Great Northern?

by Arthur Ransome

  “All hands below,” Captain Flint roared from under their feet. “We’re off early. I’m asleep already.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  “HE’S STILL THERE!”

  DICK WAS THE first of the crew to come on deck. He found Captain Flint there before him, standing by the mast, licking the back of his hand and holding it up, this way and that, feeling for a breath of wind.

  “Hullo, Dick, you’re in a hurry.”

  “I am, rather,” said Dick. “It would be an awful pity if he’s gone before we get there.”

  “Who? Oh, your bird-man. It doesn’t look as if we’re going to get there very soon. Just bad luck. There isn’t wind to stir a candle flame.”

  “Shall I go and wake up Roger?”

  “There isn’t enough in the tank to do it under power,” said Captain Flint.

  Dick looked round. In the early morning light the little cove was like a mill pond and out at sea there were no waves but only a gentle swell to shake the long glittering path laid there by the sun.

  “Pretty hopeless,” said Captain Flint.

  Dick had a new idea.

  “If we can’t start, would it be all right for me to go and have another look at those Divers?”

  “No,” said Captain Flint, “it would not. No shore-leave on the day a ship sails. The wind might come and we’d have to send more of the crew to collect you, and likely enough the rest of the crew to collect them … Hullo!” Again he licked the back of his hand and held it up. “No. No going ashore. There’s just a suspicion of a wind. It’s coming all right. And we’ll have the tide with us at the start. Yes. Down you go and dig up the engineer. We’ll maybe find a breath to help us when we get outside.”

  Dick shot down the ladder, shouting, “Roger! Engine!”

  Captain Flint looked at his watch, and came aft. “They can have their sleep out later,” he said to himself, and reached into the companion.

  “Ting … Ting … Ting … Ting.…”

  The ship’s bell clanged.

  “Coming!” yelled Roger.

  “Four bells,” said John, rubbing his eyes. “I thought we were starting earlier.”

  Everywhere people were rolling out of their bunks.

  “All hands!” came a cheerful shout from on deck, and there was a general rush for the ladder.

  “But there’s no wind,” said Nancy as she reached the deck.

  “Going out to look for it,” said Captain Flint. “I felt a breath just now.”

  A much worried Roger came up from the engine room. “Tank’s nearly empty, Sir,” he said. “You haven’t forgotten?”

  “Worse luck,” said Captain Flint. “But we’ll shut off as soon as we have her outside. Start her up and have her ticking over in neutral.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” said Roger, and was gone.

  The next few minutes were full of the regular drill of getting under way. Tyers were cast off the sails. Everything was made ready for hoisting. John and Nancy were working the winch. Clink, clank, clink, clank … The chain was coming in. Peggy hauled the flag to the masthead, where it dangled without a flap against the bamboo flagstaff.

  “Straight up and down, Sir,” said John, looking over the bows.

  The first “Chug, chug” came from the engine.

  “Dick,” shouted Roger, “see if the water’s coming out of the exhaust.”

  Dick leaned over and saw puffs of blue smoke and little jets of water spurting as they should.

  “Yes,” he called.

  “Engines ready, Sir,” said Roger, coming on deck.

  “Anchor off the ground,” called John.

  “Slow ahead,” said Captain Flint. “Here you are, Nancy. Keep her in the middle. I’ll get the anchor aboard.”

  The tune of the engine changed. The Sea Bear was moving. There was a thump as the anchor was settled in its chocks. The mainsail swayed aloft and hung idly in the windless air. The staysail climbed to its place and hung there, like the mainsail, waiting for a wind.

  “That’ll do,” said Captain Flint.

  “Well, good-bye to Scrubbers’ Bay,” said Nancy. “I’m jolly glad we came here.”

  “I’m not,” said Captain Flint. “If we’d scrubbed in port we could have filled up with petrol at the same time.”

  “The Scrubbers missed the best of it,” said Roger, who was waiting in the cockpit, with the engine-hatch open.

  “You and your Gaels,” laughed Nancy.

  “Well, you saw one yourself,” said Titty. Her voice changed. “There’s one of them now,” she added. “I wonder if he’s been watching us all night.”

  They were not the only people to be early astir. As the Sea Bear moved slowly out towards the open sea, they saw a tall, grey-bearded figure standing on the cliff.

  “That’s the one who came charging after us,” said Dorothea.

  Roger turned to look at him.

  “He can’t catch us now,” he said. “Let’s give him a wave.”

  The crew of the Sea Bear waved cheerfully. The man did not wave back, but stood there watching them, leaning on a long stick.

  “What a dogmudgeonly brute,” said Roger.

  “Dogmudgeon’s a good word,” said Nancy.

  “Isn’t it?” said Roger. “I’ll lend it you if you like.”

  Clearing the point, the Sea Bear lifted gently to the swell, and the explorers, putting Scrubbers’ Bay behind them for the moment, thought of their Gaels no more.

  The little flag at the masthead lifted half-heartedly. The mainsail filled. The Sea Bear was sailing, though there was so little wind that the mainsheet never properly hardened but hung, dipped in the water, rose dripping and jerked taut as the Sea Bear rolled, and then slacked and dipped again. The jib had been broken out, the topsail set, but it was still the engine that was doing the work.

  “The wind’s trying to be north-west,” said Nancy. “That’ll take us to the Head.”

  “How soon?” asked Dick.

  “This time next year if it doesn’t come a little harder,” said Captain Flint. “Who wants to steer? Titty? Dorothea?”

  Everybody laughed except Dick. Titty had more than once complained during the cruise that neither she nor indeed any of the four younger ones was ever asked to steer except in a calm.

  “No thank you,” said Titty.

  “I’ll steer,” said Dorothea, with just a glance at Dick.

  “South-East by East,” said Captain Flint. “But don’t you worry about the compass. You can see the Head. Keep it clear on the starboard bow and you can’t go wrong. I’m afraid we’ve got to stop that engine.” He took the dipstick that hung just inside the engine-room hatch, unscrewed the filler cap of the tank that was hidden under the after deck, and dipped.

  “How much?” asked Roger over his shoulder.

  Captain Flint looked at the dipstick. Only the very tip of it was wet.

  “Put her in neutral, Roger. Stop her. There’s hardly a drop left, and we must keep that for later.”

  “Gosh!” said Roger. “We’ll never get there at all.”

  He slipped below. The engine was silent. The Sea Bear lost speed. She was hardly moving. Dorothea very gently moved the tiller, to reassure herself that the ship still had steerage way.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Nancy. “We’re at sea, and we’re not in a hurry.”

  “But we are,” said Dick.

  “I forgot you and your Pterodactyl,” said Nancy. “But your bird-man may not have been going back there when we saw him. He may be anywhere by now.”

  Captain Flint lit his pipe and dropped the dead match overboard, where it slowly, very slowly, drifted astern. “Going in there to scrub is losing us two days instead of one,” he said. “If only we had full tanks we’d be half way across by now.”

  “If we hadn’t gone in I wouldn’t have seen the Great Northerns,” said Dick, “… if they were Great Northerns.” But he, like Captain Flint, looked at the dead match in the water and then at the far away lump
of the Head, sticking up out of the sea. Going at this pace it would take them a very long time to get there. And even then they would be a long way from the harbour.

  “We may as well have breakfast anyhow,” said Peggy. “Where’s Susan?”

  She was answered by the sudden roar of a Primus down below.

  They had breakfast in the cabin, porridge, sardines and tea, with condensed milk out of a tin which gave its usual queer taste to the tea and the porridge, and made Susan scribble on a bit of paper.

  “Hullo,” said Captain Flint, “you taking to writing too?” He glanced up through the companion, thinking of Dorothea, who, on deck, was earnestly steering the hardly moving ship.

  Susan showed him the paper, on which were only two words, “Bread. Milk.” “We ought to be able to get some fresh milk in the town while you’re getting the petrol. It’ll make all the difference to tomorrow’s breakfast. And we’ve run right out of bread.”

  “Susan,” said Captain Flint. “I’ve said it before and I say it again. Gold. You’re worth your weight in it.”

  “It’s three days since they had honest milk,” said Susan.

  Dick hurried through his breakfast and took Dorothea’s place at the tiller while she went below to have hers. He did not trust any of the others to take steering seriously while there was not enough wind to make it seem worthwhile. He was afraid that even a minute, more or less, might make all the difference between finding the bird-man in port or meeting the Pterodactyl at sea, already on her way to some other place where there were birds to watch.

  They were still sitting round the cabin table when they heard the first faint ripple of water round her bows.

  “She’s sailing,” said Titty.

  Captain Flint put down the coffee cup from which he was just going to drink. Nancy was already running up the ladder. He went up after her. Steering, for the moment, was really steering, and Dick, full of hope, with both hands on the tiller, was looking earnestly at the compass, at the distant Head, and at the compass again.

  Captain Flint glanced at the compass.

  “Carry on,” he said. “You’re doing all right.”

  “Please get out of the way, Nancy,” said Dick. “I can’t see right ahead.”

  “Come along down,” said Captain Flint. “Well’ll leave the Professor in charge. He’s found a better wind for her than we had.”

  But the wind was no more than a promise. It kept dying down and then raising false hopes by new catspaws off the land that rippled the water astern, filled the sails, and for a moment or two sent the Sea Bear on her way.

  Worse was to come. The tide turned. When they first came out it had been flowing south, taking them in the right direction no matter how slowly they sailed. For some time Dick did not notice what was happening, looking only at the compass and the far away Head. Suddenly, glancing astern, he saw the nearby cliffs moving the wrong way against the inland hill.

  “I say,” he called, “please come on deck. I think she’s going backwards.”

  It was true, and even before they had come pouring up from below, Dick had understood the reason for it.

  “She isn’t really going backwards,” he said. “It’s the tide. It must have turned and begun going the other way.”

  “Not enough wind,” said Captain Flint, “that’s all.”

  “She’s moving all right,” said Titty, looking down at the steady ripple running from her bows.

  “Yes,” said Captain Flint, “but not so fast as the tide is taking her back.”

  It was a strange feeling, to be sailing and yet to see by the land that though she was going ahead she was losing ground with every minute.

  “Hadn’t we better go near the shore and anchor?” said Nancy.

  Captain Flint hesitated, but only for a moment. “No,” he said. “Anywhere else, we would,” he said. “But not in these waters. Deep until close under the cliffs. Remember your soundings the day we came in? No. We’ve made a fair offing, and we’ll keep it. Stick to your course … South-East by East … She won’t make it, because of the tide, but she’ll be working out across it all the time.”

  “South-East by East,” said Dick.

  “Six whole hours of ebb,” said Titty.

  “Not quite as bad as that,” said Captain Flint. “And the wind may harden … or it may not,” he added, looking grimly round.

  “We’re going back quite fast,” said Roger.

  “Get out and push,” said Nancy, “if you’re in a hurry.”

  “Dick wishes he could,” said Dorothea, “and so do I.”

  Foot by foot the Sea Bear was losing ground, though slowly working across the tide. Those inland hills seemed to be moving northwards. Presently the crew of the Sea Bear were able once more to look into Scrubbers’ Bay, though from a long way off. Then the entrance to the Bay was closed again, though they knew where it was from the cloud of gulls about the cliff. They were looking up at the little hill from which, at the door of his lair, prehistoric man a thousand years ago and more had looked out over the sea.

  “There’s someone on the top of my Pict-house,” said Roger, but, if it were so, the somebody had vanished before anyone could bring a telescope to bear.

  And still the tide was carrying them slowly northwards. Before the wind strengthened again they were looking up at Dorothea’s “castle” and its cottages on the northern side of the long ridge that shut in the valley of the explorers.

  “Funny,” said Nancy. “All those houses on one side of that ridge, and you said the valley on our side was empty.”

  “It was,” said Titty, “until we were stalked. There are no houses at all.”

  “Deer forest, probably,” said Captain Flint.

  “We saw lots of deer,” said Titty.

  “But no trees,” said Roger.

  “They call it a forest just the same,” said Captain Flint.

  The wind strengthened and they began to creep south once more. It slackened, and they hung motionless between wind and tide. It strengthened again and slackened.

  “Just can’t be helped,” said Captain Flint.

  “Who wants to help it?” said Nancy. “It’s a grand day.”

  “I know one who wants to help it,” said Captain Flint, looking at Dick.

  “Two,” said Dorothea.

  “Three,” said Nancy with a grin, looking at Captain Flint.

  But, with no petrol to spare, even Dick knew there was nothing to be done, even if it meant that he was going to miss his chance of going aboard the Pterodactyl, and getting his question answered by the bird-man.

  Most of them did not mind at all. If they were going to be another day late in getting across to the mainland, it meant that the cruise would last another day longer. They were at sea and that was enough for them. If there was not enough wind, even Columbus suffered from calms. They might for a moment envy half-a-dozen fishing boats shooting northwards with the tide, but they were perfectly content to sit in the cockpit and on the foredeck, in bright sunshine on blue water. And as for being sorry they had spent those two nights in the wild anchorage of Scrubbers’ Bay, they were all agreed that yesterday had been the best day of the whole cruise. Even Roger thought that, though it was a pity that today of all days the tank should be running dry, just when the lack of wind would have given the engine and the engineer a noble chance of being useful.

  The morning passed. Roger sounded eight bells for noon.

  “Corned beef,” said Susan. “Pemmican, I mean. Cold. It’s too hot for any cooking.”

  “There’s still lots of tinned fruit,” said Peggy.

  They ate their dinner on deck … The wind strengthened while they were washing up.

  “Too late now,” said Captain Flint.

  But, about two o’clock, they began to feel that they were really moving, and presently the tide was with them instead of against them, and everybody wanted to be steering, while the far away blue lump of the Head grew bigger, turned from being an island into be
ing a promontory of grey rock with patches of green fields.

  “Too late,” said Captain Flint. “Once we’re round it we’ll have the wind against us all the way into port. I daren’t let Roger do his stuff till the very last minute. We’ll have to beat in. Tide’ll help, but we’ll be lucky if we don’t find the shops closed. All right, Susan. No sailing for the mainland tonight. Good night’s rest for everybody and off in the morning.”

  “Good,” said Nancy.

  “Good be blowed,” said Captain Flint.

  “Anyway, he hasn’t come out today,” said Dick. “At least not since we’ve been near enough to see.”

  “We’ll have a grand beat in,” said John.

  They had tea as they were coming near the Head. They passed it with half a mile to spare, to clear the outlying rocks, jibed, hauled in on the sheets and brought the Sea Bear to the wind. Instantly it felt as if there was twice as much. The Sea Bear had been on an even keel all day, as if she had been sailing on a mill pond. Now, she heeled over, not much but suddenly and enough to send Roger’s mug sliding across the floor of the cockpit and spilling the last drop that he had been carefully saving to wash down his last mouthful of cake. The little flag at the masthead rippled gaily. The Sea Bear’s stem no longer cut silently through the water, but drove through it with a curl of foam. It was as if, at the very last minute, she were showing what she could do. To and fro. Already they could see the houses and the masts of fishing boats at the quays.

  ‘It’s the only harbour we’ve been into twice,” said Titty.

  “If he’s anchored where he was last time,” said Dick, “we shan’t know if he’s there till we get right in.”

  They were coming very near the harbour mouth. A fishing boat was coming out, high-bowed, with a short stumpy mast and a wheel-house. The fishing boat changed course for them slightly and passed astern of them. Everybody waved, by way of saying Thank you, and a large hand came out of the wheel-house door and waved back.

  “Better manners than your Pterodactyl,” said Nancy.

  “I don’t expect the bird-man was steering himself,” said Dick.