The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (27 page)

The two pirates whom Sam Sturgeon had found in the wreck, and who had been imprisoned in one of the cellars, took a great deal of interest in the mice, for it was a long time since they had seen any. They would lie still while the mice walked over them, and after the first day or two of their imprisonment the mice became quite used to them, and would walk over them merely to save the trouble of walking round them. One of the pirates, whose name was
Pott, was a sullen, silent sort of man who did not much mind being in prison; but the other—the one with triangular teeth—was active and talkative, and he would have disliked it extremely had he not been so interested in the mice. His name was Kettle.

Until he was captured by Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril in the wreck, Sam Sturgeon had looked after Pott and Kettle very well. He went in to see them every morning, and after untying the ropes round their ankles would take them out for an hour's exercise in the garden. Then he would tie their ankles again, and take the lashings off their wrists, and give them their breakfast. He brought them a newspaper every day, and in the evening untied their wrists so that they could take their supper. And then, with their ankles free, they went for a little walk before bedtime. But when Sam was taken prisoner, Pott and Kettle got no supper, and they lay in the cellar, with the mice walking over them, and felt very hungry and discontented.

The mice were hungry too, and one of them, almost by accident, discovered that the rope which bound Kettle's wrists had a very pleasant taste. Kettle, while he was living under the sea, had oiled himself every couple of weeks with the oil that smelt of ambergris and contained sixty-nine ingredients; and the rope round his wrists and ankles had become oily too, and in the opinion of the mouse who happened to taste it, it tasted like the
sponge-cake in a good trifle, though it was a lot drier, of course. The mouse quickly told all his friends of his discovery, and within a couple of minutes at least fifty mice were enjoying an unexpected feast of oily rope. Five minutes later, their bonds bitten through, Pott and Kettle stood up and shook hands. They were almost free men. Only the bolted door now kept them prisoner.

‘Butt it,' said Kettle. ‘Break it open with your head. Your head's solid bone, so it won't hurt you.'

Pott had a skull as thick as a bison's, and he was very proud of it. So he nodded, and bent down, and charged like a bison at the door. Three times he rammed it, and the fourth time it fell open, and the pirates walked out.

Mrs. Matches had by this time left the house, and gone over to the Hen to look for Sam Sturgeon. So the pirates found no one in the kitchen, and ate the supper which Mrs. Matches had cooked for Sam. Then they went out, and in the darkness walked down to Inner Bay, and waded into the sea. They swam for a few yards, and dived—and quickly came up again.

‘I'm drowning!' cried Kettle, and seized Pott round the neck.

‘So am I,' growled Pott. ‘Let go!'

They sank again, and came up struggling, and in great alarm headed for the beach. They were glad to reach shore, but when they stood ankle-deep at the edge of the sea they stopped and looked at
each other in perplexity, and Kettle asked, ‘What can we do now?'

‘Nothing,' said Pott.

‘We're sunk,' said Kettle.

‘We should be,' said Pott, ‘if we went in again.'

They had realised that they would not be able to swim so well without their frog-like slippers—which Gunner Boles had taken to makes shoes for Timothy and Hew—but what they had not known was that most of the oil on their skin, the ambergris oil that contained sixty-nine ingredients, had dried up while they were ashore, and was no longer any use. They had felt the coldness of the sea, but that was not very serious. What really mattered was that now they could not breathe under water; and when they dived, they had had to come up again very quickly or they would have drowned.

‘If we can't go to sea, we can't escape,' said Kettle.

‘That's so,' said Pott.

‘Well, what can we do? ‘asked Kettle again.

‘Hide,' said Pott.

Then Kettle had a good idea, and walking back to Popinsay House they went quietly in with the intention of stealing some clothes. For it had occurred to Kettle that if they were dressed in the ordinary way they could walk about like other people, and no one would pay any attention to them.

They found the door of Mrs. Matches' room standing open, and going from room to room they
soon discovered that the house was empty but for themselves. They had no need to hurry, and they could look for the clothes they wanted without being disturbed. But there was not much to choose from, for Captain Spens's suits, of which they found several in a large wardrobe, were far too small for them, and Sam Sturgeon only had the clothes he wore on week-days and a best suit for Sundays. His week-day clothes were in the
Endeavour,
for he had changed into his bathing-drawers aboard the boat; and when Kettle found his Sunday suit, he claimed it for himself. So Pott was left with nothing to wear.

‘Unless,' said Kettle, ‘you wear a dress. There's plenty of dresses in the woman's room, and you might look very nice if you choose a smart one.'

‘Liar,' said Pott, and sat glumly on Sam's bed.

Kettle found a shirt and a tie, and dressed himself in Sam's blue serge suit. He looked even more villainous than before, and he still had to go barefoot because there were no shoes in the house big enough to fit him. But he stood in front of a looking-glass, smiling hideously, and felt very pleased with himself.

‘I'm all right now,' he said to Pott, ‘but if you're seen in daylight, looking like that, they'll set about you with sticks and stones as if you were a rat.'

Pott sat on Sam's bed, thinking. Then, without saying a word, he went into Mrs. Matches' room and looked for some clothes. He found a tartan
skirt, a blue woollen jersey, and a very old bonnet that Mrs. Matches kept in a cardboard box because it had belonged to her mother. But Mrs. Matches was a thin woman, though tall, and her skirt would not meet round Pott's waist; so he had to keep it up with an old cricket-belt that Kettle found in Sam's room. The blue woollen jersey had been knitted by Mrs. Matches herself, and it stretched. But it did not stretch enough, and when it split over one shoulder, Pott decided to wear a grey shawl as well. He had no difficulty with the old-fashioned bonnet, which had long black ribbons that he tied under his ear.

Even Kettle, who had not seen a woman for a hundred and fifty years, could not say that Pott looked really attractive. The bonnet hardly suited him, and though they could think of no way in which to improve it, his costume did not seem to be quite complete. The effect was spoiled, perhaps, by his bare feet; which were very large and red.

They both felt satisfied, however, that they had properly disguised themselves, and that no one could now recognise them as pirates. So they went out to explore the island and find, if they could, a deserted lonely cottage in which to live.

It was by now three o'clock in the morning; and sixty miles to the eastward Timothy and Hew and Aaron Spens had just set out from North Rona. On the Hen of Popinsay Mrs. Matches was walking about, looking for Sam Sturgeon; and Sam and Gunner Boles were prisoners in the wreck. The
morning was cold and desolate, but not dark; for in the latitude of Popinsay there is very little darkness in June. Pott and Kettle walked quickly, and when they came to a small house, stopped to look at it. But when two dogs, that were tied in a shed, began to bark loudly, they hurried on again.

They went from house to house, over all the northern and the middle parts of the island, but in every house there was a dog, and whenever they stopped, the dogs smelt them and began to bark. They could not find an empty cottage, because there were no empty cottages on Popinsay, and at last, feeling very downhearted, they walked back towards Inner Bay. As they were passing a farm near Popinsay House, a boy came out and saw them. He had got up early to go and look at some rabbit-snares he had set; but when he saw Pott and Kettle he let out a wild, chattering cry of fear and ran home again.

Pott and Kettle were even more alarmed than the boy. They could not think why their appearance had frightened him, and they looked at each other closely and carefully, and walked round each other, to see what was wrong. But nothing at all was wrong with them, so far as they could discover, and they grew very worried indeed. They realised that if everybody screamed at the mere sight of them, and all the dogs barked when they smelt them, they could not go about like ordinary people, as they had planned. They had hoped to avoid attention, but instead of that, it seemed, they were
going to attract attention. And that would not suit them at all.

They stood on the beach at Inner Bay, and Kettle said, ‘We've got to think hard, and make new plans, and that's going to take some time. We've got to find a good hiding-place, and where are we going to look for it now?'

‘There,' said Pott, and pointed to the pier.

The pier, where the
Endeavour
often lay, was built on wooden piles, and at high-water, when there were spring-tides, the sea came in almost to its landward end. The wooden piles were covered with barnacles and seaweed, and weed hung thickly down from the underside of the pier. The pebble-stones beneath it were always slippery and wet, and below the innermost part of the pier it was as dark as a cave. It was by no means a comfortable hiding-place, but it was certainly useful, and Pott and Kettle lay there all day and no one saw them.

In the evening the
Endeavour
came in, and tied up at the end of the pier, and Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall went ashore. Pott and Kettle lay quietly and listened to them talking, and the slow tread of their boots on the planking overhead. When darkness came, said Kettle, they might be able to steal the boat, and escape to sea. But Pott reminded him that they knew nothing about engines, which had not been invented in their time, so Kettle had to give up his idea and try to think of something else.

Between midnight and one o'clock in the morning, when the night was as dark as it would ever be at that time of year, he was still trying to think of a plan when he heard a little noise, as of someone splashing at the edge of the sea. Then a voice, a low muttering voice that said: ‘Under the pier! It looks nice and dark in there, let's go under the pier.'

Kettle and Pott, in the darkest part of all, where there was little room between the pebble-stones and the boards above, lay quietly and listened nervously and peered through the shadows. They saw, but dimly as if they were darker shadows, two figures stooping and bending in the outer twilight, and then there was a little noise like a cricket-bat blocking a fast straight ball. One of the figures had knocked his head on the pier—and immediately he let out a great roar: ‘Fry my fingers with bacon and tomatoes! Who hit me? Was it you, Inky?'

‘It's the Captain!' cried Kettle and Pott together, and in a great hurry to meet him, rose too quickly and knocked their heads on the pier.

‘Who's there?' shouted Scumbril. ‘Friend or foe? Come out and be recognised—and do you, Inky, stand behind me and guard my back.'

But Inky was waist-deep in the sea again, and would not come ashore until he was quite certain that it was safe to do so. Then he joined the others, and they all sat down beneath the pier to discuss the situation.

Kettle and Pott, who had been very pleased to
see their Captain again, listened gloomily to the news of his defeat. But Scumbril and Inky Poops, who had had a hundred narrow escapes before they got ashore, were so pleased with themselves, and so happy to have eluded capture, that they hardly gave a thought to the fate of their men; and were indeed already thinking of ways and means to raise a new force and try their luck in another battle.

‘We're safe enough here,' said Scumbril. ‘They'll never look for us ashore. Davy Jones hasn't come aland for four hundred years, and has forgot there is dry land. His head looks like a field of cotton by Savannah, but his thoughts are hung with seaweed like this pier.'

‘True enough, Dan my dear,' said Inky Poops. ‘That's true enough, but don't forget whose plan it was to come ashore. Give credit where credit is due, Dan, for it was me that thought of it. It was my plan, not yours.'

‘And forty times I saved you from the enemy to bring you ashore,' replied Scumbril. ‘You'd be Davy Jones's captive now—ay! taken forty times over!—had it not been for me.'

‘You're very useful in your own rough way, Dan, I've never denied that,' said Inky. ‘But I've got the brains, Dan, and brains are more important than brawn, especially now when you've lost all your men, and you're all alone in the world.'

‘Not yet!' said Scumbril. ‘With Pott and Kettle here, I've two good friends that I can count
upon. And that's two more than you can find!'

‘If they were friends of mine,' said Inky, ‘I'd ask them what they mean by dressing-up in that curious way.'

‘Tell us,' said Scumbril, ‘and give us the tale entire. I sent you north to occupy the wreck and clear a cabin for my headquarters. What happened next?'

Pott said never a word while Kettle told the story of their capture by Sam Sturgeon and Cully, their imprisonment in Popinsay House, and their escape from it. The pirate captains were astonished to hear that Timothy and Hew had been aboard the
Endeavour
when Pott and Kettle were hauled out of the deep; and Inky sadly shook his head when he learnt that Hew was not really dumb.

‘Oh, what deceit!' he said. ‘To think a young boy like that could be so deceitful! It takes away all your faith in human nature, doesn't it, Dan?'

But Scumbril wanted to know more about the boys. ‘Who are they? ‘he demanded.

‘They live in the house where we was imprisoned,' said Kettle, ‘and so does the cove with the big ears that found us in the wreck: Sturgeon, they call him.'