Swallows and Amazons. Arthur RansomeЧитать онлайн книгу.
could bring a boat in from outside through a narrow channel between the rocks, but of course under water there might be rocks out there which he could not see.
He climbed back and hurried to the camp.
“I’ve found the very place,” he shouted. “At least I think I have.”
“Found what?” said Susan.
“A real harbour for Swallow. I don’t know yet. I’m going to take her round to see if there is a way in. Will you come?”
“Can’t leave the cooking,” said Susan.
“Well, I must have one of the crew,” said John. “Can you spare the able-seaman?”
“Go along, Titty,” said the mate.
“Me too,” said Roger.
“Only one,” said John, “but if we get her in, we’ll whistle. Then you can come. Will you lend me your whistle, Mister Mate?”
Susan gave him her whistle, and John and Titty hurried off to the landing-place, and launched Swallow.
“I’ll row her round,” he said. “It’s no good putting the sail up just to take it down again.”
Titty sat in the stern while he rowed. Swallow was a hard boat to row, because of her keel and the ballast that made her so good a boat to sail. But very soon they had passed the end of the island. John rowed her round outside the furthest of the rocks.
“Now,” he said, “we’ll try to go in. I’ll paddle her in sculling over the stern, and you go forward with the other oar ready to fend off if there are rocks under water.”
“I’d better get in front of the mast, like Roger does,” said Titty.
“All right, if there’s room.”
In the stern of Swallow there was a half-circle cut out of the transom, like a bite out of the edge of a bit of bread and butter. There was just room for an oar to lie loosely in it, so that the boat could be moved along by one oar worked from side to side, and this way and that so that it always pushes against the water. A lot of people do not know how to scull over the stern of a boat, but it is easy enough if you do know, and John had been taught by his father long ago in Falmouth harbour. The only trouble is that the nose of the boat waggles a bit from side to side.
FEELING THEIR WAY IN
Captain John unshipped the rudder, and put it in the bottom of the boat. Then he began sculling over the stern, gently, enough to make Swallow move slowly in towards the lines of rocks. Titty, with the other oar, was ready in the bows.
“There are rocks on each side under water,” said Titty.
“Sing out if there are any right ahead,” said John. “Don’t let her bump one if you can help it.”
He sculled on. Slowly Swallow moved in among rocks awash. Then, besides the rocks awash, there were rocks showing above water. These grew bigger. Then there were high rocks that hid the eastern side of the lake, while the western side was hidden by a long rocky point sticking out from the island. It was almost like being between two walls. Remembering what he had seen when he had climbed out on the big rock above the pool, John kept the Swallow as near as he could to the eastern wall, Titty with her oar fending off when the rock seemed too close. If they had been rowing in the ordinary way their oars would have touched the rocks on either side. Still Swallow moved on with the water clear under her keel.
At last the green trees were close ahead, and Swallow was safe in the pool and ran her nose up the beach in the tiny bay, sheltered by the trees from the north, and by the walls of rock from any other wind.
“What a place,” said the able-seaman. “I expect somebody hid on the island hundreds of years ago, and kept his boat here.”
“It’s a perfect harbour,” said John. “Shall we blow the whistle for the others?”
He blew the whistle as loud as he could. He put the oars neatly in their place, and climbed ashore with the painter. Titty was already ashore, and was struggling through the hazels to meet the others. Presently they came.
“Well,” said Captain John, “what about this for a harbour?”
“However was it that we never saw it when we sailed past?” said Susan.
“The rocks go so far out.”
“No one will find her in here,” said Susan.
“And if we are overpowered by enemies we could escape here,” said Titty. “You can’t see it from anywhere, even from the island. It’s the finest harbour anybody ever had.”
“We can fasten the painter to that stump of a tree,” said Captain John, “and then take a line from her stern to that bush on the rock and then we can keep her afloat. Far better than hauling her half out of the water.”
“May I tie her up?” said Roger. John gave him the painter.
“What did you put the cross on the tree for?” said Roger.
“What cross?” said John.
“This one.”
Nearly at the top of the tree stump, which was about four feet high, a white cross had been painted on the side nearest to the water. It had been painted some time ago, and had faded, and neither John nor Titty had noticed it. They had been thinking of rocks more than of trees.
“I didn’t put it there,” said John. “It must have been there already.”
“Natives again,” said Titty sadly. “That means that somebody else knows even about the harbour.”
“I expect it’s the same people who made the fireplace,” said Susan.
At this moment Mate Susan remembered that she was also cook.
“The kettle will be boiling,” she cried. “It’ll be putting the fire out. And I had the eggs just ready when you whistled.”
She ran off back to the camp.
The others pushed off Swallow till she floated. Captain John fastened one end of a length of spare rope to a cleat in the stern, and Able-seaman Titty climbed out on the rock with the other end of it. Roger held the painter. Then John came ashore. Titty pulled in on the stern rope and made it fast round a little rowan bush that was growing on the rock. Roger and John made the painter fast round the stump with the white cross on it, and the Swallow lay in the middle of the little harbour in two or three feet of water, moored fore and aft, and sheltered on every side.
Captain John looked at his ship with pride.
“I don’t believe there is a better harbour in the world,” he said.
“If only somebody else didn’t know about it,” said Titty.
Then they hurried back to the camp.
The camp now began to look really like a camp. There were the two tents slung between the two pairs of trees. The mate and the able-seaman were to sleep in one, and the captain and the boy in the other. Then in the open space under the trees the fire was burning merrily. The kettle had boiled, and was standing steaming on the ground. Susan was melting a big pat of butter in the frying-pan. In a pudding-basin beside her she had six raw eggs. She had cracked the eggs on the edge of a mug and broken them into the basin. Their empty shells were crackling in the fire. Four mugs stood in a row on the ground.
“No plates to-day,” said Mate Susan. “We all eat out of the common dish.”
“But it isn’t a common dish,” said Roger. “It’s a frying-pan.”
“Well, we eat out of it anyway. Egg’s awful stuff for sticking to plates.”
She had now emptied the raw eggs into