For some time the talk at the end of the cabin table was about orbits and eclipses, and how it is that the planets are not to be found on a map of the constellations, and how they have their own time-tables, to be found in the Nautical Almanac, and how it is that the Pole Star keeps over the North Pole in spite of the world’s spinning on its axis and flying round the sun at the same time.
“You seem to know quite a lot about it already,” said Captain Flint.
“Only what I got out of this book,” said Dick, “and the person who wrote it has stuffed in such a lot of Longfellow and Tennyson.”
“Probably accustomed to lecture to elegant audiences,” said Captain Flint. “Hullo! What’s this? ‘Log of the Fram?’ He shifted some hanks of thread off an exercise book that was lying on the table. “So you’ve been keeping a log. How long have you been at it?”
“Just since we got the key and moved down from the igloo,” said Dick.
“The igloo was the first base of the expedition,” said Dorothea, “but the Fram’s much better.”
“What expedition?” said Captain Flint. “Arctic, I suppose, if this is the Fram”
“We got a lot of ideas out of Nansen’s book.”
“Oh, you found that, did you?” He glanced round at the shelf where, luckily, the two volumes of Nansen were back in their proper places. “Is the log private?”
“Not a bit,” said Dorothea. “We’ve all been putting things in, but mostly John and Titty.”
Captain Flint turned from page to page, reading bits aloud.
“Barometer 30.1. Sunshine. Freezing hard . . .”
“We ought to have put the temperature properly,” said Dick, “but I left my thermometer at home. I didn’t think there’d be a chance of using it.”
“You see, we would only have been here a week if Captain Nancy hadn’t got mumps . . .”
“Yes,” said Captain Flint. “What’s this? ‘Open water to west and south-west.’”
“The lake wasn’t frozen right across when we came to the Fram,” said Dick. “Not this part of the lake. Everything in the log is perfectly true.”
“‘Seals (perhaps Eskimos),’” read Captain Flint, “‘came and tapped at the cabin windows. We lay low and they went away.’”
“It was Titty’s idea to call them seals,” said Dorothea.
“I guessed it must have been,” said Captain Flint. “Hullo! This looks like Peggy’s writing. ‘Turned a seal off the deck. He was sitting there with his skates on, and John said he might scratch the deck. So we told him to go away, and he jolly well went.’ ’Hm,” said Captain Flint. “They always do say that poachers make the best gamekeepers.”
He turned a page and read on. “The D.s” (“That’s us,” said Dorothea) “returned to the ship after a successful expedition to the south-east.” (“That’s to Mrs Dixon’s,” said Dorothea. Dick was again wrestling with his astronomy.) “They brought a sledge-load of fine pelts, Polar bear, and Arctic fox. All hands at work making fox-skin hats . . .” Captain Flint glanced at the sheepskins and picked up a bit of rabbit fur from the table and a mitten that had never been finished. “Arctic fox, eh?” he said.
“Yes,” said Dorothea. “And the others are the bearskins, though they really want a bit of washing to make them properly Polar.”
“Look here,” said Captain Flint presently. “Isn’t it about time for tea? I’d better be slipping round to Holly Howe to get some milk. I forgot to bring any from Beckfoot.”
“We’ve got enough left,” said Dorothea. “At least I think it’ll be enough. And it is tea-time. I ought to have thought of it. Are you good at Primuses? Because if not we must wait till it boils on the stove.”
“I’m good at my own Primuses if Nancy and Peggy haven’t been at them.”
“Susan did all the primussing,” said Dorothea.
“Thank goodness for that,” said Captain Flint. “Where have you been getting your water from, with the lake frozen?”
Dick had closed his book. “We melted a lot of snow from the roof the first day,” he said, “but it wasn’t very good.”
“We bring it from the stream – the beck, I mean. Dick and I brought a jugful today as well as filling the kettle.”
“That’s all right,” said Captain Flint. “And now let’s see what we can give ourselves for tea. I collared a loaf from Beckfoot, but I’ve got no butter. We’ll have to make do with jam.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t any jam,” said Dorothea.
Captain Flint stared at her, got up, and went to the store cupboard.
“Arctic explorers!” he said, looking from one almost empty shelf to another. “More like locusts, it seems to me.”
“Peggy said it was all meant to be eaten,” said Dorothea.
“So it was,” said Captain Flint. “And so it has been. The young cormorant. She’s even scoffed my last tin of biscuits.”
“We all had some,” said Dorothea. “Would you like some milk chocolate with nuts in it? We’ve got some fresh from Rio.”
It would have been hard to say who was at home and who was the visitor at tea in the cabin of the Fram. Captain Flint managed the Primus, and Dorothea swept some more of the skins off the table and spread out the cake they had saved from dinner, and the chocolate from Rio, and the loaf that had come from Beckfoot tied to the handle of Captain Flint’s suitcase. There was no butter or jam, but that did not seem to matter. Every now and then Captain Flint could not help noticing the dreadful mess in his cabin, but he said nothing more about it, and it was a very cheerful tea. By the time the last cup had been drunk, and Dorothea was showing Captain Flint how to wash up without using more than a saucerful of water, a method invented by Peggy, there had been enough talk to let him know almost as much about what had been happening as if he had been there himself.
“Nancy’s idea, of course,” he said. “She’ll have to let me in on it, though. I’ve been to a good many places at one time or another, but I’ve never been to the North Pole yet.”
“Do you know where it is?” asked Dorothea. “We don’t. At least not exactly.”
“I’ve a pretty good idea,” said Captain Flint, “but I’ll have to have a talk with Nancy tomorrow and make sure. It seems to me I’ve come back just in time.”
As he spoke he was turning over the leaves of the log, and suddenly caught sight of the last entry: – “Fine display of Northern lights. 9 p.m. Moon clear and high.” “What?” he said. “You haven’t been sleeping here at night?”
“Not yet,” said Dorothea. “That was last night. They couldn’t sleep here because of Titty and Roger. But they saw the lights. Of course they may have been the fireworks in Rio Bay. They were very good. We could see them even from Mrs Dixon’s. But nobody’s slept here yet. We were going to, tonight; but, of course, we won’t now.”
“No, you won’t,” said Captain Flint. “You couldn’t expect any Eskimos to approve of that, and it’s always well on these expeditions to keep on good terms with the natives.”
“It’s getting pretty dark already,” said Dick. “It doesn’t matter a bit where we sleep, but do let’s have a look at those stars.”
“Come on,” said Captain Flint, quite in the tone that Dorothea had grown accustomed to hear from Peggy. “But you’d better put on a bearskin or two.”
He and Dick went out of the cabin where, some time before, Captain Flint had lit the lantern. Dick had his telescope, his torch and the sketch map he had copied from his book. Captain Flint had opened his suitcase and pulled out a pair of binoculars. Dorothea put her head out into the light and felt the crisp air on the tip of her nose. She thought of joining the others, but then she thought of something else, went back into the cabin and, by throwing everything off one of the settees on the top of the things that were piled all over the other, made room for a possible bed. She took the red blankets from both settees and spread them on the one she had chosen, turning back the corner of the top blanket as she had seen counterpanes turned back i
n bedrooms at home. By the time the astronomers came in again to warm themselves by the stove, it really did look as if Captain Flint, in spite of the houseboat having been used for Arctic exploration, was going to have a comfortable night there.
“Hullo!” he said. “Well, I take that very kindly indeed. Returning good for evil. I turn you out and you make my bed. Now then, I’ll come along with you to Mrs Dixon’s. She’ll be surprised to see you.”
“She won’t really,” said Dorothea. “You see we hadn’t told her we were going to sleep here. We meant to go and get milk for supper and tell her at the same time.”
“Well, perhaps it’s lucky you didn’t.”
Soon after that they were all three on the ice. The moon was rising, so Captain Flint decided not to bother about taking a lantern. Dick and Dorothea, sitting on their sledge, had put their skates on. They waited while Captain Flint was putting on his.
“Ice all clear to Dixon’s landing?” he asked.
“It’s fine the whole way down the lake,” said Dick.
“You know, I was half afraid I’d find a thaw by the time I got back,” said Captain Flint.
They were off, towing their sledge, while Captain Flint skated along beside them. Out of Houseboat Bay, where the moon threw their shadows before them, and then round the point and away to the south. At the point, Dorothea looked back at the lighted windows of the Fram. They were not to be sleeping there after all. But Captain Flint was. He had come back. What was going to happen now? She was far too much interested to mind that she herself was going to sleep in the farmhouse instead of in a ship, and would wake up in the morning to hear Mrs Dixon say, “And that’s the dozen” just as usual. On they went, she and Dick and that tall Dutchman, whom a few hours before she had not known. On they went down the lake, nearly to Spitzbergen, ghostly in the moonlight, and then in towards the landing where the upturned boat lay, black against the snow. Skates were taken off and packed on the sledge. Captain Flint became a dog like anybody else, helping to pull it up the steep field to the old white farm, where there was a glimmer of light in a window.
They crossed the yard. Captain Flint gave a rat-tat on the door but did not wait and, stamping the snow from his boots outside, walked in with the two of them.
“How do you do, Mrs Dixon,” he said. “I’ve brought you a couple of strays.”
“Well, I never, and when did you come back, Mr Turner? We thought you were in foreign parts for the winter.”
“And so I was,” said Captain Flint, “but when I saw in the papers about the lake freezing, I thought I wouldn’t miss it. It’s a long time since we’ve had such a winter as this, and we may not have another for as long again.”
“They’d be glad to see you at Beckfoot, I daresay,” said Mrs Dixon. “It’s a sad do for Mrs Blackett, with Miss Nancy falling sick and all. A rare upset when they should have been off to school and giving her a bit of peace.”
“Glad to see me?” said Captain Flint. “Bundled me out before I’d been in the house two minutes. You might have thought poor Nancy had the plague. It’s been a bit of an upset for you, too, hasn’t it?” he added, glancing at Dorothea and Dick.
“Nay,” said Mrs Dixon. “They give no trouble, don’t these.”
“No stopping out late at night, for instance?”
“Nay, to-night’s first night they’ve been late. I made sure they’d been kept at Jackson’s, but I reckon now it’ll be your fault more than theirs.”
Captain Flint laughed. “Well,” he said, “perhaps it was.”
“Will you come in and have a bite of supper, Mr Turner? I’d have it ready for you in two minutes.”
“No thank you,” said Captain Flint. “I’ve a lot to do. But I’ll tell you what, Mrs Dixon. I was going to ask you if you could let me have a pint of tonight’s milk and a dozen of eggs.”
Mrs Dixon threw up her hands.
“You’ll never be sleeping in the houseboat this weather?”
“And why not?” said Captain Flint. “It’s as snug as this kitchen, with the stove burning.”
“I could make you up a bed here,” said Mrs Dixon.
“I’ve a bed made up already, thank you all the same,” said Captain Flint, and a few minutes later was setting off again with his eggs and his pint of milk.
Dorothea and Dick went out into the yard in the moonlight with him and saw that, instead of taking the gate into the road, he turned down into the field to go back by the way they had come.
“But aren’t you going to Holly Howe to see the others?” said Dorothea.
“Not I!” said Captain Flint. “Not tonight. And, by the way, don’t you go along there either. Come straight to the houseboat tomorrow, and not too early. Peggy’s given me a bit of a surprise. It’ll be her turn for one in the morning.”
CHAPTER XXII
NEXT MORNING
AT Holly Howe next morning, Peggy was first out of bed. She hurried across the landing to the room that was shared by Susan and Titty, that upper room at the end of the house, from which the signalling to Mars had first been noticed. She banged on the door in a timber-shivering manner, charged in and went straight to the window. Susan and Titty looked sleepily at her from their beds and wondered what was the matter.
“Good,” she said. “They slept there all right.”
“How do you know?” said Susan. She herself had felt pretty sure that Dick and Dorothea would have changed their minds and gone home. She had even expected them to turn up at the igloo yesterday afternoon. But it certainly did seem that those two were not much worried by the sort of things that so often bothered her and John.
“Yesterday’s signal’s still on the barn,” said Peggy. “They’d have taken it down if they’d been up there. And it was a clear night last night. If they weren’t in the Fram they’d have gone star-gazing for a certainty and taken the signal down at the same time. Buck up, you two. Let’s get breakfast over. I’ll just stir up the others.”
But the others had been stirred already by her thumps on Susan’s door; and they answered at once when Peggy stopped on her way across the landing to thunder at their own.
“All right, we’re getting up,” said John.
“They did sleep there,” said Peggy.
“I wish we could have done,” said John.
There was a bubbling noise and then a spluttering shout from Roger. “Could you hear my bubbling? Practising diving. In the basin. Picking up my collar stud under water. In my teeth.”
But Peggy was gone and was back in her own room, dealing as fast as she could with the business of washing and dressing. If only she had had a little more faith in them yesterday. If only she could have been sure that the D.’s would really stay in the Fram, she could have stayed with them, and added another figure to the picture she had sent in answer to Nancy’s, a figure with its left arm straight above its head and its right arm, stiff as a scare-crow’s, straight out at the side. And Nancy, seeing that P. beside the two D.’s, would not have felt that her mate was backing out of things. Anyway, she would stay in the Fram tonight. Oh, hang that stocking, going on inside out. Off with it and on again. Susan would be bound to notice it. Anyhow, things were beginning to go really well. If she and the D.’s were to sleep in the Fram the others would sleep there, too, in the end. Botheration! Why did shoelaces always bust just when people were in most of a hurry? She tied the ends together and worked the knot round till it did not show much and did not hurt unless she pulled the lace too tight. She went downstairs in two jumps, and began bothering Mrs Jackson about the day’s provisions. It would all save time later.
By the time the others came down she had a lot of sausages, and some butter to fry them in, ready stowed in her knapsack, and had persuaded Mrs Jackson to give them an extra allowance of milk. “Hurry up, Susan,” she said, “and do try to make Roger be quick with his breakfast for once. The crew of the Fram’ll be waiting for us, and they won’t even have milk for their porridge.”
“I don??
?t believe Dorothea’ll even try porridge,” said Susan.
“There’s lots of Quaker Oats in the cupboard.”
“She doesn’t know very much about cooking,” said Titty.
“Buck up and pitch your food in” said Peggy, “and then we’ll go and cook their breakfast for them.”
Everybody liked this idea. They had not slept in the Fram themselves, but the D.’s had done it for them. They wanted to help in every way they could. And cooking breakfast there would almost seem like having been there all night.
“We could leave room and have another breakfast on board,” said Roger.
“No need for you to leave room,” said John. “I don’t believe you’re ever full.”
“It depends what with,” said Roger.
“Do let’s all sleep there tonight,” said Titty. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t if they can.”
Even the hungry Roger was quicker than usual. Breakfast was soon over. They were off, down the field, and out of the Holly Howe bay. A relief expedition going to the Fram, it was agreed, ought to go over the ice and not down cart tracks in woods.
There was little talking now. They hardly saw the early morning skaters on that great sunlit sheet of ice. The Swallows were wondering what it had been like waking up in the Fram. Peggy was full of plans for the evening when she, too, would be staying after dark, ready to sleep out there on the frozen sea, with no more than a plank between her and the Polar ice.