Swallows and Amazons

by Arthur Ransome

  “What’s he doing?” said Roger.

  “The parrot?” said John.

  “No,” said Roger, “the pirate.”

  “Probably making treasure charts,” said John. “Look out. I’m going about now.”

  The Swallow swung round and headed out of the bay, to pass on the northern side of the huge buoy to which the houseboat was moored. The brown sail hid the houseboat from John and Roger until they were nearly past the buoy. Just for one moment, however, they had a good view of her bows, when they saw something that made the old blue launch that had been turned into a houseboat seem more pirate-like than ever.

  Roger saw it first. John was too busy with the steering to look at much else beside the brown sail, to be kept full of wind but not too full, and to think of much else beside keeping the wind on his right cheek and nose as he looked forward. Swallow was sailing very fast and they saw the thing only for a moment. But there could be no doubt about what it was.

  “He’s got a cannon,” said Roger. “Look, look!”

  On the foredeck of the houseboat, on the starboard side, its round, shiny nose poking out above the blue planking, was a brightly polished little brass cannon. Once upon a time, perhaps, it had been used for starting yacht races. Now there it was, on a wooden gun carriage, ready for action. Even for Captain John it was proof that the houseboat was more than an ordinary houseboat. A brass cannon and a green parrot.

  “Titty must have been right,” said Captain John.

  He glanced back over his shoulder to see if there was another cannon on the port side. That would have settled the question. There was not. But still, a cannon is a cannon and ships with no secrets do not usually carry even one.

  Roger was ready to go on talking about the cannon. Captain John was not. You cannot talk about anything when you are sailing a little boat against a hard wind and you cannot listen to anyone who talks to you. You are watching the dark patches on the water that show you a harder puff is coming and you have to be ready at any moment to slacken the sheet or to luff up into the wind. So Roger presently stopped trying to talk.

  At last they passed Darien and reached into the Holly Howe bay. They made the painter fast to a ring on the stone jetty by the boathouse and lowered the sail. Then they went up the field to the farm. Only three days before Roger, being a sailing ship, had tacked up that field against the wind to find his mother at the gate by Holly Howe with the telegram that had set them free for their adventure. Now he had no need to tack. He had no need to be a sailing ship. He was a real boy from a real ship, come ashore on business with his captain. Since yesterday the field path and the gate into the wood on the way to Darien and the farm at Holly Howe had all turned into foreign country. They were quite different places now that you came to them by water from an island of your own. They were not at all what they had been when you lived there and saw the island far away over the water. Coming back to them was almost the same thing as exploration. It was like exploring a place that you have seen in a dream, where everything is just where you expect it and yet everything is a surprise.

  It seemed queer to walk straight in at the door of Holly Howe Farm. John had very nearly stopped and knocked at it. Inside, everything was as it used to be. Mother was sitting at the table writing to Father. Nurse was sitting in the armchair knitting. Fat Vicky was playing on the floor with a woolly sheep with a black nose.

  “Hullo,” said Mother, looking up, “did you have a good drool?”

  “We all drooled like anything,” said John, “and we didn’t wake up as soon as you said. At least not quite as soon.”

  “And you got the milk at the farm all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I liked the native at the farm,” said Roger.

  “So did I,” said Mother, “when I saw her yesterday.”

  Nurse somehow did not seem to feel that she was talking with seamen from another land. “You haven’t caught your deaths of cold yet,” she said. “It’s quite a holiday to be without you. And tell me, Master Roger, did you remember to clean your teeth? I never packed a tooth glass for you.”

  “I used the whole lake,” said Roger.

  “We’ve brought the mail,” said John. “It’s a letter from Titty.”

  He pulled the letter out of his pocket and Mother opened it and read it. “I must write an answer to that,” she said.

  “We’ve come for a cargo,” said Captain John. “We forgot to take our fishing rods.”

  “Of course, you’ll want them,” said Mother. “And there are your bathing things too. They were hanging out to dry yesterday when you sailed away and I never noticed them till this morning. You haven’t bathed yet from the island?”

  “We didn’t this morning,” said John.

  “We will tomorrow,” said Roger.

  “Well, be sure you choose a good place with no weeds,” said Mother, “and be sure you don’t let Roger get out of his depth.”

  “Until I can swim,” said Roger. “I very nearly can.”

  “Until you can swim on your back and on your front. As soon as you can do that you will be all right. But better keep within your depth even then until you are sure you can swim a long way. Now, you get your fishing things together, while I write a mail for you to take back.”

  They put all the fishing tackle together. They took the four rods to pieces and put each one in its own bag. They packed the floats and hooks and reels in a big coffee tin. Meanwhile Nurse made the bathing things into a bundle, tying them all up in a towel. Then Mother came out with two letters, one for Titty, saying, “Love from all the Stay-at-homes, and thank you for your nice letter”; and one for Susan, saying that she must ask Mrs. Dixon for some lettuces, because if they tried to do without green vegetables the crew might get scurvy. Also Mother gave them a big bag of peas. “Tell Susan just to boil them with some salt, and then put a pat of butter on them,” she said. Also she had a big tin of chocolate biscuits. “I don’t expect that mate of yours will manage much in the way of puddings,” she said, “and these may help out.” The captain and the boy ran into the farm again to say goodbye to Nurse and Vicky, and then Mother came down with them to the jetty, to help to carry the things.

  “It’s blowing a bit harder this morning,” she said as they were going down the field.

  “We reefed,” said Roger.

  “Did you?” said Mother.

  “I helped,” said Roger.

  “Which pendant did you tie down first?” asked Mother.

  “The one nearest the mast,” said Roger, “then the one at the end of the boom, and the reef points in the middle of the sail last of all.”

  “And which are you going to let go first when you shake your reef out?”

  “Reef points first,” said Roger, “then the one at the end of the boom, and then the one by the mast.”

  “That’s right,” said Mother. “No duffers in your crew.”

  They stowed the cargo, hoisted the sail, and were soon reaching out of the bay.

  “The pirate on the houseboat’s got a cannon,” shouted Roger as they sailed away. He had forgotten all about it while on land.

  “Has he?” called Mother. “Well, so long, you sailormen.”

  This time, with the wind aft, and a good one, the Swallow fairly raced to the island, with her wake creaming out astern of her. They sailed straight past well outside Houseboat Bay. They were too far out to see very much, but they saw the man on the houseboat get up and lean on the railing round his after-deck and look at them through a pair of glasses. A moment later they had passed the promontory on the southern side of the bay, and the houseboat had disappeared behind it.

  Soon they were nearing their island, and just as Holly Howe had seemed strange, so now the island seemed home. It was delightful to see it coming nearer, and to think of the tents and the camp, and to see smoke blowing away over the trees and to know that it came from the mate’s fire.

  “It must be nearly dinner-time,” said Roger.

&n
bsp; “Meat pie,” said John. “Hullo, there’s the able-seaman at the look-out.” Titty was standing under the tall tree on Look-Out Point. She waved and disappeared.

  “She’s gone to tell Susan we’re coming,” said Roger.

  Meanwhile the mate and the able-seaman had had a busy time on the island. They had built a little pier of big stones so that they could walk out on it when they wanted to dip some clean water from the lake. It was also very good for rinsing plates and cups. They had peeled potatoes and had been boiling them for a long time, prodding them with a fork to see if they were done, until every potato looked like a sponge. Then the mate had cut a great pile of bread and butter. Dinner was ready, and Titty came down to meet the Swallow at the landing-place.

  “We’ve got mail for you,” shouted Roger, “and mail for Susan, and your pirate has got a cannon. We saw it.”

  “A real cannon?” said Titty.

  “Yes,” said Captain John.

  “I knew he was a pirate,” said Titty.

  Titty carried the bathing things up to the camp, Roger carried the fishing rods and tackle. John carried the tin of biscuits and the bag of peas. In a few minutes the four explorers were making short work of the meat pie. The pie was cold, but the potatoes were so hot that they got left behind. No one could eat them as quickly as cold meat pie. So they made a second course. Biscuits and apples made the pudding.

  Susan read her letter. “Mother says I must give you plenty of lettuces and peas and things, or else you’ll all get scurvy. What is scurvy?”

  “Sailors die from it like flies,” said Titty.

  “We’ll have peas for supper,” said Susan. “You and Roger had better start shelling them.”

  They shelled half a saucepan full of peas while the mate washed up after dinner.

  The wind had fallen light again, and John went down to the Swallow, and let out the reef in the sail. Then they pushed off, and sailed away beyond the island to the south, where the lake widened and then narrowed again. Far away in the distance, they could see the smoke of a steamer at the foot of the lake.

  “There must be a harbour there too, like the harbour at Rio,” said Titty, “and savages on the mainland all round it.”

  “It’ll be years and years before we have been everywhere,” said Roger.

  “We’ll make a chart of our own,” said John, “and every year we’ll put in the part we have explored until we know it all.”

  They took turns in steering the Swallow. Susan, of course, was nearly as good a steersman as Captain John. Able-seaman Titty was learning fast, and before they came home even the Boy Roger was allowed to take the tiller, though John sat by him ready to take charge if anything should go wrong.

  It was while they were beating home again that they discovered another island. There were plenty of islands in the lake, but this was one they had not noticed, because it was very small, and so near the mainland that they had thought it was a promontory. Now, when they were near the western shore of the lake, tacking homewards, they saw the water clear between the island and the mainland. It was on the western shore, not quite opposite their own island, but a little further north. At once they made up their minds not to sail home, but to tack a little further up the lake to look at this new island.

  “Let’s sail through the strait between it and the shore,” said Titty.

  “There isn’t room,” said John, “not beating. We could run through it all right, if there’s deep enough water, but it’s probably rocky. I won’t take her through under sail. But we’ll sail right up to the island.”

  One long tack took them to their own island, and the next brought them to this new island that they had just discovered. It was very small. There was nothing on it but rocks and heather and two dead trees. One of the trees had fallen. The other was still standing. Many of its branches were broken and it had no leaves. But instead of leaves on the bare tree, there was something else. Three dark birds with long necks were perched on its branches. Titty watched them through the telescope.

  “They’ve got indiarubber necks,” she said.

  “There’s another,” said Roger. “It’s got something in its beak.”

  A fourth bird flew up from the lake, with a bright, gleaming fish in its beak. It perched on one of the boughs, and threw its head up, and swallowed the fish. The other birds were waving their long necks and yawning.

  “What are they?” said Roger.

  “Cormorants,” said Captain John.

  “Not really,” said Titty. “Then perhaps we’re near the coast of China. The Chinese have cormorants and train them to catch fish for them. I’ve seen a picture of them.”

  As the Swallow sailed nearer, they saw one of the cormorants fly down to the water, followed by the other three. They counted the four birds in the water. Suddenly there were only three. Then the fourth came up again. Then another disappeared. Then another. Then one came up with a fish and flew back to the bare tree.

  “They’re fishing,” said Titty, “they’re fishing now.”

  “On our chart,” said Captain John, “we’ll call this island Cormorant Island.”

  When the Swallow came nearer to the island, the bird on the tree flew away, a big, dark bird, with a splash of white under his chin. The other three that were in the water swam fast away with only their heads and necks showing. Then they too lifted themselves from the water and flew after the first.

  “Shall we land?” said Roger.

  “It’s nothing but stones,” said John.

  “Let’s get back and make tea,” said the mate.

  “Ready about!” called John, and Swallow swung round. He let the sheet out, and Swallow ran for the southern end of their own island. As Captain John luffed up into the opening through the outer rocks, Susan brought the sail down, and they paddled Swallow safely through into her little sheltered harbour.

  After supper they took the telescope up to the Look-Out Point. Until it grew too dark, they could just see the cormorants on the tree on Cormorant Island. But they would not have known what they were if they had not seen them from close to. They lay there, making plans as if they were going to be on the island all their lives.

  “Properly,” said Captain John, “we ought to shoot wild goats for our food.”

  “Only there aren’t any,” said Susan.

  “And we haven’t got a gun,” said Roger.

  “Of course,” said John, “it’s quite all right to have provisions, pemmican, and all that, especially biscuits. All explorers do that, but they get most of their food by shooting and fishing. Tomorrow we’ll fish, and we’ll live on the fish we catch.”

  “I wish we had a tame cormorant,” said Titty.

  “We’ve got fishing rods,” said John.

  CHAPTER VII

  MORE ISLAND LIFE

  NEXT MORNING THE whole of Swallow’s ship’s company bathed before breakfast. The landing-place, with its little beach, on the eastern side of the island was a good place for bathing. There was sand there, and though there were stones, they were not so sharp as elsewhere. Also the water did not go deep there very suddenly, and after Susan had walked out a good long way, she said that Roger might bathe too.

  Roger, who had been waiting on the beach, pranced splashing into the water.

  “You’re to swim as well as splash,” said Mate Susan.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Roger. He crouched in the water with only his head out. That, at least, felt very like swimming.

  John and Susan swam races, first one way, and then the other.

  Titty, privately, was being a cormorant.

  This was not the sort of thing that she could very well talk of to John or Susan until she was sure that it was a success. So she said nothing about it. But she had seen that there were lots of minnows in the shallow water close to the shore. Perhaps there would be bigger ones further out, like the fish the cormorants had been catching yesterday. Titty had watched them carefully. The way they did it was to swim quietly and then sudde
nly to dive under water, humping their backs, keeping their wings close together, and going under head first. She tried, but she found that unless she used her arms, she did not get under water at all. Even when she used her arms she could not get right under without a long, splashing struggle on the surface.

  “Why do you wave your legs in the air, Titty?” Roger asked after one of these dives. It was too true. Titty herself knew that long after she had put her head under and was swimming downwards as hard as she could her legs were kicking out of the water altogether.

  She went further out, to be nearer the fish, and further from Roger. At last she found the trick of turning her hands so that her arm strokes pulled her down. She found that she could open her eyes easily enough, but that it was like trying to see in a bright green fog. There were no fish to be seen in it. With a great effort she got right down to the bottom. Still there were no fish. She came up puffing, then dived again and again. It was no good. She picked a stone off the bottom to make sure that she had really been there, and came to the top again in a hurry, spluttering and out of breath. There was no doubt about it. The fish could see her coming, and could swim faster than she could. There was nothing for it but fishing rods. She swam in towards the beach holding her stone.

  “What have you got?” said Roger.

  “A stone,” said Titty. “I got it off the bottom.”

  “What sort of a stone?”

  “Probably a pearl. Let’s be pearl-divers.”

  Cormorants were forgotten, and the able-seaman and the boy were pearl-divers in a moment.

  “Don’t let Roger go far out,” called the mate. “I’m off to look after the fire.”

  John, too, had left the water, and presently rowed past the pearl-divers on his way to fetch the milk.