9

Two Kinds Of Camping Places

ONLY TWENTY OR thirty yards below the steep rock face from the top of which they had been watching their rival, Nancy, followed by the others, came out from under the trees on a round piece of cleared ground.

‘What a gorgeous place,’ said Titty.

‘It jolly well is,’ said Nancy. ‘This was the place I was thinking of, close to the Topps, close to Atkinson’s, no time wasted anywhere, and if only it wasn’t for the drought, there wouldn’t be any dead sheep, and the beck would be full, and that puddle you saw where there used to be a waterfall would be a bathing pool big enough for a herd of hippopotamuses. …’

‘Not a herd,’ said Dick doubtfully.

‘Two or three little ones, anyway,’ said Nancy.

John and Susan had seen the place the day before. Peggy had seen it long ago. Dick, Dorothea, Titty and Roger, were seeing it for the first time. It was a round, level platform. Anybody could see that it had been levelled on purpose. One side of it had been built up from below. The other had been levelled by scooping away rock and earth out of the steep side of the hill. Not a tree was growing on it, though trees and bushes hedged it in so that people could have walked past it only a few yards away and not known that it was there. There were a few small bushes at the edge of it, and stumps of old trees just to be seen among the foxglove leaves, but most of the platform was bare of anything but dead leaves, and moss, with here and there a tuft of thin grass. At one side of it was something that looked at first like an untidy heap of larch poles.

‘Someone’s camped here before,’ said Dorothea. ‘Savages probably.’

‘The very best kind of savages,’ said Titty eagerly. ‘They may be the very ones we knew.’

Roger was looking at the weathered, moss-covered larch poles. ‘I bet once upon a time it was a wigwam just like the one I slept in. I wonder if they had an adder in it, too.’

Dick and Dorothea looked at them with puzzled faces.

‘It’s an old charcoal-burners’ pitstead,’ said Nancy.

‘You know,’ said Peggy, ‘where they had their piles of wood, and covered them up to burn slowly and turn into charcoal. These poles are what’s left of the wigwam they lived in.’

‘The ones we know are the Billies,’ said Roger. ‘Young Billy’s about a hundred years old, and Old Billy is his father and even older.’

‘There just couldn’t be friendlier savages,’ said Titty. ‘They might almost have left the place specially for us.’

‘They didn’t, really,’ said Susan. ‘Nobody’s been charcoal-burning here for years. Look at the moss on those poles.’

‘I know they didn’t,’ said Titty. ‘But they might have. Look at the way Young Billy made a crutch for Roger. What I mean is, it’s such a lovely place that you might almost think it was a present from them.’

‘Hidden from everywhere,’ said Dorothea.

‘Ahoy! Nancy!’

John’s voice sounded from above them. They looked up and saw him astride a branch at the top of a tall old ash that towered above the other trees at the side of the clearing.

‘I can see Atkinson’s from here,’ he called down. ‘I can see the garden, and those beehives, and the door. … Squashy Hat’s just gone in. … And looking the other way I can see a lot of the Dundale road.’

‘Gosh,’ said Nancy. ‘What a place it is. And a look-out post all ready for us.’

‘And room for all our tents,’ said Titty.

‘And no danger of setting fire to anything,’ said Peggy.

‘Let’s camp here, anyhow,’ said Roger.

‘We’ll never find a better place,’ said Titty.

‘It’s no good,’ said Susan. ‘We could manage all right if it was only getting milk from the valley every day. But we simply can’t cart every drop of water.’

‘We could go without washing,’ said Roger. ‘Unnecessary washing, I mean,’ he added as he happened to catch Susan’s eye.

‘And anyway,’ said Susan, ‘we’ve got to camp where Mrs Tyson will let us.’

‘When the charcoal-burners were here,’ said Nancy, ‘it can’t have been a year like this. Oh, bother the drought. Well, you see why I wanted to come here. It’s going to make it a lot harder for us, having to climb up from Tyson’s every day. …’

‘And go back at night,’ said Peggy.

‘And Squashy Hat at Atkinson’s, right on the edge of our goldfield. …’

John came down from the tree.

‘I’m going up,’ said Nancy. ‘I won’t be a minute. …’

‘Oh come along, Nancy,’ said Susan. ‘We must get down to the farm. There’s the baggage wagon to unpack, and the dromedaries and then all the stuff Mrs Blackett’s bringing for us. And we’ll make a gorgeous camp somewhere else. …’

‘Not like this one,’ said Roger.

‘What a camp it might have been,’ said Titty.

‘Might have been,’ echoed Dorothea.

‘Camp Might Have Been,’ said Nancy. ‘Jolly good name for it. Oh well, it can’t be helped. Come on down and get our tents up, and we’ll have breakfast early and be up here before Squashy Hat stops yawning and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.’

‘Which way?’ said Roger.

‘Through here,’ said Nancy.

An old track partly bushed over, so that they had to hold the branches out of each other’s way, led from the open pitstead into the path by which they had climbed out of the valley. Susan and John, as soon as they were back on the path, set out at a steady jogtrot down the hill.

‘Stir your stumps,’ said Nancy, as she hurried after them.

The old track wound zigzagging to and fro down through the wood.

It had seemed a long climb, when, after the trek, they had left their baggage in the farmyard and gone on, travelling light, to have a look at the goldfields of High Topps. It seemed a great deal longer now, although instead of going up they were hurrying down. With every step now they were going further from the country they had to search. Every step now meant so much more time wasted at the beginning and end of every day. The sight of their rival had changed things for all of them. They had seen him, with a map, in the middle of the goldfields. There had been a doubt even in Nancy’s mind. Squashy Hat might after all be no more than a casual visitor. It might have been just romantic curiosity that had brought him to Slater Bob’s. Atkinson’s farm might have been chosen as a lodging by someone not in the least interested in prospecting. But now, what doubt could there be? They had heard what Slater Bob had said. They had seen Squashy Hat waiting till they were out of the way and then going into the mine to talk to the old man. And now, each one of them had seen him messing about with a map in the very country they hoped to search.

‘It’ll be a race who finds it first,’ said Dorothea.

‘That’s just it,’ said Titty. She trotted on a few more steps before finishing what she had to say. ‘And living up there he gets such a tremendous start.’

For a long time they jogged on down the winding track, clump, clump, down the straight bits, slowing up for the sharp turns, careful not to slip on the dry moss. Every time they came near the beck, or rather the place where once the beck had leapt sparkling from stone to stone, from waterfall to ferny pool, from pool to waterfall again, its dry bed reminded them of the perfect camp that might have been.

‘Bother the drought,’ said Roger.

‘You can see there’s been plenty of water,’ said Dick. ‘Look how green the ferns are even though there isn’t a drop coming down the stream.’

‘We’ll never have a camp as good as that one,’ said Dorothea.

‘It’s going to be an awful way to climb in the morning,’ said Peggy.

They trotted on.

‘And what about getting back to camp for dinner in the middle of the day?’ said Roger.

‘We’ll have to carry it with us,’ said Peggy. ‘Susan and I’ll have to cook it at the same time as breakfast.’

A shrill whistle sounded far below them in the wood.

‘That’s the mate’s whistle,’ said Titty.

‘Coming. COMING!’ they shouted.

They found the others waiting for them near the bottom. All three of them were close together, and there had been some kind of an argument. John was just winding it up.

NICE AND HANDY TO THE HOUSE

‘Look here, Nancy, Susan’s right. It’s no good thinking of a camp up there without a drop of water. Even if we hadn’t promised.’

‘And we may have a really good place down here,’ said Susan.

As soon as they came back into the farmyard, they saw that Mrs Blackett had already been there. Someone had spread a tarpaulin on the ground. On it was a great pile of bedding and mattresses and rolled-up tents.

Mrs Tyson was looking at it. This time, somehow, she seemed much more pleased to see them. Perhaps Mrs Blackett had told her that they were a careful lot, not likely to set the fell on fire.

‘Ah, here you are,’ she said. ‘Mrs Blackett didn’t wait for you. She’s a mort to do at home, so she said, so she was off again. But we’ve a grand place for you to camp. Here in the orchard, close by the house so you’ll be handy if you want owt. And we’ve turned the old sow out, so she won’t come tumbling your tents at night. And you’ll find good water at yon pump across the yard, and plenty of it for all the drought. You’ll be as well here as in your own house, better likely, with the workmen up and down with their papering and painting. You’ll likely be putting yer tents up right away, I reckon. Mrs Blackett did say you’ll be wanting to make a fire now and then. I don’t hold with fires, but there’s just one spot on the shingle by the bridge where there’s no fear of owt catching. Things are that dry, you never know. And you’ll be close by the house at night so that if you want owt, you’ve only to call and I’ll hear you. …’

She rattled on, friendly and kind, making them at home. And with every word she said their spirits sank deeper and deeper.

To be camped within hearing of the house and its natives, no matter how friendly. … To draw water from the farm pump instead of dipping it from lake or beck. … To have the tents not in a wood, or on the fell, or even in an ordinary field, but in an orchard, with apple and damson trees in their neat rows. … Why, Mrs Tyson was quite right, and they might almost as well be in the Beckfoot garden.

Dick and Dorothea, perhaps, felt nothing of this, because, poor things, they hardly knew what camping was, but Roger and Titty looked at each other and then at John and Nancy and Susan and Peggy, waiting to see what their elders would have to say about it. Surely they would find some way out.

But no. The captains and mates pulled themselves together. Anybody who did not know them might easily have thought that they were very pleased. They followed Mrs Tyson into the orchard and said, ‘Thank you,’ almost as if they meant it, when she showed them the clear space along the wall where they could pitch their tents.

‘You’ll be tired after all that traipsing,’ said Mrs Tyson. ‘I’ll be having supper ready for you in the parlour as soon as you’ve your tents fit up. And breakfast’ll be at eight in the mornings … and your suppers at half-past six.’

‘But we’d rather do our own cooking,’ began Susan, but Mrs Tyson would not listen to her.

‘I’ve the table set out now,’ she said, ‘and the kettle’s on the fire. So I’ll be ready as soon as you are, as the saying is.’

There was nothing to be done about it. Mrs Tyson meant it all so kindly that even Nancy could not say no to her.

‘And I was telling your mother I’ll put you up some sandwiches each day, and with your flasks of tea you’ll be able to picnic where you like. Well, well,’ she broke off. ‘I’ll leave you to it. You’ll be all right setting your tents up anywhere along under this wall.’

She went back to the farmhouse.

The prospectors waited silently till she was gone.

‘Barbecued billygoats,’ said Captain Nancy, ‘but this is pretty awful.’