Not one of them had thought of saying “Thank you” to the Death and Glories.
Not that that mattered to the Death and Glories. Fishermen and sailors who had listened to Old Bob were looking down at them from the quay and saying what a good job they had done. Presently news came that somebody had got through to Wroxham on the telephone, and that Rodley’s were sending a man down to see what could be done with the Margoletta when the tide went down.
“They’ll float her again easy,” said Old Bob. “Couldn’t have beached her in a better place myself.”
“You’ll have saved someone a pretty penny,” said a sailor on the quay to the three small boys fending off their old black boat below him. “It’ll be worth a new mast and sail to you, likely, if you’re wantin’ ’em in that Death and Glory o’ yours.”
At that moment salvage was the thing, and Joe, Bill and Pete decided there and then to give up piracy for good and all.
The Margoletta’s dinghy was left in charge of a friend of Old Bob’s until Rodley’s man should arrive. Then the Admiral and the skipper of the Come Along had a word or two together, and the Admiral told the others something of what she meant to do. “It’ll take those three far too long to get up the river in that old boat. We’d better give them a tow.”
Once more Old Bob settled down over his tiller and the Come Along said “Come Along” to the Teasel and the Titmouse and the Death and Glory. The whole fleet went up the river together, with cheers for the three small boys from all the people on the quayside and in the moored boats. News like that of the wreck and salvage of the Margoletta is very quick in getting about.
“What about yanking our mast up?” said Starboard, as they left the last of the three Yarmouth bridges astern.
“Better wait till we get through Acle,” said the Admiral.
“Acle?” said Starboard.
“Acle?” said Tom.
“It won’t take long with the tide and the Come Along,” said the Admiral. “And I should never forgive myself if Port and Starboard were to miss tomorrow’s race after all.”
As for the Death and Glories, their faces looked more and more surprised as they were towed up the river, past Three-Mile House, past Scare Gap, and Runham Swim, and Six-Mile House, and the Stracey Arms, and Stokesby Ferry. Was it never going to end?
At last they were through Acle Bridge, and there moored for the night. The Admiral settled up with Old Bob, and Port and Starboard thanked him again for taking them up Breydon from Sir Garnet and putting them aboard the barge.
“We’d have missed everything if you hadn’t,” said Port.
“Good night to ye,” called the old man, and set off, chug, chug, down the river, back again to Yarmouth. He left the Death and Glories with bursting hearts, for, just as he was going, he had said, “I’ll see ye’re not put upon. I’ll tell Rodley’s myself about that salvage job o’ yours.”
And then, when masts and awnings were up, and the Death and Glories had shown just what could be done in that way with a sheet of old tarpaulin, the Admiral put the kettle on, and sent the crew of the Teasel off with a message to the inn below the bridge. The provision boat had stopped business for the night. They came back with fresh milk and two big slabs of chocolate and two cold chickens cooked that day.
“They might almost have known we were coming,” said Dorothea.
“Back in home waters,” said Starboard, as they walked along the bank, picking their way in the dusk.
“We’ve had a gorgeous voyage,” said Dorothea, “and we can tell Nancy that we’ve been in a storm and been in a fog, and even if we haven’t been shipwrecked ourselves, not properly, we’ve seen a real shipwreck, which is the next best thing.”
“Half a minute, Dot,” said Dick. “Do listen.… There it is again.…”
“Boom … boom … boom … boom …” The call of the bittern sounded over the marshes in the quiet May evening.
“I’m very glad I heard it today,” said Dick. “The same day as the fog-horns. It’s very like the fog-horns, but not quite.”
“All right,” said Port. “Give me the milk, if you’re trying to get at that pocket-book of yours.”
The kettle was boiling when they reached the Teasel, and they all crammed into her for supper. Joe’s white rat was given bread and milk and kept at a safe distance from William, who had his fill of chocolate.
Then, free from all fears of Hullabaloos (and after all he had not had to give his name), Tom and the others heard how it was that the Death and Glories had come sailing up Breydon in time to save the Margoletta. They heard how, at Acle, Joe and Pete had learnt that Bill had made a mistake about the day, and that the Margoletta was coming down to Yarmouth at low water on the very day that the Teasel had planned to come through. There was only one thing to be done if they were to save the elder Coots. They set out at once, and with the tide to help them and a lucky tow from a friendly wherry going down under power they came to Yarmouth just as the ebb ended. There was no sign yet of the Margoletta, held up, perhaps, by the fog. Tom and the Teasel, they were sure, must be waiting at the dolphins at the mouth of the river for the tide to turn up the Bure. There was still time to warn Tom to slip ashore. They rowed down through the Bure bridges. It was dead low water and quite easy. Then, finding no Teasel, they thought they might as well go on through Breydon Bridge to see if she were in sight. That they found easier still, for the tide was already sweeping up the Yare. They were just thinking of turning back for fear it would be too strong for them, when they caught sight of the Teasel on the mud, far away in the distance. And, at that very moment, the Margoletta had come roaring past them and they had known they were too late. They had watched the big cruiser racing up Breydon towards the helpless outlaw and then, suddenly, they had seen her swing round, ram the post, bring up short and drift away. Pete’s long telescope had shown them that they had a real wreck to salve at last. The rest everybody knew.
“And now,” said the Admiral, “those poor Hullabaloos have lost their ship, and are having to explain at the hotel how they had to leave her in such a hurry that they haven’t even got their tooth-brushes. And all because they moored on the top of a coot’s nest, poor things.…”
“They wouldn’t go when they was asked,” said Joe.
“I tell ’em it was our coot,” said Pete.
“They only got themselves to thank,” said Bill. “Yes, please, I’d like another bit of that chocolate.”
POSTSCRIPT
THAT is really the end of the story. But those who like to be quite sure about everything may want to know a little more. The fleet set sail from Acle to Horning after a very early breakfast, and the twins had Flash all ready for the race before their A.P. came home. Tom moored the Teasel at Horning Staithe, where Jim Wooddall in Sir Garnet was moored too. The Admiral, Tom, Dick, Dorothea, and William aboard the Teasel, and Jim and his mate aboard the wherry, had a splendid view of the end of the race, which Flash won by the length of a short bowsprit. Dick and Dorothea went off home with proper discharge certificates, signed by three skippers and an admiral, to say that they could fairly be counted able-bodied seamen. The Admiral’s brother Richard came back from London and sailed off again in the Teasel with the Admiral, and she rather enjoyed telling him, whenever things went a little wrong, that he ought to take some lessons from the Coots. The Admiral and he went to see the Dudgeons, and he pleased the doctor and his wife and Tom too, by painting a portrait of “our baby,” which was admired by a great many people when it was exhibited at Burlington House. Nothing more was seen of the Hullabaloos. They had had enough of the Margoletta, went straight home to town and had their wet luggage sent after them. Old Bob kept his word and explained to Rodley’s how much they owed to the salvage men of the Death and Glory. And Rodley’s were so pleased that they took the Death and Glory out of the water and scraped her and gave her a new coat of paint, and a new sail and spars, and an awning as good as the Titmouse’s, and something over in the way of pocket-money for
all three members of her crew.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds in 1884 and went to school at Rugby. He was in Russia in 1917, and witnessed the Revolution, which he reported for the Manchester Guardian. After escaping to Scandinavia, he settled in the Lake District with his Russian wife where, in 1929, he wrote Swallows and Amazons. And so began a writing career which has produced some of the real children’s treasures of all time. In 1936 he won the first ever Carnegie Medal for his book, Pigeon Post.
Also by Arthur Ransome
Swallows and Amazons
Swallowdale
Peter Duck
Winter Holiday
Pigeon Post
We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea
Secret Water
The Big Six
Missee Lee
The Picts and the Martyrs
Great Northern?
THE ARTHUR RANSOME SOCIETY
The Arthur Ransome Society (“TARS”) was formed in 1990 with the aim of celebrating Ransome’s life and works, and of encouraging both children and adults to take part in outdoor pursuits – especially sailing and camping. It also seeks to sponsor research, to spread Ransome’s ideas in the wider community and to bring together all those who share the values and the spirit that he fostered in his storytelling.
The Society is based at the Abbot Hall Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry in Kendal, where Ransome’s desk, favourite books and some of his personal possessions are kept. There are also close links with the Ruskin Museum at Coniston, where the original Amazon is now kept. The Society keeps in touch with its members through its journal, Mixed Moss, and its newsletter, Signals.
Regional branches of the Society have been formed by members in various parts of the country, including Scotland, the Lake District and North, East Anglia, the Midlands, the South and South West Coast, and contacts are maintained with overseas groups in America, Australia and Japan. Membership fees are modest, and fall into four groups – for those under 18, for single adults and for whole families, and for those over 65. If you are interested in knowing more about the Society, or would like to join it, please write for a membership leaflet to The Secretary, The Arthur Ransome Society, The Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 5AL, or email to [email protected].
THE ARTHUR RANSOME TRUST
“I seem to have lived not one life, but snatches from a dozen different lives.”
Arthur Ransome wrote twelve adventures about the Swallows and Amazons and their friends. He also wrote many other books and articles. He had a lot to write about, because in “real” life he was not only an author, but also a sailor, journalist, critic, story teller, illustrator, fisherman, editor, bohemian, and war reporter, who played chess with Lenin, married Trotsky’s secretary, helped Estonia gain independence and aroused the interest of both MI6 and MI5.
The Arthur Ransome Trust (ART) is a charity (no: 1136565) dedicated to helping everybody discover more about Arthur Ransome’s fascinating life and writings. Our main goal is to develop an “Arthur Ransome Centre” in the Lake District. If you want to know more about Arthur Ransome, or about ART’s projects, or think you would like to help us to put Ransome on the map, you can visit us at:
www.arthur-ransome-trust.org.uk
[email protected]
COOT CLUB
AN RHCB DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 446 48312 1
Published in Great Britain by RHCB Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2011
Copyright © Arthur Ransome 1934
First Published in Great Britain 1934 by Jonathan Cape
The right of Arthur Ransome to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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