Tiger Dan rushed down the hill at top speed, terrified of the angry chimpanzee. Lou yelled to Nobby.
‘Call him off! He’ll kill me!’
‘Pongo!’ shouted Nobby. ‘Stop it! Pongo! Come here.’
Pongo gave Nobby a look of the greatest surprise. ‘What!’ he seemed to say, ‘you won’t let me punish this bad man who beat you? Well, well whatever you say must be right!’
And the chimpanzee, giving Lou one last vicious nip, let the man go. Lou followed Dan down the hill at top speed, and Julian heard him crashing through the bushes as if a hundred chimpanzees were after him.
Nobby sat down, trembling. Pongo, not quite sure if his beloved friend was angry with him or not, crept up to him putting a paw on the boy’s knee. Nobby put his arm round the anxious animal, and Pongo chattered with joy.
Julian slid down from the roof of the caravan and went to Nobby. He, too, sat down beside him. He put his arm round the trembling boy and gave him a hug.
‘I was just coming to give you a hand, when Pongo shot up the hill,’ he said.
‘Were you really?’ said Nobby, his face lighting up. ‘You’re a real friend, you are. Good as Pongo, here.’
And Julian felt quite proud to be ranked in bravery with the chimpanzee!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A SURPRISING DISCOVERY
‘Listen somebody’s coming!’ said Nobby, and Pongo gave an ugly growl. The sound of voices could be heard coming up the hill. Then a dog barked.
‘It’s all right. It’s Timmy and the others,’ said Julian, unspeakably glad to welcome them back. He stood up and yelled.
‘All right! Come along!’
George, Timmy, Dick and Anne came running up the track. ‘Hallo!’ shouted Dick. ‘We thought it would be safe, because we saw Lou and Dan in the distance, running along at the bottom of the hill. I say there’s Pongo!’
Pongo shook hands with Dick, and then went to the back of Timmy, to shake hands with his tail. But Timmy was ready for him, and backing round, he held out his paw to Pongo instead. It was very funny to see the two animals solemnly shaking hands with one another.
‘Hallo, Nobby!’ said Dick. ‘Goodness what have you been doing to yourself? You look as if you’ve been in the wars.’
‘Well, I have, rather,’ said Nobby, with a feeble grin. He was very much shaken, and did not get up. Pongo ran to Anne and tried to put his arms round her.
‘Oh, Pongo you squeeze too hard,’ said Anne. ‘Julian, did anything happen? Did the men come? Have you any news?’
‘Plenty,’ said Julian. ‘But what I want first is a jolly good drink. I’ve had none all day. Ginger-beer, I think.’
‘We’re all thirsty. I’ll get five bottles no, six, because I expect Pongo would like some.’
Pongo loved ginger-beer. He sat down with the children on the rocky ledge, and took his glass from Anne just like a child. Timmy was a little jealous, but as he didn’t like ginger-beer he couldn’t make a fuss.
Julian began to tell the others about his day, and how he had hidden on the caravan roof. He described how the men had come and had gone under the caravan and then moved it. They all listened with wide eyes. What a story!
Then Nobby told his part. ‘I butted in and almost gave the game away,’ he said, when Julian had got as far as the men falling asleep and snoring. ‘But, you see, I had to come and warn you. Lou and Dan swear they’ll poison Timmy somehow, even if they have to dope him, put him into a sack and take him down to the camp to do it. Or they might knock him on the head.’
‘Let them try!’ said George, in her fiercest voice, and put her arm round Timmy. Pongo at once put his arm round Timmy too.
‘And they said they’d damage your caravans too maybe put a fire underneath and burn them up,’ went on Nobby.
The four children stared at him in horror. ‘But they wouldn’t do a thing like that, surely?’ said Julian, at last. They’d get into trouble with the police if they did.’
‘Well, I’m just telling you what they said,’ Nobby went on. ‘You don’t know Lou and Tiger Dan like I do. They’ll stick at nothing to get their way or to get anybody out of their way. They tried to poison Timmy, didn’t they? And poor old Barker got it instead.’
‘Is is Barker all right?’ asked Anne.
‘No,’ said Nobby. ‘He’s dying, I think. I’ve given him to Lucilla to dose. She’s a marvel with sick animals. I’ve put Growler with the other dogs. He’s safe with them.’
He stared round at the other children, his mouth trembling, sniffing as if he had a bad cold.
‘I dursent go back,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘I dursent. They’ll half-kill me.’
‘You’re not going back, so that’s settled,’ said Julian, in a brisk voice. ‘You’re staying here with us. We shall love to have you. It was jolly decent of you to come up and warn us and bad luck to have got caught like that. You’re our friend now and we’ll stick together.’
Nobby couldn’t say a word, but his face shone. He rubbed a dirty hand across his eyes, then grinned his old grin. He nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak, and the children all thought how nice he was. Poor old Nobby.
They finished their ginger-beer and then Julian got up. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘we will do a little exploring and find out where those men went, shall we?’
‘Oh yes!’ cried George, who had sat still quite long enough. ‘We must find out! Do we have to get under the caravan, Julian?’
”Fraid so,’ said Julian. ‘You sit there quietly, Nobby, and keep guard in case Lou or Dan come back.’
He didn’t think for a moment that they would, but he could see that Nobby needed to sit quietly for a while. Nobby, however, had different ideas. He was going to share this adventure!
‘Timmy’s guard enough, and so is Pongo,’ he said. They’ll hear anyone coming half a mile away. I’m in on this!’
And he was. He went scrabbling underneath the low-swung base of the caravan with the others, eager to find out anything he could.
But it was impossible to explore down in the heather, with the caravan base just over their heads. They had no room at all. Like Dan and Lou they soon felt that they would have to move the van.
It took all five of them, with Pongo giving a shove, too, to move the caravan a few feet away. Then down they dropped to the thick carpet of heather again.
The tufts came up easily by the roots, because the men had already pulled them up once that day and then replanted them. The children dragged up a patch of heather about five feet square, and then gave an exclamation.
‘Look! Boards under the heather!’
‘Laid neatly across and across. What for?’
‘Pull them up!’
The boys pulled up the planks one by one and piled them on one side. Then they saw that the boards had closed up the entrance of a deep hole. ‘I’ll get my torch,’ said Julian. He fetched it and flashed it on.
The light showed them a dark hole, going down into the hillside, with footholds sticking out of one side. They all sat and gazed down in excitement.
‘To think we went and put our caravan exactly over the entrance of the men’s hiding-place!’ said Dick. ‘No wonder they were wild! No wonder they changed their minds and told us we could go down to the lake and camp there instead of here!’
‘Gosh!’ said Julian, staring into the hole. ‘So that’s where the men went! Where does it lead to? They were down there a mighty long time. They were clever enough to replace the planks and drag some of the heather over them, too, to hide them when they went down.’
Pongo suddenly took it into his head to go down the hole. Down he went, feeling for the footholds with his hairy feet, grinning up at the others. He disappeared at the bottom. Julian’s torch could not pick him out at all.
‘Hey, Pongo! Don’t lose yourself down there!’ called Nobby, anxiously. But Pongo had gone.
‘Blow him!’ said Nobby. ‘He’ll never find his way back, if he goes wandering about underground. I’ll have to go after him. Can I have your torch, Julian?’
‘I’ll come too,’ said Julian. ‘George, get me your torch as well, will you?’
‘It’s broken,’ said George. ‘I dropped it last night. And nobody else has got one.’