Great Northern?

by Arthur Ransome

  “Stern warp, John! Haul in and belay!”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.”

  “Port warp, Nancy.”

  He was coming off again in the dinghy. Nancy passed down the end of a rope, and he took it ashore and made it fast round a rock.

  “Starboard warp!”

  In a very few minutes the Sea Bear was moored stem and stern, with ropes ashore on either side.

  “Scrunch. Scrunch.”

  “She’s afloat again,” called Roger. “Shall I give her another push with the engine?”

  “Finished with engines.”

  Roger disappeared below. The throbbing of the engine came to an end and Roger bobbed up again on deck, wiping his hands on a greasy rag and looking extremely pleased.

  HOW LEGS WORK

  Captain Flint, very hot and out of breath, came aboard.

  “Scrunch” … A very gentle scrunch this time.

  “She’s tickling the ground,” said Titty.

  “That’s all right,” he panted. “Tide’s got another inch or two to rise. And now we’ll put our feet down. Starboard side first. We’ve plenty of time to get them both down before she settles.”

  Nothing could have been simpler. The after end of the long timber that had been slung along the starboard side was lowered. Nancy pulled on a rope in the bows while John paid out a rope from the stern until the timber was standing straight up and down. Captain Flint had a good look, and both ropes were made fast. The upper end of the post was lashed to the shroud. The same thing was done to the leg on the other side, and there was the Sea Bear ready to take the ground with her keel and with a leg on each side of her to hold her up as soon as the tide should leave her.

  “You’d better get dressed,” said Dorothea to Dick, and he bolted below. Any minute now he would know whether he would be free to go ashore.

  “That’s all we can do for now,” said Captain Flint presently. “Well done, everybody. What about breakfast?”

  “Porridge’ll be cold,” said Susan.

  “Who cares?” said Nancy.

  “There’ll be hot coffee anyway,” said Peggy. “I got the Primus going again while you were fixing the legs.”

  They had hardly begun their porridge when they felt the ship meet the bottom once more and they knew that the tide which had lifted them after they first touched had begun to drop. There was a general stampede up the companion and up the fo’c’sle ladders.

  “She’s sitting very pretty,” said Captain Flint.

  “What about her legs?” said John.

  “They’ll be doing their share in a minute.”

  “This one’s on the bottom anyhow,” said Roger. “I can see a fish nosing round it.”

  “Her waterline’s showing,” said Nancy a minute or two later.

  “Another couple of hours and we’ll be at work.”

  “Do let’s get breakfast finished,” said Susan.

  They went down again and Dick, still thinking of those lochs marked on the chart not so very far away, put his question.

  “Will you want all of us for the scrubbing?” he said.

  “All hands,” said Nancy.

  “Don’t you think it,” said Captain Flint. “Not enough brushes and scrapers for one thing. No. The four toughest are the ones I want. John and Nancy with Susan and Peggy to lend a hand. And we’ll ask the others to keep out of the way. Better let them have a run ashore.”

  “We’ll explore,” said Titty joyfully.

  “Of course if you really don’t want us,” said Dorothea, who also was thinking of adventure on land.

  “Good,” said Roger.

  Dick, thinking of Divers, was too pleased to say anything at all.

  “Stow your grub away,” said Peggy, “and then Susan and I’ll make sandwiches so that the land party can clear out.”

  “The land party!” Titty and Dorothea and Roger looked at each other with eyes full of plans. Dick was running over in his mind the things that, as Ship’s Naturalist, he must not forget to take.

  “May we take the little chart?” asked Titty.

  “It doesn’t give names to anything,” said John.

  “All the better,” said Titty. “We’ll put in names ourselves … Scrubbers’ Bay for a start.”

  “And Gull Cliff,” said Dorothea.

  “I don’t suppose Mac’ll mind,” said Captain Flint.

  The Sea Bear was settling firmly on her keel and legs. People talked a little less loudly than usual. Throughout the cruise they had known her alive under their feet, swaying along with a reaching wind, punching into head seas, alive always, even when moored in harbour for the night. Now, suddenly, she was dead. Nobody said anything about it, but each one of them kept glancing at the faces of the others to see if they felt it too.

  “I wonder what she’s like underneath,” said Nancy suddenly.

  “We’ll soon know,” said John.

  “Most of these old pilot cutters are the same,” said Captain Flint. “Deepest at the heel.”

  “Won’t she settle on a slant with her nose down?” said John, who had been thinking it out.

  “She would on flat ground,” said Captain Flint. “But this beach has a slope to it. She’s very nearly level, and she must be pretty well solid on her legs by now.”

  “I’ve had enough to eat,” said Nancy. “I’m going up to have a look.”

  Captain Flint followed her, stuffing tobacco into his pipe. John made a large mouthful of the last of a slice of bread and marmalade, gulped the last of his coffee, and was gone. Titty and Dorothea hurried after John. Dick had already finished his breakfast and was getting out the things he needed and putting them in a row on the settee below his bunk. Camera. Telescope. Pencil. Notebook. Nothing was to be forgotten. Roger stood up, glanced at the companion ladder and then back at the table. He sat down again and passed his empty mug to Susan. He was the engineer and his job for the moment was done. He helped himself to another slice of bread. Susan laughed.

  “Still hungry?” she said.

  “Why not?” said Roger. “I am, if you want to know.”

  “Better eat now,” said Susan, “and then you won’t have to carry so much grub when you go ashore.”

  Roger looked at her with some suspicion. Was Susan laughing or not? “We’ll all be hungry again if we go a long way,” he said.

  “We won’t starve you,” said Peggy.

  Dick was sure he had forgotten nothing. He put the small things in his pocket, put the camera in his knapsack, to make sure of keeping it dry, and, with his knapsack ready on his back, went up on deck.

  “Look over the side,” said Dorothea. “The tide’s gone down a lot already.”

  Dick looked over. A broad strip of the dark green underwater body of the Sea Bear was showing along her sides.

  “The sooner we all get ashore the better,” said Nancy. “Come on, John. Cargo of paint, brushes, scrapers. Much easier now than when she’s high and dry.”

  “Scrapers?” said Dorothea.

  “For the barnacles,” said Nancy. “She’s fairly covered with them. And slimy with weed.”

  “What about putting the folding boat over?” said John.

  “We shan’t need it,” said Captain Flint. “We’ll only have it to stow again.”

  “Let’s have it all the same,” said Nancy, looking at the queer shape of the folding boat, stowed almost flat, and lashed alongside the skylight. “We’ve never used it once. And today’s the last chance.”

  “Get the scrubbing done and you shall play about in the folder this evening, once the Sea Bear’s afloat again.”

  “Right,” said Nancy. “That’s a promise.”

  Everything had gone well and everybody knew it. They had only to look at Captain Flint, sitting on the cabin skylight smoking his pipe, to know that he was no longer the worried skipper of the night and the early morning. He was not even bothering to give advice as John and Nancy brought up mops and long-handled scrapers, and two great tins of Mariner Brand
, Best Quality, Gold Medal Anti-fouling Paint out of the stores in the fo’c’sle, and lowered them down to Titty and Dorothea, who were already in the dinghy, hoping to be the first ashore.

  Peggy put her head out of the forehatch. “Susan wants to know if we’d better get grub ready now for the scrubbers as well as for the others.”

  “Much better. Horrible job climbing aboard again for it.”

  Ferrying began, and long before it was finished the tide had dropped enough to make it difficult to reach the dinghy even with the rope ladder.

  “Isn’t Captain Flint coming?” asked Titty.

  “The captain’s always last to leave the ship,” said Dorothea.

  “But the Sea Bear isn’t a wreck,” said Titty.

  “He wants to be last anyway,” said Dorothea.

  Nancy went back once more to fetch him, and there was a cheerful moment when Roger said, “He’s going to fall in,” as Captain Flint climbed heavily down to the dinghy by way of the bobstay. He did not come straight ashore but sat in the stern of the dinghy while Nancy rowed him round the ship.

  “He’s got his long boots on,” said Roger.

  “Hell want them,” said John. “He’ll be able to get going long before we can.”

  It was quite like a camp on the beach, what with all the stuff that had been brought ashore, and the whole crew of the Sea Bear waiting by it, watching the tide fall lower and lower round their ship. The sun poured down into the little bay. There was a blue sky overhead. Little clouds flying across it were like scattered flecks of cotton wool, “A grand drying day,” said Captain Flint.

  “Her starboard side’ll be dry first,” said John, glancing towards the sun.

  “That’s the one we’ll begin on,” said Nancy. “Gosh! What waste of time it is going into harbours. This is ten times better.”

  “Hadn’t the explorers better get going?” said Dorothea.

  “Let’s just wait to see her really standing out of the water,” said Titty.

  “You needn’t go at all if you don’t want to,” said Nancy.

  “But we do,” said Titty, and Dick looked at her gratefully.

  “You won’t find anything inland half so exciting as this,” said Nancy.

  “I bet we do,” said Roger.

  “Unknown country,” said Titty.

  “It’ll be real exploring,” said Dorothea.

  “Instead of just paddling and scrubbing,” said Roger.

  “Well, get along with you,” said Nancy.

  But the explorers lingered, as the legs of their ship stood higher and higher out of the water, and Captain Flint in his long sea boots waded out with a stiff scrubbing brush and began work on the Sea Bear’s stem. They waited, with Dick growing more and more anxious, till John and Nancy waded out to join the skipper, able at last to stand in the shallow water under the Sea Bear’s bows.

  “Do let’s start,” said Dick.

  “What time have we got to be back?” asked Dorothea, and Susan repeated the question. “What time had they better be back?”

  “Oh, sevenish,” called Captain Flint. “We’ll give them a hoot with the fog horn as soon as she floats.”

  “Come on,” said Dorothea.

  “Don’t get into trouble with natives,” said Susan.

  “There aren’t any,” said Titty. “It’s beautifully uninhabited.”

  “There are houses the other side of that ridge,” said Nancy.

  “But not this side,” said Titty. “Anyhow not on the chart.”

  “So long, you scrubbers,” called Roger, and the land party turned their backs on the Sea Bear and climbed up from the shore, explorers in a strange land.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE FIRST DISCOVERY

  FROM ABOVE THE little bay the land party looked down just for a moment on the Sea Bear and the scrubbers working at her in water up to their knees. Then they plunged forward over springy peat among rocks and short heather.

  “Now!” said Titty.

  “Now what?” said Dorothea.

  “They’re out of sight,” said Titty.

  “Yes,” said Dorothea. “Anything may happen any minute.”

  “What’s the time?” asked Roger.

  “Dick,” said Dorothea. “What’s the time?”

  Dick was looking westward over wild, broken moorland, hoping to see the lochs marked on the chart, but they were still hidden by a lump of rising ground.

  “Dick,” said Dorothea again. “Time?”

  He started, pulled himself together, and looked at his watch.

  “Seven … seven and a half minutes to twelve. We’ve wasted a lot of time already.”

  “We’ve got six hours at least,” said Roger. “That’s six times sixty minutes for things to happen in. Three hundred and sixty different things.”

  “One’ll be enough,” said Titty. “If it’s the right sort of thing, and it’s bound to be in a place like this.”

  “Those tarns must be about due west,” said Dick.

  “We’ll see them when we get higher up,” said Dorothea.

  “Let’s get to the top of this one,” said Titty, pointing up the hill to the north of them. “Up there we’ll be able to see all ways at once.”

  “If we work north-west,” said Dick.

  “No,” said Roger. “Much better go straight up, and be able to look all round.”

  “This is the best day of the whole cruise,” said Titty, and climbed on.

  “I know why,” said Dorothea. “It’s because it wasn’t planned.”

  That was it. For the four able seamen, as well as for Nancy and John, the cruise had been too successful. The Sea Bear, sailing from port to port, from one famous anchorage to another, had been as regular as a liner. Everything had gone according to programme, and that programme had not allowed for such days as this, with four able seamen exploring by themselves and their elders thoroughly busy and out of the way.

  “Indian trail,” exclaimed Dorothea a minute or two later, and stopped short, looking at a trodden path between clumps of heather. The others joined her.

  “No footprints,” said Titty.

  “Sheep-track,” said Roger.

  “Deer,” said Dick. “Look at that mark. The hoof’s much bigger than a sheep’s.”

  “John said he thought he saw a stag early this morning when the fog cleared.”

  “We’ll see them drinking their fill at eve,” said Titty.

  “At those tarns perhaps,” said Dick, “unless the chart was wrong and there aren’t any.”

  “If they’re marked on the chart they’ll be there,” said Titty. “We’ll see them as soon as we get a bit higher.”

  They climbed on, with the world about them growing wider as they climbed. Looking southward they could see how the coast curved out towards the distant Head. White crests of foam flecked the blue sea.

  “You’d never think it was blowing like this when you’re down in our creek,” said Titty, leaning against a gust of wind that blew her hair past her cheeks. “Dot’s jolly lucky to have pigtails.”

  “I’m luckier,” said Roger, “and so’s Dick, except for his goggles.” In the harder gusts, Dick was putting a hand to his spectacles which shook in the wind so that he found it hard to see through them. “Come on, Dick. Don’t let’s stop before we get to the top.”

  “Coming,” said Dick who, besides having trouble with his spectacles, was finding it hard to steady his telescope while he searched as much of the valley as he could see for a sign of the two lochs. “I can see deer,” he said suddenly.

  “Where?” said Dorothea.

  “A whole lot of them, grazing like cows.”

  “We’ll see them better from higher up,” said Roger. “Race you to the top.”

  He raced alone. The others plodded after him. Dorothea had picked a small purple flower and was showing it to Dick.

  “It’s a butterwort, I think,” said Dick. “But I don’t know for certain.”

  “Sticky leaves,”
said Dorothea.

  “Fly-catcher,” said Dick, stooping over a small patch of flowers.

  “Roger,” called Titty. “Wait a minute. We ought to keep together,” she said to the others. “We’re in unknown country and anything may happen.”

  “Something has,” said Dorothea. “Look at him.”

  Roger had reached the top of the hill. He was urgently beckoning to them, pointing at something close beside him and beckoning again. He was not shouting. That in itself was enough to tell them that he was not simply trying to hurry them.

  “He may have seen enemies,” said Titty.

  “What is he doing?” said Dorothea.

  Roger, after one more bout of beckoning, had dropped to the ground. A moment later he had disappeared. It was not as if he had crawled on over the top of the hill. He had not seemed to be moving. One moment they had seen him crouching on the ground with his back towards them. The next moment he had gone. He simply was not there.

  “Come on,” said Titty, and raced up the steep slope of the hill. “He must have found a cave. Come on.”

  “The top of the hill’s a queer shape,” said Dick.

  “It’s like … Dick … I know what it is,” panted Dorothea.

  *

  They could all see it now, a green, turf-covered mound on the very top of the hill, and, as Titty came breathlessly up to it, Roger came scrambling out.

  “What about this?” he said.

  “It’s a Pict-house,” said Dorothea. “A real one. Prehistoric, like that one they showed us on Skye.”

  “Well, nobody showed us this one,” said Roger. “I found it myself.” That day on Skye had been a wasted one. Well-meaning natives had shown them things and they had felt more like trippers than explorers.

  “What’s it like inside?” said Titty, stooping to look into the hole out of which Roger had crawled.

  “The hole doesn’t go very far,” said Roger. “It’s a square sort of tunnel. Stone walls. Beastly dark.”

  “I say,” said Dorothea. “How would it be if I made my robber chief prehistoric? He’d wear skins and live up here and see the Danish long-ships coming into our bay.”