“What about dinner?” said Roger.
“If it’s going to be war tomorrow,” said Mate Susan to Captain Flint, “would you like to stop and have dinner with us today? 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 tomorrow, and the scuppers will be red with blood,” said Captain Flint. “But I suppose you don’t mind my stopping to dinner today.”
“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,” sai
d 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 tomorrow, for example.”
“Real war?” said Nancy.
“Blood and thunder,” said Captain Flint. “Three o’clock tomorrow, 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.
“Goodbye,” they shouted after him in the friendliest manner.
“Goodbye,” he shouted back. “Three o’clock sharp. Then Death or Glory!”
CHAPTER XXVII
THE BATTLE IN HOUSEBOAT BAY
“Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to do
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.”
MASEFIELD.
THE AMAZONS WERE the first to wake in the morning, because for some time they had been sleeping in a house, and had not grown accustomed, like the Swallows, to the early morning sunlight through the white tent walls. “Show a leg, show a leg,” they shouted to the others and soon had the whole camp astir. “Remember,” they shouted, “battle at three o’clock sharp. There’s no time to lose.” Really, in spite of bathing and fetching the milk and having breakfast and dinner, it seemed a very long time before the small hand of the chronometer crawled round past the II, and nearly as far as the III, on the chronometer face. A watched pot never boils, and a watched watch seems to lag on purpose. But at last Captain John looked at it for the last time, and gave the order. The Grand Fleet set sail.
*
“Shall we go in under sail or oars?” Captain John consulted with Captain Nancy, as the Amazon and the Swallow, slipping quietly along with a following wind, came near the point at the southern side of Houseboat Bay.
“More seamanlike to do it under sail,” said Captain Nancy.
“There won’t be a leeside to him,” said Captain John. “The houseboat’ll be lying head to wind. Our plan will be to reach into the bay, and then come head to wind one on each side of him. If you’ll lay yourself aboard his starboard side, I’ll bring Swallow up on his port.”
“Very good, sir,” said Captain Nancy.
“Lower sail as we come alongside. Grapple, and board him. He’ll go for one lot of us. He can’t go for both. The others’ll get aboard and take him in the rear.”
“Hand-to-hand fighting from the very first,” said Nancy.
“What about nailing our colours to our masts?” said Able-seaman Titty.
“Fasten the flag halyards with a clove hitch,” said Captain Nancy. “That’ll be as good.”
“Just look at his flag,” said Roger, who, as usual, was at his post in the bows.
They had passed the point, and could see into Houseboat Bay. There lay the houseboat, moored to her big barrel buoy, and on her little flagstaff of a mast, accustomed to carry the red ensign, was a large and most unusual flag, blowing out finely in the wind. It was a green flag, and in the middle of it, nearly filling it, was a huge white elephant. The Houseboat Man, Captain Flint, had dug it out for the occasion.
“I know what it is,” said John. “It’s the Siamese flag.”
“I’ve seen it before,” said Mate Peggy. “He brought it back from the East last year.”
“Well, it’s coming down in two shakes,” said Captain Nancy. “As soon as ever we get aboard. Down with the Elephant! Swallows and Amazons for ever!”
“Blow your whistle, Mister Mate,” said Captain John. “The fleet will now attack.”
Susan blew her whistle.
“Blow it both loud and shrill like the man in the ballad,” said Titty.
Susan was still blowing.
“Let me blow it,” said Roger, and Susan, out of breath, gave it to the boy, who kept on blowing it till he nearly burst.
The two ships, the brown-sailed and the white, heeled over as their steersmen brought the wind on the beam to reach into the bay. For a minute or two the water foamed from under their bows. Then, as they came into the shelter of the point, the water quietened. Roger blew on, in gusts, whenever he had any breath to blow with. Suddenly a head in a huge white sun-helmet appeared out of the forehatch of the houseboat. Another whistle, louder than Mate Susan’s, sounded over the water.
“Blow, blow, Roger!” said Titty.
The Swallow and the Amazon swept on towards the houseboat, the Amazon drawing a little ahead.
“Slacken away your mainsheet, Amazon,” shouted Captain John. “Remember, I’m to board him on the port side. We ought to come alongside him at the same moment.”
Captain Nancy let out her mainsheet, spilling the wind, and Swallow shot ahead.
“All right now,” shouted Captain John.
The huge sun-helmet rose higher out of the forehatch of the houseboat, and Captain Flint, in a shirt and a pair of flannel trousers, with a big red handkerchief tied round his middle like a belt, struggled up on deck. He had some difficulty in getting through the hatch.
“He’s rather a fat pirate,” said Titty critically.
Captain Flint was bending over something on the foredeck that glittered in the sun. It was the little brass cannon.
“It’s the cannon,” said Roger. “He’s going to fire.”
Captain Flint straightened himself sharply. An enormous puff of blue smoke hid him for a moment, and there was a bang that echoed again and again between the hills on either side of the lake.
“Hurrah!” yelled Captain Nancy.
“Hurrah!” shouted Peggy.
“Hurrah!” shouted the whole ship’s company in Swallow.
Captain Flint was busy again with the little cannon. He poured something into it out of a tin. Then he pushed something into it. Then he put it in its place, and took a pinch of something from the tin, and put it in the touch-hole of the little cannon. He lit a match, bent down once more over the cannon and again stood up sharply, this time putting his hands over his ears. There was another cloud of smoke, and a terrific bang. Something dropped in the wat
er, between the houseboat and the advancing fleet.
“It’s only the wad,” shouted Nancy.
“At him before he can fire again,” shouted John.
But Captain Flint was no mean gunner and, just as Swallow slipped by under the stern of the houseboat, there was another crash from the cannon, and the smoke and the smell of gunpowder drove over the little ship.
“Let go halyards,” John and Nancy shouted almost at the same moment, as Swallow and Amazon shot up on opposite sides of the houseboat.
“Grab the yard, Susan,” shouted John. “Down with it. Hang on to anything you can, Roger, and make the painter fast. Board!”
There was a railing round the houseboat’s after-deck. Captain John swung himself up to the deck by it, climbed over it, and gave a hand to Susan. At that moment Captain Flint, roaring, “Death or Glory!” charged up the companion-way. He had gone down again through the forehatch and run through the cabin. He came up whirling two scarlet cushions round his head. But in hand-to-hand fighting like this it is not weapons that count, but hands. Captain Flint’s were large, but he had only two of them. The Swallows’ were small, but they had eight.
THERE WAS A BANG
One tremendous blow of a scarlet cushion caught Captain John on the side of the head, and sent him to the deck. But he was up again in a moment, and charged head down into Captain Flint. Mate Susan had got a good hold of one of the cushions. Titty and Roger, who had clambered aboard, took Captain Flint firmly round each leg and clung on like terriers so that as he moved they dragged with him. Even so, the battle might have ended with the complete defeat of the Swallows if Captain Nancy and her mate, Peggy, who had come aboard by the foredeck, had not rushed along the roof of the cabin and, with a wild yell, flung themselves into the struggle. Captain Nancy leapt from the roof of the cabin on to Captain Flint’s back, and clasped him round the neck. Peggy joined John and Susan in pulling at him from in front, and, overwhelmed by numbers, Captain Flint came heavily down on the deck.
“Yield,” shouted Nancy.