by W E Johns
‘What we have here isn’t going to last four hungry men very long unless we go on a starvation diet, but I don’t think we should do any shooting just yet. Once the enemy knows we’re here it won’t matter. We’ll give him till tomorrow morning to show his hand.’
‘What are you going to do this afternoon?’ inquired Ginger.
‘Nothing. Lie low and keep my eyes open. There’s no need for us all to do that, though. As I said before, one can fish without making a noise, so I suggest, Rod, you walk as far as the loch or the river and try for a salmon or one or two sea-trout. That would help out with the grub stakes. You know your way about; can you get to the river without being seen from the castle?’
‘I think so. As I told you, I left the rod there. I could try it.’
‘Fair enough. You can take Bertie with you. Ginger will stay here with me.’
‘Talking of fish,’ said Bertie, ‘there should be some cracking good lobsters round the rocks. If there’s one dish that makes me smack my lips it’s lobster, hot, cold, or anyhow.’
‘This is neither the time nor place for pandering to your expensive tastes,’ replied Biggles. ‘What we want is good solid food. You can amuse yourself groping for lobsters when we’ve got this business buttoned up.’
‘We may be late back,’ put in Rod.
‘Why?’
‘Sea-trout take best around sundown.’
‘I don’t care how long you take as long as you bring something home with you. While you’re away we’ll get our stuff out of sight, under some bracken, or something, so that it can’t be seen whatever happens. If we lost it we should be in a mess. Let’s have a look at how far the tide has gone down.’
Going out they found it at full ebb, or practically so, for the top of the cabin, the highest part of the Gannet, was only a few inches below the surface. Indeed, the water was eddying over it.
‘Where did you stow your stores?’ Ginger asked Rod.
‘There are lockers fore and aft.’
‘You get into them from the cabin?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘With the water at this level I think I could get in and salvage a few things.’
Biggles shook his head. ‘Better not try that. You might find yourself trapped. It might be worth considering if we were pushed really hard for food, but things haven’t come to that yet. ‘I’d rather not take the risk at present.’
‘I can’t see that there’s much risk,’ argued Ginger.
‘For all we know she might be nicely balanced on the rocks below and your weight moving about might cause her to roll over. Leave it for the time being, anyhow.’
Rod said: ‘If there’s nothing more we can do here we might as well get on after the fish.’
‘Okay. Be careful not to show yourselves. Keep away from skylines.’
‘Sure.’
Rod and Bertie set off, making their way by the beach.
Biggles turned back to the house. ‘We’ll take turns to keep guard,’ he told Ginger.
‘After all these precautions we’d look silly if it turned out there was nobody here after all,’ returned Ginger lightly.
‘We’d look sillier if when our backs were turned some swine slipped in and pinched our grub and our gear,’ retorted Biggles. ‘You take the glasses, creep up to the ridge and cover the landscape. Keep dead still. In open country like this the slightest movement catches the eye of anyone watching. If you spot anything suspicious give me a whistle. I’ll relieve you in an hour. Meanwhile I’ll get our stuff out of sight and lay in a stock of dry bracken for beds.’
‘Fair enough.’ With the binoculars out of their case and hanging by their strap on his chest Ginger went off up the bank. Creeping the last few yards to the ridge he gazed out across a picture of sombre green, unbroken by a movement, that might have pleased a hunter with a gun but left him without any such enthusiasm. He settled down to watch.
Biggles busied himself with his task, arranging their belongings in a corner and then fetching quantities of bracken to cover them. This done he brought in more dry stuff which he strewed about the floor for beds, leaving the middle of the room clear. This occupied him for the best part of an hour, when he joined Ginger on the ridge.
‘See anything?’ he inquired.
‘Not a sausage. The place looks deader than dead to me.’
‘It may look like that, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Aren’t you forgetting the boat? Somebody scuttled it, and whoever did that is still here. As Rod has neither heard a plane nor seen a boat since that happened, unless the skunk has wings, I don’t see how he could have left the island. The arrival of our machine must have been outside his calculations. It’s given him something to think about and he’s gone to earth to ponder the possibilities.’
‘That’s right enough.’
They watched together for a time without seeing anything more interesting than some wild duck rise from the direction of the loch.
‘I imagine Rod and Bertie put ‘em up,’ observed Biggles casually.
Then Ginger went down, and a whistle some time later told Biggles that he had made a pot of tea. Biggles came down, and Ginger, having had his tea, went up again.
Guard was maintained until seven o’clock, by which time dusk had closed in to dim the scene, and as it was no longer possible to see anything clearly there was no point in continuing to watch. Ginger had a last look round, his eyes striving to probe the gloom, and decided he had never seen anything more dismal, more depressing. The sky had become overcast and there was a chill in the air. It felt damp, as if rain was not far away. He was more than a little glad they had a shelter, rude though it was, for the night.
‘Rod and Bertie are a long time,’ he remarked, when he rejoined Biggles, whom he found had taken up a position at the door of the house, seated on a rock which he had found or brought up from below.
‘Keep your voice down,’ requested Biggles. ‘From now we shall have to rely on our ears.’
‘Nobody will come here now,’ declared Ginger confidently.
‘On the contrary, this is just about the time I’d expect a visit. I hope this cloud will break up to let a little light through, otherwise we shan’t see much, anyway. I’m not going to risk using a light outside. Inside the house it won’t matter, because it could only be seen from directly out to sea. Did you by any chance notice a light at the castle?’
‘Not a glimmer. If there’s anyone there he’s not showing lights, either.’
‘He could have all the light he wanted in one of the inside rooms, if it comes to that. What the devil are our chaps doing? I know Rod said they might be late, but I didn’t expect them to be as late as this.’
Biggles went into the house to light a cigarette. Thereafter they sat and waited for the most part in silence. Darkness fell from the sky. There was no sound except the eternal lapping and gurgling of the waves among the rocks below, the gulls, apparently, having retired to their night quarters.
Biggles moved uneasily. ‘I don’t like this,’ he muttered. ‘I hope our fishing party is all right. They should have been back before this. Rod knows the place, so they can hardly have lost their way.’
‘What could happen to them?’
‘A good many things. They might have got stuck in a bog, bitten by an adder, broken a leg on some rocks, or, having got off their track, gone over a cliff. There’s only one beach.’
Ginger did not answer. He was thinking the same thing.
It was shortly after this that not far away a game bird rose with a whirr of wings and a squawk of alarm. Ginger was about to say here they come when Biggles’s hand fell on his knee and pressed it. ‘Ssh,’ he breathed.
They waited, and as they sat in silence Ginger realized that the sound had come from the wrong direction for it to have been caused by the approach of Rod or Bertie. It seemed to have come from somewhere behind them. It certainly hadn’t come from the beach, t
he route Rod would almost certainly take.
It seemed a long time before anything happened. Indeed, Ginger had decided in his mind that the fowl had been disturbed by a fox, or some other predatory creature, when a voice spoke, so close that his nerves twitched. It said two words. ‘He’s gone.’
Another voice, this with a Scots accent, said: ‘Aye. Seems like you were richt. He’s awa.’
After a pause the first voice spoke again. ‘We needn’t waste time here. We might have a look round in daylight. Let’s get back.’
‘He’ll no come here again, ye’re thinking?’
‘Unless he’s a fool, not now he sees what happens.’
The other man did not seem so sure. ‘I ken these Macasters. They’re no fools.’
This was followed by sounds of the men scrambling up the bank. They made a lot more noise than they had coming, supposing, presumably, there was no longer any need for caution.
‘Now what about it?’ breathed Biggles in Ginger’s ear.
‘How right you were,’ acknowledged Ginger.
The whole incident had lasted only a few minutes, and during that critical period the thought that had exercised his mind was, what would happen should Rod and Bertie return before the men had gone? Luckily this did not happen, but it was a near thing. Within a very short time their voices could be heard coming from the direction of the beach. Soon afterwards they walked up, and even in the darkness it could be seen that Bertie was carrying a long, light-coloured object.
‘You’ve been a deuce of a time,’ challenged Biggles. ‘What have you got there?’
‘Sea-trout, old boy. Beauty. A whopper. Eight or nine pounder, we reckon. And three smaller ones. The big feller was the last. That’s why we’re so late. The blighter wouldn’t give up. Half the time, in the dark, we couldn’t even see where he was among the rocks.’
‘He certainly put up a great fight,’ confirmed Rod. ‘If we hadn’t been so hard up for grub I’d have put him back.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ said Biggles shortly. ‘I appreciate your sporting sentiments, but we’ve got to eat.’
‘Any visitors?’ asked Bertie casually, evidently not expecting the answer he got.
‘Yes, they came along,’ said Biggles.
There was a brief shocked silence. Then: ‘Did you say they?’ queried Rod, in a curious voice.
‘There were two of ‘em. Had you been a few minutes earlier you’d have bumped right into them.’
‘Did they see you?’
‘No. We were ready for them.’
‘Did they say anything?’
‘Not much. They came to make sure you’d gone. That’s what they believe. It suits us, although it can’t be long before they realize they were mistaken.’
‘Well, blow me down,’ breathed Bertie. ‘Any idea who these types were?’
‘We couldn’t see them, only hear them. Judging from their voices, one was an Englishman and the other a Scot, apparently a local; I mean from the mainland, since he happened to know Rod by name — and the Macasters generally, I gathered.’
‘Well, now we know how we stand, what’s our next move?’ inquired Rod.
‘That will need thinking about,’ replied Biggles. ‘I don’t feel like doing anything tonight, so when you’ve had some supper we might as well turn in.’
‘Do you think we ought to mount a guard?’ asked Bertie.
‘I don’t think that’s necessary. Now they’re satisfied there’s nobody here, they aren’t likely to come back before daylight, and I shall be about by the crack of dawn,’ concluded Biggles.
CHAPTER 4
CURIOUS DEVELOPMENTS
GINGER awoke from a deep sleep with a start, aware that something had awakened him. He did not move, but was very much alert, listening for a repetition of the sound which he thought had awakened him. He was not sure what it was, but in a vague sort of way he thought it was a call, a shout, some distance away. He had no idea of the time, but it was still dark, pitch dark, so dark that he couldn’t see the doorway, although the door had been left open. Not even a star showed, indicating the sky was solid overcast. Still listening, he sat up, trying to get his bearings, as one sometimes does in a strange room.
Biggles must also have been awake, and heard him move, for his voice came quietly out of the darkness. ‘Don’t make a noise and don’t strike a light.’
‘What goes on?’
‘I don’t know, but something’s happening — on the beach, I think. It isn’t at the far end, which is as much as we can see of it from here even in daylight. I imagine anyone moving in this black-out would be using a light; but I haven’t seen one.’
By this time the conversation had awakened the others. They, naturally, demanded an explanation of the disturbance.
Biggles repeated what he had told Ginger. ‘I’m pretty sure it was a shout that woke me up,’ he said. If we listen we may hear something.’
‘You haven’t seen anything?’ queried Rod.
‘Not a thing. The clouds are right down and it’s drizzling with rain. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. We could only see a fraction of the beach from here, anyway, on account of the rocks, so if there were lights showing we wouldn’t see them.’
‘You’ve no idea what’s happening?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘How about climbing up the rocks to investigate?’
‘In these conditions? Not on your life. Those rocks are slippery enough when they’re dry. Now they’re wet they’d be a death trap. One might manage it with a light; but as the light would be seen by anyone below I can see no sense in that. We don’t want them to know we’re here.’
‘You say them?’
‘If someone shouted it must have been to somebody else, and that adds up to two — at least.’
‘What’s the time?’ asked Bertie.
‘A bit after four o’clock.’
‘Must be about high water.’
‘Should be.’
‘Where are you? I can’t see a bally thing.’
‘Over here, at the door.’
Everyone groped his way to the door, guided by Biggles’s voice.
Ginger listened. At first he could hear nothing except the breaking of the waves on the beach; but presently he thought he could faintly hear another sound between the regular splashes. Human voices, talking. Once, too, he made out a cry followed by a curious bump, as if two objects had collided.
Rod must have heard this, for he said, definitely: ‘There’s somebody on the beach all right. What the devil can be going on at this hour of night?’
Time went on. Five minutes, ten, twenty; but there were no more sounds.
‘I guess they must have gone,’ said Rod.
‘How about me trying to get a dekko, old boy?’ offered Bertie.
‘Stay where you are,’ ordered Biggles. ‘Fixed as we are, I’m not risking broken bones.’
They listened a little while longer and then, hearing nothing, they backed into the room. ‘Whatever was going on I fancy it’s all over, so there’s no point in getting wet through,’ said Biggles. ‘If we’re in for a spell of this sort of weather we’d never get our things dry.’
‘Sure,’ agreed Rod. ‘I guess we should have brought mackintoshes.’
‘We can see that now, but we weren’t to know how things were going to turn out. Losing the boat, for instance.’
‘It’s all a mighty queer business.’
‘It’ll sort itself out if we have a little patience,’ predicted Biggles. ‘This rain is a nuisance, but there is this about it. With visibility nil we can make as much smoke as we like, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t light the fire. I don’t feel like going back to bed. It’ll start to get light in an hour or so. This is our opportunity to cook our fish and start the day with a good breakfast. Put the kettle on the primus, Ginger. A cup of tea will warm us up.’
Bertie spoke. ‘But look here, old boy. Eating hot trout with the bare fingers is go
ing to be a disgusting business.’
‘You don’t have to eat it hot. The thing is to get the stuff cooked while it’s safe to have a fire. Have yours cold if you prefer it that way. You’d better start carrying a napkin around with you. Meanwhile you can lend a hand by gutting the fish and knocking off their heads and tails. That’ll shorten them a bit and make them easier to cook. You’d better do that outside or we shall have the table looking like a cat’s breakfast.’
‘Mind if I take the torch to make sure I don’t take off any fingers or thumbs at the same time?’
‘Not in the least. In this miserable drizzle an arc lamp wouldn’t be seen outside twenty yards.’
Ginger, who had stuffed some dry bracken into the fire-place, lit it with a small silver gas lighter which Bertie had given him for a birthday present. Still being a new toy he used it on every possible occasion, which had become something of a joke with the others. Having got the bracken going he added some kindling.
‘That’s better,’ remarked Biggles as the flickering flames at once dispelled the gloom and made the place look moderately comfortable. ‘We’re lucky to have a roof over our heads.’
Bertie took the torch, and with the fish went outside.
After being away for some time he returned not only with the fish but with a strange assortment of crockery, which on being placed on the table turned out to be half a dish and some broken plates.
A grin spread slowly over Biggles’s face. ‘Jolly good! Where did you find those?’
‘On the midden.’
Biggles’s expression changed. ‘The what?’
‘Don’t worry. The rubbish dump. I remembered seeing some crocks there. Not exactly a luxury dinner service, but better than eating off the floor like a dog.’
‘I hope you washed them thoroughly.’
‘That’s why I’ve been so long. Messy job.’
By this time Rod had the fish over the fire, which he fed with small pieces of stick. They began to sizzle, filling the air with an appetizing aroma. ‘There’s no fish to touch a sea-trout fresh from the river,’ he declared. ‘By the way, Biggles, have you made any sort of a plan?’ he went on, as they waited for the fish to be done. Ginger had already made the tea.