Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

They were too tired to be surprised when Susan said there would be no washing up, and that the cups and spoons and things could be rinsing in the beck all night.

Their eyes were already more than half closed as they crawled into their sleeping-bags.

“Whoever wakes first in the morning wakes the others,” said Nancy, yawning. But nobody was awake to answer her.

It was a good thing that the great-aunt had kept the Amazons at home so long that this was the first night these holidays that they had spent in a tent instead of in a mere bed. The morning sun woke them early, but had no effect on the Swallows, who might have slept for twenty-four hours on end if Captain Nancy had not roused them with loud shouts while galloping off to plunge into the bathing-pool.

An hour later the stretcher-party was on the move. This time it did not seem worth while to hide everything in Peter Duck’s. They wanted the camp to look like a camp just in case mother should get there before they were back with the wounded Roger. So the four tents of the Swallows were left standing, and the parrot’s cage was on its stone pedestal. The Amazons had taken down their tent, because they wanted two of its poles to make a stretcher. It was the only tent with poles stout enough to bear anybody’s weight. Nancy rigged up a regular cat’s cradle of rope between the two poles, and then folded up the tent for a mattress, and laid it lengthwise between the poles on the top of the cat’s cradle.

“It won’t be very comfortable,” she said, “but it wouldn’t be real if it was.”

Nobody wanted to stay and look after the camp, and nobody was left behind, except the parrot, and even he was very angry about it and screamed, “Twice, twice. Two, two,” from the multiplication table.

“He’s telling us we left him behind once already, so it isn’t his turn,” said Titty. “We shan’t be so long this time, Polly. Going to fetch Roger. Back very soon. And besides it isn’t as if you were being left in Peter Duck’s.”

But the parrot refused to be comforted.

“I think I’d better go back and fetch him,” said Titty, as they heard him still screaming furiously after they had climbed out of Swallowdale and were already going up along the beck to Trout Tarn.

“All right,” said Susan, “but we shan’t wait for you. You must catch us up. Do remember mother’s coming in the middle of the day, and she’s much more likely to be early than late.”

Titty ran back and took the parrot out of his cage and climbed up again and went tearing along the side of the beck after the others, while the parrot, comforted now and screaming on quite a different note, balanced himself on her arm and flapped his short green wings.

“It’s all right,” she panted, as she caught up the rest of the expedition. “You know that notice there was on Polly’s cage last night, the one saying ‘STOP HERE TILL WE COME BACK.’ I put it in the empty cage so that mother won’t be able to help seeing it if she does get there a minute or two too soon.”

“Jolly,” said Nancy, “if lots of other people see it, and we come back to find the camp cram full of great-aunts all thinking they’re invited.”

“I never thought of that,” said Titty. “Shall I run back?”

Nancy laughed.

“There’s only one great-aunt in the world,” she said, “and she’s gone.”

They climbed on past Trout Tarn, and Titty showed Peggy where she and Roger had caught their big trout. They followed the little beck from the high end of the tarn up over the moor until they came to a wide marsh with tufts of those rushes that Titty and Roger had seen yesterday growing out of moss that squashed down into water when they trod on it. They bore away to the north round the marsh, and were presently over the top of the moor and looking down towards the valley on the other side.

“We’ve been here before,” said Peggy. “We know all this side of the fell. I don’t believe we could lose our way on it even in a fog.”

“Oh, couldn’t we?” said Nancy. “In a fog anybody can lose his way anywhere. Even the huntsmen get stuck up here sometimes.”

Peggy was looking eagerly before her.

“We ought to be coming to High Street in a minute,” she said. “There it is.”

“Now we’ll get along,” said Nancy. Peggy was already running forward along a clearly marked path, a narrow lane through the purple heather and a track trodden firm across the grassy spaces. Nancy and John, with the stretcher, trotted after Peggy, followed by Susan and Titty with the ship’s parrot. There was only room in High Street for one sheep or person, so that the expedition had to march in Indian file.

“If it hadn’t been for High Street,” said Nancy, “we’d probably have discovered Swallowdale. But we’ve always come up this side of the fell, and High Street is such a good track that we’ve always used it and never crossed over the watershed.”

“Watershed,” said Titty, as if she had been waiting for the word. “I ought to have thought of that at once, instead of thinking it was the compass getting bumped.”

On and on they walked along High Street, which, though it twisted sometimes, round a boulder stone or a bit of swampy ground, was in the main a straight track. At last Nancy said, “We ought to be turning away to the left now, if we’re to come down by the Heald Wood,” and soon after that Peggy pointed away down the moor.

“There’s your pine tree,” she said. “There’s a little bit of a beck under it, and waterfalls in the woods below, going down to the place where the charcoal-burners have an old hut.”

“If that’s the tree,” said Titty, “that’s where Roger hurt his foot. But where’s the beck?”

“You can’t see it from here,” said Peggy.

“Come on,” said Susan.

They left the regular track and made straight for the pine tree. In a few minutes they caught sight of the beck coming down the moor on their right. They met it by the tree.

“This is the place,” cried Titty. “Look. There’s a scrap of silver paper off the last bit of chocolate. That’s where Roger waited while I went down to find the medicine man.”

Susan plunged on down into the wood. The others hurried after her.

Somewhere below them they heard whistling, rather blowy whistling. Someone was trying to whistle “Spanish Ladies.”

“Roger,” called Susan, and the whistling stopped short.

“Hullo,” came from below them, and the next moment, as they pushed their way out through the bushes they saw Roger himself hopping across the open space by the charcoal-burner’s hut, swinging himself along on one foot and a crutch, the other foot just a big bundle in a red handkerchief kept carefully off the ground.

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest,” shouted Roger, who was enjoying himself very much indeed. “Yeo ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. Hullo! I am glad you’ve brought Polly. Hullo, Polly. Say ‘Pieces of eight,’ Polly. Do say ‘Pieces of eight.’ ”

Susan rushed at him. “Are you all right?” she said. “Going and hurting your foot.”

“Yeo ho, ho,” said Roger, spinning round on the point of his crutch.

“Who made that lovely crutch for you?” asked Titty.

“Young Billy did,” said Roger. “He says it’s all right to call him that.”

“It’s a grand morning,” said the old charcoal-burner coming out of his hut. “Aye, and he’s a grand lad. There’s not much amiss. He’ll be right enough if he doesn’t work his foot overmuch.”

“We’ve brought a stretcher for him,” said Nancy.

“That’s right,” said the old man. “If he keeps his foot off the ground for a day he’ll never know he harmed it. And how are you, Miss Ruth, and you, Miss Peggy? Haven’t seen you this long while. Eh! and isn’t that Mr. Turner’s parrot?”