Secret Water

  “Let’s rub out the pencil marks and have a look,” said John.

  “Ink’s not dry,” said Titty, and put the drawing-board in her tent, safe from explorers’ wandering feet.

  “Supper’s ready,” said Susan, who had for some time been busy at the fire. “Scrambled eggs.”

  “Good,” said Nancy, jumping up. “Shall I go and yell to Roger and the savage?”

  “I’ll whistle,” said Susan, but before the first blast of her whistle had died away they saw the fishermen coming up from the landing place.

  “I say,” called Roger. “We’ve put out a line with twenty hooks. He’s going to bring us some of the fish when he takes it up in the morning.”

  Seven explorers and a savage shared their scrambled eggs, after which Peggy dealt out huge slices from the cake they had brought from Beckfoot.

  Towards the end of the meal, Nancy fell oddly silent. It was Peggy who was telling the others about what had happened at High Topps after the Swallows had gone south, and how the D’s, also, had been called away to join their parents. Nancy did not interrupt, even to say “Galoot”. Titty could see from her face that she was turning something over in her mind. John, looking at her anxiously, began to fear that she was relapsing into thoughts of war. More than once the others laughed at things in Peggy’s story of what had in the end been done to Timothy, and Nancy did not laugh with them. More than once she laughed to herself when the others were perfectly serious. She did her share of washing up without a word.

  “What’s the matter?” said John at last when Nancy suddenly broke into a cheerful chuckle.

  “Nothing’s the matter,” said Nancy. “Jibbooms and bobstays! Everything’s just right. I’m only thinking about the savage chief. We ought to do things properly. Look here, Mastodon.”

  The Mastodon looked at her gravely.

  “Look here,” she said again. “We’re explorers. You’re a savage chief. We ought to load you with presents, but we haven’t got a single bead.”

  “I’ve promised him some of our fish-hooks,” said Roger.

  “Good,” said Nancy. “Why not?”

  “I say,” said the Mastodon. “I don’t want to take any unless you’ve got plenty.”

  “We’ve got a whole packet,” said John.

  “Barbecued billygoats!” said Nancy. “Bother the fish-hooks. Do let me talk. Look here. We’re explorers and we’ve met you amd made friends … Haven’t we?”

  The Mastodon stared at her. “Yes,” he said.

  “Then the next thing to do is to prick our fingers all of us, and rub the blood in each other’s wounds, so that we’re blood brothers. …”

  The Mastodon grinned. “That’s what we did, when we first made our tribe, and the others got in a row with their missionaries about it. Daisy went and had a sore finger for about a week.”

  “We won’t get into a row,” said Nancy. “There’s nobody to make one. And then, if we’re blood brothers it’ll be all right for you to help in the exploring. And if there was your blood in us, you could borrow one or two of us if you happened to be short of savages. Let’s do it at once. Who’s got any needles? Come on, Susan. You’d better prick Bridget’s finger for her and I’ll do Peggy’s. She’ll never prick herself.”

  “I don’t want to have my finger pricked,” said Bridget.

  “You shan’t,” said Susan.

  “I’ll prick my own,” said Peggy. “If you don’t go and hurry me.”

  “Good,” said Nancy. “Where’s a needle? It won’t really matter about Bridget if she doesn’t want to. …”

  “But then I’ll be left out,” said Bridget. “All because I’m too young.”

  “It isn’t because you’re too young,” said Nancy. “It’s only because you don’t want to have your finger pricked.”

  “Well, I don’t,” said Bridget.

  “Come on, Bridget,” said Roger.

  Bridget’s lip quivered, and for the second time that day, Susan, who was an expert in Bridget, knew that something had to be done about it at once.

  “No one’s going to prick your finger,” she said. “And there’s no need for anyone else to prick theirs. We can make an alliance with the savages without any blood at all.”

  “It’s all right,” said Titty. “There was bread at supper, and lots of salt in the scrambled eggs. He’s eaten our bread and salt and we’re going to eat his tomorrow. That’s all that really matters.”

  “I don’t mind doing it,” said the Mastodon, choosing a finger to be pricked.

  “No need,” said Susan, and then, privately to Nancy, “Look out. It’s after Bridget’s bed time.”

  “All right,” said Nancy. “Bread and salt counts. Pity about the blood all the same. What time are you coming in the morning, Mastodon?”

  “I’ll come over as soon as I take up the night line,” said the Mastodon. “But it’s low tide about ten. We shan’t be able to do much till the afternoon. Not in boats anyway. And I’ve simply got to go now. I left old Speedy in an awful mess.”

  “Come on, Bridgie,” said Susan. “Bed, and quick too, if we’re going to be up early enough to go blackberrying before we start exploring.”

  *

  The Mastodon rowed away in the dusk. The explorers watched his boat until it disappeared.

  “Mastodon Island?” said Titty, looking across the creek.

  “All right,” said John. “If he doesn’t mind.”

  “He’s a first rate savage,” said Nancy. “I wonder what the others are like.”

  Back at the camp, Susan met them with a finger to her lips.

  “Human sacrifice asleep,” whispered Roger.

  “So’s Sinbad,” said Titty, looking into her tent and bringing drawing-board and indiarrubber to the light of the fire. She looked sideways across the map. “Ink’s dry now,” she said. For a moment she used the indiarubber, and then, blowing at the map, and dusting it lightly with her fingers, she handed it over to Nancy, to take her mind off savages and war.

  “You’ve done a jolly good lot already,” said Nancy, looking at the island, its seawall, its landing place, the native kraal, the camp, the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn, all neatly inked in the middle of the map with Commander Walker’s blobs and wide blank spaces lying unexplored all round it.

  “But just look what a lot there is to do,” said John.

  “Don’t let’s put any more on the fire,” said Susan. “It isn’t like Wild Cat where we always had plenty of wood.”

  “It’s a pity about that blood business,” said Nancy, handing the map to John. “It would make things a lot better.”

  “Bridget does get so upset if she thinks she’s being left out,” said Susan. “And it doesn’t really make any difference.”

  There was an odd smile on Nancy’s face, lit by a flame as she stirred the dying fire.

  “You never know,” she said. “It might make quite a lot.”

  CHAPTER XII

  BLOOD AND IODINE

  NANCY WOKE THE camp with a war cry long before the shadow on the meal-dial was anywhere near the breakfast peg. Susan, who had Nancy’s watch in her tent, saw that it was terribly early, but knew that there was no hope of getting anybody to sleep again with the sunshine pouring through the walls of the tents. Everybody but Bridget went down to the landing place and had a morning wallow, getting so muddy on their way up again that it took another wallow in the pond to get them clean. Bridget, who could not swim, did the next best thing in standing by the pond and letting the others empty bucketfuls of water over her head. John cut the day’s notch in the flagstaff. There was no sign of the Mastodon. They had breakfast. They wrote the first Report of the Secret Archipelago Expedition. Everybody signed it, and Susan put it in a stamped envelope, meaning to ask the farmer to post it next time he went to the mainland. Roger went twice to his look-out post to see if the Mastodon had come out to take up his night-line. John and Nancy were looking at the map considering what to explore next. “He said we co
uldn’t do much boatwork until the afternoon,” said John, looking at his tide-table. “High tide’s not till 3.36.”

  “Don’t let’s decide till he comes,” said Titty, wiping the last of the breakfast mugs.

  THE REPORT1

  “He’s going to bring us some fish,” said Roger.

  “He probably won’t turn up at all,” said Nancy. “Now, if only we’d done the blood business he’d have had to.”

  Bridget changed the subject. “Aren’t we going to get some blackberries?” she said. “Susan promised.”

  “All right, Bridgie,” said Susan. “Foraging party. We’re going blackberrying while you make up your minds. We can’t live off the land altogether, but that hedge is black with blackberries.”

  “Good against scurvy,” said Titty.

  “Give a yell when you’re ready,” said Susan. “Come on, Bridgie. There’s your basket.”

  “I’ll come too,” said Peggy.

  “More hands the better,” said Susan.

  “So’ll I,” said Roger.

  “Not your hands,” said Susan. “We only want hands that know their way to the baskets. Yours always go somewhere else by mistake.”

  “Oh look here,” said Roger. “That was when I was as young as Bridget. I promise I won’t eat a single one.”

  “Come on then,” said Susan. “You can eat every tenth blackberry. But all the others go into the basket. It’s no good picking them if there isn’t enough to go round.”

  The blackberrying party, of Susan, Peggy, Roger and Bridget, went off along the dyke and inland towards the hedge that Susan had noticed when she had been too busy surveying to do more than taste the ripeness of a blackberry or two. John, Nancy and Titty crouched more closely round the map.

  “The trouble is,” said John, “that it isn’t only boatwork that’s no good except when the tide’s up. The mud runs so far out that there are jolly few places where we can land.”

  “We could get ashore on Mastodon Island, like we did yesterday,” said Titty.

  “Bother that Mastodon,” said Nancy. “We ought to have told him to turn up early.”

  “We don’t really know him well enough,” said Titty. “It isn’t as if he was one of us.”

  “That’s just what I mean,” said Nancy. “We ought to have grabbed our chance last night. A drop of blood would have done it.”

  “We couldn’t,” said John. “There’d have been awful trouble with Bridgie. Whether we pricked her finger, or didn’t and left her out.”

  “There’s another thing,” said Titty. “We don’t know what the rest of the Eels are like.”

  “They must be all right,” said Nancy. “Or they wouldn’t be Eels. It’s as good as anything we’ve thought of ourselves.”

  “But perhaps he wouldn’t have wanted to,” said Titty. “He took his totem away.”

  “Galoot!” said Nancy. “Oh. Sorry. I was forgetting you weren’t my mate. But don’t you see he had to? How could he leave it in a camp of white explorers? It’s a totem of the Eels, and we’re not Eels. One drop of Eel blood in our veins and it would have been all right.”

  “What about rowing across now and digging him out?” said John. “You haven’t seen his lair yet.”

  “Let’s,” said Nancy.

  The three of them walked down to the landing place, but went no further, for out on the creek was the Mastodon himself hauling in his night line and coiling it in the bottom of his boat.

  “Coming in a minute,” he shouted.

  They watched the dripping line coming in, the Mastodon stopping at each hook, putting it in its place and then hauling in afresh.

  “There’s a fish,” said Titty. Something white and splashing came up out of the water, and the Mastodon held it up for them to see.

  “Flatfish,” said John, “by the look of it.”

  “There’s another,” said Titty.

  But after that they saw no more. The line came in hand over hand, and the boat moved slowly across the creek, but hook after hook came in bare, and presently the Mastodon was hauling up the weight to which the end of his line was made fast. He stowed that with the rest of his tackle, and then, bending his oars pulled hurriedly towards them.

  “Karabad …” he said cheerfully as he landed, and cut himself short. “I was forgetting you weren’t Eels,” he said. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning … I say, was that Eel language?” said Titty.

  The Mastodon turned rather red. “It was a mistake,” he said.

  “Secret password?” said Nancy.

  “It just began to slip out,” said the Mastodon.

  “If only we’d bloodied each other,” said Nancy.

  “Come along to the camp,” said John. “We’re just deciding where to explore next.”

  “Well just for a minute,” said the Mastodon. “But I can’t stop this morning. You’re coming to supper in Speedy, and I’ve got to go to the main first. I say, will you bring your own mugs? I’ve only got four, just enough for the Eels.” He looked at two flounders in a bucket in the stern of his boat. “Look here, it’s no good giving you these. Little miseries. Not worth eating. And every bait gone. I bet the others were eels. There’s nothing like them for not getting hooked.” He emptied the bucket into the creek, and the two little flounders flapped away, like pancakes come to life.

  “Mastodon,” said Nancy suddenly. “Did you mean it last night? Would you have blooded with the rest of us?”

  “It was you people who didn’t want to,” said the Mastodon.

  “If only Bridget was a little older,” said Titty.

  “It’ll be low water pretty soon,” said the Mastodon. “You can’t do much in the boats. But what about this afternoon? Tide won’t be high till half past three. I’ve got to go home to get some things, and I want some more netting string from the town. Run right out. And there may be a letter from the tribe. …”

  “Do they use native post?” asked Titty.

  “Have to when there’s no other way,” said the Mastodon. “They’re almost sure to send a letter before they leave Pin Mill. … I’ve got a pretty good plan for today,” he went on. “I’m going straight over the marshes from Speedy, easy enough with nothing to carry. But I’ll be loaded up when I come back. You know when we passed the Wade on the way home yesterday I showed you where the withies mark a channel going right in to a landing place on the mainland. You ought to have that in the map. Couldn’t you explore that while the tide’s coming up? Start from here about half past two. There’s a channel all the way in. We’ve marked a lot of it. It twists about a bit, and we’ve put marks at the bends, secret ones. You’ll see them when you’re close to them, but not from the shore. If you work your way up there, there’s a fine landing place. It’s an old barge quay really. I’ll get all my stuff there by high water and meet you there. And then we’ll load it into your boats and dump it in Speedy, and there might be just time to sail round my island before you come to supper.”

  “Good idea,” said John. “And this morning we could be mapping it. We could get ashore at the corner even at low water and do all the land part without a guide. Then we’ll have both sides of the creek done. And the Amazons have never seen Speedy.”

  “Shall I leave the plank up?” said the Mastodon doubtfully.

  “Oh no,” said Nancy. “We won’t go aboard if you’re not there. We’ll be seeing Speedy when we come to supper.”

  They came up to the camp and explained that the others had gone to get blackberries. They gave him the Report in its stamped envelope, to be sent off, by native post, in the town. They showed him the map with the work of the day before all neatly inked and the pencil markings rubbed out. He pointed out on it the place on the mainland where he wanted them to meet him.

  “Your island’ll be done next,” said Titty. “Do you mind if we call it Mastodon Island?”

  “Not a bit,” said the Mastodon. “But, look here, I mustn’t stop another minute. It’s a fearful trek overland
, and if I’m not at the landing place at high water you’ll have to start back without me, or you’ll get stuck. And I may be held up at home … at the kraal. …”

  “We know,” said Nancy. “Native business.”

  “There’s nearly always something,” said the Mastodon. “If it isn’t clean shirts it’s something else.”

  He turned to go back to his boat.

  The quiet side of the island was broken by a sudden loud wail.

  “Bridget,” said John. “She’s hurt herself.”

  They stood still and listened. There was another wail, as if Bridget had taken a long breath and was using it.

  Then came Susan’s voice, very angry, “Roger!” a gasping howl cut off short from Bridget, and a very cheerful shout from Roger, “Hurry up, Susan. Hurry up!”

  A moment later Roger and Bridget appeared on the top of the dyke. Roger had Bridget by the elbow and was running her along. Bridget, perhaps because she had no breath to howl with, had stopped wailing. Roger was waving frantically with his free hand, and at the same time stooping to encourage Bridget.

  “Hi!” he shouted. “Hi!”

  “Roger!” shouted Susan again, and presently her bobbing head showed behind the dyke and then they saw her running in pursuit.

  John and Titty ran to meet them.

  “Hi,” shouted Roger, again. “Somebody must fetch the Mastodon. Oh good,” he shouted. “Come on, Susan. He’s here.”

  “What’s happened?” called Titty.

  “Quick. Quick,” shouted Roger. “Bridget’s scratched herself. She’s bleeding beautifully. All right Bridget, it’s stopped hurting. Don’t suck it. Don’t waste it. Come on. Where’s a bucket?”

  “Jibbooms and bobstays!” cried Nancy. “We’re saved. Well done Bridget! Good for you Roger!”

  She grabbed the Mastodon by the hand and hurried him towards the others.

  Susan came panting up. “Roger,” she cried. “What did you make her run like that for? Poor old Bridgie. Everybody gets scratched blackberrying. Wait a minute and I’ll put a drop of iodine on it and a bit of sticky plaster.”