Secret Water

  The narrow channel widened and the Red Sea lay before them.

  “If only it was always like this,” said Nancy. “So that we could sail anywhere, any time. I don’t see the good of tides. What’s the good of a sea if it’s all going to be mud in a few hours.”

  “It’s like breathing,” said Titty. “Up and down. Up and down. It makes everything alive.”

  “Um,” said Nancy. “When the tide’s out everything goes dead. Hullo. We touched then. I’ll get the centreboard half up.”

  The two boats sailed slowly on, side by side.

  Wider and wider the Red Sea opened before them. To port was the long low dyke of the island, and shimmering water over the mudflats where Titty and Bridget had seen the long trail of the Mastodon’s hoofmarks. To starboard all was new. The bank on that side was further and further away. Little clumps of weeds standing in the water hinted of shallows, but beyond them water stretched into a misty distance. Somewhere over there they were to meet the Mastodon. An old barge quay, he had said, but there was no sign of anything but sunlit water and small islands of weeds.

  John was sitting on the middle thwart of Wizard searching for signs of a marked channel. Nancy in Firefly was doing the same. Roger and Titty were steering.

  “Starboard a bit,” said John, and Roger altered course.

  Titty, catching Nancy’s eye, did the same.

  “There’s one of those little trees, sticking up out of the water on the port bow,” said Roger.

  “We can’t go wrong if we head for that,” said John. “It’s a withy. We passed that on the way home when we sailed round the island. We’ll go to it, and then we may be able to see something else.”

  “We haven’t really begun the unexplored part yet,” said Titty.

  “How do you know there really is a channel over there?” said Nancy.

  “There’s a good wide opening shown on Daddy’s map,” said John. “And the Mastodon said we’d find the marks in it as we went along.”

  “More withies ahead,” said Nancy.

  Far ahead of them was a line of withies, bending in the tide, perhaps a hundred yards or two hundred yards one from another.

  “That’s where the road goes,” said John. “We saw them yesterday, and you see those posts, just showing? That’s the place we bumped on coming home … the high bit half way across the Wade. We’ve got to turn south before coming to them or we’ll miss the way altogether.”

  “What’s that away to starboard?” said Titty.

  “It’s a stick, it’s a stick,” cried Roger.

  “Steer for it,” said John. “Pretty well south from here. That’s all right. It’ll mark the beginning of the channel.”

  Both little boats swung round. Roger and Titty hauled in their main sheets, and steered for the little branch of leafless twigs far away over the water. John and Nancy were busy with their compasses.

  “It can’t be anything else,” said Nancy.

  “Better have the centreboards nearly up,” said John. “The wind’s free, and anything’s better than getting stuck in the mud with the boards down.”

  Titty, just nipping the end of her tongue between her teeth, kept a straight wake as she steered.

  “That clump of weeds is pretty close,” she said. “Is it all right?”

  Nancy watched the weeds coming nearer and nearer. There was clear water all round them. She took an oar and prodded over the side.

  “Keep as you’re going,” she said.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Titty.

  The weeds slid by and were left astern.

  “What about the other withy?” asked John. “It looks a long way to port.” He pointed to another thin sapling with twigs on the top of it, far to the left of the one they were now coming near.

  “Can’t be anything to do with us,” said Nancy. “Everything looks clear ahead.”

  “Keep her as she goes,” said John.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Roger.

  “Get bearings from this withy to the posts on the Wade and to the native’s landing-place.”

  “Moving too fast,” said Nancy. “You do the one to the Wade and I’ll do the other.”

  “She’s steering funnily,” said Titty.

  “What’s happening?” said Roger. “I say, John! I thought it looked a bit shallow.”

  Side by side, Wizard and Firefly lost speed and came to rest. They were aground, yet clear water stretched far away on every side of them.

  “Suffering Lampreys!” cried Nancy. “Let go your sheet.”

  Roger had already let go of his, and for a minute or two both skippers wrestled with the oars, making their able-seamen move now forwards now aft as they worked to get their ships afloat again. The mud was so soft that prodding at it was very little good.

  “I say,” said Roger. “What’ll happen if we can’t get off, and the tide goes down and leaves us here? We can’t walk over it like the Mastodon. And we haven’t even a bit of chocolate.”

  “Even he couldn’t walk over mud as soft as this,” said John. “She’s coming. Nancy’s off too. We ought to have gone for that other withy after all. He did say the channel twisted a lot, but I never thought it’d turn right across like that.”

  Again the little boats were sailing, this time in a new direction, almost at right angles to their old course. John took a bearing from one withy to the other. Nancy tried the depth and washed the mud off the blade of an oar at the same time.

  “We’re in the channel now all right,” she said.

  “This is much worse than the Magellan Straits,” said Titty. “There we only had to find the right ditch and keep to it, and here there are no banks to show where the ditch is and where it isn’t.”

  When they came to the next stick, John lowered Wizard’s sail.

  “Don’t want to get stuck again,” he said. “I can’t see another mark anywhere.”

  Nancy brought down the sail in Firefly. “Sit in the bottom of the boat, just for a minute,” she said. “I’m going to stand on the thwart to have a look round.”

  “Don’t have her over,” said John.

  “I won’t,” said Nancy.

  “He said some of the marks were secret ones,” said John.

  “Well there just aren’t any,” said Nancy. “And it looks pretty shallow everywhere. Weeds showing all over the place. Hullo!”

  “Seen anything?”

  “There’s something floating over there. Not moving. Must be anchored whatever it is.”

  “I can’t see anything,” said John.

  Nancy hopped down and took the oars.

  “Plenty of water,” she said. “I’ll paddle gently in case of it getting too shallow.”

  “There is something,” cried Titty. “It looks like a necklace.”

  “Galoot …” said Nancy. “It can’t be.”

  “It is,” said Titty.

  “Sorry,” said Nancy. “So it is.”

  Nancy stopped rowing, and Firefly slid slowly through the water towards a floating ring of old corks threaded on a string. Titty reached over the side as they drifted by.

  “It’s tethered to something,” she said. “Shall I lift it up?”

  “No. No,” shouted Nancy. “We don’t want to move it if it’s a mark. Come on John. We’re all right so far.”

  “Where do we go next?” asked Roger.

  “Let’s get this put down first,” said John, and then, standing up in the boat, looked anxiously round over a waste of water. Some ducks swimming along the edge of a clump of weeds began to swim faster, and suddenly splashed up into the air and flew away.

  “One of them’s left behind,” said Roger.

  “Perhaps it’s hurt,” said Titty, and looked at it through the telescope. “Oh, it’s only a bottle … floating.”

  “Why doesn’t it move?” said Roger. “It must be swimming against the tide. Or is it high tide already?”

  Titty looked at it again. “It’s the wrong way up,” she said.

&
nbsp; “Come on,” said Nancy. “Good for you, Titty. I ought to have spotted it. Bottles always float neck upwards when they’re just bobbing about. That one’s anchored. Come on, John. We’ve found the next mark.”

  From near the bottle, an old lemonade bottle, anchored to something on the bottom, they saw a withy, a stick with a bunch of twigs, like those that marked the channel outside, though not so big. John saw it first, rowed straight for it and, a moment later, stuck fast. Nancy backwatered in Firefly just in time to save herself from joining John on the mud.

  “There must be another mark to go for first,” said John. “You know if we go on getting stuck like this we won’t be there before the tide turns, and then we may not get there at all.”

  “Let’s go back at once,” said Roger. “I say, will we ever find the way?”

  “I’ve got it all down all right so far,” said John.

  “Look there,” said Nancy. “There’s another lot of corks. Probably we ought to go round them before going for the stick.”

  She pulled away, went back to the floating bottle, and from there rowed to the ring of floating corks.

  “Come on,” she said. “It’s all right. Deep water all the way. Now for the stick.”

  “We can’t go straight for the stick from here. There’s a tuft of reeds right ahead. She’s touching. Look out, John. We’re stuck again.”

  “There’s another bottle over there,” said John, who had got Wizard free of the mud and had just arrived at the second ring of corks. “Gosh!” he cried. “I’ve got it. Port and starboard buoys. We’ve got to leave all bottles to starboard and all corks to port. Why on earth didn’t he tell us?”

  “Then what does the stick mean?” said Roger.

  When they came to the stick, they knew. From beside it they could see another anchored bottle away to the south, and to the west two more sticks, the further of them close to the shore.

  “There must be a landing place in there. There’s a fishing boat pulled up there. The stick just marks where the channels divide. Half a minute while I jam that down.”

  “Is that where we’re going?” said Titty.

  “Can’t be,” said Nancy, who was down in the bottom of Firefly with compass and map. “Almost due west, and we ought to be going almost south.”

  “There’s nothing like a quay in there,” said John. “Come on. Next bottle.”

  This way and that the channel wound, each turn of it marked by a ring of corks or an old bottle, corked and anchored by its neck.

  “It doesn’t look as if we’re going anywhere,” said Roger.

  “It’s getting narrower anyway,” said Titty. “We must be getting to the end.”

  Ahead of them long low banks of weeds pushed out into the water, and were closing in on either side. Nobody who did not know could have guessed that there was a way through. Even John began to feel doubtful, watching his compass, and noting the course from secret mark to secret mark.

  And then, suddenly, they saw it. Paddling carefully, Firefly close astern of Wizard, they were making for a ring of corks close to a bank of mud and weeds. As they reached the corks they could see round the bank, and ahead of them, only a few hundred yards away was an old wooden quay, with a house on it, and a couple of boats pulled up on dry land.

  THE MAP: WITH MASTODON ISLAND AND WITCH’S QUAY

  “Hurrah!” cried John and ran aground again.

  Even here, within sight of the quay, they had to follow the channel and feel their way along. They could find no more marks to guide them, and had to sound their way in with an oar.

  “Well, we’ve done it,” said John, as the two boats ran alongside of the quay, and they climbed ashore. From the top of the quay they looked back and, far away over the water, could see the roof of the native kraal on Swallow Island.

  “Gosh!” said Nancy. “It looks simple enough from up here.”

  “It jolly well isn’t,” said John, “when you’re down on the level of the water.”

  “But where’s the Mastodon?” said Roger.

  “It isn’t high water yet,” said John.

  The two skippers settled down on the top of the quay where the old storehouse sheltered them from the wind, and began comparing their maps. For a minute or two Titty and Roger looked over their shoulders and listened to argument about the right place for this mark and that.

  “Come on, Rogie,” said Titty at last. “Let’s go and explore.”

  “Don’t go too far,” said John. “We’ll want to start the moment he turns up.”

  “Perhaps we’ll meet him,” said Titty.

  Long years ago there must have been busy barge traffic in and out from this old quay when there were no railways and poor roads and everything that could be was carried by water. They could see that the quay had once been bigger. They found the remains of an old crane, and heavy rings, now almost rusted through, to which in old times the barges had made fast. But now the wood of the quay was rotting, and water was working in and out through gaps in the piling. The storehouse was empty. Beside the quay was an open space, big enough for a wagon to turn round in. But there were no cart tracks, and grass and thistles were growing through the sand.

  There were footmarks in the sandy ground.

  “Natives,” said Titty. “We’d better go carefully.”

  “What are these squiggles?” said Roger. “Somebody’s been drawing snakes.”

  “Eels!” cried Titty. “You can tell by the head and the fins. Hey! John! The Mastodon’s been and gone.”

  John and Nancy came running along the quay and looked at the squiggles in the sand.

  “Eels all right,” said John.

  “Why on earth couldn’t he wait?” said Nancy. “The tide’s still coming in.”

  “They’re all pointing the same way,” said John.

  “Patterans,” said Titty. “I bet he drew them to show us which way he’s gone.”

  “Here’s another,” said Roger, who had already left the edge of the quay and was moving in the way the eels were pointing, stooping and looking at the ground.

  “And another,” said John.

  “He must think us galoots, to draw such a lot,” said Nancy.

  Eel after eel drawn in the sand and all wriggling in the same direction led them across the open space towards the mouth of a green lane. Titty ran ahead into the lane, and searched the ground. The others followed her.

  “He couldn’t draw eels in the grass,” said Nancy.

  John went back to the last of the eels they had seen. It was not as straight as the others. All were wriggly lines, but it was easy to see which way they were going. This last one had a decided kink to the left.

  “He’s turned off here. Or hasn’t he?”

  Away to the left was a broken down wooden fence, with a wicket gate in it, and beyond it a thatched cottage, a very small cottage of tarred black wood standing in a small potato patch.

  John went to the wicket gate, which stood half open, and there, on the ground between the gateposts, was a wriggly line. There was another on the path across the potato patch.

  “He went in here,” said Titty.

  “Come on,” said Nancy. “I’m going in too.”

  One of the windows of the cottage was broken, but there was a bit of paper stuck over it, and a geranium on the sill inside.

  “Somebody’s living here,” said John doubting whether to go or not.

  Somebody tapped at the window. The door of the cottage opened and a bent old woman stood on the threshold, leaning on a stick.

  “Looking for young Don?” she whispered, and coughed. “Lost me voice, I have. He’ve put his bag in the shed.”

  She pointed to a lean-to shed at the end of the cottage.

  “Thank you very much,” said John.

  The old woman stood there, watching them.

  “New friends for him,” she cackled. “Not seen you before.”

  “May we go to the shed?” asked John.

  The old woman did
not answer. She began to cough, and her cough turned into a laugh and then into a cough again. She went back into her cottage.

  John led the way to the shed. Just inside it was a sack, with a bit of rope round the mouth of it. A bit of paper lay on it, skewered to the sack with a splinter of wood. They read it together.

  “Please take this lot in your boat. Bringing the rest. Don’t wait for me after the tide turns or you won’t get back. If I don’t get back in time I’ll go overland.” There was no signature except a drawing of a wriggling eel.

  “What are those words crossed out?” said Nancy.

  “Bad something,” said John. “Bad news.”

  They looked at each other. What bad news could there be?

  “Oh well,” said Nancy. “He’s crossed them out anyway. You get hold of one end, John, and I’ll take the other.”

  They hove up the sack, which was very heavy, and carried it past the cottage and out by the wicket gate. The cottage door was closed, but they could see the face of the old woman, coughing and laughing, looking at them through the broken pane by the geranium.

  “I bet she’s a witch,” said Titty, remembering her mother’s story of the Obeah Woman. “Wrinkles deep as ditches on her brown face. A native witch. I wonder if she’s got eel blood in her too.”

  They took the sack to the quay, and lowered it down into Wizard.

  “Tide’s still rising,” said John. “But it must be nearly high water.”

  Roger worked his way down by the side of the quay, and stuck a bit of wood into the mud, and crouched on the bank to watch it. John looked out over the Red Sea, at the distant line of their island.

  “Sing out the moment it stops rising,” he said. “Come on, Nancy. Let’s get on with the chart. It’s that bit where the other channel starts that looks wrong.”

  Titty crouched on the bank by Roger.

  “Something must have happened to make him write ‘Bad news’, she said. “And then something else must have made him cross it out.”

  CHAPTER XV

  THE MASTODON WISHES HE HADN’T

  “IT’S BEGUN TO go down.” Roger’s shout disturbed the map-makers on the quay. Titty had joined them, to see the two maps which now more or less agreed with each other, though it was hard to tell which of the pencilled lines were meant to count and which would have been rubbed out if only the surveyors had not forgotten to bring an indiarubber from the camp.