Peter Duck Page 9

  “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 stopwatch, 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.

  “Isn’t it our turn?” said John.

  “You may be sure it is that,” said Peter Duck, as he hurried out of the deckhouse door, pulling an old muffler round his neck, cramming on a sou’wester, and shuffling an oilskin round his shoulders. “Been too long ashore,” he said. “Don’t keep watches on the Arrow of Norwich. You shouldn’t have let me sleep, sir. What’s the course, Cap’n Nancy?”

  “Sou’ by west.”

  “Sou’ by west it is,” said Peter Duck.

  “We’ll be changing the course in another ten minutes,” said Captain Flint, “and we’ll have the booms to shift over.”

  For a few minutes they were all four together by the wheel. Peter Duck took a look about him. “Doing well, she is. There’s the Varne. Opening up Dover lights. Fast little packet she is and all.”

  Then came the bustle of changing course.

  “Will you handle her, Cap’n John, while we look after them booms?” said Peter Duck.

  “You’ve done it in daylight,” said Captain Flint.

  “It feels a bit funny in the dark,” said John.

  “Don’t worry about the dark. You watch the compass. Keep her south by west a minute or two longer.”

  “What’ll the new course
be?”

  “Sou’-west by west.”

  “I steered nearly all our watch,” said Nancy.

  “Don’t talk to the man at the wheel,” said Captain Flint. “You come along forward with me to tend jib and staysail sheets.”

  “I’ll never find them in the dark,” said Nancy.

  “You’ll have to learn,” said Captain Flint. “Come along. Any time you like, Mr Duck.”

  “We might get them over now,” said Mr Duck.

  Nancy and Captain Flint disappeared. John, with his eyes fixed on the glowing compass card inside the window, was yet aware of Mr Duck busy with the mainsheet. Captain Flint came aft again to help him.

  “Luff,” cried Peter Duck, and as John brought the Wild Cat a little nearer to the wind he heard the creaking of blocks as the sheets were hauled in.

  “Bear away now.”

  “South-west,” said John aloud. “South-west by west. West-south-west.” Over went the boom with a great creaking, but none of the violence he had expected, and John, putting her now on the new course, knew that Captain Flint and Peter Duck were letting the sheets out again and making them fast.

  “South-west by west,” said Peter Duck sharply.

  “South-west by west it is,” said John.

  Captain Flint had hurried forward again to help Nancy with the sheets of the headsails.

  “Well, that’s that,” said Captain Flint a few minutes later, as they came aft. “She’ll do unless the wind changes.”

  “It’s not going to do that,” said Peter Duck.

  “Skip along down, Nancy,” said Captain Flint. “You’ve done jolly well. Go and get your sleep now.”

  No one would have guessed from Nancy’s cheerful “Good night” that she had been seasick all that day.

  “Good night,” called Captain Flint. “Well, Mr Duck, I’m turning in, too. I’ll take on again at four.” He went into the deckhouse and John and Peter Duck had the ship to themselves, just as Captain Flint and Nancy had had her before them.

  *

  It was pitch dark now, but the Narrows were ablaze with lights, and Peter Duck was checking them over as if he were an old hen counting chickens. Anybody would have thought he had invented those lights, it was so clear that he was pleased to be seeing them again.

  “There’s France that is. Cape Griz Nez. Aye, and there’s Folkestone. Now you see them Dover lights. Last time I were past here there were the Prooshian, five-masted German, piled up under the cliffs just east’ard of them lights.”

  Peter Duck was looking all round him, recognising in the darkness the places he had known twenty years before. But presently he remembered something else.

  “Cap’n Flint say anything about the Viper when you come on deck?”

  “No,” said John. “I forgot about her. I wonder where she is now.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to you if you was to tell me that was her,” said Peter Duck.

  “What?”

  “Over the starboard quarter now. Them lights.”

  John looked round. Away there in the dark were a red and green light close together. As he watched them, the red light disappeared. The green light was left alone. John glanced down at the compass, and when he looked back again the green light was showing on the port quarter.

  “Sailing vessel, that’s certain,” said Peter Duck. “And I’m just a-wondering if that ain’t the Viper. One green light’s much like another, and you can’t tell t’other from which, but seems to me that vessel’s got her eye on us. She’s not steering a course. See! There’s her port light, red again. Now it might very easy be that Black Jake was holding of her wheel. Well, skipper’s set a course, and it’s not for us to change it, but I doubt he wouldn’t mind us finding out if that vessel ain’t following us and not shaping no course of her own. Just you let me have the wheel.”

  Peter Duck spun the wheel and suddenly headed the Wild Cat in, as if for the lights of Folkestone.

  “You tell me what lights she shows us.”

  “Red and green,” said John.

  “Heading down Channel same as us. Now then?”

  “Green light’s gone,” said John.

  “I thought so,” said Peter Duck. “She’s headed in to see what we’re going to do in Folkestone.”

  Once more he spun the wheel and put the Wild Cat back on her course. “Aye,” he said, “and now he’ll show his green and come after us again.” As he spoke the green light shone out again beside the red, the red disappeared, and the other vessel was once more heading down Channel.

  “The Viper sure enough,” said Peter Duck. “Plain as talking that was.”

  “But why?” said John.

  “He thinks I’m taking you to Crab Island,” said Peter Duck. “That’s what it is. He’d better have left me in Lowestoft, had the skipper.” And then suddenly he spoke of other things. “You and me’s got this vessel in charge,” he said, “and ought to be watching our course, and keeping a look out, and picking up the lights as they falls due. Now, what should you say that light was, over there, starboard bow, flashing away as if it was in a bit of a hurry about something?”

  “I don’t know,” said John.

  “Dungeness, that is, and if it was daylight, we’d see the fine black tower of it, a proper candlestick, a black tower with a white belt about its middle and a white lantern and gallery to it overhead, a good mark from anywhere, and we’d be seeing Lloyd’s signal station, and the red house where they make the fog signals, and the little white tower that holds a low light down near the end of the point. There’s more than one man taken his ship into shoal water for not knowing Dungeness and mistaking a water tower there is inland for Dungeness high light. And then beyond Dungeness we’d be seeing Fairlight Church, another good mark for poor sailormen coming up Channel with their stomachs sickened of salt pork. I’ve come right up Channel before now and known that be the first land we sighted, that and Beachy Head and before we sighted them nothing at all but the noise of foghorns, and us groping our way in blind and wishing all steamships was at the bottom of the sea.”

  Roger, of course, would have gone on asking questions about Black Jake and the Viper, but John knew at once that Mr Duck did not want to talk about them just then, so he asked no more, though now and again he glanced over his shoulder to see the green light belonging to the sailing vessel that had altered course when they had, still not very far away over the port quarter. The other vessel, whatever she was, was keeping her distance and following the Wild Cat down Channel. John wondered if Black Jake was at the wheel and if that red-haired boy they had fished out of the harbour was watching for the Wild Cat just as he himself was looking away into the dark for the green starboard light of the Viper. If indeed that vessel was the Viper. Well, morning would show that, and John put most of his mind into steering a straight course. This was better than that night when he had sailed Swallow in the dark and all the lights had gone out, and he had so nearly run her on a rock.

  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.

  CHAPTER IX

  BEACHY HEAD TO THE WIGHT

  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.