Great Northern?

by Arthur Ransome

  “No thank you,” said Dick. “And thank you very much for telling me what they were. I must go now.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” said Mr Jemmerling.

  He was feeling for his pocket-book. Dick slipped past him towards the stairs. Mr Jemmerling grabbed at him.

  “No. No,” he said. “No hurry. I don’t mean you to get nothing out of this. You’re not one of my regulars, or you would know. I gave ten shillings to the boy who put me on to my last Golden Eagle. Here’s a sovereign for you.”

  “No thank you,” said Dick unhappily. “I’ve simply got to go. They’re waiting for me.” He bolted up the stairs to the deckhouse and out on deck.

  “John!” he called.

  Mr Jemmerling was close behind him. Looking down, he saw John in the dinghy.

  “Your brother?” he said, and then, to John, in a welcoming voice, “Tie up your dinghy and come aboard. I’d like a word with you, and perhaps you’d like to have a look over my ship.”

  As John said afterwards, “I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t interested in his beastly motor-biscuit-box.” He made the dinghy fast against the fenders and came up the ladder. Dick stood in his way and one glance at Dick’s face told John that something had gone wrong.

  “Glad to see you,” said Mr Jemmerling. “Your young brother has come upon some very interesting birds. More interesting than he seems to understand. But he tells me you are leaving tomorrow so that he can’t come with me to show me where they were. What was the name of the place where he found them?”

  “I don’t really know the name,” said John. “It hasn’t got a name on our chart.”

  “Could you show it me?” said Mr Jemmerling. “I’ll fix you both up on board and we’ll start at once. No time to lose. We don’t know how long those eggs have been laid. They may be hatching any day. I’ll make it very well worth your while.” He still had the pound note in his hand. He took four others from his pocket-book and held the five out to John.

  John looked from Mr Jemmerling’s eager face to Dick’s anxious one.

  “I didn’t find them,” he said. “Dick found them. I didn’t go ashore.”

  “Share it between you,” said Mr Jemmerling. “If you can’t come with me, just come into the deckhouse and show me as near as you can. Our chart’s on a very large scale.”

  “John!” said Dick, and started desperately down the ladder.

  “I don’t think I could,” said John. He looked across to the watchers on the deck of the Sea Bear. “And we can’t stop now. They’re waiting for us.”

  For one moment John thought that Mr Jemmerling was going to hit him. Then, as Mr Jemmerling turned furiously on his heel and went into the deckhouse, he followed Dick quickly down into the dinghy.

  “You didn’t tell him?” said Dick.

  “No,” said John. “But what’s the matter? What have you done to make him lose his hair?”

  “Be quick,” said Dick. “He’s back again.”

  Mr Jemmerling, red in the face, was glaring down at them from the Pterodactyl’s deck. Dick, hunched in the stern of the dinghy, did not look round again, while John, his eyes on the angry figure of the Pterodactyl’s owner, rowed silently across to the Sea Bear.

  CHAPTER X

  MUTINY ABOARD

  FROM THE DECK of the Sea Bear, the crew watched John and Dick row the dinghy over to the Pterodactyl. They could not hear what was said, but they saw the Pterodactyl’s sailor talk to them, go away and come back. They saw Dick climb aboard.

  “Why hasn’t John gone too?” said Roger.

  “Why should he?” said Susan. “It’s Dick who wants to ask questions.”

  Dorothea watched Dick follow the sailor into the deckhouse.

  “The bird-man must be at home,” she said.

  After that, all but Dorothea lost interest in the motor boat. Titty sat on the cabin skylight, writing a very short letter home. Susan and Roger sat beside her and told her bits to put in. Nancy and Peggy had not thought it worth while to write a letter as Captain Flint was writing and anyhow they would be home themselves in another two days. They were keeping more or less of a look-out for the mail steamer coming in. Captain Flint, down in the cabin, had told them to sing out as soon as they saw her funnel above the pierhead. They were all of them feeling a little sad. The two nights at Scrubbers’ Bay had seemed to put off the end, but tonight, they knew, was their last night in the Hebrides. The next time the anchor went down, it would not be they but a different crew that would haul it up again. The cruise was all but over.

  Dorothea was still looking at the Pterodactyl, and wishing she had been able to go with Dick instead of John. Dick had talked so much of the boat he would one day have, in which he and Dorothea were to voyage all over the world looking at birds, that she would very much have liked to see what a bird-watcher’s boat was like inside, if she was some day going to live in one. She sat on the coaming of the Sea Bear’s cockpit, looking across at the big motor yacht and thinking of Dick somewhere inside that white shining hull talking with the bird-man, whom she saw as somebody rather like Dick himself, only grown-up.

  Dick seemed to be a long time talking to him, and when he did at last come bolting out on deck, followed by Mr Jemmerling, Dorothea knew at once that something was amiss. Dick had come shooting out of that deckhouse door as if he had been slung from a catapult.

  Nancy happened to be looking that way. “Hullo!” she said. “If it was Roger instead of Dick, I’d know he’d been saying something cheeky.”

  “Dick never would,” said Dorothea, scrambling to her feet and looking very worried.

  “He couldn’t,” said Roger. “He would never think of the right thing to say.”

  They were all watching now. The next thing they saw was that John was going aboard, then Dick missing his footing as he hurried down the ladder and dropping very clumsily into the dinghy. They saw John talking to Dick’s bird-man. They saw the bird-man angrily turn his back on John and go back into the deckhouse. They saw John join Dick in the dinghy, push off, and begin rowing back, just as the bird-man came out of the deckhouse again to stand looking down on the little boat that was already on its way across to the Sea Bear.

  “He’s mad with John too,” said Roger.

  They watched in silence while John rowed towards them. As soon as the dinghy was near enough for them to see Dick’s face, every one of them knew that something had gone seriously wrong.

  “Whatever’s happened?” asked Nancy, grabbing the painter that John threw up to her.

  “I don’t know,” said John. “Ask Dick.”

  “Wouldn’t he tell you?” asked Dorothea. “Or wasn’t it a Great Northern after all?”

  Dick climbed aboard.

  “He’s an egg-collector,” he said grimly.

  Dorothea, who had shared the adventures of the Coot Club on the Norfolk Broads, was the only one of the others who could guess what Dick was feeling. She knew he had been thinking of the owner of the Pterodactyl as the sort of man he would like to be. She knew Dick dreamed of having a boat like that in which he and she would cruise together from one haunt of birds to another. She knew how horrible a shock it must have been to him to find that the owner of that boat was not a watcher and protector of birds but one of their most dangerous enemies.

  “He’s here just to collect eggs and shoot birds,” said Dick. “The rarer they are, the more he wants to take their eggs, and the more he wants to shoot them.”

  “That’s how the bitterns died out on the Broads,” Dorothea explained. “They’ve only come back since people have been protecting them against the egg-collectors.”

  “But what was the row about?” asked Nancy. “Did you go and tell him what you thought of him?”

  “No,” said Dick. “It was because I wouldn’t tell him where I saw those Divers.”

  “Were they Great Northerns?” asked Dorothea.

  “Yes,” said Dick. “That’s just it. They’re the first ever known to nest in t
he British Isles. So he wants their eggs for his collection. And he wants the birds too. He said, ‘What’s hit’s history and what’s missed’s mystery.’ My seeing them isn’t enough. It’s got to be proved. He’s right about that. I’ve got to prove it. We’ve got to go back there at once.”

  “But you don’t want to take the eggs,” said Titty.

  “You’ve seen the birds,” said Susan.

  “I’ve got to go back,” said Dick. “Don’t you see? It’s something all the books are wrong about. It’s something nobody knew before. Nobody will believe it unless it’s proved and I’ve simply got to prove it.”

  “But how can you?” said Susan.

  “Photographs,” said Dick. “He said himself that that would do it, but he wants the eggs as well, and the birds. We’ve got to go back. We can take the folding boat to the loch so that I can get to the island, and I’ve still got a film only half used in the camera.”

  “Did you see the eggs?” asked John.

  “No,” said Dick. “That’s another reason why I’ve got to go back. I’m sure they’re there. But I’ve got to see them, and I’ve got to take a photograph. I’ve simply got to.” He looked at Nancy who, so far, had listened but had not said a word.

  “Captain Flint’ll never agree,” said Susan.

  “He’ll have to,” said Nancy suddenly, and Dick knew he had found an ally worth having. “Don’t you see? We’ve got to go back. Of course we’ve got to. Dick’s absolutely right. Supposing Columbus had sailed to within sight of America and then come tamely home with nothing to show it was there! Of course he must get his photographs. Jibbooms and bobstays! We were just cruising. This makes it a voyage of discovery. Dick’s made the discovery. The cruise of the Sea Bear will go down in history. It’ll be remembered for ever and ever, just because she had the Professor aboard. Good for the Ship’s Naturalist. It’s like the Voyage of the Beagle. Dick’s a sort of Darwin.”

  “It’s not that,” said Dick. “But we can’t go away without making sure.”

  “But it can’t matter all that much,” said Susan.

  “That man was dotty with excitement,” said John.

  “I’d better tell Captain Flint at once,” said Dick.

  “He’s writing letters home,” said Titty. “He’ll have to change them and say we’re not going to be home quite so soon.”

  “He won’t want to,” said Susan.

  “He’ll have to,” said Nancy. “Go on down, Dick, and explain.”

  “You’d better tell him,” said Dorothea, “he’s your uncle.”

  “Right,” said Nancy, “I will,” and charged down the companion way into the cabin.

  “Jolly good,” said Roger. “It means the cruise isn’t over after all.”

  “Shut up,” said John.

  “Get OUT!” They heard the roar of a disturbed letter-writer down below.

  Nancy came up again, pink-faced and angry.

  “Won’t listen,” she said. “Writing letters like mad. Not interested. All he wanted to know was whether the mailboat was in. Come on. Nothing for it but a first-class mutiny. All hands! Off with those tyers! Get her ready for sailing at once. That’ll show him we mean business.”

  “Oh, but look here,” said Susan, “we can’t. He’s just made us do a harbour stow.”

  “We’re going to,” said Nancy. “Don’t go native just when things really matter.”

  Susan looked at John for support, but John had seen the egg-collector at close quarters. He was on Dick’s side and Nancy’s.

  Two short hoots on a ship’s siren made them all jump.

  “Mail-boat,” said Roger. “She’s coming in.”

  “Shiver my timbers!” said Nancy. “Don’t stand gaping. Off with those gaskets. Get the halliards ready to hoist the sails. Buck up. He’ll have heard that steamer and be on deck in a minute….”

  The whole crew of the Sea Bear flung themselves at the job of undoing everything they had done on coming into port. Gaskets were flicked loose and tied into bundles. The mainsail flopped in heavy folds down on the skylight. The staysail halliard that had been doing its harbour work of lifting the clew of the rolled staysail clear of the foredeck was shackled once more to the head of the sail, which was laid all ready for hoisting at a moment’s notice. John cast off the lashings from the tiller. Nancy was fitting the handle to the winch ready for getting the anchor when Captain Flint came up on deck with a bundle of letters in his hand.

  “What on earth’s all this?” he exclaimed.

  “I told you,” said Nancy, “but you wouldn’t listen. We’ve got to go back to Scrubbers’ Bay.”

  “But you’ve just come from there, you silly idiots.”

  Everybody began to talk at once. Captain Flint gathered from the general hubbub that it had something to do with Dick. He heard the name of the Pterodactyl. He turned to Dick.

  “What’s gone wrong?” he asked. “Wouldn’t the prehistoric bird answer your questions?”

  “It isn’t his fault that all birds aren’t prehistoric,” said Dick bitterly. “He grabs the eggs of any rare bird he can find. Common ones, too. Even puffins’ eggs. Dozens and dozens of them.”

  “Well, that’s not our business,” said Captain Flint. “But what about the bird you weren’t sure about? Wouldn’t he tell you its name?”

  “They’re what I thought they were,” said Dick. “Great Northerns. He showed me the skin of one he’d killed. And now he wants to go and take the eggs and kill them both.”

  “He can’t if you haven’t told him where they are.”

  “I haven’t. But it isn’t only that. He says we can’t prove they were nesting if we haven’t got the eggs. But photographs would be just as good.”

  “But who wants to prove it?”

  “We all do,” said Nancy. “Anybody would.”

  “No one’s ever known them nesting in the British Isles before,” said Dick.

  “Are you sure?”

  Dick bolted down into the cabin. Nancy, John, Titty and Dorothea took up the argument. Dick came up again with the Pocket Book of Birds, to find Captain Flint with his hands over his ears. He opened it at the page, and showed Captain Flint the words that mattered.

  “Nests abroad.”

  “They were nesting here,” said Dick. “I saw them. I’d have seen the eggs if I’d had the folding boat. It was too far to swim.”

  “But you don’t want to take the eggs.”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” said Dorothea.

  “No,” said Dick. “But it’s got to be proved. He’s right about that. I’ve got to take a photograph. I say, must we start home tomorrow?”

  “Of course we must,” said Captain Flint. “Time’s up. We’ll be one day late as it is.”

  “Then Dot and I’ll have to stay behind. We’ve got to get back there somehow.”

  “Can’t leave you,” said Captain Flint. “And anyway I don’t see that it really matters.”

  “Barbecued billygoats!” exclaimed Nancy. “Look here, when you were prospecting, if you’d spotted a lot of silver where no one had ever seen it before, would you have gone away without making sure?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if they weren’t nesting,” said Dick. “But it’s most awfully important to prove they were. That beast thought so anyway. He gives boys ten shillings for showing him where he can find the nest of a Golden Eagle. He wanted to give me a pound to show him my Divers.”

  “He tried to give me five pounds,” said John.

  “Mad,” said Captain Flint. “Mad.”

  “It shows he thinks it’s worth while making sure,” put in Dorothea.

  Dick, desperate, took off his spectacles, wiped them and put them on again.

  “I’ve simply got to go back,” he said. “Don’t you see? It’s something all the bird-books are wrong about. It’s a scientific discovery. It’s something nobody knew before….”

  “Well, you know it now.”

  “I’ve got to prove it,” said Dick. �
�I’ve got to go there again.”

  “We’ll both stop,” said Dorothea.

  “We’re going back,” said Nancy.

  “We are not,” said Captain Flint.

  “We’ve got enough stores left for an extra day or two,” said Susan, “if we buy bread here, and a few more eggs.” Dorothea looked at her gratefully.

  “Let’s start right away,” said Peggy.

  “Tide’ll be turning,” said John. “We’ll have it with us.”

  “We’ve just got the petrol cans to fill,” said Roger, and bolted for the companion way.

  “Come out of that, Roger,” said Captain Flint. “Shut up, all the lot of you. Listen to me. No mutinies aboard this ship. I’m going ashore for petrol, and to post letters. While I’m ashore the half-wits who cast off the gaskets and made a general mess can jolly well stow the sails again. We leave for Mallaig tomorrow morning. Mac wants his ship back. Your parents want you back, I suppose. There’s no accounting for tastes. You don’t want me to tear up these letters in which I’ve told them what a good crew you’ve been. You don’t want me to write new ones saying I shall be thankful to be rid of a lot of mutinous riff-raff and never want to see you again. Have some sense, you blooming donkeys. Dick wanted to see Divers. Well, he’s seen them. You can’t expect me to go back on our tracks just because some lunatic has been pulling his leg.”

  “One day wouldn’t matter,” said Nancy.

  “We’ve lost one day already.”

  “He wasn’t pulling my leg,” said Dick. “He wants to prove it himself. But he wants to do it by killing the birds and taking the eggs. And I can do it by taking photographs.”

  “Father would want Dick to make sure,” said Dorothea. “It’s like the discovery of a Pharaoh’s tomb. When Father found one, he spent two winters working at nothing else. If the books are all wrong and Dick’s found it out, he can’t just sail away without making sure.”

  “It must be pretty important,” said John, “or that man wouldn’t have been pushing five pounds at us and getting into a rage because we wouldn’t take it.”