CHAPTER XXIV
OVERBOARD
The Thetis, although out of immediate danger, was in a pitiable plight. The wind was still fresh and the sea had worked up into quite a nasty turmoil. The damaged jib had already been lowered and unshackled from the traveller, but the jackyard topsail still fluttered bannerwise from the mainmast head. The torn mainsail, too, was shaking violently as the wind whistled through the long rent in the centre cloth.
"We'll have to get that topsail down," declared Mr. Clifton. "I'll go aloft. Stand from under, Peter."
If the truth be told, Mr. Clifton did not feel any too confident over the job. Active enough in most respects, he did not relish work aloft. On previous occasions his paid hand undertook tasks of that description. Yet he was quite ready to essay the work of sending the obstinate topsail down on deck.
"I'll go, sir," volunteered Peter.
Mr. Clifton looked very pleased, but the next moment he realised that the job was a dangerous one.
"I'm used to going aloft," continued Craddock. "Am I not, Mr. Grant?"
Scoutmaster Grant, who had relieved the owner at the helm, nodded assent.
"He's as active as a monkey, Clifton. Up you go, Peter!"
The Sea Scout needed no second bidding. Grasping the main halliards and using the mast-hoops as footholds he nimbly ascended to the cross-trees. There he paused to decide upon a further course of action.
It was far from comfortable. Although, as Peter had declared, he was used to going aloft, the conditions were very different from those he had previously encountered. The violent motion of the yacht was considerably exaggerated at a height of thirty feet above the deck, whilst the fiercely flogging mainsail threatened to sweep the Sea Scout from his precarious position.
Shinning up the bare pole above the cross-trees Peter made the discovery that the topsail halliard had "jumped" the block and was wedged tightly between it and the sheave.
At present there was only one thing to be done. Drawing his sheath knife he cut the rope. The topsail yard dropped, and before Craddock could regain the deck the sail was lowered and secured by Mr. Grant.
{Illustration: "THE FIERCELY FLOGGING MAINSAIL THREATENED TO SWEEP THE SEA SCOUT FROM HIS PRECARIOUS POSITION."
[P. 150}
"Well done, Peter!" exclaimed both men as Craddock, breathless with his exertions, rejoined them.
"Had to cut it, sir," declared the Sea Scout apologetically.
"Only what I expected," rejoined Mr. Clifton. "Take the helm while we lower the mizzen topsail and mainsail. Keep her jogging along, Peter."
Still further reducing canvas occupied the next ten minutes. The Thetis, under staysail and mizzen, was now doing a bare three knots, while to make matters worse the wind had veered and was now dead against her.
"Not much chance of making Mapplewick before dark," commented Mr. Grant.
"No, but we must carry on," added his companion. "There's no harbour we can make for nearer than Winkhaven, and I don't want to retrace our course all that way."
"She'll make a bad performance to wind'ard without the mainsail," remarked the Scoutmaster. "The best thing we can do is to patch the canvas and trust to luck that it will hold."
"Our belated meal first," decided the owner. "We'll heave-to for half an hour."
Once more the stove was lighted, and presently the famished crew was enjoying a hearty meal, in spite of the disordered state of the yacht below and aloft.
The plain but satisfying repast over, the Thetis was put on her course again, and Mr. Grant and Peter tackled the torn mainsail. This they temporarily repaired by joining the rent edges by herring-bone stitching, putting on in addition a patch of canvas cut from the damaged jib.
This done, the mainsail was reefed and then rehoisted. The spitfire jib was then set and the Thetis increased her speed to a good five knots, lying a point closer to the wind than before.
By this time it was within an hour of sunset. The wind was still moderating and had veered another couple of points, so that it was possible to set a course to pass within five miles of Mapplewick before going about.
Nevertheless, it seemed very unlikely that the Thetis would make her port before dawn, since the harbour was a tidal one and could only be entered between half flood and half ebb.
At length darkness set in. The port and starboard lamps were lit and the electric lamp of the binnacle switched on. The breeze still held, but there seemed every prospect of another calm before very long.
At eleven o'clock the occulting light on Probert Head became visible, bearing a point on the starboard bow. Mapplewick Harbour lay in a bay three miles beyond the head.
"More grub," decided the skipper. "Peter, if you will take the helm for a spell we'll get our supper. Then you can have yours and turn in."
"I'm not sleepy, sir," protested Craddock.
"You will be," said Mr. Clifton. "A few hours' rest will do you good. Keep her as she is, she'll almost sail herself. Shout if you sight anything."
The two men went below, leaving Craddock in charge of the deck.
"That youngster's proved himself a brick!" declared Mr. Clifton warmly. "You ought to be proud of him, Grant."
"I am," agreed the Scoutmaster, as he started up the stove. "Curiously enough, he'd hardly been afloat before he joined the troop, but he seemed to tumble to things naturally. His father is a farmer in a fairly big way. His grandfather was also a farmer, so it seems strange that the boy should suddenly develop a real sailorman's instincts."
"Possibly if you traced further back you'd find that he had an ancestor who was a pirate, smuggler or merchant adventurer," suggested Mr. Clifton. "The seafaring strain must have skipped several generations and suddenly developed in young Craddock. Sailors are born, not made, you know."
They conversed in loud tones, for the buzzing of the Primus stove and the thud of the waves against the yacht's weather bow rendered conversation in an ordinary tone inaudible.
Once Rex stirred himself and gazed intently through the companion into the dark night, but the action was unnoticed by either of the two men. Apparently satisfied the sheep-dog stretched himself at full length on one of the bunks.
"Kettle's boiling," announced Mr. Clifton, opening the valve of the stove. "Pass along the teapot, please."
The roar of the stove died away.
The two men sat down to the hurried meal.
Happening to glance upwards at the tell-tale compass in the roof of the deckhouse, Mr. Grant gave an exclamation of surprise.
"Hello!" he remarked. "What's Peter doing—dozing? We're four points off our course."
"All right, Peter?" shouted Mr. Clifton.
There was no response.
"Asleep on duty," continued the skipper of the Thetis jokingly. Then louder: "Peter! Wake up! You're letting her shake!"
Still there was no reply.
The two men exchanged glances. Each read on the other's face an unspoken fear. Simultaneously they made for the companion-ladder, colliding in their frantic rush on deck. Coming directly from the brilliantly-lighted saloon, they could see nothing at first, save the faint gleam of the binnacle lamp. That, they knew, ought to be playing upon the figure of the helmsman. It did not, merely flickering upon the gently flapping mizzen.
"Peter!" shouted the Scoutmaster, vainly hoping that Craddock might have gone for'ard.
"'Fraid he's fallen overboard!" exclaimed Mr. Clifton. "Haul on the mizzen-sheet, Grant. We'll put about. He can't have gone very long."
The owner of the Thetis put the helm hard over. The Scoutmaster fumbled for the mizzen-sheet. Only a few feet remained, one end frayed like a small mop-head.
As the yacht swung head to wind before falling off on the other tack, Mr. Grant secured the swaying mizzen-boom, then going for'ard and steadying himself by the fore-stay he peered through the darkness, shouting at intervals in the hope of hearing a response from the lost Sea Scout.
It was a hopeless task. Both men realised the extreme unlikeliness of the yacht retracing her course. All they could do was to make short tacks, in the hope that by so doing they might pass within hailing distance.
"He's a good swimmer," declared Mr. Grant.
"Ten miles from the nearest land," rejoined his companion gloomily. "Might have got a crack on the head as he went overboard. I was a fool to let him remain on deck alone."
"I'm more to blame," declared Mr. Grant. "But settling the responsibility will not find him. Ahoy!" he hailed for the twentieth time.
There was not even a mocking echo in reply. The waste of darkened water, where no doubt Peter was still swimming for dear life, was an impenetrable veil. For a distance of twenty yards or so the red and green navigation lamps threw their coloured rays upon the water. Beyond that sea and sky were merged into a wall of utter darkness.
All the rest of that long night the Thetis cruised round the spot where it was supposed the yacht had been when the catastrophe occurred; then with the first streaks of red dawn in the eastern sky the Thetis bore up for Mapplewick.