B.1 Ransome’s first story, ‘The Desert Island’, 1892.
[Written at the age of eight in a tiny notebook now with the Ransome papers at Abbot Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Kendal, and first published in Mixed Moss, The Journal of The Arthur Ransome Society, vol. 1, no. 1,1990.]
The Desert Island. By A. M. Ransome.
There was once a boy called Jack. His father had gone to Liverpool and had never been heard of since, everybody thought that he had been seized by a press-gang, and taken away to the South Seas. So Jack made up his mind to go and find him. When he was fourteen he went to Portsmouth and went on board a ship called the White Bird. This ship was bound for the Friendly Isles. They had very good weather till they got round Australia. Then a terrible storm began to blow and the ship lost its rudder. The next day the main mast fell and crushed two of the men. Four hours after this disaster the ship sprang a leak and they had to take to the boats. Jack and one of his friends called Tom escaped in a very small boat by themselves. The land was about two miles away. They rowed to it but all the other boats sank at least they thought so. They rowed back to the ship the next day and took a lot of planks, guns, pistols and swords back with them.
They built a house and a stockade round it to keep it safe from wild beasts or savages if any should come. Tom shot a wild duck and a sort of pigeon which lasted for breakfast and dinner and they found some bananas and coconuts for tea. There was a little stream running through the stockade so they should never run short of water. Jack nevertheless took two or three barrels and filled them with water in case the stream dried up. They also gathered a good deal of fruit to preserve because if they were attacked by savages they would not be able to get out and get away. They caught a wild goat which they tamed because as they had no cow they could get its milk. When they were walking about one day they found a small hut with provisions in it and a note saying “If anyone is wrecked here he will see a ship some time in December and he must hoist a red flag. John Smith.” Jack at once recognised his father’s handwriting and John Smith was his father’s name. However, they did not think much about it then. It was plain Jack’s father had been there and thinking it was a likely place for a ship wreck had left the message so that he could save them. They found a large red flag to hoist as a signal. They made one of the coconut trees that were in the stockade into a lookout place by placing wooden steps all the way up. They also put two spikes at the top to fasten the red flag on. Jack and Tom went out about fifteen days after the finding of the hut to look for food and to explore the island. When they got on the top of the high hill in the middle of the island they saw two other islands a long way out to sea which they thought might be inhabited. Two or three days after this happened they went out in their boats to fish. They saw several sharks which were swimming past them and they caught some bright coloured fish which were not good to eat and at last they caught some fish very like our plaice and one like a sea-trout. They caught a young pig and a parakeet which they taught to talk but it used to copy their voices and call them in when they found it was the parakeet the whole time. The pig grew very well and soon was too big to be allowed in the stockade so they made a little clearing outside and fastened it with a tether to a post. It began to get near December so they fastened the red flag up because of the note they had found in the hut. One day they heard a cry and the pig squealed and when they climbed to the lookout place they saw rows and rows of canoes and hundreds of savages running up the beach. They ran down and got all the guns and ammunition ready to fire through the loopholes of the stockade. With a yell the savages charged against the stockade and some of them succeeded in climbing to the top of it but these Jack and Tom quickly shot down. Then Jack and Tom fired through the loopholes of the stockade and killed about six more. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder and the frightened savages fled to their boats for they thought that a thunderstorm is more dangerous on land than at sea. So this battle ended satisfactorily for Jack and Tom. The next day they climbed to the top of the lookout place. But they could see nothing of the savages. So they got some more provisions ready in case they were attacked again. And sure enough that evening which was the twenty fourth of December when they went up the lookout place they saw a huge fleet of brown sailed canoes making straight for the island. So they climbed down as quick as they could and loaded their guns ready to fire upon the enemy. As soon as the enemy were in reach Jack and Tom poured shot and bullets into them but all the same they charged again and again all through the night and Jack and Tom were just going to be defeated, when there was a great boom, and a cannon ball came scattering the enemy on all sides, killing and wounding large numbers. This happened again and again till the savages fled and found that their boats had been seized by a British ship and that there were lots of soldiers and sailors by the shore who shot them. Jack and Tom ran out of the ship and Jack suddenly saw his father who was captain of the ship. Jack’s father said that it was he who had written the note and built the hut, and that he had been wrecked on that very island and had been found by an English ship and been taken on board. He had afterwards got to be captain and was on his way back to England. Jack and Tom went with him and arrived safely.
The End.