Peter Duck. Arthur Ransome

a bustle for a moment, letting go sheets and hauling in again on the lee side as the sails came over. Then all was quiet once more, and the crew gathered aft by the wheel where Roger and Titty were already, Titty watching the jetty slip by as the Wild Cat headed for the harbour mouth, and Roger hopping in and out of the deckhouse, waiting to be allowed to shut down the engine, or move the lever to full ahead, or do something else that really mattered in the engine line.

      “All right, Roger” said Captain Flint. “Stop her!”

      The chug-chug of the little engine came to an end. Roger came on deck again.

      “The engine wants some more cleaning,” he said.

      “Job for you and Gibber,” said Captain Flint. “But get dressed and let’s have breakfast over first.”

      Roger was gone.

      “Hurry up, you others,” said Captain Flint. “We’re hungry. Besides, I want to be free to look at charts and things, and some of you will be wanted to take the wheel.”

      Nancy, John, Susan, and Peggy disappeared in a bunch.

      “What are you waiting for, Titty?”

      Titty was looking back at the harbour they were leaving. Far away there, beyond the swing bridge, in the inner basin, loose grey canvas was climbing up among tall masts and rigging.

      “The Viper’s hoisting her sails,” said Titty. “I do believe she’s coming after us.”

      Captain Flint glanced over his shoulder.

      “It may be some other vessel, “ he said. “You can’t tell from here. What do you think, Mr. Duck?”

      “Able-seaman’s right, sir, seems to me. Aye, they’re getting their sails up.” He took the telescope from the rack close inside the deckhouse, and looked through it towards the inner harbour. “Aye,” he said, “they’re setting their sails, sure enough. They’ve a halyard unrove, I reckon. I can see that young Bill up at the masthead.”

      “Good luck to them,” said Captain Flint. “They can set them and welcome for all we care.”

      But Peter Duck kept the telescope to his eye, watching that fluttering grey canvas, until the Wild Cat was well outside the pier heads.

      “Skip along, Titty,” said Captain Flint, and Titty disappeared below, to change from pyjamas into something more fitting for an able-seaman to wear on a schooner bound down Channel.

      Below decks things were very unsteady. Dressing was not so easy as it had been when the Wild Cat was tied to the quay. Slap. Slap. Bang. The waves hit the bows of the little green schooner in a cheerful, welcoming manner, as she came out of the sheltered harbour to meet them. There was a good deal more noise than there had been during the trial trip, and members of the crew, dressing in the cabins, looked at each other doubtfully. Then, suddenly there was a sharp change in the motion, and, as the Wild Cat heeled over on the starboard side, shoes, clothes, hairbrushes and human beings slid unexpectedly across the floor. Roger sat down. Captain John had forgotten that he was not in harbour, and had stood an enamelled mug of toothwater on the little shelf that served as a table. It went flying. John tried to save it, tripped over Roger, and fell head first into the lower bunk.

      Susan was farthest on with her dressing, and did not seem to mind the motion. She just leant back against the bunks and went on brushing her hair. Titty slipped sideways. The floor of the cabin sloped uphill. Titty seized some clothes and a pair of canvas shoes. “I’m going to finish my dressing on deck,” she said hurriedly, climbed up the slope of the floor, got out of the door and stumbled up the companion-way.

      Nancy, in the cabin of the Amazons, said nothing. She just looked at Peggy. A queer expression came into her eyes, as if she were looking not so much at Peggy as through her. She picked her shoes up out of the muddle on the floor, then dropped one of them, tried to catch it, slipped, recovered herself, made up her mind she would get that shoe later, and almost fell out of the cabin door and round on the stairway of the companion. She felt better as soon as her head was above deck. This would never do, she thought. She must have been mistaken in thinking she felt so bad. She put on the shoe she had with her, took two or three good sniffs at the wind and then went back after the shoe she had left. She found Susan and Peggy side by side on the bottom step of the companion-way, putting on their own shoes with difficulty and laughter, but talking quite happily of cooking on the swinging stove because the other would be on too much of a slant. It was bad enough having to step over them. But she did it, worked herself round into her cabin, found her shoe and came out again, grabbing at the saloon table to steady herself. “Hullo, Nancy!” said Peggy. “Isn’t this jolly?” But Nancy did not answer. She had meant to get her shoe, and she had got it, but this talking would have been too much. She got across the saloon, and through into the fo’c’sle, to get her head up through the fo’c’sle hatch into the fresh hard air. For once, Nancy, the Terror of the Seas, did not feel at all like a captain. She hardly felt it would be safe to say, “Shiver my timbers!” Her timbers felt a bit shivery already. And the funny thing was that Peggy, who was afraid of thunder and things like that, seemed not to be bothered at all by the unusual motion.

      On deck things settled down quickly. Old Peter Duck was moving here and there, seeing that everything was as it should be. Coiled halyards that had shown signs of straying had been recoiled and stowed in places where they were willing to stay. The anchor had been brought inboard and secured in its place. He was busy now lashing down the little rowing dinghy. The fenders that had been used to protect the new green paint of the Wild Cat from the dirty quays of Lowestoft were all inboard, each in its place, ready for next time it would be needed, but not one of them left hanging over the side to make good sailors laugh. Peter Duck, busy about this and that, seemed happy to have his feet once more on a slanting deck, lifting and swaying along at sea, after so many years on the level deck of his old wherry moving steadily along smooth inland waters.

      And the land was slipping by. The Wild Cat was off at last and making the most of the good north-easter, running down inside the shoals, past Claremont Pier, and the hospital and Kirkley Church. Pakefield Church was abeam. Out to sea a coasting steamer was hurrying south, from Newcastle or Grimsby or Hull, hurrying, but not moving as fast as her own smoke which was blowing before her in a long low dirty cloud. Fishing ketches were leaving the harbour, and some of the trawlers, and far away on the horizon there were two or three little plumes of smoke, showing where there were steamers so far away as not to be in sight. One by one the rest of the crew climbed up on deck, hung on to anything that came handy and looked about them. The trial trip had been in smooth water compared with this. Now they were off at last and learning what it was like to be at sea. Today there was a real wind. The land seemed to sway up and down as they rushed along. Sometimes the Wild Cat would lift to an even keel as a sea passed under her, and then the land would drop to the bulwarks. Then over she would go again, and the land seemed to leap up the sky, and in the place where it had been a moment before there would be the grey water sweeping along by the lee rail.

      Presently Captain Flint called John to the wheel.

      “Take over, will you, while I deal with that Primus for them? Steer for that buoy. Black and white, with a cage on the top of it. Steer close by it, leaving it to port.”

      John gulped, but said, “Aye, aye, sir,” as stoutly as he could. A moment later he was feeling the ship, meeting her as she yawed, looking anxiously back at her rather waggly wake, and trying to do with a real ship at sea what he had learnt to do very well with the little Swallow on the lake in the north. But it was not easy in this hard wind and uncertain sea. There she was again, heading the wrong side of the buoy. Oh, bother it, and now too far the other way! And there was Nancy watching. This would never do. He must keep that piebald chequered buoy just showing on her port bow. Gradually the Wild Cat steadied down and John grew confident enough to look at Nancy who, he feared, had all this time been looking critically at him.

      But Nancy was not thinking about him, or about the steering,