Peter Duck

by Arthur Ransome

  “Is he there already?” she asked breathlessly, for they were putting all they could into their rowing.

  “I can’t see anybody,” John panted back.

  They plugged on. Even for Nancy’s lurid taste things had been happening too fast. Besides, it was all very well to be the Terror of the Seas, but real pirates, like Black Jake and his friends, were altogether different. Bullies. Cowards and bullies, five of them together going for an old man and a boy. Nancy clenched her teeth and dug in so hard with her oar that she all but made John get out of time with her. She did, indeed, feel his oar just touch her back.

  “Sorry,” said John.

  “My fault,” said Nancy.

  They would have said just that if they had got out of time while rowing together on the lake at home. They said it now, though they were rowing in at dusk to an island of landslide and earthquake and half-mad pirates roaming about with stolen guns. Still, some things were the same as usual. Wherever you were you said “Sorry” if you bumped “stroke” in the back with the bow oar, and you said it was your fault if you had happened to change the time unexpectedly because you were thinking of something else.

  They plugged on.

  “Easy a bit,” said John. “We’re close to the reef now.”

  Nancy resolutely looked straight before her at the Wild Cat anchored out there, dim in the twilight. She would not turn round. She rowed steadily though the noise of breaking waves was not more than a few yards away.

  “We’re in,” said John.

  A rock showed in the dusk on the starboard side of the boat. Nancy, steadily rowing, saw it on her left, with a white splash of spray flying up it. Another rock swam into view. Another, higher. Already they were rowing in water sheltered by the reef.

  “Mr Duck said ‘Don’t land!’”

  “We won’t,” said Nancy. “We’ll keep her afloat in the harbour, ready to pull out the moment he comes. If only he hasn’t come already and found nobody here and turned back.”

  “He can’t have done,” said John. “He’d have seen the Wild Cat if he’d come out on the beach. So he wouldn’t think of turning back.”

  They brought Swallow carefully into the tiny harbour from which she had sailed so proudly only a few hours before, a Spanish galleon with treasure in her hold. Everything seemed just as they had left it and yet altogether different, because they could no longer think of the island in the same way. It was no longer their island and theirs alone. Earthquake and landslide had not been enough to make this kind of difference. It was the coming of the Viper that had changed the island for them. Somewhere in the dusk among those fallen trees and lifted roots there were the men who had come aboard the Wild Cat and left Peter Duck roped and helpless on the floor of the deckhouse after one of them had all but killed him with a blow. Somewhere on the island there was the man who had not been ashamed to knock Bill’s teeth out, and to leave him gagged and choking in the bottom of the monkey’s cage. Who could think of the island as the happy place it had been? Worst of all, Captain Flint was still there, thinking only of his crew, and knowing nothing of the danger at his heels.

  It was still light enough at first to see their old camp. Little was left of it. The broken ridge-pole of the tent, a crushed store-tin, Susan’s old fireplace, their own footprints leading down to the water’s edge, and the marks of Swallow’s keel in the sand, showing how they had come down there and launched her to sail away, as they supposed, for ever. The crabs were coming back. They saw several of them, wandering uneasily about, lifting themselves from the ground, slowly waving their pincers from side to side, as if they were feeling their way in a fog.

  “Hullo,” said John, “there’s one of Susan’s spoons. There’s no harm in hopping ashore for that.”

  “No. We’d better get it.”

  The spoon was sticking up out of the sand, its handle buried. John jumped ashore, ran to it, picked it up, looked this way and that along the beach and came down again to the boat.

  “There are lots of crabs round the wreck,” he said. “Hullo, why are you turning her round?”

  “Jump in,” said Nancy, who had taken both oars and turned Swallow’s stern towards the beach. “Better this way. We can pull out at a moment’s notice.”

  John scrambled in and sat down in the stern, while Nancy pulled offshore again and kept the boat in the middle of the little harbour.

  “It’s a horrible place to be alone in,” said John. “I don’t wonder Mr Duck didn’t like it when he was small. Listen!”

  They listened. Tonight there was no noise of wind in trees, for there was hardly any wind, and on this side of the island hardly a tree was standing. Far away they heard the cries of startled birds. There was no other noise except the water breaking on the rocks and the sand, and that was quieter than usual, for the regular swell sweeping in from the east had somehow been flattened out by the storm, and instead there was an undecided sea, sulky and petulant. It was very hot, but though the dusk turned quickly to such darkness that they could only just see the shape of the land against the sky, there were no cheerful fireflies where the ruined forest met the beach.

  John, in the stern sheets, was busy with the hurricane lantern. He lit it, and the moment it was lit neither he nor Nancy could see anything at all outside the boat, unless it was so near that the lantern showed it to them. It showed them, when they drifted that way, the side of the rock that sheltered Duckhaven. It lit up the yellow oar with which Nancy gently fended off. It lit up their faces, oddly white, as they looked at each other across it, and then, as John turned towards the shore and held the lantern at arm’s length, it seemed to Nancy to turn him into a monstrous flickering shadow between her and the light.

  “He ought to see that all right,” said John.

  “They’ll see it, too,” said Nancy.

  John peered into the darkness, but there seemed to be splashes of light everywhere, from the dazzle in his eyes.

  “Well, it’s no good our seeing, anyhow,” he said. “We don’t need to.”

  “I can’t even see the Wild Cat now. No. There she is. There’s the light in the deckhouse door. She’s an awful long way out.”

  Away out to sea in the pitch darkness of a clouded night the schooner was invisible, but now and then a light in the galley or the deckhouse glimmered and died and then shone out again as the Wild Cat swung to her anchor.

  “I’m going to turn her round again,” said Nancy. “It’ll be just as easy to work out stern first, and easier if the Wild Cat’s showing a light. You’d better come back to the bows, so there’ll be less shifting about when he comes.”

  “All right,” said John, and clambered forward with the lantern.

  They were speaking in whispers now, though they did not know why. Sometimes Nancy spoke out loud, on purpose, but she did not keep it up. Whispering seemed easier.

  “I wish he’d hurry up,” said Nancy, after a long wait in silence.

  “I say,” said John, “you don’t think they’ve got him?”

  “Of course they haven’t,” said Nancy. “There’d have been a fight. They’ve got guns. We couldn’t have helped hearing if one of them had gone off.”

  “He’s been an awful long time,” said John.

  “Well,” said Nancy, “just think what it was like just going into the forest a few yards to look for my spring.”

  “It would have been quicker to come round by the shore.”

  Nancy caught her breath.

  “Uncle Jim started straight across. Bill saw him start, and he wouldn’t turn back whatever it was like. Not once he’d started. But if the others came round by the shore … they might easily get here first.”

  IN DUCKHAVEN AT NIGHT

  They stared at each other in the bright glare of the lantern, and looked out of the light into the thick darkness that shut them in.

  “If they’d been coming by the shore they’d have seen the Wild Cat and rushed back to look after their beastly Viper.”

 
“Or hurried on,” said Nancy. “Bill heard them say they’d seen the smoke of our camp.”

  “Are you awfully thirsty?” asked John, after a long time.

  “Yes,” said Nancy. “Empty, too. Don’t let’s talk about it.”

  Empty, thirsty, more tired than they knew after the wild night of storm and earthquake, the excitement of finding the treasure, the shock of what they had found on getting back to the schooner, and the horror of knowing that Captain Flint might be at the mercy of the pirates, they almost drowsed with open, smarting eyes.

  Suddenly John started up.

  “It’s him,” cried Nancy.

  Both of them had heard at last the sound for which they had been waiting, the cracking of branches, the brushing of leaves, the uneven sudden noises of someone struggling over rough ground in the dark.

  “It may not be,” said John.

  Nancy’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” she said. “One of them?”

  “Listen,” said John.

  There were no wild beasts on the island to make a noise like that. Only a man would push at boughs until they creaked or broke or swung back, one against another. And then, those sudden crashes. That could be only a man forcing his way through the tangle of the fallen forest and falling every now and then into the holes left by the uplifted roots of the trees.

  “Pull in, Nancy, pull in!”

  “What are we to do if it isn’t him?” said Nancy.

  There was a noise of stumbling and of stones striking against each other somewhere up the beach.

  “He’s tumbled into the place where we found the box … He’s coming straight down the beach. We’ll see him in a minute. Have the oars all ready to back her out …”

  John stood up, holding the lantern before him as high as he could.

  Steps, stumbling, uneven, hurrying, were coming nearer in the dark.

  “WHO GOES THERE?” Nancy suddenly called out in a high voice, unlike her own, stirred by a memory of some old tale of sentinels and war.

  “Friend.” A voice came back out of the darkness, and a moment later Captain Flint limped into the glow from the hurricane lantern. His face was scratched, his shirt hanging in ribbons, one of his knees, red with blood, showed through a great cut in his flannel trousers. He was helping himself along with a big rough stick from which twigs and green leaves were still sprouting, and anybody could see that he could hardly bear to put his right foot to the ground.

  “What have you done with the camp? Is anybody hurt? Where are the others?”

  “Hurry up,” said Nancy. “Everybody’s all right. They’re waiting for you in the schooner.”

  “The schooner?”

  “She’s anchored out here. Everybody’s in her and quite all right.”

  “What about the camp?”

  “Packed. Oh, do get in. The others may be here any minute and they’ve got all our guns.”

  “Who? What?”

  “Don’t stop to talk, Uncle Jim. Get in!”

  “I’d have been across ages ago if only I hadn’t sprained my ankle between a couple of rocks. But what a bit of luck P.D. thought of bringing the schooner round …”

  “Do get in.”

  Captain Flint climbed painfully in over the bows of the Swallow. John splashed overboard into the shallow water to get out of the way.

  “What was that you were saying about guns?” Captain Flint asked, as, leaning heavily on Nancy’s shoulder, he stepped over the main thwart and sat down in the stern.

  “Black Jake,” said Nancy. “He’s here. The Viper’s here. They’re all on the island. They may be anywhere by now. Go on, John. Push her off …”

  “What? What? But …”

  “They captured the Wild Cat … All right. We’ve got her again. They landed on the island and went after you. Won’t she go, John? Too much weight aft?”

  Nancy stood up and pushed at the bottom with an oar. John put the lantern down on the forward thwart. He wanted to use both hands and all his strength. Swallow slid off. John got a knee on the gunwale and gave a last kick at the shore. They were afloat. And at that moment there was the sharp crack of a rifle away to the south, a crash and tinkle of broken glass, and the lantern toppled down from the thwart and went out.

  “Now do you understand?” said Nancy.

  Captain Flint understood well enough.

  “Lie down, both of you,” he said.

  “Rot,” said Nancy. “They can’t see us now the light’s gone. They’ve got nothing to shoot at. Keep still while I paddle her out. Don’t let’s bump those rocks. Reach out over the stern to fend her off.”

  “Oh, what a mess I’ve gone and got you all into,” said Captain Flint. “I ought never to have brought you here. The whole island’s turned upside down. Anything might have happened to you last night. And now these scoundrels … We’re sailing at once, if we get out of this. Hang the treasure! Let them have the stuff if they can find it! I’m through. I ought to have known better than to start. I’ll never forgive myself if anything goes wrong now …”

  “But we’ve got the treasure,” said John quietly. “That must be the end of the reef,” he added. “Turn her round and let me have that bow oar.”

  “You’ve got it?” said Captain Flint. “Got it? But where is it? Not on shore?”

  They could not see him in the dark, but they could feel the boat give a bit of a lurch as if he had suddenly half stood up.

  “In your bunk in the deckhouse,” said John.

  “Gosh!” said Captain Flint.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  ALL ABOARD ONCE MORE

  THE OTHERS WERE very unwilling to begin without the three captains, but in the end the sight of the meal that Peggy and Susan spread out on the saloon table was too much for them. They were very hungry. They had been taking sips of water and bits of biscuit that happened to be broken, and small rations of chocolate while the kettle was being boiled. That sort of thing is all very well on an ordinary day, but it hardly counts when people have had practically nothing to eat since the day before. What was wanted aboard the Wild Cat that night was a meal that should be breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all in one. At last Susan asked Peter Duck what they had better do about waiting, and he said the skipper would be none too pleased to come back and find his crew all hanging about with empty bellies. So they sat down and fell to, Roger, Titty, Peggy, and poor Bill, who had to cut everything up into small bits, because, with a bruised face and three teeth gone, he could not do any serious biting.

  As for Peter Duck, he said he was on anchor-watch and could not leave the deck. But Susan cut a big hunk of pemmican, and, instead of vegetables, made a sandwich of two ship’s biscuits with a lot of butter in between them. Before sitting down with the others, she took the beef and the sandwich and a huge mug of boiling tea and carried them up to the old sailor, who thanked her for it, but never for a moment took his eyes off that dim, shadowy shore.

  Down below, the first few mouthfuls and the first round of tea made a tremendous difference. The meal had begun in silence, almost as if each one of them were alone or not able to see the others very well. The silence suddenly turned into loud, eager talking. There was still so much to say. Bill had not heard half enough of how they had found the treasure. The others had a hundred things still to ask about the Wild Cat’s adventures in the storm, about the boarding of her by Black Jake’s pirate gang, and about the short, disastrous battle on her decks. And Bill untied the knot in his handkerchief, into which he had put his teeth for safe-keeping, and passed them round for the others to see, and told how he had run his head into the middle of Mogandy, and how the big negro had said that he would kill that boy. “I reckon he’d like to,” said Bill, and, for a moment or two, felt almost as if he had driven the pirates off the deck instead of being collared and bound and tossed into Gibber’s cage. Then he remembered other things. “I thought he’d killed Mr Duck,” he said.

  Titty looked at Susan.

  “Susan,” she said
. “Susan, is it all right about Captain Flint?”

  “He started before they did, and he’d go much faster,” said Susan. “He’s sure to be all right.”

  She was going to say more, but she caught Peggy’s eyes on her, questioning, afraid. She fell suddenly silent. Was it all right, really? Susan swallowed something and looked away.

  “I wish he’d come,” said Titty.

  “It’s as dark as dark, outside,” said Roger.

  Peter Duck, on deck, stared through the darkness towards the island. Darkness had fallen fast. They had been only just in time. The riding-light those two had taken with them to Duckhaven was glimmering away there on shore. The wind was still out of the west, but so little of it, so little indeed that he doubted if it would last the night before it came again from the east. There was a dreadful heaviness in the air, even at sea. With this weather anything might happen. “If it comes east we must be away out of this,” he said to himself, munching his pemmican and his biscuit sandwich and drinking his hot tea. Why was the skipper so long? He should have been across by now. If those others were to catch him … Peter Duck thought angrily of the little teak box lying in the bunk in the deckhouse. Ah, he should never have told that yarn. If he’d had the sense to keep his mouth shut they’d be cruising in the Channel now, or looking into Strangford Lough, or in some of them places up the Clyde, or away there in the Baltic, or lying in Lisbon or Vigo, anyway in some sensible place instead of here on the wrong side of Crab Island, with the skipper ashore, and half a dozen cut-throats loose from gaol and after him with guns. And just then he heard the crack of a rifle, and that light on shore was gone.

  His mug dropped to the deck and broke there. Peter Duck hardly noticed it. He listened. No other shot. But the light? Had they put it out for fear of showing a target? But how was the skipper to find them in the dark? Had they rowed off without him? They would never do that. But what could they do? If he had thought for a moment that Black Jake and his gang could get across the island before the skipper, he would never have let those two go in alone. Sound the foghorn to bring them off? He went into the deckhouse, and found the old bull-roarer, one of the few things still in its place, slung up under the roof. He heard Bill’s mumbling, toothless talk going on below. What could he say to those children if …? He went out again with the bull-roarer. He put it to his lips, and then leant sharply forward. What was that? He could not be mistaken in that noise anyhow. The creak and knock of oars somewhere between the Wild Cat and the shore.