Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“He’ll not say a word,” said the able-seaman. “We’ll put his cover on his cage to make sure. You won’t mind, will you, Polly?”

Ten minutes later the camp in Swallowdale was as if it had never been, or, at least, as if it had been long ago deserted. Nothing but the blackened stones of Susan’s fireplace showed that human beings had at one time or another had a fire there. Susan had been chosen to have a last look round. The others could count on her to notice anything that had been forgotten. She found a bathing-towel spread over a clump of heather to dry. She picked it up, but could find nothing else.

A loudish whisper came from behind her.

“Hurry up!”

The mate looked once more up and down the deserted valley and then joined the others in Peter Duck’s. The moment she was inside, John pulled into place the last of the big clumps of heather that disguised the doorway.

IN PETER DUCK’S CAVE

In the cave a candle-lantern had been lit and was standing on the narrow uneven shelf that ran across one of the rocky walls. Titty and Roger, already holding their breath, were sitting on their bundles close under the lantern. The tin boxes with the stores were neatly piled beside the woodstack, and on the top of the woodstack was the parrot’s cage, covered with its dark blue cloth. As the mate’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim, flickering candlelight she saw that Titty had arranged the cooking things in a neat row, and that the fishing-rods, which had been propped against the woodstack when she went out, were standing up in a corner, out of everybody’s way.

“Peter Duck’s enjoying this like anything,” said Titty. “He says it’s just what his cave is meant for.”

“Mister Mate,” said Captain John, turning round from the low and narrow slit of a doorway, “that was good work all round. You’ve got a very smart crew. Serve out a ration of chocolate.”

“No need, Roger,” said the mate. “Don’t move. Don’t touch the lantern. I put a lot of chocolate out on purpose. It’s on the top of the tins.”

Voices sounded somehow hollow in the cave. “Thank you,” whispered by one or other as the chocolate went round, seemed even to the one who whispered it as if it had been whispered by someone else. And when a half-empty biscuit-box slipped and fell on the stone floor of the cave it startled everybody like an explosion.

“Sh! sh!” said John. “They may be quite near by now. They were coming fast, though they were keeping as low down in the heather and bracken as ever they could. They didn’t know we’d seen them.”

“Listen,” said Susan.

In the cave it seemed almost as if nothing outside could be heard except the noise of the stream. John lay down on the ground with his head on the threshold, hidden by the heather in the doorway. The others saw his hand signalling back to them for silence. For some minutes there was not a sound, except that once the parrot scraped his beak on his perch.

Then, suddenly, outside, there was a long shrill whistle that was heard not only by John but by everybody else. It sounded as if it came from just overhead. Then another whistle shrilled, this time from the other side of the valley. Then there were yells of “Amazons for ever!” from two different directions, the noise of stones slipping, the noise of scrambling feet, and then once more a long silence, broken at last by the voice of Captain Nancy, quite close to the mouth of the cave.

“Shiver my timbers, but where are they?”

“They must have gone,” came the voice of Peggy.

Both voices were puzzled and doubtful.

“Didn’t you say you saw someone on their watch-tower?”

“I thought I did.”

“But the whole camp’s gone. They’ve shifted.”

“P’raps they’ve got in a row, too.”

Inside the cave nobody breathed, except the parrot.

Nancy’s voice came again, with the noise of a stone dropping on stones.

“Hullo! they can’t have been gone long. These stones are hot. Susan’s had a fire here, and cleared it away in a hurry. There’s a burnt stick in the beck. No ashes in the fireplace and yet the stones are too hot to touch. They’ve thrown the embers in the beck. Yes. There’s another burnt stick. They must have seen us, put the fire out, and sloped.”

“I’d have seen them if they tried to get down to Horseshoe Cove. I couldn’t have helped seeing them, unless they went long ago, because all the time I was working round I could see the place where the beck drops into the woods.”

“Well,” said Nancy’s voice again, “they must have gone up to Trout Tarn, where Uncle Jim said they caught the big fish. They could have done that without being seen if they crept along the beck. But with all their tents and everything! It’s a rum go. Shiver my timbers if it isn’t.”

John had been scribbling on a bit of paper. Without moving from his place, lying close to the very mouth of the cave, he passed the scrap of paper back and waved it behind him. Susan took it quietly and read it in the light of the candle.

“Can you make the parrot say something?”

Susan showed it to Titty, and Titty, moving on tiptoe, lifted the parrot’s cage off the woodstack and took it to the mouth of the cave. She tapped John’s shoulder, and he glanced back, saw the cage, wriggled to one side and made room for it, and Titty put it close to the doorway so that all the light that came through the doorway fell on the blue cover that was keeping the parrot quiet.

Outside there was the voice of Peggy. “We’re very late already.”

“Come on,” said Nancy’s voice, “at the trot. They can’t be gone farther than the tarn.”

There was the noise of hurried steps going up the side of the stream towards the bathing-pool.

“Now,” whispered John.

Titty pulled off the blue cover from the parrot’s cage.

“Pieces of eight!” yelled the startled parrot, and then, as Titty hurriedly pulled the cover on again, he gave a long, angry scream, more like a wild forest parrot in a rage than like a tame and learned one who knew how to talk and even a small bit of the multiplication table.

“Where are they?” came the voice of Nancy outside, coming nearer again down the valley.

“The parrot sounded close here,” said Peggy’s voice.

“I know that, you tame galoot. Of course it’s close here. But where? They’ve hidden the parrot somewhere in the heather. Anybody can see they can’t be here themselves.”

“Let’s go and climb the watch-tower and look round from there.”

“That’s the best idea you’ve had yet. We’ll spot them then wherever they are.”

There was a splash as someone slipped in crossing the stream, and then the clattering of the loose screes as the Amazons ran up the farther side of the valley.

Just for a moment John waited. Then he cautiously moved the heather and peeped out.

“All clear,” he said. “Come on. Quick.”

A moment later everybody was blinking in the sunshine outside.

“Half a minute,” said Susan, “I’ve forgotten the sticks.”

She dived into the cave again and came out with a handful of firewood and a bundle of the dry leaves she used for kindling. John put the clumps of heather back into place behind her.

“I’ve got the matches,” he said.

Susan hurried across to the fireplace and in a moment had her fire ready for lighting.

The others settled round the fireplace as if they had been lying there all day. Susan lit the dry leaves. Smoke poured up. Titty pulled the cover once more off the parrot’s cage, and the parrot made up for lost time by a long series of shrieks and all the words it could remember. “Pretty Polly, Pretty Polly. Pieces of eight. Two. Twice. Polly. Two. Two. Two,” and then shrieked again.