25

another surprise

they all sat up and removed the slippery seaweed from themselves. huffin and puffin walkeddown philip’s body, where they had perched the whole time. kiki, to her fright and dismay, hadbeen covered with seaweed by jack, and forced to stay beside him, for he was afraid she mightgive them away by talking. she talked angrily now.

‘poor, poor polly! send for the doctor! what a pity, what a pity, ding dong bell, polly’s in thewell!’

the children looked at one another solemnly when they had finished uncovering themselves.

bill was in great danger, there was no doubt of that at all.

‘what are we going to do?’ said lucy-ann, with tears in her eyes. nobody quite knew. thereseemed to be danger wherever they turned.

‘well,’ said jack at last, ‘we’ve got a boat of our own, that’s one thing – and i think when it’sdark tonight we’d better set out for the other island, the one the men are on, and see if we can’tfind where they keep their motor-boat. we know that bill will be there.’

‘and rescue him!’ said dinah, thrilled. ‘but how shall we get close in to shore without beingseen or heard?’

‘we’ll go when it’s dark, as i said,’ said jack, ‘and when we get near to the shore, we’ll stop ourengine and get the oars. then we can row in without being heard.’

‘oh, yes. i’d forgotten there were oars in our boat,’ said dinah. ‘thank goodness!’

‘can’t we get back to our little cave, on the shore at the other side of the island?’ asked lucy-ann. ‘i don’t feel safe here, somehow. and i’d be glad to know our boat was all right.’

‘also, we can’t have anything to eat till we get back there,’ said philip, getting up. ‘come on,i’m frozen. we shall get warm climbing up the rocks, on to the height over there, and then overthe island to the boat.’

so they went back over the rocks, and found their clothes where they had left them. theystripped off their wet suits and dressed quickly. philip’s rats, which he had left in his pockets, wereextremely pleased to see him again, and ran all over him with little squeals of delight.

huffin and puffin accompanied the children as usual. all of them were secretly relieved to findtheir boat was safe on the shingly beach. they went to her and chose some tins of food.

‘better have something with lots of juice to drink,’ said jack. ‘there’s no fresh water here as faras i can see, and i’m awfully thirsty. let’s open a tin of pineapple. there’s always lots of juice inthat.’

‘better open two tins if kiki’s going to have any,’ said dinah. ‘you know what a pig she is overpineapple.’

they all tried to be jolly and cheerful, but somehow, what with their strange discovery of theguns in the lagoon, and the news that bill was in real danger, none of them could talk for long.

one by one they fell silent, and hardly knew what they were eating.

‘i suppose,’ said dinah at last, after a long silence in which the only noise was the sound ofkiki’s beak scraping against the bottom of one of the pineapple tins, ‘i suppose we had better setout as soon as it’s dark – but i do feel quaky about it!’

‘well, look here,’ said jack, ‘i’ve been thinking hard – and i’m sure it would be best if philipand i went alone to get bill. it’s very risky, and we don’t know a bit what we shall be up against,and i don’t like the idea of you girls coming.’

‘oh, we must come!’ cried lucy-ann, who couldn’t bear the thought of jack going off withouther. ‘supposing something happened to you – we’d be here on this island all alone, and nobodywould know about us! anyway, i’m going with you, jack. you can’t stop me!’

‘all right,’ said jack. ‘perhaps it would be better if we stuck together. i say – i suppose thatother fellow they spoke about couldn’t be horace? we couldn’t have made a mistake about him,could we?’

‘well, i did think he was too idiotic for words,’ said dinah. ‘i mean – he looked it, not onlyacted it. i believe we did make a mistake. i think perhaps he really was a bird-lover.’

‘gosh! he must have thought we were frightful!’ said jack, horrified. ‘and we took his boat too– and left him to be taken prisoner by the enemy!’

‘and they must have thought he was bill’s friend, and have been wild with him when he said hedidn’t know bill or anything about him,’ said philip.

everyone thought solemnly about poor horace. ‘i’m jolly glad none of us hit him on the head,after all,’ said jack. ‘poor old horace tripalong!’

‘we’ll have to rescue him, too,’ said lucy-ann. ‘that’ll make up a bit for taking his boat. butwon’t he be furious with us for all we’ve done!’

huffin appeared at this moment with his familiar gift of half a dozen fish, neatly arranged headand tail alternately in his large beak. he deposited them at philip’s feet.

‘thanks, old man,’ said philip. ‘but won’t you eat them yourself? we daren’t make a fire hereto cook anything on.’

‘arrrrr!’ said huffin, and walked over to have a look in the empty tins. puffin took theopportunity of gobbling up the fish, and kiki watched her in disgust. kiki had no use for fish freshfrom the sea.

‘pah!’ she said, in horace’s voice, and the children smiled.

‘kiki, you’ll have to be jolly quiet tonight,’ said jack, scratching her head. ‘no pahing orpoohing to warn the enemy we’re near!’

when the sun began to sink the children took the motor-boat a little way out to sea, to makesure that there were no rocks about that they must avoid when setting out at night. far away on thehorizon line they saw the island of the enemy. somewhere there was bill – and perhaps horacetoo.

‘i hope to goodness we see some kind of light to show us where to go inshore,’ said jack. ‘wecan’t go all round the island, looking for the right place. we’d be heard. and we couldn’t possiblyrow round.’

‘well, we saw that light that was signalling to the other boat last night,’ said philip. ‘maybe itwill be signalling again. let’s go back now. there doesn’t seem to be any rock to avoid tonight.

we’ll set out as soon as it is dark.’

they went back – and no sooner had they got to their little beach than they heard the hummingof an aeroplane.

‘surely they’re not going to drop any more packages!’ said jack. ‘lie down flat, all of you. wedon’t want to be spotted. get near those rocks.’

they crouched down near a mass of rocks. the aeroplane made an enormous noise as it camenearer and nearer.

jack gave a cry. ‘it’s a seaplane! look, it’s got floats underneath!’

‘what an enormous one!’ said dinah. ‘it’s coming down!’

so it was. it circled the island once and then came lower as it circled it again. it seemed almostto brush the hill that towered at the other end of the island, the hill that overlooked the lagoon.

then the engines were cut out, and there was a silence.

‘she’s landed,’ said jack. ‘she’s on the lagoon! i bet you anything you like that’s where she is!’

‘oh, do let’s go and see, as soon as dusk comes,’ begged dinah. ‘do you think she’s going toget up the hidden guns?’

‘however could she do that?’ said jack, rather scornfully.

‘well, she’s pretty big and hefty,’ said philip. ‘it’s possible she’s got some sort of apparatus onher for dragging up the hidden armaments. if the men think there’s a danger of our governmentsending patrols up here to look into the matter, always supposing that bill has sent a messagethrough to his headquarters, then our enemy will certainly try to remove the guns as soon aspossible. it rather looks, seeing that this is a seaplane, as if the guns are going to be flown to southamerica – or somewhere far across the sea.’

as soon as it was dusk the children could not resist the temptation to go across the island andclimb up the heights to peep over and see the lagoon. even in the twilight they might be able tosee something interesting.

they were soon on the cliff overlooking the lagoon. they could just make out the great shape ofthe giant seaplane in the middle of the sea-lake. then suddenly lights shone out from it, and anoise began – a grating, dragging noise, as if some kind of machinery was being set to do someheavy work.

‘i bet they’re dragging up the packages of guns,’ whispered jack. ‘we can’t very well see – butwe can hear enough to know something is at work, something needing winches, i should think.’

lucy-ann couldn’t see any winches, but she could quite well imagine the kind of machinerythat would send hooked cables overboard to drag up the heavy bundles of guns. then the seaplane,when loaded up, would fly off again. and another would come, and another! or maybe the sameone would come back again and again.

the lights showed the children the vast shape of the seaplane. it looked weird lying quietlythere in the middle of the dark lagoon. lucy-ann shivered.

‘it’s awful to be up against enemies who have boats and aeroplanes and seaplanes and guns,’

she thought. ‘we haven’t anything except poor horace’s little motor-boat, and our own wits.’

they went back soberly to their boat. the tide had taken it out a little way, but as they had tied arope to a convenient rock, they pulled it in without difficulty. they all got on board.

‘now this is the greatest adventure of all,’ said jack, rather solemnly. ‘hiding is an adventure.

escaping is an adventure. but rescuing somebody else from the very jaws of the enemy is thegreatest adventure of all.’

‘if only we don’t get captured ourselves!’ said lucy-ann.

jack started up the engine. the little boat nosed out to sea, leaving the lagoon island behind.

huffin and puffin settled themselves on the deck-rail as usual, and kiki sat on jack’s shoulder.

philip’s rats, frightened at the sudden noise of the engine, twined themselves together in a largebump in the hollow of philip’s back. ‘you tickle me!’ he said, but the rats took no notice.

‘well, good luck to us all!’ said dinah. ‘may we rescue bill – and horace too – defeat theenemy – and get back home in safety!’

‘god save the queen!’ said kiki devoutly, in exactly the same tone of voice, and everyonelaughed. funny old kiki!