16

next day

they all slept soundly in their unexpected shelter. they did not awake until late in the morning,because for one thing it was dark in the hole, and for another they had all been tired out.

jack awoke first, feeling kiki stirring against his neck. he could not think where he was. a littledaylight filtered through the entrance of the hole, but not much. it was very warm.

‘arrrrrr!’ said a guttural voice, and made jack jump. ‘arrrrrr!’

it was the puffin which had come down its burrow to see them the night before. jack switchedon his torch and grinned at it.

‘good morning – if it is morning. sorry to have disturbed you! i’ll get huffin and puffin toexplain to you, when we see them again.’

philip woke and sat up. then the girls stirred. soon they were all wide awake, looking round thecurious cavity, and remembering the events of the night before.

‘what a night!’ said dinah, shuddering. ‘oh – when our tents blew away – i really did feelawful!’

‘and when philip disappeared, i felt worse,’ said lucy-ann. ‘what time is it, jack?’

jack looked at his watch and whistled. ‘my word – it’s almost ten o’clock. how we’ve slept!

come on, let’s see if the storm is still going strong.’

he stood up and pulled away the overhanging heather that blocked up the narrow entrance tothe hole. at once a shaft of blinding sunlight entered, and the children blinked. jack put his headout of the hole in delight.

‘golly! it’s a perfect day! the sky is blue again, and there’s sunshine everywhere. not a sign ofthe storm left. come on, let’s go up into the sunlight and have a look around.’

up they went, giving each other a hand. once they were out of the hole, and the heather fellback into place again, there was no sign of where they had spent the night.

‘wouldn’t it make an absolutely marvellous hiding-place?’ said jack. the others looked at him,the same thought occurring to everyone at once.

‘yes. and if the enemy come – that’s where we’ll go,’ said dinah. ‘unless they actually walkover the place they can’t possibly find it. why – i don’t know myself where it is now – thoughi’ve just come out of it!’

‘gosh, don’t say we’ve lost it as soon as we’ve found it,’ said jack, and they looked about forthe entrance. jack found it in just the same way as philip had the night before – by falling down it.

he set an upright stick beside it, so that they would know the entrance easily next time. ‘we mighthave to sleep down there each night now, as our tents have gone,’ said jack. ‘it’s a pity we’vebrought our rugs up. still, they can do with a sunning. we’ll spread them out on the heather.’

‘thank goodness that awful wind’s gone,’ said dinah. ‘there’s hardly even a breeze today. it’sgoing to be frightfully hot. we’ll bathe.’

they had a dip in the quiet sea, which looked quite different from the boiling, raging sea of theday before. now it was calm and blue, and ran up the sand in frilly little waves edged with white.

after their bathe the children had an enormous breakfast in the spot where their tents had been.

huffin and puffin appeared as soon as the children arrived and greeted them joyfully.

‘arrrrrr! arrrrrrr!’

‘they’re saying that they hope we’ve got a good breakfast for them,’ said dinah. ‘huffin andpuffin, i wish you’d eat rats. you’d be very useful then.’

philip’s rats had appeared again, now that the storm was over, much to dinah’s disgust. theyseemed very lively, and one went into jack’s pockets to find a sunflower seed. it brought one out,sat on jack’s knee and began to nibble it. but kiki pounced at once, and snatched the seed away,whilst squeaker scurried back to philip in a hurry.

‘you’re a dog in the manger, kiki,’ said jack. ‘you don’t really want that sunflower seedyourself, and you won’t let squeaker have it either. fie!’

‘fie fo fum,’ said kiki promptly, and went off into a screech of laughter, right in jack’s ear. hepushed her off his shoulder.

‘i shall be deaf for the rest of the day! lucy-ann, look out for that potted meat. huffin is muchtoo interested in it.’

‘really – what with kiki pinching fruit out of the tin, and huffin and puffin wanting the pottedmeat, and philip’s rats sniffing round, it’s a wonder we’ve got anything ourselves!’ said lucy-ann. but all the same, it was fun to have the creatures joining in and being one with them. huffinand puffin were especially comical that morning, for now that they were really friendly, theywanted to look into everything. huffin suddenly took an interest in dinah’s fork and picked it upwith his beak.

‘oh, don’t swallow that, silly!’ cried dinah, and tried to get her fork away. but huffin had avery strong beak, and he won the tug of war. he waddled away to examine the fork in peace.

‘he won’t swallow it, don’t worry,’ said philip, tossing dinah his own fork. ‘it’ll keep himquiet a bit if he plays with it for a while.’

the children’s fire was, of course, completely out. it had to be pulled to pieces and lighted allover again. this was not so easy as before, because everything had been soaked during the night.

still, the sun was so very hot that it wouldn’t be long before the wood and the seaweed were bone-dry again.

the children missed out dinner completely that day, because it had been twelve o’clock beforethey had cleared up their breakfast things. ‘we’ll have a kind of high tea about five,’ said jack.

‘we’ve plenty to do – look for our tents – light the fire – find some more wood – and go and see ifthe motor-boat is all right.’

their tents were nowhere to be seen. one or two pegs were found but that was all. ‘the tentsare probably lying on some island miles and miles away,’ said jack. ‘scaring the sea-birds there.

well – shall we sleep in that hole to-night?’

‘oh no, please don’t let’s,’ begged lucy-ann. ‘it’s smelly. and it’s so very hot again now thatsurely we could put our rugs on cushions of heather and sleep out in the open. i should like that.’

philip looked up at the clear blue sky. not a cloud was to be seen. ‘well,’ he said, ‘if it’s likethis tonight, it would be quite comfortable to sleep in the open. we’ll plan to do that unless theweather changes. let’s find a nice cushiony place, and put our rugs there, and our other clothes,with the ground-sheets over them. good thing the ground-sheets only blew up against those birch-trees and got stuck there!’

they found a nice heathery place, not too far from where lucy-ann kept the stores beneath thebig ledge of stone, and piled their extra jerseys, their mackintoshes, their rugs and their ground-sheets there. lucy-ann had stored their spare clothes with the food under the ledge, but the rainhad driven in, and had made them damp. so it was decided that it would be better to use them asextra bedclothes at night, and keep them under the ground-sheets during the daytime.

after they had done all this they went to see their fire, which was burning well now. they sat onthe top of the cliff, with the birds crying all round them, and looked out on the calm, brilliantlyblue sea.

‘what’s that?’ said lucy-ann suddenly, pointing to something floating not far off.

‘looks like a heap of wood, or something,’ said philip. ‘wreckage of some sort. hope it comesinshore. we can use it for our fire.’

it came slowly in with the tide. philip put his glasses to his eyes. then he lowered them again,looking so taken aback that the others were scared.

‘do you know,’ he said, ‘that wreckage looks awfully like bits of the lucky star. and there’smore bits over there, look – and i daresay we should find some down on the rocks.’

there was a shocked silence. nobody had even thought that the motor-boat might have beentaken by the storm and battered. jack swallowed hard. that would be a blow! he got up.

‘come on. we’d better go and see. of course i suppose it was bound to be smashed up, butanyhow we couldn’t have moved it. gosh – what bad luck if the boat’s gone! even if the enginewas smashed, it was still a boat. we might have rigged up a sail – or something . . . ’

in silence the children left the fire on the cliff and made their way through the cleft, and downthe rocky ledges to the little harbour.

there was no boat there. only a bit of the mooring-rope was left, still tied round the rocknearby, its ragged ends fluttering in the tiny breeze.

‘look!’ said jack, pointing. ‘she must have been battered up and down by great waves rushingin and out of the channel – see the paint on the rocks – and look at the bits of wood about. whenthe rope broke she must have been taken right out of the channel, and then beaten to bits againstthe cliffs. what a frightful shame!’

the girls had tears in their eyes, and philip had to turn away too. such a lovely boat! now shewas nothing but masses of wreckage which they could burn on their fire. poor lucky star. unluckystar should have been her name.

‘well, nothing we could have done would have helped,’ said jack at last. ‘the storm wouldhave wrecked her anyway – though if bill had been here, and the boat was all right, he would havetaken her round to splash cove and we could have dragged her right up the beach, out of reach ofthe waves. it wasn’t our fault.’

they all felt sad and downcast as they left the little harbour and went back. the sun was goingdown now, and the evening was very peaceful and beautiful. there was hardly any wind at all.

‘i can hear an aeroplane again!’ said lucy-ann, her sharp ears picking up the distant throbbingbefore the others. ‘listen!’

far away a small speck showed low down in the blue sky. the boys clapped their glasses totheir eyes. jack gave an exclamation.

‘it’s dropping something, look! philip, what is it? is it a parachute?’

‘it looks like a small parachute – with something underneath it, swinging to and fro,’ saidphilip, his eyes glued to his glasses. ‘is it a man? no, it doesn’t look like a man. then what in theworld is it? and why is the plane dropping things here? gosh, i wish bill was here to see this.

there is something peculiar going on. something the enemy are doing. i shouldn’t be surprised ifthey get the wind up when they see our smoke and come along to search the island. tomorrow oneof us must always be on the look-out, from the cliff.’

puzzled and anxious, the children went back to sleepy hollow. it was time for high tea, andlucy-ann and dinah prepared it in silence. they were in the middle of an adventure again – andthey couldn’t possibly get out of it.