CHAPTER 22

A MISHAP

      Bereft of her rig, the Buccaneer came over with a rush; Will fell headlong aboard, scraping his shins and banging an elbow on the daggerboard trunk. The broken mast and torn mainsail lay alongside in a melancholy muddle, hopelessly entangled with the other spars, the jib, the sheets and halyards, all still attached by the forestay and the remaining shroud. Not knowing what else to do, he set about heaving it all aboard. He got the mast out of the water, detached the forestay and shroud, laid it along the thwart and stern seat, then struggled with the mainsail. It was not easy; the sail ballooned with water, and would not come until he lifted an edge and spilled it out. He laid the gaff and boom on top, dumped the jib and running rigging with them, and shoved it all to one side so that there would be room to sit on the thwart and row. It still looked a wretched mess, but there was no more that he could do with it until they got the Buccaneer ashore, and he could take it apart, piece by piece. He finished by pulling the short broken stump of the mast out of the step. Not quite knowing what to do with it, he looked up at his and the Hatea’s crew, who stood at the ketch’s stern, watching.
      No one had spoken during his struggle with the rigging; now the Hatea’s skipper said, “You want to keep that. Show it to your grand kids. Why don’t you come aboard, and dry off?”
      He disappeared while Tim pulled the Buccaneer along-side; as Will climbed over the rail he came back with some dry, if somewhat threadbare towels, which he handed around. They dried their hair and rubbed at their clothes, but in fact they were not much discom-forted by their ducking. They all wore bathing suits under shorts and T-shirts; they would have gone swimming, anyway.
      As the old man collected the towels, he asked, “So who’s the skipper? Or is your boat a democracy?”
      “I am,” said Will.
      “Thought you must be. You didn’t abandon ship. Though I noticed this other young fellow had the tiller.”
      “He’s a good helmsman,” said Will.
“I see he was doing a good job, till that last gust caught up with you. You’d have done better with a reef.”
      “I know,” said Will.
      “Well, live and learn. I’m Murray Shipman, by the way.” When the Buccaneer’s crew had introduced them-selves, he added, “Nice little ship you’ve got there.”
      “He built her,” Miles said, as proudly as if he had done it himself.
      “Did you, now?”
“Yes,” said Will. “With my Mom. I couldn’t have done it without her.”
      “Your Mum, eh? Well, I can say, as one old boat-builder to another, you did a pretty good job.”
      “Thank you.” Will swallowed, and added, “I banged up your boat.”
      “I suppose you did. Won’t be the first scrape she’s had.” He paused and surveyed the faces before him, four somber and one grinning. “Cheer up. Yours isn’t the first mast that ever broke. Won’t be the last, either. You’ll just have to put it back together again.”
      “I don’t know if we can.”
      “It looks salvageable to me. I’ll have a look at it with you. Worse comes to worst, you’ll have to make another. Should be a piece of cake for a skilled man like you. You’ll be out on the water again in no time.”
      “He’s sad because we weren’t supposed to be here,” Miles said cheerfully.
      “You weren’t supposed to be sailing?”
      “We weren’t supposed to come past the footbridge,” Will explained dolefully. “We were supposed to stay on the other side, on the river.”
      “I see,” said Murray slowly. “So now you’re in trouble with your parents.”
      “Yes.”
      “I don’t know how I can help you with that.”