Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Nancy waded along the shore, towing Swallow by hand until she reached the headland, when the little dark brown scrap of sail on the stump of a mast was no longer sheltered from the wind.

“All right,” said John. “She’s trying to sail. Let her go.”

He put his helm up, let the boom out square, and the Swallow, sitting on her tail, her nose high up out of the water, her scrap of sail bagging in the wind, slipped away from Horseshoe Cove. The only thing about her that was as it should be was Titty’s swallow flag, which fluttered proudly from the top of the jury mast, as if it had never known the bottom of the lake.

“So long, Nancy, give them a hand with the camp,” called Captain Flint as his rowing boat shot out from between the headlands.

“We’re coming too,” called Nancy, and she hurried back into the cove. The others were already launching Amazon. Titty, Susan and Roger were aboard. Peggy was pushing her off. Her captain scrambled into her at the last moment. There was wild work with the oars till she was at the mouth of the cove, when Nancy ran the sail up, and Amazon gathered speed as she hurried up the lake to overhaul the convoy. She was soon alongside the others, for Swallow, cocked up on end under her jury rig, sailed more like a buoy than a boat.

“This is all very well,” said Captain Flint at last. “We’re delighted to have you with us, but that camp ought to be in apple-pie order before we bring Mrs. Walker back to see it.”

“There’s no milk for tea either,” said Susan. “And we don’t know the way to the farm.”

For just a little longer the Amazon circled round the rowing boat and the gallant, wounded Swallow, and then with shouts of “Good luck!” from all who were aboard her, she turned up into the wind to beat down the lake again to Horseshoe Cove, while Captain John steered a straight course for Rio, and Captain Flint just taking a stroke or two now and then to keep his rowing boat within comfortable talking distance, followed Captain John.

Table of Contents

“They look happy enough,” said Captain Flint, watching the Amazon slapping across the ripples on her way to Horseshoe Cove.

“They aren’t,” said Captain John.

“I know they aren’t, but the next best thing to being happy is to look it.”

Captain John knew that he did not even look happy, and he certainly did not feel it.

“It wasn’t their fault, anyway,” he said at last. “Every bit of it was mine.”

Captain Flint pulled a hard stroke, to bring his rowing boat level with the little crippled Swallow.

“How many times have you run a boat aground before?” he asked quietly.

“Never,” said John. “Not hard, like that.”

“You’ve been lucky,” said Captain Flint. “Everybody does it sooner or later.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been reefed,” said John, steadily keeping his eye on the entrance to Rio Bay. “If I’d been reefed I wouldn’t have thought twice about jibing. And I ought to have reefed before starting with the wind there was, and I ought to have known it was no good hanging on after the sail wanted to come over. I ought to have known it would jibe whether I wanted it to or not. I ought to have jibed myself in plenty of time. I ought . . .”

“Anyhow,” said Captain Flint, “you didn’t lose a man, and you salved nearly all your cargo, and you raised your ship and are bringing her into port under sail. Things might have been a lot worse. Don’t you worry about it overmuch. When a thing’s done, it’s done, and if it’s not done right, do it differently next time. Worrying never made a sailor.”

“It isn’t worrying,” said John. “It’s just that I hate myself for being such a duffer.”

“Um,” said Captain Flint, “I wouldn’t mind betting you’ve been just as much of a duffer lots of times before when nothing’s happened. We’re all duffers sometimes, but it’s only now and then that we get found out.”

John remembered sailing in the dark last summer, and the noise of the water on that rock as the Swallow rushed past it just before she found shelter in the lee of an island. Much worse things might have happened then. He had been at least as big a duffer then as he had been this morning, only then nothing had happened, and to-day poor Swallow had had her bows stove in and had gone to the bottom of the lake. For some time he said nothing. Things might have been worse even now. After all, Swallow was no longer at the bottom of the lake. What if she had been run down by a steamer and gone down in deep water? What if Roger or Titty had gone down with her?

“I wish I knew what mother will think about it,” he said.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t quite pleased to have the lot of you on dry land for a few days, even if you are at the other side of the lake.”

That was very much what John was afraid of, that mother should think they were duffers and disagree with daddy, who thought duffers better drowned. What if she forbade sailing altogether for the rest of the holidays?

He looked away to the right. Already the Peak of Darien was abeam and they were opening up Holly Howe Bay. They were too far out for him to be sure if that was mother herself, sitting outside the farm. John wished he was farther out still. He did not like to think of mother seeing trim, neat little Swallow limping in to Rio after shipwreck. He was very glad when they had passed the point on the other side of the bay.

Holly Howe was hidden now, and Swallow and her convoy were moving in between Long Island and the shore towards the little town of Rio, with its cloud of blue smoke drifting from it in the sunlight. All along this nearer side of Rio Bay were the building yards, where rowing boats were built, and little ships like Swallow, and racing yachts, besides motor boats for the people who did not know how to manage sails. There were boathouses and little docks. There were sheds a few yards back from the water, with railway lines running down into the lake, and wheeled carriages resting on the railway lines to carry boats down into the water and to bring them up out of it. On one of these carriages was a racing yacht, with its mast high above the roofs of the sheds, and its sails neatly furled under its sail covers, its varnishing and painting bright in the sun, ready at any moment to go sliding down into the water and become a thing alive as all ships are when they are afloat.

The boathouses and sheds cut off a good deal of what wind there was in the bay, and Captain Flint rowed on ahead of Swallow, looking in between the little wooden jetties, to most of which motor boats or yachts were tied up. He was looking for the best place to bring a wounded ship ashore. He found what he wanted and called out as Swallow came nearer, “Bring her in here, Skipper.”

John unfastened the halyard from the middle thwart to which it had been made fast, and hurried forward to free the gaff from the traveller and to lay it in the boat with the sail. As he brought his weight forward the bows of Swallow came down, bringing the patch under water. The water spouted in round the edges of it. A good deal had somehow found its way in on the voyage. He scrambled back again to the stern where the water was now well over the ballast.

“Lucky I put my sandshoes on the thwart to go on drying,” he said. “They’d be wet enough now if I had them on.”