Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“Nobody’s going to try. We land there. By that splashing. There’s an eddy on this side.”

Nancy glanced over her shoulder.

“Safe now,” she said. “Ship your oars, Captain John. I know the place. You’d better let me take her in.”

John shipped his oars, while Nancy rowed on, nearer and nearer to the line of falling, splashing water above them. Suddenly she pulled two strokes as hard as she could and then lifted her blades high out of the water, as the boat shot forward between two rocks. Again Nancy pulled a couple of strokes, and a moment later, so close to the falls that John in the bows felt the cold spray blowing on his face, the boat slipped across a patch of dead water and came to rest beside a shelving rock on the left bank of the river.

“Hop out, Skipper,” called Nancy loudly, so as to be heard in spite of the noise of foaming waters. “Hop out. Make fast to that little rowan. Hang on to the rock, somebody in the stern, or she’ll swing round under the falls. She did once, and got swamped.”

John was already ashore with the painter. Susan grabbed the rock just in time and hung on to it till Nancy had followed John ashore, when Peggy flung her a rope and made it fast to a ring-bolt in the stern. In a few minutes the Beckfoot war canoe was moored alongside the rock, the painter tied to the little rowan, and the long warp from the stern fastened round a big stone.

“Now for the cargo,” called Nancy cheerfully, and Susan, Roger, Titty, and Peggy passed up the knapsacks of the Swallows and the big fishing-creel and bedroom jug that belonged to the Amazons.

John and Susan were very glad that this stage of the expedition was safely over. There was something about these Amazons hard for them to understand. It was clear that they had been forbidden to have anything to do with the Swallows, that they had been forbidden to touch their own boats, since the boathouse was out of bounds, that they were supposed at that very minute to be sitting somewhere solemnly learning poetry by heart. Yet, they had got into touch with the Swallows by sending that arrow with its message from the very launch in which their enemy was being taken for a picnic; they had visited the boathouse at dead of night, once just for bailing, and once more seriously, to bring the rowing boat up the river and hide it under the oak; and here they were, doing the very thing that it seemed the great-aunt was most determined that they should not do. Of course, there was this to be remembered, that it almost seemed as if Captain Flint and Mrs. Blackett were privately on the same side as Nancy and Peggy. At the same time it was a very good thing that they had got through the bridge and out of sight round the bend above it before the great-aunt came driving by and saw the Allies all rowing up the river together. If she had seen them, the whole thing would have been very difficult to explain, and whatever Mrs. Blackett might think about it, it was just the sort of trouble in which mother, away at Holly Howe, would not like them to be mixed. Susan almost wished they had not come. Why couldn’t Nancy have waited a day if the great-aunt was leaving? John, of course, knew that Nancy would not have been Nancy if she had. Titty did not consider this side of the affair. One thing was quite clear, and that was that the burning of the candle-grease, just as mother and Susan had said, had done no serious harm to the great-aunt. At the same time, the great-aunt had made up her mind to leave. Was it possible that candle-grease had something to do with it after all? She would very much have liked to ask whether the great-aunt was going to the seaside or just to some ordinary place. As for Roger, after the excitement of going down to Beckfoot and bringing the Amazons away, and shooting the bridge, and mooring close by the cataract, he was thinking that it must be long past dinner-time. He said so.

“We’ve had ours,” said Peggy.

“We haven’t,” said Roger.

“We didn’t eat much,” said Peggy. “We meant to start again.”

There was not much talk while Nancy was unpacking the big fishing-basket. The Swallows had had an early breakfast. They had marched from Swallowdale to the Amazon River and had eaten on the way only an apple apiece and some chocolate. Instead of stopping to eat by the big oak tree, they had pushed off and gone down to Beckfoot at once, for fear there might be some urgent reason for hurry. The moment they began to think about food and to see food unpacked, they wanted it badly, and for a time could think of little else.

Mate Susan wanted to open one of the two pemmican tins, but Nancy would not let her.

“You’ll want it to-night, where you’re going to sleep,” she said. “And you’ll want the other for the top of Kanchenjunga.”

“Besides,” said Peggy, “it’s no good taking things back to cook. She doesn’t like it and she only gives you less next time. And she’s fairly stuffed the old fishing-basket.”

She certainly had. John and Susan saw at once that one person at least at Beckfoot had nothing against the goings-on of Captain Nancy and her mate. Cook had given them a fat beef roll, like a bigger and better kind of sausage. There were enough apple dumplings to go round. There were lettuces and radishes and salt in a little tin box. There was a lot of cut brown bread and butter. There was a hunk, the sort of hunk that really is a hunk, a hunk big enough for twelve indoor people and just right for six sailors, of the blackest and juiciest and stickiest fruit cake. And then to wash these good things down, there was the bedroom jug full of pirate grog, which some people might have thought was lemonade. Lemonade or grog, whatever it was, it suited thirsty throats. Altogether this dinner among the rocks, close to the leaping splashing water of the First Cataract, was one of those after which everybody feels a little sleepy but ready for anything when the sleepiness has worn off.

“Where did you say we were going to sleep?” said Susan at last.

“Half-way up the mountain,” said Nancy, tipping the last dregs of her lemonade down her throat. (She and Peggy shared one of the two glasses cook had put in their basket. John and Susan shared the other. Titty and Roger shared the mug that the expedition had brought with it from Swallowdale.)

“Half-way up?” said Titty, looking up at the woods that hid the mountain from them.

“Half-way up,” said Nancy. “It’s a fine place for a camp, just above the tree level. You see the whole thing is this. The great-aunt is going to-morrow, so we can come and join the camp at Swallowdale. . . .”

“Good,” said John.

“Wait a minute,” said Nancy. “There’s something else. Swallow is nearly finished. Uncle Jim said nothing left to do but a lick of paint.”

“Not really,” said Titty, jumping to her feet.

“That’s why he sent the message for me to hurry up with the mast,” said John.

“Well, the thing is that as soon as you’ve got Swallow again you’ll be moving back to Wild Cat Island.”

“Rather,” said John.

“And you’re coming too, and we’ll make a cave there, like Peter Duck’s,” said Titty.

“Anyway,” said Nancy, “we’ll all be wanting to sail. And you can’t both sail and climb Kanchenjunga. And we can’t camp in Swallowdale and Wild Cat Island at the same time. So we’re coming to Swallowdale to-morrow night. And we’ll climb Kanchenjunga first. That’s why it was so important to get the message to you. We’ve saved a whole day.”

“But you can’t climb Kanchenjunga now,” said Susan. “You’ve got to be back by half-past five.”

“That’s why you’re going to sleep half-way up the mountain. It’s proper to have a half-way camp, anyway. You see, the G.A. goes at eight o’clock to-morrow morning.”