Swallowdale

  “Couldn’t you make a tent for Gibber, too?” said Roger.

  “I don’t believe he’d really like it,” said mother.

  Gibber and Bridget were both on the ship’s papers, but for different reasons were not really members of the crew. Bridget was too young. She was only three, and though she was growing up fast and everybody had stopped calling her Vicky because she no longer looked like Queen Victoria in old age, she was hardly old enough and strong enough for the hardships of life on shipboard or on a desert island. She was to stay at Holly Howe with mother. Gibber was the monkey. He had been given to Roger by Captain Flint, after last year’s adventures. He was very active and tireless, and mother had said that he would be altogether too much of a good thing in someone else’s farmhouse. Roger himself, when asked if he would really like to share his tent with the monkey at night, had agreed that perhaps it would be as well if the monkey had his summer holidays at the same time as the rest of the Walkers had theirs. So the monkey had been packed off to spend a happy month, staying with relations, at the Zoo.

  That first night on Wild Cat Island the explorers ran tea on into supper. It didn’t seem worth while to have two boilings and two washings-up when tea was late already. So, after tea had really begun, there was a great scrambling of eggs in the frying-pan by Susan, a great buttering of bunloaf and bread by mother, a lot of stoking of the fire by Titty, while the boy took a big mouthful of bunloaf to last out and went down with the captain to bring up the saucepan full of water so that it could be put on the fire the moment the kettle came off and the eggs were cooked. Then, when supper was over, mother lent a hand with the washing-up and it got done much faster than most people would think possible.

  Then Bridget had to see the parrot put to sleep in the stores tent, with his blue cover over his cage, so that he should not wake the camp by loud shouts at dawn. Then both the visitors were taken all over the island and shown even the harbour, which had been kept secret the year before. At Look Out Point, Bridget was allowed to look through the telescope. But it was already after her bed-time and mother was in a hurry to take her back.

  “Time for Bridget’s watch below,” she said. “She didn’t get half the sleep she should have had last night, after the railway journey, what with all the chattering there was between decks.”

  The others laughed.

  “It was the first night of the holidays,” said John. “At least, the first that really counted.”

  “Well,” said mother, “she’s got to make up for it to-night.”

  The four explorers took the best of all natives and the ship’s baby down to the landing-place and saw them into their boat.

  “I think you should be all right,” said mother, saying good-bye.

  “We jolly well are,” said John.

  “Remember what daddy said, and don’t go and be duffers and get drowned. And, of course, if you want anything, give a note to Mrs Dixon in the morning when you go for the milk.”

  “We’ll send a mail, anyhow,” said Titty.

  “Push her off now, John. Good night. Don’t stay up late. Get a good sleep. Let me see. What was the word in native language? Glook, was it? or Drool? Drool. Drool.”

  “Never mind about talking native,” said Titty. “We’ve been teaching you English all this year.”

  “So you have,” said mother. “Good night. Sleep like old trees and get up like young horses, as my old nanny in Australia used to say.”

  “Good night. Good night. Good night, Bridgie.”

  The four explorers ran up to the Look Out Point once more, partly to wave to mother on her way up the lake, partly in the hope that they might yet see the little white sail that would show that Nancy and Peggy were coming to the island.

  “It’s too late for them to come now,” said Susan.

  “You never know with Nancy,” said John.

  “They’d think nothing of coming in the dark,” said Titty.

  “Well, we’ve left the place for their tent,” said John.

  They watched the Holly Howe rowing boat grow smaller and smaller in the distance. At last it disappeared behind the Peak of Darien. Roger, who had been following it as long as he could, shut the telescope with a click, yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  They went down into the camp. There was some tidying-up and some washing of hands and faces at the landing-place, a last expedition to the harbour to see that Swallow was comfortable for the night, and then Mate Susan began to hurry the crew to bed. She found it easy enough to persuade the explorers to get into their new sleeping-bags and to lie down in their new tents. But this first night on the island, after a whole year away from it, nobody could settle down to sleep at once. One thing after another came into somebody’s head. Sometimes it would be John who thought of it, sometimes Titty, very often it was Roger, and sometimes even Susan had something to say that she was afraid she would forget if she left it till next day. Long after the captain had said “Lights out” and the little lanterns had been blown out in each tent, talk went on. It stopped at last. Roger was asleep, and perhaps Susan. Titty whispered very quietly, “John.”

  “What is it?”

  “What do you think yourself Nancy meant by native trouble?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Go to sleep, or they’ll come and find us not up in the morning.”

  CHAPTER III

  HORSESHOE COVE AND THE AMAZON PIRATES

  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 pour
ed 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.

  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.

  “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 main-sheet 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 me last year. The best landing-place i
s 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 high-water 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.