Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

At the harbour she reached up to the nail on the forked tree to make sure that she would be able to hang the lantern on it. She could not quite reach it, but that would be all right because she would be holding the lantern by the bottom part of it, and the ring that had to be hooked on the nail was at the top. The nail on the stump with the white cross on it was quite low. There would be no sort of difficulty about that.

She began to think that it was going to be a very long time till dark would come, and still longer till the Swallow and her crew would come sailing back. But it would be worth it if only they brought the Amazon with them as a prize. That would show the pirates. And then to-morrow the Swallows would sail up to the Amazon River to tell the pirates that they had lost the war, and to bring Nancy and Peggy back to Wild Cat Island as humble and respectful prisoners. For a moment Titty wished that she was with the others in the Swallow. Now they must be searching the islands by Rio, keeping a good look-out, waiting for dusk before going on to the mouth of the river. She wondered what the river was like. All the same you cannot have everything, and if she had not chosen to stay at home, and light the lighthouse lantern and the leading lights, she would never have had a chance of having a whole island to herself.

She took her shoes off, and paddled across to the big rock on one side of the harbour. She climbed to the top of it, and lay there, looking down to the foot of the lake and watching the steamer swing in towards the distant pier. And just then she saw the dipper. A round, stumpy little bird, with a short tail like a wren’s, a brown back and a broad white waistcoat, was standing on a stone that showed above the water not a dozen feet away. It bobbed, as if it were making a bow, or a quick, careless kind of curtsey.

“What manners,” said Titty to herself. She lay perfectly still, while the little brown and white bird bobbed on its stone.

Suddenly the dipper jumped feet first into the water. It did not dive like a cormorant, but dropped in, like someone who does not know how to dive jumping in at the deep end of a swimming-bath. A few moments later it flew up again out of the water, and perched on its stone, and bobbed again as if it were saying thank you for applause.

Again it flung itself from the stone, and dropped into the water. This time it dropped into quite smooth water sheltered by the big rock on which Titty was lying. Looking down she could see it under water, flying with its wings, as if it were in the air, fast along the bottom of the lake close under the rock. When it came up, it did not come up like a duck after a dive to rest on the surface, but simply went on flying with no difference at all when it left the water and came into the air, except that in the air its wings moved faster.

“Well, I’ve never seen a bird do that before,” said Titty as the dipper perched on its stone and made two or three bobs. “It’s the cleverest bird I’ve ever seen, as well as the most polite. I wish it would do it again.” She lifted herself on her elbow to bow to the dipper when the dipper bowed to her. It’s very hard not to bob to a dipper when a dipper bobs to you. But the dipper did not seem to like it, and flew away out of sight behind the other rocks, fast and low over the water.

For a long time Titty waited for it to come back. But it did not come. Perhaps it had gone back to the beck where it lived. Suddenly Titty remembered that she was guarding the island against all attack. She ought to be at the look-out place with the telescope, not here. So she climbed down the rock, paddled ashore, and put on her shoes. Instead of going back by the path she had cleared, she thought she would go by the other path, that was hardly a path at all, the track they had sometimes used between the harbour and the landing-place. Here the undergrowth was thick, and the bushes were tangled with honeysuckle. It was like forcing your way through a jungle. Titty once more became Robinson Crusoe on his desert island.

She came out close by the landing-place, and stopped short. Something had happened while she was looking at the steamer and the polite dipper. She was no longer alone on the island. There was a rowing boat with its nose pulled up on the beach. A moment later she knew what boat it was. It was the rowing boat from Holly Howe. She ran up to the camp, and there was mother looking at the empty tents.

“Hullo, Man Friday,” said Titty joyfully.

“Hullo, Robinson Crusoe,” said mother. That was the best of mother. She was different from other natives. You could always count on her to know things like that.

Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday then kissed each other as if they were pretending to be Titty and mother.

“You didn’t expect to see me so soon after yesterday,” said mother, “but I came to say something to John. I suppose he’s with the rest of the crew in that secret harbour of yours that poor natives are not allowed to see.”

“No. He isn’t on the island just at present,” said Titty. “No one is except me . . . and now you too.”

“So you really are Robinson Crusoe,” said mother, “and I am Man Friday in earnest. If I’d known that I’d have made a good big footprint on the beach. But where are the others?”

“They’re all right,” said Titty. “They’re coming back again. They’ve gone in Swallow on a cutting-out expedition.” More than that she could not well say, because, after all, Man Friday might be mother, but she was also a native, even if she was the best native in the world.

“I expect they’ve gone to meet the Blackett children,” said mother.

“Man Friday ought not to know anything about them,” said Titty.

“Very well, I won’t,” said mother. “But what are you doing all by yourself?”

“Properly I’m in charge of the camp,” said Titty. “But while they’re not here it doesn’t make any difference if I’m Robinson Crusoe instead.”

“I am sure it doesn’t,” said mother. “Have they left you anything to eat?”

“I’ve got my rations in the tent,” said Titty.

“Well, it’s high time you ate them,” said mother. “Will you let Man Friday put some more wood on the fire, and make some tea? I can’t stay very long, but perhaps they’ll be back before I go.”

“I don’t think they will,” said Titty. “They’ve sailed across the Pacific Ocean. Timbuctoo is nothing to where they’ve gone.”

“Well, I’ll make some tea, anyhow,” said mother. “Let’s see what they’ve left you in the way of rations.”

Titty brought out her rations, a good big hunk of pemmican, some brown bread, some biscuits, and a large fat slice of cake. Man Friday did not think much of them. “Still,” she said, “I think we shall be able to make a meal. What about butter? And potatoes? What if we were to make pemmican cakes?”

Man Friday rummaged in the store box, and found some butter which was rather soft. She sniffed at it, and said it ought to be eaten, anyhow, and more would have to be got from Mrs. Dixon’s to-morrow. She found some potatoes and also the salt. Robinson Crusoe had the tea among her rations, rolled up in a screw of paper. She also had a tobacco box full of sugar.

Man Friday opened up the fire, and put sticks on it, and soon had it blazing up round the big kettle. She peeled some potatoes, and set them to boil in a saucepan at the edge of the fire. She chopped up the pemmican into very little bits like mince. Then, when the potatoes were soft, she took them out of the water, and broke them up, and mixed them with the chopped meat and made half a dozen round flat cakes of pemmican and potato. Then she put some butter in the frying-pan and melted it, and then she fried the pemmican cakes till they sizzled and bubbled all over them. Robinson Crusoe made the tea.