Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“Well, he’s going to bring me a monkey,” said Roger.

The scales came off easily enough, but flew in all directions. The arms of the two mates were covered with them. They even got scales in their hair. When one side of the fish was scraped they turned its slippery body over on the stones to scrape the other. Then the shark had to be cut open and cleaned, and that was even worse. It was done, and the mates washed the shark and their hands in the lake. Then they carried the great fish up to the camp and Mate Susan cut it into thick steaks, cutting it clean across from one side to the other and hacking through the backbone. She cut seven steaks, each about two inches thick. They put all that was left of the pike in the fire. Then with plenty of butter in the frying-pan, they fried the steaks, turning them over and over, spooning up the butter when it ran down into the side of the pan and pouring it over the sizzling chunks of fish, until the butter turned dark and the steaks were nicely browned.

There was still no sign of Captain Flint in the distance when the shark steaks were ready for eating. And it was growing dusk. The sun had disappeared in clouds long before it set.

“Captain Flint did say we weren’t to wait for him,” said Susan, “and, anyhow, they smell too good to wait.”

“Let’s get at them,” said Captain Nancy.

“I’m hungry,” said Roger.

“We may as well begin,” said John.

“We can keep his hot,” said Titty.

“Pass your plates, then,” said Susan, and the shark steak supper began.

It was found, by experiment, that fingers were a good deal better than forks. There are a lot of bones in fresh-water sharks and, though this was such a big one that the bones were easy to find, fingers were better than forks at pulling them out. So the Swallows and Amazons sat by their fire with a lot of salt in the lid of a tin and dipped their steaks in the salt and ate them, more like savages than explorers.

“I wish we weren’t going to-morrow,” said Titty. “We haven’t had time for a furthest north expedition, or for a furthest south. There’s lots of unexplored at both ends of our chart. I say,” she turned suddenly to Captain John, remembering something important, “we can alter Cormorant Island to Treasure Island now, can’t we?”

“Well, you did find the treasure there,” said John.

“Oh, look here,” Peggy objected. “We call it Cormorant Island too. And treasure is only there sometimes, but cormorants are there always.”

“Cormorant Island is a very good name,” said Captain John. “How would it be if we were to leave it Cormorant Island and put a cross on it to show where the treasure was and mark it ‘Treasure found here’?”

Titty agreed.

“Let’s do it at once,” she said, and Captain John licked his fingers clean from the shark steak and went into his tent and came back with the chart. There and then “Treasure found here” was written in in small letters and a cross put on Cormorant Island to mark the place.

“Yes,” said Titty, “now we’ve found the treasure it isn’t exactly a treasure island. It’s an island where treasure was.”

“The only treasure there now,” said Roger, “is a wooden fish. When the burglars find it and dig it up they won’t even be able to make steaks of it. Too tough.”

“It’s a jolly good chart,” said Captain Nancy, looking at it with Peggy and holding it by the fire to see better. “But there are lots of names you haven’t got.”

“The savages are fine,” said Peggy, “and so is the shark, but what have you put in our lagoon?”

“It’s meant for an octopus,” said John.

“Next year you can fill in a lot more,” said Captain Nancy. “We’ll do something splendid. We can plan it all winter. It’ll be something to think about during lessons. Either Furthest North or Furthest South would be good. Going south, we should have to take a canoe to shoot the rapids in, and then we should come to the sea. Anything might happen. We could grab a ship.”

“There must be something beyond the big mountains in the north,” said Titty.

“You can get a long way into the hills, going up the river,” said Peggy. “And then, in the mountains, we could walk. But there’d be the tents to carry.”

“We could get a hill pony to carry the tents,” said Nancy. “That’s it. We’ll go prospecting for gold.”

“Beyond the ranges,” said Titty.

“You can go for miles and miles up there and never see a single native,” said Peggy.

“Captain Flint said he’d be one of us next year,” said Nancy. “When he is, he makes things hum. He may charter a big ship, three or four times as big as Amazon and ship us all as crew. He’s often said he would some day. Now that there are the Swallows as well, we could sail a really big one.”

“What about his steak?” said Titty.

“I’m keeping it warm,” said Susan, “but it’s getting a bit dry.”

“Stick another lump of butter on it,” said Peggy.

It was nearly dark when at last they heard the sound of oars and then the scrunch of a boat on the shingle at the landing-place. A moment later Captain Flint walked into the firelight. He carried a large cage wrapped up in a blue cloth cover. You could see it was a cage by the bottom of it. The firelight glittered on the big brass knob that stuck out at the top above the cover. There was a ring in the knob to carry it by or for hanging it to a beam. Captain Flint put it on the ground by Titty. A big white label was fastened to the ring. Titty read it by the light of the fire:

“From Captain Flint to the able-seaman who saved his Life.”

“But I didn’t save your life,” said Titty.

“I didn’t write life. I wrote Life,” said Captain Flint. “Mixed Moss. It’s the same thing.”

“Thank you very much indeed,” said Titty. “I’ll hang it up in the schoolroom, ready for the parrot.”

But just then there was a noise of scraping from under the blue cover.

“Look inside,” said Captain Flint. “I thought it would be rather a long time to wait till I come back from the south next spring.”

Titty lifted the blue cloth cover and a loud cheerful voice, rather like the voice of Nancy Blackett, came from beneath it.

“Pieces of eight,” said the green parrot, “pieces of eight!”

“It’s never said it before,” said Nancy. “And now it’ll say it all the time.”

“Am I really to have it?” said Titty.

“Of course you are,” said Captain Flint. “You’ve earned it about ten thousand times.”

“Mother will really believe we’re back from the Pacific,” said Titty. “Thank you very, very much indeed.” She jumped up and put out her hand. Captain Flint shook it.

“It’s me that ought to do the thanking,” he said.

“My monkey will come next year,” said Roger.

“If you can get your mother to say you may have it,” said Captain Flint, “I’ll see about it at once. There are monkeys nearer than Africa and I’m taking my book up to London now that I’ve got it again. I’ll go and look at monkeys by way of a change from publishers. You shall have your monkey next week.”

“With a tail?” asked Roger.

“A long one,” said Captain Flint.

“Your steak’s rather dry,” said Mate Susan, “but it’s still quite hot.”

Captain Flint ate it in his fingers and said it was the best shark steak he had ever tasted.

After that they talked again of plans for next year, of climbing the ranges, of sailing to the Azores, or, better still, the Baltic, or of making a canoe voyage down to the sea.

“If we go up country,” said Nancy, “do you think we could get a hill pony?”

“We could easily get a couple,” said Captain Flint.