The Mudskipper Cup

by Christopher Cummings

  Andrew pointed. “That way, around into the channel and down it,” he explained.

  Graham looked along the channel. It was an artificial channel, dredged through the soft mud and extended out to sea for five or six kilometres. It was about a hundred metres wide and was marked on either side by tall posts with lights on top.

  “What’s the signal to start?” Peter asked.

  Andrew shrugged. “Normally they fire a gun or a cannon but we will just have to shout ‘Go!’.”

  “We’ve got a cannon,” Graham cried. “Pete has.”

  “What? Here?”

  “No, at his place.”

  “OK, next time. Right, let’s get ready.”

  The race began. The three cats surged across the line.

  “You girls keep away!” Andrew yelled. “You aren’t in this competition.”

  “We are so,” Carmen yelled back.

  It was obvious within a few minutes that the other cats were faster than the Old Cat. With every minute they drew another boat length ahead. Andrew’s blue cat was on the left, Carmen’s yellow cat on the right. They surged down the channel neck and neck.

  By the time they were at the Trinity Bay Beacon the Old Cat was more than a hundred metres behind. The two plastic cats came round together but Andrew’s was on the inside and was first round the marker. They began their beam reach. The Old Cat followed, falling slowly but surely further behind.

  This time the wind was strong enough to lift the Old Cat’s windward hull. The other two cats had their windward hulls right up out of the water, their crews leaning far out on their trapeze wires.

  “We need them,” Max sniffed.

  “Oh look!” Roger cried.

  A gust of wind, or an unexpectedly large wave had caught the girls’ cat. Graham saw it topple, its mast and sails flat on the sea. The girls went tumbling down onto the sail.

  “Will we help?” Graham called.

  “No. It won’t sink,” Peter yelled back.

  “What if someone is hurt?” Roger asked.

  “Of course we will stop!” Peter replied.

  The yellow cat, like many modern cats, had a float on top of its mast so that it did not turn turtle. Even as the Old Cat swept past the girls had it back on an even keel.

  “Anyone hurt?” Graham yelled.

  “No,” Carmen shouted back.

  The incident cheered the boys up. It put the girls a hundred metres behind. But Andrew’s cat was nearly two hundred ahead. It had been beached, turned and started on its beat while the Old Cat was still a hundred metres out.

  “Go! Go!” Peter yelled as they grated onto the sand of the beach. They sprang out.

  “Other way Max! Other way!” Graham shouted.

  They hauled the Old Cat around and began running, ignoring the mud and sharp shells. Graham pushed, oblivious to the spray and small cuts on his feet. As soon as the others were aboard and had the sails under control he sprang aboard, sprawling into the hull. The girls swept past and up the beach.

  A tacking duel began now. The Old Cat began matching the blue cat’s movements.

  “Look, the girls don’t like the mud,” Graham cried with delight.

  The yellow cat had lost more distance and was still well behind.

  Port tack - starboard tack - port tack - almost into the beach - about - starboard tack - right out towards the Bay Beacon - port tack.

  “Hello! Something wrong there,” Graham called, his eyes on Andrew’s cat. “He’s got something tangled.”

  They stared. The blue cat had come up into the wind and its crew clustered under the boom.

  “Jammed his mainsheet in the block maybe?” Peter suggested.

  “Who cares? We’ve got a chance now,” Graham cried. He looked behind. The girls had made up half the distance and were matching their tacks. They ran on, a good steady slog. Graham bailed like fury to keep the hulls clear of water. He moved from stay to stay checking the rigging. “Good Old Girl!” he said, patting the mast.

  It didn’t seem possible to them. Only slowly did the realisation dawn that they really did have a chance of winning. They were almost in to the beach near the RSL before Andrew’s cat was under way again. They went about onto the starboard tack.

  “We are ahead!” Peter cried, gauging the angle of the approaching blue cat. He held his course and they passed well ahead of her. The boys let out a cheer.

  “The girls might catch us yet,” Graham cautioned, eyeing the yellow cat which was eating slowly up towards them as it raced along. He laughed and wiped spray off his face. “This is fun!” he cried, dancing with excitement until a grinning Peter told him to sit down and not upset the trim.

  They won!

  With two boat lengths to spare. But they won.

  They hove to and waited till the others came up.

  “Luck. Just bloody luck,” Andrew shouted. “If our mainsheet hadn’t jammed we would have beaten you by a mile.”

  “Poop! You are just a bunch of ham-fisted land-lubbers,” Peter shouted back.

  “Do you want to go again?” Andrew called.

  Peter looked at his watch. The race had taken only an hour. It was just on high water.

  “Yes. OK.”

  So they raced again, and this time Andrew’s team made no mistakes and nor did the girls. Andrew’s team won narrowly from the girls. The Old Cat came in a long way third.

  At the finish line they again hove to.

  “That was fun,” Andrew said. “But we’d better go. We leave for camp at six thirty.”

  On hearing this Graham felt a stab of pure jealousy and looked away. He bit his lip. If only he was going too! If only his stupid eye worked properly!

  Peter called, “So when do we get our revenge?”

  “We will be back next Friday evening,” Andrew replied.

  “What about Saturday then?”

  “Fair go! Give us a chance to recover,” Andrew said with a laugh. “Sunday.”

  They agreed on the time and place.

  “We’ll be there,” Carmen agreed.

  “You aren’t in the competition,” Andrew retorted.

  “We are. And we’ve won one race. So the score is one all,” Carmen replied calmly.

  The boys left them to it. Peter ordered the sails sheeted home and turned the Old Cat downwind. Almost at once they saw they had left it a bit late. The tide was ebbing fast and already about fifty metres of mud was exposed. They soon found themselves touching bottom nearly two-hundred metres out from the seawall.

  By the time they were off their part of the beach about a hundred metres of mud was showing and the Old Cat slithered to a standstill about one hundred and fifty metres out.

  “Oh well. Nothing for it. We push,” Peter said.

  The others grumbled but obeyed. They leaned on the Old Cat and used their feet. The mud flat was scarred by small rivulets and thousands of crabholes. In places there were patches of sea grass and in others a soggy moss grew on the solidified muck. This was just firm enough to walk on but occasionally they would suddenly break through and sink to their knees in an instant.

  “Argh! Bugger it!” Max cried. “I touched bottom that time.” Bottom being a sediment of sand and shellgrit. He swore and with difficulty extracted himself.

  Roger picked up one of the small cone shaped shells. “What’s in these things?” he asked.

  “Trochus shell? Just one of those crab type things,” Graham replied. Dozens of the objects littered the mud, each with a narrow furrow behind it marking its track.

  “Do they bite?”

  “No. But some shells have poison spines so I wouldn’t recommend picking them up,” Graham replied.

  “Lots of crabs,” Peter observed as they floundered on. The boys were having to pull and push hard now as there was almost no surface water to skim on and the mud’s suction was strong.

  Graham looked around. Hundreds of crabs, mostly the grey ones with purple legs, but some a dark green, were spreading out of their p
ath or sidling rapidly down the water filled holes. “Its those little fellows I like,” he said, pointing to where a mudskipper was skittering out of his way. “I think they are really cute with those big bug eyes.”

  “Just like Ailsa,” Max offered, mentioning a girl in their class that Graham thought was very pretty. Graham ignored him and kept pushing.

  “Oh! Nearly caught that one,” Roger cried. “He’s a big one.”

  Graham looked and saw a large mudskipper - at least large as mudskippers go - about fifteen centimetres long and as thick as his thumb, go hopping away from Roger’s clawing fingers. It thrashed its fin-like tail and hopped along on its two front fins at an astonishing speed.

  Graham let go the Old Cat and lunged at it. The mudskipper swerved and jumped nimbly out of the way. Not so Graham. He lost his balance, took a rapid step to regain it; and his foot sank instantly. Arms flailing vainly he toppled headlong - splat!

  “Bugger it! Bloody silly mudskippers,” he swore as he tried to get up, floundering up to his elbows and knees.

  “Bloody silly you,” Max replied.

  Peter shook his head. “Come on Graham. Stop playing silly buggers and help us get this boat ashore,” he said.

  Graham managed to stand upright. He had mud all down his front and a gob in his eye which stung. He was only two paces from the Old Cat but as he tried to move he found the suction too strong. He struggled and flopped forward again, then dragged a foot clear.

  As he tried to stand his right foot squished down through the ooze. He felt a sharp pain and knew at once what had happened. “Argh! Blast! I’ve cut my bloody foot.”

  He dragged the foot clear and blood flowed red and bright. The cut began to sting as the salt and grit got into it. They were now within about fifteen-metres of the beach, in that zone within throwing distance for all the bottles thrown by drunks over a hundred years. It took an effort to take another step knowing it could result in another deep gash (he was sure it was a deep gash).

  Somehow Graham hopped and floundered ashore. He stood on the beach and lifted his foot to look. There was lots of blood. Roger joined him as the others hauled the Old Cat up to the sand. Graham hopped and hobbled across the lawn to a tap and began washing off the mud and muck.

  “It’s not all that deep,” Roger said, as the wound was revealed. Graham was both relieved and disappointed. It was still a respectable gash though, at least two or three centimetres long just across the instep and heel of his right foot. Peter joined them and had a look.

  “Not too deep. Make sure it’s clean. I’ll go and get a bandage from home.”

  Graham sat down and held the foot up to stem the blood flow which soon slowed to a trickle. Roger went to help Max unrig the Old Cat.

  “That’s something else we should have,” Roger said. “A First Aid kit. There’s a little one at home. Remind me to put it in the Old Cat next time.”

  Graham again felt foolish. He should have thought of that. All these things they forgot!

  When his foot was bandaged Graham helped the others move the Old Cat back to Peter’s. All in all it hadn’t been a very enjoyable day.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE CANNON

  Back at Peter’s, after the Old Cat was stowed away, Graham hopped to the front steps and sat down. “What do we do tomorrow? More sailing?”

  Max threw up his arms. “Fair go! No! Anyway, I’ve got work tomorrow. Besides I’ve had enough sailing for a while.”

  Roger agreed. “Not tomorrow or Sunday for me. We are going to visit my aunty in Atherton on Sunday.”

  “Monday then?” Peter asked.

  It was agreed. Monday afternoon, and only for two or three hours.

  “That’s OK,” Peter said. “The Old Cat needs some maintenance anyway.”

  “Can I help?” Graham asked. Apart from building his ship model he had nothing else to do.

  “Sure. Come over tomorrow morning,” Peter replied.

  So Graham pedalled home with Roger and Max feeling better, in spite of the throbbing pain in his foot. That foot caused more trouble. Kylie laughed when she heard how they had missed the tide. Alex just shrugged. He had cut his feet often enough on the mudflats. But Graham’s mum got all worried.

  She bathed the cut and inspected it minutely, debating whether it needed stitches or not. Then she made Graham sit with his foot in a bowl of disinfectant for ten-minutes while she dug through the medical records to find when he had last received a tetanus needle. At last she decided not to take him to the doctor. Instead she bandaged the foot.

  “No sailing till this is healed,” she said.

  “Yes mum. We weren’t planning to.”

  After supper Graham retired to the ship room and began working on the tiny cannon which would arm his model.

  That put an idea into his head so that when he arrived at Peter’s at 9:30 the following morning he said. “The cannon, can we get it to work?”

  “I suppose so. Why?”

  Graham shrugged. “I dunno. To use as a starting gun?”

  At Graham’s urging Peter took the cannon out of its cupboard. He unwrapped it and placed it on the workbench. Graham couldn’t resist. He slid his hand along the barrel. The metal was smooth and cool.

  “Can we try firing it?”

  Peter pursed his lips and scratched his chin. “I suppose so. We need some gunpowder though.”

  “Can we buy it?”

  Peter shook his head. “No. Don’t think so. It’s an explosive. You’d need a licence. Besides I wouldn’t imagine anyone would even make the stuff anymore,” he replied.

  “What about fireworks? Aren’t they filled with gunpowder?” Graham asked.

  “Yes. But you can’t buy them. Again, you need a licence.”

  “Don’t some of the Chinese shops sell them?” Graham queried.

  “Hmm. Maybe. But I don’t think they are supposed to. Besides it would take forever breaking the fireworks open to get enough,” Peter replied.

  Graham pulled a face. He sat down discouraged and looked wistfully at the cannon. He fingered one of the brass shackles on its carriage. He knew Peter always got top marks in chemistry. “Could we make our own gunpowder?” he suggested.

  Peter laughed. “Yes. We made some at school. But we would have to buy all the ingredients.”

  “What do we need?”

  “Saltpetre, Sulphur, Carbon. I think that’s all, but I’d have to check. I’ll get my Chemistry textbook. You have to mix them in the right quantities.”

  “Your Grandad didn’t leave a bit by any chance?” Graham suggested.

  “He might have. I’ll have a look. All the tools for the cannon should be here somewhere.”

  “Tools?”

  “You know, rammers and sponges to clean the barrel and so on,” Peter replied. He began to search in the cupboard. Within minutes he was passing things out to Graham.

  “Here we are: ramrod, sponge, wormer.”

  Graham took them and was enthralled. They were scaled replicas of the real things but made in brass. The sponge was like a little mop. The wormer was like a double corkscrew. He knew from all his reading what the tools were and what they were used for.

  Peter stood up and placed a cardboard carton on the table. “Here we are. Look, this is a coil of fuse, I think.” He placed a screw top glass jar on the bench. Inside was a coil of what looked like thin, tarred string. Next he pulled out another, larger screw top jar which was three quarters full of a black powder. He shook it and held it up to the light.

  Graham’s pulse quickened. “Is that gunpowder?”

  “I think so. We will soon find out,” Peter replied. With difficulty he unscrewed the lid and sniffed, then put his hand in and picked up a pinch and tasted it.

  “Gunpowder alright.”

  “It must be pretty old. Will it still work?”

  “It should. I don’t think it deteriorates with age. We can test it. Wait till I get some matches.”

  Peter went upstairs and retur
ned with matches. He sprinkled a small amount of the gunpowder on a piece of paper then took it out onto the concrete path at the back of the house. Graham followed. A match was struck and Peter knelt and held it down onto the gunpowder. It flared and fizzed and sent up a column of thick white smoke.

  “It’ll work alright,” Peter said.

  “Oh! I love that smell,” said Graham, inhaling the powder smoke.

  “Go and get the fuse and we’ll test that too,” Peter said.

  Graham brought the roll of fuse and cut off about five centimetres. Peter lit the end with another match. The fuse hissed and spluttered and obviously still worked.

  “This is bloody great! Can we fire the cannon?” Graham asked.

  Peter nodded. “You bet! Let’s have a go.”

  They went back to the workbench. Peter reached into the box and pulled out a rusty old tin. It was full of rusty ball bearings.

  “I think these are the shot,” he said. He pushed one into the muzzle. It just fitted and rolled out of sight. He tilted the barrel and the ball-bearing rolled back out and bounced on the table. “Yep. We don’t need to fire anything of course. We can just fire blank.”

  He picked up a small brass scoop on a long spoon handle, and a funnel. “I think this is to measure the right amount of gunpowder, and to pour it in.”

  Graham looked at it. The scoop was smaller than a thimble. “It doesn’t look very much.”

  Peter laughed. “It will be. You think of how small the propellant charge is in the cartridge case of a rifle bullet. That can push the bullet a kilometre or more.”

  “I suppose so. What will we use for wadding?”

  “Cartridge paper - one of my old sketch pads will do. Or tissue paper.”

  Peter ran upstairs and returned with a page from a drawing book and some tissues. The boys then carried the cannon and its accessories out onto the back lawn.

  “She’s a heavy little beast,” Graham commented. “Must be at least ten kilograms.” He placed the gun down and all the other items were laid out neatly on a piece of cloth beside it.

  Graham wanted to load the cannon but Peter took the ladle from him. “It’s my cannon. I’ll do it.”