‘Yes, what then?’ asked Lucy-Ann, beginning to feel excited.
‘Well, Dinah and I will hide nearby,’ said Jack. ‘The man will walk up on to the island, to look for us – and you and Lucy-Ann, Philip, must go and meet him.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ said Lucy-Ann, in alarm.
‘All right then – you stay put somewhere,’ said Jack, ‘and Philip can meet him. And Philip, somehow or other you’ve got to get this fellow into that underground hole. We can easily keep him prisoner there – and if we can block him in somehow, with plenty of food, we can take the boat and go.’
There was a silence whilst everyone digested this remarkable plan. ‘But how am I to get him into the hole?’ asked Philip at last. ‘It sounds a bit like “‘Won’t you come into my parlour?’ said the spider to the fly” – and somehow I don’t think that the fly will oblige this time!’
‘Can’t you just take him through the puffin colony and walk him near the hole – and then trip him up?’ asked Jack impatiently. ‘I’m sure I could do it all right.’
‘Well, you do it then,’ said Philip, ‘and I’ll hide near the boat to capture it. But suppose you don’t trip the man up and make him fall into the hole and be a prisoner? What about the boat? What shall I do with it?’
‘Well, silly, you’ll hop into it, if you find that I haven’t been able to manage the man, and you’ll get out to sea,’ said Jack. ‘And there you’ll stay till it begins to get dark, when you can creep in and see if you can find us and take us off. But you needn’t worry – I shall get that fellow all right. I shall tackle him just like I tackle chaps at rugger, at school.’
Lucy-Ann gazed at Jack in admiration. She thought her brother was very clever!
‘Well, I’ll help too,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and meet him with you.’
‘We shall have to pretend to believe all he says,’ said Jack. ‘Every word! It’ll be funny – him trying to take us in with a cock-and-bull story, and us doing the same!’
‘I hope he won’t be very fierce,’ said Lucy-Ann.
‘He’ll pretend to be quite harmless, I expect,’ said Jack. ‘Probably say he’s a naturalist, or something – and look very simple and friendly. Well – so shall I!’
‘The boat’s getting quite near,’ said Philip. ‘There is only one man. He’s wearing dark glasses because of the sun.’
‘To hide his fierce eyes, I expect,’ said Lucy-Ann fearfully. ‘Not because of the sun. Do we show ourselves?’
‘Only two of us,’ said Jack. ‘You and I will get up, Lucy-Ann, and wave like mad, standing beside the fire. And mind, whatever story I tell, you’ve got to back me up. Philip, you and Dinah mustn’t show yourselves.’
‘Where’s he going to park his boat?’ wondered Dinah. ‘Oh, he’s making straight for the channel! He knows it then!’
‘There you are, you see!’ said Jack. ‘Nobody would make straight for that hidden channel unless he had been here before. He’s quite probably one of the men who came in that bigger boat.’
This did seem very likely indeed, for the boatman made straight for the little channel as if he had been there before. Just as he came near the cliffs Jack and Lucy-Ann stood up and waved. The man waved back.
‘Now, Dinah – you and Philip get down among the rocks that lead to the little harbour,’ said Jack. ‘There are some big ones there you can crouch behind till he’s moored his boat, and comes up to find us here. Then down you must go and hop into the boat ready to go out to sea if we fail in our part. If we don’t fail, things will be fine – we shall have a prisoner we can hold as hostage – and a boat to escape in!’
‘Hurray!’ said Philip, feeling suddenly excited.
‘Hip-hip-hip-!’ said Kiki, flying down to Jack’s shoulder. She had been on an expedition of her own somewhere – probably chivvying the gulls around, Jack thought.
‘You can join in the fun, Kiki,’ said Jack. ‘And mind you say all the right things!’
‘Send for the doctor,’ answered Kiki, solemnly. ‘Pop goes the doctor!’
‘He’s going into the channel,’ said Philip. ‘Come on, Dinah – time we hid! Good luck, Jack and Lucy-Ann!’
20
Mr Horace Tipperlong gets a shock
The man guided the motor-boat expertly into the narrow channel of water, where the Lucky Star had been battered to pieces. He saw the bit of broken rope still round one of the rocks, and looked at it, puzzled.
Dinah and Philip were crouching behind two or three large rocks further up the cliff. They could not see what the man was doing, for they were afraid of being spotted if they peeped out.
Jack and Lucy-Ann were waiting on the cliff-top. Lucy-Ann was nervous. ‘My knees feel funny,’ she complained to Jack. He laughed.
‘Don’t worry. Buck up, knees! Now – here he comes. You needn’t say a word if you don’t want to.’
The man came up the rocky steps that led to the top of the cleft in the cliff. He was a thin fellow, rather weedy, with skinny legs. He wore shorts and a pullover. He had been burnt by the sun, and his skin was blistered.
He had a thin little moustache, and a high forehead on which the hair grew far back. He wore very dark glasses indeed, so that it was quite impossible to see his eyes. ‘He did not look anybody to be very much feared,’ Jack thought.
‘Hallo, hallo, hallo,’ said the man, as he and the children met. ‘I was astonished to know there were people on this island.’
‘Who told you?’ asked Jack at once.
‘Oh, nobody,’ said the man. ‘I saw your spire of smoke. Whatever are you doing here? Is there a camp of you, or something?’
‘There might be,’ said Jack, airily. ‘Why have you come here?’
‘I’m an ornithologist,’ said the man, very earnestly. ‘You won’t know what that means, of course.’
Jack grinned to himself. Considering that he and Philip thought themselves very fine ornithologists, this amused him. But he wasn’t going to let this man know that.
‘Orni-orni-ornibologist?’ he said innocently. ‘What’s that?’
‘Well, my lad, it’s a student of bird-life,’ said the man. ‘A bird-lover, one who wants to know all he can about birds and their ways.’
‘Is that why you’ve come here, then – to study birds?’ asked Lucy-Ann, thinking she ought to say something. Her knees had stopped shaking and feeling funny, now that she saw the man was not at all fearsome.
‘Yes. I’ve been to this island before, years and years ago, when I was a lad,’ said the man. ‘And I wanted to come again, though I had a job finding it. I was surprised to see your smoke going up. What’s it for? Playing at ship-wrecked sailors, or something? I know what children are.’
It was plain that the man knew very little about children, and thought the two to be much younger than they were. ‘He’ll be reciting “Humpty Dumpty” to us in a moment,’ thought Jack, with a secret grin.
‘Do you know a lot about birds?’ said Jack, not answering the man’s question.
‘Well, I don’t know a great deal about sea-birds,’ said the man. ‘That’s why I’ve come to these islands again. I know more about ordinary birds.’
‘Aha!’ thought Jack, ‘he says that because he is afraid I’ll ask him a few questions about the birds here.’
‘We’ve got two tame puffins,’ said Lucy-Ann suddenly. ‘Would you like to see them?’
‘Oh, very much, my dear, very much,’ said the man, beaming at her. ‘By the way, my name is Tipperlong – Horace Tipperlong.’
‘Tripalong?’ said Lucy-Ann, with a giggle, thinking it was a very good name for this man, who walked with curious mincing steps. Jack wanted to laugh.
‘No, no – Tipperlong,’ said Horace, and smiled all over his face at Lucy-Ann. ‘What is your name?’
‘My name’s Lucy-Ann,’ she said. ‘And my brother’s name is Jack. Are you coming to see the puffins? It’s this way.’
‘I should also like to meet whoever is in charge of you,?
?? said Mr Horace Tipperlong. ‘And – er – where is your boat?’
‘It was smashed up in a storm,’ said Jack solemnly. Mr Tipperlong tut-tutted with sympathy.
‘How dreadful! Then how were you going to get back home?’
‘Look out,’ said Jack, just saving Horace as he was about to plunge down a puffin’s burrow. ‘This place is undermined by the puffins. Mind where you go!’
‘My word – what a lot of birds!’ said Horace Tipperlong, standing still. He had been so engrossed in polite talk that he did not seem to have noticed the amazing colony of puffins. Another black mark against him! Jack could not believe that a real ornithologist would walk half-way through the puffins without exclaiming at them.
‘Extraordinary! Most astonishing! I don’t remember ever seeing so many birds together before,’ said Horace. ‘And all those thousands on the cliffs too. Well, well, well! And do you mean to say you really have got two tame puffins? I can hardly believe it.’
‘They’re Philip’s,’ said Lucy-Ann, and she could have bitten out her tongue.
‘I thought you said your brother’s name was Jack,’ said Horace enquiringly.
‘She must have made a mistake,’ said Jack, saying the first thing he could think of. They were getting very near the entrance of the underground hole now. Look out, Mr Horace Tipperlong!
Lucy-Ann began to feel nervous. Suppose this man Tripalong, or whatever his name was, didn’t fall into the hole when Jack tripped him – suppose instead he went for Jack? Suppose – well, suppose he had a revolver? He didn’t look a desperate sort of a man, but you never knew. Lucy-Ann looked at the pockets of his shorts to see if she could spy anything like a lump in the shape of a revolver there.
But his pockets were so bulged out with dozens of things that it was impossible to tell. Jack nudged her. ‘Keep out of the way now,’ he said in a very low voice. Lucy-Ann obediently slipped behind, her heart beating fast.
Jack came to the entrance of the hole. A stick marked it as usual, for it really was almost impossible to find without some sort of signpost. Horace tripped along, looking short-sightedly through his dark glasses – and then, to his enormous astonishment, Jack put out a leg, pushed him, and tripped him right over. He fell at the side of the hole – but before he could get up, Jack had given him a shove – and right into the hole he went, crash!
Jack had a stout stick in his hand, which he had picked from the pile beside the bonfire. He parted the heather and looked into the hole. In the dim light he could see Horace Tipperlong sitting up, and he heard him groaning.
Tipperlong looked up and saw Jack. ‘You wicked boy!’ he said angrily. ‘What do you mean by this?’
His glasses had fallen off in his headlong dive. His eyes certainly did not look very fierce. They looked rather weak and watery. He held his head as if he had hurt it.
‘Sorry,’ said Jack, ‘but it had to be done. Either you caught us – or we caught you. We needn’t go on pretending any more. We know quite well what gang you belong to.’
‘What are you talking about?’ cried the man, and he stood up. His head popped out of the hole. Jack raised his stick at once.
‘Get back!’ he said fiercely. ‘You’re our prisoner. You took Bill, didn’t you? – well, now we’ve taken you. If you attempt to clamber out, I shall hit you on the head with this. You just try it.’
Horace hastily retreated. Lucy-Ann looked white and scared. ‘Oh, Jack – is he hurt? Jack, you won’t really hit him, will you?’
‘I jolly well will,’ said Jack. ‘Think of Bill, Lucy-Ann – and our poor Lucky Star – and us stranded here because of this fellow and his precious friends. Don’t you realise that if he gets out and back to his boat, they’ll send heaps more, and won’t rest till they’ve got us? Don’t be feeble!’
‘Well – I don’t want to see you hit him,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘Dinah wouldn’t mind a bit, but I’m not like Dinah.’
‘Look here – will you kindly tell me what all this nonsense is about?’ shouted Horace. ‘I never heard of such a thing! Here I come to a bird-island, which, as far as I know, certainly isn’t a crime – and you two kids lead me here, trip me up, and shove me down this hole. I’ve hurt my head badly. And now you say if I try to get out, you’ll brain me. You nasty little creatures!’
‘I’m really very sorry about it,’ said Jack again, ‘but there wasn’t anything else to be done. You realise that with our boat gone – and Bill disappeared – we had to get a boat somehow. We can’t stay here for the rest of our lives.’
Horace was so amazed and upset at this speech that he stood up again. He sat down hurriedly when he saw Jack’s stick. ‘But look here – do you really mean to say you’re now going to take my boat? I never heard such brazen cheek. You wait till I get hold of the people in charge of you, my boy – you’ll get the worst hiding you’ve ever had in your life.’
21
Horace does not like Puffin Island
‘Lucy-Ann – see if you can spot either Philip or Dinah,’ ordered Jack. ‘Philip will probably be in the boat, ready to start her up, if he has to – but Dinah will possibly be looking out to see if there is any sign from us.’
Lucy-Ann stood up. She saw Dinah standing a good way off, waiting anxiously at the top of the cleft in the cliff. Philip was not to be seen. Presumably he was down in the boat.
Lucy-Ann waved violently. ‘It’s all right. We’ve got him in the hole!’ she yelled.
Dinah waved back, then disappeared. She had gone to tell Philip. Soon the two appeared again, and came through the puffin colony at top speed to hear what had happened.
‘We got him,’ said Jack proudly. ‘Easy as pie. Down he went, plonk!’
‘Who’s there?’ enquired Horace plaintively. ‘Is that somebody else? Look here – you’ve just got to tell me what’s going on here. I’m all at sea.’
‘That’s where we’ll be soon, I hope,’ grinned Jack. ‘And in your boat! Philip, meet Mr Horace Tripalong.’
‘Gosh – is that really his name?’ said Philip.
The incensed Mr Tipperlong roared up the hole. ‘My name is TIPPERLONG and I’ll thank you to remember it. Ill-mannered children! You wait till I make a complaint about you, and get you punished. I never heard of such behaviour in all my life.’
‘You can’t blame him for being wild,’ said Jack. ‘He says he’s a-a-I say, Mr Tripalong, what did you say you were?’
‘An ornithologist, ignorant boy!’ yelled Mr Tipperlong.
‘Golly, what’s that?’ said Philip innocently, and the others giggled.
‘You let me out of this,’ commanded Mr Tipperlong, and his head appeared cautiously near the entrance of the hole, ready to bob back if necessary.
It was necessary. ‘Look here,’ said Jack, exasperated, ‘do you want me to give you a good old conk on the head before you know I mean what I say? Because I will! I don’t want to; but I will! I bet you gave old Bill a few blows before you captured him. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’
You’re talking double-Dutch,’ said Horace, in a disgusted voice. ‘I think you must be mad. Do you mean to tell me you kids are all alone on this island? I don’t believe a word you say. You tell whoever is in charge of you to come and have a word with me. If you think I’m going to stay here much longer, you’re mistaken. I’ve never met such unpleasant children in my life. I suppose you’re all playing at being Just Williams. Pah!’
This was a lovely noise. Kiki, who had been listening with surprise and enjoyment to the animated conversation, now joined in.
‘Pah! Pooh! Pah! Pop!’
She flew to the edge of the hole and looked in. ‘Pah!’ she said again, and went off into a cackle of laughter.
Horace looked up in fresh alarm. Was that really a parrot at the hole entrance – saying ‘pah’ and ‘pooh’ to him in that rude way?
‘Is that – is that one of the tame puffins you told me about?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘I thought you
were an ornithologist,’ said Jack in scorn. ‘Kiki is a parrot. I should have thought anyone would have known that!’
‘But – how can a parrot live here?’ said Horace. ‘It’s not a sea-bird. Oh, this is all a dream. But what a very silly dream!’
At that moment a puffin came down the end of the burrow that led into the back of the hole.
‘Arrrrrrr!’ it announced in a deep and guttural voice. Mr Tipperlong jumped violently. All he could see in the dimness of the hole was a baleful eye and a big and many-coloured beak.
‘Go away,’ he said weakly. ‘Shoo!’
‘Shoo!’ said Kiki from the hole entrance in great delight. ‘Pah! Pooh! Shoo! Arrrrrrrrr!’
‘You’re all mad,’ said poor Horace. ‘I’m mad too, I suppose. Shoo, I tell you!’
The puffin said arrr again and then went back up its burrow. Judging by the flow of arrrrs that came down the hole, it was telling its wife all about the peculiar puffinman it had just seen in the hole.
‘What are we going to do now we’ve got him?’ said Philip in a low voice. ‘I suppose he is an enemy? I mean, – he does sound rather a goof, doesn’t he?’
‘All part of a clever plan,’ said Jack. ‘He’s no ornithologist. He’s been told to dress up like a goofy one and act the part. Some bird-men are awful goofs, you know. We’ve met them. Well, this one is just about too goofy for words – he’s over-acting, if you know what I mean. I’m glad he hasn’t got a revolver. I’ve been afraid of that all the time.’
‘Yes. So was I,’ admitted Philip. ‘There may be one in the boat. I hope there is. It might come in useful. Well, what are we going to do?’
‘Do you think he can hear what we’re saying?’ said Lucy-Ann, looking frightened.
‘No, not if we talk as low as this,’ said Philip. ‘Jack, the boat is a nice little bit of work. Smaller than the Lucky Star, but it has a little cabin and will easily take us all, and some food.’