Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Susan flashed the torch all round them. There were no reeds to be seen. On every side there was nothing but rippled water.

“Hullo,” cried Roger, “I can see lights far away.”

“Rio lights,” said John. “We’re out. I’m going to hoist the sail. Hold the torch steady while I reef. Even daddy used to say, ‘Never be ashamed to reef a small boat in the dark.’ ”

Reefing in the dark, even with the help of a torch held by a willing mate, is not too easy, but it was done at last and John brought the Swallow head to wind and hoisted the sail, while Susan took the tiller and the main-sheet.

“Put her on the starboard tack,” said John, as soon as she was sailing, “and keep her very full. We want to be sure that we are well clear of the rocks off the point.”

Even with the reef down there was enough wind to send Swallow fast through the water with a steady rippling noise under her bows.

“We’re sailing due east,” said John presently.

“How do you know?” asked Susan.

“Look,” said John.

A broad patch of clear sky showed overhead, and in it the larger stars.

“Look,” said John, “there’s the Saucepan. There’s its handle. There’s its pot. And those two stars that make the front wall of the pot point to the North Star. There’s the North Star. It’s broad on our port beam, so we must be sailing east. And Rio lights are broad on the starboard beam away in the south.”

“Why do the natives always call the Saucepan the Great Bear?” said Susan.

“I don’t know,” said John. “It isn’t like a bear at all. It’s more like a giraffe. But you couldn’t have a better saucepan.”

“She’d go a lot nearer the wind,” said Mate Susan.

“Keep her full,” said the captain, “Keep her sailing. But we must be well clear of the point now. I’m going to use the compass and chart.”

The spirits of the Swallow’s crew had risen very much now that they were at sea once more and not fumbling in the dark with reed beds and water lilies. There is nothing like sea-room to cheer a sailor’s heart.

“Are you cold, Roger?” asked the mate.

“Rather,” said the look-out.

“Get down below the gunwale and wrap yourself up in this blanket,” said the mate, passing a blanket forward by way of the captain.

John, too, crouched in the bottom of the boat. He got out the guide-book, and found the chart in it with the help of his torch. Then he laid his compass on the middle thwart, so that the black line marked on the rim inside it was nearest to the bows. That was no good, because Swallow was heeling over and the compass was on a slant so that the compass card could not work. He had to hold it in his hand. Even then the card swung a good deal. He held the compass as steady as he could in one hand, while with the other he threw the light of the torch on it and watched to see what point on the card was opposite the black line. It did not keep still, but swung first one way and then the other.

“Almost exactly east,” he said at last. “Now bring her closer to the wind.”

The mate put the tiller down a little at a time and Swallow pointed nearer and nearer to the wind.

NIGHT SAILING

“East, East by South, East-South-East. South-East by East, South-East,” he said rapidly.

“She won’t go much nearer than that,” said the mate.

“Keep her so,” said Captain John. “South-east it is, or jolly near it.” He looked at the chart in the book. “That’ll take her to about here and then she’ll go perhaps a bit better than south-west on the other tack. But the trouble is, we don’t know how far we go on a tack. We’ll just have to sail fairly short tacks and try to keep them about the same length. Then we shan’t be going near the shore on either side. We’ll be able to see by the Rio lights when we are getting near the islands. I’m going to count a hundred, and then we’ll go about. Then I’ll count a hundred on the other tack before we go about again.”

“Rio lights are going out,” said Mate Susan.

They were. One by one the lights on the hill above Rio Bay disappeared.

“It must be awfully late,” said Susan.

The clouds swept over the stars again. There were no lights to be seen anywhere. The little Swallow rushed along in the darkness, Susan keeping her close to the wind, facing directly forward and putting the tiller up a little when she felt the hint of a cold breath on her left cheek.

“Ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, a hundred. . . . Ready about,” said John. Susan put the Swallow about. For a moment the water was silent under her keel, and then, as she gathered speed, the pleasant, galloping noise of the waves began again.

“You take the tiller, John,” said the mate, “I want to get out some chocolate for that boy.”

John took the tiller, counting steadily and slowly. He had the compass with him, and sometimes lit the torch and fixed it between his knees, and held the compass in its light. But it was really not much good, though he would have liked to think it was. The best he could do was to keep the ship sailing and to see that she sailed about the same distance on each tack. And then—what if the wind had shifted a little?

The mate got out the cake and the chocolate. She and the captain found that they could do with some just as well as the boy. The boy, warm in his two sets of clothes and his blanket, was enjoying himself enormously.

“Wouldn’t Titty have liked it?” he said.

“Liked what?” said Susan.

“Sailing like this in the dark,” said the boy.

Susan said nothing. She did not like thinking of Titty alone on the island for so long.

John said nothing. For one thing, he was counting to himself and getting near a hundred. For another, the light of Susan’s torch in the bottom of the boat, where she was cutting hunks of cake and breaking up chocolate, and the light of his own torch, when he used it to look at the compass, made the darkness of the night even darker than it really was. It was better than being stuck in the river, much better, but Captain John knew very well that he could not really tell how near they might be to the shore. He was the captain of the Swallow and must not wreck his ship. Daddy had trusted him not to be a duffer and, sailing in this blackness, he did not feel so sure of not being a duffer as he did by day. And there were no lights in Rio to help him. Everything was black. He could only keep on tacking against the wind, and he was wondering what he should do when Swallow came near the islands off the Bay. And how would he know when she was coming near them? It would not do to let his crew know that he was worried. So he said nothing, except that he went on with his counting. Perhaps he counted a little louder than before. He reached a hundred, put Swallow about, and began again: “One, two, three,” as she went off on the other tack.

Backwards and forwards Swallow scurried across the lake in the dark. The islands could not be far away.

Suddenly John stopped counting.

“Listen,” he said. “Trees. I can hear the wind in them. What’s that?” He flashed his torch over the side. There was the white splash of water breaking on a rock. The noise of wind in trees was close ahead.

“Let go the halyard,” called John. “Down with the sail. Grab the gaff as it comes.”

Susan was as quick as she could be. She knew by John’s voice that there was no time to lose. The sail came down in a rush. She gathered it in as well as she could. Then she flashed her torch into the blackness ahead.