Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“Why do you wave your legs in the air, Titty?” Roger asked after one of these dives. It was too true. Titty herself knew that long after she had put her head under and was swimming downwards as hard as she could her legs were kicking out of the water altogether.

She went further out, to be nearer the fish, and further from Roger. At last she found the trick of turning her hands so that her arm strokes pulled her down. She found that she could open her eyes easily enough, but that it was like trying to see in a bright green fog. There were no fish to be seen in it. With a great effort she got right down to the bottom. Still there were no fish. She came up puffing, then dived again and again. It was no good. She picked a stone off the bottom to make sure that she had really been there, and came to the top again in a hurry, spluttering and out of breath. There was no doubt about it. The fish could see her coming, and could swim faster than she could. There was nothing for it but fishing rods. She swam in towards the beach holding her stone.

“What have you got?” said Roger.

“A stone,” said Titty. “I got it off the bottom.”

“What sort of a stone?”

“Probably a pearl. Let’s be pearl-divers.”

Cormorants were forgotten, and the able-seaman and the boy were pearl-divers in a moment.

“Don’t let Roger go far out,” called the mate. “I’m off to look after the fire.”

John, too, had left the water, and presently rowed past the pearl-divers on his way to fetch the milk.

“What are you doing?” he shouted to them.

“Diving for pearls.”

PEARL DIVING

“Don’t stay in too long. No breakfast for anybody who isn’t dry and dressed by the time I’m back with the milk.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Titty.

Roger tried to say “Aye, aye, sir,” with his mouth under water. He failed.

He could not open his eyes under water either with any ease, and, splashing about in two or three feet of water, he picked up his pearls by feeling for them. Able-seaman Titty swam about on the bottom with her eyes open, looking for the whitest stones. They were all rather big for pearls, but no one really minds a pearl being big, and soon the pearl-divers had a pile of wet and shining jewels by the water-side. The worst of it was that as soon as the stones were dry—and they dried quickly in the sun—they stopped shining, and could not be counted as pearls any more.

Pearl-diving came to an end as soon as the divers saw Captain John coming laden down the field from Dixon’s Farm. There was a sudden splashing rush for the shore, and towels, and long before Captain John came rowing in in Swallow, his crew, dry and dressed, were waiting for him on the beach. There was plenty for them to carry, two loaves of bread, a couple of big lettuces, a basket of eggs as well as the milk-can full of milk, and a small tobacco tin.

“What is there in that?” said Roger.

“Worms,” said Captain John.

“Are we going fishing?” asked Roger.

“Yes,” said Captain John. “Mr. Dixon gave me the worms. He says there are lots of perch between here and his landing-place. He says we’ll do better with minnows than with worms, and he says we’ll find the perch anywhere where there are weeds in the water.”

Breakfast was soon over, and while Mate Susan was tidying up, the others took the saucepan for a bait-can, and half filled it with water. Then they fished for minnows in the shallows, and caught a good lot of them. Then they unstepped Swallow’s mast, and left it ashore with the boom and gaff and sail, so that there would be more room in the boat. Susan joined them, and got her rod ready too. Then they rowed across from the island into the bay below Dixon’s Farm. The Boy Roger was in the bows, keeping a look-out for weeds.

“Weeds,” he shouted, soon after they came into the bay. “Lots of them.” On either side of Swallow they could see the long green streamers of weeds under water.

“We ought to be just off the edge of them, and where it’s not too deep. Are you ready to anchor?”

Mate Susan told the boy: “Have the anchor over the bows, and drop it the moment I say, ‘Let go!’ ”

John was rowing a stroke at a time, and then looking down into the water, then rowing another stroke. “Can you see the bottom, anybody?”

“I can, now,” said Roger.

“All right. So can I. There’s grass on it. That means sand. And it’s close to the weeds. We couldn’t have a better place.”

“Let go!” sang out the mate.

Roger let go. Swallow swung slowly round. A moment later four red-topped floats were in the water, two on each side of the boat.

“How deep are you fishing, Susan?” said Titty.

“Very nearly as deep as my rod will let me,” said Susan.

“Mine’s only about three feet down. I can see the minnow easily.”

“That’s no good,” said John. “It ought to be about a foot from the bottom. Bring it in, and I’ll push your float up.”

Susan’s float bobbed first. She struck at once, and brought up her hook with nothing on it.

“He’s gone off with my minnow,” she said.

“You struck too soon,” said John.

“I wish the boat didn’t swing about so,” said Titty. “Look out, Roger, your float’s nearly touching mine. Now you’re lifting my float as well as yours. They’re both tangled.”

John disentangled them, but when he had done it, he found the boat had swung the other way, and his own tackle was tangled in the same way with Susan’s.

“This is no good,” he said. “We must have an anchor at each end so that the boat won’t swing. All rods in! Haul up the anchor, Roger. We’ll get a big stone on the shore. There’s plenty of anchor rope to spare.”

So they rowed ashore, and fastened a big stone to the other end of the anchor rope. Then they rowed back to another place not far away. Roger let go the anchor, and Susan lowered the stone over the stern of the boat. This time Swallow rested broadside on to the wind, and did not swing at all. But they found it was no good fishing on the windward side, because the wind, even though there was so little of it, brought the floats in under the boat. So they all four fished on the same side. As the boat was not swinging, this did not matter, and everybody tried to watch all four floats at once.

“Whose float will go first?” said Roger.

“Mine,” said Titty. “It’s bobbing already.”

“Look out, John,” said Susan. “Your float isn’t there.”

John looked round. His float was gone. He pulled. The top of his rod bent and jerked, and up came a fat little perch with bright red fins and dark green bars on his sides.

“That’s one, anyhow,” said John, as he put on another minnow.

After that the perch came fast, one after another. Sometimes three floats bobbed together. There was soon a pile of perch in the bottom of the boat.

Roger was counting them, “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen . . .”

“IT’S A SHARK!”

“Where’s your float, Roger?” said the mate.

“And look at your rod,” said Titty.

Roger jumped up and caught hold of his jerking rod, which he had put down while he was counting the catch. He felt a fish at the end of his line. Just as he was bringing it to the top there was a great swirl in the water, and his rod was suddenly pulled down again. Roger hung on as hard as he could, and his rod was bent almost into a circle.