LITMIR.BIZ

CHAPTER IV

      DOWN THE RIVER

      THEY were off. After one frantic moment when Jim was letting out the mainsheet and Susan was doing her best with the jib sheet and the cockpit seemed to have almost more ropes and people in it than it could hold, things had settled down. The Goblin was slipping away down the river so quietly that they had to look astern at the ripple under the bows of the Imp, or close down at the water, or at the trees on the banks, to feel they were moving at all.

      “Two days ago,” said Titty quietly.

      “We were in the train,” said Roger.

      “I was in the Downs wishing for wind,” laughed Jim.

      “And now we’re all here,” said Titty.

      “You take her, John,” said Jim, “while I go forrard and tidy up.”

      “Do you think I can?” said John, looking anxiously ahead at the big steamer moored in the middle of the river, unloading grain into barges tied alongside her.

      “Of course you can. Keep her as she’s going. Close by the steamer. This side of her, or we’ll lose the wind.”

      The tiller was in John’s hands, and Jim had run forward over the cabin roof and was busy with the halyards on the foredeck. John had done his best after hoisting up the staysail, but he had not really known how best to tuck the coil of rope out of the way. And now here he was, steering the Goblin. Titty and Susan were looking at him anxiously. Could he do it? It was not nearly as hard as he had feared. Just like steering old Swallow. He looked far down the river and chose a distant point on which to steer. The wind was light, and they were not moving fast through the water, but the ebb tide was carrying them along, and, in no time, it seemed, they were under the steep black side of the steamer. He would not look at her, but out of the corner of his eye saw that high black wall, that made the barges look small. The rattle of the derricks sounded close above him, and the shouts of the stevedores, as sack after sack of grain went down to be stowed in the holds of the barges. They had passed her.

      “La Plata,” read Roger, looking up at her stern.

      “That’s the River Plate,” said Titty, and looked ahead again, like John, as if the little Goblin herself were bound for the Atlantic and the coasts of South America.

      Jim Brading came back, and John made way for him at the tiller.

      “You carry on,” said Jim. “You’re doing very well.”

      On they went. The trees on both banks of the river came to an end. Green fields sloped down to the water’s edge on one side. On the other, further side, was a sea wall covered with long grass and green saltings and shining mud uncovered by the tide. Cormorants were on the edge of the mud, like black sentinels. A grey heron was wading. A flock of gulls swung up into the air and round to settle again in almost the same place. Now that they were clear of the trees, they had a rather better wind, and the Goblin heeled over, just a little, enough to make Titty take hold of the coaming that made a sort of wall round the edge of the cockpit, enough to make Roger think of doing the same, but stop with hand outstretched to find that with feet wide apart he could stand upright without holding on to anything.

      “Can I go on the foredeck?” said Roger, after waiting a moment to make sure that the Goblin would not heel over any further.

      “Better not,” said Susan.

      “He’ll be all right while we’re reaching like this,” said Jim.

      “Go along the windward side,” said John. “Hang on to that rail while you’re getting there, and then take a grip of the halliards.”

      “Do be careful, Roger,” said Susan.

      There was no need to say that. Roger climbed out of the cockpit, almost decided that he would go forward some other time, but then worked himself slowly along, sat down on the fore end of the cabin roof, and then, warily, pulled himself to his feet.

      “I can hear the water creaming under her bows,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

      Jim was sitting on the cockpit coaming, relighting the tobacco that was left in that pipe of his, and giving a first lesson in pilotage.

      “Red buoys and conical buoys to starboard,” he was saying. “Black can buoys to port. . . That’s coming up with the flood,” he explained. “So we leave the conical ones to port now, because we’re going out, not coming in.”

      “That’s a conical one?” said Titty.

      “Yes. That’s on the edge of the mud off Levington Creek, and that other one, just ahead, with a cormorant on it, is conical, too. That’s a can buoy, over there, the black one off Collimer Point.”

      “So we leave it to starboard?” said John.

      “Pass close to it. You can bring her head on it now.”

      There was a shout from the foredeck. “Steamer in sight,” cried Roger. “We’re going to meet her. You can see her above that point where the river turns to the right. . . ”

      “To starboard,” murmured Titty.

      “We’ll give her plenty of room,” said Jim, looking at the smoking funnel and white-painted bridge that were showing over the low green spit of Collimer Point. “But her wash’ll shake us up a bit. Better come along aft, A.B. Roger. Wind’s going southerly, too. We’ll be tacking down the next reach. A long leg and a short. . . ”

      Roger worked his way back with a grave face, but grinned happily when he was once more safe with the others in the crowded cockpit.

      “Close to the buoy,” said Jim, “and then we’ll squeeze a bit closer to the wind.”

      The black, flat-topped buoy off the point was coming quickly nearer.

      “It’s got a red light on the top of it,” said Roger.

      “Port-hand buoy,” said Jim.

      “But we’re leaving it to starboard,” said Roger.

      “Because we’re going down the river, not up,” said John, and Jim grinned to hear his lesson passed on so very soon after it had been learnt.

      Even before they had passed the buoy they could see down a new wide reach of the river, the last before it opened into Harwich harbour. Far away ahead of them they could see the little grey town, with its church spire and lighthouse tower, and steamers at anchor in waters wide enough to be almost like the sea.

      HARWICH LOOKED LIKE AN ISLAND

      There were no woods now on either side, and the whole feel was different. It was as if the river were already saying goodbye to the land. Harwich, in the distance, looked like an island. Sailing down that last reach did not feel like sailing on a river any more. And now they were going to meet a steamer coming in from the sea.

      She was a smallish, rusty-sided steamer, going up to Ipswich Docks, Jim said. He was keeping a wary eye on her. He had hauled in the mainsheet, and told John to keep his eye on the burgee and do the best he could. Nearer and nearer the steamer came.

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