when sail’s got plenty of room and steam’s got none to spare. We’ve got the whole river to play with, and she’s got to keep in the deep water channel.”
Titty, Susan, Roger and John all caught their breaths at once. A single short booming hoot startled the river.
“Gosh! What’s that?” said Roger.
“One hoot,” said Jim, putting down his pipe in a safe corner. “She’s going to starboard. Come on. We’ve got to leave her to port.” He slipped down from the coaming and made ready to deal with the ropes. “Here you are, Susan. Cast off this backstay when I sing out. Titty casts off the jib sheet. I’ll do the rest. Bring her round, John, as soon as you like. . . ”
“I say,” said John, “hadn’t you better. . . ”
“Rot,” said Jim. “Just think you’re going about in a dinghy, but don’t swing her round too fast. Now then. . . ”
“Ready about,” said John stoutly and put the helm down.
“Cast off jib sheet,” said Jim, “backstay. . . That’s right, Roger, cast off the staysail sheet.”
The Goblin swung round under the steamer’s rusty sides and headed back for the western shore. High above them, in the wheelhouse of the steamer, a man lifted his hand and let it drop forward again, the grave salute of East Coast sailors.
The crew of the Goblin waved cheerfully back.
Presently they went about again.
“Good as clockwork,” said the skipper, when all was done, and the Goblin was once more heading down river. “Now then, Mate Susan, give the first mate a rest and let’s see how you can steer.”
John handed over, glad to have steered so far without making any serious mistakes. Anyhow, if he had made mistakes they had not been serious enough for the skipper to say anything about them.
“Keep the sails just full,” said Jim, as Susan took the tiller. “Don’t try to go too close to the wind. We’ll have to go about again, anyhow, to clear Fagbury Point.”
“No waggles in the wake, Susan,” said Roger. “Titty and I’ll tell you every time you make one.”
“No talking to the man at the wheel,” said Jim. “Don’t you listen to them, Susan.”
But Susan, with her eye on the burgee, hardly heard him and had not heard Roger at all. What was the rule? Don’t let the sails flap, and don’t let the burgee blow away from the mainsail. She had not sailed with Daddy as John had, going out of Falmouth in a fishing boat. But she could steer the little Swallow just as well as John, and she knew John was watching and as keen as she was that she should make no mistake in steering the Goblin.
Jim once more perched on the edge of the coaming, and Titty and Roger watched with awe blue puffs of smoke from his pipe blowing away with the wind.
“Hullo!” he said suddenly. “Somebody on the mud by Fag-bury Point. Where are those glasses?”
“I know where they are,” said Titty, and dived down into the cabin to fetch them. She was up again in a moment. “Here they are. I say, John, it feels simply lovely being inside her while she’s going.”
Jim was looking through the glasses. “Yes,” he said. “She’s on the mud all right. And there she’ll sit till the tide comes up again to float her off.”
“A wreck!” exclaimed Titty.
“She won’t take any harm there,” said Jim. “Not as if she were outside. . . ”
But at this moment Able-seaman Roger suddenly jumped up on one of the seats in the cockpit and was pulled down again by John.
“Look! Look!” he cried.
“Where?”
“It’s gone. . . There it is again. . . ”
“But where?”
For a moment there was nothing to see and Titty and John thought it was just Roger stirring everybody up about nothing. Then, about thirty yards away the water was broken, a shining black lump heaved up, dived under, rolled up once more and disappeared.
“It’s a black pig,” said Roger. “Swimming.”
“Porpoise,” said Jim Brading, relighting his pipe. “There’s another away to starboard.”
“Close to us,” shouted Roger.
“He’s diving right under us,” said John. “There he is. . . . on the other side.”
“Whales,” said Titty. “Almost. . . ”
“Altogether,” said Jim. “They are a sort of whale. . . animals you know, not fish.”
“It’s as good as being at sea,” cried Titty. “There they are again. They’re racing us. One on each side. . . Oh, I do wish Nancy was here.”
Porpoises were too much, even for Susan.
“There’s a baby one,” she cried. “There all by itself. . . ”
“Look out for your steering,” said John, putting out a hand but not actually touching the tiller.
Susan gulped, hearing the jib give an impatient flap. “Sorry,” she said, and the sail filled once more. “There it is again. Is it a baby? All right, John, I won’t look again.”
“Oh,” sighed Titty, “they’re beating us.”
The porpoises were already showing far ahead. Here and there a black fin cut the water, a black back rolled up into sight, hurrying, hurrying, and further and further away.
“Off to sea,” said Jim.
“Lucky black pigs,” said Roger. “Gosh! They’ll be bobbing up to look at steamers in the middle of the night. . . I wish we were.”
“What? Bobbing up from under water?” asked Jim.
“Going to sea,” said Roger.
“Well we aren’t,” said Susan, almost impatiently. “We’ve promised. Isn’t this good enough for anybody?”
Jim laughed. “I’d like to take you out myself. Perhaps, when your father comes and Uncle Bob and I get back. . . Look here, Mate Susan. We’ll go about now, and then when we go about again, we’ll be able to fetch the Fagbury buoy and have a look at Titty’s wreck.”
Susan looked at John, but John, Titty and Roger were all busy with the ropes they had to cast off or haul in. She bit her lip pretty hard. “Ready about,” she called, and swung the Goblin steadily round. There was a moment of frantic business in the cockpit as she came head to wind and the headsails blew across and the boom swung over. Then the Goblin, with all sails drawing, was heading across the river. There was a general coiling up of ropes, and everything was at peace once more.
But not for very long, once more it was “Ready about!” “Let fly jib. . . Backstay. . . Haul in jib. . . And staysail.” The Goblin never lost her way for a second as she swung round and headed for the red buoy off Fagbury Point, and that green boat that lay there, heeled over on one side with her boom down on the cabin top and her sails all anyhow.
“I wish we could go on for ever,” said Titty.
“You’ll have pretty sore hands,” said Jim, “handling ropes for the first time.”
Roger and Titty looked at their hands.
“Hot, but not sore yet,” said Roger, rubbing his tenderly together.
Nearer and nearer they came to the green boat that had gone on the mud. Two men were balancing themselves on her sloping cabin top, looking miserably at the water that was ebbing away and would presently leave their vessel high and dry. As the Goblin came