Secret Water

by Arthur Ransome

  Peggy came up. “Poor old Bridget!” she said.

  Nancy took charge. “Good old Bridget!” she said. “Here’s a clean plate. Let it drop. Titty, get hold of a needle for the rest of us.”

  Bridget, looking from one to another, had stopped crying, though a tear was still wet on her cheek. She looked at her finger and, at the sight of the blood on it, opened her mouth to wail again.

  “Well done, Bridget,” said Nancy. “You’ve saved the whole show. Don’t suck it. Save that drop.”

  Susan came out from the tent with her First Aid Box already open and the iodine bottle in her hand.

  “Let’s see it, Bridget,” she said. “It’ll be all right in a minute.”

  “It’s all the better for it to bleed,” said Nancy, carefully catching a drop that was just falling from the tip of Bridget’s finger. “Don’t put the iodine on it yet. Good for you, Titty. Take a needle, Mastodon. What’s the colour of Eel’s blood?”

  Titty was handing round a packet of needles.

  “What are you doing, Nancy,” said Susan. “Turn round Bridget. I can’t get at it if you stand like that.”

  Roger, who had already taken a needle, was standing with his back to the others. He turned suddenly round. “I’ve done mine,” he said, squeezing the first finger of his left hand. “Where’s the plate?”

  “Oh, Roger!” said Susan. “Put some iodine on it at once. How do you know the needle was clean?”

  “New one,” said Roger. “It didn’t hurt. At least only for a moment. Here’s another drop.”

  “Titty!” exclaimed Susan. “Don’t be such a donkey. John!”

  “Oh look here, Susan,” said Nancy. “We can’t miss a chance like this. Bridget may never scratch herself again.”

  Susan hesitated. “You ought to dip the needle in iodine,” she said. “And you’ll all get blood poisoning anyway. What are you going to do next?”

  “Mix all the blood together and rub it in. Come on Susan. Perhaps you’re right about the iodine. Dip your needle, Titty. You too, Peggy.”

  “Ouch!” said Titty.

  “You haven’t got as much as I did,” said Roger. “You’ll have to pinch it pretty hard. Gosh! The Mastodon’s fairly jabbed himself. But nobody’s got as much as Bridgie. Wasn’t it a good thing I thought of it?”

  THE BLOODING

  “Now then, Susan,” said Nancy. “Come on, ship’s doctor. You ought to do it better than anybody.”

  Susan chose a spot on her finger with great care. “All right,” she said … “I’ve done it. But I’m not sure we ought to mix some iodine with it before rubbing it in, and I’m going to.”

  “Good idea,” said Nancy. “It’ll make the blood go further anyway. Who hasn’t done it? Oh well done, John. Let me have the plate. Here’s another drop. Peggy!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Barbecued billygoats! You can.”

  “It won’t go in.”

  “Give me your hand,” said Nancy. “I’ll do it. No don’t go and pull like that. Hold your hand still. Turn the other way. Talk to her, Roger!”

  “PEGGY!” shouted Roger at the top of his voice. She looked round.

  “All over,” said Nancy. “It went in all right. That finger’s as soft as butter. No, don’t suck it. We want every drop.”

  There was now a small, a very small puddle of mixed blood in the middle of the plate, which Roger was greedily offering to anyone who seemed to have a drop ready to add to the rest. Susan poured a little iodine from the bottle and stirred it with the tip of her finger.

  “What do we say?” asked Titty.

  “Swallows and Amazons and Eels for ever!”

  “Nothing about blood brothers?” said Titty.

  “Blood brothers … and sisters till death do us part. That ought to do.”

  “Hurry up,” said Susan. “I must put something on Bridget’s finger to keep the dirt out.”

  “Say it all together,” said Nancy. “Can you say it, Bridgie? You’re the most important. We couldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for you. Swallows and Amazons and Eels for ever. Blood brothers and sisters till death do us part. Now then.”

  “Swallows and Amazons and Eels for ever. Blood brothers and sisters till death do us part.”

  Even Bridget got it right first time.

  “Now everybody rubs her wound in the blood … or his,” said Nancy.

  “Gosh!” said Roger. “It stung worse than the needle.”

  “Ow,” said Bridget.

  “Good,” said Nancy. “That shows it’s really got in. Vaccination’s never any good unless it hurts. You only have to be done twice over. Come on, Mastodon, don’t hang back.”

  The Mastodon obediently rubbed his finger in the now drying puddle. “It’s a pity the tribe isn’t here,” he said. “But I don’t believe Daisy would have done it again.”

  “I did,” said Bridget, and everybody laughed.

  “Well, didn’t I?”

  “You gave more than anybody else,” said Roger.

  “Everybody’s going to put some more iodine on now whether they like it or not,” said Susan.

  Everybody did, and Susan put a neat bandage round Bridget’s scratched finger.

  “I’ve simply got to bolt,” said the Mastodon, “or I’ll never be back at the quay by high water.” He started for the landing place, followed by his new brothers and sisters.

  “Well, it’s all right now,” said Nancy. “We’ve all got Eel blood in us, and you’ve got some of all of ours.”

  “I say,” said Titty. “Is it all right now for us to know that word you were going to say?”

  “Oh yes,” said the Mastodon. “It’s the word to say when you meet another Eel or are saying Goodbye. It’s Karabadangbaraka. And the answer’s the same word backwards. Akarabgnadabarak.”

  “Half a minute while I write it down,” said Titty. “Say it again.”

  The Mastodon said it slowly. “The countersign’s the difficult one. Daisy always gets it wrong with the gnad. She keeps on saying ‘gand’ instead.”

  “Akarabgnadabarak,” said Titty, writing it as she spoke.

  “Don’t let anyone else see that,” said the Mastodon.

  “I’ll burn it as soon as we know it by heart,” said Titty.

  “And what about the totem?” said Nancy. “Now we’ve all got Eel blood in us.”

  “All right,” said the Mastodon. “I’ve got to nip across to Speedy before starting home. If you come across right away I’ll give it you now.”

  “Let’s all go,” said Bridget, who was looking proudly at her bandaged finger.

  “Are there any blackberries on your island?” asked Susan.

  “Lots.”

  “We’ll catch you up,” said John. “Just half a second while we get our compasses and things.”

  The Mastodon pushed off his boat.

  “Karabadangbaraka!” Titty called after him.

  “Akarabgnadabarak,” he shouted back.

  “Great Congers!” said Nancy gleefully to herself.

  “What?” said John.

  “Oh nothing,” said Nancy. “It’s only the Eel’s blood beginning to work.”

  1 See here for Semaphore Alphabet.

  CHAPTER XIII

  MASTODON ISLAND

  THERE WAS A hurried rush to the camp and back, for baskets, surveying poles, compasses and blank copies of the map. The ship’s kitten, who was having a nap after his breakfast, was left in charge. The explorers were on their way only a few minutes after the Mastodon. They found his boat at the mouth of the small creek that ran in behind Mastodon Island, and they went ashore close beside it, carrying their anchors to the top of the bank. The little creek was dry almost to the mouth.

  “It won’t be high water till half past three,” said John. “He says we ought to start about half past two to meet him at that place.”

  “Lots of time to do the island first,” said Susan. “And then we’ll have dinner, and while you’re meeting
him, Peggy and I and Bridget are going to make a blackberry and banana mash. I bet the Eels don’t know it. Well take it to Speedy to add to the feast.”

  When they came along the dyke to the old barge, they were just in time to see the Mastodon drop down her side and get his feet fixed on his splatchers.

  The totem in its blue, red and green paint gleamed in the sunshine on the top of the dyke where the Mastodon had planted it.

  “Thank you very much,” they called down to him.

  “I’m awfully late,” shouted the Mastodon. “Can’t stop another minute. You’ll find the best blackberries close to the heronry.”

  “Where’s the heronry?” called John.

  “Those high trees,” shouted the Mastodon. “The tops are full of nests. We very nearly decided to be herons instead of eels. But Daisy decided eels were best. I say, I’ve thought of a whole lot of things we can do when the rest of the Eels come. Four’s nothing. But with seven of you as well.”

  “Eels for ever!” shouted Nancy, and added, to John, “I told you it would make all the difference.”

  “There may be news from the others at home,” shouted the Mastodon. “Anyhow … No time now. We’ll talk tonight.”

  “Grand Council,” called Nancy. “Eels for ever!”

  “Karabadangbaraka!” shouted the Mastodon joyfully.

  “Akarabgnadabarak,” shouted seven explorers from the top of the dyke, as they watched the Mastodon, with a flapping empty knapsack in one hand, run, with that queer swinging gait of his, so that his splatchers should not catch each other, across the soft mud at the bottom of the creek. They watched him struggle up the bank on the further side, hang his splatchers on a bush, and race off over the marshes.

  “I don’t wonder you thought he was a mastodon,” said Nancy, looking down from the dyke at those huge round hoofmarks on the mud of the creek. “And what a place he’s got to live in.”

  “Wait till you’ve seen the inside,” said Roger. “Susan and Bridget haven’t seen it either.”

  “How do you get into it?” asked Bridget, looking at the wide gap that separated the bows of Speedy from the bank.

  “He’s got a drawbridge,” said Roger. “Jolly springy too. You and Sinbad’ll both have to cross it on all fours. There’ll be water all round it. It’ll be as good as the houseboat, only we won’t be making the Mastodon walk the plank.”

  “Why not?” said Bridget.

  “Because you scratched your finger,” said Roger.

  “Oh,” said Bridget. “Because he’s a blood brother and sister. I said it right first time.”

  “Look here,” said John. “Let’s begin. This island looks just like ours and we’ll do it the same way. It looks as if there’s a dyke all round, with marshes outside it and dry ground inside. That heronry’ll be jolly useful, too. We’ll be able to see the tallest of the trees from anywhere.”

  “Why do you want to see it?” asked Peggy.

  “Not to get lost,” said Nancy. “But I don’t see how you could on an island.”

  “It’s like this. …” said John.

  Nancy and Peggy, for once, had something to learn. The others, now experienced surveyors after their work on Swallow Island, showed them how to take bearings from that bamboo to another on another corner, and to the tallest tree on the heronry which served as a bamboo pole without having to be planted. Bit by bit, they worked all round the island, and though, perhaps, the resulting map was not up to the standard of the ordnance survey, it gave a much better idea of the island than the mere blob that Daddy had roughed out in pencil.

  Their map showed all the really important things. There was the line of the dyke, with its fringe of saltings. There was the heronry shown by drawings of trees. Though it was not the nesting season they had been lucky enough to see a heron alight on the top of a tree, “backwatering” (Titty’s word) with its wings, as it brought its feet forward to take hold. Most important of all, there was the old barge, Speedy, resting in the mud of the narrow channel that divided Mastodon Island from the mainland.

  They had done a good morning’s work when, at last, they worked round to Speedy again. John and Titty were very much relieved. They had been rather bothered by all that talk of war. They had been a little afraid that the Amazons would not see how important it was, when exploring, to explore, and to make a map as nearly as possible as good as the one they would have made if Daddy had been there to help them. But, though Nancy had all the time been trying new eelish swear words on her tongue, she had worked as hard as any of them. The Secret Archipelago Expedition was going to be the most successful they had ever made.

  From the far side of Mastodon Island, they had seen other islands, far more than Daddy’s map had promised. And now with two boats of their own, and Nancy no longer hankering after war, and the Mastodon an ally, a friend and a blood brother, and more friendly savages to come, they felt there really was a chance of carrying their explorations, north, south, east and west to every bay and island of these inland seas.

  It had been a successful morning in another way. They had found a lot of dead wood and sticks under the heronry, and every stick was worth having in this place where good fuel was so rare. It was lucky, as Roger pointed out, that the herons had not wanted them all for their nests. Everybody but Bridget was carrying something for the fire. Bridget, because she was going to be a human sacrifice, was allowed to carry the totem in the hand that was not bandaged. She sat in the bows of Wizard, holding the totem as a figurehead, when they left Mastodon Island and rowed across to the landing place below the camp.

  Back in the camp, the totem was planted in its old place by the meal-dial.

  “He’s taken away the four shells,” said Roger.

  “Of course,” said Titty. “Those were meant for the four savages of the tribe.”

  “We’ll give it something better,” said Susan. “Let’s give it Nancy’s watch. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Good idea,” said Nancy, and unstrapped her wrist watch and then, fastening the buckle, slipped it over the eel’s head of the totem, and let it hang there.

  “Totem and clock-tower,” said Roger. “One o’clock, too. Look at the dinner stick. We’d got it in just the right place. The shadow’s going to touch it in a minute.”

  “Dinner in half an hour,” said Susan. “No chops left. We’ll hot up a steak and kidney pudding. And what about tinned pears?”

  “I’ll be opening them,” said Peggy.

  “Wriggling Elvers!” said Nancy. “My throat’s as rough as the inside of a seaboot.”

  “I’m jolly thirsty, too,” said Roger.

  “Ration of grog,” said John. “We’ve earned it.”

  “Splice the mainbrace,” said Nancy.

  Bottles of ginger beer were dealt out, with a warning not to gollop them and have nothing to drink at dinner. The explorers wetted their throats while the survey of Mastodon Island was added to the map. Nancy and John compared the rough maps they had made and pencilled in darkly the outline on which they finally agreed. John, working carefully with the parallel rulers to check the important bearings, copied the result. Daddy’s map began to look more and more like a real map instead of like a lot of lines that might be water or earth or anything else. The beginning, with Swallow Island, Cape Horn, the southern part of the Secret Water and the northern part of the Red Sea, by taking in Mastodon Island had made a notable push into the west.

  “I do believe we’re going to get it all done,” said John. “If the rest of the Eels are half as good as the Mastodon, we’ll have six boats for doing all the rest.”

  It was a very cheerful dinner, though John was in rather a hurry to get it over, and kept looking at the totem clocktower.

  “We’ve got to meet him at high water,” he said. “He says you can’t get to the place except then, and we’ve got to find the way ourselves. The sooner we start the better.”

  “We mustn’t miss him,” said Roger. “I expect he’s bringing grub for tonigh
t.”

  “Peggy and I’ve been thinking about that,” said Susan. “He’s all by himself and there’s such an awful lot of us. There’ll be the banana and blackberry mash to take. We’ll want a few more blackberries, and we’ve thought of something else to help in case of need. We’re not coming with you. Bridget’s done enough exploring for one day. We’re going hunting for the pot.”

  “Hunting what?” said Roger.

  “Mushrooms,” said Susan. “I spotted some yesterday on the buffalo grazing grounds.”

  “We thought we’d take some stewed mushrooms with us,” said Peggy. “Ready done, so he won’t have to cook them.”

  “And a tin of pemmican,” said Susan. “Living alone, he probably doesn’t know what a lot seven explorers can eat. It’d be awful if at the last minute he hadn’t got enough to go round.”

  “We needn’t say anything about the pemmican,” said Titty. “We could just keep it hidden in the boat and remember it was there if it was wanted.”

  “Let’s get started anyway,” said John.

  CHAPTER XIV

  WITCH’S QUAY

  THERE WAS LITTLE more than enough wind to fill the sails as the two boats of the explorers drifted up Goblin Greek and round the island into the Red Sea. John and Roger were in Wizard. Titty had joined Nancy in Firefly.

  With one of the rough copies of Commander Walker’s map in each boat, they were off to chart the winding channel to the old quay of which the Mastodon had told them, and, if possible, to get there at high water and to meet the Mastodon on his return from civilization. Civilization, houses, railways, motor cars, and all the rest of it, seemed very far away as the two boats drifted along with the tide. Only, in the distance a thin tower, like the stump of a pencil, and a few white houses and the top sail of a barge moving beyond them out at sea, reminded them that there was anything outside this secret world of mud and weeds and gently moving water.