“Must have opened the cut when I handled the jib-sheet,” he thought. “Well, it’s a good thing it was covered up; no dirt can get to it.”
“It’s nothing much,” he remarked casually. “Now, you fellows, let’s see who has the keenest eyesight. There should be a conical buoy on our port bow about a couple of miles off.”
“I see it, sir!” exclaimed Heavitree almost at once. “It’s dead on with our bowsprit-end.”
“Is it, by Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Grant. “Up helm, Peter! At that! We’re closer in than I thought. We might have piled the Kestrel on The Skerries. See those houses just under The Start? That’s Beesands, or what’s left of it. Most of the village was washed away in a gale. The fishermen there train dogs to swim out to the returning boats and swim back with a line. It takes some doing in a rough sea. We’re in smoother water now. Do you see that high point of land ahead, Peter? Steer for that; never mind the compass.”
Pointing out various places of interest ashore, Mr. Grant chatted briskly in order to arouse the obviously flagging spirits of the two lads. They had stuck it well during the night watches, and now they kicked against the suggestion that they should go below to be relieved by Brandon and Talbot.
“Why not bother about the compass, sir?” asked Peter.
“Because for the present it isn’t absolutely necessary,” explained Mr. Grant. “When you’ve a fixed object to steer by, it saves the strain of peering into the binnacle-hood. You fellows have had quite enough of that to-night, or rather last night. Now, Heavitree, nip below and get the stove going. Nothing like a cup of hot cocoa in the early morning after a long trick. When it’s ready, tell Brandon to turn out. We’ll want an extra hand if we have to beat in. This wind will head us, I fancy, when we’re abreast the Homestone.”
The Kestrel was now so steady that Heavitree had no difficulty in lighting the stove. In about ten minutes his tousled head appeared, framed in the companion.
“Cocoa’s ready, sir,” he announced, “and all the others are awake and want cocoa too.”
“You want me, sir?” asked Brandon, as he edged past Heavitree in the companion.