Читать книгу Swallowdale - Arthur Ransome - Страница 6

TIRED AS THEY had been the night before, the explorers woke early. As the sun rose above the wooded hills on the eastern side of the lake it poured down through the trees on the island and splashed the little white tents with light so strong that nobody could sleep, and it was easier to look at the green outside than at the dancing, dazzling patches on the tent walls.

Roger woke and listened. There was a rustle of leaves in the trees and the noise of little waves splashing on the rocks. It was lonely, waking up for the first time in a tent with no one else in it, and Roger crawled out at once and made sure that the other tents were there, and then looked in through their open doorways to see that the rest of the crew were inside them. John and Susan might still have been asleep, but Titty was propped up on one elbow and looking out.

“Hullo, Roger!” she said, when the ship’s boy blocked the doorway and looked in.

“Hullo, Titty!” said he.

“We’re really here,” said Titty.

“I know we are,” said Roger.

“I never thought we would be again. Let’s go and bathe.”

“John and Susan are asleep.”

“Hullo!” said John. “Have the Amazons come in the night?”

“It’s only Roger and me.”

“Go to sleep,” said Susan.

“We’re going to bathe,” said Roger.

“What’s the time, John?”

“Half-past six.”

“They can’t go for the milk for an hour yet.”

“May I open up the fire and put some wood on to make a smoke?” said Titty.

“Bother you fo’c’sle hands,” said the mate.

“It’s no good trying to sleep now,” said the captain. “Let’s all bathe.”

A few minutes later the cheerful screaming of a parrot brought out into the sunshine and four big splashes in the shallows by the landing-place showed that all five of the ship’s company had agreed that the day had properly begun.

“Put your head right under, Roger,” said the mate. “Put it under right away. You can do what you like afterwards.”

“Pouf!” said Roger, blowing and puffing and spluttering as he came up again. “I went right down to the bottom. This is better than swimming-baths. Come on, Titty. Let’s see who can pick up most pearls in one dive.”

After the bathing there was the fire to make up and the kettle to boil. There was not much hurry about the kettle, so as soon as the fire had burnt up well the boy and the able-seaman brought handfuls of damp leaves from the water’s edge and threw them on the flames so that a great column of smoke poured up through the trees and drifted away to the north.

“They ought to see that if they’re looking,” said Titty.

“They’re probably asleep in bed,” said Susan.

“I’m jolly glad we’re not,” said Roger. “Isn’t it time now to go for the milk?”

“We’ll all go,” said Susan.

“What about the mail for mother?” said John.

Titty dived into her tent for the box with the writing things. The box made a good desk to write on. Titty did the writing but everybody suggested things to say. This was the letter:

My (crossed out) Our Dearest Mother,

Good morning. Everybody slept very well. Everybody is very well. We hope you are very well. Love to the ship’s Baby, and Nurse and Mrs. Jackson. We’ve just bathed. No Amazons yet. Wind south. Light. Sky clear. Now we are going to get the milk.

Much love from

John, Susan, Titty, Roger.

P.S. – Love from Polly.

She addressed the envelope to Mrs. Walker, Holly Howe, and wrote “Native Post” in very small letters in the top left-hand corner.

While the others were putting their names to the letter and Titty was doing the envelope, John went off to the harbour to fetch Swallow. He paddled her out through the rocks and round to the landing-place where the others came aboard. It was not really far to row, but with such a friendly wind blowing, making it an easy reach both ways, it seemed silly not to sail, even across Shark Bay to the landing-place for Dixon’s farm.

“They were geese,” said Roger, as soon as they had climbed up the steep field and come through the damson trees to the farm. “I knew they were.”

“Aye,” said Mrs. Dixon, coming to the door. “Geese they are, but don’t you be afraid of them.”

“We’re not,” said Roger. “At least (as the old gander stretched its neck towards him and hissed) not really.”

“Shoo,” said Mrs. Dixon. “Shoo,” and the geese went off to the other end of the yard. “Just you say ‘Shoo’ to them and make as if you’d give them what for if they didn’t shift, and they’ll not trouble you. Well, and I’m rare and pleased to be seeing you all again. Many’s the laugh I’ve had, thinking how I had to come down to you with a bucket of porridge after the storm, and you taking your breakfast out of the bucket. You won’t be seeing so much of Miss Ruth and Miss Peggy just now. Nor their Uncle Jim neither.”

(Ruth was Nancy’s real name, but she liked being Nancy better.)

“They’re coming,” said Titty.

“I was thinking that with old Miss Turner staying at Beckfoot they’ll maybe be wanted at home. She’s terrible stiff is Miss Turner, and always was. She never did hold with their rampaging around in a boat. Well, Miss Susan, and where’s your can? Quite like old times, it is, to be having you coming for milk in the mornings.”

In a few minutes she came hustling back with the milk-can full to the brim.

“Deary me,” she said, just as they were going, “and where are the toffees I laid out for you?”

She went back into the kitchen and the explorers outside could hear her say, “Go on now. There’s nowt to be feared of. They’re nobbut childer.” And then there was the noise of iron-shod boots scraping on the slate floor, and Mr. Dixon came to the doorway wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“It bids fair to be a grand day,” he said.

“How do you do?” said the explorers.

“Champion,” said Mr. Dixon, “and – and I’m right glad to see you.” He went back into the kitchen.

“He means that,” said Mrs. Dixon, coming to the door again with a bag of toffees. “Dixon never was a one for talking.”

And then the explorers thanked her and went down the field to their ship and sailed back to the island.

*

For a long time after breakfast was over and washing-up done they kept watch on Look Out Point for the coming of the Amazon. Again and again they dumped armfuls of damp leaves on the fire. But they looked in vain for the little white sail. The early steamers passed the island on their way up and down the lake. Launches began to run to and fro. Here and there a rowing boat drifted along the edge of the lake while a fisherman, seated in it, searched the shallows with his flies. Two or three of the larger yachts came out to air their sails. All the life of the lake seemed to be astir in the sunshine and still there was no sign of the Amazon pirates whose arrow with its green feathers had been waiting for them in the camp.

“It’s very funny about their not coming,” said John.

“I wonder what Mrs. Dixon meant,” said Titty.

“Perhaps they’re not coming till to-morrow,” said Susan.

DIXON’S FARM

“Let’s begin exploring without waiting for them,” said Roger.

“Where?” said John.

“Where we left off last year,” said Titty eagerly. “Let’s go to Horseshoe Cove. It’s a lovely place. We had no time really to look at it. We don’t know what there is if you go up the beck. Let’s go up the beck to its source and put it on our map.”

“Horseshoe Cove is a good harbour,” said John, “and it’s in sight of the island. We could see if they came here after we’d gone. What about rations, Mister Mate?”

“It’s nearly dinner-time,” said Susan.

“Let’s have dinner in the cove,” said Titty.

“Why not?” said John. “Let’s have pemmican, Mister Mate. We haven’t had any since last year.”

“Come along then, you fo’c’sle hands,” said Susan.

Half an hour later the camp on Wild Cat Island was deserted except for the parrot, who was left on guard in his cage with a good store of sugar to keep him happy. The fire had been put out, for the mate did not like to leave it burning with nobody but the parrot to look after it. A knapsack full of bunloaf and apples and tea and sugar and chocolate, a jar of marmalade, the paper bag of Mrs. Dixon’s toffees (molasses), a tin of pressed beef (pemmican), a bottle of milk, one spoon and enough mugs to go round had been loaded into Swallow and she was pushed off from the landing-place.

The captain hoisted sail, the mate steered, the able-seaman took care that the cargo did not shift or spill or break, and the boy kept a look-out before the mast. They sailed first with the wind to have a look into Houseboat Bay, thinking that perhaps Captain Flint was back in the houseboat and his nieces with him. But the houseboat looked as dreary as ever, with its tarpaulin over the foredeck, and white curtains drawn across the cabin windows. Then they beat down the lake, past Wild Cat Island to Horseshoe Cove.

Horseshoe Cove owed its name to its shape. It was a little bay, shaped like a horseshoe, shut in between two rocky headlands on the western side of the lake. It lay just about south-west from the southern end of Wild Cat Island. There were woods that came down to the water’s edge there, though a little farther south there were green fields. Some way behind the cove the woods climbed steeply up the hillside towards the heather and bracken of the fells. Three or four tacks brought the Swallow to the entrance so that the mate could sail straight in between the headlands.

“Rock on the port bow,” sang out Roger, just as they turned in.

“A beast, too,” said John. “I don’t remember seeing it last year.”

“It’s all right with this wind,” said the mate, “but I wouldn’t like to run on it in the dark.”

“The day we were here was the day after the storm when the lake was very high. It must be much lower to-day.”

They looked at the waves breaking on a sharp-pointed rock that showed, awash, opposite the southern headland of the little cove.

In another moment they had left the open lake. Swallow, her pennant drooping, her mainsheet slack, was slipping across the smooth water of the sheltered cove towards a beach of white shingle below thick green trees.

“Don’t steer for the mouth of the stream,” said John. “There’s a bit of a bar there made by the stuff the stream brings down. Nancy showed it to me last year. The best landing-place is this side. That’s right. Couldn’t be better. Ready with the painter, Roger?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy, jumping ashore as the boat touched.

As soon as the sail had been lowered and the kettle filled over the stern of the Swallow and carried ashore, Susan went to look for the old fireplace that she had built last year by the side of the stream, just where it joined the lake. Hardly a trace of it was left after the winter floods, but there were plenty of stones to build from, and while she was making a new fireplace, John, Titty and Roger were picking the best bits of driftwood they could find lying along the highwater mark in the cove. There were plenty of dry leaves for kindling, and dry reeds for the first little wigwam over the burning leaves. No one had been in the cove this year, so plenty of the larger driftwood for the real fire that was to boil the kettle was lying ready to be picked up. The kettle had already been filled, and the fire was burning up well, when the explorers were startled by a loud, cheerful shout from the lake.

“Ahoy! Ahoy! Swallows! Ahoy!”

A small varnished dinghy, about the size of Swallow, but with a white sail instead of her tanned one, was sailing in between the headlands. At the masthead was a black flag with the skull and crossbones on it in white. Two red-capped girls were the crew. One was steering. The other waved her hand as she started forward to be ready to haul up the centre-board.

“It’s them,” shouted Titty. “Hurrah! Now we can really start.”

“Hullo, pirates!” called Roger.

“Hullo, Nancy! Hullo, Peggy!”

“Hullo, my hearties!” called the girl who was steering. “Up with the centre-board, Peggy. That’s right . . . Stand by with the halyard. Lower away.”

Down came the white sail and the little ship, on whose bows could now be plainly seen her name, Amazon, slipped on across the smooth water of the cove and grounded close beside the Swallow. The whole crew of the Swallow had left the fire and run down to be ready to lend a hand. They hauled her up a little and Nancy and Peggy Blackett jumped ashore and there was some tremendous shaking of hands.

“Did you see our smoke?” asked Titty.

“Uncle Jim saw it last night when he went up the fell for a smoke,” said Nancy. “Aunt Maria doesn’t like tobacco in the house.”

“We couldn’t get away until late this morning,” said Peggy. “And then we saw Swallow’s brown sail going into the cove soon after we had got past Rio Bay.”

“We waited a good long time,” said John, “and we thought it would be all right coming here because we could see if you went to the island.”

“We could have given you the slip and got there without your knowing,” said Nancy. “You never knew we were on the lake till we hailed when we were coming into the cove.”

“We were busy with the fire,” said Susan.

“But where’s your tent?” asked John. “We left your old place for it. We’ve got four tents this year, and one of the old ones for all the stores.”

“The new tents are beauties,” said Roger. “I’ve got one of my own.”

“Shiver my timbers,” said Captain Nancy, “don’t you understand? We put it in the message we left with the wood. We told you there was native trouble. We’re jolly lucky to be here at all. We’ve got to be back and into best frocks for supper. We can’t camp. What about the feathers, Able-seaman? How’s the parrot?”

“He’s not been moulting very well,” said Titty, “but I’ve got about eight really good ones. Polly’s looking after the island.”

“You don’t mean real native trouble?” said Susan.

“It’s as bad as it can possibly be,” said Nancy. “We’ve only got to make a plan and it’s scuppered at once. No camping. No gold hunting. No piracy except just now and then between meals. And best frocks every evening and sometimes half the day. Native trouble? It simply couldn’t be worse.”

“Where’s Captain Flint?” asked Titty.

“He can’t come until to-morrow,” said Peggy.

“Didn’t we tell you he’s stuck too. He’s on duty to-day. That’s how we got away.”

“He’s going to tea at Holly Howe,” said Susan. “Mother told us last night.”

“We saw he wasn’t in the houseboat,” said Roger. “He’s covered up the cannon.”

“He isn’t allowed to live there,” said Peggy. “He has to sleep at home.”

“But aren’t you coming to Wild Cat Island?”

“Not until she goes.”

“Until who goes?”

“The great-aunt, of course,” said Captain Nancy. “And she only came the day before you did.”

“But you needn’t bring her,” said Titty.

“If we could maroon her we would,” said Nancy. “We’d tie her to the anchor and send her to the bottom in forty fathoms. We’d feed her to the sharks. We’d leave her on a rock to be eaten by land-crabs. We’d hang her in a tree for crows – or vultures. Vultures would be better. We’d . . . There’s nothing we wouldn’t do. Can you think of anything really good?”

“Nancy thinks of something new each night for us to dream about while we’re going to sleep. Last night it was land-crabs. The night before that it was white ants.”

“You know,” said Nancy, “eating her up, like the fox ate up the Spartan boy. It’s nothing to what she deserves. Why couldn’t she come in term-time, when it wouldn’t have mattered so much?”

“But it’ll be all right if you’re camping on the island with us,” said John.

“But we can’t come,” said Nancy.

“We’ve got to be on view,” said Peggy, “all the time.”

“Our aunts aren’t like that,” said Roger.

“Nor are most of ours,” said Nancy. “Some of ours aren’t native a bit. One of them might almost be a pirate. But the great-aunt’s altogether different. There’s no help for it. We’ve got to be mostly native till she goes. If she ever does. It isn’t as if it was only us. We’d bolt, but she’d have mother and Uncle Jim as hostages. They’re much more afraid of her than we are. You see, she brought them up.”

“Won’t you be able to come at all?” said Roger.

“We’ll always have to be back for some beastly meal,” said Nancy.

“The kettle’ll be boiling in a minute,” said Susan, reminded of the dinner she was getting ready. It was a dreadful thing that all their plans were going wrong. But dinner had to be eaten just the same. “Have you got mugs?” she called over her shoulder as she hurried back to the fire.

“Rather,” said Peggy. “And we’ve got our rations in the boat. There’s a cake and mugs in the knapsack. That other thing’s a meat pie. It was meant for native dinner last night, but the great-aunt said it was too salty, so cook said this morning we’d better have it and if the great-aunt wanted to see it again she’d have to do without. So we swiped it. It isn’t a bit too salt really. We dipped our fingers in the juice and tried what it was like while we were sailing down.”

She climbed back into Amazon and passed out the knapsack and then came carefully ashore with the meat pie.

“Sorry we’ve got no grog,” said Nancy. “Cook’s had no time to make any, being so busy with the great-aunt.”

“We’ve got plenty of milk for tea,” said Susan.

The four Swallows and the two Amazons were soon sitting round Susan’s fire, drinking tea and disagreeing altogether with the great-aunt’s poor opinion of the meat pie. When the meat pie was done, John used the tin-opener in his new knife to open the pemmican tin. Then he used the knife itself to cut the pemmican into six bits. They did not last long. But there was bunloaf and marmalade for pudding and then cake, and after that apples and chocolate to fill up with.

“Let’s keep the chocolate for rations while we’re exploring,” said Titty. After all, even though everything might be going wrong with their plans, they had set out to-day to explore the stream that ran into the lake at Horseshoe Cove, and there was nothing to stop them from doing that.

“Where are you going to explore?” asked Nancy.

“We’re going up the beck,” said Titty.

“You’ll only come to the road,” said Peggy.

It very soon became clear that there would be no exploring that day if it depended on Nancy and Peggy. What they wanted to do was to talk about the great-aunt and about schools and about all sorts of things that had been happening since Christmas. They were both tired of having only each other as listener. And you had only to look at John and Susan to see that they were quite content to sit by their fire in the cove and listen for just as long as Nancy and Peggy cared to talk.

The able-seaman and the boy listened for a long time and sometimes even asked questions. But at last Roger began trying to keep two little stones in the air at once, and one of his stones fell in his mug and might have broken it if there had not been a little tea left in the bottom. He had stopped listening. And the able-seaman, remembering all those blank spaces on the map got up and beckoned to him.

“Where are you going?” asked Susan.

“Exploring,” said Titty.

“Don’t go far from the stream,” said Susan, “and don’t be away too long . . . What was that you were saying, Peggy?”

The able-seaman and the boy pushed their way into the bushes and disappeared behind a green curtain of leaves.