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

was coming up, fathom after fathom. Roger had untied the mop, and John was dipping it over the side and washing the Shotley mud off the cabin. “Now then, Roger, let the jib unroll. Yes. That’s it. Just cast it loose. She’s up and down now.” Jim was looking over the bows. He was hauling again. “Anchor’s up,” he shouted. “Back the jib, John.” The chain was coming easily now, hand over hand. There was a sudden lank. “That’s right. Hold the jib out to starboard till she pays off. That’ll do. Let draw. Haul in your jib sheet, A.B. Titty.”

      They were off. The boom had swung across, the mainsail had filled and the Goblin was sailing. Susan, at the tiller, was steering out to clear the Shotley piers, past which the tide was carrying them. Jim, wiping the mud off his hands on the wet mop, raced aft, cast off the mainsheet and pushed the boom out by hand.

      “Not enough wind,” he said.

      “But we’re moving,” said Titty.

      “Mostly tide,” said Jim. “Look at the mainsheet.”

      The boom was swinging in again, and the mainsheet hung in loops, dragging in the water. There was not wind enough to pull it straight. Still, the Goblin had steerage way, and the tide was helping her, sweeping down towards the harbour.

      “Can’t somebody else steer?” said Susan. “They’ve simply got to have their breakfasts. It’ll be all right if they have just cornflakes and milk, to begin with. . . ”

      “Not down in the cabin,” said Titty.

      “You can have it in the cockpit,” said Susan.

      “I say, Jim,” said Titty. “Do you think I might steer just for a bit.”

      “Go ahead,” said Jim. “You can’t do much harm with the wind like this.”

      But Susan had hardly slipped down the companion-steps, to get plates and spoons and cornflakes, before she remembered something else that ought to come before breakfast.

      “Nobody’s cleaned their teeth,” she said. “Can they have fresh water for it?”

      Jim laughed. “Half a glass each,” he said. “But salt water to spit into. Aboard ship fresh water’s liquid gold.”

      So a bucket was dipped overboard, and, while Susan was ladling cornflakes into the plates, the crew of the Goblin cleaned their teeth, John taking the tiller when it was Titty’s turn.

      “There’s lots more to do, Mate John,” said Jim. “We haven’t half got the mud off the foredeck. Better not put your shoes on till we’ve done washing down.”

      No one could have guessed, looking at the Goblin sailing slowly past Harwich out of the mouth of the Stour, what a lot was being done aboard. There was hardly a ripple on the water. A misty sun was climbing over Felixstowe. Smoke was rising from the chimneys of Harwich, where people ashore were cooking their breakfasts. The smoke climbed almost straight up and then drifted idly away. The movement of the tide shook the reflections of the anchored barges and of the ships in the harbour and of the grey jetties and houses of the town.

      “If you’ve done with that bucket,” said Jim, “we’ll have it forrard for sloshing water on the deck.”

      “There’s a barge with its riding light still burning,” said Roger.

      “Sleeping late,” laughed Jim. “They’d be up and moving if there was a bit of wind. But I dare say there’ll be wind later. Or fog. Or both. You never know what’s coming with a day that starts like this.”

      As he spoke a long wall sounded from out at sea.

      “Beu. . . eueueueueueueu!”

      “Cork lightship,” said Jim. “They’ve got enough mist out there to give them their twopence an hour.”

      “Twopence an hour,” said Roger.

      “They get twopence an hour extra while that row’s going on in their ears.”

      “First course. Cornflakes and milk,” said Susan, passing up the filled plates one after another. “Who’s ready?”

      “I am,” said Roger.

      “Everybody,” said Jim. “What about yourself ?”

      “I want to get the stove lit. . . Tea and eggs,” said Susan.

      “No hurry,” said Jim. “We’re not going to start our breakfast if the cook isn’t tucking into hers.”

      So Susan came up too, and deck-washing came to an end, and the crew of the Goblin made themselves comfortable, sitting on the cabin top and in the cockpit, with deep plates full of milk and cornflakes.

      “Beu. . . eueueueueueueu. . . ”

      Every fifteen seconds that long wall sounded from somewhere beyond Felixstowe, somewhere out at sea.

      “But it isn’t foggy here,” said Roger.

      “It may be outside,” said Jim. “It’s nothing like as clear as it was last night. You won’t be able to see the lightship even when we get down to the Beach End buoy. On a clear day you’d see it easily. And we ought to be able to see the Naze from here.”

      They had passed the Guard buoy now, and were heading down as if for the sea. Now and again a gentle little puff filled the mainsail, and by watching floating weed they could see that they were moving through the water as well as past the land. A seaplane roared overhead and came down on the water in a long swoop, sending the spray flying. “Like a swan coming down in Rio Bay,” said Titty. Far ahead of them they could see the two buoys, Beach End and Cliff Foot, that marked the way out for the steamships. Beyond those buoys the sea seemed gradually to lose itself in mist. It was hard to tell where sea ended and mist began, though here, in the harbour, they could see quite clearly the houses of Felixstowe on one side and Harwich on the other.

      “It doesn’t look as if it could ever turn into waves,” said Titty, staring across the wide stretch of almost oily water.

      “I’ve seen it just like glass,” said Jim. “And then, an hour or two later, I’ve been taking in reefs and having a job to keep the sea where it belongs.”

      “Where’s that?” said Roger.

      “Not in the cockpit,” said Jim with a grin.

      Not in the cockpit. They looked at the cockpit, comfortable and deep, with its high coamings, with the deck outside them and the water so far below. It seemed impossible that ever the sea could come heaping up and throwing itself aboard.

      “Has it ever come in here?” said Titty.

      “Hasn’t it?” said Jim.

      “What do you do when it does?” asked John.

      “Pump it out,” said Jim, and he showed them the small square lid in the seat, and the pump handle just below it, and let Roger pump for a little, just to feel what it was like.

      Light though the wind was, and fitful, the last of the ebb took them down the harbour at a good pace. Those outer buoys, at first dim black specks in the distance, were now clearly different. One, with a pointed top, was the Beach End buoy. The other, flat-topped, was called Cliff Foot. Roger was told he had earned full marks by remembering that Beach End must be the starboard hand buoy and Cliff Foot the port hand buoy for vessels coming in. Not even Susan wanted to go below deck just now when they were coming nearer and nearer to the place at which harbour ends and sea begins.

      “Are we going right down to the buoys?” asked John.

      “I promised you shouldn’t go further,” said Jim, “and it really isn’t worth while going so far a day like this. There’s nothing to see. . . ”

      “But sea,” chuckled Roger.

      “Not much of that with this mist,” said Jim. “Never mind. We’ll go up to Ipswich this morning, and it may be clearer when we come back.”