“We’ve done it! We’ve done it!”
“Don’t go and tumble out. What are they thinking? Do they know it’s us?”
“Where’s your torch? Try them with another signal. Set it going and swing it in big circles like a wheel.”
Dorothea stood in the opening, a few feet back from the edge, lit her pocket torch, and whirled it round and round.
“Fine.”
“Shall I stop now?”
“Yes.” Dick was already watching through the telescope, finding the place to look at by the light in the lower window. “Of course, they may not guess . . .”
“They’ve done it, anyway,” cried Dorothea.
Away down there, unmistakably, a small and feeble spark was spinning in a circle.
“Their battery is worn out,” said Dick. “They ought to get a new one.”
The Martians perhaps felt that the battery of their torch was not to be trusted. Almost at once the spark stopped spinning and, instead, there were a series of quick, short flashes at the window, and then a number of flashes, some long, some short, with intervals of darkness.
“They’re trying to say something,” said Dorothea.
“It’s Morse code they’re using, and we don’t know it,” said Dick with deep melancholy. But he cheered up. “Of course, it’s all right,” he said. “Morse. Morsian. Marsian. Naturally we don’t know their language.”
He interrupted the dot and dash flashing from Mars by a repetition of the first signal.
The Martians did the same.
“We can’t do any more to-night,” said Dick. “But we’ve got in touch with Mars.”
“They’ll come to see what it was in the morning,” said Dorothea. “I know they will. We’ve simply got to be up here early. Come on.”
They went down the stone steps with most uncertain feet. While Dorothea trod out the embers of their fire in the lower barn, Dick hid the lantern in the barn and kept an eye on Mars.
For some time nothing happened. Then, just as Dorothea came round from behind the steps, there were two long, separate flashes.
“Saying good night,” said Dorothea.
Dick made two long flashes with the lantern by carrying it into the open and then hiding it again. That was the end.
A minute later they had made sure that nothing had been left behind. Dick had the book and the telescope, Dorothea the torch and lantern. They left the observatory behind them, and, picking their way along the cart track as fast as they could by lantern light, hurried home to supper.
“We won’t tell her about the signalling until we know for certain it was them,” said Dorothea.
“It’s no good talking to her about astronomy,” said Dick, who remembered how she had laughed at his need for wide horizons.
Mrs Dixon met them at the kitchen door as they came in.
“You must be fair perished with cold,” she said. “And what stars did you see?”
“Oh, Taurus and the Pleiades,” said Dick.
Nobody said anything about Mars.
CHAPTER III
STRANGERS NO MORE
DOROTHEA and Dick had rushed through breakfast and had climbed up the hill to the old barn as fast as they could, half afraid lest the Martians should be there before them. But everything was as they had left it. Dorothea dumped a bundle of newspapers she had brought with her for firelighting on the pile of sticks left over from last night. They went up the stone steps into the loft to get a better view. There was no sign of life in Mars. The white farm-house down there between the lake and the main road might have been uninhabited. No one could have believed that dwellers in so desolate a planet had caught and answered signals from the Earth.
And then Dick, who had been looking through the telescope, caught sight of a boat pulling into the little bay from which, yesterday afternoon, they had seen the red-caps row out. The boat was almost instantly hidden by the pinewoods on the nearer side of the bay.
Some minutes later they caught a glimpse of moving figures just below the house. Perhaps the others had gone down to meet the red-caps and they were all coming up from the lake together.
Suddenly that upper window from which the answering flashes had come in the darkness seemed to be crowded with heads.
“There’s a red-cap,” cried Dick. “Both of them. And somebody pointing.”
“But where are they now?” said Dorothea, for the window was empty.
“There they are,” cried Dick. “They’re coming. All six of them.”
“Where?” cried Dorothea.
“Up the field above the house . . . Over the wall . . . I wonder why they didn’t go through the gate . . . They’ve crossed the road . . . Over the other wall . . . coming up the next field . . . They’re still coming . . . They’ll be over that wall in a minute . . .”
“Dick, Dick!” said Dorothea, forgetting how long they had been waiting. “They’re coming straight here. Isn’t it a good thing we got here in time.”
“Gone,” said Dick.
“The hill’s in the way,” said Dorothea.
Minute after minute passed. Almost the watchers began to fear that the Martians had turned aside up into the woods. And then first one and then another showed again coming over the ridge on the farther side of the little tarn and trampling through the bracken down to the edge of the ice. Dick trained his telescope on them. “The one in front isn’t looking where he’s going. He’s looking at something in his hand. Probably a compass. I say, they can’t be going to come straight across the ice. It won’t bear. At least it wouldn’t yesterday.”
The next moment Dorothea and Dick exclaimed together:
“She’s in! They’re both in!”
The bigger of the two red-capped girls had waved towards the barn and, leaping through the dead bracken, had charged down past the boy who had been leading the way. The other red-cap was close behind her. Almost at the same moment they were on the ice. There was a tinkling crash, a splash of water, and the two of them were floundering ankle-deep back out of the shallows.
“Oh! Oh!” said Dorothea. “And now they’ve got wet feet and they’ll have to turn back and go home.”
But they showed no signs of turning back. They took off their shoes and emptied the water out and put them on again. The others waited for them, and then turned to the right along the edge of the tarn, crossed the little beck that trickled out of it, and began to climb the steep slope towards the observatory.
“Look here,” said Dorothea. “We signalled to them first. We ought to go and meet them.”
“You do the talking,” said Dick.
It was one thing to signal to Mars at night and to get into touch with distant Martians by the flashing of a lantern. It was quite another to meet them face to face in broad daylight. What ought to be said to strangers from another planet? Dorothea would probably know. Dick shut his telescope and followed her down the steps.
The leader of the Martians looked back, then up at the barn, then at the thing he held in his hand: He put it in his pocket, said a word to his followers and led them on. Dorothea and Dick had come down from the loft and were on their way to meet them.
Suddenly the smallest of the female Martians waved a white handkerchief she had fastened to a stick.
“That’s to show it’s peace,” said Dorothea. “We ought to have thought of it, too. Can’t you tie a handkerchief to your telescope?”
“Just wave yours,” said Dick. “That’ll show them we understand.”
Dorothea pulled out her handkerchief and waved it.
The Martians came gravely on.
This was much more difficult than Dorothea had expected. If only the Martians would say something, or even smile.
They met about a third of the way down the slope.
There was a moment’s dreadful silence.
It was broken by the smallest of the Martian girls.
“I don’t believe they’re in distress at all,” she said.
“Don’t they want t
o be rescued from anything?” said the smaller of the boys in a very disappointed voice.
“We were just signalling to Mars,” said Dick, who found that, after all, it was for him to explain.
“To Mars?” said the bigger boy.
“Not to us?” said the smallest girl. “Was it all a mistake?”
“No, no,” said Dorothea. “We wanted you to answer. It was Dick’s idea to be signalling to Mars. You see, we didn’t know you.”
“Giminy,” broke in the larger red-cap. “It was a jolly good idea.”
“And of course,” Dick went on, “when you started answering in Martian we couldn’t understand.”
“Morse code,” said the elder of the boys. “We asked what was the matter and who you were. And then when you didn’t answer we guessed you didn’t know how. So I took a bearing by compass.”
“Was that a compass you had in your hand just now?” said Dick.
“Yes.”
“We saw you on the island yesterday,” said Dorothea.
“We saw you,” said the smaller boy.
The elder of the red-caps, who had been standing there, rising and falling on her toes, making her wet shoes squelch every time she did it, broke in impatiently:
“Here we are, anyway,” she said, “but what are you?”
“Our name is Callum. He is Dick and I am Dorothea.”
“Oh yes, yes,” said the red-cap. “Dick and Dorothea, but what are you? In real life, I mean. We’re explorers and sailors.”
“Dick’s an astronomer,” said Dorothea promptly.
“Dorothea writes stories,” said Dick.
“Well, I’m Nancy Blackett, Captain of the Amazon. This is Peggy, Mate of the Amazon.” She waved her hand towards the others. “This is Captain John Walker, of the Swallow. This is Susan Walker, Mate of the Swallow. Titty is their able-seaman, and Roger is their ship’s boy.”
THE MARTIANS IN SIGHT
“Is that boat the Amazon?” asked Dick. “The one we saw you in?”
“That,” said Captain Nancy with scorn. “That’s a rowing boat. It belongs to our mother at Beckfoot. We use it just to row across every day to Holly Howe or Rio.”
“Rio?” said Dorothea.
“That’s what we always call the village. It’s got another name.”
“I know,” said Dorothea.
“Only for natives,” said Nancy.
“Do you live here?” asked Titty, the smallest of the girls.
“We’re staying at Mrs Dixon’s, just till the end of the holidays,” said Dorothea. “Father and mother have gone to Egypt, to dig up remains.”
The four Swallows looked at each other.
“Why, that’s just like us,” said Titty.
And then Susan explained that their mother had gone away only yesterday morning, to go to Malta, where their father’s ship was stationed for a time, and that she had taken Bridget, their youngest sister, with her. “Father’s never really seen Bridget since she was a person,” Titty interrupted, not wishing it to be thought that their mother would leave them without good reason. Susan went on to tell them that they had been staying at Holly Howe ever since Christmas and that they, too, would be going back to school when the holidays came to an end.
“I suppose you’ve come to the Arctic to watch an eclipse?” said Captain Nancy.
“But there isn’t going to be an eclipse,” said Dick.
“Oh well,” said Nancy, “don’t be so particular. Come to that, Holly Howe isn’t Mars.”
“It isn’t really,” said Dick. “But why Arctic?”
Nancy looked round at the others. Titty looked at Dorothea. Roger laughed.
“We may as well tell them,” said John.
“Everybody agree?” said Nancy. “They deserve to be told. That Mars idea was really pretty good.”
“Tell them,” said Titty.
“Well,” said Nancy. “You know what it’s like. Dark at tea-time and sleeping indoors: nothing ever happens in the winter holidays. And we had to think of something that we could do without our ships. Swallow and Amazon are both out of the water for the winter. And it had to be something that would make it all right for us to sleep in the houses of the natives instead of in our tents. So we started a Polar expedition. We sleep in the Eskimo settlements at night, the same as you, and we’ve been building an igloo of our own to use as a base. You’ll see it.”
“The idea was that as soon as we could we’d go to the North Pole over the ice,” said Peggy, the other red-cap. “We’ve got a splendid North Pole.”
“Only, the beastly Arctic won’t freeze,” said Nancy “and the holidays’ll be over in no time. And it never will freeze unless we get another fall of snow. The lake’s so jolly deep.”
“There’s another week yet,” said Peggy.
And then the others joined in, all talking at once, and Dick and Dorothea heard how the four Swallows were living in the Eskimo settlement at Holly Howe, while the two Amazons were sleeping in the Eskimo settlement at Beckfoot at the mouth of the Amazon river and rowing across every day. They heard how yesterday they had rowed down to Wild Cat Island for signalling, because on the day Mrs Walker and Bridget had gone away no one felt quite like settling down to ordinary work on the igloo or hut they were building. They heard how the explorers had been waiting, day after day, for the little tarn to freeze so that they could begin skating practice. There was little hope now that the great lake would freeze all over so that they could go the whole way to the Pole over the ice. But there might yet be snow and they were putting off the dash to the Pole to the very last day of the holidays, to give the Arctic a chance of living up to its name.
“Now you know all about it,” said Nancy. “Let’s just have a look at your signal station.”
“Observatory,” said Dick.
“All right,” said Nancy. “Ow, my feet are cold. What about yours, Peggy?”
“Icicles.”
“We were a pair of mutton-headed galoots to go through the ice like that,” said Nancy, hopping up and down.
“Oughtn’t you to get your things off and dried at once?” said Susan.
“We must just see the place they did their signalling from.”
They all went up to the old barn, climbed the steps outside it and looked out from the loft. Dick showed them just how Dorothea and he had managed with the lantern, and Titty told Dorothea how she had first seen the flashes up on the hill-side.
“It’s a f-f-f-fine p-p-p-lace to signal from one settlement t-t-t-to another,” said Nancy, whose teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Shall we light the fire?” said Dorothea. “I’ve got some sticks and lots of newspaper.”
“Newspaper?” Susan and Peggy were staring at her. “Newspaper! For lighting a fire!”
They hurried down the steps and looked at the charred wood and ashes left from last night, and at the pile of sticks and at Dorothea’s bundle of newspaper.
“You’d better come along with us at once,” said Nancy, “and see how to make a fire and how to light it with one match and no paper at all. Ow! My feet are going to fall off.”
“We’d love to come,” said Dorothea.
“Doesn’t Mrs Dixon expect you back for dinner?” said Susan.
“She does rather,” said Dorothea.
“Well, you’d better tell her you’re going to be out. It’s no way down there. We’ll all come. March, Roger, or you’ll be getting cold, too.”
“C-come on,” said Nancy. “The P-p-p-polar exp-p-pedition v-v-visits the f-f-friendly Eskimos.”
“You wouldn’t like to go straight to the igloo and start the fire?” said Susan, looking at her.
“It’ll be all right as long as we k-k-k-keep moving,” said Captain Nancy and, followed by Peggy, she set off at full gallop down the cart track to Dixon’s Farm.
CHAPTER IV
THE IGLOO
MRS DIXON did not seem in the least surprised when Dick and Dorothea, who had set out alone, came back t
o the farm in a party of eight.
“You’ve not lost much time about it,” she said. “I was thinking you’d be running into each other somewhere. Well, Miss Ruth and Miss Peggy, and how’s your mother keeping, and what’s the news from your Uncle Jim? It seems no time since I was cooking toffees in the summer for you others when you came up to fetch the milk in the mornings. Time does flit on, to be sure.”
“Can we be out to dinner?” asked Dorothea.
“Glad to see the backs of you,” said Mrs Dixon. “I’ve washing to do to-day. You’ve come just at the right time, Miss Ruth, or Nancy is it? I’m forgetting. I’ve been meaning to send one of my pork pies to Mrs Blackett, and you can take it for me, and then you two can take another to make do for your dinner. And there’s a bag of toffees for the lot of you. Eh! come in, Dixon, none but old friends here.”
Mr Dixon was standing in the doorway.
“How do you do, Mr Dixon?” said Titty.
“How do you do?” said all the others.
“Champion, thank ye,” said Mr Dixon, and went off again out of the kitchen.
“And now then,” said Mrs Dixon, as she came back from the larder with two of the new pork pies, “what have you two lasses been doing with your shoes?”
Nancy and Peggy were holding first one foot and then the other towards the kitchen fire, and the steam was pouring up.
“The tarn,” said Peggy.
“I was sure it would be bearing all right,” said Nancy, “and it very nearly is, but I never thought about not going on both together. We were a bit galootish. At least I was.”
“Fair couple of gummocks, I’d call you,” said Mrs Dixon. “You’d best be having them shoes off and let me be drying the stockings.”
But the red-caps were in a hurry to get on.
“Yon’s the way to catch a death of cold,” said Mrs Dixon.
“We’ll be drying them in a few minutes,” said Nancy. “Come on, you others. Have you got knapsacks, you two?”
Winter Holiday Page 3