Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“Of course it is,” said the captain.

The shapes of the tree-tops grew harder and harder to see against the darkening western sky. Only, far above them, there was still light behind the mountain. The mate carefully built in her fire with clods of earth that she had cut with a knife and pulled up with her fingers. Like that, it would last till morning.

“We’re here, anyway,” she said. “So even if it is all wrong it can’t be helped now.”

“But it isn’t all wrong,” said John.

Ten minutes later four bundles lay side by side in the dusk. For a long time now the two middle bundles had stirred so little that they might have had nothing in them but old clothes. The two outer bundles were still wriggling to find positions in which bones and stones did not press too hard on each other.

There was quiet except for the stream and the waterfalls in the steep woods below the camp.

One of the outer bundles whispered across the two inner ones, “Are you all right, Susan?”

“Yes.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

Far away, down in the valley, an owl called.

John heard it, and thinking with a chuckle of that other owl that had been awake at midday, fell happily asleep.

Not one of the explorers slept all night without waking. But they woke at different times. Roger was wide awake for a minute or two, thinking he heard wild goats. He listened as hard as he could, but there was no other noise than the breathing of the others, and of course the stream and the waterfalls in the woods. He put out a hand to touch Susan’s sleeping-bag. It was still there and she was in it. He made sure of that, but did not wake her, and when she woke herself a little later, he was already asleep again.

Susan sat up when she woke, sniffing the wood-smoke from her smothered fire. Very carefully she wriggled out of her bag and covered up a place where the fire was trying to find its way through its blanket of earth. She damped the earth with a little water from the kettle. A drop of water hissed on a hot ember, sounding to her so loud that she thought the others would be sure to wake. It felt queer to stand up there, half-way up a mountain in the dark, and to know that the three dim bundles at her feet were the captain and the crew. But she felt warm and the others were fast asleep, and in their bags must be warmer still. She wriggled in again without waking them and went to sleep again a good deal happier.

John was awake for a minute or two before he knew that he was not in Swallowdale. Then he felt for his chronometer, wondering what time it was, and forgetting that he had no torch. . . . Lighting a match would be bound to wake the others. He tried to guess what time it was by looking at the sky and wondering if he could see any signs of the coming dawn. There did not seem to be quite so many stars as he had seen last night, looking up out of Swallowdale. Well, he would not try to count them. The boy and the able-seaman had gone to bed in good time, just as he had said they should. Swallow was coming back. The great-aunt was going. There was to be a race. Haul in the sheet. Keep her full, though. Keep her sailing. . . . Luff now. . . . Luff. Into the wind. . . . And he was asleep once more.

Titty was waked by feeling the tip of her nose cold. She brought a warm hand up out of the sleeping-bag and rubbed it. Then she remembered that she was half-way up Kanchenjunga. This was real exploring. The smell of wood-smoke made it more real still. It was already not so dark as it had been, and looking east, away from the mountain, she saw the sheltering tops of the pines already black against a paler sky. She thought that now nobody would mind if she were to stay awake and keep watch over the camp. But there would be no harm in putting her nose down into the sleeping-bag just for a minute or two to warm its cold tip. By the time she looked out again it was already broad daylight.

The sun set a golden cap on the head of Kanchenjunga, and the morning glow, creeping down, found out the creases and wrinkles of his old face almost as well as it does in winter when the sunshine makes every crevice and gully a blue shadow in the gleaming snow. The light crept lower and lower down the mountain sides and lit the tops of the pine trees in the woods below the camp. The shadows of the trees, which at first had been flung far over the four bundles of the expedition, grew shorter. Roger suddenly turned over, bag and all, in one angry movement, as if he felt that the sun had shone on his face on purpose. John yawned and sat up and looked straight into the eyes of Titty.

“I’ve been watching it,” she said.

“It’s too early to get up,” said John.

“Well, let’s go on not getting up. Susan’s hard asleep. Roger’s been dreaming about something. He said, ‘Of course I can,’ out loud.”

For a while they lay, propped up on their elbows, but not for very long. The sun rose higher and grew hotter, and presently the able-seaman said, “What about getting her some more wood?”

“She’ll want some,” said the captain, looking first at the smouldering fire, an earthy mound from which a thin trickle of pale smoke climbed up into the sky and disappeared, and then at the still sleeping mate. “She’ll want some. We may as well get some. But don’t wake Roger when you wriggle out.”

Half an hour later Roger reached out towards Titty’s sleeping-bag, and finding it empty, sat up suddenly and looked about him. He prodded the mate, who was still asleep.

“What’s the matter?” said the muffled voice of the mate.

“Titty and John are gone.”

“What?”

“Gone,” said Roger, and added hopefully. “Probably eaten by bears in the night just because John went and said there weren’t any.”

“Rubbish,” grunted Susan.

“Well, wolves then, or some of those foxes.”

Susan sat up and saw the empty sleeping-bags, lying desolate and flat with nothing in them, like balloons that have been blown up too hard and burst.

“They’re somewhere about,” she said. “Listen.”

They heard laughter and a noise of splashing and blowing from the wood, close at hand.

“They’re washing,” said Susan. “Go and take them the soap, and wash yourself. I’ll come too, as soon as I’ve pulled the fire together.”

The captain and the able-seaman had gathered two good bundles of wood and then had begun to feel that perhaps their eyes were not quite so wide awake as all the rest of them. So they had gone and dipped their heads into a pool and found the water very cold, much colder than the water of the stream in Swallowdale. John had taken his shirt off and put his head under a tiny waterfall which had almost taken his breath away. By the time Roger brought them the soap they felt they had not much use for it, except to clean their hands after gathering the wood and that this was not worth while as they would have to pick the wood up again to carry it to the camp. But the mate came down just as they were deciding that it would be best to keep the soap dry until they were ready to have breakfast. In spite of being high up on the side of a mountain, after sleeping in the open, without even a tent, the mate was in her most native mood, and in about two and a half seconds the captain and the able-seaman were washing themselves all over again, using plenty of soap, and telling each other that they had meant to anyhow.

When the washing was all done and the bundles of dry sticks carried up out of the forest to the camp-fire, which Susan had already coaxed to life again, there were soon leaping flames about the kettle. That was Susan’s strong point. She never allowed excitements such as sleeping in the open half-way up a mountain, or a naval battle, or a dangerous bit of exploring, to interfere with the things that really matter, such as seeing that water is really boiling before making tea with it, having breakfast at the proper time, washing as usual, and drying anything that may be damp. Really, if it had not been for Susan, half the Swallows’ adventures would have been impossible, but, with a mate as good as that, to see that everything went as it should, there was no need for any native to worry about what was happening. To-day, for example, she had turned all four sleeping-bags inside out and laid them on the heather to air in the sun. And up here, high on Kanchenjunga, there was a breakfast plain but satisfying, hot tea and plenty of it, hunks of pemmican improved by being held for a moment over the fire (this gives the meat just that touch of camp-fire smoke that makes the difference), bunloaf and apples. What more could any explorer want? And the moment breakfast was over, she set the captain and the crew to tidying up, just as if they had been in Swallowdale and not half-way up the mountain and waiting only for the Amazons and the rope to make the final dash to the summit. The expedition’s mug was washed in the beck. The sleeping-bags were turned the right side out again and rolled up in their waterproof covers.