‘I feel like a puffin,’ said Philip. ‘I feel I’d like to burrow. What about digging a nice little burrow for each of us to lie in?’
‘Oh, don’t make jokes now,’ begged Lucy-Ann. ‘I don’t feel like jokes. I feel – I feel all sort of tight and breathless. And my heart simply couldn’t beat any louder. Can you hear it?’
Nobody could. But then, their own hearts were beating so fast and so loudly that it was no wonder they could not hear anybody else’s.
‘Can we whisper?’ asked Dinah, in a loud whisper that made everyone jump.
‘I should think so. But don’t talk out loud,’ said Jack. ‘And if we hear anyone coming, listen with all your might, so that we shall know if it’s friends or enemies. It would be too awful if it was friends and we let them go away without finding us.’
That was indeed an awful thought – almost worse than the thought of being found by an enemy. Everyone sat quietly, holding their breaths, listening with all their might.
‘Friend or enemy, friend or enemy, friend or enemy,’ said a voice in Lucy-Ann’s mind, and she couldn’t stop it saying the words over and over again. ‘Friend or . . .’
‘Sh,’ came Jack’s whisper, suddenly. ‘I can hear something.’
But it was only Huffin and Puffin arriving in the hole. They pushed the heather aside and flopped in, giving the children a terrible shock. The heather swung back, and the puffins stared in the darkness, trying to find Philip.
‘You wretched birds!’ scolded Philip. ‘You might have shown them our hiding-place. Don’t you dare to say a word!’
‘Arrrrrr!’ said Huffin deeply. Philip gave him an angry push, and the bird walked away in astonishment. It was the first time he had ever had an angry word or gesture from his beloved Philip. He hopped up to the beginning of a nearby burrow, followed by Puffin, and began to walk up it, very much offended. The children were glad to hear them go.
‘Sh!’ came Jack’s whisper again, and the others clutched one another. ‘They’re really coming now! Shhhhhhhh!’
18
The enemy – and Kiki
The thud of footsteps could be felt in the dark hole below ground. Then came the sound of voices. ‘We’ll search the whole place. Somebody must be keeping that fire going!’
‘There’s nowhere much to hide on this small island,’ said another voice. ‘Nobody could get down those sheer cliffs, so that rules them out. And there’s obviously nobody in this valley – except these ridiculous birds.’
There came the sound of a match being struck. One of the men was evidently lighting a cigarette. He tossed the match away – and it came trickling through the heather into the hole where the trembling children crouched. It fell on to Dinah’s knee and she almost squealed.
‘They’re dreadfully near,’ everyone was thinking. ‘Dreadfully, dreadfully near!’
‘Look here,’ said one of the men’s voices, suddenly. ‘What’s this? A bit of chocolate wrapping-paper! I bet the hiding-place isn’t far off.’
The children’s hearts almost stopped beating. Philip remembered that a bit of his chocolate-paper had blown away on the wind and he hadn’t bothered to go and pick it up. Blow! Blow! Blow!
Jack felt about for Kiki. Where was she? She had slid off his shoulder, but he couldn’t feel her anywhere near. He did hope she wouldn’t suddenly make one of her loud remarks, just under the very feet of the men.
Kiki had gone up the burrow, after Huffin and Puffin. The two puffins were now staring at the men who had come to hunt. They stood at the entrance of a burrow, looking fixedly with their crimson-circled eyes.
‘Look at those silly chaps,’ said one man. ‘Whatever are these ridiculous birds, with beaks like fireworks about to go off?’
‘Don’t know. Puffins or sea parrots, or something,’ said the other man.
‘Huffin and Puffin,’ said Kiki, in a loud, conversational sort of voice. The men jumped violently and looked all round. Kiki was in the burrow behind Huffin and Puffin and could not be seen. She didn’t want to push past them in case they nipped her.
‘Did you hear that?’ said the first man.
‘Well – I thought I heard something,’ said the other. ‘But these birds all round make such a racket.’
‘Yes – a frightful din,’ said the first man.
‘Din-din-dinner,’ announced Kiki and went off into one of her cackles of laughter. The men stared in alarm at the two solemn puffins. ‘I say – surely those birds can’t talk?’
‘It’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’ said the first man, rubbing his chin and staring at Huffin and Puffin. It seemed as if it really must be the two puffins who were talking and coughing. Kiki could not be seen.
Huffin opened his beak. ‘Arrrrrr!’ he said solemnly.
‘There!’ said the man. ‘I saw him that time. They are talking birds. Sea parrots perhaps – and parrots talk, don’t they?’
‘Yes, but they have to be taught,’ said the other. ‘And who taught these two?’
‘Oh, come on – don’t let’s waste any time on the ridiculous creatures,’ said the first man, turning to go. ‘We’ll go down to the shore and walk along it to make sure there’s no one there. Pity the boat’s been smashed up in the gale. We could have taken off some of the food in it.’
Kiki gave an imitation of a motor-bike in the distance, and the men stopped suddenly in astonishment.
‘I could have sworn that was a motor-bike!’ said one, with a half-ashamed laugh. ‘Come on – we’re hearing things. Wait till I get hold of whoever is on this island – making us waste time hunting like this!’
To the children’s enormous relief the men’s voices got fainter and fainter and at last could not be heard at all. Kiki came back into the cave.
‘What a pity, what a pity!’ she said in a whisper, cracking her beak.
‘Kiki, you awful idiot, you nearly gave the game away!’ whispered Jack. ‘Get on my shoulder – and I warn you, if you say just one more word, I’ll tie your beak up with my hanky.’
‘Arrrrrrrr!’ said Kiki, and settled down with her head under her wing. She was offended.
For what seemed like hours the children sat silently in the hole underground. They heard no more voices, and no more footsteps shook the ground nearby.
‘How long have we got to stay here like this?’ whispered Dinah at last. She was always the first to get impatient. ‘I’m cramped.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jack, in a whisper that seemed to fill the underground cavity. ‘It would be dangerous to pop my head out and take a look-see.’
‘I’m hungry,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I wish we’d brought something to eat down with us. And I’m thirsty too.’
Jack wondered whether or not to risk sticking his head out. Just as he was making up his mind that he would, everyone in the hole heard a far-off, very welcome noise.
‘It’s the engine of their motor-boat being started up,’ said Jack in relief. ‘They must have given up the hunt, thank goodness. We’ll give them a few minutes, then I’ll hop out.’
They waited for five minutes. The motor-boat’s engine sounded for a little while, then grew fainter and finally could not be heard at all.
Jack cautiously put his head out. He could see and hear nothing but puffins. Huffin and Puffin were squatting nearby and got up politely when they saw his head.
‘Arrrrrrr!’ they said.
Jack got right out of the hole. He lay down flat, put his field-glasses to his eyes and swept the sea around. At last he spotted what he was looking for – the motor-boat going away at top speed, getting smaller and smaller in the distance.
‘It’s all right!’ he called down to the others. ‘They’re almost out of sight. Come on out.’
Soon they were all sitting in Sleepy Hollow, with the girls getting a meal ready, for by this time they were once again ravenous. The ginger-beer had now all been drunk, so they drank the water from the rock-pool, which was rather warm from the sun, but tasted very sweet. The rain fro
m the storm had swelled it considerably.
‘Well, that was a jolly narrow escape,’ said Philip, his spirits rising as he tucked into slices of ‘Spam’. ‘I really did think one of them would tumble in on top of us.’
‘Well, what do you suppose I felt like when the match one of them used fell through the hole and bounced on my knee?’ said Dinah. ‘I nearly let out a yell.’
‘Kiki almost gave the game away too,’ said Jack, putting potted meat on a biscuit. ‘Calling out “din-din-dinner” like that. I’m ashamed of you, Kiki.’
‘She’s sulking,’ said Dinah, laughing. ‘Look at her – standing with her back to you, pretending not to take any notice. That’s because you were cross with her.’
Jack grinned. He called to Huffin and Puffin, who were, as usual, standing patiently beside Philip. ‘Hey, Huff and Puff – come and have a tit-bit. Nice birds, good birds, dear Huff and Puff.’
Huffin and Puffin walked over to Jack, doing their sailor-roll from side to side. They solemnly took a bit of biscuit from Jack’s fingers. But that was more than Kiki could stand. She whisked round and screeched at the top of her voice.
‘Naughty boy, naughty boy, naughty boy! Poor Polly, poor Polly! Polly’s got a cold, put the kettle on, naughty boy, naughty boy!’
She rushed at the startled puffins and gave them a sharp jab with her curved beak. Huffin retaliated at once, and Kiki stepped back. She began to screech like a railway-train, and the two puffins hurriedly returned to Philip’s knees, where they stood and stared in alarm at Kiki, ready to dart down a burrow at a moment’s notice.
The children roared with laughter at this little pantomime. Kiki went to Jack, sidling along in a comical manner. ‘Poor Kiki, poor Kiki, naughty boy, naughty boy!’
Jack gave her a tit-bit and she sat on his shoulder to eat it, looking triumphantly at Huffin and Puffin. ‘Arrrrrr!’ she said to them, sounding like a snarling dog. ‘Arrrrrr!’
‘All right, Kiki. Don’t arrrrr any more just by my ear,’ said Jack. ‘And I should advise you not to go too near Huffin for a bit. He won’t forget that jab of yours.’
‘Do you think it’ll be safe to sleep out of doors again tonight?’ asked Dinah, clearing up the meal. ‘I don’t fancy sleeping down that hole again, somehow.’
‘Oh, I should think it would be all right,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t somehow think those fellows, whoever they were, will come along in the dark of night. Pity we didn’t catch a glimpse of them.’
‘I didn’t like their voices,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘They sounded hard and horrid.’
‘What a good thing that storm blew our tents away the other night!’ said Dinah suddenly. ‘If it hadn’t, we wouldn’t have stumbled on that hole, and been able to use it as a hiding-place. We wouldn’t have known where to go, but for that.’
‘That’s true,’ said Philip. ‘I wonder if those men will come back again. We’ll go on keeping watch anyway, and keep the fire going. It’s our only hope of rescue – and Bill’s only hope too, I should think – because if nobody comes to rescue us, certainly nobody will rescue Bill!’
‘Poor Bill!’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘He wanted to disappear – and he has.’
‘Those men must have put our fire out,’ said Jack, suddenly noticing that there was no smoke. ‘The wretches! I suppose they thought they’d put it out, and then, if it was lighted again, and the smoke rose up, they’d know for certain that somebody was here.’
‘We’ll jolly well go and light it again,’ said Philip at once. ‘We’ll show them we’re going to have our fire going if we want to. I guess they don’t want it going, in case somebody does happen to come along and see it. They won’t want people exploring this part of the world at the moment.’
So they all went up to the cliff-top, and set to work to light the fire again. The men had kicked it out, and the ashes and half-burnt sticks were scattered everywhere.
It didn’t take long to get it going again. The children built it up carefully, and then Philip lighted it. It caught at once and flames sprang up. When it was going well, the children banked it with seaweed, and at once a thick spiral of smoke ascended in the air.
‘Ha! You men! I hope you have caught sight of our signal again!’ cried Jack, facing out to sea. ‘You can’t beat us! We’ll get the better of you yet, you’ll see!’
19
Someone else comes to the island
The children were now very brown with the sun. ‘If Mother could see us now, she wouldn’t call us “peaky”,’ said Philip. ‘And you’ve got back all your freckles, Jack and Lucy-Ann, and a few hundreds more!’
‘Oh dear!’ said Lucy-Ann, rubbing her brown freckled face. ‘What a pity! I did think I looked so nice when my freckles faded away during measles.’
‘I seem to be losing count of the days,’ said Jack. ‘I can’t for the life of me make out whether today is Tuesday or Wednesday.’
‘It’s Friday,’ said Philip promptly. ‘I was counting up only this morning. We’ve been here quite a time now.’
‘Well – is it a week since we left home?’ wondered Dinah. ‘It seems about six months. I wonder how Mother is getting on.’
‘She must be feeling a bit worried about us,’ said Philip. ‘Except that she knows we’re with Bill and she’ll think we’re quite all right, even if she doesn’t get messages.’
‘And we’re not with Bill, and we’re not all right,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I wish I knew where Bill was and what was happening to him. If only we had a boat, we could go off in it and try to find where he was. He must have been taken to the west of us somewhere – because that’s where the planes seem to be.’
‘Well – we’re not likely to get a boat,’ said Philip. ‘Come on – let’s go up on the cliff-top and see to the fire. The smoke doesn’t seem very thick this morning. Huffin and Puffin, are you coming?’
‘Arrrrrrr!’ said both Huffin and Puffin, and walked along beside Philip. Huffin had taken to bringing fish as a little present for Philip, and this amused the children immensely. The first time that Huffin had waddled up with the fish in his big beak, the children hadn’t been able to make out what he was carrying. But when he came nearer they roared with laughter.
‘Philip! He’s got six or seven fish in his beak for you – and do look how he’s arranged them!’ cried Jack. ‘Heads and tails alternately in a row all down his beak! Huffin, how did you do it?’
‘Thanks awfully, old chap,’ said Philip, as Huffin deposited the fish beside the boy. ‘Very generous of you.’
Now Huffin brought fish two or three times a day, much to the children’s amusement. Philip knew how to prepare it for cooking over the fire, and the children ate the bigger fish with biscuits and tinned butter. Huffin solemnly accepted a piece cooked, and seemed to enjoy it just as much as raw. But Puffin would not touch it.
‘Well, as long as we’ve got Huffin to provide us with fish, we shan’t starve,’ said Jack. ‘Kiki, don’t be so jealous. If Huffin wants to be generous, let him.’
Kiki tried to head off Huffin when he arrived with fish. She could not catch fish herself, and did not like the way Huffin brought presents to the little company.
‘Naughty, naughty, naughty boy!’ she screeched, but Huffin took no notice at all.
The children were sitting by the fire, idly throwing sticks on it, and stirring it now and again to make it flare up a little. A spiral of smoke rose up, bent northwards. Jack took up his field-glasses and swept the lonely sea with them. You never know when friends – or enemies – might turn up.
‘Hallo! There’s a boat again!’ cried Jack suddenly, his glasses focused on something small far away. ‘Philip, get your glasses.’
The boys gazed through them, whilst the girls waited impatiently. They could see nothing with their bare eyes – not even a speck on the sea.
‘Is it the same boat as before?’ said Philip. ‘It’s getting nearer – we shall soon be able to find out.’
‘It looks a different one to me,’ said
Jack. ‘Smaller. And it’s coming from a different direction. That might just be a trick though – to make us think it was a friend.’ ‘How shall we know?’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘Have we got to go and hide again?’
Jack gave his glasses to her to look through. He turned to Philip, a gleam in his eye. ‘Philip – there’s only one man this time – he’ll have to leave his boat moored somewhere, if he’s come to look for us. What about capturing it?’
‘Golly! If only we could!’ said Philip, his face glowing. ‘It’s a motor-boat – a small one – but big enough to take us all easily.’
‘Capture it! But how?’ demanded Dinah, her eyes glued on the approaching boat. ‘The man would see us easily, come running up, and capture us!’
‘Here, let me have my glasses back,’ said Philip, tugging them away from Dinah. ‘That’s the worst of you, Di – you will always make your turn so long!’
‘Now let’s think a bit,’ said Jack, his eyes bright. ‘That fellow can’t be coming to rescue us, because anyone knowing we were all alone here would send a bigger boat, and probably more men, in case they had to tackle our enemy. If Bill had managed to get word to anyone, that’s what they would do. Therefore, it seems to me that this boat is not one sent to rescue . . .’
‘So it’s probably a trick of the enemy’s,’ continued Philip. ‘They may or may not know there are only children here – it depends on how much Bill has told them – but they might quite easily send someone who would pretend not to be an enemy, so as to take us in – and then we would be persuaded to get into his boat to go to safety – and he’d take us off somewhere to join Bill as prisoners.’
‘Oh!’ said Lucy-Ann, who didn’t like the sound of this at all. ‘Well, I certainly shan’t get into his boat. Jack, what are we going to do?’
‘Now listen,’ said Jack. ‘I really have got a good idea – but it needs all of us to carry it out, you girls too.’
‘Well, what have we got to do?’ said Dinah impatiently.
‘We’ll find out where he’s going to moor his boat,’ said Jack. ‘He’ll either go into that little channel where the Lucky Star was – or pull her up on a sandy beach. We shall soon know, because we shall watch.’