We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea. Arthur Ransome

tomato soup?” said Jim. “You’ll find a row of tins in the starboard cupboard.

      “Good,” said Roger.

      “I’ll do the lamps right away,” said Jim. “I’ve got to fill the cooking stove and it’ll last for a couple of days. Let me just get the mainsail down.”

      The big red sail came down and the boom was lowered into its crutches. The sail was loosely stowed and tied. “No need to put the cover on,” said Jim. “We’ll be hoisting it again in the morning.” Then from somewhere under one of the cockpit seats Jim pulled out a paraffin can and poured a lot of oil into the reservoir of the cooking stove. Susan lit the burners and put a kettle on one to boil up some water for tea, and sitting on the companion-steps with a long spoon kept the tomato soup stirring slowly round a saucepan on the other. Meanwhile, Jim filled the cabin lamp and the riding light. He shook the big oilcan.

      “Enough to fill the riding light again tomorrow,” he said.

      “What about the red and green ones?” said Roger, who had been looking at them, roped in their places in the fo’c’sle. “Didn’t you say they’d burnt out?”

      “We shan’t need them,” said Jim. “It isn’t as if we were going to sea. We shan’t be sailing at night.”

      Though it was quite light outside, it seemed already dark in the cabin. Jim lit the cabin lamp and a mellow light shone on the faces of his crew. Supper was over. Everybody had thought well of the tomato soup and agreed with Roger that nobody who had not tried would believe how much nicer sausage rolls tasted in a ship’s cabin than when eaten anywhere else. Susan had washed up, passing the wet things to be dried by Titty and Roger.

      “Lucky they’re Woolworth’s unbreakables,” Jim had laughed as one of the gay red plates had slipped out of Roger’s fingers, bounced on the floor and rolled away to hide itself somewhere under the engine. He had gone down on hands and knees to look for it with a big electric torch. “What a torch!” Roger had said, and then as Jim scrambled to his feet again with the torch and the plate, he had exclaimed at the red light coming through the plate. “Good as a port light,” Jim had said, and had held the plate in front of the torch and lit up everybody’s face in turn with a warm red glow. “Grand torch,” he said, flashing it on and off. “It makes as good a stern-light as anybody could want. I had to show it to a steamer two or three times the night before last.”

      “Do tell us about it.”

      “About what?”

      “The voyage from Dover,” said John.

      “Nothing much to tell,” said Jim, putting the plate away, dropping the last of the spoons into the spoon-box and showing Susan just where it had to go in the cupboard so that it shouldn’t rattle. Earnestly watched by all of them, he filled and lit his pipe.

      “Tell it, anyway,” said Roger.

      “You were all alone,” said Titty.

      “I know old Goblin pretty well,” said Jim. “Nothing in being alone, except that I couldn’t get any sleep. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t had to hang about so long outside.

      “Outside what?”

      “The shoals,” said Jim. “There was a bit of fog and I didn’t want to come nosing in all blind. I don’t like shoals when I can’t see the buoys. Look here, you’d better have a squint at the chart. Heave up, John. You’re sitting on them.”

      John got up, and Jim Brading rolled up the end of the mattress on the port bunk and pulled out a couple of charts.

      “Have you got charts of everywhere?” asked Titty.

      “No,” said Jim. “only Southampton to Harwich. Uncle Bob’ll bring any others we’re likely to want when he comes he’s got hundreds. Here you are, here’s the Downs. Oh. You know you were asking about Ellwright and the pirates. Here’s where he got stuck. Just off Ramsgate. See those dotted lines. Shoals. He got on in a fog. He’d have been all right if he’d only kept clear of the coast, jolly sight safer out at sea.”

      He spread the chart on the table and heads bumped together as they looked at it in the light of the cabin lamp.

      Jim Brading turned on his big torch and flashed a brilliant white circle on the chart to make the dotted lines of the shoals and the tiny drawings of the buoys show up better.

      “But what about the pirates?” said Titty.

      “Longshore sharks,” said Jim grimly. “Well, poor old Ellwright was aground here, where my finger is. Calm weather, too. Pretty safe. He had only to put a kedge out and wait for the tide to rise. But some longshore sharks came off to him in a boat when the fog lifted, and offered to pull him off and tow him in. He had to get back to work next day, and he was jolly pleased, and they had him off in two minutes and towed him into the harbour, and he thanked them and was going to give them ten bob. . . ”

      “Gosh!” said Roger.

      “And they wouldn’t take it,” said Jim. “They said they’d salvaged the boat, and that she would have broken up if they hadn’t towed her off, which wasn’t true, as he only went aground for lack of wind.”

      “You mean they wouldn’t take anything?” said Titty.

      “Jolly decent of them,” said Roger.

      “Wasn’t it?” said Jim. “No. They wouldn’t take his ten bob. They wouldn’t take a pound. They put in a claim for salvage, a third of the whole value of the boat, and as the poor chap hadn’t any money, he had to sell his ship to pay them. You see, he’d let one of them come aboard, to fasten a rope or something, and the man took the tiller and that was that. . . So if ever you get into trouble, never take a tow from anybody if you can help it, and never ever let anyone come aboard. Bang their hands with a boathook. Do anything you like, but keep them off. If they see a chance of claiming they’ve saved your ship, they’ll take it.”

      “He had to sell his ship?” said Roger.

      “Yes,” said Jim, “and by the time he’d paid the sharks, and their lawyers and his lawyers, he’d next to nothing left. He hasn’t got a ship any more.”

      “What beasts!” said Roger.

      “One way of making a living,” said Jim. “No. The only people to take aboard are pilots, and you don’t want even to take a pilot if you can help it. I never do. Can’t afford it.”

      “Where are the shoals off Harwich?” said John. He was almost more interested in that than in the sad tale of the loss of Jim’s friend’s boat. After all he was actually sitting in the cabin of the Goblin, and the Goblin, only two nights before, had been out at sea waiting to come in.

      “Other chart,” said Jim, and spread the second chart on the top of the first. “There’s Harwich. Here’s Shotley, where we are now . . . and that . . . and that . . . and that are the shoals outside. . . Shoals all over the place. . . West Rocks and the Gunfleet and the Cork Sand . . . this bit is uncovered at low water . . . Shoals all over the place. The big ships come in like this. They make for the Cork light-vessel . . . through this big opening between the shoals, and then slip along between the Cork Sand on one side and the Platters and Andrews on the other. Well, Goblin likes to do the same, specially in fog or dark. . . No fun for a little boat to crash into an unlighted buoy. Easily sink her, even if she didn’t go aground. No. Only one motto for the Goblin. When in doubt keep clear of shoals. . . Get out to sea and stay there.”

      John listened, telling himself that he too would have that motto, when at last he should have a ship of his own. He too would do the same. . . He gripped an imaginary tiller. . . Shoals to the right. . . Shoals to the left. . . out to sea. . .

      “What did you do?” asked Roger.

      “Just jilled about,”