So they all crawled out of the tent. Fat Vicky was given back to nurse, and Queen Elizabeth walked down to the boathouse with Captain John of the sailing ship Swallow, Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and the Boy Roger, who ran on ahead with the big key to get the boathouse open.
The boathouse was a stone one, with a narrow quay along each wall inside, and a small jetty sticking out beyond it into the lake.
Roger had got the door open by the time they came to it, though he had had a tough struggle with the rusty lock. He was already inside, looking down on the Swallow. The Swallow was a sailing dinghy built for sailing on a shallow estuary, where the sands were uncovered at low tide. Most sailing dinghies have centre-boards, plates which can be let down through their keels, to make them sail better against the wind. Swallow had none, but she had a rather deeper keel than most small boats. She was between thirteen and fourteen feet long, and fairly broad. Her mast lay in her, and beside it, neatly rolled up, were boom, yard, and sail, and a pair of short oars. Her name, Swallow, was painted on her stern.
Captain John and his crew looked at her lovingly. She was already their own ship.
“Better bring her outside and make fast to the jetty while you step the mast,” said Queen Elizabeth. “You won’t be able to get her out if you step the mast while she’s in the boathouse. That beam is too low.”
Captain John went aboard his ship. Mate Susan untied the painter, and between them they brought the Swallow out of the boathouse. Then Susan fastened the painter to an iron ring on the end of the jetty. She too climbed down into Swallow.
“Can I come too?” asked Roger.
“You and Titty and I will wait till they have the sail up,” said Queen Elizabeth. “Give them plenty of room and a free hand. We should only be in the way if we went aboard now.”
“Hullo,” said John, “she’s got a little flagstaff, and there are flag halyards on the mast to hoist it by.” He held up a tiny flagstaff with a three-cornered blue flag on it.
“I’m going to make her a much better flag than that,” said Titty.
“Better take this one to make sure you make yours the same size,” said Queen Elizabeth.
John and Susan had done plenty of sailing, but there is always something to learn about a boat that you have not sailed before. They stepped the mast the wrong way round, but that was set right in a moment.
“She doesn’t seem to have a forestay,” said John. “And there isn’t a place to lead the halyard to in the bows to make it do instead.”
“Let me have a look,” said Queen Elizabeth. “These little boats often do without stays at all. Is there a cleat under the thwart where the mast is stepped?”
“Two,” said John, feeling. The mast fitted in a hole in the forward thwart, the seat near the bows of the boat. It had a square foot, which rested in a slot cut to fit it in the kelson.
“Get the sail ready and hoist it, and make fast there and see how she does,” said Queen Elizabeth.
“I wonder whether the real Queen Elizabeth knew much about ships,” said Titty.
“That Queen Elizabeth was not brought up close to Sydney Harbour,” said mother.
Susan had got the sail ready. On the yard there was a strop (which is really a loop) that hooked on a hook on one side of an iron ring called the traveller, because it moved up and down the mast. The halyard ran from the traveller up to the top of the mast, through a sheave (which is a hole with a little wheel in it), and then down again. John hooked the strop on the traveller and hauled away on the halyard. Up went the brown sail until the traveller was nearly at the top of the mast. Then John made the halyard fast on the cleats, which were simply pegs, underneath the thwart which served to hold the mast up.
“That looks all right,” said Queen Elizabeth from the jetty. “But to make the sail set properly you must pull the boom down. That’ll take those cross wrinkles out.”
“Is that what those blocks (pulleys) are for hooked to a ring in the kelson close to where the mast is stepped? But they are all muddled up.”
“Isn’t there another ring under the boom, close to the mast?” asked Queen Elizabeth.
“Got it,” said Captain John. “One block hooks to the ring under the boom, and one to the ring in the bottom of the boat, then it’s as easy as anything to haul the boom down. How’s that?”
“The crinkles in the sail go up and down now, and not across,” said Mate Susan.
“That’s right,” said Queen Elizabeth. “The wind will flatten them out as soon as we start sailing. Can I come aboard, Captain Drake?”
“Please,” said John;”but never mind about being Queen Elizabeth just now.” He was just going to sail Swallow for the first time, and he had quite enough to think about without queens.
Titty, Roger, and mother climbed down from the jetty into Swallow, as she lay there with flapping sail, ready to start.
“Will you take the tiller, mother, while I cast off ?” said Captain John.
“Not I,” said mother. “Queen or no queen, I’m a passenger, and I want to see how you manage by yourselves.”
“Right,” said Captain John. “Mister Mate, will you come forward to cast off. Send the crew below to keep their heads out of the way of the boom.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Mate Susan. “Get down on the bottom, you two.” The boy and the able-seaman crouched in the bottom of the boat with their heads below the gunwale. John took the tiller. Susan untied the painter from the ring on the pier, put the end of it through the ring, and held it.
“Ready,” she said.
“Cast off,” said the captain, and a moment later Swallow was moving.
“Are we going to the island?” asked the boy.
“No,” said mother. “It would take too long to go there and back. There’s a lot to be done if you are to start to-morrow morning. Just sail her a little way up against the wind, and then we must run back to deal with haybags and stores and all the other things you’ll want for the voyage.”
So Swallow’s trial trip was a short one. John sailed her up against the wind, tacking from side to side, and making a little every time, just as Roger had done when he had tacked up the field the day before. Then they turned round for the run home, and raced back with the water creaming round her.
“Your ship is all right, Captain John,” said mother, when they were once more moored to the jetty, and Susan and John were stowing the sail, and taking the mast down to take the Swallow into the boathouse.
“She’s a beauty,” said John.
The rest of that day was full of business. Mother was stitching haybags out of sacking. Titty had taken the little flagstaff up to the farm, and had cut a triangular flag out of some of the canvas left over from the tents. Mother had drawn a swallow on a bit of paper, and Titty had cut one out of some blue serge that had once been part of a pair of knickerbockers. Then she had put the pattern on the white flag, and cut out a place to fit it. Then she had sewn the edge of the blue swallow all the way round into the place for it in the white flag. When she had done there was a fine white flag with a blue swallow flying across it, and it looked the same on both sides. Then she had fastened it on the little wire flagstaff where the blue flag had been, so that it was ready to hoist to the masthead.
Captain John and the mate were getting together the really important stores and deciding what they could do without. The list had grown very much last night after supper. Roger was kept busy running up and down to the boathouse with all sorts of things that everybody agreed could not be left behind.
The mate’s chief task was fitting out the galley,