Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Table of Contents

There was a great deal to be done and, privately, the shipwrecked sailors were glad to be left by themselves for the doing of it. Natives and pirates (even Captain Flint and the Amazons) were all very well when they were wanted, useful to carry things, for example, sometimes full of information and, of course, very good for taking part in an adventure. But no one wanted them about when there was a new camp to make in a new place and there were half a hundred things to be decided. There were some minutes that day when it was almost settled that until Swallow came back mended, her captain and crew would not go on being shipwrecked sailors, but would be a savage tribe instead, cave-dwellers, dancing at night round their fires, setting up totems on long poles and worshipping them with wreaths of heather. But John remembered the mast that was to be made, and Susan said the cave was not really fit to live in, and Roger didn’t see the good of having a new tent of his own if he didn’t sleep in it, and Titty knew that savages never made maps, and so they made up their minds to go on being explorers and sailors, even if they had been shipwrecked. But there had been discussion about it and, when it was over, they were glad that no outsiders had overheard it. They themselves could forget it at once, but if other people had been there it would have been much harder to go on as if there had never been any doubt about what they were to be.

Titty summed up what everybody felt when she said, “So long as we’re explorers, anything can happen. Think of last year. But if we’re savages there wouldn’t be any point even in climbing Kanchenjunga. We’d just have to sit on our hunkers and eat raw meat.”

“Besides,” said Susan, “we’ve got our holiday tasks to do. It’s all right for explorers to read books.”

It did just occur to Titty that one good point of being a savage was that you did not have to learn French verbs, but she did not say so. The French verbs had to be learnt, anyhow.

“Mine’s all algebra, and sailors have to know it,” said John.

“We’ve been wrecked,” said Titty, “and now to get out of the way of tidal waves and giant crabs and things like that. . . .”

“Alligators, too,” said Roger.

“We’ve moved up into the hill country. It was the only sensible thing to do. We might all have got fever chills where we were.”

“Good,” said Susan. “Now it’s settled. Let’s get on with putting up the tents.”

“It’s a jolly good thing daddy gave us these tents,” said Captain John. “We couldn’t have managed up here with the tents we had to sling between trees.”

“No trees for one thing,” said Roger.

“What about the stores tent?” said Titty.

“We’ll use the cave,” said Susan.

“And Peter Duck’ll be storekeeper,” said Titty.

There was a very good bit of flat ground, big enough for all four sleeping-tents on the southern side of the little valley, between the stream and the cave. The explorers made all the tents open towards the stream. They were well protected from the strong southerly winds by the steep side of the valley that rose behind them, and they could not be seen by anyone who was not near enough to the valley to look down into it from the moor. Between the tents and the stream was the mate’s fireplace, one of her very best, and in the stream, close below the fireplace, was the little whirlpool that might have been specially made for washing-up.

“It’s far the best camp we’ve ever had,” said Mate Susan, looking round when the last tent had been set up.

“Not counting Wild Cat Island, of course,” said Titty.

“It isn’t an island,” said Susan, “so it can’t be as good as that. It’s the best of all our other camps. But there’s a lot to do to it yet.”

“I’m going to dam the top pool for one thing,” said John, “to make a bathing-place.”

“Let’s go and start at once,” said Roger.

“We must get rid of the stores first,” said Susan, “and we can’t do that until we’ve got some of the dust out of the cave.”

“Peter Duck won’t mind,” said Titty.

“Of course he won’t,” said Susan. “He’s got to be spring-cleaned like everybody else. Somebody go and cut some good big bunches of heather. Go on, you two, while I’m getting dinner.”

“What about adders?” said Roger.

“All right, Roger,” said Titty, “I’m coming too. It’s a good thing we hadn’t remembered the adders the other day, or we’d never have discovered Swallowdale.”

“Don’t pick one up or tread on one. That’s all,” said the mate.

“If Roger makes half his usual noise,” said the captain, “they won’t have a chance to do either, unless the adder’s asleep.”

“Come on,” said Titty. “Let’s see whose knife is sharpest? And, I say, Roger, there’s something else to do at the same time.”

The able-seaman and the boy scrambled up the northern side of the valley and, talking very loudly and stamping very hard, to give the adders a good chance to get away, they set about cutting a bundle of heather to make a broom for the mate. They cut a bit here and a bit there, but moved steadily in one direction towards the flat-topped rock that John had said would do as a watch-tower. They had been the first to discover the valley. Why should they not be the first to climb the Watch Tower Rock?

While the mate was taking some of the stored wood from Peter Duck’s cave and making a fire on which to cook a dinner for the expedition, the captain was doing a bit of building. He was getting together large flat stones, of which there were plenty among the loose screes on the sides of the valley, and putting the biggest outside and filling in the middle with the smaller ones, he was making a square pillar, not very high, nor yet very big.

“What’s it for?” asked the mate.

“The parrot,” said the captain. “I want to get it done before Titty comes back.”

He cut one of the two long carrying-poles in half. One half was to be the handle of the mate’s heather broom. The other half he built crosswise into the top of his pillar, so that it stuck out on either side like the arms of a scarecrow. Susan helped him to lift a big flat slab of limestone or slate and lay it on the top of the pillar. On that he put the parrot’s cage and opened the door. He put in his hand and the parrot gripped a finger with its feet. A moment later and it had been lifted out and had taken a firm hold of one of the ends of the pole. It stretched its wings and flapped.

“Pretty Polly,” it said.

“He looks just right like that,” said the captain. “I wonder if he can get back into his cage.”

“Try him with a lump of sugar,” said Susan.

John showed the parrot a lump of sugar and then put it in the cage. The parrot shuffled sideways along the pole until he could just reach the cage with his beak. He then took hold of a bar and pulled himself up, scrabbling with his feet until he found a hold. He then climbed round the outside of his cage until he came to the door and went in.

“He’ll find it more of a job getting back,” said John.

But no, the parrot was not a ship’s parrot for nothing. He could climb like anything, and very soon had found a way of clinging to the cage with his beak and one foot, while he felt for the pole with the other.

Heather is tough stuff to cut, and the able-seaman and the boy had their exploring to do as well, so by the time they came scrambling back down the steep side of the valley with an armful of heather apiece, the parrot was perched once more on the pole, the fire was burning well, the kettle was nearly boiling and the mate had set the captain to shelling green peas.