Peter Duck

by Arthur Ransome

There was still enough food left for the explorers. They were hungry enough not to mind that the crabs had been turning the biscuits over with their yellow pincers. Captain Flint poured a drop of lime juice into each of their water-bottles, and they drank to the success of the digging.

  Then, just on the off chance, they went up to the big palm tree, and Bill, Titty, and Roger took turns with one of the spades, while Captain Flint dug with the other, and Peter Duck sat there on the sand looking down at the place where he had been a little frightened boy so many years before. But presently Captain Flint laughed.

  “This is no good,” he said. “Just foolishness. We’ll have to take this digging seriously. Scratching at it is no good.” He looked up at the sun, which was already dropping towards the island hills. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got no time to waste. Pack up. We’ve got to find a good way back from here, and blaze a trail so that we can find it again when we come tomorrow morning.”

  “Better in the evening,” said Peter Duck. “You’ll do nothing without a pick and it’ll take me best part of tomorrow to make one. The stuff Black Jake’s left’s no good to you for rust. And besides that, it’ll be late enough before the trade wind drops and you can make a good landing in that little boat.”

  They went down to Duckhaven again, chased away the crabs, and slung their knapsacks on their backs.

  “No,” said Captain Flint. “That wreck’ll be no good to us. We’ll have to make a tent.”

  “With a sail?” said Titty. “And oars? Captain Nancy’ll be jolly pleased. She told us that was the proper way last year.”

  “Well, sir,” said Peter Duck, as they walked up the beach. “I’m glad to have seen the place, and I never thought I should be.”

  “But you’ll see it again tomorrow.”

  “And who’s to mind the ship?” said Mr Duck. “No. I don’t know where that bag is now, no nearer than what you do. I’ve shown you where it may be, and that’s more’n ever I meant to do to a living soul. No. I’ll be minding the ship, or maybe there’ll come a buster and she’ll drag, and go ashore, and be no more use to us than that old bit of a wrecked boat. We don’t want to have to wait for Black Jake to come and give us a passage home. And I don’t want to be eating crabs and coconuts again for want of other grub. Nor you don’t neither.”

  By this time the little party were at the edge of the sand, and on the point of plunging into the forest. Captain Flint had already taken a compass bearing of the shoulder of Mount Gibber, where the trees ended and the black rocks rose above them. Once in the forest there would be only the compass to guide them. Now, for a moment, he stopped, under the tall coconut palms that fringed the beach.

  “And to think,” he said, “that we may be standing on the stuff this very minute.”

  Then he led the way in among the trees.

  CHAPTER XXII

  GOODBYE TO THE WILD CAT

  IT TOOK THEM a long time to work their way back through the forest and up the slopes of Mount Gibber. Every few yards they stopped, while Peter Duck or Captain Flint made a large blaze on a tree, to say nothing of the smaller blazes made by Titty, Roger, and Bill. What was the good of having knives if you did not use them when you had a real chance? They were making sure that they would be able to find their way back to Duckhaven tomorrow without any difficulty. Captain Flint was even taking the trouble to make a clearish path for them. A clear path, no one could have made. But he lopped away a branch here and a branch there, and cut through the long, twisted tendrils of the climbing plants that hung from the trees. It was not exactly road-making, but it was all going to make things easier for the land-party next day. It had been decided already that almost everybody was to come across to Duckhaven by land, and have nothing to carry, while the food and the sails to make tents and everything else that would be wanted for the camp was to be brought round in Swallow.

  At last, when they were already well up on the slope of the hill, Bill saw one of the old blazes left by Black Jake, and Roger at the same moment saw another, and they knew that the new trail they were making had joined the old one that they had followed down to the beach earlier in the day. There was no need now to keep on looking at the compass. There was no real need even to make more blazes. They could use the old ones. They moved much faster now up the hill to the upper edge of the great landslide. Then they scrambled along the top of it, below the black crags of the peak, found the little trickling stream, drank from it, scooping the water in their hands, followed it down on the farther side of the landslide, and, just as dusk was falling, hurried out of the trees at Bill’s Landing.

  In the outer bay, beyond the point that divided the old outlet of the stream from the new, the Wild Cat lay at anchor, a riding-light on her forestay glowing like a pale-gold butterfly against the last of the sunset. A small fire was burning on the shore where John was waiting with the Swallow. The little rowing-dinghy had made its last trip long before. They could just see it, swinging astern of the schooner. Peter Duck had lagged behind a bit on the way over in the morning, but he had hurried ahead as they were coming down to the shore on the way back. He was first out of the trees, looking carefully at the schooner, then at Swallow, and grunted with relief at the thought of being afloat again.

  “Hullo!” called John. “Did you find it?”

  “We haven’t exactly found it,” called Titty, “but we’ve found the place where it is. We’ve found the very place where Mr Duck was washed up.”

  “Stiff with crabs it is,” said Bill.

  “Good ones,” said Roger.

  “All well, skipper?” asked Captain Flint.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said John. “We finished taking in water about an hour ago. Eighty-seven of the little tanks. Nancy lit the riding-light, in case you were late and came out on another part of the shore. I made the fire just for company.”

  “Jolly well done,” said Captain Flint. “With the tanks all filled we’ve really lost no time in spite of not having started the digging.”

  A minute or two later Swallow was afloat with a cargo of footsore explorers, and John, at the tiller, was steering her out of the inner bay and then straight for the riding-light, growing brighter every moment against a darkening sky.

  “Look here, Cap’n John,” said Captain Flint, “what do you think about making a voyage round the island in Swallow tomorrow night?”

  “Of course, I’d love to,” said John. “I’ve never had her in real waves.”

  “I hope there won’t be too much of them,” said Captain Flint. “It’s a question of landing a cargo in her. There’s just one place on that side where we could do it.”

  “Duckhaven,” said Titty. “It’s just Swallow’s size, like the harbour on our island at home. It’s a gorgeous little harbour. And there’s the wreck of an old boat on the other side of the rocks there, a beauty, but we couldn’t go into her …”

  “Simply crammed with crabs,” said Roger.

  “There’s just that one place where we could take her in, and it’s there we’ve got to do our digging. It’s a good place, with a reef running out and quiet water inside. I’ve taken bearings. I’ll come with you to pilot you in.”

  “Couldn’t we all come?” asked Titty.

  “Sorry, A.B., Swallow holds a good many tonight, but there won’t be much room to spare when we fill her up with food and bedding for the lot of us, and old sails to make a tent, and the mates’ best water-breaker, and a cooking-pan or two.”

  “Are we going to camp there?” asked John.

  “I don’t see what else to do. There’s about a hundred yards where that stuff might be buried, and about a hundred different trees that might be the one we want. We may have to do a lot of digging and it’s no good wasting three parts of each day and getting tired out carrying stuff to and fro …”

  There was a loud, cheerful hail from the schooner.

  “Hullo, Cap’n Nancy, can we come aboard? Hullo, Susan … that’s a precious nice smell of dinner hanging round your sh
ip. What have you got for us?”

  “We want at least eight helpings,” said Roger, “so long as it isn’t curry.”

  “It isn’t,” said Peggy. “We thought of it, to please Captain Flint, and then we thought of how it burnt everybody last time. We’ve cooked a lot of Mr Duck’s fish, and besides that we’ve done a macaroni cheese, a walloper. We’re just browning it now.”

  Stiffly, one after another, the explorers climbed up the ladder and came aboard their home once more.

  “Well,” said Peter Duck, as he stumbled down into the deckhouse, tired after the long walk through the forest and over the side of the hill. “It’s good to be back aboard. I don’t hold with islands. No motion to them. I likes best to be afloat.”

  “This island’s had plenty of motion at one time or other,” said Captain Flint. “What about that landslide?”

  “Wrong kind of motion,” said Peter Duck. “Give me a ship.”

  “He didn’t find it?” said Nancy to John, quietly, after the others had gone to their cabins and she had slipped down into Swallow to help John to tidy up.

  “No,” said John, “but he isn’t half as sick as we thought he would be. They’ve found the place, and we’re going to take Swallow round there, and make a camp and dig until we get it.”

  *

  That night, at supper, they made their plans. Nancy was to be leader of the expedition overland, with Roger and Titty as guides.

  “What about taking Polly?” said Titty.

  “You’d have to carry his cage,” said Susan. “If you let him fly loose he’ll only be mobbed by the wild parrots. He’d be much happier aboard.”

  “He’d be company for Mr Duck,” said Titty.

  “Glad to have him,” said Mr Duck.

  “I’m going to take Gibber,” said Roger. “He ought to be allowed to see his own hill.”

  “Well, he’ll walk on his own feet, anyhow,” said Susan. “But you’ll have to look after him at night.”

  “He’ll probably sleep in a tree,” said Roger.

  “I hope so,” said Susan.

  “He hasn’t got a single flea,” said Roger indignantly. “Not since that last scrubbing.”

  It was agreed that Gibber should go with the land party, but that on the way across Roger must keep him on a lead, just in case Gibber, not understanding that they were really in a hurry, might delay them by explorations of his own. And Susan, in spite of what she had said, set to work to make him a sleeping-bag out of a blanket, with a string to pull tight round the mouth of it so that he could be carried inside it if necessary.

  Everybody was going overland, except Captain Flint and John, who were to sail Swallow round, and Peter Duck, Bill, and the parrot, who were to stay aboard the Wild Cat. Peter Duck did not want to set foot on the island again, and, anyway, he had to look after the ship. Bill wanted nothing better than to stay with Peter Duck, and Captain Flint thought it right that Peter Duck should have somebody with him for sending with a message or anything like that. Of course, every one of the others would have liked best to make the voyage in Swallow, but Captain Flint had to be there to pilot her in through the gap in the breakers off the end of the reef, and John was the captain of the Swallow, and it would be rather hard to turn a captain out of his own ship. So John was to sail her, with Captain Flint as harbour pilot to bring her into Duckhaven. And with all the cargo they had to take there would be no room for anyone else.

  “Besides,” said Captain Flint, “if we make a mistake coming in there, we shall have to swim for it, and when you’re swimming in a place like that, two is company but more than two is a crowd. John and I could look after each other all right, but it would be a lot harder if all the rest of us were cluttering up the sea at the same time.”

  Everybody saw the sense of this, and there was no more talk about it. They began to speak of tools. They had the two spades from the Cowes sweetshop, of which Captain Flint was beginning to think much better. But they badly needed a pickaxe. The old relics of Black Jake’s expedition, which they had found in the diggings, had been as badly rusted as the knife, the bits of which had been passed carefully from hand to hand before being wrapped up by Roger in a bit of paper, on which he wrote: “For the Museum. Pirate’s Knife. Pres. by R. Walker.” Not one of those old bits of iron was going to be of any use. But presently Peter Duck got up and went into the fo’c’sle and disturbed Gibber by lighting a lantern, and rummaged there in a cupboard that was full of old odds and ends he had brought together from all parts of the vessel because he had thought they might come in handy some time. He brought out an old boat anchor with a broken fluke. It looked very clumsy when he brought it back with him to the saloon, and the others had a look at it by the light of the hanging lantern. But Peter Duck said he thought he could make something of it, by sharpening the points, and splicing the long iron shank of it to a spare capstan bar. “They’re good elm bars,” he said, “and they’ll stand anything in reason … not that there’s reason in digging for an old bag … and anyway there’s nought much but sand where they buried that bag. They dug it in with their sheath knife as I telled you.”

  Captain Flint became more and more cheerful.

  “We shan’t be beaten for want of tools,” he said. “How should we when the stuff’s so near we can all but see it. If the worst comes to the worst we could dig it out with spoons.”

  *

  But the worst was not to come to the worst. First thing next morning, long before the crew came up to sluice down the decks, Captain Flint was hard at work making a couple of wooden shovels good enough to shift loose sand with, and the noise of Peter Duck’s file, sharpening the points of what was now a pick and had once been a little anchor, could be heard all over the ship. Soon after breakfast he had finished it, a queer sort of pick to look at, rather small, perhaps, but more than strong enough for the light sandy soil above the beach.

  It was a busy morning. The two mates were making out lists of the food that would be wanted, and getting the tins out of the store-cupboards, and ticking things off on their lists, Titty and Roger were on the run carrying the things up on deck and piling them there all ready to be stowed into Swallow. Captain Flint and Peter Duck were searching through the sail-locker for some old sail that did not much matter and would do to make a tent. They found what they wanted in what had once upon a time been a balloon staysail, a big one, made of very light canvas that had been so much patched and torn that it was not really worth keeping. Peter Duck set to there and then to put a few more patches in it where it needed them most, while Captain Flint went off into the deckhouse to make a sketch-map of the island for Nancy, so that she could make no mistake even if the guides did get muddled. John and Nancy shifted the water-breaker out of the galley, and began the stowage of Swallow by lowering the little barrel over the side, and fixing it so that it could not roll about in the boat. Everybody was hard at it and it was afternoon before the land party was ready to start. They had a late and cold dinner, and then Bill rowed the first lot ashore in the dinghy: Peggy, Titty, Roger and Gibber. Gibber was nearly forgotten at the last minute, but came scrambling down the mainmast shrouds when he saw that Roger was leaving the ship. Nancy found his lead and threw it down into the boat, and off they went. From the schooner Susan and Nancy watched their landing through the telescope, and saw how Titty and Peggy sat down on the sand, while the eager monkey took his master in tow and pulled him this way and that about the beach, delighted to be on solid ground once more.

  But very soon Bill was back again and Susan and Nancy climbed over the side and down into the boat. Captain Flint hung over the bulwarks giving last directions to Captain Nancy.

  “You can’t go wrong this side if you stick to the stream. Climb up where it comes down at the edge of the landslide. Slip along the top of the landslide till you come to the blazed trees. Then you’re all right, but remember to watch out for the place where the new set of blazes join the old ones. Bear away to the left, following the new blazes we
made last night, and you’ll come out on the beach just above Duckhaven. One thing more. If we’re not there before you are, make a fire on the beach exactly on a line between the big coconut tree and the outer end of the reef.”

  “For a lighthouse?”

  “Yes. We can’t start till the wind drops in the evening, and it might be darkish before we get in.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Good luck to you, Nancy. Keep your men together and make plenty of noise. We didn’t see any snakes, but you never know.”

  “See you this evening,” called Nancy. “So long, Mr Duck. So long, John.”

  Susan, too, called her goodbyes, and Bill pulled off for the shore. But he only pulled a stroke or two before Nancy had the second pair out, and shifted Bill to the bows, after which, with two pair of oars, and Nancy setting the time, Bill and she fairly drove the dinghy through the water.

  “Might be a captain’s gig,” said Peter Duck.

  “So it is,” said John.

  “Aye, aye,” said Peter Duck, “I was forgetting Cap’n Nancy, seeing her there pulling away with the crew.”

  John, Peter Duck, and Captain Flint, watching from the deck of the schooner, saw them land, saw Bill push off once more, saw the others walk up the beach, stop and wave. They thought they heard a faint farewell shout, and they saw Bill flourish his hat. Then there was nothing but the empty beach and the green forest and Bill, in the dinghy, pulling for the schooner. A cloud of parrots rose above the trees. The expedition was already on the march.

  Never before had Swallow been packed so carefully. Spades, wooden shovels, and Peter Duck’s pick were stowed on the bottom boards. Then came the food, good solid stuff and no luxuries except perhaps the chocolate. Then there were the cooking things. The water-barrel was already fixed just aft of the mast. All these loose things were wedged with the woollen sleeping-bags that they were taking instead of bedding. Then there was that old sail covering everything and shoved firmly down. There was just room left for the steersman. Captain Flint was going to lie on top of the cargo.