“The sail’s aloft, the wind’s awake,
The anchor streams the bow,
The stays are trim, the guns are grim—
O Captain, where art thou?”
It was late afternoon when the wind, for the first time since their stay in Norfolk, really found itself; and Peter became of a sudden definitely aware of Sailing. Beating up Bure to Acles, the sheet fairly taut in her one hand and the tiller somewhat restive in the other, she grew to joy in the swish of the reeds against the bows, as she swung the boat round, and let the boom lurch over; in the jerk of the rope, as she controlled its rattling passage through the blocks, with already her eye straining forward for the crucial moment at the further bank. She did not notice, in this new intoxication of pace and mastery, that Stuart had ceased to give directions ... when suddenly, gripped by a strong puff of wind, the sail leapt sideways, the water sang up over the lee rail; and Peter, taken by surprise, would have been hurled to the floor of the boat, had she not just in time flung up her heels and braced them against the opposite scuppers; nor did she let go of the sheet, which tore like some live thing at her palms.
“All right,” said Stuart calmly. “Blowing up a bit fresh. Shall I take her?”
“No.” And now she understood sailing right enough: this thing which demanded of her every atom and particle of strength she possessed, and some she did not consciously possess until that time. A darkness crept across the sky, and the wind’s whistle had an ominous note. More and more the boat heeled to meet its own disappearing shadow; till it seemed as if one could not for an instant longer retain that tilted position in the lifting scuppers.
—“We’ve got to beat it,” cried Stuart; “don’t let ’em get to windward of you!” And then only she saw that they were being furiously raced by another craft, with larger canvas than their own, and a shouting crew of men. Stuart was excited—a race always brought out all the child in him.
“You can make the next corner if you’re careful, and then she’ll run!”
The ‘Tyke,’ emphatically now the ‘Tyke’ and not ‘Faustina,’ did indeed luff the corner, and scudded ahead straight and clean with the galloping motion of a greyhound. Peter’s blood was romping; her hand felt as though cut in two where sawn by the rope; shoulders and knees and wrists, no part of her that did not throb and ache and cry aloud for release from this straining torture—torture that she would not have forgone for a lifetime of ease and pettiness and mild enjoyment. For she was conquering the wind, and gaining on the other boat, and never before had water been so near or the world so far.
“We ought to reef, but we won’t!” Stuart’s voice sang in triumphantly with the roar and whip of the waves. “More sheet, Peter, or she’ll carry away. Not much—no, none at all, and chance it! By Heaven, it’s great!”
Peter’s entire soul and body were bracing themselves in resistance against the push of the tiller. Her teeth fastened firmly into her lower lip. She had not known one could so hate an inanimate bar. Inanimate? possessed rather of seven kicking devils.... And then she saw the bridge ahead; and Stuart announced with gentle pleasure: “We’ve won,” and slipped into her place, and turned the ‘Tyke’ downstream. The defeated crew called out a hearty word of appreciation; Peter smiled at them; lit a cigarette; and, soaked by the churned-up spray, her hands stiff and bleeding, subsided on to the floor of their vessel, whereof she watched in passive admiration Stuart’s perfect handling.