Peter Duck. Arthur Ransome

Another time, things would be easier still.

      Captain Flint and Peter Duck were coming aft.

      “She’s clear enough now, sir,” Peter Duck was saying. “There’s the buoy. She’d lay the course now, lay it under sail.”

      “Now then, John,” said Captain Flint. “Let’s see you head her North-north-east. That’ll clear the buoy. Staysail and jib sheets there, forrard. On the port side. That’s right, Susan. A hard pull to break it out.”

      Things were happening fast.

      John twirled the wheel, and the compass card inside the little window just before him moved round. East . . . East by North . . . East-north-east . . . North-east by East . . . North-east . . . The mainsheet tautened with a jerk. Peter Duck was hauling in a little on the sheet of the foresail. The staysail was pulling. Nancy was making fast. The big jib was fluttering loose. Nancy turned to help Susan. It quietened and was pulling too. North-north-east. The Wild Cat was sailing.

      “Stop the engine, Roger,” called Captain Flint.

      Roger swung his lever to its middle position and then dived into the deckhouse.

      “I say, Rogie, do you know how?” asked Titty anxiously.

      “Of course I do,” said Roger. “He showed me.”

      He was gone. A moment later the chug, chug, chug of the engine came to an end. John and Titty looked at each other. The deck was certainly on a slant. There was the beginning of a noise under the forefoot. She was not moving slower but faster. Titty put her hand on the wheel and felt the tremor of the little ship. John was moving the wheel this way and that, meeting her as she yawed, and coaxing her to lay a steady course. Titty looked back at the lengthening wake astern. This was like sailing Swallow only somehow better. A touch on the wheel and this whole ship obeyed with the whole lot of them aboard, a regular house of a ship, with towering sails higher than lots of houses. There was a lump in Titty’s throat, and John’s lips were pressed tight together.

      Roger came up again from below, with a very dirty happy face, wiping his oily hands on a bit of cotton rag.

      “She went awfully well with her engine,” he said.

      John and Titty were almost glad to be able to laugh at him.

      Captain Flint and Peter Duck were hurrying about the deck, slackening away this rope, hauling that a little harder in, trying one thing and another, until they were satisfied with the set of the sails.

      And then, after passing the black and white bell buoy clanging away in the lonely morning, after passing the Newcome Spit buoy, striped red and white and round as a football, Captain Flint came aft and stood by, while John spun the wheel round and put her about. Peter Duck, Nancy, and Susan let fly the headsail sheets and then again they had to be hauled in on the other side, and once more there was careful trying until Captain Flint and the old seaman were thoroughly pleased with them. With all four sails drawing the ship was beautifully balanced and she could be steered with a finger.

      This time they went well out to sea, before going about and heading northward up the coast until they brought Yarmouth abeam, and looking through the telescope could see the tall brick tower on Brush Quay, and the Britannia Pier, and the long spreading town. They held right on towards the red light-vessel with a thing like two spinning tops with their points meeting up at her mast-head. Most of the time John and Nancy took turns at the wheel, though everybody, even the engineer, was allowed to feel it. Titty brought the parrot on deck after a time, to enjoy the sunshine, and to have a real look at the sea. Roger let Gibber have a run, too, but Captain Flint said that the monkey was not to be allowed near the engine just now, because they would be wanting to use it again going into the inner harbour, and with monkeys you never really knew what might happen. At last Captain Flint put her about once more, eased off all the sheets and steered for the Corton light-vessel, with its ball cut in half and another ball on the top of it (“They have to have these things to tell one lightship from another”), and so for the Newcome Spit buoy and home again to Lowestoft Harbour.

      “Well?” said Captain Flint.

      “She’s just perfect,” said John. And all the others said so too.

      “Well, Mr. Duck?” said Captain Flint again.

      “Fit to go anywhere, she is.”

      “Down Channel and across the Bay?”

      “Down Channel?” said Peter Duck. “I’d take her round the Horn.”

      “We’ve to carry our sail till we’re well inside the heads,” said Captain Flint. “Will you take the wheel while we go in? We’ll jibe her now, and bring the booms across.”

      There were a few minutes of frantic bustle, while John brought her head round and Captain Flint and Peter Duck eased the booms over and Nancy and Susan tended the headsails. Then, Peter Duck took the wheel and the Wild Cat, with a fine flurry of foam under her forefoot, and the wind almost dead astern, headed in for the harbour.

      Just as the Wild Cat was coming to the pier heads, she met a schooner shooting out, a black schooner, bigger than the Wild Cat, and carrying a great spread of sail.

      “Isn’t that the Viper?” said Captain Flint.

      “That’s her,” said Peter Duck.

      “There’s Black Jake steering her,” said Nancy.

      “There’s the red-haired boy,” said Titty. “And what a lot of men!” There were three or four grown men busy on deck.

      The two schooners passed within a few yards of each other, the Wild Cat coming in and the Viper going out.

      As they passed they saw that Black Jake, who was at the wheel, was staring hard at them, as if he knew them but for some reason found it hard to believe that they were there.

      But there was no time then to wonder about Black Jake and the Viper. There was too much to do aboard the Wild Cat. The moment she was in the outer harbour, Captain Flint luffed up into the wind and began taking sail off her. He dived below and started the engine, but had a few fathom of chain ranged free on the foredeck in case the engine played them a trick and they needed the anchor in a hurry. He took in jib and staysail, lowered foresail and mainsail, and then, at half speed, the Wild Cat moved slowly up the harbour through the inner piers, and back to her old berth. The man at the swing bridge waved to them as they passed through and the cheerful, kindly harbourmaster shouted a “Good day” to them.

      “It’ll be quite lonely with no Viper to look at,” said Titty when they had turned right round in the inner harbour, and at last were once more tied up to the quay.

      “Jibbooms and bobstays but here she comes again!” exclaimed Nancy.

      The black schooner was even then gliding through into the inner harbour.

      “What’s she come back for?” said John.

      “Must have forgotten something,” said Peggy.

      “Our red-haired friend looks a little worried,” said Captain Flint.

      Roger waved to him, but Bill did not wave back. Black Jake was close to him, and perhaps Bill thought he had better not. There seemed, too, to be something of a quarrel going on among the Viper’s crew. Presently she was tied up once more alongside the south quay.

      “We’ve looked at her enough,” said Captain Flint. “Come on, all of you, and help to stow sails, or the Viper’ll be neat and tidy first in spite of the start we’ve had.” But the Viper did not seem just then to care about being neat and tidy. Her crew went off along the quay, and left her just as she was. As for the Wild Cat, everybody was so proud of her after that trial trip that even Roger forgot to remind Susan that it was rather late for dinner until all the sails had been stowed and ropes coiled and the whole ship so neat that no one could have known she had been at sea that morning.

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