Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“We may be days and days,” said Peggy.

“We just can’t help it,” said Captain Flint. “Anything breakable in these bags?”

“No,” said Susan. And Captain Flint and the porter carried four long canvas kitbags to the side of the quay and dumped them over so that they fell on the deck of the schooner.

“Anyway, it’s very jolly just being here,” said John.

“Did Swallow get hurt on the journey?” asked Titty.

“Not she,” said Captain Flint. “Go along and see if you can find a scratch on her. There she is in the davits.1 A fine ship’s boat she will make. And we’ve a good dinghy as well.”

“Good old Swallow,” said Titty, looking down at the little sailing boat that Captain Flint had brought in a crate all the way to Lowestoft from that far-away lake in the north. There she was, hanging from the davits on the starboard side of the schooner, with her oars and her mast and her old brown sail neatly stowed away in her, all ready to be lowered into the harbour. “Good old Swallow.”

They had cleared the handcart by now. Susan had taken her tin box, black, with a red cross on it, full of iodine and things for colds and stomach-aches and sticking-plaster to put on people’s knees. This had been the best of Susan’s Christmas presents and ever since Christmas she had been almost pleased when anybody fell down (it was usually Roger), sorry for him, of course, but pleased to have the chance of patching him up again. John had a small tin box with a compass in it, and a barometer, and a few other things best not stuffed into a kitbag. Roger’s things had all gone into his kitbag, but Gibber had a box of his own, with his blanket in it and a tin mug he particularly liked. Nancy had taken charge of it and was laughing at seeing the monkey’s name in capital letters on the outside of his trunk. Titty had a box full of things for writing and drawing. She also had charge of the little telescope that really belonged to John.

One by one they went down the ladder and aboard the Wild Cat.

“Look out for Polly below there,” called Captain Flint, and Titty was just in time to take the big parrot-cage as it came swinging down on the end of a rope Captain Flint had borrowed from the porter. Roger and the monkey were down already. Roger had started first, pulling Gibber after him, but Gibber was quicker on a ladder than his master, and was pulling at him from below long before Roger reached the deck. John was waiting on the quay to settle with the porter for bringing the things from the station.

“That’s all right,” said Captain Flint. “It’s the ship’s affair, bringing the crew aboard.”

“Dinner’s all ready in the saloon,” said Peggy, as John and Captain Flint joined the others on the schooner’s deck. “I didn’t cook it,” she added hurriedly. “It came from the inn. But we’ll cook the next one ourselves.”

“Come on,” said Captain Flint. “This way. Leave the kitbags on deck for now. Let’s get at dinner and talk things over. Look out. Mind your heads. Oh, I was forgetting that there’ll be plenty of room for most of you. I get a fresh bump or two every time I go below.”

They crowded down the companion-way and a moment later, but for the laughter that kept coming up through the open skylights, anybody might have thought the schooner was deserted. The Swallows, the Amazons and Captain Flint were all below deck. Gibber the monkey had gone below with them. Only the parrot, in his cage, had been left on the roof of the deckhouse to enjoy the sunshine. He was preening his feathers after the journey, and talking to himself, saying sometimes, “Pretty Polly” and sometimes, “Pieces of eight.”

Up there, on the top of the quay, Peter Duck sat on his bollard alone. The porter had trundled his handcart back to the station, but Peter Duck was still sitting on his bollard, smoking his pipe, and thinking. After all, he was thinking, why not? He laughed to himself. He could just hear what his daughters would say to their old father. His mind was almost made up. And he began looking carefully at the masts of the schooner. There were one or two things up there that could do with some little attention.

Hungry as they were, for the first few minutes, they could not settle down at the saloon table. There was so much to admire below decks. Nobody had really thought that Captain Flint would keep that promise about taking them to sea in a real ship. And yet here they were, all together once more, and actually afloat, aboard a little schooner. She had been a Baltic trading schooner with a deckhouse with a couple of bunks in it, and a fo’c’sle with a couple more. But Captain Flint had decked over the hold and given it a long skylight. Where, once upon a time, had been cargoes of firewood and potatoes, he had made a saloon, with four cabins opening into it. There was a cabin for John and Roger, one for Susan and Titty, and one for Nancy and Peggy. The fourth cabin was to be a hospital, if necessary. “But, of course,” said Captain Flint, “if anybody is really ill, ill enough to be a nuisance, we’ll put him overboard.” Captain Flint himself was sleeping in the deckhouse, to be within easy reach of the wheel, and the charts. The fo’c’sle had been changed too. He had turned part of it into a big cage for Gibber, so that the monkey had his own bunk, like everybody else, but had it behind bars, so that he could be locked in there if he was getting too much in the way. On either side of the saloon, and in the fo’c’sle, and everywhere else where there was room for them, there were lockers and store cupboards crammed with every kind of tinned food.

Susan stared with surprise when Captain Flint and Peggy proudly flung open one cupboard after another.

“Pemmican,” said Peggy. “We’ve pemmican for a year at least and jam enough for ten.”

“But isn’t it rather waste?” said Susan.

“It’ll keep,” said Captain Flint. “And what do you think we’ve got under the floor?” he asked.

“Ballast,” said John.

“Water tanks,” said Captain Flint. “You can’t have better ballast than that, and you never know when you won’t be glad to be able to drink it.”

“It isn’t that he means to go very far,” said Nancy, “but he just likes to feel he could.”

“And now, thanks to Sam Bideford not coming we can’t start at all,” said Captain Flint. “But there’s nothing against having dinner. I don’t know about you people, but I’m ready for it.”

Every now and then shouts of laughter floated up through the skylights, but as time went on there were not so many, and when dinner was over and the whole ship’s company came crowding out on deck again, they were talking seriously enough.

“Couldn’t we manage by ourselves?” Nancy was saying.

“You could show us what to do,” said John.

“Look here,” said Captain Flint, “it’s no good talking about it. You and John are a couple of very good sailors, and no one could ask for better cooks than the two mates, and I’ve nothing whatever against the able-seaman and the boy, but the Wild Cat is a very different ship from the Swallow or the Amazon, and if we’re to do anything with her worth doing I must have another man aboard who can take watch and watch about with me. . . .”

And at that moment Peter Duck tapped his pipe out on his bollard, got up, walked to the edge of the quay and said, “Cap’n!”