Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“Stow your things aboard her,” said Captain Nancy. “There’s nothing to keep us now, and if we had a Blue Peter we’d hoist it.”

“Anyhow, we’ll be flying the skull and crossbones in two minutes,” said Peggy. “It’s all ready.”

John and Susan had really very little dunnage to stow. They had crammed the sleeping-bags of the boy and the able-seaman into their own knapsacks, and all the food had been eaten. Besides the knapsacks they really had nothing but the milk-can and the kettle. This was lucky, because there was a big basket and a small wooden barrel waiting on the narrow stone quay that ran round inside the boathouse.

“Well done, cook,” cried Nancy, rolling the little barrel to the edge of the quay. “Jolly good of her after we swiped that jugful yesterday and she filled the big bottle this morning.” Nancy began handing the things down out of the basket. “Ginger biscuits. What’s this, labelled THIS SIDE UP? Oh, apple pie. And here’s a tin of toffee fudge. I can hear it rattle. Good! And here’s one of her best cakes, one of the black and sticky ones.”

“The sort the G.A. said was indigestible,” said Peggy.

“My word, she has been going it,” said Nancy. “She’s celebrating, too. You should have seen her this morning the moment the G.A. was out of the house.”

When everything was safely stowed it seemed a good thing that the able-seaman and the boy had chosen to travel overland. There was very little room for passengers amidships, and none before the mast, for even the smallest kind of look-out man.

“All aboard?” cried Nancy at last. “Cast off the bow warp! Give a shove at the quay, Captain John. Look out, Peggy; don’t let her bump the launch.”

The Amazon was worked by hand and by poling out of the boathouse into the river, when Peggy hauled up the sail, and hitching the little flagstaff to the flag halyards, ran the Jolly Roger hand over hand to the mast head.

“There’s precious little wind,” she said, looking up at the black flag idly dangling against the mast.

“There’ll be more on the lake,” said Nancy, as the Amazon, broadside on, almost without steerage way, drifted down with the stream.

Even on the lake there was very little wind, not enough to let the Jolly Roger do credit to its owners. There was hardly wind to fill the sail and the little flag hung limp, but Roger was not aboard, so nobody was in a hurry to suggest that it would be better to use the oars. What wind there was came from the south or south-west, and down the lake the water in the lee of the islands was like a looking-glass in which every tree and rock was reflected. The little white-sailed Amazon crept slowly out from the mouth of the river, so slowly that it was hard to tell that she was moving. She left no wash, and not the smallest ripple stirred under her bows.

“Let’s broach the fudge,” said Captain Nancy. “Easy there with the apple-pie, Peggy. You nearly rammed it with your starboard elbow.”

“Hang on to the pie, somebody, while I dig for the fudge,” said Peggy. She screwed herself round and pulled the apple-pie out of the way and handed it to Susan, licking her fingers because the juice from the pie had spilled over the edge of the pie-dish. Then, digging down again among the knapsacks and bundles, she pulled up a big tin that had once held coffee, but now held something better. The tart was wedged firmly back in its place and the tin was opened with the help of the marlinspike on the ship’s knife (the very same knife that had been picked up by Roger and given back to its owners after the parley on Wild Cat Island a year ago). Inside the tin was the fudge, and on the top of the fudge was a bit of paper on which was written, “Love from Cook.”

“Good old cook,” said Nancy. “Let’s have that bit of paper.” She pinched a tiny scrap from it and dropped it overboard. Very slowly, inch by inch, it drifted astern.

“We’re moving all right,” she said, “and there’s sure to be more wind presently.”

The other three munched fudge and watched the scrap of paper. Nancy did not look at it again for a long time. She was trying to do the best she could with what wind there was, and there was so very little that she could not be sure where it was coming from. But the Amazon seemed to be moving slowly across the lake, though the scrap of paper, small as it was, was still in sight when they had another bit of fudge all round.

After all, there was really no hurry. Nancy and Peggy felt to-day, now that the great-aunt had gone, what the others had felt on the day when, for the first time this year, they sailed out from the Holly Howe Bay. Holidays had at last begun. And John and Susan had been looking forward all the year to sharing new adventures with the Amazons, and now the Amazons were free, and in another day or two they would once more have Swallow and be able to voyage to the Arctic, the Antarctic, or anywhere else. To-day, for the first time, the Amazons were not bothered by having to get home in time for some wretched meal. Everybody was well content to be afloat and, if not truly sailing, at least ready for a wind.

A long time passed and a lot of fudge was eaten before the wind came, in a steady, gentle breath that carried them across to the eastern shore of the lake, where they went about and stood out again, now on the port tack. They had almost reached the middle of the lake when the sun seemed to stop being so hot, and Peggy said it was very cold, and John and Susan sniffed the air, wondering what was this faint smell they seemed to know.

“I know,” said John. “It’s like fog in the Channel.”

“So it is,” said Susan. “It’s like that day outside Falmouth with daddy.”

“When we had such a job to find St. Mawes.”

“And the lighthouse was lowing like a cow.”

“It isn’t fog in the Channel,” said Nancy. “It’s fog here. Look at it drifting up over the islands.”

“The hills are gone already,” said Peggy.

“I can’t see the islands,” said Nancy.

“Or the shore,” said John. “Not properly. It’s going. There it is again. Now I can’t see it at all.”

A minute or two later the fog was so thick about them that they could hardly see the length of the boat. It was as if instead of air there was nothing but thick, damp cotton-wool and instead of water, a dull steaming plate under the wool.

“Well, this is a go,” said Nancy. “Sing out as soon as you see anything, anybody.”

“I wonder whether those two will be all right up on the top there,” said Susan.

“It’s taken us ages just to drift across and back again,” said Peggy. “And they had a long start anyhow. And Titty was in a hurry to get back and give the parrot some sunshine to make up for yesterday. They’re probably back by now.”

“Well, I hope they’ll have the sense to get something to eat for themselves without waiting for us,” said Susan. “I did tell them to get the fire lit.”

“Roger’ll see that he gets something to eat,” said Nancy. “You needn’t worry about that.”

They drifted slowly on in the white fog. Away to the south somewhere by Rio they heard a steamer hooting steadily. Then the hooting stopped.

“Tied up or anchored,” said Nancy. “They won’t run the steamers while it’s as thick as this. Hullo, what’s that chap?”

There was the noise of a motor boat coming nearer very fast.

“I wish we had a foghorn.”

But before anybody could even think of shouting, the noise roared past them in the fog and then grew fainter and fainter as the motor boat rushed up the lake.

“That’s the way,” said Nancy bitterly. “In a hurry to get home. Idiots. They never think of anybody but themselves.”

Then they heard voices.