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Updated: June 6, 2025
Captain Kettle stared on through the shiny brass binoculars. "Call all hands," he said quietly. "That's a big ship ahead of us, and she'll carry a lot of people. God send she's only an old tramp. At those lifeboats there!" he shouted. "Swing the davits outboard, and pass your painters forward. Hump yourselves, now."
There was a boat, he noticed, an outboard skiff perhaps fifteen feet long, pulled up on the bank under an oak tree at the edge where the lawn met uncut field. A lawn table and chairs under the big willow looked inviting, and he speculated that Merlin and friends must spend considerable time there. Some of the chairs were of the padded variety, covered with plastic wet from the morning dew.
The long row of shields hung outboard on each side told that it was something more than a peaceful trader, and Knut watched with interest, motioning for silence. With a rush the craft shot half her length on shore and her crew poured out in a well-trained throng, which without delay swung into column and headed for the hall. Knut the Great eyed them with admiration.
By the time the boys had retired to the houseboat, checked their equipment, and climbed into diving suits of black neoprene with helmets and socks, Orvil Harris was coming down the creek. Scotty checked the runabout outboard to make sure it would start easily and that there was plenty of gas, while Rick put their tanks and regulators aboard.
A short gun, projecting its muzzle through the port, was also less likely to catch the outboard tackling of the sails, such as "Sheetes and Tackes, or the Bolynes." And for these reasons any very long guns were placed astern, or far forward, as bow, or stern chasers.
Evidently they had passed over the rock and were once more in deep water, through which they travelled at a good speed but with a heavy list to starboard. The pumps got to work also with a monotonous, clanging beat, throwing out great columns of foaming water on to the oily sea. Men began to cut the covers off the boats, and to swing some of them outboard.
They'd bark, if they knew how, by gravy! "Well," went on Cap'n Amazon while Louise listened spellbound, "that dog Snowball was in a bad fix. A dog's a dog almost human as you might say. But I wasn't aimin' puttin' myself in a shark's mouth for a whole kennel full o' dogs. "Mind you, not minutes but only seconds had passed since the dog shot outboard. The ship was not movin' fast.
"Liker twenty-nine, an' niver no whistle." "Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?" said Moorshed. A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea. We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a mere picket-boat. "What for?" said a puzzled voice. "For love; for nothing.
But on the farther or starboard side, rather abaft the beam, there was a small boat in davits, swung outboard, to which common sense, and perhaps a vague prescience of its after utility, pointed irresistibly. In any case, discrimination was out of place, so I mounted the bulwark and gently entered my refuge.
"We should have sunk into English mud, for eternity, as sure as our metal and kentledge would have taken us down," responded Tom; "such a point-blanker would have torn off a streak of our wales, outboard, and not even left the marines time to say a prayer! tend bow there!"
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