Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“I did,” said Roger.

“We overslept,” said John. “We were late in going to bed.”

“You were that,” said Mrs. Dixon. “We saw the light you had on the island when we were going to bed, and that was ten o’clock, for we were none too early ourselves.”

“We were much later than that,” said Roger, and was just going to say how they had captured the Amazon and not gone to bed till after sunrise, when he remembered, just in time, that Mrs. Dixon was a native.

“Better late than never,” said Mrs. Dixon. “Here’s your milk. And I’ve a dozen eggs to put into that basket, and there’s a loaf of bread and a bunloaf, and the seed cake they sent along yesterday evening from Holly Howe. I hope Miss Susan and Miss Titty are both well.”

“Miss Susan and Miss Titty!” Mrs. Dixon could not have found a better way of showing how deep is the gulf that exists between native life and real life than by so describing the mate and the able-seaman.

“Quite well, thank you,” said the captain.

“The seed cake’ll go in the basket on the top of the eggs,” said Mrs. Dixon. “It’s that light, it won’t crack them. But where you’ll put the bunloaf and the bread I’m sure I don’t know.”

“I’ll carry them,” said Roger.

They went down the field with the hearts of those who have had to cross some rather thin ice. The captain carried the milk-can in one hand, and the basket in the other. Roger had a loaf in each arm. They could see the smoke rising from the fire on the island and, by the time they had sailed across and beached Swallow at the landing-place, Susan had the kettle boiling, tea made, and was only waiting for the milk and the eggs.

Breakfast was a silent, hungry meal until it began to turn into dinner.

“We may as well go straight on,” Susan said, and the others agreed, though they had eaten their eggs and had got as far as bread and marmalade. John opened a pemmican tin.

“Why don’t the natives ever have pemmican after bread and marmalade?” said Roger. “It’s very good. May I have marmalade on my pemmican?”

“No,” said Susan.

“Why not?” said Roger.

“You’ll be ill, like you were on your last birthday.”

Roger thought for a minute. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“Well, you’re not going to try,” said Susan.

Susan was in a very native mood that day, as Able-seaman Titty observed. Perhaps the adventures of the night were heavier on her conscience than on those of the other Swallows. Perhaps she needed sleep. Her mood showed itself in not allowing Roger and Titty to bathe the moment they had finished their breakfast-dinner meal of Grape Nuts, eggs, bread and marmalade, bread and pemmican, bunloaf and marmalade, bananas fresh from the tree (the Amazons had only eaten two each, and there were still plenty on the bunch), seed cake and tea. Also washing up had to be done at once in a very native manner. And when that was done there were buttons to sew on.

“How you manage to lose such a lot of buttons, I can’t think,” she said to Roger.

“Well, you would make me put on two of everything,” said Roger, “and there wasn’t room in one of them for both.”

There had been little time for talk in the early morning when the captain, the mate, and the boy had come sailing home to find the able-seaman with her prize anchored by Cormorant Island and the Amazons marooned on Wild Cat Island and in a dreadful hurry to get back. And now, of course, Titty wanted to hear all about the Amazon River, and Roger had plenty to say about the lagoon that was full of octopuses that turned into flowers when you took hold of them. Then she had to hear the whole story of the wild sail down the lake in pitch dark and how nearly they had been wrecked off the Rio Islands, and how they had waited there until the beginnings of daylight. And then John wanted to hear the whole story of the watch on the island and the way in which the able-seaman had been able to capture the enemy ship. And Titty told of the dipper, and of the coming of the Amazons, and of how she fell asleep and was wakened by a real owl and mistook it for the Swallows’ signal. Then she told of how she had been Robinson Crusoe and had found a strange boat at the landing-place and had been visited by Man Friday. It was not until she came to talk of Man Friday that she remembered that she had a message for John.

“Oh yes,” she said. “I promised to tell you. Mother came here really to see you, not me. It was about Captain Flint being so beastly. She wanted to know if you’d like her to write to Mrs. Blackett to ask her to tell Captain Flint that he was a liar, not you, and that you’d never touched his boat.”

“What did you say?” asked John quickly.

“I said I didn’t know. I said I’d ask you.”

John jumped up and went into his tent to look at the chronometer.

“I’m going to Holly Howe to talk to mother,” he said, when he came back.

“Native talk?” asked Titty.

“Yes,” said John. “I must tell her she’d better not write.”

“Can I come too?” said Roger.

“You stay here,” said Titty. “It’s native talk he’s going for. You’d only be in the way. Besides I’ve got a plan for us.”

“What plan?”

“A tremendous one.”

“What’s it about?”

“Treasure,” said Titty. “Come on and see the captain off. Then we’ll go to a secret place while the mate goes on with your buttons.”

Captain John sailed away up the lake to Holly Howe. It was a grim business this, of being unjustly suspected by Captain Flint, but at the same time he could not let mother write to Mrs. Blackett about it. That might mean trouble for the Amazons. He found mother writing letters in the Holly Howe garden.

“I say, mother, you’re not writing to Mrs. Blackett?”

“Not I,” said mother. “I wasn’t going to write unless you wanted me to. That was why I rowed down to the island yesterday. What time did you get back last night? After I left Titty, nurse and I kept a look-out for you by the boathouse, thinking I might stop you on your way back and ask you about writing.”

John was a little taken aback. With Captain Flint in his mind, he had forgotten quite a number of other things.

“We didn’t get back till this morning,” he said.

“So the Blacketts made you stop the night,” said mother. “Poor Titty!”

“It wasn’t poor Titty at all,” said John. “Titty did better than any of us. She captured the Amazon all by herself.”

“But then where were the Blacketts?”

“They were on Wild Cat Island.”

“But where were you?”

“We were up the Amazon River, that’s the river where they live, you know, and then it got too dark and we had to stop by the islands until it was light enough to see.”

“Don’t you think that was very nearly like being duffers?”

“Yes,” said John, “it was rather. But you see it was war and it was our only chance. And I promise we shall never do it again. Stay out at night, I mean. There won’t be any need. The Amazon pirates are coming to the island to-morrow to camp with us. The war between us is over. We’ve won. At least Titty won it. And Roger had two of everything on last night and slept in Swallow. And nobody has caught a cold or anything. But, I say, mother.”

“What?”

“All this is a most deadly secret, between you and me. I mean you mustn’t talk about it, not to anybody.” He had just remembered that the Amazons had escaped from their beds to make their night attack.

“All right,” said mother. “Mrs. Blackett seemed to know pretty well what sort of young women hers were. I shan’t tell her. But all the same I’m glad it’s over. There must be no more sailing at night. Promise?”