Kensuke's Kingdom. Michael Morpurgo
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escort of porpoises perhaps, diving in and out of the waves, a family of dolphins swimming alongside, so close you could reach out and touch them. Whales, sharks, even turtles – we saw them all. My mother would be taking photographs, video and still, while my father and I fought over the binoculars. But Stella Artois was in her element, a proper sheepdog again, barking her commands at the creatures of the sea, herding them up from the deep.
Annoying though she could be – she would bring her smelly wetness with her everywhere – we never once regretted bringing her along with us. She was our greatest comfort. When the sea tossed and churned us, and my mother felt like
death from seasickness, she’d sit down below, white to the gills, with Stella on her lap, cuddling and being cuddled. And when I was terrified by the mountainous seas and the screaming wind, I would curl up with Stella on my bunk, bury my head in her neck and hold her tight. At times like that – and I don’t suppose they were that frequent, it’s just that I remember them so vividly – I always kept Eddie’s football close beside me as well.
The football had become a sort of talisman for me, a lucky charm, and it really seemed to work, too. After all, every storm did blow itself out in the end and, afterwards, we were always still there, still alive and still a float.
I had hoped my mother and father might forget all about the planned school work. And to begin with it seemed as if they had. But once we had weathered a few storms, once we were settled and well into our voyage, they sat me down and told me the unwelcome news. Like it or not, I was going to have to keep up with my schoolwork. My mother was adamant about it.
I could see that any appeals to my father would
be pointless. He just shrugged and said, ‘Mum’s the skipper.’ And that was an end of the matter. At least at home she had been my mother and I could argue with her, but not on the Peggy Sue, not any more.
It was a conspiracy. Between them, they had devised an entire programme of work. There were maths course books to get through – my father would help me with that if I got stuck, he said. For geography and history I was to find out and record all I could about every country we visited as we went round the world. For environmental studies and art I was to note down and draw all the birds we saw, all the creatures and plants we came across.
My mother made a particular point of teaching me navigation, too. ‘Barnacle Bill taught me,’ she said, ‘I’m teaching you. I know it’s not on the curriculum, but so what? It could come in handy, you never know.’ She taught me how to use the sextant, take compass bearings, plot a course on the chart. I had to fill in the longitude and latitude in the ship’s log, every morning, every evening, without fail.
I don’t think I had ever really noticed stars before. Now, whenever I was on watch in the cockpit at night, with the Peggy Sue on her windvane self-steering, the others asleep below, the stars would be my only company. Gazing up at them I felt sometimes that we were the last people alive on the whole planet. There was just us, and the dark sea about us and the millions of stars above.
It was on watch at night that I would often do my ‘English’. This was my own version of the ship’s log. I didn’t have to show it to them, but I was encouraged to write in it every few weeks. It would be, they said, my own personal, private record of our voyage.
At school I had never been much good at writing. I could never think of what to write or how to begin. But on the Peggy Sue I found I could open up my log and just write. There was always so much I wanted to say. And that’s the thing. I found I didn’t really write it down at all. Rather, I said it. I spoke it from my head, down my arm, through my fingers and my pencil, and
on to the page. And that’s how it reads to me now, all these years later, like me talking.
I’m looking at my log now. The paper is a bit crinkled and the pages are yellowed with age. My scribbly writing is a little faded, but it’s mostly quite legible. What follows are just a few chosen extracts from this log. The entries are quite short, but they tell the tale. This is how I recorded our great journey. This is how it was for an eleven-year- old boy as we rode the wide oceans of the world on board the Peggy Sue.
Chapter 3
Ship’s Log
September 20
It’s five in the morning. I’m on watch in the cockpit and no one else is awake. We left Southampton ten days ago now. The Channel was full of tankers. There were dozens of them going up and down. So, either Mum or Dad took turns on watch the first two nights. They wouldn’t let me. I don’t know why not. There
wasn’t any fog, and I can see as well as they can.
We were planning on sailing about 200 miles a day, that’s about eight knots. But in the first week we were lucky if we made fifty miles a day.
Barnacle Bill warned us about the Bay of Biscay, so we were expecting it to be bad, and it was. Force 9 gale. Force 10 sometimes. We were slammed about all over the place. I thought we’d sink. I really did. Once, when we came up on to the top of a wave, I saw the bow of the Peggy Sue pointing straight up at the moon. It was like she was going to take off. Then we were hurled down the other side so fast I was sure we were going to the bottom. It was bad. I mean it was horrible, really horrible. But the Peggy Sue didn’t fall apart, and we made it to Spain.
Mum gets quite snappy with us sometimes when we don’t do things right. Dad doesn’t seem to mind, not out here, not at sea. He just winks at me and we get on with it. They play a lot of chess together, when it’s calm enough. Dad’s winning so far, five games to three. Mum says she’s not bothered, but she is. I can tell.
We only spent a couple of days in La Coruña.
Mum slept a lot. She was really tired. Dad did some work on the rudder cable while we were there. He’s still not happy with it, though. We set off for the Azores two days ago.
Yesterday was the best day we’ve had for sailing. Strong breeze, blue sky, and warm sun to dry things out. My blue shorts blew off the washing line into the sea. It doesn’t matter. I never liked them much anyway. We saw gannets slicing into the sea all around us this afternoon. Really excellent. Stella Artois went mad.
I’m fed up with baked beans already, and there’s still stacks of them down below.
October 11
Today I saw Africa! It was in the distance but Mum said it was definitely Africa. We’re going down the west coast. Mum showed me on the chart. The wind will
take us down the coast for a few hundred miles then across the Atlantic to South America. We mustn’t drift off course, else we’ll get into the Doldrums. There’s no wind there at all, and we could just sit there becalmed for weeks, for ever maybe.
It’s the hottest day we’ve had. Dad’s very red in the face, and the tops of his ears are peeling. I’m more nutty brown, like Mum.
Saw flying fish early this morning and so did Stella. Then Mum spotted a shark off the port bow. A basking