Coot Club

by Arthur Ransome

  “Couldn’t we have stopped below the railway bridge?” said Dorothea.

  “We can’t turn back,” said Tom.

  On and on they went, beating down the Yare against the wind but helped by the outflowing tide. And then, after being afraid of being too late, they began to be afraid of being too early. The Coots kept looking anxiously at Tom’s watch and at the Admiral’s, which she lent to Starboard because, as she said, she was tired of being asked the time. They kept looking at the mud that showed how far the level of the river had dropped since high water. It had dropped so little that anybody could see that the ebb must last for a long time yet.

  They had just passed the three windmills, a mile and a half before the meeting of the Waveney and the Yare at the head of Breydon Water, when they had to change their plans once more.

  “It doesn’t look as if the ebb’s nearly half done,” said Starboard.

  “We mustn’t get down there while it’s still pouring out.”

  Last night they had been talking of what this might mean, and Dorothea saw the Teasel and the little Titmouse swirling, helpless in the tide, being swept down to sea under the Yarmouth bridges.

  “We’ll have to stop somewhere,” said Tom.

  “The banks look unco’ dour,” said Port.

  “Fare main bad to me,” said Starboard, who talked broad Norfolk because of her sister’s talking Ginty language.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Tom. “We’ll go round into the Waveney and tie up by the Breydon pilot. He’ll tell us when to start again.…”

  “It said ‘Safe Moorings for Yachts’,” said Dick. “And there’d be lots of waders to look at, with the tide going out.”

  “Why not?” said Starboard.

  “Wind’s easterly,” said Tom. “We’ll easily be able to sail that bit up to the pilot’s against the tide.”

  “All right,” said the Admiral. “But what about stores? William and I are starving. And we can’t expect the pilot to have food for seven. Eggs? Who said eggs? We ate the last four. There isn’t an egg in the ship. And no bread. And both water-jars are empty.…”

  Dorothea was looking at the map. “There are two houses marked near the mouth of the river,” she said.

  “We could get milk and eggs at the Berney Arms,” said Tom. “Water, too, probably.”

  On and on they sailed. Already the wind seemed colder coming over Breydon, and they could hear the calling of the gulls. A red brick house came into sight on the bank, close above them.

  “That looks like a farm,” said the Admiral. “Let’s tie up and ask here.”

  “I daren’t,” said Tom. “Not with the Teasel, and the tide going out. No good getting stuck. Come on, Starboard. You take over. I’ll slip ashore in Titmouse. You sail round the corner. The pilot’ll tell you the best place to moor. I’ll be along with the stores by the time you get the sails down.”

  He hauled Titmouse alongside, and dropped carefully into her, while Starboard took the speed off the Teasel by heading her into the wind. Port and Dick between them gave him the big earthenware water-jar. Dorothea handed down milk-can and egg-basket. The Admiral gave him the ship’s purse and told him to take what was wanted out of it.

  “Coming, too, Dick?” Tom was bursting to have a little voyage in the Titmouse in these strange waters, and thought that Dick would be delighted at the chance.

  But Dick was all for sticking to the Teasel. He wanted to get to the pilot’s. There might be another chance of seeing those spoonbills. He remembered the mud-flats opposite the pilot’s hulk. He wanted all the time there that he could get.

  Tom let go, and, as the Teasel sailed on, was left astern, fitting his rowlocks and getting out his oars. As they turned the bend, they saw him already rowing in towards the bank.

  *

  “My word,” said Starboard, “she sails a lot better without Titmouse to tow.”

  “Titmouse is very useful,” said Dorothea.

  “All right,” laughed Starboard. “We couldn’t do without her, but the Teasel does like kicking up her heels without a dinghy at her tail.”

  “There’s the Berney Arms,” said the Admiral, and then, as they began beating down the last reach of the river, “And there are the Breydon posts.”

  Ahead of them was black piling and a tall post marking the place where the two rivers met. Beyond it they could see where open water stretched far into the distance, with beacon posts marking the channel. They were at the mouth of the river. There, round the corner, was the old hulk of the Breydon pilot’s houseboat.1

  “We’ve never seen Breydon with the water all over everywhere,” said Dorothea.

  “Just look at the birds,” said Dick.

  “Can’t we just go down a little way to have a look at it?” said Dorothea.

  Port looked back up the river. There was no sign of Tom.

  “It’ll take Tom a long time to come round in Titmouse,” said Dorothea, “and the Teasel sails awfully fast.”

  Starboard was already bringing the Teasel round the end of the piling, and heading her up towards the Breydon pilot’s moored hulk.

  “What do the Coots think?” said the Admiral.

  “We’d be able to get back all right with the wind as it is,” said Starboard. “You can see by the way she’s going now.”

  “Do let’s,” said Dorothea. “It must be all right if they used to have regattas on it.”

  “It is all right, really,” said the Admiral. Far-off days were in her mind when Breydon Water was gay with yachts and she was listening for the crack of the winning gun in the commodore’s steam launch. She was seeing frilled parasols and rowing skiffs, and young women with little sailor hats, and spreading skirts and sleeves most strangely puffed above the elbows.

  “I don’t think we could possibly get into trouble if we went down as far as the end of the piling.”

  “Hurrah,” said Dorothea.

  “Good,” said Dick, who had the binoculars all ready in his hands in hopes of seeing the spoonbills.

  “All right,” said Starboard. “In with the main-sheet. Ready about.”

  The Teasel swung round into the wind, went about, and, with the tide helping her once more, beat down into Breydon Water.

  “Tom’ll see us all right,” said Dorothea.

  “We’ll turn back in plenty of time,” said the Admiral, and leaning on the top of the cabin roof, looked far ahead, seeing crowded boats, and remembered figures aboard them, where now was nothing but the salt lake, the posts marking the channel and the wild birds moving over the mud-flats following the outgoing tide.

  “Just a little farther I think we might go,” she said, when they came to the end of the piling that protects Reedham marshes from the river. “It isn’t really Breydon till it’s clear on both sides.”

  On they sailed, beating slowly to and fro, against the north-east wind, but hardly noticing how fast the ebb was carrying them with it.

  “She can jolly well sail,” said Starboard. Even the twins, though doubtful about what Tom would think of it, could not help enjoying themselves, sailing in this wide channel, leaving a red post on one side, and turning again when they came near a black post on the other, although, with the tide as it was, the water on both sides stretched far away beyond the posts.

  “There they are, I do believe,” whispered Dick, looking through the glasses.

  “What?” said Dorothea.

  “Spoonbills,” said Dick. “They’re a long way off. But they can’t be anything else.”

  “Fog at sea,” said Starboard, as they heard the foghorn of a lightship off the coast.

  “It really is just like the bittern,” said Dick.

  “We’d better turn back now,” said Port.

  “Just a wee bit farther,” said Dorothea.

  “Two more posts and then we’ll turn,” said the Admiral. “Wonderful it is, with that low bank of haze over Yarmouth.”

  “It isn’t as clear as it was,” said Starboard. “Ready about
.” They came close up to a red post, sending a gull screaming from the top of it, went about, and stood away towards a black post on the other side of the channel.

  Dorothea shivered, and laughed. “Cold wind,” she said. “But isn’t this lovely sailing?”

  “I can’t see those spoonbills,” said Dick, rubbing the lenses of the binoculars with his handkerchief.

  “It’s getting foggy over there,” said Port.

  “It’s rather foggy here,” said Dick. “It is like a bittern, that horn.”

  And suddenly, almost before they knew it was coming, the fog was upon them. Yarmouth had disappeared, and the long line of those huge posts seemed to end nearer than it had. They could see only about a dozen … only six … and some of those were going … had gone.…

  “Turn her round,” said the Admiral sharply. “We must get back to the river as quick as we can.”

  But it was too late. The fog bank had reached them and rolled over them. The Teasel turned in her own length, and began driving slowly back over the tide, with the boom well out and the wind astern. But, already, her crew could not see the mouth of the river. They could see nothing at all except a black post close ahead of them.

  “Leave the post to starboard,” said Port.

  “Teach your grandmother,” said her sister.

  “Don’t lose sight of it until you see the next one,” said the Admiral.

  “Not going to.”

  “We’ll just have to sail from post to post.”

  There was something terrifying in sailing quite fast through the water with nothing in sight but a dim, phantom post that seemed hardly to move at all. That was the tide, of course, carrying them down almost as fast as they sailed up against it. It was quite natural, and nobody would have minded if only it had been possible to see a little farther. But now, alone, in this cold, wet fog, with everything vanished except that ghostly post, it was as if they had lost the rest of the world. The long deep hoots from the lightship out at sea and the sirens of the trawlers down in the harbour made things worse, not better. The fog played tricks with these distant noises, making them sound now close at hand and now so far away that they could hardly be heard. Dorothea knew that the Admiral was worried, and she listened anxiously for the note of fear in the voices of the others. She could tell nothing from their faces as they stared out into the fog.

  “I’m going forward,” said Dick. “Even a few yards may make a difference in looking through the fog for that next post.”

  He was gone, clambering carefully along the side-deck with a hand on the cabin roof. On the foredeck, holding on by the mast, it was as if he were a boy made of fog, only of fog a little darker than the rest.

  “Keep your eye on that post,” said the Admiral again.

  “It’s going.”

  “I can see it.”

  “Can’t see anything at all.” Dick’s voice came from the foredeck.

  Starboard was not accustomed to steering in the dark. And this pale fog was worse than darkness. Dimly, away to her right, she could see that post, but she had a lot of other things to remember. There was the tide trying to take the Teasel down to Yarmouth, and the wind blowing her the other way. What if the wind were dropping. She glanced over the side at the brown water sweeping by. The little ship was moving well, but oh how slowly she was leaving that post. She must not lose sight of it, until she had another to steer for. Was the wind changing? If it did change, why, anything might happen. Funny. There it was on her right cheek. She could feel it on her nose. A moment ago it was not like that.… Why, it wasn’t dead aft any more.…

  “Haul in on the sheet, Twin. She isn’t going like she was.”

  “The post’s moving,” said Dorothea. “It’s going. Dick, Dick, can’t you see the next? We’ve passed this one. It’s gone.… No.… I can still see it.…”

  “Something’s wrong with the wind,” said Starboard in a puzzled voice.

  “DON’T LOSE SIGHT OF THAT POST!”

  “The post’s gone,” said Port.

  “It was over there a moment ago,” said Dorothea, pointing.

  “It can’t have been there,” said Starboard. “More sheet in, Twin.”

  “We’re bound to see the next post in a moment,” said the Admiral.

  And then, suddenly, all five of them in the well, and William, tumbled against each other. It was as if someone lying under water had reached up and caught the Teasel by the keel. She pushed on a yard or two, stickily, heeling over more and more. She came to a standstill.

  “Ready about,” said Starboard. Instantly Port let fly the jib-sheet. But the rudder was useless. The Teasel did not stir. Starboard looked despairingly at the Admiral. “I’ve done it,” she said. “I’ve gone and put her aground.”

  “It’s my fault,” said the Admiral. “If you’d been alone you’d never have come down here.”

  “We might try backing the jib,” said Starboard. “Or the quant.”

  “We’ll stay where we are,” said the Admiral. “Nobody’ll run into us here. And anything’s better than drifting about in the fog.”

  “But what about Tom?” said Dorothea.

  1 See map and picture.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE TITMOUSE IN THE FOG

  TOM pulled in towards some quay-heading, tied up the Titmouse, and went up the bank to the house. There was no one about. He wandered round to the back, but there was no answer to his knocking, the windows were all closed, no smoke was coming from the chimneys and he soon made up his mind that everybody was away from home. He hurried down the bank again to the Titmouse, saw that the river had fallen several inches in those few minutes, and was presently drifting downstream with the tide.

  He was no longer worried about getting through Yarmouth. The only difficulty now was to make sure of getting there at exactly the right time, and the Breydon pilot would know to a minute when they ought to start. He was perfectly happy about the Teasel. The twins would sail her round to the pilot’s just as well as he could himself. Why should the little Titmouse not have her turn of sailing? He stepped her mast, hoisted her sail, lowered her centre-board and tacked down-river to the Berney Arms. Here he chose his moment, dropped the sail again, pulled up the centre-board, and brought the Titmouse alongside what seemed to him the best landing-place. He made fast her painter round the top of an old pile, and went up the bank to the inn, taking with him basket, milk-can and stone water-jar.

  A cheerful young man met him at the door.

  “Two dozen of eggs? And a quart of milk? And I daresay we can find you a loaf. But where’s your ship? You won’t be eating all this in that little boat.”

  “She’s gone round to the Breydon pilot’s,” said Tom, looking away towards Burgh over the strip of land between the two rivers, and wondering why he could see nothing of the Teasel. Afloat in the Titmouse he had not been able to see beyond the banks.

  “Not that little yacht gone down Breydon?”

  “Gone down Breydon?”

  That certainly did look very like the Teasel’s sail, tacking away down there towards the open water. But what were they doing? Could they have made a mistake about the plan? Port and Starboard knew what they were about, surely.

  “You’ll have a job to catch her.”

  “They’ll be turning back in a minute,” said Tom, but kept his eyes on that white sail, growing smaller and smaller, while a girl was sent off to collect eggs, and, after she had brought his basket back full of eggs, had to go off again to fill his milk-can. The young man took the big water-jar and filled it with fresh water at the pump.

  “Main heavy this,” he said, as he brought it back. “I’ll give you a hand with it down to your little boat.”

  He carried it down and put it in the Titmouse, and then after Tom had stowed milk and eggs and bread, and had gone aboard and was all ready to sail, the young man unfastened the painter but did not let it go. He just stood there smiling down at Tom and talking, asking Tom where he and his friends had com
e from, and how many they were aboard, and if they had been that way before, until it was all Tom could do to keep from begging him to have done. Tom thanked him several times, and at last the young man dropped the painter into the Titmouse and gave her a push off. If Tom had been asked what the young man had been saying he could not have answered. His mind was all with the Teasel. What could the twins be thinking of, going down Breydon? They would be able to blow back with the easterly wind, but it would take them a long time against the tide.

  At the mouth of the Waveney he looked up the river to the pilot’s. The Teasel certainly was not there. He had been telling himself that you can sail a boat for a good many days and yet not know her when you see her a long way off, being sailed by somebody else. But, after all, what other boat could it be? There were so few yachts about so early in the year. He knew very well that the white sail, now a long way down Breydon, was the Teasel and no other. They would have to turn soon, anyway. And with all that talk about wanting food and drink. The only thing to do would be to sail down Breydon to meet them. If the worst came to the worst they could take a Primus into the cabin and boil a kettle and scramble eggs there, even if the Teasel was under way.

  So Tom, in the Titmouse, wedging the water-jar between his knees and remembering that he would have to be careful not to spill it in going about, beat down to Breydon Water in pursuit of his runaway ship. A long way down they had taken her already. And the tide was pouring down. Bother those twins. He had been counting on having a word with the pilot in the hulk just up the Waveney river, so as to make sure of getting to Breydon Bridge exactly at slack water. He did not like the look of the weather either. It was very misty down towards Yarmouth. And then, suddenly, he saw that bank of fog rolling up Breydon from the North Sea. Just before the fog reached the Teasel, he saw her swing round, too late now, close by one of the black beacon posts on the northern side of the channel. Then the fog rolled over her, and only a few minutes after that, he was himself unable to see more than a yard or two from the Titmouse.