Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“You’d better get your sleep, Mr. Duck,” said Captain Flint. “You’ve only an hour or two.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the old seaman. He took his old head in again, laid him down on the starboard bunk in the deckhouse and began to snore, an easy, comfortable, mellow snoring, as soon as his head touched the rolled-up coat that he always liked better than a pillow.

Nancy came on deck with a scarf wound round her neck and an oilskin coat over her sweater.

“Hullo,” she said, as she came round the deckhouse to the wheel and heard that steady snore, “Mr. Duck’s asleep.”

“Good man he is,” said Captain Flint. “That’s the way to do it. Waste no time in counting sheep but go to sleep as you hit the pillow and wake up ready for any job that offers. That’s the sailor’s way.”

“What’s that light over there? Playing tricks.”

“Over where?”

“Broad on the port side,” Nancy chuckled.

“That’s better,” said Captain Flint. “North Goodwin lightship. Three flashes together once a minute. We’re going inside the Goodwins. Come along now and take the wheel and see what you make of compass steering in the dark. South by west’s the course.”

“Sou’ by west it is,” said Nancy, taking over the wheel.

“That’s the style,” said Captain Flint, and though Nancy could not see his face, she knew he was smiling. “Keep your mind on the compass card and on steering a straight course and you’ll have no time to be seasick.” And with that he left her to it and went forward along the deck, to listen to the water under the Wild Cat’s forefoot and the wind in the rigging and to feel that he too, like Peter Duck, was glad to be at sea again. “Go anywhere,” the old man had said. And why not? He came aft again.

“And what did you think of that yarn of Mr. Duck’s last night?” he said.

“Jolly good story,” said Nancy.

“Yes,” said Captain Flint rather tamely.

But Nancy did not notice his disappointment. She had quite enough to think of with the steering wheel in her hands, and the compass card in its bowl behind the window restlessly swinging. The line at the back of the bowl never marked the same point of the compass for ten seconds together. Now south, now south-south-west, and Nancy busy with the wheel trying her hardest to steady it on a point between the two. And Captain Flint had much to think of, besides the strange tale of buried treasure. Every now and then he would dive into the deckhouse, make a mark on the chart on the table there and hurry out once more. Every time he opened the deckhouse door Peter Duck’s snoring sounded louder.

“There’s something grand about that snoring,” said Captain Flint at last.

“We hardly need those foghorns,” said Nancy, “not if we can count on him to be asleep at the right moment.”

On and on through the summer night, the Wild Cat hurried on her way. It was as if she, too, were glad to be out of harbour at last and bound for somewhere or other. Her green starboard light glowed on the foam that churned away to leeward. The cool wind plucked at the steersman’s hair under her stocking cap. She turned to Captain Flint who was standing beside her dimly lit by the light from the compass window.

“I should never have thought she’d go so fast with such a little wind.”

“But it isn’t a little wind,” said Captain Flint. “It’s a rattling good one, and you would think it half a gale if we were going the other way and had to beat against it.”

On and on the Wild Cat hurried through the Downs. Here and there were the riding-lights of coasters anchored in shelter, waiting to go north with the change of the tide. Through the Gull Channel the little schooner passed, and Captain Flint and Nancy saw how the Brake lightship, straining at her anchor, pitched as the seas passed under her, so that the red light flashing from her mast seemed to be trying to scratch half-circles in the sky. Other light-vessels were in sight for a time. There was the East Goodwin flashing out once every ten seconds away on the other side of those dangerous sands. There was the South Goodwin with its two flashes twice a minute. There was the blaze of Deal town, and the South Foreland light, high above the cliff, flashing ceaselessly, urgently, once every two and a half seconds, was unmistakable away there on the starboard bow. Each lightship and lighthouse had its own message to give in the language of flashes, and Captain Flint, checking the flashes with his stop-watch, knew where he was as well as if it had been broad daylight. Then, besides these lights, which were the signposts of the sea, there were all the moving lights of the traffic making use of them, white mast-head lights above red and green sidelights showing the steamships and reds and greens with no mast-head lights showing the sailing vessels. The nearer the Wild Cat came to the Channel the more lights there were to be seen as big and little ships crowded together entering or leaving the North Sea. A huge liner bound for the East out of London river came racing southwards towards the Channel, a tremendous mass of lights like a runaway town in the dark.

Now and then Captain Flint took over the wheel, and left Nancy to count flashes and watch the moving lights, but she felt safer from seasickness when she was thinking of the steering of the ship.

At midnight the South Foreland light was abeam. There was no sign of John, and they had only to listen to hear the steady snore of Peter Duck still sounded from the deckhouse.

“What do you say, Nancy,” said Captain Flint. “Time to call the starboard watch. But we can carry on a bit longer without jibing, and when we do jibe we’ll want their help and they’ll want ours. Shall we let them sleep till we’re fairly round the Foreland?”

“Shiver my timbers,” said Nancy, “I’d like to carry on all night.”

“Another half-hour’ll be enough,” said Captain Flint. “But I’m glad to hear you shivering timbers again.”

The little alarm clock had done its best and John, fast asleep, had dreamed a bee was buzzing near his ear. But, tired though he was, he had gone to sleep thinking hard of the time when he would have to go on watch. He knew he had to wake at midnight, and in spite of sleeping through the buzzing of that bee, he did indeed wake not many minutes later. Had that alarm gone off? He reached under the pillow for the clock. A faint light came through the door from the saloon, but it was not enough to see the time by. He ought to have thought of that and put a pocket torch in his bunk. He lowered himself down so as not to wake the sleeping Roger in the lower bunk, and slipped through into the saloon. The lantern was swinging wildly over the table, but one glance at the clock was enough for John. Peter Duck must have gone on watch without him. He slipped back into the cabin, grabbed from behind the door the oilskin coat that he had been looking forward to wearing, dodged back into the saloon, round the table, up the companion stairs, and almost tumbled round the deckhouse in his hurry.

“I’m awfully sorry I’m late, Mr. Duck.” He had begun to say it before he saw that Nancy and Captain Flint were still at the wheel.

“You’re not the only one,” said Captain Flint.

“Listen,” said Nancy.

John listened. There was the noise of water, the noise of wind, but close at hand there was a very different noise, a steady, contented, confident snore.

“Shall I wake him?” said John.

“May as well now,” said Captain Flint.

John went into the deckhouse, hesitated just a moment, and then plucked respectfully at the figure in the starboard bunk.

In one single second the snoring stopped, Mr. Duck was awake, was sitting up, and had a foot already on the deckhouse floor.