The children stood a long time on the bank, watching Bluebottle drift away. They had not seen the three mice on board, for they were hidden by the wooden railing encircling the deck.
Eventually, the boat reached the island and bumped to a stop. “You’ll have to go in and get it,” Lucy said.
Arthur made a face. The water was full of weeds, and you could not see the bottom. “Why don’t you go in?” he replied.
“Because it’s not my boat. And I wouldn’t even if it was. I remember Pa saying the water was very deep. You’d have to swim to reach the island. Just think—if you open your mouth, you might swallow a frog.”
Arthur shuddered. He wasn’t going to risk that. “So what shall we do? We can’t just leave it here,” he said, for Bluebottle was one of his favorite toys.
“I wouldn’t worry if I were you,” Lucy replied. “It’s bound to drift back to the bank eventually. We can come and check this afternoon. But now we’d better get a move on. We promised we’d be back for breakfast.”
Lucy suspected that their father would not notice if they broke this promise. But she wanted breakfast all the same.
“Okay,” Arthur said reluctantly. “But will you definitely come back this afternoon?”
“Of course,” Lucy said.
They walked together back to the campsite and started packing everything away. They did not notice the Nutmouses’ tent, nor their campfire, which was still burning away beneath the nettle clump, small as a penny.
Meanwhile, Bluebottle’s predicament was much worse than the children had feared. As the boat approached the island, the General had tried to steer her into a little pebbled cove he had spotted on the shore. But there was some litter drifting about, and when the boat was less than a ruler’s length from the bank she had collided head-on with a milk bottle that gouged a hole in her hull.
The mice felt the deck heave as water started seeping into the hold. They had sprung a leak. It was a terrible disaster. But the General seemed remarkably unconcerned.
“Marchmouse Island!” he declared, blowing a kiss toward the shore. “And all discovered by me!”
“General, our boat is going to sink,” Tumtum said pointedly.
“Oh, never mind that,” the General cried. “We shall have plenty of time to build another one. Now, come on. Let’s get out and explore!”
Tumtum looked exasperated. But when he and Nutmeg went below deck to inspect the damage, they found the Captain’s cabin already flooding. There was nothing they could do. Bluebottle had been battered beyond repair.
They retrieved the hamper and hurried back upstairs. “We’re shipwrecked,” Nutmeg said miserably.
She turned a moment and looked back across the vast pond. The mainland was far from sight, lost beyond the horizon. And before them lay a wild, unknown shore. She shivered. Even the silence felt hostile to her now. She wondered if they would ever see Nutmouse Hall again.
“Cheer up, my dear lady, for we shall be shipwrecked in great style!” the General said cheerfully. “We are the first settlers on this island, and we shall set the highest standards. We shall build a colossal villa—Villa Colossus, we’ll call it— and it shall have verandas and fountains and fancy colonnades. And we shall dine every night on fresh tadpole fillets, roasted on an open fire!”
“Oh, poppycock,” Tumtum said crossly. “The only thing we need to worry about is building a boat so that we can all get home.”
“All in due course, Nutmouse. All in due course,” the General replied. “Our first priority is to chart out the island so that when we do return to our native land, we can tell everyone exactly what we’ve found. Imagine how astonished our friends will be to learn that there is a whole new country, right here, in the Pond!”
The General slung his rifle over his arm, then he clambered over the side of the boat and slithered along the milk bottle to the shore. “The first settlers have arrived!” he cried, marching onto dry land.
He could not see the rest of the island, for the cove was ringed with a tall forest of bracken. He picked his way over the pebbles and dumped his satchel on a patch of moss. “We shall establish ourselves here. We can set up camp first, and explore later,” he declared.
“All right,” Tumtum said grudgingly, for if they were going to be stuck on the island overnight they would need somewhere to shelter. “Nutmeg and I will gather some twigs, then we can make a lean-to,” he said.
“I want a villa, not a lean-to,” the General replied stubbornly. Tumtum sighed. The General was being very difficult. But then Nutmeg solved the problem.
“We shall make that your villa!” she declared, pointing to an ice-cream tub washed up on the far side of the cove.
“It’s pink!” the General protested.
But once they had dragged the tub over to their campsite and turned it upside down, even the General had to admit that it looked rather smart. It was tall and round like a tower, and there would be ample room for three beds inside. Tumtum hacked out a door and two windows using the bread knife from the picnic hamper, then he carried three pebbles inside to use as chairs.
On the outside of the pot were the remains of a faded label that read VANILLA. “We shall call it Villa Vanilla,” the General said. It wasn’t big enough to be a Villa Colossus. They could make one of those later.
Presently, Tumtum lit a fire, and Nutmeg prepared a late lunch from the odds and ends left in the hamper. It was a meager meal, for she rationed everything very strictly. They were each allowed one sausage roll, half a centipede pasty, and a chocolate mint for dessert.
They were finished eating in no time.
“Well then, General,” Tumtum said. “We had better start building a boat.”
“Not now, Nutty,” he replied. “I’m going exploring first. We can begin our boring old boatbuilding tomorrow.”
“Well, don’t be long,” Tumtum said. “And if you fall down a mole hole, don’t expect us to come and rescue you.”
“Mole hole, pah! I tell you, we are the first rodents on this island. I can feel it in my bones,” General Marchmouse said confidently. Then he slung his satchel over his shoulder and strode into the bracken.
The ferns were very thick, and soon it became so dark the General had to grope his way with his paws. But after a while the wood cleared, and he found himself at the foot of a steep bank covered in cow parsley. He started climbing, hoisting himself up by the plant stems until he came to a long flat ridge. He was on the crest of the hill, high above the level of the pond. He could see the whole island stretched before him.
And what a magnificent island it was! The coastline was wild and rugged and full of pebbled cliffs, and there were jungles of thistles and bulrushes. In the middle of the island was a lake, more than two feet long, surrounded by swathes of buttercups.
The General peered through his field glasses, searching for any sign of habitation. But there was not a soul to be seen, not even a dragonfly. Everything was eerily still.
He took a swig of water from his hip flask and prepared to press on toward the lake, hoping he might at least unearth an exotic beetle or two. But suddenly, in the corner of his eye, he saw something flickering—then all at once there was a brilliant flash of light on the far corner of the island.
He grabbed his field glasses and peered along the shore, trying to find where it had come from. But there was nothing there. He could just see the nettles rippling in the breeze.
He looked again, searching the rushes along the water’s edge—and then suddenly a dark shape appeared in his lens. He steadied his paws until he could see it clearly. It was a black ship with gold sails and the name LADY CROSSBONES painted in bloodred letters on its side.
The General reeled back in horror. He knew to whom that boat belonged. The Rats had arrived on Marchmouse Island.