A Ravelled Flag (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  Xanthe looked approvingly at her. “It’s not as good as invading from the sea,” she said. “But you’ve already done that, and – I know this sounds like we’re complete muppets – Mags and I have never actually been on a train without Mum and Dad. I mean, Mum and Dad ... obviously they’re great but, if you always do everything as a family, you never do much alone, do you? And I’m going to be sixteen! So we’re well up for it – if Anna doesn’t mind us tagging along.”

  But Anna was looking stricken. “Train fares. They’re really expensive. And I’ve only got my tips from the parish mag. And I spent most of that on presents for the kids.”

  “Xanth,” said Maggi. “We’re not just over-protected muppets, we’re airheads. We forgot to give Donny and Anna their envelopes! We’re really sorry,” she said, digging deep into her and Xanthe’s backpack. “We messed up at Christmas so Mum and Dad thought you might like money as your better-late-than-never presents. There’s some books at home as well, and things for Luke and Liam and Vicky, but we left all them behind. I know I brought the money though ...”

  “There’s a boat coming,” said Luke who had drifted back out onto Strong Winds’ deck, bored by their talk of money and train journeys. “It’s that mean man’s boat with the pointy nose.”

  “The shark-boat?”

  “Flint?”

  “It can’t be!”

  It was, of course. With his genius for arriving exactly when he was least wanted Inspector Jake Flint was travelling smoothly up the Stour in his expensive black powerboat.

  “He must be coming to take Donny to the Unit! Rev. Wendy and the others aren’t here to make a fuss and you’ve broken the agreement by moving from Pin Mill.”

  This was no time to quibble.

  “Mum,” signed Donny urgently. “I’ve got to leg it. I will be back. I promise. It’s the Pufferfish. Don’t let him bully you.”

  “We won’t,” said Polly Lee, who had understood. “I’m on my own ground here.”

  Skye didn’t panic. “Take food. Keep warm. Come back safe,” was all she said.

  Anna was finding it hard to hold herself together. Xanthe was their quickest thinker in this crisis. “Donny, Anna, Luke,” she said. “Over the side into Vexilla. He doesn’t know you have another boat. He might not recognise you. Take my mobile. I’ll use Maggi’s. Head for Manningtree and the train. We’ll catch you up but it might be Ipswich. We will ring Wendy and Gerald. I promise. That’s okay isn’t it, Miss Walker?”

  “Clearing the decks. Best thing entirely.”

  Already she’d hooked Donny’s rucksack out of his bunk and was stuffing it with jackets, water bottles and food. As the three children scrambled into Vexilla, she dropped the single completed set of mud-shoes in beside them plus a plastic bag containing her and Donny’s wellingtons. “You won’t get to Manningtree: you’ll do well if you get as far as Baltic Wharf at this time of tide. The wind’s behind you, so pull up her centreplate and skim the mud, following the channel as far as you can. If her rudder’s touching, you may be able to un-ship it and steer her with an oar.”

  Donny looked up at his great-aunt. He bet she wished she were coming too, whatever the dangers behind and mud ahead. For a moment he thought that they should all go. Take Lively Lady too. But he didn’t know if Skye would cope. And it’d be dangerous. Donny remembered how Flint had tried to ram him once before.

  “Keep Strong Winds between yourselves and Pufferfish for as long as you can,” Gold Dragon carried on giving instructions. “Try to make it look as if you’ve come out from the creek. Keep checking that phone. If the Reverend orders mission aborted, that’s it.”

  Luke and Anna were in.

  Donny was hauling up the sail. “Stand by to cast off,” he said to Anna.

  “If you need shelter in Lowestoft, go to the Floating Lotus,” Gold Dragon called down as she stood ready to push them away. “Go anyway. Ai Qin will welcome you.”

  “Mags,” said Xanthe. “Your arm’s okay for sailing now, isn’t it?” Maggi nodded. “Hop into Lady on the side nearest Flint. Make it look like you’re Donny trying to do a runner – let’s have a hat-swap, too.” She pulled off her sister’s red stocking cap and chucked it to Donny, who chucked his beanie back to her. “Then mess it up ... lots of flapping and tangling. Let him think he’s got you. That way he’ll probably slow down. We know he likes to gloat.”

  Anna had coiled in Vexilla’s stern painter; Gold Dragon cast her off forrard. Xanthe leaned out to give the mast a final shove as Donny took in the main sheet and bore away. “Anna, you’re chief radio officer as well as first mate. I’ll text you. Heigh-ho for the Easternmost Point!”

  “What about me?” asked Luke. “What’m I doing?”

  “Keeping look-out, of course. Sit forrard and look sharp. You’re on the fast-track for promotion.”

  Vexilla was already on the move; her greyish sail spreading to the cold north-easterly wind. There was plenty of room for the three of them to sit together but Luke crept carefully forward and squeezed himself into the small space before her mast. There he crouched, peering ahead at least as intently as the eagle-eyes on her bow.

  There was a speed limit on the Stour and, surprisingly, Flint was observing it. Maybe the Ribieros’ complaint had had some effect – or maybe there was someone else from the SS on board forcing Flint to seem more Professional in his attempt to remove Donny from his family. Or perhaps he still hoped to see Strong Winds and her owner escaping to the open sea – never to return.

  Anyway, it was good because it gave Vexilla more of a chance.

  Donny kept Strong Winds between them and the shark-boat for as long as he could. Then he altered course so it would look as if he were reaching out of the creek. He’d already pulled up Vexilla’s centreplate so he could stay in the shallows as much as possible. This could be their best defence. The shark-boat didn’t need much water but, as long as they were running or broad reaching, they could get by with even less.

  Maggi was putting on a great act. She had hauled Lively Lady alongside Strong Winds on the side nearest the approaching shark- boat so Flint and his companion couldn’t miss the sight of a child getting onto a complete muddle while apparently attempting to escape. Her black curls were hidden under Donny’s navy beanie and she was wearing an old-fashioned oilskin that must have belonged to Great Aunt Ellen.

  At first it was hard to see exactly what she was doing. By the time that Anna got a good view and could tell Luke and Donny what was happening, Maggi had managed to haul Lively Lady’s mainsail up so it seemed to have stuck halfway. She’d lost control of her jib sheets and was crabbing across the river as if she’d never sailed in her life.

  “I’m insulted!” said Donny, unable to resist a quick glance round. “Even Flint can’t think I’d sail as badly as that.”

  “Why not?” said Anna. “He’s so arrogant he thinks we’re all some kind of sub-species.”

  “To be fair, I did capsize last time he was coming after me.”

  “It’s what birds do,” said Luke. “When there’s some predator right near their nest. They make out they’re hurt real bad an’ try an’ get ’im to chase after ’em so’s to get ’em away from the chicks ... Liam an’ me did wonder whether that was what your mum was doin’ Anna?”

  “Oh I don’t know,” she said, and they all felt serious again. There was no logical reason to think that their journey to the Easternmost Point was going to help bring Lottie Livesey back but they were convinced it mattered somehow. Should he have volunteered to be captured by Flint, wondered Donny, if that would help Anna and Luke to get away?

  That was stupid. Flint had his sights on Gold Dragon. Wanted her out. Donny was just bait. Probably Anna was bait too – for some reason that was probably connected with her mother. Which was probably connected with whatever trouble Luke’s dad had got into when he was working at Port of Felixstowe.
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  Too many probablies. But they did add up to mean that he and Anna and Luke were better off sticking together for as long as they could. And right now his job was to sail all three of them as close as he could to the railway station so they could make a dash for the Easternmost Point.

  The wind was fair but there was very little water outside the dredged channel. Donny focused his full attention on keeping his sail drawing steadily. He’d looked at a pilot book on board Strong Winds so he’d already got a few ideas how this next stretch of the river worked. He needed Luke to keep watch ahead to spot the red and green channel buoys that would mark their way to Mistley. There’d be a yellow and black north cardinal buoy warning them of a shingle patch named Ballast Hill. The channel turned and narrowed there. It also got very shallow.

  Long moments passed. The water gurgled under Vexilla’s forefoot as wind and tide helped her on her way. It would have been fun if they hadn’t felt so tense.

  The shark-boat finally closed on Maggi and realised, with a snarl, that she’d been tricked. She swirled round and surged towards Strong Winds.

  How long could Great Aunt Ellen hold them off? How long before Flint realised that the boy he’d come to take was not on board? How would Skye cope through all of this?

  Donny tried not to distract himself. His duty was to Vexilla and her crew.

  They had almost reached the cardinal mark and were half a mile from Mistley Quay when a warning text pinged through from Xanthe.

  They didn’t need it. The river was so quiet that they could hear the howling of the shark-boat’s engines before they could see her. There she was, powering up the river, white water curdling away and fanning out into rolling Vs behind her.

  Vexilla was still sailing well but in comparison to the speeding powerboat it felt as if she had drifted to a halt. They had no chance of reaching Mistley before Flint reached them.

  Donny looked at the tall black and yellow mark and deliberately altered course to pass it on the wrong side. He was sure they’d be okay with their weight well balanced and the centreplate up. He remembered what Gold Dragon had said about unshipping the rudder and steering with an oar. He didn’t want to do that yet. Too much of a giveaway.

  How well did Flint know this stretch of the river? Would he be fool enough to follow them?

  Suddenly they could see the riverbed less than half a metre beneath them. Not mud but shingle. Hard ... if you hit it.

  The shark-boat was closing in. Flint ignored the hazard mark and swooped directly towards Vexilla.

  There was a shriek of metal and a wild churning of water into spray as the powerboat’s propellers struck the shoal. Flint battled furiously, revving his motors ahead and astern, for what seemed like ages.

  Then he accepted the inevitable and switched the engines off. Donny glanced back and saw the black boat sink down from her racing position. This had the effect of lessening her draught and she floated meekly off. Donny saw Flint settle to his wheel again and point her towards the main channel.

  He was still going to catch them.

  Donny kept Vexilla sailing. It was all he could do. Mistley was a distance away. He could stay in the shallows for now but they’d have to return to the channel if they were to have any chance of getting ashore. And the shark-boat would be waiting for them.

  The noise behind had changed again. Flint was revving his engines but he wasn’t getting anywhere. He must have damaged his propeller blades!

  The river was quiet again.

  “I think he’s anchoring,” said Anna. “There’s someone with him. Something’s happening at the back of the boat. I can’t make it out ... ”

  Donny remembered what he’d seen that morning off Felixstowe: the shark-boat’s stern could open hydraulically. There was a mini-shark-boat inside, high speed and shallow draught.

  They’d reached the first possible landing place. Flint could see what they were doing. So he’d be transferring to his mini-shark and landing here too.

  “Change of plan, Lukey. See that ring on the quayside? I need you to pass the painter through it soon as you can and give it back to me. Then you two jump ship and start running. There’s a station at Mistley as well as Manningtree. Take the phone and one of the envelopes. We know this is Anna’s expedition but I guess he thinks it’s me he wants.”

  Anna and Luke were out so fast that Vexilla had scarcely stopped moving before Donny was able to turn her bows away, slip the painter and sail on towards Manningtree. He could hear the speedboat engine whining closer. He didn’t know how much water she was going to need. More or less than Vexilla?

  The dredged channel ended here. There was hardly any water anyway. He cleated his mainsheet while he struggled to lift out the heavy rudder. This unbalanced her. She lurched and almost gybed.

  It wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t see anywhere to fix a steering oar and the channel ahead was no more than a twisting runnel through the steep banks of mud.

  He’d lost control.

  Vexilla lurched again. And stuck.

  Donny released the mainsheet and dropped the sail. He bundled it out of the way, picked up an oar and began to punt. Even rowing was impossible now, the channel was so narrow.

  Flint was only about ten metres behind. He stood up and bellowed. The speedboat swerved violently and the other passenger caught Flint by the arm and forced him to sit down. It was Creepy Tony and he looked sick. His suit was splattered with mud and spray and his thin dark hair had blown the wrong way revealing an expanse of balding scalp.

  Donny didn’t have any sympathy to spare. He carried on trying to pole Vexilla round the tight right-angle bends. She was too long: it was impossible. If only he’d been in Lively Lady!

  Vexilla was hard aground and so was the speedboat.

  The tide continued its steady rise. Soon they’d both be floating again and Donny would have no hope of fending off the two men in their agile craft.

  A mooring buoy on a length of chain lay limply across the mud a couple of metres away. Almost automatically Donny reached out with Vexilla’s boat hook, pulled it closer and made her fast. Then he began stowing his sail.

  The mud-shoes were under the sail. He’d forgotten. Now he gazed at them, his heart racing. The plastic bag fastenings had been mended. He’d watched Luke. He didn’t have to make the same mistakes.

  Donny laid both oars in the bottom of the boat and put his rucksack on his back. His money was inside with the jackets and water bottles and his maps. Then he sat on Vexilla’s shiny crimson gunwale and tied the big woven ovals to his feet.

  The hardest part was scrambling away from the boat up the steep mud bank. Donny hung onto the mooring chain and pulled himself up like a mountaineer until he was onto the flat soft plateau of ooze. It glistened as it stretched ahead.

  All the way to Manningtree? He could give it a go.

  Donny ignored the shouting from behind and took his first wide circular step. And another. Then he leaned forward slightly and began swinging rhythmically away across the mud as if he was competing in some Arctic sport.

  He wondered, briefly, whether Flint and Tony were still the jolly chums they’d seemed when first he’d seen them at the SS meeting. He guessed not.

  The Allies met at Ipswich Station. Xanthe and Maggi just made it in time to catch the Lowestoft train. They were strained and anxious. They’d had the adults to cope with.

  Once the shark-boat had gone tearing up the river they’d had to contact their own parents to explain what was happening. Then Xanthe had phoned Gerald and Wendy to tell them where Anna and Luke were headed. Great Aunt Ellen spoke to them as well. Maggi stayed close to Skye wordlessly trying to reassure her that Donny would be okay.

  “Maybe we should have waited,” he muttered guiltily, as the two-coach train trundled them along into the twilight. “Maybe all that escape stuff was childish.”

 
“Didn’t you hear what I was telling you?” Xanthe sounded completely fed up. “They’ve got their Emergency Order. They said Gold Dragon had left Pin Mill without giving proper notification to the authorities. The note Mum passed on to them didn’t count, apparently. So you’ve broken the SS contract. And there’s no effective postcode system beyond the low water mark at Gallister Creek so you’re not allowed to live there anyway.”

  “We had to leave Pin Mill: we were chucked out,” Donny protested.

  “That don’t cut no ice, brother,” Xanthe was trying to make light of the situation but she couldn’t. “Being ordered to leave Pin Mill makes everything worse because it lets them add ‘persistent anti-social behaviour’ to the charge sheet.”

  “Mum says Gold Dragon’s definitely got to get herself a lawyer but she says she hasn’t any money left. The insurance company made her pay a lot extra because of the accident with Snow Goose.” Maggi’s starring performance in Lively Lady should have left her elated but instead she looked distressed. “She even said that it had been irresponsible of her to buy Vexilla.”

  “Then she and Mum couldn’t have gone prospecting and we wouldn’t have escaped. Even from Pin Mill, probably,” Donny objected.

  “Vexilla makes us be like Vikings,” added Luke.

  “And now I’m taking us somewhere, for some reason I don’t understand, to arrive in the dark with no torches. I wish Oboe had never given me the stupid challenge.” Anna slumped in her seat.

  The train journey seemed endless; they’d eaten all their food and there was no way they would reach the Easternmost Point in daylight.

  “Vikings didn’t know where they was going and they still went.” Luke was nothing if not persistent. Donny was sure that in a moment he’d try to reassure his stepsister by pointing out that Vikings didn’t have no torches neither.

  “But I’ve got one,” he announced quickly, rootling in his faithful rucksack. “It’s not very big but it’ll do.”

  “So’ve I,” said Xanthe. “I never go anywhere without. And my compass and my knife. Not all in the same pocket, of course.”