Secret Water

by Arthur Ransome

  “Look,” said Titty. “He’s hoisting a flag.”

  A blue flag with a white square in the middle of it fluttered up to the Goblin’s crosstrees.

  “It’s the Blue Peter,” said Mother. “He’s ready to sail.”

  BLUE PETER AT THE CROSSTREES

  In another few minutes Daddy had rowed ashore and brought the water carriers up to the camp.

  “Here you are,” he said. “And a good weight too, as you’ll find when you take them to be refilled. You’ll be treating water like liquid gold when you have to carry every drop of it.”

  “That’s what Jim said, when we were with him in the Goblin,” laughed Roger.

  “Sensible chap,” said Daddy. “Now then, Mary, we’ve got to be off. The heartless skipper and his cruel mate will now sail away leaving their victims on the unknown shore. Come along, Mary. You’re the cruel mate. Goodbye all of you. Use sense. Watch the tides. John and Susan in charge.”

  “You will be careful, won’t you?” said Mother, kissing the explorers goodbye.

  “You aren’t going away altogether,” said Bridget.

  “Sure you wouldn’t like to come too?” said Mother.

  Bridget wavered for a moment.

  “No thank you,” she said.

  Daddy laughed. “Well done, Biddy,” he said.

  Mother got very muddy kissing John, who had forgotten to rub the splashes off his face.

  “John,” she said, “you look like Ben Gunn already.”

  “He’ll have a matted beard by the time we come back,” said Daddy. “Come on John and get some more mud on you putting us aboard.”

  John rowed Daddy and Mother back to the ship. For a moment or two he waited, watching Daddy hoist the mainsail. Then, remembering that he was in charge of the expedition, he rowed back and joined the others who were watching by the camp.

  Already Mother was at the tiller of the Goblin and Daddy was hauling up the anchor hand over hand. The jib unrolled and filled with wind. Daddy was getting the anchor over the bows and sloshing the mud off with a mop. The Goblin swung round and headed out of the creek.

  “Goodbye … Goodbye. …” The marooned explorers shouted from the camp.

  “Goodbye and good luck,” an answering call came from the Goblin. The Blue Peter fluttered down. Daddy went aft and took the tiller. Mother waved a handkerchief. The Goblin, leaving the shelter of the creek, heeled over and moved faster. She was gone. Only her red sails showed above the long line of the dyke as with the ebb to help her she hurried to the sea.

  Everybody felt a sudden emptiness.

  “We’re in for it now,” said John.

  “Come on,” said Susan. “We’ve got an awful lot to do.”

  “What about unpacking those boxes?” said Roger.

  Bridget had taken Sinbad from Titty. For a few minutes she watched the red triangle of Goblin’s mainsail moving above the dyke.

  “It’s all right, Sinbad,” she said. “They’ll come back for you.”

  CHAPTER V

  MAROONED

  UNPACKING HAD BEGUN in earnest. The explorers were taking stock. Susan with pencil and paper was making a list as they dug into the three boxes that Daddy had sent down to Pin Mill from the Army and Navy Stores. Bridget and Roger were trying to count the apples and oranges they could see through the open slats of a crate. Titty and John were going through the contents of a large parcel with all the things Daddy had put together for map-making, a drawing board, lots of paper, pencils, a bottle of Indian ink, parallel rulers, drawing compasses, a protractor, a box of drawing pins.

  “Daddy was going to do it really properly,” said Titty.

  “So are we,” said John. “He’d be awfully pleased if we manage to go everywhere and get the whole thing mapped.”

  “Secret Archipelago Expedition,” said Titty.

  “What’s Archipelago?” said Bridget.

  “Lots of islands,” said Roger. “Look here, Bridgie, you haven’t counted that apple showing through the paper.”

  “Two dozen tins of milk,” said Susan. “Eleven … No … twelve tins of soup.”

  “Monsters,” said Roger.

  “Three big tins of steak and kidney pie. … Three tongues.”

  “Oh good!”

  “Three tins of pemmican. … Six tins of sardines. … One tin of golden syrup. … One stone jar of marmalade. … Six boxes of eggs. … One dozen in each box.”

  “Why such a lot of eggs?” said Roger.

  “You and John always have two for breakfast and one each for the rest of us. … That’s seven at a single meal. … And what about scrambled egg suppers? Come on … Roger, it’s no good counting apples in their crate. You can’t see through them. You be putting the tins in the store tent. Four packets of cornflakes. Six loaves of bread. The bread and the cornflakes’ll have to be kept in one of the boxes. One tin of ginger nuts. … One tin of biscuits. …”

  “Can I tear the paper off?” said Roger. “Good. Garibaldi. That’s squashed flies. What about opening this box? We’re bound to want to. …”

  “Shut up just a minute. One bag of potatoes. … What’s that other bag?”

  “Beans,” said Bridget.

  “Three slabs of sticky cake. …”

  “A whole box of chocolate,” said Roger. “Nut and raisin kind, in slabs. Let’s …”

  “Leave them alone,” said Susan. “Six pounds of butter. … Two boxes of lump sugar. Two of soft. One tin of salt. … One bar of cheese. … Good. … That’s the crustless kind in silver paper.”

  “First rate for marching rations,” said John.

  “I say,” cried Bridget suddenly. “This box has got Sinbad on it.”

  It was a cardboard box, and in it was a packet of cat’s biscuits, a small bottle of Bovril and half a dozen very small tins of salmon.

  “He’ll love the salmon,” said Roger. “But what’s the Bovril for?”

  “It’s to put with the hot water you have to pour over the biscuits,” said Susan. “What’s the label on that basket?”

  “Tonight’s supper,” read Titty. “And there’s a parcel labelled ‘Tomorrow’s Dinner’.”

  “We won’t open that till we want it,” said Susan. “Look here, Roger. Fishing lines and fish hooks. You’d better look after them.”

  “Shall I take the spade, too? For digging worms.”

  “No need to put the spade in your tent. But do put those fish hooks where Sinbad won’t tread on them. I’ll want the spade in a minute to make a fireplace. I’ll tell you one thing we are going to be hard up for and that’s firewood. It’s not like Wild Cat, with dead branches everywhere. …”

  “Come on,” said John. “Let’s see who gets most. High-water-mark’s the likeliest place.”

  Exploration in a small way began at once. While Susan was busy making a fireplace exactly as she wanted it, cutting slabs of earth and arranging them in a circle, the others soon found out that every bit of burnable wood took some finding. They worked along the side of the dyke nearest to the creek, picking up here and there small pieces of driftwood. All along the foot of the dyke, marking the highest tides was a wide belt of old weed-stalks like reeds that had been washed up there and left.

  “I expect they’ll burn all right,” said Titty.

  “Too fast, probably,” said John. “We want every scrap of real wood we can get.”

  “What about the dead crabs?” said Roger. “There are hundreds of them in among the reeds.”

  “They won’t be much good,” said John. “I say, we’ll have to make a rule that nobody leaves the camp without bringing back a bit of wood.”

  Gleaning carefully along the dyke, John and Titty got together two bundles of scraps of wood and a few bigger bits that looked as if they might have come from an old railing.

  “Enough to boil a kettle anyway,” said John. “Let’s take it along and something to carry reeds in. Where’s Roger?”

  “Somewhere round the corner,” said Titty.


  They found Susan sharpening the ends of two forked sticks she had cut from a willow. A long piece to carry the kettle was already lying on the ground beside her round fireplace.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” said Susan. “I thought it was going to be difficult. There’s hardly any dead wood under these bushes. I’ve got a little, but not much.”

  “There’s lots of that reed rubbish. We’ll take a basket … No … oilskins’ll be better. Lay them flat and pile the reeds on them, and bundle them up for carrying. Hullo! What’s the matter?”

  Roger, who had not, like Titty and John, been able to put wood-gathering before everything else, came running into the camp.

  “I say, John,” he cried. “I’ve been down to the landing. The island’s growing like anything. Wizard’s high and dry.”

  “Tide’s going down,” said John. “I’ll come and have a look. Haven’t you got any wood?”

  “One bit,” said Roger. “There simply wasn’t any where I was looking.”

  “One bit,” said Susan. “Oh Roger.”

  “Well it’s a jolly good one,” said Roger.

  “You take your oilskin and fill it with as much of that reed stuff as you can carry,” said John.

  “All right,” said Roger. “Dead crabs and all.”

  John and Titty took their oilskins too and went down over the saltings to look at Wizard. A few hours had made an enormous difference. They had brought the things ashore from the Goblin almost to the edge of the saltings. Now the saltings were far above the water level. There was a widening strip of mud beneath them. The narrow pathway between the heads of old rotting piles stretched down over the mud, and into the water.

  “Good,” said John at the sight of it. “Jim said it was a proper hard. We’ll be able to get afloat even at low tide. But we won’t shift Wizard now. We’ll be able to slide her down over the mud if we want her.”

  “What’s happening to Bridget Island?” said Roger. “The little one … It’s almost not an island any more.”

  They went floundering along the saltings to look at it. That little island that had been divided from the big one by a wide channel was an island no longer. The channel had narrowed and broken up, into little streams trickling down both sides of a mudbank. Roger tried to get across, but soon stuck and struggled back to firmer ground.

  “Gosh!” he said. “It’ll be easier to get to it when it’s cut off at high water than when it’s part of our island. This is a rum place.”

  THE MAP BEGUN

  “We’ll have to mark that channel, ‘Mud at low water’,” said Titty.

  On the way back to the camp they piled armfuls of dead reeds on their oilskins, bundled them up, staggered into the camp with the bundles over their shoulders, and emptied them into a heap, beside the fire that was already burning.

  “What’s the time, John?” asked Susan.

  “Haven’t got a watch,” said John. “Mine’s still in Ipswich being mended.”

  “I thought it was,” said Susan. “I’ve done the most awful thing. I’ve gone and left my alarm clock in the Goblin.”

  “Good,” said Roger. “We’ll be able to go to bed just when we like.”

  “Will you?” said Susan. “We’ll see. But I won’t know when it’s time for meals. …”

  “We’ll tell you,” said Roger. “It’s about time for supper now.”

  John looked at the sun, that was already sinking low towards the western marshes.

  “We’ll manage all right about time,” he said. “Where’s a straight stick?”

  “I’ve got one,” said Titty. “I was just going to break it up for the fire.”

  “Fine,” said John. He stuck it carefully upright. The sun threw its shadow along the ground. He cut a twig from one of the bushes behind the tents, sharpened one end of it and cut a deep notch in the other. Then he took a piece of paper from the pad on which Susan had been writing her list of stores, folded it, wrote “SUPPER” on it in large letters, fixed it in the notch, and then pushed the pointed end of the twig into the ground exactly in the thin line of shadow cast by the upright stick.

  “Gosh!” said Roger. “A meal-dial.”

  “It’ll have to do,” said John. “We can’t be far wrong now. It must be about supper time. We’ll have supper each day when the shadow falls on the supper stick. We’ll watch for midday tomorrow when the sun’s highest and the shadow’s shortest, and we’ll shove in a dinner stick too.”

  “Regular meals is what matters most,” said Susan.

  THE MEAL-DIAL

  “Well, the sun’s regular enough,” said John.

  “What if it’s cloudy?” said Roger. “And it might rain. Don’t we get anything to eat unless the sun’s shining?”

  “We’ll just have to guess,” said John. “But tides are going to be a bother. Daddy gave me a tide-table, but it won’t be much good if we don’t know the time. The tides keep shifting round. We can’t keep track of them without a clock.”

  “I say,” said Titty. “We ought to count days, like Robinson Crusoe.”

  John bent down and cut a notch in the flagstaff. “That’s for today,” he said. “Every day we’ll cut another notch until the Goblin comes back. …”

  “And then when we lie exhausted on the sand …” said Titty.

  “Jolly wet mud,” said Roger.

  “We’ll see a sail far away. And it’ll come nearer and nearer. And the captain will say, ‘Clap your eye to a spyglass, Mister Mate.’ And the mate (that’s Mother) will say, ‘There’s something moving on the shore. They’re still alive.’ And we will wave and try to shout, but our parched throats won’t let us. And they’ll sail in, and we’ll hear the anchor chain go rattling out. And then we’ll all sail away together and see the island disappear into the sunset.”

  “It may be morning,” said Roger.

  “The tops of the palm trees will show like feathers above the sea, and then even they will be gone, and we shall be telling the people on the ship about the discoveries we’ve made and the long years we’ve spent here.”

  “Not years,” said Bridget.

  “Ages anyhow,” said Titty.

  “We’ll have to get the palm trees from somewhere and plant them,” said Roger. “Susan. Do look at the meal-dial.”

  “Well,” said Susan.

  “The shadow’s left the supper stick already.”

  “Supper’s ready,” said Susan.

  “But where?” said Roger.

  “Mother’s done the whole thing,” said Susan. She went to the store tent and came back with the basket with a label on it, “Tonight’s supper”. Out of it came a parcel of chops, ready-cooked, a bag of tomatoes, two lettuces with a bit of paper on which was written “The lettuces have been washed”, and a bag of rock buns. At the bottom of the basket was another bit of paper with a message. “Fill up with bananas.”

  “There’s nothing to do but to make the tea,” said Susan, “and the kettle’ll be boiling in a minute.”

  “What about Sinbad?” said Bridget.

  “He shall have cold salmon and a drink of milk,” said Susan.

  “Jolly good supper,” said Roger.

  It lasted a long time, and when it was finished, there were only five mugs, five plates and one saucer to wash up. Then the explorers made ready for bed, after planning to begin work in earnest first thing in the morning. The sun had set and the wind had dropped. John, Titty and Roger brought into the camp fresh armfuls of the dead weed-stalks, which smoked for a moment and then blazed up on the fire. Bridget, already in her pyjamas, crouched at the door of the big tent looking out at her first camp-fire and at the figures of her elders moving in the dusk.

  “Off you go, Roger,” said Susan.

  “I’m going to bed now,” said Titty. “Wake me in the morning, whoever wakes first.”

  “Everybody got their own torches?” asked John.

  “Have you filled the hurricane lantern?” asked Susan.

  “Just doing it,” sa
id John. “We’ll have it burning in the camp all night.”

  “Like a riding light,” said Roger.

  “To frighten away wild beasts,” said Titty. “But we’ve got one tiger of our own. Come on Sinbad. You’re going to sleep in my tent. Bridget’s got Susan.”

  The stars came out all over the enormous sky that came right down to the flat marshes and the open sea, a sky much bigger than the sky of the mountain country of the north. John lit the hurricane lantern and stood it on the ground outside the big tent.

  “No good trying to bank up a reed fire,” he said. “Not even charcoal burners could do it. …”

  “Damp reeds would keep it going,” said Susan.

  “They’d only get dry and then blaze,” said John. “Better not. We’ll look for more driftwood in the morning.”

  “You get quickly into bed while you’re still warm,” said Susan to Bridget.

  “I’m in,” said Roger.

  “So am I,” said Titty … “Hullo. Sinbad’s out. No, pussy. Oh all right. He’s trying to curl up on my bed like he did in the boat.”

  “Why don’t the curlews go to bed too?” said Roger. “And the gulls.”

  “Duck, too,” said John.

  “I say, was that splash a fish?”

  “Aren’t you going to bed, John?” said Susan.

  “In a minute.”

  Roger, in the middle of asking questions about the noises of the birds, chattering along the edge of the mud, had fallen suddenly asleep. Bridget thought of last night. She had been in bed long before this, in a real bed, in a room with dark curtains. For the first time in her life she was sleeping, just like the others, in a tent. She wriggled a little. It was not so comfortable as a bed, but the others had always seemed to like it. So would she. She wriggled again. That must be a crease in the rug with the hard groundsheet and the ground underneath. That was better. A faint whiff of burnt reeds drifted in through the open mouth of the tent. A curlew called. Again there was a sudden chatteration of gulls. Yes. They were alone, on an island. And she was old enough to be with them at last. She put out a hand to feel for Susan.