by John Buchan
But on the third day the boy came to me with a grave face.
‘Gregarsen says that the motor-boat is out of order. Something has gone wrong with the engine — something bad — and he’ll have to get a man from Hjalmarshavn to repair it.’
‘How on earth did that happen?’ I asked crossly, for the motor-boat was our only transport to the outer world. ‘He has not had it out.’
‘It happened in the night, he thinks. He says some fools have been monkeying with it.’
I went down to the harbour and had a look at it. Sure enough there was bad mischief. The sparking-plug had gone, and the main feed pipe had been cut through. Gregarsen was a stupid elderly fellow, with a game leg which he had got at the Greenland fishing, and he had only an elementary knowledge of mechanics.
‘How did this happen?’ I demanded, for he could speak a kind of American-English, having once been a hand on a Boston tramp. ‘Have you been walking in your sleep?’
He shook his head. ‘Hulda’s Folk,’ he said darkly.
The thing made me very uneasy, for the damage had been done by some one who had had tools for the purpose. There was nothing for it but to telephone to the little shipyard at Hjalmarshavn and get them to send up a man. I did not do this at once, for I was trysted with Haraldsen to walk to the north end of the island, and put it off till we returned to luncheon.
I did not enjoy that walk, for I kept puzzling over the motor-boat, and I could not shake off the feeling that something was beginning to flaw the peace of the island. The accident was utterly incomprehensible to me, except on the supposition that Gregarsen had been drunk, or had gone temporarily insane and had forgotten what he had done. It was a nuisance, for next day we should have been sending to Hjalmarshavn for letters, and I longed for some word from Sandy. I felt myself set down on a possible battlefield with no sign of the commander-in-chief. Haraldsen’s conversation did not cheer me. He was as mysterious as a spae-wife, and his only answer to my complaint was, ‘What must be, will be.’ Also the weather suddenly began to change. By midday the blue of the sky had dulled, and the heavens seemed suddenly to drop lower. The clear outlines of the Halder hills had gone, and the Channel, instead of a shining crystal, became an opaque pebble. ‘Ran is stoking his ovens,’ was all Haraldsen said on the subject, and it did not comfort me to know that Ran was a sea-god.
Immediately after luncheon I rang up Hjalmarshavn, but could not get through. There was nothing wrong with the apparatus in the House, and the trouble was probably at the other end, but the motor-boat business had filled me with suspicions, and I set out alone in the afternoon to trace the telephone line. It ran on low posts by the back of the garden and then down a shallow cleft to the beach not a quarter of a mile south of the village. It was clearly all right as far as the water’s edge. But then I had a shock. It entered the sea in a copper casing from a little concrete platform. There seemed something odd about the look of that take-off, and I ran my hand down the cable. I lifted up an end which had been neatly cut through.
That put the lid on my discomfort. The fog was thickening. While walking with Haraldsen I had been able to see the other side of the Channel and witness the Tjaldar, returning from one of her dredging expeditions, settling snugly into her little harbour. But now Halder was blotted out, and I could only see a few hundred yards of sea. I felt as if we were being shut into a macabre world where anything might happen. We and our enemies, for that our enemies were near I had no manner of doubt. They had cut our communications and had us at their mercy — three men, two children, and a batch of ancients. Where they were, how they had got here, I never troubled to think. I felt them in the fog around me — Hulda’s Folk, who had their own ways of moving by land and sea.
I ran back to the House in what was pretty near a panic. Lombard and Haraldsen had gone for a walk, and to give myself something to do I overhauled our armoury. We had half a dozen rifles, four shotguns, and plenty of ammunition. There was a revolver for each of us, and a spare one which I had destined for Peter John.
At the thought of him all my anxiety was switched on to the children. If there were evil things afoot in the island they might be at their mercy. Haraldsen and Lombard returned for tea, but not Anna and Peter John. When he heard my story Haraldsen came out of his Nordic dreams and became the distracted parent. The fog had drawn closer, and our search could only be blind, but we got together the garden staff and Gregarsen, and set out in different directions.
The dinner-hour came and there was no sign of them. In the dim, misty brume which was all the northern night, we stumbled about the island. Midnight came and we were still searching. In the small hours of the morning they had not returned.
CHAPTER XIII. Marine Biology
That morning Anna and Peter John had gone off for the day, with sandwiches in their pockets, to explore in kayaks the voes at the south end of the island. They ate their luncheon on a skerry which the tide had just uncovered, and which was their idiotic notion of comfort. The sea was like a pond, and the mist was slowly coming down, but Anna, after sniffing the air, said that it was only a summer darkening and would clear before evening. Then she proposed an adventure. The Tjaldar had returned to its home at Halder, and over the Channel came the sound of its dropping anchor.
‘Let’s pay a call on it,’ said Anna. ‘Perhaps they’ll ask us to tea. Marine biologists are nice people. I’ve been to tea with them before, when the old Moe was here.’
Peter John demurred. No embargo had been laid on their crossing the Channel, but he dimly felt that the trip would be considered out of bounds.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Anna retorted. ‘We haven’t been forbidden to go. Besides, in this weather they won’t see us from the shore. We’ll be back long before dinner. There’s not a capful of wind, and it’s as safe as crossing a voe. We’re not likely to get such a chance again.’
Peter John said something about currents, but Anna laughed him to scorn. ‘There’s a rip two miles north, but here there’s nothing to trouble about. I’ve been across in the kayak often. You’re a landlubber, you know, and I’m a seadog, and you ought to believe me. I believe you when it’s about birds.’
Peter John felt this to be true. Children have a great respect for each other’s expertise, and Anna had shown an uncanny knowledge of the ways of boats and tides and the whole salt-water world. She bore down his scruples with another argument. ‘My father would send us across any time we wanted, but it would be with Gregarsen and the motor-boat, which wouldn’t be any fun, or in the long-boat, which is as slow as a cow. In these wieldy little kayaks we’ll slip over in no time. If you like, I’ll give you five minutes’ start and race you.’
No boy can resist a ‘dare,’ so Peter John acquiesced, and they got into their kayaks and headed for Halder, Morag the falcon sitting dejectedly on her master’s knee.
The mist came down closer, but it was only a curtain of silk, through which Halder rose like a wraith. They did not race, but presently fell into an exciting conversation, so that the kayaks often rubbed shoulders. For Anna was telling of the whale-hunts, which she had held forth to Peter John as the chief glory of the Norlands. Only once in her memory had the Grind come to the Island of Sheep, for generally they took the wider channels beyond Halder. But that once was stamped for ever on her mind, though she had only been a little girl at the time. She told how the fiery cross was sent through the islands, by means of beacons on every headland; how every man at the signal tumbled into his boat and steered for the rendezvous; how the rendezvous could not be missed, for all the sea-ways were full of people, and the Grind only came in clear weather. She described how the boats guided the school of whales, as dogs headed sheep, trimming their edges and slowly forcing the leader into one of the voes. Once the leader entered the rest followed, and the voe would be churned white with blind and maddened monsters. Then came the killing, which Anna could only imagine, for her nurse had hurried her away from the scene; but all the same she described it as she
had heard of it from others, and she made a barbaric tale of it. Peter John listened with interest, and at the end with disapproval.
‘It sounds pretty beastly,’ he said.
‘Perhaps it is,’ said the girl; ‘but a lot of good things are beastly, like killing pigs and using live bait. Anyhow, it puts money in the pockets of our poor people, and gives them food and lighting for the long winter.’
‘All the same, I’m sorry for the whales.’
‘That’s silly,’ she replied. ‘You’re not sorry for haddocks and halibut and sea-trout. Fish are cold-blooded things and don’t feel.’
‘Whales aren’t fish,’ said the student of natural history, but he was overborne.
Their discussion had brought them across the still water into the shadow of Halder, and they looked up to see the Tjaldar above them. The kayak is a noiseless thing, and the fog had helped them to approach it unperceived. It sat at anchor very trim and comfortable, with a thin spire of smoke rising from the galley funnel, and a pleasant odour of food drifting from it. Some one was emptying ashes from the stokehold.
‘Couth little craft,’ said Anna appreciatively. ‘I smell tea. Let’s hail her. Tjaldar ahoy!’
The voice brought a face to the bulwark. It was the face of an elderly man, dark and aquiline and rather puffy. He wore a yachting-cap and a flannel suit, but he did not look any kind of sailor. He seemed puzzled and a little startled.
‘That will be one of the Danish scientists,’ Anna whispered. Then she raised her voice.
‘You’re the marine biologists, aren’t you? We’ve come to call on you from the Island of Sheep across the Channel.’
She spoke in Danish, but the face showed no intelligence. Then she repeated her words in English, and the man seemed to understand.
‘Wait. I will ask,’ he said, and disappeared.
He was back in a minute accompanied by another man, a tall fellow with a sunburnt face, wearing an old Harris tweed jacket, and with a pipe in his teeth.
‘Where did you youngsters spring from?’ the second man asked.
‘I’m Miss Haraldsen from the Island of Sheep — and this is my friend, Peter John. We’re visitors. May we come aboard?’
‘You certainly may,’ said the man with the pipe, and he seemed to wink at his companion. The port ladder was lowered and the children tied up the kayaks to its bottom rung, and carefully transhipped themselves. It takes some skill to get out of a kayak.
When they reached the much-encumbered deck they found that three sailors had joined the party.
‘Just wait here a second, my dears,’ said the man with the pipe, and he and the others went forward, leaving Anna and Peter John with the three sailors. The boy saw nothing but a rather untidy deck, very different from the shipshape vessels of his fancy. There seemed to be uncommonly little free space, and what looked like a gigantic net was clumsily heaped abaft of a stumpy mast. The deck-hands were busy at the vessel’s side. But the girl’s experienced eyes darted about, and saw more.
‘This is a funny place,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t much like it, Peter John. These men aren’t a trawler’s crew — they’ve no sores on their hands. Trawlers’ men are always getting stung and poisoned. They aren’t Danes either — at least, they don’t look like it. What are they doing with our kayaks?’
‘They’re getting them aboard.’
‘Whatever for?’ The girl’s voice had suddenly a startled note in it. ‘Look here, I don’t like this. . . . Just look at the trawl. It’s absurd. It has no otter-boards. . . . There’s something wrong with this ship. Let’s make them launch the kayaks again and get off.’
‘We can’t quite do that,’ said Peter John. ‘I think we must see it through now — wait, anyhow, till these men come back.’ But Anna’s suspicions had infected him, and he looked uneasily at the little kayaks as they were swung up on deck.
He turned in obedience to a smothered squawk from Anna. A woman was coming towards them — a woman in a white serge frock with a fur cape thrown over her shoulders. She was bare-headed and had wonderful red hair. It was now Peter John’s turn to long for the kayaks, for he recognized some one he had seen before, the beautiful Miss Ludlow who, two months ago, had come to tea at Fosse.
The pretty lady advanced smiling. At the sight of her Morag the falcon showed the most lively displeasure. Had Peter John not tightened the lead she would have sought a perch with malevolent purpose on an exquisite red coiffure.
‘What a wicked bird!’ said the lady. ‘You’re sure you’ve got it safe. . . . How nice of you to come to see us! You must be ravenous for tea. Come along, my dears, but I think you’d better leave the bird here.’
So Morag’s lead was fastened to a stanchion, and she was left in a very ill temper ruffling her wings on a spare yard. The children followed the lady to a deck-house, which was half chart-room and half cabin. It was a snug little place, and on an oilskin-covered table tea was set out, an ample meal for which their souls hungered. There were three men sitting there, the dark, sallow one to whom they had first spoken, the sunburnt one with the pipe, and another, a tall, slim man with a thin face, high cheek-bones and a moustache which was going grey at the tips. All three rose politely at their entrance and bowed to Anna.
‘Here are our visitors,’ said the lady; ‘and I’m sure they are hungry. They have come over from the Island. The fog is getting thicker, and I don’t think we can let them go till it clears. What do you think, Joe?’
‘It wouldn’t be safe,’ said the tall man. ‘We must wait anyhow till the Skipper returns. The dory should be back in an hour or so.’
A steward brought in hot water and a big plate of toasted scones. The lady made tea, and much conversation. The sallow man she called Erick, and the sunburnt man Lancie, but most of her remarks were addressed to the tall man called Joe. She prattled of the weather and the Norlands, of London, of Cowes, of ships, and the sea. It was very clear that this company was English, and had nothing to do with marine biology, and Anna’s eyes showed her bewilderment.
When the tall man spoke it was to ask questions about the Island of Sheep. His manners were good, and he showed no intrusive curiosity, but it was plain from the others’ faces that this was a topic that interested them. They talked much as a yacht’s party might have talked who had come into strange latitudes and had suddenly got news of other fellow-countrymen.
‘Your father is at home?’ the man called Lancie asked. ‘He has a wonderful place over there, hasn’t he? We heard about it at Hjalmarshavn. Are you two brother and sister?’
‘We’re no relations. This is my friend, Peter John Hannay. He is English. He is staying with us.’
Four pairs of eyes seemed to open wider.
‘Are you by any chance Sir Richard Hannay’s son?’ the man called Joe asked, with a sudden eagerness in his voice.
Peter John nodded. ‘Yes, and Sir Richard is staying with us,’ added Anna.
‘We must return your call,’ said the lady. ‘I’ve always longed to meet Sir Richard — and your father too, my dear.’
Peter John’s mind had been working furiously, ever since the sight of Miss Ludlow had opened for him the door on a dark world. Anna was bewildered, but only because the Tjaldar was so different from the old Moe, and she had had to revise her marine biology notions, but the boy knew enough to realize that they had blundered into the enemy’s camp. He had heard Sandy’s talk, and I had told him the whole story, and ever since his coming to the Island of Sheep his business had been to be on the watch. Behind all his escapades with Anna had been this serious preoccupation. The sight of Lydia Ludlow had awakened him, and now in this little cabin he was face to face with Haraldsen’s enemies, the sallow Albinus, the stalwart Troth, the lean, restless Barralty. Only one was missing, the most formidable of them all. At any cost he and Anna must get off and carry the fateful news.
‘We should be going,’ he said as he got up, ‘or our people will be anxious.’
‘You can’t go in
this weather,’ said Barralty. He too rose and opened the door, and sure enough a solid wall of vapour had built itself beyond the vessel’s side.
‘I’ve got a compass,’ said Peter John, ‘and we can’t miss the way.’
‘We daren’t risk it,’ said the man. ‘We should never be able to face your father if anything went wrong.’
‘They must wait till the Skipper comes back,’ said Troth, and the others agreed.
Peter John was getting desperate. ‘We’re rather grubby,’ he said. ‘Could we wash our hands?’
‘Certainly,’ said the lady. ‘Come down to my cabin, both of you.’ She seemed to Peter John to look meaningly at the others and slightly nod her head. She took Anna’s hand and led her out, and the boy followed. He lingered a little beyond the door, and he heard, or thought he heard, some one of the three exclaim: ‘My God, we have got the trump card now. This will keep the Skipper in order.’
Miss Ludlow took them down a steep companion into a narrow alley lined with cabins. The big one at the end was hers, and she ushered the children into it with the utmost friendliness. ‘You’ll find everything you want there, my dears,’ she said. ‘Towels and hot water. The bathroom is next door. I’ll come down presently to fetch you.’
But as she left them she drew behind her a sliding door at the end of the passage. Peter John darted after her and tried its handle. It was locked from the outside.
