Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“Bother Captain Flint,” she said out loud, and put the book away and went up to the look-out place with the telescope to keep watch. There were plenty of boats on the lake and, looking through the telescope, she could see the cormorants on the bare tree on Cormorant Island. Time went very slowly in spite of them. Even making tea and boiling two eggs and eating them and a lot of bun loaf and marmalade did not seem to take as long as it does when there is something else that you are in a hurry to do next. It seemed that she was only in the camp and cooking and eating and washing-up for a minute or two before she was back at the look-out, wondering what was happening to the Swallows. She knew they would not be back for a long time because of waiting for dusk to go into the Amazon River. Dusk seemed a long time coming, even longer for Able-seaman Titty on her island than for the captain, the boy, and the mate far away by Rio.

At last the sun went down. The last steamer, Roger’s bedtime steamer, went down the lake. The last of the native fishermen rowed away into the twilight and disappeared. Titty became the keeper of a lighthouse on a lonely reef.

She lit the big lantern and hauled it up the tree and made fast. It gave a splendid light up there, high overhead, and she thought of swimming off to see what it looked like over the water. But that, she decided, was not quite what a lighthouse-keeper would do. He might be carried away by an ocean current, and then when the light burnt out there would be no one to put more oil in, and some great ship might run on the reef in the dark.

Before it was too dark to see what she was doing without a torch, Titty took one of the candle lanterns and hooked it up on the nail on the forked tree. It would be easier to open it and light it up there than to light it and feel round for the nail to hang it on. Then she went back to the camp. “They may be capturing the Amazon at this very minute,” she thought, and found it difficult to keep still. Once or twice she went up to the look-out place to see that the lighthouse lantern was burning properly, though she could see its glimmer through the trees without leaving the camp.

At last she made up her mind that there was really nothing to be done except to wait and to listen for the owl call, which would tell her that the Swallows were back and waiting for her to light the leading lights for them so that they could bring Swallow and Amazon into the harbour. “If only they’ve got her,” she said.

She made up the fire well, with all the sticks pointing to the middle and then covered it with the clods of earth that Susan had left ready. That made things very dark, so she uncovered it again. After all, there was plenty of firewood left from the cargo they had brought to the island two days before. She lit the other candle lantern and tried to read by it, but reading was not easy even with the candle lantern, because of the fire leaping up and flashing shadows across the pages. Then she remembered that there was only a very short piece of candle in the lantern, and it would be wanted at the harbour. She blew it out. She was afraid to lie down on her bed for fear of going to sleep and not hearing the signal when the Swallows came back. So she took both her blankets from the tent. She rolled herself up in one of them and made a hood and cloak of the other and sat watching her fire, with the electric torch and the candle lantern close beside her. A box of matches was in her pocket. She made sure of that. She could feel it through the blanket. . . .

That was the last thing she remembered.

She was wakened with the wind in her face and the long call of an owl. “Tu Whooooooooo. Tu Whooooooooo.”

She sat up suddenly. Where was she? The fire had died down to red embers. It was very dark, but there was a glimmer high up in the trees behind her. The lighthouse, of course. How long ago was it that she had heard that owl? Was it before she fell asleep, or just now, or was it an owl heard in a dream?

She tried to jump up, but had forgotten that she had rolled herself up like a mummy. It must have been the owl call that woke her up. John and Susan and Roger must be sailing about in the dark with the two ships, wondering why the lights were not lit. She scrambled to her feet and listened. For a moment she could hear nothing, and then somewhere on the lake there was the creak of a boom swinging over as a boat went about.

She felt about on the ground for the torch. She found it, and the lantern close beside it. She lit the torch and ran out of the camp and hurried, stumbling as she went, along the path to the harbour. What a good thing that mother had given them torches for Vicky’s birthday. It was hard enough to run even with the torch. And what a good thing, too, that she had cleared the branches that hung over the track.

She found the forked tree and took out her box of matches, putting the torch in her pocket so as to have both hands free. Her first match blew out, and her second as she lifted it up to light the lantern. But the third match did it. She lit the other lantern easily and hung it on its nail on the stump with the white cross.

Well, John and Susan would see the lights now. But what if they had been waiting a long time? She, Titty, able-seaman, had fallen asleep just at the very time when she ought to have been most awake. What if they had tried to make the harbour in the dark and were wrecked on the rocks outside?

Suddenly a big owl flew by close over her head, between the two leading lights, puzzled by the glitter of them.

“Tu Whooooooooo. Tu Whooooooooo,” she heard it as it swung away into the darkness.

Perhaps it had not been the owl signal she had heard. Perhaps all her fears were for nothing, and Swallow was still far away. And yet, that creak had sounded very like Swallow’s boom going over.

But just then, somewhere in the darkness in front of her, outside the harbour, she heard the noise of a sail coming down into a boat, and then the quick creak, creak that an oar makes when it is being used for sculling over the stern.

She was just going to call out joyfully to welcome the Swallows, when she heard a voice that was not John’s, or Susan’s, or Roger’s.

The voice said, “Jolly good idea of theirs, putting lights on the marks.”

For one moment Titty thought of blowing the lights out. But it was too late. The boat was close in. In another second it grounded in the harbour not six yards away.

Titty crouched down on the ground behind a rock. Why had she ever gone to sleep? It was a real owl she had heard and not the signal from the Swallows. If only she had been awake she would have known. And now, left on guard, she had lighted the Amazons into the harbour, and the Swallows would come back to find the island in the hands of the enemy. Would they ever forgive her?

Nancy Blackett was on the beach.

“What beats me,” she was saying, “is how ever they managed to get here before us. I’m sure I heard them go up the river. They must have rowed like smoke. They couldn’t do it sailing. And I would never have thought they could do it rowing, even though we were beating all the way. Funny we didn’t see them or hear them on one tack or the other. Come on, Peggy, step lively, and show a light.”

“Matches are damp,” said Peggy, but just then there was a flicker in the boat, and a moment later she was coming ashore with a lantern in her hand.

“Why aren’t they here?” she said.

“They just lit the lights for us and scooted back to camp,” said Captain Nancy, “pretending they’ve been back for hours. Come along. Let’s have that lantern.”

The Amazon pirates passed so close to Able-seaman Titty that they could almost have touched her. They hurried on into the path.

Titty crouched trembling.