rope. He took the end from Roger, passed it through the loop in the rope, round the rope itself and back again down into the loop, and pulled it taut all in a single movement.
“All fast,” he called, and hurriedly pulled the dinghy clear as the young man began hauling in hand over hand. In a moment the buoy was up on the foredeck, and the young man went on hauling in the buoy-rope, wet and thick and green with seaweed. A few yards short of the black boat the Goblin had stopped going astern. She was coming forward again.
“He must be jolly strong,” said Roger.
“I say,” said John, “she’s got a square stern.”
“Goblin,” said Titty, reading her name.
Breathlessly they watched. The end of a rusty chain was climbing out of the water. It went aboard over a fairlead at the stemhead. A yard . . . two yards . . . the Goblin’s skipper was making it fast. He stood there panting. Then he stooped, and pulled on something at his feet, and they saw the jib roll up on itself like a window blind. He stood up again, looking from boat to boat and then down at the four of them in the dinghy.
“Narrow squeak that was,” he said with a slow grin. “Jolly good work on your part. Who taught you to tie a bowline knot?” “Father,” said John.
“He’s in the Navy,” said Roger.
“Lucky for me,” said the skipper of the Goblin. “I’d have been in a proper mess if you’d fumbled things just then.”
He stretched himself, dipped a mop over the side, used it to wipe his hands, black with mud from the mooring chain, and began to tidy up. John, with a steady stroke of his oars, was keeping close by. All four of them were watching. It was almost as if they had come home from sea themselves. They watched the skipper of the Goblin make the tiller fast. They watched him clamber forward again and turn the staysail into a neat sausage, drop it through the forehatch and disappear after it. They watched him come up again, not out of the forehatch but into the cockpit, lugging with him a huge pair of crutches, like big wooden scissors. He opened the crutches and stood them on the after-deck. Just as he went forward to lower the boom the crutches slipped. He came aft and balanced them once more.
“Shall I come aboard and hold them steady?” said John trying not to sound as eager as he felt.
“Wish you would. Your dinghy’s got a fender round it? Have to look out for the paint.”
John, careful not to bump, laid the dinghy alongside. Roger and Susan hung on to the Goblin as he climbed aboard.
“Good,” said the Goblin’s skipper. “You can let her swing astern, so long as you keep her clear of the Imp.”
“That’s the name of his dinghy,” said Titty, looking at a tiny black pram dinghy that had been towing after the Goblin.
“Is she the Imp because she’s black?” whispered Roger, “Or does he have her black because she’s an imp?”
John, standing in the cockpit, was holding the crutches in place. The skipper at the foot of the mast was slowly lowering the boom. John guided it between the jaws of the crutches.
“Say when,” said the skipper.
“Now,” said John.
The end of the boom dropped another six inches into the jaws of the crutches, and John, hauling in the slack of the main-sheet, made it fast as the skipper came aft.
“Hullo,” he said, “you’ve been in a boat before.”
“We’ve only sailed very little ones,” said John. “By ourselves, I mean.”
“Let’s have those tyers. Starboard locker. . . Just by your hand.”
John found the bundle of tyers, like strips of broad tape. He joined the skipper on the cabin top. Together they pulled and tugged at the great heap of crimson canvas. “Hang on to this for a minute. . . Hold this while I get that lump straightened out. . . Pull this as hard as you can. . .” Gradually the mainsail turned into a neat roll along the top of the boom. Each bit, as they got it right, was tied firmly down.
“Hullo! Is that the last tyer? There ought to be one more.”
“Is this it?” An eager voice spoke from the cockpit. Roger, standing on one of the cockpit seats, had the missing tyer in his hand. Titty was in the cockpit, too, and even Susan, who had had doubts about it, had not been able to stay behind.
You never knew what Roger might be doing, and she had thought it best to follow him.
“When did you come aboard?” said John. “I say, you don’t mind, do you?” he added, turning to the Goblin’s skipper.
“He said we were to let the dinghy go astern,” said Roger. “So we did.”
“The more the merrier,” said the young man. “Plenty of work for everybody. All those ropes on the cockpit floor to be coiled.”
He put on the last tyer and, followed by John, went forward to tidy up the foredeck.
“I say, just look down,” said Titty.
They looked down into the cabin of the little ship, at blue mattresses on bunks on either side, at a little table with a chart tied down to it with string, at a roll of blankets in one of the bunks, at a foghorn in another, and at a heap of dirty plates and cups and spoons in a little white sink opposite the tiny galley, where a saucepan of water was simmering on one of the two burners of a little cooking stove.
“Look here,” said Susan. “Hadn’t we better get on with those ropes. We oughtn’t to be here at all really. We’re going to be late for supper. . .”
One by one they disentangled the ropes from the mass on the floor of the cockpit, coiled each one separately and laid it on a seat. Meanwhile John and the skipper were busy on the fore-deck, closing the hatch, coiling the buoy rope, throwing overboard handfuls of green seaweed, dipping the mop over the side, sousing water on the deck and sweeping the mud from the mooring chain away and out of the scuppers. In about ten minutes nobody could have guessed that the Goblin had only just come in from the sea.
“This water’s nearly boiling,” called Susan, who had been admiring the little stove.
“Turn off the juice,” the skipper called back. “Turn the knob to the right. No need to let the water boll. It’s only for washing up.” He was standing on the cabin top, reaching up to the screens on the shrouds, and presently John and he, one with a big red lantern and one with a big green, came aft to the cockpit.
“Well done,” he laughed, looking at the neat coils of rope. “Shove them into the lockers out of the way.”
“Sidelights?” said Roger.
“Yes. Empty, too. They burnt out this morning, but it was light enough then, so it didn’t matter. I ought to have brought them in, but forgot.”
“Gosh!” said Roger. “Were you sailing in the dark?”
“Left
