“Won’t they think the net itself rather funny?” said Titty.
“It won’t be just plain netting,” Dick explained. “We can fasten bits of heather on it.”
“Oh good,” said Titty. “So they’ll just think the heather’s sprouted a lot in the night.”
“It’s a good idea,” said Peggy.
“For natives as well as for birds,” said Titty. “Nobody’d notice an extra patch of heather anywhere about here.”
“Right,” said Captain Flint. “Back to the ship. Quick. Don’t let’s waste time talking about it.”
“What about netting needles?” said Peggy.
“Have to make them for you. What are you going to do with the boat? Leave it here?”
“There may be some of those Gaels about later,” said Titty.
“Hide it in the reeds, just in case,” said Nancy.
Nancy rowed the folding boat along to the reed-patch, and when she had worked the boat into the reeds and stepped ashore, no one could have seen the boat was there if he had not known exactly where to look.
Dick, Captain Flint and Dorothea, hurrying together, were first to come to the beach at the head of the cove. They looked back for the others and saw Susan, Peggy and Titty dropping down past the waterfall.
“Hullo,” said Captain Flint. “Where are John and Nancy?”
“Gone exploring,” said Titty, “up the valley to look at the deer, and to see if there are any of those Gaels.”
“It didn’t look to me as if there’s anybody about at all,” said Captain Flint.
“It didn’t the other day,” said Titty. “But there was, and Nancy thought they’d better make sure.”
“They won’t be long,” said Susan. “They haven’t any grub with them, and they said they’d come back when they were hungry.”
“Idiots,” said Captain Flint. “But we’ve plenty of netters without them.”
“You know, a hide’s really the only way to take pictures of birds,” said Dick, as Captain Flint rowed the dinghy out to the Sea Bear.
“Well,” said Captain Flint, “we’ll do our best to make you a good one.”
CHAPTER XV
INTERRUPTED NETTING PARTY
NO TIME WAS wasted. Captain Flint pulled the lid off a cigar-box that he had meant to use for storing feathers for trout-flies, split it into three lengths, roughly shaped each length into a netting needle, and then filled the cabin with blue smoke that brought tears to the eyes, as he finished the needles by burning away the unwanted wood with the tip of a poker made red-hot by Susan in the flame of a Primus stove. Peggy dug out a couple of big balls of marline from the store in the fo’c’sle. Titty, Dick and Dorothea with knife and sandpaper smoothed the edges and rounded the corners of the sides of the cigar-box to turn them into measures (usually called meshes). As soon as the first needle and the meshes were ready, Peggy showed the others how to use them, and did quite a lot of Nancy-like shivering of timbers when people made slip knots by mistake instead of the proper herring knot, which is easy to make as soon as you get into the way of it. Presently Dorothea and Titty were at work, taking turns, on the first strip of netting, hung from the starboard shrouds. Peggy herself and Dick were at work on the second, hung from the port shrouds, and when Susan and Captain Flint came up with the last of the needles they started a third strip, hung from the boom, so that Captain Flint could work at it comfortably while sitting in the cockpit.
There were a few mistakes, slip knots and missed meshes, at first, but fewer and fewer as time went on and the netters grew more and more pleased with themselves as they saw the strips of netting growing longer and the knots coming right without having to be thought about.
“There isn’t really much need to hurry,” said Peggy, opening and shutting her fingers after a long turn with the needle, “now that the Pterodactyl’s gone off to the Arctic.”
“But there is,” said Dick. “There really is. I’ve got to take the net to the island tonight, to give the Divers time to get accustomed to it. Every minute counts really.”
“Isn’t it queer?” said Titty to Dorothea. “It’s the birds who matter most, and they know nothing about it. There’s the egg-collector dashing to the North Pole, and John and Nancy scouting up the valley, and you and me and Peggy and Susan and Captain Flint all working at nets, and Roger keeping a look-out, all because of the birds, and the birds themselves haven’t any idea that if it had not been for them we’d be half way to the mainland by now, getting ready to give up the Sea Bear and go back to England in a train.”
“Why is it the birds aren’t here always?” asked Peggy.
Dick’s needle stopped in mid-air. “I don’t know why they come at all,” he said. “The book says they’re winter visitors.”
“But where do they go when they go away?”
“Arctic,” said Dick.
“That nasty fellow’s gone in the right direction,” said Captain Flint.
“But luckily it’s the wrong one,” said Dick.
“They probably want to get away from the winter round the Pole,” said Titty. “When it gets too dark for anything up there, they come south to do a bit of fishing where the water isn’t all solid ice.”
“But why didn’t these ones go home again after the winter?” said Dorothea. “Hi! Don’t stop netting, Dick.”
“That’s just what I don’t know,” said Dick slowly, giving up his needle and mesh to Peggy who, with an eye on Susan’s flashing fingers, set to work to make Dick’s bit of netting catch up with the other two.
“Probably it was just an accident,” said Titty. “The Great Northern Diver and his wife were getting ready to fly back to Iceland when something happened. He dived a bit too far and a crab or an eel grabbed his leg and hurt it. Or perhaps he hit a rock under water. Anyhow, something happened and he had to wait a bit before making the journey. And his wife wouldn’t leave him. And then, when whatever it was that was wrong with him got better, the time was already pretty late, and they came slowly north to this bit of the Hebrides. Probably jolly like Iceland, too.”
“Go on,” said Dorothea. “My turn at the netting. Go on. What happened next?”
“They saw that bit of a lake and thought they’d rest for a day or two. And then they found that island.”
“I know,” said Dorothea. “And he said, ‘It’s a home from home,’ and she said, ‘I don’t see any Polar Bears,’ and he said, ‘Bears or no Bears, there are plenty of fish,’ and he dived and came up with one in his beak, just to show her.”
“Yes,” said Titty, “and they stayed on, day after day, until he began to think that it was a very long way to the Arctic and that probably all the best places there had been bagged already, and even she began to wonder if the Hebrides wasn’t as good as Iceland or better.”
“He’d be like Dick,” said Dorothea, “not wanting to think of moving if he was interested in something where he was, and she’d be like Susan at first.”
“How?” said Susan, looking up from her netting.
“Thinking of the clock,” said Dorothea, and was surprised when everybody but Susan laughed.
“Good thing somebody does think of the clock sometimes,” said Captain Flint.
“I know,” said Dorothea. “What I mean is that at first the she-Diver would be saying, ‘Look here, we really ought to be getting on,’ but afterwards, when she saw that it really was a good place with no people, or not many, and plenty of fish, she’d begin to think that perhaps it was just as well for him not to have to make a tremendous journey before he’d fully recovered from whatever it was.”
“Anyhow,” said Titty, “they made up their minds to stay and then she laid her eggs and they couldn’t think of moving even if they’d wanted to.”
“The thing is,” said Dick, “that if they bring up their young ones here, the young ones may come back to nest too, and their young ones after them. And that awful beast wanted to take the eggs.”
“Well, he won’t get them now,
” said Titty.
About the middle of the day, the netters knocked off for food. They had just had a signal from Roger up at his Pict-house.
“N … O … T … H … I … N… G … end of word … I … N… end of word … S … I … G … H … T … end of word … C … G … S….”
“C.G.S.,” said Peggy. “That doesn’t spell anything.”
“Coast Guard Station,” said Titty.
“Tell him to come back,” said Susan, and Peggy stood up on deck and made the signals.
“N … O … end of word,” signalled Roger, and disappeared, making further orders useless.
“He’s enjoying himself,” said Captain Flint.
“Well, he’s got his food with him,” said Susan, looking up the creek in case John and Nancy should be in sight. “The others haven’t even a bit of chocolate. They’ll just have to have something when they come back.”
“I do hope they get stalked,” said Titty. “Nancy wouldn’t believe that we were.”
“I hope they don’t,” said Captain Flint. “There’s no point whatever in falling foul of the natives.”
After dinner (buttered eggs and tinned pears) netting went on again. Captain Flint, who had every excuse for it, as he had been awake all night, went suddenly to sleep in the cockpit, just after he had handed over his needle and strip of netting to Peggy. A gentle grunt and snore told the others what had happened, and his niece was going to wake him, but Dorothea stopped her in time. Everybody was feeling rather sleepy. Nobody else actually fell asleep, but there was a good deal of yawning and Captain Flint’s snores, by making them laugh, probably helped to keep the others awake. He woke up when it came to his turn to net, but fell asleep instantly when his turn was over, woke again and slept again, and finally told Peggy to prod him whenever she wanted to take a rest from the netting.
Tea-time came, and there were still no signs of John and Nancy.
“You don’t think they’ve got themselves lost?” said Susan.
“Oh no,” said Titty. “John had his compass. I saw him looking at it when they started.”
“Old enough to take care of themselves,” grunted Captain Flint.
“They must be pretty hungry,” said Susan.
“They ought to have done their share of the netting,” said Peggy, stretching her fingers. “If they’re hungry, it serves them right.”
What was more surprising was that there were no signs of Roger, but after his mutinous “No,” even Susan did not feel inclined to climb the hill and fetch him down for tea. The six netters, by taking turns when they began to get cramp in their fingers and keeping three strips of netting going at once and all the time, had made a tremendous lot. Dick and Dorothea had been ashore in the dinghy by themselves and come back with scratched hands and a cargo of heather. All fear that they might not be able to get the netting done in time for Dick to take it to the island at dusk and set up his hide ready for next day’s photographing was gone. After tea, which somehow put a stop to the yawning, they joined the three strips of netting into one, by running a length of string in and out through the meshes, and so lacing two edges together. Then they spread the whole net across the boom, so that it hung down on both sides.
Scraps of heather littered the decks and were being tied to the netting. Everybody was feeling that the work was as good as done. Everybody was in the highest spirits. They had given the slip to the egg-collector; they had brought the ship back; they knew that Dick had been right about his birds; the folding dinghy was already waiting for him, hidden in the reeds at the foot of the loch; the net was all but finished – and next day when the photographs had been taken the Sea Bear would be off to the mainland after a voyage that Dick’s discovery would make memorable for ever.
And then the blow fell.
“We’ll want another lot of heather,” said Peggy.
“I’ll get some,” said Dick. “But let’s just try how it works.” He crawled under the heather-covered part of the netting.
“I can see out perfectly,” he said.
“But we can see you too,” said Dorothea.
“Of course you can see him with nothing behind him,” said Captain Flint.
Dick was already wriggling out. “I’ll get into the cockpit,” he said, “and then you spread the netting over the top. That’ll be the same as having solid rocks behind.”
It was done. The netting was hauled off the boom and laid over the cockpit. Crouched beneath it, looking up through net and scraps of heather, he could clearly see the rest of the crew standing round on the deck.
“Well,” he said. “Can you see me now?”
There was no answer.
“Can you see me?” Dick asked again.
Again there was no answer.
He felt suddenly that something was wrong. He lifted a corner of the netting and put his head out. Standing round the cockpit, the netting party were not looking down at him but were staring out towards the sea. He heard Captain Flint say “Damn!” under his breath. He saw the horror on Dorothea’s face and Titty’s, the anger on Peggy’s. He scrambled out from under the netting and saw for himself what they were looking at.
Outside the headlands, off the mouth of the creek, a large motor cruiser was slowly circling round. There could be no mistaking her for anything but what she was. The Pterodactyl, the egg-collector’s boat, had not gone to the Arctic after all. There she was, not three hundred yards away, and that figure standing by the deckhouse could be none other than Mr Jemmerling himself.
“He’s seen us,” said Peggy.
“Oh Dick!” said Dorothea.
“He’s got brains, that chap,” said Captain Flint. “He knew where he passed us at sea that day. He’s gone north and then come into the coast and worked back, looking into every bay until he found us. Looks as if he’s coming in.”
“If only the Sea Bear had guns!” said Titty.
But the Pterodactyl, after moving slowly across the mouth of the creek, turned again to the south.
“Perhaps he hasn’t recognized us,” said Dorothea.
“He must have,” said Dick.
“Well, he’s going away,” said Dorothea.
The Pterodactyl was hidden by the rocky spit south of the cove and, just for one moment, even Captain Flint let himself think that Dorothea was right. Then, much nearer, they heard the sound of her engines. She was close at hand although they could not see her.
“Coming into that other creek,” said Captain Flint. “Probably knows the coast like the palm of his hand.”
Peggy was already hurrying up the shrouds to the cross-trees.
“He’s coming right in,” she called down. “I can see his beastly little mast moving. Just the other side of those rocks. I’ll see the whole of him in a minute where the rocks aren’t quite so high … There he is …” Watching her pointing finger and listening to the throb of engines, they knew, though they could not see, exactly where the Pterodactyl was.
“He’s gone further in than we have … He’s anchoring. Going very slow.”
“Perhaps he’ll hit a rock,” said Titty.
“If you’d only taken that photograph this morning,” said Captain Flint, “we’d have been away out of this by now and he’d never have found the place.”
“Dick couldn’t,” said Dorothea angrily. “It isn’t his fault.”
“He hasn’t found the nest yet,” said Dick slowly. “And there are hundreds of lochs marked on his chart. He won’t know which it is unless we show him. We’d better give up and go away at once.”
“We can’t without the others,” said Susan.
“I must say, I hate the idea of being done by him after all,” said Captain Flint.
“Done by him?” said Peggy from above their heads. “We’re not going to be. I wish Nancy was back, and John.”
“What surprises me,” said Captain Flint, “is how he managed to come south along the coast without our coastguard seeing him.”
“Why didn’t Roger
signal to us?” said Dorothea.
“We couldn’t have done anything,” said Titty.
“He ought to have signalled anyway,” said Dorothea.
“What’s that fellow doing now?” asked Captain Flint looking aloft.
“Anchoring,” said Peggy. “Their anchor’s just going down.”
PEGGY AT THE CROSS-TREES
“He can’t do anything until he comes ashore,” said Dorothea.
“I don’t know what we ought to do,” said Dick. He badly wanted to take the photographs and prove that the birds had nested. But he would rather not do that if it meant showing the egg-collector where they were. Perhaps, even if they gave up and sailed away, it was already too late. With the egg-collector so near, he would only have to hunt round one loch after another until he found them. And then he would take the eggs and kill the birds so that all chance of their coming back again year after year would be gone and there would be nothing but two stuffed birds and their blown eggs in the Jemmerling Collection to show that the Great Northern Divers had tried and failed.
“It’s awful having to give up,” said Dorothea. “With the folding boat all ready and Dick’s hide nearly done.”
“Could you see me through the netting?” asked Dick.
“Not a thing,” said Titty.
“The net’s all right,” said Captain Flint.
“We may as well finish up the trimming of the net,” said Susan. “But we haven’t enough heather for all of it.”
“I’ll get some more,” said Dick. “But wouldn’t it be safer for the birds if we just sailed away?”
“He might not come after us,” said Dorothea, “and even if he did we couldn’t stop him from coming back later on.”
“If he stays here he’s only got to listen till he hears them,” said Dick.
“We’ve only heard them make that noise once,” said Captain Flint.
“I do wish Nancy were here,” said Dorothea.
“Aloft there!” said Captain Flint. “What are they doing now?”