“What’s happening?” asked Fee. “Did you find anybody?”
Mr Rigger nodded. “I’ll explain in due course,” he said, “but for the moment I want Mike to come with me.”
Mike stepped forward. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Mr Rigger pointed to the second cabin. “We’re going in there,” he said.
“Why?” asked Mike.
“You’ll find out,” said Mr Rigger.
He could have told the boy what to expect, but he decided not to. There are some things that are better left as surprises, and he knew this would be one of them.
Again the door of the cabin didn’t resist when Mr Rigger pushed it. Once inside, he edged forward in the darkness saying, quite loudly, “Don’t be afraid. Wake up. Don’t be afraid. We’re friends.”
There was a muffled sound, and then a small bedside lamp was turned on. There in a rough, low-slung bed was a man wearing a tee-shirt and a pair of striped sailing trousers. He had been fast asleep, and was rubbing his eyes in confusion.
Mike could scarcely believe his eyes. With a cry he rushed forward. “Dad!” he sobbed. “Dad, it’s me. It’s Mike.”
Mr Rigger turned away and left the cabin. This was a private moment, something special for Mike and his father, and he wanted them to experience it together, without his looking on.
After a few minutes he came back in to see Mike’s father had got out of the bed and was holding his son in an embrace so tight that even a tractor wouldn’t have been able to pull them apart. Both were weeping – but their tears, he could tell, were tears of joy.
“Quick! We don’t have much time,” Mr Rigger said. “Mike, help your father to get ready and then come outside and join us. We’re getting out of here.”
When everybody was assembled outside, Mr Rigger gave the signal to leave. They walked as quietly as they could, and nobody heard them, although at one point a dog started to bark. Mr Rigger was worried this might raise the alarm, but Mike’s father explained that the dogs often barked at night for no reason, and the guards, who lived in the last of the cabins, were far too lazy to investigate.
Within a few minutes they were all standing near the edge of the lagoon. Mike’s father offered to throw the fish into the water to distract the sharks, and Mike said that he would help him. “We’ll come after you,” Mike said. “Start crossing once we let you know that the sharks are busy.”
The plan worked perfectly. The sharks were pleased to have a second meal so short a time after their first, and there was a great swirling in the water as they gobbled up their treat. While the sharks were busy, the group swam across the lagoon, reaching the other side rather more quickly than it had taken them to cross before. Then, shaking the water out of their shoes as best they could, they followed the path back towards the shore.
They made it over the bridge without incident and after a few more minutes found themselves approaching the sand dunes at the edge of the beach. And it was here that they heard the cries.
Fee heard them first. “What’s that?” she asked.
Poppy listened. “I can’t hear anything,” she said. “Maybe it’s a bird. An owl, perhaps.”
“No,” said Fee. “It was voices.”
This time the voices were louder – and clearer – and it was easy enough to make out what they said.
“Help!” cried a voice.
“Help us!” shouted another.
“Please, please help!” came the cry of a third.
Mr Rigger started to run in the direction from which the cries were coming, and all the others followed him. From the dunes, they looked down on the moonlit beach and saw in a moment of complete astonishment, three people in the sand – or rather three half- people, because whoever they were appeared to be partially buried.
Badger realised immediately what was happening.
“They’re in the quicksand,” he shouted.
Mr Rigger took control. “Right, everybody,” he said, “follow me, but don’t, whatever you do, get too close to the quicksand. Understand?”
They approached carefully and were soon close enough to make out the faces of the three people stuck in the sand.
“It’s Hardtack!” exclaimed Poppy.
“And Shark,” said Fee.
“And Flubber,” added Ben.
The three boys were desperately squirming and struggling, pleading for help. “Keep still!” shouted Mr Rigger. “The more you struggle, the more the sand will suck you down.”
The three terrified boys immediately stopped writhing. Looking about him, Mr Rigger saw Mike’s kayak lying on the beach.
“Ben and Badger, go and get the kayak,” he ordered. “We’ll push it out over the quicksand – they’ll be able to grab hold of it.”
It was a good plan. After pushing the kayak over towards Hardtack, Ben and Badger waited until he had a firm grip on its prow before very slowly dragging the trapped boy out of the sand. When he finally emerged with a strange, squelching, popping sound, they all wanted to cheer, but stopped themselves, as Mr Rigger had told them all to remain silent. Then it was Shark’s turn, and finally Flubber’s.
Mr Rigger looked at the three mud-caked boys, his expression one of severe disapproval. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Hardtack spoke for all three. “We only wanted to find out what was going on,” he said. “We didn’t expect to find quicksand here.”
“The map said it was at the top of the island,” said Shark. “Look, here it is …” And with that he took Captain Tommy’s now soaking map from his pocket and unfolded it. Then he realised what he had done; but it was too late. Hardtack gave him a withering look, and Flubber rolled his eyes.
“You didn’t know it was upside down,” said Ben. “You thought this beach was at the other side of the island.”
“So you stole the map after all,” said Poppy. “You had it all along.”
“I don’t know what Geoffrey’s talking about,” said Hardtack quickly. “I’ve never seen that map in my life.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” said Mr Rigger, giving Hardtack an accusing look. “In the meantime, get into your boat and follow us back to the Tobermory.” He paused. “And once you’ve had a shower to get all that mud off you, go straight to your cabins and remain there until first thing tomorrow morning, when you are to report to the Captain.’
Hardtack and his friends did not like the sound of this at all, but they knew better than to argue with Mr Rigger. Everybody got into the other boat, and Mike left the kayak on the shore – he had borrowed it from the Barracuda and they could come and get it themselves.
Back on the Tobermory everybody was too tired to do anything other than get into their hammocks and go straight to sleep. Cabins were found for Mike’s father and the other man from the island, and they were soon comfortably settled in. For Mike, though, there was one task to do before he went off to his hammock, and that was to send an urgent message to Antigua to say that his father had been found safe and sound.
That done, he went off to join Ben and Badger in their cabin, Mr Rigger having told him to move his hammock there so he wouldn’t have to share with the disgraced Maximilian Flubber. Mike was very pleased to do this, though by the time he had slung his hammock across a corner of his friends’ cabin, Ben and Badger were fast asleep, so he had nobody to chat to before he drifted off. But he had enough happy thoughts to keep him occupied as he went to sleep. He had found his father; he had been cleared of theft; he had even helped to save Hardtack and his friends from that perilous quicksand. There was a lot to be happy with, indeed to feel very proud of.
He wondered what he would dream about that night. Would it be sharks? He hoped not. Would it be quicksand? Again, he hoped not. He need not have worried, because his dreams featured neither of these things. Instead they were about being with his father, on a boat somewhere at sea, looking at the sun on the water and feeling happier than he had ever felt before.
The next morning t
he Tobermory left her anchorage on the morning tide. There was no sign of any activity on the Barracuda, where the crew, it would seem, were all still asleep. Captain Macbeth was happy to get away before the other ship came to life, as his main concern was to get to Guadeloupe as soon as he possibly could and notify the police about the Barracuda and Bert Thorn’s activities on Shark Island.
Mr Rigger had told him the whole story, and Captain Macbeth was delighted there was enough evidence to put before the authorities. If all went well, the French navy, who had a patrol boat stationed on Guadeloupe, would soon be off to Shark Island to free the remaining captives and arrest Bert Thorn.
But there were other, more immediate, things he had to do, and he lost no time in dealing with William Edward Hardtack and his friends.
“You know very well it’s against the rules to leave the ship at night without a member of staff,” he said. “And yet you deliberately did so.”
He asked Hardtack if there was any good reason why the three boys had gone ashore, but Hardtack could think of none.
“In that case,” said the Captain. “Twenty days of cleaning the heads – for all three of you.”
After dismissing them, he asked for Mike to come to his cabin.
“I owe you an apology about the missing items from Captain Tommy’s chest,” he said. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
“I don’t blame you, Captain,” said Mike. “And I accept your apology.’
“Well, that’s good of you,” said the Captain. “And I’m really pleased about your father. Do you think he might join us on the Tobermory, as Mr Rigger’s assistant, for the rest of this voyage?”
“Why not ask him?” suggested Mike.
The answer, of course, was yes, and Mike’s father was soon kitted out in Tobermory uniform and proving to be a very helpful assistant to Mr Rigger. As for the others, they were delighted that Mike had found his father, that Bert Thorn would be arrested, and that the poor people kept prisoner on Shark Island would shortly be rescued.
With everything sorted out, it was time for the Tobermory to continue on her way. So they soon set out, following a course due south. Before them were long, sunny days of sailing, and hour upon hour of being with friends – which is the greatest pleasure of all.
“Do you know something?” said Ben in his cabin one night as they sailed towards Dominica. “There’s nowhere else I would rather be than here – right here, with you, Badger, and you, Mike.”
Badger laughed. “That’s a short speech, Ben,” he said. “Have you anything else to add?”
Ben thought for a moment. There was so much that he wanted to say, but he was not sure he would get the right words in the right order. So he simply said nothing. But then Mike spoke.
“I’ve got something to say,” he said.
“What is it?” asked Badger, beginning to sound drowsy.
“It’s one word,” said Mike. “Thanks.”
Ben thought this was a great speech. It was very short, but then the best speeches always are. And there were times, he felt, when one word, one simple word, could say it all.
Alexander McCall Smith, The Sands of Shark Island
(Series: # )
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