Secret Water

by Arthur Ransome

  “Why?”

  “And stick them on with glue.”

  “What for?” shouted Roger.

  “To save your scalps!”

  With tide and wind to help them, the savages were already nearing the mouth of Goblin Creek, and out of shouting distance, before even Roger had thought of what to say to them.

  The explorers went up to their camp. John carried the damaged rudder. The iron of the pintle was too strong to be bent by either of the captains. “It’s a boatbuilder’s job,” said John. “We’ve got to have it put exactly right.”

  “Well, there’s one thing about it,” said Nancy. “You were going to do the road over the Red Sea tomorrow anyway. You could just as well go on into the town. It won’t really be a waste of time, you haven’t been there yet.”

  “And we can telephone,” said Susan.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  RED SEA CROSSING: ISRAELITES

  IT WAS A broiling hot day. The hard sharp shadow of the meal-dial was moving towards the dinner peg. Nancy’s watch, hanging on the totem, said that it was getting on for twelve o’clock, when the Wade would be dry, and the explorers would be able to cross the Red Sea, survey the road, and take the damaged rudder to the town. They were all going, except for Nancy and Peggy who had been to the town before and, full of plans for the evening, had almost turned into Eels already. Everybody wanted to see what the town was like, and it was the first chance they had had of talking to Mother on the telephone. Since breakfast they had been busy on the map. Yesterday’s work with the six boats had given them a lot to do, John fitting six sketch maps into one, Titty copying and inking, and the others explaining what those squiggles meant which nobody but the one who had drawn them could understand.

  The map was looking really like a map. Almost everywhere Daddy’s broad pencil outlines had been rubbed out. Land and sea no longer looked the same. The huge unexplored areas had shrunk almost to nothing, except to the north of the Secret Water where, on the day that they had spent there, fear of hostile savages had made exploring almost impossible.

  “It’s getting on now,” said Titty, lifting herself on her elbows to look at her work from a distance.

  “I do believe Daddy’ll say ‘Not bad’,” said John.

  “Meaning ‘Jolly good’,” said Roger.

  “Just those two passages to make sure of,” said John. “I say, Nancy. … Where is she?”

  There was noise of singing. Nancy, who had wandered off to look out over the Secret Water, was coming back along the dyke and lifting up her voice in a tune that everybody knew. Everybody knew the tune, but something had happened to the words.

  “The Congers are coming, Hurrah! Hurrah!…

  With a tumty ti tiddley la la la …”

  She broke off short and started again.

  “She’s making a song for tonight,” said Peggy. “She began this morning as soon as she woke up.”

  John beckoned. Nancy looked over her shoulder, waved and tried another tune.

  “The mud’s all a-shiver

  With fins all a-quiver.

  Big eels and little eels snaking along.

  “Squirming and squiggling,

  Worming and wriggling

  Answer the call of the savages’ gong. …

  “They’re in sight,” she said, as she came into the camp.

  “It’s about Peewitland,” said John. “Couldn’t you. …?”

  He got no further.

  “There they are,” cried Roger. “Why aren’t they sailing?”

  The three little boats of the savages were coming in at the mouth of Goblin Creek.

  “Boats jolly low in the water,” said Roger. “They’ve got a cargo.” He set off at a run to the landing place, followed by the others.

  “Karabadangbaraka!” Three joyful hails came over the water.

  “Come on,” said Nancy quietly. “Let them have it. All together!”

  A combined roar of “Akarabgnadabarak!” came from the seven explorers.

  “No wonder they aren’t sailing,” said Roger. “They’ve hardly got room for themselves. That’s for the fire. I told them we hadn’t got much wood.”

  Sticks and logs and bits of broken boxes stuck up above the gunwale of each boat. Each boat was loaded as full as she could be.

  “Look at that,” said Nancy. “Good old Eels.”

  “We’ve been up since five,” said Daisy, as she pulled in to the landing place. “And just look at the result.”

  “It’ll make a gorgeous fire,” said Roger. “Enough to roast an ox.”

  “Just right to roast a sacrifice,” said Daisy.

  “Roast?” said Bridget rather doubtfully.

  “All right, Bridgie,” whispered Titty. “Human sacrifices always get rescued at the last minute.”

  “Has the Mastodon caught the stew?” asked Daisy.

  “I saw him digging worms,” said Roger. “He said low water’s the time to start fishing. But I’m not going to be able to help him. We’re all going to the town.”

  “That’s all right,” said Daisy. “So long as you get back in time for the corroboree. And you’ll have to because the Wade’ll be covered again by four. I say, it’s an awful pity about that rudder. …”

  “The boatbuilder’s close to the Yacht Club,” said Dum.

  “All hands to discharge cargo!” said John.

  Daisy looked at Nancy, and got an answering wink.

  “We’ll do all that,” she said. “The sooner you go the sooner you’ll get back.”

  “The Wade must be pretty nearly dry,” said Dee.

  “You’ve all got boots,” said Daisy.

  It was clear that the Eels were anxious to see the explorers on their way.

  “Well, I’m ready,” said Susan. “Peggy’s got one lot of sandwiches, and ours are in my knapsack. I haven’t made a shopping list. But we’ll do that on the way. Can anybody think of anything we want?”

  “We ate the last bit of chocolate yesterday,” said Roger.

  “Can’t you think of anything but chocolate?” said John.

  “Of course I can,” said Roger. “But chocolate’s jolly important. All explorers have it. Scott and Nansen and Columbus. …”

  “Not Columbus,” said Titty. “It wasn’t invented then.”

  “Well, I bet he’d have fairly hogged it if he’d had a chance.”

  “I’ve just got to catch Sinbad,” said Bridget.

  “Oh, look here, Bridget, we simply can’t take him,” said Susan.

  “Not without seaboots,” said Roger.

  “With or without,” said Susan.

  “But you didn’t let me take him yesterday,” said Bridget. “You promised I could take him next time. And we’re going to be on land, not in a boat.”

  “Why not leave him with us?” said Daisy.

  “Great Congers!” said Nancy. “We can’t have him. Just remember all we’ve got to do.”

  “He’s coming with me,” said Bridget. “He loves walking.”

  “In circles,” said Roger.

  And then, seeing danger signals in Bridget’s face, Susan gave in and said Sinbad could come if he came in a basket.

  “You’ll have to carry him all the way,” said John. “We’ve got to go like hares, and we can’t have Sinbad holding us up while he’s chasing his tail.”

  “Turning us into tortoises,” said Roger.

  “All right, Bridgie,” said Titty. “Sinbad’ll cross the Red Sea in a palanquin.”

  The Eels, leaving their laden vessels at the landing place, came up to the camp to see the explorers start.

  “Get back as quick as you can,” said Nancy. “And set out your sentinels. I bet you can’t stop us. And don’t go thinking the whites’ll have it all their own way. Six full-blooded Eels, counting Peggy and me. One awful rush and the camp’ll be full of a howling horde.”

  “We’ll be ready for you,” said John. “But look here, Nancy. Do get Peewitland mapped. No need to keep in sight of
the camp now. If you get ashore there you could finish it up and find out if it’s an island or not, even if you can’t sail round it with the tide out. Then there’ll only be the North West Passage left … if there is one.”

  “Aye, aye, White Chief,” said Nancy.

  “You can’t have the sacrifice till I come back,” said Bridget.

  “Don’t you worry,” said Nancy.

  “Give her lots of those cream buns in the town,” said Daisy. “The ones grown-ups won’t eat because of their figures.”

  *

  They were off, hurrying in single file along the narrow pathway on the top of the dyke. Susan had an empty knapsack on her back. They had run short of cornflakes and sugar and with all the savages coming that night there were several other things that Susan meant to get. John was carrying the damaged rudder and a bulging pocket showed that he had not forgotten his compass. Titty had brought the telescope. Both she and John had brought copies of the map. Roger was carrying Sinbad’s basket, and Bridget, close behind him, was putting a hand in now and then to tickle Sinbad and to make him feel he was part of the expedition and not a mere parcel.

  Already the marshes below the dyke were clear of water. Where at high tide patches of weed showed above the surface, there were now lumps of weed-covered mud, with ditches running winding this way and that among them. And beyond the marshes was a wide smooth sheet of mud. The Red Sea was sea no longer, but mud with narrow rivers winding through the middle of it.

  Titty had been looking forward to the crossing of the Red Sea ever since the first day when in the morning she had seen it a muddy desert with the strange tracks and diggings of the Mastodon straggling across it, and in the afternoon had been rowed over that same desert when circumnavigating the island. At low tide she had seen the road, with its cart track, and the withies here and there to mark where it lay. At high water she had crossed that line of withies in a boat, knowing that the road lay somewhere under her keel. But she had never walked along it. The Red Sea was the very name for that strange place. Israelites and Egyptians. A tidal wave, rolling in unexpectedly from the sea just when the Israelites were half way across, would turn them suddenly into Egyptians, drowning them and their camels and baggage trains and sacred cats. Titty just glanced back at the basket Roger was carrying. Sinbad. Some people might almost think it was an omen. The sacred cat in his palanquin. And then she remembered how very different was the sheltered life of a sacred cat from the short and far from sheltered life of Sinbad, who had already had all kinds of adventures and been rescued from a chicken coop floating in the North Sea. She laughed.

  “What is it?” asked John.

  “I was just thinking about sacred cats,” said Titty.

  “What?”

  “And the Egyptians. … You know. …” And she stopped. She remembered Bridget. No good talking to Bridget about the sea swallowing up the Egyptians, just when they were going to leave the island and walk out over the mud on that narrow road with salt water still in ruts, and the land on the further side still so very far away.

  “Go on,” said Roger. “Spit it out, Titty. What made you laugh?”

  “Oh nothing,” said Titty. “Just thinking about sacred cats and Sinbad. He’s so very different,” she finished lamely.

  “Just as heavy,” said Roger, and Titty snatched gratefully at the change of subject.

  “I’ll carry him for a bit,” she said. “Of course, to make his basket a real palanquin we ought to sling it from a pole, but he’d probably be seasick, swinging about.”

  “It’s a beastly awkward basket,” said Roger. “And he will move about in it, so it’s his own fault when it bumps against my knee.”

  At the point where the road from the farm lifted over the dyke and dropped down, a narrow strip of hard gravel, to the level of the sea, John stopped, put the rudder on the ground and had a look at his compass, squinting over it first at the farm, and then at the line of the road over the mud.

  “We’ve got that all right,” he said. “The kraal bears due north from here, and the road lies just about south by west. I’ll take another couple of bearings from the place with the four posts out in the middle.” He scribbled the bearings on his copy of the map, and set out to follow Susan, who had not waited but was already on the way out over the mud.

  “We’d better get there as soon as we can,” she said as the others caught up with her.

  “It doesn’t take a moment just getting the bearings,” said John, “and we may be in even more of a hurry on the way back.”

  “Before the tide comes in again,” said Roger. “It’d be a jolly long way to swim.”

  “There isn’t going to be any swimming,” said Susan.

  “We couldn’t anyhow,” said Roger. “Not with Bridget and Sinbad.”

  “You weren’t able to swim once,” said Bridget.

  “He used to swim with one foot on the bottom,” laughed Susan.

  “I can do that,” said Bridget.

  “Sinbad can’t,” said Roger.

  The road was much better than they had expected. There were deep puddles in it, left by the tide. There was a layer of soft mud over it, but never deep enough to cover their ankles. Under the mud there was good hard gravel, and it was easy walking, though they found it best not to walk too near together, because nobody could help splashing the mud about. There was nothing but mud on each side of the road and Roger, just trying whether it was hard or soft, very nearly lost a boot in it.

  “Gosh!” he said as he struggled back on the hard track, with one boot muddy almost to his knee. It wouldn’t be much fun crossing in the dark.”

  “Oh, look here,” said Susan. “You can’t go into the town with one boot as filthy as that.”

  “It’ll be all right in a minute,” said Roger. “There’s still water across the road just ahead. We’ll have to paddle and I’ll wash it all off.”

  “We’d better wait till it’s gone down a little more,” said Susan, seeing a thin ribbon of water crossing the road and joining the channels on either side.

  “It’s only a few inches deep,” said John. “I’ll go first and try.”

  A minute later he was splashing through. “All right,” he said. “Come on. Keep in the middle of the road. It isn’t up to my ankles. There’s another wet bit ahead. There must be two channels, not one. Here are the posts we sailed through. We’d have found deeper water on either side of them. Half a second, Roger. Make a desk of your back. I say, Titty. Hang on to the rudder a minute.”

  Roger set his legs apart and steadied himself, while John made pencil notes on the map which he put between Roger’s shoulders.

  “Don’t wriggle,” he said. “East by south to the point. North half east to the kraal.”

  “Don’t tickle with the pencil,” said Roger, trying to look upwards while still being a desk. “What is it? What is it, Titty? Hawk? I can’t see anything.”

  Titty did not answer. She did not hear him. She was standing between the four posts, the tops of which had been awash when they had sailed through. She was looking straight above her and seeing not hawks or larks or infinite blue sky, but a few feet of swirling water over her head and the red painted bottom and centreboard of a little boat.

  Bridget wriggled a hand into the basket to stroke Sinbad. Roger pulled at Titty’s elbow. “I can’t see anything,” he said again.

  “Neither can I,” said Titty, “not really.” She looked back towards the island and then forward toward the distant shore. When she had crossed the Wade in the Mastodon’s boat, there had been water from shore to shore and the posts had been awash, with here and there just the top of a withy swaying in the current. And now, here they were, standing in the middle of what had been a sea, with drying mud everywhere, the tall posts standing up above their heads, and the withies sticking up out of the mud like sapling trees on land.

  “In a few hours it’ll all be water again,” said Roger slowly.

  “Hurry up, John,” said Susan. “We’v
e got to get to the town and back before that. And you don’t know how long they’ll take to mend the rudder.”

  They went on. The water was only an inch deep at the second place where it crossed the road. In a few more minutes there would have been none at all. But now, in all their minds except Bridget’s there was that odd thought that presently the water would come back, meet over the road, widen and widen, till once more it stretched from the island to the main, a real sea, impassable unless in a boat. It would be hours yet before that could happen, but Bridget, who was thinking of quite other things, was the only one not to feel that the sooner the crossing was over the better.

  CROSSING THE WADE

  “I bet the Israelites went at a good lick,” said Roger. “They would be wondering all the time how soon the water would close up again.”

  “I’ll take Sinbad now,” said Susan. “Roger, you give Bridgie a bit of a start and race her to the end of the road.”

  “Don’t let him start till I say ‘When’,” said Bridget, and splashed off ahead of them.

  “Winning post’s the top of that dyke where the road goes over,” said Roger.

  Bridget, far ahead, looked over her shoulder. She ran on and looked over her shoulder again.

  “Now,” she cried, and galloped on, splashing through puddles and thin mud. Roger was off, after her. Susan, Titty and even John, though they did not run, walked pretty fast. Of course it was all right really. The tide had still some way to fall, and would be a long time coming back again, but everybody found it very pleasant when the road rose steeply towards the land, and there was no more mud on the gravel, and the gravel turned to sand, and the sand was dry enough to stir and lift in little clouds about their feet as they joined Bridget and Roger who, after the usual dead heat, were lying in the hot sun on the top of the dyke getting back their breath. It somehow felt quite different to be on dry land again, instead of on a road that was under water for a good part of every day.

  Again John took bearings, to make sure of getting the end of the road marked in the right place on his map. Susan dealt out sandwiches, and Sinbad was let out of his palanquin, to see what he thought of the new country and to get a bit of exercise.