Secret Water

by Arthur Ransome

  “Gosh!” said Titty. “Prehistoric?”

  “Yes. We swop most of the ones we find for stores.”

  They passed the anchored yachts. The dyke on their right curved suddenly away and a creek opened into low weedy marshland.

  “Is this the channel?” shouted John turning towards it.

  “Not the main one,” shouted the savage guide. “Look here. We’ll do them both at once. You go straight on, and you’ll find another opening, with a few more traders moored in it. Not the next one. The first one you come to with boats in it. Go in there and keep in the middle. We’ll go through this one and meet you. Tide’s still flowing. We’ll just be able to do it.”

  “Right. Cast off the top rope Mister Mate.”

  “Goodbye,” shouted the ship’s baby.

  “Goodbye,” shouted the able-seamen.

  The Mastodon was already rowing. They shot in between marshy banks and weeds, and a moment later could see nothing of the Wizard but the top of her sail. Presently that too disappeared. The able-seamen were alone in his boat with the savage.

  Roger looked a little anxiously at Titty, but remembered that after all, they were two to one, even if the Mastodon did look as if he would be pretty tough to fight if he happened to turn hostile to explorers. But the Mastodon seemed to have no such thoughts in his head. He was rowing as hard as he could between banks that were growing narrower and narrower.

  “This tide isn’t as high as it might be,” he said. “We’re going to have a job getting through.”

  CHAPTER X

  THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN

  JUST FOR A moment, in the sudden loneliness that came when she realized that she could not see Wizard’s sail any more, Titty almost felt like saying that she thought it would be better if they all kept together. Suppose the savage were to live up to his totem. Eels. Slippery eels. You never knew where you had them. Supposing it was all a trick and the Mastodon, rowing as hard as he could along this narrow winding ditch where you could see nothing but reeds and mud, had planned an ambush. … Supposing round one of these corners they came upon a whole tribe. … Suppose others were lurking in these sodden patches of mud and reeds.

  But the Mastodon, rowing fit to bust, did not look as if he were thinking of plots. Titty remembered that she was an explorer. She marked on her map the place where they had left the main channel and begun this queer voyage through the marshes. She could not measure the distances, and she had no compass to take bearings, so she turned the map over and, as the ditch twisted and turned, she drew a single line, now bending one way now the other, with every curve and wriggle of the ditch. It would be easy to fit it in afterwards.

  “Which way do we go?” said Roger. “It divides in two.”

  The Mastodon stopped rowing, and his boat ran instantly aground. Just ahead of them the ditch turned into two ditches, one twisting to the right, the other to the left. Both seemed about the same size.

  “Right I think,” said the Mastodon. “But it’s a long time since I’ve been through.”

  He pushed off from one side of the ditch with an oar, ran on the mud on the opposite side, pushed off from that, and rowed on. Titty marked on the back of the map the place where the ditch forked. Her line began to look as if she were making a drawing of zigzag lightning.

  The ditch bent round to the right, and forked.

  “Right again,” said the Mastodon.

  His oars almost touched the sides of the ditch as they passed through a narrow place.

  A heron got up from close in front of them. Three wing flaps took it out of sight.

  “I say,” said Roger. “Isn’t that the dyke?”

  Ahead of them, above the reeds, was the straight line of a high grass-covered bank.

  “Must have gone wrong at the last divide,” said the Mastodon.

  There was hardly room to turn, and Roger hopped out on a tussock of mud and weeds to pull the bows of the boat round.

  The Mastodon rowed back to the last place where the ditch forked and this time took the turn to the left.

  “Got to hurry,” he said grimly. “Tide’s stopped rising. We may be too late to get through.”

  “Hadn’t we better go back to the main channel?” said Titty.

  “Oh no,” said the Mastodon. “We’ll do it yet. We’re all right this time.”

  “Hullo,” said Roger a few minutes later. “It’s come to an end.”

  The boat slid into a little pool and stopped. There was nothing ahead of them but mud and weeds, and no way out but the way by which they had come.

  “Sorry,” said the Mastodon, worked the boat round and started back. “We’ll have to go right back to that first place where we ought to have gone left.”

  This time worry showed clearly on the face of the savage guide. Titty knew he was badly bothered.

  “It’s the tide,” he said at last. “Going down. We don’t want to get stuck.”

  “Hullo,” said Titty. “Isn’t there water through there?”

  They had just passed a narrow drain, and Titty looking through the gap had seen something very like open water.

  The Mastodon backed with both oars.

  “It’s worth trying,” he said. “We could do it yet, if only we were in the right channel now.”

  He edged up to the muddy bank and scrambled out.

  “Come on,” he shouted. “It’s the other channel. Quite near, if only we can get her through.”

  He jumped back, all muddy, into the boat, and tried to pole her into the gap. She moved in a few yards and stuck.

  “She’s aground,” he said. “Look here. Could you get out, both of you, and I’ll try to lug her through?”

  Roger, for the second time that day, got mud over his knees. Titty was luckier. They found themselves on a bit of soft boggy ground, and for the first time, were able to look round them and see what sort of place this was. Away to the right of them they could see the long dyke, curving round the island. Behind them, to the left of them and in front of them were saltings, reedy marshland, cut up into islands by narrow channels now, soon after high tide, full of water. Twenty yards away was a wider channel, and they could see that it wound its way towards water that was really open.

  “Quick, quick,” said Roger, jumping from one tussock of rank grass to another.

  Titty followed him, and waited where the narrow drain widened into a bay at the side of the channel they had missed by taking the wrong turn.

  “Here’s a good place for getting in again,” she said, “if only he can get the boat through.”

  “She’s moving all right,” said Roger.

  They could not see her, but they could see the Mastodon, poling her along.

  “Stuck again,” said Roger. “Gosh! He’s gone in.”

  The Mastodon had stepped out over the stern, and was pushing the boat before him.

  “Why doesn’t he sink?” said Roger. “He’s got his splatchers on. Good old Mastodon. He’s done it. Here she comes.”

  The boat slipped suddenly forward, and the Mastodon nearly fell. In a moment, he had his splatchers off and was in his boat again, poling with an oar. A moment after that she slid out from the drain, and the explorers were getting aboard once more.

  “Never mind the mud,” said the Mastodon. “I can wash her out afterwards. If only we manage to get through.”

  “Let me take an oar,” said Titty.

  “I can row,” said Roger.

  “I know her ways,” said the Mastodon. “Better let me. There isn’t a minute to lose.”

  The weedy banks flew past them on either side, but presently flew not so fast, though the Mastodon was rowing just as hard, and the water was foaming under the bows of his little boat.

  “Tide’s going out,” he said between his teeth.

  “There’s Wizard,” shouted Roger.

  “That’s mud,” said the Mastodon. “There it is again. We’ve got jolly little water under us.”

  “What would we do if we got prope
rly stuck?” asked Roger.

  “Have to wait till the tide’s gone out and come up again enough to float us.”

  “After dark?” said Roger.

  “Long after,” said the Mastodon. “About three o’clock in the morning. Good, good. Deeper water already. But the others oughtn’t to have waited for us. They’ve got to get across the Wade. And your boat’s deeper than mine.”

  The Wizard was sailing slowly towards them in the main channel, a wide stretch of water between the reeds. Bridget was waving.

  The Mastodon waved them on. John understood, and swung round. The wind had dropped and the Wizard was sailing no faster than the Mastodon could row. Titty was hurriedly marking on the back of her map the channel through which they had come. “I’ll just have to guess that bit where we went wrong,” she said.

  “Make it clear we ought to have turned left when I turned right,” said the Mastodon. “Well,” he said more cheerfully. “You see there are two ways through. Three really. The main channel’s the way they went, but there’s this other way inside it.”

  “Like Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan,” said Titty. “Wizard’s gone round the Horn, and we’ve come through the Straits.”

  “What happened?” asked John, as the two boats came nearer together.

  “We got mixed up with Terra del Fuego,” said Titty.

  “We had a beautifully narrow squeak getting through,” said Roger.

  “Took a wrong turn,” said the savage guide. “Look here, you oughtn’t to have waited. It’s going to be a squeak getting home across the Wade. You see it’s a watershed, and the tide’s going down.”

  “Had we better go back the way we came?” suggested Susan.

  “Oh let’s go right round,” said Roger.

  The Mastodon showed what he thought by laying to his oars and rowing on. The shores were widening on either side, and they were coming out into a broad lake of shimmering water which covered the sea of mud that they had seen in the morning. Here and there, ahead of them, a withy waved gently in the tide.

  “Leave all those withies to starboard,” called the Mastodon. “They mark the edge of the shallows on this side. Keep fairly near them.”

  The weed banks were further and further away and it was hard to believe that there was only a narrow channel of water deep enough for sailing. It looked as though they could sail for as far as they wanted in any direction.

  “What are those other withies?” called John, pointing to some far away towards the mainland.

  “They mark the road over the Wade,” said the Mastodon. “There you are, right ahead. Those four posts that you can see above the water. That’s the shallowest place. Deeper water either side of them. Hard bottom. Causeway right across.”

  They came nearer to the four posts, black posts, with a high water mark showing near the top of them. They came level with the posts. They passed them.

  “That’s that,” said the Mastodon. “We’ll have the tide with us now. … ” His voice changed. “He’s gone between the posts. … He’s touched!”

  They saw the Wizard stop dead. They saw John’s face suddenly worried. They saw Susan jump to pull up the centreboard, as the Wizard swung round broadside and began to heel. Then the Wizard began to move again, came back on her course, and was presently gliding beside them.

  “Narrow thing,” said the Mastodon. “He oughtn’t to have gone between the posts.”

  “I ought to have pulled the centreboard up before we got there,” said John. “But she doesn’t sail well without it unless the wind’s dead aft.”

  They had no more trouble, but slipped slowly homewards, watching the shore from which in the morning they had seen the hoofmarks of the Mastodon on the mud over which they were now sailing. There was the landing place belonging to the native kraal, there the cart track from the kraal coming over the seawall and down to the causeway the end of which was already beginning to show above water. Far away on the other side the Mastodon pointed out other withies marking a channel that at high water would let them reach the mainland.

  They slipped slowly on. The weedbeds were coming nearer again. They were passing the little Bridget Island that at low water was part of their own. They were passing the opening of the channel that led to the old barge hulk, the Mastodon’s private lair. They came round into Goblin Creek and back to the landing place below the camp from which they had started.

  “Well,” said John. “We’ve circumnavigated it. I’ve got an awful lot to put on the map. I say, there are several bits I want to ask you about.”

  “I’ve got a rough sketch of Magellan Straits,” said Titty.

  John looked at her.

  “You went round Cape Horn,” she said. “You’ll see when we put it all in.”

  “I wonder if Sinbad’ll be pleased to see us,” said Bridget. “Coming back from a voyage.”

  They went up to the camp. Bridget peeped into Titty’s tent.

  “’Sh!” she said. “He’s still asleep.”

  “Not much good as a watch cat,” said Roger.

  But just then the kitten stirred, got up, and walked slowly out, stretching its hind legs and the whole of its body as it came out of the tent.

  “Are you a good watch cat?” said Titty.

  The kitten rubbed against her leg, opened its mouth and mewed. “He wants some milk,” said Bridget.

  “All right, Sinbad,” said Susan. “You shall have some. But you haven’t really earned it.”

  John, Titty and the Mastodon flung themselves on the ground to compare maps, fitting the wriggling line of the Magellan Straits into the space east of the dyke that John had marked in the morning. An enormous lot of the big blob that in Daddy’s rough map had seemed to be all one island had turned out to be marshes. “That’s quite right,” said the native guide. “That’s where we ran up against the dyke and had to turn back. And that bit’s another island. And so’s that. And there’s another way in between the two of them.”

  “Don’t put it in,” said Titty. “Not till we’ve sailed through it.”

  “I’ll leave it just dotted,” said John. “Between Magellan Straits and the Horn.”

  “What are we going to explore tomorrow?” asked Roger, who liked exploration better than mapping its results.

  “Is that an island where we landed when we came to Speedy?” asked Titty. “You can’t tell from Daddy’s map whether it is or not.”

  “Yes,” said the Mastodon. “And there are more further up. And islands on the northern shore. You can see the way in if you walk along the dyke.”

  “Let’s go and look,” said John. “Just half a minute while I copy this bit from my map into Daddy’s. There’ll be a good lot ready for Titty to ink.”

  THE MAP: WITH MAGELLAN STRAITS AND CAPE HORN

  “Get some more wood if you can,” said Susan. “Bridget and I are going to start the fire.”

  The savage guide and three explorers left the camp and strolled along the dyke, now and then going down to the foot of it to pick up bits of driftwood. The savage was full of plans for the further exploration of his native wilds. “You ought to do the channel to the town when the tide’s up,” he was saying. “And then you ought to walk across the Wade at low tide. And then you ought to sail round my island and map it like yours. And then there’s the islands up at the top.”

  They were walking along the dyke, above the marshes that fringed the Secret Water, looking across it to shores full of promise on the further side, when Roger suddenly pointed out to sea.

  “A sail! A sail!” he shouted. “At least it’s not got a sail. It’s a motor boat.”

  Far away out they could see it, throwing the water in white splashes from its bows, coming in, heading for the crossroads buoy.

  “I thought you could only get in at high water,” said John. “And the mud’s showing below the saltings. The tide’s gone down a long way.”

  “Fishing boat,” said the Mastodon. “They draw nothing. Get in and out any time.
She’ll be turning into the channel by Flint Island. They never come up here.”

  He turned away and pointed up the Secret Water. “You ought to go right up as far as ever you can go,” he said. “We go up there sometimes to visit a trading post.”

  “Trading post?” said Roger, his eyes still on the distant motor boat.

  “Ginger beer and chocolate,” said the Mastodon. “But that other place I showed you was better.”

  “I say. They’re coming straight on,” said Roger. “They haven’t turned.”

  “That’s rum,” said the Mastodon. “Not a local boat either. Strangers. They’ve mistaken the channel.”

  “Towing a sailing boat,” said John.

  “They’re stopping,” said Roger.

  Foam was no longer flying from the bows of the motor boat that was now well inside the Secret Water. She was slowing down.

  “Green,” said Titty. “Like the one at Pin Mill.”

  “Hullo,” said the Mastodon. “Somebody’s getting into the sailing boat. Girl. Or is it a boy? There’s another. I say, I do believe it’s the Eels. Something’s happened to Lapwing and they’ve come along to say so.”

  Titty remembered that the Mastodon was a savage, and that he said he would have to explain to the others about them. It would never do, before he had explained, for the rest of the tribe to find him hob-nobbing with a lot of explorers.

  “Won’t they be going straight to the Speedy?” she said.

  But the Mastodon did not answer.

  “I don’t know who else it can be,” he said. “And yet …”

  “They’re dumping stuff into the boat,” said Roger.

  The green motor boat was slipping slowly through the water with the sailing boat pulled up alongside, so that the explorers could see only the mast of it nodding beyond the green gunwale. People seemed to be in a hurry about something.

  “There goes another bag,” said Roger. “And what’s that long bundle?”

  “How many of them are there in the sailing boat?” said the Mastodon. “I only saw two. Red caps.”