“Nothing seems very nice when I think of Philip being captured,” said Lucy-Ann dismally. All the same, the moon was glorious, swinging up over the mountains, and making everything as light as day.
They were just about to slide into their bags when Lucy-Ann’s sharp ears caught an unfamiliar sound.
“Listen!” she said. “What’s that? No, not a noise underground this time — somewhere up in the sky!”
They went out and stood on the flat rock, listening, their faces upturned to the moonlit sky.
“What a peculiar noise!” said Jack. “A bit like an aeroplane — but not an aeroplane. What can it be?”
Chapter 15
BEHIND THE GREEN CURTAIN
THE noise came nearer. “Like a motor-bike in the sky,” said Jack.
“Or a sewing-machine,” said Dinah. “Jack, look! What’s that? That tiny speck up there?”
Jack fumbled for his glasses, which were still round his neck. He put them to his eyes, straining to focus the little black speck up in the moonlight. It came nearer.
“Well — whatever it is I do believe it’s going to land on this mountain!” said Dinah. “Isn’t it going slowly? Is it an aeroplane, Jack?”
“No,” said Jack. “Gosh — it’s a helicopter! You know — those things with whirling vanes on the top of them. They don’t fly fast but they can land in a very small space — on a lawn, or a roof even!”
“A helicopter!” cried Dinah, and took the glasses from Jack. “Let me see.”
It was now near enough for Dinah to be able to see it clearly with the glasses. Jack and Lucy-Ann watched it with screwed-up eyes. It hovered over the mountain-top, and then flew slowly round it, appearing in sight again after a few minutes.
It then flew up a little higher, and descended slowly, almost vertically, its engine making a curious sound in the night. Then there was silence.
“It’s landed,” said Jack. “But where? Gosh, I wouldn’t like to land on a mountain as steep as this one.”
“Perhaps there is a proper landing-place,” said Lucy-Ann. “Right on the very top!”
“Yes. There may be,” said Jack. “What a thing to do, though — land a helicopter on the very summit of a mountain like this! What for?”
Nobody knew the answer to that.
“Well,” said Jack, at last, “if that helicopter did land up on top, that would be one way of bringing food and stuff to the men who are at work inside the mountain — they’d have to have food, and there’s no way of getting it round about here!”
“I feel as if all this must be a dream,” said Lucy-Ann, in a small voice. “I don’t like it at all. I wish I could wake up.”
“Come on — let’s get into our bags,” said Jack. “We can’t do anything. We’ll just have to wait for Bill. We can sleep out on the rock tonight, if you like. It’s got very warm again, and we’re snug enough in our bags.”
Nibbling bars of chocolate the three of them slipped into the bags. Kiki flew up into a nearby bush. She cleared her throat as David had often done. “Look you, whateffer, look you, whateffer,” she began, meaning to have a little practice of the new words she had learnt.
“Kiki! Shut up!”said Jack.
“Whateffer!” said Kiki, and hiccupped very loudly. “Pardon!” She gave a cackle of laughter and said no more for a moment. Then she took her head out from under her wing. “Pifflebunk,” she said, delighted at having remembered it, and put her head back again.
Jack woke several times in the night wondering about Philip. He also puzzled his head to think how the whole company of dogs, men and boy could possibly have vanished as they did, under his very eyes. He felt that he really would have to go and explore that steep wall of rock the next day. Perhaps he would find out where the company had gone — and how it had gone.
“Do you think Bill will come today?” asked Lucy-Ann, next morning. Jack reckoned up and shook his head. “No — perhaps he will tomorrow, though, if David got back quickly, and Bill came at once. Still — if we go far away from the stream, we’d better leave a note for Bill, in case he comes and we’re not there. Like we did yesterday.”
They had taken the note off Dapple’s harness the night before, when they had brought the donkey back from the stream, up to their sleeping-rock. Now Jack set to work to write another. In it he told the story of Philip’s disappearance by the wall of rock, and he also wrote about the helicopter he had seen. He had a feeling that he had better tell all he knew in case — just in case — something happened, and he and the girls were captured too. So many queer things had happened on this mountain. It was quite likely that if the man got out of Philip the fact that he had friends nearby on the mountain, he would send to capture them too.
He took Dapple back to the stream, putting him in the shade, in some long lush grass, and near enough the stream to stand in it, or drink if he liked. Dapple liked this kind of life well enough, but he stared anxiously all around, missing Snowy. Where was his tiny friend?
“Snowy will come back soon, Dapple,” said Jack, rubbing his hand up and down the long grey nose. “You wait and see!”
“What are we going to do today?” asked Lucy-Ann, when Jack came back. “I don’t feel like doing anything now Philip’s gone!”
“Well, — would you like to come with me to the steep rocky wall the others went to last night?” said Jack. “Just to see if we can find out how they disappeared so suddenly. But if you come we’ll have to keep a jolly good lookout in case we’re taken by surprise!”
Lucy-Ann looked as if she didn’t want to come at all, but nothing would stop her being with Jack if she thought there was any likelihood of danger. If they were going to be taken by surprise, then she would be there too!
So, taking some tins with them in case they didn’t feel inclined to go all the way back to the cave in the heat of the day for a meal, the three of them set off. Kiki flew over their heads, annoying the swallows, and crying “Feetafeetit, feetafeetit!” just as they did. They took not the slightest notice of her, but went on with their fly-catching deftly and serenely.
The three came at last to the little copse of trees where they had swung in the wind the evening before. “Wait here a minute,” said Jack, and he leapt up into a tree. “I’ll just have a look round to make sure the coast is clear.”
He balanced himself in branches near the top of the tree and swept the countryside around with his glasses. Not a sound was to be heard except the wind, the trees and the birds. There was no sign of any human being, or of any of the dogs.
“It seems all right,” said Jack when he got down to the foot of the tree again. “We’ll go. Come on.”
Kiki began to bray like Dapple, and Jack turned on her fiercely. “Kiki! Stop it! Just when we want to be quiet! Bad bird! Silly bird!”
Kiki raised her crest up and down, snapped her beak angrily, and flew up into a tree. It was almost as if she had said “All right then — if you speak to me like that, I won’t come with you!” She sat on a branch sulking, keeping one eye on the three children walking towards the wall.
They reached it and looked upwards. It towered up, steep and sheer. Nobody could climb that, not even Snowy!
“Now where were the others when they disappeared?” said Jack. “About here, I think.”
He led the way to an uneven slab of rock. Hanging down in front of it, over the rocky wall, was a thick curtain of greenery, half bramble, half creepers of some kind, all matted together.
The children thought this mass of green was actually growing on the wall, in the same way that many other little plants and ferns grew. It was only when the wind blew strongly, and the curtain-like mass swung backwards and forwards a little that Lucy-Ann guessed it wasn’t growing out of the wall — it was hanging down, covering it!
She caught hold of it. It swung back like a curtain! Behind it was the wall, right enough — but there was a split in it, a great crack that reached up about twenty feet.
“Look!” said Lucy-Ann. “This is a kind of curtain, Jack. And look at the big crack in the wall behind. Is this where they went yesterday?”