This book didn't happen. You may respond that none of the books happened (at least in this dimension of space-time; I'm convinced that somewhere in the infinite multiverse Nancy lived and felt salt spray on her cheek as she glanced up at the pennant flying at the masthead before shifting her gaze back down and flashing a quick smile at Daisy, who was in charge of the mainsheet. But I get ahead of myself.)

Right, it didn't happen. They, the Swallows and Amazons and Captain Flint, made it all up over their first winter holiday together. So, we don't worry about their ages, as they haven't really changed, and we don't worry about tracking the timeline because in truth it was probably just a week of sitting around in a wherry at Lowestoft spinning a yarn over cups of tea. It's still a great story, especially if you loved both Swallows and Amazons and Treasure Island (I did) but it's not really 'canon', which is to say, if we are taking the reality portrayed in the books as our setting, Peter Duck is outside that reality. I will go down with the ship on there being a Wild Cat Island and a Swallow and Amazon (and Scarab) but I won't state that the Viper or Black Jake or even Peter Duck was 'real'. We have to choose where to draw the line when we are trying to treat fiction as reality, in some manner, and here is where I draw it, where fictional characters are making up stories about themselves and other fictional characters.

What does that mean for analysis? We can't really do one. Because although the characters of Nancy and John and Roger are all represented in Peter Duck, they aren't the 'real' characters, they are the characters as written by the characters. That is to say, when Nancy behaves in a certain manner, how can we know that she really would behave that way, and it's not simply how Peggy and Susan decided to write her in that chapter? It's not canon. We can be interested in the historical period, but we can't consider anything that happened in Peter Duck to be 'part' of history; because it didn't happen, the authors of the adventure didn't have to make it conform to any reality of the time and so we cannot assume that they did. For example, if there had been a typhoon in We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea I might check the historical record to see if there had been one around that time that had inspired Ransome. But Peter Duck didn't occur at any time, so history isn't really relevant. It's maybe interesting what was available in fiction that the Swallows and Amazons might have drawn on as sources, like Treasure Island (1883), or Robinson Crusoe (1719), but I don't think there is much to 'unpack' there.

Even so, I think we can enjoy a bit of character study. I think it's useful to discuss how the characters see each other, or themselves, and given that Ransome does not give us much insight into the main cast's feelings toward each other as part of the 'real' novels, perhaps we can draw some conclusions from how they 'write' each other. I am assuming here that they are all writing each other, and not themselves, and with some sort of consensus such that how characters behave is how everyone agrees they would. We might also draw some conclusions from the artworks, as I believe we are lead to understand that Nancy illustrated most of the other books, but that everyone had a hand in this one.

So what can we say? I can state that I find Gibber really annoying. In fact I find Polly really annoying too. I don't see that either creature offers anything to the books other than restrictions on freedoms. Maybe there is something there, and Ransome wanted his kids to feel, even tangentially, what it was like to have dependents, but I don't think so. I think it was just an idea, which turned out to be burdensome, and thus was later dropped, until a a plot device was needed for Missee Lee which ultimately depended on how annoying Gibber is.

Nancy and Titty being seasick. Irony, that Nancy, the terror of the seas, and Titty, the ultimate romantic dreamer, both suffer from debilitating sea sickness? Perhaps. Or maybe the others just thought Nancy needed to be brought down a peg in some manner, since she is pretty bossy, and Titty was similarly afflicted so she didn't suffer alone? Maybe they drew straws to see who would be seasick? We can't know. Either way, they get over it quickly and are back to shivering timbers and flights of fancy in short order.

Nancy addresses her reality of being a female in a traditionally male role. Page 19 (Red Fox):

said Peter Duck, "and two men and a boy could take her anywheres."
"what about girls?" said Nancy rather fiercely.
"I don't count captains girls," said Peter Duck, "nor mates neither, nor yet able-seamen.  And I've three girls myself, all proper sailormen, though they're settled down now and got families."
Nancy laughed.  "That's all right," she said.  "Some people don't understand."

Nancy and John seem to develop their relationship in this book, a gradual process that I would suggest results in their being best friends within the familial groups by Great Northern. Perhaps because they share the real watches with Captain Flint and Peter Duck, and so are elevated to 'adult' status in terms of responsibility, but they do grow closer, and interact directly with each other often. This was especially evident by the time we get to Great Northern? where this closeness and sharing of responsibilities becomes very real.

Peggy and Susan also develop a closer relationship, through their shared role as cook, but while there is a fair amount of time dedicated to the individual relationship between John and Nancy, with conversations involving only the two of them being a significant part of later books, the relationship between Peggy and Susan is never well developed nor is much time given to them. To be honest, I find it a bit disappointing that both are effectively reduced to the role of kitchen staff. Even Roger seems to have more agency in the book than either Peggy or Susan. I think Ransome made Susan too mature, too early and that stunted her growth and development because she really had nowhere to go, she was already, at age 12, more mature than many adults. Peggy has always been short-shafted in my opinion, living in Nancy's shadow. It's one reason I liked Winter Holiday so much.

One passage which I appreciated was page 154, when the Viper comes upon them in the dark and gives them a bit of a scare:

Nancy loosened her grip on John's arm, and John, in the darkness, 
knowing that she could not see, allowed himself to rub the place."

For them to write that, and remember, I am treating this all as meta-fiction where the authors are fully cognizant of the meaning behind what they write and what it says about themelves, says that John both recognizes Nancy's strength, and is also concerned that she doesn't think of him as weak in any way. Not romance, of course, but certainly a display of shared weakness and a willingness to draw strength from each other. They have grown quite a bit closer in a short period of time. Am I ascribing depths to a narrative that is shallow? That is to say, was Ransome ignorant of the dynamics of writing a book that was written by characters in the book? Well, all I can say is I highly doubt that I have any greater insight into the nature of his literary devices than he did. The man wrote something like 40 books and innumerable articles, and is credited with possibly being a spy for one or more countries. I think he understood what he was doing.

But perhaps I am reading too much into the meta-fiction angle, and the story as written by the Walkers and Blacketts was very broad strokes, and the details like Nancy gripping John's arm in the dark were not explicitly penned by the authors, but were rather added by Ransome when he turned the meta-novel into a novel for publication. It's impossible to know, the idea of reading a novel written by characters in another novel leaves a lot of room for interpretation. As noted, I find it difficult to analyze as we simply don't know how much of it is based on what happened in the 'reality' of the Swallows and Amazons narrative world, and how much was created by Ransome outside of their reality. This is the problem with 'meta' stories.

Also interesting is the level of depravity and violence of which the men of the Viper are capable. This suggests that while the Swallows and Amazons have had sheltered upbringings (and they clearly have, both being from fairly affluent families), they are still well aware of the darker side of society. The abuse heaped on Bill, a child, is a rare thing to read in a book targeted at an audience of children. It is worth noting that Ransome himself always clearly stated that he was not a children's writer and did not write books for children.

'...writing for children. I know absolutely nothing about it, for the simple reason that I NEVER NEVER do it.'
Ransome, in a letter to Helen Ferris of the Junior Literary Guild in the USA, 20th March 1938

I believe he would say he writes 'about' children, but not 'for' children. And I can't disagree, as I enjoy him as much or more through the lens of being an adult than I did as a child.

Every time I read it I wonder if Peter Duck is possibly a bit of a comment on how gun ownership can turn on the owner.

Final Thoughts.

Nancy is afraid of crabs.