Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“At least we saw the light in the houseboat. We thought it was yours. We couldn’t tell you yesterday, you know, because you weren’t one of us, and when we saw that light we were in bed properly.”

“Were you? And where were you improperly?”

“On the lake.”

“So you were supposed to be in bed, and were really up to high jinks on the ocean wave?”

“It’s a secret, of course,” said Peggy.

“We were sailing down to Wild Cat Island in a private war,” said Nancy.

“If the burglar had come this way, do you think you would have heard him?” said Captain Flint.

“We didn’t. We only saw a light in the cabin, and thought it was you.”

Then John spoke.

“Able-seaman Titty thinks she did hear something that night.”

“Where was she?”

“In Amazon.”

“What, with you two?”

“No. It was afterwards. We were on Wild Cat Island then. We were marooned.”

“Who marooned you?”

“Titty did. She went off in Amazon, and left us to our cruel fate,” said Peggy. “That’s how the Swallows won the war.”

“But where were the others?”

“We were up the Amazon River, or sailing back from it,” said John.

“The lake seems to have been a lively place that night,” said Captain Flint. “And what did you hear, Able-seaman?”

“I heard people rowing in a boat. They came close past me.”

“And where were you?”

“I was anchored.”

“Look here,” said Captain John, “you’d better have a look at our chart. It shows just where she was.”

He ran into his tent, and came out with the new chart and pointed to the little anchor that marked the place where Titty had lain in Amazon off the north end of Cormorant Island.

Captain Flint looked at it.

“Did they pass close to you?” he asked.

“Very close,” said Titty.

“It’s a funny course for them to steer from my houseboat if they were making for the foot of the lake. They must have nearly run into the island.”

“They did run into it,” said Titty.

“And then they went on?”

“They landed on the island,” said Titty, “and they left their treasure there, or whatever it was they had with them. They said it was heavy. I heard them.”

“Shiver my timbers!” said Nancy.

“Not really, Titty,” said Susan.

Captain Flint jumped to his feet. “Able-seaman,” he said, “if that box is there I’ll give you anything you’d like to have. Come on, all of you, and we’ll row across and look.”

He grabbed Titty by the hand, and shook it. Titty, almost to her surprise, found herself smiling back at him. His hand was very large, and there could be no doubt about its friendliness. And after all, even if her treasure was not Spanish gold, it was a book, and a pirate book. Her only regret was that the treasure-hunting expedition was to be so large. But that could not be helped.

“Look here,” said Nancy, “if it’s there, and you get your book back, you won’t go and turn native again.”

“Never,” said Captain Flint. “Come on. Pile into my boat, all of you.”

They ran down to the landing-place, and crowded in, the two Amazons, the four Swallows, and Captain Flint. In another moment, he was rowing round the island, and across to the island of the cormorants.

Captain Flint rowed as if he were still racing after Nancy. Every stroke jerked the boat forward and jerked his passengers backward. In a very few minutes he had reached Cormorant Island and found a place where he could pull his boat’s nose up between two rocks. Everybody scrambled ashore.

But there was nothing to be seen on the island, except the bare tree and the white splashed rocks, and jetsam from the last flood, and big loose stones. They looked everywhere. Captain Flint climbed all round the island two or three times. He could find nothing.

“But I know they left it here,” said Able-seaman Titty. “I heard them say they couldn’t put it on a motor bicycle. And then they said they would come fishing and catch something worth catching.”

“It was the middle of the night, you know, Titty,” said Susan, “and you may have been mistaken.”

“They may have changed their minds,” said Captain Flint, “or they may have come for it already. Anyway it’s something to know which end of the lake they came from. Not that I think I shall ever get it again,” he added.

They rowed sadly back to Wild Cat Island.

The able-seaman did not weep, but she was very near it.

“I know they left it there,” she said.

“Never mind,” said Captain Flint. “We’ve had a good look.”

“And perhaps, if you had found it, you’d have turned native again after all, and gone on bothering about publishers,” said Nancy.

“Anyhow, I haven’t found it,” said Captain Flint, “so we’ll think of something else. Three o’clock to-morrow, for example.”

“Real war?” said Nancy.

“Blood and thunder,” said Captain Flint. “Three o’clock to-morrow, and I’ll be cleared for action. I’ll be ready to repel boarders, or sink both your ships, or hang the lot of you at the yard-arm, or be captured as a Spanish brig or sunk as a Portuguese slaver . . . anything you like.”

He put them ashore at Wild Cat Island, and rowed back to bring order into his wrecked cabin.

“Good-bye,” they shouted after him in the friendliest manner.

“Good-bye,” he shouted back. “Three o’clock sharp. Then Death or Glory!”

Table of Contents

“Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to do

Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.”

masefield.

The Amazons were the first to wake in the morning, because for some time they had been sleeping in a house, and had not grown accustomed, like the Swallows, to the early morning sunlight through the white tent walls. “Show a leg, show a leg,” they shouted to the others and soon had the whole camp astir. “Remember,” they shouted, “battle at three o’clock sharp. There’s no time to lose.” Really, in spite of bathing and fetching the milk and having breakfast and dinner, it seemed a very long time before the small hand of the chronometer crawled round past the II, and nearly as far as the III, on the chronometer face. A watched pot never boils, and a watched watch seems to lag on purpose. But at last Captain John looked at it for the last time, and gave the order. The Grand Fleet set sail.

“Shall we go in under sail or oars?” Captain John consulted with Captain Nancy, as the Amazon and the Swallow, slipping quietly along with a following wind, came near the point at the southern side of Houseboat Bay.

“More seamanlike to do it under sail,” said Captain Nancy.

“There won’t be a leeside to him,” said Captain John. “The houseboat’ll be lying head to wind. Our plan will be to reach into the bay, and then come head to wind one on each side of him. If you’ll lay yourself aboard his starboard side, I’ll bring Swallow up on his port.”

“Very good, sir,” said Captain Nancy.

“Lower sail as we come alongside. Grapple, and board him. He’ll go for one lot of us. He can’t go for both. The others’ll get aboard and take him in the rear.”

“Hand-to-hand fighting from the very first,” said Nancy.

“What about nailing our colours to our masts?” said Able-seaman Titty.

“Fasten the flag halyards with a clove hitch,” said Captain Nancy. “That’ll be as good.”