“They haven’t lowered their dinghy,” said Peggy from the cross-trees. “Oh! They’re putting it over now. No, they aren’t. It’s all ready for lowering, but they’ve changed their minds.”
“Dick,” said Captain Flint. “I’m coming ashore with you … Just in case.”
“We can’t do any harm by getting some more heather,” said Dick gloomily, “even if we don’t use it.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Dorothea. “We could stay here on guard until he gives up and clears out.”
“Just what we can’t,” said Captain Flint.
“Come on, you two,” said Susan to Titty and Dorothea. “Let’s get what’s left of the heather tied on before Dick’s back with a new lot.”
“Don’t let’s decide anything yet,” said Dorothea.
The cheerfulness of the day was gone. The Pterodactyl had not, after all, been given the slip, and when Captain Flint and Dick rowed ashore for a last lot of heather, no one could have told whether there was deeper gloom in the dinghy or aboard the Sea Bear.
CHAPTER XVI
A GOOD LOOK-OUT
ROGER, AS HE went scrambling up the hill to the Pict-house, was very well pleased with himself, as he always was when the Sea Bear had been using her engine. He knew today that but for her engine (and, of course, her engineer) the Sea Bear would have had no chance of getting back into the cove without the Pterodactyl seeing where she was going. He was not in the least interested in Dick’s birds but was grateful to Dick and to them for giving him such a chance of showing what the engine (and, of course, the engineer) could do. He, Roger, had beaten the Pterodactyl and, though the Pterodactyl would know nothing about it, he was looking forward to watching her steam away on a wild goose chase and to gloating as he watched. He chuckled. That was it. A Diver chase for the Sea Bear and she knew where to find them. The Pterodactyl was after Divers too, but her Divers had turned into wild geese and she was chasing them all for nothing.
He climbed as fast as he could, afraid that she would be out of sight before he came to the top. Just before he reached the Pict-house he saw her, a distant white splash moving fast across the blue sea. That was all right. He was not too late. Before climbing up the side of the mound that had been built who could tell how many thousand years ago, he looked warily beyond it to the ridge that hid Dorothea’s “castle”. There was no one moving on it. For a moment or two he watched carefully, remembering the invisible stalkers of two days ago, those dogs and the tall Gael who had sent the explorers flying down the valley. No. There was no one about. Roger scrambled up, dropped into the hollow where the roof of the ancient dwelling had fallen in and became invisible unless to a hawk overhead. It was a perfect place for a coastguard station. There was even a dip in the wall on the side facing the sea so that Roger, himself hidden, could look out over the cliffs and watch the Pterodactyl hurrying on her fruitless journey. Roger chuckled to himself, thinking of the egg-collector and his men searching the horizon to the north of them for a sight of the Sea Bear’s white sails. Well, he had better let the others know. After another wary glance up at the ridge, he stood up and waved to get the attention of the Sea Bear’s crew.
Far below him in the nearer of the two inlets he could see his ship. They were just getting the folding boat over the side. He signalled, “Heading for Arctic” and, through his telescope, saw Nancy’s answering “Good.”
He dropped down again into his hollow and watched the Pterodactyl keeping on her course to the north. Only just in time, he said to himself. In a very few minutes now she would be hidden by a headland that ran out from the coast. Gosh, what a pace she was going. Roger envied the engineer who had such engines to look after. He was almost sorry for the egg-collector. “Cold … colder … Jolly well freezing,” he murmured, as he watched that racing white splash that was carrying the enemy in the wrong direction. “And he’s been quite warm. If he’d been half an hour sooner or we’d been half an hour later, he’d have been hot by now … Boiling … He’d have found us.” On and on went the white splash, far out at sea. “If she doesn’t turn quickly, we’re safe. It doesn’t matter where she goes then … Shetland or North Pole.” Even with the telescope it became hard to see her. More than once he lost sight of her. At last he could see her no more. She was gone.
“Good-bye,” said Roger, stood up and went to look down at the Sea Bear. He saw the dinghy lying beside her, full of the crew, and somebody, Dick, climbing down into the folding boat. He signalled “Gone out of sight,” got an answering wave from somebody in the dinghy, and, for the moment, put the Sea Bear out of his mind. Let them play with their birds. He had the day before him and the Pict-house to himself. He was not sure whether to be Primitive Man or Coastguard. He could be a bit of both. Coastguard, of course, if the Pterodactyl had been in sight but, now that there was no Pterodactyl to watch, he saw nothing against a morning as Primitive Man.
In old days, as ship’s boy, and even now, cruising in the Sea Bear and rated as Engineer, he had had far too few chances of planning his own day. There was always a captain somewhere, or a mate, to tell him what to do next. Look at the way the Pict-house had been wasted although it was his own discovery. It was true that there had been some good moments after they had left it, when they were being followed up the valley and watched by savages they could not see. But, if they had stayed at the Pict-house, something even better might have happened. From the moment he had found it, he had felt that it ought to be used. It was better, far better, than the igloo of that winter holiday they had spent in the lakes. In its way, it was as good as old Speedy, the derelict barge in which they had found a boy living all by himself in a creek on the East Coast. Today, Roger felt like that boy. The Pict-house was his own.
But was it? He remembered the biscuit box he had found hidden away in the blocked up tunnel underneath it. He slipped over the edge, went to the entrance, crawled in, found the box and brought it out. Had the person who had left it there come back and eaten that cake? He opened the box and knew at once that somebody else had been at the Pict-house since its discovery by the explorers two days before. The packet of cake had gone. In its place was a slab of chocolate in a red wrapper with gold lettering. At least the wrapper said it was chocolate. Roger slipped it out of the wrapper to make sure and unfolded the silver paper that covered it. Yes, it was chocolate all right and he did not think it could be poisoned. He broke off a small bit, but did not put it in his mouth. Two days ago, it had not been there. He could not persuade himself that he could rightly count it treasure trove and test for himself whether the chocolate was as good as the chocolate served aboard the Sea Bear, of which, after all, he had a good supply in his knapsack. Bother it. Roger fitted the bit he had broken off to the rest of the chocolate, wrapped it up again, put it back in the box, took the box into the tunnel and left it where he had found it.
He crawled out once more, and almost guiltily, in spite of not having eaten the bit of chocolate, looked round. Up there, at the Pict-house, he was still alone in an empty world. There was nothing moving, even at sea. There was nothing moving on the ridge that walled out that other world of people and dogs that he had seen when they had gone up the gap to look down into the next valley. Down below him, in the cove, the Sea Bear lay deserted. Inland, he could see the blue hills, the slopes of rock and heather, but, though he could see some of the water of the loch, the little island and the further shore, he could see nothing of the near shore and the natural-history party. He was alone.
He climbed up once more into the hollow made by the falling in of the roof of the ancient dwelling, and settled down to be as prehistoric as he could. In a way, it was a pity Titty was not there. She would have known at once what Primitive Man would do. And Dorothea, of course, would have had a story about him ready made. Roger was not like that. Stories did not come easily to him. Being things did. Lying there in the hollow on the top of the Pict-house, he was the last of his race, or was it the first? He could have just finished building h
is house on the top of a hill so that he could see enemies long before they could arrive. The way in was too small for bears and easy to defend against wolves. But perhaps it would be better to be the last of his race. All, all had been eaten by wild beasts or wilder men and he, Roger, was alone, knowing that his turn would come and that any man he saw moving on the moorland or coming in a boat over the sea was an enemy. Properly, he thought, he ought to be naked. Primitive Man wore nothing but paint and perhaps a wolf-skin. But he had no skins and no paint and decided at once that too much realism would be chilly. So, though he had considered it for a moment, he did not take off his clothes. After all, his clothes were comfortable and loose and if Primitive Man had had the chance he would probably have swopped his skins for them, particularly if, instead of being snug inside his lair, he was up on the top of it keeping a sharp look-out.
A line of smoke far out at sea turned him from Primitive Man into Coastguard, and for a long time he followed with his telescope boat after boat of a fishing fleet steaming south. When the last of them had disappeared, he went to the side from which he could look down to the creek and saw that something was going on aboard the Sea Bear. With the telescope he could see half-a-dozen people busy on deck. They had come back from looking at those birds. He could not see what they were doing, but it looked very like work and Roger became at once an engineer on holiday. The harder the sailors were working the pleasanter it was to know that the engineer had nothing to do.
Once, later on in the morning, he saw that they were looking up towards him. He became Coastguard once more, and signalled to them to say that there was nothing in sight. He saw Peggy signalling back. What was that she was saying? Telling him to come back to the ship? Not he! He signalled an indignant “No,” and did not give them a chance of signalling again. Let them get on with their work and leave him to keep watch for all of them.
He settled himself comfortably in the hollow on the top of the Pict-house. He laid his telescope handy and unpacked his stores. It would be silly to take his grub down to the ship after carrying it up the hill. And anyhow somebody ought to be keeping watch in case the Pterodactyl came back. He opened his packet of sandwiches and divided it into two halves, one for dinner and one for a later meal. It was a pity he had not thought of bringing two bottles of lemonade. Looking out over the sea between mouthfuls, and being, at different moments, Prehistoric Man, Coastguard, Sentinel, and Engineer taking a day off, he made a hearty meal, heartier in fact than he had intended, for, after eating the first half of his sandwiches, he ate the second, and then his chocolate, sucked an orange and, after drinking half his lemonade, decided that it was really not worth while to keep the rest.
Soon after that, he fell asleep.
There was every excuse for him. He had been up early the day before. He had slept but little during the night. He had been wakened before dawn that morning. The sun was hot. He pulled a sunhat from his knapsack and put it on to shade his eyes. He had made himself very comfortable. In the hollow on the top of the Pict-house he was sheltered from the wind. He closed his eyes once or twice, opened them wide and let them close again. Without meaning to, he allowed them to stay shut, and was presently making up for all the hours he had missed from his bunk.
A sandy-haired boy in Highland dress stood in the gap where the cart track crossed the ridge and looked about him. The valley was empty. He smiled to himself, thinking of the invaders whom he and old Angus the shepherd had kept in sight two days before and thinking of the way in which old Angus had sent them flying when he had seen them disturbing the deer. They had gone flying back to their boat and yesterday morning Angus had reported that they had cleared out, good riddance to them, and that he had watched them sail away.
Suddenly the smile left his lips. What was that, down in the near cove? A boat? He pulled a large pair of stalking glasses from a worn leather case that was slung from his shoulder. Angus was wrong. If that was not the same boat that had lain there two days ago, it was very like it. And if old Angus was wrong in thinking that they had sailed away it meant that he was right in thinking that they had been up to mischief. If those people had come back there would be work for the ghillies. This was no time of year for driving hinds. Once started, they might go far enough.
The day before yesterday when those invaders had stirred up the deer they had been chased off with no harm done, but Ian had been there when the old ghillie had told his father what had happened. Ian’s father had been as angry as old Angus. He had been the more indignant on hearing that the deer-drivers had been children. “More shame,” he had said, “to them who set the bairns to such work.” Another time, he had ordered, there was to be no chasing off. The invaders were to be rounded up, and he had left it to young Ian and old Angus and the ghillies to make their plans and turn the hunters into the hunted. Old Angus had agreed with him. “Lay hold of the bairns,” he had said, “and we will soon ken who put them up to it. It is not the first time, but we will make sure it is the last.” It had been a dour and disappointed Angus who had come to the breakfast table next morning to report that the invaders had been frightened off for good and taken their boat out of the bay. It had been a disappointed Ian who had heard him.
For a moment he thought of turning back through the gap to bring the news that the boat was here again. But old Angus was away up to the head of the valley. And, of course, it might not be the same boat, though it looked very like it. He decided to go down from the ridge, climb the little hill to his private hiding-place, the grass-covered ruin that he called the broch, and from there get a nearer view of the boat. Besides, he had left a slab of chocolate in his biscuit box safe there, together with his diary, the diary that for the sake of practice he wrote in the Gaelic he talked with the ghillies, though he always talked English with his father.
Far away below, aboard the Sea Bear, the netting party was hard at work. Roger, the sentinel, was asleep on the top of the old Pict-house. No one looked up to catch a glimpse of the young Highlander coming nimbly down the heather-covered slope of the ridge. There were only a few moments when he could have been seen from the Sea Bear, for he slipped away towards the cliffs from the gap in the ridge, and came up again to the Pict-house from the seaward side of the hill. He moved silently and fast, as he and his ancestors, deer-stalkers all, had always moved, whether there was need or no. He came to the Pict-house and, close against its grass-covered wall, moved cautiously round it till he could look down the steep slope to the cove and the anchored boat.
He was sure it was the same boat. Lying on the ground beside the broch, he took his hunting-glasses from their case, and watched. There seemed to be a lot of people on deck, busy at something. Even with the hunting-glasses he could not see what they were doing, but he could see that two at least of them were those same interlopers whom he and old Angus had caught disturbing the deer. Yes, and this time there was one of the men who had put them up to it, a great fat brute lolling about on the deck. Old Angus had been mistaken in thinking they had gone for good. Here they were again, and they would never have come back for nothing. They must have somebody working with them who knew the coast well, or they would never have dared to anchor where they were. Ian wondered who it could be. Somebody with land not far away. Angus had told him what they were up to. Deer are like salmon. They come back to the places where they began their lives, and by shifting the hinds in the breeding season a dishonest man could ruin his neighbour’s deer-forest and improve his own without ever laying hand on a single beast. It was the very meanest of tricks. And to use children for the driving made it meaner. It would be too late for the scoundrels to do anything today and they were clearly busy with preparations of some kind. But they would not hang about longer than they needed. They would be up to their games tomorrow. Well, tomorrow, he and Angus and the ghillies would be ready for them.
The old Pict-house had been Ian’s private hiding-place and look-out ever since he had been a very small boy. He worked round it now to the square entra
nce of the tunnel that had once led into the room where the ancient Picts had lived. He crawled in and brought out the tin box. He opened it and took out the packet of chocolate and his diary. There were several things to enter in that diary … the invasion of the valley by people who were using children to get the deer on the move … chasing them off … the departure of their boat … and now his own discovery that the boat, after sailing away, no doubt to lull suspicion, had come back and was even now lurking in the cove. The Gaelic words came easily to his pencil and he wrote them down, and put the diary back in the box, thinking of the next entry that should tell of the triumphant rounding up of the whole gang.
Then, sitting with his back against the wall of the Pict-house, he opened the packet of chocolate. Odd. It looked as if it had been opened before, but he did not remember opening it. Still odder. A bit had been broken off one corner and fitted back again, and he did, clearly, remember feeling the chocolate through its paper before he put it away and finding that he had not cracked it as he thought he had, when hurrying down hill he had slipped, and brought himself up hard against a rock. He must have been mistaken. Anyhow, the chocolate had come to no harm, and sitting there in the sunshine, where the ground below him hid all but the top of his head and his eyes from the boat he was watching, Ian ate it, thinking over how many ghillies would be needed to make sure that none of the invaders should get away if they came after the deer tomorrow.
He had finished the chocolate, folded up the paper and put it away in the deerskin sporran that served him for a pocket, when he was startled by a small noise close above him. It was not a sigh. It was not exactly a grunt. He listened. There it was again. Could it be a hare? Ian crept round the Pict-house till he could safely stand up without being seen from the cove. Very slowly, inch by inch, he climbed up the side. Slowly, slowly he raised his head till he could see over the rim made by the old walls into the sunken place in the middle. A boy, smaller than himself, was lying asleep. His mouth was just open. Again Ian heard that gentle breathing noise. Ian knew that boy by sight. He had been one of those he had seen that other day, striking stone on stone to stir the deer and make them show themselves.
Great Northern? Page 17
