Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“How soon do you think we shall be ready to put to sea?”

“With the first breath of wind.”

“What do you think of your crew?”

“The best I ever shipped.”

“Can they swim?”

“Able-seaman Titty can. The Boy Roger still keeps one foot on the bottom.”

“He must learn.”

“I don’t keep a foot on the bottom all the time,” said Roger.

“You must learn as soon as possible not to keep it on the bottom at all.”

“All right,” said Roger.

“That’s all wrong, Roger,” said Titty. “You ought to have said, ‘Aye, aye, sir!’ ”

“I nearly always do,” said Roger. “I said it to mother.”

MAKING SHIP’S PAPERS

“You must say it to the captain and to the mate. Perhaps you ought to say it even to me, but as there are only two in the crew it won’t do for them to be saying sir to each other.”

“Have you got any more paper?” said Susan.

“Only the back of the telegram,” said John.

“Mother won’t mind our using it,” said Susan. “You know we can’t really sail with the first breath of wind, not until everything is ready. Let’s make a list of the things.”

“Compass,” said John.

“Kettle,” said Susan.

“A flag,” said Titty. “I’ll make one with a swallow on it.”

“Tents,” said Roger.

“Telescope,” said John.

“Saucepan, mugs, knives, forks, tea, sugar, milk,” said Susan, writing as hard as she could go.

“Spoons,” said Roger.

They kept remembering things and then getting stuck, and then remembering some more until there was no more room on the back of the telegram.

“I haven’t got another scrap of paper,” said John. “Even the Ship’s Articles have got sums on the other side. Bother the list. Let’s go and ask mother if we can have the key of the boathouse.”

But when they came to Holly Howe Farm, mother met them in the doorway with her finger on her lips.

“Vicky’s asleep,” she said; “don’t make a noise coming in. Supper’s just ready.”

Table of Contents

“What care I for a goose-feather bed,

With the sheet turned down so bravely, O?

For to-night I shall sleep in the cold open field

Along with the wraggle-taggle gipsies, O!”

Ship’s Articles, though important, are but a small part of making ready for a voyage of discovery. There was a great deal more to do. Luckily, mother had nearly finished making the tents. She had decided as soon as they had sent off the letters that tents would be wanted if the expedition to the island was allowed, and that if it was not allowed, the next best thing would be a camp on shore. So she had bought the thin canvas and had been working at tent-making every day, while fat Vicky was sleeping and the others were fishing by the boathouse or camping on the Peak of Darien. That night, after Captain John and Mate Susan had followed their crew to bed, mother had finished both tents.

Next morning, after breakfast, John and Susan, with mother to help them, Titty to watch, and Roger to get in the way, had put up one of the tents between two trees in the Holly Howe garden. The tents were of the simplest kind. Each tent had a three-cornered piece for the back. The back was sewn to the sides, and a piece of stout rope was stitched to the canvas inside to make the ridge of the roof. The ends of this rope were fastened to two trees, and so held the tent up. No tent poles were needed. Along the bottom edges of the back and sides there were big pockets, to be filled with stones. On rocky ground, where you cannot drive in tent pegs, this is a good plan. At the front of the tent there were loose flaps, joined to the sides, so that they could be rolled up and tied out of the way with two pairs of tapes that worked like the reef points in a sail.

“Properly,” said John, “we ought not to take tents with us. We ought to make a tent out of a sail by hanging it across the gaff for a ridge pole, and we ought to hold it up with two pairs of oars, a pair at each end. But one tent would not be big enough and to make two we should want eight oars and two sails, big ones. Swallow has only got one small sail, and two oars. So these tents are much better.”

“They are good enough tents except in a high wind,” said mother. “Father and I often slept in one when we were young.”

Titty looked gravely at mother.

“Are you really old?” she said.

“Well, not very,” said mother, “but I was younger then.”

Mother had bought two square waterproof ground-sheets, one for each tent. One of them was spread inside the tent that was being tried.

“You be careful,” said mother, “to keep the edges of the ground-sheet inside the tent, or if it rains you’ll find yourselves sleeping in a puddle.”

Everybody crowded into the tent and sat down. Titty borrowed fat Vicky from nurse, and brought her in too. Susan shut the flaps of the tent from inside.

“We might be anywhere,” Titty said.

“Next time we put the tent up we shall be on the island,” said John.

“What about mattresses?” said mother.

“Rugs,” said Captain John.

“Not enough,” said mother, “unless you want to be like the lady who ran away with the wraggle-taggle gipsies and caught her death of cold.”

“The song doesn’t say so,” said Titty. “It only says she didn’t care.”

“Well, and what happened to Don’t Care?”

“Came to a bad end,” said Roger.

“A cold is a bad end when you are camping, especially on a desert island,” said mother. “No, we must get some haybags filled for you to sleep on. If you put them on the ground-sheets and lie on the top of them, and roll yourselves up in rugs and blankets, you’ll come to no harm.”

Captain John was in a hurry to try the Swallow under sail.

“Let’s go down to the harbour and overhaul the ship,” he said. “We can take her out now, can’t we, mother?”

“Yes. But I’d like to come with you the first time.”

“Come along. Do. You can be Queen Elizabeth going aboard the ships at Greenwich that were sailing to the Indies.”

Mother laughed.

“It doesn’t matter a bit about your not having red hair,” said Titty.

“All right,” said mother, “but I think we must leave Vicky with nurse.”

So they all crawled out of the tent. Fat Vicky was given back to nurse, and Queen Elizabeth walked down to the boathouse with Captain John of the sailing ship Swallow, Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and the Boy Roger, who ran on ahead with the big key to get the boathouse open.

The boathouse was a stone one, with a narrow quay along each wall inside, and a small jetty sticking out beyond it into the lake.

Roger had got the door open by the time they came to it, though he had had a tough struggle with the rusty lock. He was already inside, looking down on the Swallow. The Swallow was a sailing dinghy built for sailing on a shallow estuary, where the sands were uncovered at low tide. Most sailing dinghies have centre-boards, plates which can be let down through their keels, to make them sail better against the wind. Swallow had none, but she had a rather deeper keel than most small boats. She was between thirteen and fourteen feet long, and fairly broad. Her mast lay in her, and beside it, neatly rolled up, were boom, gaff, and sail, and a pair of short oars. Her name, Swallow, was painted on her stern.

Captain John and his crew looked at her lovingly. She was already their own ship.