of her turned into a sort of houseboat, was resting on the mud against the spit of land that divided the two rivers. There was a notice, “Breydon Pilot,” and there walking up and down his deck was the pilot himself, watching the shifting channel and ready to tell people where the deep water was as they went up or down. He signalled with a wave of his arm to tell the Teasel not to cut the corner too fine. Tom put his hand out towards the tiller, but drew it back again. Dorothea had understood and was steering across to pass close by the houseboat.

  “Silted a bit over there,” the pilot called to them.

  “Thank you,” shouted Tom.

  “Grand evening,” said the pilot.

  “Look, look,” said Dick, still hankering after stopping within reach of those birds on Breydon. “There’s a notice, ‘Safe Moorings for Yachts,’ and another one, ‘Yachts repaired.’”

  “But we don’t need repairing,” said Mrs. Barrable.

  “And we’ll get miles farther yet,” said Tom.

  “If we do get wrecked, we’ll come here to be mended,” said Dorothea.

  “Where are ye bound for?” asked the pilot.

  “Beccles.”

  “Ye’ve a good tide yet if the wind don’t fail ye,” said the pilot, turning round and looking away towards the north-west.

  Once in the river, with the tide helping them and the wind still strong, they seemed to be going much faster than when on Breydon, because, with the banks so near, they could not help seeing how they were rushing by. High banks they were now, with reeds growing on them, and great caves of mud below the reeds, filling up as the tide rose.

  “We can’t tie up here, anyway,” said Tom.

  By the time they reached St. Olave’s, where a road crosses the river by an iron bridge, they were tired, but hardly knew it. They moored there, lowered the mast, towed through under the bridge, tied up, hoisted the mast and sailed on almost in a dream.

  “Is that another river?” asked Dick, just after they had left St. Olave’s. Looking back, they could see another little bridge, and water beyond it.

  “That’s the New Cut,” said the Admiral. “Between the two rivers, so that people can go from one to the other without having to go down to Breydon, or under St. Olave’s Bridge. That one opens.”

  “Why is it called ‘New’?” asked Dick.

  “I suppose they called it ‘New’ when it was new, a hundred years ago.”

  Tom at that moment was a little worried. Just ahead of them was the Herringfleet swing bridge, where the railway crosses the river, and up at the signal-box by the station a red flag was flying to show that the bridge was closed, as Tom could see for himself. Had the signalman not noticed the white sail of the Teasel coming round the bend from St. Olave’s? Or was there a train coming so that he could not open the bridge?

  “I think I’ll take the tiller,” said Tom, looking about him for somewhere to tie up in case they had to wait, and then deciding that he would do as he had done on the Bure, and turn round and sail the other way, if the tide were not too strong. It would never do to be swept up against the bridge … lose the mast that way.… Oh, couldn’t that man give them a signal if he wasn’t going to open?

  “That flag’s going down,” cried Dorothea. “What does that mean?”

  “Bridge opening,” said Tom, glad now that he had not yet done anything to show that he was in doubt.

  The Teasel sailed on and through the opened bridge. Up in his signal-box they could see the signalman working his levers. Already the bridge was closing. The red flag was again flying from its tall flagstaff.

  “Thank you!” they shouted, and waved, and the s
ignalman high up there in his box put his head and shoulders out of the window and waved back.

  From the Herringfleet bridge to the bridge at Somerleyton is only a mile and a half. But by the time they reached it, the Admiral knew that they were tired. A small yacht was moored to the bank below the Somerleyton Ferry. The yacht was ready for the night, with her awning up, and the Admiral, looking at her, said that if the bridge was closed they might as well moor there, too, and go on next day.

  “Oh, Admiral!” said Dorothea, who was standing by while Dick was steering, in case he should see a heron or some other bird. “Oh, Admiral! Just when she’s going so well.”

  But the bridge was opening as she spoke.

  “I think I can steer her through,” said Dick.

  TIED UP FOR THE NIGHT

  “All right,” said Tom.

  Somerleyton was left behind them, and there seemed to be no point in stopping now.

  The sun had set, the wind was dropping, but the Teasel was still gliding on, so smoothly, so easily, that it seemed impossible to stop. On and on they sailed. A sunset glow spread over the sky, and the reeds stood out black against it. On and on. They could hardly see where the reflections ended and the banks began. Nothing else was moving. Windmills, dark against the darkening sky, seemed twice their proper size. At last, peering forward, they could see that the river was dividing in two.

  “Oulton Dyke,” said Tom, hardly above a whisper. For some time now he had been at the tiller.

  There was hardly enough wind to give the Teasel steerage way as she bore round up the Waveney River. It died altogether. The boom swung in. The main-sheet dipped in the water.

  “Have you got a torch?” said Tom. “Mine’s in the Titmouse.”

  Dick was into the cabin and out again with his torch.

  “Will you take her, Admiral?” Tom hurried forward and stood waiting with the rond anchor in his hand, flashing the light of the torch along the bank.

  “We’ll try here,” he said. “Bring her in. She’s hardly moving. Will she steer?”

  Gently the Teasel pushed her nose towards the bank. There was a thud and a squelch as Tom jumped ashore. He had the anchor fixed in a moment and was back aboard again as the dying tide swung the Teasel slowly round. Aft, in the well, they heard the faint rattle of the block as the jib came down. The peak of the mainsail came slowly, and with difficulty, for the halyard had swollen with the evening dew. By the light of their torches they stowed the sails. By the light of their torches they rigged the awnings, first over the Teasel and then over the Titmouse.

  “Well, it isn’t the furthest anybody’s ever done in a day,” said Tom, “but she really has come a jolly long way.”

  “It seems a pity,” said the Admiral, “but I suppose we must try to keep awake, just until we’ve had our supper.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  COME ALONG AND WELCOME

  THE twins had been very near despair when the wherry had tied up above Yarmouth and the wherryman had told them that the best they could do was to go home. Suddenly, Old Bob and his Come Along had filled them with hope once more. With a motor-boat like the Come Along they felt sure they would be overhauling the Teasel in a minute or two.

  “She’s a splendid little tug,” said Starboard. “SPLENDID TUG,” she shouted, seeing that the old man had not heard her.

  Old Bob, sitting snugly in the stern with his arm over his tiller, agreed with a smile.

  “She’s a good ’un,” he shouted back. “When she say ‘Come along,’ they have to come, and no mistake about it. Many a hundred she’ve pulled off Breydon mud.”

  Both Starboard and the old man had been shouting to make themselves heard, but now, perhaps just to show what she could do, Old Bob opened the throttle and let her out. It was no use even shouting. Port and Starboard looked astern at the following wave racing along the quays. Somehow it seemed quite different from the wash of a motor cruiser. It simply gave them a pleasant feeling that they were really moving through the water. It was a cheerful promise of catching up the Teasel. They settled down to enjoy the chase.

  Old Bob, too, was enjoying himself. All through the summer the Come Along had plenty of work to do, but now, so early in the year, when the season had not fairly started and only a few of the visitors were afloat, every job was worth having, and Old Bob was pleased with his day. At low water he had taken three yachts up through the bridges, and now, thanks to that message from the Yacht Station, he was off again to meet another coming down the Waveney from St. Olave’s. That would mean a long tow back to Yarmouth against the tide, and money well earned. Old Bob hunched himself contentedly in the stern of the Come Along and steered down the narrow river between the Yarmouth houses, with the air of a man who knew he had a job waiting for him as soon as he could get to it.

  The Come Along passed the first bridge, and a goods engine went slowly across it just above their heads. A man on the Corporation Yacht Station waved to Old Bob and Old Bob lifted a hand in return. The second bridge was coming nearer as the little tow-boat, with her steady chug, chug, chug, chug, forced her way down over the incoming stream. That bridge was gone, too. Brown nets hoisted to dry in a blue fishing boat, boys perched on walls looking down, a wherry with lowered mast coming up at a great pace, little spirts of smoke from her stern showing that she had a motor tucked away below, two boys in a rowing boat also going up with the flood, and then the bridge that carries the road to Acle and Norwich, and beyond it, widening water, the quays of Yarmouth on the left, big black and white dolphins on the right, the long Breydon railway bridge, and the broad inland sea where the Teasel had gone before them.

  Suddenly, as old Bob cut a corner between the outer dolphins and headed for Breydon Bridge, they seemed to be going four times as fast as before. There was no difference in the noise of the engine, and they were going no faster through the water, but instead of forcing their way down against the tide flowing up the Bure they were moving with the tide flowing up Breydon. It seemed no time at all before they were racing under the bridge and out on Breydon Water, looking eagerly ahead of them for the Teasel’s white sail. Chug, chug, chug, chug … the Come Along hurried up the middle of the marked channel, with its red posts on one side and black posts on the other. There was not a sail to be seen. Old Bob pulled a pair of binoculars from under a thwart and looked into the distance ahead of them.

  “Where was they bound?” he shouted into Starboard’s ear.

  “Beccles,” shouted Starboard.

  The old man looked back over his shoulder and seemed to settle himself closer to his tiller.

  Port looked at Starboard. Starboard looked at Port. Each knew what the other was thinking. They had no need to shout. They had been sure that the Teasel would be in sight as soon as ever they were out on Breydon Water. Already they could see the line of beacon posts bending away to the left. That house dimly seen on the low ground above the shining water must be the Berney Arms on the Norwich river. And where was the Teasel? They had left Jim Wooddall, who knew them and knew the A.P. There they were, the other side of Yarmouth, in strange waters where no one knew them. How far would the old man take them? And, if they had lost the Teasel, what could they do? It would soon be evening. There could be no getting back to Horning now, even by bus.

  They looked back. There was nothing in sight but a Thames barge, with topsail set over her mainsail, driving up Breydon astern of them, in from the sea.

  “Bound for Norwich likely,” shouted Old Bob, glancing over his shoulder. “Or Beccles.… Corn to Beccles.… Malt to London.… CORN,” he shouted in Starboard’s ear, thinking she had not heard, and Starboard nodded hard for fear he should shout again.

  They came to the top of Breydon Water and the long wall of black piling that guards the Reedham marshes. They passed the point of the spit that divides the Norwich river from the Waveney. Ahead of them, moored against the bank, was the old white hulk of the Breydon pilot.

  “He’ll have seed ’em,” shouted Old Bob, abo
ve the chug, chug of his motor. He leaned forward and shut down his throttle. The Come Along seemed almost quiet.

  The pilot, hands in pockets, was walking up and down the deck of his hulk, and stopped, and stood at the rail and waited for them, when he saw that Old Bob meant to have a word with him.

  “Evenin’, Bob,” he said.

  “Evenin’,” said the old man. “Ha’ you seed a little yacht, with some children aboard, an’ a dog an’ an old lady?”

  “The Teasel?” said the pilot. “They’ll be through St. Olave’s by now, the way they was going. Aimin’ for Beccles, they said.”

  “I got two first-class passengers what missed the tender,” said Old Bob, and then, suddenly, “Is that a sail beatin’ down river?”

  For one moment Port and Starboard were full of hope, but the pilot said, “Yes. Tide’s too strong for her. She’ve been beatin’ there these last twenty minutes and makin’ nothin’ of it.”

  “That’ll be my tow,” said Old Bob, opened the throttle and sent the Come Along racing up the river to meet her.

  “But what are we to do?” shouted Starboard.

  “I reckon we’ve missed ’em,” the old man shouted back. “Gone too far. I got to take that tow.… You’d best give up and come back to Yarmouth wi’ me.… If there’s no bus I reckon my missus’d …” And then, seeing Starboard’s face, he stopped short. He looked back over his shoulder at the Thames barge coming up Breydon. He looked forward at the white triangle of sail showing above the banks far up the river. “My tow won’t have seed me yet,” he shouted with a grin, swung the Come Along round and headed back the way they had come.

  “He isn’t taking us back to Yarmouth now?” said Port. But nobody heard her.

  Back they went, past the place where the two rivers join and there by the Reedham marshes at the top of Breydon they met the barge, forging grandly along with a curl of white water under her bows. They could see a big old man standing at the wheel, a woman busy with some knitting close beside him, and another man sitting on a hatch and playing a mouth organ. They could see his hand move to and fro across his mouth, but could hear nothing at all but the chug, chug of Old Bob’s engine. Just as they met, Old Bob swung the Come Along round, came alongside, and closing the throttle of his engine, reduced speed until the Come Along was keeping pace with the barge.