Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Captain Flint looked up at the wrinkled, brown old sailor.

“Cap’n,” said Peter Duck, “can I have a word with you?”

“Why, yes,” said Captain Flint. “There’s the ladder.”

Peter Duck climbed quickly down to the deck of the Wild Cat. The others stood there watching him, and wondering what it was he was going to say.

“It’s like this, Cap’n,” said the old sailor. “These last few days I’ve been thinking a deal of your little schooner, and the more I looks at her the more I likes her. Now I’d like well to be seeing blue water once again, and I’ve been turning it over, as you might say, and I’d like to ask you plain out if it’s in your mind to be shipping a crew?”

John and Nancy looked at each other with a flash of hope. But it seemed too good to be true. What would Captain Flint say?

“A crew?” said Captain Flint. “Why, we’ve got three captains counting myself, and two mates and an able-seaman and a ship’s boy and a ship’s parrot and a monkey.”

“I seen them,” said the old sailor. “Now me, I’d be glad to sign on as an A.B. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to have an able-seaman to each mate.”

Captain Flint laughed. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “we are one man short. But are you an able-seaman? I know nothing about you, you know. You haven’t yet told me your name.”

“Duck’s my name,” said the old man. “Peter Duck, and Duck’s my nature, and I’ve been afloat as you might say, ever since I were a duckling. I’ve been on inland waters these last years, but I’m a deep sea man properly. Sailed in the Thermopylae. . . .”

“Sailed in the what?” Captain Flint eagerly caught him up.

“The old Thermopylae,” said Peter Duck. “There’s few A.B.’s with as much experience as what I have. Sixty years of it, and maybe then a bit more.”

“A fine ship,” said Captain Flint.

“If you be thinking it over, Cap’n,” said the old sailor, “and if it’s all the same to you, I seen a block up there that’s like to come adrift, and, sign on or not sign on, I might as well be putting a whipping on it.” His hands were already on the halyards and before they guessed what he was thinking of doing he had begun climbing up the mainmast. A minute later he had hitched a leg over the cross-trees. Then he pulled a knife and some twine out of his pocket and they could see him busy up there far above their heads.

“Well?” said Nancy. “How about that?”

Captain Flint said nothing. He was shading his eyes against the sunshine, looking up at the mast-head to watch what Peter Duck was doing.

Just then Roger, who had been exploring under the deckhouse, trying to get a look at the little engine that was tucked away down there, came rushing up for fear he was missing anything on deck.

Like all the others he looked up at the mast-head. “Hullo,” he said, “what’s he doing?” but did not wait to be answered. His eyes were all over the place. There was such a lot to see in this harbour. He looked at the swing bridge, closed now, with carts and motor cars and people going across it. He looked along the quay to the Custom-House with the big crest over the doorway, and beyond it the tall masts of the fishing vessels. He looked up the inner harbour towards the dry dock, where a steam trawler was being repaired and there was a great noise of men chipping rust and riveting. And then his eyes rested on that other schooner on the opposite side of the harbour, the black schooner that was tied up against the south quay. There were men taking stores aboard her, or cargo, Roger thought, and suddenly he caught sight of a man he knew on the black schooner’s deck.

“Hullo,” he said. “There’s the man who tried to be beastly about Titty’s parrot. The man with the ear-rings.”

“Where?” said Titty.

“Over there. On that ship. He’s seen us. He’s looking at us with a telescope.”

“He’s wondering what’s being done to our mast,” said John.

But Peter Duck was coming down now, hand over hand, faster than he went up, with his legs about the mast to steady himself.

“Good enough,” said Captain Flint. “In the Thermopylae, I think you said? There’ve been few ships to touch her. I think we might fix something up together. But you’d better meet the rest of us. This is Captain John. This is Captain Nancy. Both have commanded their own vessels. This is Able-seaman Titty. This is Roger, the ship’s boy. Where are the mates? Great hands at cooking are our mates. Ah, here they are. Mate Susan of the Swallow and Mate Peggy of the Amazon. This is Mr. Duck, who’s thinking of coming down Channel with us. . . .”

“Down Channel, sir?” said Peter Duck. “But I made sure you was going foreign.”

“No reason why we shouldn’t,” said Captain Flint, “if we all get on together. We’ve got no plans as yet.”

“It was blue water as I was thinking of,” said Peter Duck.

“You think we’re fit for it?”

“She’s a tough little packet is yours,” said Peter Duck, “and two men and a boy could take her anywheres.”

“What about girls?” said Nancy rather fiercely.

“I don’t count captains girls,” said Peter Duck, “nor mates neither, nor yet able-seamen. And I’ve three girls myself, all proper sailormen, though they’re settled down now and got families.”

Nancy laughed. “That’s all right,” she said. “Some people don’t understand.”

“How soon could you join?” asked Captain Flint.

Everybody listened. Peter Duck thought for a moment before answering.

“It’s like this,” he said. “I’ve a vessel of my own to lay up before I can sail with you. Lying at Oulton she is, my old wherry, and I must sail her up to Beccles and leave all snug with one of my daughters for to keep an eye on her while I’m away. All that takes time. And then there’s my things to put together. It’s a good while now since I last went to sea.”

Faces fell once more. Perhaps after all it would be days and days before they could be starting.

Peter Duck went on. He looked up and sniffed the air and glanced at the vane over the Custom-House. “But there’s a right wind for Beccles now, and she’s a flyer is my old wherry. Arrow of Norwich, they call her. Everybody knows of her. I don’t say but what I might be back here with my dunnage to-morrow morning, and you’ll hardly be sailing before then. There’s best part of a day’s work to do on the rigging, seems to me.”

Captain Flint laughed. “I thought you were going to say the week after next. That’s all right. You’re the man for us, if you think you won’t mind cramming into the deckhouse with me. You and I ought to be handy for the wheel. . . .”

A few minutes later Captain Flint and Peter Duck were walking off together along the quay to the harbourmaster’s office.

“Well, that’s just saved us,” said Nancy.

“And isn’t Peter Duck a lovely name?” said Titty.

“That man’s still got his telescope,” said Roger. “But he isn’t pointing it at us now. He’s watching Captain Flint walking along the quay.”

They looked across the water to the black schooner. The man who had been angry with the parrot was standing on the deck with a telescope to his eye, watching Captain Flint and Peter Duck, who were just turning into the harbourmaster’s office.

Captain Flint came back alone. He was in the highest spirits.

“We simply couldn’t have done better,” he was saying. “The harbourmaster tells me that that old man’s the best seaman that’s ever shipped out of Lowestoft. The Thermopylae! We shall know something about sailing when that old fellow has finished with us. And now we can start the moment we’re ready. Trial trip to-morrow. Well, anyway, the day after. I was thoroughly bothered when I heard Sam Bideford couldn’t come. What a bit of luck. An old sailor from the Thermopylae! Good enough for anybody.”