Swallows and Amazons. Arthur Ransome

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СКАЧАТЬ hole in the forward thwart, the seat near the bows of the boat. It had a square foot, which rested in a slot cut to fit it in the kelson.

      “Get the sail ready and hoist it, and make fast there and see how she does,” said Queen Elizabeth.

      “I wonder whether the real Queen Elizabeth knew much about ships,” said Titty.

      “That Queen Elizabeth was not brought up close to Sydney Harbour,” said mother.

      Susan had got the sail ready. On the yard there was a strop (which is really a loop) that hooked on a hook on one side of an iron ring called the traveller, because it moved up and down the mast. The halyard ran from the traveller up to the top of the mast, through a sheave (which is a hole with a little wheel in it), and then down again. John hooked the strop on the traveller and hauled away on the halyard. Up went the brown sail until the traveller was nearly at the top of the mast. Then John made the halyard fast on the cleats, which were simply pegs, underneath the thwart which served to hold the mast up.

      “That looks all right,” said Queen Elizabeth from the jetty. “But to make the sail set properly you must pull the boom down. That’ll take those cross wrinkles out.”

      “Is that what those blocks (pulleys) are for hooked to a ring in the kelson close to where the mast is stepped? But they are all muddled up.”

      “Isn’t there another ring under the boom, close to the mast?” asked Queen Elizabeth.

      “Got it,” said Captain John. “One block hooks to the ring under the boom, and one to the ring in the bottom of the boat, then it’s as easy as anything to haul the boom down. How’s that?”

      “The crinkles in the sail go up and down now, and not across,” said Mate Susan.

      “That’s right,” said Queen Elizabeth. “The wind will flatten them out as soon as we start sailing. Can I come aboard, Captain Drake?”

      “Please,” said John;”but never mind about being Queen Elizabeth just now.” He was just going to sail Swallow for the first time, and he had quite enough to think about without queens.

      Titty, Roger, and mother climbed down from the jetty into Swallow, as she lay there with flapping sail, ready to start.

      “Will you take the tiller, mother, while I cast off ?” said Captain John.

      “Not I,” said mother. “Queen or no queen, I’m a passenger, and I want to see how you manage by yourselves.”

      “Right,” said Captain John. “Mister Mate, will you come forward to cast off. Send the crew below to keep their heads out of the way of the boom.”

      “Aye, aye, sir,” said Mate Susan. “Get down on the bottom, you two.” The boy and the able-seaman crouched in the bottom of the boat with their heads below the gunwale. John took the tiller. Susan untied the painter from the ring on the pier, put the end of it through the ring, and held it.

      “Ready,” she said.

      “Cast off,” said the captain, and a moment later Swallow was moving.

      “Are we going to the island?” asked the boy.

      “No,” said mother. “It would take too long to go there and back. There’s a lot to be done if you are to start to-morrow morning. Just sail her a little way up against the wind, and then we must run back to deal with haybags and stores and all the other things you’ll want for the voyage.”

      So Swallow’s trial trip was a short one. John sailed her up against the wind, tacking from side to side, and making a little every time, just as Roger had done when he had tacked up the field the day before. Then they turned round for the run home, and raced back with the water creaming round her.

      “Your ship is all right, Captain John,” said mother, when they were once more moored to the jetty, and Susan and John were stowing the sail, and taking the mast down to take the Swallow into the boathouse.

      “She’s a beauty,” said John.

      The rest of that day was full of business. Mother was stitching haybags out of sacking. Titty had taken the little flagstaff up to the farm, and had cut a triangular flag out of some of the canvas left over from the tents. Mother had drawn a swallow on a bit of paper, and Titty had cut one out of some blue serge that had once been part of a pair of knickerbockers. Then she had put the pattern on the white flag, and cut out a place to fit it. Then she had sewn the edge of the blue swallow all the way round into the place for it in the white flag. When she had done there was a fine white flag with a blue swallow flying across it, and it looked the same on both sides. Then she had fastened it on the little wire flagstaff where the blue flag had been, so that it was ready to hoist to the masthead.

      Captain John and the mate were getting together the really important stores and deciding what they could do without. The list had grown very much last night after supper. Roger was kept busy running up and down to the boathouse with all sorts of things that everybody agreed could not be left behind.

      The mate’s chief task was fitting out the galley, with the help of Mrs. Jackson, the farmer’s wife, who was lending the things.

      “You’ll want a kettle first and foremost,” said Mrs. Jackson. “And a saucepan and a frying-pan,” said Mate Susan, looking at her list. “I’m best at buttered eggs.”

      “And are you really?” said Mrs. Jackson. “Most folk are best at boiled.”

      “Oh, well, I don’t count boiled,” said Susan.

      Then there were the knives and forks and plates and mugs and spoons to be thought of, and biscuit tins, big ones to keep the food in, and smaller tins for tea and salt and sugar.

      “We’ll want rather a big one for sugar, won’t we?” said Roger, who had come in and was waiting for something else to carry down to the boathouse.

      “You won’t bake, I don’t suppose,” said Mrs. Jackson.

      “I think not,” said Mate Susan.

      The pile of things on the kitchen table grew and grew as Susan crossed off the items on her list.

      John and Titty came in to show her the new flag and to see how she was getting on.

      “Who is going to be doctor?” she asked.

      “Surgeon,” said Titty. “It’s always surgeon on board ship.”

      “You are,” said John. “You’re the mate. It’s the mate’s job. He comes dancing on to the scene, ‘And well,’ says he, ‘and how are your arms and legs and liver and lungs and bones afeeling now?’ Don’t you remember?”

      “Then I ought to take some bandages and medicines and things.”

      “Oh, no,” said Titty. “On desert islands they cure everything with herbs. We’ll have all sorts of diseases, plagues, and fevers and things that no medicine is any good for and we’ll cure them with herbs that the natives show us.”

      At this point mother came in and settled the question. “No medicines,” she said. “Anyone who wants doctoring is invalided home.”

      “If СКАЧАТЬ