The Big Six: A Novel

by Arthur Ransome

  “I put in one since you count,” said Pete. “And there was sixteen then. Seventeen there’ll be. And a dozen of ’em good twopennies.”

  “How many he want?”

  “Dozen or so, he say. But he may not want the little ’uns.”

  Nobody wanted to lose all the money that was swimming about in the keep-net.

  “Tell you what,” said Joe. “We’ll have all ready for shifting so we can be off as soon as he come for ’em.”

  “What if he don’t come at all?” said Bill.

  “There he is,” shouted Joe. “Go on, Bill, get them ropes aslip. Put your rod up, Pete. Shift that keep-net, so he won’t mash it coming alongside. I’ll hang our fenders over.”

  The little fishing cruiser was rounding the bend above the staithe.

  “We got ’em,” shouted Pete.

  The owner of the Cachalot waved his hand. He took his little cruiser below the Death and Glory, turned her and brought her creeping up alongside with his engine ticking over. Bill took his bow warp, Joe hauled in on a rope the fisherman threw him from the stern, while Pete, lifting the keep-net in the water, showed it half full of silver, splashing roach.

  “Well done you,” said the owner of the Cachalot. “How many have you got?”

  “Seventeen,” said Pete, “but there ain’t but twelve big ’uns.”

  “They look just what I wanted. Let’s have the net and I’ll empty them into the bait-can.”

  In another moment a stream of fish was pouring into an enormous bait-can in the Cachalot’s cockpit.

  “Seventeen, you said?”

  “Only twelve big ’uns,” said Pete.

  “Twopence each for the big ones. That’s two shillings. And five at a penny…. I’ll take them too. Call it half a crown. All right?”

  “Rather,” said Pete.

  The fisherman of the Cachalot handed over a sixpence and two shillings to the fisherman of the Death and Glory.

  “All ready to slip?” said Joe. “We’ll be off right away.”

  “Hullo,” said the owner of the Cachalot. “Are you off on a voyage too?”

  “We was only waiting till you come,” said Joe. “No wind, worse luck, so we got to get going.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Down river.”

  “I’m going to Potter Heigham. I’ll give you a tow if you want one.”

  “Gee whizz!” said Joe.

  “Wouldn’t we?” said Bill.

  “All the way to Potter?” said Pete.

  “Why not?” said the fisherman. “It’ll be too late for me to fish tonight. So there’s no hurry. Have you got a tow-rope? No. Better use mine. Here you are. Don’t make fast till she’s taken the pull….”

  “We know about towing,” said Joe.

  “Pete,” said Bill, who was holding the bow warp of the Cachalot. “There’s your Mum by the Post Office. Tell her where we’re going and she can tell ours. We say we was only going a little way down….”

  Pete leapt ashore and raced from the staithe to the street. He ran full tilt into somebody coming round the corner of Jonnatt’s boatshed.

  “Sorry,” he said, and dashed across the road.

  “You look where you’re going,” said George Owdon.

  Pete took no notice, but shouted to his mother, “Mum! We’re off to Potter. Tell Joe’s Mum and Bill’s.”

  “Potter?” said his mother. “You’ll never get there today.”

  “Got a tow,” said Pete.

  “You’ll go to bed in proper time,” said his mother. “Bill and Joe promised me that. Have you got plenty of food?”

  “It’s only for one night,” said Pete, who saw himself being stopped and loaded up with stores while the Death and Glory went off without him. “We’ve got lots enough for that. We got to be back tomorrow. Coot Club meeting. That Dot and Dick are coming.”

  “Don’t you do nothing foolish,” said his mother.

  “Hi! PETE!”

  The shout came from the Death and Glory, and Pete raced back and jumped aboard just as the Cachalot moved out into the stream. Bill was easing the tow-rope round the little bollard on the foredeck of the Death and Glory. Joe was at the tiller. The Death and Glory stirred and slipped away from the staithe. Bill made fast. In the wide bend by the inn the Cachalot swung round with her tow. The Death and Glory was on her way, water rippling under her bows, the tow-rope taut, chug, chug, chug sounding from the Cachalot’s engine, and the well-known banks of the home reach slipping by on either side.

  “Nobody’s going to come waking us tonight,” said Bill.

  It was as if in leaving Horning they were leaving their troubles behind them.

  “Remember when the Come Along tow us up to Acle from Breydon Water?” said Pete, and stopped suddenly. He remembered very well that long and glorious tow, but that had been after the salvaging of the Margoletta, and it was just because of that old story of the Margoletta that people were so ready to think that if a boat was cast adrift the Coot Club must have something to do with it.

  No need now to remember things like that.

  Down the long reach they went, past Dr. Dudgeon’s house with its golden bream for a wind vane high above the roof. There was Tom hard at work with the lawn-mower.

  “Hey, Tom,” shouted Joe. “We’re going to Potter.”

  Tom looked up and saw them.

  “Going to Potter,” shouted Joe.

  “Potter?” shouted Tom. “I say, Joe. Dick and Dot are coming tomorrow.”

  “We’ll be back,” shouted Joe. There was no time for more. Already the Cachalot, with the Death and Glory close astern of her, was passing Mr. Farland’s. On they went past the Wilderness, on and on, past the old windmill, past the ferry, past the inn. They came to the notice on the bank, telling boats not to move at more than five miles an hour through Horning. The fisherman looked over his shoulder, saw they were all right and waved a hand. The noise of the Cachalot’s engine changed to a rapid brrrrrr.

  “Full steam ahead!” said Joe gleefully, and Bill laughed, moving his arms backwards and forwards, as much as to say he was glad that for once he wasn’t an engine.

  On they went, past the vicarage with the water-hens and the black sheep on the lawns by the waterside, past the dyke leading to Ranworth, past Horning Old Hall, past the mouth of the Ant, past the old ruins of St. Benet’s Abbey, on and on, recognising place after place, wind-pump after wind-pump, straight reach, sharp bend, one land-mark after another.

  “How’s this for her first voyage?” said Joe.

  “There’ll have to be an east wind tomorrow,” said Bill, thinking that the farther they went the farther they would have to get home.

  “Fare to be,” said Joe. “Calm like this and a clear sky.”

  “Isn’t, we’ll be rowing all day,” said Bill.

  “Shurrup,” said Joe. “Easterly wind tomorrow and we’ll make it easy. Come on, Pete. You steer for a bit. But keep her nose close on him or you’ll have her sheering anywheres.”

  Pete took the tiller, set his feet wide apart and settled to his job. Plumb on the stern of the Cachalot he must keep the Death and Glory’s little flagstaff with the three-cornered flag of the B.P.S. He could do it, just as well as Bill or Joe. Um! Perhaps not quite as well as Joe. Ouch! She was off a bit then. Starboard an inch … Now port … Now steady. This was something like steering, going at such a lick.

  They met or passed a few sailing yachts and small cruisers, not many, for the letting season was nearly over and most of the holiday-makers were back in the towns from which they came. The sailing yachts were being slowly quanted along, for there was no wind to fill their sails.

  “Lot of hard work tomorrow if there don’t come an easterly,” said Bill as they met one of the unfortunates grimly poling up against the stream.

  MAP

  “Got an easterly in my pockut,” said Joe.

  “Don’t you go saying tomorrow you’ve let it get away,” said Bill.

  J
oe patted his pocket. “Never fear. I’ll keep him. Let him out just when we want him. You see if I don’t.”

  The sun was already low, shining from behind them as they came down the river to Thurne Mouth, with its signpost pointing the way, down the Bure to Acle and up the Thurne to Potter Heigham. As they turned left and went up the Thurne it threw their shadows on the reeds. Bill had taken over the steering and Pete pointed at the shadows that seemed to be racing them, trying to keep his pointing finger on the shadow of himself as it skipped from one high clump of reeds to the next.

  Dusk was falling as they came to the first of the Potter Heigham bungalows. The master of the Cachalot reduced speed. Just for a second or two he shut off his engine altogether, to be able to hear what they said, and shouted back to them to ask where they wanted to stop.

  “This side the bridge,” shouted Joe.

  They went slowly on, the fisherman of the Cachalot putting his engine out of gear every time they passed other fishermen sitting on the bank in front of their bungalows, watching their floats in the quiet water. They came round the last bend and saw the low arch of the bridge ahead of them, and the big boatsheds, and on both sides of the river a line of moored yachts, one or two with awnings up, but most of them with bare masts and no sails on their booms, waiting to be laid up. One look at the crowded staithe was enough for Joe.

  “We’ll never get a place along there,” he said. “We better go through. Hey!” he shouted.

  The master of the Cachalot may have heard him or may not, because of the noise of the engine. Anyhow, he looked back and pointed at the row of moored boats.

  “Through the bridges,” shouted Joe, pointing upstream. “Give us time to lower. You take her Pete. Bill and I’ll have the mast down in two ticks.”

  The fisherman waved a hand to show he understood, and kept the Cachalot hardly moving while Bill and Joe ran forward over the cabin-top, cast off the forestay and slowly let the stumpy mast fall aft, Joe keeping his weight on the stay while Bill, moving along the cabin-top, eased the mast gently down.

  The fisherman was watching, and when Joe signalled “Ready”, headed the Cachalot for the low, narrow stone arch of the bridge.

  “You take her, Joe,” said Pete.

  But there was no time to change helmsman. The Cachalot was already nosing in under the arch. The Death and Glory followed her.

  “Keep her straight,” said Joe. “She’ll clear.”

  “Look out for the chimbley,” yelled Pete.

  “If the mast clear, that do,” said Bill.

  Joe, crouching on the foredeck and Bill, back in the cockpit, were ready to fend off. They put out their hands and touched the old stones of the arch as they went through.

  “Phew!” said Pete with relief when they were out again, and he glanced back over his shoulder. “It never do look as if there’d be room.”

  A minute later they had passed under the railway bridge. They were looking for a place to moor. The Cachalot began to work towards the bank. They passed one possible place and then another. The fisherman pointed ahead. Joe, who was standing on the foredeck with rond anchor ready in his hand, pointed to the right. The two boats were hardly moving. Just before they touched, Joe and the fisherman jumped ashore.

  “All right here?” asked the fisherman.

  “Thank you very much,” said the Death and Glories.

  “Going to fish here?” asked Pete.

  “Higher up,” said the fisherman. “A bit below that dyke that goes to the Roaring Donkey. I was up there last week and lost a good one. Come along in the morning and see what your baits are worth.”

  “We’ll come,” said Joe.

  “Well, good night to you,” said the fisherman, pushed the Cachalot’s nose from the bank, stepped aboard and went slowly up the river.

  They watched him out of sight.

  “Let’s hurry up and go into Potter,” said Pete.

  “What for?” said Bill.

  “We got half a crown to spend. And we might see Bob Curten.”

  “Shops closed,” said Bill. “No. Let’s light up and get our grub and have all snug. Young Bob’ll be home with his Mum.”

  They planted their rond anchors, stood for a moment on the bank, admiring the Death and Glory safely moored at the end of her first long voyage as a cabin boat, set the mast up again, and then settled down for a quiet night in a new place.

  “Wonder if he catch anything,” said Pete.

  “Have to get up early if we’re going to see,” said Joe.

  They lit the stove and made the cabin as hot as they could bear it. Joe let his white rat out for a run, and played tunes on his mouth organ while the others were watching the kettle and cutting bread and cheese. They had supper and, last thing before going to bed, went out into the cockpit for a breath of cool air.

  “No wind yet,” said Bill.

  “In my pockut for tomorrow,” said Joe.

  “That Tedder’s waking someone else tonight,” said Pete.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE WORLD’S WHOPPER

  THE morning mist was heavy on the river and on the sodden fields that lay on either side of it. The fields were below the level of the river and the Death and Glories, marching along the rond that kept the river from overflowing, looked down on feeding cattle and horses whose thick coats were pale with moisture.

  Joe walking in front along the narrow path startled a great carthorse which went suddenly thundering away, its shaggy hoofs splashing as they struck the wet ground.

  “There she go,” he said, as if he were speaking of a wherry.

  They disturbed a heron at his morning fishing, and heard his sudden, hoarse “Fraaaaank!” and the steady beat of his wings as he flew off into the mist.

  Up at dawn, they had made a hurried breakfast, left the sleeping bungalows of Potter Heigham behind them and were getting near Kendal Dyke, hoping every minute to see the moored Cachalot and their friend of the day before.

  “There she is,” cried Joe. “He’s got her moored snug.”

  The squat, lumpy little Cachalot showed through the mist ahead of them. They broke into a run.

  “Hullo, you! Steady on with that galloping.”

  A little further along the bank they saw the fisherman, who had turned and was standing there in the mist, with a milk-can in one hand and an empty sack in the other. He beckoned to them and came back to meet them, and they went on, trying to walk like cats instead of like elephants.

  “I’ve got one of your baits out now,” he said. “There’ll be nothing much doing till this fog lifts off the water, but there’s no point in scaring the fish. I’m just going along to the Roaring Donkey. They promised last night to keep some milk for me in the morning. You keep an eye on the ship for me. Keep quiet if you go aboard. See that nobody touches the rod. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

  “Right O,” said Joe.

  “If anyone else comes monkeying along, don’t drown them right here. It would put the pike off. If anybody comes stamping round, like you did, take him upstream a bit and kill him quietly.”

  “Drop him dead,” said Pete.

  The fisherman waved his empty sack at them and went off into the mist along the reedy bank.

  The Cachalot was moored against a bit of firm bank, so that it was easy to step ashore from her or go aboard. They stood, admiring her. A thin cloud of blue smoke hung about a glittering plated cowl on the top of a short chimney that came through the cabin-top.

  “See that?” said Bill. “He’s got a stove.”

  “Built for fishing,” said Pete. “He tell me so. She’ll be out all winter same as us.”

  Ropes were out ahead and astern, and they had a critical look at the rond anchors.

  “Got ’em in proper,” said Joe. “Not like some.”

  “Look at his rod,” said Pete. “Not that one.” (Joe, by the bows of the Cachalot, was looking at a roach-rod on the roof.) “The one he’s fishing with.”

  They looked at the
big pike-rod, lying in a rest on the cockpit coaming. They looked at its big porcelain rings, its dark varnish, its enormous reel. Six feet of the rod were poking out over the river and from the end of it a thin green line was pulled out straight by the tug of the stream.

  “Where’s his float?”

  “Gone,” said Joe. “No. There it is. Away down by them reeds. That’s a likely holt for a big ’un.”

  “He say we could go aboard,” said Pete.

  Joe climbed aboard and stood in the cockpit. Bill followed.

  “Aa, you,” said Joe. “Step easy. You’d scare every fish in the river.” He pointed to the ripples running across the water after Bill had got into the cockpit. “Now then, Pete.”

  “Wonder if the bait’s died on him,” said Bill.

  Twenty yards downstream, two small pilot floats and a big white-topped pike float swung gently on the top of the moving water, tethered by the thin green line that ran from the tip of the rod. They lay so still that it was hard to believe that anything but a dead bait hung beneath them. Pete watched them as keenly as if he were fishing himself.

  Joe was fingering the reel. He gave a gentle tug at the line above it and heard the reel click as it turned. He looked at the back of the reel and touched the brass catch.

  “That makes it run free,” he said.

  “It’s not like the ones on our reels,” said Bill.

  Joe pressed the catch, gently at first and then harder. Suddenly it slid back and the reel began to turn, faster and faster as the line ran out.

  “He say not to touch the rod,” said Pete.

  “He’ll have the liver and lungs out of you,” said Bill.

  For a moment Joe could not get the catch to move back. He managed it and the tip of the rod dipped and straightened. Far away down the river the floats that had been moving with the current stopped dead.

  “Gosh!” said Joe. “I thought that were going to run right out.”

  “Don’t you touch it again,” said Bill.

  “The bait’s waked up,” said Pete suddenly.

  The big white-topped float bobbed sideways, twice, and then swung back into line with the pilots above it.