The Big Six: A Novel

by Arthur Ransome

  “You’re right. Gone midnight. Seventy year today.”

  “Many happy returns,” said Tom.

  “Many of ’em,” said Joe, Bill and Pete.

  The old man chuckled. “Live to ninety we do,” he said. “Another twelve year anyways. On my birthday seventy year gone my old uncle let me sit along of him by the eel sett same as you’re sitting along of me. Above Potter was his old setts…. Drink up. There’s plenty more.” He filled up the teapot from the kettle. “You know Potter, you do? But there been changes since then. There weren’t no houses at Potter then, saving the wind pumps. And there weren’t no yachts, hardly. Reed-boats and such, and the wherries loading by the bridge. And there were plenty of netting then, and liggering for pike, and plenty of fowl….”

  “Did anybody look after the birds?” said Tom, thinking of the Coot Club.

  The old man laughed. “Gunners,” he said.

  “What about buttles?” said Pete.

  “Shot many a score of ’em I have,” said the old man.

  “Oh I say…. Not bitterns,” said Tom.

  “Many a score. There was plenty of ’em then, and then they get fewer till there ain’t none. Coming back, they tell me, they are now. If I was up Hickling way with my old gun….”

  “But you can’t shoot bitterns,” said Pete, horrified.

  “And why not?” asked the old man. “In old days we shoot a plenty and there were a plenty for all to shoot.”

  “But that’s why they disappeared,” said Tom.

  “Don’t you believe it,” said the old man. “They go what with the reed cutting and all they pleasure boats….”

  Tom looked at the faces of the other Coots, to see how they were taking these awful heresies.

  “But they’re coming back,” said Joe. “And no one’s allowed to shoot ’em. And there’ll be more every year. We found two nests last spring.”

  “Who buy the eggs?” asked the old man.

  “Nobody,” said Joe. “We didn’t sell ’em. We didn’t take ’em. But they would have been taken if we hadn’t have watched.”

  “Some folk are rare fools,” said the old man. “Now if I’d have knowed where them nests was, it’d have been money in my pocket and tobacco in my old pipe.”

  The Coots looked at each other. It was no good arguing with old Harry, but, after all, it was one thing for an old Broadsman to talk about taking bitterns’ eggs and quite another for somebody like George Owdon who had plenty of pocket money already without robbing birds.

  The old man caught the look on Pete’s face.

  “Old thief. Old Harry Bangate,” he said. “That’s what you think. And I say, No. What was them birds put there for? Why, for shooting.”

  “But if you shoot ’em, they won’t be there,” said Joe.

  “When we was shooting them there were always a plenty.”

  It was clear that the old man would never understand why the members of the Coot Club spent their days and nights in the spring guarding nests and watching birds, and Tom was wise enough to change the subject.

  “Tell us some more about what it used to be like,” asked Tom, and the old man talked of ancient times, of the hundreds of wherries there used to be (he had been a wherryman himself in his youth), of regattas on Barton, of punt-gunning and smelt-catching on Breydon Water, of the great flood of fifty years ago, and of the fights over the chaining up of the entrances to some of the smaller Broads. No one noticed how the time went till at last, looking at a huge old watch hung on a nail, the old man got to his feet, opened the door of his cabin and let in a great rush of cool, night air.

  “We’ll have a look at them old eels,” he said.

  He lit their lantern for them, and took his own from its hook. “You’ll want that in here,” he said. “Two’ll stop here and two with me. Can’t have more in the boat.”

  “Who’ll go first?” said Tom.

  But there was no argument about it. The eelman’s boat was afloat close by the stern of his old hulk, and he just took hold in the dark of the two nearest to him, who happened to be Tom and Bill, and told them to hop in and hop in quiet. A moment later he had pushed off.

  Tom and Bill sat at one end of the boat, with the lantern at their feet. Before them a huge flat box went from one side of the boat to the other instead of a rowing thwart. They could see that the old man was leaning over the bows.

  “How’s she moving?” whispered Tom.

  “Has he got a hold of the rope?” whispered Bill.

  It was quite dark, except for the lantern at their feet and that other lantern in the eelman’s hulk, which shone through the open door and showed them Pete and Joe standing in the stern of the hulk as if they had been cut out of cardboard.

  The boat stopped, and the old man reached down with a pole that had a hook on the end of it.

  “Here that come,” he said. “One of you hold the light and t’other give me a hand.”

  Up it came, a long tube of netting, keeping its shape because of rings of osier fastened inside it.

  Bill and the old eelman lifted the end of it aboard. Tom thought it was empty, but then, suddenly he saw that the narrow tip of it was swollen and shining and white, and he knew that the light of the lantern was reflected from the glistening bellies of the eels.

  “Ope the keep,” said the old man and Tom, holding the lantern in one hand, pulled open the lid of the flat box in the middle of the boat. The old man brought the pointed end of the net over the box, untied a knot and let loose a shining stream of eels. Then he pulled tight the lacing that closed the narrow end, retied it, and dropped the net over the side.

  “Tremendous lot,” said Tom.

  “They’re working. They’re working,” said the old man.

  The boat was moving slowly back across the river.

  “Have you got any?” They heard Pete’s voice from the hulk.

  “Dozens,” said Bill. He and Tom were trying to count the eels by the light of the lantern. But it was not easy, for the keep was half full of water, and the eels were swimming with their dark backs uppermost and no longer showing their white bellies.

  “My turn next time,” said Pete as they climbed back into the hulk.

  “If you ain’t asleep,” said the old man.

  More tea was drunk, blacker than ever, for the teapot had been standing on the stove all this time. The old man talked of eels. “Where are they all going?” Pete had asked, and Tom had told him about their spawning grounds in the far Atlantic and how the little eels on their way to England meet the big eels on their way back, and how the big eels live comfortably on the stream of little ones. “Cannibals,” Pete had said. But the old man would have none of such a tale. Eels, for him, were born in the mud and went down the rivers to get a taste of salt water. “Smell the tide, they do and follow that down.”

  LIFTING THE POD

  “What’s the biggest eel you’ve ever caught?” said Tom.

  “I didn’t catch him,” said the old man. “Not to keep him. But he were a big ’un, that warmint. I dart for him with my old spear and catch his tail, and he shake his tail and throw my old spear into the reeds, and he near upset my boat before he go off fierce downstream with a wash after him bringing the banks down like them motor cruisers. Did you never hear tell of the old eel that come up through Breydon Water to Reedham to swop crowns with the king? That were a rare old eel. And did you never hear tell of the sea-serpent that very near stick between banks going down between Yarmouth and Gorleston? Sea-serpent? That weren’t no sea-serpent. Great old eel. That’s what he were.”

  An hour and more went by, and again the old man looked at the big watch hung on its nail. Again he opened the door to the night air, but this time Pete and Joe went with him in the boat and Tom and Bill watched from the hulk as the boat moved slowly out along the net, the lantern glowing in the dark.

  “They’ve stop now,” said Bill.

  The lantern was lifted up and they saw its reflections dancing in the stirred
water as the eelman brought up the pod.

  They heard Pete’s voice, “Whoppers.”

  They heard the splash of the eels pouring from the end of the pod into the keep. “Gosh! He’s got a lot that time,” said Tom.

  Presently the lantern was coming nearer. They were coming back.

  “Hundreds,” said Joe, shaking the water from his hands.

  “Working nicely, the warmints!” said the old man.

  “He’s going to give us some of ’em,” said Pete.

  And again there was tea to drink, and the door of the cabin shut out the night and the lantern hanging from the roof shone more and more dimly in the steam from wet clothes and the smoke from the old man’s pipe.

  “How are we going to cook ’em?” said Bill. “Stew ’em?”

  “There’s stewing,” said the old man, “and souping, and frying and smoking. But you won’t try smoking. You want a close fire for that and to hang ’em in the chimney.”

  “We got a stove,” said Joe.

  “And what about our chimney?” said Bill.

  “Let’s smoke ’em,” said Pete. “We ain’t never tried smoking. And with our stove….”

  “What do you have to do?” asked Bill.

  “Skin ’em and clean ’em and hang ’em in the smoke,” said the old man.

  It sounded simple enough, and since the Death and Glory had a stove and a chimney it seemed a pity not to try it.

  “We’ll smoke ’em,” said Bill.

  “And you take a couple to your Mum,” said the old man, turning to Tom. “Don’t you go smoking ’em. Mrs. Dudgeon she like ’em stewed.”

  “I’d like to try smoked,” said Tom.

  “You can come and share ours,” said Joe, and so it was agreed.

  But by now not even the black tea could keep Pete awake after coming in from the night to the steaming cabin of the hulk. The old man talked on to the others and to himself but the questions came less often and presently stopped altogether. He looked from one to another of his visitors, chuckled to himself, refilled his pipe and poured himself another mug. And when the light began to show in the sky, and he thought it was time to lift the eel pod for the last time, he looked at his visitors again and went quietly out without waking them.

  CHAPTER IV

  MISLEADING APPEARANCES

  BILL woke first. The eelman’s lantern was burning palely. A window of the cabin was a bright square in the dark wall. Pete had slipped sideways against Tom as he fell asleep, and Tom had let him lie and had fallen asleep himself. Joe, with his mouth open, was snoring, not loudly, but evenly, as if for ever. Old Harry the eelman was gone, and gone without a lantern. There was the lantern of the Death and Glory on the floor in the corner. Bill moved to that brighter window and looked out. There was a glow in the eastern sky. Down river the water shone silver with splashes of green. The dawn was climbing, putting out the last of the stars.

  The door opened and the eelman came in.

  “Time you was in your beds,” said he. “And I’m for mine. Eels won’t work no more.”

  Joe stopped snoring and sat up suddenly, with blinking eyes.

  “Gosh!” said Tom. “Have I been asleep?”

  “I haven’t,” said Pete. “The last thing you was saying was …”

  “More’n a hour since,” laughed the old man. “Fare to be a fine morning, but I don’t reckon to see much of it. Fish by night. Sleep by day.” He poured himself out a mug of tea, sloshed some milk in, emptied some sugar after the milk, cut himself a round of bread, put a thick slice of bacon on the bread, and settled to his breakfast. “Cold bacon afore you goes to sleep and you won’t wake with empty belly. Go on, now. Help yourselves.”

  But not one of the Coots felt like eating. What they wanted was sleep.

  “Come on,” said Tom. “It’s daylight already.”

  “Wake up, Pete,” said Bill. “Sleep in your bunk. Joe and me’ll work her down to the staithe.”

  “No wind,” said Joe. “Engines.”

  “Tom’ll steer,” said Bill. “Hi, Pete! Don’t you drop off again.”

  The old man came out with them, munching his bread and bacon. “How are you going to carry them old eels?” he said.

  “I’ll run for our bucket,” said Bill.

  “I’ll lend you a bucket,” said the old man. “I’ll be coming down for a pint later on, and pick it up.” He went down to his boat. “When are you going to cook ’em?” he said.

  “When we’ve had a bit of sleep,” said Bill.

  “I’ll fix ’em for you,” said the old man. He opened the keep and looked in. His gnarled old hand darted down among the eels like a heron’s beak. Up it came again with a wriggling eel. Bang. He had stunned the eel with a blow on its tail. The next moment he had picked up his knife, jabbed it into the eel’s backbone close behind its head and dropped it into a bucket. Again his hand shot down into the keep. One after another he brought up half a dozen good eels, stunned them and killed them and dropped them in the bucket as easily and quietly as if he were thinking of something else. The Coots, remembering gory struggles with eels they had caught themselves, cut fingers, tangled fishing tackle thick with slime, watched with awe.

  “However do you do it?” said Tom.

  The old man looked up. “Scotching the war-mints?” he asked. “Practice,” he said. “Practice. Seventy year of it.”

  He gave them the bucket, said they could come again some time if they would like another night, and climbed back into his hulk. They thanked him, and splashed off along the reedy bank to get back to the Death and Glory. The cool fresh air of the September morning made their cheeks tingle after coming out of that hot cabin, and by the time they got aboard the Death and Glory and pushed off into the smooth river, even Pete was thoroughly awake.

  “You go below and have your sleep out, young Pete,” said Bill.

  “You go below yourself,” said Pete.

  Bill and Joe, each with an oar, worked their ship into the middle of the stream. Tom, though there was no need, perched on the gunwale right aft, and took the tiller. Pete, with a hand on the mast, stood on the cabin-top. Somewhere in Horning a cock crowed and was answered far away by another. A bream turned with a splash sending widening rings over the smooth water ahead.

  “Gosh,” said Tom. “That was fine. Let’s do it again when the D’s come.”

  “Wonder if the Admiral like eels,” said Joe.

  “That’s only one of the things we’ll do,” said Bill. “We can take the old ship anywheres.”

  The affair of the cast off boat of the day before had gone clean out of their minds. Someone had cast off a boat. People had for a moment thought they were to blame. But they were not and after their night at the eel sett they were thinking of quite other things. They rowed steadily down the river, rounded the bend below old Harry’s and were half way down the short reach above the staithe when Pete gave a sudden shout.

  “What boat’s that?” he said.

  “Funny place to lie,” said Bill.

  “Must be a foreigner,” said Tom.

  There is just one place in that short reach, just before the river bends round under the inn, where the trees hang out over the water. It is a place that skippers of yachts, even if strangers, usually have the sense to avoid. And just here, close to the trees, was a yacht.

  “Starboard your helium,” said Joe. “We’ll go and have a look at her.”

  “Something wrong with that yacht,” said Bill. “Look how she lie.”

  As they came nearer, they saw that things were very wrong indeed. The yacht was neither anchored in the river, nor yet made fast fore and aft along the bank, but lay askew to the stream, held where she was by the top of her mast and by nothing else.

  “Hullo,” said Bill. “She’s that yacht was tied up ahead of us.”

  “Salvage job,” said Joe. “Get that rope ready, Pete.”

  “How on earth did she get there?” said Tom.

  “Drift up with the fl
ood and catch in them trees. Didn’t, she’d be away down river. Must have come adrift just before high water.”

  “Tide were still flooding when we came up, and it turn soon after,” said Bill.

  “She were all right when we leave,” said Joe. “I see her. Remember, I stand by for fear we touch.”

  They were close to her now, and, looking up at the masthead of the yacht, the salvage company could see that a bough had worked itself in between the mast and the forestay.

  “What are you going to do?” said Tom.

  “Take her back to the staithe and make her fast,” said Joe. “Can’t leave her like that.”

  “Look at her warps hanging,” said Pete.

  “That chap must have moored her pretty careless,” said Joe. “Gently now. Fenders out. Now then, Pete. Don’t let her touch there forrard. Unship your oar, Bill.” He unshipped his own as he spoke, leaving the Death and Glory with just enough way on her for Tom to turn her and bring her alongside. He was aboard her before the two boats touched. Pete followed.

  “You haul in that bow warp,” said Joe, hauling in the rope that hung over the yacht’s stern. Both ropes came up with rond anchors on their ends.

  “That’s a rum ’un,” said Bill. “However’d she get away?”

  “Got to shift her sideways, same as she come on,” said Joe, squinting up at the leafy twigs between the mast and the stay. “Let’s have that tow-rope, Tom. Under where you’re sitting. Keep a hold of one end.”

  He made the other end of the rope fast to the yacht’s mast and told Bill to take the Death and Glory to the middle of the river. “We don’t want to bump her if she come sudden. Never mind the rudder, Tom. Better with the oars.” The Death and Glories, boatbuilders’ sons all three of them, were in their element. This was work for the salvage company. Tom, older though he was, waited for orders and did what he was told. There was no argument. Joe was in command.

  The Death and Glory moved away. The tow-rope tautened. A flutter of leaves dropped from the masthead. Joe, watching, lifted a hand. Bill and Tom let the salvage tug drop back, and then took her forward again, as Joe pointed in a new direction. There was a scraping noise overhead. Twigs and leaves fell on deck and in the water, and the yacht shook herself free.