Swallows and Amazons

by Arthur Ransome

  “Go ahead, Polly,” said Captain Flint, “smash it up.”

  “Pretty Polly,” said the parrot, and holding the little idol in one claw twisted at it with its strong curved beak.

  “Why on earth they couldn’t have taken some of these things if they wanted them, beats me,” said Captain Flint, who from living alone so much was accustomed to talk a good deal to himself and to the parrot. “And then they go and take the one thing that could be of no possible use to them but mattered a great deal to me. Never lock anything up, Polly, and you’ll never lose it. Whoever the thief was, he took that box simply because it was heavy and he couldn’t open it. If it was that boy he must be a strong one. But perhaps he had others to help him. Well, when he does open it he’ll be sorry he didn’t take something else. Mixed Moss, by ‘A Rolling Stone’, won’t mean much to him, Polly, though it meant a lot of hard work to me.”

  “Pretty Polly,” said the parrot, as the head of the idol dropped on the floor.

  Captain Flint bent to pick up the fallen head, and a broken emu’s egg cracked under his feet.

  “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” said Captain Flint, “won’t put Humpty Dumpty together again and won’t make me sit down to write Mixed Moss a second time.”

  The green parrot gave a loud, angry shriek when Captain Flint picked up the little jade head.

  “Oh well, take it, then,” said Captain Flint. The parrot waddled towards him along the table, and, gripping the edge of the table with one claw, took the head from him with the other.

  “It’s just a summer wasted,” said Captain Flint. “And all my diaries gone too.”

  “Pretty Polly,” said the parrot.

  “There is one thing about it,” said Captain Flint, picking up an armful of clothes and shoving them into one of the cupboards, “those nieces of mine had nothing to do with it. They do play the game, and they’d never have wrecked my cabin for me. But that boy. I didn’t like his lying to me about his firework on my cabin roof. Boys are capable of anything, Polly, even good ones. I was a bad one myself, so they say, but at least I didn’t tell lies.”

  At that moment a small folded piece of paper flew through the cabin window and dropped on the table. The parrot shuffled towards it and picked it up. It seemed to be better material for beak work than the remains of the little jade image. Captain Flint looked out.

  “Hullo, Nancy,” he said. “Come to gloat?”

  “I won’t speak to you,” said Nancy. “I’ve tipped you the Black Spot. Read it.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I won’t speak to you till you’ve said you’re sorry. Read the Black Spot and you’ll see why.”

  Captain Flint was just in time to save the paper from the parrot. It was already in two pieces. Captain Flint untwisted them and put them together. On one side was a large round smudge made with the charred wood. On the other was a letter.

  “To Captain Flint (alias Uncle Jim),

  John never touched the houseboat. When you told him he was a liar, he wasn’t. You were. He had come at risk of his life to warn you that savage natives were planning an attack on your houseboat. The Billies had given him a message for you. You wouldn’t listen. Instead you called him a liar. Talk about being ungrateful. Now you’ve been burgled. I’m glad. Very glad. If you want to know who singed your beard (see Philip of Spain) by exploding a mine on your cabin roof, it was the undersigned. You deserved it. This is the Black Spot. You are deposed from being an uncle or anything decent.

  NANCY BLACKETT (Amazon pirate).”

  “Hi! Nancy!” shouted Captain Flint out of the cabin window.

  But Captain Nancy, anxious to show the Swallows that she was holding no parley with the enemy, was already rowing out of the bay.

  “By Jove!” said Captain Flint, “so it was those young harum-scarums all the time. What a brute that boy must have thought me. And I was a brute too. And now I’ve gone and told the police that I thought he might have something to do with this mess. Into your private cabin with you, Polly. There’s too much about to leave you in charge here.”

  He put the parrot, squawking wildly, into its cage, ran up on deck, jumped down into his rowing boat, cast off the painter and set off after Captain Nancy, rowing as hard as he could. Whatever happened, he must see that boy at once and put things right.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  HE MAKES PEACE AND DECLARES WAR

  FOR SOME MOMENTS after Nancy had rowed away Peggy and the Swallows stared after her in silence. No one knew exactly what she was going to do.

  “Perhaps I ought not to have told her about it,” John said at last.

  “Rubbish,” said Susan. “She’d have been bound to hear about it sooner or later. Let’s get the Amazons’ tent up before she comes back.”

  “Let’s,” said Peggy. “We’ve got all the things here. Nancy brought the poles.”

  “Oughtn’t we to take Swallow and go and help her?” said Titty.

  “Better not,” said Peggy. “If she’d wanted help she wouldn’t have gone alone.”

  She unrolled her big white bundle. It was a tent but not made like the tents of the Swallows.

  “Where are those poles?” she said. “They’re all in two pieces. You fit them together and get four all the same length. Then you push them into the hems at the corners of the tent. They’re a horribly tight fit. The first two are easy enough, but after that it’s awful, because it’s so difficult to keep the hem straight for the pole to go in. I say, if your able-seaman and the boy will hang on to the other end and keep it stretched out, it’ll be easier.”

  Everybody helped. The poles were put together, like fishing rods, and pushed into the hems. At the top of the hems there were little bags for the ends of the poles, like fingers on a glove, and the ends of the poles, in their little bags, stuck out above the tent about six inches or so.

  “They’re just like ears,” said Roger, “donkey’s ears.”

  Then, when the poles were all in, Peggy gathered up the tent in a long bundle, or rather tried to. John took hold of one end of the bundle and she took hold of the other.

  “This way,” she said. “It’s lucky you didn’t pitch your tents on our place, or we really should have had to fight you for it. We couldn’t put it up properly without these two stumps.”

  On the opposite side of the camp to the tents of the Swallows there were two stumps of trees that had been cut down. Between them, now that they looked, the Swallows saw the remains of a worn square patch. Peggy dug about with her fingers in the grass and found a hole at each corner of the square.

  “The tent poles fit into those holes,” she said. “Then these ropes go from the top of the tent to the old tree stumps and round them, and we tighten them up with these bits of wood.”

  The bits of wood had two holes in them, one at each end. The rope ran through one hole, then round the tree stump, then through the other hole, ending in a knot so that it would not pull out again. To tighten the rope, all you had to do was to pull the bit of wood up the rope, and then the other end, by pulling it sideways, stopped it from slipping when you let go.

  “It’s a lot easier with five to work at it,” said Peggy, when the tent stood in its place, and the ropes from the donkey’s ears at each end were properly tautened. “It takes us ages by ourselves. What did you do with that bundle of iron pegs that was with the blankets?”

  “Here they are,” said Titty.

  “There are holes for them too,” said Peggy, “but they have to be hammered in. Oh bother, I forgot our mallet.”

  “Skip for our hammer, Roger,” said Mate Susan.

  Along the bottom of the sides and back of the tent there were loops, and for each loop there was a peg with a crook at the top to hold it. Peggy found the holes that were left from the time of their last camping, and John drove the pegs home with the hammer.

  “There’s nothing else,” said Peggy, “except the groundsheet, and that’s at the harbour with our sleeping-
bags, where I emptied them out of Amazon.”

  “It really is something like a camp now,” said Titty, looking with pride at the three tents and the camp fire, and the kettle and Susan’s newly cleaned frying-pan and saucepan. “Anybody would know it was a camp on a desert island, the moment they saw the sail.”

  “Let’s finish lacing the sail,” said Susan, but John had hurried off to the look-out point to see if he could see anything of Captain Nancy and the Amazon.

  A moment later he came running back into the camp to fetch the telescope.

  “I say, Susan,” he shouted, “Captain Flint is coming after her.”

  “You’re as bad as Titty with her treasure,” said Susan. “Natives don’t do things like that.”

  “But he is,” said John.

  “Uncle Jim isn’t always very like a native,” said Peggy.

  “He’s worse than any native,” said Titty, over her shoulder, as she ran up to the look-out point. The others were close behind her.

  Nancy had been nearly half-way back when Captain Flint in his rowing boat shot out of Houseboat Bay in pursuit of her. She was now close to the island, and Captain Flint, though he had gained a great deal, was still some little way behind her. His was a heavy boat.

  “Well,” said John, “he is coming after her, isn’t he?”

  “Perhaps she’s invited him,” said Susan.

  “And she rowing fit to bust,” said Peggy. “Not she. He’s giving chase.”

  “And look how he’s rowing,” said John.

  “Like a steam engine,” said Roger.

  “He’s fairly lifting his boat along,” said Peggy. “But Nancy’ll beat him. She’s got too much start. Go it, Nancy! Well rowed! Keep it up! Go it, Nancy!”

  The little group on the look-out point shouted as if they were watching a race. Nancy heard them, and glanced once over her shoulder.

  “Come on,” yelled Peggy. “It’s no good putting to sea to help her. But she’ll get here first, and then we can all stop him from landing. Come on. Swallows and Amazons for ever!”

  “And death to Captain Flint,” shouted Titty.

  They ran down to the landing-place. Nancy came rowing in, very much out of breath, but still six or seven lengths ahead of Captain Flint.

  “We’re in for it now, my lads,” she panted, as she jumped ashore.

  A few moments later Captain Flint’s rowing boat grounded beside the Amazon. It was instantly seized and pushed off again by Nancy and Peggy.

  Captain Flint had been laying his oars in. But feeling himself again afloat, he dipped his blades in the water again and turned to look at his enemies. His manner was not at all fierce. His face was red, but that was with the heat of rowing. His voice was mild. Almost, it might have been thought that he was shy.

  “May I come ashore?” he said.

  “Friend or enemy?” asked Nancy breathlessly.

  “GO IT, NANCY!”

  “Well, not an enemy,” said Captain Flint. “Distressed British seaman, more like.”

  “You’ve had the Black Spot,” said Nancy. “We’ve got nothing more to do with you.”

  “I’ve come to apologise,” said Captain Flint, “Not to you, Nancy.”

  “Shall we let him land, Captain John?” asked Nancy. But John, at hearing Captain Flint’s last words, had walked away.

  “You have been an awful pig to him, you know,” said Nancy, “but we’ll let you land.”

  Captain Flint brought his boat in once more, stepped out of her, and taking no notice of anyone else, walked after Captain John.

  Captain John was walking away along the path to the harbour. Captain Flint hurried after him.

  “Young man,” he said in a very friendly voice.

  “Yes,” said John.

  “I’ve got something to say to you. Don’t treat me in the way I treated you the other day and refuse to listen to me. I was altogether in the wrong. It was beastly of me even if I had been in the right. I ought to have known you were telling the truth. And I ought not to have called you a liar, anyway. I’m very sorry. Will you shake hands?”

  There was a most unpleasant lump in Captain John’s throat. He found that it was almost more upsetting to have things put right than it had been when they went wrong. Then at least he could be angry, and that was a help. This was worse. He swallowed twice, and he bit the inside of his lip pretty hard. He held out his hand. Captain Flint took it, and shook it firmly. John felt suddenly better.

  “It’s all right now,” said he.

  “I really am most awfully sorry,” said Captain Flint. “You know I was quite sure it had been you because I saw your boat and you, and never saw my wretched nieces. Not that that is any excuse for the way I behaved.”

  “It’s quite all right,” said John.

  They walked back towards the others.

  “I’ve been paid for it in a way,” said Captain Flint. “Nancy tells me you came to warn me, and give me a message or something. If I’d only listened to you instead of being a cross-grained curmudgeonly idiot, I shouldn’t have lost my book. I’d have taken it with me. Nancy’s told you what’s happened?”

  “Yes,” said Captain John, “but I didn’t come only to warn you. I was going to tell you what the charcoal-burners had asked us to tell Nancy and Peggy. Then I was going to tell you you were all wrong about that paper you put in my tent. Then I was going to tell you I’d never been near the houseboat. And then I was going to declare war.”

  “Well, I call that really friendly,” said Captain Flint. “Do you hear that, Nancy?” he said, as they came back to the others who had come up to the camp. “Do you hear that? He was coming to declare war on me.”

  “Of course he was,” said Nancy. “We all were. We have an offensive and defensive alliance against you. We were going to capture the houseboat ourselves, and give you your choice between walking the plank and throwing in your lot with us like last year. He was sick with you because you’d told the natives he’d been at the houseboat when he hadn’t, and we were sick with you because of all this silly book-writing. But it’s no good now, of course. You’ve had the Black Spot, and we won’t have anything more to do with you.”

  “I don’t know that it’s too late,” said Captain Flint. “There’s no more of the book-writing, anyhow. The book’s gone, and the typewriter with it, and I’m too old to start writing it all over again. I’m ready for a declaration of war whenever you like.”

  “I didn’t want to capture the houseboat,” Titty broke out. “I wanted to sink her. I wish we’d sunk her at the very first.”

  “But why?”

  “Titty!” said Susan, warningly.

  “Because nobody could have been such a beastly enemy as you,” said Titty. “We hadn’t done anything to you, and you made the natives think we had, and then, when Captain John tried to help you …”

  “Yes, I know,” said Captain Flint. “I was a beast, but I can’t do more than say I’m very sorry. And I really am.”

  “It’s all right about that, Titty,” said John. “It’s all put right. It’s over.”

  “Look here,” said Captain Flint. “I’ll do anything I can to make up. I’ve wasted my own summer, writing a book, and I’ve wasted some of yours too, Nancy’s and Peggy’s I mean, but I see their tent is here, so I suppose you are all together in things. Take back your Black Spot, and make peace with me, and we’ll have a first-class war at once. If you want to capture the houseboat come and do your worst. I’ll be ready for you. I’ve got nothing else to do now and I’ll make up for lost time.”

  “Shall we forgive him?” said Peggy. “He’s quite good at being one of us if he likes.”

  “We’ll forgive him,” said Nancy, “if it’s to be war, and a real battle on the houseboat. We’ll forgive him because he’s ashamed, and because he’s in trouble. He really has had his houseboat burgled.”

  “Well, he deserved it,” said Titty.

  “Yes,” said Nancy, “but nobody ought to be allowed to burg
le it except ourselves.”

  “Real battle,” said Captain Flint. “At three o’clock tomorrow. I must tidy up below after those scoundrels. But at three o’clock tomorrow I’ll be cleared for action.”

  “Really and truly?” said Peggy.

  “Honest Pirate!” said Captain Flint.

  “All right,” said Nancy.

  “Take back your Black Spot, then,” said Captain Flint.

  “You keep it,” said Nancy, “to remind you never to turn native again.”

  “I will,” he said. “But look here, I’d like to know the names of my enemies. And by the way, why in your Black Spot did you call me Captain Flint?”

  “Because Titty, that’s their able-seaman, said you were a retired pirate.”

  “Why, so I am. But which is Titty? Are you Titty?” he said to Susan.

  “Of course she isn’t,” said Nancy. “She is the mate of the Swallow, and her name is Susan.”

  “How do you do, Mister Mate?” said Captain Flint.

  “And this is Captain John of the Swallow.”

  “The skipper and I have met already. He’s forgiven me, though I don’t deserve it.”

  “This is Able-seaman Titty. Able-seaman Titty, Captain Flint.”

  “So it was you who knew the dark secret of my pirate past.”

  “I saw the parrot,” said Titty.

  “And this is Roger, their ship’s boy.”

  “I’ve been a ship’s boy myself,” said Captain Flint. “It’s a hard life.”

  “And we are the Amazon pirates.”

  “I know you two ruffians well enough,” said Captain Flint.

  “Do you really mean a battle on the houseboat tomorrow?” said Titty.

  “Tomorrow as ever is,” said Captain Flint.

  “We’ll take her,” said the able-seaman. “Have you got a good plank?”

  “What for?”

  “To walk,” said the able-seaman.

  “Everything shall be in order,” said the retired pirate, who, of course, knew just how things should be.