Luckily for him, although he did not know it, his uninvited presence on board the Kestrel was to be the making of him.
He had no idea of running away from his overkind and misguided grandparents. He merely wanted a change. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of Chichester he had an aunt and uncle. He had never seen them, and beyond receiving presents from them at Christmas and on his birthday he was hardly aware of their existence. Yet he felt a vague longing to visit them, and although he had hinted of his wish in that direction, his grandparents had for some unexplained reason declined to allow him to do so.
Eric had exercised considerable intelligence in making a bid for a free journey to Chichester. Quite by chance he had been standing under the Butterwalk when Craddock and Talbot were talking with some members of a Dartmouth troop of Scouts. He gathered that the two former were going to Chichester Harbour in a yacht for the Jamboree. What the word “Jamboree” meant he knew not. It sounded like something jolly. At any rate, opportunity was knocking at the door of his warped little mind, and there and then he made up his mind to stow himself away on board the Kestrel.
Acting upon his grandfather’s oft-repeated precept that “There is no time like the present,” Eric got busy. He had a few shillings with him. This he invested in a supply of food and a couple of bottles of ginger-beer. He knew that all the crew of the Kestrel were ashore; Craddock had mentioned that there were eight including a Scoutmaster, and eight had certainly landed at the steps close to the boat pond. For the sum of one shilling a weedy youth minding a yacht’s dinghy agreed to row him off to the Kestrel, and there he hid himself in the locker, hoping that the yacht would put to sea that evening—which she did not.
“What did you do with yourself all night?” asked Brandon.
“Oh, when you were all asleep I emerged from my place of concealment for fresh air and in order to stretch my cramped limbs,” explained the stowaway. “Once that pup of yours growled, but I don’t think it was on my account. That was when a certain person swam off to the yacht from the large ship at anchor.”
“Someone swam off!” exclaimed Craddock. “What did he do? Why didn’t you raise the alarm?”
Eric turned reproachful eyes upon his questioner.
“My dear sir,” he replied. “It couldn’t be done! It couldn’t really. Consider my position. I really had no right to be on board. Neither, presumably, had the swimmer to climb up over the side. After all’s said and done, it wasn’t my affair, was it?”
“That was the chap who lashed the bucket to the rudder,” declared the Patrol Leader. “What sort of fellow was he?”