Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“By the way,” he said, “I suppose you’ll want to hoist the Jolly Roger on your prize. You’ll find one in the locker.” He bobbed down again, and they heard him bumping about below deck. Peggy opened the locker by the mast, and there, on the top, lay a black flag with a skull and cross bones on it as big as the elephant. She and Titty took the elephant flag off the halyards and fastened on the Black Jack. Then, with a cheer from both ships’ companies, Peggy ran it to the masthead.

Captain Flint’s head bobbed up again through the hatch.

“What about going below?” he said. “You’d better come in by the companion-way. And mind your heads, though I suppose none of your heads are in as much danger as mine.”

“Is yours really in danger?” said Titty, looking at it with interest.

“Not for high treason,” said Captain Flint. “Only of being bumped on the way into the cabin.”

Nancy was looking at a large burnt patch on the cabin roof.

“Well,” she said to Captain Flint, “as one pirate to another, I’m sorry it made such a mess. I never would have thought the thing would have burnt both ways. But didn’t it just bang?”

“It did, rather,” said Captain Flint, as he disappeared once more.

The Swallows and Amazons went aft to the companion to go down into the cabin. The captains and the mates went by the gangway outside, the able-seaman and the boy over the cabin roof.

The cabin was all that the cabin of a retired pirate should be. Captain Flint had been hard at work, tidying up after the burglary, and the walls were hung once more with strange weapons and curiosities from all the seven seas. Everything that had not been broken and thrown overboard was back in its place. There was a long, narrow table down the middle of the cabin, with chairs set on each side of it. The green parrot was perched on the back of one of the chairs.

“Pieces of eight, pieces of eight, say pieces of eight!” said Nancy Blackett to the parrot.

“Pretty Polly,” said the parrot.

“You’re not fit to be a pirate’s parrot,” said Nancy.

“Are the chairs fixed to the floor?” asked Roger.

“No,” said Peggy.

“They are on daddy’s ship,” said Roger.

“We don’t get a very high sea in this bay,” said a voice from the doorway into the foc’s’le.

The roar of a Primus stove came suddenly to an end. Captain Flint, changed and in dry clothes, came in with a big kettle.

“Sort yourselves,” he said, and they sorted themselves, and the feast began. It was as good a feast as Captain Flint had been able to get sent from Rio. For example, there were ices, strawberry ones. There were parkins and bath buns and rock cakes and ginger-nuts and chocolate biscuits. There were mountains of sandwiches to begin with. Then there was a cake with a paper cover over it. When the cover was lifted off, there was a picture of two little ships done in pink and white icing.

“The Swallow and the Amazon” said Roger.

“That’s what they’re meant for,” said Captain Flint.

Friendliness between the Swallows and Amazons and the retired pirate grew rapidly as the feast went on. Indeed, when Captain Flint was going to help himself to a strawberry ice, Mate Susan stopped him.

“You mustn’t have ices after walking the plank,” she said. “Mother says they give you a chill in the stomach if you eat them when you’ve just bathed.”

“By Jove, I suppose I ought not,” said Captain Flint, and took a piece of cake instead.

“You did walk the plank most awfully well,” said Titty.

“Practice,” Captain Flint replied.

The parrot had a bite of almost everything, but seemed to like lump sugar best. Titty put out her hand to it, and the parrot climbed on her wrist, and walked all the way up to her shoulder.

“Next year we’ll make a voyage to a place where the trees are full of parrots,” she said.

“We must think of something really good for next year,” said Captain Flint. “Here and now I promise you that I shall be writing no more books. I shall have retired from everything except being a pirate. But, as for parrots, I’m going south for the winter, and I’ll bring back parrots all round if you want them.”

“Not really?” said Titty.

“Really,” said Captain Flint.

“One that can really swear?” said Nancy.

“An out-and-out ruffian,” said Captain Flint.

“What about monkeys?” said Roger.

Captain Flint pulled out a notebook and a pencil.

“Item. One monkey,” he said, taking a note. “With or without a tail?”

“With a tail,” said Roger. “The other sort are only apes.”

“Don’t bring green parrots for us,” said Nancy. “Bring them grey with red tails. Then we can feather our arrows with red feathers instead of green ones.”

Captain Flint opened his mouth and shut it again. He looked hard at Nancy Blackett, and then at a jampot on a shelf, in which there was a single green feather and some new pipe-cleaners. Nancy Blackett caught his eye.

“Your fault for being an enemy,” she said. “And after all, we didn’t take anything but a few feathers. We might have sunk the ship. And, anyway, you are in with us again now.”

“True,” said Captain Flint. “But I wonder how many burglaries there have really been.”

“One,” said Nancy. “Ours wasn’t a burglary. It was honest revenge.”

“What are you going to do to-morrow?” asked Captain Flint a little later. “It’s your last day, isn’t it?”

“What about fishing?” said Peggy. “We haven’t fished for ages. You can come too if you like.”

“Yes,” said Nancy. “Your boat is much better for fishing than ours are. Besides, you know the best places.”

“Do come,” said John.

“Please,” said Susan.

“Well, if there’s not too much wind, we might make a day of it. I’ll come, but I can’t start too early. And then we’ll plan something tremendous for next year.”

“I’m not going fishing to-morrow,” said Able-seaman Titty.

“Why not?” said Susan.

“I’m going treasure-hunting.”

“Where?”

“Cormorant Island. I’m sure it’s still there. The sea chest, I mean.”

“Waste of time, Able-seaman,” said Captain Flint.

“I know it’s there,” said Titty. “And Roger can come too if he likes.”

“Then there’ll be two expeditions to-morrow,” said Captain Flint. “One treasure-hunting, and one whaling. What do you think about it, Roger?”

“I’m going with Titty,” said Roger. And so it was settled, though Susan did say, “They can’t go alone unless it’s a calm day.”

After the feasting had ended, and it lasted a long time, Peggy said, “I say, Uncle Jim.”

“He’s not Uncle Jim, you galoot,” Nancy said.

“Of course not,” said Peggy. “I say, Captain Flint, have you still got the accordion?”

“Tip us a stave,” said Captain Nancy.

“If you’ll dance the hornpipe, I will.”

“There’s no room in the cabin.”

“On the poop then.”

Captain Flint brought a huge accordion out of the fore-cabin.

“Lucky the burglar didn’t find that,” he said, “or he’d have taken it for certain. But perhaps he had no ear for music.”

They all went up on the after-deck. Captain Flint sat on the rail and played the sailor’s hornpipe, while Captain Nancy danced.

“That’s not the way we do it,” said Titty.

“Let’s see your way,” said Captain Flint.

He played on and on, and Nancy and Peggy danced their hornpipe and Captain John, Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and the ship’s boy danced theirs. The stamping on the deck could have been heard a mile away in the quiet evening. Faster and faster played Captain Flint. Faster and faster danced the Swallows and Amazons, until the tune went so fast that it stopped being a tune at all, and they all flung themselves on the deck, tired out.