The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (12 page)

‘The Seal is sitting on the rock,

So cool and calm;

The seaweed, growing on the rock,

Waves like a palm.

‘The Seal looks at his watch, and sees

It's half-past three;

The Codling, swimming past him, sees

It's time for tea!

‘Oh dear, oh dear!—Some think their life

Is just a treat —

They do not know a Codling's life

Is just as sweet!

‘They never feel, poor little God,

Doubt or remorse,

Nor indigestion after cod

And parsley sauce.'

When he had finished the birds all nodded their heads and congratulated him on his fine voice. He was about to sing again when a young herring-gull, walking up to see what was going on, hopped on to a little brass pot which stood on the rock a yard or two from Cully's pool. The pot fell over, and Cully suddenly became extremely angry. He hauled himself out of the pool and screamed at the frightened gull, ‘Go away, go away, I tell you! Don't touch that pot! How dare you come and listen to me without asking my permission!'

He was very angry indeed, and waved his eight arms in all directions. The birds flew away, and Cully put the brass pot in a safer place in a crevice in the rocks. It had a lid which screwed on, and when he lifted it, it made a gurgling noise like a bottle half-full of water when it is shaken.

It was only seven o'clock, and as yet there was hardly anyone to be seen in the fields or on the roads of Popinsay. For the people of Popinsay did not believe in getting up too early. In some of the houses, however, the fire had been lighted and smoke was rising from their chimneys. Cattle on the pastures were hard at work eating the summer grass, and young horses were chasing each other round the fields as if they were in a circus. A cock crew, a dog barked, and Sam Sturgeon was walking
across the sand from Inner Bay to the Hen. The tide was out and the cream-coloured sand lay firm and dry. He walked across the Hen to the low cliffs on its western side, and presently discovered Cully; who lay in his pool again, and had been enjoying a little nap in the morning sun. The oyster-catchers, the terns, and the ringed-plover had come back and were standing round the pool, hoping that Cully would entertain them with another song. The oyster-catchers gave a warning cry when they saw Sam approaching, and Cully woke in time to greet him.

‘Good morning, Mr. Sturgeon,' he exclaimed, ‘and what a lovely morning it is, to be sure! What a glorious world we live in! It makes you feel all the better to be up and about in the bright and early hours of the day, doesn't it? I've never been able to understand how people can lie in bed on a fine morning, sleeping away the best part of the day, just wasting time, wasting the golden hours and the glowing moments of life—oh, it's wicked, isn't it, to waste half your life in sleep?'

Here Cully put up two of his arms just in time to hide an enormous yawn—for he was feeling rather tired, as he often did—and Sam Sturgeon sat down on the rock beside him.

‘The boys have volunteered,' said Sam.

‘Yes,' said Cully, and looked more serious now. ‘Yes, Gunner Boles told me they had. Well, I hope nothing happens to them. It's a great risk, a very great risk, but someone had to go, of course,
and it was splendid of them to volunteer. Oh, splendid, splendid! And it will be a great experience for them—if they survive, that is, though if they don't survive, it won't be any good to them at all. That's the worst of experience, I always think: you never know whether it's going to be any good to you, because you never know if you're going to survive it! But we mustn't look at the gloomy side, must we, especially on a fine morning like this. Oh, no, no! No, no, no! Most certainly not!'

Sam Sturgeon was silent while Cully talked. He was feeling very serious and not quite happy, because he did not like to think of Timothy and Hew setting out on their adventure without him to look after them. But Gunner Boles had said that he might be needed on Popinsay, just as much as the boys were needed to take a message to Davy Jones's Locker. He had to stay, and they would have to look after themselves as well as they could.

‘Have you brought the oil?' asked Sam abruptly.

‘There it is, in that little brass pot,' said Cully. ‘Gunner Boles had it in his store.'

Sam Sturgeon unscrewed the lid of the pot and held it to his nose. He sniffed, and said, ‘There's ambergris in this.'

‘There are sixty-nine different ingredients in it,' said Cully, ‘and ambergris is only one of them. There's cod-liver oil and halibut oil and dog-fish oil and flying-fish oil. There's essence of shrimp and essence of shark and sword-fish essence and
sea-urchin essence and the essence of a perfectly horrible animal called a sea-cow. There's winkle jelly and skate jelly and conger-eel jelly and jellyfish jelly too. There's whale milk and pirate's blood and a spoonful of Davy Jones's own special rum and a drop of Stockholm tar. There are sixty-nine ingredients, all of them different, and I haven't told you a third of them yet. Now let me think. There's the yolk of turtle eggs and the white of sturgeon eggs—oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Sturgeon, I wasn't referring to you, of course———'

‘That's all right,' said Sam. ‘It's a very good name, is Sturgeon, and a very fine fish it is too.'

He screwed the lid on the brass pot, and asked Cully about the other arrangements.

‘Have you got the boys' chargers?'

‘They're waiting under the west cliffs of the Calf,' said Cully, ‘and there are two very clean and tidy little Powder Monkeys holding them. I can't say that I really know the boys—I don't pay much attention to them as a rule—but they look all right, and I am sure I hope they are.'

‘What about their shoes?' asked Sam.

‘They're behind that rock,' said Cully. ‘I think they'll fit, but I can't be sure, of course. Gunner Boles will be very disappointed if they don't.'

Behind the rock to which Cully had pointed lay two pairs of the curious sort of shoes which Gunner Boles and the pirates wore. They had, indeed, been taken from the two men whom Sam had found
in the wreck, and Gunner Boles had cut them down and remade them to fit Timothy and Hew.

‘The boys will be here about half-past eight,' said Sam.

They sat together, not talking much, for a little longer, and then Sam looked at his watch and said, ‘You'd better go down and warn him now. They ought to be here as soon as he is, if he starts at once.'

Cully sighed and said, ‘How I wish I could stay in this pool all day! Just sun-bathing. I simply adore the sun, don't you, Mr. Sturgeon? Though too much of it isn't good for one, of course. It's very bad for the complexion, for one thing, and it may be quite dangerous if you have a delicate skin like mine.—Well, give my love to the boys, Mr. Sturgeon, and tell them I'll be waiting for them when they come back to Popinsay, and I'll look forward very much to hearing all their adventures.'

Cully hoisted himself out of the pool and hauled himself over the rocks to the seaweed at the water's edge. He looked round and cried, ‘You'll take care of the oil, won't you?' And then he slid into the sea.

At Popinsay House Timothy and Hew had finished their breakfast and were standing at the front door. They were ready to go, but for a minute or two they could not make up their minds to start. It seemed to them, quite suddenly, that Popinsay was the pleasantest place in. the world, and that it was quite foolish to go away and leave it. The sky
was blue, the grass was green, there were seven white pigeons sitting on the garden wall, and a lark was singing high above the gooseberry bushes. The sun shone through the window of their father's study. A blackbird was chuckling on the lawn, and they had not made their beds—though they had promised Mrs. Matches that they would.

‘Oh, come on,' said Timothy at last. ‘Never mind about the beds, never mind about anything. If we start thinking we shan't want to go—and we do want to, don't we?'

‘Yes, of course,' said Hew. ‘Of course we do.'

But his voice was a little uncertain, and suddenly he bent down and picked up a stone and threw it at the blackbird.

‘Shut up!' he shouted.

‘Come on,' said Timothy again, and they set off together down the road to Inner Bay, and then across the sands to the Hen where Sam was waiting for them. They walked up the steep sloping turf, and clambered down the western cliffs. They came to the round pool where Cully had lately been singing, and at that moment the bald head and bright red whiskers of Gunner Boles appeared out of the sea, and he stumbled up the slippery rocks to greet them.

‘Good morning to you, my fine young cocks!' he shouted, ‘and how are you feeling this grand morning?'

‘Very well, thank you,' said Timothy and Hew in their politest manner.

‘And how are you, Sam? You're looking as worried as an old hen that's lost her chickens.'

‘And that's what I feel like,' said Sam, ‘when I think of the boys going off to sea without me to look after them.'

‘They've got to set out on their own some day,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and these two little game-cocks are ready for the fray—aren't you, my boys?'

Every now and then, as they walked across the sands, Timothy and Hew had looked over their shoulders at the green fields of Popinsay, and then looked wonderingly at the green sea that spread so far and lay so deeply to the west. They both felt a little frightened to be leaving the fields they knew for the deeps of the sea of which they knew nothing at all. But they felt excited too, and their voices were steady enough when they answered, ‘Yes, we're ready.'

‘You're good boys,' said Gunner Boles. ‘You're like I was at your age, willing to go anywhere and set my hands to whatever was needed. And Lord Nelson himself, from all I've heard of him, was just such another when he was a boy.—You've got the oil, Sam, haven't you? And the shoes?'

‘Here they are,' said Sam. ‘Cully brought them.'

‘Then the first thing we've got to do is to administer the oath.—You must promise, you see, that you won't ever tell, to anyone living on land, the mystery of those that live in the sea. For it's one of the great secrets of the world, and there'd be
no peace in the ocean if it was commonly known. So stand side by side, and raise your right hands, and say after me the following words.'

Timothy and Hew stood together, facing Gunner Boles, who recited in a very solemn voice these verses, which they repeated:

‘By Rock, Salt, and Air,

By the Dog Star and Altair,

By the Seven Sisters and the Southern Cross,

And the Glittering Eye of an Albatross,

I, Timothy, do hereby swear,

And I, Hew, do swear also,

Never to tell, to friend or foe,

The Mystery of the Deep Green Sea

That the Shell will tell to me;

‘By the Sea-Horse, and the Sea-Mare,

By Spindrift, Fog, and Ice-Glare,

By the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn,

By the Cape of Good Hope and black Cape Horn,

I, Timothy, do hereby swear,

And I, Hew, do swear also,

Never to tell, to friend or foe,

The Mystery of the Deep Green Sea

That the Shell will tell to me;

‘By Davy Jones's Stately Chair,

And his Cushion stuffed with Mermaids' Hair,

By Flying-Fish and the great White Whale,

And the Flying Dutchman's Fore-Topsail,

I, Timothy, do hereby swear,

And I, Hew, do swear also,

Never to tell, to friend or foe,

The Mystery of the Deep Green Sea

That the Shell will tell to me!'

‘Now that's an oath that can never be broken,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and very nicely you both said it. I've never heard it recited better in all my days.'

‘But I don't understand the line about the Shell,' said Timothy.

‘All in good time,' said Gunner Boles. ‘You've got to be oiled first, and have your shoes fitted, and then you'll listen to the Shell.—Did you remember to make a brush, Sam?'

‘Here it is,' said Sam, and held out a little brush he had made with sea-gulls' feathers. ‘And here's the oil.—You'll have to take off your clothes, boys.'

Then Gunner Boles painted them all over with oil from the brass pot, and dropped a little into their eyes, and up their noses, and down their throats.

‘That'll keep you warm,' he said, ‘and after you've been told how to do it by the Shell, you'll be able to breathe, and see what's going on, and listen to such talk as there is on the bottom of the ocean, just as easy as you're breathing and looking round you at this very moment, on the Hen of Popinsay.'

But neither Timothy nor Hew found this as comforting as Gunner Boles supposed it would be. Their eyes were smarting, and they felt a little sick.

‘It may be a useful kind of oil,' said Timothy, ‘but I don't like the taste of it.'

‘It tastes like toffee and sardines mixed up together,' said Hew.

‘It's the best oil in the world,' said Gunner Boles. ‘It's got sixty-nine ingredients, all different.

‘But it was a mistake to put both toffee
and
sardines in it,' said Hew.

‘Not so much talk,' interrupted Sam, ‘and put on your bathing-suits.'

He had brought the boys' bathing-drawers—which they very rarely wore—and brushed them also with oil from the brass pot. Gunner Boles explained that he had been unable, in so short a
time, to obtain suits such as he himself wore, but their own, he said, would be nearly as good now that they had been oiled. Then he helped the boys to put on the shoes that looked like great frog's feet; and they fitted very well.

‘Now don't forget your oath,' he said, and from the pouch at his belt took a twisted Shell about four inches long. It was ridged with bright pink on the outside, but smooth inside and gleaming like a pearl. ‘Put that to your ear,' he said to Timothy, ‘and listen carefully.'