No Man's Island

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER XII

  QUEER FISH

  When Armstrong had started in the dinghy for a pull down the river hisintention was to scull easily on the current to the mouth, then to turnwestward, and exercise his muscles more strenuously in a contest withthe wind. On reaching the coastline, however, he found that there wasmuch more force in the breeze than had appeared inland, and aconsiderable swell on the sea, and he contented himself with hugging theshore, protected in some measure by the cliffs that swept round to apromontory in the distance.

  After a stiff pull for half an hour or so he turned. The last faintradiance of sunset was behind him, and as he approached the river mouth,being himself shadowed by the cliffs, he noticed signs of activity aboutthe fisher's hut on the beach beyond the farther bank. Two men werecarrying what appeared to be fishing gear down to a boat at the water'sedge. The weather seemed scarcely to promise good fishing, and, knowingfrom his friends that the hut was in the occupation, if not thepossession, of Rush, he was sufficiently interested to decide uponwatching the men's proceedings. He pulled a little more closely inshore,shipped his oars, and lay to under cover of a mass of rock.

  In a few minutes the men got aboard the boat, and pulled out to sea inthe direction of a small tramp steamer which was just visible on theeastern horizon, and, as the trail of smoke from its funnel showed, wascoming down channel. It seemed to Armstrong a good opportunity forexamining the hut; possibly he might find there some clue to Rush'smysterious activities. Assured that under the shadow of the cliffs hewould be invisible to the boatmen, he pulled across to the oppositebeach, and ran the dinghy ashore in a small, sheltered cove two or threehundred yards from the hut. Leaving the boat high and dry, he made hisway back along the beach at the foot of the cliffs, and approached thehut, which stood on a rocky platform above high-water mark. As heneared it he was careful to keep it between himself and the boat at sea;Rush, if he were one of the two, was probably long-sighted.

  By the time he reached the hut the boat was nearly a mile out, and themen appeared to be letting down a net. He slipped in through the opendoor, and threw a glance round the interior, seizing the last moments oftwilight for his rapid scrutiny. He saw, as might have been expected,the usual fisherman's gear: old nets, lobster pots, cork floats, abroken oar, part of a rudder, an old sou'wester, baskets, ropes--nothingthat had any particular interest or significance. But, just as he wasabout to leave, he noticed in the darkest corner half a dozen tinsstrung by the handles upon a length of trailing rope. Their shapesuggested paraffin or petrol rather than any material useful to fishers;yet they were not the common petrol cans; they were larger andwider-necked than those that held the ordinary motor-spirit. He liftedone; it was empty, but very firmly corked, as likewise were the others.

  Armstrong took one of the cans, stretching the rope, towards the door,to examine it more closely in what was left of the twilight. On theshoulder, enclosed in a panel, was an embossed description, thecharacters reminding Armstrong of the printed letters of the Russiannewspaper.

  "Rummy," he thought. "Gradoff, judging by his name, is a Russian, andthe only Russian hereabouts. Yet we find a Russian newspaper in thecellar, and Russian petrol tins in Rush's hut. Queer!"

  He replaced the cans, and left the hut. As he did so he saw, out atsea, the steamer he had noticed as a distant smudge some twenty minutesbefore. No smoke was now pouring from her funnel; apparently she hadstopped or slowed down some distance beyond the small boat. While hewas watching, the vessel went ahead. The small boat rowed farther out;then appeared to beat about for a time; finally stopped, and from themovements of the figures Armstrong saw aboard, they were liftingsomething from the water. The steamer, meanwhile, was proceedingsteadily on her course down channel.

  The growing dusk had rendered it impossible for the watcher to discernanything clearly; steamer, boat, and men were merely indistinct shapes.But the boat, without doubt, was the one that he had seen leave thebeach; its movements were strange, and Armstrong decided to await itsreturn. Who were its occupants? What was their errand? What were theybringing back with them?

  The enlarging boat was evidently coming ashore. Armstrong looked rapidlyaround, and spied, close to the hut, and, between that and his own boat,a ridge of rock that would give him cover. Posting himself there, hewaited. The dusk deepened. Presently he heard the faint, slow, regularthuds of oars in the rowlocks, then low voices. He could now discernthe boat as a dark patch on the white crests of the rollers. It camesteadily in, grounded; the two men sprang into the surf. The tide wasgoing out. They did not haul the boat up, but lifted from it thebundles of gear and carried them into the hut. But there was no fish.They passed Armstrong's hiding-place near enough for him to recognisethem. The first of them was Rush; the second--even in the duskArmstrong knew again that broad, flat face. It was the face he had seenin the thicket--the face of the mysterious assailant Pratt haddescribed.

  "THEY LIFTED THE BUNDLES OF GEAR AND CARRIED THEM INTOTHE HUT."]

  After disposing of their gear in the hut, they returned to the boat.The stranger, a big man, came up again alone, bent under a bulkypackage, to which a string of petrol tins was attached. "Smugglers, byjiminy!" thought Armstrong. The package appeared to be encased intarpaulin. The man halted at the door of the hut, let down his load,detached the cans, and waited. In a few seconds Rush joined him, helpedhim to hoist the package to his back, and bade him a gruff "Good-night."The man marched heavily up the beach to the east, towards a narrow riftin the cliff. Rush took the cans into the hut, shut and locked the door,and, with his hands in his pockets, moved slowly down towards his boat.Fearing that as he rowed back he might discover the dinghy in the cove,Armstrong hurried quietly away, shoved off, and had turned into theriver when he heard the splash of Rush's oars. Pulling quickly butsteadily, he was out of sight by the time Rush reached the mouth, andwhen he arrived at the camping-place guessed that he and Warrender couldcross to the western shore of the island before Rush rowed past.

  Such was the story Armstrong quietly told his companions as they sat ontheir chairs before the tent.

  "Smugglers!" ejaculated Pratt, lowering his voice as if instinctively."I thought the smuggling days were over long ago. D'you think Rush doesa roaring trade in Dutch tobacco, and finds the foreign gang at thehouse good customers? Tobacco weighs light for its bulk. How big wasthe bundle, Jack?"

  "Two or three feet square, I think," replied Armstrong. "But tobacco islight, as you say. I fancy this was something else, for Rush had to helpthe other fellow lift it."

  "And he took it eastward up the cliff?"

  "Yes, in the direction that would lead to your uncle's house, unless I'mout in my bearings."

  "Well, I'm hanged! Won't my old uncle rave when he hears what his petforeign domestics are up to in his absence! He's a terrible sticklerfor law and order, not the kind of man to wink at smuggling, as thecounty folk used to do in days of yore. That explains the light I saw."

  "What light?" asked the others.

  "I wended my way to the ruins to hear the spooks groan. They groanjolly well--a mellow note, mostly on B flat, I fancy, though itsometimes shrieks up a chromatic scale to what you may call vanishingpoint. Of course, it's caused by the wind, but what surprises me is howthe wind can fetch such a musical tone out of a chimney-pot. It must bea tube of some sort, and what else could it be but a chimney-pot? Itried to find it, but that required an acrobatic feat too difficult fora man of my avoirdupois."

  "But the light?" asked Warrender.

  "Oh yes, I was forgetting! I was looking over towards my uncle's placewhen I saw a reddish sort of glow, just about the level of thetree-tops. It came and went, and presently it dawned upon my usuallyalert intelligence that it stood a good deal upon the order of itscomings and goings; in fact, that it was a signal. It must have beenjust about the time that tramp steamer came in sight."

  "But why on earth should anyb
ody at the house, even if they arecustomers of Rush's, signal to the smuggling steamer?" asked Armstrong."There aren't any revenue officers about here, and if there were anyabout the coast the people at the house wouldn't know anything aboutthem."

  "My dear chap, there are wheels within wheels," said Pratt, oracularly."You have two contemporaneous phenomena--jolly good phrase, that!--thesignal light, and the accosting of a tramp steamer by a poacher and aburglar. That's circumstantial evidence good enough for me."

  "Well, drop theories, and come to practice," said Warrender. "Whateverthe game is, we're going to find it out. It's time for us to take theoffensive. These fellows have stalked us; it's now for us to stalkthem. I vote we leave the island, and accept old Crawshay's offer. Theenemy will chortle at having succeeded in driving us away, and will verylikely be off his guard. Then we'll chip in."

  "Just so; we'll _reculer pour mieux sauter_--you recognise the phrase,as your Gradoff would say? Your suggestion smiles to me, Phil. Wecarry it unanimously, and we'll strike camp the morn's morn. I say,listen!"

  The wind had increased in force, and there came from the direction ofthe ruins the musical moan which Warrender, alone of the three, had notyet heard.

  "'The horns of Elfland faintly blowing,'" quoted Pratt. "Really, itseems a pity, after all, to leave a spot which one can imagine the hauntof fairies, the seat of an enchanted palace, the----"

  "Don't start the sentimental strain!" Armstrong interposed. "Supposeyour horns of Elfland are a signal, too?"

  "Jehoshaphat! What a synthetic mind you have, old bird! I shouldn't besurprised if---- But no! it won't wash. A signal that depended on thewind wouldn't be any good. Leave me some of my illusions, Jack. Let merevel in my romantic imaginings. Call it Roland's horn, appealingvainly for succour when the paladin was fighting fearful odds in thepass of Roncesvaux."

  "I think you'd better turn in, old man," said Warrender. "It's yourlast watch to-night. We none of us got much sleep last night, and thatcrack on the head----"

  "I'm cracked. All right--wake me at two-twenty."

  He withdrew into the tent. His companions, tired though they were,resolved to keep each other company, and patrol the neighbourhood of thecamp till it was time to awaken Pratt. Hour after hour passed. Nothingdisturbed them. The wind increased to the force of half a gale, and thesound from the ruins persisted with scarcely a variation of pitch. Whentwo-twenty came they agreed to let Pratt sleep on, and kept vigil untilthe eastern sky was streaked with dawn.

  "D'you hear the sound?" asked Warrender, suddenly.

  "No; it's stopped. But the wind is higher than ever," Armstrongreplied.

  "That's queer. The wind is in the same direction, too. Darkness andlight oughtn't to make any difference."

  "Perhaps it has blown the old chimney-pot clean off the roof. I'll godown and have a look presently. I'm dog-tired. We might take a coupleof hours' sleep now, don't you think?"