“I’m going to swim back to shore,” said Lucy-Ann. “There’s a nice sunny rock over there, covered with seaweed. I shall have a sun-bath there.”
She swam slowly over to it. Huffin and Puffin dived under, just beside her. “I wonder what they look like when they swim under water,” thought Lucy-Ann. “I’d love to see them chasing a fish.”
She turned herself up, and duck-dived under the water. Ah, there was Huffin, using his wings to swim swiftly through the water after a big fish. “Quick, Huffin, or you’ll lose it!”
Just as she was going to swim upwards again Lucy-Ann noticed something below her. The lagoon was not nearly so deep just there, for a shelf of rocks ran out into the water, making it fairly shallow, although it was much too deep still for Lucy-Ann’s feet to touch the bottom.
The little girl took a quick glance to see what it was on the rocks below the water, but then her breath gave out, and, half choking, she rose up to the surface, gasping and spluttering.
When she had got her breath again, down she went — and then she realised what it was she saw. One of the parachuted packages, instead of falling into the deeper waters of the lagoon, had fallen on to the shallow rocky bed just below her. The package had split open — and all its contents were spread and scattered on the rocky bottom below.
But whatever were they? Lucy-Ann could not make them out at all. They looked such peculiar shapes. She rose up to the surface again and yelled to Jack.
“Hi, Jack! One of those secret packages has split open on the rocky bottom just here — but I can’t make out what was in it!”
The boys and Dinah swam up in great excitement. They all duck-dived and down they went, down, down, down. They came to where the silvery wrapping was split open, moving gently up and down with the flow of the water. All around it were the spilt contents.
The boys, almost bursting for breath, examined them quickly, then shot up to the surface, gasping.
They looked at one another, and then both shouted out the same words.
“Guns! Guns! Scores of them!”
The children swam to the sunny rock that Lucy-Ann was now sitting on, and clambered up.
“Fancy that! Guns! What in the wide world do they want to drop guns down in this lagoon for? Are they getting rid of them? And why?”
“No. They wouldn’t wrap them up so carefully in waterproof stuff if they were just dumping them,” said Philip soberly. “They’re hiding them.”
“Hiding them! But what a very peculiar place to hide guns in!” said Dinah. “What are they going to do with them?”
“They’re probably gun-running,” said Jack, “bringing hundreds of guns here from somewhere, and hiding them till they’re ready for them — ready for some revolution somewhere — South America, perhaps.”
“Something like that, I bet,” said Philip. “There are always people stirring up trouble somewhere, and wanting weapons to fight with. Those who can supply them with guns would make a lot of money. Yes, that’s what it is — gun-running!”
“Well!” said Lucy-Ann, “to think we’ve dropped right into an awful thing like that! I expect Bill guessed it — and they saw him snooping round — and captured him so that he couldn’t give the game away.”
“However do they get the guns away from here?” wondered Jack. “I mean — they can’t be got away by boat, because this lagoon is absolutely enclosed by rocks. Yet the guns must be taken out of the water, to be sent to wherever they are wanted. It’s jolly queer.”
“Well, now we do know what that aeroplane was dropping,” said Philip. “My word — this lagoon must be full of armaments! What an absolutely wonderful hiding-place — nobody to see what happens, nobody to discover the guns at the bottom . . .”
“Except us,” said Lucy-Ann promptly. “I discovered that split package. I suppose it hit the rocks just below the surface and split open at once.”
They lay basking in the sun, talking over the curious discovery. Then Kiki suddenly uttered an astonished cry, and the children sat up to see why.
“Goodness — there’s a boat coming,” said Jack in dismay. “Coming towards this very place, too, from the seaward side of the rocky barrier.”
“What shall we do?” said Lucy-Ann, frightened. “There’s nowhere to hide, and we haven’t time to make our way back without being seen.”
The boys gazed round in desperation. What could be done? Then Philip suddenly grabbed up a great armful of seaweed and flung it over the surprised Lucy-Ann.
“We’ll cover ourselves up with this!” he said. “There’s stacks of it! Quick! Pull it up and cover yourselves with it. It’s the only way we can hide.”
Their hearts thumping loudly again, the four children piled the thickly growing seaweed, with its great ribbon-like fronds, all over themselves. Jack peered through his and spoke Urgently to Dinah.
“One of your feet is showing, Di. Put some seaweed over it, quick!”
Huffin and Puffin were amazed at this sudden seaweed game. They decided which lump was Philip and went to perch solemnly on him. He felt their weight, and almost laughed.
“Nobody could possibly guess there was a boy under these two puffins and all the seaweed,” he thought. “I only hope the others are really well covered.”
The boat grounded not far off. The voices of two or three men could be heard, coming nearer and nearer. The children held their breath. “Don’t tread on us, oh don’t tread on us!” prayed Lucy-Ann, feeling quite sick, especially as there was a great flabby piece of seaweed across her mouth.
The men did not tread on them. They came and stood quite nearby, however, and all of them lighted cigarettes as they stood there.
“The last lot of stuff came today,” said one man, in a husky, deep voice. “This lagoon must be almost full now.”
“Yes. Time we got some of it away,” said another voice, a sharp, commanding kind of voice. “We don’t know how much information that fellow we’ve got has passed on to his headquarters. He won’t talk. Better send a message through to the chief, to tell him to collect as much as he wants, in case anyone else is sent along to snoop.”
“What about the second fellow? He won’t talk either,” said the first voice. “What are we going to do with them?”
“They can’t remain up here,” said the commanding voice. “Put them on the boat tonight, and we’ll dump them somewhere where they won’t be heard of again. I’m not going to waste my time on that first fellow any more — what’s his name? — Cunningham. He’s been enough trouble to us, poking his nose into all we do for the last year. Time he disappeared.”
The four hidden children, feeling very damp and cold under their seaweed, shivered to hear all this. They knew perfectly well what was meant. They, these men, were Bill’s bitter enemies, because he had been successful in keeping on their track — now they had got him, and they were afraid he knew too much, though actually it was likely that Bill didn’t know as much as they, the children, did.
“And so they are going to remove all these guns and then dump poor Bill somewhere so that he never will be heard of again, because he will be drowned,” thought Jack desperately. “We shall have to rescue him. And as quickly as possible too. I wonder who the other fellow is they are talking about. Surely it can’t be Horace. I thought he was one of the enemy.”
The men wandered away over the rocks. Evidently they had come to survey their extraordinary hiding-place though they could see very little of its contents. The children lay perfectly still, not daring to move, in case they should be noticed. They got very tired indeed of lying there, and Lucy-Ann was shivering.
Then they heard the sound of the motor-boat’s engine starting up again. Thank goodness! They waited a while, and then Jack sat cautiously up. He looked round. There was no-one to be seen. The men had gone back to the boat by a different way, and it was now some distance out to sea.
“Phew!” said Jack. “I didn’t like that at all. Another inch or two nearer, and one of the men would have trodden on my foot!”
Chapter 25
ANOTHER SURPRISE
THEY all sat up and removed the slippery seaweed from themselves. Huffin and Puffin walked down Philip’s body, where they had perched the whole time. Kiki, to her fright and dismay, had been covered with seaweed by Jack, and forced to stay beside him, for he was afraid she might give them away by talking. She talked angrily now.