Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“It’s all rocks on this side,” said the boy.

Titty rowed slowly round the island. There was no good place for beaching Swallow.

“There’s the place where we landed with Captain Flint,” said Roger.

“His boat has narrow bows,” said Titty. “We couldn’t get Swallow’s nose in there.”

She rowed nearer to the north end of the island.

“It looks as if we could come alongside that rock,” she said, “but we won’t try to beach her. Captain John said we were to be careful about landing. So look out.”

There was just a little bump as the Swallow touched the rock, but it was not a bad one. The able-seaman scrambled out with the painter, and held the gunwale, while the boy followed.

“Shall I bring the compass?” he said.

“No,” said the able-seaman, “we’ll leave it in the ship until we need it. But bring the pickaxe and pass out the stores. Better leave the bottle.”

The boy gave the packets of sandwiches to the able-seaman. Then he gave her the hammer and scrambled out.

“Now we’ll fasten the painter round that rock, just the end of it. What wind there is is from the south, and she’ll float off without touching anything. We’ll leave the stores on the rock.”

It was done, and for some minutes the able-seaman stood watching her ship, which rode quietly at the end of the long painter, clear of all danger.

“She’s all right like that,” she said at last. “Now for the treasure.”

It was very hard going on those rocks, as everybody had found, even Captain Flint, when they had all come here to look for the stolen trunk, the day before the battle in Houseboat Bay. For the boy and the able-seaman it was very hard indeed. The rocks stuck up at all angles. There were deep clefts between them, big enough to take a foot and small enough to make it difficult to get the foot out again. Then there were lots of loose stones which slipped all ways when you trod on them. It took the treasure-hunters a long time even to get from one end of the island to the other.

“I’m glad we live on Wild Cat Island and not here,” said Roger.

“This is a real desert island,” said Titty. “Keep a look-out for a skeleton.”

“Here are lots of bones,” said Roger a minute or two later.

“Real bones?” called Titty.

“Little ones,” said Roger.

Titty climbed round a rock to where Roger was standing looking down at a little heap of white fishbones. She looked up at once and, sure enough, there was a small hole in the rocks above them, a hole big enough for a tennis ball to go into. The hole was splashed with greenish white, and so was the rock below it. Titty reached up towards it, but just at that moment something flew out with fast-moving down-turned wings, flashing brilliant blue in the sunlight.

“It’s the kingfisher’s nest,” she said. “Those are the bones of the minnows he’s eaten. Not pirate bones at all.”

They went on with the search. There were many more bones on Cormorant Island, but they were all fishbones. When the boy and able-seaman scrambled along to the tree where the cormorants always perched, they found plenty of them, lying under it. But the rocks there were so dirty, and the smell there was so bad, that they were glad to get away. And they found no sign of anything that might be treasure.

Roger began to lose heart, and also to feel hungry. They sat down on the flat rock at the north end of the island where they had left their provisions. They got the bottle of milk out of Swallow, ate their sandwiches and took turns in bubbling the milk out of the bottle into their mouths.

“There’s Captain Flint and the others,” said Titty. “They’re all in his boat. Over there. Not in Shark Bay. In the little bay we passed when we went to see the savages with the snake.”

“I wonder how many whales they’ve caught,” said Roger. “Sharks too, perhaps. Anyhow, lots of perch.”

“It’s much better to find treasure than just to sit catching fish,” said Titty.

“But we haven’t found any,” said Roger.

“We haven’t nearly looked everywhere yet. It must be here,” said Titty. “Come on. You hunt one side, and I’ll hunt the other. Shout if you find it.”

Presently Roger shouted, but it was not because he had found the treasure. He had slipped on the stones and scraped his knee.

“Which knee is it?” called Titty.

“The one that wasn’t scraped before,” said Roger. “At least not the one that got scraped last, but the other one.”

Able-seaman Titty, as surgeon to the expedition, washed the knee, and tied it up with Roger’s handkerchief. Roger tried to blow his nose in the corner of it that was left after the tying up.

“You can have my handkerchief,” said Titty. “It’s my pink one.”

Roger blew his nose loudly in the pink handkerchief, and cheered up again.

Time went on. The morning was gone, and the afternoon was going, and still there was no sign of anything that might mean treasure. Titty had worked at least twice right round the island. Roger stopped looking, and went and sat on the rock to which Swallow’s painter was tied. He pulled on the painter, and Swallow came obediently to his feet. He met her with a bare foot on her stern, and she slid back again.

“Let’s row again,” he said. “We could see just as well from Swallow as on these rocks. Then if we saw nothing we could go whaling.”

There was no answer. He looked for Titty. She was crawling along the rocks at the very edge of the island, not far away. Suddenly he saw her jump up with something in her hand.

“Hi! Roger!” she called.

Roger stood up, and climbed along the rocks towards her.

“I’ve found a pipe,” she shouted. “It must have belonged to one of the pirates. This must be the place where they landed.”

It was an ordinary wooden pipe. She had found it between two stones close to the edge of the water. The finding of it made a great difference to the island. Even Titty had begun to think that perhaps she must have dreamed of the pirates landing here that night in the dark, but now she had in her hand a solid proof that someone had been there besides the cormorants and the kingfisher.

“If they landed here,” said Titty, “the treasure must be close by. They didn’t go far away, because I heard them banging about all the time.”

They looked carefully about them. They were close to the place where the old tree had stood, the tree that was now lying on its side with its rotted dried roots straggling in the air. The ground was covered with big loose stones. Titty went carefully over them, and round the tree. She found nothing. She went round the tree again in a widening circle. Still nothing. She went back to her task of working right round the edge of the island.

Roger stayed where he was, and presently began to amuse himself by gathering small driftwood and dead reeds that were stuck among the rocks, and had been drying there since the last time the lake was high after the rains.

At last Titty began to lose hope again. She came back to the fallen tree and Roger with his growing pile of fuel.

“Do light it, Titty,” said Roger.

The able-seaman looked at it.

“That’s not the way,” she said. “We’ll make a fireplace like the one Susan made on the shore that day we saw the savages and the snake. Then we’ll light a fire in it, and Captain Flint and the others will see the smoke of our fire on the desert island far away. Then they’ll come, and there’ll be a rescue.”

She began building with small stones.

“We need a good big stone to go at the back,” she said.

She pulled at a biggish flat stone close by the roots of the old tree. It moved easily, and as it moved all thought of making fireplaces flew out of Titty’s mind.