11
bill smugs
‘whereabouts did you see the strange boat, freckles?’ asked philip, as theywent over the cliffs.
‘over there, beyond those rocks that jut out,’ said jack, pointing. ‘quite abig boat, really. i wonder where it’s kept when it’s not in use. somebodymust live fairly near it – but i couldn’t see any houses.’
‘there aren’t any proper houses near,’ said philip. ‘people used to liveabout here ages ago, but there was fighting and burning, and now there areonly ruined places. but there might be a tumbledown shack of some sort, allright for a man who wants a lonely kind of holiday.’
they walked on over the cliffs, kiki sailing up into the air every now andagain to join a surprised gull, and making noises exactly like the sea-birds,but more piercing.
philip collected a large and unusual caterpillar from a bush, much todinah’s dismay, and put a lizard into his pocket. after that dinah walked agood distance from him, and even lucy-ann was a bit wary. lucy-ann didnot mind live creatures as dinah did, but she wasn’t particularly anxious tobe asked to carry lizards or caterpillars, as she might quite well be requestedto do if philip decided to take home some other creature that, if put in hispocket, might eat the caterpillar or lizard already there!
they all walked on happily, enjoying the rough sea-breeze, the saltysmell of the sea, and the sound of the waves against the rocks below. thegrass was springy beneath their feet, and the air was full of gliding birds.
this was a lovely holiday, lovely, lovely!
they came to a jutting part of the cliff and walked out almost to the edge.
‘i can’t see signs of any boat on the water at all,’ said jack.
‘you’re sure you didn’t imagine it?’ said philip. ‘it’s funny there’s not athing to be seen today – a boat is not an easy thing to hide.’
‘there’s a sort of cove down there,’ said lucy-ann, pointing to wherethe cliff turned in a little, and there was a small beach of shining sand.
‘let’s go down and picnic there, shall we? we can bathe first. it’s awfullywindy up here; i can hardly get my breath to talk.’
they began to climb down the steep and rocky cliff. the boys went firstand the girls followed, slipping a little now and again. but they were allgood climbers, and reached the bottom of the cliff in safety.
here it was sheltered from the rushing wind and was warm and quiet.
the children slipped off their jerseys and shorts and went into the water tobathe. philip, who was a good swimmer, swam right out to some blackrocks that stuck out from the water, high and forbidding. he reached them,and climbed up to rest for a while.
and then he suddenly saw a boat, on the other side of the rocks! therewas a flat stretch there, and on it, pulled up out of reach of the waves, wasthe boat that jack had seen on the sea the day before. no one could possiblysee the boat unless he, like philip, was on those particular rocks, for, fromthe shore, the high rocks hid the flat stretch facing seawards, where the boatlay.
‘whew!’ whistled philip in surprise. he got up and went over to the boat.
it was a fine boat with a sail, and was almost as big as joe’s. it was calledthe albatross. there were two pairs of oars in it.
‘well!’ said philip, surprised, ‘what a strange place to keep a boat – rightout here on these rocks! whoever owns it would have to swim outwhenever he wanted to get it. funny!’
he shouted to the others. ‘the boat’s here – on these rocks. come andsee it.’
soon all the children were examining the boat. ‘that’s the one i saw,’
said jack. ‘but where’s the owner? there’s no sign of him anywhere.’
‘we’ll have our lunch and then we’ll have a good look-see,’ said philip.
‘come on – back to the shore we’ll go. then we’ll separate after our picnicand hunt round properly for the man who owns this boat.’
they swam back to the shore, took off their wet things, set them out todry in the sun, and put on their dry clothes. then they sat down to enjoy thesandwiches, chocolate and fruit that aunt polly had prepared for them.
they lolled in the sun, tired with their swim, hungry and thirsty, enjoyingthe food immensely.
‘food’s gorgeous when you’re really hungry,’ said lucy-ann, taking ahuge bite at her sandwich.
‘i always am hungry,’ said jack. ‘shut up, kiki – that’s the best part ofmy apple you’ve pecked. i’ve got some sunflower seeds for you in mypocket. can’t you wait?’
‘what a pity, what a pity!’ said kiki, imitating aunt polly whensomething went wrong. ‘what a pity, what a pity, what a . . .’
‘oh, stop her,’ said dinah, who knew that the parrot was quite capable ofrepeating a brand-new sentence a hundred times without stopping. ‘here,kiki – have a bite of my apple, do.’
that stopped kiki, and she ran her beak into the apple in delight, peckingout a bit that kept her busy for some time.
a quarrel nearly blew up between dinah and philip over the largecaterpillar which made its way out of the boy’s pocket, over the sand,towards dinah. she gave a shriek, and was about to hurl a large shell atphilip when jack picked up the caterpillar and put it back into philip’spocket.
‘no harm done, dinah,’ he said. ‘keep your hair on! don’t let’s start afree fight now. let’s have a peaceful day.’
they finished up every crumb of the lunch. ‘the gulls won’t get much,’
said philip lazily, shaking out the papers, then folding them up and puttingthem into his pocket. ‘look at that young gull – it’s as tame as anything.’
‘i wish i had my camera here,’ said jack longingly, watching theenormous young gull walking very near. ‘i could get a marvellous snap ofhim. i haven’t taken any bird pictures yet. i really must. i’ll find my cameratomorrow.’
‘come on,’ said dinah, jumping up. ‘if we’re going to do a spot of man?hunting, we’d better begin. i bet i find the strange boatman first.’
they separated, jack and philip going one way and the girls going theother. they walked on the sandy little beach, keeping close to the rockycliffs. the girls found that they could not get very far, because steep rocksbarred their way after a bit, and they had to turn back.
but the boys managed to get past the piece of cliff that jutted out andsheltered the little cove they had been picnicking in. on the other side of thecliff was another cove, with no beach at all, merely flattish rocks thatshelved upwards to the cliff. the boys clambered over these rocks,examining the creatures in the pools as they went. philip added a sea snailto the collection in his pocket.
‘there’s a break in the cliff just over there,’ said jack. ‘let’s explore it.’
they made their way towards the gap in the cliff. it was much wider thanthey expected when they got there. a stream trickled over the rocks towardsthe sea, running down from somewhere halfway up the cliff.
‘must be spring water,’ said jack, and tasted it. ‘yes, it is. hallo – look,tufty!’
philip looked to where jack pointed, and saw floating in a pool acigarette end, almost falling to pieces.
‘someone’s been here, and quite recently too,’ said jack, ‘else the tidewould have carried that cigarette end away. this is exciting.’
with the cigarette end as a proof of someone’s nearness, the boys wenton more eagerly still. they came to the wide crack in the cliff – and there, alittle way up, built close against the rocky slope, was a tumbledown hut.
the back of it was made of the cliff itself. the roof had been roughlymended. the walls were falling to pieces here and there, and, in winter, itwould have been quite impossible to live in it. but someone was certainlyliving there now, for outside, spread over a stunted bush, was a shirt set outto dry.
‘look,’ said jack, in a whisper. ‘that’s where our boatman lives. what alovely hidiehole he’s found!’
the boys went quietly up to the tumbledown hut. it was very, very old,and had probably once belonged to a lonely fisherman. a whistling camefrom inside the hut.
‘do we knock at the door?’ said philip, with a nervous giggle. but at thatmoment someone came out of the open doorway and caught sight of theboys. he stood gaping in great surprise.
the boys stared back without a word. they rather liked the look of thestranger. he wore shorts and a rough shirt, open at the neck. he had a red,jolly face, twinkling eyes, and a head that was bald on the top, but hadplenty of hair round the sides. he was tall and strong-looking, and his chinjutted out below his cleanshaven mouth.
‘hallo,’ he said. ‘coming visiting? how nice!’
‘i saw you out in your boat yesterday,’ said jack. ‘so we came to see ifwe could find you.’
‘very friendly of you,’ said the man. ‘who are you?’
‘we’re from craggy-tops, the house about a mile and a half away,’ saidphilip. ‘i don’t expect you know it.’
‘yes, i do,’ said the man unexpectedly. ‘but i thought only grown-upslived there – a man and a woman – and an odd-job man.’
‘well, usually only grown-ups do live there,’ said philip. ‘but in the holsmy sister and i come there too, to stay with our aunt polly and unclejocelyn. and these hols two friends of ours came too. this is one of them –jack trent. his sister lucy-ann is somewhere about. i’m philip manneringand my sister is dinah – she’s with lucy-ann.’
‘i’m bill smugs,’ said the man, smiling at all this sudden information.
‘and i live here alone.’
‘have you just suddenly come here?’ asked jack, in curiosity.
‘quite suddenly,’ said the man. ‘just an idea of mine, you know.’
‘not much to come for here,’ said philip. ‘why did you come?’
the man hesitated for a moment. ‘well,’ he said, ‘i’m a bird-watcher.
interested in birds, you know. and there are a great many unusual birdshere.’
‘oh!’ cried jack, in the greatest delight. ‘do you like birds too? i’m madon them. always have been. i’ve seen crowds here that i’ve only seen inbooks before.’
and then the boy plunged into a list of the unusual birds he had seen,making philip yawn. bill smugs listened, but did not say very much. heseemed amused at jack’s enthusiasm.
‘what particular bird did you hope to see here, mr smugs?’ asked jack,stopping at last.
bill smugs seemed to consider. ‘well,’ he said, ‘i rather hoped i mightsee a great auk.’
jack looked at him in astonished silence that changed to awe. ‘the greatauk!’ he said, in a voice mixed with surprise and wonder. ‘but – but isn’t itextinct? surely there are no great auks left now? golly – did you reallythink you might see one?’
‘you never know,’ said bill smugs. ‘there might be one or two leftsomewhere – and think what a scoop it would be to discover them!’
jack went brick-red with excitement. he looked out over the sea towardsthe west, where the isle of gloom lay hidden in a haze.
‘i bet you thought there might be a chance of them on a desolate islandlike that,’ he said, pointing to the west. ‘you know – the isle of gloom.
you’ve heard about it, i expect.’
‘yes, i have,’ said bill smugs. ‘i certainly have. i’d like to go there. butit’s impossible, i believe.’
‘would you take us out in your boat sometimes?’ asked philip. ‘joe, theodd-job man, has a fine boat, but he won’t let us use it, and we’d love to gofishing sometimes, and sailing too. do you think it’s awful cheek to askyou? but i expect you find it a bit lonely here, don’t you?’
‘sometimes,’ said bill smugs. ‘yes, we’ll go fishing and sailing together– you and your sisters too. it would be fun. we’ll see how near we can go tothe isle of gloom too, shall we?’
the boys were thrilled. at last they could sail a boat. they went off tocall the girls.
‘hi, dinah! hi, lucy-ann!’ yelled jack. ‘come and be introduced to ournew friend – bill smugs!’
