‘What do you say to that?’ finished Rex triumphantly.
Guy and Elizabeth hardly knew what to say. They were in fact a little doubtful about Rex’s motives. I don’t think we can blame them for their suspicion, for he had already, we must remember, made it clear that he thought the Resmiranda wasted on a mere girl.
‘Oh,’ said Elizabeth, ‘we couldn’t. Could we, Guy?’ Guy guessed by the wistful note in her voice that she was secretly pleased with their brother’s idea, but he did his best to look very severe and judicial. He, too, fancied there might be a catch in it somewhere.
‘Well, to begin with,’ he answered, ‘it’s impossible.’
‘How is it impossible?’ demanded Rex.
‘Well, silly, we can’t sail her, obviously, because she’s corked up in a bottle.’
Rex, thrusting two hands mannishly into his trousers pockets, gave a scornful laugh that was very impressive. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you, my little man, that we can take her out of the bottle?’
‘Little man yourself!’ retorted Guy, but quite without rancour. ‘How can we get her out? That’s what I want to know.’
‘Yes, how?’ echoed Elizabeth hopefully.
‘How?’ Rex smiled at them pityingly. ‘Poor babies! Why, by breaking the bottle, of course!’
The thing was so obvious, so undeniable, that Guy blushed to think that it should have escaped him. But Elizabeth, more timid than her brothers, was lost in fear and admiration of the idea. Its bold simplicity staggered her. She had been thinking that before the ship could be extracted from the bottle they would have to find out precisely how it had been put into it. To break the bottle, to remove the ship from its shell as though it had been an egg—why, it seemed almost a wicked thing to do. And yet … ‘If only we dared!’ she thought. Aloud she said: ‘Dad would be awfully wild.’
‘Rubbish!’ said Rex. ‘It’s ours, isn’t it, to do what we like with?’
‘No,’ said Guy. ‘It’s Elizabeth’s.’
Rex shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, anyway, it’s not Dad’s.’
‘We can all share it,’ said Elizabeth dreamily; and while the boys argued the matter this way and that, at intervals generously offering to punch each other’s head, she stood very still, listening to something that was neither near nor yet far away: something in her mind that was like the sound of the wind in a ship’s rigging and of surf booming and washing against a distant shore. A smile as of recognition lit up her intent, dreaming face; and her lips parted a little as though the wonder of what she saw made her breathless. Her brothers, glancing at her, knew at once that she hadn’t heard a word of their dispute; and they caught fire from her eyes. Guy, without words, flashed at her a question to which he already knew the answer.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s go at once. Oh, do let’s. But we must take Martin with us, you know.’
‘Here I am,’ cried Martin.
He stood in the doorway gravely regarding them, in his hand an ancient cuckoo-clock that was one of his most faithful companions.
‘Here I am,’ repeated Martin, ‘and ready for you, my hearties.’
He had remembered this expression from his father’s talk of the previous evening, and he was inclined to be offended when the others burst out laughing at him; but he allowed Elizabeth to take possession of his disengaged hand, and quite forgot his grievance when Rex, jumping on a chair, lifted down the bottle-ship from its place on the mantelpiece and hid it under his jacket.
In high excitement they filed out of the play-room, into the corridor, into the kitchen, into the scullery, and so to the back garden. ‘What mischief now?’ called Nancy, from the back door. ‘You’re all too quiet to be up to any good.’ But they took no notice of Nancy, though their hearts beat quick with anxiety lest someone, some parent or other, should take it into his head to surprise them and forbid the expedition. As the last of them was squeezing through the little gap in the fence at the bottom of the garden, they heard the ominous sharp sound of a window being pushed up, and Mrs Robinson’s voice called urgently: ‘Children, where are you going?’
Having now gained the field beyond, they crouched down behind the shelter of the fence. ‘Don’t answer!’ whispered Rex. ‘She’ll think we didn’t hear.’
‘Elizabeth!’ The attack was beginning. Mrs Robinson was not so easily deceived.
‘Yes, mummy?’ answered Elizabeth meekly, peeping through the gap.
‘Ah, there you are!’ Mrs Robinson laughed. ‘Is Martin with you?’
‘Yes, mummy.’
‘Well, take good care of him. And don’t be late for tea, mind!’
It was over. The crisis was past, and they could all breathe freely again, and freely enjoy this burning September afternoon. A shimmer of heat danced over the surface of the meadow and set quivering its long fine grasses; the air was musical with a drowsy hum and rich with the flavour of dried turf. The whole world seemed to be soaked in the strong sunlight, and the children could feel its warmth entering them at every pore, so that presently, it almost seemed, they must become luminous and transparent like bubbles. With something of the airy grace of bubbles they ran lightly across the field, their eager feet scarcely touching the ground. At one point Martin hung back and persuaded Elizabeth to stop and watch with him the adventures of a red soldier that was bravely climbing to the very top of a tall blade of grass; but Rex called to them impatiently to come on.
‘Is there enough wind for sailing, do you think?’ asked Elizabeth anxiously, as she and Martin caught up with the others.
Rex wrinkled up his nose and looked extremely weather-wise. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if we ran into a bit of very nasty weather before long,’ he remarked.
This magnificent retort made Elizabeth feel so small that she didn’t venture another word until they reached the pond.
The moment had now come for the ship to be launched into those perilous waters, and the three elder ones glanced at each other a little uneasily. Even Rex, usually ready for anything, seemed to be for a moment at a loss. Nobody, to tell the truth, quite liked the idea of breaking that bottle; and Martin didn’t help matters by saying, to no one in particular: ‘There’s more in her, mark ’ee, than meets the eye,’ But it wasn’t that that worried the others: what they were thinking, in spite of the bold face they had put on it ten minutes before, was that Mr Robinson would certainly have something to say when he heard what they had done.
Guy was the first to pluck up resolution. ‘We’d better do it with a stone,’ he said. He picked up a large stone from the ground. ‘Look, here’s a whopper. This’ll do fine. Now if Rex holds the bottle and I have a whack at it…’
‘Better look out!’ advised Elizabeth, thinking of Martin. ‘The glass will fly all over the place if we aren’t careful.’
‘I know a better way than that,’ said Rex. ‘We’ll put it in the water just as it is, bottle and all. It’ll float all right because it’s corked. And then we’ll all have a pot at it and the one that smashes the bottle will be captain for this cruise.’
Elizabeth objected to this scheme on the grounds that they might break the ship as well as the bottle, or perhaps even sink her; but Guy, excited by the mere possibility of winning his first command, for once supported his brother. So they placed the bottle carefully in the water, well within reach of their hands, and retired a few paces to take aim; while Martin ran to and fro with shrill cries, busily collecting ammunition.
Rex, being the eldest, was given first shot; but he missed the mark. ‘Now go it, Guy!’ said he. ‘And if you do it you’ll be captain.’
But Guy had no better luck.
Then Elizabeth, trembling with excitement, lifted her stone; and, though it is notorious that girls can’t throw straight, the fact remains that Elizabeth’s stone struck the bottle fair and square in the middle.
Her brothers opened their mouths to applaud her, but no sound came except three long gasps of astonishment. For suddenly the sun had gone down; the air was crisp
and salt; and the four children were standing on a grassy cliff and gazing in wonder across a dim expanse of sea.
Something slim and dark, like a tall pencil, moved slowly to and fro between them and the dull red sky. ‘What’s that?’ cried Rex, pointing.
‘I know,’ said Guy, after a moment of silence. ‘It’s the mast of a ship. Look, there’s another of them!’
‘Our ship!’ murmured Elizabeth in a soft exultant tone.
‘What, a real one?’ asked Martin.
They crawled—Elizabeth keeping a firm hold on Martin—to the cliff’s edge and peered over; and in the dim rich afterglow of sunset they saw beneath them, ancient and queenly and proud, a two-masted vessel with four brown sails—the Spanish caravel.
‘It’s the Resmiranda herself,’ said Elizabeth.
As she spoke, the air filled with sea-gulls. They circled about widely, with strange half-human cries; and then, one by one, they came to rest in the ship’s rigging and were silent.
Chapter 4
Getting Aboard
They lost very little time wondering how it had happened: the important thing was to discover a way of getting on to the ship. It was on occasions like this that Rex’s really useful qualities came into play, for while Guy and Elizabeth—with Martin a captive between them—peered over the cliff’s edge and talked in excited whispers, they suddenly realized that Rex had disappeared. ‘Where’s Rex? Where’s Rex?’ They jumped up and called out: ‘Coo-ee! Coo-ee!’ Their voices floated out over the vast water, and came back to them in ghostly echoes. Two little stars, sharp like pin-points, began pricking and twinkling in the sky.
‘Where is he?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘I don’t know,’ said Guy.
They both spoke calmly, but they were secretly very uneasy. After a silence they began calling again: ‘Coo-ee! Coo-ee!’ And then they sang out, to the same little tune of two notes: ‘Re-ex! Re-ex!’
‘Here I am,’ answered a voice from below.
‘Where?’ said Elizabeth. And, ‘Are you down on the ship?’ cried Guy.
‘No, I’m here.’ It was the voice of Rex, already far away.
Then they saw him. He was descending the cliff with almost miraculous courage, digging his toes for support into the chalky surface and clinging with his fingers to any little projection, any tuft of grass or tangle of shrub that offered. Elizabeth gave a sharp sigh of fear, and turned away as if unable to bear the sight. But Guy and Martin watched with shining eyes. Rex was certainly, they thought, a leader worth following. At last they saw that he had gained a narrow ledge of rock that projected two-thirds of the way down the cliff-side. He stood for a moment looking down. It seemed impossible that he could descend further, for the face of the cliff below him was perpendicular—a sheer drop of twenty feet. ‘What will he do next?’ his brothers asked each other. They were soon answered, for the next instant he jumped. They held their breath, and then … There was Rex on the deck of the Resmiranda. He was staring up at them and furiously waving.
‘Is he hurt?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘Are you hurt?’ shouted the two younger boys.
They heard him calling, but at that great height his words were indistinct, almost ghostly. Even their own voices, as they murmured together, sounded queer and somehow lonely in that dim quiet place, where nothing else was to be heard but the beating of wings and the lapping of water.
‘What shall we do?’ asked Martin; but, as so often happened, he wasn’t listened to. He stood there, rather a forlorn little boy, with his precious cuckoo-clock still grasped firmly in one hand; but if he was inclined to wish himself home again with his mother he wisely held his tongue about it.
Presently the watchers saw Rex reappear on the deck, dragging a great coil of rope behind him. Then Guy was visited by an idea, and an alarming idea it was. ‘I’m going down to that ledge,’ he announced.
‘Guy, you mustn’t! You’ll fall!’ said Elizabeth.
But Guy was determined to make the attempt: nothing would stop him. ‘Rex did it, so why shouldn’t I?’ demanded he. ‘And when I get there I can catch the rope and fetch it back.’
‘And supposing you do,’ objected Elizabeth, ‘what shall we do with the old rope when we’ve got it?’
‘We shall all climb down into the ship,’ said Guy airily. He knew perfectly well that what Elizabeth meant was that there was no means of securing the rope so that it might bear their weight; but he was now so obstinately set on his plan that he wouldn’t listen to her. Besides, it was not his way to look too far ahead; he was content to deal with one difficulty at a time.
He lowered himself carefully over the edge, watched anxiously by Elizabeth and Martin from above, and by Rex from below, and began the dangerous descent. The cliff was not, fortunately, anything like so steep as it had seemed from the top. Still it was quite steep enough, and Guy had many an anxious moment before he reached the safety of the ledge. From that point it was all comparatively plain sailing. Rex, after one or two tries, succeeded in throwing the rope to him; and Guy, with the rope tied round his waist, climbed doggedly back to the top, cutting steps in the cliff with his jack-knife as he went along, and hoisting himself up to them by clinging to the sinewy tree-roots and bits of bush that he found in its irregular surface. It was a long and difficult climb, but at last it was over, and when he arrived safely at the top he was surprised to see how pale and frightened Elizabeth looked. For, on the way up, busy as he had been with ways and means, he had almost forgotten his danger, thinking to himself that these tree-roots must mean that somewhere, not too far away, there were trees, and that a tree was the very thing they most needed.
And there it was, not ten yards away, a tall slim pine. If only they had been less intent on the ship and had troubled to look behind them they would have seen it at once. ‘Oh, Guy!’ cried Elizabeth, clutching his hands; but he shook himself gently free of her and only answered: ‘Look! That’s just what we want—a tree!’
They ran to the tree, and Guy twisted the rope two or three times round its trunk. ‘I’ll make a knot, of course,’ he said. ‘But I’ll hold on, too, just to make sure. Rex has tied the other end to the mast, so it’s quite safe.’
‘Is it?’ said Elizabeth.
They all stood waiting for what was to happen next.
‘Go on,’ urged Guy. ‘Martin first, because he is the lightest.’
Martin said, in a very small voice: ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Don’t want to!’ echoed Guy, pretending not to believe him. ‘Not want to go to sea!’
The situation was critical. Martin knew perfectly well that everything depended on him; that he could, if he stood out, wreck the whole adventure. And, being frightened, that was just what he wanted to do. At the same time he didn’t want to spoil Elizabeth’s fun.
‘Must I go first?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Elizabeth assured him, squeezing his hand to give him courage.
‘Down that rope?’ said Martin, eyeing the rope very doubtfully.
‘Yes,’ put in Guy. ‘Down that rope, old chap. Hand over hand, you know, like a sailor. What a lark, eh!’
Martin’s lip quivered. But he managed to answer: ‘Yes, what a lark!’ After a pause for thought he added: ‘Do you think it’ll be a lark, Elizabeth?’
Elizabeth—who, I don’t mind telling you, was on the point of tears—could only look unhappily at Guy. He nodded energetically. ‘Of course I think so,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Rex is waiting for you,’ added Guy. ‘We’ll see you don’t fall.’
‘You’re coming too, aren’t you?’ said Martin to Elizabeth.
‘Yes… afterwards.’
He looked from one to the other; then at the water; then at the rope; and for a few moments he stood, large-eyed and motionless, thinking things out.
At last he said ‘All right!’ and walked bravely to the edge.
‘Hand over hand,’ said Guy. ‘Don’t forget. And, whatever you do, don’t look down, because
that’s against the rules.’
The next three or four minutes were a terrible experience for Elizabeth, and scarcely less terrible for Guy and Rex; but Martin, once he had started on his way, seemed to lose all fear. Presently Elizabeth, who was watching Martin while Guy held the rope, called out: ‘He’s there, Guy. Rex has got him!’ Guy answered: ‘Your turn now. Be quick, Elizabeth.’
‘But, Guy,’ she said, ‘who’s going to hold the rope for you, if I go first?’
‘Nobody. That’s all right. I shall make it secure enough, you bet.’
‘But suppose it doesn’t bear you! You’re heavier than me. I tell you what’d be fun. You go first and I’ll hold the end, to prevent it slipping.’
Elizabeth brought all this out very airily and innocently, as though it were no more than an amusing idea that she had just thought of. But Guy was not deceived.
‘No time to argue,’ said Guy. ‘Off you go, Elizabeth.’
She came closer to him. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’
She looked at him so strangely and so unhappily that Guy, for one startled moment, thought she was going to kiss him or something. So he answered scornfully: ‘Of course I’ll be all right. Do hurry up, Elizabeth.’
Elizabeth turned away. Guy took a firm grip on the rope’s end. But the rope was wound so many times round the tree-trunk that there was no difficulty at all in holding it, and before very long he heard Rex shouting that Elizabeth had safely arrived. So now, feeling lonely, and eager to be with the others, Guy quickly knotted the rope a second time, and running to the edge of the cliff let himself over and began going down hand over hand.
The Happy Mariners Page 2
