Swallows and Amazons Forever Coot Club By Arthur Ransome CONTENTS COOT CLUB 1 Just in Time 2 Disappointment 3 Number 7 4 The Only Thing To Do 5 Aboard the Teasel 6 Put Yourself in His Place 7 Invitation 8 The Innocents 9 The Making of an Outlaw 10 Lying Low 11 Tom in Danger 12 Under the Enemy's Nose 13 The Titmouse Disguised 14 Neighbours at Potter Heigham 15 Port and Starboard Say Good-bye 16 Southward Bound 17 Port and Starboard Miss Their Ship 18 Through Yarmouth 19 Sir Garnet Obliges Friends 20 While the Wind Holds 21 Come Along and Welcome 22 The Return of the Native 23 Storm Over Oulton 24 Recall 25 The Rashness of the Admiral 26 The Titmouse in the Fog 27 William's Heroic Moment 28 Wreck and Salvage 29 Face to Face Coot Club CHAPTER I JUST IN TIME Thorpe Station at Norwich is a terminus. Trains from the middle of England and the south run in there, and if they are going on east and north by way of Wroxham, they run out of the station by the same way they ran in. Dick and Dorothea Callum had never been in Norfolk before, and for ten minutes they had been waiting in that station, sitting in the train, for fear it should go on again at once, as it had at Ipswich and Colchester and the few other stations at which it had stopped. The journey was nearly over. They had only a few more miles to go, but Dorothea, whose mind was always busy with scenes that might do for the books she meant to write, was full of the thought of how dreadful it would be if old Mrs Barrable, with whom they were going to stay, should be waiting on Wroxham Station and the train should arrive without them. So Dick and she had wasted ten whole minutes sitting in the carriage, looking out of the open window at the almost empty platform. A whistle blew, and the guard waved a green flag. 'Bring your head in now, Dick,' said Dorothea, 'and close the window.' But before Dick had time to pull the window up, they saw a boy come hurrying along the platform. He was heavily laden, with a paper parcel which he was hugging to himself so as to have that hand free for a large can of paint, while on the other arm he had slung a coil of new rope. He was hurrying along beside the train, looking into the windows of the carriages as if he were searching for someone he knew. And Dorothea noticed that, though it was a fine, dry spring day, he was wearing a pair of rubber knee-boots. 'He'll miss it if he doesn't get in,' said Dick. 'Hurry up, there, if you're going,' a porter shouted and at that moment, just after he had passed their window, the boy stumbled over a rope's end that had fallen from his coil. Down he went. His tin of paint rolled on towards the edge of the platform. His parcel burst its paper. Some blocks and shackles flew out. The train had begun to move. A porter far down the platform was running towards the boy, who had jumped up again almost as if he had bounced, had grabbed his blocks and crammed them in his pockets, and had stopped the escaping paint-tin with his foot just before it rolled between the platform and the train. In another moment he had the tin in his arms and was running beside the carriage. 'Don't try that now,' shouted a ticket inspector. 'Wait for the next,' shouted the porter, who was running after the boy. 'Heads!' called the boy. The next moment die paint-can came flying through the open window between Dick and Dorothea. The coil of rope whirled round and shot in after it. The door was opened and the boy flung himself in head-first and landed on all fours. Dorothea pulled the door to. Dick said: 'They always like it shut,' and reached out and closed the handle. The porter, left far behind, stopped running. 'Just in time,' said the boy. 'I didn't want to miss it. Lucky for me you had your window open." 'Haven't you hurt yourself?' said Dorothea. 'Not I,' said die boy, dusting his hands together, hands that looked so capable and hard-worked that Dick, at the sight of them, wanted to hide his own. The train was running close beside the river, and diey saw a steamer going down from Norwich. They crossed a bridge, and there was a river on both sides of the line, the old river on the left curving round by the village of Thorpe widi crowds of yachts and motorboats tied up under die gardens, and, on the right, a straight ugly cutting. In anodier minute they had crossed the old river again, and the train was slowing up at a station. Close by, across a meadow, diey could see a great curve of the river, and three or four houseboats moored to the bank, and a small yacht working her way up. 'Interested in boats?' said the boy, as the odiers hurried across the carriage. 'Yes, very much,' said Dorothea. 'Last holidays we were in a houseboat frozen in the ice.' 'They're always getting frozen in, houseboats,' said the boy. 'Done much sailing?' 'We haven't done any at all,' said Dick. 'Not yet.' 'Except just once, on the ice, in a sledge,' said Dorodiea. 'It wasn't really sailing,' said Dick. 'Just blowing along.' 'You'll get lots of sailing at Wroxham,' said the boy, looking up at the big black and white labels on die two small suitcases. 'We're going to live in a boat,' said Dorothea. 'She isn't at Wroxham. She's somewhere down the river.' 'What's her name?' said the boy, 'I know most of them.' 'We don't know,' said Dorothea. 'Mine's Titmouse. She's a very little one, of course. But she's got an awning. I slept in her last night. And she can sail like anything. This rope is for her. Blocks, too. And the paint. Birthday present. That's why I've been into Norwich.' Dick and Dorothea looked at die blocks and fingered the silky smoothness of the new rope. It certainly did seem that they had come to the right place to learn about sailing. Dick and Dorothea had set their hearts on learning, but they had given up all hope of getting any sailing before the summer. And then, half-way dirough the Easter holidays, the letter from Mrs Barrable had come in the very nick of time. Mrs Barrable, long ago, had been their mother's schoolmistress, but she painted pictures and was the sister of a very famous portrait painter. And she had written to Mrs Callum to say that her brother and she had chartered a small yacht on the Norfolk Broads, and that her brother had had to go off to London to paint portraits of some important Indians, so that she was all alone in the boat with her pug-dog William, and that if Dick and Dorothea could be spared she would like to have their company. Everything had been arranged in a couple of days, and here they were, and already, before they had got to Wroxham, they had met this boy who seemed to know about sailing. Things were certainly coming out all right. 'Hullo,' said Dick, soon after they passed Salhouse Station. 'There's a heron. What's he doing on that field where there isn't any water?' 'Frogging,' said the strange boy, and then, suddenly, 'Are you interested in birds, too?' 'Yes,' said Dick. 'But there are lots I've never seen, because of living mostly in a town.' 'You don't collect eggs?' said the boy, looking keenly at Dick. 'I never have,' said Dick. 'Don't you ever begin,' said the boy. 'If you don't collect eggs, it's all right ... you see we've got a Bird Protection Society, not to take eggs, but to watch the birds instead. We know thirty-seven nests this year ..." 'Thirty-seven?' said Dick. 'Just along our reaches ... Horning way ..." 'Our boat's near there," said Dorothea. 'By the way,' said the boy, 'you didn't see two girls in this train twins? No? They were in Norwich this morning, but I expect they drove back with their father. Otherwise they'd have come this way. We always do. Going by bus, you don't see anything of the river worth counting.' 'There's a hawk,' said Dick. 'Kestrel,' said the boy, looking at the bird hovering above a little wood. 'Hullo! We'll be there in a minute.' The train was slowing up. It crossed another river, and for a moment they caught a glimpse of moored houseboats with smoke from their chimneys where people were cooking midday meals, an old mill, and a bridge, and a lot of masts beyond it. And then the train had come to a stop at Wroxham station. The strange boy was looking warily out of the window. On the platform he saw an old lady looking up at the carriage windows. He also saw the station-master. He chose his moment and, slipping down from the carriage with his paint-can and coil of rope, was hurrying off to give up his ticket to the collector at the gate. But the station-master was too quick for him. 'Hum,' he said, 'I might have guessed it was you, when they rang me up from Norwich about a boy with a ticket for Wroxham jumping on the train after it had fairly got going. Told me to give you a good talking to. Well, don't you do it again. Not broken any bones this time, I suppose?' The boy grinned. He and the station-master were very good friends, and he knew that the railway officials in Norwich had not meant him to get off so easily. 'I was on the platform in time,' he said. 'Only I was looking for Port and Starboard, and then I slipped, and the train started, and I simply had to catch that train.' 'Port and Starboard?' said the station-master. 'I saw them go over the road-bridge with Mr Farland more than an hour ago. They'll have had their dinners and be on the river by now ... Yes, madam. Let me give you a hand.' He was talking now to Mrs Barrable, the old lady, who had just found Dick and Dorothea. The station-master reached up to help Dorothea down with her suitcase. 'Well, and here you are,' said Mrs Barrable, kissing Dorothea and shaking hands with Dick. 'And who was that other boy?' she asked. 'We made friends with him in the train,' said Dorothea. 'He knows a lot about boats.' 'And birds,' said Dick. Mrs Barrable watched him as he hurried through the gate and down the path to the road. 'Haven't I seen him before?' she said. 'And who are the Port and Starboard he was asking about?' 'That's Tom Dudgeon, the doctor's son from Horning,' said the station-master. 'You'll maybe have seen him on the river in his little boat. He's not often away from the water in the holidays. And Port and Starboard, queer names for a couple of girls ...' But there was the guard, just waiting to start the train, and the station-master never finished his sentence. 'Busy man,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Come along, Dick. Written any more books, Dot? You really have done well in keeping your luggage down. We'll easily find room for these. I've got a boy with a hand-cart to take your things to the river. We're going down by water. Longer but more fun. There's a motor-launch going down to Horning, and the young man says he'll put us aboard. The Teasel's lying a good long way below the village. But we must have something to eat first, and I must get you some boots like those that boy was wearing. You'll want them every time you step ashore.' CHAPTER 2 DISAPPOINTMENT Never in all their lives had Dick and Dorothea seen so many boats. Mrs Barrable had taken them shopping at a store that seemed to sell every possible thing for the insides and outsides of sailors. She had taken them to lunch at an inn where everybody was talking about boats at the top of his voice. And now they had gone down to the river to look for the Horning boatman with his motor-launch. Mrs Barrable saw the boatman waving to them. A minute or two later they were off themselves, in a little motor-launch, purring down Wroxham Reach. In the bows of the launch were the two small suitcases, and the parcels that had been sent down to the river by the people at the village store. Dorothea looked happily at one large, awkward, bulging parcel. Mrs Barrable had bought them cheap oilskins and sou'westers as well as sea-boots. There was no excuse for wearing such things on a fine spring day, with bright sunshine pouring down, but just to look at that bulging parcel made Dorothea feel she was something of a sailor already. The houses came to an end. Here and there, looking through the trees, Dick and Dorothea caught the flash of water. Through a narrow opening they saw a wide lake with boats sailing in a breeze, although, in the shelter of the trees, the few sailing yachts they had passed had been drifting with hardly enough wind to give them steerage way. A little further down the river they caught a glimpse of another bit of open water. Then again they were moving between thickly wooded banks. Suddenly they heard a noise astern of them, and one of the big motor-cruisers that they had seen at Wroxham came roaring past them, leaving a high angry wash that sent the launch tossing. 'Just like real sea,' said Dorothea, holding on to the gunwale and determined not to be startled. 'They got no call to go so fast,' said the boatman. 'Look at that now. Upset his dinner in the bilge likely.' The boatman pointed ahead at a little white boat tied to a branch of a tree. It was very much smaller than any yacht they had seen, hardly bigger, in fact, than the dinghies most of the yachts were towing. It had a mast, and an awning had been rigged up over part of it, to make a little shelter for cooking. The wash of the big cruiser racing past sent the little boat leaping up against the overhanging boughs, and a great cloud of smoke poured suddenly out. 'It's Tom Dudgeon,' said Dorothea. 'It's the Titmouse,' said Dick. 'There's the name.' The boatman slowed up the launch for a moment as they went by. Tom Dudgeon, who had been kneeling on the floor to do his cooking, looked out with a very red face. They saw that he had a frying-pan in his hand. He nodded to the boatman. 'Bacon fat all over everywhere,' he said. 'Oh, hullo!' he added, seeing Dick and Dorothea. 'Shame that is,' said the boatman as he put on speed again. 'Proper young sailor is Tom Dudgeon. Keeps that little Titmouse of his like a new pin.' 'Ah,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Now I dare say you can tell us who are the Port and Starboard he was talking about to the Wroxham station-master..." 'The station-master said they were queer names for girls,' added Dorothea. The boatman laughed. 'Port and Starboard,' he said. 'We all call 'em that. Nobody call 'em anything else. Mr Farland's twins. All but sisters to young Tom, they are, what with Mrs Farland dying when they was babies, and Mrs Dudgeon, the doctor's wife, pretty near bring them up with her boy.' They left the trees. The river was beginning to be wider, flowing between reed-fringed banks with here and there a willow at the water's edge. A fleet of five little yachts was sailing to meet them, tacking to and fro, like a cloud of butterflies. 'Racing,' said Mrs Barrable. The boatman looked over his shoulder. 'If it's no hurry, ma'am, I'll pull into the side while they go by.' 'Of course.' He shut off his engine and let the launch slide close along the bank until he caught hold of a willow branch to hold her steady. Dick caught another. And then, as the first of the little racing boats flew towards them, spun round, and was off for the opposite bank, the boatman turned to Mrs Barrable. 'There's Port and Starboard, ma'am, if you want to see 'em. Fourth boat. Mr Farland gener'lly do better'n that.' The second boat shot by and the third. The fourth came sweeping across the river. 'Ready about!' they heard the helmsman call, and the little boat shot up into the wind, with flapping sails, so close to the launch that Dorothea could have reached out and shaken hands with one of the two girls who were working the jib-sheets. 'He've good crew, have Mr Farland,' said the boatman, 'though they don't weigh as much as a man, the two of 'em together.' 'I don't believe they're much bigger than us,' said Dorothea delightedly. 'You'll be seeing 'em again,' said the boatman starting up his engine. 'They'll be going down river past your boat and back again before they finish by the Swan at Horning.' 'Your boat,' he had said. How long now before she and Dick were pulling ropes like those two girls, and listening for the word from Mrs Barrable at the tiller? Dorothea was planning a story. Why, if only she and Dick could sail like that, almost anything might happen. She looked at Dick. But Dick was busy with his pocket-book. In the winter holidays it had been full of stars, but with the year going on and nights getting shorter, birds had taken the place of stars. Heron, kestrel, coot, water-hen, he had already added to his list of birds seen, and just before meeting those racing boats he had seen a bird with two tufts sticking out from the top of its head, and only its slim neck showing above the water. He had known it at once for a crested grebe. On and on they went down the river. They were coming now to another village. The launch slowed up. They were passing wooden bungalows and a row of houseboats. The river bent sharply round a corner. There was an old inn at the bend, the Swan. Then there was a staithe[A staithe in Norfolk is a place where boats moor to take in or discharge cargo: much what a quay is elsewhere.] with a couple of yachts tied up to it. Beyond the staithe were big boat-sheds, like those they had seen at Wroxham. 'This is Horning,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Our boat's not far now, is it?' said Dick. 'This is where Tom Dudgeon lives,' said Dorothea, 'and those two girls.' The river went on bending and curling and twisting, and every other moment they thought they would be seeing their boat. They came in sight of her at last and did not know her, a neat white yacht, moored against the bank, with an awning spread over cabin and well, as if she were all ready for the night. 'Oh, look, look!' cried Dorothea. But it was not at the yacht that she was looking. Working up the river was an old black ship's boat, with a stumpy little mast and a black flag at die masthead. Two small boys were rowing, each with one oar. A third, standing by the tiller, was looking through an enormous ancient telescope at something on the bank. The three small boys had bright coloured handkerchiefs round their heads and middles as turbans and belts. The launch was racing down the river to meet them, and in a moment or two, Dick and Dorothea were reading the name of the boat, Death and Glory, not very well painted, in big white letters, on her bows. 'You hardly expected to meet pirates on die Bure, did you?' said Mrs Barrable. The boatman laughed. The steersman of the Death and Glory waved his big telescope as the launch went by, and die boatman waved back. 'Horning boys,' he said over his shoulder. 'Boatbuilders' sons, all three of'em. Friends o' Port and Starboard an' young Tom Dudgeon.' But what was happening? The noise of the engine had changed. The launch was swinging round in the river towards that moored yacht. The loose flaps of the yacht's white awning stirred. A fat fawn pug clambered out on die counter and ran, barking, up and down the narrow side-deck. 'It's William!' cried Dorothea. 'Hullo, William!' said Dick. 'Here we are,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Poor old William must be tired of taking care of the Teasel all by himself.' 'She's ever so much bigger than she looks,' said Dick. The parcels and suitcases had all been put aboard, the little dinghy had been tied up astern, the launch had gone, and Dick, who had been standing rather unsteadily on the counter of the yacht, had climbed down into the well to find himself in a comfortable sort of tent, full of light which poured through the white canvas of the awning. Presently Mrs Barrable lit a Primus stove in die cooking locker in the well and put a kettle on to boil. Dick and Dorothea were watching the kettle, and Mrs Barrable was in the cabin, putting some paint-brushes to soak, when the noise of water creaming under the forefoot of a boat made them look out just in time to get a second view of the yacht race, as the five little racers sailed by. Port and Starboard and their father were now third. 'They've got time to win yet,' said Mrs Barrable. Twenty minutes later they saw them again, on their way back up the river. The folding table had been moved into the well, tea had been poured out, and Dick had been sent into the cabin to get William's chocolate-box from the little sideboard, when Dorothea, peeping out from the stern, saw the white sails moving above the reeds. In another moment the boats themselves were in sight, and Dorothea, Mrs Barrable and Dick hurried out on deck. 'They've done it,' cried Dorothea. 'Very nearly,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Flash, their boat's called,' said Dick, and Flash was second, and the steersman of the leading boat kept looking anxiously over his shoulder. 'Go it, go it!' cried Dorothea, and almost fancied that Port ... or was it Starboard? ... one or other of them, anyway ... smiled at her as the Flash foamed by. All five boats were out of sight in no time round the bend of the river above where the Teasel was moored. And then, just after Dick and Dorothea had settled down to enjoy their first tea afloat, suddenly and altogether unexpectedly, the blow fell. 'When are we going to start?' said Dick, asking the question that had been for some time in both their minds. 'I suppose it's too late to do anything tonight.' 'Start?' said Mrs Barrable, puzzled. 'Start what?' 'Sailing,' said Dick. 'But, my dears, we aren't going to sail ... Didn't I explain to your mother? We can't sail the Teasel with Brother Richard away ... I can't sail the Teasel by myself ... And you can't, either ... We're only going to use her as a houseboat ...' There was a moment's dreadful silence. Castles in Spain came tumbling down. It was all a mistake. They were not going to learn sailing after all. Dorothea made a tremendous effort. 'She'll be a very splendid houseboat,' she said. 'And there are lots of birds to look at,' said Dick. 'My dear children,' said Mrs Barrable. I am most dreadfully sorry.' CHAPTER 3 NUMBER 7 Late in the afternoon Tom Dudgeon came sailing home. Tom lowered his sail, and tied up the Titmouse. Then he went round the house towards the river, and in at the garden door, listening carefully. Asleep, or awake? Awake. He heard a chuckle, and his mother's laugh in the room that these holidays had become the nursery once again. 'Hullo, Mother,' he called, racing upstairs from the hall. 'How's our baby?' 'Our baby?' laughed his mother. 'Whose baby is he, I should like to know? The twins were in at lunch-time, and they seemed to think he was theirs. And your father calls him his. And you call him yours. And he's his mother's own baby all the time. Well, and how was it last night? Very cold? Very uncomfortable? You look all right...' 'It just couldn't have been better,' said Tom. 'It wasn't cold a bit in that sleeping-bag. And it wasn't uncomfortable really except for one bone.' He gave a bit of a rub to his right hip-bone which still felt rather bruised. 'Anyway,' he said, 'nobody expects floorboards to be like spring mattresses. And there was a snipe bleating long after dark. The awning works splendidly.' 'Where did you sleep?' 'In Wroxham Hall dyke.' 'And you went to Norwich this morning?' 'I got rope and paint and hinges and blocks, and there's about half a crown left, and they gave me the screws for nothing.' 'River pretty crowded coming down? Hardly yet, I suppose, though the visitors do seem to begin coming earlier every year.' 'Not an awful lot,' said Tom. 'There was one beast of a motor-cruiser made me slosh the bacon fat all over the place when I was cooking my dinner.' 'There was one yesterday,' said his mother, 'going up late in the evening, upset half Miss Millett's china in her little houseboat. She was talking of seeing the Bure Commissioners about it." 'Probably the same beasts coming down again,' said Tom. 'Most of them are pretty decent nowadays, but these beasts swooshed by with a stern wave as if they wanted to wash the banks down. I've got to get some hot water and clean those bottom-boards at once before the twins come." 'Coot Club meeting?' asked his mother. 'Like a jug of tea in the shed?' 'Very much,' said Tom. 'Hullo! There they are! All in a bunch, too. There's Flash.'' He had caught a glimpse of the white sails of the racing boats coming up the river. Tom's mother held the new baby up at the nursery window to see the white sails go by. She and Tom stood listening at the window after the sails had disappeared. Higher up the river they heard two sharp reports, 'Bang! Bang!' almost at the same moment. 'Pretty close finish, anyhow,' said Tom. 'I'll dash down now, if you don't mind. They'll be along in a minute or two.' Presently he heard them. 'Now then. Hop out, you two, and give her a push off. I'll put her to bed.' That was Uncle Frank (Mr Farland), who must for a moment have brought the Flash alongside the foot of the doctor's lawn. 'All right now?' 'All right.' Push her off then. And don't be late for supper. Mrs McGinty'll be asking what I've done with you as it is.' 'Eh, mon, dinna tell me ye've droon't the puir wee bairrns.' That was Port's voice, talking Ginty language. 'Tell her we won't be late. Macaroni cheese tonight. Specially for you, A.P.' That was Starboard talking to her Aged Parent. 'Tell her the bairrns'll be hame in a bittock.' That was Port again. 'I'll tell her to lock you both out,' laughed Mr Farland. Tom heard the running footsteps of the twins, and in another moment the two of them were at the door of the shed. 'Hullo, Tom!' 'Hullo! Who won?' 'We were second,' said Starboard, 'but it wasn't Daddy's fault. We had to go about and give them room just as we were getting level.' 'What about No. 7? Hatched yet?' 'Still sitting. At least I think so. She was when we went down. Coming up we were in the thick of things just there and we'd passed her before I could see.' No. 7 was for two reasons the nest that mattered most of all those that the Coot Club had under its care. It belonged to a pair of coots, one of which was distinguished from all other coots by having a white feather on its wing in such a place that it could be seen from right across the river. Coots are common enough on the Norfolk Broads, but coots with white feathers where there ought to be none are not common at all, and ever since it had first been seen, this particular coot had been counted the club's sacred bird. Then, too, it had nested unusually early. It had begun sitting on its eggs long before any other coot on the reaches that the Coot Club (when not busy with something else) patrolled. Any day now its chicks might hatch out, and every member of the Coot Club was looking forward to seeing the sacred coot as the successful mother of a family, and to putting down the date of the hatching against nest No. 7 on die map they had made of their reaches of the river. 'The Death and Glories'll have seen all right,' said Port. 'They've been on patrol down there." 'They do know there's a meeting, don't they?' said Tom. 'It's no good having one with only half the club.' 'We told them, anyhow,' said Starboard. 'They ought to be here by now. They were well past Ranworth when we passed them last.' 'Here they are,' said Port. There was a splash of oars, a rustling of reeds, and die old black ship's boat came pushing her way into the dyke. Under their gaudy handkerchiefs the faces of her crew looked much more worried than ever pirates' faces ought to be. 'You're jolly late,' said Starboard. 'Look here,' said Tom, 'what's the use of fixing up a Coot Club meeting if you three go off pirating and don't come back till nearly dark?' 'No, but listen,' said Joe, at the tiller. 'It ain't pirating.' 'It's B.P.S. business,' said one of the rowers, Bill. 'It's No. 7 ... Something got to be done.' 'What?' 'No. 7?' 'What's happened?' No. 7 nest. The club's own coot. The coot with the white feather. 'Everything was all right when we went by,' said Port. 'It's since then,' said Joe. 'One o' them big motor-cruisers o' Rodley's go an' moor right on top of her.' Tom ran into the shed for their plan of the river, which hung from a nail on the wall. There was no need of it, for every one of the six members of the Coot Club knew exactly where No. 7 nest was to be found. 'What did you do?' Starboard asked. 'We let Pete do the talking,' said Joe. 'As polite as he know how. "If you please" and "Do you mind" an" all that.' 'Well?' Pete, a small, black-haired boy, the owner of the enormous telescope, spoke up. 'I tell 'em there's a coot's nest with eggs nigh hatching,' he said. 'I tell 'em the old coots dussen't come back.' 'We see her scuttering about t'other side of the river,' said Bill, forgetting his handkerchief was a turban and taking it off and wiping his hot face with it. 'She'll never go back if that cruiser ain't shifted.' 'And didn't they go?' said Starboard. 'Just laugh. That's what they do,' said Peter. 'Say the river's free to all, and the birds can go nest somewhere else, and then a woman stick her head out o' the cabin and the rest of'em go in.' 'What beasts!' said Port. 'I try again,' said Joe. 'I knock on the side, and some of 'em come up, and I tell 'em 'twas a beastly shame, just when eggs is going to hatch.' 'And I tell 'em there's a better place for mooring down the river,' said Bill. 'They tell us to clear out,' said Joe. 'And mind our own business,' put in Peter. 'I tell 'em 'twas our business,' said Joe. 'I start telling 'em about the B.P.S.' 'They just slam off down below. Makin' a noise in them cabins fit to wake the dead,' said Bill. 'Let's all go down there,' said Starboard. I'll deal with them,' said Tom. 'The fewer of us the better. Much easier for one.' He looked at the Titmouse in her neat awning. 'I'll take the punt.' Already he had untied the old Dreadnought, pulled her paddle free and was working her out of the dyke. 'Look here,' he said. 'If it's as bad as you say, I may have to do something pretty tough.' 'We did try talking to 'em,' said Bill. 'Well, if there's a row about it, you'd better be out of it. All Coots off the river. Go and do some weeding for someone in the village. Slip along with them, Twins, and make sure someone sees them doing it.' The Dreadnought slid out from the dyke into the open river. The last of the tide was running down, and Tom, with steady strokes of his paddle, sent the old home-made punt shooting down the middle of the stream to get all the help he could from the current. CHAPTER 4 THE ONLY THING TO DO With steady strokes of his paddle, a long reach forward, a pull, and then a turn of the blade at the right moment, Tom drove the old Dreadnought down the river. If only it had been any other nest, he told himself, it would not have been quite so bad. Horrible anyway for any bird to be cut off from her nest by a thing like that. He remembered what he had just heard of a cruiser charging through a little fleet of sailing boats instead of keeping out of the way of them as by the rule of the road she ought to do. He remembered little Miss Millett in her houseboat with the china rocked off her shelves. He remembered the smell of burnt fat and the spattering grease as that cruiser roared past the Titmouse. And these people had refused to move even when Pete had explained to them what they were doing. Well, move they jolly well should. Even if he had to wait till dark. There was only the one thing to do, and he would have to do it. Lucky that so few people seemed to be about. And then, just as he shot past the Ferry, he saw George Owdon leaning on the white-painted rail of the ferry-raft and looking down at him. If George had been any other kind of larger boy, Tom might have asked his advice and help. But he knew better than that. George might be Norfolk, like himself, but he was in his way more dangerous even than the cruiser. George was an enemy. He had much more pocket-money than any of the Coots but was known to make more still by taking the eggs of rare birds and selling them to a man in Norwich. He would be ready to go and smash the nest on purpose if he guessed that Tom and his Bird Protection Society were particularly interested. So Tom paddled steadily on. 'You're in a hurry, young Tom.' Tom, by instinct, paddled rather less fast. 'Not particularly,' he said. 'What's the secret this time?' jeered George Owdon. Tom did not answer. He was soon round the bend below the inn and out of sight from the Ferry. He could not tell what was going to happen, but he wished George Owdon had not been there. He paddled faster again, and presently heard a strange jumble of noise from farther down the river. Faint at first, two tunes quietly quarrelling with each other, it grew louder as he came nearer until at last it seemed that the two tunes were having a fight at the top of their voices. Suddenly he knew that all this noise was coming from one boat, a big motor-cruiser, that same Margoletta that had upset his cooking for him in the Titmouse. So that was the enemy. There it was (Tom could not think of a thing like that as 'she') moored right across the mouth of the little bay in which the coot with the white feather had built her nest. A narrow drain opened out here into the river. There were reeds in the entry, and among these reeds, just sheltered from the stream, was No. 7. Members of the Coot Club had watched every stage of the building. The Death and Glories had found it almost as soon as the coots had begun to lay one bit of pale dead reed upon another. That was a long time ago now, in term-time, when Port and Starboard were away at school, and Tom could get on the river only at week-ends. Joe, Bill and Pete had each in turn played truant in order to visit it. There had been those days of great rains and Tom had feared that the rising river would have drowned the nest or even swept it away. But the coots had not let the floods disturb them. They had simply added to their nest, and, when the water had fallen again he had come down the river just as he was coming now, to find the coot with the white feather sitting on her eggs on the top of a broad, high, round platform made of woven reeds. And now was all that to go for nothing? The bows of the big cruiser were moored to the bank above the opening. The stern was moored to the bank below it. 'So that the lazy brutes can go whichever way they like on shore without having to use their dinghy,' said Tom to himself. But he could hardly hear himself speak for noise. There was nobody to be seen on the deck of the Margoletta. All the Hullabaloos were down below in the two cabins, and in one cabin there was a wireless set and a loudspeaker, and in the other they were working a gramophone. Tom let his Dreadnought drift down with the stream, close by the Margoletta. Should he or should he not try to persuade those Hullabaloos to move? If one of them had been looking out of a porthole he might have had a try. Not that he thought for a moment that persuading would be much good with people who on a quiet spring evening could shut themselves up in their cabins with a noise like that. And anyway the Death and Glories had tried it and had told them about the coots. The coots made up his mind for him. There they were, desperately swimming up and down under the bank opposite the little bay that the cruiser had closed to them. Up and down they swam, giving small sharp cries of distress quite unlike their usual sturdy honk. They hardly seemed to know what to do, sometimes taking short flights upstream, spattering the water as they rose, flopping into it again, and swimming down. And Tom knew just why they were so upset. Close behind the cruiser and the dreadful deafening noise was the nest that they had built against the floods, and the eggs that must be close on hatching. Something had to be done at once. How long had the coots been kept from their eggs already? It was no use trying to talk to those Hullabaloos. If he did it would only put them on their guard and make things much more difficult. Tom paddled quietly in to the bank below the Margoletta, landed, tied the Dreadnought to a bunch of reeds, and then crept along the bank until he came to the stern mooring rope of the cruiser. He stopped and listened. Those two tunes went on with the battle, each trying to drown the other. He heard loud, unreal laughter. Bending low, Tom pulled up the rond-anchor [A rond-anchor is a stockless anchor with only one fluke for mooring to the rond or bank], coiled its rope as carefully as if it were his own, and laid anchor and coiled rope silently on the after-deck. A single glance told him that the nest and the eggs were still there. They might so easily have been smashed during the cruiser's mooring. So far, so good. Bent double, he hurried back along the bank and, in a moment, was afloat in the Dreadnought. There was no sign that anybody in the Margoletta suspected that anything was happening. He paddled upstream past the cruiser and landed again. Creeping down along the bank he pulled up the bow anchor, coiled its rope, and laid it on the foredeck. There was such a noise going on in both cabins that he need not have been so careful. Then he leant lightly against the Margoletta's bows. Was she going to move, or would the stream itself keep her where she was? She stirred. She was moving. The stream was pushing its way between her and the bank. In a moment Tom was back in the Dreadnought, pushed off and with a hard quick stroke or two set himself moving downstream, away from Horning and home and the Coot Club's private stronghold in the dyke below his father's house. He had made up his mind about that before ever he had touched the Margoletta's anchors. Supposing the Hullabaloos should see him going upstream they would be sure to think of the Death and Glories who had gone that way after asking them to move. That would never do. He must lead them downstream instead. With luck he would be round the bend and away before they saw him. He would leave the Dreadnought somewhere down the river, and slip back to Horning by road. Lucky it was that it wasn't the Titmouse he had taken. He paddled swiftly and silently downstream. The Margoletta was adrift and moving. He could see into the little bay. He glanced across at the troubled coots. Another few minutes and they would be back at the nest. Unless, of course, they had been kept away too long already. He passed the cruiser and settled down to hard paddling. What a row those Hullabaloos were making. They still did not know they were adrift. And then, just as he reached the turn of the river below them, he heard an angry yell, and, looking back over his shoulder, saw the Margoletta out in mid-stream, drifting down broadside on, and on the open deck between the two cabins a man pointing at him and shouting, and, worse, watching him through field-glasses. The thing was done now, and the hunt was up. Tom wished he had oars with outriggers in the Dreadnought, to drive her along quicker than he could with his single home-made paddle. He forced her along with tremendous jerks, using all the strength in his body. He had been laughed at for making that paddle so strong, but he was glad of it now. Already he was out of sight of the Margoletta, but she would be round the bend in a moment as soon as they got their engine started, and in this next reach there was nowhere to hide. He must go on and on, to make them think that the boy who had cast them loose had nothing to do with Horning, but had come from somewhere down the river. If only a nice bundle of weeds would wrap itself round their propeller. But it was too early in the year to have much hope of that. Yes, there it was. He heard the roar of the engine. They were after him. And then the roar stopped suddenly and there were two or three loud separate pops. Engine trouble. Good! Oh, good! He might even get right down to the dyke by Horning Hall Farm, where he had friends and could hide the old Dreadnought and know she would come to no harm. On and on. He must not stop for a moment. He paddled as if for his life. Whatever happened they must not catch him. For everybody who did not understand about No. 7, he would be entirely in the wrong. He thought of landing by the boat-house with the ship for a weather vane, startling the black sheep, and leaving the Dreadnought in the dyke below the church. But supposing the Hullabaloos were to see her, why, the first person they asked about her would tell them to whom she belonged. No, he must go much farther than that. He was close to the entry to Ranworth Broad when he heard again the loud drumming of the Margoletta's engine away up the river. Too late to turn in there. The dyke was so straight. They would be at the entry long before he could get hidden. He paddled desperately on and twice passed small dykes in which he could have hidden the punt and then dared not stop her and turn back. Louder and louder sounded the pursuing cruiser. Would he have to abandon ship and take to the marshes on foot? And with every moment the thing he had done seemed somehow worse. And then he rounded a bend in the river and caught sight of the Teasel. That yacht had been lying in that place for over a week. He had noticed her several times when sailing up and down inspecting nests for the Bird Protection Society. There was nearly always a pug-dog looking out from her well or lying in the sunshine on her foredeck. Tom had noticed the pug, but had never seen the people who were sailing the Teasel. At least for some time now they had not been sailing. Just living aboard, it seemed. And today it looked as if they had gone away and left her. The dinghy was there, but that meant nothing. There was no pug on the foredeck, and the awning was up over cabin and well. Perhaps the people were away on shore. And, at that moment, Tom had an idea. He could abandon his ship and yet not lose her. He could take to the reeds and yet not leave the Dreadnought to be picked up by the enemy. All those yachts were fitted out in the same way. Every one of them had a rond-anchor fore and aft for mooring to the bank. Every one of them had an anchor of another kind, a heavy weight, stowed away in the forepeak, for dropping in the mud when out in open water ... Tom looked over his shoulder. The cruiser was not yet in sight, but it would be at any moment. Things could not be worse than they were whatever happened. His mind was made up. With two sweeps of the paddle he brought the Dreadnought round and close under the bows of the moored yacht. He was on deck in a flash with the painter in his hand. Up with the forehatch. There was the heavy weight he wanted. Tom lay down and reached for it and hoisted it on deck. He made his own painter fast to the rope by which he lowered die clumsy lump of iron into the punt. He wedged his paddle under the seat, and stamped the gunwale under, deeper, deeper, while the water poured in. The Dreadnought, full of water, and with that heavy weight to help her, went to the bottom of the river. Torn scrambled to his feet, jammed the hatch down on the anchor rope, and took a flying leap from the Teasels foredeck into the sheltering reeds. CHAPTER 5 ABOARD THE TEASEL Mrs Barrable was making little drawings in the margin of her letter and on her blotting-pad. This was a habit of hers and, when she was writing to the mother of Dick and Dorothea, it did not matter. Writing to strangers, she often had to copy her letters out all over again, because of the illustrations that had somehow crept in. 'Very nice children they are, my dear,' Mrs Barrable had written, 'and Dorothea is very like the little girl you used to be, but, you know, I should have been afraid to ask them here if I had known they both had such a passion for sailing... Of course, they want to learn and I fear they will find it very dull to be cooped up in a yacht that is moored to the bank and really no better than a houseboat with only an old woman like me to keep them company.' (Here she had let her pen run away with itself and there was a picture of a pair of lambs and an old woman in a poke bonnet all frisking together.) Mrs Barrable drummed on her teedi with the end of her penholder and glanced through the cabin door into the canvas-roofed well, to see Dick earnestly wiping plates, and Dorothea, with a hand luckily small enough to get inside, scooping the tea-leaves out of a little tea-pot. What fun it would have been to take them round the old haunts, away down to Yarmouth and through Breydon Water and up the Waveney to Beccles, where she had been a child herself ... And then she looked out of the opposite portholes, and forward through the children's cabin. There was a porthole right forward, beside the mast, through which she could see a charming circular picture of the bend of the river upstream. And just then, into that picture seen through the porthole, there came a boy in an old tarred punt, shooting round the bend of the river and paddling as if in a race. Instantly Mrs Barrable forgot everything else. People in a hurry always interested her. She was always ready to take sides with anybody running to catch a train, and had been known to clap her hands when she saw someone make a really good dash for an omnibus. 'Good boy,' she murmured to herself, and waited to see him again when he should come paddling past the portholes on the opposite side of the cabin. But he never came past those portholes at all. There was the faintest possible jar as he caught hold of the Teasel. There was a sudden, slight list, very slight, for Tom was not heavy, but enough to make Dick and Dorothea in the well wonder what Mrs Barrable could be doing. Mrs Barrable leaned forward again and, through that same round porthole by the mast, caught a glimpse of a rubber sea-boot on the foredeck. There was the faint but unmistakable noise of the opening of the forehatch, a fumbling with ropes, the shifting of a heavy weight, quick steps on the foredeck, a bump, a slow, sucking gurgle, the slam of the forehatch closing, a thud on the bank, the crackle of dry reeds and then, a few moments later, a tremendous salvo of barking from the watchdog, William, leisurely returning to duty. Mrs Barrable pushed away the folding table and hurried out of the cabin. The washers-up looked at her in astonishment. Both were down on their knees stowing things away. 'What's happened?' asked Dorothea. 'What's the matter with William?' said Dick. 'I don't quite know,' said Mrs Barrable. 'A boy in a punt ...' She worked her way out from under the awning, expecting to see mat punt, or whatever it was, lying alongside the Teasel. But there was no punt at all. It had vanished, like the boy. And from behind the reeds there came the frenzied barking of the pug. 'William!' called Mrs Barrable. 'William! Come here!' She went forward along the side-deck, steadying herself with a hand on the awning. There was wet on the foredeck. What could that mean? And a rope led from the forehatch over the side. Mrs Barrable lifted the hatch and looked down into the forepeak. Why in the world, when the Teasel was safely moored to the bank, should anybody want to anchor her with the mud-weight as well? 'William!' she called again, and William came out of the reeds, stopping on the gangplank to do a little more barking, over his shoulder, to show people that he was afraid of nobody and that a better watchdog did not exist. 'Quiet, William!' Dick and Dorothea looked out with wondering faces. They, too, climbed out from the well. 'Quiet, William!' said Mrs Barrable. 'He must have been running away from something. Shut up, William! Listen!' Yes. They could all hear that something was coming down the river. There was the deep, booming roar of a motor being run at full speed. Another of those motor-cruisers. A very loud loudspeaker was asking all the world never to leave him, always to love him, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, bang, bang, bang. And beside the loudspeaker there were other voices, loud, angry voices, not singing love songs but shouting at each other. There it was, a big motor-cruiser, coming round the bend. William was now on the foredeck, but still looking behind him and barking at the reeds on shore. Mrs Barrable, her eyes sparkling, her mind made up, encouraged him, but pointed towards the motor-cruiser that was roaring down towards them. William was puzzled. Quick work, if that boy in the reeds had managed already to be out there on that noisy thing coming down the river. But he supposed his mistress knew, and anyhow he hated that kind of noise. So, with Mrs Barrable whispering 'Cats! William, Bad Cats!' into his ears, William faced the oncoming cruiser and put into his barking all he thought about boys who startled honest pugs by lying hid in reeds so that the honest pugs ran into them face to face on their own level. There was a good deal of noise, what with William, and the loudspeaker, and the quarrel going on among the people aboard the cruiser, who were all shouting to make themselves heard above the roar of their engine. Old Mrs Barrable, hiding her excitement, held William by the fat scruff of his neck, as if she feared he might leap overboard in his eagerness to tear to pieces the loudspeaker and its accompanists. Dick and Dorothea worked their way forward from the counter along the side-decks. What was happening? Dorothea was trying one story after another, but none seemed to fit. Suddenly the quarrel aboard the cruiser seemed to come to an end. There was a furious shout from the man who was at the wheel. Everybody was pointing straight at Dick. The big cruiser swerved towards the Teasel. Her, engine was put into reverse and there was a frantic swirl of water as she lost way. 'What do you mean by it?' shouted the steersman of the cruiser. But by now another of the Hullabaloos was pointing at the Teasel^s little dinghy lying astern of her. That's not the boy,' he shouted, trying to make himself heard. 'Can't you see the boat, you ass? It wasn't like that. Bigger boat! longer! And that's a white boat. The other one was dark - a sort of punt.' 'It wasn't you turned us loose?' That was the steersman again. 'I,' said Dick. 'I...' Mrs Barrable spoke. 'He has had nothing to do with you. He has been with me, moored here, the whole afternoon.' 'Oh. Have you seen a boy go by?' 'In a sort of long black punt.' 'Nobody's gone by since the racing,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Eh?' shouted one of the Hullabaloos. 'Do turn that thing off,' shouted another. Everybody aboard the cruiser seemed to be shouting at once, and the loudspeaker was still begging all the world never to leave him, nor to deceive him, bang, bang, bang, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. 'It must have been one of those three guttersnipes this afternoon.' 'Bothering us about a beastly bird's nest.' 'Taking up our anchors and casting us loose.' 'All right. All right. I'll wring the little brute's neck.' A girl in the gaudiest of beach pyjamas may have thought she was whispering to the man at the wheel of the cruiser, but she had to shout to be heard by him and what she said was just as clearly heard aboard the Teasel. 'No good talking to the old woman. He must have gone by.' Mrs Barrable's eye hardened slightly. 'I shall be obliged to you if you will mind my paint,' she said, as the cruiser was coming dangerously near. 'Paint!' said the girl rudely, and then, shouting into the steersman's ear, 'Don't waste any more time. Let's buzz along. We'll catch him if you only get on. He can't have got very far.' The engine roared again. The water at the stern of the cruiser was churned into foam. There was a heavy bump as her stern swung in and struck the Teasel, and the Margoletta went roaring, singing and quarrelling down the reach and out of sight. William, after giving a good imitation of a hungry lion being with difficulty held back from the savaging of helpless victims, turned round towards the reedy bank and barked once more. Mrs Barrable also faced the reeds. 'They've gone on,' she said, in a very clear voice, though quite low. 'Hadn't you better come out and explain?' There was a rustle and stir among the reeds, and Dick and Dorothea saw the boy they had met in the train come out, looking rather shy and bothered, close by the pug's gangplank. 'Were you lurking all the time?' said Dorothea. 'You?' said Mrs Barrable. 'We've seen you once before today.' 'Twice,' said Dick. 'Once in the train, and once when he was cooking in his boat.' 'That was most awfully decent of you,' said Tom, 'sending them off like that.' 'Well,' said Mrs Barrable, 'it was five to one, wasn't it? But what was it all about? And what have you done with your boat? And why did you put my mud anchor overboard?' 'It was the only thing I could think of that would be heavy enough,' said Tom. 'You see, I had to sink her.' 'Sink her?' Mrs Barrable exclaimed. They all looked down into the brown water. 'Do you mean to say your boat was here right under our feet all the time those people were talking?' 'She went down all right,' said Tom, 'once I got her properly under.' 'But how will you get her up again?' 'She'll come when the mud-weight's lifted. And anyhow I hitched the painter to your rope. She'll come all right. But I'm very sorry. You know I didn't think there was anybody aboard. There was no pug on deck, and there usually is. And I knew I wouldn't be doing any harm to the anchor. Just for half an hour till those Hullabaloos had gone by. There wasn't time to do anything else. I could hear them already ...' 'Hullabaloos?' said Mrs Barrable. 'What a very good name for them. But what had you done to them? And don't you think they may be coming back any minute? It wouldn't look well for them to find you here. Come inside and wait till we can be sure they are not turning round again. No, William. No! Friend! Friend! But what had you done to them? Whatever it was, I expect they deserved it...' The noise of the Margoletta was now far away, but it could still be heard, and it would certainly be awkward if the Hullabaloos came back and found him where he was. 'I can stay hid in the reeds,' said Tom. 'But we want to hear about it,' said Mrs Barrable, 'and I don't want to have to hide in the reeds while I listen. Much better come inside." Tom looked anxiously at the anchor rope that disappeared into the water at his feet. It was just as he had left it. The Dreadnought was all right down there at the bottom of the river. She could be taking no harm. He followed Mrs Barrable down into the well. 'And now,' said Mrs Barrable, when they were all in the well and under cover, including William, who was slowly changing his mind about Tom, 'do tell us what it was all about. But, of course, you needn't if you don't want to.' 'It was birds,' said Tom. 'Herons?' broke in Dick, who had spent a lot of time watching one on the opposite bank during the afternoon. 'Coots,' said Tom. 'You see, the birds are nesting now, and when people like that go and shove their boat on top of a nest anything may happen. And this is our particular coot. She's got a white feather on one wing. We've been watching the nest from the very beginning. An early one. And the eggs are just on the very edge of hatching. And then those Hullabaloos moored clean across the opening where the nest is, and frightened the coots off. Something simply had to be done.' 'I can quite understand that,' said Mrs Barrable. 'But what was it you did?' 'Well, they wouldn't move when they were asked,' said Tom. 'Who asked them?' 'The Bird Protection Society,' said Tom. 'But how did they come to know about it?' 'They were down this way inspecting, because I was up the river and Port and Starboard had to be racing. You must have seen them, I should think. Three of them, in an old black boat.' 'We saw them,' cried Dorothea delightedly. 'Oh,' said Mrs Barrable. 'The pirates ... turbans, knives in their belts ... We all saw them.' 'Well,' said Tom, 'you can't expect them to be Bird Protectors all the time.' 'Of course not,' said Mrs Barrable. 'They asked them to go, and they wouldn't, and then, when they found it was no good being polite to Hullabaloos, they came and reported to the Coot Club, the rest of us, at Horning, I mean, and luckily my old punt was in the water. So I came down. They were making such an awful noise, they never heard me put their anchors aboard and push them off. The coots'll be back by now if they haven't been frightened into deserting altogether.' 'Urn,' said Mrs Barrable, 'I'm glad I'm not moored on the top of somebody's nest. I shouldn't at all like to find myself drifting downstream.' 'But it wouldn't ever happen to you,' said Tom. 'You wouldn't be beastly like they were if somebody came and explained that there were eggs just going to hatch.' 'I think it was splendid,' said Dorothea. 'They sounded very unpleasant people,' said Mrs Barrable. But Tom was looking rather grirn. Somehow it sounded awful, casting loose those Hullabaloos, when Mrs Barrable said how much she would dislike finding herself adrift. He told Mrs Barrable that he ought to go. They listened. 'They've gone right down the river," said Mrs Barrable, 'or we'd be able to hear them whether their engine was running or not.' Tom hurried along to the Teasel's foredeck. Dick and Dorothea hurried after him. Already he was hauling up the Teasel's mud-weight. Up it came, with the painter fast to the rope above it, and after it, with a tremendous stirring of mud, the Dreadnought herself rose slowly through the water, like a great shark. Up she came, and lay waterlogged, now one end of her and now the other lifting an inch above the surface. CHAPTER 6 PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE Tom paddled the Dreadnought up the river. Considering that she was a flat-bottomed, home-made punt, she really was fairly steady, but, on the whole, he thought it safer not to turn round and wave good-bye. She was very wet and rather slimy after being at the bottom of the river, and Tom was content to be able to keep his balance and to keep her going at the same time. He was still feeling the narrowness of his escape from the Hullabaloos. Things had certainly turned out much better than had seemed likely. How lucky that the Teasel had been moored there. How lucky, too, that the little old lady had taken his boarding of her yacht in the way she had. Why, she had played up against those Hullabaloos almost as if she had had a share herself in clearing them away from the coot's nest. He slowed down as he came near No. 7. One great advantage of paddling a punt is that you face the way you are going. Tom, as he paddled, was searching the side of the river opposite the little opening that the coots had chosen. He was looking for round black shadows stirring on that golden water under the reeds. He saw only the broad bulging ripple of a water-rat. No. At least the coots were no longer scuttering up and down in terror as he had seen them last. Quietly he edged the old punt over towards the other bank so as to be able to look into the opening as he passed it. There was an eddy here or nearly dead water, and Tom never lifted his paddle high enough to drip. He slid by as silently as a ghost. He knew exactly where to look into the shadows. There was the clump of reeds, and there at the base of them, among them, the raised platform of the nest. Was it deserted? Or not? Tom peered through the twilight. No. It was as if the centre of the nest was capped with a black dome, and on the dome he had just seen the white splash of a coot's forehead. And what was that other shadow working along close under the bank? It was enough. Tom did not want to frighten them again. He paddled quietly on. One thing was all right, anyhow. The coots of No. 7 were at home once more. It was growing dark now. Nobody but Tom was moving on the river, and the only noise was the loud singing of the birds on both banks and over the marshes, whistling blackbirds, throaty thrushes, starlings copying first one and then the other, a snipe drumming overhead. Everything was all right with everybody. And then a pale barn owl swayed across the river like a great moth, and with her, furiously chattering, a little crowd of small birds, for whom the owl was nothing but an enemy. And suddenly into Tom's head came a picture of the Margoletta as a hostile owl, mobbed by a lot of small birds, the Death and Glories and himself. And Tom, remembering what he had seen and heard while he was lurking in the reeds beside the Teasel, knew that the Hullabaloos of the Margoletta were very angry indeed. He had made enemies of them. They had not sounded at all as if they were the kind of people who would forget what had happened or forgive it. And what if they found out who he was and went and made a row about it? The doctor's son casting loose a moored boat full of perfect strangers ... His cheeks went hot at the thought. But at least no one who knew him had seen him ... and then, suddenly, Tom remembered George Owdon lounging on the ferry-raft when he had been paddling the Dreadnought on his way to the rescue of No. 7. Would George tell? Hardly. George was a beast, but, after all, he was a Norfolk coot, like the rest of them, though, of course, not a member of the Coot Club, which was an affair of Tom and the twins. No, not even George Owdon would do a thing like that But, as he paddled on and on up the river, Tom grew more and more bothered about what had happened. It had come about so quickly. What ought he to have done? Let No 7 be ruined at the last moment, after all that watching and the careful way in which the coots had fought the floods by building up their nest? Again he saw those anxious scutterings at the far side of the river. He could not have allowed them to be kept off their eggs until it was too late. What else could he have done? CHAPTER 7 INVITATION Different people in different places woke next morning thinking of what had happened on the river the day before. Dick and Dorothea, sleeping their first night in the Teasel, were waked by a farm-boy who came alongside with a can of fresh milk. Mrs Barrable was up already, and they heard her tell the boy that she was not quite sure if they would want milk tomorrow, but that they would let him know at the farm if they were still there. 'But I thought she said the Teasel wasn't going to move,' whispered Dick. 'I know,' said Dorothea. And then, after breakfast, Mrs Barrable had taken the dinghy and rowed away upstream with William. 'Can we come, too?' Dick asked, eager to have another try with oars. 'Not this time,' said Mrs Barrable. 'You and Dot can tidy the boat up, and you'll find lots of birds to look at in the marsh and among those swallows. Put your sea-boots on if you go ashore. I'll be back as soon as I can.' Tom, sleeping in the Titmouse, was waked very early by hearing a boat brushing through the reeds at the mouth of the dyke. He bobbed up at once to listen and hit his head against a thwart. Was it the enemy coming to look for him? But, of course, it was only the Death and Glories coming to ask what in the end Tom had done about No. 7. He told them and saw that, as boatbuilders' sons, they were a good deal shocked. 'Cast 'em adrift?' said Joe. 'Did you oughter 'a done that?' 'Couldn't do anything else,' said Tom. 'But how didn't they cotch ye?' Tom told, briefly, how he had had to make a submarine of the Dreadnought. Of that they thoroughly approved. 'Gee whizz!' said Joe. 'That were a real good 'un,' said Bill. 'Prime,' said Pete. They wanted there and then to go down the river to have another look at No. 7, but Tom thought better not, and they decided to look at a few upstream nests instead. 'And look here,' said Tom, as the Death and Glory went off out of the dyke. 'Try to find out, if you can, how long those people are going to have the Margoletta. I'll have to keep out of the way till they've gone.' He went into the house for breakfast. What was the good of cooking in the Titmouse if he could not safely take her down the river? Tom poured out the whole story. 'It's a pity it's happened, of course,' said his father. 'But I don't really see what else you could have done. They'll have forgotten about it themselves this morning, unless their livers are badly out of order.' But Tom thought otherwise. His father had not heard the anger in their voices when they were talking to the old lady of the Teasel. The only real hope was that those people would presently be giving up the Margoletta. A week was the usual time for which people hired a boat. He would have to keep out of sight until they were gone. As soon as breakfast was over Tom went back to his ship, and was hard at work in her when he heard two short blasts on a whistle and two longer ones, from among the bushes on the farther side of the dyke. The twins. 'Hullo!' said Tom gravely. 'What's the matter?' said Port. 'Couldn't you get them to move?' said Starboard. 'Is No. 7 done after all?' 'Is that why you didn't come and tell us last night?' 'No. 7's all right,' said Tom. 'At least, it was when I came home. And it was pretty dark before I got back. But things went wrong a bit. It was the Margoletta on the top of No. 7, and I set her adrift...' 'Good,' said Starboard. 'I couldn't think of anything else to do,' said Tom. 'And the worst of it is they saw me. One chap had field-glasses. And then although I went down river, they thought I was one of the Death and Glories. So I've got the whole Coot Club in a mess.' 'The Death and Glories'll be all right,' said Starboard. 'Anyway, it isn't your fault,' said Port. 'One of us would have had to do it.' 'But how did you get away?' said Starboard. 'I forgot to tell you about a couple of kids I met in the train. Well, they're in the Teasel, you know, where that pug's usually hanging about, and there's an old lady in the Teasel with them ..." And then he told of how he had boarded the Teasel and used her mud-weight, and sunk the Dreadnought, and hid in the rushes, and how, after the Hullabaloos had been sent off down the river, he had gone back aboard the Teasel by invitation. And at that moment he gave a sudden start and listened. There was the sharp, impatient bark of a small dog, close behind the house. It sounded almost as if it came from the river. Tom had too lately lain in the reeds face to face with William not to know that voice again. Without another word he crept round the side of the house and peered out through the willows. The others followed him on tiptoe. Yes. Tied to one of the small white mooring posts at the edge of the lawn was a dinghy, and in it, alone, a pug. 'She must be here,' whispered Tom, and they slipped quietly back to the shed. 'Come to complain?' said Starboard. 'She was awfully decent yesterday,' said Tom. And then Mrs Barrable and Mrs Dudgeon came round the corner of the house together. 'Well, Tom,' said his mother, 'you seem to have made some friends last night as well as some enemies. Mrs Barrable has a plan to suggest.' 'How do you do?' said Tom, dusting the sawdust off before shaking hands. 'And these,' said Mrs Dudgeon, 'are Nell and Bess.' 'Port and Starboard,' said Mrs Barrable. 'We saw you racing yesterday and we all hoped you would win.' 'It wasn't Daddy's fault we didn't,' said Starboard. 'If the river'd been a wee bit wider nothing could have saved them.' At that moment there was a determined and rather indignant yelp from 'our baby' somewhere upstairs in the house. 'Is he all right?' said Tom. 'Perhaps you'd like to talk it over with them,' said Mrs Dudgeon. 'You run away, my dear,' said Mrs Barrable, just as if Mrs Dudgeon was herself only a little girl. Tom's mother laughed. She did not seem to mind. She shook hands with Mrs Barrable and was gone. 'And is that the Titmouse?' asked Mrs Barrable, looking along the dyke. 'You do keep her smart.' 'She wants another coat of paint, really,' said Tom. 'I've got the paint, but I don't want to put it on till the end of the hols. You see it won't matter her being wet when I have to go to school.' 'Does she sleep two?' 'There's room for two,' said Tom. 'One each side of the centre-board. But I've only had her fitted for sleeping these last two nights. She isn't really finished yet.' He turned back the awning to let Mrs Barrable see inside. 'Those lockers are all going to have doors.' And then suddenly Mrs Barrable turned to the business that had brought her to the doctor's house. She told them how her brother had been coming to the Broads for some years and how this year he had chartered the Teasel, meaning to take his sister for a cruise right through Yarmouth and up to Beccles, where they had been children together, and round to Oulton and up the Norwich river [The River Yare]. She told them how, after a week on the Bure and at Hickling, he had suddenly had to go off, and how she had invited Dick and Dorothea to come and keep her company in the Teasel. 'But what I didn't know,' she said, 'was that the two of them had set their hearts on learning to sail. And, of course, they're dreadfully disappointed ... No, no. They don't say so. If they did I shouldn't feel so bad about it. I'm rather disappointed, too. I'd been looking forward to seeing Breydon again, and sailing in to Waveney and the Yare ... Now, how would the three of you care to come and sail the Teasel for us? I know Tom knows how to sink a boat.' 'Sail her?' said Tom. 'Take her down to the southern rivers and back,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Just to let those two children feel they'd seen something of the Broads. And you'd have to teach them a little first, so that they wouldn't feel they were only passengers.' Tom looked down at the Titmouse, at the new awning, and the lockers. Black treachery it would be, to leave her for the Teasel. 'I've thought it all out,' said Mrs Barrable. 'You'd have to bring the Titmouse or we shouldn't have enough sleeping room at night. If you could do with Dick in the Titmouse, we four will have the Teasel to ourselves ... two cabins, one for the twins, and Dorothea will share the other with me. Two or three days' practice first in the easy waters up here, I thought, and then away for a cruise so as to be back in time to send them home before the end of the holidays.' 'The Teasel's a splendid boat,' said Tom. For one moment the twins' eyes lit like his at the thought of such a voyage in charge, in actual command, of such a vessel. Then they remembered. 'We'd simply love to,' said Starboard, 'but we can't ... really can't. You see there's a race tomorrow, and then another one, and father's entered Flash for five races the last week of the holidays, and he's arranging to get back early each day on purpose.' 'You try to persuade them, Tom,' said Mrs Barrable. But Tom knew the twins too well. 'It's no use,' he said. 'They won't be able to come ... And I can't either, after last night. At least not so long as those people are about.' But Mrs Barrable was not to be refused. She had seen the light in Tom's eye and in the eyes of the twins. She knew that all three of them wanted to come. 'They won't know you except in your punt,' she said. 'And we can always hide you, besides, they'll have forgotten about it by now ... Anyhow, come along the three of you this afternoon and see what sort of a crew you think you could make of my visitors. I'll expect you soon after lunch.' 'Dick's pretty keen on birds,' said Tom. 'And he doesn't collect eggs. And I could hop ashore if we heard those people coming.' It was a queer way of accepting an invitation for the afternoon, but what it meant was clear enough. 'We'd love it,' said the twins, and then Mrs Barrable said that she had a few more things to do, was welcomed into her dinghy by a barking William, and rowed away towards the village. Mrs Barrable, rowing steadily, with William sitting up in the stern of the dinghy, was almost out of sight beyond the boat-building yards when, suddenly, all three Coots turned and listened. 'The Margoletta,' whispered Tom. In a moment there was no one to be seen on the green lawn in front of the doctor's house. The three Coots, crouching among the willows, were looking out through the tall reeds. A big motor-cruiser had turned the corner above the Ferry and was thundering up the river with a huge gramophone open and playing on the roof of the forecabin. Two gaudily dressed women were lying beside it, and three men were standing in the well between the cabins. All three were wearing yachting-caps. One was steering and the other two were using binoculars and seemed to be searching the banks as the cruiser came upstream at a tremendous pace. 'They're looking for the Dreadnought,' whispered Tom. CHAPTER 8 THE INNOCENTS Mrs Barrable had seen the big cruiser coming and had made ready for it, but she was nearly swamped when it swept by her, the people in it turning round to laugh at the sight of the little dinghy tossing like a cork in the swirling water. She comforted William, who had not liked being thrown about, and rowed on to the staithe. The Margoletta was already tied up there when Mrs Barrable, looking over her shoulder, saw the Death and Glory, the old black ship's boat with its crew of three small boys, coming round the bend by the Swan Inn. There was no chance of warning them. She saw the two rowers turn to look at the Margoletta. She saw them hesitate, and then, as if they had nothing whatever to fear, row calmly on and moor at the staithe a little above the cruiser. The three men from the cruiser leapt ashore, and before the small Coots had time to change their minds and bolt for it, were already within reach. 'That's the one. The biggest of them. We'll teach you to come casting offother people's ropes and anchors,' said a big, red-haired man, suddenly shooting out an arm and catching Joe by the collar of his coat. 'That's him.' Mrs Barrable tied up her dinghy and walked quietly towards them. But Joe seemed well able to look after himself. He flung his arms suddenly upward and, with a single wriggle, left his coat in the hands of the enemy. 'Catch him, one of you,' shouted the red-haired man. 'Don't let him go. Grab him, James!' 'Catch him yourself, Ronald!' said one of the others. 'Look out for my coat,' urged Joe, skipping backwards a few yards out of reach. 'It's got my rat in it.' The red-haired man dropped the coat and reached again at Joe, who dodged. 'Rat!' shrieked a woman in orange pyjamas who had come ashore to see what was to be done to Joe. There was a sudden interruption. 'What's all this?' a deep voice asked, pausing between the words. Mr Tedder, the policeman, had been digging in his little garden by the staithe, and hearing the noise had thrust his spade into the ground and hurried out, putting his coat on as he came. 'It's this boy,' said the red-haired man, setting his yachting-cap at a jauntier angle to impress Mr Tedder, who had seen too many yachting-caps to be impressed. 'The biggest of these three. He came along yesterday evening when we were all in our cabins, and unfastened our anchors and set us adrift. Wanton mischief, nothing else.' 'Set you adrift?' said Mr Tedder judicially. 'That won't do.' 'But I didn't,' said Joe. 'I couldn't. Why, last night...' Mr Tedder looked at him. 'Why so you was,' he said at last. He turned. 'And what time do you say the offence took place?' 'Ten past five,' said the woman eagerly. 'I know it was, because I was boiling eggs, and looked at the clock just when Ronald shouted that we were floating down the river ...' 'Ten past five,' said Mr Tedder slowly. 'Why from five o'clock all these boys was doin' a bit o' weedin' in my patch, an' gettin' worrams for to make a bab ... for liftin' eels ... Couldn't 'a been this boy cast you adrift. Why, 'twas all but dark when they go home with their worrams ...' 'But I tell you we'd had them round earlier with some tale about a blasted bird.' 'They was in my patch at ten past five,' said Mr Tedder doggedly. 'It must have been some other boy,' said the thin man the other had called 'James'. 'Not these,' said Mr Tedder. ;You skip along, you three. No need to hang about the staithe.' 'And my coat?' said Joe. He came warily forward and picked it up, put it carefully on and then pulled out of an inner pocket a large white rat, which sat on his arm, sniffed the air contemptuously, and looked about it with its round pink eyes. 'Take that thing away,' screamed the woman. Mr Tedder pulled out a notebook. 'If you want to make complaint ...' he was beginning, when a quiet voice close beside him said, 'Officer!' 'Ma'am,' said Mr Tedder, straightening his back and turning sharply on his heel, to see a little old lady with a pug. Mrs Barrable had thought it time to intervene. 'Am I mistaken?' she asked, 'or is there a speed limit of five miles an hour through Horning village? I think I have seen the notices.' 'No boats to go above five miles per hour,' said Mr Tedder, 'not between the board t'other side of the Ferry and t'other board at top of Horning Reach.' 'This motor-cruiser,' said Mrs Barrable, 'seems to make a practice of disregarding the speed limit as well as the convenience and safety of other users of the river. I have noticed it before, and today I think I have been fortunate not to have been swamped by it. Do I lay an information with you, or must I see the Bure Commissioners ... ?' Mr Tedder turned again, but he and the old lady and the pug were alone. The people from the cruiser, with their yachting-caps, their berets and their bright pyjamas were hurrying angrily back to their vessel. The three small boys were standing open-mouthed in the Death and Glory, wondering at the sudden collapse of the enemy. 'I wouldn't do nothin' about it, ma'am,' said Mr Tedder slowly. 'They hear what you say.' 'Thank you, officer,' said Mrs Barrable, 'I think you're perfectly right. No, William!' William had felt the quarrel in the air, and, as the Margo-letla's engine started up and she swung away from the staithe and upstream, he had allowed himself a single bark. 'Least said, soonest mended,' said Mr Tedder, though not thinking of William. 'Takes all sorts to make a world, but fare to me as we could do without some of 'em. There's been trouble up at Wroxham with that lot, making such a noise by the bridge nobody in the hotels could get their sleep. But where's the use? Here today they are and gone tomorrow. Casting off their moorings? Now who's going to do a thing like that? More likely they forget to make 'em fast.' CHAPTER 9 THE MAKING OF AN OUTLAW That afternoon there was not wind enough to stir the flame of a candle when Tom and the twins rowed down the river in the Titmouse. 'We'd better all go in one boat,' Tom had said, 'and then I can hop into the reeds if we hear the Margoletta, and you can hang about and pick me up again when they've gone by.' That morning's happenings on Horning Staithe had shown the Coots that it was no good thinking that the Hullabaloos were of the kind that forgive and forget. So the three of them together rowed slowly down the river, looking at the nests as they passed them, and rejoicing to see that the coot with the white feather, on No. 7 nest, was sitting as steadily as if she had never been disturbed. 'Hullo,' said Tom, when at last they came in sight of the Teasel, 'they've taken the awning down.' 'Mustn't let them think us quite incapable,' Mrs Barrable had said when she came back from her shopping, and she and Dick and Dorothea between them had folded up the awning and stowed it in the forepeak, and lowered the cabin roof, and washed down the decks with the mop and generally done their best to make the Teasel look as if she were ready for a voyage. 'She's a jolly fine boat,' said Starboard. 'It's a pity those kids can't sail.' 'There they are,' said Tom. Dick and Dorothea had come out of the cabin and were standing in the well. Dorothea was waving. Dick was looking anxiously round the Teasel. They had done the best they could, but he felt sure that something or other ought to have been stowed a little differently. Well, it was too late to alter anything now. Dorothea was finding, all of a sudden, that now that these sailing twins were close at hand, she did not know what to say to them. She found it easy enough to make up stories in which everybody talked and talked. Indeed, already, since yesterday, she had gone through half a dozen imaginary scenes in which she and Dick met and made friends with Port and Starboard. And now here they were, and she could not get one single word out of her mouth and was quite glad that William was doing all the talking and doing it very loud. The Titmouse slid alongside. 'How do you do?' said Tom, as Mrs Barrable came out of the cabin, and William stopped barking, remembered that Tom was a friend, and came and licked the hand with which he was keeping the Titmouse from bumping the Teasel. 'I am so glad you managed to come,' said Mrs Barrable. 'These are Dick and Dorothea. And one of you two is Nell and the other is Bess, and one is Port and the other is Starboard, and the two of you are twins, and I don't know yet which is which.' 'It's quite easy, really,' said Starboard. 'Once you know,' said Port. 'Oh, yes,' said Mrs Barrable. 'I remember now. Nell's the one with curly hair.' 'And the right-handed one,' said Tom. 'That's why she's Starboard, and Bess is left-handed and so she's Port. It comes very handy for sailing.' 'Not much sailing for anybody today,' said Mrs Barrable, looking up the glassy river. And then, before they had even had time to shake hands, something happened which Dorothea had not imagined in any of her scenes, something which turned them all into old friends working together. 'Why look,' said Mrs Barrable. 'Isn't that those piratical bird-protectors?' Round the bend of the river above the Teasel's moorings, just where, last night, Mrs Barrable had seen Tom racing down in his old Dreadnought, and then the Margoletta roaring after him, came the old black ship's boat, Joe standing in the stern and steering, Pete and Bill rowing like galley-slaves so that there was a white ripple of bubbling water under her forefoot. 'They're in a mighty hurry,' said Starboard. 'Something's up,' said Tom. 'It's those Hullabaloos again,' said Port. 'Easy,' shouted Joe, as the Death and Glory swept down the river. The sweating galley-slaves bent forward, panting, over their lifted oars. 'It's that cruiser," called Joe, swinging his vessel round. 'A man from Rodley's come down to see my Dad, and we ask him. He don't know when that lot's giving up the Margoletta. But they're coming down river. Changed a battery they have.' 'They must use a lot of electricity,' said Dick, more to himself than to anybody else, 'with a wireless like that going on all the time.' 'The doctor tell us where you was,' said Joe. 'Down here any time they may be.' Tom looked at the reeds. I'll just have to hide again,' he said. 'And you three had better clear off, or we'll be getting the Teasel mixed up in it too.' 'Tom mustn't let himself be caught,' explained Port, 'because it would be so awful for the doctor.' 'It's Coot Club business, anyhow,' said Starboard, 'and we're just not going to have him caught.' 'If he's going to skipper the Teasel, it's our business, too,' said Mrs Barrable, and laughed when she saw Dick and Dorothea both staring at her. 'We may be going to manage a voyage after all,' she said, 'if the Coot Club can turn you two into sailors ... And this is no place for first sailing lessons, out in the open river. If those Hullabaloos are coming down again, they shan't find any of us. We'll vanish, pirates and all.' 'But how?' said Tom. 'Into Ranworth Broad,' said Mrs Barrable. 'No wind,' said Starboard, looking up the river on which the only ripple was made by a water-hen swimming across. 'We could quant,' [To quant is to pole a boat along. A quant is a long pole used for quanting] said Tom, 'but don't you think I'd better just hide?' 'They can't search the Teasel,' said Mrs Barrable. 'You come aboard and you can always slip into the cabin. Don't let's lose time. Have you three pirates got a rope?' 'We've a good 'un.' I'll look after Titmouse," said Port. 'You'll want Starboard to steer while you quant.' Tom and Starboard climbed aboard the Teasel. Bill and Pete brought the Death and Glory near enough for Joe to throw Tom the long rope they always carried with them in hope of salvage work. Many a time it had come in useful when they had found beginners who had got themselves aground in their hired boats and did not know how to get off. The rope uncoiled in the air. The end fell across the foredeck. Tom had it as it fell and made it fast round the mast. 'Come on, you,' cried Starboard to Dick, as she jumped ashore to get up the anchors. 'And what about the gangplank?' 'We'll take it with us,' said Mrs Barrable. 'William would miss it at the next place.' 'The next place ...' Simple words, but glowing with glorious meaning. No mere houseboat after all. Here today and gone tomorrow. Mrs Barrable had gone into the cabin to see that no jampots full of paint-brushes were going to upset. Dick and Starboard were both ashore. Tom was getting the quant ready. Dorothea, alone in the well, laid a daring hand upon the tiller. This, indeed, was life. 'That's right,' Starboard was saying to Dick. 'Coil it up so that you bring it aboard all ready to stow. Hang on, half a minute. Hi, you, what's your name, Dorothea, just tell the Admiral we're all ready ...' 'The Admiral?' 'Well, just look at her fleet.' Dorothea laughed happily. There certainly was a fleet, what with the Death and Glory, and the Teasel, and the Teasel's little rowing dinghy, and the Titmouse out in the river with a twin at the oars. 'Admiral,' she said, through the low cabin door. 'Port ... I mean Starboard ... says they're all ready.' 'Good,' said the Admiral, coming out, 'then we're only waiting for the tug.' 'Cast off forrard!' That was Skipper Tom on the foredeck. 'Quick, you. Give her a bit of a push off. Now's your chance. Hop aboard.' That was Starboard, who was moving along the bank with the stern rope amid a great rustling of bent reeds. Dick jumped, grabbed a shroud and landed on the deck. 'Stern warp aboard,' called Tom, and then, glancing aft to see Starboard leap down into the well, where Dorothea eagerly made room for her at the tiller, he waved a hand forward. 'Half ahead!' called the skipper of the tug-boat, Death and Glory. The tow-rope tightened with a jerk. The Teasel answered it. She was moving. 'Full ahead!' Dick and Dorothea looked at the little dinghy brushing the reeds where only a minute ago they had been able to step ashore. Wider and wider was the strip of water between the Teasel and the bank. The tow-rope that at first had tautened and sagged, and tautened and sagged again, dripping as it lifted, now hardly sagged at all. With quick short strokes, Bill and Pete, those two engines of the tug, kept up a steady strain. And there was Tom, lifting the long quanting pole, finding bottom with it, and hurrying aft along the side deck, leaning with all his weight against the quant's round wooden head. A jerk as he came to the stern, and back he went on the trot, lifting the quant hand over hand, finding bottom with it and again leaning on it, forcing the Teasel along, so hard that if the engines of the tug had eased up for a moment he would have taken the strain off the tow-rope. 'She's moving now all right,' said Starboard. 'If only we can get round the corner in time.' 'Where is the corner?' asked Dorothea. 'You'll see it in a minute,' said Starboard. 'But here they are!' said Dorothea. 'We're too late.' 'That's not the Margoletta,' said Starboard. 'That's only a little one.' A small motor-cruiser, making a good deal of noise for its size, but nothing like the noise of the Margoletta, was coming down river to meet them. It slowed up on seeing the fleet, the Death and Glory towing the Teasel and the little Titmouse, rowed by Port, acting as encouragement and convoy. 'Decent of them,' said Tom. 'Keep an eye on the tug,' he added, jerking the quant from the mud and running forward again. A single, shrill whistle sounded from the Death and Glory. It was answered on the instant by a single hoot from a motor-horn on the little cruiser. 'Good for Joe,' said Tom. 'What does it mean?' asked Dick. 'He's telling everybody that he's directing his course to starboard,' said Tom, 'and they're going to do the same.' The little motor-cruiser passed them, and the people on board waved to them, going full speed again as soon as they could see that their wash would not bother the rowing-boats. 'They're not all like the Hullabaloos,' said Starboard. 'Wouldn't it be awful if they were?' said Dorothea. 'Feathers for Ginty!' called Starboard suddenly. 'Pick them up, Twin!' She was pointing at a little fleet of curled white swan's feathers, some in mid-stream, and some close against the reeds. 'Mrs McGinty looks after us,' she said, seeing Dorothea's puzzled face. 'She always wants swan's feathers. For a cushion or something. She's been collecting them for years.' Port, in the Titmouse, dropped astern, rowing from feather to feather. Port was a long way astern of the fleet when, just as they were turning into the long straight dyke that leads to Ranworth Broad, Dorothea heard again the noise of a motor-cruiser. This time she said nothing, but looked at Starboard. Starboard had heard it too. Mrs Barrable turned round. Starboard nodded. The captain of the Death and Glory was looking over his shoulder. He, too, had heard. Tom, for a moment, stopped quanting as they turned the corner. 'They're a long way off,' said Starboard. 'They come at such a lick,' said Tom, racing forward with the quant. 'They'll see us for certain,' he panted as he came aft again. 'We'll never get to the Straits in time.' Dorothea looked ahead to where the long narrow dyke disappeared among the trees, over which, far away, showed the grey square tower of Ranworth Church. The Straits must be those trees, if the Broad was beyond them. ''Titmouse ahoy!' shouted Tom suddenly, but there was no answer, and they could no longer see the river except just where the dyke left it. 'She's all right,' said Mrs Barrable. 'They're looking for you in a punt. They aren't looking for a girl. Or for the Titmouse.' 'We'll be all right too, if we can get to the Straits,' said Starboard. 'Let me have a go at the quant.' But no. Tom would have felt even worse if he had not had the quant to push at, to feel he was doing something in driving the Teasel along. As for the engines of the Death and Glory, their panting could be heard by everybody. 'If only there were two quants,' said Starboard. 'They're simply bound to look down the dyke,' said Tom, 'and they'll see the Death and Glories towing, and if they've got any sense at all they'll come and have a look.' Nearer and nearer behind the reed-beds came die noise of the Margoletta. Everybody except Starboard - and even she glanced over her shoulder every other moment - was looking back towards the river, watching for the Margoletta to show in the opening at the mouth of the dyke. Who would show there first, Port or the Hullabaloos? And, oh, how far it seemed to those trees. 'There she is,' said the Admiral. 'But she's rowing quite slowly,' said Dorothea. 'She can't not have heard them. And she's not turning in. She's at the other side of the river, picking feathers ... But there weren't any feathers there ... Or were there?' 'Well done, that Port of yours,' cried the Admiral. 'I should never have thought of it. Dick, where are those glasses? Well done, Port,' said Mrs Barrable again. 'Well done! Well done!' There was the huge bulk of the Margoletta passing the mouth of the dyke. The Teasel and the Death and Glories were all in full view of them. But not a single one of the Hullabaloos was looking their way. Mrs Barrable was silently clapping her hands. 'They're wondering what on earth that girl is doing. And they can't look both ways at once.' The Margoletta passed the mouth of the dyke, and went roaring on down the river. And the crews of the Teasel and the Death and Glory saw Port in the Titmouse, taking short lazy strokes with her oars, disappear behind the reeds as if she were going on upstream. 'Dodged them all right this time,' said Tom, 'thanks to Port.' In another minute or two the Teasel was in the Straits, with trees on either side of the narrow dyke. The dyke bent to the left, and divided into two, one branch blocked with posts and chains, the other slowly widening towards a sheet of open water, still as glass, except for birds swimming and stirring the reflections of the reeds. 'Where do you want to stop?' asked Tom. 'The staithe?' 'Much quieter here,' said Mrs Barrable. 'There's a good place for mooring,' said Starboard, pointing to a little bay. 'Easy!' shouted Tom. 'Casting off the tow-rope!' Splash! The end of the tow-rope fell in the water, and Joe in the Death and Glory, was hauling it in, hand over hand. The Teasel slid slowly on in dead smooth water. Tom seemed to be everywhere at once, getting ready anchors and warps. 'Will that do?' called Starboard, as the Teasel slid alongside a low grassy bank. Tom jumped from the foredeck. Starboard jumped from the counter. Dick, Dorothea and the Admiral were, for the moment, passengers only. The Teasel was moving no longer. A moment later she was moored in her new berth. 'Well done everybody,' said the Admiral. 'Even William,' said Dorothea. 'At least he didn't bark and he easily might have.' 'Narrow squeak that were,' said Joe. Bill and Pete were too much out of breath even to speak. They grinned and wiped their foreheads and blinked the sweat out of their eyes. And then there was the sound of oars from among the trees, and there was Port with the Titmouse. 'Well done, Port!' everybody shouted at once. Port looked happily over her shoulder, steadied the Titmouse with her oars and stopped rowing. 'I knew they'd be looking down the dyke if I turned in,' she said. 'So I dropped a few of Ginty's swan feathers under the other bank and picked them up again one by one. The Hullabaloos nearly swamped me, they came so near to see what it was I was getting. Water-lilies in April I expect they thought.' 'They'd have seen us for certain if they hadn't been looking at you,' said Tom. 'It's the most gorgeous lake,' said Dorothea. 'It's full of good hiding-places. Anybody could be an outlaw hidden in here for weeks and weeks while people were hunting for him outside.' 'You could, you know,' said Starboard. 'Those Hullabaloos can't be about for ever, and we could bring supplies.' 'It's a good idea,' said Port. 'They're sure to catch you if you just hang about Horning.' 'You'll have disappeared, just like the Teasel,' said Dorothea. Tom looked from one to the other. All this romance was rather puzzling. He had got into trouble with some unpleasant people who had hired the Margoletta. He had to keep out of their way because if they caught him it would be hard to prevent his father, the doctor, from being dragged in. It was most unlucky, just when the Titmouse was ready for distant voyaging. But somehow this Dorothea, and even Port and Starboard, who were Norfolk Coots and usually as practical as himself, were talking of his misfortune as if it were some kind of exciting story. 'If they did come in here to look for him,' said Dorothea, 'he could hide among the reeds like a water buffalo, with only his nose above water." 'Jolly cold,' said Tom. 'Tell you what,' said Joe. 'They can't come up this way without they come by Ludham, or by Acle or by Potter Heigham, and we know chaps in all them places. We'll tell 'em to telephone to Dad's yard, to give us a warning if that lot come through. Then we'll know where they be.' 'But we don't know where they are now,' said Tom. 'They may be close to. They may have stopped just round the corner.' 'Urn,' said Starboard. 'It wouldn't do to run right into them.' 'I must get home, anyhow, and tell Mother what I'm going to do,' said Tom. 'Look here,' said Starboard. 'We've got to get back early. We'll take a passage with the Death and Glories, and tell Aunty you'll be late. Then you can dodge back home when it's beginning to get dark.' 'Much the best plan,' said Mrs Barrable. And presently the Death and Glory, with Port and Starboard pulling an oar apiece and the three small Coots taking turns in the steering, disappeared behind the trees. Tom waited in the Titmouse, tied alongside the Teasel, fitting hinges to locker doors, with Dick and Dorothea watching and passing him screws at the right moment. At the first hoot of an owl over the marshes he said 'Good night' to his new friends. By dusk all yachts and cruisers on the Bure are tied up or hurriedly looking for moorings for the night. But the bye-laws say nothing about little boats, and though there was still no wind, he hoped to get home not too dreadfully late for supper. 'Do you think he'll come back?' asked Dick. 'He simply couldn't find a better place to lurk,' said Dorothea. 'He's got a very nice dyke,' said Mrs Barrable, 'without stirring from his own home. We shan't see him again tonight. I expect he'll try to get here tomorrow before the Hullabaloos wake up in the morning.' But last thing, when they had done their washing up after supper, and Mrs Barrable had tired of telling them what the Broads had been like in the wild old days of forty years ago, and it had long been dark, and Dick and Dorothea climbed out on the counter, to stand there and watch the stars, and to listen to the night noises in the reed-beds, they caught sight of a pale glimmer away under the trees where the dyke divided. 'He's back,' said Dick. 'Far away, at the edge of the marshes,' said Dorothea, more to herself than to Dick, 'the watchers saw the glimmer of the outlaw's lonely light.' CHAPTER IO LYING LOW First Day Dick and Dorothea in the little forecabin of the Teasel slept until a Primus stove in the well burst into a sudden roar as Mrs Barrable set it going to boil the breakfast coffee. They hurried out to feel the side-decks wet with dew and cold to their bare feet, but their first glance across the water towards the other side of the Straits showed them that Tom in the Titmouse had long ago begun his day. The awning of the little boat had been turned back at the stern, and they could see the outlaw himself leaning out and washing up a plate. 'Won't he be coming here for breakfast?' asked Dorothea. 'He must have had his ages ago,' said Mrs Barrable. 'He was scrubbing his face when I first looked out. Hurry up and scrub yours and then, as soon as you've had something to eat, you can row across and ask him where we get fresh milk. I've opened a tin for now.' Half an hour later, when they had stowed the Teasel's awning, and Mrs Barrable was setting up her easel in the well to paint a picture of the Broad, Dick and Dorothea began their first lesson in sailing. There could not have been a better day for it. Sunshine, a crisp air, and a wind not strong enough to be dangerous, but quite strong enough to send the Titmouse flying through the water so that any mistake in the steering showed at once. They beat up to the staithe, took the milk-can to the farm, brought it back filled, went to the little shop and post office and sent off postcards to Mr and Mrs Callum. One sentence was the same on both cards: 'We have begun to learn to sail.' Up and down they sailed in the sunshine, first one and then the other at the tiller, while Tom held the mainsheet so that nothing could really go wrong. They very soon stopped catching their breaths every time a harder puff of wind sent the Titmouse heeling over, and Tom said they would do all right as soon as they had learnt that when you are steering you must think of nothing else. He said this after Dick had had a long turn at the tiller. Dick was careful enough when there was nothing to look at, but keen as he was on being able to sail, the sight of a bird was too much for him, and as Ranworth is full of birds of all kinds, the Titmouse, with Dick at the tiller, had sailed a very wriggly course. But it was not much better with Dorothea. Her mind, too, kept slipping away. She was sailing, yes, and all of a tremble lest she should do something wrong, but she could not help thinking of the outlaw and the Margoletta, and of the Admiral quietly painting in the well of the Teasel, but at the same time ready to give warning of approaching Hullabaloos. How would it be to make a real sentinel's post in one of the taller trees at the outer end of the Straits? What would happen if suddenly, now, this minute, the Margoletta, full of enemies, were to come roaring out into the Broad? 'The boy outlaw leapt overboard and swam for the reeds, bullet after bullet splashing in the water round his head ...' 'Look out, Dot, we'll be aground.' And there was the boy outlaw close beside her, grabbing at the tiller. The Titmouse spun round only just in time, and they felt the centre-board move stickily in the mud and then break free again. Half-way through the morning Port and Starboard came rowing out of the Straits with two bits of urgent news, one that the first of No. 7's eggs had hatched, and the other that while Tom had been busy teaching Dick and Dorothea how to sail, other people had been doing their best for Tom. Far and wide, it seemed, the alarm had been given, and all over the Broads the outlaw's friends were alert and on the watch. 'It's all fixed up,' said Starboard. 'Joe's taken Bill's bike and gone down to Acle to fix up with a boy there to keep a look-out. Bill's gone up to Potter Heigham on the bus (Coot Club funds, of course), and Pete's got a lift into Wroxham to see what he can find out at Rodley's about how long that lot are going to have the Margoletta.' Second Day Dick wrote in his notebook, 'Found two coots' nests in a reed-bed close to Ranworth Staithe. Watched crested grebes fishing. What I thought was a foghorn last night and the night before was a bittern. There was no fog, and Tom heard it, too, and told me.' Port and Starboard came in their rowing-boat to spend the whole day. Dick and Dorothea were taken out by turns first in Titmouse and then in the rowing-boat, and made to sail and row by themselves, with the elder Coots as mere passengers to tell them what they did wrong. William went hunting, ashore. Mrs Barrable painted a picture. Port and Starboard and Dorothea did the day's cooking. In the afternoon the Death and Glory came rowing through the Straits with the news that the Margoletta had been seen going through Yarmouth to the south the day before. That made everybody feel a good deal more comfortable. All six Coots came to tea in the Teasel. Joe brought his white rat, and Dorothea made herself stroke it. They had tea in the Teasel, William and the white rat as far from each other as possible, William at the forward end of the cabin and the white rat with Joe at the after end of the well. The Death and Glory hoisted her patched and ragged old sail, and Dick and Dorothea went sailing in her, while the Admiral and the three elder Coots held a conference. It was decided that next day, while the twins could be there to help, they should set sail on the Teasel and try her on the Broad before venturing out into the river. Third Day This plan came to nothing, because in the morning they woke to the steady drumming of rain-drops on stretched canvas. It was no day for a trial trip. Neither Tom nor the Admiral wanted to get sails wet at the very start. Awnings were left up all day. Dick and Dorothea wore their oilskins and sea-boots and got some rowing practice in the rain. Dorothea planned a story, 'The Outlaw of the Broads'. Dick helped Tom in the Titmouse, and between them they finished up the lockerdoors. William, for fear of chills, was given a spoonful of cod-liver oil. In the afternoon, when the rain was at its worst, Port and Starboard, in oilskins and sou'westers, came rowing into the Broad. 'What are you doing tomorrow?' said Mrs Barrable. 'We've got to hang about at home tomorrow. The A.P.'s got people coming to tea, and we have to be there to pour out.' 'Next day, then?' said Mrs Barrable. 'What about coming with us for a day or so just to help Tom to put us all in the way of handling the Teasel?' 'We'll have to be back the night before the first of the championship races,' said Starboard. 'We could do a tremendous lot in three days,' said Tom. 'Potter Heigham, I thought,' said the Admiral. 'Bridge to go through. Two bridges. Just what's wanted,' said Tom. 'And then through Kendal Dyke and up to Horsey. It used to be a wonderful place for birds.' 'It still is,' said Tom. 'Good,' said Dick. That night, in the cabin of the Teasel, the Admiral, Tom, Dick, and Dorothea pored over the map together. The Admiral, with the wrong end of a paint-brush, was tracing the curling blue line that marked the River Bure past the mouth of the Ant and on to the place where it was joined by the Thurne, and the blue line thickened and curled away down the map towards Acle and Yarmouth. Tom's eye followed it down there, thinking of tides and the other dangers of Yarmouth and Breydon which make a cruise on the rivers of the south as exciting an adventure for the children of Horning or Wroxham as a cruise on the rivers of the north is for the children who live down at Oulton or Beccles. But Mrs Barrable's paint-brush was moving up that other river, the Thurne ... Potter Heigham ... 'such a pretty little place it used to be' ... two bridges, road and railway ... on and on and then sharp to the north-west through the narrow line that marked Kendal Dyke, and into a largish blue blot that meant the widening waters of Heigham Sound, and on again through a narrow wriggling line into another blue blot that was Horsey Mere. At one side of this blot was a short line marking a dyke, and at the end of it the sign for a windmill. 'That's where we'll spend the night,' said the Admiral, 'in the little cut close by that windmill...' The others leant over the cabin table. Closer and closer they put their heads to the paper. It was very hard to see, all of a sudden. Dimmer and dimmer. 'What's happened to the light?' said the Admiral. They looked up at the two little glass bulbs that usually lit the whole cabin. They dazzled no longer. A curly red wire was slowly fading in each bulb. 'The battery must be run down,' said Dick at once. He switched off one light, and, for a moment, got a rather brighter glow out of the other. 'Well,' said the Admiral, 'we've been looking at the wrong end of the map. We can't set out on a voyage with no light. Candles are all right in the well, but I don't like them in the cabin. We'll have to sail up to Wroxham to get the battery renewed.' Dorothea felt a pang of disappointment as she went into the well for the candlestick. They had come from Wroxham that first day and so had seen that part of the river already. Sailing to Horsey would have been sailing into the unknown. Help came, unexpectedly, from Tom. Dorothea lit her candle, and brought it into the cabin, setting it on the table where it threw its queer flickering light over the faces round the map. She saw at once that Tom had something to say. 'Wroxham's a bad place for sailing. Specially now that the leaves are beginning to come. Get blanketed altogether in some reaches. It's no good going up there for a trial trip. Much better get it done tomorrow. It's safe enough with the Margoletta away through Yarmouth. I'll take the battery up to Wroxham first thing in the morning. I'll be back by tea-time.' The Admiral looked at him in the candlelight, and laughed. 'Tired of lying low?' she asked. 'I'd like to give Titmouse a run,' said Tom. 'And it's perfectly safe now with somebody watching at Acle.' 'It certainly would be rather waste of Port and Starboard not to have some real sailing while we've got them,' said the Admiral. 'And there are no bridges on the way to Wroxham.' 'It's stopped raining,' said Tom, putting his hand out through a porthole to feel. A few minutes later he was baling out the Teasel's dinghy for the third time that day. Dick ferried him across to the Titmouse. Tom lit his lantern and looked about him. 'Bone dry,' he said, 'in spite of all that rain. That's the first time the awning's had a proper wetting.' He watched Dick vanish into the darkness, listened for his safe arrival aboard the Teasel, and turned in for the night, feeling extraordinarily happy. Jolly good that the twins were coming in the Teasel, at least to Horsey and back. It was all very well, but he really did not much like the idea of handling a boat as big as the Teasel for the first time, with only Dick and Dorothea to help. And jolly good, too, to think that tomorrow, Hullabaloos or no Hullabaloos, the little Titmouse would herself be voyaging once more. CHAPTER I I TOM IN DANGER It was a fine clear morning with a north-westerly breeze. Tom was up early, and long before breakfast was ready in the Teasel he had come alongside. He and Dick made a double sling with the end of the Teasel's mainsheet, and lowered the heavy battery carefully into the Titmouse. 'Do you really think it's safe?' said Dorothea. 'They may be just waiting to pounce.' 'Not they,' said Tom. 'And we'd know if they were. Joe's got a friend watching at Acle. And, anyway, I'll be back in no time. No tacking. I'm going to row every yard I can't either run or reach.' It was a dullish morning without him. They washed up. They swabbed the decks. They took William with them as a passenger to Ranworth Staithe when they went to get some fresh water. On the way back they looked in on two coots' nests, and met a pair of crested grebes out fishing, but, with William aboard, they found it harder to come near the grebes than when they were alone. William sat up on a thwart, put his paws on the gunwale and looked out as keenly as Dick, but he could not see a bird on the water without barking. They went back to the Teasel at last and found the Admiral busy preparing a canvas. Dick settled down in the cabin, making a fair copy of his roughly scribbled list of birds he had seen in Norfolk. Dorothea tried to write some of the new book that had seemed almost half done when she had put down a list of its chapter headings ... The Secret Broad, The Outlaw in the Reeds, The Black Coot's Feather, The Bittern's Warning, and so on. What a book it was to be, and yet, somehow, the first chapter had ended after a paragraph or two, and the second would not go beyond the first gorgeous sentence: 'Parting the reeds with stealthy, silent hand, the outlaw peered into the gathering dusk. Away, across the dark water ...' Well, what was it that he saw? Dorothea found herself wondering instead what Tom was seeing on his voyage up to Wroxham to change the Teasel's battery. Had he managed to see Port and Starboard on his way through Horning? The morning slipped away, and still the outlaw in the book was peering out of the reeds across the dark water. Dorothea had to leave him there, for suddenly it was too late to do any more writing. The Admiral wanted to get dinner over, to have a long afternoon for painting. After the meal, Dorothea hurried Dick into the dinghy to give the Admiral a fair chance, and asked if it would be all right if they rowed up to the main river. 'Don't fall in,' said the Admiral. 'Better leave William with me. Where did I put that turpentine?' Rowing side by side, with an oar apiece, they paddled away from the Teasel. The Admiral absent-mindedly waved a paintbrush at them. They waved back. The trees closed in on either side of them. They were in the Straits and the Teasel and the open Broad were hidden behind a curtain of young spring leaves. They paddled steadily on, out of the shelter of the trees into the long straight dyke leading to the river. 'There's a sail!' said Dorothea, looking over her shoulder at a white triangle shining in the sunlight, moving along above a distant line of willow bushes. 'One, two,' said Dick. 'One, two ... You must keep time. Look out! we'll be into the reeds. Not so hard. One, two. One, two. That sail's going down the river. They'll have met Tom, I should think.' 'I wonder how far he's got,' said Dorothea. 'Probably started back. All right, Dick. It's really you forgetting to pull ... And they're only water-hens ...' Dick said nothing. He knew he had all but let his oar wait in the air while he watched two water-hens disappear into a shady hole among the reeds. 'Upstream or down?' said Dorothea as they came at last to the mouth of the dyke. 'Do you realize we're in a boat by ourselves? Let's go upstream. We might meet Port and Starboard.' 'Upstream,' said Dick. 'Let's try and find No. 7.' 'Let's,' said Dorothea. 'Starboard said the little ones are out of the eggs.' 'We'll keep a look-out for a coot with a white feadier.' But long before they had come as far as that little reedy drain where the coot with the white feather was looking after her family of sooty chicks, they had other things than birds of which to think. They paddled slowly along, keeping near the bank, past the water-works and as far as the church reach, where they saw two coots, but without white feathers, and dozens of water-hens scurrying to and fro between the rough bushy bank on one side of the river and the green grass dial was being clipped short by the black sheep on the other. Dick had a good look at the water-hens, noting their flashing tails, and the bright scarlet of their beaks when they lurked close under the overhanging bank while he and Dorothea paddled by. A yacht came sailing down the reach with the water bubbling under her forefoot. Tomorrow, thought Dorothea, they, too, would be sailing just like that. How very much better things had turned out than had seemed likely when first they came aboard the Teasel and Mrs Barrable broke the news to them that they were not going to sail at all. 'And we owe it all to No. 7,' said Dorothea. 'And the Coot Club, of course.' 'What?' said Dick. Dorothea had spoken aloud without meaning to. But Dick never got his answer. Dorothea had lifted her oar from the water and was listening to a loud drumming from somewhere down the river. 'Another of them,' said Dick. 'I hope it doesn't make an awful wash like the Hullabaloos. I wonder if we ought to land till it's gone by?' 'It's just as noisy,' said Dorothea, and the next moment the cruiser swung into sight round the bend by the waterworks. 'Dick,' she cried. 'It's them. The Margoletta. They've come back. No, don't look at them. Go on looking at the black sheep ...' With a roaring engine and a tremendous blare of band music from the gramophone on its foredeck, the big cruiser passed them. Its high wash, racing after it, lifted the tiny dinghy so suddenly that Dorothea clutched the gunwale and lost her oar. By the time she had got it again, the Margoletta was already out of sight, though the waves were still tearing angrily at the banks. 'They'll get him. He doesn't know they're here. He can't possibly escape. Dick, Dick! What ought we to do?' Dick's mind could be counted on to work fast as soon as it was interested. The difficulty was to get it interested when it happened to be thinking about something else. The Margoletta had done that, and Dick had already come to a decision while the little dinghy was still tossing on that brutal wash. 'Come on, Dot,' he said. 'We've got to find the others. They'll know what to do.' He gave a hard pull. The dinghy swung round. 'Come on, Dot, pull for all you're worth.' 'And Mrs B.?' 'No time to go back there. Come on, Dot. Pull! One, two. One, two.' But it was no good. Paddling easily together, when in no hurry, they could keep the dinghy more or less on its course. But, when the two of them were pulling as hard as they could, first one and then the other got into the stronger stroke, and the little dinghy seemed to be trying to head all ways at once. 'Let me have the other oar.' Dorothea gave it up to him and sat in the stern. 'I'm not going to bother about that feathering,' said Dick. He clenched his teeth and pulled, lifted his oars probably rather higher than the Death and Glories would have approved, shot them back, gripped the water with them and pulled again. There was a good deal of splashing, but those days of hard work on Ranworth Broad had not gone for nothing, and the little dinghy pushed through the water at a good pace. By giving a harder tug now and then on one or other oar, he managed to keep her heading up the river most of the time. Not always. 'Look out!' said Dorothea. 'You'll be into the reeds again.' 'Do like they told us they used to do,' he panted back. 'Keep pointing always bang up the river. With a hand. Human compass. Then I can just watch your hand without having to turn round to know where I'm going.' Dorothea sat still with her right hand just above her knees pointing straight up the river, so that when Dick's bad rowing made the dinghy swerve, he could see at once what had happened by looking at her pointing fingers. On and on he rowed. 'That coot's got a white feather,' said Dorothea. Dick looked round with eyes that hardly saw. He did not stop rowing. He was breathing hard. He could no longer keep his teeth together. As for looking at coots, he could hardly see Dorothea's pointing hand only a foot or two before his face. 'Swop places,' said Dorothea. 'Let me row for a bit.' Dick pulled desperately on. 'Scientific way,' said Dorothea. 'Relay. First you then me, so that we can keep going at full speed.' It was the word 'scientific' that persuaded him. With shaking knees he changed places with Dorothea. Try as he would, his hand trembled as he held it out for a compass-needle, pointing the way up the river. Dorothea, with fresh arms, sent the dinghy along faster, but even more splashily than before. 'It's a good thing the Death and Glories can't see us,' she said, after a worse splash than usual. 'Don't talk,' said Dick. 'It makes it worse later if you do.' Dorothea said no more. He was right. In a very few minutes she was far past talking. She felt as if her arms would come loose at the shoulder, as if her back would break, as if something in her chest was growing bigger and bigger until presently there would be no room for any breath. And, after all, what was the good? It was too late now. Nothing could save the outlaw from his fate. And then, suddenly, she saw Dick's face change. What had happened? What was it he was saying? 'Easy! Dot, go slow! Don't go so fast. They mustn't think we're hurrying. Look here, let me row.' She glanced over her shoulder. They had passed the little windmill. Horning Ferry and the Ferry Inn were in sight. There, tied up to the quay-heading in front of the inn, lay the Margoletta. Three men and a couple of women were talking to a boy who was pointing up the river. They were just walking across the grass towards the inn. The cruiser had stopped. There was a chance yet, if only they could slip past and up into Horning, and tell Port and Starboard or the Death and Glories. The Coots would surely find some way of getting a warning to Tom. They changed places again. Dorothea sat in the stern trying not to pant so dreadfully, and not to look as hot as she felt. Dick, carefully feathering as Port had taught him, rowing as if he had nothing to think of but style, pulled steadily on, past the Margoletta, past die Ferry, past the neat little hut of the Bure Commissioners and the lawn and garden seat where the Commissioners can sit and watch the river that is in their charge. 'Did you see that boy,' asked Dorothea, 'talking to the Hullabaloos?' 'No,' said Dick shortly. 'Sorry! Sorry!' said Dorothea. She had forgotten for a moment that she was being a human compass, and Dick, who was pulling away again as hard as he could, had had a narrow shave of ramming the bank through watching a hand that was pointing at nothing in particular. A hard pull set him right, but he had no breadi to waste on talk. Dick rowed on up the village, past the willow-pattern harbours, and the big boat-sheds. 'There's the Death and Glory, anyhow,' cried Dorothea. The old tarred boat lay against die staidie. A moment later they caught sight of Joe and the twins, all three looking at the notice-board, where people are told not to moor their boats for too long a time. 'Hi!' shouted Dorothea. 'Hullo!' shouted Joe. He ran to the edge of the staidie to catch the nose of the dinghy as they came in. Putting his hand to his mouth, as if that would make a shout more like a whisper, he asked excitedly, 'Have you seed that?' 'What?' 'They've papered him,' said Joe. 'Reward.' 'The Margoletta's coming up the river,' said Dorothea. 'Come and look at this,' cried Starboard. 'But there's no time to lose,' said Dorothea. Dick could not speak and the others did not seem to hear her. 'Read what it say,' said Joe. 'But Tom's alone up the river,' said Dorotiiea. 'Just look at it,' said Port. 'Quick, quick!' said Dorothea. 'Read what it say,' said Joe. 'It weren't there yesterday, but I see it just now as soon's I tie up.' Dick climbed out on the staithe and hurried across to the notice-board. Dorothea was almost run across the gravel by Port and Starboard, who helped her ashore together. This was the notice they read: REWARD A reward will be paid to any person who can give information concerning the boy who on the night of April the twenty-second cast off the mooring ropes of the motor-cruiser Margoletta then moored to the north bank below Homing Ferry. Applyto (There followed a name and an address, that of Rodley's, the boat-letting firm who owned the cruiser.) 'Well,' said Starboard, 'nobody'll give them any information, anyway.' 'George Owdon might,' said Port. 'If he could talk to them,' said Starboard, 'but even he wouldn't like people knowing he'd done it.' 'Anyway, Tom'll have to look out. It's a good thing the Hullabaloos are away the other side of Yarmouth ...' 'But they aren't,' Dorothea almost screamed. 'We've been telling you. They're here.' 'Coming up the river,' said Dick. 'Stopped at the Ferry.' 'And Tom's up at Wroxham,' said Dorothea. 'They can't help catching him if they go on. And there was a boy talking to them.' She described the boy. That's George Owdon,' said Port. Joe made half a move towards the Death and Glory. 'Pete and Bill away to Ludham,' he said. Not with the best of wills could he by himself get much speed out of the old ship's boat. 'We'll go up the river,' said Starboard. 'Where's Bill's bicycle?' asked Port. 'I can get it,' said Joe. 'You may catch Tom at Wroxham before he starts back.' Joe was gone. 'You two'd better wait here. You can't go really fast in that dinghy. And we've got two pairs of oars. Besides we must have someone on the look-out here to know what they do. Come on, Port!' CHAPTER 12 UNDER THE ENEMIES NOSE It is a long way to row or sail in a small boat from Horning to Wroxham, but it is not much more than a couple of miles by road. In about half an hour from the time he left them, Dick and Dorothea heard the shrill 'Brrr ... brrr' of Joe's bell as he came flying round the corner by the Swan, jammed his brakes on so that his wheels skidded on the gravel, and flung himself off beside them. 'Missed him,' he panted. 'By a lot. Tom'd been gone long before. Must be half-way down by now. Has that cruiser gone up?' 'Not yet,' said Dorothea ... 'Here she come now,' said Joe, looking down the river. With a big spirting bow wave, the noise of some huge orchestra turned on as loud as possible through the loudspeaker, and a wash that was tossing all the yachts and houseboats moored along the banks, the Margoletta was roaring up from the Ferry. Long after she had disappeared the three stood listening to the noise of her. Somewhere up there were Port and Starboard racing against time. Somewhere up there was Tom in the Titmouse sailing down from Wroxham, knowing nothing of the danger that was thundering to meet him. Port and Starboard had no need to talk. For years they had rowed that boat together. Port rowed stroke and Starboard bow, each with two oars. Port set a steady rate after the first minute or two. She remembered that they might have to keep it up for a long way. On and on they rowed, past the notice that tells you to go slow through Horning, past the eelman's little houseboat, up the long reach to the windmill and the houseboat moored beside it, on and on and on. And all the time they were listening for the unmistakable roar of the Margoletta, and at every bend of the river Starboard looked upstream hoping each time to see the Titmouse's little, high-peaked sail. They passed the private broad with the house reflected in the water. They passed the entrance to Salhouse where, on any other day, they would have looked in to see the swan's nest and the crested grebe's. And then they heard it. No other boat on all the river would try to deafen everybody else with a loudspeaker. No other had an engine with that peculiar droning roar. 'Too late!' said Port. 'But here he is!' cried Starboard. There, close ahead of them was the little Titmouse, sailing merrily down the middle of the river. 'Look out, Tom!' they shouted. 'Look out! Hullabaloos! The Margolettal They'll be here in two minutes ... And nowhere to hide!' Tom, in the Titmouse, was very much enjoying himself. He had seen the twins, when he stopped at Horning on the way up. Everything was settled and they were to join the Teasel early tomorrow morning and come for a two-day voyage. They would have to be home on the third day for the first of the championship races, but by that time, Tom thought, he and those two strangers ought to be able to manage the Teasel, with the Admiral to lend a hand if need be. He had made a fast passage of it, from Horning to Wroxham, by rowing wherever he had not got a fair wind. At Wroxham, the first man he had seen was the man whose business it was to look after the batteries in the boats belonging to the firm that owned the Teasel. Not a moment had been wasted, and while the man went off in a punt with the old battery, Tom had hurried to the enormous village store and worked through the Admiral's shopping list, and then ate the sandwiches his mother had given him for his dinner while sitting on the cabin roof of a business wherry, Sir Garnet, and talking to Jim Wooddall, her skipper. He had forgotten all about outlawry and Hullabaloos. He was thinking of the voyage to the south, and Jim Wooddall was telling him how to make the passage through Yarmouth easy even for a little boat by waiting for dead low water before trying to go down through the bridges. Several times while they were talking, Jim Wooddall looked up at a notice that had been nailed that morning on the wall of the old granary where the wherry was lying. Tom never saw it, and Jim Wooddall said nothing about it, though he stepped ashore and read it again, after the man had come back with the new battery, and Tom had said 'Good-bye' and was sailing away down Wroxham Reach. If Tom wasn't going to speak of it, Jim Wooddall wasn't. He could put two and two together as well as any man. He had heard of questions asked by that young Bill from Horning about the people in the Margoletta. He had just come back from a voyage to Potter Heigham, where another small boy had asked him if he had seen the Margoletta anywhere about. He read that notice again, and looked at the disappearing Titmouse. Well, of one thing Jim was certain, and that was that if Tom had had anything to do with it, the other people were probably to blame. Foreigners anyway and not pleasant folk. Jim had been in Wroxham when there was that trouble about the Margoletta keeping the people in the inns awake all night. And if they were not to blame? Well, Jim Wooddall was Norfolk too. 'If a Norfolk boy done it,' he said to himself, 'those chaps can cover die place with paper before anybody give him away.' He was not in the least surprised, some time later, when Joe came panting down to the riverside on a bicycle, and asked anxiously for Tom, to find, after Joe had hurried off again, that the notice had vanished from the wall. By that time Tom was far down the river. He had used his oars through the reaches most sheltered by the trees, had slipped out into Wroxham Broad and found a grand wind there, had slipped into the river again by the southern entry, and was sailing merrily along, thinking only of his little ship, when, suddenly, just as he was coming to a sharp bend in the river, a rowing-boat shot into sight, and he recognized Port and Starboard, whom he had left at home in Horning, pulling at their oars as if they were rowing in a race. 'Hullo!' he called. The next moment they were both shouting at him. 'Look out! ... Hullabaloos! ... Here in two minutes ... Nowhere to hide! ...' Whatever was the matter with them? And then he heard it, too, the droning roar of an engine, and some tremendous voice shouting a comic song along the quiet river. He knew now. He looked quickly up and down the river. No. They were right. There was nowhere he could stow die Titmouse. Too late. The noise was close upon them. And dial thing could move at such a pace. 'Turn round!' he shouted to the twins. He leapt forward and loosed his halyard. Yard and sail came toppling down. 'Quick! Catch my painter.' He coiled it and threw it aboard. Port made it fast in a moment. Backing water and pulling, they had the rowing-boat heading downstream. 'Don't row fast,' he said, unshipping his tiller and lugging his rudder aboard. 'Nearly forgot that,' he said to himself. 'Slowly now. Not in a hurry. And don't look at them!' He threw himself down and burrowed in under the untidy sail. The next moment the big cruiser was round the bend, bearing down on them, towering above them ... That man widi field-glasses, standing like a figurehead above her bows, saw nobody but two small girls, paddling slowly downstream, towing an empty sailing boat. It was amusing to see how violently the mast of die little empty boat swung from side to side, as the big cruiser roared past and left those two small girls splashing and tossing in its wash. CHAPTER I 3 THE TITMOUSE DISGUISED The new battery was in its place and Dick had spent happy minutes carefully connecting up the wires. It was almost dazzling to look into the cabin of the Teasel. Nobody would have guessed that under those bright and cheerful lamps there was talk of giving up the voyage to the south altogether. 'It's like this,' said Tom. 'That beast George must have told the Hullabaloos to look for me in the Titmouse. It's no good my coming with you. The only thing to do is to slip home and stay hid in the dyke.' 'Rubbish,' said the Admiral. 'Why, in another ten days you'll be back at school and not be able to sail at all. Now listen to me. First of all, you've promised to skipper the Teasel...' 'But the moment they see the Titmouse ...' 'Listen. Have those people ever seen the Titmouse ... really seen her, so as to know her again? No. What can your George Owdon (horrid name) have told them about her? ... a small sailing-boat called Titmouse. But supposing she doesn't exist ... Supposing there is no Titmouse on the river ...' Breakfast was over. Washing up was done. The Teasel, stripped of her awning, was ready to sail. But William, of all her crew, was the only one aboard. Dick and Dorothea were in the bows of the Titmouse cocking her stern up out of the water. Admiral Barrable was kneeling in the stern of the Teasel's dinghy, with her palette on one hand and a paintbrush in the other. Tom was in the dinghy with her, holding it as steady as he could. The black E of'Titmouse' was vanishing under fresh white paint, as the Death and Glory, with the twins at the oars, Joe in the bows and Bill and Pete in the stern, came out from among the trees. 'Got that rope?' shouted Tom. 'We got him,' shouted Joe. 'Whatever do you want it for?' asked Starboard, and at that moment everybody in the Death and Glory saw what had happened to the name on the Titmouse's transom. 'Gee whizz!' said Joe. 'If that don't puzzle 'em.' 'You won't know her when we've done with her,' said Tom. 'Just wait till we've got that rope rigged all round her for a fender.' 'Well, Joe,' said Mrs Barrable. 'What about that watcher of yours at Acle? He doesn't seem to have been of much use yesterday.' The twins laughed. 'Him?' said Joe indignantly. 'I been down to Acle last night. Bill's bike. That Robin never see 'em go through the bridge. And for why? Fourpence I leave him for the telephone. His mam keep him in bed with a stomach-ache. You wouldn' think a chap could get a stomache-ache for fourpence. But he done it. He go and buy a lot of dud bananas cheap and eat the lot.' 'Disgraceful,' said the Admiral. I'll stomach-ache him when I get him,' said Joe. In a very few minutes the rope had been fixed all round the Titmouse, outside, tied to the rings that had been screwed in there for lacing down the awning. The rope was an old warp that Tom had saved when one of the wherrymen was thinking of throwing it away. It was very thick and dark with age, and when it was fastened on, it made the Titmouse, with her mast stowed, look like a rather neglected yacht's dinghy. Only those who knew her well could have recognized Tom's smart little sailing-boat. 'Poor old Titmouse,' said Tom, as he made her painter fast on the Teasel's counter. Dick, in sea-boots, jumped ashore and pulled up the anchor. 'That's right,' said Starboard. 'Coil the warp. Pull her along. Push her out. Jump! . . .' 'She's sailing,' cried Dorothea. Dick, kneeling on the foredeck, was hooking the fluke of the rond-anchor through a ring-bolt. The bushes on the bank were slipping away. Tom, hauling in the mainsheet, headed out into the Broad, went about and brought her racing back for the Straits with the water singing under her bows. In the Death and Glory they were hauling up their own old sail as the Teasel flew by. 'You're in charge while we're away,' Tom called out. 'Back the day after tomorrow,' shouted Starboard. 'Right O,' Joe called back to them. 'We shan't see Ranworth again,' said the Admiral, and Dick and Dorothea looked for the last time at the little Broad where the lurking outlaw had given them their first sailing lessons. In another moment the Teasel was slipping along on an even keel in the shelter of the trees. Then she was clear of the Straits and foaming down the narrow dyke. The dyke had seemed long when they were quanting and towing through it in a calm. It seemed very short today, as they swept through it, and turned into the wind to beat down the river. There was not really much to see at Potter Heigham, and all the serious shopping had been done by Tom at Wroxham the day before. But they had come there by water, under sail, in the Teasel, and that made all the difference. They went to the Bridge Stores and bought picture postcards of the old bridge, and the ancient thatched hut beside it, and one of a boat like the Teasel actually towing through under the low archway. 'This is our first port of call,' wrote Dorothea on the card she sent to her mother, 'like Malta was when you and Father went to Egypt.' 'Come along now,' said the Admiral, 'or those three skippers will be thinking their crew have run away.' As usual, two or three people were looking down from the top of the bridge watching the boats at the staithe. Among them was a biggish boy, leaning on a bicycle. He was keeping a little way back from the wall of the bridge, as if he wanted to see without being seen. Just as Dorothea noticed him, he turned away with a smile on his face, jumped on his bicycle and rode off. 'Dick,' cried Dorothea. 'Dick, did you see him?' 'See what?' said Dick. 'I'm sure that's George Owdon. That boy. There. On the bicycle. The one we saw talking to the Hullabaloos at Horning ...' But the boy was already riding away along the road, and Dick could not be sure. 'He'll have seen Tom with the Teasel, and he'll go and tell the Hullabaloos where to look for her,' said Dorothea. 'Just when everything was going all right.' 'He may not have seen Tom at all,' said the Admiral. But, as they themselves came to the bridge and looked down, there was the Teasel with her mast lowered, all ready to go through, and there were the twins sitting on the cabin roof, and there was Tom himself in full view, never thinking of who might be watching, busy with a long-handled mop cleaning a splash of mud off her top-sides. 'He'll have gone to tell the Hullabaloos already,' said Dorothea, looking up the road, where the bicycling boy was already disappearing in the distance. She ran down on the staithe with the dreadful news. 'Let's get out of sight of that bridge,' said Tom. They sailed on. The sun still shone, and the wind blew, the very best of winds for working through the long dyke into Horsey Mere. But, for Tom, life had somehow gone out of the day. If George Owdon had seen him with the Teasel, and told the Hullabaloos, the worst might happen almost any time. This way and that they sailed about the Mere, and, at last, followed another sailing yacht into the little winding dyke, with a windmill at the end of it, just as the map had showed. Here they tied up the Teasel and made her ready for the night. After a latish supper Tom and Dick went off to the Titmouse, to sleep one each side of the centre-board. The others settled down in the Teasel. 'You comfortable?' said Tom when lights were out. 'Very,' said Dick. 'Bet you aren't,' said Tom. 'It's just that one bone that's always a bother. Work round till that one's comfortable and you'll find nothing else matters.' But for a long time after lights were out, people were awake in both boats, listening to at least three bitterns booming at each other, and the chattering of the warblers in.the reed-beds, the startling honks of the coots, and the plops of diving water-rats. It was very late when the Admiral, listening to the steady breathing of the twins in the forecabin, leant across to Dorothea. 'Why are you not asleep?' she whispered. 'Supposing the Hullabaloos came and found us,' whispered Dorothea. 'It's all right, Dot. You needn't worry. An Admiral's boat is her castle, and they'd have to sink us before we'd give him up.' CHAPTER 14 NEIGHBOURS AT POTTER HEIGHAM A night's sleep seemed to have sponged die Hullabaloos from everybody's mind. Even Dorothea was thinking less of die dangers threatening the outlaw dian of the coming voyage of the exiled Admiral home to her native Beccles. Today and tomorrow with the twins to help, and then she and Dick would have to take their places. The Teasel that morning was training ship and nothing else. Sails were set and furled three times over, just for practice. And then, hour after hour, die Teasel flew to and fro on Horsey Mere, beating, running, reaching, jibing, one thing after another, with the apprentices taking turns at tiller and mainsheet, each with a lecturing skipper. But they were not allowed to forget the Hullabaloos altogether. Tom and Dorothea, when they tied up that night at Potter Heigham, looked to see if George Owdon was among the idlers by the bridge. He was not, but, as time went on, they noticed that, though other people came and went, a small, tow-haired, scrubby little boy seemed unable to tear himself away. The funny thing was that he seemed to take no interest in sailing yachts. But every time a cruiser came to the staithe die small boy left die bridge and came strolling along the bank, whistling and looking in all directions except at the cruiser, until he was near enough to be able to read her name. 'I wonder if that's Bill's friend,' said Dorothea. 'He said he had one here, watching, and that boy was here yesterday when we went through.' 'Soon find out,' said Starboard. 'Hullo, you. Looking for someone?' 'Only for a cruiser ... Leastways not exactly ...' 'Margoletta?' The small boy goggled at her. 'You lookin' for her, too? Don't say as I tell ye,' he whispered. 'That's all right,' said Starboard. 'Your friend's name is Bill.' Not until dusk did the small boy leave his post. 'She won't come now,' he said, as he passed them, pretending to look the other way, and presently disappeared behind the first of the bungalows, along the bank of the river. 'A much better sentinel than Joe's stomach-ache boy down at Acle,' said the Admiral. It was perhaps an hour and a half after that, or even more, when Tom, in the bottom of the Titmouse, snug in his sleeping-bag, first heard the distant throbbing of a motor-boat. It was quite dark, long after the time at which all hired cruisers are supposed to be moored for the night. For a moment, Tom thought that worry about the Margoletta had made him dream of her. But there it was, a steady, thrumming noise, and it seemed to be coming nearer. Yes. There was no doubt about it. A motor-cruiser was coming up the river. Tom lay listening. 'Tom!' That was Dick's voice, very low, from the other side of the centre-board case. 'Yes.' 'Do you hear anything?' 'Yes.' The noise was coming nearer and nearer. Dick whispered, 'Is it them?' 'It's the noise they make.' Nobody could mistake that loud rhythmic thrumming. 'No wireless this time.' 'They oughtn't to be moving after dark, anyway. That's why they aren't using it. Unless ...' 'What?' 'Perhaps they want people to think it isn't them.' 'What can we do?' 'Don't talk.' The noise came nearer and nearer, and suddenly lessened. An engine had been throttled down. Whatever it was, it did not want to rouse all Potter Heigham in the dark. Tom and Dick lay, silent. The awning above their heads paled for a moment as the beam of a searchlight swept across it. Tom held his breath. If they had spotted him that light would come again. It did not. Yet he could hear the cruiser close at hand. The noise of the engine changed again. Stopping. Reversing. Swinging round. Waves from the wash lifted the little Titmouse and slapped up under the counter of the Teasel. Were any of the others awake? At any moment William might start telling those people they had no right to be about. The cruiser was going ahead again. No. Again they heard her put into reverse. There was a bump against the wooden quay-heading. Someone landed heavily on the grass. Orders were being given in a low voice. For a long time Tom and Dick listened. If it was indeed the Hullabaloos, they had tied up somewhere very near them. There was a faint murmur of talk, but not louder than might have come from any other boat. There was not a sound from the Teasel. The Admiral, the twins, Dorothea and William were all tired out and solidly asleep. Time went on and on. The murmur ceased. There was no noise at all but the gentle tap tap of a rope against the Teasel's mast, and the quiet lapping of the water against the quays on the other side of the river. The inn had closed long before and it had been an hour at least since the last motor car had crossed the bridge. A breath of cold air touched Dick's face. He woke suddenly to find that Tom was no longer lying beside him, but had got up and turned back a flap of the awning. 'Tom.' 'Keep quiet.' 'What are you doing?' 'Going to see if it's them or not.' Dick felt the Titmouse sway as Tom leaned out and took hold of the wooden piling along the edge of the staithe. He felt her lurch as Tom scrambled silently ashore. He fumbled for his spectacles, found them, and put them on. There wasn't much go left in that torch of his, but it might come in useful. He wriggled himself out from under the thwart. Whatever happened he must make no noise. Ouch! That was his hand between the Titmouse and the quay. Everything was pitch black out there. Just beyond the Teasel was a huge mass, and something pale creeping towards it in the grass. Dick stood up and the next moment stumbled over a mooring rope. There was a long silence. Dick lay still, and so did the other creeping thing that was now close to the bows of the Teasel. In that strange moment, Dick heard the boom of a bittern far away over the marshes, but hardly noticed it. He felt his way forward, found the next mooring rope by hand instead of by tripping over it, and, at last, was close beside Tom, looking up at the dim high wall of a big cruiser's stern. Tom whispered, 'I can't read the name.' Dick said nothing, but found Tom's hand and pressed his torch into it. Tom pointed the torch down towards the black water at their feet, covering the bulb with his hand so that when he switched it on, it gave out nothing but a faint red glow. He let a little more light out between his fingers. That was no good. He held the torch close against the dark stern of th cruiser and lifted it inch by inch, until it showed them th name. One half second was enough to let them know the worst: Margoletta And there was Tom, as near to the cruiser and its sleepin Hullabaloos as he had been on the evening when for the sake of No. 7 he had turned himself into a hunted creature. There was the Margoletta within a few yards of the Teasel's, bows. Their mooring warps crossed each other. There was hardly room between them for the Margoletta's dingh Aboard the Teasel, everybody was asleep. It was the same aboard the Margoletta. Even Hullabaloos must sleep sometimes, and there they slept while Tom and Dick crept along the bank and shut themselves in once more under the Titmouse's awning. 'But what are you going to do?' whispered Dick. Tom was thinking. 'There's only one thing to be done,' he said at last. 'But we've got to do it without waking the others ... If William wakes he'll wake everybody ... And it's no good trying to do it until it's light enough to see.' And so, keeping awake as best they could, Tom and Dii waited for the dawn. In the end, of course, they slept, at woke in panic remembering who were their neighboui Silently they stowed the Titmouse's awning, unstepped her mz and made her a dinghy once more. It was already light, b everybody slept about them. The little wooden houses sle] and the boat-yards, and the moored yachts, and the gre threatening bulk of the Margoletta. Only the morning choi of birds sang as if impatient to stir the sleepers. 'They'll go and wake William,' whispered Dick. It was r at all the way in which he usually thought of the songs the birds. The worst moment was when Tom had to unlace a 1oop of the Teasel's awning, so as to lift a leg of its framework and get the tiller amidships. Then, in spite of all his care, he heard someone stir in the cabin. But there was no barking. 'Look here, Dick,' he whispered. 'You never have steered with a foot. But it's quite easy. You've got to steer standing on the counter, so as to see over the top of the awning.' Silently the mooring ropes were taken aboard. Silently Tom pulled the Titmouse out into the river. The tow-rope tightened. The Teasel was moving. Dick, steadying himself with a hand on the boom, steered as well as he was able. "Sh! 'Sh!' he whispered, as the flap of the awning was flung back, and Dorothea, like Dick, in pyjamas, looked sleepily out in time to read the dreaded name on the sleeping cruiser's bows, as the Teasel slipped downstream, only a yard or two away. CHAPTER I 5 PORT AND STARBOARD SAY GOOD-BYE Port and Starboard, sleeping in the forecabin of the Teasel, missed the excitements of the night. All was over, and Tom and Dick had moored the Teasel at a staithe three-quarters of a mile down the river, when Port, hearing their voices, leaned across from her bunk, tugged at Starboard's blankets and began, in the best Ginty manner, 'Time for the bairrns to be stirrin'. It's a braw an' bonny mornin' ... What? ... What's happened? Where are we?' She had caught sight through a porthole of a bungalow that had certainly not been there the night before. "Sh!' whispered Dorothea. 'Don't wake the Admiral. She's been awake and gone to sleep again, and so's William.' She squeezed through into the little forecabin and told them how the Margoletta had come up in the dark and moored just below them, almost touching the Teasel's bow, and how Tom and Dick had slipped out early, and, towing and steering, had taken the Teasel into safety, out of sight and hearing of the enemy. 'But that was in a dream,' said Port. 'I dreamt I heard their beastly engine.' 'I don't believe it,' said Starboard. 'It wasn't a dream,' said Dorothea. 'I saw the Margoletta myself. And the Admiral says we're all to get to sleep again. She and William are asleep already.' But nobody could sleep for very long. Even Tom and Dick, who had lain awake half the night, could not settle down. In the end even the Admiral gave up hope of sleep, and, long before the usual time, was about in the well, stirring the Primus stove to action. 'Well,' said the Admiral, when they had crowded into their places on the bunks at either side of the cabin table and she was passing Tom his mug. 'Are you going to make a habit of casting off people's moorings without telling them anything about it? And we weren't moored over a coot's nest.' 'It was the only thing to do,' said Tom. 'Like last time,' said the Admiral, laughing at him. 'But he didn't send you adrift,' said Dick. 'He just towed you into a safe place.' 'I do think you might have waked us,' said Starboard. 'I didn't want to wake anybody,' said Tom. 'They were almost touching us. One bark from William and we'd have been done.' 'Let's slip back along the bank and have a look at them,' said Port. 'What for?' said Tom, who wanted never to see them again. 'Let's get on. They may wake any minute and come charging down the river.' 'I wonder,' said the Admiral. 'Now, supposing somebody happened to know we'd gone up through Potter Heigham, and supposing the somebody told your Hullabaloos, they may very well have come along just to wait at the bridge and make sure of Tom when he came back.' 'If the twins hadn't been in such a hurry to get back, we'd have been coming down this morning,' said Tom. 'I'd have come rowing out from under the bridge towing the Teasel. They couldn't have helped seeing me, and I wouldn't have had a chance of getting away.' 'And now,' said the Admiral, 'they'll be sitting there all day, watching the bridge and waiting for the criminal to come through.' That was a very pleasant thought and lent an extra relish to the eggs and bacon. It was turning out another fine spring day. The southeasterly wind was freshening up again. 'Just the wind,' Starboard said, 'to take us back to Horning. And we needn't be there till afternoon.' The twins wanted to make the very most of the Teasers last day as a training ship. Tomorrow she would be sailing south without them, and they were determined that she should sail with as good a crew as could be trained in the time. 'Train them?' Port had said. 'We're simply going to cram them.' And on this last day, the moment breakfast was done with, they got Dorothea so muddled with questions first from one side and then from the other about the rule of the road that, when asked what she would do if, running before the wind, she met two boats beating on opposite tacks, she said, 'I should ask the captain,' which the Admiral said was a very good answer indeed. The twins simply had to keep themselves busy, so as not to feel too sad to think that they were not coming too, to help in sailing the Teasel in the big rivers of the south. It could not be helped. Their A.P. was counting on them. But the good wind, and the brisk spring day made staying at home and sleeping in beds instead of in bunks a very gloomy prospect. There was no doubt that the Teasel, as a training ship, had been a great success. Neither Dick nor Dorothea hesitated for a moment now when asked to touch their port cheeks or starboard shoulders, though the mischievous Port had them both muddled when suddenly she ordered them: 'Now, quick; no waiting! Touch your starboard noses.' They knew the names of all the ropes and could find the right one if not too desperately hurried. On this last day of their training, Tom and the twins made Dick and Dorothea sail the Teasel almost by themselves, of course, after lending weight on halyards to get the sails properly set. They left the last of the Potter Heigham bungalows, and reached past the Womack Entry, and beat down to Thurne Mouth, and ran before the wind when they turned by the signpost into the Bure, while the Coots stood by, giving a word of advice sometimes, and easing out or hauling in the mainsheet. Nothing went wrong, except that just once a pair of reed buntings very nearly made Dick steer into the bank. In the main river they had a grand wind to help them, and they sailed home at a great pace, past Ant Mouth, and Horning Hall Farm, and the Teasel's old moorings and the entry to Ranworth where the outlaw had lain low. They swept by too fast to see much of No. 7, but they all saw the coot with the white feather, and Dick, who had the glasses, thought he could see the sooty young ones in the nest. As soon as they passed the Ferry, Tom hauled the Titmouse close up to the counter. 'I can't take her up to the staithe,' he said. 'Anybody who knows her would be sure to see her name's been painted out. I'll hide her in our dyke, and come along at once.' The wind was already not so strong, and Tom slipped easily down into her, and the Teasel sailed on up the village without a dinghy towing astern of her while the disguised Titmouse with the rope fender round her and Mrs Barrable's oil paint over the letters on her transom, disappeared behind the reeds, and was tied up once more beside the ancient Dreadnought. 'Well, and how did you get on?' asked his mother, when Tom ran in just to have a look at our baby before running up the lane to join the others at the staithe. 'I hear dreadful stories about you and the twins up the river.' 'Oh, that was all right,' said Tom, 'but we had a narrow squeak last night. Those people moored next door to us at Potter in the dark, but we got away before they woke this morning.' 'Trust you,' said his mother. 'But what about your crew? Do you think you and Mrs Barrable will really be able to sail her yacht with only those two children to help?' 'They're coming on like anything,' said Tom. 'We'll manage all right. But I wish die twins were coming too.' The twins meanwhile had brought the Teasel up to the staithe in style, and swung her round and laid her alongside so tenderly that if Dick and Dorothea had been holding fenders packed with valuable eggs instead of with scraps of old cork, not an eggshell would have been broken. Then, teaching to the very last, they put their apprentices through the whole routine of stowing jib and mainsail. And then Mr Farland, back from the office in Norwich, strolled along the staithe to fetch his daughters. Port and Starboard stepped ashore with their knapsacks and rugs. They were ready to say good-bye now. It would be more than they could bear, to come in the morning, and wave handkerchiefs, and see the Teasel sail away without them. 'Good-bye! Good-bye! And thank you ever so much, Admiral.' 'Good-bye, and good luck to your racing.' 'And thanks most awfully for showing us how to do things,' said Dorothea. 'Touching starboard noses for instance,' said Port. At the last minute it was hard to go. The twins stood there on the staithe, as if there was still something they wanted to say if only they could remember what it was. 'Come along,' said their A.P., picking up both their knapsacks. 'You must get a good sleep tonight. Remember you've a championship race tomorrow.' CHAPTER l6 SOUTHWARD BOUND Early next morning, the Teasel set out. The water was creaming under her forefoot. The wind exactly suited her. Tom said nothing, but that noise was a song in his ears. If only Port and Starboard had been with them! The boat-sheds were astern of them, the willow-pattern harbour, and now his own home, still asleep in the early morning sunshine. There was the entrance to his dyke, between willows and brown reeds. There, behind bushes, farther back from the river front, was the twins' house. He looked at the windows ... No ... There was not a sign of them. Everybody was still asleep, 'It's an awful pity they couldn't come,' said Dorothea, and Tom started, at hearing his own thought spoken aloud. But it was no good thinking it. He set himself again to the business in hand. There must be no mistakes. He knew that the success of the voyage and the safety of the Teasel^ and of the little Titmouse, too, towing astern, depended on him. Mrs Barrable was very good in a boat, but, talking it over among themselves, the three elder Coots had decided that the Admiral, though a good sailor, was inclined to be a little rash. And then there were the new A.B.s. Well, they were certainly shaping like good ones. As soon as they were in a reach where there was less chance of an unexpected jibe, he would have them at the tiller, standing by, of course, in case of accident. They had managed very well with the hoisting of the sails. And there had been nothing to be ashamed of in the actual start. He wished the twins had been there to see how well their pupils had remembered what they had been taught. And now the Teasel was sweeping past the Ferry. The next bit would be easy sailing. 'Come on, Dick. Take over for a minute or two.' Dick was ready, clutched the tiller as if he thought it might get away, watched the burgee fluttering out, and glanced astern to see how badly the Teasel's wake betrayed the unsteadiness of his anxious steering. 'Never mind about the wake,' said Tom. 'You're doing jolly well.' He looked into the cabin, to see what had become of the Admiral. She was sitting on her bunk with William beside her. William had decided that it was still too early for pugs to be out-of-doors. Seeing Tom, the Admiral held up some sheets of paper she had folded so that they made a little book. On the outside page she had drawn a little sailing yacht, and under that picture she had written, in very gorgeous printed letters: LOG OF THE TEASEL 'I forgot all about the log,' said Tom. 'Sailed 6.45 a.m.,' said the Admiral. 'Within a minute or two. Anyhow, I've put it down.' 'Thank you very much,' said Tom. At first the Teasel seemed to be the only vessel moving on the river. The few yachts and motor-cruisers they passed were all moored to the banks, covered with their awnings, still asleep. But not far from Horning Hall they came round a bend in the river to find an eelman in his shallow, tarred boat, going the rounds of his nightlines. He was a friend of Tom's, and lifted a hand like a bit of old tree root as they swept past him, calling out their 'Good mornings'. Then they met a wherry quanting up with the last of the flood. 'Hullo, young Tom,' called the skipper of the wherry, seeing Tom at the mainsheet of the Teasel. 'Have you seen Jim Wooddall?' 'He's lying above Horning,' shouted Tom. 'I saw old Simon on the staithe last night.' 'Do you know everybody on the river?' asked the Admiral. 'I know all the wherrymen,' said Tom. 'You see, they all come past our house.' Already there were sails moving far away over the fields towards Potter Heigham, and they were coming to the mouth of the Thurne and the sharp turn of the Bure down towards Yarmouth, where the signpost on the bank points the way along the river roads. Tom hauled in on the mainsheet. 'Round with her,' he said. 'Steadily, right round.' Dick pulled the tiller up. The jib flew across. There was a flap and a violent tug as the mainsail followed it. Tom paid out the sheet hand-over-hand. It was a beautiful jibe. The Teasel was in waters where Dick and Dorothea had never been. The outlaw, the exile and the new A.B.s were southward bound at last. CHAPTER 17 PORT AND STARBOARD MISS THEIR SHIP At the moment when the Teasel was sailing down the river past their house, and Tom was looking at the windows and thinking they were still asleep, Port and Starboard were lying awake in bed. They were both thinking of the voyage of the Teasel, and had been awake for some time. 'They're sure not to get off as early as they meant to,' said Starboard. 'Nobody ever does,' said Port. 'It'd be awful hanging about to see them go,' said Starboard. 'We've said good-bye once,' said Port. There was a long silence, except for the birds and for a growing rustling noise in the trees. 'I wish they'd gone straight on yesterday,' said Starboard. There was another long silence. It was broken by Mrs McGinty coming in with a big can of hot water. The twins after lying awake so long had got to sleep again just before she came to call them. They pushed their noses into their pillows. The hot water stood there cooling. The next thing they heard was the banging of the breakfast gong, when they shot out of their beds, one to port and the other to starboard, tubbed and dressed without more than half drying, and raced downstairs. 'Good morning. Sorry we're late.' But the A.P. was not there. 'An' well you may be sorry,' said Mrs McGinty. 'Mr Far-land's had a letter the noo and I'll be keepin' his buttered eggs warm ... So help yoursel's while ye can.' 'Good old Ginty,' said Starboard. They both knew that Mrs McGinty was never as cross as she sounded. 'A letter?' said Port, looking at the pile by her father's plate. 'But he's had lots.' 'Well, he's ta'en this yin to the telephone,' said Mrs McGinty, and then they heard their father's voice through the open door of the study. 'Hullo! Is that you, Walters? Thank goodness for diat. Nip round to the office and get me all the papers in that Boilington business. Consultations on it this week. Yes ... All in the folder. And the deeds ... Yes, yes. Bring the whole lot down to the station. Coming in by car. You'll get it garaged after I've gone. I've got to catch the nine-one. Right. Good man. Everything on the case ...' He hung up the receiver, took another mouthful of buttered egg from Starboard, washed it down with a drink of coffee offered him by Port, and hurried back to the dining-room. 'You aren't going away?' said Port. 'These things will happen,' said Mr Farland. 'I didn't expect this business to come on for another two months at least...' 'But what about Flash and the championship? Couldn't you put it off for a week?" 'Impossible,' said Mr Farland, scooping the last of the buttered egg off his plate. 'But the first race is tomorrow.' 'I've got to scratch for it,' said their fadier. 'I've got to scratch for the lot. And with old Flash properly tuned up she'd have shown them her heels in every race.' 'Oh, A.P. How awful! And when you'd got everything ready.' I'll have to telephone to the secretary right away, and get him to explain to the others. Never mind, Flash shall challenge the winner as soon as I get back. I'll tell him so at once." 'Are you going today?' 'Didn't you hear me say so? Going this very minute. Pass that toast-rack, will you ... and the marmalade.' In the hurry and bustle of getting him off, it was not until the very last moment that the thought came to Starboard that the A.P.'s going changed everything, and that now there was nothing to keep them at home. 'I say, A.P.,' she said. 'If you're going away, and Flash won't be racing, what about us sailing in the Teasel with Tom and Mrs Barrable and those two children?' 'But you haven't been asked, have you?' 'Oh yes,' said Port. 'We said "No",' said Starboard. 'But if Flask isn't racing we'd like to.' 'Consolation prize, eh?' said Mr Farland, stowing his suitcase in the back of his car. Nothing was said by either twin in reply to that. 'I don't see why you shouldn't, if Mrs Barrable'll have you,' he went on, throwing himself into the driver's seat, and starting the engine. 'Good-bye.' 'Good-bye.' Mr Farland waved with his left hand, steered with his right, swung out of the gate and was gone. 'Come on,' said Starboard. The two raced for the house and upstairs again into their bedroom. The knapsacks, unpacked widi such melancholy last night, were taken once more from the hook behind the door. The twins' packing was less orderly than Mrs McGinty's. Drawers were pulled out and left out. Shoes were tossed under the bed and rubber sea-boots put on. Sweaters, sand-shoes, washing things and night clothes were crammed into die knapsacks, rugs rolled .up, and, by the time Mrs McGinty had climbed upstairs, the twins were already rushing down. 'But look at yon room,' said Mrs McGinty. 'Fair awfu',' said Port. Starboard was already leaping down the last flight of stairs. 'Leave it till we come back, Ginty. We'll tidy up then. There simply isn't time now. We're in a worse hurry than father.' 'Ye're aye that,' said Mrs McGinty. They kept up a steady trot all through the long lower street of Horning. 'We'll be in time to help them up with the sails,' said Starboard jerkily. 'Those two ... not very strong.' 'Shan't have any breath,' panted Port. 'Keep it up,' said Starboard. At last they swung round the corner at the end of the boat-yards and came out on the staithe where, last night, they had said good-bye to the Teasel. The Teasel was there no longer. 'They've shifted her,' said Starboard. 'They've gone,' said Port. The staithe was deserted. Even the old Death and Glory that had been tied up close by the Swan had disappeared. The twins ran to the water's edge, and looked down the river. Not a boat was stirring. 'Too late,' said Starboard. 'And with this wind there was no need,' said Port. 'They'll be at Stokesby with hours to spare before the tide turns against them.' 'Of course, they didn't think we were coming,' said Starboard. An old wherryman, Simon Fastgate, came to the end of the staithe with his arms full of parcels, and a big bottle of milk. He untied an old boat that was lying at the end of the boat-sheds, dumped his parcels into it, pushed himself off, and paddled away upstream. 'Ask Simon,' said Port. 'Hullo, Simon. Do you know when the Teasel sailed?' 'Been gone before I come ashore,' said Simon. 'And that's an hour and more.' He pulled away as hard as he could. An hour already. Perhaps more. If only Tom had not been in such a hurry. The twins looked miserably at each other. It was one thing to give up a voyage to Beccles in order to help the A.P. to win his races. It was a different thing altogether to miss it for no reason at all. A whole week's voyaging lost for nothing. And after the A.P. had himself given them permission to go. 'We can't do anything,' said Starboard. 'Go back to Ginty,' said Port. And just then, they heard the splash of a quant, and looked up the river. A wherry with mast up and sail ready for hoisting was coming into sight round the bend. They knew the wherry Sir Garnet, and they knew the skipper Jim Wooddall, when they heard him shout at his mate, who was already scrambling aboard and making fast his boat to a bollard in the stern. 'Simon, ye gartless old fool. Ye've missed us this tide. We should'a been gone two hour since.' There was no reply. Simon was already hurrying to the winch and the big black sail of the wherry began to lift. Jim Wooddall had indeed been in a hurry, to start quanting his wherry round to the staithe to look for his mate, and old Simon knew that hoisting sail was better than excuses. Suddenly Starboard dropped her knapsack and her rug and shouted at the top of her voice. 'Jim! Jim Wooddall. Sir Cornell Ahoy! Jim. Jim!' The wherryman waved a hand to her. He was already laying his quant down, and going aft to the tiller. Sir Garnet would be sailing in a moment. 'Jim!' shouted Port. They both waved their arms at him, until Jim Wooddall, in a hurry as he was, saw that there was something urgently needed. 'Haifa minute, Simon!' he called. The clanking of the winch pawl stopped. The gaff had been lifted not more than a couple of feet. Sir Garnet was hardly moving, except with the stream. But she had steerage way, and Jim brought her round close by the staithe. The twins, picking up their knapsacks, ran along the staithe to meet him, and then walked with the wherry, explaining as she drifted down. 'Can't wait,' said Jim. 'Simon's lost us a tide down to Gorleston.' 'But we want to get to Stokesby,' said Starboard. 'Tom's taken the Teasel down there, and they're going on tomorrow.' 'We're going too,' said Port. 'Only we missed them.' 'You see, we didn't know till this morning we could go.' All this time the wherry was moving. Another few yards and they would be at the end of the staithe, so that they could walk no farther. 'Ah,' said Jim. 'So Tom don't know he left you.' 'That's just it,' said Port. 'Ain't supposed to take passengers,' said Jim Wooddall. 'Let's have them bags ...' The knapsacks and rugs were swung aboard; 'Now then!' Port and Starboard leapt from the staithe after their knapsacks. 'Pierhead jump,' said Jim Wooddall. Til take you down to Stokesby. But you'll have to work your passages. Peelin' potatoes. Now then, Sim!' The winch clanked again. The huge black sail climbed up and spread above them, and the wherry, Sir Garnet, late with her tide, gathered speed and stood away down the middle of the river. CHAPTER I 8 THROUGH YARMOUTH A little brown heron flew low over the reeds on the Upton side of the river. 'Isn't it a bittern?' asked Dick. Dorothea was steering and Dick was free to look at birds. 'It's a bittern all right,' said Torn, but just then he was not interested in bitterns. As he himself had once said of the Death and Glories, 'You can't expect them to be bird protecting all the time.' The Teasel was sweeping down towards Acle, and at Acle, he knew, would come the first real test of her crew. Never before had they lowered the mast and raised it again without the help of Port and Starboard. And at Acle Bridge there are always lookers-on, waiting to enjoy the misfortunes of the unskilled. Tom could give none of his mind to birds. But Admiral Barrable pleased Dick a good deal, by reaching into the cabin for the log of the Teasel and writing in it: 'Sighted bittern over Upton Marshes.' The Admiral, after that one nervous moment at Horning, seemed to have no worries at all. It seemed to Tom that she must have forgotten that every minute's sailing was bringing them nearer not only to Acle but to Yarmouth and Breydon, racing tides and every kind of possible disaster. Tom felt like the newly appointed captain of a liner on his first voyage in a new ship approaching a coast long noted for its dangerous shoals. But the passing of Acle Bridge was a most comforting success. True, in rounding up to the northern bank, to lower sail, the Teasel hit the bank a little harder than Tom intended, but the bank is soft mud, and a great many people hit it harder still. And Dick, on the foredeck, was not flurried by the bump, but jumped ashore and stamped the rond-anchor well in, as if he had been doing it for years. Tom, with his eye always on the time and the tide, felt better now. He was steering because, alone of his crew, he could manage the tiller with one hand and a pork pie in the other without danger of running the Teasel into the reeds. Sitting on the coaming that ran round the well, he could even manage to hold a bottle of lemonade between his knees. Acle Bridge was left astern. The tide had still a couple of hours to run down, and already they were nearing Stokesby where, at first, they had planned to spend the night. They were going to be able to do much better than that. The Admiral, however, would have been content to stop. 'What about it, Tom?' she asked, as Stokesby windmill came in sight, and then the houses of the little village. 'Have we done enough for the first day?' 'We'll be down at Yarmouth in time for low water,' said Tom, 'with the wind holding like this. We could get right through Breydon ...' 'Wouldn't it be lovely if we got to Beccles,' said Dorothea. 'It would certainly be very pleasant,' said the Admiral, 'to know that we were through Yarmouth.' 'Well,' said Tom, 'of course it is much the worst bit. It'd be jolly nice to get it over.' And just then they saw something that made them decide at once that wherever they might stop for the night it would certainly not be at Stokesby. Dorothea went suddenly quite white. She stammered. 'L-l-look!... T-t-tom! ...' 'What's the matter, Dot?' asked the Admiral. 'We must turn back,' gasped Dorothea. 'I can steer her,' said Dick quickly. Take the tiller somebody,' said Tom, and dived head first into the cabin. A big motor-cruiser was lying moored to the quay by the inn at the lower end of the village. 'You'd better let me have her,' said the Admiral. 'But are you sure that's the one? There are lots of them about, and they are very much alike." 'I can read the name,' said Dick, who was looking at it through the glasses. All three of them could read it now, and Tom, lurking in the cabin, could read it, too, looking through a porthole. There it was, 'margoletta', in big brass letters on the cruiser's bows. 'Well, we can't possibly stop here,' said Tom, coming back into the well. 'All right, skipper,' said the Admiral, 'but I do count on being able to make some tea before very much longer.' 'I wonder if they're coming down, too,' said Tom. 'Oh well, we'll hear them coming. But I shan't be able to hide while we're going through Yarmouth bridges.' He took the tiller again, and soon forgot the Hullabaloos in the excitement of steering the Teasel. With this good wind, and the tide under her, she seemed to be going faster every minute, and he could almost see the river narrowing as the tide ebbed. This was not at all like steering in the gentle streams and easy tides that run above Acle Bridge. 'Deepest water round the outer side of the bends,' Tom murmured to himself, after cutting a corner too fine, and feeling the Teasel suddenly hesitate and then leap forward again as her keel cut through the top of a mudbank. Mile after mile the Teasel and the Titmouse flew down those dreary lower reaches of the Bure. Windmills slipped by one after another, and the rare houses called by their distance out of Yarmouth, 'Six-Mile House', 'Five-Mile House', and so on. And still the ebb was pouring down, and the mud was widening on either side of the channel. Were they going to reach Yarmouth too soon? Tom knew well enough that many a boat had been carried down and smashed against the bridges after getting there too soon and not being able to stop in the rush of the outflowing tide. On the left bank now was a low wall of cement shutting in the river. 'It wouldn't do to bump into that,' said Dick, remembering the harmless reeds and mud of the upper waters. Tom did not answer. The Teasel was sweeping round the bend, heading down for Yarmouth and its bridges, and he could see by the way the flecks of foam were being swept along that there was a lot of the ebb to run out yet before low water. 'A dolphin on the right bank going down ...' Jim Wooddall had told him exactly what to look for, and he had been down here before with Mr Farland and the twins. Tom looked anxiously down the river for the group of heavy piles standing out into the channel, so that boats can tie up to them and wait in safety. With wind and tide together, the Teasel was moving dreadfully fast. 'Too early,' he said quietly to the Admiral. 'We'll have to turn round and hang about a bit... if we can. We're going too fast to make sure of catching the dolphin. Ready about!' There was sudden bustle in the well of the Teasel. Nobody had expected this, and even Dick could feel that Tom was worried. Dick and Dorothea fumbled together at the jib-sheet. 'No. No,' said Tom, 'just be ready to harden in when she's round.' The Teasel, still being carried down by the tide, swung round into the wind. 'Mainsheet,' said Tom. Hand over hand the Admiral hauled it in. The Teasel was sailing again, but heading up the river the way she had come. She could point her course and was moving fast through the water, but Tom was looking not at the water but at a little stump on the bank. Would she do it or not? 'She's going backwards,' said Dorothea, almost in panic. 'Give her a little more mainsheet,' said Tom. Slowly, slowly, inch by inch, though the water was foaming under her bows, she began to move up the river. The stump on the bank was level with her mast, was level with Tom at her tiller, was left astern. 'She can do it,' said Tom exultantly. As long as the wind held like that they were safe. And then a man appeared on the bank. 'Take you through Yarmouth, sir?' he said. Tom glanced at him. 'Fetch her in here and I'll come aboard,' said the man. But Tom was no visiting stranger but a Norfolk Coot. He had heard about the wreckers of Yarmouth who are always ready to lend a hand and, a little later, to do a bit of salvage work. He knew that the Yarmouth Corporation itself warns visitors to apply for help at the Yacht Station and nowhere else. And the Admiral had not forgotten the tales of years ago, when she had been a little girl. She gave one look at Tom. 'No thank you,' said Tom, 'we're in no hurry.' 'You just throw me a warp then,' said the man, I'll make you fast.' 'We don't mind sailing till the ebb slackens,' said Tom. All this time the Teasel was slowly creeping up the river again, and the man was keeping pace with her, moving foot by foot along the cement wall. 'Bit o' soft mud just here,' said the man. 'You head her in for me, and you'll be all right.' I'll try it next year,' said Tom. The man threw out his hands as if to signal that he had failed. Instantly three other men bobbed up from behind the wall and joined him, and all four of them settled down to play cards while waiting for an easier victim. 'Those were the ones who were going to save us when he had got us into a mess,' said Tom. 'Real wreckers,' said Dorothea. 'How lovely.' 'Not for us,' said Tom, 'if we'd let them get a foot aboard.' At last the tide began to slacken and the Teasel moved faster past the stumps and stones Tom noticed on the banks. 'We can do it now,' he said. 'Ready about!' Once more the Teasel swung round and a moment later was flying downstream again towards the bridge. 'Phew,' said Tom. 'Sorry. I ought to have thought of it before. We'll want the anchors off their ropes. The anchors will be in the way for tying up.' 'Don't tumble off, Dick,' cried Dorothea. Dick was again sailor and nothing else, and had darted forward. It was an easy job, slipping the loop at the end of the rope clean over the anchor and then pulling it out through the ring on the shank. Dick was back in a moment with an anchor in his hand. Dorothea was unfastening the stern anchor in the same way. 'Shove them anywhere,' said Tom. 'Now,' said Mrs Barrable quietly, watching the dolphin as they swept down towards it. 'I'll go forrard to make fast,' said Tom. 'Could you steer? I'll bring her round, and then you just edge her over and I'll grab the dolphin and hang on ...' The Teasel swung round in the stream. 'She'll do it,' said Tom, and ran forward. 'A wee bit nearer,' he called. There was the dolphin, huge, above him, a great framework of black piles, with a platform. He got hold of the platform, and with the other hand flung the warp round a pile. He caught the end of it again. Safe. 'Hi! Look out. Fend her off.' The Teasel was swinging hard in against the piles. 'All right now.' He made the warp fast and lowered the peak. In another moment he had the jib in his arms, brought it down on deck, pulled a tyer from his pocket, and made sure that it would not blow loose. And now, comfortably, without hurry, the mainsail was lowered, and Tom looked happily at the brown water still pouring past them, and at the bridge below them, and at a few small boys who were critically watching. 'All right now,' said Tom. 'We've just got to get the mast down ready to go through as soon as it's dead low water.' 'Let's have the mast down now,' said the Admiral, 'and then we'll be ready when the tide's ready for us, and we can have our tea while we're waiting for it.' Tea was ready and the whole crew of the Teasel were enjoying it in the well, when they were hailed from the shore. They looked up to see a little old sailor man widi a white beard standing on the bank. 'Wanting a tow through the bridges?' he said. 'They know me at the Yacht Station,' he added, but there was no need. Anybody could see in a moment that he was not one of the wreckers. The Admiral looked at Tom. Tom, just for a moment, thought how pleasant it would be to take a tow and have no more to worry about. And then he diought of Port and Starboard. He would like to be able to tell them that the Teasel had got through alone. 'It's just as you like,' said the Admiral. 'No thanks,' said Tom. 'We're going to wait for slack water.' 'You'll be all right,' said the old man cheerfully. 'Tide be setting up Breydon already [The flood tide begins to run up the Yare while the ebb is still pouring out of the Bure]. But you'll be coming back another day. If you want a tug then to pull you through Yarmouth, you ring up the Yacht Station from Reedham or St Olave's and say you want the Come Along to meet you on Breydon. They'll give me the word.' 'The Come Along,' repeated Mrs Barrable. 'What a lovely name for a tug,' said Dorothea. 'She's a lovely tug,' said the old man. 'Motor-boat, she is. Take you up no matter how the tide run. When she say come along, they have to come.' Mrs Barrable scribbled down the name in the log of the Teasel. 'You wait for slack water and you'll come to no harm,' said the old man, and went off along the bank. 'We're in for it now,' said Tom, 'but I know it's easy enough if you don't start down too soon.' 'All right, Skipper,' said the Admiral. 'We've done very well so far.' 'Hang on with the stern warp,' said Tom. Standing in the Titmouse he cast off the Teasel's bow warp. There was still enough current to swing her slowly round. 'Cast off stern warp!' They were doing jolly well, those two, but at a moment like this he could not help wishing for the twins. 'Everything's loose,' said Dick. 'Everything's loose ...' Port and Starboard would hardly have put it like that. But Tom knew what Dick meant. Slowly, easily, he settled to his oars. The dolphin was slipping away astern. The Teasel tugged at her tow-rope, tugged halfheartedly once again, but presently came more willingly. 'Is she steering all right?' Tom asked. 'Beautifully,' said the Admiral. 'There's one bridge gone already,' said Dorothea. The Teasel slipped down between the high quays, and the little houses that seemed to rise out of the river mud. There was a dreadful smell of dead fish. Moored to ring-bolts in the walls of the houses and lying on the mud beneath them were little fishing-boats, some with brown nets spread to dry. But Tom, steadily rowing in the Titmouse, had no eyes for this. It had seemed to be nearly dead water up above the bridges, but the further he got the faster the stream was pouring out between the mud-banks. Had he, after all, made the mistake he had been warned against, and in spite of all that waiting, started down too soon? There could be no going back now. It would be all right if only he did not miss the dolphin when they came out from under the third bridge where the rivers meet at the top of Yarmouth Haven. The second bridge was gone. A motor-bus roared across the third close behind him. Now was the time. Keep close to the right bank. He edged nearer, and began to wonder if he had better make fast to the dolphin with his own painter or widi the tow-rope itself. Better with the tow-rope if he could. The shadow of the bridge fell across him. He was through. He glanced over his shoulder. There was a steamer coming up out of the lower harbour. A schooner was moored against the quay on the left bank. There were the dolphins, black and white, and beyond them open water, miles of it, and the long white railway bridge over Breydon, with the swing bridge in it open for the passing of the steamer. And the Admiral and Dick and Dorothea, looking at all these things, were steering gaily down the middle of the river. Tom yelled: 'Starboard! Head her to starboard! This side!' Oh, if only the twins had been aboard. He pulled as hard as he could across the stream and towards the dolphins. There was one that would do if only he could get to it and make fast in time. Over his shoulder he saw the iron bar flecked with green weed, fixed upright on the pile for people to pass their warps round. But it was more than he could do with the Teasel heading straight downstream. 'This side!' he shouted again. At last they understood. The Teasel headed after him towards the dolphin. The tow-rope slackened. Another stroke, another, and his hands were clutching at the slippery pile. 'Go through, you beast!' he muttered to the spare end of the tow-rope as he pushed it in behind the iron bar. It was through at last. He freed the rope from the thwart of the Titmouse and hung on. The Teasel drifting down with the stream tautened it, stretched it, stopped and swung. A moment later he was alongside her bows, and had given the end of the rope to Dick to make fast. They were safe. 'Well done, Tom,' said the Admiral as Tom came aboard and tied the little Titmouse to the Teasels, counter. 'Sorry about our steering.' 'The steering was all right,' said Tom. 'Only that last bit. I was afraid there wouldn't be time to make sure of the dolphin. But it was all right. Come on, Dick, let's have the mast up and get away.' The mast went slowly up, and the jib, and Tom and Dick and Dorothea were being very particular about the set of the mainsail. Tom wanted it exactly right for sailing up Breydon. 'That man's shouting at us,' said Dorothea. A sailor on the schooner away by the quay was giving them a friendly warning. 'Ahoy there. Best stir yourselves. They'll be closing the bridge.' 'Cast off,' cried Tom, and Dick let go one end of the tow-rope, and began hauling in hand over hand on the other as it came slipping round the bar on the dolphin. The fore-deck was all a clutter of tow-rope and halyards, but no matter. The Teasel was sailing. 'Close-hauled,' called Tom to the Admiral. 'We've got to tack up through the bridge.' 'You'd better come and take her, Tom.' 'You deal with these ropes, Dick. Sit on the roof when she goes about. But tidy up as well as you can.' Tom ran aft and jumped into the well. The Admiral seemed glad to let him have the tiller. Dorothea was anxiously watching Dick, who was busy on the fore-deck, trying to coil down the ropes exactly as he had seen them coiled by the Coots. 'The tide'll take us through,' said Tom. 'We've just got to keep her moving and head her in between the piers. And once we're through and round the corner we'll have a free wind up Breydon.' 'They seem in a bit of a hurry on the bridge,' said the Admiral. High on the bridge, someone was leaning from a signal cabin and waving. 'Ready about!' sang out Tom. 'Sit down and hang on, Dick!' The Teasel had gone almost as far as the opposite shore of the Yare. She swung round now on the port tack, but not for long. 'Ready about!' Tom sang out again. Again Dick sat down on the end of the cabin roof and took a firm grip of the mast. 'She'll do it now,' said Tom, and headed in between the piers. Railwaymen up on the bridge looked down on the little Teasel. The crew of the Teasel looked up at great iron girders above them on either side. The sails flapped. Tom was heading straight into the wind, counting on the tide to carry him through. Another ten yards. Another five. There was the clang of a changing signal, and the noise of levers slipping into place. They were through and already the huge swinging span of the bridge was closing astern of them. Presently a train roared across. Dick finished tidying up the foredeck and joined the others in the well. William barked at the train. Tom gave a little flourish with his hand, without really meaning to do anything of the sort. 'We've done it,' he said. 'Got through Yarmouth, anyway.' 'Chocolate all round,' said the Admiral. 'We've done it without letting the Teasel get a single scratch.' 'I do wish Port and Starboard were here to see,' said Dorothea. 'They'll be just finishing their race,' said the Admiral. CHAPTER I 9 SIR GARNET OBLIGES FRIENDS The twins had missed their ship, but what of that? They were aboard the fastest wherry on the river, and would catch the Teasel at Stokesby if they did not catch her before. They were extremely cheerful. Everything had been saved at the very last minute, and after all, they too would share in the voyage to the south, for which they had been training the Admiral's eager crew. All the time, Port and Starboard were looking eagerly down each reach of the river as it opened before them, until, at last, Jim Wooddall noticed it and laughed. 'He've a long start of us, Tom have.' Old Simon was steadily working away, making beautiful flat coils of the warps on the top of Sir Garnet's closed hatches. He came aft now, and went into the little cabin, and came out with a bucket of potatoes and a saucepan half full of water. 'Better give him a hand,' said Jim Wooddall. 'Workin' yer passage, you are.' And old Simon sitting on the hatch with the bucket between his knees made them laugh by opening an enormous clasp knife and offering it to Starboard. But they had knives of their own, of a handier size and were soon hard at work, though old Simon peeled four potatoes to every one of theirs, and did not think much of them as cooks. 'Look ye here, Miss Bess,' he said, 'if you takes the topsides off that thick, what sort of a spud'll ye have left for puttin' in the pan?' They were close to the mouth of the Ant when they heard and saw the Margoletta. She was coming up the river against the tide, and the wherry with wind and tide to help her was sweeping down. They were close to each other when the Margoletta swung round and into the Fleet Dyke, where, only yesterday, the Teasel had been. 'Lookin' for him in South Walsham, likely,' said Jim Wood-dall with a grin. The assistant cooks of Sir Garnet stared at him. 'But how do you know about it?' said Starboard. 'Easy,' said Jim Wooddall, puffing at his pipe. 'Them cruisers talk enough. There's only one boy down Horning way what have a black punt and paddle her from the stern. Tom Dudgeon and his old Dreadnought. Tom say nothin' about it to me that day he come to Wroxham, and there was me, readin' that notice over his head. And after he go, up come that lot in Margoletta asking for a boy in a sail-boat... Tom Dudgeon and his Titmouse for certain sure. And you missies know somethin' about how they didn't cotch him that day.' And he grinned again. 'Look here, Jim,' said Port. 'Nobody but George Owdon would have told them Tom was gone up the river in a sailing boat. And the night before last they came up to Potter Heigham, and we think George must have told them Tom was gone up the Thurne.' 'They as good as said someone tell 'em, that day Tom come to Wroxham.' 'But what we don't understand is this,' said Starboard. 'If George wants them to catch Tom, why doesn't he send them straight to Doctor Dudgeon?' 'Simple,' said Jim Wooddall. 'Fare to me that George he want 'em to cotch young Tom, but he nat'rally don't want to be in it himself. So he send 'em where he think they can't fail for to meet him. If they meet young Tom and know him, how be George Owdon to blame? But if them cruisers go to the doctor and ask for his son, why, how do they know the name of a boy they seen once in their life? Somebody must 'a told 'em. And everybody in Horning'd know who 'twas.' 'Phew!' said Port. 'I wonder if they met Tom sailing the Teasel today.' 'They didn't cotch him,' said Jim Wooddall. 'They'd be going to Horning or Wroxham to raise a bobbery else. Eh, Simon,' he broke off, looking at his huge old watch, 'we'll never get to Gorleston on this tide. They'll be laughin' at us when we go through Acle Bridge.' Jim Wooddall, late with his tide, was as much in a hurry as the twins, and he was sailing Sir Garnet as if in a race, trimming her huge black sail, keeping always in the fastest water. Presently they came to Thurne Mouth, where the two rivers join, and had to jibe round the corner just as Tom had jibed in the Teasel, as they turned south for Acle. The huge black sail swung across with a clap and a creak of the gaff jaws, and a clang as the big blocks of the mainsheet shifted. Port and Starboard, themselves accustomed to racing in the little Flash, knew just how well their friend the wherryman was handling Sir Garnet. Once through the bridge, Jim let the twins have the tiller. The mast was lifting the moment they had cleared the bridge. The big black sail rose bellying in the wind. Sir Garnet had left Acle Bridge astern of her, and was sailing once more. And never a sign of the Teasel. 'He'll have gone right through to Stokesby,' said Starboard, and went on steering the wherry, while the wherrymen finished their dinner, and old Simon made some very strong tea. Then the twins had all the bacon and potatoes they could eat. 'I would'n have Mr Farland think we starved ye,'Jim said. Almost sooner than they expected, the windmill and the roofs of Stokesby showed above the reedy banks. 'What about putting us ashore?' asked Starboard. Port dived down into the cabin and handed up the rugs and knapsacks that had been stowed there out of harm's way. 'Anything to break in these?' asked Jim. 'No.' 'That's lucky,' said Jim. 'We'll heave 'em ashore, an' give you an easy jump an' a soft landin'. Can't stop now.' 'But where are they?' said Port. 'Tom said he was going to moor at this end, by the windmill if he could. The wind's just right for it, but he's not there.' 'By Stokesby Ferry, likely,' said Jim. But Sir Garnet swept on round the long Stokesby bend, past the windmill, and the farm, past the village, past the inn, past the ferry. Stokesby was astern of them, and one thing was clear to both of them. It was no use going ashore at Stokesby, for the Teasel was not there. And now, for the first time, it came into the heads of the twins that nobody but themselves and the wherrymen knew where they were. Ginty and the A.P. thought they were aboard the Teasel. Aboard the Teasel everybody thought they were at Horning. It was one thing just to take a lift on a friendly wherry as far as Acle, or even as far as Stokesby, but here they were sailing on farther and farther from home with every minute and not knowing what was before them. What if the Admiral had changed her mind and put off going south, and Tom and the Teasel had gone up the Ant to Barton and Stalham, or made another trip to Potter Heigham? Some word might have reached Tom about the Margoletta and given him a reason for a change of plan. The wherrymen were troubled, too. The one thing on which a wherryman prides himself is making the best use of the tides. There is no sense in sailing against the tide when an hour or two earlier or later you might be sailing with it. A wherryman sailing with the tide is always ready to laugh when he meets another struggling against it. Bad seamanship is what it seems to him. And now here was Sir Garnet leaving Stokesby with ten miles to go to Yarmouth, and Jim and his mate knew that if they had been an hour earlier they would not have been a minute too soon. Jim kept taking a look at his big watch, and at the mud that was showing below the green at the sides of the river. Once the tide turned it would be a long time before they could get down to Gorleston against it. And besides all this, Jim was thinking that perhaps he had been a bit hasty in taking Mr Farland's twins aboard. 'If Tom Dudgeon hadn't knowed they was coming, why should he stay waitin' for 'em? That boy'd use his tides right, and not go foolin' 'em away like some folk, darn it.' 'We can't go no further,' said Jim Wooddall at last, as he brought Sir Garnet quietly alongside some mooring-posts. 'This'll do for us.' For a few minutes Simon and he were busy stowing the big sail. Then he stood, rubbing his chin and looking at the worried faces of the twins. 'Tom may be down by the Yacht Quay,' said Starboard. 'Sure he come this way?' said Jim. 'They said last night they were going down to Stokesby.' Tf he come this far, he'd be taking the flood up Breydon,' said Jim. 'You can't catch him ... Best be takin' a bus to Horning if ye can get one.' What would Mrs McGinty say if they came home with a tale like that, or even Mrs Dudgeon ... sailing off on a wherry to Yarmouth to look for a boat that might be anywhere? 'We've simply got to find them,' said Port. 'Ye'll be gettin' me into trouble with Mr Farland.' And then, suddenly, Starboard saw that old Simon was pointing down river towards the bridge. A yacht with lowered mast was coming through, towed by a little motor-boat with a big red-and-white flag. 'Ye're right,' said Jim suddenly. 'If young Tom go down here, Old Bob see him. Comin' and goin', Old Bob see all,' The Come Along, with the tide to help her noisy little engine, was soon passing close by the wherry. Port and Starboard saw a little old sailor in a blue jersey, by himself in the little tug, looking back every now and then over his shoulder because the people in the yacht he was towing were not steering very well. It needs practice to steer well standing on the counter of a yacht and reaching the tiller with a foot through a lot of shrouds and halyards draped about the lowered mast. 'Ahoy!' shouted Starboard. 'Have you seen the Teasel?' 'Hi!' shouted Jim. 'Haifa mo', Bob.' 'Eh? What's that?' The little old sailor was trying to quiet his engine without stopping it altogether. 'Friends of ours,'Jim was explaining. 'Joinin' a little yacht, the Teasel, with Tom Dudgeon from Hornin' aboard. Seen her go through?' 'Boat full o' children with an old lady an' a dog? I see 'em. Went through at low water, they did. Wouldn't take help from no one. Last I see of'em they was away through Breydon Bridge.' Jim bent lower. The old man shut his engine off. 'They got to do it,' Port heard Jim say. 'Can't send 'em back now.' The old man looked at the twins. 'Hop in,' he said suddenly. 'I got to go up Breydon to fetch a yacht down what's missed her tide. Hop in. We'll catch that Teasel for you if she've not gone too far. Easy now.' In another two seconds the twins and their knapsacks and their rugs were aboard the Come Along. Jim and Simon were wishing them good luck. The twins were thanking the wherry-men. The old man had started his engine again and they were off once more, chug, chug, chug, chug, against the muddy tide that was pouring up under the town bridges. CHAPTER 2O WHILE THE WIND HOLDS A strange peace filled the well of the Teasel. There was a good wind, and they felt it more on the open water of Breydon than sheltered between the banks of the river. But that was pleasure only, and the good wind was helping them on their way. The thing that Tom had been worrying about for a week was safely over. They had got through Yarmouth. Everybody felt the same. It was as if by passing Breydon railway bridge they had passed from a turbulent day to one of settled weather. They began looking at things afresh, with die eyes of people who have no longer a care in the world. 'The Hullabaloos would have come through by now if they were coming,' said Tom. Dorothea looked back towards Breydon. There was not another boat to be seen. 'Of course, they may come tomorrow,' said Tom, 'whatever they do today. Those beasts can get about so fast. But we're all right for now. What I was afraid of was their coming down while I was towing in the Titmouse.' 'It seems to me,' said die Admiral, 'that we get about pretty fast ourselves.' She shaded her eyes to look over the water ahead of them towards the evening sun. 'What do you think, skipper? Where shall we tie up for the night?' 'Let's go on sailing for ever,' said Dorothea. 'We could take turns in being awake.' 'Let's go on as far as ever we can,' said Torn. We've got a grand tide with us, and the wind's holding, and it won't be dark for a long time yet.' 'We'll see what we can do,' said Mrs Barrable. 'You'll be at Beccles tomorrow, Admiral,' said Dorotea. 'Won't she, Tom?' 'Depends on the wind,' said Tom. 'Look here, Dot, keep away from the red posts. We don't want to have to tack if we can help it.' 'I say,' cried Dick suddenly. 'Isn't that a spoonbill, there, with hunched-up shoulders, and another, dipping in the mud where that trickle is? ... White, like storks.' 'They must be,' said Tom. 'Let's have die glasses a minute. I've only seen them once before. This goes down in the Coot Club book.' 'And in the log,' said the Admiral. On and on they sailed. The sun had set, the wind was dropping, but the Teasel was still gliding on, so smoothly, so easily, that it seemed impossible to stop. A sunset glow spread over the sky, and the reeds stood out black against it. On and on. They could hardly see where the reflections ended and the banks began. Nothing else was moving. Windmills, dark against the darkening sky, seemed twice dieir proper size. At last, peering forward, they could see that the river was dividing in two. 'Oulton Dyke,' said Tom, hardly above a whisper. For some time now he had been at the tiller. There was hardly enough wind to give the Teasel steerage way as she bore round up the Waveney River. It died altogether. The boom swung in. The mainsheet dipped in the water. 'Have you got a torch?' said Tom. 'Mine's in the Titmouse.' Dick was into the cabin and out again with his torch. 'Will you take her, Admiral?' Tom hurried forward and stood waiting with the rond-anchor in his hand, flashing the light of the torch along die bank. 'We'll try here,' he said. 'Bring her in. She's hardly moving. Will she steer?' Gently the Teasel pushed her nose towards the bank. There was a thud and a squelch as Tom jumped ashore. He had the anchor fixed in a moment and was back aboard again as the dying tide swung the Teasel slowly round. Aft, in the well, they heard the faint rattle of the block as the jib came down. The peak of the mainsail came slowly, and with difficulty, for the halyard had swollen with the evening dew. By the light of their torches they stowed the sails. By the light of their torches they rigged the awnings, first over the Teasel and then over the Titmouse. 'Well, it isn't the furthest anybody's ever done in a day,' said Tom, 'but she really has come a jolly long way.' 'It seems a pity,' said the Admiral, 'but I suppose we must try to keep awake, just until we've had our supper.' CHAPTER 2 I COME ALONG AND WELCOME The twins had been very near despair when the wherry had tied up above Yarmouth and the wherryman had told them that the best they could do was to -go home. Suddenly, Old Bob and his Come Along had filled them with hope once more. With a motor-boat like the Come Along they felt sure they would be overhauling the Teasel in a minute or two. 'She's a splendid little tug,' said Starboard. 'splendid tug,' she shouted, seeing that the old man had not heard her. Old Bob, sitting snugly in the stern with his arm over his tiller, agreed with a smile. 'She's a good 'un,' he shouted back. 'When she say "Come along", they have to come, and no mistake about it. Many a hundred she've pulled ofTBreydon mud.' Both Starboard and the old man had been shouting to make themselves heard, but now, perhaps just to show what she could do, Old Bob opened the throttle and let her out. It was no use even shouting. Port and Starboard looked astern at the following wave racing along the quays. Somehow it seemed quite different from the wash of a motor-cruiser. It simply gave them a pleasant feeling that they were really moving through the water. It was a cheerful promise of catching up the Teasel. They settled down to enjoy the chase. Old Bob pulled a pair of binoculars from under a thwart and looked into the distance ahead of them. 'Where was they bound?' he shouted into Starboard's ear. 'Beccles,' shouted Starboard. The old man looked back over his shoulder and seemed to settle himself closer to his tiller. They came to the top of Breydon Water and the long wall of black piling that guards the Reedham marshes. They passed the point of the spit that divides the Norwich river from the Waveney. Ahead of them, moored against the bank, was the old white hulk of the Breydon pilot. 'He'll have seed 'em,' shouted Old Bob, above the chug, chug of his motor. He leaned forward and shut down his throttle. The Come Along seemed almost quiet. The pilot, hands in pockets, was walking up and down the deck of his hulk, and stopped, and stood at the rail and waited for them, when he saw that Old Bob meant to have a word with him. 'Evenin', Bob,' he said. 'Evenin',' said the old man. 'Ha' you seed a little yacht, with some children aboard, an' a dog an' an old lady?' 'The Teasel?' said the pilot. 'They'll be through St Olave's by now, the way they was going. Aimin' for Beccles, they said.' 'I got two first-class passengers what missed the tender,' said Old Bob, and then, suddenly, 'Is that a sail beatin' down river?' For one moment Port and Starboard were full of hope, but the pilot said, 'Yes. Tide's too strong for her. She've been beatin' there these last twenty minutes and makin' nothin' of it.' 'That'll be my tow,' said Old Bob, opened the throttle and sent the Come Along racing up the river to meet her. 'But what are we to do?' shouted Starboard. 'I reckon we've missed 'em,' the old man shouted back. 'Gone too far. I got to take that tow ,.. You'd best give up and come back to Yarmouth wi' me .. If there's no bus I reckon my missus'd ...' And then, seeing Starboard's face, he stopped short. He looked back over his shoulder at the Thames barge coming up Breydon. He looked forward at the white triangle of sail showing above the banks far up the river. 'My tow won't have seen me yet,' he shouted with a grin, swung the Come Along round and headed back the way they had come. 'He isn't taking us back to Yarmouth now?' said Port. But nobody heard her. Back they went, past the place where the two rivers join and there by the Reedham marshes at the top of Breydon they met the barge, forging grandly along with a curl of white water under her bows. They could see a big old man standing at the wheel, a woman busy with some knitting close beside him, and another man sitting on a hatch and playing a mouth organ. They could see his hand move to and fro across his mouth, but could hear nothing at all but the chug, chug of Old Bob's engine. Just as they met, Old Bob swung the Come Along round, came alongside, and closing the throttle of his engine reduced speed until the' Come Along was keeping pace with the barge. 'Welcome of Rochester,' said Starboard, reading the name on a lifebuoy. With the engine quietening, they could hear the noise of the barge rushing through the water, and the creaking of blocks and gear. The old skipper of the Welcome had turned over the wheel to his mate and came to the side. 'Hullo, Bob,' he said. 'Hullo, Jack. Bound for Beccles?' 'Beccles Mills,' called the skipper. 'Friends o' mine,' said Old Bob, 'joinin' a boat gone up just ahead o' ye. Will ye give 'em a lift?' The skipper of the Welcome hesitated a moment, looking down with a puzzled face at the two small girls in the little tow-boat, but before he could speak the woman who was knitting was standing beside him. 'Don't you be so slow, Jack,' she said. 'Of course we will, and welcome.' 'But...' began Port. Old Bob was edging his little boat nearer to the barge. The two were touching now, with only the tow-boat's fenders between them. 'Can you make it?' he shouted. 'Give me a 'and, missie.' 'Up she goes. And the next..." The two boats, the little tow-boat and the big barge were moving fast through the water. But there was no time to think. There were strong arms to help them. Somehow or other, both twins found themselves aboard the barge. Their knapsacks and rugs came flying aboard after them. Old Bob's engine roared again, and the Come Along had sheered off and was racing up the river. 'I say,' said Port. 'We've never thanked him.' 'And what about a nice cup o' tea?' asked the woman with the knitting. 'I was just going to make tea for my 'usband, that's Mr Whittle. I'm Mrs Whittle. And the mate's name is Mr 'Awkins.' 'Our name's Farland,' said Starboard. 'I'm Nell and this is Bess.' 'Well, you 'ave 'ad a day of it,' said Mrs Whittle, when they had told about finding the Teasel gone from the staithe, and how Jim Wooddall had given them a lift down to Yarmouth, and how Old Bob had taken them up Breydon in the Come Along. On and on they sailed down that straight narrow cut, feeling all the time as if there was scarcely room between the banks for the barge and her own bow wave, which rushed along the piling on either side of her. Beyond the little bridge they would be coming into the Waveney again, and the twins were doing their best to catch sight of the Teasers sail. They were close to the bridge before there was any sign of its opening. The twins looked at Mr Whittle. He seemed at ease though the big barge was racing down the narrow cut, and there was certainly no room to turn her. "Ere y'are, 'Awk,' said Mr Whittle, putting his hand in his trouser pocket.' 'Ere's the money for the butterfly net.' Almost as he spoke, the bridge seemed to split in half, and both halves cocked up in the air. Two men appeared, one of them widi a little bag at the end of a long pole. Mr Hawkins went to the side. The barge swept through, and as she passed the bag was held out and Mr Hawkins, holding his hand high above it, dropped two shillings in it. 'Keep the change,' he said. 'There ain't none,' he added, turning with a wink to the twins. The barge was through. 'P'raps they haven't got so far,' said Starboard to Mr Whittle. Mr Whittle shouted out to a man in a blue jersey and sea-boots who was digging in a potato patch just where the New Cut joins the Waveney River. 'Say, mate, you seen a little white yacht, wiv a white tender to 'er? Lot o' kids aboard.' 'They was by here half-hour ago. From Hornin' they tell me. Pushing on to see how far they could get afore dark.' Half an hour ahead. Only half an hour. It almost seemed to the twins that they were in touch with the Teasel at last. Evening was closing in, too. The Admiral would soon be mooring for the night. Any time now they might see the Teasel tied up to the bank, with the Titmouse astern of her, and Tom and Dick and Dorothea hard at work getting the awnings up. The twins went forward to the bows of the barge, and stood there, looking out. Mrs Whittle and Mr Hawkins came forward to join them. 'She's the finest ship we've ever been in,' said Starboard to Mr Hawkins. 'There ain't many barges afloat to touch 'er,' said Mr Hawkins. 'Carries 'er way, and 'andy, too. You should see 'er in the London River.' 'She's been foreign many a time,' said Mrs Whittle. 'Gives you quite a turn, coming up out of that companion after a night at sea to find yourself in a foreign 'arbour and everybody talking Dutch.' But the twins were really thinking less of the Welcome than of the Teasel. They had remembered that half an hour ahead at the end of a day might be a very long time. 'They will be 'appy when they sees you,' said Mrs Whittle. 'Getting almost too dark to knit,' she added. 'Cold, too.' And then, suddenly, the wind failed them. It had been weakening for some time. Now it died utterly away. Flat shining patches showed on the river astern. A windmill was reflected as if in glass. The skipper's eye noted some old mooring posts standing up above the reeds. 'Topsail, 'Awk! Foresail! Brails!' As if by magic the foresail came down and the other sails shrank away against the mast. The great sprit towered bare into the sky. 'Dead water,' said the skipper. 'Tide's turning.' The Welcome, hardly moving, slid nearer to the reeds. 'Couldn't 'ave let us down 'andier.' The next moment he had left the wheel and he and Mr Hawkins were busy with creaking warps, mooring the Welcome for the night. 'But they aren't going to stop here?' said Starboard in despair. 'No wind,' said Mrs Whittle. 'Getting dark, too.' 'Won't he use the engine?' suggested Port. 'Not 'im,' said Mrs Whittle. 'We ain't due in Beccles till tomorrow, and you won't catch 'im wasting owner's petrol.' 'What's sails for?' said the skipper. 'Dark coming, too. We've a good berth 'ere, and we'll be in Beccles tomorrow before they want us.' 'But what about Tom and the Teasel?' said Starboard. "E ain't expecting you,' said Mr Whittle. 'So 'e won't worry. And you'll give 'im a 'ail in the morning and startle 'im out of'is skin.' CHAPTER 22 THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE William had waked the Teasel early. He had gone ashore by his private gangplank and met a terrier. He had not exactly run away, but he had waited to bark until he was safely back aboard, and after that nobody had been able to sleep another minute. Tom, still thinking of record passages, had called out from the Titmouse that the wind was just right and the tide running up. They had moored in the dusk quite close to a little ancient church, with a tower built in steps, like a pyramid. 'Burgh St Peter,' the Admiral had said. As soon as they were dressed she had sent Dick and Dorothea off along the bank to the Waveney Inn near by to get the milk for breakfast. Tom had stowed both awnings by the time they had got back. They had sailed on after a hurried breakfast. Trees on the banks had bothered them a little, but Dick had been allowed to do some quanting. And now, for a long time, the tower of Beccles Church had been in sight, and Dorothea had been expecting the Admiral to make some memorable remark. 'At last. At last. The town of his birth lay before him in the evening sunshine. The exile tottered, leaning on his stick. For a moment towers and houses and long-memoried trees vanished in a mist of tears.' Something like that, Dorothea thought, the return of a native ought to be. 'Long-memoried' pleased her a good deal. It was better than 'well-remembered', and did not mean the same thing either. Of course, really, it was going to be morning, not evening, and the returning native was Mrs Barrable, and not an aged man. But for Dorothea the main thing was that there would be a good deal of feeling about it. And somehow the Admiral seemed hardly to realize that she was coming home at last. She was making studies of trees in her sketch-book. 'In spring,' she said, 'one has a chance of seeing their bones.' And then, sweeping slowly round a bend, they came in sight of the tall Beccles mills, and the public staithe, and a dyke full of boats still at their winter moorings, and a road bridge, with a railway bridge beyond it. Under the bridges they could see the curving river, houses almost standing in the water, rowing-boats tied to the walls, and a flock of white ducks swimming from one back door to the next. The next moment they were rounding up by the staithe. Dick jumped ashore. Tom turned to the Admiral with a grin. 'We've got to Beccles,' he said. 'Now for Oulton. And then we may have time to get right up to Norwich before we start back.' 'Oh, but Tom,' said Dorothea. 'It's the Admiral's old home. She won't want to start again at once.' 'I want to do a little shopping first,' said the Admiral. 'And we must send off postcards to the twins,' said Tom. 'Just to let them know how far the Teasel's got.' Sails were lowered. The Teasel was moored fore and aft. Tom looked her over critically and decided that she was neat enough, and all five of them made ready to leave her and go up into the town. 'What's that big boat?' asked Dick, looking at a brown topsail moving above the trees far away over the meadows. 'Thames barge,' said Tom. 'You can see her sprit. She'll be here by the time we get back, the way she's moving.' 'I expect I shall hardly know the little place again,' said Mrs Barrable. Dorothea looked at her hopefully, but romance died as Mrs Barrable went on, 'Better bring both shopping baskets, Dot. I don't know what your mother would say if she knew how badly I've been feeding you. Fresh vegetables we want, and something not out of a tin. The butcher's name used to be Hanger, but I suppose he's gone long ago. What do you think about fried chops if we can get them?' They found the post office, with the mail van waiting outside it, so, to Tom's delight, they were able to get their postcards off by the early post. They sent pictures of Beccles to the twins, to Mrs Dudgeon, and to the three small Coots of the Death and Glory. 'Burgh St Peter last night. Beccles this morning, 8.45 a.m.,' wrote Tom triumphantly, on his postcards to the twins. 'Wish you were here,' he added, finding there was a little room left on each card. 'And I must send one to Brother Richard,' said the Admiral. Dorothea chose one for her, showing the river flowing close under the old houses. The Admiral wrote her postcard and held it out for Tom to see what she had written. 'Left Horning yesterday. Beccles today. Look at the postmark. And not one scratch on her paint.' 'Where shall we sail for next?' the Admiral was saying, as they turned the corner and came out on the green grass. 'But we've only just got here,' said Dorothea. 'There must be heaps more things in Beccles that you want to see again.' 'That barge has got here all right,' said Tom, 'and tied up at the mill just opposite the Teasel. Come on, Dick, let's get a good look at her. You never see one of them in the North River. What a beauty ...' His face suddenly changed ... 'Why!... There can't be ... There is ... There's somebody aboard the Teasel. Hi! You!' And he set off at a run to turn out the invader. 'Wait a minute,' called the Admiral, but he did not hear her. They saw him take a flying leap into the Teasel's well from the edge of the staithe. 'He didn't wipe his shoes,' said Dick, who was always being reminded by Tom to wipe his before coming aboard. 'Something must really be wrong,' said Dorothea. 'Hullabaloos, perhaps, lurking in the cabin. Come on, Dick ...' All three of them hurried to the rescue as fast as they could, with William galloping among them and nearly sending them headlong by getting mixed up with their feet. 'Tom,' called Dorothea. Just as they came to the edge of the staithe there was a burst of laughter from the Teasel's cabin, and Port and Starboard and Tom came tumbling out together. 'But however did you get here?' Port and Starboard, bursting with pride, pointed across the river at the Welcome of Rochester moored by the mill. Everybody was talking at once. 'But that's a Thames barge.' 'Not at Horning.' 'Jim Wooddall took us in Sir Garnet.' 'But the championship races ...' 'The A.P. going off in a rush and Ginty packing.' 'Awful when you weren't at Stokesby or Yarmouth.' 'Hullabaloos?' 'Nosing into Fleet Dyke looking for you.' 'Needn't be back for a week.' 'Yes. In a cupboard bunk.' 'Oh, three million cheers!' And then the twins wanted to know all about the voyage of the Teasel. 'Those apprentices must have done jolly well.' 'Should think they did.' 'How was it at Yarmouth? Did you take a tug?' 'Came through by ourselves.' 'Good for you.' 'And the bridges?' 'Lowering the mast?' 'Nobody could have done better.' 'You won't really want us as well.' 'What rot!' 'Of course we do.' 'Ten times the fun with all of us together.' 'And we were jolly lucky with the weather.' 'We couldn't have managed without you if it had come properly blowy.' 'Well,' said the Admiral when the hubbub had subsided a little and not more than three people and William were talking at once, 'with two spare skippers we can go almost anywhere. But we must at least have dinner. And somebody must go back into the town and buy another couple of good big chops.' 'We'll all go ' said Starboard. I'll stay in the Teasel: said the Admiral, 'and get the cooking slS. I want to feed you properly for once. Specially if we're sailing for Oulton this afternoon ... ' The Admiral's an explorer by nature,' Dorothea explamed to Port as they went off with the others to see the butcher again. 'She isn't like a returning native, not really ... Coming home means nothing to her at all.' CHAPTER 23 STORM OVER OULTON The twins had joined the Teasel none too soon. All the way from Horning to Beccles there had been nothing too difficult to be managed by Tom with no one to help him but the Admiral and a most inexperienced crew. But when they were waked in Beccles by a milkman bringing the morning milk down to the staithe, they saw, as soon as they put their heads out, that the weather did not look so kind as it had been. There was a sulky feeling in the air, and the sky was dark in the east. 'Thunder coming,' said Tom, when he and Dick went aboard the Teasel for breakfast. 'Looks as if it's going to blow,' said Starboard. 'Rain, too,' said Port. 'Let's get away quick,' said the hopeful Admiral, 'and we'll be in Oulton before it starts.' The moment breakfast was over they were off. With a full crew once more, two to a halyard and one to spare, not counting the Admiral and William, the Teasel set sail in record time, while Mr Whittle and Mr Hawkins, smoking their pipes, watched from the deck of the Welcome at the other side of the river. 'You've got a smart ship, you 'ave,' said Mr Whittle as the Teasel headed towards the big barge, swung round close by her and was off, racing down the river with the wind abeam. Mrs Whittle came up the companion to shake a duster just in time to use it to wave farewell. They were just moving with the stream, while the rain poured down on them, dripping off the sail on the cabin roof and off the cabin roof on the side-decks. Already there were lakes in the valleys of the Titmouse's awning. Then, gently at first, the wind came again, and they worked round the bends by Black Mill and Castle Mill, and were able to reach the rest of the way down the Waveney to Burgh St Peter and the mouth of Oulton Dyke. Here the wind headed them. It was really hard work sailing, and in a wind like this that found its way through everything, not even oilskins seemed able to keep the rain out. 'I can feel it trickling down my collar,' said Dick. 'And, oh, my beastly spectacles!' 'It's gone right up my sleeves,' said Port, who had been looking after the mainsheet. Tom said nothing. His were old oilskins, and the proofing had cracked across the shoulders, and all the top part of him was wet. While steering he had not noticed until it was too late that water was running off the oilskins straight into one of his sea-boots. Every time he moved his right foot he could feel the water seeping round it. But this was no time to think of things like that. The wind was growing harder and harder, and backing to the east. If it was as bad as this between the banks of sheltering reeds, what would it be like when they came out into Oulton Broad? 'It isn't very much farther,' said the Admiral, 'and it really does look rather fine.' 'Thunder,' said Dorothea. 'I thought it must be coming,' said Starboard. There was a distant rumbling, and then a sudden crash, followed by a clattering as if an iron tea-tray ten miles wide was tumbling down a stone staircase big enough to match it. 'Look!' 'And over there!' Threads of bright fire shot down the purple curtain of cloud into which they were beating their way. There was a tremendous roll of thunder. And then, just as they were coming out of the Dyke into the Broad, the rain turned to hail, stinging their hands and faces, bouncing off the cabin roof, splashing down into the water. In a few moments the decks were white with hailstones. The noise of the hail was so loud that no one tried to speak. It stopped suddenly, and a moment later the wind was upon them again. The Teasel heeled over and yet further over, till the water was sluicing the hailstones off her lee deck. 'Ease away mainsheet,' shouted Tom. 'Quick!' There was a crash somewhere close to them, in the Teasel herself. They looked at each other. 'Water-jar gone over,' said Port. 'Ready about!' Crash. 'There goes the other jar.' 'Ease out. In again. Must keep her sailing.' 'Look out, Tom, you'll have her over.' 'Sit down, you two. On the floor,' said the Admiral. 'My word,' she murmured. It was a gorgeous sight. There was that purple wall of cloud, with a bright line along the foot of it, and against this startling background, white yachts and cruisers afloat at their moorings in the Broad shone as if they had been lit up by some strange artificial light. The green of the trees and gardens looked too vivid to be real, wherever it was not veiled by a rain-squall. It was a gorgeous sight, but not for the Coots, who were finding it all they could do to keep the yacht sailing and yet not lying over on her beam ends. It was a gorgeous sight, but not for Dick and Dorothea, who began to think that they had not yet learnt much about sailing after all. And it was not at all a gorgeous sight for poor William, who was thrown from one side to the other whenever the Teasel went about, and was shivering miserably on the floor of the cabin, sliding this way and that with the sand-shoes that had been thrown in to keep dry. They were half-way down the Broad now, looking at the Lowestoft chimneys, and the Wherry Inn, and a great crowd of yachts at their moorings. Tom kept telling himself to think only of keeping the Teasel sailing, and not to bother about the yacht harbour until they came to it. But he could not help wondering all the time what he would find. He knew it had been changed since he had been there with the twins and their father. He would soon have to be making up his mind where to tie up. With the wind that was blowing he did not think the Teasel's mud-weight would hold her if they were to try to anchor in the open Broad. And all the time they were getting nearer. The Teasel was crashing to and fro, beating up in short tacks nearer and nearer to all those boats, and the road beyond them, where motor-buses were driving through the rain. Suddenly to starboard he saw a wooden pier with a tall flagstaff at the farther end of it, where the opening must be. Behind it was clear water ... a stone quay ... little grey buildings ... a moored houseboat. And there was a man in oilskins running out on the quay and waving. To the Teasel? It must be to her. There was no other boat sailing. Tom headed for the flagstaff. The Teasel flew past it, round the end of the wooden pier, and was in the yacht harbour. The harbour seemed much too small, as a squall sent her flying along between the pier and the quay. Tom swung her round, judging his distance from the beckoning man. How far would she shoot, going like this? He had never before had to moor her in such a wind, and against a stone quay, too. 'Let fly jib-sheet! Slack away main! Fenders out!' 'Not you, Dick!' But Dick was already out of the well, and hanging the fenders over the sides. 'Look, out of the way, Dick.' Port was hurrying forward. Nearer and nearer. Tom looked up at the high stone quay. Would she fail to get so far? Would he have to bring her round and get her sailing again? Nearer and nearer. And then, close alongside the quay, the Teasel stopped, without even touching. That man in oilskins was holding her by the forestay. Port was already on the foredeck, handing him up the mooring warp, rond-anchor and all. The rain was stopping. The wind had suddenly dropped now that the Teasel had escaped it. Tom, rather shaky in the knees, went forward to help in lowering the sails. The man was talking. 'Good bit of work you did then,' he was saying. 'Didn't think you'd make it as neat as that with the wind blowing as it was. She had all she wanted coming up the Broad. The Teasel, is she? Are you Mr Tom Dudgeon? I've a telegram for you sent on from Beccles.' 'A telegram?' 'I've got it in the office. I'm the harbour-master.' He ran across the quay and was back in a moment with a red envelope. Tom tore it open. He had never had a telegram in his life. But there it was, plain on the envelope, and again on the telegram form: TOM DUDGEON YACHT TEASEL BECCLES ARE TWINS WITH YOU TELEPHONE IMMEDIATELY MOTHER In the harbour-master's little office, all three Coots wanted to use the telephone at once. Tom was talking to his mother. 'But they're here ... They caught us up at Beccles just after we'd sent off those postcards ... Jim Wooddall gave them a lift ... and then a barge ... They're here now.' He turned to speak to the twins. 'It's those postcards we sent to you first thing in the morning. They got the early post. And Ginty went flying round to Mother ...' Starboard grabbed the receiver. 'Good morning, Aunty ... Oh, no ... We're as good as gold, really ... We always are ... Rather wet... Come on, Port... Your turn ...' Tom got the telephone again. 'Hullo, Mother. No. I've shut them both up. Oh, Ginty wants to talk to them. All right. What did Joe say? ... I can't hear ... Sorry ... Beasts ... Stuck in Wroxham? Three cheers ... Awning for the Death and Glory ... Good ... I thought they would ... I'll telephone from Norwich. Somewhere, anyhow. Everything's going fine. The Teasel's a beauty. Oh, no. The storm wasn't so awfully bad. We got through it quite all right. What? Ginty waiting? Oh, all right. Good-bye, Mother. Love to our baby and Dad. Come on, Port, Ginty's coming to the telephone to give you what for ...' Port took the telephone and waited. There was a short pause. She frowned and signalled to Tom and Starboard to keep quiet. Tom was bursting with good news. Then: 'Yes. Hullo. It's a braw mornin', Ginty, and we're all well the noo, and hoping your ainsel's the same.' 'Oh, Port, you idiot,' said Tom. 'What did Ginty say?' 'Ye young limb ... All right, Ginty ... I'm only trying to tell them what you said to me ...' The anxious watchers in the Teasel knew the moment the Coots came out of the office that the telegram had not brought bad news. 'It was only those postcards,' Tom explained to Mrs Bar-rable from the edge of the quay. 'Ginty couldn't think what had happened when those postcards came for the twins saying how much we wished they were with us. So she shot round to Mother, and wanted to send telegrams all over the place. It's lucky Mother didn't let her send one to Uncle Frank. And the Hullabaloos are stuck at Wroxham for repairs. They bust someone's bowsprit, and got a hole in old Margoletta at the same time, charging across the bows of a sailing yacht... big one, luckily. And Joe's been making an awning for the Death and Glory. I thought he would when he'd seen Titmouse's. I've promised to telephone again from wherever we go to next.' 'Stupid of me,' said the Admiral. T ought to have thought of telephoning myself.' 'It would have been much worse if you'd telephoned before we arrived,' said Starboard. 'It's all right now, anyhow,' said Port. 'Everything's going righter and lighter,' said Dorothea. 'First, Port and Starboard coming, so we're all together. And now no more Hullabaloos.' CHAPTER 24 RECALL The Teasel carried a light-hearted crew next day when she sailed from Oulton for the Norwich river. No need now to think of Hullabaloos. If the Margoletta was safely out of the way being patched up in a Wroxham boat-yard Tom, for the time, was outlaw no longer. They sailed from Oulton in the afternoon, to catch the last of the ebb though the New Cut. The harbour-master stood by to give them a hand, but there was no need. Everything went well, and their voyage out of Oulton with a light southwesterly wind was very different from that mad crashing to and fro in the storm as they were beating their way in. 'Yo ho for Norwich,' said Port. 'There's nowhere else left to go to.' But they never got to Norwich. No one can count on the wind, and that afternoon, when they had passed Somerleyton and Herringfleet, and Dorothea had dropped the money into the butterfly net for the men who open the road-bridge on the New Cut, the wind was dying away to nothing. They drifted out of the New Cut into the Norwich river, but there was not wind enough to carry them up through Reedham Bridge against the stream, and Tom had to jump into the Titmouse and do some hard towing. They tied up for tea above the bridge, and sailed again later in the evening, past Hardley Cross and the mouth of the Loddon past Cantley, where a foreign-going steamship was loading at the wharf, and moored for the night a mile or so higher up. Next day the wind was not much better, and they cruised slowly on, coming to Brundall in the afternoon. There was so little wind that no one minded when the Admiral suggested tying up while she made a sketch of that lovely bend of the river. They found a good mooring-place at the mouth of a dyke, close to an old sailing ship that was being dismantled and turned into a houseboat. The Admiral setded down in the well of the Teasel to make her sketch, and the others went ashore, and climbed a ladder to the deck of the dismantled ship, and watched a man who was cutting through the old iron-work with a jet of hissing, white-hot flame. Tom had watched this for some time when he remembered his promise about telephoning home. 'Now's your chance,' said Starboard. 'They're sure to have a telephone at the inn here, and we'll never get up to Norwich tonight.' 'We'll come, too,' said Port, and the three Coots left Dick and Dorothea watching the flame-cutter, and strolled slowly along the dyke and so to the Yare Hotel. Mrs Dudgeon had hardly answered the telephone before the twins, watching Tom's face, saw that he was getting serious news. 'I'm so glad you rang up,' Mrs Dudgeon was saying. 'I've an urgent message for the twins, and for you, too. Which day were you meaning to start back?' 'Day after tomorrow.' 'Uncle Frank's written to say he's coming back by the early train the day after tomorrow, and the twins must be here by then, because he's racing Flash at eleven. You'll have to come through Yarmouth tomorrow if the twins are to be in time. Do you think you can manage it? ... If not diey'd better come by train or bus. Brundall, you said, didn't you?' 'We were going on to Norwich tomorrow.' 'Better not. We've had a call from a friend of yours, one of the wherrymen.' 'Jim Wooddall?' 'Yes. He thought we ought to know that those people in the Margoletta have been boasting that they knew the boy they were after had gone south. This was in some inn, up at Wroxham. They even knew the name of the Teasel. You were right about George. Someone's seen him talking to them. And Bill's here, waiting for a word with you. He says the Margoletta will be only two more days at Wroxham getting mended. So come through Yarmouth tomorrow if you can. Your father doesn't want you to leave the Teasel in the lurch, specially with the twins having to leave too, but he thinks the sooner you're safe home the better ... Hang on now while I call Bill in. He's been weeding all day just outside, so as to be able to talk to you if you rang up. Mischief of some sort, I've no doubt. Bill!' Tom passed on the news. 'I say,' said Starboard. 'There's a jolly little wind. Do you think we can get down to Yarmouth in time?' 'If we can't,' said Tom, 'you'll just have to take the train at Cantley or somewhere.' 'Tide's all right tomorrow,' said Port, 'if we do get down. And if we get up to Acle before dark, we can easily get to Horning next day, before breakfast if somebody wakes us up.' 'If those beasts know about the Teasel being down south,' said Tom, 'it's no good waiting to be caught by them. Once they leave Wroxham they can get anywhere in no time. And they'd only have to hang about Breydon to make sure of catching us on our way through.' 'Come on,' said Port. 'We'll just slip home and diddle them again.' 'Yes ... Yes ... Hullo!' Tom had the telephone receiver at his ear, and waved at the others to keep quiet. 'That you, Bill?' 'Hullo ... That Tom Dudgeon? ...' Tom could hear Bill's anxious puffing and blowing at the other end. 'The grebe's nest in Salhouse Entry been robbed. Rest all right. We thought No. 7 had lost a chick but it was only Pete counted wrong ... Er ... See here ...' There was a long pause. Tom heard, more faintly, his mother's voice. 'All right, Bill, if it's a secret I'll go out of the room.' There was more anxious puffing. Then Bill's voice came again. 'Say, Tom. Which day you comin' through? ... Ter-morrer? ... Afternoon tide? ... Can ye hear? Joe's mended our sail, and made a crutch, and we got a tarpaulin, so's we can sleep under like you . . . see? ... Joe an' Pete's took her down-river ... down to Acle ... I'm bikin' down now ... An' a boy at Rodley's is going to telephone about the Margoletta ... So we'll have the news for ye ...' 'Will you pay for another three minutes?' the indifferent voice of a telephone operator broke in from the Exchange. 'No, no,' said Tom hurriedly. What was the good of throwing money away like that when it could be spent on ropes and other really useful things? 'Good-bye, Bill. See you at Acle tomorrow night...' 'At Acle?' said Port and Starboard together. 'They've fixed up their awning for die Death and Glory,' said Tom. 'Those three kids are going down to Acle, and someone's going to let them know when the Hullabaloos are going to leave Wroxham.' 'Jolly good,' said Starboard. 'Let's get away at once,' said Port. 'We ought to get as far down the river as we can before dark. Buck up.' They ran along the dyke to the Teasel. Tom stopped just before they reached her. 'I say,' he said, 'the others'll be awfully sick at having to start back.' 'Well,' said Starboard, 'it can't be helped. We've got to get home for the A.P.'s race. You've got to get home because of the Hullaballoos. It'd be much worse if they came down here and caught you in the Teasel. And anyway we can't leave the Admiral and those two to get home by diemselves.' But, for various reasons, Dick, Dorothea and the Admiral were as ready to start as the Coots. The Admiral was for sailing at once. 'We've done so well,' she said, 'we don't want anything to go wrong now and spoil it.' 'Good,' said Dick. 'We'll be seeing Breydon again tomorrow. Those spoonbills may still be there. And Norwich is only a town anyhow.' 'Let's start now,' said Dorothea. 'The warning came and the outlaw bolted for his lair. It would be too dreadful if he got caught after all. We've had a splendid voyage ... And the Admiral's done her sketch ... Or haven't you?' The Admiral laughed. 'Luckily, I've done it,' she said. 'And the man who was using that flame-cutter has stopped work for the day,' said Dick. Ten minutes later, sails were set, and the Teasel drifted out of Brundall, homeward bound, with hardly wind enough to stir her. They sailed her as long as they could, and tied up at dusk not far from Buckenham Ferry. CHAPTER 25 THE RASHNESS OF THE ADMIRAL 'That wretched curlew must have been whistling the wrong tune,' said Port. The morning had brought them an easterly wind. 'Fine for going up the Bure,' said Starboard. 'But we've got to get down to Yarmouth against it first,' said Port. Tom and the twins began their calculations over again. How long must they allow to get down to Yarmouth against the wind so as to be at Breydon Bridge exactly at low water? Meanwhile die Admiral and Dorothea were looking through the larder and calculating how to make four eggs (all that were left) do for six people. There was fortunately plenty of butter to scramble them, but when breakfast was over, nobody would have said 'No' to a second helping. 'We don't know what time we're going to get down to Reedham,' said the Admiral, 'but we'll get all we want there.' 'We'd better keep the tongue to eat on the voyage,' said Dorothea. 'It's only a very little one anyway.' In the end the navigators gave up all hope of making their figures agree. There were too many things to think of, the speed of the current, the speed of the Teasel when tacking, die speed of the Teasel when reaching, how much of the river would be tacking, and how much of it would let them sail with the wind free, and, on the top of all that, the wind itself seemed very uncertain. 'There's only one thing to do,' said Tom. 'We'll sail right down to Reedham straight away. People will know there what the tide's doing.' 'So long as we're not too late, nothing else matters,' said Starboard. All down those long reaches by Langley and Cantley they sailed the Teasel as if she were a China clipper racing for home. Tom and the Coots were for ever hauling in or letting out the sheets to get the very best out of the wind. Dick and Dorothea took turns with the steering whenever the wind was free, but gave up the tiller to a Coot whenever it was a case of sailing close-hauled and stealing a yard or two when going about. The little tongue was eaten while they were under way, cut by the Admiral into seven equal bits, for William was as hungry as everybody else. Indeed, he did not think his bit was big enough, and the Admiral promised him that as soon as the Teasel came to Reedham he should have some more. But as the Teasel turned the corner into the Reedham reach, and Tom was looking at the quay in front of the Lord Nelson, thinking where best he could tie up, above or below a couple of yachts that were lying there, they saw that the railway bridge was open, and that the signalman was leaning out of his window. 'He's beckoning to us to come on,' said Dorothea. 'He's probably going to shut it for a long time,' said Starboard. 'Two trains, perhaps, or shunting,' said Dick. 'Well, I'm going through now, to make sure of it,' said Tom. 'It'd be awful to be held up.' 'What about our stores?' said the Admiral. 'Let's hang on till Yarmouth,' said Tom. 'We'll have to stop there anyway.' It was no use arguing. Tom had other things to think of. Beating against the wind, and carried down with the tide, he had to work the Teasel through Reedham bridge. Just as he came to it he had to go about and the tide swept the Titmouse round quicker than he thought it would. The Titmouse bumped hard against one of the piers. Tom glanced wretchedly over his shoulder, and winced as if he had been bumped himself. 'She's got that rope all round her,' said Dorothea. 'The bridge won't have touched her really.' 'Bad steering,' said Tom. 'My own fault.' The bridge closed behind them. The red flag climbed up, and they knew that they might have had to wait a long time before it would be opened again. They were beating on towards the New Cut. Just for a moment they could see right down it, a long narrow lane of water, and, in the distance, the little road bridge, where the porters who open it catch their two shillings in a long-handled net. 'Couldn't we have stopped below the railway bridge?' said Dorothea. 'We can't turn back,' said Tom. On and on they went, beating down the Yare against the wind but helped by the outflowing tide. And then, after being afraid of being too late, they began to be afraid of being too early for the tide. 'We'll have to stop somewhere,' said Tom. 'The banks look unco' dour,' said Port. 'Fare main bad to me,' said Starboard, who talked broad Norfolk because of her sister's talking Ginty language. 'I'll tell you what,' said Tom. 'We'll go round into the Waveney and tie up by the Breydon pilot. He'll tell us when to start again ...' 'All right,' said the Admiral. 'But what about stores? William and I are starving. There isn't an egg in the ship. And no bread. And both water-jars are empty ...' Dorothea was looking at the map. 'There are two houses marked near the mouth of the river,' she said. 'We could get milk and eggs at the Berney Arms,' said Tom. 'Water, too, probably.' On and on they sailed. Already the wind seemed colder coming over Breydon, and they could hear the calling of the gulls. A red brick house came into sight on the bank, close above them. 'That looks like a farm,' said the Admiral. 'Let's tie up and ask here.' 'I daren't,' said Tom. 'Not with the Teasel, and the tide going out. No good getting stuck. Come on, Starboard. You take over. I'll slip ashore in Titmouse. You sail round the corner. The pilot'll tell you the best place to moor. I'll be along with the stores by the time you get the sails down.' He hauled Titmouse alongside, and dropped carefully into her, while Starboard took the speed off the Teasel by heading her into the wind. Port and Dick between them gave him the big earthenware water-jar. Dorothea handed down milk-can and egg-basket. The Admiral gave him the ship's purse and told him to take what was wanted out of it. Tom let go, and, as the Teasel sailed on, was left astern, fitting his rowlocks and getting out his oars. As they turned the bend, they saw him already rowing in towards the bank. 'My word,' said Starboard, 'she sails a lot better without Titmouse to tow.' ' Titmouse is very useful,' said Dorothea. 'All right,' laughed Starboard. 'We couldn't do without her, but the Teasel does like kicking up her heels without a dinghy at her tail.' 'There's the Berney Arms,' said the Admiral, and then, as they began beating down the last reach of the river, 'And there are the Breydon posts.' Ahead of them was black piling and a tall post marking the place where the two rivers met. Beyond it they could see where open water stretched far into the distance, with beacon posts marking the channel. They were at the mouth of the river. There, round the corner, was the old hulk of the Breydon pilot's houseboat. 'We've never seen Breydon with the water all over everywhere,' said Dorothea. 'Just look at the birds,' said Dick. 'Can't we just go down a little way to have a look at it?' said Dorothea. Port looked back up the river. There was no sign of Tom. 'It'll take Tom a long time to come round in Titmouse,' said Dorothea, 'and the Teasel sails awfully fast.' Starboard was already bringing the Teasel round the end of the piling, and heading her up towards the Breydon pilot's moored hulk. 'What do the Coots think?' said the Admiral. 'We'd be able to get back all right with the wind as it is,' said Starboard. 'You can see by the way she's going now.' 'Do let's,' said Dorothea. 'I don't think we could possibly get into trouble if we went down as far as the end of the piling,' said the Admiral. 'Hurrah,' said Dorothea. 'Good,' said Dick, who had the binoculars all ready in his hands in hopes of seeing spoonbills. 'All right,' said Starboard. 'In with the mainsheet. Ready about.' The Teasel swung round into the wind, went about, and, with the tide helping her once more, beat down into Breydon Water. 'Tom'll see us all right,' said Dorothea. 'We'll turn back in plenty of time,' said the Admiral. On they sailed, beating slowly to and fro, against the northeast wind, but hardly noticing how fast the ebb was carrying them with it. 'She can jolly well sail,' said Starboard. Even the twins, though doubtful about what Tom would think of it, could not help enjoying themselves, sailing in this wide channel, leaving a red post on one side, and turning again when they came near a black post on the other, although, with the tide as it was, the water on both sides stretched far away beyond the posts. 'Fog at sea,' said Starboard, as they heard the foghorn of a lightship off the coast. 'It really is just like the bittern,' said Dick. 'We'd better turn back now,' said Port. 'Just a wee bit farther,' said Dorothea. 'It's getting foggy over there,' said Port. 'It's rather foggy here,' said Dick. 'It is like a bittern, that horn.' And suddenly, almost before they knew it was coming, the fog was upon them. Yarmouth had disappeared, and the long line of those huge posts seemed to end nearer than it had. They could see only about a dozen ... only six ... and some of those were going ... had gone ... 'Turn her round,' said the Admiral sharply. 'We must get back to the river as quick as we can.' But it was too late. The fog bank had reached them and rolled over them. The Teasel turned in her own length, and began driving slowly back over the tide, with the boom well out and the wind astern. But, already, her crew could not see the mouth of the river. They could see nothing at all except a black post close ahead of them. 'Leave the post to starboard,' said Port. 'Teach your grandmother,' said her sister. 'Don't lose sight of it until you see the next one,' said the Admiral. 'Not going to.' 'We'll just have to sail from post to post.' There was something terrifying in sailing quite fast through the water with nothing in sight but a dim, phantom post that seemed hardly to move at all. That was the tide, of course, carrying them down almost as fast as they sailed up against it. It was quite natural, and nobody would have minded if only it had been possible to see a little farther. But now, alone, in this cold, wet fog, with everything vanished except that ghostly post, it was as if they had lost the rest of the world. The long deep hoots from the lightship out at sea and the sirens of the trawlers down in the harbour made things worse, not better. The fog played tricks with these distant noises, making them sound now close at hand and now so far away that they could hardly be heard. Dorothea knew that the Admiral was worried, and she listened anxiously for the note of fear in the voices of the others. She could tell nothing from their faces as they stared out into the fog. 'I'm going forward,' said Dick. 'Even a few yards may make a difference in looking through the fog for that next post.' He was gone, clambering carefully along the side-deck with a hand on the cabin roof. On the foredeck, holding on by the mast, it was as if he were a boy made of fog, only of fog a little darker than the rest. 'Keep your eye on that post,' said the Admiral again. 'It's going.' 'I can see it.' 'Can't see anything at all.' Dick's voice came from the fore-deck. Starboard was not accustomed to steering in the dark. And this pale fog was worse than darkness. Dimly, away to her right, she could see that post, but she had a lot of other things to remember. There was the tide trying to take the Teasel down to Yarmouth, and the wind blowing her the other way. What if the wind were dropping? She glanced over the side at the brown water sweeping by. The little ship was moving well, but oh how slowly she was leaving that post. She must not lose sight of it, until she had another to steer for. Was the wind changing? If it did change, why, anything might happen. Funny. There it was on her right cheek. She could feel it on her nose. A moment ago it was not like that ... Why, it wasn't dead aft any more ... 'Haul in on the sheet, Twin. She isn't going like she was.' 'The post's moving,' said Dorothea. 'It's going. Dick, Dick, can't you see the next? We've passed this one. It's gone ... No ... I can still see it...' 'Something's wrong with the wind,' said Starboard in a puzzled voice. 'The post's gone,' said Port. 'It was over there a moment ago,' said Dorothea, pointing. 'It can't have been there,' said Starboard. 'More sheet in, Twin.' 'We're bound to see the next post in a moment,' said the Admiral. And then, suddenly, all five of them in the well, and William, tumbled against each other. It was as if someone lying under water had reached up and caught the Teasel by the keel. She pushed on a yard or two, stickily, heeling over more and more. She came to a standstill. 'Ready about,' said Starboard. Instantly Port let fly the jib-sheet. But the rudder was useless. The Teasel did not stir. Starboard looked despairingly at the Admiral. 'I've done it,' she said. 'I've gone and put her aground.' 'It's my fault,' said the Admiral. 'If you'd been alone you'd never have come down here.' 'We might try backing the jib,' said Starboard. 'Or the quant.' 'We'll stay where we are,' said the Admiral. 'Nobody'll run into us here. And anything's better than drifting about in the fog.' 'But what about Tom?' said Dorothea. CHAPTER 26 THE TITMOUSE IN THE FOG Tom pulled in towards some quay-heading, tied up the Titmouse, and went up the bank to the house. There was no one about. He wandered round to the back, but there was no answer to his knocking, the windows were all closed, no smoke was coming from the chimneys and he soon made up his mind that everybody was away from home. He hurried down the bank again to the Titmouse, saw that the river had fallen several inches in those few minutes, and was presently drifting downstream with the tide. He stepped her mast, hoisted her sail, lowered her centreboard and tacked down-river to the Berney Arms. Here he chose his moment, dropped the sail again, pulled up the centreboard, and brought the Titmouse alongside what seemed to him the best landing-place. He made fast her painter round the top of an old pile, and went up the bank to the inn, taking with him basket, milk-can and stone water-jar. A cheerful young man met him at the door. 'Two dozen of eggs? And a quart of milk? And I daresay we can find you a loaf. But where's your ship? You won't be eating all this in that little boat.' 'She's gone round to the Breydon pilot's,' said Tom, looking away towards Burgh over the strip of land between the two rivers, and wondering why he could see nothing of the Teasel. Afloat in the Titmouse he had not been able to see beyond the banks. 'Not that little yacht gone down Breydon?' 'Gone down Breydon?' That certainly did look very like the Teasel's sail, tacking away down there towards the open water. But what were they doing? Could they have made a mistake about the plan? Port and Starboard knew what they were about, surely. 'You'll have a job to catch her.' 'They'll be turning back in a minute,' said Tom, but kept his eyes on that white sail, growing smaller and smaller, while a girl was sent off to collect eggs, and, after she had brought his basket back full of eggs, had to go off again to fill his milk-can. The young man took the big water-jar and filled it with fresh water at the pump. So Tom, in the Titmouse, wedging the water-jar between his knees and remembering that he would have to be careful not to spill it in going about, beat down to Breydon Water in pursuit of his runaway ship. A long way down they had taken her already. And the tide was pouring down. Bother those twins. He had been counting on having a word with the pilot in the hulk just up the Waveney river, so as to make sure of getting to Breydon Bridge exactly at slack water. He did not like the look of the weather either. It was very misty down towards Yarmouth. And then, suddenly, he saw that bank of fog rolling up Breydon from the North Sea. Just before the fog reached the Teasel, he saw her swing round, too late now, close by one of the black beacon posts on the northern side of the channel. Then the fog rolled over her, and only a few minutes after that, he was himself unable to see more than a yard or two from the Titmouse. 'They'll be pitching the mud-weight over,' said Tom to himself. 'They'll be all right, anchoring where they are.' He never guessed for a moment that this was the one thing they had not thought of doing. His first idea was to do the -same for the Titmouse. These sudden fog banks that on a day of easterly wind sometimes sweep up from the sea over the lower reaches of the tidal rivers seldom last long. He had only to take the Titmouse to the side of the channel, anchor her and wait till the fog rolled away. He could see nothing, but, at the moment, he knew where he was, and feeling the cold wind on his right cheekbone he kept the Titmouse close-hauled, until the black tarred piling by Reedham marshes loomed suddenly close ahead. He headed into the wind and lowered his sail. The black piling, dim in the fog, was sweeping by as he drifted down with the tide. He would anchor, light his oil-stove in the bottom of the boat, and do a little cooking. He was just going to throw his mud-weight over, a lump of iron, painted green to keep the Titmouse clear of rust, when his own hunger reminded him of the TeaseFs empty larder. It was all very well for him to sit comfortably in the Titmouse and make himself a pot of tea and boil an egg or two, but the crew of the Teasel, anchored away in the middle of Breydon, with nothing to do, would have to go on starving until the fog had passed. Standing in the drifting Titmouse, looking into pale fog and at the ghostly piling at the edge of the marshes, Tom changed his mind. Somehow or other he had to bring food and water to the Teasel. Could it be done? Why not? The Teasel, he had seen, was on the northern side of the deep-water channel down Breydon. He, too, drifting past the piling, was on the northern side of the channel. If he could manage to keep close along that side of the channel as he drifted down, the tide itself would take him within hailing distance of the Teasel. Suddenly the piling ended. He was out on Breydon now, with nothing to look for but the big black beacon posts which seem near enough together in clear weather but ever so far apart in a fog. Yes, only the posts to look for above water, but what he had to follow was the bottom, where the shallow Breydon mudflats drop steeply into the deep dredged channel. He pulled up his centre-board. Titmouse with centre-board down was no joke to row. What was that? A huge black post loomed suddenly beside him, and was gone. Phew! Wouldn't have done to go bumping into that. He got out his oars, and spun die Titmouse round, and began paddling her stern first, the better to keep a look out for the next post. But the next post seemed long in coming. Tom paddled harder. Then he stopped paddling altogether, and did a little thinking. He prodded down over the side with an oar, and could not touch the bottom. His mud-weight had only a short rope, but longer than the oar. He lowered it over the side, using it as a sounding lead. It touched nothing. He must be well out in the dredged channel. He could see nothing but fog and a yard or two of brown water all round the boat. But all that water, though it looked still, was sweeping down to the sea, with the Titmouse upon it. Which way? Unless he could see something, or touch the bottom, he could not tell. The cold wind gave him some idea of the direction in which he was moving. But the wind might have changed. Tom looked blindly round him in the fog. Suddenly he jumped to his feet. What an idiot not to remember his compass. He opened the after-locker of the Titmouse where the compass lived in a little box of its own, hooked under the stern-sheets so that it could not get thrown about. Uncle Frank had laughed at him for taking a compass with him when sailing in the Bure. It was going to be useful now. As a general rule a compass is not much use for navigation unless you have a chart. But Tom's trouble was a. simple one. All he wanted to do was to get back to the north side of the channel. The compass would make that easy enough. He laid it carefully on the floor of the Titmouse, in front of the water-jar, which, now that he was no longer sailing, was standing in the stern. North? What? Over there? He paddled the Til-mouse stern first, due north as the compass showed him. Good. There was another of those posts, dim in the fog, with the water swirling round it. He found bottom with his mud-weight. The Titmouse swung round, giving him, roughly, the direction of the tide. He hauled up the weight again and paddled on. Every now and then he saw the ghost of a beacons Every now and then he dipped over the side with an oar, and, sounding and paddling, with the tide to help him made his way along the edge of the channel. He grew a little over-confident, and paddled for a long time without sounding at all. Then, when he sounded, he found deep water again. He paddled northwards. Another of those posts showed for a moment and was gone. Worse than blind man's buff, diought Tom. How far had he come by now? The Teasel could not be very far away. No harm in hailing. He rested on his oars, drifting silently and listening. Gulls chattering. Foghorn. A steamer's siren. He gathered his breath and shouted, ' Teasel! Ahoy ... oy!' There was no answer. Probably the fog made it hard to hear. He hailed again, 'Teasel! Ahoy ... oy ... oy!' That did sound almost like an answering hail, faint, far away. He glanced at the compass. Yes. East-north-east. Tom paddled away, straining his eyes into the fog and listening. He was almost sure he had heard them. He hailed again, and listened. 'Ahoy ... Ahoy ... Ahoy!' There they were. No doubt about it. But still far away. He paddled on. Suddenly he heard the barking of a dog. He pulled his oars in and stood up, letting the Titmouse drift. 'Teasel! Ahoy ... oy!' The barking broke out again, and a chorus of shouts. There they were. He had done it. Come down Breydon in a fog and found them. No need to worry about compass now, or mud-weight. They would be anchored at the side of the channel, and he had only to join them. 'Ahoy!' he shouted, settling to his oars, spinning the Titmouse round and heading directly towards William's welcome barking. 'Titmouse, ahoy!' That was Dorothea. Too shrill for either of the twins. 'All together,' he heard Starboard's voice. And then there was a really splendid yell from the whole of the Teasel's crew, ''Titmouse! Ahoy!'' Tom rowed as if in a race, quick strokes and as hard as he could, fairly lifting the Titmouse along. 'Good old William,' he said to himself. William seemed almost to have guessed how useful it would be, and kept up excited barking all the time. 'Ahoy!' panted Tom, and the next moment his oars were scraping on mud, the Titmouse had come to a standstill, and he had tumbled backwards. He was up in an instant and frantically digging at the mud with an oar. The oar sank in as he pushed. He felt the Titmouse stir beneath him, and then settle again as he pulled to get the oar unstuck. And then, too late, the fog began to clear. Twenty yards away over the wet grey mud he saw a ghostly Teasel heeled over on her side, with her ghostly crew crowded together in her well. The Titmouse, drawing only her inch or two, was stuck fast. The muddy water was already creeping away from her. 'I say,' he gasped. 'I'm aground.' 'So are we,' said Starboard. 'And some of us are very hungry,' said the Admiral. 'I've got the water,' said Tom, 'and the eggs and the milk, and they gave me two loaves of bread.' And then, prodding into the mud with his oar, he realized that with only twenty yards of it between them, the Titmouse and the Teasel, until the tide rose once more, might just as well be twenty miles apart. CHAPTER 27 WILLIAM'S HEROIC MOMENT 'Idiots we are, idiots,' said Starboard. 'We ought to have shouted to him to keep away.' 'Can't shift her,' he shouted to them. 'We're done until the tide comes up again,' said Starboard. 'I say,' said Tom. 'We shan't be able to get down to Yarmouth even then. Wind and tide'll both be against us. It comes up at a terrific pace.' 'If only we'd stopped at Reedham we could have telephoned for the Come Along to meet us,' said Mrs Barrable. 'But it's no good saying that. And it's my fault. Disobeying the skipper. If we'd gone straight to the pilot's every-diing would have been perfectly easy. No, William, it's no good asking. There simply isn't any food. Not even for you.' 'I'd better try to get across the mud with some of the grub,' called Tom. 'No,' said the Admiral. 'You're not to try ... If you did sink in we couldn't do a thing to save you ... And we wouldn't be any nearer having anything to eat.' 'You couldn't chuck a rope?' shouted Tom. 'Too far.' 'Is the tow-rope long enough?' asked Dick. 'The big coil in the forepeak. The one we used at Yarmouth.' 'It's long enough,' said Starboard, 'or jolly nearly. But we can't get it across.' 'There is one way we could do it,' said Dick. 'If William helped. But he wouldn't like it. And I don't suppose you'd let him, really.' 'William?' And then Dick explained his idea, and, as they listened, even the twins cheered up a little, wretched though they were at having to wait on the mud. Would it work, or wouldn't it? 'Of course he doesn't weigh much, and if only he keeps going pretty fast.' 'He'd feel the string pulling him back.' 'It needn't be string. It doesn't matter how light the first thing is. We could start with cotton, and then string. There's a huge ball of string in the stores.' 'I've got a reel of cotton,' said Dorothea. 'Mother put it in, in case buttons came ofTDick.' 'And if it unrolls on one of the Admiral's pencils,' said Dick, 'William wouldn't feel it at all. Is the hole through the middle big enough?' Dorothea slipped into the cabin sideways and worked herself along it to get at her little suitcase. The cabin was on such a slant that walking through it was impossible. 'Poor old William,' she said, looking at him. Disliking the fog, he had made himself comfortable on the lee bunk. 'Get his harness,' said the Admiral. 'In the cupboard under the looking-glass.' The Admiral poked a pencil through the cotton reel, and made the reel spin by patting it. 'He'll never feel the pull of that,' said Dick. 'William,' said the Admiral. William snuggled down on the port bunk. The next moment he felt his mistress take a firm grip of the scruff of his neck. He was plucked forth, out of the cabin into the cold fog and dumped in the well, which, like the cabin, seemed to have taken a permanent slant. William made a half-hearted attempt to get back into the cabin, but found people's legs in the way. Mrs Barrable was putting his harness on him. 'Hullo, William,' called Tom, and William barked back. 'He'll do it,' said Dorothea. 'He always does do what Tom tells him.' 'Have you got the cotton ready?' said the Admiral over her shoulder. 'Here's the end of it,' said Dick. 'I'm going to hold the pencil at each end so that the reel won't slip off. If only he'll go...' 'Now, William,' said the Admiral, tying the end of the cotton to the ring in the harness to which the leather lead was clipped. 'This is your moment. It comes to everybody, just once, the moment when he has to be a hero or not think much of himself for the rest of his life. Are you ready, Dick? Luckily it's good stout cotton ... Good little dog. Clean, tidy little dog ... Never gets his feet muddy ...' 'You be ready to call him, Tom,' shouted Starboard. 'Call who?' said Tom, his voice coming queerly from the shadowy little boat away over the mud. Tom had been busy stowing his sail. It would be needed no longer, and he was making a neat job of it. 'William,' called Dorothea. 'He's bringing a cotton across.' 'A life-line,' called Port. 'He's a pug-rocket.' And then, suddenly, William's own mistress lifted him up and lowered him over the side of the Teasel down to the Brey-don mud, keeping firm hold of his lead for fear the mud should be too soft even for pugs. The next moment she was wiping the mud from her eyes. William made a desperate, splashing effort to get back aboard the Teasel. But he could get no hold for his forepaws. In half a minute he was more like a little grey, muddy hippopotamus than a dignified and self-respecting Pug- 'Quick,' said the Admiral, reaching down again to unclip the lead from the harness. 'The mud'll bear him.' William was free on the mud, held by nothing but the thread of cotton. 'Now!' everybody shouted at once. 'Call him, Tom. Call him.' 'Good boy,' called Tom. 'Come on, William! William! Come on, boy! Come on! Chocolate, William ...' 'Is there any chocolate?' asked Dorothea. 'There's a scrap in his box,' said Dick. 'I left a bit when I gave him his breakfast.' 'Go on, William,' said the Admiral. 'I can't help it. You've just got to be a hero. Go on! Go to Tom!' 'William!' Tom's voice came again. 'Good old William!' William stopped struggling to get back aboard the Teasel. He looked over his shoulder. Never in all his life had he been so badly treated. Dumped into sticky grey mud. Green slime, too. And after all this talk about wiping paws on the mat. William barked. His bulging black eyes looked as puzzled as he felt. 'Go away, William. Get out, we don't want you. Go to Tom! Tom! Go to Tom! Fetch him!' William gave a last disgusted look at the crew of the Teasel and waddled off across the mud. 'The reel's unrolling perfectly,' said Dick. The others watched it spinning on the pencil that he held by both ends. 'It's stopped. Tom! Tom! Do make him go on!' But William had hesitated only for a moment. He had gone more than half-way. The reel spun once more as the cotton unrolled. 'He's got there.' 'Tom's yanked him aboard.' Tom's voice suddenly changed its tone. He had been calling to William, begging him to come on, but now in the Titmouse William was shaking himself, and Tom was doing his best to save his sail. 'Shut up, William! Keep still! I'll wipe it off for you! Do keep still.' 'Have you got the cotton?' called Dick. 'I've got it! Steady, William!' 'Haul it in gently. Very gently!' 'Sure you've made the string fast to it?' The ball of string leapt from side to side in the well as they paid it out over the side, and Tom hauling in the cotton dragged the end of it across the mud. 'Got it,' shouted Tom. 'Well done, whoever thought of that! Do keep still, William.' 'Now for the rope,' said Dick, 'and then we can get the things across. The string won't bear anything ...' 'Haul in again, Tom,' called Starboard, who without cutting the string had made it fast to the end of the big coil of rope that had not been used since they came through Yarmouth. A snake of rope crept away over the mud as the twins paid it out from the foredeck, while the string went on unrolling in the well. 'Got it,' shouted Tom. 'Now what?' 'We must haul our half of the string back,' shouted Dick. 'Hang on to your end of it. Then we can use it for pulling things each way along the rope.' 'You'll want a shackle to run on the rope,' shouted Tom. 'There's a spare one in the forepeak. Right in the bows.' 'I've got it,' said Port. 'Splendid,' said the Admiral. 'But, oh, I do hope poor William won't have caught his death of cold.' 'We'll send across his bit of chocolate.' 'Cod-liver oil,' said the Admiral, 'is what he ought to have.' 'We'll send that across, too,' said Dorothea, wriggling into the slanting cabin. 'Tom'll have a spoon, won't he?' 'William always likes to have his own,' said the Admiral. So the first parcel ready to travel by the rope railway that now stretched between the Teasel and the Titmouse was a scrap of chocolate, a bottle of cod-liver oil, and his own spoon for William, the pioneer, who had crossed the mud and made the railway possible. 'It'll get awfully muddy going across,' said Dorothea. 'Couldn't we hoist it up at both ends?' said Dick. 'Of course we could,' said Starboard. 'Hi! Tom! Hoist your end of the rope up ... Top of the mast ... Keep things out of the mud ...' That was easy. Tom fastened Titmouse's halyard to his end of the rope and hauled it up as if he were hoisting a sail. The twins, aboard the Teasel, did the same. A moment later the rope was no longer lying on the mud, but stretched from masthead to masthead. The shackle, loose on the rope, had already been made fast to the string, and William's parcel had been tied to the shackle. 'All ready now,' called Starboard. Tom hauled in on the string. The parcel, amid cheers, left the masthead of the Teasel and moved slowly out. The rope sagged a bit in the middle, but the parcel was well above the mud. When it had reached the masthead of the Titmouse, Tom slacked away his halyard and a moment later had the parcel in his hands. 'Send us across a drop of water,' called the Admiral, 'and we can pour it into our kettle and put it on to boil. Don't try to send too much at once.' 'Does William have his oil after chocolate or before it?' asked Tom, as the Titmouse's kettle went on its way, slopping a little from the spout in spite of Dick's trying not to jerk it as he hauled in on the string. 'Chocolate always comes afterwards,' called William's mistress. 'Now, William,' said Tom, carefully balancing the brimming spoon, as he gathered the muddy William in one arm and made him sit as he had seen him sit on the Admiral's knee that wet day at Ranworth and again at Oulton Broad. And William, glad of anything to which he was accustomed, sat on Tom's knee in the Titmouse, aground on the Breydon mud, and lapped up his cod-liver oil as if he had been at home. Soon in both ships everybody was settling down to the first good meal that day. They were aground on the mud. They had missed their tide. They had lost their chance of getting through Yarmouth that day. Everything was going wrong. But, at least, thanks to Tom, to Dick, and to the heroic William, no one was any longer in danger of starvation. CHAPTER 28 WRECK AND SALVAGE 'Tide's begun coming up again,' called Tom at last. 'It'll be turning in the Bure in another hour, and boats going south'll be coming through.' Tom's plans were made. As soon as the Teasel floated he would tow her out into the deep water, and then they would sail back to the pilot's moorings to wait for the morning tide. 'Anything else to go across?' he shouted. 'Couldn't you send William'back by the railway before you take it down?' suggested Dorothea. 'Too heavy,' said Tom. 'He'd drag in the mud and make the Teasel as dirty as poor old Titmouse. He's fairly clean now.' 'You keep him,' said the Admiral. 'The water's right up to me,' called Tom. 'I'll be afloat in another ten minutes.' 'It's all round us already,' Dorothea shouted back. The water spread slowly over the mud between the Titmouse and the Teasel. Anyone who did not know that it was mostly only an inch deep might have thought they were afloat, except that the Teasel was leaning over on one side. 'There's the first boat through,' called Dorothea. 'Motor-cruiser,' said Port, glancing over her shoulder. 'It's a jolly big one,' said Starboard. All work stopped aboard the Teasel. 'But it can't be,' said Starboard. 'Bill said yesterday they wouldn't be able to leave Wroxham for another two days.' 'He must have got it a day wrong,' said Port. 'I'm sure it's them. Tom! Tom! Hullabaloos!' 'Oh, hide! hide!' cried Dorothea. Tom turned round and stopped wrestling with the Titmouse's mast. There could be no doubt about it. The cruiser had passed the rowing-boat now, and came racing up Breydon, foam flying from her bows, a 'V of wash spreading astern of her across the channel and sending long bustling waves chasing one another over the mudflats. Even in the dark Tom had known the noise of the Margoletta's engine. He knew it now, and the tremendous volume of sound sent out by her loudspeaker. He looked this way and that. If those people had glasses or a telescope they might have seen him already. Anyhow, there could be no getting away. He felt like a fly caught in a spider's web, seeing the spider hurrying towards it. There they were, Teasel and Titmouse, stuck on the mud in shallow water, plain for anyone to see. If only the water had risen another few inches and set them afloat. But even if it had, where could they have gone? There was only one thing to be done. It was a poor chance, but the only one. Tom made one desperate signal to the others to disappear, and, himself, slipped down out of sight on the muddy bottom-boards of the Titmouse, and, holding William firmly in his arms, told him what a good dog he was and begged him to keep still. Aboard die Teasel no one saw that signal. Their eyes were all on the Margoletta. It was not till several minutes later that Dorothea whispered, 'Tom's gone, anyway.' The little Titmouse, now that the water had spread all round her over the mud, looked like a deserted boat, afloat and anchored. On came the Margoletta, sweeping up with the tide, and filling the quiet evening with a loud treacly voice: I want to be a darling, a doodle-urn, a duckle-um, I want to be a ducky, doodle darling, yes, I do. 'Indeed,' muttered Port, with a good deal of bitterness. 'Try next door,' said Starboard. They spoke almost in whispers, as the big motor-cruiser came nearer and nearer, though no one aboard it could possibly have heard them. 'We ought to have done like Tom and hidden,' said Dorothea. 'Let's.' 'Keep still,' said the Admiral. 'It's too late now. They're bound to notice if we start disappearing all of a sudden.' 'Good,' whispered Starboard. 'They're going right past.' And then the worst happened. William, still slippery with mud in spite of Tom's pocket handkerchief, indignant at being held a prisoner while this great noise came nearer and nearer, gave a sturdy wriggle, escaped from Tom's arms, bounded up on a thwart and barked at the top of his voice. 'Oh! William! Traitor! Traitor!' almost sobbed Dorothea. 'They've seen!' said Port. The man at the wheel of the cruiser was looking straight at the Titmouse and at the Teasel beyond her. 'Here they are,' he suddenly shouted, to be heard even above the loudspeaker and the engine. He spun his wheel, swung the Margoletta round so sharply that she nearly capsized, and headed directly for the Titmouse ... 'Ow! Look out!' cried Starboard, almost as if she were aboard the cruiser and saw the danger ahead. 'They've forgotten the tide,' said Port. The next moment the crash came. Just as the rest of the Hullabaloos poured out of the cabins, startled by the sudden way in which the steersman had swung her round, the Margoletta, moving at full speed towards the Titmouse, and swept up sideways by the tide, hit the big beacon post with her port bow. There was the cracking of timbers and the rending of wood as the planking was crushed in. Then the tide swung her stern round and she drifted on. The noise became deafening. The loudspeaker went on pouring out its horrible song. All the people aboard the Margoletta were either shouting or shrieking and something extraordinary had happened to the engine which, after stopping dead, was racing like the engine of an aeroplane. Nobody knew till afterwards that the steersman had switched straight from 'full ahead' to 'full astern', had wrenched the propeller right off its shaft, stalled his engine, started it again and was letting it rip at full throttle, pushing his lever to and fro trying to make his engine turn a propeller that was no longer there. Everything had changed in a moment. That crash of the Margoletta against the huge old post on which Tom had been watching the falling and the rising of the tide brought him up from the bottom-boards of the Titmouse in time to see the wreck go drifting up the channel with a gaping wound in her bows and the water lapping in. No longer was he hiding from the Hullabaloos. They were shouting at him to come and save them, shouting at Tom, whom only a few moments before they had thought was a prisoner almost in their hands. And Tom was desperately rocking the Titmouse in an inch or two of water, trying to get her afloat so that he could dash to their rescue. The three Coots, Tom, Port and Starboard, knew at once how serious was the danger of the Hullabaloos. Just for a moment or two the others were ready to rejoice that Tom had escaped them. But soon they, too, saw how badly damaged the Margoletta was. They saw, too, that the Hullabaloos, instead of doing the best that could be done for themselves, were making things far worse. The Margoletta had been towing a dinghy. Two of the men rushed aft and tried to loose the painter and bring the dinghy alongside. They hampered each other. One pulled out a knife and cut the rope, thinking the other had hold of it. The rope dropped. They grabbed at it and missed. The dinghy drifted with every moment farther out of reach. They seized a boat-hook, tried to catch the dinghy and lost the boat-hook at the first attempt. 'She's down by the head already,' said Starboard. 'Oh can't they stop that awful song?' The crew of the Teasel watched what was happening, hardly able to breathe. There was the cruiser drifting away with the tide up the deep channel. With every moment it was clearer that she had not long to float. Were the whole lot of the Hullabaloos to be drowned before their eyes? Would no one come to the rescue? They looked despairingly towards Yarmouth. A rowing-boat was coming along. But so slowly, and so far away. Too late. They would be bound to be too late, with nothing but oars to help them. But something was happening in that boat. They could see the flash of oars, but surely that was a mast tottering up and into place in the bows. And then, in short jerks, a grey, ragged, patched old lugsail, far too small for the boat, rose cockeye to the masthead. The sail filled, and the oars stopped for a moment while the sheet was taken aft. 'Hurrah!' shouted Port as loud as she could shout. 'Hurrah! It's the Death and Glories!' Nobody else in all Norfolk had a ragged sail of quite that shape and colour. How they had got down to Breydon nobody asked at that moment. It was enough that they were there, while the Teasel and the Titmouse, still fast aground, could do nothing but watch that race between life and death. The wind was still blowing from the east, and the old Death and Glory, her oars still flashing although she was under sail, was coming along as fast as ever in her life. She might do it yet. And then the watchers turned the other way to see the drifting cruiser, her bows much lower in the water, the Hullabaloos crowded together on the roof of her after-cabin. 'She'll go all of a rush when she does go,' said Starboard under her breath. 'Deep water, too,' said Port. Minute after minute went by, and then the Death and Glory swept past them up the channel, her tattered and patched old sail swelling in the wind, Bill and Pete, each with two hands to an oar, taking stroke after stroke as fast as they could to help her along, while Joe stood in the stern, hand on tiller, eyes fixed on the enemy ahead who had suddenly become a wreck to be salved. 'Go it, the Death and Glories!' shouted Starboard. 'Stick to it!' 'You'll do it!' 'Hurrah!' 'Keep it up!' shouted the others. And William, not in the least knowing what it was all about, jumped up first on one thwart of the Titmouse and then on another and nearly burst his throat with barking. The noise of the engine had stopped. The shouting of the Hullabaloos was growing fainter as the Margoletta drifted up the channel with the tide. 'It's going to be a jolly near thing,' said Starboard, who was looking through the glasses at the sinking cruiser already far away. Far away up the channel the Death and Glory had drawn level with the Margoletta. Her ragged old sail was coming down. From the Teasel nothing could be heard of what was being said, but it was clear that some sort of argument was going on. They could see Joe pointing at the Margoletta's bows. They could see the five Hullabaloos, crowded together on the roof of the Margoletta's after-cabin, waving their arms, and, so Starboard said, shaking their fists. The two boats were close together, drew apart and closed again. A rope was thrown and missed and coiled and thrown once more. 'But why don't they take those poor wretches off?' said Mrs Barrable. Starboard laughed. 'Boatbuilders' children,' she said. 'They won't be thinking about people when there's a boat in danger. All they're worrying about is not letting the Margoletta go down in the fairway. You'll see. They'll tow her out of the channel before they do anything else.' She was right. The Death and Glory moved towards one of the red beacon posts on the south side of the channel, towards which the cruiser had drifted. The cruiser, at the end of the tow-rope, was following her, stern first, her bows nearly underwater. The Death and Glory left the channel, passing between one red post and the next. The Margoletta followed her. She stopped. 'Aground,' said Port. 'Safe enough now,' said Starboard. 'Well done, Joe.' They saw Joe jump aboard the wreck, moving on the fore-deck almost as if he were walking in the water. They saw him lower the Margoletta's mud-weight into the Death and Glory. They saw the Death and Glory pulling off again, to drop the weight into the mud at the full length of its rope. Then, and then only, when the Margoletta was aground on the mud in shallow water and safe from further damage, were Joe and his fellow salvage men ready to clutter up their ship with passengers. 'Idiots!' said Starboard, watching through the glasses. 'All trying to jump at once.' 'Well,' said Mrs Barrable, as the distance widened between the salvage vessel and the wreck, and she saw that all the Hullabaloos were aboard the Death and Glory, 'I'm very glad that's over.' 'Of course,' said Dorothea, 'in a story one or two of them ought to have been drowned. In a story you can't have everybody being a survivor.' 'If it hadn't been for the Death and Glories,' said Port, 'there wouldn't have been any survivors at all. The Margoletta would have gone down in the deep water and the whole lot of them would have been drowned. What's Joe going to do with them now? It looks as if he's putting up his sail.' 'He can't do anything against the wind,' said Starboard. 'The Death and Glory never could. And with the tide pouring up ... Hullo! Tom's afloat!' 'Get the tow-rope ready on the counter,' shouted Tom. All this time the water had been rising. Just as the last of the Hullabaloos had left the wreck of the Margoletta Tom had felt the Titmouse stir beneath his feet. He had her mast down in a moment. Her sail had been stowed long ago. Tom got out his oars and paddled her round to the stern of the Teasel. William, welcome in spite of his muddiness, scrambled back aboard his ship. Tom made the tow-rope fast. 'Try shifting from one side to the other,' he said. The Teasel's keel stirred in the mud. The creek by which she had left the channel in the fog had filled, and Tom with short sharp tugs at his oars made the tow-rope leap, dripping, from the water. 'She's moving,' said Dick. 'She will be,' said Starboard, pushing on the quant, while Port hung herself out as far as she could, holding the shrouds, first on one side of the ship and then on the other, and Mrs Barrable, Dick and Dorothea shifted first to one side and then to the other of the well. 'She's off.' The Teasel slid into the creek. A moment later the tow-rope had been shifted to her bows and Tom was towing her back towards the channel. In a few minutes she was once more on the right side of the black beacons, drifting up with the tide, while Port and Starboard were hoisting her mainsail. The tow-rope, now more or less clean, was hauled in, hand over hand. Tom came aboard, and the little Titmouse became once more a dinghy towing astern. 'Let's just see if she'll do it,' said Starboard, looking away down Breydon to the long railway bridge. If only they could get through that bridge they might, after all, be home in time for tomorrow's race. Port was busy with a mop. 'Foredeck's clear of mud,' she said. 'What about that jib?' Dick and Dorothea were already bringing it carefully from the cabin, while the Admiral was keeping a firm hold of the muddy William, for fear he might print a paw upon it. Up went the jib, and the Teasel went a good deal faster through the water, away across the channel to a red post on the farther side. Round she came and back again. She had not gained an inch. Once more Tom took her across the channel. Once more he brought her back. No, there was no doubt about it. This time she had lost ground. The wind was dropping, and the tide pouring up was sweeping her farther and farther from Breydon Bridge. 'It's no good,' said Tom. 'We'll just have to go back to the pilot's and have another shot at getting through Yarmouth tomorrow.' 'We're done,' said Port. 'It's too late now. We'll never get home by land tonight.' 'And the A.P.'ll have no crew,' said Starboard. The Teasel, a melancholy ship, swung round and drove up with the tide to meet the Death and Glory. The Death and Glory was desperately tacking to and fro across the channel, losing ground with every tack, even though Bill and Pete were rowing to help her sail. On the southern side of the channel, beyond the red posts, the tide was rising round the after-cabin of the Margoletta. A black speck in the distance, the Margoletta's, dinghy was drifting towards the Reedham marshes. 'Joe,' shouted Tom, when within hailing distance of the Death and Glory, 'you can't get down to Yarmouth against this tide. We can't, either. Going back to the pilot's?' And at that moment Dorothea looking sadly back towards Yarmouth saw something moving on the water far away. 'There's another motor-boat,' she said. 'Hullo,' said Starboard, 'I do believe it's the Come Along. Where are those glasses?' Well above Breydon railway bridge a yacht was hoisting the peak of her mainsail. The Come Along must have brought her through from the Bure, for there, already more than halfway between that yacht and the Teasel, there was the little tow-boat with the red and white flag, coming up Breydon at a tremendous pace. Old Bob had seen that something was amiss. Joe saw the motor-boat, too, and was afraid his salvage job would be snatched from him when all the work was done. 'Them Yarmouth sharks,' he said, and looked at the wreck. But the tide had carried him too far away already. Even with the help of those stout engines, Bill and Pete, he could not get back to stand by the wreck before this boat from Yarmouth reached it. The Come Along seemed to be close to them almost as soon as they had sighted her. She circled once round the wreck, and then made for the Death and Glory, probably because Old Bob saw that the old black boat was carrying the shipwrecked crew. 'You leave her alone,' Joe was shouting at the top of his voice. 'She ain't derelict. Don't you touch her. You leave her alone!' 'Take us into Yarmouth,' yelled the Hullabaloos. 'She ain't derelict,' shouted Joe. 'She's out o' the fairway. We've put her in shallow water, an' laid her anchor out. She belongs to Rodley's o' Wroxham, an' you leave her alone.' Old Bob shut down his engine to listen. He laughed. 'All right, Bor,' he called. 'She'll take no harm there. I'm not robbing you. Good bit o' salvage work you done. And where're ye bound for now?' 'Down to Yarmouth,' shouted the man who had been at the wheel of the Margoletta. 'We want to get ashore.' The Come Along swung alongside the Teasel. 'Good day to you, ma'am,' said Old Bob to the Admiral. 'Was you going down to Yarmouth, too? And so you found your ship all right?' he added, seeing Port and Starboard smiling down at him. 'I suppose there's no chance now of getting through Yarmouth until tomorrow morning,' said the Admiral. 'The tide seems to be running very hard.' Old Bob laughed again. 'Take ye through now,' he said. 'Tide or no tide. When the Come Along say "Come along", they got to come along. I'll be taking this party down to Yarmouth and I'll be taking you at the same time. If you'll be ready to have your mast down for the bridges. You'll have the tide with you up the North River.' 'They'll be in time,' cried Dorothea. 'We'll do it yet,' said Starboard. 'Never say dee till ye're deid,' said Port. 'Perhaps we ought to pick up that dinghy for them,' said Tom, pointing it out in the distance. 'You be getting ready,' said Old Bob. He was off again, chug, chug, chug, chug, to catch the Margoletta's dinghy before it had drifted ashore. 'Oh, can't you let the blasted dinghy go?' shouted one of the Hullabaloos. But Old Bob did not hear him. All was bustle aboard the Teasel. Tom sailed her to and fro close-hauled, waiting for Old Bob to come back. Port and Starboard were ready on the foredeck to lower the mainsail. Dick and Dorothea were stowing the jib once more in the cabin. Presently the Come Along came chugging back, bringing the Margoletta's dinghy. Old Bob brought the Death and Glory's long tow-rope and threw it to Tom aboard the Teasel. Then he threw the end of Come Along's tow-rope across the Teasel's foredeck. Starboard caught it and made it fast. 'All ready?' shouted Old Bob. 'Mind your steering.' Slowlyhewentahead.Firstthe TVaw/andthe Titmouse felt the pull of the little tug. Then the Death and Glory swung into line astern of them. They were off. CHAPTER 29 FACE TO FACE 'Come on and take the tiller, Tom,' called Port. Tom heard her. He was standing on the foredeck, with an arm over the foot of the lowered mast, looking at the Come Along, at old Bob hunched up in the stern of her hugging his tiller, at the dinghy of the wrecked Margoletta, and ahead at the long iron railway bridge and Yarmouth town. But he hardly saw the things he was looking at. He had failed after all, and the others did not seem to know it. All this time he had kept out of the way of those foreigners and now, in the end, there could be no escape for him. The others aboard the Teasel were thinking of wreck and rescue and getting through Yarmouth and up the river in time for tomorrow's race. But he could think of one thing only. With every yard they made down Breydon they were nearer to the moment when the Hullabaloos would have to know whose son it was that had cast off their moorings and sent them drifting down the river. His father had told him to keep out of their way, and now there they were, all being towed down Breydon together. He could not bring himself to look at them. But, through the back of his head, as it were, he could see them, towing astern, in the Death and Glory, too, after all that those three young bird preservers, pirates and salvage men had done to help him to keep clear. Well, he could not exactly wish the Hullabaloos had all been drowned. He himself would have gone to help them if he had been able to get Titmouse off the mud. 'Come on, Tom,' said Port. He went aft, and stood there, steering with a foot on the tiller. He could not help glancing down into the little Titmouse, spattered all over with the mud poor William had brought with him after heroically taking the life-line from ship to ship. Close astern of the Titmouse was the Death and Glory. He wondered if the Hullabaloos, crowded together in the old black boat, could see the name that had been painted out on the Titmouse's stern. It seemed now that he might just as well have left it as it was. 'Look! Look!' cried Dorothea. 'Joe's got his white rat on his shoulder.' In spite of himself, Tom had to look round. Right in the bows of the Death and Glory were Bill and Pete, looking over at the flurry of foam from her fast towing. In the middle of the boat were the Hullabaloos, and in the stern, steering, with a face of simple happiness and pride, was Joe. His white rat crawled slowly from one shoulder to the other round his neck, but Joe's eyes never shifted from the stern of the Teasel, and his steering was as steady as Tom's own. The Hullabaloos were far past minding being in a boat with a white rat. Men and women, looking all the more wretched for their gaudy clothes, they huddled together in the Death and Glory, miserable, angry, and silent after all that frantic shouting. Far away up Breydon a speck on the silver water at the side of the channel was all that could be seen of the Margoletta. After all, even if while they had her they had used her to make things uncomfortable for other people, upsetting old ladies in their houseboats, throwing dinghies against quays and tearing down the banks with their wash, even if they had carried their horrible hullabaloo into the quietest corners of the Broads, they now were shipwrecked sailors. They had lost their ship. And, in a way, Tom felt it was his fault. If only he had not been there in the Titmouse, if he had not let William get loose and bark, indeed, if only he had not managed to dodge them for so long, they never would have sent their vessel crashing into a Breydon beacon. Tom began to think how awful he would have felt if he had wrecked the Teasel in such a way ... or the little Titmouse. The thought was so upsetting that he gave the Teasel a sudden sheer that surprised young Joe in the Death and Glory, and made Old Bob in the Come Along look reprovingly over his shoulder. Through Breydon Bridge the Come Along towed them, and round the dolphins and into the mouth of the North River, where the tide was running up. Old Bob signalled with his arm. He was swinging round to bring them head to tide alongside the quay. The moment was very near now when Tom would have to meet his enemies face to face. 'It's all right,' said Dorothea, who seemed, alone, to guess what was in his mind. 'The outlaws rescued their pursuers and everything was all right.' But was it? There was only one thing to be done, as far as Tom could see. As soon as they were tied up to the quay he went and did it. The Hullabaloos had come ashore from the Death and Glory. They were standing on the quay, explaining. Old Bob was explaining, too, to some fishermen, and telling a friend to telephone up to Rodley's at Wroxham, to say what had happened to the Margoletta. A lot of people seemed to be there, which made it rather worse for Tom. He went straight up to the Hullabaloos, to the red-haired man who had been steering when the Margoletta crashed into the post. 'I've come to say I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry about the wreck, of course. Anybody would be. But I mean I'm very sorry about casting off your moorings that time. I wouldn't have done it if only the nest hadn't belonged to a rather special bird. But I oughtn't to have done it at all...' The man stared at him, turned as red as his hair, and suddenly shouted at him, 'Blast your special bird ... and that friend of yours at Horning who sent us wild-goose chasing up and down ... the two of you laughing in your blasted sleeves ... You may think it a joke ...' Tom did not think it a joke, and he could not understand what the man meant about a friend of his at Horning. Surely not George Owdon? But, before he could answer, while the man was still raging on, one of the older fishermen cut him short. 'Stow that now,' he said. 'What ye shoutin' about? Fare, to me that if it hadn't a been for these young folk ye'd be too full o' Breydon water to be talkin' to 'em like that. Let be say I, and be thankful for a dry skin ...' 'Shut up, Ronald,' said one of the other Hullabaloos. 'You've made a mess of things, and the less said the better.' 'Isn't there a hotel in this beastly place?" said one of the two women, the one who had been rude to Mrs Barrable that first day. 'Need you keep us waiting here to be stared at by everybody?' A boy on the quayside led them off, a melancholy, cross procession, in their white-topped yachting caps and gaudy shirts, and berets and beach pyjamas. 'Rammed a post on Breydon, they did,' the boy explained again and again to the people they passed, as he piloted them off the quay and along the crowded streets. 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 diem 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 die 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.' 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, diey 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 die 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 save 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 toothbrushes. 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.'