The Adventure Club Afloat

by Ralph Henry Barbour

"Don't!" he said. "Let them go if they will."

At that instant the Follow Me faltered, stopped, and went on again for another yard or so as a breaking wave rushed under her keel, and then rolled over to starboard and subsided so, her propeller still beating and her stern slowly working around. Into the two feet of water dropped the trio on the bow and, keeping the Follow Me between them and the enemy, scuttled to land, and then, once on the hard sand, ran as hard as their legs would take them up the beach to the north. Wink sent one shot hurtling after them, just, as he explained afterwards, to encourage them, and Steve, having cautiously edged the Adventurer as near shore as he dared, gave his orders hurriedly.

"Get the big cable from the rope locker, Han," he directed. "Joe, you and Harry jump into the tender and stand by here. When you get the cable pull in to the Follow Me and make it fast to the stern cleat. Tom, you'd better go along, too. Put your engine into reverse and try to back off. The tide's still running out and if we don't get her off now we'll have a hard time later. I'll pull on the stern and you jockey her with her own power. I think we can do it. Now then, Han, give me that. Here, take this end forward and make it fast around the cleat. Pass it outside that stanchion, you chump! Catch, Harry! All right! Get a move on, fellows!"

Off plugged the tender, Joe bending furiously at the short oars, the big cable paying out astern. A minute or two later they were tumbling aboard the Follow Me, Tom to dart below to the engine, Harry to make fast their end of the line and Joe to look after the tender. Then Harry waved a hand and shouted, and the Adventurer, which had been going slowly astern, taking up the slack of the cable, settled to her task. The big rope tightened, throwing a spray of water into the sunlight along its length, strained and creaked and the Follow Me's propeller, reversed, did its part. There was an anxious two minutes. Very grudgingly the black cruiser's stern came around. Steve drew the Adventurer's throttle down a couple of notches. The Follow Me gave up her notion of spending her declining years on the sands of Plum Island and slowly backed away. A shout of delight arose from a dozen throats as, with the water once more under her she bobbed sedately to an even keel and followed the tug of the big hawser.

A quarter of an hour later the two boats continued their way up the shore, the Follow Me poorer by one eighty-pound anchor and richer by one cedar dingey which the six boys aboard seriously suspected of having been stolen. They ate dinner at half-past two, anchored on Joppa Flats, the two crews once more assembled around and about the Adventurer's hospitable board, and as they ate, very hungrily and quite happily, they discussed the day's adventure.

The Follow Me showed numerous signs of Steve's and Wink's marksmanship, both outside and in, but there was no damage that nails and hammer, paint and putty wouldn't repair. The stolen boat's larder was sadly depleted and, as Tom said disgustedly, the cabin looked as though a dozen pigs had lived in it a week! But, all in all, the cruiser had come off well. As for the lost anchor, why, as Wink pointed out, the tender would more than buy them a new one. There was some discussion as to their right to dispose of that tender and in the end they agreed that the proper thing to do would be to leave it at Newburyport and mail an advertisement to the Plymouth papers. If the owner claimed the boat he would pay for the advertisement. If he didn't, they would recover it later on their way back down the coast. The Adventurer, too, showed numerous scars. One bullet had plugged straight in at one side of the smokestack and out the other, the glass in one window had been shattered to bits and in various other places damage had been wrought. But they had recovered the Follow Me, and that, viewing the affair in retrospect, had been something of an achievement. Everyone, even Tom by now, was more than satisfied at the outcome of their first real adventure. Dinner, delayed as it was and none too palatable by reason of having been prepared for a much earlier hour, was a merry meal.

After it was over they went on up to Newburyport, found a berth and set out to look for a yard where they could have the two cruisers patched. Repairs kept them there two days, and then, having acquired a new anchor for the Follow Me and left the extra dingey in safe storage, the Adventure Club set forth once more in the early hours of a drizzly morning.

They passed the Isles of Shoals before nine and in the middle of the forenoon Steve pointed through the haze to where an indistinct blot against the sky line proclaimed Boon Island. After that the cruisers kept well toward shore, for, although the drizzle had stopped, the navigators feared that a fog might take its place, and that one experience in Vineyard Sound had been sufficient to last them for the balance of the cruise. Off Cape Porpoise the boats found rough seas and the crew of the Follow Me were secretly delighted to observe that the smaller craft made much easier going. The Adventurer seemed to be having a thoroughly good time, for she kicked up her heels and waved her nose and fairly rolled in merriment as the seas came sliding under her quarter. The bridge deck was a damp place until both side curtains were lowered and laced to the rails and stanchions. Poor Joe stood it as long as he could, getting paler and paler and sitting, hands in pockets, gazing fixedly at the brass kickplate at the top of the forward companion way, about the only thing in his range of vision that was fairly steady, and at intervals lurching below with an assumption of carelessness that deceived nobody, to dose himself with his sea-sickness remedy. That remedy, however, failed him, and it was not very long before the Chief Engineer was conspicuous on the bridge by his absence, while those who listened could hear at intervals a low moaning sound proceeding from the after cabin. But Joe was not the only one aboard the Adventurer who suffered qualms of uneasiness, although he alone gave up the struggle. Both Perry and Han showed pale countenances and looked big-eyed and pathetic. Neither displayed the least interest in dinner, while Joe, when cruelly summoned by Ossie, only groaned lugubriously and turned his pallid face to the wall. At two o'clock the sun broke through and dyed the sea a wonderful green, and the Adventurer began to meet other boats. As she left Scarboro Beach on her port beam and began to nose in toward Peak's Island the sea calmed and by the time the cruiser was ready to drop her anchor in Portland harbour, Joe, albeit still rather greenish, had pulled himself back to deck to gaze approvingly at the shore.

A week went by during which the Adventure Club, one and all, had a glorious time without anything that in the least resembled adventure. They spent a whole day in Portland—spent, also, a deal of money there replenishing an utterly exhausted galley—and then, to use Perry's inelegant phrase, "bummed around" Casco Bay for three days more. Joe fell in love with more islands during that time than he had known existed. "I've always wanted to own an island," he would explain, "and that's the very island. Let's go ashore, Steve, and look around."

Steve humoured him several times, until the others complained that they were getting tired of stopping at every bunch of rocks on the Maine Coast, and pointed out, besides, that, as Perry had owned to having but nine dollars in his pocket just a few days before, it wasn't at all likely that he would find an island within his means. After exhausting the interest of Casco Bay the two boats ran further up the shore and spent another forty-eight hours at Camden. Steve had friends there and the whole tribe of mariners were invited to dinners and luncheons and found that "home cooking" was all that it was popularly believed to be. Ossie had a most perfect time during those two days.