THEY HAD NOT long to wait before they knew that Captain Flint was right and that they could not make a move unnoticed. Roger had hardly set the engine ticking over; there had not been more than a dozen throbs, a dozen pale blue puffs of smoke and water from the exhaust pipe at the Sea Bear’s stern, before they saw that people were busy aboard the Pterodactyl. The egg-collector had come out of the deckhouse and was watching them through binoculars. There was the quiet hum of big engines starting up. A man hurried forward and stood by the Pterodactyl’s windlass, looking aft for the egg-collector to give the word to weigh the anchor.
‘They’re starting too,’ said Peggy.
‘Ready to start if we do,’ said John. ‘It’s his only hope . . . to see where we go and come after us.’
‘Dinghy, John!’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘Take a hand with you and wait for us near the buoy . . . No . . . Not you, Nancy. We’ll want you here to let him have the end of the warp.’
‘Come on, Susan,’ said John.
John pushed off with Susan in the dinghy, rowed across to the buoy, and waited, paddling a stroke or two now and then, so as not to drift back on the tide. They saw Nancy and Captain Flint busy on the foredeck. They saw the anchor climb to the stemhead of the Sea Bear and hang there dripping. They saw Captain Flint go aft, to the tiller. They saw Nancy waiting with the end of a warp. They heard the throb of the little engine change, as the Sea Bear began slowly to forge ahead.
She came nearer and nearer to the buoy.
‘Slow,’ they heard Captain Flint’s voice, without a hint in it that anything unusual was happening.
John brought the dinghy alongside the Sea Bear’s bows. She was just stemming the tide, no more.
‘Here you are,’ said Nancy quietly, lowering the end of the warp to Susan. ‘Pass it once through the ring and make a bowline knot . . . a long one, two fathoms at least, he says, so that we can let go from the deck when we’re ready . . .’
Two minutes later, it was done. The warp had been made fast, the engine had stopped, and Susan and John were climbing aboard again as Roger, hot and happy, came up through the companion and looked across the water to the Pterodactyl.
‘He’s stopped his engines too,’ he said.
‘Shut off the moment he saw our dinghy near the buoy,’ said Nancy.
‘Spotted what we were up to,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Can’t help that. And much obliged to him for showing that if we leave he means to follow us.’
‘And all for Dick’s birds,’ said Nancy. ‘Whoever would have believed it? Jiminy, Professor! I don’t care whether they’re nesting or not. This is better than anything that’s happened yet. Three cheers for natural history. Great Auks and Guillemots! I never thought birds could be half such fun.’
‘I’m almost sure they’re nesting,’ said Dick.
‘That fellow thinks so too,’ said Captain Flint. ‘He thinks you’re really on to something, and he isn’t going to let go in a hurry. We’re going to have our work cut out to diddle him. Four times our speed. If he sees us go and catches us at sea, we haven’t a chance of throwing him off.’
‘We want ten miles start,’ said John. ‘Or a good thick fog.’
‘Fog’s no use to us,’ said Nancy. ‘We’d never have got into Scrubbers’ Bay if I hadn’t taken us to right off the opening before it came on. And we couldn’t do it now.’
‘Trouble is, it’s so light at night up here,’ said Captain Flint.
‘If he goes ashore,’ said Dorothea, ‘what about a Press Gang or something to keep him there till it’s too late to follow us?’
‘We’ll find a way,’ said Captain Flint.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Titty.
‘Nothing,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Just nothing. Keep him wondering. Keep him watching us till he’s sick of the sight.’
‘Come on, Peggy,’ said Susan, ‘we’d better get the animals fed. Where did you put those loaves, John?’
‘Gosh!’ said John. ‘We forgot all about getting them. At least I did. We were thinking about shifting her to the buoy.’
‘Well, we’re very hungry,’ said Roger. ‘Anybody would be.’
‘I want some milk too, if we can get it. And we’ve run out of chocolate. And eggs.’
‘Hen eggs,’ said Roger. ‘Not Great Northerns’.’
‘Nobody wants the dinghy,’ said Susan. ‘Peggy and I’ll row across to the shops before they shut.’
The two cooks went down into the dinghy, rowed away and landed at some steps below the quay.
‘Hullo,’ said Roger. ‘The old Dactyl’s hungry too.’
Mr Jemmerling was standing at the rail of the Pterodactyl, talking to one of his men who was already in the Pterodactyl’s dinghy. They saw the man glance over his shoulder at the quay. He pushed off, rowed away as fast as he could, and was presently tying up his boat at the steps where Peggy and Susan had left theirs. He went up the steps and looked up and down the quay. He sat down on a bollard, as if he were waiting for somebody. They saw him fill a pipe and light it.
‘He isn’t in a hurry,’ said Roger.
‘Everybody isn’t as hungry as you,’ said Nancy. Suddenly her voice changed. ‘Jiminy,’ she cried, jumping up. ‘That beast’s sent him to wait for our cooks. He’ll find things out from Peggy . . . She’s simply bound to blurt everything out if he asks her. It’s too far to swim. Let’s get the folding boat out quick . . .’
‘Too late,’ said Captain Flint.
Susan and Peggy had just come out of a shop on the quay and were looking into the window of another. The Pterodactyl’s man was crossing the road towards them.
‘We can’t do anything now,’ said John.
‘Susan’ll never tell him,’ said Titty.
‘Jibbooms and bobstays!’ exclaimed Nancy. ‘Peewits and Puffins, I mean . . . Peggy’s letting him carry her basket. She’s always ready to chatter to anyone.’
‘The innocent child was easy prey for the smooth-tongued, smiling villain,’ murmured Dorothea and, though really worried, fumbled in her pocket for a pencil.
‘They’re going into the shop together,’ said Roger.
‘Do you think she really will tell him?’ said Dick.
‘We’ll drown her if she does,’ said Nancy.
‘But it’ll be too late,’ said Dick.
There was horrified silence aboard the Sea Bear as they saw Susan and Peggy come out of the shop with the Pterodactyl’s sailor, now loaded up with loaves of bread as well as the shopping basket. They could see that he was talking to his new-made friends, as the three of them crossed the quay and came down the steps. They watched the Sea Bear’s cooks step into their dinghy and take basket and loaves from the sailor. They saw the sailor pull his forelock and then, as Susan rowed towards the Sea Bear, they saw the sailor go sculling back to the Pterodactyl. Nobody said a word until Susan and Peggy had handed up the provisions and come aboard.
‘That was a sailor from the Pterodactyl,’ said Peggy cheerfully.
‘What did you tell him?’ asked Nancy, very grim.
Peggy grinned. ‘We saw him rowing after us,’ she said, ‘and when he came and spoke to us we had everything ready.’
‘What did you tell him?’ asked Nancy again.
‘He said, “Where might you be voyaging in that bonny wee ship of yours?” and I said we’d got to take her back to her owner.’
‘Good for you,’ said Captain Flint.
‘Not bad,’ said Nancy.
‘It was Susan’s idea,’ said Peggy.
‘Well, so we have,’ said Susan. ‘And when he asked where her owner was, it was quite all right to say he worked in Glasgow.’
‘And then what?’ said Nancy. ‘You didn’t let out about Scrubbers’ Bay?’
‘He said something about meeting us at sea, and Susan said she remembered a motor boat steering across our bows, and was that him? He was a bit sheepish, but he plucked up again and asked, “And where have you been since then?” and we both explained that we were the cooks and didn’t exactly know. We told him how puzzling charts are, with figures all over the place.’
‘Gosh!’ said Roger. ‘I wish I’d been there.’
‘You wouldn’t have done any better,’ said John. ‘Probably worse.’
‘You’ve both done splendidly,’ said Captain Flint. ‘He’s learnt nothing and we’ve learnt a lot. I thought he’d made up his mind to find Dick’s birds. Now we know he has. His only hope is to follow us, and follow us he will if we give him a chance. We’ve got to get away without his knowing. None too easy. He’ll be watching us. Down below everybody. Don’t keep staring at him. We’re a lazy ship with a bone-idle crew and we take no interest in anybody . . . least of all in a chap like that.’
‘There’s just one thing I must do first,’ said John. ‘It’s the staysail block. It squeaks like a canary.’
‘More like a cockatoo,’ said Roger.
‘He’d hear it right across the harbour,’ said John.
‘All right. Up you go and give it a touch of grease.’
John went up to the cross-trees and greased that block till it made no noise at all. Then he came below to find everybody in the cabin and ready for a monster meal.
‘Tea,’ said Susan, ‘and supper.’
‘And likely enough breakfast too,’ said Nancy. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen in the night.’
Every now and then during that tremendous meal, somebody slipped through into the fo’c’sle to look through a porthole at the Pterodactyl. For a long time the egg-collector himself was sitting in a deck-chair, watching the Sea Bear. Then he disappeared, but left a sailor on deck, who seemed to have nothing to do.
They were washing up after the meal when they heard the sudden patter of rain overhead.
‘Oh I say,’ said John. ‘And the sails aren’t stowed.’
‘They’ll take no harm,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Don’t go on deck. First bit of luck for us. A cloudy night’s the very best thing we could have hoped for.’
‘The rain’s driven that sailor in,’ said Titty.
‘Do you think they’ve stopped watching?’ said Dick.
‘Not they,’ said Nancy. ‘I bet there’s somebody in the deckhouse all the time, and they’re ready to start the moment they see us move.’
‘When are we going to?’ asked Roger.
Captain Flint was looking at the tide tables. ‘We’ll want the ebb to help us,’ he said, as much to himself as to anybody else. ‘High tide close on nine. Ebb’ll run till getting on for three. We must be off before then if we’re to do any good. Look here. Everybody had better get to bed. Put in all the sleep you can.’
Nobody wanted to turn in so early, and for half an hour or so they waited, someone going up the companion ladder every few minutes to look out at the rain, and bringing back the cheerful news that there was a grey sky, and a steady drizzle that would be as useful as a fog. At last Susan put her foot down, and reminded them that they wouldn’t be much good if they were to sail in the middle of the night and had had no sleep before starting.
‘Dick’s asleep now,’ whispered Dorothea, and pointed to him.
Dick, tired right out by the shock of finding his bird-man an egg-collector instead of a friend, by worry over his birds, by the disappointment of finding that Captain Flint would neither change his plans nor even agree to leaving Dick and Dorothea behind, and then by joy at finding not only the rest of the crew ready to help him but Captain Flint himself throwing all plans overboard and agreeing to do exactly what he wanted, was asleep over his bird-book.
‘Sensible chap,’ said Captain Flint. ‘No. Don’t wake him. Let him sleep. Get into your bunks you others. I’ll wake you when the time comes.’
‘Sleep in our clothes?’ asked Nancy.
‘As you like,’ said Captain Flint. ‘Susan, lend me your alarm clock.’
‘It makes an awful noise,’ said Susan.
‘Muffle it in a towel,’ said Nancy, ‘and shove it under your pillow.’
It was darkish in the cabin when Dick woke but though the lantern was not lit other people were still awake. He had hardly moved before he felt Captain Flint’s hand on his knee.
‘You can get into your bunk without a light, old chap,’ he heard him say. ‘We put out lights an hour ago, and we want him to think we’re all snoring.’
‘Has it stopped raining?’
‘No, but I’m afraid it will.’
‘Can’t we start now?’
‘Not yet,’ said Captain Flint. ‘He’s still got his eye on us. Look at that . . .’
There was a sudden flash of brighter light through the portholes on one side. The open companion-way was lit up and the white sail hanging in folds from the boom above it.
‘That’s his searchlight again,’ Dick heard Nancy say.
‘Every half-hour,’ said Captain Flint. ‘We’ve got to wait until he’s sick of doing that.’
‘We really are going back?’ said Dick.
‘We are. You roll into your bunk and go to sleep.’