A Fair Wind
They spent that evening round the camp fire, making their plans. There would surely be a wind in the morning. But who could tell which way it might blow. A southerly wind would mean one plan and a northerly wind another, and, supposing there were to be one of those rare winds that made it possible to reach either way up or down the lake, neither of these plans would be much good. But such a wind would be the same for both sides, and it was little good making plans for it. Besides, such winds were very rare. No matter which way the clouds moved overhead the high hills on each side of the lake tended to make the winds blow up or down it. So they made two plans only, one for a southerly wind and one for a northerly. A northerly would make it easy for the Amazons to sail to Wild Cat Island. A southerly would make it easy for the Swallows to sail to Amazon River. Getting back mattered less. It would not matter how long that took.
So there were two plans made.
“In naval warfare,” said John, remembering a well-known book, “two things are important; to know exactly what you want to do and to do it in the manner that your enemy least expects.”
“Well,” said Titty, “what is it we want to do?”
“We want to get hold of the Amazon when the Amazons are not aboard her, and we have to remember that they will be trying to capture Swallow in the same way. Whoever gets hold of the other one’s ship wins. We settled that when they were here. The whole thing is that there’s no time to lose. They’ll be in a hurry too, so if the wind’s from the north