He put on a torch and flashed it in the faces of the three boys, who, although they were not showing any fear, felt rather scared all the same. This was so weird and unexpected, and they had no idea where they were at all.
‘You were warned not to go down to that yard,’ said the voice of one of the men. ‘You were told it was a bad and dangerous place. So it is. And you’ve got to suffer for not taking heed of the warning! You’ll be tied up and left here till we’ve finished our business. Maybe that’ll be three days, maybe it’ll be three weeks!’
‘Look here, you can’t keep us prisoner for all that time!’ said Julian, alarmed. ‘Why, there will be search
parties out for us all over the place! They will be sure to find us.’
‘Oh, no they won’t,’ said the voice. ‘Nobody will find you here. Now, Peters – tie ‘em up!’
Peters tied the three boys up. They had their legs tied, and their arms too, and were set down roughly against a wall. Julian protested again.
‘What are you doing this for? We’re quite harmless. We don’t know a thing about your business, whatever it is.’
‘We’re not taking any chances,’ said the voice. It was not Mr Andrews’s voice, but a firm, strong one, full of determination and a large amount of annoyance.
‘What about Mum?’ said Jock suddenly, to his stepfather. ‘She’ll be worried.’
‘Well, let her be worried,’ said the voice again, answering before Mr Andrews could say a word. ‘It’s your own fault. You were warned.’
The feet of the four men moved away. Then there came the same noises again as the boys had heard before. They were made by the hole in the wall closing up, but the boys didn’t know that. They couldn’t imagine what they were. The noises stopped and there was dead silence. There was also pitch darkness. The three boys strained their ears, and felt sure that the men had gone.
‘Well! The brutes! Whatever are they up to?’ said Julian in a low voice, trying to loosen the ropes round his hands.
‘They’ve got some secret to hide,’ said Dick. ‘Gosh, they’ve tied my feet so tightly that the rope is cutting into my flesh.’
‘What’s going to happen?’ came Jock’s scared voice. This adventure didn’t seem quite so grand to him now.
‘Sh!’ said Julian suddenly. ‘I can hear something!’
They all lay and listened. What was it they could hear?
‘It’s – it’s a dbg whining,’ said Dick, suddenly.
It was. It was Timmy in the truck with George. He had heard the voices of the boys he knew, and he wanted to get to them. But George, not sure yet that the men had gone, still had her hand on his collar. Her heart beat for joy to think she was alone no longer. The three boys – and Anne, too, perhaps – were there, in the same strange place as she and Timmy were.
The boys listened hard. The whining came again. Then, George let go her hold of Timmy’s collar, and he leapt headlong out of the truck. His feet pattered eagerly over the ground. He went straight to the boys in the darkness, and Julian felt a wet tongue licking his face. A warm body pressed against him, and a little bark told him who it was.
‘Timmy! I say, Dick – it’s Timmy!’ cried Julian, in joy. ‘Where did he come from? Timmy, is it really you?’
‘Woof,’ said Timmy, and licked Dick next and then Jock.
‘Where’s George then?’ wondered Dick.
‘Here,” said a voice, and out of the truck scrambled George, switching on her torch as she did so. She went over to the boys. ‘Whatever’s happened? How did you come here? Were you captured or something?’
‘Yes,’ said Julian. ‘But, George-where are we? And what are you doing here too? It’s like a peculiar dream!’
Til cut your ropes first, before I stop to explain anything,’ said George, and she took out her sharp knife. In a few moments she had cut the boys’ bonds, and they all sat up, rubbing their sore ankles and wrists, groaning.
‘Thanks, George! Now I feel fine,’ said Julian,
getting up. ‘Where are we? Gracious, is that an engine there? WhaVs it doing here?’
‘That, Julian, is the spook-train!’ said George, with a laugh. ‘Yes, it is, really.’
‘But we walked all the way down the tunnel and out of the other end, without finding it,’ said Julian puzzled. ‘It’s most mysterious.’
‘Listen, Ju,’ said George. ‘You know where that second tunnel is bricked up, don’t you? Well, there’s a way in through the wall – a whole bit of it moves back in a sort of Open-Sesame manner! The spook-train can run in through the hole, on the rails. Once it’s beyond the wall it stops, and the hole is closed up again.’
George switched her torch round to show the astonished boys the wall through which they had come. Then she swung her torch to the big wall opposite. ‘See that?’ she said. ‘There are two walls across this second tunnel, with a big space in between – where the spook-train hides! Clever, isn’t it?’
‘It would be, if I could see any sense in it,’ said Julian. ‘But I can’t. Why should anyone mess about with a silly spook-train at night?’
‘That’s what we’ve got to find out,’ said George. ‘And now’s our chance. Look, Julian – look at all the caves stretching out on either side of the tunnel here. They would make wonderful hiding-places!’
‘What for?’ said Dick. ‘I can’t make head or tail of this!’
George swung her torch on the three boys and then asked a sudden question: ‘I say – where’s Anne?’
‘Anne! She didn’t want to come back with us through the tunnel, so she ran over the moorlands to meet us at the other end, by Olly’s Yard,’ said Julian. ‘She’ll be worried stiff, won’t she, when we don’t turn up? I only hope she doesn’t come wandering up the
tunnel to meet us – she’ll run into those men if she does.’
Everyone felt worried. Anne hated the tunnel and she would be very frightened if people pounced on her in the darkness. Julian turned to George.
‘Swing your torch round and let’s see these caves. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here now. We could have a snoop round.’
George swung her torch round, and Julian saw vast and apparently fathomless caves stretching out on either side, cut out of the sides of the tunnel. Jock saw something else. By the light of the torch he caught sight of a switch on the wall. Perhaps it opened the hole in the wall.
He crossed to it and pulled it down. Immediately the place was flooded with a bright light. It was a light-switch he had found. They all blinked in the sudden glare.
‘That’s better,’ said Julian, pleased. ‘Good for you, Jock! Now we can see what we’re doing.’
He looked at the spook-train standing silently near them on its rails. It certainly looked very old and forgotten – as if it belonged to the last century, not to this.
‘It’s quite a museum piece,’ said Julian, with interest. ‘So that’s what we heard puffing in and out of the tunnel at night – old Spooky!’
‘I hid in that truck there,’ said George, pointing, and she told them her own adventure. The boys could hardly believe she had actually puffed into this secret place, hidden on the spook-train itself!
‘Come on – now let’s look at these caves,’ said Dick. They went over to the nearest one. It was packed with crates and boxes of all kinds. Julian pulled one open and whistled.
‘All black market stuff, I imagine. Look here-crates of tea, crates of whisky and brandy, boxes and boxes of stuff-goodness knows what! This is a real black market hiding-place!’
The boys explored a little further. The caves were piled high with valuable stuff, worth thousands of pounds.
‘All stolen, I suppose,’ said Dick. ‘But what do they do with it? I mean – how do they dispose of it? They bring it here in the train, of course, and hide it – but they must have some way of getting rid of it.’
‘Would they repack it on the^rain and run it back to the yard when they had enough lorries to take it away?’ said Julian.
‘No!’ said Dick. ‘Of course not. Let me see – they steal it, pile it on to lorries at night, take it somewhere temporarily …’
‘Yes – to my mother’s farm!’ said Jock, in a scared voice. ‘All those lorries there in the barn – that’s what they’re used for! And they come down to Olly’s Yard at night and the stuff is loaded in secret on the old train that comes puffing out to meet them – and then it’s taken back here and hidden!’