‘What! After your frightful behaviour today?’ said Julian, who could be just as obstinate as George when he wanted to. ‘Certainly not. This is my adventure and Dick’s – and perhaps Jock’s. Not yours or Anne’s.’
He got up and stalked down the hill with Dick. George sat pulling bits of heather off the stems, looking mutinous and angry. Anne blinked back tears. She hated this sort of thing. She got up to get dinner ready. Perhaps after a good meal they would all feel better.
Mr Luffy was sitting outside his tent, reading. He had already seen the children that morning. He looked up, smiling.
‘Hallo! Come to talk to me?’
‘Yes,’ said Julian, an idea uncurling itself in his mind. ‘Could I have a look at that map of yours, Mr
Luffy? The big one you’ve got showing every mile of these moorlands?’
‘Of course. It’s in the tent somewhere,’ said Mr Luffy.
The boys found it and opened it. Dick at once guessed why Julian wanted it. Mr Luffy went on reading.
‘It shows the railways that run under the moorlands too, doesn’t it?’ said Julian. Mr Luffy nodded.
‘Yes. There are quite a few lines. I suppose it was easier to tunnel under the moors from valley to valley rather than make a permanent way over the top of them. In any case, a railway over the moors would probably be completely snowed up in the wintertime.’
The boys bent their heads over the big map; it showed the railways as dotted lines when they went underground, but by long black lines when they appeared in the open air, in the various valleys.
They found exactly where they were. Then Julian’s finger ran down the map a little and came to where a small line showed itself at the end of a dotted line.
He looked at Dick, who nodded. Yes – that showed where the tunnel was, out of which the ‘spook-train’ had come, and the lines to the deserted yard. Julian’s finger went back from the yard to the tunnel, where the dotted lines began. His finger traced the dotted lines a little way till they became whole lines again. That was where the train came out into another valley!
Then his finger showed where the tunnel that led from the yard appeared to join up with another one, that also ran for some distance before coming out into yet another valley. The boys looked at one another in silence.
Mr Luffy suddenly spotted a day-flying moth and
got up to follow it. The boys took the chance of talking to one another.
‘The spook-train either runs through its own tunnel to the valley beyond – or it turns off into this fork and runs along to the other valley,’ said Julian, in a low voice. ‘I tell you what we’ll do, Dick. We’ll get Mr Luffy to run us down to the nearest town to buy something – and we’ll slip along to the station there and see if we can’t make a few inquiries about these two tunnels. We may find out something.’
‘Good idea,’ said Dick, as Mr Luffy came back. ‘I say, sir, are you very busy today? Could you possibly run us down to the nearest town after dinner?’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Mr Luffy, amiably. The boys looked at one another in delight. Now they might find out something! But they wouldn’t take George with them. No – they would punish her for her bad temper by leaving her behind!
13 A thrilling plan
Anne called them to dinner. ‘Come along!’ she cried. Tve got it all ready. Tell Mr Luffy there’s plenty for him, too.’
Mr Luffy came along willingly. He thought Anne was a marvellous camp-housekeeper. He looked approvingly at the spread set out on a white cloth on the ground.
‘Hm! Salad. Hard-boiled eggs. Slices of ham. And what’s this – apple-pie! My goodness! Don’t tell me you cooked that here, Anne.’
Anne laughed. ‘No. All this came from the farm, of course. Except the lime juice and water.’
George ate with the others, but said hardly a word. She was brooding over her wrongs, and Mr Luffy looked at her several times, puzzled.
‘Are you quite well, George?’ he said, suddenly. George went red.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, and tried to be more herself, though she couldn’t raise a smile at all. Mr Luffy watched her, and was relieved to see that she ate as much as the others. Probably had some sort of row, he guessed correctly. Well, it would blow over! He knew better than to interfere.
They finished lunch and drank all the lime juice. It was a hot day and they were very thirsty indeed. Timmy emptied all his dish of water and went and gazed longingly into the canvas bucket of washing-water. But he was too well-behaved to drink it, now that he knew he mustn’t. Anne laughed, and poured some more water into his dish.
‘Well,’ said Mr Luffy, beginning to fill his old brown pipe, ‘if anyone wants to come into town with me this afternoon, I’ll be starting in fifteen minutes.’
Til come!’ said Anne, at once. ‘It won’t take George and me long to wash-up these things. Will you come too, George?’
‘No,’ said George, and the boys heaved a sigh of relief. They had guessed she wouldn’t want to come with them – but, if she’d know what they were going to try and find out, she would have come all right!
Tm going for a walk with Timmy,’ said George, when all the washing-up had been done.
‘All right,’ said Anne, who secretly thought that George would be much better left on her own to work off her ill-feelings that afternoon. ‘See you later.’
George and Timmy set off. The others went with Mr Luffy to where his car was parked beside the great rock. They got in.
‘Hi! The trailer’s fastened to it,’ called Julian. ‘Wait a bit. Let me get out and undo it. We don’t want to take an empty trailer bumping along behind us for miles.’
‘Dear me. I always forget to undo the trailer,’ said Mr Luffy, vexed. ‘The times I take it along without meaning to!’
The children winked at one another. Dear old Luffy! He was always doing things like that. No wonder his wife fussed round him like an old hen with one foolish chicken when he was at home.
They went off in the car, jolting over the rough road till they came to the smooth highway. They stopped in the centre of the town. Mr Luffy said he would meet
them for tea at five o’clock at the hotel opposite the parking-place.
The three of them set off together, leaving Mr Luffy to go to the library and browse there. It seemed funny to be without George. Anne didn’t much like it, and said so.
‘Well, we don’t like going off without George either,’ said Julian. ‘But honestly, she can’t behave like that and get away with it. I thought she’d grown out of that sort of thing.’
‘Well, you know how she adores an adventure,’ said Anne. ‘Oh dear – if I hadn’t felt so scared you’d have taken me along, and George would have gone too. It’s quite true what she said about me being a coward.’
‘You’re not,’ said Dick. ‘You can’t help being scared of things sometimes – after all, you’re the youngest of us – but being scared doesn’t make you a coward. I’ve known you to be as brave as any of us when you’ve been scared stiff!’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Anne. The boys told her, and her eyes sparkled.
‘Oh – are we going to find out where the spook-train comes from? It might come from one of two valleys then, judging from the map.’
‘Yes. The tunnels aren’t really very long ones,’ said Julian. ‘Not more than a mile, I should think. We thought we’d make some inquiries at the station and see if there’s anyone who knows anything about the old railway yard and the tunnel beyond. We shan’t say a word about the spook-train of course.’
They walked into the station. They went up to a railway plan and studied it. It didn’t tell them much. Julian turned to a young porter who was wheeling some luggage along.
‘I say! Could you help us? We’re camping up on the
moorlands, and we’re quite near a deserted railway yard with lines that run into an old tunnel. Why isn’t the yard used any more?’
‘Don’t know,’ said the boy. ‘You should ask old Tucky there – see him? He knows all the tunnels under the moors like the back of his hand. Worked in them all when he was a boy.’
‘Thanks,’ said Dick, pleased. They went over to where an old whiskered porter was sitting in the sun, enjoying a rest till the next train came in.