trial trip, and members of the crew, dressing in the cabins, looked at each other doubtfully. Then, suddenly there was a sharp change in the motion, and, as the Wild Cat heeled over on the starboard side, shoes, clothes, hairbrushes and human beings slid unexpectedly across the floor. Roger sat down. Captain John had forgotten that he was not in harbour, and had stood an enamelled mug of toothwater on the little shelf that served as a table. It went flying. John tried to save it, tripped over Roger, and fell head first into the lower bunk.
Susan was farthest on with her dressing, and did not seem to mind the motion. She just leant back against the bunks and went on brushing her hair. Titty slipped sideways. The floor of the cabin sloped uphill. Titty seized some clothes and a pair of canvas shoes. “I’m going to finish my dressing on deck,” she said hurriedly, climbed up the slope of the floor, got out of the door and stumbled up the companion-way.
Nancy, in the cabin of the Amazons, said nothing. She just looked at Peggy. A queer expression came into her eyes, as if she were looking not so much at Peggy as through her. She picked her shoes up out of the muddle on the floor, then dropped one of them, tried to catch it, slipped, recovered herself, made up her mind she would get that shoe later, and almost fell out of the cabin door and round on the stairway of the companion. She felt better as soon as her head was above deck. This would never do, she thought. She must have been mistaken in thinking she felt so bad. She put on the shoe she had with her, took two or three good sniffs at the wind and then went back after the shoe she had left. She found Susan and Peggy side by side on the bottom step of the companion-way, putting on their own shoes with difficulty and laughter, but talking quite happily of cooking on the swinging stove because the other would be on too much of a slant. It was bad enough having to step over them. But she did it, worked herself round into her cabin, found her shoe and came out again, grabbing at the saloon table to steady herself. “Hullo, Nancy!” said Peggy. “Isn’t this jolly?” But Nancy did not answer. She had meant to get her shoe, and she had got it, but this talking would have been too much. She got across the saloon, and through into the fo’c’sle, to get her head up through the fo’c’sle hatch into the fresh hard air. For once, Nancy, the Terror of the Seas, did not feel at all like a captain. She hardly felt it would be safe to say, “Shiver my timbers!” Her timbers felt a bit shivery already. And the funny thing was that Peggy, who was afraid of thunder and things like that, seemed not to be bothered at all by the unusual motion.
On deck things settled down quickly. Old Peter Duck was moving here and there, seeing that everything was as it should be. Coiled halyards that had shown signs of straying had been recoiled and stowed in places where they were willing to stay. The anchor had been brought inboard and secured in its place. He was busy now lashing down the little rowing dinghy. The fenders that had been used to protect the new green paint of the Wild Cat from the dirty quays of Lowestoft were all inboard, each in its place, ready for next time it would be needed, but not one of them left hanging over the side to make good sailors laugh. Peter Duck, busy about this and that, seemed happy to have his feet once more on a slanting deck, lifting and swaying along at sea, after so many years on the level deck of his old wherry moving steadily along smooth inland waters.
And the land was slipping by. The Wild Cat was off at last and making the most of the good north-easter, running down inside the shoals, past Claremont Pier, and the hospital and Kirkley Church. Pakefield Church was abeam. Out to sea a coasting steamer was hurrying south, from Newcastle or Grimsby or Hull, hurrying, but not moving as fast as her own smoke which was blowing before her in a long low dirty cloud. Fishing ketches were leaving the harbour, and some of the trawlers, and far away on the horizon there were two or three little plumes of smoke, showing where there were steamers so far away as not to be in sight. One by one the rest of the crew climbed up on deck, hung on to anything that came handy and looked about them. The trial trip had been in smooth water compared with this. Now they were off at last and learning what it was like to be at sea. Today there was a real wind. The land seemed to sway up and down as they rushed along. Sometimes the Wild Cat would lift to an even keel as a sea passed under her, and then the land would drop to the bulwarks. Then over she would go again, and the land seemed to leap up the sky, and in the place where it had been a moment before there would be the grey water sweeping along by the lee rail.
Presently Captain Flint called John to the wheel.
“Take over, will you, while I deal with that Primus for them? Steer for that buoy. Black and white, with a cage on the top of it. Steer close by it, leaving it to port.”
John gulped, but said, “Aye, aye, sir,” as stoutly as he could. A moment later he was feeling the ship, meeting her as she yawed, looking anxiously back at her rather waggly wake, and trying to do with a real ship at sea what he had learnt to do very well with the little Swallow on the lake in the north. But it was not easy in this hard wind and uncertain sea. There she was again, heading the wrong side of the buoy. Oh, bother it, and now too far the other way! And there was Nancy watching. This would never do. He must keep that piebald chequered buoy just showing on her port bow. Gradually the Wild Cat steadied down and John grew confident enough to look at Nancy who, he feared, had all this time been looking critically at him.
But Nancy was not thinking about him, or about the steering, or even about the Wild Cat. She had a queer staring look, as if she were trying to do some difficult sum in mental arithmetic. John could hardly believe that this was the same Nancy who was always so free with her “Hearties” and “Shiver my timbers!” and so ready to call other people tame galoots and to teach them all there was to be known about the sea.
“Come and look, Nancy,” called Peggy’s voice from inside the galley in the forward part of the deckhouse. Nancy pulled herself together, and clinging to the bulwarks worked herself along to the galley door. It opened.
“Come in, but shut the door quick. It’s too blowy from that side,” said Peggy. “Just look at the Primus, swinging in rings, like the compass, so that the kettle keeps steady whatever the ship’s doing.”
Nancy let go the bulwarks and fell against the deckhouse. She pulled the galley door open again and put her head in, but quickly drew it back. In the tiny galley there were Peggy, Susan and Captain Flint. Captain Flint had been showing them how to deal with the Primus, and he had used rather too little methylated spirit, besides pumping a little too soon, so that the Primus had smoked a bit. It was burning all right now, and the kettle was boiling and the galley was full of steam and the smell of paraffin. And there were Peggy and Susan in the middle of that smelly fog, cheerfully cracking eggs into a bowl and making coffee in an enormous coffee-pot.
Nancy shut the door quickly and dragged herself back to the bulwarks, throwing her head up to get all the wind on it she could. This was terrible. Everybody seemed to be all right except her. Right forward she could see Roger eagerly asking questions and Peter Duck as steady on the slanting deck as if he had grown there and had roots, explaining something about getting the anchor inboard. Was the sea always like this? She could hardly bear the thought of going below, and yet she desperately wanted something hot to drink. When at last she saw Peggy and Susan, shouting with laughter, dodge out of the galley door and round to the companion taking damp towels to lay on the saloon table, Nancy began to wish she was back at home.
The damp towels, of course, were spread on the saloon table to keep plates and things from slipping about, and a minute or two later the two cooks were carrying down a great mess of scrambled eggs and the coffee-pot and a big can of milk. Damp towels, however, were not enough, and Captain Flint went below to fit the fiddles to the table. Fiddles for tables aboard ship are wooden frameworks that divide up the table into small partitions so that if things slide they cannot slide far. “Feeding-boxes,” said Roger, “and one for each of us.” Then, when everything was ready, Peggy came up on deck to bang mercilessly on a big bell. Peter Duck came aft and took the wheel from John. John hurried down the companion to join the others. Roger had come down by way of the forehatch. Captain Flint was sitting in the arm-chair at the port end of the table. Nancy, feeling as
