The Happy Mariners Page 4

  ‘With cutlasses, I expect,’ said Guy. ‘But leave out some of the goriest parts, please, because I don’t think Elizabeth would like them.’

  ‘Nay, art wrong there, lad. The Spaniards are our natural-born enemies, as none knows better than the Queen herself. They were sent for us to fight, weren’t a? So what should us do but fight ’em?’

  ‘What did you do,’ asked Elizabeth, ‘when it was all over?’

  ‘Maybe I went into yonder cabin, lady. And maybe I found there a keg of rum. And I shouldn’t wonder if I made so free as to take a little tot, or maybe two, just to keep out the cold. And maybe I curled up and slept awhile.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think,’ said Elizabeth mysteriously, ‘that you slept a very long while, Mr Dyke.’

  ‘Phineas to my shipmates, lady, master though I am and master though I may be. Friendly’s my nature and always was.’

  ‘But look here!’ said Guy very firmly, ‘what’s all this about being master of the ship? Didn’t we tell you it belonged to Elizabeth? And didn’t you say, “Yes it does”?’

  ‘To the Queen herself it belongs,’ answered Phineas, ‘and who else, young master? I be a Queen’s man, bean’t I, so what’s mine is hers, when taken in battle.’

  ‘Queen Elizabeth!’ cried Rex. ‘It’s Queen Elizabeth he’s talking about. Queen Elizabeth the First I Great Scott, he thinks she’s still…’

  ‘Hush!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Don’t you know, Phineas, that we’ve had many a king and queen since then?’

  Phineas looked puzzled; he scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Ay, she has a man’s heart in her, like her father, King Harry, that my old father once saw in London streets. A great red beard he had, cut square, and a red face, and a voice like a bull. Nay, but he’s been gone these many years. ’Tis Elizabeth now, good Queen Elizabeth…’

  The heads of the Robinsons came together in a confidential cluster.

  ‘What does it mean?’ whispered Guy. ‘It’s all very funny, isn’t it? It looks to me as if something rather terrific had happened to us.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rex, whispering in reply. ‘I thought at first he was a bit daft. But, after all, the adventure started before we found him. Before we found him here, anyhow. I suppose he’s just part of it. Elizabeth, what do you think? Have we stepped back into the year of the Spanish Armada, or something?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Perhaps we have in a way. But I don’t really know. I think it’s he that’s got lost. I mean, don’t you see, he’s been asleep. It’s not possible, of course, but it looks as though it’s happened, doesn’t it? Hundreds of years. Fancy being asleep all that time!’

  ‘But it was this very man, don’t forget, that brought the ship round to our house,’ Guy reminded her.

  Elizabeth waited a moment before replying: ‘Does that make any difference?’

  ‘Well, silly,’ said Guy, ‘how could he do that if he was asleep! He couldn’t be in the ship and carrying it about at the same time, could he now? Besides, it was such a little ship.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Elizabeth, ‘it was a big ship all the time, really. But we couldn’t see it. It was in a bottle, and the bottle was magic.’

  ‘There’s more in her, mark ’ee, than meets the eye!’

  It was young Martin who spoke, and they all turned to look at him.

  ‘That’s what the sailor said, you know,’ he explained timidly.

  ‘Of course he did!’ cried Elizabeth. ‘How clever of you to remember, Martin! Then perhaps he was asleep inside the ship all the time, even when he was carrying it down the garden path to us. Perhaps he lay down there’—she pointed towards the hatchway—‘dreaming of how he would go to the Queen and say that he’d got a ship for her. And perhaps it was only a sort of ghost of him, a sort of dream Phineas Dyke, that we saw. And when he found I was an Elizabeth, too, the poor man got muddled, and thought I was the Queen. I can’t explain it a bit,’ she finished, ‘but I believe it’s something like that. And anyhow here we are, and the ship isn’t really mine any more, and I vote we ask him to sail it for us. What do you say?’

  Everybody applauded the suggestion, so without more ado Elizabeth went up to Phineas and said: ‘My name’s Elizabeth, you know, and we’ve all been pretending that the ship belongs to me, and that I’m captain for this first cruise. But if you will kindly take charge and show us how to sail her, we shall be very pleased. Do you think your Queen would mind very much?’

  Phineas smiled radiantly. ‘That’s a rare pretty name thee’s got, lady. And Phineas Dyke,’ he added with a twinkle, ‘is your Majesty’s humble, faithful servant. As for sailing the ship, why she’s straining at anchor this very moment, as sure as rum’s rum. There’s a fine little bit of gale brewing somewhere.’

  ‘Anchor?’ said Rex. ‘We didn’t see any anchor before, did we, Guy? Did we, Elizabeth?’

  Phineas suddenly gave vent to a roar of command. ‘Now, my hearties, yarely, yarely! Stand by, ye lads, to haul on the mainsail.’

  ‘And I’ll pull up the anchor,’ shouted Martin in great glee.

  Elizabeth watched, breathless with excitement. Rex and Guy listened with all their ears to Phineas’s instructions. Martin ran to and fro eagerly, looking for the anchor. He was still looking when, with a gentle gliding motion, the ship began moving out across the dim, starlit sea.

  Chapter 6

  Danger Below

  Boys are sometimes very handy, thought Elizabeth, for she could see how quickly Rex and Guy were learning to make themselves useful on the ship. Rex was at the helm, carrying out the orders shouted by Phineas Dyke from the prow. Guy was rather at a disadvantage because he was still wrapped up in the blanket, which flapped about his legs and got in the way whenever he moved; and Elizabeth thought it was high time she saw about getting his clothes dry. So she began exploring the ship in search of the cook’s galley. She had known every inch of the deck so well when the ship had been in its bottle that she was filled with astonishment at finding everything a thousand times bigger. Here was the half-deck, higher by four feet than the other; here, on their swivels, were the two guns (faulcons, as Father had called them); and here was the cook’s galley. All was exactly as her father had shown her, and as she herself had seen when, with the ship in her hand, she had studied and admired its every part. The beams of the deck were slippery; two or three times she nearly lost her footing, and once only saved herself from falling by clutching at a gigantic coil of rope, rope thicker than her arm in a coil as tall as herself. The great lantern that swung and swayed half-way up the mizzen mast held her attention for a wondering moment. She did not remember having seen it before. How did it come there, and who had lit it? Perhaps Rex had found it in the course of his explorations. The question did not occupy her long, for she was enraptured with the taste—the salt and tarry taste—of this adventure; the sight of the stars moving overhead; the fresh wind in her hair; the feeling of the ship, like a live thing, under her; the strong rhythm and music of the ploughed sea; the sound of the canvas that was like the beating wings of a gigantic bird. She felt that she, like a queen, was riding the ship, and that the ship was riding the sea, and that the sea itself, with its myriads of leaping waves, was racing round the world. Speed and air, music and starshine, were mixed in one glorious cup for her.

  In the cook’s galley she found a good fire roaring away. It was surprising; she could not account for it; but there it was, not to be doubted. The ship, and all the queer lovely things in it, made up a world that seemed now far more real than home, and Mother and Father, and Nancy. Elizabeth had not forgotten her home. Not at all. She remembered it very well and she knew, at the bottom of her heart, that she would some day be very glad to get back to it; but she was not worrying about it; she was very happy where she was, and very busy, at this moment, with the task of getting Guy’s clothes dry. It would never do for the poor boy to walk about in a blanket for the rest of the adventure. So she spread the things out on the backs of three ch
airs in front of the stove, just as she had seen Nancy do at home, and decided to come and look every few minutes to see how they were getting on. It was very cosy and comfortable in the cook’s galley, which was certainly the warmest place on the ship. But she could not stay there long, for she was eager to be out again on deck, where the boys were, and to feel once more the sheen and magic of the night flowing, pulsing, sparkling past her. She ran aft and took up her stand at a point from which she could watch the water galloping with a loud noise round the rudder, a pouring cataract whipping itself into white curds, and leaving in the ship’s wake a long line of diminishing foam. The sea’s motion was now more marked; the stars swayed more dizzily, up and down, up and down, in a sky that seemed almost to flutter, like a grey-blue curtain, under the little violent gusts of wind; the ship, which had been cleaving the water with clean precision, now began climbing and plunging, and her timbers shook and her tackle creaked, and Elizabeth, rousing from a rapturous reverie, heard Phineas shout: ‘Heave sail, lads, and yarely to it!’ She ran at once to see if she could help, but Rex, watched anxiously by Guy, was already hauling on the rope. She returned to her former place, and presently, as she stood watching the sea, she felt a hand slip into hers, and looking down she encountered the rather sad gaze of Martin. With a pang of contrition she realized that she had forgotten all about Martin.

  ‘Hullo, Martin! Where have you been all this time?’

  ‘Oh, round about,’ answered Martin vaguely. ‘I went through a hole in the floor and down some stairs.’

  ‘Down the hatchway,’ Elizabeth corrected him grandly, ‘to the lower deck. You mean the place that Phineas came up from. The after hatch.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. I found some astonishing things down there. It’s a fine place, I can tell you. Pistols and daggers and cutlasses and things. Come and see.’

  Elizabeth was in no great hurry to move, so she said: ‘Yes, in a minute. What else have you been doing?’

  ‘I’ve been having a sort of think, partly.’ His eyes were clouded.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Well, it’s clear to me,’ said Martin, ‘that this is a pretty good ship. A very tidy craft indeed.’ Martin, seven years old, had a keen taste for grown-up phrases with a flavour to them. He collected them eagerly, and used them in his own conversation whenever he could. The effect was frequently droll, and made people laugh; but Elizabeth made a point of never laughing at Martin. That was why he confided in her.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed she. ‘A very tidy craft indeed.’

  ‘But I wish,’ Martin went on, ‘I do wish, Elizabeth, that I was a bit bigger.’

  ‘Do you?’ Elizabeth smiled reassuringly. ‘I think you’re a very nice size, if you ask me. If I hadn’t got a little brother like you, do you know what I’d do? Why, I’d jolly well set about finding one.’

  ‘Just like me?’ asked Martin in surprise. ‘That’s funny.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a good job?’

  Martin admitted that it was. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a sort of feeling that I’m not going to like this trip very much. I wanted to help with the ship, but they said I was too little. So then I tried to find you, Elizabeth, but I couldn’t. Where were you?’

  ‘I was in the cook’s galley, hanging out Guy’s things to dry.’

  ‘I see.’ His voice sounded very lonely. ‘Elizabeth, am I going to be a what-do-you-call-it on this adventure?’

  Elizabeth laughed. ‘What does that mean? You’re going to be a good boy and have fun. That’s all I know.’

  ‘What is it they have in a race? You know, you have to get through things, and jump, and…’

  ‘An obstacle race?’ suggested Elizabeth.

  ‘Yes. Well, that’s what I don’t want to be—an obstacle. It’s a pity I’m not bigger. I wish Mother were here, or Father, or even my Fandy cat. I think it would be rather nice to go home. You could come too, couldn’t you? They don’t want girls here, you know. As Rex said, this is a man’s job.’ He tugged coaxingly at her hand. ‘Come on. There’s a rowing boat all ready, tied to the side.’

  ‘No, my dear.’ Elizabeth shook her head.

  ‘Why not, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Let’s go and look at those cutlasses of yours,’ she answered. ‘And I must look at my airing, too.’

  On the way to the cabin, though it took but a few seconds to walk, she told him, very quickly, five good reasons for not going home: that it was impossible, that she couldn’t row, that it would spoil the fun, that she must stay with her brothers, and that Martin was going to have the time of his life on the Resmiranda. ‘Besides,’ added Elizabeth, ‘we’re sailing to our island, the one we drew a map of. Had you forgotten?’

  ‘But I’ve lost my cuckoo,’ complained Martin. He meant his cuckoo-clock, which, alas, he had dropped during that difficult descent into the ship from the cliff. ‘I’m feeling rather funny inside.’

  ‘Funny inside? So am I,’ said his sister. ‘We mustn’t think about it. You’ve been looking at the sky, I expect. Down below it’ll be better.’

  They were now at the hatchway. Elizabeth lifted the door and said: ‘In you go then.’

  Martin hung back a little. ‘It’s very dark down there, isn’t it?’ he said thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes, but we’ll leave the hatch open. You’re not afraid, surely?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Martin. But he still did not go forward.

  ‘How did you manage before down there?’

  ‘It didn’t seem so dark,’ explained Martin. ‘Not quite so dark. There was moonlight, and from up here I could see the cutlasses, all in a heap, shining like anything.’

  ‘I’ll go first if you like.’

  Elizabeth pulled him back and set her foot on the first stair. Then she felt Martin’s face close to her own; his arm was round her neck pulling her down towards him; his breath was warm on her cheek.

  ‘Don’t!’ He spoke in an anguished whisper. ‘Don’t go down, Elizabeth. There’s somebody watching us.’

  Clutching him by the arm she stepped back from the stairs, and quickly, with as little noise as possible, closed the hatch. ‘Where?’ she asked. ‘Who’s watching us, Martin?’ She could see that the little boy was really frightened, and knew at once that there must be real cause for his terror.

  ‘It’s down there, in the darkness,’ said Martin. ‘I could see its two eyes staring up at us.’

  Hand in hand they ran to join their brothers. Rex, looking very much the seasoned mariner, greeted them with a cool nod. Guy, who was with Phineas at the helm, learning his job, was too deeply occupied to greet them at all. The ship was now running smoothly and swiftly before the wind; her pennons streamed out like quivering strips of tin, her rigging sang, and she rode high in the water. The sea’s expanse was all dancing waves, each wave crested with a fleck of white foam, and the sky’s darkness was veiled in a haze of moonlight. The moon herself, high overhead, was brighter than she had ever been; so bright indeed, and everything visible so perfect, that Elizabeth could hardly realize that somewhere on the ship, below hatches, lurked something with a pair of wicked eyes watching for a chance to do them a mischief.

  She called out to Rex and told him of what Martin had seen.

  ‘A man down the hatchway?’ Rex stared. ‘Perhaps a pirate. He’s after the treasure. We must nab him, that’s all. You stay here.’

  ‘I didn’t say a man,’ said Elizabeth. ‘A pair of eyes, Martin said. It may be … anything. I’ll tell Guy.’

  Guy listened without a word. He seemed to have become, since Elizabeth had seen him last, an experienced and taciturn sailor. The truth is he was full to overflowing of all the nautical wisdom that Phineas had been busily imparting to him and Rex, and for a moment he could hardly grasp what his sister was telling him.

  But when he did grasp it he said: ‘All right. I’ll come along and kill it for you. Phineas, may I go below for a moment?’

  Phineas nodded, and Guy and Elizabet
h made haste to join Rex, who had Martin in his safe keeping.

  ‘Elizabeth and Martin,’ said Rex, ‘must come up here to keep a look out. You know the difference between larboard and starboard, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Elizabeth proudly.

  ‘We’ll take a cutlass apiece,’ remarked Guy to Rex. ‘And I’ll go first, so that if he gets me, you’ll be left to look after the rest. See?’

  Martin became suddenly mutinous. ‘I’m coming too,’ he declared, following at their heels. ‘It’s my thing, I saw it first. Why shouldn’t I kill it?’

  And no amount of threatening or entreaty, even from Elizabeth, could move Martin from his resolution. So in the end it was all three boys that stood round, with cutlasses in their hands, when the hatch was opened.

  Yes, there were the eyes, gleaming wickedly in the darkness.

  ‘Now then,’ said Rex, ‘are you coming out, or must I fetch you?’

  Rex was really in great form. He spoke so sternly that the most bloodthirsty pirate might well have been awed into giving him a round of applause. But Guy could not help noticing that when there was no answer he went a little pale.

  ‘Very well,’ said Rex, his voice trembling, ‘I’m coming to settle you.’

  Cutlass in hand, he prepared to descend the stairs, with Guy at his heels.

  And then the eyes unmistakably moved. They came nearer, they grew larger. A dark shape jumped between Rex’s legs and on to the deck. It purred loudly, stuck its tail up, and rubbed itself against Martin’s legs.

  ‘Oh,’ cried Martin, ‘it’s my beautiful Fandy cat!’

  He held out his arms; Fandy leapt into them; and everybody laughed with pleasure.

  ‘Well,’ said Rex, ‘it’s lucky it wasn’t a pirate.’

  Guy grinned. ‘Lucky for the pirate, you mean.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ agreed Rex.

  Chapter 7

  The Storm

  Martin was delighted to have Fandy with him again, and he said no more about wanting to go home.