Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

But Roger, wedged in his old place in the bows, had been sure that their old friend, Captain Flint, would have had his flag at the masthead, even if he had not dressed ship to welcome them back, and he had been looking forward to seeing the houseboat’s great flag dip and Swallow’s little pennant dip in answer. After that, of course, there would be a puff of smoke and a saluting bang from the little yacht cannon on the houseboat’s foredeck. And now, there was the houseboat without any flag at all.

“He may be asleep,” said Titty.

“He can’t be asleep if Nancy and Peggy are with him,” said Susan.

“They’ve probably gone on to the island. We’ll know in a minute or two,” said John. “This next tack’ll take us into Houseboat Bay. Ready about.”

The little Swallow came up into the wind, Titty and the mate ducked as the boom swung over, the brown sail filled again, and the Swallow, now on the starboard tack, headed across the lake towards Houseboat Bay.

“Steamer on the starboard bow,” called the look-out. “Miles away though.”

“There’s one much nearer coming up astern,” said Captain John, “out of Rio.”

Looking back they could see the wooded islands off the busy little port they called Rio, and through the islands glimpses of the broad waters of the northern part of the lake. The steamer was coming out of the Rio channel between Long Island and the mainland.

“Fisherman broad on the beam,” said the look-out, as they passed a rowing boat with two natives in it, one at the oars and the other holding a fishing-rod.

“Towing a spinner for pike,” said the captain.

“Shark,” corrected the look-out.

The Swallow crossed the bows of the steamer that was going south from Rio. She crossed them with plenty of room to spare. The steamer swept past, the captain upon the bridge of the steamer waved a cheerful hand, and the crew of the Swallow waved back. They got a tossing in the steamer’s wash that made them feel they really were at sea.

They were now nearing the sheltered bay where the old blue houseboat was lying to a mooring buoy.

“There’s nobody on deck,” said the look-out.

Last year, when they had seen the houseboat for the first time and Titty had guessed that Captain Flint was a retired pirate, they had seen him sitting, writing on the after deck with his green parrot perched on the rail beside him. This year there was no pirate to be seen. As for the parrot, he could not be on the houseboat for he had joined another ship. Titty was talking to him.

“Look, Polly,” she was saying, “that’s your old ship. That’s where you used to live before you came to live with us.”

“Two, Two, Twice, Twice, Two, Two, Two,” said the green parrot.

“Pieces of eight,” said Titty, “Say ‘pieces of eight.’ Don’t bother about ‘Twice Two.’ It isn’t term time any more.”

“Let’s have the telescope, Titty,” said the mate.

“I can’t see his rowing boat,” said John. “It isn’t there unless he’s got it hauled up along the port side.”

“The houseboat’s shut up altogether,” said Mate Susan, looking through the telescope. “The curtains are drawn in all the windows.”

Captain John and Mate Susan looked at each other. Even if they had not, like Roger, been dreaming of dipping flags and salutes of guns, they had been as sure that Captain Flint would be in his houseboat as that the big hills would be in their places round the head of the lake.

The Swallow sailed right into the bay, under the houseboat’s stern and then, coming about, easily cleared the mooring buoy on her way out again into the open lake. Everybody had a good look at the houseboat, but they could see no sign of life aboard.

“He’s covered up the cannon,” cried the ship’s boy with indignation. Indeed the whole of the foredeck of the houseboat was protected from the weather with black tarpaulin sheets.

“It does look rather as if he wasn’t there at all,” said Captain John, as the Swallow slipped out of the smooth water of Houseboat Bay to buffet once more with the little waves of the lake.

“I know what he’s done,” said Titty. “He’s shut up the houseboat and he’s on the island with the others.”

The others were really more important than Captain Flint, and, after all, it was just like Captain Nancy Blackett to plan that they should meet once more not in any mere railway station, or even in her uncle’s houseboat, but on the desert island where they had met last year.

“Wild Cat Island abeam,” shouted the look-out as Swallow left Houseboat Bay. . . . “Cormorant Island right ahead. . . .”

On this tack Swallow headed across to the western shore of the lake towards a low island of loose stones and rocks, with two dead trees on it, one a roosting place for cormorants, and the other long ago fallen down, its naked roots waving in the air, over the place where, once upon a time, Titty and Roger had found Captain Flint’s treasure.

“There go the birds,” shouted the look-out when, as Swallow slipped across the lake towards them, four big black, long-necked birds got up off the dead tree and flew away over the water.

The able-seaman was looking not so much at Cormorant Island itself as at the water not far from it. Was it possible that she had ever been anchored out there, in someone else’s boat, alone, in the middle of a pitch-dark night?

Mate Susan hardly looked at Cormorant Island. The voyage would soon be over and there would be tents to pitch and cooking to think about. She was looking through the telescope at the larger wooded island on the other side of the lake.

“It’s a very funny thing there’s no smoke,” she said.

“They must be there,” said Titty. “May I have the telescope now?”

Captain John glanced over his shoulder.

“Ready about,” he called. Round swung the little Swallow, and this time headed for Wild Cat Island, of which the whole ship’s company had been dreaming ever since they sailed away from it last year. It certainly was a funny thing that if Nancy and Peggy Blackett were waiting there to meet them, no smoke should be blowing from the trees. Nancy Blackett was always one for making most tremendous fires.

“Nancy would have hoisted a flag, anyway,” said Captain John.

“Perhaps she couldn’t get up Lighthouse Tree,” said Titty.

“Nancy’d get up anything,” said Captain John.

“Hullo,” shouted Roger, looking above the island at an old white farm-house high on the farther shore of the lake. “There’s Dixon’s farm. There’s Mrs. Dixon. Feeding geese. Look at those white spots.”

“They may be hens,” said Susan.

“Her hens are all brown,” said Roger. “Of course they might be only ducks.”

“Where are you going to land?” Susan asked the captain.

“I can make either end of the island on this tack.”

“The old landing-place is nearer the camp.”

“Oh, let’s look into the harbour first,” said Titty.

The harbour was at the southern end of the island. It was sheltered by high rocks, and there were marks on shore to show the way in through the dangerous shoals outside. The landing-place was on the eastern side of the island, the side nearest to the mainland. It was a little bay with a shingle beach, close to the place that they had used for a camp. It was always best to bring boats to the landing-place instead of to the harbour when there was much cargo to be put ashore.

John steered for the southern end of the island, and, keeping well clear of the outer rocks, passed outside the entrance to the harbour.

“Amazon’s not in the harbour,” said the look-out.

Secretly everybody had thought she would be. There might be no smoke and no flag, but that would be natural if Captain Nancy, making sure that they would come straight to the landing-place, had hidden Amazon in the harbour and was waiting in ambush somewhere on the island. It was just the sort of thing she might do.