Nancy had a quick look round. “Sure you’ve got them both in, Peggy?”
“It’s an easier rudder to fit than ours,” said Peggy, who had been kneeling in the stern trying to get both gudgeon pins in at once. She moved the tiller first one way and then the other. “Ready,” she said.
“Now then, Dot. Let Amazon out at the full length of her painter. Then there’ll be room for Scarab to come to the end of the stage and lie head to wind while we hoist the sail. Then we’ll get her right off on port tack. You don’t want to use oars if you can help it, specially on her first voyage. It’d be beastly bad luck. …”
The old boatbuilder watched, smiling.
“Knows what she’s about,” he said.
“Half a second while I fix the tackle for the boom,” said Nancy. “All right. You can be shifting her round.”
Dick, the little flag in his hand, watched Nancy’s fingers flickering at her work. Nancy’s red-capped head kept getting in the way. Would he ever know how to do it? And Scarab was moving. Dot had let out Amazon’s painter and the boat builder was carefully working the new boat round to the end of the stage to lie where Amazon had been.
“Now,” said Nancy, standing up, hot and red-faced from crouching over the tackle in the bottom of the boat. “She’s ready.”
“Shall I hoist the flag?” said Dick. It was the only bit of work that had been left to him.
“Not yet,” said Nancy and pulled a small medicine bottle from her pocket. “Ginger wine. The Great Aunt had some with her supper last night and I swiped a drop afterwards. Beastly stuff, but Scarab won’t mind. Here you are, Dot. Your job. Wrap your hand in a handkerchief so as not to get cut. Whang the bottle hard on her stem so that it busts, and christen her. …”
“What do I say?” asked Dorothea.
“Oh, just tell her what her name is and give her best wishes for fair winds and then Dick hauls up the flag.”
Dorothea, wrapping her fingers in her handkerchief, took the little bottle and made ready.
“Don’t drop it,” said Peggy.
“It’s bad luck if you don’t bust it first time,” said Nancy. “Now then. …”
Crash!
The little bottle smashed to bits on Scarab’s sharp prow. Brown wine trickled down into the water.
“I name you SCARAB!” said Dorothea. “And best wishes for fair winds!”
“Hurrah!” The old boatbuilder, who had been gravely watching, let out a sturdy shout.
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” shouted Nancy and Peggy. “Up with the flag, Dick. Go on. Hand over hand … Scarab for ever!”
Dick and Dorothea somehow forgot to shout. Dorothea decided afterwards that it did not really matter. The three-cornered white flag with the green beetle in the middle of it quavered up to the masthead, steadied there with the little flag staff straight up and down, and fluttered in a sudden puff of wind.
SCARAB
“What’s the insect?” asked the boatbuilder.
“It’s a scarab,” said Dick. “It’s a sort of Egyptian beetle.”
“Ah,” said the boatbuilder. “Egyptian? I thought it was a new one for me.”
“And now,” said Nancy. “Out you get, Peggy. Hop in Dot. I’ll just hoist the sail for you. You take the halliard through the ring in the bows and it acts as a forestay. Up she goes. Sorry, Dick. Your head was in the wrong place. Spectacles all right? Make fast to this cleat. Then bowse down the tackle to cock the yard. Just till there are up and down ripples in the sail.”
“Easy with that while it’s a new sail,” said the boatbuilder.
“That’s so as not to pull it out of shape before it’s stretched,” said Nancy. “There you are. She’s ready.” She too climbed back on the landing stage. The boatbuilder had cast off the painter and was coiling it, ready to drop it in the bows.
“Better put the centreboard down now,” he said. “Deep enough off the end of this stage, but keep well clear of the shores once you’re sailing.”
Dick lowered the centreboard.
There was a little more wind and the boom swung gently to and fro over Dorothea’s head as she sat waiting in the stern.
“You’d better take the tiller, Dick,” she said.
“Cast off!” cried Nancy. “There you go. Main sheet in a bit. Tiller to port.”
The boatman had dropped the coiled painter in the bows and, with a sudden hard push, had sent the Scarab sliding out into the lake.
The wind filled the red sail. Dick, watching it, went on holding the tiller to port.
“Let her come up a bit … Let her come up a bit … She’s sailing,” called Nancy.
“Sure they’re all right in a boat?” Dorothea heard the boatbuilder ask Nancy.
“Of course they are,” she heard Nancy answer. “They’ve been able-seamen for over a year. They’ve sailed here before and on the Broads.”
Dick heard that too, but it made no difference. For the first time in his life he was sailing a boat of his own and a boat that neither he nor anybody else had ever sailed before. Main sheet in one hand, tiller in the other, he could not wipe his spectacles, but that was what he would have liked to do.
“Look out there! Where are you going?” Some men in a rowing boat shouted at him, and he luffed desperately to keep out of their way. “Steam gives way to sail,” he had read in his book, but it said nothing about people windmilling about in hired rowing boats. Did they count as steam or sail?
“It’s all right,” said Dorothea. “She’s moving beautifully.”
“But she isn’t,” said Dick. In luffing to avoid the rowing boat he had brought the Scarab head to wind. She had lost way. The sail was flapping.
It seemed to make no difference how he steered. She was drifting, backwards.
He wagged the tiller violently, trying to get her back on her old course. Her head did come round at last, but the wrong way. The sail filled again and she was moving, but he would have to bring her about quick or he would be in among the landing stages. No good trying till she was sailing pretty fast … Now … “Ready about, Dot,” he said, and put the tiller across. Would she come round or wouldn’t she? She did, and once more they were heading away from the shore. Dick looked anxiously over his shoulder.
“They didn’t see,” said Dorothea. “They were getting up their sail and the boatbuilder was talking to them. Nobody saw, and it might happen to anybody, a rowing boat charging right across like that.”
“Just coming!” They heard Nancy’s ringing call.
There was nothing in the way now, and after those first awful minutes, Dick was already feeling better. His arms no longer felt as if they had been frozen stiff. He was finding that he could watch the flag and the sail and yet keep a look out. No other rowing boat was going to be close in front of him before he saw it. Things were all right after all. Scarab was no harder to sail than Titmouse, and faster, lots faster.
“Listen to her,” said Dorothea. “She’s enjoying it.”
It was as if the wind had heard Dorothea giving Scarab good wishes. Fair it was not, just at the moment, but from the light puffs of the morning it had settled to a gentle breeze, such a breeze as anyone would like to have when sailing a new boat. And now, for the first time, they were hearing the quick, laughing gurgle of water under the forefoot of a boat of their own.
“The others have started,” said Dorothea quietly. “Don’t look round. You’re sailing her beautifully. They’ll never catch us up.”
“Ready about,” said Dick as they came near the shore of Long Island.
“What ought I to say?” asked Dorothea.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Dick. “Just be ready to shift your weight across, and keep clear of the boom. I say, they’re going much nearer the shore than we did.”
“They probably know just where it’s shallow and where it isn’t.”
“He said we’d better keep well off the shores,” murmured Dick. “So there must be shallows somewhere. I’m not going to take any risks. It d
oesn’t matter if they do catch us up … not this time.”
“How do they manage to keep her going so fast?” said Dorothea.
Amazon, with her experienced crew, Peggy at the tiller, Nancy amidships, was coming on at a tremendous pace. Round she swung, close to the overhanging trees of the island, her crew shifting neatly as she turned. Back towards the mainland. Round again and, somehow, unlike Scarab, not losing way as she came about but getting a flying start on every tack. Dick could not help looking over his shoulder to watch her.
“How will they manage to pass us?” asked Dorothea, when it was clear that there was no hope of keeping ahead.
“The overtaking boat has to keep out of the way of the overtaken,” said Dick, remembering his book. “We’ve just got to go on sailing as if they weren’t there.”
“You’re not doing half badly.” Nancy’s voice came from much nearer. Amazon was not a dozen yards away, sailing side by side with them. “Don’t hold your tiller too tight. Fingers! Fingers! Don’t grip it.”
“She’s turning,” whispered Dorothea a moment later.
“I’m going straight on,” said Dick.
He sailed on till he was close to the trees, went about this time without losing so much way, and found to his horror that Amazon had turned and was coming to meet him.
“Port gives way to starboard,” he murmured to himself. “Or is it the other way about? We’re on starboard tack … or …”
He sailed on. It looked as if there would be a collision. Dick gripped his tiller and looked up at his sail as if Amazon were nowhere near.
“Well done, Dick!” called Nancy. “You’ve got the right of way. It’ll be ours on the next tack.”
Amazon had changed her course to miss them and the two boats passed within a couple of yards.
“She’s turned again,” said Dorothea.
“I’m going right on,” said Dick, and Dorothea sat, watching Amazon foaming after them directly in their wake.
“She’s turning again,” whispered Dorothea, just as Dick, coming near the mainland shore, called “Ready about.”
Scarab swung round to find herself on the same tack as Amazon with Amazon a dozen yards ahead.
“They’ve done it,” said Dick. “She passed us. She’ll be clear ahead of us when she goes about again.”
“They’ve been sailing her a long time,” said Dorothea, as Amazon came about under the trees and they saw that now they would not be able to touch her even if they tried.
“We’ll go round the island,” called Peggy.
“Go outside the little rock with a bush on it at this end,” said Nancy. “It looks deep enough between the rock and the island but it isn’t.”
“All right,” said Dick.
“That isn’t what they say to each other,” said Dorothea.
“She knows what I mean,” said Dick. “Ready about!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Dorothea, remembering the words.
Amazon swung round the little rock a dozen yards ahead of Scarab. Dick noticed how Peggy let out the main sheet as she turned. He did the same as he too rounded the rock. The little boats had a fair wind now and were running before it between Long Island and the islets to the west of it.
“Centreboard!” shouted Nancy, looking back to see how they were doing. “Yank it up. You don’t want it with the wind aft.”
“I ought to have thought of it,” said Dick.
Dorothea hauled it up and held it up by its jointed handle.
“Put the peg in to hold it,” said Dick hurriedly.
And then the miracle happened. Amazon had been twenty yards ahead and gaining. But was she? It couldn’t be true. Yes. She was not gaining any more. She was not so far ahead as she had been.
“Dick. Dick,” whispered Dorothea, not daring to say it aloud. “We’re catching up.”
Bit by bit, foot by foot, there could be no doubt about it, Scarab was creeping up. Dick thought of nothing in the world but of keeping a straight wake. Nancy never took her eyes off them. Peggy kept glancing over her shoulder, letting out her sail a little, hauling it in and glancing over her shoulder again. And still Scarab crept closer and closer.
They neared the end of the island. Another forty yards and they would be out once more in the open lake. Nancy spoke to Peggy. Amazon turned suddenly towards the wind, spilling the air from her sail, lost speed, and then filled her sail again. Scarab was close beside her.
“You’d have caught us anyhow in another minute,” said Nancy. “New boat. Dry. Clean bottom. She’d run away from us with the wind aft. Jolly good boat. When you’ve had her a bit you’ll beat us at tacking as well. … not always, of course. Giminy, when the G.A. goes and the Swallows come and we have three boats we’ll have a race to both ends of the lake and back. Now look here. We’ve got to get home now. You hang about till we’re out of sight. Then take her for a real spin. You’re doing splendidly.”
“What did I do wrong, tacking?” asked Dick.
“You were shoving the tiller across too suddenly … Stops her … Go about when she’s really moving, and let her almost do it herself … Just ease her round till she’s head to wind and then put the tiller a bit further over. She’ll shoot quite a bit straight into the wind.”
“I thought it must be something like that,” said Dick.
“Watch your wake,” said Nancy. “When you go about properly there isn’t any swirl, or hardly any, and what there is you leave to leeward. You can see at once if you’ve been using the tiller too hard. Goodbye. We’re going straight home. You turn back here. Go round the island again or something. Just in case she’s mouching about. She mustn’t see the two boats coming along together or she’ll start asking questions.”
Dick hauled in his main sheet and brought Scarab swinging round till she was sailing close hauled. But something seemed wrong. She was not sailing as she had been but was slipping sideways.
“Centreboard, Dot,” called Nancy. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
“Get the peg out Dot,” said Dick. “That’s what’s holding it.”
By the time the peg was pulled out, the centreboard lowered, and Scarab once more sailing as she should, Amazon, still running with her boom well out, was already clear of the islands and heading for home.
“What are we to do now?” asked Dorothea.
“Anchor,” said Dick firmly. “Lower sail. Get the mast down, and start everything from the very beginning. That time they did everything for us. We’ve got to be able to do it ourselves.”
CHAPTER XVI
ON THEIR OWN
EVEN putting an anchor down is something that has to be learnt. Dick sailed back till one of the smaller islands hid him from Amazon’s crew. He did not want Nancy to see what he was going to do. If she were to look back and see Scarab with her sail and mast down she might easily think that something had gone wrong. She might even come back to help. He wanted to be safe from help of any kind.
“You take the tiller, Dot, and head straight into the wind. I’ll put the anchor over and get the sail down afterwards.”
It sounded easy. Dorothea headed Scarab into the wind and Dick dropped the anchor overboard. But Scarab, though her sail was flapping, slid on and on, till the anchor plucked at her bows and pulled her round. Then, of course, the wind filled the sail and she was off again. She was brought up with another jerk. As if to make things difficult, the wind freshened. Scarab was like a tethered goat, pulling all ways. When, at last, Dick cast off the halliard, the sail came down on the top of him and the peak splashed into the water.
He scrambled out from under.
“My fault,” he said. “I ought to have waited till she stopped moving. And now I’ve gone and got the sail wet.”
HOW NOT TO LOWER SAIL
“They couldn’t see,” said Dorothea. “It’ll be all right next time.”
“I oughtn’t to have let it happen,” said Dick. “Oh! And I oughtn’t have let that rope go.” He was gathering the s
ail into the boat and saw that the end of the halliard was flying loose above his head. He grabbed at it, too late. Already it was working through the sheave at the masthead and was out of reach. “Oh well,” he said, “I’d meant to take the mast down anyhow.”
“Don’t let’s hurry,” said Dorothea.
After that things went easier, and presently Scarab was lying at anchor, much as they had first seen her at the boatbuilder’s landing stage, with her mast down and lying in her, with the oars and the sail beside it.
Dick took breath, sat still for a moment, and cleaned his spectacles. Then, trying to remember what Nancy had done, they set to work to rig their boat for themselves. It took them a good deal longer than it had taken Nancy. One or two things were done out of turn and had to be undone and done again, but at last all was ready, the sail was set, Dorothea was at the tiller and Dick had the anchor rope in his hand.
“It looks just right,” said Dorothea.
“Don’t pull at the sheet just yet,” said Dick. “Let it go free till I get the anchor off the bottom. Then steer to port, shorten the sheet till the wind fills the sail and I’ll get the anchor in as quick as I can.”
“You can always put it down again if anything goes really wrong,” said Dorothea.
Dick looked at Dorothea and nodded. He hauled in on the anchor rope. Scarab headed to port, the sail began to pull, up came the anchor and they were off. Dick hurriedly crammed rope and anchor in before the mast and went aft to take the tiller.
“There was nobody to do any helping that time,” said Dorothea.
They took a turn or two against the wind, beating back between the islands. Yes, everything was all right. Scarab was sailing just as well as when she had been rigged and had her sail set by the experts.
“Where shall we go?” said Dorothea.
“Houseboat,” said Dick. “Timothy may be waiting to start work.”
“He hadn’t sent a message when they left Beckfoot.”