Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Table of Contents

The camp was astir early in the morning. Susan began at once making ready for the march. Titty had waked with a plan in her head which she had told to Roger, and the two of them had taken their knapsacks and rushed off to the woods, promising to come back at once. John passed them there, filling their knapsacks with small pine-cones, when, after sleeping very well in the open, he was hurrying down to Swainson’s farm with the milk-can. They were back in Swallowdale long before he was, for he had to go first to Horseshoe Cove to give a last dressing of oil to the mast, and then round by the farm to get the milk for breakfast and to tell Mary Swainson that they would not be wanting any more milk until the evening of the next day because they were going to be away for the night.

“I’m just rowing over to the village,” said Mary, using the native name for Rio. “Is there anything you’re wanting there?”

“I suppose you won’t be going to Holly Howe?” said John. “I’d like to tell mother not to come here to-day or to-morrow because of our being away.”

“Why, of course I can and welcome,” said Mary Swainson. “You bide a minute while I get you a bit of paper and you can tell her what you like.”

But old Mr. Swainson shouted from the kitchen and called to John to come in.

“Maree,” he shouted, “what are you letting him stand out there for? Come in, young man, and sit you down at the table. That’s the place if you want to do a bit of writing.”

John went in and said “Good morning” to the two old people. Mary got a pencil and a sheet of paper out of a drawer and set him to the kitchen table. Then she clattered off for the milk, while old Mrs. Swainson went on with her patchwork quilt, and the old man watched John at his writing and half hummed, half sang bits of a song about a young man saying “Fare thee well” to someone he was leaving behind.

John wrote:

“Don’t come to Swallowdale to-day or to-morrow because we are going to the Amazon River for the climbing of Kanchenjunga. We are taking our sleeping-bags. The crew will go to sleep at the proper bed-time. We are coming back to-morrow. Everything is quite all right. The mast is finished. Swallow will soon be back, so it’s a good thing we are going to climb Kanchenjunga now. With love from all of us. John.”

He folded it up and wrote, “Mrs. Walker, Holly Howe,” on the outside.

Old Mr. Swainson watched him all the time he was writing.

“Eh, but you can make that pencil move,” said the old man. “In my young days they didn’t teach us to write as fast as all that. But you’re not such a one for singing as that young brother of yours. He’s the lad for a song, so he is. But perhaps he isn’t as quick with a pencil. And there’s me. Can’t write at all. Never wrote a letter these fifty years. But sing. Now, if it comes to singing . . .”

John did not know what to do. There were the others waiting for the breakfast milk, and there was the camp to be struck and the whole expedition to get on its way, and if songs began who could tell how long it would be before he could stir. But luckily Mary Swainson came bustling in at that moment, and took his note and gave him the milk and got him outside, and all in such a rush that it was almost as if she had swept him out of the farm-house door. He never knew quite how it was done, but he thanked her very much and hurried away through the forest by the short cut up to Swallowdale. As he went he could hear for some time the voice of the old man singing in the house.

When he climbed up beside the waterfall and looked up Swallowdale he could hardly believe it was the place he had left so short a time before. The four little cream-coloured tents were gone. The others had taken down his tent as well as their own, and the valley did not look like a camp any more. Tents make all the difference to a place. Now, once more, it was a wild, rocky valley as it had been when first they came there. It did not look like anybody’s home, and John knew that when they had gone back to Wild Cat Island, Swallowdale would look as if they had never been there. The first real flood would wash the dam at the bathing-pool away for ever. Everything would be as it had been, and their own Swallowdale, with its neat tents and cheerful fire, would be no more than a memory or something he had read about in a book. It was a queer thought, not comfortable. Still, at the moment the cheerful fire was still burning and all the signs showed that breakfast was waiting only for the milk.

“Here’s the milk,” said John, “and I’ve sent a despatch to Holly Howe to tell mother where we’re going.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” said Susan.

“Did you tell her not to tell any of the other natives?” asked Titty.

“I forgot about that.”

“She probably won’t, anyway,” said Titty. “At least, not unless she’d made certain it was all right.”

“Did Mr. Swainson sing?” asked Roger.

“Yes. He wanted you to be there to sing with him.”

“I will, when we come back,” said the boy.

“Porridge to-day,” said the mate. “We’ve got a long way to go. I’ve made enough for second helps all round. It’s no good trying to make the milk last out. We’ll finish it.”

“Everything stowed?” said John.

“In Peter Duck’s,” said Titty.

“Breakfast first,” said the mate. “Have a look at the cave afterwards. There was plenty of room for everything. It’s better than when the Amazons came.”

“It looks almost like a shop,” said Titty.

“Only everything in it is ours,” said Roger.

They made a tremendous breakfast, the sort of breakfast explorers ought to make before marching into unknown country. There was much more porridge than ever Susan had made them before, and then bacon, fried till it crackled, and lots of it, and after that the usual bunloaf and marmalade and big mugs of tea. And while they were getting through the bunloaf and marmalade Susan had eight eggs in the saucepan being turned into hard-boiled ones, to take on their journey.

“I shan’t want any more till the day after to-morrow,” said Roger, when breakfast was done and Susan was giving them all two eggs apiece to put in the outer pockets of their knapsacks.

“Well, put these eggs in, anyhow,” said Susan.

“I shan’t want them,” said Roger.

“Perhaps you’d better leave your chocolate behind too,” said Susan, and Roger thought better of it, and packed his eggs away like everybody else.

Then the last of the things that were to be left behind were stowed away in Peter Duck’s cave. Really very little was being taken, just a sleeping-bag and a waterproof covering for it in each knapsack, one mug for the party, one cake of soap for the party, a toothbrush apiece and the food, which had been parcelled out, some taking one thing and some another. There were four bunloaves, two tins of pemmican, the hard-boiled eggs, a good lot of chocolate and some apples. The mate scrubbed the kettle with a bundle of heather till there was no more black on it that would come off. She put the lid in the outer pocket of her knapsack and strapped the kettle on the outside with the flap that came down over the neck of the knapsack when its string had been pulled tight. John was to carry the empty milk-can in the same way, and under the mate’s orders was rinsing it out in the beck. The other two were let off easily, and this was just as well, because they wanted to cram their knapsacks full of pine-cones. “For patterans,” Titty explained.