In the Land of Time (53 page)

I learned a lot that week in school, but what it was I couldn't tell you, because I was only thinking of one thing all the week, that is of being a pirate. They say it's wicked to be a pirate, and I dare say it is. At the same time nobody could say that it isn't better than sitting indoors at a desk, learning things; especially the kind of things I was learning that week, whatever they were. I never knew a week go by slower. I'd have liked to have timed it, because I should think that it was the slowest week that ever went by. But it came to an end at last, and I slipped away from my home, which is where I lived, and came to the Round Pond at the time Bob Tipling said, which was 12 o'clock on the Sunday morning. I came along the Broad Walk, because I was to meet Bob and his friend there. It was all black earth by the edge of the walk, or dark grey any way, and there were little trickles of yellow sand in it. I liked the look of the black earth, because it made me think of a wide and desolate moor; and it would have been, if it hadn't been for the grass. And there was a great row of elm-trees there, and all the little leaves were just coming out, because it was Spring. They looked very small and shiny. And at the end of the row I met Bob and his rich friend. Bob had his arms folded and a coloured handkerchief round his neck, and I thought he looked very like a pirate. We were quite near the Round Pond then. Bob introduces me to the rich boy, and his name turns out to be Algernon, and some other name that I forget. And it's just as well to forget it, as we were all involved in piracy together. Bob is away where the police can't catch him now. I'm not going to tell you
my
name. Algernon was carrying a big luncheon-basket by a handle, and Bob has the ship on the grass beside him, with a bit of a cloth wrapped round it to hide the torpedo-tubes.

“That's a nice boat,” I says.

“It's a long low rakish craft,” said Bob.

Bob was giving the orders, and Algernon and I went down with him to the pond to the part of it where he says, where there was a little kind of a bay. There were lots of ducks on it, mostly black-and-white ones, and every now and then they would get up out of the water and shake their wings and splash themselves. I suppose they were having a bath. Algernon said they was tufted ducks. And then there was ducks with green heads, that was just ducks. And there was a couple of geese that swam by, honking. And I saw a swan. And there were sea-gulls, lots of them, flying backwards and forwards over the pond and squawking as they flew. And there were lots of boats. I saw a little sailing-boat far out, nearly becalmed, and some clockwork ones like ours. And then all of a sudden I sees the big grey ship that went by petrol. I stopped breathing for a moment when I saw that, and then I pointed her out to Algernon, and Bob nodded his head. And then we both went round to where she was, just beside our little bay, and there was a boy running it that was about the same age as me, which is thirteen. Bob is fourteen, and knows about as much about most things as grown-ups. I don't know about Algernon: I should say he was about the same age as Bob, but nothing near so clever. And just as we came up to where the boy was, a fat little brown spaniel with a wide smile ran up to the boy and licked one of his knees, which was bare. And the boy jumped out of the way. And there was a lady with the brown spaniel, and she said to the boy, “Our Billy won't hurt you.” And the boy says, “I am not accustomed to being licked by dogs.” “Oh, aren't you?” says Bob.

I don't know if the boy heard him or not.

And then Bob says to me in a lower voice, “That settles the business of it being a pity to sink his nice ship.”

There was a fat man standing near, smoking a cigar, evidently the boy's father, and I says to Bob, “Well, it's he that will lose what he paid for the ship if we sink it.”

“That's true,” said Bob. And he goes up to the fat man with the cigar and says to him, “That's a fine boat your boy's got, sir.”

“Yes. You leave it alone,” says the fat man.

“Certainly, sir,” says Bob.

“Well, that settles it,” he says to me. “The ship is doomed.”

The big ship touched land just then, and Bob hurried back to his bay, to be ready to launch the Rakish Craft, his idea being to launch it just at the right moment to cut off the big grey ship when it sets out again. With the curve that there was on the bay we could send our ship right across her course. I had a very responsible job. I had to unpack the luncheon-basket and get my finger on to a knob of the wireless-set that was hidden under some paper packets, and to press it down whenever Bob gave the sign. I can't tell you what the sign was, because I took an oath to Bob that I would never reveal it, but it is something he did with his elbow. Well, the big grey ship set out almost at once. “That's the last she'll see of land,” said Bob. But he was wrong there, because our ship didn't quite hit her off, Bob not having had time quite to calculate the speed of the big ship, though he knew the speed of the Rakish Craft, and so we were a bit behind her and never fired a torpedo, and we went right across the pond, and the grey ship went very nearly to the other end of it.

Well, the boy ran round and the fat man walked slowly after him; and, to make a long story short, they puts to sea again. And Bob watches to see about where the grey ship will come in, and goes round and launches the Rakish Craft to intercept her about half-way. And Bob said he had calculated the two speeds exactly, but I think it was pure luck. Anyway, the Rakish Craft, heading towards Bayswater, comes right up to within nearly two yards of the side of the grey ship, which is sailing towards Hyde Park; and just as the grey ship passes our bows Bob makes the sign with his elbow, and I presses the button where I am sitting on the grass beside the luncheon-basket, with my finger inside it touching the wireless-set. And there is a white fountain against the side of the grey ship, and both boats rock a bit, and the big one goes on apparently unconcerned. And I look round, and nobody has noticed a thing. But I couldn't see anything out of the way, myself, except that white splash and the two boats rocking a little, ours more than the other one. For a moment I thought that Bob's game did not work, and then to my delight I saw the big ship's bows dipping a little, or thought I did. Then I saw I was right. She continued straight on her course, but the bows went lower and lower. And all of a sudden her stern went into the air, and she dived right under, and never came up any more. The only thing that could have made it any more perfect would have been a bit of blood on the water. However, one can't have everything. I wanted to cheer, but I caught Bob's eye. Bob strolled round with Algernon to the part of the shore to which our ship was heading, and they hardly glanced at the water. Bob wanted to go on and sink some more boats. But that's where Algernon showed sense, and he told Bob not to do it. That's what they were talking about when on the grass by the luncheon-basket. And I joined in with Algernon and said, “Don't do it, Bob. Nobody has suspected a thing, and we can start all fresh next Sunday; but, if you get them suspecting you now, they'll be waiting for you next time you come, and it will probably be prison for all of us.”

And Algernon says the same, and between us we just persuaded Bob, and stopped him doing any more piracy that day. But he insisted on hoisting the pirate's flag, the skull-and-crossbones, yellow on black, because he says you ought to do that as soon as you open fire, whatever colours you have been sailing under till then, and, as he wasn't able to do it at the time, he would do it as soon as he can, and sail across the main once more, as he now called the Round Pond, flying the skull-and-crossbones. I wasn't easy about it, but nobody seemed to notice, and Bob said it was the right thing to do. I didn't like to look too much at the fat man or his boy, for fear they should catch me looking at them, so I just went on quietly eating a biscuit, and Bob had the sense not to look at them too much either, though his pirate's blood was up. But, as far as I could see when I did take a glance, they were puzzled, and unsuspicious of us. So we packed up the luncheon-basket that fired the torpedoes, and Bob put our ship under his arm, and I carried the luncheon-basket, and away we walked over the grass, and I never saw three people that looked more innocent-looking. Bob said that we ought to have drunk rum then. And so we would have, if we could have got any. But even Bob's rich friend, Algernon, wasn't able to manage that.

I was pretty pleased when I went home. I'd always wanted to be a pirate, and now I was one, one of the crew of the Rakish Craft, and we'd sunk a big ship. I'm not going to tell you where I lived. Pirates don't do that, if they've got any sense. If there's people looking for one of them they must find out for themselves, without the pirate helping them. I came home to tea; and I wished I could have brought my mother some gold ingots and a few pearls, as pirates often do when they come home. But I remembered what Bob told me, and knew I must think of the glory of it, and not bother about what it ought to be worth in cash. Of course there should have been heaps of gold taken from ships before they were sunk; but it was good enough seeing the grey ship go down, even without any loot. I was only sorry for the sea-gulls, that they had no corpses floating about. They'd have liked to have pecked at their eyes.

My father and mother wanted to know what I'd been doing, and so did my sister Alice, because they saw that it must have been something. But I couldn't tell them that. And I'm not going to write about my father and mother. They're grown up and can write about themselves if they want to; but I've got my hands full telling about the great battles Bob fought at sea, and the ships that he sunk.

Well, I learned a lot more at school that week. But I can't tell you about that. I've got more important things to write of. Besides, I've forgot it. Bob didn't say a word to me all that week, so that we shouldn't be overheard. And that of course was a good precaution. But he didn't look very precautious. He looked as if his blood was up, and as if he was going on sinking ships till he got hanged, as so many pirates do. I met Bob again at the same place and the same time next Sunday, and he was folding his arms tighter than ever, and wearing that look that I mentioned. I was afraid we would get into trouble. But it was too late to back out now, and, as for warning Bob to go a bit slower, it couldn't be done. I mentioned it to Algernon, but he didn't seem to see it. He'd put his money up, or his father's money, and he wanted to see something for it. So we went to the Round Pond and launched the Rakish Craft from one of the little bays. Then I went back on to the grass and got out some sandwiches from the luncheon-basket, and watched Bob.

I think Bob was trying for a small sailing-boat near the shore, because the Rakish Craft just sailed across the little bay, pretty close to the sailing-boat, but it didn't come near enough to fire. And when I saw there wasn't going to be a fight, it gave me time to look round. And what did I see when I looked round but that same fat man again and his son, and another fine boat like the last one, even bigger if anything. Well, I saw that before Bob did, because he was watching the sailing-boat that he didn't get; and as soon as our Rakish Craft came to land again, as she soon did on the other side of the little bay, I moved up nearer to Bob and Algernon, to a bench that there was near the pond, and signed to them to come over, and told them what I had seen. And, just as I thought, as soon as I'd pointed the big ship out, Bob wanted to go and sink it. And I tells him that would be fatal. “Won't they be wondering still what happened to their other boat?” I says to him. “And won't they spend the rest of the day putting two and two together, if they see their new one sink, and see the Rakish Craft quite close again and the same crew standing by?”

“Did you ever hear of a pirate sparing anything, when he had it at his mercy?” said Bob.

“Did you ever hear of a pirate that wasn't hanged?” I asks.

“Yes,” Bob replies, “all the clever ones.”

“And are you being a clever one?” I asks.

And then Algernon joins in, and I admit he showed sense. “Sink smaller craft today,” he says, “at the other end of the main from those people, and give them time to forget.”

Well, the two of us just succeeded in stopping Bob, and it would have been a bad business if we hadn't. And Bob goes after a smaller ship, as Algernon says, a long way away from the fat man. It was a clockwork ship some way out, and Bob launched the Rakish Craft so as to cut it off; and when it gets close he gives me the sign and I presses the button, but he wasn't close enough and it was no good. The torpedo came to the surface then, but it was painted grey so that it wouldn't show up, and very soon it sank, because it only barely floated, and there was a small hole in it so that it would soon fill with water. Nobody noticed it, and the Rakish Craft sailed on, under the colours of Spain, which Bob fancied, and came to the other shore, and Bob and Algernon went round and got hold of it, and wound it up and brought it back. And there was the same ship that Bob had missed, putting to sea again, and Bob had a better idea of her pace this time, which was very slow, and he launches the Rakish Craft out of the same bay.

It was a lovely day for a fight, and lots of ducks were there enjoying the sun, and the sea-gulls were flying in flocks over the water. Bob didn't reload the torpedo-tube, so as not to attract attention. He still had his starboard torpedo, and he put to sea with that. And this time the Rakish Craft headed straight for the enemy. And I wanted to fire, but Bob didn't give the sign until she was quite close, because he had missed the last time. And then he made the sign, and I fired, and both boats rocked a lot when the fountain went up against the side of the enemy's ship, because they were pretty close, and it was a smaller ship than the one we had sunk last time. And then the enemy sailed on a little way, but not far. And soon her bows began to rise out of the water, and very soon after that she slid to the bottom of the sea; and the Rakish Craft sailed on to the further shore. The boy that owned the boat looked quite surprised, but he didn't seem to suspect Bob or Algernon, and of course not me, who was sitting quiet on a bench with the luncheon-basket beside me. I watched him so closely that I didn't see what the fat man was doing, or how much he saw.