Swallowdale. Arthur Ransome

but it did bother him all the same. He was in a hurry to sail, and had been waiting a long time, and perhaps it was just that little bit of bad luck in the mate’s forgetting the salt and keeping back the ship for two minutes more that made the captain not quite so careful as usual.

      At last everything was stowed, the crew aboard, and Swallow was pushed off, stern-first. And then it was discovered that in her haste the mate had forgotten to bring her torch.

      “We shan’t want it anyway,” she said.

      “No one’s going back for it now,” said John. “Do hold the tiller amidships while I paddle her out.”

      “It’s all right,” said Titty, “we’ve got the other three.”

      “There’s quite a lot of wind,” said the mate, when they were clear of the rocks outside.

      “That’s why I was in a hurry,” said the captain. “Now then, see that the mainsheet is free, so that the boom can swing right out. I’m going to hoist the sail up now. Are you ready?”

      “Aye, aye, sir,” said the mate.

      John shipped his oars, hooked on the yard, and swayed up the brown sail. The boom swung out free, so that the sail was no more than a big flag. John hurried aft to the tiller. He hauled in ever so little on the mainsheet, so that the sail held the wind and Swallow began to move. Then, putting the tiller up, he let her bear away until she was heading straight for Horseshoe Cove. The little pennant flew out straight before her from the masthead. The water creamed out from under her forefoot as she gathered speed.

      “Shall I go forward now to be look-out?” asked Roger.

      “No,” said John, who was beginning to feel how strong the wind was. “We want all the weight aft. Both you and Titty come as far aft as you can.”

      The wind was dead aft and stronger with every yard that they moved out of the shelter of the island and the hills on the eastern shore of the lake. With Susan beside him in the stern-sheets, and the boy and the able-seaman crowded aft on the bottom boards at their feet, it was all that John could do to keep the Swallow steady on her course. The wind pressing on her sail seemed to be trying to lift her rudder out of the water and that did not help to make steering easy.

      “She’s going faster than a motor boat,” said Roger.

      “Oughtn’t we to have reefed?” said the mate.

      “The Amazons hadn’t,” said the captain, with his teeth tight clenched, hanging on to the mainsheet with one hand and holding the tiller as hard as he could with the other, doing his utmost to keep Swallow from yawing about.

      “What’s that you’re saying, Titty?” asked the mate.

      “I was telling Roger the bit about the old man who meant to hang on,” said Titty; “the bit daddy read to us at Falmouth.”

      “Well, her canvas won’t bust,” said John, “and she’s got a jolly strong mast.”

      But he spoke too soon.

      If the wind had been steady, it would not have been so bad, but it was never the same strength for long together. Every now and then came a harder puff, so sudden and so strong that it forced the nose of the boat round before John could meet her with the tiller and put her back on her course again. Every time that this happened it began to look less and less likely that John would be able to carry out his plan of sailing into the cove without having to jibe twice over, once to bring the sail across to the starboard side, and then again to bring it back to the port side for running into the cove. Each of these gusts that was a little too hard or too sudden for John left the Swallow further to the north of her proper course, and this meant that the wind was no longer directly from aft but was blowing over the quarter from the same side as that on which was the sail. The little pennant was no longer blowing directly forward over the stern, nor was it blowing out with the sail, when it would have shown that all was safe. There was the sail out to port, and there at the masthead was the little pennant fluttering to starboard, showing that there was a danger that the wind might catch the leach of the sail and swing it right over. A jibe of that kind, not done on purpose, was what John was trying to avoid. He had made up his mind that he could get across without having to jibe at all.

      “We ought to be able to do it,” he said aloud, and really because he began to be not quite sure.

      “Remember the rock we saw yesterday,” said Susan.

      “The Pike Rock,” said Titty.

      “We’re much more likely to hit the rocks on this side if we get a gust like that one just as we are going in,” said John. “We ought to have reefed, really. It’s blowing much harder than it was a few minutes ago. But it’d be an awful job to bring her head to wind and reef here. Besides we’re very nearly there. I’m sure she’ll do it. . .”

      “There are the Amazons,” called Roger.

      With his eye all the time on that warning pennant at the masthead and watching for a tremble in the leach of the sail, John saw Nancy and Peggy waving on the rocks at the entrance to the cove. That settled it. He could not give up his plan now. In another minute he would have done it and been safe between the headlands. Another twenty yards. The leach of the sail was ashake. Another ten. Could he do it, or could he not? He could. Surely he could.

      “Look at the waves breaking on the Pike Rock,” said Roger.

      And at that very moment, off the mouth of the cove, only a few yards from safety, the wind, leaping at them in a last furious gust, caught the wrong side of the sail and whirled it across.

      “Keep your heads down,” shouted John, but for that there was no need. Titty and Roger were crouched in the bottom of the boat and the mate had ducked in time. So had John himself. The boom crashed over, but broke no heads. But John had been pulling hard on the tiller to keep the Swallow on her course. She was moving very fast. The moment the sail lifted there was nothing to balance the rudder. A moment later and the full force of the wind caught the sail on the other side, not working against the rudder but working with it. The Swallow spun round, out of all control, and ran with a loud crash on the Pike Rock. The rock stopped her dead. The mast broke off short above the thwart and fell forward over her bows, taking the sail with it.

      There was a shriek, but it was from Peggy Blackett on the rocks at the entrance to the cove. There were no shrieks in Swallow.

      It had all happened too quickly. Everybody had been jerked forward as the boat struck the rock. Everybody was holding fast to whatever had happened to come nearest, thwart, gunwale or tiller. Roger spoke first, as the Swallow slipped back off the rock.

      “The water’s coming in,” he said.

      It was not so much an exclamation as a plain statement of fact. Swallow was badly holed below the waterline in the bows. The water was spouting in and she was filling fast. Already the water was nearly up to the thwarts. Hundreds of times they had had imaginary shipwrecks. This was a real one.

      “Over you go, Roger, and swim ashore,” said Captain John. “Go on. Don’t get caught in the halyards. Go over this side. Hop out.”

      Roger looked at the mate and then at John to see if he meant it. Then he looked at the shore. It was only a few yards away. Peggy was standing on the headland down at the water’s edge. Nancy had disappeared.

      “Go on,” said John. “Don’t wait. She’ll be gone in a minute.”

      Roger rolled himself over the side. For one second he hung on to the gunwale. “Isn’t it a good thing I went on with the swimming lessons in the winter?” he said, and then splashed off on his way to land and safety.

      “Now then, Titty. You, too, Susan. Be quick.”

      Susan and Titty went overboard one after the other. Titty swam ashore as fast as she could, holding something above the water as she swam. Susan trod water for a moment, waiting for John.

      “Come on, John,” she said.

      But