Pigeon Post

by Arthur Ransome

  “We’ll start the trek first thing in the morning,” said Nancy.

  “No. No. No,” said her mother. “You can’t do that. Send out your pioneers and find the right place. Make sure about the milk from Atkinson’s. They may be selling every drop they have with so many visitors about. And make sure of good water. You know what the becks are like and the Atkinsons may be short themselves. I can’t have you simply setting out with nothing arranged. And Dick’s got to turn your pigeons into bell-ringers or you can’t go at all.”

  “Oh well,” said Nancy. “It won’t really be a waste of time. John and Susan’ll come and see for themselves and the others can be getting things ready. Someone’s got to go to Rio to buy hammers. Torches, too, and a tremendous lot of stores.”

  The rest of the evening passed quickly in feasting and planning.

  “Not all mining camps have such good cooks,” said Mrs Blackett, sitting by the camp-fire after supper.

  “The pemmican would have been better with a little chopped onion,” said Susan, “but I didn’t think of it in time.”

  “I do hope I’m not doing wrong,” said Mrs Blackett, as at last she left them, and they walked with her across the lawn in the dusk and said their good nights at the garden door.

  “You’re doing exactly right,” said Nancy.

  “I mean what I say about those pigeons,” said Mrs Blackett, almost hopefully. “They’ll have to ring bells if I’m to agree to your going.”

  “They shall,” said Nancy.

  “Don’t sit up late.”

  “Just till the flames die down.”

  They walked slowly back to where the embers of the camp-fire were glowing behind the bushes.

  “You really think you can do it, Dick?” said Nancy.

  Dick pulled his torch from his pocket and turned it on. “I’ll just go and make sure,” he said.

  Very quietly they went into the stableyard. Dick climbed the ladder to the pigeon-loft, leaned across and laid his torch on the pigeons’ landing-place, and felt the swinging wires. There was a sudden fluttering in the loft.

  “Phiu … phiu … phiu …” Peggy and Titty were making noises to reassure the pigeons.

  “I think it’s all right,” said Dick. “The wires are all separate, aren’t they? We’ll have to fasten three or four of them together.”

  “What are you doing?” Mrs Blackett called from an upper window.

  THE PIGEON-LOFT

  “Just making sure about something,” said Nancy. “Good night, mother. We’ll all go to bed right away.”

  CHAPTER V

  PIONEERS AND STAY-AT-HOMES

  LONG before Beckfoot was awake people were stirring in the camp. Nancy moved on tiptoe from tent to tent. Orders were given in whispers as if the old grey house itself had ears. Susan boiled a kettle at the fireplace among the bushes. Peggy laid wait in the road for the boy who brought the morning’s milk from Low Farm. Dick and Dorothea, Titty and Roger woke to find smoke from the fire climbing through the morning mist, and Susan, John and Nancy beginning an early breakfast of tea and eggs and bread and butter. Another lot of eggs were being boiled hard and Peggy was cutting bread and butter sandwiches for the pioneers to carry in their packs. “Don’t make a noise.” whispered Nancy. “Don’t wake the house. Second thoughts are always worse, and you can’t count on natives not to have them. Not even mother. The sooner we’re off the better. Before she has time to change her mind. Hi, Peggy, you’re the best hand with the pigeons. You go and catch them while we’re getting the food down.”

  The others hurried into their clothes.

  “Look here, Dick,” said Nancy. “The whole thing depends on you. It was only what you said about the pigeons that made her say she’d let us go. She’d ever so much rather have us roosting in the garden every night. We’ll find a camp easily enough, but if you don’t manage the pigeons’ bell-ringing, it won’t be any good.”

  “And you know the things to buy in Rio,” said John. “Hammers and new torches.”

  “And goggles,” said Susan. “Motor goggles will do. But you must have something if you’re going to go chipping at rocks.”

  “Don’t send off the first pigeon too soon,” said Dick. “Not till after twelve.”

  “Are you going to send messages?” asked Titty.

  “Of course,” said Nancy. “It’s a splendid chance.”

  “Mother’s moving about,” said Peggy, coming back with the pigeons in their basket. “And cook’s stoking up. You won’t have long to wait now, Roger.”

  “Shiver my timbers,” said Nancy. “We ought to be stirring our stumps. We’ve ten thousand miles to go.”

  They did not take the risk of going out by the stableyard and the gate, but slipped away in single file along the path through the wood and climbed the wall to get into the road. The others watched them out of sight.

  *

  The pioneers were well on their way when a gong sounded in the house. Peggy and Titty were tidying up in the camp, putting rugs and sleeping-bags to air. Roger was helping them, pointing out the things they had left undone. They hurried in to find Mrs Blackett already dealing out plates full of bacon and mushrooms along the bare trestle table in the dismantled dining-room.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “And where are the others?”

  Dick’s gone to the stable,” said Dorothea, “to look at the electric bell.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” said Mrs Blackett. “He isn’t really going to try to do anything with it, is he? But where are John and Susan and Nancy?”

  “They’ve started,” said Titty.

  “The pioneers are on the march,” said Dorothea.

  “Not without their breakfast?” said Mrs Blackett.

  “They’ve had their breakfast,” said Roger, rather hungrily.

  “They haven’t gone?” said Mrs Blackett. “I did want to see Nancy. I’ve been thinking over that idea of your all going up on the fells to camp. There was something I wanted to say to her.”

  “She was afraid there might be,” said Roger.

  Mrs Blackett’s mouth opened. For a moment no word came out of it. Roger, who had just made a very neat forkful of mushroom and toast, never saw how she looked at him. And then, suddenly, she laughed aloud.

  “My own fault,” she said. “I ought to have got up in the middle of the night to make sure of that dreadful girl. What I wanted to say was, why couldn’t we think of something else instead of gold-hunting, so that you wouldn’t have to go so far away?”

  Everybody looked at everybody else. How right Nancy had been.

  “It was your idea, mother,” said Peggy.

  “It was a dreadful mistake,” said Mrs Blackett. “I never dreamed of Slater Bob sending you half across the countryside.”

  “He couldn’t help it if that’s where the gold is,” said Titty.

  “Oh well,” said Mrs Blackett. “The Atkinsons may be sending all their milk to town, and I did say you couldn’t go unless those pigeons rang bells, didn’t I?”

  “They’re jolly well going to,” said Peggy, just as Dick came in.

  “Can I use the electric bell there is in the stable under the pigeon-loft,” said Dick, “and the wires that go across the yard?”

  Mrs Blackett sighed. “I suppose it would be unfair if I said you couldn’t. Yes, you can do what you like with it. There’s one thing about it,” she added hopefully, “it hasn’t worked for years.”

  *

  Soon after breakfast Peggy, Titty, Dorothea, and Roger set sail for Rio in the Amazon, leaving Dick to see what he could do with the bell. He had already taken it to bits and spread them on a sheet of newspaper on the bench in the old stable. Peggy had found him a large coil of insulated wire in Captain Flint’s tool cupboard. It might almost have been left there on purpose. Dick had given Dorothea a list of things to buy, four yards of flex and some thin sheet copper. “I’ll never get the bell done if I come, too,” he had said, and Dorothea had promised to do her best. D
ick watched the start, when Peggy took her shoes off to pull Amazon over the shallows. By the time she had hopped in again and Amazon was fairly sailing with Dorothea at the tiller, he was gone, and Titty, looking back, saw him disappear on the run, round the corner of the house. It was not going to be Dick’s fault if things were not ready in time.

  They tied up at one of the Rio boat piers and left Amazon in charge of a friendly boatman. Peggy wasted twopence by telephoning to the station to enquire for Timothy, but no livestock had come of any kind. Dorothea and Roger went off to buy the things for Dick, while the others were busy with the list of stores made out by Mrs Blackett. It was a good list, though when she had made it Mrs Blackett had been thinking that the camp would be no further from home than Beckfoot lawn. Roger had looked through it while they were sailing across. Some people always forget things like chocolate in making out a list like that. But Mrs Blackett, after all, was Captain Flint’s sister. Chocolate was in it, and oranges, bananas, tins of steak and kidney pie, tins of sardines, a large tin of squashed fly biscuits. It was a decidedly good list and Roger had had no criticisms to make. Then new torches had to be bought at the chemist’s, and a new thermos flask in place of Roger’s which had been broken. Then eight small hammers were bought at the ironmonger’s and eight pairs of sun goggles at the garage, and Titty, at the last moment, dashed into the stationer’s and bought an enormous ball of string.

  “Whatever for?” said Dorothea.

  “Exploring tunnels like yesterday,” said Titty. “Fasten one end of it, and unroll the other, so as not to get lost. You could feel your way out with it even if a bat had knocked your candle out and you hadn’t any more matches.”

  All four had parcels to carry, and the knapsacks on their backs, stuffed with tins, were heavy and uncomfortable before they came back to the boat pier, dumped their loads on the pier, stowed them in the Amazon and sailed for home.

  *

  Dick was hard at work. The morning had gone by at frightful speed. As far as he could see, nothing was wrong with that old bell but dirt and rust. But it took a long time to clean every bit of it, to get the rust off the gong and the verdigris off the brass terminals, to file the surfaces where they gripped the wires, and to get new bits of wire ready, with bright twisted ends to replace the old ones that he could not trust. Now he was putting it all together again. He was pretty sure he had thought of a way of turning the swinging wires of the pigeons’ door into a bell-push, but that would not be much good if he had not got a bell for it to ring. He screwed the trembler into place, and adjusted it until the little hammer on the trembler did not quite touch the bell. But would it tremble? He looked it all over, and took the dry battery out of his pocket torch. He took two short bits of insulated wire and fixed one between the battery and one of the terminals. Holding his breath, he made contact with the other. Would it tremble, or would it not? A tiny spark flickered as the wire touched. The trembler shivered into life …

  “Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …”

  And at that moment the provisioning party, who had landed their cargo and dumped the stores in the camp, came running into the yard.

  “Trrrrrrrrrr …”

  “Oh, well done, Dick. It works,” cried Dorothea.

  “Good,” said Titty, “but are you sure it’s loud enough?” The bell was certainly working, but would that faint tinkling purr catch the ears of busy natives?

  “It’s going to be a lot louder than that,” said Dick.

  “Regular howling din, it ought to be,” said Peggy.

  “Hurrah!” shouted Roger, paused for a moment to pull his new goggles out of his pocket, put them on, grinned horribly at Titty, and dashed off into the house to take the good news to Mrs Blackett.

  Presently he came soberly back.

  “What did she say,” said Peggy.

  “She liked the goggles,” said Roger.

  “Oh yes,” said Titty, “but what about the bell?”

  “She said, ‘Well done, Dick,’ and then she said, ‘It’s clever of Dick to make the old thing work, but the point isn’t whether Dick can ring it. The point is, can he make the pigeons ring it?’”

  “You can, can’t you, Dick?” said Dorothea.

  “I don’t know for certain,” said Dick. “Not till I’ve tried. You got the flex all right? And what about the sheet copper? It’s got to be fairly springy.”

  Dorothea handed over her parcel. The others watched anxiously while Dick looked at the coil of flex and tried the thin copper with a careful finger.

  “Is it all right?” said Titty.

  “It feels all right,” said Dick.

  “Are you going to use it now?”

  “I must first see just what happens when a pigeon flies home,” said Dick. “It all depends on how far they lift the wires.”

  A gong sounded in the house.

  “Grub,” said Roger.

  “Gosh,” said Peggy. “Dinner already.”

  “I don’t want any,” said Dick.

  “But you must,” said Dorothea.

  “The first pigeon may come any minute now, and I’ve simply got to see how it goes in.”

  “All right,” said Peggy. “We’ll bring your rations out here.”

  *

  Mrs Blackett did not seem to mind. Dorothea took him out a plateful of cold beef and potatoes and cauliflower and a glass of the pirate grog that natives, who know no better, call lemonade.

  “He wants the red book on mining,” she said, when she came back.

  “Where is he?” asked Mrs Blackett.

  “Sitting on the ladder by the pigeon-loft,” said Dorothea. “He can’t do anything till a pigeon comes, and he says Nancy told him to dig out all he could about gold.”

  “Oh well,” said Mrs Blackett, “if he doesn’t mind being worked so hard.”

  “He likes it,” said Dorothea, and went off to get Phillips on Metals from Captain Flint’s study, and to take it to the professor on the steps in the yard.

  She came back just in time to hear Mrs Blackett say, “That’s all very well, Peggy, but you’ve forgotten one thing. What about Timothy? Who’s going to look after him? What am I to do if the creature arrives and you are all away on High Topps? You haven’t even finished the box to put him in at nights.”

  “We’ll get it done this afternoon,” said Peggy.

  CHAPTER VI

  NEWS FROM THE WILDERNESS

  TITTY outside and Dick inside the pigeon-loft were waiting for the first of the returning pigeons. Dick was finding it hard to keep his mind on gold. He never had been able to think of two things at once. He laid Phillips on Metals aside and had yet another look at the pigeons’ own front door. It was oblong, with a slide that closed either one half or the other. When the slide was pushed to the right the pigeons could go freely in or out. When it was pushed to the left it left an opening with a row of wires hung on a bar. A strip of wood on the threshold stopped them from swinging outwards, but a pigeon coming in could push through them, and as soon as it was inside they would fall back into place. Carefully, with a finger, Dick lifted two or three of the little swinging wires through which the pigeons had to push their way. They were very light. Everything would depend on the pigeons’ strength and eagerness. Did they simply crash in, or did they feel their way in timidly, so that any little extra weight would stop them from wanting to come in at all? Titty was on the steps outside the loft, steep wooden steps up out of the old stableyard, keeping watch to warn Dick of the coming of the first pigeon. From there she could look out over the low outbuildings, and the shrubs and little trees beyond them to the hills on the further side of the river, and, in the distance to the great mass of Kanchenjunga, brown and blue and purple, rising into the dazzling brightness of the summer sky. Somewhere up there, under the blazing sun, John, Susan, and Nancy, pioneers, were exploring on behalf of the Company. Sounds of painters and plasterers at work, the moving of ladders and furniture, whistling and laughter, came from the house. But the noise of hamm
ering and sawing came not from the house but from the camp in the garden, where Peggy and Roger were finishing the sleeping hutch for Timothy. Every now and then Dorothea came running into the yard to get more nails or screws from the old stable under the pigeon-loft where Captain Flint had a carpenter’s bench.

  Homer was in the yard before ever Titty saw him. Her eyes were almost blind with staring into the sky, trying to see a black speck that would come nearer and nearer, bigger and bigger, and turn at last into a pigeon. But she never saw how Homer came. Suddenly there was the fluttering of wings, and Homer was already in the yard, flying uncertainly from house roof to stable roof, puzzled, perhaps, by the sight of Titty sitting on the steps.

  “Dick,” called Titty softly.

  There was no answer.

  The pigeon flew across towards the loft.

  “Dick,” cried Titty, desperate. “He’s here.”

  She heard a low murmur, “Go and tell Peggy.”

  The next moment Homer had lighted on the narrow shelf, stretched and closed his wings, and pushed his way in under the swinging wires which lifted to let him pass.

  Titty slipped down the ladder and ran round the corner of the house to the camp on the green lawn.

  “Peggy,” she shouted, “one of the pigeons has come home.”

  A saw was left sticking in the half-sawn plank that was going to be the armadillo’s bedroom door. Roger dropped the hammer.

  “Did Dick see it all right?” asked Dorothea.

  “There’ll be a message,” said Peggy.

  “They may want us to come along at once,” said Roger.