"Ransome, Arthur - Swallows and Amazons 05 - Coot Club 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ransome Arthur)

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.