Swallowdale. Arthur Ransome

are plenty of mates to go howling round banging poor young chaps on the head with belaying-pins, but there’s not one mate in a thousand who’d have the sense to start a fire and stretch a warp for a clothesline and set about getting a dry rig-out for the whole crew. How are the skipper’s clothes now, Mister Mate?”

      “They’re nothing like as wet as they were,” said Susan. “But they still steam a bit if you hold them to the fire.”

      “Well, short of burning them, hurry them up. He and I’ll be off in a few minutes now, and he’ll want a shore-going kit. Now then, Skipper, let’s see how much water there is in the hold.”

      John waded out and found there was a good deal, even though the patch had been lifted out of water.

      “Bound to be a little,” said Captain Flint, “but there’d be much more than that if she was badly strained. If you want to take her to Rio under her own sail, I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You’ll have the wind with you, now it’s gone round to the south. Bring her nose ashore, and we’ll see what we can do in the way of a jury rig for her.”

      John brought Swallow’s nose well up on the beach while Nancy and Peggy hurried off to the point to fetch the mast and the sail, which was still pretty wet, though not quite so soggy as it had been. Captain Flint cut away the worst splinters and stepped the broken mast in its place. John reefed the sail and carried it down to the ship. As soon as they tried to hoist it, they found it was still too big. The broken mast was now so short that even when the yard was hoisted as far as it would go, the boom still rested on the gunwale.

      “We’ll cure that,” said Captain Flint.

      The boom had jaws that fitted round the mast. Captain Flint pulled them clear so that he could turn the boom round and round. He turned it again and again, rolling up the sail round it as he turned. As the sail was narrower at the top than at the bottom this meant that there was a long bit of boom with sail rolled round it, sticking out beyond the sail that they were going to use. By the time the boom had been twisted and twisted until so much of the sail had been rolled up that the boom was nearly touching the lower end of the yard, the little three-cornered sail that was left was a very small sail indeed.

      “It’ll take you to Rio,” said Captain Flint. “We’ll take a few turns of rope just here at the foot of the leach, and a few turns at the foot of the luff. The jaws round the mast’ll stop it from untwisting anyhow. It won’t unroll, and you’ve got a sail snug enough for a hurricane.”

      They hoisted the sail, and this time the boom cleared the gunwale with a foot to spare.

      “What about getting some clothes on?”

      Mate Susan had been fairly toasting the skipper’s clothes. He quickly got out of his bathing things and into his shirt and shorts. He took his sand-shoes, but put them on the middle thwart of the Swallow, to go on drying in the sun.

      “What about the flag?” said Titty, who had rescued it the moment the broken mast and sail had been brought ashore.

      “We’ll jolly well hoist it,” said Captain John.

      The sail was lowered once more, for the flag halyard to be reeved through the little ring at the masthead. As soon as the mast was stepped again, Titty herself hauled up the Swallow flag and made it fast. The sail was hoisted, and all was ready for the start.

      “Hop in, Skipper,” said Captain Flint. “Now the mast’s in her, it’ll take your weight in the stern beside the ballast to keep her bows well up. No, no. Keep the anchor in the stern, too. You want all the weight there you can get.” He ran Swallow down into the water. “Hi! Nancy. You’re still a South Sea Islander . . . Take her out to the headland to give her a chance.” He turned to his own boat.

      Nancy waded along the shore, towing Swallow by hand until she reached the headland, when the little dark brown scrap of sail on the stump of a mast was no longer sheltered from the wind.

      “All right,” said John. “She’s trying to sail. Let her go.”

      He put his helm up, let the boom out square, and the Swallow, sitting on her tail, her nose high up out of the water, her scrap of sail bagging in the wind, slipped away from Horseshoe Cove. The only thing about her that was as it should be was Titty’s swallow flag, which fluttered proudly from the top of the jury mast, as if it had never known the bottom of the lake.

      “So long, Nancy, give them a hand with the camp,” called Captain Flint as his rowing boat shot out from between the headlands.

      “We’re coming too,” called Nancy, and she hurried back into the cove. The others were already launching Amazon. Titty, Susan and Roger were aboard. Peggy was pushing her off. Her captain scrambled into her at the last moment. There was wild work with the oars till she was at the mouth of the cove, when Nancy ran the sail up, and Amazon gathered speed as she hurried up the lake to overhaul the convoy. She was soon alongside the others, for Swallow, cocked up on end under her jury rig, sailed more like a buoy than a boat.

      “This is all very well,” said Captain Flint at last. “We’re delighted to have you with us, but that camp ought to be in apple-pie order before we bring Mrs. Walker back to see it.”

      “There’s no milk for tea either,” said Susan. “And we don’t know the way to the farm.”

      For just a little longer the Amazon circled round the rowing boat and the gallant, wounded Swallow, and then with shouts of “Good luck!” from all who were aboard her, she turned up into the wind to beat down the lake again to Horseshoe Cove, while Captain John steered a straight course for Rio, and Captain Flint just taking a stroke or two now and then to keep his rowing boat within comfortable talking distance, followed Captain John.

      CHAPTER VIII

      RIO AND HOLLY HOWE

      “THEY LOOK HAPPY enough,” said Captain Flint, watching the Amazon slapping across the ripples on her way to Horseshoe Cove.

      “They aren’t,” said Captain John.

      “I know they aren’t, but the next best thing to being happy is to look it.”

      Captain John knew that he did not even look happy, and he certainly did not feel it.

      “It wasn’t their fault, anyway,” he said at last. “Every bit of it was mine.”

      Captain Flint pulled a hard stroke, to bring his rowing boat level with the little crippled Swallow.

      “How many times have you run a boat aground before?” he asked quietly.

      “Never,” said John. “Not hard, like that.”

      “You’ve been lucky,” said Captain Flint. “Everybody does it sooner or later.”

      “It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been reefed,” said John, steadily keeping his eye on the entrance to Rio Bay. “If I’d been reefed I wouldn’t have thought twice about jibing. And I ought to have reefed before starting with the wind there was, and I ought to have known it was no good hanging on after the sail wanted to come over. I ought to have known it would jibe whether I wanted it to or not. I ought to have jibed myself in plenty of time. I ought. . .”

      “Anyhow,” said Captain Flint, “you didn’t lose a man, and you salved nearly all your cargo, and you raised your ship and are bringing her into port under sail. Things might have been a lot worse. Don’t you worry about it overmuch. When a thing’s done, it’s done, and if it’s not done right, do it differently next time. Worrying never made a sailor.”

      “It isn’t worrying,” said John. “It’s just that I hate myself for being such a duffer.”

      “Um,” said Captain Flint, “I wouldn’t