The Big Six: A Novel

by Arthur Ransome

  “What about the shield for the flashlight?” said Dick.

  “We’ll have that ready by the time you’re back,” said Tom.

  “Shield?” said Pete.

  Dick explained. “We’ll have to let off an awful lot of powder for the flash. The shield’s so that it doesn’t burn anybody’s hair off. It’ll be a pretty big explosion. The label says it’s dangerous to use more than a small lot, and we’ll have to use ever so much more because of it being in the open air, and because of not being able to have it near the object. It’s going to be like this….” He pushed a drawing into Pete’s hands.

  “Come on,” said Dot.

  “Tell her, Mother wants you to have grub here,” said Tom.

  Dick and Dorothea were gone.

  Tom, helped by Joe, set to work with a pair of garden shears on a big square biscuit tin. “It’s all right,” he said. “They probably won’t be doing any more pruning this year.” He cut one side of the tin out altogether, and then cut along the bottom of two of the remaining sides so that they could be bent back. Then, with a chisel, he punched out a square hole in the bottom of the tin, for the handle of the flashlight apparatus. All this took a long time and blistered even Tom’s rope-hardened fingers. Meanwhile Pete and Bill took turns to hide by Dr. Dudgeon’s gate and keep a look out on the road.

  Pete was the one who saw Mr. Tedder bicycling down the road towards the Ferry.

  “Tedder’s gone down to have a look,” he reported joyfully.

  “Good,” said Tom.

  Pete stayed to watch the work and Bill took his place among the bushes. He presently reported seeing George Owdon and his friend bicycling the other way. “Reckon they been down to have a look too. And there’s a pack of others gone down. I see three chaps from Jonnatt’s. And Jack what work at the butcher’s. And that milk-boy. Fine idea stirring ’em up at the inn. He make that kid bleat all right. But if all them chaps don’t clear out before dark we can’t set our trap.”

  “Hope it’s all right,” said Joe, looking at what was left of the biscuit tin.

  “It’d be a job to alter it,” said Tom. “But it’s just like what Dick drew.”

  Dick and Dorothea came back with the camera and the flashlight apparatus, hidden in a basket under some roses from the Admiral’s garden, just in case anybody should guess what they were planning. They came with long faces. The Admiral had put her foot down. Dorothea was not to be allowed out after dark.

  “She said ambushes are all right for boys and if there was a row I’d only be in the way. I told her it was my idea in the beginning, but she said I’d have to be content with that.”

  THE FLASHIGHT AND ITS SHIELD

  “She’s right, really,” said Dick, “but the worst of it is that I’ve got to be in by ten, and I can’t come out again for another watch.”

  “We’ll have got him by ten,” said Tom. “But if not, we’ll have to fix up different watches. Bill and Pete take second watch and if they haven’t got him, I’ll come out again down the rope and take third watch with Joe.”

  “So long as we get him,” said Joe. “How’s this for the shield?”

  “Exactly right,” said Dick. “If that hole’s big enough.”

  The hole in the bottom of the tin was not quite big enough but it did not take long to make it bigger, and presently each in turn was trying his hand at holding the apparatus at arm’s length, in its shield, and pulling the trigger that would, when the time came, fire the flash.

  “Time’s simply buzzing on,” said Dorothea.

  “We can’t go there till just before dark,” said Tom. “What about grub?”

  He ran round to the house and came back to say that food was nearly ready. Ten minutes later the detectives were drinking tea and eating poached eggs. It was a hurried, silent meal. Dr. Dudgeon was out. Mrs. Dudgeon said, “You must be up to something.” Nobody answered, and she laughed. A little later she asked if they had all their evidence ready for Mr. Farland to see.

  “All but one bit,” said Dorothea.

  Pete looked at her with horror over his mug.

  They went back to Scotland Yard. It was already getting dusk.

  “We must get there while it’s still light enough to see,” said Dick.

  “Somebody’ll have to scout along to make sure it’s all clear,” said Tom.

  “Let me,” said Dorothea. “It won’t matter if anybody does see me.”

  They waited while Dorothea sauntered away to the Ferry, as if going for an evening stroll. As soon as she came back to say that there was no one near the Cachalot, five detectives started on their way. They went through the Farland garden and by the river as far as the Death and Glory, where they left Dorothea on guard. Separately, one by one, they left the Wilderness and, taking care not to be seen, Indianed past the Ferry and the Ferry Inn to the place where the Cachalot, innocent bait for the villain, lay moored beside the bank.

  Dusk fell. The Death and Glories crouched in the grass on the meadow side of the bank, watching. Lights were already showing in the windows of the inn. Someone was playing a gramophone. Everything was ready. Dick had broken away a few twigs so that his camera, focused on the Cachalot, had a clear view from its place in the bush. He had fixed it on its tripod, with the legs at half length.

  “Sure you’re all right?” said Tom.

  “I’m all right,” said Dick from inside the bush. “But you ought to be lying low and the others ought not to be here. The villain’ll never come if they are hanging about.”

  “You clear out now,” Tom whispered to the Death and Glories. He lowered himself carefully to the ground so as not to spill the flashlight powder. “Lucky it’s a dry night. Look here, though. I’ve brought an oily to lie on. I’ll leave it for you, Bill, if the villain doesn’t come in my watch.”

  “Tell Dot she ought to go home,” said Dick.

  “Coots for ever,” whispered Pete and the Death and Glories slipped quietly away, crossed the ditch, made their way round the inn, climbed over the fence into the Wilderness and came to the Death and Glory to find Dorothea sitting in the cabin nervously sorting papers by the light of the hurricane lantern.

  “Is Dick well hidden?” she asked.

  “You could walk right up to his bush and not know he were in it,” said Joe. “It’s Tom that’s a bit showy till it come dark.”

  “I shouldn’t think the villain would be armed,” said Dorothea. “He won’t be expecting anything. He’ll just creep along and pick up the anchors and push her off and then there’ll be one awful whoosh and when he’s done blinking the photograph’ll be taken. If only he doesn’t get hold of Dick and the camera. I say, you do think Dick’ll be all right? It’s his spectacles. He won’t be any good if there’s a fight.”

  “There won’t be no fight,” said Joe. “Not for Dick. He’ve to sit tight and make sure of the photo. And Tom got to run, not fight. He got to draw the villain after him so Dick get home with the camera.”

  “Of course Tom’s been an outlaw before,” said Dorothea. “But what if he gets caught. The river’s so handy. A splash…. A groan…. Just a few bubbles in the dark….”

  “There’d be more’n a few bubbles if anybody push Tom Dudgeon in the river. Take a tidy villain to push him in,” said Pete. “And if it’s that Tedder….”

  “Course it ain’t old Tedder,” said Bill.

  “Well, if it is,” said Pete. “He’ve no more chance of getting Tom in the river than he have of growing wings and flying. Tom’ll keep out of his reach all right.”

  “Dark, too,” said Joe. “Tom could run that bank blindfold. He’ll have the villain in the river more likely.”

  “They’ll be all right,” said Bill, “once it come dark.”

  “Course they’ll be all right,” said Joe. “It’s pretty near dark now.”

  Dorothea took one glance out of the cabin door, and gathered up her papers. “I’ve got our case nearly ready,” she said. “I’ll get it done tonight. The Admiral’ll l
et me sit up till Dick comes home.” She went out into the cockpit. “It really is pretty dark,” she said. “It may be happening now, this minute. It’s awful having to go.”

  “Dick say to remind you,” said Joe. “Me and Bill’ll run you to the road. Pete can stand guard here. You hang on Pete, till we come back.”

  “What am I to do?”

  “Watch down river for that flash,” said Joe.

  *

  Pete sat on the roof of the cabin. He was glad they had taken the boat out of the dyke and moored her to the river bank. Black dark in there under the willows, but out here, though it was dark enough, there wasn’t any need to put out a hand to make sure something wasn’t going to touch your face. The glow from the lantern in the cabin shone through a window by his knees, and dimly lit some rippled water and the faint ghost of the further bank. Upstream there were lights in some of the houses, and a party of late visitors had tied up to the opposite bank. He could see the awning over their boat, lit from inside and glowing like a giant paper lantern. He looked downstream towards the Ferry. Lights showed in the inn and there was a glow in the sky over distant Yarmouth.

  Presently he heard voices on the bank and, after one anxious moment, knew them for the voices of Joe and Bill returning.

  “No flash yet?” said Joe.

  “No,” said Pete.

  “That Dot say she think the villain’ll come smelling round here to make sure we ain’t got no alibis before he go for to cast off the Cachalot.”

  “What she mean, alibis?” said Pete.

  “She say he want to be sure we’re here, because he wouldn’t want to go casting off the Cachalot and have it turn out we was all with Tom at the doctor’s, so it couldn’t be us what done it.”

  “She have a head on her, that Dot,” said Bill. “When it’s our watch she say Joe have to keep the fire up and the lantern lit and the curtains close and the door shut and talk away and talk away like as if we was all three here.”

  “You come on below,” said Joe. “You and Bill better get a bit of sleep. Else you’ll be sleeping when the villain come. Nice fools we’d look if you wake up in that bush and find the Cachalot adrift and that old villain gone and you not knowing who done it after all.”

  “I’m not sleepy,” said Pete.

  “What about you, Joe?” said Bill. “If he don’t cast her off quick, I bet he won’t touch her till pretty late. Come midnight, he’ll think the coast’s clear. It’ll be our watch then.”

  “It’s your watch next,” said Joe.

  They went into the cabin and lay on their bunks. But it was hard to sleep with the trap set, the kid waiting for the tiger, and Dick and Tom lurking in the dark.

  “Lucky it’s a dry night,” said Joe.

  “Why?” said Pete.

  “Dick say flash powder won’t fire if that get damp.”

  For some minutes there was silence then Bill chuckled.

  “Eh?” said Joe.

  “I’ll shift that plank over the ditch,” said Bill. “That’ll give that old villain something to think about in black dark bursting after me.”

  “If Joe’s to keep on talking with us gone,” said Pete. “Ain’t he to get any sleep at all?”

  “I don’t want no sleep,” said Joe. “When we was eeling that night, it weren’t me started snoring.”

  “What about something to chew?” said Bill.

  That was better. Not one of them could get to sleep, no matter how they tried. So Bill got some chocolate out of the cupboard in the fo’c’sle and divided it into three equal bits. They lay there, munching chocolate and talking. They talked of what they would do during winter week-ends free from school. They talked of fishing and of trying to catch big pike for themselves. They talked of building a locker for food on the after end of the cabin roof. They got up and looked at Dick’s picture of the Death and Glory sailing. They talked of what the Coot Club would be doing in the spring. “Maybe there won’t be no Coot Club,” said Bill. They talked of Dick and his plan to photograph the birds. “Starting with a nightbird,” chuckled Joe. “Gosh, if only he get him,” said Pete. And every now and then talk stopped, tongues held bits of chocolate still, and they listened. And slowly, slowly the hour hand on the old alarm clock (that would no longer ring) crept round…. Nine, ten minutes past, half past, a quarter to, ten to, and minute by minute on to ten.

  “Come on, Pete,” said Bill.

  “Off you go,” said Joe.

  They opened the door, crept out into the cockpit and listened. Nothing was moving anywhere near them.

  “Slip away quiet,” whispered Joe. “And look out you don’t spoil everything when you get down there. Fine if the villain come along just when you’re changing places. Pete, don’t you go flashing your torch more’n you can help.”

  *

  Pete and Bill crept off through the osiers. Behind them, they saw the light in the cockpit go out as Joe, left alone in the Death and Glory, closed the cabin door behind him. There was left only the orange glow of the curtained windows.

  “Steady on, Bill,” said Pete. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Don’t light your torch,” said Bill. “Hold your hands well out forrard, and keep swimming with ’em, so’s you’ll touch things before bumping ’em.”

  They climbed over the fence into the road and found things easier with every step. Dark it was but after a few minutes the darkness seemed less solid. They could see the shape of houses and trees against the starry patches of the sky.

  “Come on,” said Bill. “They’ll be thinking we ain’t coming.”

  “Don’t go so we can’t hear things,” whispered Pete.

  They came to the Ferry Inn, with its lighted windows, and slunk suddenly off the road, out of the way of a couple of men strolling home.

  “Closing time,” whispered Bill.

  They hurried on again.

  “We’ll follow the bank,” whispered Bill. Beyond the garden of the inn they crept along the narrow footpath at the side of the river, startled now and then by the splash of water rats as startled as themselves. They came to the ditch, found the plank and went carefully across it.

  “Half a minute,” said Bill. “I’m going back. You lift this end and I’ll lift t’other. So’s I can shift it easy if I got to run for it.”

  They shifted the plank and went on.

  “Pretty near now,” said Bill. “That your teeth chattering? Pity we ain’t outed a few more of ’em.”

  “They ain’t chattering,” said Pete.

  “Better give ’em the password,” said Bill. He stopped and said very quietly, “Coots for ever!”

  “And ever.” Tom’s voice came from close to Bill’s feet, and at the same moment, Pete saw the dim white bulk of the Cachalot moored against the bank.

  “No tiger yet,” said Tom. “Here you are. Get down in my form. Here’s the thing. It’s wound up already. Got it? I’ll put your finger on the trigger. Pull that and off it goes.”

  “I got it,” said Bill.

  Pete was feeling his way into the bush and Dick, who had been a couple of hours in the dark and could see much better, was pulling him into place.

  “Whatever you do don’t upset the camera,” he whispered. “Here’s the release.” He pushed the end of it into Pete’s hand. “Press the button to open it. Press it as soon as you hear anybody. And press it again when the flash dies down.”

  “We mustn’t wait about,” said Tom. “Or we might put him off.”

  “Look out for the plank over the ditch,” whispered Bill. “Me and Pete leave that loose so’s I can drop one end if that old villain come chasing after me.”

  Tom chuckled.

  “Pete knows he’s to stay where he is whatever happens, doesn’t he?” said Dick.

  “He know,” said Bill. “He’s to lie low till all’s clear and then bring the camera along.”

  “Come on,” said Tom. “Give the tiger a chance … if he’s coming. And I’ve got to show up at home. Ow! I can h
ardly move. I’ve got cramp in both legs and five fingers.”

  “Dot’s dead certain he’ll come some time,” said Dick. “But I say, Pete, you will be careful with that camera? I wish the Admiral would let me stay….”

  “He’ll be all right,” said Tom. “Come on Dick. Joe and I’ll be back at twelve.”

  “Joe think that tiger won’t be showing up till after then,” Pete’s voice came out of his bush.

  “He won’t show up at all if you chaps don’t clear out,” said Bill. “Pete and me’s all set. Good night.”

  “Back at twelve,” said Tom.

  “Look out you don’t meet that old tiger and scare him,” said Bill.

  There was silence.

  Tired and cramped, Dick and Tom were creeping away to the road and their beds. Two fresh detectives were watching in their lairs.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  BLINDING FLASH

  TOM and Dick had gone home to their beds. Bill and Pete were waiting in the dark.

  Pete, squatting on the ground under the bush, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. In there it was very dark indeed but, looking out through the peep-hole that had been made for the camera, he could dimly see the Cachalot where she lay moored beside the bank. He could not really see her, but he could just see that she was there. He fingered the press-button that was to open the shutter when the moment came. He let go of it for fear he should press too soon.

  Bill was lying in the grass on the side of the dyke a little way behind him. He lay so still that for a moment it came into Pete’s head that he was alone and that Bill, too, had gone after the others.

  “Bill,” he whispered.

  “What’s up?” hissed Bill.

  “Nothing.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yes,” said Pete.

  “You know what you got to do. Press that thing the first moment you hear anything. Don’t you go waiting for me to tell you. I’ll be letting flash like Dick say … if powder keep dry. If it don’t light, we’re sunk. You just got to keep that camera open till that flash die down. That’s what he say….”