Pigeon Post

  “Eating bread and cheese,” said Roger. “And he’s got some bits of quartz on the table and some candles, and he’s blowpiping, just like Dick. I got a good view from behind the hollybush.”

  “Good,” said Nancy. “That’ll keep him busy. Look here, John, what on earth can we use for a shovel?”

  “There’s only the frying-pan,” said John.

  “Oh no,” said Susan.

  “It’s the very thing,” said Nancy.

  A minute later John was clearing away the clods that covered what had once been the burning middle of the mound. Nancy scooped a frying-pan full of red-hot charcoal from under them and carried it carefully across to the furnace. Some handfuls of dry twigs had already been put in there to give the fire a start. Using her knife, Nancy worked the red-hot embers from the frying-pan through the bars. The twigs blazed up beneath them.

  “Quick. More charcoal,” she cried. “Come on, Dick. Shove in the crucible.”

  Handfuls of black charcoal were put in. Dick brought the precious crucible and, regardless of the heat, balanced it in the middle of the bars as gently as if it had been an egg.

  “May I start the bellows?” said Roger.

  “One second. We’ve got to get the crucible walled in first. And then fill up with charcoal from the top.”

  John and Nancy worked feverishly together, blocking up the hole through which the crucible had been put in. First the big stone that was lying ready. Then small ones. Then earth. The others dropped bits of black charcoal down the chimney. Dick leaned over and looked in but could see nothing for bitter smoke.

  “The fuller the better,” he said. “We’ve got to keep it full and red hot.”

  “It’ll go out in a minute,” said Susan.

  “Go ahead with the bellows, Roger,” said Nancy. “And keep it up while we get all the holes properly caulked. That’s right, Titty. Shove a bit of earth in everywhere you see smoke coming out between the stones.”

  Roger had already poked the nose of the bellows through the hole that had been left for it at the bottom of the furnace. He began pumping. “Wough … Wough … Wough.”

  “It makes the right sort of noise,” said Titty, as Roger quickened the time of his blowing and the hiss of the air into the fire turned to a regular snoring roar.

  “How much more charcoal must we put in, Dick?” asked Dorothea, wiping her hot face with charcoal-covered hands. Peggy, seeing her, suddenly burst into laughter. But Dorothea broke into laughter also, for Peggy had wiped her own face a moment before.

  “Oh well,” said Susan, looking at both of them, “it can’t be helped.”

  “Look here,” said Roger. “Somebody else’s turn.”

  These bellows were worse than the crushing mill. They were so near the ground that even Roger had to crouch to be able to work them.

  Nancy took over. She, too, started at a racing stroke, but slowed down after the first minute. She tried one way and then another of squatting and stooping at the side of the furnace, so as to be able to work the bellows without breaking her back at the same time.

  “Giminy,” she said, “this is lots worse than the charcoal-burning. And we’ve got to keep it up all night.”

  “All night?” said Titty.

  “Proper blast-furnaces never go out,” said Nancy, who was all the time working the bellows. “And we’ve got to get it boiling and keep it boiling, so that all the gold will go to the bottom and all the rubbish come up to the top. Twenty-four hours at least, Dick says.”

  “Not you four,” said Susan. “You’ll go to bed after supper as usual. Last night was bad enough. I don’t believe any of you slept right through. Tonight all able-seamen go to bed at half-past eight …”

  “You have a turn,” panted Nancy, and John took her place.

  “Don’t start too fast,” said Nancy. “It’s much worse than you’d think.”

  This John found for himself, and Peggy after him. Keeping the bellows going steadily was no sort of a joke, and none of the captains and mates seemed at all unwilling when Titty, Dick, and Dorothea asked to be allowed to work the bellows in their turn.

  “Jolly hard work, isn’t it?” said Roger, watching them with his hands in his pockets.

  “Twenty-four hours of it,” said Nancy. “Suffering alligators! What time is it now?”

  “Oh,” said Susan. “I ought to have been thinking about supper. It’ll have to be only potted meat. This is an awful day …”

  “And the pigeon’s not gone,” said Dorothea.

  “Giminy,” said Nancy.

  “Sappho’s turn,” said Titty.

  “Better send Sophocles,” said Nancy. “It’s late already and you can’t depend on Sappho. We don’t want the natives charging in tonight. And they will if the pigeon doesn’t turn up. Tomorrow it won’t matter. We’ll be there ourselves. We’ll take the ingot down to show mother.”

  Nancy scrawled the message: “TRIUMPH IN SIGHT. LOVE FROM ALL. S.A.D.M.C.”

  “That’ll puzzle her,” she said. She took a bit of charcoal and scratched a skull on the back of the paper … “Just to let her know there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Dot’s turn to let fly,” said Titty.

  *

  “Wough … Wough … Wough.” The bellows never stopped for a moment. As fast as one of them tired another took over. Charcoal was poured in at the top of the furnace. Susan was busy with the supper. Everybody was startled by a sudden native voice.

  “Whatever are you doing?”

  Mrs Tyson was standing in the camp, looking at the steaming remains of the charcoal mound, and at the blast furnace. Anybody could see she was both frightened and angry.

  “You’ll have the wood on fire for sure. And after all I tell you. With the smoke blowing I thought it was alight already. Nay, I can’t have this. There’s nowt to stop it if a spark catches hold … Miss Nancy! Miss NANCY!”

  The miners blinked at her with eyes reddened by the smoke. Hands, faces, clothes were black with charcoal.

  “It’s quite safe,” said Nancy. “It wasn’t smoke you saw. Only steam. Go on, Peggy. Don’t stop blowing.”

  “Wough … Wough … Wough.” The regular noise of the bellows, that had slackened for a moment, went on.

  Dick dropped another handful of charcoal in at the top.

  “Nay, but stop it!” said Mrs Tyson. “If you’ve owt to cook, you can come down and use the kitchen range.”

  “We can’t stop now,” said Nancy.

  John and Susan looked at each other.

  “We’re taking great care,” said John.

  “Care!” snorted Mrs Tyson. “And making fires like yon. They’ve had fires and enough on yon side of the lake, where they’ve plenty folk to put them out. But here, with none to help us, we’ll be burnt like a handful of tow. Put it out, Miss Nancy. I can’t do with you here, and I must tell Mrs Blackett. You’ll go home to Beckfoot tomorrow, and if you don’t like it you mun lump it. Put it out, Miss Nancy. Put it out and no more said.”

  “We’ll be done by tomorrow,” said Nancy.

  “You’ll be home tomorrow and away out of here,” said Mrs Tyson. “Have you all gone daft?”

  And she went off down the wood, muttering to herself.

  “I say,” said John, “what can we do?”

  “Nothing,” said Nancy. “Keep it up, Peg … Oh, all right. I’ll take a turn … We’ll have the ingot made by tomorrow. She’ll calm down when she sees nothing’s happened. It’s too late for her to go and talk to mother tonight …”

  MRS TYSON VISITS THE CAMP

  “If only she was like Mrs Dixon,” said Dorothea.

  “Mr Dixon would be helping if he was here,” said Dick.

  “It’s no good talking about it,” said Nancy. “We can’t throw it all up now, just because Mrs Tyson’s in a stew.”

  Titty and Roger looked at Susan and John. What would mother say to such handling of a difficulty with the natives? But it was no good saying anything to Nancy. They
were in for it now. Mrs Tyson was gone. Susan with a sigh went on spreading potted meat, looking rather native herself. John beat out a few red embers left from the charcoal-burning, and put another double handful of charcoal into the top of the furnace.

  Work never stopped for a moment. People ate their suppers in turn, when they could be spared. There was very little talking … only the noise of the flames inside the furnace, and the “Wough, wough, wough” of the bellows.

  “You’ll simply have to let us stay up tonight,” said Roger, who was watching Susan work the bellows while he munched an apple to round off his supper.

  Susan said nothing, but looked more native than ever.

  “Eight’s better than four,” said Roger. “And even Captain Nancy snored this morning.”

  “Snored!” said Captain Nancy. “Shiver my timbers!” But she looked at Susan and then at John and added, “The more hands the better all the same.”

  “It can’t be helped,” said John. “Somebody’ll have to keep blowing all the time. And somebody’ll have to keep on feeding in the charcoal.”

  And gradually even Susan’s stern intentions weakened. Facts were too strong. The whole result of all their mining was in the crucible inside the grey stone furnace. At all costs the draught had to be kept up and the fire fed. And this business of pumping away at the bellows tired anybody out in no time. The more there were at it the better for everybody, to let the turns be as short as might be and the rests between the turns as long. Finally, Dick was the only one who really knew about blast furnaces and crucibles. If Dick was to be awake, and they could not do without him, how could the others be expected to go to sleep? In the end the thing just happened. Supper was never washed up. The kettle was boiled again and again. People ate hunks of chocolate and bread and butter when they felt hungry. Parched throats were wetted with hot weak tea at all sorts of hours. When one miner was tired of working the bellows another took over. Miners not busy feeding the furnace lay by the camp fire, or squatted on their heels looking with hot eyes into the flames. The night darkened about the camp. The fire gave just enough light to make the sky seem black as pitch. Talk died away. Work went on. With eight of them to take their turns there was time for each of them to get a little rested, but not to settle down to sleep. Before the sky began to pale overhead, and trees showed grey against it, they felt they had been tending blast furnaces all their lives. Charcoal-smeared faces made no one laugh, for all alike were grimed.

  CHAPTER XXX

  DISASTER

  THE sun climbed over the hills to the north-east and lit the tops of the trees. The leaves that had been grey were green once more. The camp-fire, fed with the unburnt ends of the sticks that had been used for charcoal-making, no longer threw wild shadows of the prospectors as they moved about their work. They looked a wild lot, with eyes sore from smoke and want of sleep, and faces smudged with charcoal.

  For a long time now there had been no talking. The only noise was the steady murmur of the furnace and the regular snore and creak of the bellows, stopping only for a moment now and then when one tired pair of hands gave up the bellows to another.

  “How much longer?” said Susan at last.

  “As long as ever we can,” said Dick.

  “It was pretty well evening when we st … arted,” said Nancy, using a black hand to cover a pink yawn in a piebald face. “We’ll have burnt all our charcoal by tonight … Ow … I’m not sleepy, really.”

  So they were to go on all day. Well, why not? They had got beyond being tired. They had kept up the pumping so long that it was as if they had been working those bellows for weeks and were to go on working them until the end of time. Another eight hours to go. Roger was at the bellows at the moment. Dick had just filled up the furnace with fresh charcoal. Dorothea and Titty were stumbling about, gathering a fresh supply of good bits. John was stretching his arms after a long go of pumping. Peggy was stoking up the camp-fire.

  “I’m not sleepy either,” said Roger stoutly. “Let’s go on till the day after tomorrow to make sure of it.” And he put a little extra beef into his working of the bellows.

  “Wough … Wough … Wough …”

  The bellows had been steadily at work for a dozen hours.

  “Wough … Wough … Wough …”

  “Stick to it,” said Roger to himself.

  And then, suddenly, the noise changed, and the bellows needed no strength at all to work them. It was as if he had been pushing at a closed door and the bolt had slipped out without his knowing it. There was a thin wheeze from the bellows, no more. He could open and shut them a hundred times in a minute if he wanted. No air at all was being driven into the furnace.

  “Oh, Roger!” said Titty.

  “What’s gone with the bellows?” said Nancy.

  “Bust,” said Roger. “I don’t know how they did it. There’s the place.”

  Anybody could see the place. Hour after hour of steady work had worn the leather through.

  “It’s gone all along the join,” said Nancy, poking her finger through it. “Oh well, that settles it, anyhow.”

  “What’ll Mrs Blackett say?” said Susan.

  “We’ll put a patch in,” said Nancy. “I’ve got an old purse. We’ll get it when we take the ingot home. But I say, Dick, will it matter not going on all day?”

  Dick was fumbling with the red book. “It doesn’t say how long the smelting ought to take.”

  “It isn’t as if there was a tremendous lot of gold,” said Nancy.

  “Won’t it go on for a bit by itself?” said John.

  “Not hot enough,” said Dick.

  Already the murmur of the furnace was dying away.

  “It’s been at full blaze a very long time,” said Susan.

  “It’s probably done,” said Nancy.

  “Let’s open it and see the ingot,” said Roger.

  “Just you try,” said Nancy, waving up and down a hand that had gone too near.

  “We’ve got to let it cool,” said Dick. “The gold’ll all be melted. And we’ll have to let it get solid again before we try turning it out.” He tried to look in at the top of the furnace to see if the last lot of charcoal had got red hot to the top before the busting of the bellows. He listened. The fire was quieting down.

  The miners looked at each other and at the stone furnace that was far too hot to touch. They were suddenly tired. It was as if the string of a necklace had snapped and the beads were rolling all ways on the floor. The work that had kept them all awake was at an end. With no bellows to work or furnace to feed they were no longer a team, and each one separately was wondering how it had been possible to keep awake so long.

  Susan, finding her eyes closing, pulled herself together.

  “Will they have done the milking yet?” she said, and then, remembering Mrs Tyson, “But perhaps she won’t give us any milk.”

  “I’ll go,” said Nancy.

  “Don’t have a row,” said John.

  Peggy took the milk can and, without meaning to, put a new smudge of black across her sleepy eyes.

  “I’d better go,” she said. “It’s Nancy she feels like eating, not me.”

  Everybody knew that she was right, and Peggy, swinging the milk-can rather harder than she need, left the camp and set off down the path through the wood.

  No one meant to go to sleep. Roger, squatting beside the furnace, fell over sideways, and somehow, did not feel like getting up again. John lugged him up and plumped him down at the doorway of his tent. Roger crawled half-way inside and dozed again, still hearing the “wough, wough” of the bellows that had long since come to an end. Titty, as if in a dream, saw Nancy stagger across the camp. Her own eyes kept closing.

  “Go and lie down for a bit,” said Susan. “You, too, Dot. No need to keep awake while the thing’s getting cool …” She went off to the well, refilled the kettle and put it on the fire. John was in his tent already. Dorothea crawled into hers. Titty wriggled feet first into hers, and lay with her
head in the doorway, and her chin in her hands, watching the camp-fire and the thin wisps of smoke that still rose from the embers of the charcoal mound. Susan was staring at the kettle. She leant sideways. She rested on an elbow. Only Dick seemed to be properly awake, looking up melting points of metals in the mineralogy book. But presently Titty opened her eyes again, a little surprised to find that she had closed them, and saw Dick’s head drop on his book and stay there. “Oh well,” she thought. “Why not? …” This time she closed her eyes on purpose, but kept seeing the throbbing glow of red-hot charcoal in the furnace. The blisters on her hands made her feel she was still working the bellows. She was not awake, but you could hardly say she was properly asleep.

  *

  This dozing of the tired and charcoal-smeared prospectors was brought to an end by a loud “Hullo!” and the return of Peggy with the morning milk. Everybody started up. Even Roger was out of his tent in a moment. And then, as they looked at Peggy and at each other, they laughed, and Peggy laughed, too. For Peggy’s hair was wet, and her face was scrubbed and shining. They saw each other’s faces as if for the first time that day. It was as if Peggy were the only white in a crowded camp of Hottentots.

  “Head under the pump,” said Peggy. “Mrs Tyson made me look in a looking glass.”

  “Has she calmed down?” said Susan.

  “She gave me the milk all right. But she’s still going to tell mother she can’t do with us any more.”

  “Oh well,” said Nancy, “we’ve done the work now. We’ve made the ingot. And Captain Flint’ll be back any minute. He’ll manage her.”

  *

  Breakfast was over. It was Dick’s moment. When it came to science, whether it was stars or stones, even John and Nancy, captains of their ships, were ready enough to leave everything to the professor. It was his job and the others had not even troubled to look into the red book except just to see a sentence or a diagram that Dick had wanted to show them. Even the furnace, slowly cooling in the middle of the camp, had been built from the drawing he had made. And now, minute by minute, the time was coming nearer when he would lift the little earthen lid from the crucible that he had put in there so many hours ago. Bother those bellows busting. With twenty-four hours of smelting he would have felt a good deal happier. But twelve was a good long time. Why couldn’t the man who wrote that book have said how many hours of smelting ought to be given to how many pounds or ounces of the raw stuff?