Swallows and Amazons

by Arthur Ransome

  All four were in the stern of the boat to give her her best chance with a following wind. John steered, and the other three sat in the bottom of the boat. The little Swallow foamed through the water. John did his best to keep her nose steadily on the outermost point of Darien, but, glancing back, he knew that he was not steering so well as the girl at the tiller of the Amazon. Still, he did his best, and the noise of the water boiling under Swallow’s forefoot showed that Swallow was doing her best too. The tops of the trees on the shores of the lake seemed to race across the purple slopes of the hills.

  Houseboat Bay opened up. There was the houseboat and on the foredeck of her stood the fat man.

  “He’s very angry about something,” said Titty.

  He seemed to be shaking his fist at them, but they could not be sure, and presently they had passed the further point and could not see him.

  Darien grew clearer and larger every moment.

  “They’ll have lost the wind the other side of Darien,” said John, “and they won’t get much until they get beyond the islands off Rio. They’ve a long start of us, but we may get a sight of them and see where they go.”

  The Swallow rounded the point of Darien. All her crew looked towards Holly Howe. Outside the farmhouse they could see two figures and a perambulator – Mother, Nurse, and Vicky. They seemed to belong to a different, distant life. There they were, placid in the sunshine. Vicky was probably asleep. And here, foaming through the water, ran the Swallow, carrying Vicky’s brothers and sisters who, not an hour before, not half an hour before, had seen with their own eyes the black flag with the skull and crossbones upon it run to the masthead by a strange vessel which, so they thought, had actually been fired at by the retired pirate with the green parrot from the houseboat in Houseboat Bay.

  For a moment or two no one said anything.

  Then Susan said, “It’s no use trying to tell Mother about the pirates, not until it’s all over, anyhow. But we must put it in the log and tell her afterwards.”

  “We’ll tell her when she isn’t a native any more,” said Titty. “It’s not the sort of thing you tell to natives.”

  The Swallow ran on. There were now more houses on the eastern shore of the lake. The further they went, the more houses there were. There were islands. One big one had houses on it. A long sandy spit ran out with boathouses on its further side. The houses, no longer scattered among trees, clustered on the side of the hill above the little town of Rio, inhabited entirely by natives who had no idea that this was its name. The Swallow ran on in sheltered water beyond the outer islands and the spit of land. Now they could see Rio Bay and the steamer pier. They were slipping slowly through a fleet of yachts at their moorings. Motor boats were moving about with cargoes of visitors. Captain John sent the Boy Roger forward, to the boy’s delight, as a look-out man, and himself was kept very busy avoiding the rowing boats and canoes. Rio on this summer day was a busy place. A steamship hooted, left the pier, and steamed slowly out of the bay. Not one of all the passengers who looked down from the deck on the little brown-sailed Swallow knew that the four in her were living on a desert island, and that they were interested, not in the big steamer, or the yachts, or the motor boats, but only in another little vessel as small as their own. For the crew of the Swallow there was no other vessel on the water, except, of course, this mass of clumsy native craft which really did not count. Their eyes were only for the pirate vessel they were pursuing.

  She was not in Rio Bay. Four pairs of eyes searched every little jetty. She might have tied up and lowered her sail, in which case she would be hard to see. She might have slipped in behind the islands that made the bay so good a sheltered anchorage for yachts and so suitable a playground for all these noisy natives with their rowing boats.

  “We’ll sail right through the bay,” said Captain John, “and out into the open water, so that we can see right up towards the Arctic. If we can’t see her then we’ll turn back and cruise among the islands.”

  The Swallow slipped through the bay, and almost as soon as she was clear of the long island that lies in front of the town, there was an eager shout from Roger, “Sail Ho!”

  “It’s her,” shouted Susan.

  From the northern entrance of the bay, beyond the long island, it was possible to see far up the lake, a long blue sheet of water stretching away into bigger hills than those which rose from the wooded banks of the southern part.

  Little over a mile away a small white sail was moving rapidly towards a promontory on the western shore. In a moment or two it disappeared.

  “What shall we do now?” said Titty.

  There was a short debate.

  Roger was all for going on. John thought not.

  “We know just where they are now,” he said. “They may be trying to draw us away from the island. If we sail down there, and they come out again, we might have to race them back to our own island. If we stay here we can be sure of getting back there before they do. I think we’d better stay here and eat our pemmican and see whether they come out or not.”

  Susan said. “What about the grog?” And that made them all feel thirsty and hungry.

  “But they might come out while we are buying grog in Rio,” said John. “They might slip through behind the islands, and then when we come back from Rio we might be waiting here while they are capturing our camp.”

  Titty had an idea. There were plenty of small islets at this end of the big islands that sheltered Rio Bay. Why not put her ashore on one of them to watch while they sailed into Rio for the grog. Then at least they could be sure of knowing whether the pirates had come out again or not.

  “Good for Titty,” said Captain John.

  There was a small islet with nothing on it but rocks and heather only a hundred yards away. They sailed to leeward of it, and then John put Swallow’s head up into the wind.

  “Keep a look-out for rocks under water, Roger,” said the mate.

  Swallow slipped along with sail flapping, yard by yard nearer to the islet.

  “Stand by to lower the sail, Mister Mate,” said John, and Susan made ready to lower away in a hurry. But there was no need. The islet rose out of water deep enough to let the Swallow lie afloat close alongside it. There was the gentlest little bump, and Titty was over the side and ashore.

  “The telescope,” she said.

  “Here it is,” said the mate.

  “Push her off,” said John, putting the tiller hard aport.

  Titty pushed. The Swallow moved backwards. Then her sail filled, she hesitated, heeled over a little, and began to move forward again. Titty waved her hand and climbed to the top of the islet, and sat there resting the telescope on her knees.

  Three or four short tacks brought the Swallow to the nearest of the landing stages for rowing boats that run out from the shore in Rio Bay. Roger climbed on to the landing stage, took two turns round a bollard with the painter, and then sat himself on the top of it. To be on the safe side they lowered the sail. Then John and Susan hurried up the landing stage to the little store where you could buy anything from mouse-traps to peppermints.

  “Four bottles of grog, please,” said John without thinking.

  “Ginger beer,” said Susan gravely.

  John was looking at a coil of rope in a corner of the shop.

  “And twenty yards of this rope,” he said.

  The shopman measured off twenty yards and made a neat coil of them. He put four bottles of ginger beer on the counter. John put down his five shillings. He took the coil of rope and two of the bottles. Susan took the other two.

  “It’s a grand day,” said the shopman as he handed out the change.

  “Yes, isn’t it?” said John.

  This was the whole of their conversation with the natives of Rio.

  When they came back to the landing stage, Roger said, “One of the natives came and said, ‘That’s a fine little ship you have there.’”

  “What did you say to him?” asked Susan sternly.

/>   “I said ‘Yes,’” said Roger. He, too, had been giving nothing away.

  They sailed back to the islet for Titty. She waved to them when she saw them coming, and was at the water’s edge ready to climb in when John brought Swallow alongside.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “They haven’t come out. They must be still in there behind that promontory.”

  “Well, I’m glad we know, anyway,” said John.

  “May I land on Titty’s island?” said Roger.

  “Why not all land and have dinner on it?” said Susan.

  So they lowered the sail and landed, taking the anchor with them and letting Swallow lie in the lee of the island at the end of the anchor rope. A rock on the top of the islet made a table. John opened the pemmican tin, and jerked it till the pemmican came out all in one lump. Susan cut up the loaf and spread the butter, so that no one slice should be thicker spread than another. On the hunks of bread and butter they put hunks of pemmican, and washed them down with deep draughts of Rio grog out of the stone bottles. Then they ate the apples. All the time they kept a close watch on the promontory where the little white sail of the pirate ship had disappeared.

  ROGER ON GUARD

  “They may never have seen us at all,” said Susan.

  “I’m sure they did or they would never have hoisted that flag,” said John.

  “Perhaps,” said Titty, “there were more of them. Perhaps these ones showed their flag so as to draw us away from the island while some of their allies landed there and took our camp.”

  “I never thought of that,” said John. “There may have been a whole fleet of them waiting for us to go.”

  “They may be on our island now,” said Titty.

  “Anyway, let’s sail,” said Roger, who was never happy unless he could hear the water under Swallow’s forefoot.

  It was lively work sailing home, tacking through the native shipping in Rio bay, and then beating against the south-west wind which met them squarely once they had left the shelter of the islands. They thought of taking in a reef, but did not want to if they could help it. There were hardish squalls now and again, and Mate Susan stood by ready to slip the halyard and bring the sail down if it was necessary. Roger got so wet with the spray splashing in over the bows that Susan made him come aft and sit in the bottom of the boat. There was no time to think of anything but the sailing until they came in under the lee of their own island. In Houseboat Bay the man on the houseboat got up from his chair on the after-deck and looked at them through binoculars. But they hardly noticed him.

  “Wind’ll drop at sunset,” said John. “We’ll land at the old landing-place. Swallow will be in good shelter there, and I’ll take her round to the harbour later on when it isn’t blowing so hard.”

  So they landed at the old place. As soon as they landed they ran in a bunch up to their camp and looked into the tents. Then they went all over the island. Everything was just as they had left it. Nobody had been there. The pirates in the Amazon had had no allies.

  They made a fire in the fireplace, and by the time they were sitting round it drinking their tea they had begun to think that they had been altogether wrong in thinking that the pirate flag had been hoisted on the Amazon for them to see. They began even not to be sure that they had heard the gun in Houseboat Bay.

  “Why did the man on the houseboat shake his fist at us?” said Titty. “Something must have happened to make him.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t really,” said John.

  “I don’t suppose we shall ever see the pirates again,” said Titty sadly.

  “If they were pirates,” said Susan.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE ARROW WITH THE GREEN FEATHER

  IN THE MORNING John was the first to wake. It was already late. The sun was high overhead. The first days had gone by on which the beginning of the morning light had been enough to waken the explorers. They had grown used to sleeping in a tent. Besides, yesterday, so much had happened. John woke not very happy. Yesterday seemed unreal and wasted. Those pirates, the gun in Houseboat Bay, the chase up the lake to Rio were a sort of dream. He woke in ordinary life. Well, he thought, one could hardly expect that sort of thing to last, and it was almost a pity it had begun. After all, even if there were no pirates, the island was real enough and so was Swallow. He could do without the pirates. It was time to fetch the milk.

  He looked at the lump of blanket on the other side of the tent and decided to let it sleep. He crawled out of his own blankets, put his sandshoes on, picked up the bundle of his clothes and a towel, and slipped out into the lonely sunlight. Taking the milk-can with him he ran down to the landing-place. He splashed out into the water and swam hard for a minute or two. This was better than washing. Then he floated in the sunshine with only his nose and mouth above water. Seagulls were picking minnows from the surface not far away. Perhaps one of them would swoop down on him by mistake. Could it tow him by flying while he clung to its black hanging legs? But the seagulls kept well away from him, and he turned on his side again and swam back to the landing-place. Then he ran through the trees to the harbour, put his clothes and the towel and the milk-can into Swallow, and pushed off.

  He rowed hard for the beach by the oak tree below Dixon’s Farm. The sunshine and the warm southerly wind had almost dried him before he reached it. He gave a dry polish with the towel to the bits of him that seemed damp, put his clothes on, and hurried up the field.

  “You’re not so early this morning,” said Mrs. Dixon, the farmer’s wife.

  “No,” said John.

  “What would you say to a bit of toffee?” said Mrs. Dixon. “I’d nothing to do last night so I fettled you up a baking. Four of you, aren’t there?”

  “Thank you very much,” said John.

  She gave him a big bag of brown toffee when she brought back the milk-can after filling it with milk.

  “Have you had breakfast?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “And you’ve been bathing already. I can see by your hair. You’d better put something into you. Stop a minute while I get you a bit of cake.”

  After swimming, a bit of cake is very welcome, and John saw no harm in eating it. But while he was eating it, Mrs. Dixon said, “Mr. Turner of the houseboat has been asking about you. You haven’t been meddling with his houseboat, have you?”

  “No,” said John.

  “Well, he seems to think you have,” said Mrs. Dixon. “You’d better leave Mr. Turner and his parrot alone.”

  Yesterday suddenly became real once more. John remembered how he had thought he had seen the retired pirate on the houseboat shaking his fist at them. In a moment he was Captain John, responsible for his ship and his crew, and Mrs. Dixon, the farmer’s wife, was a native, not wholly to be trusted in spite of her toffee and cake.

  He set out at once on his way back, thinking that he ought to have wakened the mate before coming to fetch the milk.

  But he could see the island from the field below the farm, and smoke was already rising from among the trees. The mate was up and about, the fire was lit, everything was right, and the kettle would be boiling before he got back with the milk.

  He hurried down to the shore. Able-seaman Titty and the Boy Roger were splashing about by the island. He saw the two white figures splash up out of the water, kicking it in fountains before them. They were still drying themselves when he brought the Swallow to the landing-place. They helped to pull her up.

  “I’ve got some toffee from the natives as well as the milk,” said Captain John.

  “Real toffee?” said Roger.

  “Molasses,” said Titty. “Toffee is only the native name for it.”

  “And I have grave news,” said Captain John. “Something has happened. I shall call a council as soon as we have had breakfast.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said the able-seaman, and poked the boy, who said, “Aye, aye, sir,” too.

  The able-seaman and the boy ran up to the camp with the milk-can and the
molasses. The captain followed them, thinking, with his hands in his pockets.

  “Breakfast ready, sir,” called the mate cheerfully.

  “Thank you, Mister Mate,” said John.

  “Here’s the milk,” said Roger.

  “And a whole bag of molasses,” said Titty. “Do you know how to make rum punch? That’s made out of molasses, isn’t it?”

  “I expect so,” said the mate. “I’ve never tried.”

  Tea was ready. Eggs were boiling in the saucepan, and the mate was timing their boiling by the chronometer.

  “Three minutes,” she said, “and they’d been in a little before I began to count. They’re done all right now.” She fished the eggs out one by one with a spoon. For some minutes eggs and bread and butter and tea put a stop to talking. After that there was bread and marmalade. After that the mate served out a ration of molasses all round. “Molasses are very good anyhow,” she said. “We’ll make rum punch if there are any molasses we don’t want.”

  At last breakfast was over and Captain John spoke. “Mister Mate,” he said, “I call a council.”

  They were all sitting round the fire, which was now burning low. The saucepan full of water was standing among the embers, keeping hot for washing up the stickier things.

  Mate Susan sat up and looked about her.

  “The whole ship’s company is here, sir,” she said.

  “We have an enemy,” said Captain John.

  “Who is it?” said Able-seaman Titty eagerly.

  “It’s the pirates in the Amazon,” said Roger.

  “Shut up,” said the mate.

  “You know the man on the houseboat,” said Captain John.

  “Yes,” said the mate.

  “He has been telling the natives that we have been meddling with his houseboat.”

  “But we’ve never touched it.”