Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

And then, at last, a faint light began to lift in the eastern sky. Looking north, John could see once more where the sea ended and the land began. The water was no longer black but a dull grey. White tops of waves showed in the dark, moving splashes of white long before the shapes of the waves that carried them could be seen. Away there, over the port quarter, a green starboard light was still showing, but they could see now that the vessel that carried it was a dark schooner, shadowy in the dim light before the dawn, swaying along down Channel, not more than half a mile off.

Captain Flint, yawning and rubbing his eyes, came out of the deckhouse, pulling an old tweed hat down over his head and buttoning his jacket over his muffler. It was four o’clock in the morning.

“Dungeness abeam, sir,” said Peter Duck.

“Wind’s holding well,” said Captain Flint. He looked round the sky until he saw the shadowy shape of the sailing vessel over the port quarter.

“That schooner,” he said. “But where’s her topsail?”

“She didn’t want to pass us,” said Peter Duck. “Took it in for the night.”

“You’re sure she’s that neighbour of ours.”

“I do think just that,” said Peter Duck.

“Sou’-west by west,” said John as Captain Flint took the wheel.

“Sou’-west by west,” repeated Captain Flint. “Down you go now and get all the sleep you can.”

“Shall I call Nancy?”

“No. It’s light enough now. I shan’t want her.”

“Good night,” said John. “At least it’s good morning really.”

“See you at breakfast,” said Captain Flint. “You too, Mr. Duck. I’m all right. Your watch below.”

John went off round the deckhouse and down the companion. If anybody had been awake to see him come down they would have wondered why he was smiling to himself, a broad, happy smile. John was extremely happy. He had kept his first night watch at sea. And most of the time he had been steering. Nancy was not the only one who could say that. He went into his cabin. A little light from the saloon showed him Roger fast asleep in the lower bunk. John caught himself almost laughing from happiness. This time he slipped quietly out of his clothes and into his pyjamas before he climbed into his bunk. It was sloping the other way now. For a moment or two he lay awake. The water creaming along the side of the ship sounded quite different down here, where you heard it just the other side of the planking. Quite different. And up on deck it must be getting lighter and lighter. The night was over. John pushed his nose into his pillow and fell asleep.

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Down below everybody overslept again, and when they woke and came running up on deck in their pyjamas, they found Peter Duck at the wheel, and Captain Flint waiting for his breakfast, looking a little sleepy, but enjoying a morning pipe, sitting on the roof of the deckhouse, dangling his heels, and watching a black schooner, her grey canvas almost white in the sunshine, sailing along on the port quarter, just where John looked for her the moment he came up out of the companion.

“Still there,” said John.

“The Viper,” said Titty.

“Perhaps she wants to race,” said Nancy.

“She can outsail us if she wants. Carries more canvas,” said Peter Duck.

“We’ll get breakfast over,” said Captain Flint, “and then we’ll set topsails and see what she does. What have you two mates to say for yourselves? Here are us poor sailormen starving for something hot.”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Susan. “Come on, Peggy. I put some quaker oats to soak last night. Will you broach two tins of milk? We’ll give them boiled eggs and do our getting up afterwards. You fly down, Titty, and get dressed.”

“Go ahead then,” said Captain Flint, “and John and Roger can have a bit of a bath. There’s a canvas bucket with a rope to it.”

“I’ll just go down and let Gibber out,” said Roger. “I’ll get the towels at the same time.”

“Bring them up the forehatch,” said John. “What’s that lighthouse right under the cliff?”

“Beachy Head. We’re getting along. We couldn’t have had a luckier slant of wind.”

A minute or two later, the forehatch was pushed open from below. Gibber came out, shivered a little, and then, making up his mind that things were not so bad, climbed up the capstan and sat there making faces at the wind. Roger pushed the towels up and came after them. Then John and Roger took their clothes off, tossed them down the forehatch, and closed it to keep them dry. John went to the lee side, threw his bucket forward at the end of its rope and hauled it up again as the schooner swept him past it. The first time or two he got very little water. Once he waited too long and had the bucket nearly pulled out of his hands. But he soon learnt the trick, more or less, and he and Roger took turns, emptying buckets of water over each other. At the first splash the monkey leapt from the capstan, ran to the foremast, and raced up the wooden hoops of the foresail to the gaff jaws and above them to the cross-trees, where it stopped, leaning down and chattering with anger, while John and Roger sluiced the water about on the deck far below.

Cold water, bright sunshine and the clear green and white of Beachy Head somehow made it hard for John to believe the sort of things he had found easy to believe last night. This morning the black schooner over there looked in no way different from other sailing vessels. She was the Viper all right. There was no doubt of that, but sunshine and cold water made it hard to believe that it was not mere accident that brought her down Channel in such close touch with the Wild Cat. After all, they had left Lowestoft very soon after each other.

THE COOKS’ GALLEY

But when John and Roger had dressed and cleaned their teeth (Susan had put her head out of the galley to remind Roger not to forget to clean his) and they came on deck again and found Titty and Nancy waiting about very ready for their breakfast, John told Nancy what had happened while he and Peter Duck had been keeping watch together. Nancy seemed to think it real enough.

“He wants to do something beastly,” she said, “after being ducked in the harbour like that.”

“He’s probably a real pirate,” said Titty. “Not like Captain Flint. A bad one. He looks it, with those ear-rings.”

They hung on to the shrouds and looked across the waves at the black schooner that was so steadily keeping pace with them.

“He’s probably going to have another look at those crabs,” said Roger.

“That’s what Mr. Duck thinks,” said Nancy.

They looked aft at the broad back of Captain Flint, sitting on the roof of the deckhouse. Just then the bell was banged suddenly and close behind their backs by Peggy, and they looked round to see Susan, also dressed, disappearing down the companion with a great saucepan of steaming porridge.

“How did you get dressed?” said Nancy. “You can’t have washed.”

“We took turns,” said Peggy. “I stirred the pot while Susan went below and then she stirred and I bolted down.”

“Never was better pleased to hear a bell in my life,” said Captain Flint, slipping down off the deckhouse roof and sweeping them with him down to breakfast. “Hurry up now, and let me get it over, so that Mr. Duck can come down. Take him up a mug of coffee, Titty, to be going on with.”