CHAPTER X
Woodleigh the Pilot
With the backing of the wind the Olivette now found herself in comparatively calm water. No longer did she ship solid seas over her bows. Spray, caught from the short, steep crests of the waves by the howling wind, swept over her in a continuous shower.
Viewed in the pale dawn, the sea looked a mass of white foam, studded here and there by bobbing black or red conical buoys, while farther away to starboard could be discerned two heavily-pitching lightships—the Nore and the Mouse.
"Take her for a few minutes, Alan," said Mr. Armitage. "Keep those conical buoys on your port hand—a cable's distance off will do."
He went aft to find most of the crew feeling "merry and bright" in the cockpit.
"Quite all right, sir," replied Flemming, in answer to his inquiry. "Isn't it fine? Have a cup of tea, sir?"
The Scoutmaster accepted the beverage gratefully. He was feeling pretty well done up by his long trick at the wheel. His hands, exposed to the spindrift for five consecutive hours, were white and clammy, while his eyes were salt-rimmed by the stinging spray.
"How's Mr. Murgatroyd?" he inquired.
Flemming grinned.
"Getting better, I think," he replied. "Judging by the way he drank his tea, he's able to sit up and take nourishment."
The Scoutmaster, not without difficulty, owing to the motion of the boat, gained the after-cabin. It was in a state of disorder. Both his and the owner's belongings had been violently thrown on the floor, which was ankle deep in water. The distressed occupant had omitted to close the scuttle over Mr. Armitage's bunk, and that had caused a steady inflow of spray.
Mr. Murgatroyd, lying on his cot, smiled wanly at the Scoutmaster.
"I'm a rotten sailor, Armitage," he remarked. "But I'll stick it. Feeling better now; but what a night! Why did you leave Gravesend?"
Mr. Armitage explained.
"And all being well, another three hours will find us at Brightlingsea," he added.
"Time for me to find my sea-legs," rejoined the undaunted owner. "I'll be on deck as soon as possible."
The Scoutmaster agreed that it was the best course to pursue. Remaining below in the stuffy cabin, where everything was vibrating with the revolutions of the propeller-shaft, was not conducive to comfort. He could not help admiring the pluck of a man well beyond middle age, who had determined to overcome that dreaded enemy sea-sickness. Mr. Armitage knew from experience what it meant. He, too, had been through the mill.
Regaining the cockpit, the Scoutmaster was more and more aware of the effect of the mental and physical strain he had undergone. For the present practically all danger was past: it behoved him to conserve his energies.
"Quite fit, Woodleigh?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Had any sleep?"
"Yes, sir."
"Had breakfast?"
"Rather, sir," replied the Sea Scout, wondering why the Scoutmaster should take such a personal interest in his welfare.
"Right-o!" continued Mr. Armitage. "Take an hour's trick at the wheel. I'll give you the course. Hepburn will relieve you. Now, carry on."
Having carefully pointed out the course, and knowing that Woodleigh should have no difficulty in taking the Olivette past the Mouse and through the West Swin as far as the Maplin Beacon, Mr. Armitage turned in on the leeward locker in the engine-room and was soon fast asleep.
He had confidence in his boys. Much of their instruction at home consisted of chartwork. He had always insisted that for coastal navigation the ability to read and understand a chart was of paramount importance; more so, in fact, than a knowledge of the compass, except, of course, in foggy weather.
[Illustration: RAISING HIS VOICE HE SHOUTED, "LET GO!">[
Now he was putting his faith to the acid test. Woodleigh was in sole control of the helm. If he failed to carry out his instructions or misinterpreted the reading of the chart, then goodness only knows what might happen.
Woodleigh was in his element. It seemed to him that he had reached the zenith of his ambition to be in charge as navigator of a large motor-boat in the North Sea. True, he was not out of sight of land, and the North Sea as pictured by present conditions, with a maze of sand-banks, buoys, and sea-marks, and a few lightships and pile-beacons thrown in, hardly coincided with what he imagined it to be.
The Scoutmaster was sleeping soundly; Peter Stratton was dosing fitfully on one of the lockers in the cockpit; Roche, as engineer on duty, was "standing by"; the other Sea Scouts were preparing breakfast; and Mr. Murgatroyd, gamely determined to recover his sea-legs, was hanging on to the coaming of the cockpit and watching the low-lying coast-line.
Before long Woodleigh discovered that making a passage by the aid of a chart was a comparatively simple matter.... It was merely a question of going from one buoy to another and noting the name on each one as he passed it. Even the Maplin, standing like one of Wells's Martians on its spider-like legs, the lad greeted as an old friend.
Up through the South-West Reach, across the shoals into the East Swin, the Olivette made her way.
"The Whitaker Beacon on the port hand," soliloquized the youthful helmsman. "Good enough; that must be the Swin Spitway buoy I can see ahead."
His surmise was correct. He starboarded helm on passing the latter buoy and stood on through the Wallet. The breaking seas on the Buxey and the tail of the Gunfleet looked formidable, and Woodleigh, for the first time doubting the advisability of "carrying on" farther than Mr. Armitage had stipulated, was on the point of getting one of his companions to rouse the Scoutmaster.
"Must be all right," he decided, giving another glance at the chart. It was about the twentieth time he had done so in the last two hours, and the chart, saturated with spray, was to him no longer a mass of complicated figures, but something more tangible. It was something on which he depended in order to bring the Olivette through the intricate channels between the shoals.
The new course, approximately N.N.W., was now dead in the eye of the wind, and Woodleigh began to experience some of the discomforts his Scoutmaster had endured during the night. Now it was broad daylight, and the white-crested masses of water bearing down upon the boat looked very threatening.
Waves thudded against her bows, throwing cascades of foam not only against, but completely over, the wheel-house. Now and again, as the boat's stern was lifted clear of the water, the propeller would race violently, causing the engineer many anxious moments, until, with a peculiar sensation, the motor would slow down as the blades of the screw met with increased resistance.
Mr. Armitage was still sleeping soundly. Even the racket in the Wallet failed to rouse him; but Stratton, shaking off his lethargy, climbed into the wheel-house and stood behind the helmsman.
"Where are we now, Woodleigh?" he asked.
"Nearly there—at Brightlingsea," replied the Sea Scout proudly; "there are the beacons on Colne Point."
"Hadn't we better wake Mr. Armitage?" suggested the Patrol-leader.
"No, don't," said Woodleigh earnestly. "He's dead beat. There's no difficulty in getting in, and it will be a surprise for him to find out where we are. Think you'll be able to manage that anchor?"
Peter thought that, with assistance, he could.
"I'll wait till we're in," he decided. "Not much fun stocking an anchor with the boat jumping about like this. I say, bit of crowd, isn't it?"
He pointed ahead, where the estuary of the Colne was black with the hulls of fishing-smacks that had run in on the approach of bad weather.
"Wind's veering," added Woodleigh. "Look where it is now—almost dead astern. Guess we've done it just in time."
Within the last ten minutes the wind had shifted from N.N.W. to S.E., and in consequence Mersea Flats, on the port hand to the entrance of the river, were a lee shore. Above the noise of the engine the two Scouts could hear the roar of the breakers upon the hard sand, for it was now just on low water.
With a sense of elation that he had dared and won through, Woodleigh gave the wheel half a turn. He was making for port, running the gauntlet of the bar, and confidence in the boat and in himself was half the battle.
"We're across the bar, Peter!" he exclaimed joyously, when the Olivette entered the sheltered waters of the Colne. "Now then, old son; turn out your merry wreckers and get the anchor cleared away. Warn Roche as you go; but don't disturb Mr. Armitage if you can help it."
The clearing away of the heavy anchor, and the securing of the forelock, was not accomplished in a moment, and, by the time all was in readiness for letting go, Woodleigh had "opened out" the little town of Brightlingsea, standing on the northern bank of the creek that derives its name from the busy yachting and fishing centre.
"Stop!" ordered Woodleigh, addressing the now alert Roche; then, raising his voice, he shouted: "Let go!"
The roar of the cable through the fair-leads announced that the voyage of the Olivette, as far as the Milford Sea Scouts were concerned, was an accomplished fact. It also had the effect of rousing the Scoutmaster from his slumbers.
The crew, having been "given the tip", watched the expression on Mr. Armitage's face with ill-concealed amusement.
"What have you anchored for?" he asked. "Where are we?"
"There, sir," replied Woodleigh triumphantly. "We're off Brightlingsea."