Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

She heard Peggy say, “Wait for me. I can’t see without the lantern.”

Their steps sounded further and further away. Then there was silence except for the wind in the leaves. The Amazons had gone to the camp.

Titty did not know what to do. It was defeat, black and dreadful. Instead of the Swallow sailing home with the Amazon a captured galleon, sailed by Susan as a prize crew, everything had gone wrong. The Swallows had not captured the Amazon, but the Amazons had landed on Wild Cat Island, and their pirate ship was snug in harbour. If only she had not lit the lights they could never have come in till dawn, and by then the Swallows would be back.

Just then she heard the loud shouting of the Amazons at the other end of the island. “Swallows ahoy! Captain John!”

The voices came nearer. The Amazons were coming back.

Just then Titty had her idea.

After all, it did not matter who of the Swallows captured the Amazon. And here was the Amazon, unprotected. Why not?

In a moment Titty was up and on the beach, and a moment later she was afloat, clawing the Amazon stern first out of harbour along the edge of the big rocks. Then she pulled out her torch, and lit it for just long enough to find the oars. They were not quite like Swallow’s oars, but she could manage them. She stood in the stern of the Amazon to row, keeping her eyes on the two lights she had lit herself. She remembered that whatever happened she must keep the two lights in line, one above another. Now and then they would get askew in spite of all she did, but she managed pretty well, though the centre-board and the lowered sail with its boom and gaff were horribly in the way. She hit nothing at all hard, and had just paddled the pirate ship stern first clear of the rocks when the candle in one of the lanterns guttered and went out. “That’s the one I had in camp,” she thought. “It’s lucky I didn’t read any more.” She went on rowing backwards for a bit to be sure she was clear. She knew the wind would be blowing her back towards the island, so she turned the Amazon round, sat down on the thwart with a leg on each side of the centre-board, and began to row properly, keeping the wind on her right cheek.

She lost sight of the other leading light. Then she saw it again, and then a lantern flickered through the trees, the Amazons coming back to the harbour.

She rested on her oars and drifted, listening, but could hear nothing. Presently she saw another light, much higher up. That was the lighthouse, the lantern still burning high on the tree by the look-out place. She knew that the wind was driving her up the lake, past the island. She pulled hard with her left and brought Amazon’s head nearer to the wind. Then she rowed steadily.

It was very hard work. She could not keep on rowing like that all night. The best thing she could do would be to anchor in as safe a place as possible. She stopped rowing, pulled her oars in, turned on her torch, and scrambled forward. Yes, there was an anchor in the bows and a lot of rope. She remembered hearing John tell Susan never to let go the anchor without making sure that the end of the anchor rope was made fast. She burrowed down with the torch into the coils of rope. That was all right. The rope was made fast to a ring bolt. She put the anchor where she could easily get at it, and then settled down again to the oars, rowing as hard as she could across and a little into the wind towards the western shore of the lake. She could see nothing now except the light of the lighthouse tree. She did not want to be anchored anywhere near the island when dawn came, because who knew how well these pirates could swim. The other side of the lake would be safe.

Suddenly she heard the splash of water on rocks, quite close to her. It would never do to run Amazon ashore in the dark. She stopped rowing, scrambled forward again, and lowered the anchor over the bows, letting out the rope hand over hand. Down it went, yard after yard. Deep water after all. Then it stopped being heavy. The anchor was on the ground. She let the rest of the rope go. The Amazon drifted back and brought up with a light jerk.

“Anyhow nothing more can happen till morning,” said Able-seaman Titty to herself. “John won’t try to land in the dark with one of the leading lights out. I’ve got Amazon, and Swallow will be flagship after all. Nothing more can happen now.”

She was wrong. It is never safe to say that nothing more can happen.

Now that her prize was safely anchored, she did her best to make things ship-shape, but she could not do much in the dark, even with her little torch to help her. But she rolled up the sail as well as she could. She found a rug and wrapped herself up in it, for it was cold enough on the water now that she was not rowing. She also found a big hunk of chocolate. This she ate. “They always eat everything they find in a captured ship,” she had said to herself when in doubt whether to eat it or not. She settled herself in the bottom of the boat, just aft of the centre-board case, so as to keep warm and get some shelter from the wind. She had eaten all the chocolate, and had begun to wonder how many hours it would be till dawn, when she stiffened suddenly, like a rabbit that has seen a man in a field.

She heard a new noise.

It was the noise of rowing, hard, fast rowing, the noise of two pairs of oars in a native boat, pin oars, and the slap, slap of a boat’s bows into the short waves. She knew that noise well.

It came nearer and nearer. It passed close by her. Plunk, plunk. She could hear the splash of the oars so clearly that she almost thought she could see the boat in the dark.

Able-seaman Titty hardly breathed. These were not Swallows or Amazons, but natives. And what could they be doing in the middle of the night when everybody, except, of course, pirates and explorers, ought to be asleep?

“We must be near it now.” A man’s voice, loud in the wind, came to her out of the darkness.

“Not yet. Look at the light those kids have got on the other island. It must be another hundred yards at least.”

“I can hear something. I bet it’s not far now. Go a bit easier.”

There was a crash somewhere close ahead.

“Told you, you blamed fool. You’ve blooming well smashed the blighted boat.”

“Get out and pull her up, then.”

“Take your hat off the lamp and let’s have a bit of light.”

There was a splash, and then the noise of a boat being pulled up over stones. Then there was a glimmer and a flash of a bicycle lamp.

“Boat’s all right. Lost a bit of paint maybe. Lucky for us she isn’t stove in.”

“Give us a hand with the box, then. Nobody’ll look for it here.”

“They will if you keep flashing that lamp about. Much better take it with us.”

“We can’t carry that thing on a motor bicycle. Have to bring a car for it.”

“Blast it. Why didn’t you bring a chisel to smash it open?”

“Clever. Who’d have thought he’d keep the stuff in a thing like that. It’ll take more than a chisel to get that open.”

“It’s a fool game, anyway.”

“Well, we’ve done it now. And you can tell by the weight it’s something worth having. He wouldn’t keep it in a thing like this if it wasn’t. Give a hand, then.”

There was a noise of scrambling on stones, some curses, and then the noise of heavy stones being thrown down on something made of wood and metal.

Then voices again.

“We’ll come out with fishing rods next time, and catch something worth having. Nobody’ll find it now even if they do come looking. And you grumbling all the time. Wish I’d come by myself.”

“Wish you had.”

“Shove her off now. Sure she doesn’t leak?”

“No, she won’t leak. But it’s not your fault she doesn’t.”