“Ah — now I can see better,” said Philip. “There are a couple of mattresses — and rugs — and a table and some chairs — and a stove of some kind. And gosh — just look at that!”
“What?” cried everyone impatiently. Lucy-Ann jumped up and down, trying to see in at the window too.
“Stacks of food!” said Philip. “Tins and tins of it! And pots and jars of stuff! Golly, they make my mouth water.”
Jack could bear Philip’s weight no longer. He set him down with a jerk.
“Hoist me up now,” he said, and Philip gave him a hoist. Jack’s eyes nearly fell out of his head when he saw the food, neatly piled on shelves that ran along one side of the hut.
“It’s a kind of store-house, or rest-house,” he said, jumping down from Philip’s back. “My word, if we could only get some! Why did those men take the key? Distrustful creatures!”
“Can we get in at the window?” asked Philip, and he looked eagerly up at it. “No, we can’t. Not even Lucy-Ann could get in there. Besides, it can’t be opened. It’s just a pane of glass set into the window-frame, with no catch or fastener to open it. We’d have to smash it — and that would give away the fact that somebody was here.”
The children wandered gloomily round the shed. Then they set off to see if there was anything else to be found nearby. But there wasn’t.
“I suppose we’d better get back to our own shed and remove our things, and hide them somewhere else in case those men do have a look round when they come back,” said Jack. “How I hate leaving all that food in this shed! I’m starving.”
“So am I,” said Lucy-Ann. “I could almost eat Kiki’s sunflower seeds.”
“Well, have some,” said Jack, holding out a handful. “They’re not poisonous.”
“No, thanks,” said Lucy-Ann. “I’m not as starving as all that.”
Philip went up to the door of the shed and glared at it. “I’d like to knock you down,” he said. “Standing there between ourselves and a good square meal. Take that!”
To the great amusement of the others he aimed a hearty kick at the door, and then another.
It flew wide open. The children gasped in surprise, and stared. “It wasn’t locked after all!” cried Jack. “Just shut. What idiots we were to think it was locked! Come on — now for a feast!”
Chapter 8
KIKI TALKS TOO MUCH
THEY all crowded into the dimly lighted shed. They gazed joyfully at the piles of things on the shelves.
“Biscuits! Tongue! Pineapple! Sardines! Milk! Gosh, there’s everything here!” cried Jack. “What shall we start on?”
“Wait a bit. Don’t let’s disarrange the shelf so much that the men will know someone has been here,” said Philip. “Better take tins from the back, not the front. And we won’t eat the fruit and other stuff here — we’ll take it away with us.”
“I think,” said Jack slowly — “I really do think it would be a good idea to take away as much of this as we can carry, in case we are stuck in this valley for some time. We may as well face the fact that we are completely lost, and cut off from the world we know, and may not be rescued for ages.”
The others looked solemn, and Lucy-Ann looked scared as well.
“You’re right, Freckles,” said Philip. “We’ll help ourselves to as much as we can carry. Look, here’s a pile of old sacks. What about filling a couple of them with the tins and carrying them off between us? We could take dozens of the tins then.”
“Good idea,” said Jack. “Here’s a sack for you and Dinah to fill, and here’s one for me and Lucy-Ann.”
Philip stood on one of the chairs and reached his hand behind the front row of tins on the shelf. He threw down tin after tin, and the others put them into the two sacks. What a store there was in that hut!
Soon the sacks were full and almost too heavy to carry. It was nice to think of all that food waiting to be eaten. Jack found a tin-opener, too, and put it in his pocket.
“Before we go, let’s have a look and see if we can find any papers or documents that will tell us something about these mysterious airmen,” said Philip. But although they hunted in every corner, and even under the pile of sacks, they could find nothing.
“I wonder what they did with that crate they had in the plane,” said Jack. “We haven’t found that anywhere. I’d like to have a squint at that too.”
The crate was not in the shed. So the children wandered out and had another good look round. And, in a copse of young trees and bushes, with a tarpaulin over them, they found about six of the wooden crates.
“Funny,” said Jack, pulling away the tarpaulin. “Look — lots of them — all empty! What are they going to put into them?”
“Goodness knows!” said Philip. “Who would bring empty crates to this deserted valley, hoping to find something to fill them? Only madmen!”
“Oh — you don’t really think those men are mad, do you?” said Lucy-Ann in alarm. “What shall we do if they are?”
“Keep out of their way, that’s all,” said Philip. “Come on. Did we shut that door? Yes, we did. Now, heave-ho, Dinah, catch hold of your end of the sack and we’ll go back to our shed.”
Stumbling under the weight of the clanking sacks, the four children made their way slowly back to the shed they had hidden their things in. Jack dumped his sack, and then ran to climb the tree he had climbed before, meaning to sweep the countryside with his field-glasses, and see if the men were by any chance returning yet. But there was no sign of them.
“All clear at the moment,” said Jack, going back to the others. “Now for a meal — the finest we’ve ever had because we’ve never been so hungry before.”
They chose a tin of biscuits and opened it. They took out about forty biscuits, feeling perfectly certain that they could manage at least ten each. They opened a tin of tongue, which Jack carved very neatly with his penknife. Then they opened a tin of pineapple chunks and a tin of milk.
“What a meal!” said Jack, sitting down contentedly on the sun-warmed ground. “Well — here goes!”
Never did food taste so completely delicious. “Mmm-mm-mmm,” murmured Lucy-Ann, meaning “This is simply gorgeous.” Kiki imitated her at once.
“Mmm-mm-mm! Mm-mm-mm!”
No word was spoken except when Dinah saw Kiki delving too deeply into the tin of pineapple.
“Jack! Do stop Kiki! She’ll eat it all!”
Kiki retired to a branch of the tree above, a large chunk of pineapple in her claw. “Mmm-mm-mm!” she kept saying. “Mm-mm-mm!”
Dinah went to the spring and rinsed out the empty tin of milk. Then she filled it with clear cold water and came back. She emptied the water into the pineapple juice left at the bottom of the tin and shook it up. Then she offered everyone a pineapple drink to end the meal.
“Gosh! I do feel better now,” said Jack, and he undid his belt and let it out two or three holes. “Thank goodness you lost your temper and kicked that door, Philip. We were so sure that it was locked, and the key taken.”
“Silly of us,” said Philip, lying down and shutting his eyes. “What are we going to do with the empty tins?”
“You’re obviously going to do nothing,” said Dinah. “I’ll push them down a rabbit-hole. The rabbits can lick them out.”
She picked up a tin and gave a scream. She dropped it, and Lizzie the lizard ran out in a hurry. She had been sniffing in delight at the crumbs of tongue left there. The tiny creature ran to Philip, and disappeared down his neck.
“Don’t tickle, Lizzie,” murmured Philip sleepily.
“I’d better keep a watch-out in case the men come back,” said Jack, and he climbed his tree again. Lucy-Ann and Dinah stuffed the empty tins down a large rabbit-hole. Kiki looked down the hole at the tins in surprise, then walked solemnly down and began to tug at one of the tins.
“No, Kiki, don’t!” said Lucy-Ann. “Jack, take Kiki with you up the tree.”
Jack whistled. Kiki flew to him at once and perched contentedly on his shoulder as he climbed his tree, moving from side to side when a bough threatened to knock her off.
“We’d better bring out all our cases and things, ready to hide them somewhere better than in the cowshed,” said Dinah. “If those men do look round here when they come back, they’ll see them in the cow-stall, as sure as anything!”