CHAPTER XXIII

THE USES OF AN UNCLE

DOROTHEA never quite got the hang of what had been happening that morning. Everybody was looking in a queer, anxious way at Dick and herself; everybody, that is to say, except Captain Flint, who seemed quite at his ease, smiled in the friendliest manner and thanked her for bringing the bacon from Mrs Dixon. John and Susan seemed to be worried about something. Titty and Roger were staring at her almost as if she were a ghost. And then there was Peggy, to whom Captain Flint really belonged, as he was her uncle, looking almost as if she had been thinking of tears, and as if she was ashamed and indignant at the same time.

“Look here, Dorothea,” Peggy said. “Was he beastly? What did happen when he turned up?”

Everybody was staring at her. Even Captain Flint. It was as if the whole air was full of question marks. Dorothea tried to remember exactly what had happened after the arrival of the tall Dutchman.

“We had tea,” she said, “and afterwards they looked at stars.”

“Then why did you pretend you were such a beast?” said Peggy furiously, turning to her uncle.

Dorothea listened with grave interest. This seemed to her a queer way of talking to an uncle, though, as she and Dick had no uncles of their own, she had had no personal experience of dealing with them. However, in a very few minutes, all was peace, and Susan was in the fo’c’sle frying his bacon for him, while everybody else was promising to tidy things up that very morning, and meanwhile sucking the oranges of which he seemed to have a large supply. One thing was clear at once and that was that she had been right not to treat him as a mere Eskimo yesterday afternoon. It would have been impossible, anyhow, when his own ship was being used for the Fram, and she had had to explain how it was that his cabin was littered with Arctic equipment. She had been a little troubled, thinking it over afterwards in bed, lest she had let him know too much; but this morning, once hostilities were over, it was clear that all the others were in a hurry to tell him even more.

“Well,” he said at last, when he had had his breakfast and smoked a pipe and heard a good deal of what they had to say, “the best thing I can do is to go and have a talk with the chief culprit and find out what she’s really up to . . . No . . . I’ll not forget she’s had to put up with a face like a water-melon . . . beg your pardon, Roger . . . pumpkin, if you like it better . . . and now will one of you slip away to the shore and bring my sledge. You’ll find it just to the right of the old cart track. Yes . . . I hid it there last night so as not to give things away too soon this morning. One surprise deserves another, eh, Peggy? . . . ”

“Where did you find the sledge?” asked Peggy. “Nancy and I hunted all over for it. We could only find the big one.”

“Where I put it,” said Captain Flint. “The last two years it’s been on the beams under the roof of the boathouse, and you’re a couple of duffers not to have found it yourselves.”

“What do you want it for now?”

“Going shopping,” said Captain Flint. “Poor dogs like me must have their bones, even if their cupboards have been eaten bare.”

Everybody said they were dreadfully sorry, but he only laughed at them and presently was gone, after telling them they had better stay to cook his dinner for him when he came back.

Susan took complete command the moment he had gone, and the Fram was given a regular spring cleaning, middle of winter though it was. A whole sledge-load of Arctic gear, and the rubbish and scraps left over after making it, was taken up to Holly Howe where it was dumped, though not too warmly welcomed. The D.’s’ sledge was loaded, too, with things that had to go back to Dixon’s Farm, and the Beckfoot sledge was already piled with a second load when Captain Flint came skating back, towing his own small sledge with a cargo of provisions to make up for those the explorers had already eaten.

“Did you see Nancy?” everybody asked him.

“I did,” said Captain Flint. “Very disappointing. I seem to have come back too late to see her in bloom. Her face is no bigger than usual.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“From one end of the lawn to the other. Semaphore, mostly.”

“We’re not allowed even to do that,” said Peggy.

“I shall have to rub up my signalling,” said Captain Flint. “She goes a lot too fast for me.”

“We’d been doing signals all these holidays until she got mumps,” said Peggy, “and she’d be jolly glad to have someone to practise with.”

“I kept on signalling ‘Go slow’ and ‘Repeat’ for the first five minutes or so, and in the end I got her down to a reasonable speed.”

“Well, well! And what did she say? What’s going to happen?”

To that he gave no very definite answer. It seemed that just at first Nancy had been mainly interested to know what had happened the day before when he had found strangers in the houseboat. Then, certainly, there had been talk about the Pole.

“The trouble is,” said Captain Flint, “that in these days everything belongs to someone, even the North Pole.”

“Polar bears,” said Roger.

“Well,” said Captain Flint, “I’ve got to make sure that these particular bears will let us have the key.”

“Key?” said Dick – “Key to the North Pole?”

“It’s all right,” said Peggy. “You wait till you see it and then you’ll know.”

“And what about Nancy herself?” asked John.

“She says the doctor’s promised that in another week he’ll let her haul down the plague flag and meet the rest of us.”

“And we’ve got another ten days before going back to school,” said Titty.

“Unless somebody else goes and starts it,” said Susan, “and then there’ll be another month.”

There was a general opening and shutting of mouths to test the stiffness of jaws.

“The frost won’t last all that time,” said Captain Flint.

“But will Nancy be able to come to the Pole even if nobody starts mumps?” asked Titty.

“With any luck she will,” said Captain Flint. “But it’ll be a near thing if a thaw comes. At the first sign of a thaw we shall have to start at once if we’re going to do it at all.”

Dick and John looked anxiously at the barometer, which at the moment was high and steady, prophesying good weather.

*

There had been fears at first that the return of Captain Flint would mean that the houseboat would no longer be the Fram, and that the explorers would have to return to life ashore. But it was not so. Captain Flint had come back for the skating, and to enjoy seeing the lake frozen from end to end as he had seen it when he was a boy. But skating is always better when it has an object; and after that first morning he was invited to join the North Polar Expedition, and at once threw himself into Arctic exploration as keenly as anybody else.

The houseboat was now a much tidier Fram than it had been, but it was still the Fram. Dinner was eaten there nearly every day. Indeed, the only difference was that, after Captain Flint’s return, dinners had rather a tendency to turn into feasts. Also, he got his accordion smuggled out of Beckfoot, where it had been stored for fear of damp; and after that there was sometimes so much noise in the cabin of the Fram and such hearty stamping on her deck that the explorers no longer had any right to complain of the rowdiness of the Eskimos dancing in Rio Bay. He was taken up the hillside, and admired the igloo very much, though he said that if they ever built another he would take it kindly if they made a rather larger doorway. One evening, he and Dick took glasses and the telescope up to the observatory and came back late for supper at Dixon’s Farm, when Mrs Dixon, who had known Captain Flint when he was a boy, said that growing older and travelling round the world brought no sense to some folk. There was very little wind these days, too little even for the ice yachts, and not enough to move the Beckfoot sledge. But Captain Flint had a good look at it, and showed John a better way of rigging the mast, and told him that for sledge work the nearer he could come to making his sail a square sail the better it would be. And Dick watched and listened, and, when he came home in the evening talked it all over with Mr Dixon.

At the same time everybody knew that Captain Flint was keeping in close touch with Captain Nancy. Every day he skated over to Beckfoot. Mrs Blackett would not let him into the house until the doctor should say that all danger of infection was over. So Nancy and Captain Flint consulted each other through a window pane, or from opposite sides of the garden, noiselessly, by semaphoring or by talking deaf and dumb language with their fingers. Shouting, of course, would have given secrets away. Nancy had been very angry to find herself so weak after being in bed with mumps, which really was nothing of an illness, and now she was fiercely getting herself back into training. In the beginning all she had hoped for was to persuade the doctor to get the North Pole ready for the others. But now, with Captain Flint back and helping, and the doctor promising her freedom in very few more days, it would be horrible if mere weakness prevented her from dashing northwards with the others. Day by day the journey to the Pole was getting nearer. Day by day Nancy was walking up and down the garden path, then to the end of the promontory and back, and latterly was going on the ice each morning and once more growing accustomed to her skates.

Plans for the final journey were growing clearer. It had been all but decided that there should be three separate parties. After all, there were now three sledges and, as Captain Flint pointed out, it was no good thinking of their all starting together, because it would be too much for Nancy to come down the lake to the Fram and then, the same day, race for the head of the lake. Not that it was to be a race. Simply, on the day, everybody would set out for the north, the big Beckfoot sledge with its five husky dogs, Dick and Dorothea with their sledge, and Captain Flint and Nancy going together, all to get to the Arctic as fast as they could and to meet at the North Pole.

“But what if we don’t know it when we see it?” said Dick.

“Anybody would know it the moment they saw it,” said Peggy. “It’s right at the head of the lake. The extreme north of the Arctic, and only a few yards off the ice. You can’t mistake it.”

“And as soon as the first party gets there they hoist a flag,” said Titty. “A quarantine flag, because we shall still be lepers till the very day we go back to school.”

Peggy alone, of the explorers who met aboard the Fram, had actually seen the Pole, but that had been a long time ago, and she really remembered very little about it. Not even she knew what was preparing between Nancy and Captain Flint. One or two odd little things happened that might have been enough to show what they were up to, but, as Peggy said, “It only spoils things to be too beastly clever.” So questions were not pushed too hard, and when it was necessary the explorers looked the other way. For example, everybody had known, the day after Captain Flint had had his first talk with Nancy, that he had skated right up to the head of the lake to see those Polar bears of whom he had spoken. But not one single word was said to him about it when he came back. A day or two after that, he disappeared for a long time, and when he came back Roger, after examining his sledge, asked him why it was all black with coal dust. Captain Flint looked at him and shut both eyes, and the others sang out at once that they did not want to know.

“If it’s anything to do with the Pole, I don’t either,” said Roger.

“Then everybody’ll be content,” said Captain Flint.

All the same, as the days went on, everybody knew that the journey to the Pole was coming very near. There was great cleaning of skates and sledge-runners, and a lot of hard work put into the greasing of skating boots. And Dick was getting more and more desperate because, as yet, he had not been able to finish up his mast and make his sail. It was as if the Eskimos at Dixon’s Farm hardly realized how urgently needed these things might be.

*

And then one morning, just as Peggy and the Swallows were skating out of Holly Howe Bay after breakfast, on their way to the Fram, they saw Captain Flint with his sledge, close to the shore of Long Island and skating towards Rio. They had skated cheerfully in pursuit of him, round the point, past the deserted boatsheds and into the crowded bay of Rio, where they lost him altogether. They looked up the lake towards Beckfoot, and could see no sign of him. They knew he must be somewhere in the bay, which was black with seals and Eskimos. The five of them skated this way and that, looking for him, and in the end skated towards the landing-stages, where newcomers were sitting in rows, putting on their skates.

“Well, he’s simply disappeared,” said Titty.

“Gone through a hole in the ice,” said Roger cheerfully.

But just then they saw him, coming down out of the village, towing his sledge behind him. But the sledge was no longer empty. There was an enormous packing-case on it. They skated round to meet him when he came down on the shore. He sat down on the wooden case to put his skates on, and looked up with surprise when they came crowding round.

“Hullo!” he said. “What are you doing here? You’ve got that spare key of the cabin, so you can let yourselves in. Be off with you. Don’t wait dinner for me. But I’ll be wanting tea when I come back.”

“What’s in that box?” asked Roger.

“It’s just about big enough for you, isn’t it?” said Captain Flint; and then stood up with his skates on, and a moment later was gliding away from the shore, tugging his loaded sledge behind him.

“Which way are you going?” asked Roger.

“Let’s all be dogs and help,” said Titty.

“Thanks very much,” said Captain Flint, “not this time,” and, gathering speed, went on his way into the middle of the crowd of skaters.

“Let’s go after him,” said Roger.

“Rot!” said Peggy. “Let’s go the other way.”

John and Susan agreed with Peggy. They skated out from Rio towards Long Island. Just for a moment they caught sight of Captain Flint, with his sledge and the big box on it, going steadily northwards. They turned south, themselves, and reached the Fram just in time to stop Dorothea and Dick who, after finding the Fram empty and locked up, were setting off towards the shore, thinking that perhaps they had mistaken the signal, and that everybody had gone to the igloo.

“Where’s Captain Flint?” Dorothea asked.

“Up in the Arctic somewhere,” Peggy replied. “He’s coming back after dinner.”

“Anybody got any plans?” John asked.

“We’ve got to get back early,” said Dick, who had arranged to spend the afternoon at home with the Eskimos. Mr Dixon had promised to make him a sort of box that was to go near the front of the sledge for the stepping of the mast; and Mrs Dixon, who had been putting it off day after day, had said that if he liked to be at home, to show her just what he wanted, she would get that sail of his finished out of hand.

“Back to Dixon’s Farm?” said Peggy. “But why?”

“What for?” said Roger.

Dick looked very bothered. He had set his heart on saying nothing about it to the others until he had made sure his sail would work.

“It’s something he’s got to do,” said Dorothea.

“Secret?” asked Titty.

“It’s for the expedition,” said Dick.

After that nobody tried to make them stay. After all, in a case like this, the more secrets the better. So the plan for the day was made to include a skating practice, and everybody went at full speed right down the lake, past Spitzbergen, across to Horseshoe Point, where the sharp Pike rock, on which Swallow once had been wrecked, was just showing through the ice; back again to Cormorant Island, across to Shark’s Bay, and so to the Dixon’s Farm landing. Here they parted, and the D.’s went up the field to the farm, while the rest of the explorers went back to the Fram for dinner.

In the afternoon, Roger, whose turn it happened to be to keep watch on deck, saw Captain Flint skating wearily home.

“Here he is,” he shouted into the cabin. “And that box has gone.”

“Don’t let’s ask him where he’s been,” said Peggy.

People looked with interest at the empty sledge, and at Captain Flint himself, who was both very hot and very dirty; but the only question that was asked him was asked by Susan, ten minutes later, when they were all sitting round the cabin table, and that was: “How many lumps of sugar would he like to have in his tea?”

“By Jove,” said Captain Flint, “I’m so thirsty, I believe I could drink it with forty or with none at all. Make it three for luck.”

But today Captain Flint seemed almost to want to be asked questions. He had asked for a little drop of water to wash his hands in, and had held them up, black and sooty, and had said, “Well, how do you think I got them into that sort of mess?” and Susan, after one look at them, had said, “You’ve been laying a fire.”

“Susan,” said he, “you’ll make a Sherlock Holmes yet. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Something else, too. I’ve been sweeping a chimney that was properly choked with jackdaws’ nests.”

Everybody stared at him.

“You don’t believe me,” he said, “but I have. And now I think everything’s ready, and I can look forward to a holiday. I little thought when I came back because the lake was frozen, that I was running myself in for such a lot of hard work. Hullo, what’s become of the D.’s?”

“Busy at home,” said John.

“Up to something,” said Peggy.

“Can you make sure of their coming to the Fram tomorrow, or must I go up there tonight?”

“They’ll be here all right if we put the signal for them.”

“Well, you put it,” said Captain Flint, and, after his third or fourth mug of tea, had explained why.

“They’re going to let Nancy loose on the world tomorrow,” he said.

“Three thousand cheers!” shouted John, and the whole lot of them stood up and yelled.

“Wait a minute,” said Captain Flint.

“Shut up, everybody,” said Peggy. “Don’t be a galoot, Roger.”

“We don’t know yet what time tomorrow. Disinfection, fumigation, and all the rest of it. Not before twelve o’clock at the very earliest, so she says. The doctor’s going round there first thing in the morning; and as soon as Nancy knows for certain, she’ll hoist a flag on the promontory. If it’s white, it means they won’t let her come till next day. If it’s a red one, it means she’s to be allowed to come across here for dinner and to stay the afternoon. We’ll have dinner a bit late because she won’t anyhow be able to start till twelve or half-past. Then we’ll settle everything in full council, and the day after tomorrow, if the weather goes on being decent, we’ll liven up the solitary Pole.”

*

That was the programme, very neat and tidy. A final council to decide details, and then, the next day, a march to the head of the lake and the discovery of the Pole. If it had only come off, this particular discovery of the North Pole would have been the most orderly bit of Arctic exploration in history. But there had been just a little too much planning. When, next morning, after hoisting the signal, “Come to the Fram,” Peggy and the Swallows had run up the field above Holly Howe and, through the telescope, had actually seen a big scarlet flag climb the flagstaff on the Beckfoot promontory, they rejoiced that Captain Nancy was free once more, and would that day join them in council. Not one of them knew that nearly a month before, Dick, with Nancy looking over his shoulder, had carefully written in his notebook, “Flag at Beckfoot = Start for Pole.”