Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

“There’s the stump with the white cross on it,” said Titty. “There’s the high mark, the forked tree. There’s the rock where I saw my dipper. Oh, isn’t it jolly to be back!”

“They’ve painted the cross again on the low mark,” said John. “It jolly well needed it, too.”

“They must be here,” said Titty. “No one else would have bothered to do it. No one else knows about it.”

The moment they had sailed past the entrance there was nothing to be seen but grey rocks. No one who did not know would have guessed that a snug harbour was hidden among them. For its size the harbour on Wild Cat Island was certainly one of the finest harbours in the world.

John put up the helm, hauled in his mainmast, jibed the boom carefully over, met his vessel with the helm again, and let the mainsheet out steadily and not all in a rush. Swallow, with a following wind, was running up the channel between the island and the mainland.

“There’s the landing-place,” shouted Roger, as soon as he could see it. “But Amazon isn’t there either.”

John sailed on and then hauled in the sheet for a moment while he headed Swallow for the little strip of smooth beach.

“She’ll do it now,” he said to himself, and let the sheet out again until the sail flapped idly in the wind while the Swallow slid more and more slowly into smoother and smoother water. She was moving at last so slowly that the crew hardly felt her as she stopped with her nose on the beach. The ship’s boy, painter in hand, jumped ashore.

“Lower away now, Mister Mate,” said the captain.

Susan had already scrambled forward over the cargo. She loosed the halyard and paid it out hand over hand. Down came the gaff and was unhooked by the able-seaman, while the captain gathered boom and sail into the boat.

The parrot was the next man ashore, handed out in his cage to the ship’s boy. The able-seaman followed the parrot. Then came the mate and the captain. They waited just long enough to pull Swallow well up before hurrying to the old camping-place in the open ground among the trees. Roger, Titty and the parrot got there first.

There was no one waiting for them. But, not far from the fireplace, left from last year, there was a large stack of driftwood all ready for burning, and on the top of it was a big white envelope, pegged in its place by an arrow with a green feather.

“The Amazons,” shouted Roger. “It’s one of their arrows.”

“One of your old feathers, Polly,” said Titty, putting down the cage, and the parrot, seeing his green feather in the arrow twanged his beak on the bars and let out a long angry scream.

Susan pulled out the arrow.

On the envelope was written in blue pencil: “TO THE SWALLOWS.”

“Open it,” said Captain John.

Inside it was a sheet of paper on which was written in red pencil:

“TO THE SWALLOWS FROM THE AMAZON PIRATES. WELCOME TO WILD CAT ISLAND, WE’LL COME AS SOON AS EVER WE CAN. NATIVE TROUBLE. CAPTAIN FLINT IS STUCK TOO. HAS TITTY REMEMBERED THE GREEN FEATHERS? THESE ARE OUR LAST. SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS FOR EVER!

NANCY BLACKETT, THE TERROR OF THE SEAS,

CAPTAIN OF THE AMAZON.

PEGGY BLACKETT, MATE.

P.S.—WE’LL BE WATCHING FOR YOUR SMOKE.”

Opposite the two signatures, a skull and cross-bones had been drawn in pencil and then blacked in heavily with ink.

“Have you got the feathers for them, Titty?” said John.

“Of course I have,” said the able-seaman. “They’re in an envelope rolled up in my sleeping-bag. I haven’t lost a single one.”

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“I wonder what they mean by ‘native trouble,’ ” said Able-seaman Titty, when she had read the letter carefully through to herself.

“That’s just Nancy,” said Mate Susan. “She always thinks there’s no fun without trouble, so she’d put it in anyhow.”

“But it’s very queer about Captain Flint,” said John.

“They’ll probably be here before we get the camp ready,” said Susan. “And mother and Bridget are coming to tea. Let’s get to work.”

“We’d better start the fire first, if they’re watching for it,” said John.

“We’ll rouse them with the red glare like the burghers of Carlisle,” said Titty. “But, of course, it’s the smoke that matters. They could see that if they’ve gone up the hill behind their house.”

No one was so good at starting a fire as Mate Susan. In a moment she had a flame licking up her handful of dry leaves, and setting light to the little wigwam of dead reeds and twigs she had built over it. A moment later the fire was taking hold of the larger sticks she had built round it, with every stick pointing in towards the middle. There was a pleasant crackling of burning wood, and a stream of clean blue smoke from the dry fuel poured away through the green trees. Wild Cat Island was once more inhabited.

“Now for the cargo,” said Mate Susan, standing up again and blinking the smart out of her eyes. “Where’s that boy?” She took out her whistle and blew it. This brought Roger running back from the look-out post under the tall tree at the northern end of the island, always his favourite place.

“No exploring till the camp’s pitched.”

“Turn to, my hearties,” said the able-seaman. “That’s what Captain Nancy would be saying.”

“Turn to, then,” said the mate.

“All hands to discharge cargo,” said Captain John and the whole crew set to work getting the things out of the boat, and carrying them up through the trees to the clear space where they meant to camp.

As soon as the Swallow was clear of cargo, Captain John rowed her down to the foot of the island, and then, sculling with one oar over the stern, brought her into harbour, steering her in through the rocks awash and under water by keeping the two marks on shore (the stump with a white cross on it and the forked tree) exactly one behind the other. Then he rolled up the sail, coiled the ropes, and moored Swallow with the painter over her bows to the stump with the white cross on it and a warp over her stern to a stout bush on one of the rocks, so that his little ship lay afloat and as snug as any ship’s captain could wish. He looked her all over. Everything was as it should be, and he hurried back to the camp by the old path from the harbour. It had grown over again a good deal since Titty had trimmed it last year.

In the camp the fire was already roaring in the stone fireplace under the big black kettle brought from Holly Howe. Each of the four new sleeping-tents lay where it was to be put up and the mate was only waiting for the captain to help her to sling the stores tent on a rope between two trees. This did not take long, and as soon as the tent was hanging from its rope, the able-seaman and the boy were kept hard at it filling the pockets along the bottom of the tent walls with little stones to keep them in place. Then one of the old ground-sheets was spread inside, and in about two minutes the mate had bundled in everything that was not going to be wanted at once. The sleeping-tents needed no trees, but it was a hard job to find places where the stony ground would take the tent-pegs. There were stones almost everywhere close under the mossy turf, but by shifting a stone here and a stone there, and making holes ready for the pegs before trying to drive them in, the explorers managed very well, and soon all four tents were standing, arranged so that anybody lying in any one of them could see the fireplace through the doorway. Then the guy-ropes were tightened up, the ground-sheets were spread, the sleeping-bags unrolled and a little candle-lantern fixed in a safe place at the head of each tent, well clear of the walls.