Читать книгу Swallows & Amazons - Boxed Set - Arthur Ransome - Страница 72

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It was early afternoon when the Beckfoot war canoe, or rowing boat, shot through the bridge into the lower reaches of the Amazon. The two captains were rowing, Roger was in the bows, and the rest of the explorers were in the stern, together with the rope and the knapsacks and the sleeping-bags, the kettle and the milk-can that they had picked up at the Half Way Camp on their way down from the top of the mountain.

“There’s our tree,” called Roger, as the boat turned a bend of the river and he saw the huge oak with its branches spreading far out over the water.

“Easy all,” called Mate Peggy.

“You’re sure you really do want to go home that way instead of coming in the Amazon?” said Mate Susan.

“Of course we do,” said Titty. “That’s what we laid the patterans for.”

“Besides,” said Roger, “there’s hardly any wind.”

“Well, look here, Titty,” said Susan. “There really isn’t much wind, so if you do get back before us you can get the fire going and put some water on to boil. You’ll find the saucepan in the larder.”

“Susan!” said Titty indignantly.

“In Peter Duck’s cave, I mean,” said Susan. “There’s no point in taking the kettle. The less you have to carry the better.”

“We don’t need anything but chocolate,” said Roger.

“And the compass,” said Titty. “We’ll take great care of it. We ought to have the compass, you know.”

“We shan’t need it,” said Susan.

“All right,” said John.

“Back water with your left,” cried Peggy. “Ship your oars!”

With a loud swishing of oak leaves, the rowing boat ran itself gently into the bank beside the big tree. Roger was out in a moment and hanging on to the painter to stop the boat from slipping back until Titty had picked out their two knapsacks and worked her way past the rowers to join him on the bank. John gave her the compass. Susan handed out a double ration of chocolate for each of them. Except for the chocolate and compass there was nothing in their knapsacks, but, when exploring, they would rather have had empty knapsacks than none. They would not need their sleeping-bags which, as Nancy said, would cram in with the rest of the cargo in Amazon. “Much better send things by sea than by pack-horses.”

“Pack-donkeys,” said Susan. “They’d be much better off in Amazon themselves.”

For a moment the able-seaman was afraid that Susan was going to think better of it, and not let them go after all, but Peggy called out, “Shove her off,” so Roger threw the painter aboard, and the two of them, pushing together, sent the boat shooting out into the river.

“Out oars,” called Peggy, who was enjoying giving orders to the captains. “Back water with your right. Pull left. Left. Pull both. Steady. Left again. All right now.”

The war canoe with the two captains and the two mates moved fast downstream and disappeared.

Roger looked after it.

“Suppose we never see them again,” he said.

The able-seaman was not going to allow that kind of talk.

“Now then, Boy,” she said, “get your knapsack on. We mustn’t hang about. It wouldn’t be fair to the ship’s parrot. He’s waiting in the cave.”

“He’s got Peter Duck,” said the boy.

“No, he hasn’t. Not now. We’ll have Peter Duck with us. He was waiting for us under the oak tree. It’s just the sort of thing he’d like, following patterans over the moor. Besides, he’ll be a help in case of natives.”

“Unfriendly ones?” said the boy, struggling into the straps of his flapping, empty knapsack.

“Savages,” said the able-seaman. “They might go for you or me if we were by ourselves. But if Peter Duck were to give just one look at them they wouldn’t dare.”

All the same, when they had slipped through the edges of the wood to the road, they listened carefully, lying on the top of the stone wall, to make sure that no natives of any kind were coming either way.

“Are you ready?” said Titty.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy.

“Peter Duck says now’s our chance. Drop and hare across for all you’re worth.”

They dropped, and hared.

“Here’s my tuft of grass. That’s the first of the patterans. There’s a good step on the other side. Be quick. Give me one foot. Don’t kick with the other. Wriggle with the top of you. Quick!”

The able-seaman hoisted the boy up the wall. He scrambled over the top and disappeared, all but his hands, which for a moment clung on to the moss-covered stones.

“I’m feeling for the step,” his voice came in a whisper, as if he were afraid of being overheard. “I’ve got it.”

His hands were gone and Titty heard him drop into the dead leaves on the other side of the wall. She found it none too easy to climb the wall herself, and would have been glad if Peter Duck had been real enough to give her a leg up as she had given Roger. Of course, he would have done if he had been there. So she had to pretend that he had already climbed over. “He did it in one jump,” she said to herself. “It was nothing to him after running up and down rigging all his life.” A moment later she, too, had found the step on the other side and jumped from it down into the wood. Roger was already looking for pine-cones.

“No,” said the able-seaman, “we didn’t put any here. No need. We follow the wall till we see the four firs, and then the four firs show the way to the first of our patterans. We can’t go wrong here. All we’ve got to do is to keep along the wall and climb as fast as we can.”

They had crossed the road just at the place where the old wall came down from the moor. They could almost touch it when they dropped down into the wood. There was nothing to keep them, and they began at once scrambling up through the wood, keeping close to the old wall, and pushing aside the hazel branches. It was hard climbing, and they were glad when they came to the edge of the thick wood, to the place where the trees had been cut down and there was little left but old stumps, and foxgloves, and ferns, so that they could see where they were going and how the ruins of the old wall led on to the four dark fir trees standing one above another on the steep hillside.

“What about chocolate?” said Roger, less because he wanted chocolate than because he wanted a rest.

“Come on,” said Titty. “We’ll have our first chocolate under the four firs. That’ll be the first stage. Then we’ll have to look for our patterans to show us the rest of the way.”

They hurried on, climbing still, over the rough, broken ground where the old tree stumps and the few scattered young trees showed there had once been a wood. Under the four great firs, which were all that were left of that old forest of thirty or forty or fifty years ago, the able-seaman and the boy ate a ration of chocolate, and looked back into the valley of the Amazon.

Roger said, “I wish I’d seen the great-aunt close to.”

“It’s a good thing none of us did,” said Titty. “Just think of what happened to the people who looked at the Gorgon. We might all have been turned into stone and stuck about the Beckfoot garden with bird-baths or sundials on the tops of our heads.”

“It didn’t happen like that to the Amazons,” said Roger.

“Perhaps they always looked the other way,” said Titty. “And, anyhow, she almost did turn them into stone. Look at the way they got stuck here and couldn’t do any of the things they wanted to do. And remember how stiff they were when we saw them in the carriage. That was because they were sitting just in front of her. I don’t believe even Captain Flint felt properly springy while she was anywhere near.”

“I wonder where he is.”

“Playing the accordion in his houseboat probably. At least I think that’s what he’d do. He saw her off this morning, you know. Come on, Boy. Let’s get on to Swallowdale. Remember the Amazons are going to be in the camp to-night. Come on. We must keep the four firs in a line and look for the patterans.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy, and scampered on towards the moor with his eyes on the ground, running to right and then to left and back again like a dog trying to pick up a scent.

The able-seaman moved crabwise, and not so fast, all the time looking over her shoulder to see that the four firs looked as nearly as possible like one.

They crossed the broad belt of heather and had already left the four firs far behind when Roger found the first of the pine-cones.

“Good,” said the able-seaman. “I was beginning to think we’d missed it.” She had another look back at the firs, and then hurried forward. She was picking up the second pine-cone before the boy saw it.

“Hurrah,” shouted the boy. “They’re the best patterans that ever were. We can’t miss the way now.” He galloped on over the moor and presently picked up the third.

“Shall we leave them for another time?” he said.

“No. Better throw them away. We don’t want to show anybody else the way to Swallowdale.”

“Which of us can throw farthest?” said the boy, giving Titty a pine-cone and running on to pick up another for himself.

The able-seaman knew that Roger could beat her at throwing, but she threw her pine-cone none the less. Roger threw his but not quite in the same direction, so they had to measure the distances by stepping before they could be sure that his had really gone a yard or two farther than hers.

“This is waste of time,” said the able-seaman. “Besides, Peter Duck could throw yards farther than either of us if he wanted to.”

They hurried on again, picking up the pine-cones one by one as they found them, and throwing each one away as soon as they saw the next.

They were high up on the top of the open moorland and had already long lost sight of the four firs, when Roger stopped suddenly and said, “What’s become of the hills?”

IN THE FOG

Titty looked back towards Kanchenjunga. Kanchenjunga stood out clear in the sunshine and so did the great hills beyond him to the north, but the lower hills to the south had disappeared altogether. It was as if there was nothing beyond the moorland but the sky.

“It’s not so hot now,” said Roger.

It certainly did seem much cooler all of a sudden. And the sunshine was not so bright as it had been.

Titty looked back again to Kanchenjunga. A wisp of pale cloud was floating across his lower slopes. His head was somehow fading. She could no longer see the peak with the cairn that they had that morning climbed. She looked over the moorland towards Swallowdale. Something was happening. There was no doubt about it. The moorland was shrinking. It was nothing like so wide as it had been. The trees away to the left had gone. The hills away to the right had disappeared. The moorland, instead of ending sharply where it dropped into the farther valley, faded into a wall of soft white mist.

“It’s coming in like the tide,” said Titty.

“We’re on a cape with the sea pouring in on each side of us,” said Roger.

A high wall of mist was now rolling towards them from the south along the top of the ridge. There seemed to be no wind, but the mist moved forward, little clouds sometimes spilling ahead of it like the small waves racing up the sands in front of the breakers.

“It’s cold,” said the boy.

“Let’s hurry,” said the able-seaman.

And then the mist rolled over the top of them and they could see only a few yards ahead.

“It wasn’t a cape,” said Roger. “Only a sandbank. And now the sea’s gone over the top of it.”

Titty sniffed and coughed.

“It’s sea-fog,” she said. “The tickling sort. Don’t breathe it more than you can help.”

“There’s a pine-cone somewhere close here,” said Roger. “I saw it a minute ago.”

He ran on a yard or two and was gone in the white mist.

“Roger.”

“Hullo!”

“Where are you?”

“Here.”

“Don’t move. Where are you now?”

“Here. Where are you?”

“Keep still. I’m just coming. Good. I can see you. That’s all right.”

“I can’t find that pine-cone.”

“Don’t run on again, anyhow,” said Titty. “We must stick together or we’ll lose each other. The fog’ll blow over.”

“Your hair’s all over dew.”

“I wonder if they’ve got it like this on the lake.”

“Shall I make a fog signal?” said the boy. “I will.”

“There’s no one to hear it.”

“I will, anyway,” said the boy, and a few damp sheep up on the top of the moor were startled by hearing what they did not know was the deep hooting of an Atlantic liner feeling the way towards Plymouth in a Channel fog.

“Don’t,” said Titty in a minute or two. “I want to think.”

Roger sent one more long booming hoot into the fog, and stopped.

“Nobody’s going to run us down for a minute or two,” he said.

“We ought to be able to find the next pine-cone. Keep fairly close to me and we’ll look for it. We shan’t be able to cover much of the ground if we’re very close together, but if we try going far apart one of us’ll get lost.”

“If one of us is lost both of us are,” said Roger. “Because if the one that was lost could see the one that wasn’t lost then neither of them would be lost, and if the one that was lost couldn’t see the one that wasn’t lost, then that one would be lost, too, as well as the one that it couldn’t see.”

“Oh, shut up, Roger. Do. Just for a minute.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy; and, a moment later, “may I say something?”

“What is it?”

“Here’s the pine-cone.”

“Good,” said the able-seaman. “Now you see the use of patterans. We’ll be able to find our way to Swallowdale in spite of the fog.”

“How will they manage on the lake?”

“With the compass. Oh, we’ve got it. But probably Captain Nancy has one of her own.”

Titty pulled the compass out of her knapsack and opened it.

“The black end points north,” she said, “so the white end points south. And south is where we have to go to find the next patteran.”

She held the compass before her, looking down into it and moving slowly ahead.

Roger, who had been keeping close to her, searching the ground, presently pulled at her sleeve.

“We’ve probably passed it,” he said.

The trouble was that Titty thought so too, but there was no way of knowing. The compass did not seem to help. This part of the moor was covered with short grass with patches of bracken and rocks and loose stones, and stones not quite so loose, bedded in the ground, with ants’ nests under them, if you lifted them. Here and there were thin tufts of dark green rushes, the sort of green rushes that are white when peeled and can be made into rings and plaits and even baskets. There was no track that anyone could have seen even if there had been no fog. Here and there were the sheep runs, but they ran all ways, and mostly from side to side of the moor and not straight along the top. It was very puzzling.

“You stand still,” said Titty, “and I’ll walk round in sight of you and look for the next patteran.”

That let her look all over a circle of a dozen yards across. But when she had worked all round it she was no better off.

“Now you stand still, and I’ll hunt,” said the boy, but he was no luckier.

“The only thing to do is to go on,” said Titty at last. “We must get home, because of Polly. And Susan said, ‘Get the fire going,’ too.”

She held the compass close in front of her and moved forward with her eyes fixed on the needle. The needle swung to and fro, no matter how steadily she held it, and the worst came to the worst when she caught her foot in a tussock of lank grass and fell on her face. The compass did not touch the ground. She saved it by letting herself fall anyhow, without trying to put out her hands. After all, the compass mattered most, so she kept it in the air, though she hit the ground herself much harder than she thought possible.

“Is it smashed?” asked Roger.

The able-seaman picked herself up.

“No, it isn’t hurt,” she said. “But I wish I knew how to use it properly. John didn’t try to look at it all the time. I watched what he did. He looked at the compass to see which way was north and then he looked north and found a rock or something. And then he put the compass in his pocket and walked till he came to the rock. But it’s no good us looking south, because there’s nothing to see.”

“Just one blanket everywhere,” said Roger.

Titty looked at the compass again.

“South is there,” she said, pointing into the fog. “If we walk perfectly straight we can’t go wrong, and anyhow we can’t help coming to the beck, and as soon as we’ve found the beck it’ll be easy enough to find the camp.”

She had one more look at the compass, and then, putting it in her pocket, set out doggedly into the fog, looking straight before her, and doing her best to take steps with her right foot exactly the same length as those she took with her left.

“Come on, Boy,” she said.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy, and followed close at her heels, scouting a yard or two to either side in hope of finding one of the pine-cones to show them that they were in the right way.

They moved slowly along the moor in a white, almost empty world, a world in which something that they thought might be a stray cow turned out to be a rock, and rocks turned out to be worried, black-faced sheep that bleated and scurried away into the whiteness all about them.

“Are we properly lost?” said Roger at last.

“Of course we aren’t,” said the able-seaman. “Besides, it isn’t as if we were alone. Peter Duck says it’s quite all right, so long as we keep going straight.”

“We must be nearly there.”

“I expect we are. We may hear the parrot any minute.”

“It’s very squashy here. I’ve got water into one of my shoes.”

“It’s only a bit of swamp. We’ll have to go round it.”

For some time they picked their way from one tuft of green rushes to another. The able-seaman was rather bothered by this, because though they had seen plenty of these rushes, they had not crossed any really swampy ground on the way to the Amazon. Still, there were lots of small marshes up on the moor, and just a little bit to right or left would not matter much if they kept on moving straight ahead. Suddenly she stopped short, listening.

“What is it?” whispered Roger.

“Listen!”

There it was, quite clear, not very far before them, the gentle tinkle of water.

“It’s the beck. Now we’re all right.”

They ran forward and almost fell across a little stream trickling down the moor from one tiny pool into the next.

“We’ve come much too far to the right,” said Titty. “This must be a long way above Trout Tarn for the beck to be so small. But we can’t miss the way now.”

With the beck to guide them through the fog, they hurried cheerfully along.

“We’ll have the rest of the chocolate when we come to Trout Tarn,” said Roger, but when they had walked a long way without coming to it, though the beck was much bigger than it had been, the able-seaman agreed that it was time for a short rest.

They took their knapsacks off to sit on, first emptying out the chocolate. Titty took the compass out of her pocket, and, while she was eating her chocolate, opened the compass on the ground beside her.

“There’s something gone wrong with the compass,” she said suddenly. “It makes the beck flow west, and of course it flows east all the way by Trout Tarn and Swallowdale down to Horseshoe Cove.”

“Did it happen when you tumbled?”

“I don’t think it could have done. It didn’t touch the ground at all. Perhaps it got too much shaken up on Kanchenjunga. We did come down at a good pace.”

“Well,” said Roger, “it’s lucky we found the beck.”