Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“Is it smashed?” asked Roger.

The able-seaman picked herself up.

“No, it isn’t hurt,” she said. “But I wish I knew how to use it properly. John didn’t try to look at it all the time. I watched what he did. He looked at the compass to see which way was north and then he looked north and found a rock or something. And then he put the compass in his pocket and walked till he came to the rock. But it’s no good us looking south, because there’s nothing to see.”

“Just one blanket everywhere,” said Roger.

Titty looked at the compass again.

“South is there,” she said, pointing into the fog. “If we walk perfectly straight we can’t go wrong, and anyhow we can’t help coming to the beck, and as soon as we’ve found the beck it’ll be easy enough to find the camp.”

She had one more look at the compass, and then, putting it in her pocket, set out doggedly into the fog, looking straight before her, and doing her best to take steps with her right foot exactly the same length as those she took with her left.

“Come on, Boy,” she said.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy, and followed close at her heels, scouting a yard or two to either side in hope of finding one of the pine-cones to show them that they were in the right way.

They moved slowly along the moor in a white, almost empty world, a world in which something that they thought might be a stray cow turned out to be a rock, and rocks turned out to be worried, black-faced sheep that bleated and scurried away into the whiteness all about them.

“Are we properly lost?” said Roger at last.

“Of course we aren’t,” said the able-seaman. “Besides, it isn’t as if we were alone. Peter Duck says it’s quite all right, so long as we keep going straight.”

“We must be nearly there.”

“I expect we are. We may hear the parrot any minute.”

“It’s very squashy here. I’ve got water into one of my shoes.”

“It’s only a bit of swamp. We’ll have to go round it.”

For some time they picked their way from one tuft of green rushes to another. The able-seaman was rather bothered by this, because though they had seen plenty of these rushes, they had not crossed any really swampy ground on the way to the Amazon. Still, there were lots of small marshes up on the moor, and just a little bit to right or left would not matter much if they kept on moving straight ahead. Suddenly she stopped short, listening.

“What is it?” whispered Roger.

“Listen!”

There it was, quite clear, not very far before them, the gentle tinkle of water.

“It’s the beck. Now we’re all right.”

They ran forward and almost fell across a little stream trickling down the moor from one tiny pool into the next.

“We’ve come much too far to the right,” said Titty. “This must be a long way above Trout Tarn for the beck to be so small. But we can’t miss the way now.”

With the beck to guide them through the fog, they hurried cheerfully along.

“We’ll have the rest of the chocolate when we come to Trout Tarn,” said Roger, but when they had walked a long way without coming to it, though the beck was much bigger than it had been, the able-seaman agreed that it was time for a short rest.

They took their knapsacks off to sit on, first emptying out the chocolate. Titty took the compass out of her pocket, and, while she was eating her chocolate, opened the compass on the ground beside her.

“There’s something gone wrong with the compass,” she said suddenly. “It makes the beck flow west, and of course it flows east all the way by Trout Tarn and Swallowdale down to Horseshoe Cove.”

“Did it happen when you tumbled?”

“I don’t think it could have done. It didn’t touch the ground at all. Perhaps it got too much shaken up on Kanchenjunga. We did come down at a good pace.”

“Well,” said Roger, “it’s lucky we found the beck.”

Table of Contents

“Aren’t you ever going to stop hogging?” said the able-seaman at last.

“There’s only one more bit of chocolate left,” said the boy, “and now it’s gone in. Let’s start. But the fog hasn’t lifted like you said it would.”

“That doesn’t matter now we’ve got the beck,” said the able-seaman. “Come on.”

They wriggled into the straps of their empty knapsacks and set off again, cheered by the chocolate and by the little stream beside them, trickling from pool to pool, and showing them the way.

Titty, of course, was sorry about the compass, but even if John couldn’t put it right, she was sure Captain Flint could. And, anyhow, the compass going wrong wasn’t half so bad as losing the way home when she was in charge of the ship’s boy. Just for a little while she had known the sort of worry that kept on making Susan go native. Now she was free to be happy with the thought that the candle-grease had not done any harm and that anyhow, whether the candle-grease had helped or not, the great-aunt was gone. Swallow was nearly finished, too, and then on the top of these thoughts, happy in themselves, came another that would have made the able-seaman galumph, if only the fog had not been so thick and she had not been afraid of tumbling among the loose stones at the side of the stream.

“Boy,” she said, “we’ll be back on Wild Cat Island before the end of the week, and then anything can happen.”

“I’m going to be allowed to sail Swallow,” said the boy. “By myself. Not like last year. John’s promised not to put even one finger on the tiller.”

“And the Amazons are coming. Six tents there’ll be, counting our stores tent. And we can put up the other old tent for a spare room.”

“Or a dungeon, in case of prisoners,” said Roger.

“Bridget’s coming to stay. And mother.”

“Why not Captain Flint?”

“We’ll have him, too. And we’ll have Mary Swainson. We’ll have everybody. Come on. Peter Duck’s just reminded me that the ship’s parrot is all alone. And there’s the fire to light. Come on.”

They hurried along the banks of the little stream.

“It can’t be far to the tarn now,” said the boy some little time later.

“No,” said the able-seaman, “and from there it’s no way to the camp.”

They walked on and on, sometimes on one side of the stream, sometimes on the other, but always keeping close to it, and to each other, because they could not see more than a yard or two in the fog and neither of them liked to lose sight of the stream or to see the other one looking like a soft grey shadow instead of like a solid boy or able-seaman. The stream began to be stonier, and noisier, and less like a tiny ditch draining the swamp on the top of the moor. It was a real stream now, though they could easily jump across it. It made more noise than it had, as if it was in more of a hurry. And still there was no tarn.

“We must have gone an awful long way to the right,” said the boy.

“It can’t be much farther now,” said the able-seaman.

And then, suddenly, their cheerfulness came to an end.

“Look,” said Roger, who was a yard or two ahead, “there’s a tree! On the other side. I’m going to cross.”

“There aren’t any trees,” said Titty.

“I can see it. It’s a big one,” said Roger, and jumped.

He landed with a short squeak of pain on the other side. His left foot slipped between two stones and twisted over. He fell forward, tried to pick himself up, squeaked again and flopped on the ground.