We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

by Arthur Ransome

  As the ferry came through the pierheads at Felixstowe, Jim looked at the little bunch of boats on moorings up at the far end of the dock. The Goblin was not there, but he saw his own little black dinghy, the Imp, tied to a chain. Somebody must have shifted her for him. He went ashore, stumbled up the steps, and met the man in charge of the dock.

  “Do you know where my boat is, the Goblin, seven-ton cutter? She was anchored on the Shelf yesterday … No, no … the day before yesterday …”

  “Before the fog … I see her,” said the man. “White-painted boat with bowsprit following her sheer. Yes, I see her just before that come on thick. She was gone next morning. Reckon your crew take her up the river.”

  “But there were only children aboard,” groaned Jim.

  What was he to do? Telephone to Mrs Walker? No good, if the Goblin was at Pin Mill. Worse, far worse, if she wasn’t. No, he could not telephone. He would have to go and tell Mrs Walker… now … at once. But Pin Mill was on the Shotley side of the river. And his dinghy was here … He would want the dinghy anyway … The Goblin MUST be at Pin Mill. He hurried along to the head of the dock to get hold of the Imp. Yes, that was the only thing to do. He could never row all that way. Take too long. He would row across to Shotley, leave the Imp there and take the bus up that side of the river, to explain to Mrs Walker how it had happened that he had left them aboard by themselves.

  He cast off the Imp’s painter, put the oars in the rowlocks and rowed out of the dock, his head thumping at every stroke he took.

  It was going to be a long pull, even to Shotley. Good thing the tide was with him. The sun blazed off the water into his eyes. He looked over his shoulder, headed for Shotley, took marks on land over the stern and settled down to row. What, oh what, was he going to say to Mrs Walker?

  “Ahoy there!”

  The hail came from behind him. He stopped rowing and looked round. A fast launch was rushing towards him, water spirting from her bows. The Customs launch. He knew her and he knew the Customs officers aboard her.

  “Ahoy there! Looking for your ship? The harbourmaster just passed us the word. There’s a small cutter reported coming in from the Cork…”

  “From the Cork?”

  “Aye … There she is, coming past Landguard …”

  The man pointed out to sea. And there, beyond Landguard Point, heading towards the Beach End buoy, Jim saw a triangle of red sail, a white boat … and knew her in a moment for what she was.

  “Thank you,” he shouted, spun the Imp round, and headed out against the tide to meet her.

  The Customs officer gave a short wave of the hand, and the launch shot suddenly ahead in a flurry of foam.

  Coming in from the Cork? From the open sea? But who on earth could have borrowed her? Who would have dared to take her out? And what had become of the crew? It was no good … That head of his simply would not work. But there was the Goblin dancing in between the outer buoys, and her desperate owner rowed to meet her.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  “NOTHING TO DECLARE …”

  “BEACH END.”

  They read the name on the buoy as they swept past it. How differently they had felt about it when they read it last. Then it had meant that everything was all wrong. Now it meant that things were on their way towards being put right. Nothing could be very wrong with Daddy there, aboard, hauling in the mainsheet.

  “Ready?” he asked. “All right. I’ll look after that backstay. Now then, John, bring her round.”

  John put his tiller up. The boom swung over, and the Goblin headed in for the harbour. There was a moment’s business with headsail sheets.

  “Motor-boat on the starboard bow,” shouted Roger. “Coming at a good lick too.”

  “Where you from?”

  Daddy was on the point of answering, but, instead, looked at John. “Sing out, Skipper,” he said quietly. “I’m only a passenger …”

  “Flushing,” shouted John.

  “What’s that?” shouted the man.

  “Flushing,” shouted John … “Holland …”

  “We’ll come aboard … Will you bring up at Shotley?”

  John looked at his father. “Tell them you’ll bring up inside Shotley Spit, as we’re bound up river to Pin Mill.”

  “We’ll anchor inside Shotley Spit,” shouted John.

  “Right oh. We’ll be along to clear you at once …” The launch swung round and was off, but, as her engine roared again, they heard another shout from the man. What with the engine from the launch and their own Handy Billy still chugging away below, they heard only three words of what he said, but those three words were enough – “asking for you!”

  In horror they looked at each other. Who had been asking for them? Jim? Mother? They saw Mother going first to one place and then to another, asking if anyone had seen a little cutter with four children aboard. The very worst must have happened.

  ENTRANCE TO HARWICH

  Roger sang out again. “Boat ahead …” and then, “I say, is this really Harwich? There’s a native in that boat … wearing a turban.”

  They were well inside the point now, steering to pass close by the moored seaplanes and the huge gantry on the Felixstowe side of the harbour. With their eyes on the Customs launch they had not at first seen that small dark speck on the water. Now it was already quite near, a little dinghy with a man in it, rowing hard against the tide, his oars flashing and, yes, Roger was right, he really did seem to have a huge white turban on his head.

  “It’s the Imp,” cried John. “It’s Jim Brading.”

  “It’s Jim,” cried Titty, at the same moment.

  “What’s he wearing a turban for?” said Roger.

  “Ahoy! Ahoy!” they all shouted together.

  The white turban stopped bobbing backwards and forwards with each stroke of the oars. Jim looked over his shoulder and then, with a dip of one oar, spun his dinghy round.

  “That the fellow who lost you?” said Daddy. “Looks to me as if he’s been in trouble. Somebody’s cracked his skull for him.”

  “He may have been bathing,” said Susan.

  “Drying his hair,” said Titty.

  “I suppose we’d better pick him up. Stop the engine, Roger. We’ll heave to for him, eh, Skipper?”

  John nodded. Now he would see how it was done and would know another time. Roger was already below. The engine stopped. The Goblin under sail alone was close to Jim in his dinghy. Daddy hauled in the starboard staysail sheet, bringing the sail across. Then he hauled in the mainsheet just a little. “Let her come up in the wind now,” he said, and John put the helm down and the Goblin swung round to meet the wind, but did not swing too far, because the wind caught the staysail aback, so that the staysail pushed one way and then the mainsail pushed the other. The Goblin came almost to standstill, and lay there, drifting with the tide. So that was how it was done. Another time, when he had to pick up a pilot, John would know how to do it for himself.

  Jim Brading paddled the Imp alongside. He looked ill and pleased and puzzled all at the same time. Who was this thin, sunburnt man who took the painter from him and with two turns of his wrists had it on a bollard in a clove hitch? He looked at the others, all four of them there. He looked up and down the Goblin, and then again at Daddy. They could almost see that he was just going to say, “What do you mean by grabbing my ship?” They all began telling him at once.

  “We didn’t mean to go to sea … This is Daddy … I’ve lost your anchor … and all the chain … We drifted away in the fog … Couldn’t get back … You know what you said about shoals, getting outside them … But what have you done to your head? … Quick, Daddy, he’s ill…”

  Commander Walker was just in time to catch Jim by the arm as he clambered aboard. A moment later and he would have slipped back into the water or capsized the Imp. But he was pulled safely into the cockpit, where he sat for a minute, dazed and oddly green about the eyes.

  “All right, old chap. Don’t talk. Plenty of time for that.
Cast off that staysail sheet, Susan. Let her pay off again, John.”

  The Goblin was once more sailing up the harbour, with the little black dinghy towing astern, as it had been when they started from Pin Mill. But Jim Brading, sitting there silent in the cockpit, looking dreadfully ill, was very different from the quick, efficient skipper they had known.

  “He’s had a bit of a shock of some kind,” said Daddy. “Leave him alone. Don’t ask questions.” And then he himself asked the question that was on all their lips. “Does my wife know?”

  Jim looked at him as if he hardly understood. Then his lips moved. “I couldn’t tell her,” he said slowly. “They put me in hospital. I only got away this morning …”

  “Thank God for that,” said Daddy.

  It was as if a heavy weight was lifted from their hearts. Mother might have been worried, but at least she had not known the very worst. Then they thought of Jim. In hospital? What could have happened to him? Something pretty bad.

  “I think he ought to be lying down,” said Susan.

  “Good idea,” said Daddy. “Take it easy.”

  Jim let himself be helped down the companion-steps and lay down on John’s bunk. Susan put a couple of cushions under his head.

  “I’ll be all right in a minute,” he said.

  “What about fishing for his anchor and chain?” said John. “I know where it was. We’ve just passed the place. Over there. Just opposite the dock.”

  “We’d better report to your Mother first,” said Daddy. “Anchors can wait. Even Jim’s.”

  So the Goblin sailed on, up the wide harbour, past the Guard buoy, past the other big buoy that marks the end of Shotley Spit, and was presently slipping in towards the Shotley shore of the Orwell where half a dozen barges were lying to their anchors.

  “We’ll put our hook down just ahead of them,” said Daddy. “Where’s the warp? That bit of halyard’s no good.”

  “We couldn’t find anything else,” said Susan.

  Daddy put his head in at the companion. “Got a warp for your kedge?” he asked.

  “In the stern locker,” said Jim.

  Daddy had found the latch in a moment, and opened a locker they had never noticed, under the short after deck.

  “That’s why we couldn’t find it,” said Susan, as Daddy hauled out a huge coil of thick grass rope strong enough to hold a boat much bigger than the Goblin.

  Daddy went forward, taking the coil with him. He stocked the kedge anchor and made the warp fast to it, while John steered and watched as well as he could at the same time. Then the staysail came rattling down, the jib was rolled up, and Daddy looked over his shoulder. “All clear here,” he said, and seemed to be waiting for an order.

  It seemed all wrong to John, to be skipper now, when Jim was back aboard. But Jim was in the cabin with two nurses, one of whom, Susan, had slipped down, thinking he might like a drink of water, and the other of whom, Titty, was puzzling him very much by showing him a kitten. Several times that morning Jim had thought he had gone mad, and this kitten, aboard the Goblin, seemed to him almost to settle the question. John, for a moment, looked down into the cabin at the white turbaned head resting on the Goblin’s red cushions, at Susan with her glass of water, at Titty carefully lowering Sinbad till his claws caught hold of Jim’s jersey, at Jim staring at the kitten and putting out a doubtful hand to feel its fur. No, it was clear that the order for anchoring was to come from him and from him alone. He looked at the last of the barges, judged his distance from the shore, and brought the Goblin round into the wind.

  “Let go!” he called.

  Down went the anchor with a splash.

  *

  They had just had time to lower the mainsail when they saw the Customs launch racing towards them.

  “Half a minute while I get the fenders,” shouted John.

  “We won’t bump you,” said one of the men on the launch, pointing to the enormous rope fenders that hung along the side of the launch and made the Goblin’s fenders look like toys.

  The launch slid up to them, her engine purring, and a Customs officer stepped aboard.

  “We’re only lying to a kedge and light warp,” said Commander Walker quietly. “I think they slipped their cable …”

  “Slipped their cable …” Gosh, as Daddy said it, it sounded almost a normal thing to do, not at all like those frantic moments when the chain had gone smoking through the lead and John had been flung on his back when he had tried to stop it by putting a foot on it.

  “That’s all right,” said the Customs officer. “We’ll not make fast to you. Come on, George.”

  A younger officer stepped aboard, carrying a leather case.

  “Come on out, Susan,” said Daddy. “We’ll be wanting the cabin table … No. No. Sick men don’t stir,” he added, seeing that Jim Brading was making as though to get up.

  Susan came out into the cockpit. Titty was just going to do the same, but thought better of it and slipped into the forecabin with Sinbad. Roger, who was on the foredeck, dropped hurriedly down the forehatch. He was not going to miss anything, and Titty was in time to catch one of his waving legs and steer it to a foothold as he lowered himself into the fo’c’sle.

  TURBANED NATIVE

  “Now,” said Daddy, and the two Customs officers went down into the cabin. Daddy followed. “Come on, John,” he said.

  “Pretty nasty crack you had from what they tell me,” said the elder of the Customs officers to Jim. “We heard about that on the Felixstowe bus, but they didn’t know who it was. Who took your ship to Holland for you?”

  Jim was looking very dazed.

  “All right, old chap,” said Daddy. “We’ll do the talking.”

  “We didn’t mean to,” said John.

  “Piracy,” said the Customs officer. “That’s what it was … Well, who’d have thought it … piracy in Harwich harbour … If the owner likes to prosecute …”

  The two Customs officers were sitting on the port bunk behind the table. Daddy was sitting beside them. John was at the foot of the stairs. Susan was looking down from the cockpit. Roger and Titty were in the doorway to the forecabin, listening and watching.

  “Yes,” said the second Customs officer. “Rank piracy. If the owner likes to prosecute …”

  “I say,” interrupted Titty. “It really was piracy … We never thought of it, but of course it was … We’ll all be hanged at Execution Dock … in chains … jangling in the wind. Oh, I say, Jim, do prosecute. Nancy’d be simply delighted …”

  The Customs officers laughed. “Let’s get to business,” said the elder of the two. “Anything to declare? … pirates or no pirates …”

  “Nothing to declare,” said Daddy … “Oh, yes … Five pair of wooden shoes … One Dutch doll … Box of Dutch cigars … I’ve smoked some … Help yourselves … And a kitten … Nationality unknown … Bring out the souvenirs, Titty.”

  He put the box of cigars on the cabin table, and Titty and Roger brought Bridget’s doll and all the shoes and put them on the table beside it. Titty held up Sinbad.

  “He’s a distressed sailor,” she said, “shipwrecked and rescued at sea.”

  “Better put the shoes on, then we shan’t have to charge you,” said the second Customs officer, lighting one of the cigars and holding a match for his chief to do the same.

  “What about the Dutch lady?” said the elder man.

  “She’s for Bridget,” said John … “Our sister. She stayed at home.”

  The Customs officer tilted the little doll on her back, to see if her eyes closed, which they did not. He opened the leather case which was full of printed forms.

  “Let’s see the ship’s papers,” he said.

  “They’re in the drawer under Susan’s bunk.”

  Roger already had the drawer open and passed the big envelope into the cabin. The Customs officer pulled out the papers, unfolded them, and looked at them. Then he looked across at Jim Brading.

  “Owner?” he said.
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br />   “I am,” said Jim.

  “Who’s the skipper? That’s what matters. You didn’t pick up the owner till you came back.” He looked at Daddy, but Daddy shook his head.

  “Not me … I’m only working my passage. Count me a deckhand if you like … Here’s the skipper.”

  Both Customs officers looked at John.

  Commander Walker took his passport out of his pocket and handed it over.

  “We heard you were coming, sir,” said the elder man as soon as he had read the name in it.

  “Here I am,” said Commander Walker. “Took a passage with my son from Flushing. He’s the skipper.”

  “Daddy brought her back,” said John.

  “Under orders,” said Daddy.

  “But who took her across to Holland?”

  “We did,” said John. “But we didn’t mean to go to sea at all. We’d promised …”

  “You four children took her across to Holland? Where were you the night before last?”

  “At sea,” said John.

  “Bless my soul,” said the younger man.

  “Shake,” said the elder, and John found his hand being given a pretty hard squeeze.

  Daddy was not exactly smiling. But all four of his children knew that he was somehow rather pleased.

  The elder Customs officer took some of the printed forms out of his leather case, put two of them together with a sheet of carbon paper between them, and began filling them in.

  “You’d better come here,” said Daddy, and made room for John between himself and the Customs officer, who was going through the form, filling in the spaces with a hard copying pencil.

  CERTIFICATE OF PRATIQUE

  I hereby certify that I have examined Mr … “Name?” “John Walker.” JOHN WALKER, Master of a Vessel called the GOBLIN, lately arrived from FLUSHING, and that it appears by the verbal answers of the said Master to the questions put to him that there has not been on board during the voyage any infectious disease demanding detention of the Vessel and that she is free to proceed … “Have you any infectious diseases on board?” “No,” said John. “Susan was jolly sea-sick,” said Roger, “and she may have caught it from Titty.” … “We don’t count sea-sickness,” said the Customs officer. “And the night before last might have turned up anybody …” He filled in the last spaces … Given under my hand at Harwich … this … “What’s the date, George?”… (Signed). He wrote his name …