At last, after much pulling and tugging, we got the anchor up and undid a lot of mooring-ropes. Then the Curlew began to move gently down the river with the outrunning tide, while the people on the wall cheered and waved their handkerchiefs.
We bumped into one or two other boats getting out into the stream; and at one sharp bend in the river we got stuck on a mud bank for a few minutes. But though the people on the shore seemed to get very excited at these things, the Doctor did not appear to be disturbed by them in the least.
“These little accidents will happen in the most carefully regulated voyages,” he said as he leaned over the side and fished for his boots which had got stuck in the mud while we were pushing off. “Sailing is much easier when you get out into the open sea. There aren’t so many silly things to bump into.”
For me indeed it was a great and wonderful feeling, that getting out into the open sea, when at length we passed the little lighthouse at the mouth of the river and found ourselves free of the land. It was all so new and different: just the sky above you and sea below. This ship, which was to be our house and our street, our home and our garden, for so many days to come, seemed so tiny in all this wide water—so tiny and yet so snug, sufficient, safe.
I looked around me and took in a deep breath. The Doctor was at the wheel steering the boat which was now leaping and plunging gently through the waves. (I had expected to feel seasick at first but was delighted to find that I didn’t.) Bumpo had been told off to go downstairs and prepare dinner for us. Chee-Chee was coiling up ropes in the stern and laying them in neat piles. My work was fastening down the things on the deck so that nothing could roll about if the weather should grow rough when we got further from the land. Jip was up in the peak of the boat with ears cocked and nose stuck out—like a statue, so still—his keen old eyes keeping a sharp lookout for floating wrecks, sandbars, and other dangers. Each one of us had some special job to do, part of the proper running of a ship. Even old Polynesia was taking the sea’s temperature with the Doctor’s bath-thermometer tied on the end of a string, to make sure there were no icebergs near us. As I listened to her swearing softly to herself because she couldn’t read the pesky figures in the fading light, I realized that the voyage had begun in earnest and that very soon it would be night—my first night at sea!
III
Our Troubles Begin
Just before suppertime Bumpo appeared from downstairs and went to the Doctor at the wheel.
“A stowaway in the hold, Sir,” said he in a very businesslike seafaring voice. “I just discovered him, behind the flour-bags.”
“Dear me!” said the Doctor. “What a nuisance! Stubbins, go down with Bumpo and bring the man up. I can’t leave the wheel just now.”
So Bumpo and I went down into the hold; and there, behind the flour-bags, plastered in flour from head to foot, we found a man. After we had swept most of the flour off him with a broom, we discovered that it was Matthew Mugg. We hauled him upstairs sneezing and took him before the Doctor.
“Why Matthew!” said John Dolittle. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“The temptation was too much for me, Doctor,” said the cat’s-meatman. “You know I’ve often asked you to take me on voyages with you and you never would. Well, this time, knowing that you needed an extra man, I thought if I stayed hid till the ship was well at sea you would find I came in handy like and keep me. But I had to lie so doubled up, for hours, behind them flour-bags, that my rheumatism came on something awful. I just had to change my position; and of course just as I stretched out my legs along comes this here African cook of yours and sees my feet sticking out—Don’t this ship roll something awful! How long has this storm been going on? I reckon this damp sea air wouldn’t be very good for my rheumatics.”
“No, Matthew it really isn’t. You ought not to have come. You are not in any way suited to this kind of a life. I’m sure you wouldn’t enjoy a long voyage a bit. We’ll stop in at Penzance and put you ashore. Bumpo, please go downstairs to my bunk; and listen: in the pocket of my dressing-gown you’ll find some maps. Bring me the small one—with blue pencil-marks at the top. I know Penzance is over here on our left somewhere. But I must find out what lighthouses there are before I change the ship’s course and sail inshore.”
“Very good, Sir,” said Bumpo, turning round smartly and making for the stairway.
“Now Matthew,” said the Doctor, “you can take the coach from Penzance to Bristol. And from there it is not very far to Puddleby, as you know. Don’t forget to take the usual provisions to the house every Thursday, and be particularly careful to remember the extra supply of herrings for the baby minks.”
While we were waiting for the maps Chee-Chee and I set about lighting the lamps: a green one on the right side of the ship, a red one on the left and a white one on the mast.
At last we heard someone trundling on the stairs again and the Doctor said,
“Ah, here’s Bumpo with the maps at last!”
But to our great astonishment it was not Bumpo alone that appeared but three people.
“Good Lord deliver
