“Ahoy!” shouted Nancy as soon as she was near enough. “Ahoy! Buck up. Get afloat!”
“It’s all right,” shouted Roger. “They aren’t even in sight.”
“They won’t be coming now. It’s after high water,” called John. “There’s no hurry.”
Peggy, steering, brought Firefly in to the beach.
“Barbecued billygoats!” cried Nancy, jumping out. “No hurry! Get afloat as quick as you can. They’re not coming from the sea. They’re coming the other way. We’ve seen them. They’re anchored up there close to the town. They’ll be here any minute. They must have got in at high water yesterday. If the Mastodon had waited a bit longer instead of meeting us at that quay he’d have seen them.”
In two minutes the explorers were all afloat, and Flint Island, deserted once more, was ready for its savage owners.
“Did you get right up to the town?” asked John, as the boats moved out into the creek.
“Of course we did,” said Nancy. “We worked slowly up with the tide like you said. We’ve mapped the whole channel. … Amazon Creek it’s going to be. … You’ve got Swallow Island. … And we had a good look at the gap between Magellan Straits and Cape Horn. It runs straight in towards the dyke and joins the Straits.”
“The Mastodon said it did,” said John.
“We landed twice,” said Peggy. “Two good places. We had our grub on a sort of landing stage, and we got lemonade from a shop.”
“I told you they would,” said Roger.
“Did you telephone?” asked Susan.
“Rather,” said Nancy. “Your mother was there. She’d just got back from London, but she’s going up there again tomorrow. She said the Report was a beauty, and she sent her love, and she said you were to be sure not to starve Roger.”
“Oh look here,” said Roger. “You made that up.”
“Are you sure it was the Eels?” said John, looking back up the channel towards the town.
“Couldn’t be anybody else. We passed a yellow cutter at anchor on our way in, and then we saw three dinghies close to the town and when we were coming back just now the dinghies were by the cutter, and we read Lapwing on her stern, and we heard one of the missionaries tell them to hurry up and help make sail.”
“We shan’t be able to do much exploring once they’ve come,” said John. “There won’t be a hope of getting the map properly finished.”
“The Mastodon did say I could be a human sacrifice,” said Bridget.
“They don’t want one,” said Titty.
With the ebb running out and the wind light and ahead, sailing was useless, and the two boats rowed side by side up Secret Water and into Goblin Creek. For all that they could see, nothing had changed. Yet everything had.
“Better fill our water-cans tonight,” said Susan. “We don’t want to run into them at the kraal.”
John and Susan, Nancy and Peggy, carried the two water-cans to the farm, each water-can slung from an oar. Even at the kraal they were not allowed to forget that things had changed. “Seen anything of them savages yet?” laughed the man as he filled their cans for them. “Only one? The other’ll be all over the place tomorrow. I met their dad when I was across in the town. He bring the yacht in yesterday, and they’ll be camping down at the mouth tonight.”
THE MAP: WITH FLINT ISLAND AND AMAZON CREEK
Back at the camp they had a rather silent supper.
*
Dusk fell.
The explorers sat round the dying embers of their fire. Bridget was in bed. Sinbad was asleep. Nancy was holding a torch to light the map on which John was tracing the outlines of Flint Island and the channel to the town. Titty was sharpening a pencil. Peggy was yawning. Susan was polishing a grease spot off a plate. Roger had slipped away to his look-out point at the corner of the dyke.
Suddenly there was a shout, a distant bang, and the sound of running feet. Roger charged into the camp.
“Didn’t you see it?” he shouted.
No one had seen anything. Roger was pointing away into the darkness over the island.
A thin line of white light streaked up into the evening sky. There was another of those distant bangs, and high in the darkness half a dozen stars shot in different directions. A rocket.
“That’s the second.”
They were all on their feet now.
“There goes the third,” said Titty, as yet again a spark flew up into the sky, seemed to hang there for a moment and, before falling, burst into shooting stars.
“I wonder if he’s seen them,” said Titty.
They turned and looked across the dim creek at the dark line of Mastodon Island on the other side.
“He won’t have seen them if he wasn’t watching,” said Roger.
THE SECOND ROCKET
But a minute later they saw a glimmer of light. There was a bang at the other side of the creek. A rocket hissed up into the sky and burst. Three red stars curved from it, fell slowly and died as they fell. All was dark once more.
“Fireworks?” said Bridget, who had crawled to the mouth of her tent on hearing the stir outside.
“You ought to be asleep,” said Susan.
“They’ve come,” said Nancy.
“I wonder if I ought to stay awake,” said John.
“Shouldn’t think they’d try to do anything till tomorrow,” said Nancy. “But I bet it’s war now whether you like it or not.”
That night not one of the explorers slept without waking. First one, then another, stirred in sleep, woke, and listened, now to the stir of wind in the reeds, now to an owl hawking over the marshes, now to the noise of a train on the mainland far away, now to the distant hooting of a ship coming into harbour. First one of the explorers and then another stirred, listened wide-eyed, and slept again.
CHAPTER XVII
A STATE OF WAR
THE EXPLORERS WOKE in a new, unfriendly world. Everything about the camp was the same as usual. The boats (John and Nancy ran down to see before breakfast) were just as they had left them. The same curlew was whistling over the marshes. The same gulls and oxbirds were busy on the edges of the mud. The same sun had risen in the east and the same shadow was darkening the breakfast peg of the meal-dial. But the whole feeling of the place was different. Last night they had seen the rockets that announced the coming of the savages. And the savages, even before they had arrived, had made the Mastodon ashamed of his blood brotherhood, and sorry for his friendliness.
John and Nancy, after looking at the boats, separated and went north and south along the dyke, eyes and ears alert.
“Nothing moving on Secret Water,” said John as they met again at the camp, to find the others halfway through breakfast and Sinbad licking an already empty saucer.
“Red Sea’s nearly dry,” said Nancy. “And tide still going out. They won’t come that way for a bit.”
“What about the Mastodon?” asked Titty.
“No signs of him.”
“Do you think they’ll come at all?” said Susan. “Won’t they just pretend we aren’t here?”
“The letter the Mastodon got said ‘Drive them out. Fend them off’,” said Titty. “And then it said he wasn’t to set fire to our tents. I should think they’ll probably try something.”
“Of course they will,” said Nancy. “And we’ll jolly well smash them if they do.”
“Let’s burn their beastly totem,” said Roger.
“Jibbooms and bobstays! Why on earth?” said Nancy. “We’ve bought it with our blood.”
“I bled more than anybody,” said Bridget.
“Won’t it make them mad to see it there?” said Titty.
“Who cares?” said Nancy. “It’s ours now. We’re Eels just as much as they are.”
“Somebody’ll have to stay in the camp,” said John.
“I’ve got to anyway,” said Titty, “to catch up with the map. There’s simply masses to ink in.”
“There won’t be much more,” said John sadly. “We’ll ha
ve to keep within signalling distance all the time. We’ll have to go back with half the map unexplored.”
“You’ll want a sentinel,” said Nancy. “You know what it’s like when you’re drawing. They could come and take the tents away and you wouldn’t notice.”
“I’ll be sentinel,” said Roger.
“You’ll be wanted for surveying,” said John. “Specially if Titty’s staying in camp.”
“Can’t I be sentinel?” said Bridget.
Nancy laughed.
“I’m old enough,” said Bridget.
“I don’t see why not,” said John. “We’ll be within sight all the time. Got to be. All they’ve got to guard against is a surprise. If they keep watch on the dyke they’ll see the enemy coming even if we don’t. If they see anybody they lower the flags. We’ll keep on looking, and the moment the flags go down we’ll come racing back. It isn’t as if there was a real horde of savages so that they could attack from all sides.”
*
An hour later the exploring party with the two boats sailed out from the creek. Bridget, Sinbad and Titty were at the landing place to see them go.
“Down the flags at the least sign of danger,” said John as he pushed off. “And get as much of the map done as you can.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Titty.
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Bridget, and then a moment later, “Couldn’t you hear him? Sinbad said it too.”
“Good for him,” said John.
*
“I suppose they will be all right,” said Susan, as the Wizard, close behind the Firefly, slipped across the Secret Water.
John looked back. The tents were already hard to see, but the flags were fluttering in the sunlight, and on the skyline a small bright blue figure was walking solemnly along the top of the dyke.
“Bridget on sentry go,” said Roger.
“They’ll be all right,” said John.
*
“What am I to steer for?” asked Peggy.
Nancy, who was sitting scowling in the bottom of Firefly, looked over her shoulder.
“Straight for the creek on the other side,” she said.
For a time neither of them spoke.
“If it was only us,” said Nancy at last. “We’d go straight for their camp, bang an arrow into the middle of their fire and see what happened.”
“We haven’t got a bow with us,” said Peggy.
“It’s not that, you blessed gummock. It’s John and Susan. Titty too. They don’t want a war if they can help it. They want to do their map. And the savages are just as bad. If only they’d been decent we’d have had six boats to work with, and four native guides, and we’d have got the whole thing done and had time for a bit of war as well. And tomorrow it’ll be our turn to stick in the camp all day with nothing to do and nothing happening. It was all waste jabbing our fingers.”
“I wish we hadn’t,” said Peggy.
“Too late now,” said Nancy. “If I could I’d suck the Eel blood out and spit it away.”
*
The other boat was closing in on them as they came to the wide mouth of the inlet for which they were making. There was mud on either side, and green topped muddy banks. The water, narrowing between the mud flats, stretched far ahead.
“We’re going to have a job to get ashore,” said John. “The Mastodon said there’s a landing on each side. But it may be only when the tide’s up. Gosh, I wish he was here.”
“There he is,” said Nancy.
Far away on the other side of Secret Water a little rowing boat was coming out of Goblin Creek. A spot of bright blue on the dyke showed where the sentinel, Bridget, was keeping an eye on it.
“He isn’t coming this way,” said Roger.
“He’s going to see his horrid little friends,” said Nancy.
The Mastodon, shaving close round the mud spit at the mouth of Goblin Creek, turned east, and they watched him for a long time steadily rowing away.
“Well, it’s no good watching him,” said Nancy. “Let’s get ashore.”
*
With the Mastodon rowing away down the Secret Water to meet the Eels, it did not seem likely that anything much was going to happen. He, no doubt, was going to get into trouble for having been too friendly with the explorers, but they could do nothing about it. They settled down to their work. Nancy and Peggy, black to the knees, struggled ashore on the eastern side of the inlet. John, Susan and Roger landed fairly dry at the remains of an old hard on the western side, like the one by their camp in Goblin Creek. Poles were set up as landmarks, and both parties did the best they could, taking bearings from one pole to another and to the promontories, the kraal and the other landmarks on the islands they had already surveyed. Every now and then they kept looking for the sails of the savages or glancing across the Secret Water to see the flags still fluttering above the camp, a sign that all was well.
But, though the flags flew above the camp, the savages, without even showing themselves, had made the work of the explorers very difficult. They could not do things properly when they had to stay within sight of those flags and within reach of their boats, ready to row across if Titty and Bridget signalled a warning. They did their best with the coastline but were not able to settle the most important question of all. Were they on islands or just on odd-shaped promontories? They could not go far enough away from their landing places to make sure. Neither of the exploring parties were pleased with their work. At last Roger complained that the sun could not get any higher, that the shadows of the surveying poles were growing longer again, and that if they were in the camp the meal-dial would be showing that it was after dinner-time. Nancy and Peggy came rowing across to join the others, scraped the mud off their legs with handfuls of grass and agreed with Roger that it was time for grub.
“What’s your bit like?” asked John. “Is it an island or not?”
“I don’t know,” said Nancy. “There’s a sort of creek that looks as if it might join this but we couldn’t go far enough to see. Dry at low water. We wallowed across it. Mud to our ears. One little bit’s an island. We’ve put it on our map. What are those birds that keep on fluttering and diving … white with black hoods. …?”
“Terns,” said Roger.
“Tern Island. … They’re diving all round it.” She scribbled in the name and gave John her map, on which was a spider’s web of lines and bearings. “Poor old Titty,” she said, looking at the work of John, Susan and Roger.
“It won’t look as bad as this when we’ve worked it out with the rulers, and copied it ready for her to ink it in.”
“What about Peewitland for the rest of it?” said Peggy.
“Ours is the Blackberry Coast,” said Roger. “Susan’s found a better lot here than anywhere.”
“We won’t put ‘Coast’ in till we’re sure it isn’t an island,” said John. “Just look over there. All that mud and water. Nearly as big as the Red Sea. Either it’s a lake or it comes into this creek. And if there’s a way through further up Secret Water, a North West Passage, that’ll be a sort of Arctic Sea and Blackberry’s an island not a coast. We found two ditches, but they don’t go right across. But there may jolly easily be a passage further along.”
Half an hour later, when they had drunk their pop and eaten their sandwiches and a few of the fruits of the Blackberry Coast, John and Nancy stood looking across Secret Water to the distant fluttering specks above the camp.
“They’re all right over there,” said John, “and the tide’s rising fast. Let’s go a little way up and see what it looks like.”
“I’m coming, too,” said Roger, who was heartily sick of surveying poles.
“Peggy and Susan’ll keep a look-out,” said Nancy. “Come on.”
They paddled down the mud of the old hard and got afloat in Firefly, but they had not gone very far before they heard behind them a bad imitation of an owl.
“Owl at midday,” said John, grinning, remembering something that had happened long ago.
“Something’s up.”
There was Peggy on the dyke near the mouth of the creek, earnestly signalling.
“What’s she saying?” asked Roger. “Gosh, she does go at a lick.” Peggy’s arms had hardly shown one letter before they were in a new position showing another. “M … A … S … T …”
“Mastodon,” said Nancy, without waiting for any more. She pulled back as hard as she could.
“He’s coming back,” called Peggy.
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
They hurried ashore, and joined Susan, who was lying on a dry patch of ground, watching the little rowing boat coming fast up Secret Water with the tide. The Mastodon stopped rowing just before turning into Goblin Creek. Suddenly he turned his boat and rowed across towards the watchers.
“Good,” said Nancy. “He’s talked them over. He’s coming to say it’s all right.”
But, as the Mastodon stopped rowing and turned round within shouting distance of the Blackberry Coast, they could see that he was not looking very cheerful.
THE MAP: WITH BLACKBERRY COAST AND PEEWITLAND
“Shall I give the password?” said Roger. “Karabadang and the rest of it.”
“Shut up,” said John. “Wait till he does it himself.”
But the Mastodon gave no password. He might have been just anybody inquiring from a passer-by. “You haven’t seen three boats?” he called.
“Only one,” said Roger.
“With a sail?”
“No. Yours.”
“Oh,” said the Mastodon, and then, “You didn’t see them earlier, before I started?”
“We haven’t seen anybody but you,” called Nancy.
“We saw the rockets last night,” said Roger.
Secret Water Page 16
