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

said John.

      “Good,” said Jim. “We’ll hoist O and K to the cross-trees to show her that everything’s all right.”

      “May we look at the flags?” asked Titty.

      “They’re in a roll in the shelf over your bunk,” said Jim, and a minute later Titty had brought up the white canvas roll and opened it, and they were looking at the neatly folded flags, each in a labelled pocket of its own. She found the O, red and yellow, and the K, yellow and blue.

      “Do you ever use them?” asked John.

      “Only for fun,” said Jim. “Uncle Bob likes to have them just in case he wants a pilot or something.”

      “What’s the flag for a pilot,” asked Titty.

      “S,” said Jim.

      Titty pulled out the S flag, a dark blue square with a wide white border.^* She folded it and put it away. “We shan’t want a pilot flag on this voyage,” she said regretfully.

      “I never take a pilot anyhow if I don’t have to,” said Jim, thinking of something else. He stood up and looked round the sky.

      “We’ll have to get that staysail up without waiting for the deck to dry,” he said. “And we’ll have to turn back in a minute. There’s hardly enough wind to beat the tide, and I don’t want to drift out beyond the buoys. . . ”

      “Let’s turn now,” said Susan.

      “Oh I say, let’s go as far as the buoys,” said John.

      “Clang!”

      “What’s that?” Susan, Roger and Titty all asked at once, in different tones.

      “Somebody ringing at us?” said Titty.

      “Breakfast gong,” said Roger.

      “It’s the Beach End buoy,” said Jim. “There isn’t enough of a ripple to set it properly booming. Look here, John. I’ll have that staysail up. Will you go through the cabin and pass it up through the forehatch?” He went forward along the side deck.

      “Bring her round, Titty,” he said.

      “But nothing happens,” said Titty, putting the tiller across first one way and then, desperately, the other. The mainsail hung idle and half the mainsheet was slowly sinking. The wind had dropped to a dead calm and the Goblin had not even steerage way.

      A bundle of red staysail appeared through the forehatch.

      “No. Stow it away again,” said Jim. “There’s no wind at all.”

      He hurried aft, looking over his shoulder at the buoys, the ebb was still running and the buoys were coming rapidly nearer.

      “Feet out of the way everybody,” he said. “Got to start up Billy. That’s it. Feet out of the way.”

      “Can I be engineer?” said Roger.

      “All right. Get the spanner out of that starboard locker. Got to give a turn to the grease cap on the stern tube. Always have to do that before starting.”

      He lifted a board in the floor of the cockpit, reached down with Roger trying to look over his shoulder, came up again, wiped his hands on a lump of cotton waste, and put the board back into place.

      “Hope to goodness Billy has the sense to start when he’s wanted,” he said, as he dropped down the companion, into the cabin.

      “Clang!”

      “We’re nearly out of the harbour already,” said Susan.

      “You try to steer,” said Titty, and John took the useless tiller.

      From below in the cabin came talk of grease and oil, Roger’s voice, “Oh let me pour it in,” and Jim’s, “Buck up, then,” and “Keep clear while I swing her.” They had almost reached the Cliff Foot buoy when there was the noise of the engine being turned over, and suddenly the quiet of the windless morning was broken by a slow chug, chug, that quickened, chug, chug, cough, chug, and steadied again.

       Jim, followed by Roger, shot up from below.

      “Good old Billy,” he said. “Just in time to keep our promises.” He leaned out over the transom, to see that the water was coming out of the exhaust as it should, hauled in the Imp’s painter, for fear it should get wound up by the propeller, and turned to Roger. “Now then, engineer. Put her ahead. Shove that lever right forward.”

      “Look out for your leg, Titty,” said Roger, and as Titty took her leg out of the way he pushed forward the lever that stuck up out of the cockpit floor. The engine took up the work, and Jim let go the Imp’s painter and fiddled with the throttle. The chug, chug quickened.

      “She’s moving,” said Roger, looking over the side.

      “That’s right, John. Swing her round. We’ll go close up the Felixstowe side.” He was rattling in the mainsheet, and made it fast with the boom well in. They could hear the relief in his voice.

      “What would have happened if the engine hadn’t started?” said Titty.

      “We’d have drifted out to sea,” said Jim.

      “Which way?”

      “Out by the Cork lightship,” said Jim. “The ebb runs about north-east. We shouldn’t have gone very far because it’s practically low water and the flood would have brought us back. But I promised your mother we shouldn’t go outside the buoys.”

      “We all promised,” said Susan, looking astern at the Cliff Foot buoy.

      “Beu. . . eueueueueueu,” sounded the foghorn from the lightship.

      “Thank goodness the engine did start,” said Susan, and then, in an altogether happier voice, she said, “I’m going to light the stove now, and we’ll have the rest of breakfast. Boiled eggs, I think, and tea.”

      “Good,” said Jim. “We’ll lower the mainsail and roll up the jib. No good pretending to be sailing. We’ll run up to Ipswich with the motor.”

      “Can I try steering her?” said Roger.

      “Go ahead,” said Jim. “Keep her straight for the mills by Felixstowe Dock. Yes. Those high buildings.”

      “I can’t see while everybody’s just in front of me,” said Roger, feeling that for the first time he was in command.

      Except, perhaps, Roger, not one of them would in the ordinary way have been glad to feel that the Goblin had her motor running. But today, even John, who cared for nothing but sail, was grateful to the little engine chug-chugging away under the companion-steps. It had saved them at the very last minute and was taking them quickly further and further way from the danger of a broken promise.

      John and Jim quite cheerfully rolled up the jib, took the weight of the boom on the topping lift, and let the useless mainsail down on the cabin top. Jim put a couple of tyers round it, for neatness’ sake, leaving it all ready to hoist again as soon as there should be some wind.

      The stove in the galley at the side of the companion broke into a cheerful roar. Susan passed up a saucepan for salt water in which to boil the eggs.

      “Will she go any faster?” said Roger, talking very loudly, because of the noise of the engine.

      Jim grinned and bent down and opened the throttle. The Goblin shot forward, the water foamed past her sides, and the Imp, towing astern, had a good bow wash of her own.

      “Gosh,” said Roger. “We’ll be at Pin Mill in two minutes.”

      “About an hour,” said Jim.

      Already the Goblin was pushing up the channel close to the pierheads of the dock at Felixstowe. They could read the name of the Pier Hotel, and could see a red motor-bus by the dock gates.