They all sat up at once. Lucy-Ann’s green eyes were wide with excitement and fright. “Where? How far away?”
“Quite a way off. It will take them about ten minutes to come in and tie up. We’d better chuck everything down into the hole at once.”
“What about the fire?” said Dinah, grabbing her pile of jerseys and coats.
“Have to leave that. They’ve already seen the smoke anyway,” said Jack. “Come on, quick! Get a move on, Lucy-Ann!”
It didn’t take long to part the heather over the narrow entrance to the hole and hurl everything down. Jack removed the stick he had put there to mark the place.
“No good leaving a signpost for them,” he said, trying to make Lucy-Ann smile. She gave him a watery grin.
“Now — everything cleared up?” said Philip, looking round. He pulled at the clumps of heather they had been lying on, which had got rather flattened, but the springy plants were already getting back into position themselves. Philip picked up a spoon that someone had left lying there and popped it into his pocket. There really did seem to be nothing left now that would show that the children had been there a few minutes before.
“Come on, Tufty! Don’t wait about!” said Jack, in a fever of impatience to get below ground. The girls were already safely in the hole. Jack slid down himself and Philip followed almost at once.
Jack pulled the heather neatly over the hole. “There! Now unless anybody actually treads in the hole, as Philip did the other night, we’re safe. Nobody would ever know there was a big cavity underground.”
“I feel like a puffin,” said Philip. “I feel I’d like to burrow. What about digging a nice little burrow for each of us to lie in?”
“Oh don’t make jokes now,” begged Lucy-Ann. “I don’t feel like jokes. I feel — I feel all sort of tight and breathless. And my heart simply couldn’t beat any louder. Can you hear it?”
Nobody could. But then, their own hearts were beating so fast and so loudly that it was no wonder they could not hear anybody else’s.
“Can we whisper?” asked Dinah, in a loud whisper that made everyone jump.
“I should think so. But don’t talk out loud.” said Jack. “And if we hear anyone coming, listen with all your might, so that we shall know if it’s friends or enemies. It would be too awful if it were friends and we let them go away without finding us.”
That was indeed an awful thought — almost worse than the thought of being found by an enemy. Everyone sat quietly, holding their breaths, listening with all their might. “Friend or enemy, friend or enemy, friend or enemy,” said a voice in Lucy-Ann’s mind, and she couldn’t stop it saying the words over and over again. “Friend or . . .”
“Sh,” came Jack’s whisper, suddenly. “I can hear something.”
But it was only Huffin and Puffin arriving in the hole. They pushed the heather aside and flopped in, giving the children a terrible shock. The heather swung back, and the puffins stared in the darkness, trying to find Philip.
“You wretched birds!” scolded Philip. “You might have shown them our hiding-place. Don’t you dare to say a word!”
“Arrrrrr!” said Huffin deeply. Philip gave him an angry push, and the bird walked away in astonishment. It was the first time he had ever had an angry word or gesture from his beloved Philip. He hopped up to the beginning of a nearby burrow, followed by Puffin, and began to walk up it, very much offended. The children were glad to hear them go.
“Sh!” came Jack’s whisper again, and the others clutched one another. “They’re really coming now! Shhhhhhh!”
Chapter 18
THE ENEMY — AND KIKI
THE thud of footsteps could be felt in the dark hole below ground. Then came the sound of voices. “We’ll search the whole place. Somebody must be keeping that fire going!”
“There’s nowhere much to hide on this small island,” said another voice. “Nobody could get down those sheer cliffs, so that rules them out. An there’s obviously nobody in this valley — except these ridiculous birds.”
There came the sound of a match being struck. One of the men was evidently lighting a cigarette. He tossed the match away — and it came trickling through the heather into the hole where the trembling children crouched. It fell on to Dinah’s knee and she almost squealed.
“They’re dreadfully near,” everyone was thinking. “Dreadfully, dreadfully near!”
“Look here,” said one of the men’s voices, suddenly. “What’s this? A bit of chocolate wrapping paper! I bet the hiding-place isn’t far off.”
The children’s hearts almost stopped beating. Philip remembered that a bit of his chocolate paper had blown away on the wind and he hadn’t bothered to go and pick it up. Blow! Blow! Blow!
Jack felt about for Kiki. Where was she? She had slid off his shoulder, but he couldn’t feel her anywhere near. He did hope she wouldn’t suddenly make one of her loud remarks, just under the very feet of the men.
Kiki had gone up the burrow, after Huffin and Puffin. The two puffins were now staring at the men who had come to hunt. They stood at the entrance of a burrow, looking fixedly with their crimson-circled eyes.
“Look at those silly chaps,” said one man. “Whatever are these ridiculous birds, with beaks like fireworks about to go off?”
“Don’t know. Puffins or sea parrots, or something,” said the other man.
“Huffin and Puffin,” said Kiki, in a loud, conversational sort of voice. The men jumped violently and looked all round. Kiki was in the burrow behind Huffin and Puffin and could not be seen. She didn’t want to push past them in case they nipped her.
“Did you hear that?” said the first man.
“Well — I thought I heard something,” said the other. “But these birds all round make such a racket.”
“Yes — a frightful din,” said the first man.
“Din-din-dinner,” announced Kiki and went off into one of her cackles of laughter. The men stared in alarm at the two solemn puffins. “I say — surely those birds can’t talk?” said one. Kiki went on laughing and then coughed deeply.
“It’s a bit queer, isn’t it?” said the first man, rubbing his chin and staring at Huffin and Puffin. It seemed as if it really must be the two puffins who were talking and coughing. Kiki could not be seen.
Huffin opened his big beak. “Arrrrrr!” he said solemnly.
“There!” said the man. “I saw him that time. They are talking birds. Sea parrots perhaps — and parrots talk, don’t they?”
“Yes, but they have to be taught,” said the other. “And who taught these two?”
“Oh, come on — don’t let’s waste any time on the ridiculous creatures,” said the first man turning to go. “We’ll go down to the shore and walk along it to make sure there’s no one there. Pity that boat’s been smashed up in the gale. We could have taken off some of the food in it.”
Kiki gave an imitation of a motor-bike in the distance, and the men stopped suddenly in astonishment.
“I could have sworn that was a motor-bike!” said one, with a half-ashamed laugh. “Come on — we’re hearing things. Wait till I get hold of whoever is on this island — making us waste time hunting like this!”
To the children’s enormous relief the men’s voices got fainter and fainter and at last could not be heard at all. Kiki came back into the cave.
“What a pity, what a pity!” she said in a whisper, cracking her beak.
“Kiki, you awful idiot, you nearly gave the game away!” whispered Jack. “Get on my shoulder — and I warn you, if you say just one more word, I’ll tie your beak up with my hanky.”
“Arrrrrrr!” said Kiki, and settled down with her head under her wing. She was offended.
For what seemed like hours the children sat silently in the hole underground. They heard no more voices, and no more footsteps shook the ground nearby.
“How long have we got to stay here like this?” whispered Dinah at last. She was always the first to get impatient. “I’m cramped.”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, in a whisper that seemed to fill the underground cavity. “It would be dangerous to pop my head out and take a look-see.”
“I’m hungry,” said Lucy-Ann. “I wish we’d brought something to eat down with us. And I’m thirsty too.”
Jack wondered whether or not to risk sticking his head out. Just as he was making up his mind that he would, everyone in the hole heard a far-off, very welcome noise.
“It’s the engine of their motor-boat being started up,” said Jack in relief. “They must have given up the hunt, thank goodness. We’ll give them a few minutes, then I’ll hop out.”