Читать книгу Swallows & Amazons - Boxed Set - Arthur Ransome - Страница 34

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For some moments after Nancy had rowed away Peggy and the Swallows stared after her in silence. No one knew exactly what she was going to do.

“Perhaps I ought not to have told her about it,” John said at last.

“Rubbish,” said Susan. “She’d have been bound to hear about it sooner or later. Let’s get the Amazons’ tent up before she comes back.”

“Let’s,” said Peggy. “We’ve got all the things here. Nancy brought the poles.”

“Oughtn’t we to take Swallow and go and help her?” said Titty.

“Better not,” said Peggy. “If she’d wanted help she wouldn’t have gone alone.”

She unrolled her big white bundle. It was a tent but not made like the tents of the Swallows.

“Where are those poles?” she said. “They’re all in two pieces. You fit them together and get four all the same length. Then you push them into the hems at the corners of the tent. They’re a horribly tight fit. The first two are easy enough, but after that it’s awful, because it’s so difficult to keep the hem straight for the pole to go in. I say, if your able-seaman and the boy will hang on to the other end and keep it stretched out, it’ll be easier.”

Everybody helped. The poles were put together, like fishing rods, and pushed into the hems. At the top of the hems there were little bags for the ends of the poles, like fingers on a glove, and the ends of the poles, in their little bags, stuck out above the tent about six inches or so.

“They’re just like ears,” said Roger, “donkey’s ears.”

Then, when the poles were all in, Peggy gathered up the tent in a long bundle, or rather tried to. John took hold of one end of the bundle and she took hold of the other.

“This way,” she said. “It’s lucky you didn’t pitch your tents on our place, or we really should have had to fight you for it. We couldn’t put it up properly without these two stumps.”

On the opposite side of the camp to the tents of the Swallows there were two stumps of trees that had been cut down. Between them, now that they looked, the Swallows saw the remains of a worn square patch. Peggy dug about with her fingers in the grass and found a hole at each corner of the square.

“The tent poles fit into those holes,” she said. “Then these ropes go from the top of the tent to the old tree stumps and round them, and we tighten them up with these bits of wood.”

The bits of wood had two holes in them, one at each end. The rope ran through one hole, then round the tree stump, then through the other hole, ending in a knot so that it would not pull out again. To tighten the rope, all you had to do was to pull the bit of wood up the rope, and then the other end, by pulling it sideways, stopped it from slipping when you let go.

“It’s a lot easier with five to work at it,” said Peggy, when the tent stood in its place, and the ropes from the donkey’s ears at each end were properly tautened. “It takes us ages by ourselves. What did you do with that bundle of iron pegs that was with the blankets?”

“Here they are,” said Titty.

“There are holes for them too,” said Peggy, “but they have to be hammered in. Oh bother, I forgot our mallet.”

“Skip for our hammer, Roger,” said Mate Susan.

Along the bottom of the sides and back of the tent there were loops, and for each loop there was a peg with a crook at the top to hold it. Peggy found the holes that were left from the time of their last camping, and John drove the pegs home with the hammer.

“There’s nothing else,” said Peggy, “except the groundsheet, and that’s at the harbour with our sleeping-bags, where I emptied them out of Amazon.”

“It really is something like a camp now,” said Titty, looking with pride at the three tents and the camp fire, and the kettle and Susan’s newly cleaned frying-pan and saucepan. “Anybody would know it was a camp on a desert island, the moment they saw the sail.”

“Let’s finish lacing the sail,” said Susan, but John had hurried off to the look-out point to see if he could see anything of Captain Nancy and the Amazon.

A moment later he came running back into the camp to fetch the telescope.

“I say, Susan,” he shouted, “Captain Flint is coming after her.”

“You’re as bad as Titty with her treasure,” said Susan. “Natives don’t do things like that.”

“But he is,” said John.

“Uncle Jim isn’t always very like a native,” said Peggy.

“He’s worse than any native,” said Titty, over her shoulder, as she ran up to the look-out point. The others were close behind her.

Nancy had been nearly half-way back when Captain Flint in his rowing boat shot out of Houseboat Bay in pursuit of her. She was now close to the island, and Captain Flint, though he had gained a great deal, was still some little way behind her. His was a heavy boat.

“Well,” said John, “he is coming after her, isn’t he?”

“Perhaps she’s invited him,” said Susan.

“And she rowing fit to bust,” said Peggy. “Not she. He’s giving chase.”

“And look how he’s rowing,” said John.

“Like a steam engine,” said Roger.

“He’s fairly lifting his boat along,” said Peggy. “But Nancy’ll beat him. She’s got too much start. Go it, Nancy! Well rowed! Keep it up! Go it, Nancy!”

The little group on the look-out point shouted as if they were watching a race. Nancy heard them, and glanced once over her shoulder.

“Come on,” yelled Peggy. “It’s no good putting to sea to help her. But she’ll get here first, and then we can all stop him from landing. Come on. Swallows and Amazons for ever!”

“And death to Captain Flint,” shouted Titty.

They ran down to the landing-place. Nancy came rowing in, very much out of breath, but still six or seven lengths ahead of Captain Flint.

“We’re in for it now, my lads,” she panted, as she jumped ashore.

A few moments later Captain Flint’s rowing boat grounded beside the Amazon. It was instantly seized and pushed off again by Nancy and Peggy.

Captain Flint had been laying his oars in. But feeling himself again afloat, he dipped his blades in the water again and turned to look at his enemies. His manner was not at all fierce. His face was red, but that was with the heat of rowing. His voice was mild. Almost, it might have been thought that he was shy.

“May I come ashore?” he said.

“Friend or enemy?” asked Nancy breathlessly.

“GO IT, NANCY!”

“Well, not an enemy,” said Captain Flint. “Distressed British seaman, more like.”

“You’ve had the Black Spot,” said Nancy. “We’ve got nothing more to do with you.”

“I’ve come to apologise,” said Captain Flint. “Not to you, Nancy.”

“Shall we let him land, Captain John?” asked Nancy. But John, at hearing Captain Flint’s last words, had walked away.

“You have been an awful pig to him, you know,” said Nancy, “but we’ll let you land.”

Captain Flint brought his boat in once more, stepped out of her, and taking no notice of anyone else, walked after Captain John.

Captain John was walking away along the path to the harbour. Captain Flint hurried after him.

“Young man,” he said in a very friendly voice.

“Yes,” said John.

“I’ve got something to say to you. Don’t treat me in the way I treated you the other day and refuse to listen to me. I was altogether in the wrong. It was beastly of me even if I had been in the right. I ought to have known you were telling the truth. And I ought not to have called you a liar, anyway. I’m very sorry. Will you shake hands?”

There was a most unpleasant lump in Captain John’s throat. He found that it was almost more upsetting to have things put right than it had been when they went wrong. Then at least he could be angry, and that was a help. This was worse. He swallowed twice, and he bit the inside of his lip pretty hard. He held out his hand. Captain Flint took it, and shook it firmly. John felt suddenly better.

“It’s all right now,” said he.

“I really am most awfully sorry,” said Captain Flint. “You know I was quite sure it had been you because I saw your boat and you, and never saw my wretched nieces. Not that that is any excuse for the way I behaved.”

“It’s quite all right,” said John.

They walked back towards the others.

“I’ve been paid for it in a way,” said Captain Flint. “Nancy tells me you came to warn me, and give me a message or something. If I’d only listened to you instead of being a cross-grained curmudgeonly idiot, I shouldn’t have lost my book. I’d have taken it with me. Nancy’s told you what’s happened?”

“Yes,” said Captain John, “but I didn’t come only to warn you. I was going to tell you what the charcoal-burners had asked us to tell Nancy and Peggy. Then I was going to tell you you were all wrong about that paper you put in my tent. Then I was going to tell you I’d never been near the houseboat. And then I was going to declare war.”

“Well, I call that really friendly,” said Captain Flint. “Do you hear that, Nancy?” he said, as they came back to the others who had come up to the camp. “Do you hear that? He was coming to declare war on me.”

“Of course he was,” said Nancy. “We all were. We have an offensive and defensive alliance against you. We were going to capture the houseboat ourselves, and give you your choice between walking the plank and throwing in your lot with us like last year. He was sick with you because you’d told the natives he’d been at the houseboat when he hadn’t, and we were sick with you because of all this silly book-writing. But it’s no good now, of course. You’ve had the Black Spot, and we won’t have anything more to do with you.”

“I don’t know that it’s too late,” said Captain Flint. “There’s no more of the book-writing, anyhow. The book’s gone, and the typewriter with it, and I’m too old to start writing it all over again. I’m ready for a declaration of war whenever you like.”

“I didn’t want to capture the houseboat,” Titty broke out. “I wanted to sink her. I wish we’d sunk her at the very first.”

“But why?”

“Titty!” said Susan, warningly.

“Because nobody could have been such a beastly enemy as you,” said Titty. “We hadn’t done anything to you, and you made the natives think we had, and then, when Captain John tried to help you . . .”

“Yes, I know,” said Captain Flint. “I was a beast, but I can’t do more than say I’m very sorry. And I really am.”

“It’s all right about that, Titty,” said John. “It’s all put right. It’s over.”

“Look here,” said Captain Flint. “I’ll do anything I can to make up. I’ve wasted my own summer, writing a book, and I’ve wasted some of yours too, Nancy’s and Peggy’s I mean, but I see their tent is here, so I suppose you are all together in things. Take back your Black Spot, and make peace with me, and we’ll have a first-class war at once. If you want to capture the houseboat come and do your worst. I’ll be ready for you. I’ve got nothing else to do now and I’ll make up for lost time.”

“Shall we forgive him?” said Peggy. “He’s quite good at being one of us if he likes.”

“We’ll forgive him,” said Nancy, “if it’s to be war, and a real battle on the houseboat. We’ll forgive him because he’s ashamed, and because he’s in trouble. He really has had his houseboat burgled.”

“Well, he deserved it,” said Titty.

“Yes,” said Nancy, “but nobody ought to be allowed to burgle it except ourselves.”

“Real battle,” said Captain Flint. “At three o’clock to-morrow. I must tidy up below after those scoundrels. But at three o’clock to-morrow I’ll be cleared for action.”

“Really and truly?” said Peggy.

“Honest Pirate!” said Captain Flint.

“All right,” said Nancy.

“Take back your Black Spot, then,” said Captain Flint.

“You keep it,” said Nancy, “to remind you never to turn native again.”

“I will,” he said. “But look here, I’d like to know the names of my enemies. And, by the way, why in your Black Spot did you call me Captain Flint?”

“Because Titty, that’s their able-seaman, said you were a retired pirate.”

“Why, so I am. But which is Titty? Are you Titty?” he said to Susan.

“Of course she isn’t,” said Nancy. “She is the mate of the Swallow, and her name is Susan.”

“How do you do, Mister Mate,” said Captain Flint.

“And this is Captain John of the Swallow.”

“The skipper and I have met already. He’s forgiven me, though I don’t deserve it.”

“This is Able-seaman Titty. Able-seaman Titty, Captain Flint.”

“So it was you who knew the dark secret of my pirate past.”

“I saw the parrot,” said Titty.

“And this is Roger, their ship’s boy.”

“I’ve been a ship’s boy myself,” said Captain Flint. “It’s a hard life.”

“And we are the Amazon pirates.”

“I know you two ruffians well enough,” said Captain Flint.

“Do you really mean a battle on the houseboat to-morrow?” said Titty.

“To-morrow as ever is,” said Captain Flint.

“We’ll take her,” said the able-seaman. “Have you got a good plank?”

“What for?”

“To walk,” said the able-seaman.

“Everything shall be in order,” said the retired pirate, who, of course, knew just how things should be.

“What about dinner?” said Roger.

“If it’s going to be war to-morrow,” said Mate Susan to Captain Flint, “would you like to stop and have dinner with us to-day? I’ll put the kettle on at once.”

“There’s nothing I should like better,” he said. “I seem to be in the middle of an enemy camp . . .”

“Bang in the middle of it,” said Nancy.

“But it’s such a good one that I’d almost like to join you altogether.”

“Too late,” said Nancy. “They’re going in two days. So are we. You’re not the least use now except as an enemy. But we don’t mind letting you be that, if you really want to be one of us again.”

“Three o’clock to-morrow, and the scuppers will be red with blood,” said Captain Flint. “But I suppose you don’t mind my stopping to dinner to-day.”

“Not a bit,” said Nancy. “The mate’s invited you. And there’s lots to eat. We brought a plum pudding to cut up in pieces, and fry. Most luscious. Cook gave it us. And then afterwards we found a cold tongue. It had hardly been touched, so we brought it too. But we came away rather privately because we thought we might be stopped, and so we went and forgot the grog.”

“I’ll have the kettle boiling in a minute,” said Susan. “You bring the plates out, Titty. Pick out some of the best potatoes, Roger, and we’ll bake them. There’s lots of hot ashes at the edge of the fire.”

“Come on, Peggy, and we’ll bring our stores into camp,” said Captain Nancy.

“Can I give you a hand with that lacing?” said Captain Flint, and in another moment he was sitting on the ground stretching out the sail while John reeved the lacing through the eyelet holes along the edge of the sail, and Susan was busy with the fire and the kettle, and Titty and the boy were bringing out plates and mugs and knives.

“This is a lot better than writing books,” said Captain Flint presently. “Now, skipper, if you’ll take two turns there and hold fast, I’ll show you a good way of finishing off.”

Considering that Captain Flint was having dinner with his enemies, it was a very friendly meal. Even Titty softened towards him before the end of it. He never made the mistake of calling her anything but Able-seaman. The tongue that the Amazons had found and brought away with them was very good. So was the seed cake of the Swallows. It was no good opening pemmican tins when there was nearly the whole of a tongue to be eaten. The plum pudding fried in slices would have come last, only the potatoes took a long time to get properly done, and in the end had to be used as a sort of hot dessert.

They were sitting round the fire, getting the insides out of the potatoes, which were almost too hot to touch, when they began to talk about the burglary.

“I wonder what made the Billies give you that message for me?” said Captain Flint.

“They said they’d heard something at Bigland,” said John.

“That’s away beyond the foot of the lake,” said Captain Flint. “If we could only find out where the burglar came from, there might be some chance of getting my box back. But there was nothing to show who he was or what he was. My boat looked as if half a hundred wild cats had been having a general scrimmage in the cabin, and that was all, except that they took my old cabin trunk. But everything that mattered was in it.”

“Was it a very heavy one?” said Titty.

“It was, rather.”

“Were there ingots in it?”

Captain Flint laughed. “Afraid not,” he said. “What there was was a typewriter, a lot of diaries, and old logs, and the book I’ve been writing all the summer. If they’d taken anything else I wouldn’t have minded.”

Thoughts struggled in Titty’s mind, but she looked at Captain Flint more kindly than before.

“Was it a book you’d been writing yourself?” she asked.

“It was,” said Captain Flint.

“About your pirate past?”

“Well, that came into it.”

“Was it a very good book?”

“Come to think of it,” said Captain Flint, “perhaps it wasn’t. All the same, I’d like to get it back. You’ve no idea what a job it is writing a book. Keeping a log is bad enough.”

“I know,” said Titty.

“And now I might just as well not have written it.”

“And been much nicer all the summer,” said Nancy.

“Don’t rub it in,” said Captain Flint sadly.

There was a rapid secret talk between the Amazons, ending with Nancy saying, “Well, tell him if you like.”

“Look here, Uncle Jim,” said Peggy.

“I beg your pardon, I thought my name was Captain Flint.”

“So it is. If you’re really going to be one of us again, we’ve got something to tell you. We know just when the burglar was burgling your boat. We saw him do it.”

“Did you, by Jove? Did you see which way he went?”

“At least we saw the light in the houseboat. We thought it was yours. We couldn’t tell you yesterday, you know, because you weren’t one of us, and when we saw that light we were in bed properly.”

“Were you? And where were you improperly?”

“On the lake.”

“So you were supposed to be in bed, and were really up to high jinks on the ocean wave?”

“It’s a secret, of course,” said Peggy.

“We were sailing down to Wild Cat Island in a private war,” said Nancy.

“If the burglar had come this way, do you think you would have heard him?” said Captain Flint.

“We didn’t. We only saw a light in the cabin, and thought it was you.”

Then John spoke.

“Able-seaman Titty thinks she did hear something that night.”

“Where was she?”

“In Amazon.”

“What, with you two?”

“No. It was afterwards. We were on Wild Cat Island then. We were marooned.”

“Who marooned you?”

“Titty did. She went off in Amazon, and left us to our cruel fate,” said Peggy. “That’s how the Swallows won the war.”

“But where were the others?”

“We were up the Amazon River, or sailing back from it,” said John.

“The lake seems to have been a lively place that night,” said Captain Flint. “And what did you hear, Able-seaman?”

“I heard people rowing in a boat. They came close past me.”

“And where were you?”

“I was anchored.”

“Look here,” said Captain John, “you’d better have a look at our chart. It shows just where she was.”

He ran into his tent, and came out with the new chart and pointed to the little anchor that marked the place where Titty had lain in Amazon off the north end of Cormorant Island.

Captain Flint looked at it.

“Did they pass close to you?” he asked.

“Very close,” said Titty.

“It’s a funny course for them to steer from my houseboat if they were making for the foot of the lake. They must have nearly run into the island.”

“They did run into it,” said Titty.

“And then they went on?”

“They landed on the island,” said Titty, “and they left their treasure there, or whatever it was they had with them. They said it was heavy. I heard them.”

“Shiver my timbers!” said Nancy.

“Not really, Titty,” said Susan.

Captain Flint jumped to his feet. “Able-seaman,” he said, “if that box is there I’ll give you anything you’d like to have. Come on, all of you, and we’ll row across and look.”

He grabbed Titty by the hand, and shook it. Titty, almost to her surprise, found herself smiling back at him. His hand was very large, and there could be no doubt about its friendliness. And after all, even if her treasure was not Spanish gold, it was a book, and a pirate book. Her only regret was that the treasure-hunting expedition was to be so large. But that could not be helped.

“Look here,” said Nancy, “if it’s there, and you get your book back, you won’t go and turn native again.”

“Never,” said Captain Flint. “Come on. Pile into my boat, all of you.”

They ran down to the landing-place, and crowded in, the two Amazons, the four Swallows, and Captain Flint. In another moment, he was rowing round the island, and across to the island of the cormorants.

Captain Flint rowed as if he were still racing after Nancy. Every stroke jerked the boat forward and jerked his passengers backward. In a very few minutes he had reached Cormorant Island and found a place where he could pull his boat’s nose up between two rocks. Everybody scrambled ashore.

But there was nothing to be seen on the island, except the bare tree and the white splashed rocks, and jetsam from the last flood, and big loose stones. They looked everywhere. Captain Flint climbed all round the island two or three times. He could find nothing.

“But I know they left it here,” said Able-seaman Titty. “I heard them say they couldn’t put it on a motor bicycle. And then they said they would come fishing and catch something worth catching.”

“It was the middle of the night, you know, Titty,” said Susan, “and you may have been mistaken.”

“They may have changed their minds,” said Captain Flint, “or they may have come for it already. Anyway it’s something to know which end of the lake they came from. Not that I think I shall ever get it again,” he added.

They rowed sadly back to Wild Cat Island.

The able-seaman did not weep, but she was very near it.

“I know they left it there,” she said.

“Never mind,” said Captain Flint. “We’ve had a good look.”

“And perhaps, if you had found it, you’d have turned native again after all, and gone on bothering about publishers,” said Nancy.

“Anyhow, I haven’t found it,” said Captain Flint, “so we’ll think of something else. Three o’clock to-morrow, for example.”

“Real war?” said Nancy.

“Blood and thunder,” said Captain Flint. “Three o’clock to-morrow, and I’ll be cleared for action. I’ll be ready to repel boarders, or sink both your ships, or hang the lot of you at the yard-arm, or be captured as a Spanish brig or sunk as a Portuguese slaver . . . anything you like.”

He put them ashore at Wild Cat Island, and rowed back to bring order into his wrecked cabin.

“Good-bye,” they shouted after him in the friendliest manner.

“Good-bye,” he shouted back. “Three o’clock sharp. Then Death or Glory!”