Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

He took a match and lit it and looked at the little compass, moving it round until the line marked at one side of it was opposite the dark end of the needle. That showed him where the north was. Happily, it was just where he had expected it to be. He pulled Swallow round and lit another match and had another look at the compass to make sure. Then he began rowing again, taking Swallow northwards up the lake.

“This isn’t proper compass steering,” he said. “We ought to have the compass fixed and a light shining on it all the time. What we really need is an electric torch. I wish I’d thought of getting one for a birthday present. Anyhow, all hands keep a look-out and sing out, anybody, as soon as our lanterns show.”

A minute or two later Titty saw them, flickering among the trees and then disappearing again as they were hidden by the big rocks south of the island.

John paddled slowly on.

“There they are again,” said Susan.

“Close together,” said Titty.

John turned round from his rowing and had a good look at the two small stars twinkling over the water.

“Right,” he said, and then, remembering Captain Nancy, “Now, I’m going to do nothing but row if you’ll keep your eyes on the lights.”

“We can’t see anything else, anyhow,” said Titty.

“Are they still close together?” asked John.

“Fairly close,” said Susan.

“Which light is which side of which?” said John.

“What?” said Susan.

“Where is the top light?” asked Captain John.

“A bit to the left of the low one,” said Susan.

John pulled a stroke or two, pulling a little harder with his right. “Sing out as soon as it is just above it.”

“It’s above it now. Now it’s a bit to the right of it.”

John pulled his left.

“Above it.”

“Tell me the moment it is one side or the other.”

He rowed on. Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and the Boy Roger watched the lights and sang out the moment the top one showed a little to left or right of the lower one. With so many look-out men Captain John might have been content, but just once he looked round for himself and saw the two lights one above the other like the stop called a colon, which I am just going to make : there, like that. At last John just grazed a rock with his starboard oar.

“We must be close in now,” he said. “I’m going to scull over the stern.”

“The lights are exactly one above another,” said Susan.

John had shipped his oars and was now sculling over the stern. Susan and Titty had wriggled out of the way. The boat moved on in the darkness.

“The lights are quite close to us,” said Roger, and as he said it there was a gentle scrunch as the Swallow’s nose touched the soft, pebbly beach of the little harbour.

Captain John had used his leading lights for the first time, and had made his harbour in pitch dark.

“That is going to win us the war with the Amazons,” he said with great delight. “It’s the one thing they think we can’t do, and we can. They think they are safe from us at night.”

They scrambled ashore and unhooked the lanterns from the nails, moored Swallow by lantern light, and by lantern light found their way through the brambles and bushes back to the camp. Ten minutes later the lanterns were blown out, one in each tent, and about half a minute after that the whole camp was asleep.

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Next day there was a dead calm, most unfit for war. Captain John turned over on his haybag and looked at the barometer, which was steady. He crawled out of his tent and looked at the sky. It was without a cloud. He went up the look-out post and looked at the lake, which reflected the hills and the woods and the far-away farmhouses on the sides of the hills so closely that, as he found, if you looked at them through your own legs you could really hardly be sure which was real and which was reflection in the water. He went back to the camp and found the others getting up.

“Buck up, Titty,” Roger was saying. “Remember the war’s begun and the Amazons may be here at any minute.”

“There’s no wind,” said Captain John, “and it looks as if it’s going to be like this all day. They’ll never come if there’s no wind. And we can’t try to do anything ourselves. It’s too far to row. To-day we needn’t bother about the war. No wind, no war. It’s an awful pity.”

“May I row ashore for the milk with Titty?” asked Roger. “You said we might the first calm day.” If there was to be no war, at least there were plenty of other things to do.

“All right,” said Captain John, “but be careful not to bump her on a stone when you are landing.”

“Of course,” said the able-seaman.

So the able-seaman and the boy paddled Swallow out of harbour and rowed ashore in her. They rowed with one oar each, sitting side by side on the middle thwart. Then Roger rowed with both oars while Titty steered. Then Titty rowed with both oars while Roger steered. Their course was not a very straight one, but at last Captain John, who was swimming at the bathing-place but a little nervous about his ship, saw them going up the field carrying the milk-can.

When they came back the able-seaman rowed the whole way as hard as she could while the boy steered. Titty was in a hurry and had a good deal to say.

“Those were charcoal-burners we saw last night,” she said. “I asked Mrs. Dixon if they were savages, and she said some people would say so. She says they live in huts they make themselves out of poles. She says they keep a serpent in a box. She says they would show it us if we went up the wood to see them. Do let’s go.”

“Mrs. Dixon says they won’t be staying long in one place. They’ve nearly done where they are,” said Roger. “We’d better go to-day.”

“I’m sure they’re better savages than any of our other natives,” said Titty.

Susan looked up from her fire. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t go,” she said. “The Amazons won’t be coming. And we shall be taking Swallow with us, anyhow.”

“Very good, Mister Mate,” said Captain John. “If there is any wind we must come back, but while it’s calm like this there’ll be no war to bother about, and we may as well be explorers.”

Soon after breakfast they took the mast and sails out of Swallow and rowed away. Roger was at his chosen post in the bows keeping a look-out. Captain John rowed, and Susan and Titty sat in the stern sheets. They had the kettle and a knapsack of provisions stowed in the bottom of the boat, because if the calm weather held they meant to stay away most of the day and to bring back a fresh store of firewood. Firewood was getting difficult to find on the island and there was plenty of it along the high-water mark on the shores of the lake, and in calm weather they could put in anywhere to pick it up.

They rowed south from the island down the lake, where they had been last night in the dark. It looked very different in daylight. A great wood ran up the hillside on the eastern shore of the lake. Far up it they could see smoke curling slowly above the trees, a thin trickle of smoke climbing straight up. There, they knew, must be the savages they had seen in the night prancing in the smoke and beating down the flames. To-day in the bright sunlight no flames were to be seen. There was the little trickle of smoke climbing into a tiny cloud above the trees. There was a far-away noise of wood-chopping. But that was all.

They found a good place to beach the Swallow, ran her nose ashore, pulled her well up and made her painter fast to a young oak tree growing near the water’s edge.

“We won’t take the kettle or the knapsack with us,” said Mate Susan. “It’s always better to make a fire on the shore than among the trees. We’ll make a fire here when we come back, and we’ll have dinner before getting the firewood, so that we shan’t have to think about getting at the kettle and things while we are loading the ship.”