Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons (Complete Series)

Mother was laughing. There was no doubt about it. She was laughing almost as if nothing was the matter. Everything was going to be all right.

“Hullo, Bridgie,” said John, as she trotted up to him for a hug. But his eyes were on mother and Captain Flint as they came round the corner of the boathouse to the jetty.

“It’s the least I can do for them,” Captain Flint was saying. “They salvaged Mixed Moss for me. The least I can do is to salvage Swallow for them. And they’d done a good deal of the salvaging already. It won’t be a big job to put her right. But it would make rather a mess of their holiday if they had to wait till it was done. You know it’s bad enough, anyhow. We’d planned to do a lot of things that we can’t while my aunt’s staying with us.”

“How far is it to this Horseshoe Bay?”

“Not much further than the island.”

“But the other side of the lake.”

“Mary Swainson from the farm there rows to the town with milk every day, and I’d be delighted to carry mails and cargo for them. Passengers too,” he added.

“I don’t like to think of their being a nuisance,” said mother.

“They don’t know how to be that, ma’am,” said Captain Flint.

John looked at mother and mother looked at John. They kissed each other. Mother looked at him again with just the faintest smile in her eyes.

“Well,” she said, “so you’ve all turned into Robinson Crusoes. You’ve been very quick about it.”

“We didn’t get shipwrecked on purpose,” said John. “It was my fault. I thought I could just get into the cove without jibing, and then there was an extra gust and it all happened in a moment.”

“I thought just the same,” said mother, “when I capsized my cousin’s dinghy in Sydney Harbour. A few yards less to go and I’d have done it. But I always thought there was bad temper in the wind that day, and that even if I hadn’t tried to hang on too long, the wind would have hurried itself and capsized us just the same.”

John cheered up.

“Did it happen to you?” he said. “I wonder,” he added hopefully, “I wonder if it ever happened to daddy. I don’t suppose it ever did, though.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said mother.

“It happens to most people sooner or later,” said Captain Flint, “unless they stick to wheelbarrows.”

“The main thing is,” said mother, “to see that nobody gets drowned. Are you sure none of you did get drowned?”

“Mother,” said John with reproach.

“I counted the lot, ma’am,” said Captain Flint. “Six. Four of yours and my own two nieces.”

“All the same,” said mother, “I think you’re right. If you really don’t mind dropping us on your way back, Bridget and I should be happier in our minds if we had counted them for ourselves.”

“I can count far more than six,” said Bridget.

“I dare say you can,” said mother, dropping down into the rowing boat and holding out her arms. “Count three now, and then jump. I’ll catch you.”

A minute or two later John and Captain Flint were again at the oars. They were rowing out of Holly Howe Bay under the Peak of Darien. But they were not rowing so fast as they had been. There was no hurry now. Rather the other way, for they wanted to give the others time to have everything shipshape. Besides, they had passengers, the best of all natives and the ship’s baby sitting side by side in the stern, and nobody can talk comfortably while they are rowing hard.

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It was difficult to believe that the enormous pile of things on the beach at Horseshoe Cove could ever disappear into five tents and leave room for four explorers.

“We shall never get straight if we don’t set to at once,” said Susan.

“It’ll go like smoke with Peggy and me to help stow it,” said Nancy.

“We were jolly lucky to be able to save so much from the wreck,” said Roger.

“Why, that’s nothing,” said Titty. “Robinson Crusoe saved rafts and rafts full. He brought chests of drawers ashore. And barrels full of gunpowder.”

“But he lost some things,” said Roger, “and we’ve got everything we had.”

Mate Susan looked about her, to make up her mind where best to pitch the tents. There was not really much choice. The thick jungle of trees came right down to the narrow beach of the cove, leaving no open space for a camp except on the wide pebbly flat where the stream left the trees to run out into the lake.

“It’s a fine place to lurk in,” said Captain Nancy, “but it’s not much good for a camp. It’s not going to rain to-day, but when it does the beck comes rushing down in a brown spate and all this dry bit is under water. But there’s nowhere else to put all four sleeping-tents. Of course, you could have them separately, here and there in the jungle.”

“We can’t do that,” said Susan, “because of the crew. We can’t have the able-seaman and the boy sleeping all alone.”

“Specially on the mainland,” said Titty. “There might be anything prowling round. On an island it’s different. Let’s not stop here at all. Let’s go on. Let’s go on to our valley, Roger’s and mine, the one we were going to show you if the shipwreck hadn’t stopped us.”

“Let’s go there at once,” said Roger.

“Rubbish,” said Susan. “We’ve got to get the camp made quickly. To show mother we really are all right. Captain Flint’s going to bring her. There’s no time to lose. This’ll have to do. We’ll find a better place to-morrow, if mother lets us stop. But when she comes it’s got to look as if we’d been here ages. And just look at it!”

There was no more discussion. It certainly did look hopeless, that great pile of bundles and tin boxes, with the parrot cage on the top of it and the green parrot inside chattering about pieces of eight and calling himself pretty. Susan threatened to put his cover over the parrot if he didn’t keep quiet, but she let Titty shut his noisy beak with a lump of sugar instead.

There was no doubt about it; the Amazons knew all about pitching tents. They had the stores tent slung between two trees in no time, and then, while Susan and Peggy stowed the things away in it, Nancy helped Titty with the little sleeping-tents, and Roger lent a hand now here now there, handing out the pegs one by one as Nancy and Titty needed them, or galloping from the beach to the store tent with a biscuit box or something else important. Horseshoe Cove began to look less like the scene of a shipwreck and more like an explorers’ camp. Pretty soon it was altogether like a camp, and all that had to be done was to turn it from an untidy camp to a tidy one. No one was better than Susan at doing that, but while Susan was tidying she did not like having too many people about. People had to be tidied away too, only the worst of tidying people away was that they wouldn’t keep still, and as soon as you had tidied them away from one place you found yourself falling over them somewhere else. So Susan gratefully remembered that they had not yet got any milk and that one of the Amazons would have to show them the way to the farm.

Roger had been tidied out of a tent because he had come into it all dripping after doing a little swimming. After that he went into the water again and did some more. He felt he had been rescued rather too quickly after the wreck, so he had had himself rescued two or three times over, swimming across the cove and being hauled ashore by Peggy, who was also losing interest in mere tidiness. Then Roger tried what it would be like to be the only one saved from the wreck. He swam until his feet touched bottom, crawled on through the shallow water, dragged himself just beyond the reach of the breakers (this was easy, because there were none) and lay exhausted on the beach, until he heard Susan say something about the farm, and Peggy say she would show Titty the way, when he jumped up at once and said he wanted to go too.