“Can you see in,” asked Captain John.
“There’s a big boat in there,” said Roger.
“They said there would be. That’ll be the launch that belongs to the natives. Will our mast clear that beam? Gently now, gently.”
Swallow slid into the big dark boathouse as Susan brought her oars in.
“There’s a rowing boat,” whispered Roger loudly.
“Look out. Don’t bump the launch,” whispered Susan.
“There’s nothing else,” said Roger. “The Amazon isn’t here.”
John was standing in the stern of the Swallow, holding on to the gunwale of the launch. He pulled out his pocket torch. “They won’t be able to see the light from the house,” he said, and pressed down the button.
The bright light wavered round the boathouse. It showed a rowing skiff and the big launch and an empty space on the further side. It was clear that a boat was usually moored there. Pinned to the wooden stage that ran along that wall of the boathouse there was a big envelope, white in the light of the torch.
Captain John pushed at the launch and Swallow moved across towards the wall. Roger grabbed the envelope.
“Give it to me,” said the mate, and the boy obediently gave it.
The captain and the mate examined the envelope by the light of the torch. There was a skull and crossbones on it, done in red pencil. Under that, in blue pencil, was written, “To the Swallows.” John tore the envelope open. Inside there was a sheet of paper with another skull and crossbones, done in blue. Under them in red were the words “Ha! Ha!” written very large, and under them were the words, “The Amazon Pirates,” and two names, “Nancy Blackett, Captain” and “Peggy Blackett, Mate” also written in red.
Captain John thought for a moment.
“It’s quite simple,” he said. “They’ve hidden her up the river. It’s an old pirate trick. We know they haven’t put to sea, for we’ve been watching all day. Come on.” He shut off the torch.
They pushed out.
Out of doors it seemed quite light after the darkness of the big boathouse.
“Now, Mister Mate, lay to your oars,” said Captain John. “There’s still light enough to find her if we’re quick.”
Mate Susan bent to her oars and Swallow moved fast up the river. John, staring as hard as he could into the dusk, kept her clear of the reeds. In another minute they were round a bend in the river.
*
Again there was a splash in the deep reed-beds at the river’s mouth. Again a duck quacked loudly. It quacked two or three times, until a voice said sternly, “Stow it, you goat. Don’t overdo things.”
The nose of a boat pushed its way out from among the reeds. Just above the nose of the boat was the head of Captain Nancy Blackett. She watched for a moment and listened.
“All clear,” she said. “They’ve gone up river. That’ll give us a bit more start. Come on.”
There was more splashing in the reeds as Peggy Blackett poled over the stern. The boat came out of the reeds into the mouth of the river and drifted out towards the lake. Captain Nancy took the oars. She rowed hard for a minute or two.
“Safe enough now,” she said. “I’m going to step the mast. Lucky we thought of taking it down, or they’d have seen it over the reeds. Hang on to the mainsheet, you son of a sea-cook,” she said with great good temper and satisfaction. She hoisted the sail.
“Now then, my hearties,” she said as she clambered aft. “Wild Cat Island and Amazons for ever! We’ve done them fairly brown.”
CHAPTER XX
TITTY ALONE
AFTER MOTHER HAD gone, Able-seaman Titty thought it well to go all over her island. Everything was as it should be. The dipper had come back to a stone outside the harbour and bobbed to her again and again, and Able-seaman Titty bobbed to him in return, but this time was so far away that he did not fly off but stood on his stone, bobbing two or three times a minute. She watched him flop into the water and fly out again, and then she went on with her patrol. At last she came back to the camp and put some more wood on the fire.
Then she remembered that Robinson Crusoe kept a log, and that she had brought an exercise book in which to do the same. She sat down in the sunlight at the mouth of her tent and wrote “LOG” in capital letters at the top of a page. It was a pity that she had not been keeping count of the days by making notches on a stick, but as there was only one day to put in the log that did not really matter. So she wrote:
“Twenty-five years ago this day I was wrecked on this desolate place. Wind south-west. Sea slight. Fog at dawn. Met a polite bird. I saw him flying underwater. I found a native canoe on the shore. The native was friendly. Her name was Man Friday. In her country there are kangaroos. Also bears. It was a joy to me in my lonely state to hear a human voice, though savage. Man Friday cooked our dinner. Pemmican cakes with tea. She went away in her canoe to the mainland where the natives are. She …”
Able-seaman Titty could think of no more to say. She had caught up with herself. There was nothing else to say until something more happened. She began looking through Robinson Crusoe, not exactly reading, for she had read it all many times before, but looking from page to page. She came first on the bit about sleeping in a tree for fear of ravenous beasts.
“I went to the tree, and getting up into it, endeavoured to place myself so as that if I should sleep I might not fall; and having cut me a short stick like a truncheon for my defence, I took up my lodging, and having been excessively fatigued, I fell fast asleep, and slept as comfortably as, I believe, few could have done in my condition, and found myself the most refreshed with it that I think I ever was on such an occasion.”
She wondered whether Robinson Crusoe had often slept in trees, and then whether there was any tree on the island that would be good for sleeping in. But then, there were no ravenous beasts.
Then she read the part about the footprint in the sand and remembered a number of things that she might have said to Man Friday.
Then, turning this way and that through the book she came on a passage which reminded her of Captain Flint.
“All the while I was at work,” wrote Robinson Crusoe, “I diverted myself with talking to my parrot, and teaching him to speak; and I quickly learned him to know his own name, and at last to speak it out pretty loud … Poll … which was the first word I ever heard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own.…”
Of course, if only she had a parrot, the island would be perfect. She thought of the green parrot on the rail of the houseboat. Then she remembered the jays that had flown chattering through the trees on the day when the Swallows had visited the charcoal-burners. The jays, like the green parrot, brought her mind back to Captain Flint, for she remembered the message that the old men had sent to the Amazons. She remembered the message, that the old men thought that someone was going to break into the houseboat and that Captain Flint ought to put a lock on it. Then she remembered that John had tried to give the message and that Captain Flint had been too cross to listen to it, besides calling John a liar. And now there was Mother wanting to send a message to Captain Flint by writing to the mother of the Amazons. And there was John gone to the Amazon River, not to see the Amazons, but to capture their ship. So the message would not be given to the Amazons until tomorrow.
“Bother Captain Flint,” she said out loud, and put the book away and went up to the look-out place with the telescope to keep watch. There were plenty of boats on the lake and, looking through the telescope, she could see the cormorants on the bare tree on Cormorant Island. Time went very slowly in spite of them. Even making tea and boiling two eggs and eating them and a lot of bun loaf and marmalade did not seem to take as long as it does when there is something else that you are in a hurry to do next. It seemed that she was only in the camp and cooking and eating and washing up for a minute or two before she was back at the look-out, wondering what was happening to the Swallows. She knew they would not be back for a long time because of waiting for dusk to go
into the Amazon River. Dusk seemed a long time coming, even longer for Able-seaman Titty on her island than for the captain, the boy, and the mate far away by Rio.
At last the sun went down. The last steamer, Roger’s bedtime steamer, went down the lake. The last of the native fishermen rowed away into the twilight and disappeared. Titty became the keeper of a lighthouse on a lonely reef.
She lit the big lantern and hauled it up the tree and made fast. It gave a splendid light up there, high overhead, and she thought of swimming off to see what it looked like over the water. But that, she decided, was not quite what a lighthouse-keeper would do. He might be carried away by an ocean current, and then when the light burnt out there would be no one to put more oil in, and some great ship might run on the reef in the dark.
Before it was too dark to see what she was doing without a torch, Titty took one of the candle-lanterns and hooked it up on the nail on the forked tree. It would be easier to open it and light it up there than to light it and feel round for the nail to hang it on. Then she went back to the camp. “They may be capturing the Amazon at this very minute,” she thought, and found it difficult to keep still. Once or twice she went up to the look-out place to see that the lighthouse lantern was burning properly, though she could see its glimmer through the trees without leaving the camp.
At last she made up her mind that there was really nothing to be done except to wait and to listen for the owl call, which would tell her that the Swallows were back and waiting for her to light the leading lights for them so that they could bring Swallow and Amazon into the harbour. “If only they’ve got her,” she said.
She made up the fire well, with all the sticks pointing to the middle, and then covered it with the clods of earth that Susan had left ready. That made things very dark, so she uncovered it again. After all, there was plenty of firewood left from the cargo they had brought to the island two days before. She lit the other candle-lantern and tried to read by it, but reading was not easy even with the candle-lantern, because of the fire leaping up and flashing shadows across the pages. Then she remembered that there was only a very short piece of candle in the lantern, and it would be wanted at the harbour. She blew it out. She was afraid to lie down on her bed for fear of going to sleep and not hearing the signal when the Swallows came back. So she took both her blankets from the tent. She rolled herself up in one of them and made a hood and cloak of the other and sat watching her fire, with the electric torch and the candle-lantern close beside her. A box of matches was in her pocket. She made sure of that. She could feel it through the blanket.…
That was the last thing she remembered.
She was wakened with the wind in her face and the long call of an owl. “Tu Whooooooooo. Tu Whooooooooo.”
She sat up suddenly. Where was she? The fire had died down to red embers. It was very dark, but there was a glimmer high up in the trees behind her. The lighthouse, of course. How long ago was it that she had heard that owl? Was it before she fell asleep, or just now, or was it an owl heard in a dream?
She tried to jump up, but had forgotten that she had rolled herself up like a mummy. It must have been the owl call that woke her up. John and Susan and Roger must be sailing about in the dark with the two ships, wondering why the lights were not lit. She scrambled to her feet and listened. For a moment she could hear nothing, and then somewhere on the lake there was the creak of a boom swinging over as a boat went about.
She felt about on the ground for the torch. She found it, and the lantern close beside it. She lit the torch and ran out of the camp and hurried, stumbling as she went, along the path to the harbour. What a good thing that Mother had given them torches for Vicky’s birthday. It was hard enough to run even with the torch. And what a good thing, too, that she had cleared the branches that hung over the track.
She found the forked tree and took out her box of matches, putting the torch in her pocket so as to have both hands free. Her first match blew out, and her second as she lifted it up to light the lantern. But the third match did it. She lit the other lantern easily and hung it on its nail on the stump with the white cross.
Well, John and Susan would see the lights now. But what if they had been waiting a long time? She, Titty, able-seaman, had fallen asleep just at the very time when she ought to have been most awake. What if they had tried to make the harbour in the dark and were wrecked on the rocks outside?
Suddenly a big owl flew by close over her head, between the two leading lights, puzzled by the glitter of them.
“Tu Whoooooooo. Tu Whooooooooo,” she heard it as it swung away into the darkness.
Perhaps it had not been the owl signal she had heard. Perhaps all her fears were for nothing, and Swallow was still far away. And yet, that creak had sounded very like Swallow’s boom going over.
But just then, somewhere in the darkness in front of her, outside the harbour, she heard the noise of a sail coming down into a boat, and then the quick creak, creak that an oar makes when it is being used for sculling over the stern.
She was just going to call out joyfully to welcome the Swallows, when she heard a voice that was not John’s, or Susan’s, or Roger’s.
The voice said, “Jolly good idea of theirs, putting lights on the marks.”
For one moment Titty thought of blowing the lights out. But it was too late. The boat was close in. In another second it grounded in the harbour not six yards away.
Titty crouched down on the ground behind a rock. Why had she ever gone to sleep? It was a real owl she had heard and not the signal from the Swallows. If only she had been awake she would have known. And now, left on guard, she had lighted the Amazons into the harbour, and the Swallows would come back to find the island in the hands of the enemy. Would they ever forgive her?
Nancy Blackett was on the beach.
“What beats me,” she was saying, “is how ever they managed to get here before us. I’m sure I heard them go up the river. They must have rowed like smoke. They couldn’t do it sailing. And I would never have thought they could do it rowing, even though we were beating all the way. Funny we didn’t see them or hear them on one tack or the other. Come on, Peggy, step lively, and show a light.”
“Matches are damp,” said Peggy, but just then there was a flicker in the boat, and a moment later she was coming ashore with a lantern in her hand.
“Why aren’t they here?” she said.
“They just lit the lights for us and scooted back to camp,” said Captain Nancy, “pretending they’ve been back for hours. Come along. Let’s have that lantern.”
The Amazon pirates passed so close to Able-seaman Titty that they could almost have touched her. They hurried on into the path.
Titty crouched trembling.
She heard Peggy say, “Wait for me. I can’t see without the lantern.”
Their steps sounded further and further away. Then there was silence except for the wind in the leaves. The Amazons had gone to the camp.
Titty did not know what to do. It was defeat, black and dreadful. Instead of the Swallow sailing home with the Amazon a captured galleon, sailed by Susan as a prize crew, everything had gone wrong. The Swallows had not captured the Amazon, but the Amazons had landed on Wild Cat Island, and their pirate ship was snug in harbour. If only she had not lit the lights they could never have come in till dawn, and by then the Swallows would be back.
Just then she heard the loud shouting of the Amazons at the other end of the island. “Swallows ahoy! Captain John!”
The voices came nearer. The Amazons were coming back.
Just then Titty had her idea.
After all, it did not matter who of the Swallows captured the Amazon. And here was the Amazon, unprotected. Why not?
In a moment Titty was up and on the beach and a moment later she was afloat, clawing the Amazon stern first out of harbour along the edge of the big rocks. Then she pulled out her torch, and lit it for just long enough to find the oars. They were not quite like Swallow’s oars, but s
he could manage them. She stood in the stern of the Amazon to row, keeping her eyes on the two lights she had lit herself. She remembered that whatever happened she must keep the two lights in line, one above another. Now and then they would get askew in spite of all she did, but she managed pretty well, though the centreboard case and the lowered sail with its boom and yard were horribly in the way. She hit nothing at all hard, and had just paddled the pirate ship stern first clear of the rocks when the candle in one of the lanterns guttered and went out. “That’s the one I had in camp,” she thought. “It’s lucky I didn’t read any more.” She went on rowing backwards for a bit to be sure she was clear. She knew the wind would be blowing her back towards the island, so she turned the Amazon round, sat down on the thwart with a leg on each side of the centreboard, and began to row properly, keeping the wind on her right cheek.
She lost sight of the other leading light. Then she saw it again, and then a lantern flickered through the trees, the Amazons coming back to the harbour.
She rested on her oars and drifted, listening, but could hear nothing. Presently she saw another light, much higher up. That was the lighthouse, the lantern still burning high on the tree by the look-out place. She knew that the wind was driving her up the lake, past the island. She pulled hard with her left and brought Amazon’s head nearer to the wind. Then she rowed steadily.
It was very hard work. She could not keep on rowing like that all night. The best thing she could do would be to anchor in as safe a place as possible. She stopped rowing, pulled her oars in, turned on her torch, and scrambled forward. Yes, there was an anchor in the bows and a lot of rope. She remembered hearing John tell Susan never to let go the anchor without making sure that the end of the anchor rope was made fast. She burrowed down with the torch into the coils of rope. That was all right. The rope was made fast to a ring-bolt. She put the anchor where she could easily get at it, and then settled down again to the oars, rowing as hard as she could across and a little into the wind towards the western shore of the lake. She could see nothing now except the light of the lighthouse tree. She did not want to be anchored anywhere near the island when dawn came. Who knew how well these pirates could swim? The other side of the lake would be safe.
Swallows and Amazons Page 18