Peter Duck Page 26

“He was helping me to dig,” said Roger. “But there weren’t any snakes. I didn’t see any. And we’d been digging in that hole for a long time.”

  “He’s frightened about something or other,” said Captain Flint.

  And just then there was a strange loud noise, so loud that everybody heard it in spite of the steady roar of the surf along the beach on either side of sheltered Duckhaven.

  Everybody had heard the screaming of parrots and chatterers before. There was nothing strange in that. But this time it was as if all the birds on the island, from every part of the forest, all at once rose screaming above the trees. There was a shrill, ear-splitting din. It seemed to last for about three minutes on end. Then it stopped dead, in an absolute silence, except for the noise of the surf, and the sighing of the wind in the tops of the trees.

  “What on earth made them do that all at once?” said Nancy.

  “They’re frightened, too,” said Captain Flint. He looked out to sea almost in the way he used to look whenever anything reminded him of Black Jake.

  A moment later everybody was startled by a sudden breath of cold wind. It was gone again in a couple of minutes, but during that short time, all the explorers, hot as they were with their digging, shivered like the monkey. Then once more came the warm trade wind, but it died suddenly away as if it were late evening instead of afternoon, and again they shivered in the cold breath that on this hot beach seemed icy.

  “Something’s wrong with the weather,” said Captain Flint, and ran down the beach to Duckhaven, where he had hung his coat over the end of the long ridge-pole of the tent, out of the way of the crabs.

  He came slowly back, looking first north, then south, then north again, then over his shoulder out to sea, and glancing down every other second at the pocket barometer that he had gone to fetch.

  “Dropping like a stone,” he said. “It’d gone down nearly an inch. No wonder the monkey was upset. He knew. And so did the birds.”

  “What? What?”

  “There’s something pretty bad coming. Dash it all, I wish I knew what to do.”

  “What about?” said Nancy.

  “The ship,” said Captain Flint.

  “We’ve got her well pulled up,” said Titty.

  “Swallow’s all right,” said Captain Flint. “But if we get the Wild Cat smashed up we shall be in a pretty fair mess.”

  “She’s in a jolly good anchorage,” said John.

  “In good weather,” said Captain Flint. “She’s all right there with the trade wind blowing all day and dropping every night. Couldn’t be better. She’s sheltered by the island. But those cold breaths mean a shifting wind, and more than that, too. What if there comes a buster, swinging all round the compass? What if we get a circular storm? We’re in the tropics, mind you.” He was talking as much to himself as to the other diggers. “What if it blows up from the south-west or north-west? Wild Cat’ll be on a lee shore and with the sea that’ll come in there no anchors on earth’ll hold her. I wish to goodness I’d had the sense to look at the glass before.”

  “What do you do when it comes on like that?” asked John.

  “Get an offing first of all. Get away from the land and heave to, maybe, when you’ve got the sea room, and come back again when things quieten down.”

  “Won’t Mr Duck do it?” said Nancy.

  “I don’t know that he will,” said Captain Flint. “And if it comes a proper snorter he’ll need more than Bill to help him.”

  “Do you think it is coming a snorter?” said Roger.

  “Sure of it,” said Captain Flint. “You can’t have a surer sign that those cold breaths. And then the barometer, too. Sure of it. Gibber knew it, too.”

  “He’s all right again, now,” said Roger.

  “I’d never forgive myself,” said Captain Flint, “if the Wild Cat got smashed up and we were marooned here for good.”

  “To wait for Black Jake to take us off,” said Titty.

  Again Captain Flint glanced out to sea and round the horizon.

  “Look there,” he said, and everybody looked away to the south in the direction he was pointing.

  It was not a vessel he had seen, but something that meant very little to his crew. Far away to the south, low over the sea, was a long line of bright, copper-coloured cloud.

  “And the wind’s northerly,” said Captain Flint. “That cloud’s coming up from the south. Against the wind. There’s no time to lose. The trouble’s coming at once, whatever it is. Never mind about the digging. How long will it take you to pack?”

  “In Swallow?” asked Susan.

  “We can’t put out in Swallow till the wind drops,” said Captain Flint, “and by that time it’ll be too late. We’ll have to leave everything we can’t carry.”

  The cloud in the south was visibly rising. It was the colour of a bright copper kettle. As it rose, it ceased to be a mere line of cloud. Its base narrowed while its top widened. It was as hard-edged as a thunder-cloud, but no one ever saw a thunder-cloud of such a colour.

  “We can’t leave everything,” said Susan. “Half the things are things we can’t do without. And if we’ve got to hurry it’s no good thinking Roger and Titty can go as fast as John and Nancy.”

  “What about our sleeping-bags?” said Peggy. “We’ll want them when we get back to the Wild Cat.”

  “What about Swallow?” said Titty.

  Captain Flint looked this way and that, away up to the north, where those strange cold breaths had come from, and away south to this great, hard-edged copper-coloured fan that was spreading up over the blue sky as if it were cut out of sheet metal.

  “The thing’s coming at once,” he said. “There isn’t a moment to lose. There may be only just time to get across.”

  “Don’t waste any of it saying goodbye,” said Nancy, firmly taking command. “What’s the good of talking about it? You’ve got to go. How are we ever going to get home if anything happens to the schooner? Go on. We’re all right here. Nothing can possibly go wrong with us. Duckhaven’s right as rain. We’ve got food. We’ve got water. We’re on land.”

  “If I could only be sure that Mr Duck would take her out to sea,” said Captain Flint.

  “But he won’t,” said John, “He’ll be waiting for you to come because you said you’d slip across if the weather looked like turning nasty.”

  “He won’t go at all,” said Titty. “He’ll be remembering what he felt like when he was wrecked here and couldn’t get away.”

  “I believe you’re right,” said Captain Flint, bothered beyond anything by the thought of the coming storm, and fear for the schooner that was, after all, their only means of getting home. “Look here, Nancy, you’ve got a lot of sense if you care to use it. So has John. I can trust you both. Susan has more than enough to spare for the rest of you.”

  “When you come back,” said Susan, “please don’t forget to bring some more matches. We’ve got plenty for a couple of days, but we’ll want more after that.”

  “And some more chocolate,” said Roger.

  There was a breath of hot air from the south, air as hot as if it had been puffed out of a furnace door, as hot as those earlier breaths out of the north had been cold.

  Captain Flint hurriedly emptied out his pockets. There were three boxes of matches, all half-empty, in the pockets of his coat. There were two almost full boxes in one of his trouser-pockets, and another, empty but for one match, in the other.

  “I might have guessed it,” said Susan, laughing. “I almost did.” She gave him the empty box, putting half a dozen matches into it. “That’ll last you till you get across. But do hurry up.”

  “We’ll be perfectly all right,” said Nancy.

  “Give my love to Peter Duck,” said Roger. “And Gibber’s too.”

  “All our loves,” said Titty. “And to Polly.”

  “And to Bill, of course,” said Nancy.

  “Just remember one thing,” said Captain Flint, looking hard at that copper cloud tha
t was now covering nearly a quarter of the sky. “If it really comes on to blow, and we may have a hurricane before night, keep out of the trees. The less shelter of that sort the better. Trees are all right, but you don’t want them blowing down about your heads. Stick it out in the open and you’ll perhaps be better here than aboard ship. Anyway it looks to me as if the wind’s going to swing round to the south-west. You’ll be all right here, but the sooner I get the Wild Cat clear of the land the better for us all.”

  “Don’t go on hanging about, Uncle Jim,” said Nancy. “You can’t be in two places at once. We’ve said goodbye to you.”

  “Swallows and Amazons for ever!” cried Captain Flint, flung his coat over his shoulder instead of putting it on, and hurried off into the forest.

  “Swallows and Amazons for ever! Goodbye! Good luck!”

  The others shouted after him, but he was already disappearing among the trees and though at that moment there was another of those strange hot breaths from the south, and a lull in the trade wind from the Atlantic, the surf was so loud on the beach that he probably did not hear them.

  “Do you think it’s going to be a really bad one?” said Susan.

  “Giminy, how do I know?” said Nancy. “Anyway, it isn’t our first hurricane. Remember being hove-to in the Bay. And just remember the hurricane we had our last night on Wild Cat Island.”

  “I wish he hadn’t gone,” said Peggy. “It feels almost thundery.”

  “Thundery!” said Captain Nancy. “What if it is? Do try to remember you’re an Amazon. I don’t know why it is my mate’s no blessed good at thunder. But she’d be quite all right if it was guns,” she added.

  “Do you think he’ll have time to get out of the trees before it comes?” said Titty.

  *

  “What’s become of all the crabs?” asked Roger suddenly.

  They looked about them. There was not a crab to be seen, even by the fireplace on the beach, where, usually, it was almost impossible to move without stepping on one.

  “They’re afraid, too, like Gibber and the parrots,” said Titty.

  “It must be going to be pretty bad,” said Peggy.

  “All the more fun to remember it afterwards,” said Nancy.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  GREAT GUNS

  IT WAS LUCKY that Susan thought of getting tea over before the storm broke.

  “Remember what happened last summer,” she said. “If the rain and the wind had come a bit earlier that last night we couldn’t have had anything to eat. Nothing hot, anyhow. Let’s have tea at once.”

  “Let’s cram supper in as well,” said Nancy. “Then we’ll be ready for anything.”

  “All right,” said John, watching that strange coppery cloud that still seemed to be coming up against the wind. “And what about firewood? Hadn’t we better store some in the tent?”

  “I’ll take some in,” said Peggy. “We’ve got a good lot stacked by the fire. Enough for another cooking besides this one.”

  “Good,” said John. “And let’s go on digging up to the last minute. Captain Flint didn’t say anything about it, but he’d be awfully pleased.”

  “Why not?” said Nancy. “But he’ll be pretty sick if we find it, just after he’s gone.”

  “He won’t really,” said Titty. “He’ll be pleased whoever finds it. I wonder how far he’s got by now.”

  “He can keep up a pretty good trot when he wants,” said Nancy.

  “Well, come on, the diggers,” said John. “Sing out, you mates, when you’re ready with a real stodge.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Susan. This was like old times. John and Nancy in command. It was like being back on the island at home. “Come on, Peggy. The fire only wants opening up and feeding. And thank goodness there are no crabs about. There’s a lot of red embers underneath left from dinner. Out of the way, you fo’c’sle hands. Go along and dig for treasure while you can. We’ll call you when we’re ready.”

  “You can’t really be very hungry yet,” said Peggy.

  “We can,” said Roger.

  “Well, there’s no chocolate going now,” said Susan. “We’re going to have tea and supper, and then you can have some chocolate when the storm comes. If it does come …”

  “And if it doesn’t?” asked Roger.

  “Bother you,” said Susan. “Skip along. You’ll have chocolate just the same.”

  “Well, it’s only fair,” said Roger, and hurried off after Titty to join the diggers. Gibber ran after him, whimpering again, and wanting to be comforted.

  For half an hour or so, while the mates were busy round the fire, and the copper cloud was creeping up against the wind, and Captain Flint was racing across the island to put the Wild Cat in safety, the diggers at Duckhaven dug as busily and as keenly as if they had only just begun and had not already been tempted a dozen times to give it up and to do something else instead. Captain Flint was not there to see them, but John and Nancy, taking turns with the makeshift pick, and Titty and Roger shovelling the loose stuff away with the best of the spades, worked as if they were racing with the storm. Even Gibber, watching all this eager business, scrabbled in the sand and seemed to forget his fears.

  They deserved to find something, but they did not, though time went so fast in this racing, desperate kind of digging, with the sky growing darker and darker as that cloud spread over it, that all five of them were startled when Peggy ran up the beach and shouted at them.

  “Can’t you hear?” she shouted. It was a mealtime and she was one of the cooks. “We’ve yelled at least twice.”

  The diggers had not been listening. Even if they had, they might not have heard, because of the noise of the surf and the water breaking on the reef.

  “Come on, John,” said Nancy.

  “Well, we’ve done our best,” said John. “Hi! Roger, do carry your spade over your shoulder. You’ll get it mixed up with your legs if you don’t.”

  Supper and tea all in one usually means the happy end of an adventure that has kept people from starting home in proper time. But today it was not like that. No one was chattering about what had happened. Hardly anything was said. Everybody was wondering how far Captain Flint had got on his way, how soon the storm would break, what was happening on the other side of the island. Everybody was disturbed by knowing that Captain Flint himself, who was not one to make a fuss about nothing, had been really worried about the Wild Cat, though she was lying in what had seemed to them all the most peaceful anchorage in the world, there, off Bill’s Landing and under the shelter of Mount Gibber.

  “Bill’s awfully lucky,” said Titty, when the meal was over. “He’ll be in the Wild Cat when they take her to sea, and we’re just sitting ashore.”

  “We couldn’t all have gone,” said John. “The storm may be here any minute, and Captain Flint wouldn’t be down at the Landing for ages if he’d had to wait for us. As it is it looks as if he’ll only just be in time. We’ve got Swallow to look after. Come on, everybody, and lend a hand. We’ll haul her farther up, just in case.”

  Almost without talking they hauled Swallow a few yards higher up the beach at Duckhaven, using rollers made from the spare bits left over after the cutting of the ridge-pole for the tent. Captain Flint had put them aside on purpose, ready for Swallow’s next launching. John was not pleased with the way he had stowed the sail, that evening when they were busy with the tent. He made a neater job of it now, rolling it up along the boom and using the mainsheet as a lacing round it to keep boom, yard, and sail all together.

  Susan climbed up out of Duckhaven on the northern side of its sheltering rocks and had another look at the old wreck embedded in the sand. It was a queer thing. Not a crab was to be seen, even there, where, usually, three or four were crawling in or out, and hundreds were scrambling one over another inside. Every crab had disappeared. She came slowly back over the rocks and joined the others by the tent.

  “What’s up, Mate Susan?” asked Nancy.

  “I was just wond
ering how much wind this tent’ll stand,” said Susan.

  “It’ll stand a good deal,” said Peggy.

  And just then the copper cloud closed over them. The trade wind from the sea suddenly fell away to nothing. Then came a hot breath as if the cloud were throwing heat before it, a hot breath along the beach, from the south, where, already, the feathery green palms were fading in a ruddy brown haze as if they were behind a veil of coppery silk.

  Roger was the first to cough. A moment later everybody was doing it. They tried not to breathe. But you cannot live without breathing, and it was impossible to breathe without filling nose and throat with the fine red dust of which that cloud was made. It settled over everything. It put the fire out at once. A plate, a white enamelled plate that had been left by the fire with a biscuit on it belonging to Roger, dulled and turned copper coloured.

  “I c-c-c … can’t …” choked Roger.

  Susan saved them.

  “Stick your heads in your sleeping-bags,” she cried. There was a rush into the tent, and everybody burrowed head first into a sleeping-bag like a crab going into a burrow. Roger stuffed the frightened monkey headlong into his little bag and pulled the string tight so that Gibber could not get out. “It’s no good trying to explain to him,” he said to himself as he burrowed into his own. The woolly sleeping-bags were stifling, but they worked as filters, more or less, and let air through while keeping out most of the dust. And the dust was falling all the time, a fine dust, soft and yet heavy, suffocating. Every now and then someone put a head out, red-faced, with starting eyes, unable any longer to bear being smothered inside a sleeping-bag. But instantly, eagerly, the head went back to get, from inside that smothering bag, a cleaner breath of air than was to be had outside. Even being slowly smothered in one’s own sleeping-bag was better than filling one’s nose and throat and lungs with that red dust.

  The cloud passed. Nancy, putting her head out for the third or fourth time, found the air still full of dust but not quite so thick and choking as it had been, though there was not a breath of wind. She could see about her once more. The trees along the edge of the beach were no longer hidden in a thick copper-coloured fog. They seemed to have turned dark brown. Nancy called to the others, “Come out, you ostriches!” She dug a finger into Peggy’s ribs. Heads came out of all the sleeping-bags. John jumped up. As he did so he shook a cloud of dark red dust into the air, dust that had settled on him while he had been lying there with the others.