LITMIR.BIZ

CHAPTER III

      PUTTING HER ON LEGS

      IT WAS A restless night in the Sea Bear. Steps on deck woke sleepers in their bunks. They turned over and went to sleep again only to be waked once more by the whirr of an alarm clock, instantly suppressed. Dick lay thinking of the small lochs that were shown on the chart and wondering how long the scrubbing of the ship would take and whether he would be able to go ashore for his last chance of seeing Divers before going home. People were moving in the cabin. There was the noise of somebody slipping on the way up the companion ladder. “Jibbooms and bobstays! I wish shins were made of iron!” It must have been Nancy who slipped. There were snatches of quick eager talk up on deck. “Look! Look! That’s the place.” “Don’t shout.” “All right. But they’re sleeping like logs.” Then there was the gentle bump of the dinghy being brought alongside, the squeak of rowlocks. Silence … then, “What’s he doing? Stamping to keep warm?” “Finding the best place to beach her.” “Why’s he shifting that stone?” “Making marks, so that we can see where to bring her in when the tide’s up.” “He’s off again.” Silence for a long time. Bump. Captain Flint’s voice outside: “Nice bit of hard. Mac knew what he was doing. Ten foot rise and fall … Low water about one … If we put our backs into it we’ll have the barnacles off and the anti-fouling on with time to spare.” There were more noises in the cabin. Dick rolled out of his bunk, to find that almost everybody else had the same idea. Titty, Dorothea, Peggy and Susan were all going up to see what was happening. Dick hurried after them, but hardly had time to get halfway up the companion ladder before there was a roar of “Go to bed, you idiots! You’ve only a few more hours for sleep and a hard day ahead.” The fog had gone, high clouds were driving across, and the sky was full of light.

      “We couldn’t have done better even if we’d been able to see,” said Titty.

      “Anchored right in the middle,” said Dorothea.

      “We really had better go to sleep again,” said Susan.

      “He’s been ashore and looked at the place where she’s going to be put on legs,” said Peggy.

      “Put on legs …” Dick wanted to see how that was done, and perhaps all the crew would be needed for it, but they might not be needed all day and if the Ship’s Naturalist could be spared … Dick scrambled back into his bunk and was asleep again. He did not hear John, Nancy and Captain Flint come down into the cabin. There was quiet for an hour or two. Then more noises. Heavy bumps in the fo’c’sle. Bumps on deck. Someone was reaching into his bunk to get at something high up under the deck. The winch was clanking. There was the sudden roar of a newly started Primus stove. Dick, half asleep, heard Roger say, “Shut up!” and somebody else say, “Engine!” and Roger bounce out of his bunk with “Coming. Coming! Don’t let him start it till I get there.” Dick dozed again. It seemed only a moment later when he awoke and knew that he was the only one below decks. Bright sunshine was sweeping round the cabin. The engine was throbbing. Dick rubbed his eyes, grabbed his spectacles, scrambled out of his bunk and up the ladder to find all the rest of the crew on deck and the Sea Bear moving very slowly across the smooth water of a sunlit cove where yesterday she had lain blindfold in the mist.

      The north side of the cove, towards which they were moving, was steep and rocky. A lump of rising ground, covered with heather, hid the valley that was shown on the chart. At the mouth of the cove, Dick saw the seagulls circling about the cliff that had thrown back the sound of the engine when they passed close under it in the fog. The top of the cliff sloped up to a little hill, behind which a high ridge hid the buildings they had seen from the offing. Looking astern, he saw a line of rocks, rising into a promontory that divided the cove from another to the south of it. At the head of the cove a stream was coming down over a waterfall. The Sea Bear was moving towards a little bay with rocks on either side. She was in perfect shelter, though small white clouds, high overhead, were racing seaward, and outside, beyond the cliff, were white-topped hurrying waves.

      “Just ticking over,” Captain Flint was saying. “No need to ram her ashore,”

      “Aye, aye, Sir,” said Roger.

      “Chug … chug … chug …”

      A lot of work had been done since, in the early morning, the mist had blown away. A great coil of rope was on the after deck, close by the cockpit, with the kedge anchor aboard again and ready for letting go from aft instead of from the bows. More coils of rope were on the foredeck, and the end of one of them went down into the dinghy which, with an anchor in it, was made fast to the starboard shrouds instead of towing astern. Susan was at the tiller. That must mean that John and Nancy and Captain Flint were going to be needed for something else, and needed at once.

      “Doing fine, Susan,” said Captain Flint. “We’re on the marks now. One white stone above another … Keep them so.”

      “Dick,” said Dorothea, “it’s too cold to be on deck in pyjamas.”

      “I’m warm enough,” said Dick. “I’ll change afterwards.”

      “It’s a lovely bit of beach,” said Nancy. “We saw it as soon as the fog went, and Captain Flint went ashore and put the marks.”

      “But where are her legs?” said Dick. “Look over the side,” said Nancy. “Didn’t you hear us putting the bolts through?”

      Dick looked over, and saw that heavy posts had been swung alongside, one to starboard and one to port, their forward ends pivoting on huge bolts close to the shrouds.

      “Isn’t it a gorgeous place?” said Titty. “Better than any harbour.”

      “It’s just the place for a story,” said Dorothea, looking at the blue hills far inland, and the steep cliff that sheltered the cove from the north winds.

      “Better than any harbour,” said Titty again. “It’s the sort of place where something’s simply bound to happen.”

      “I hope to goodness not,” said Captain Flint, hurrying past after making sure that all was ready on the foredeck. “She’s a big ship and we can’t afford to let anything happen at all.”

      “Not that kind of thing,” said Titty, but he did not hear her. Already he was at the stern, looking to and fro as if to judge his distance.

      “Let go the kedge,” he said.

      There was a splash and, as the Sea Bear moved slowly on, he paid out rope.

      “John,” he called, and John was there in a moment. “Watch the kedge rope. See it runs out clear but be ready to check it and haul in fast if we have to go astern. We don’t want it fouling the propeller.”

      “Aye, aye, Sir,” said John.

      “I’ll take the tiller to put her aground,” said Captain Flint. “You’re doing all right, Susan. Stand by to take charge again. Nancy,” he called. “Ready with that bow warp?”

      “All

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