The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (3 page)

At a worm in the water — and bit a fish-hook!

The fisherman was angry, for fishermen all wish

To catch a forty-pounder, and despise a little fish.

‘“Oh, try again,” said Freddy, “and bait your hook anew,

My mother's twice as long as me, and you can catch her too;

And father likes a limpet best, so bait your hook with that,

You'll be very pleased with father, who is fine and big and fat!”'

When Cully saw that Timothy and Hew were awake, and listening to his song, his expression changed and he tried to look very serious and respectable. He came nearer to the raft, and addressed them in a most dignified voice: ‘Good morning, dear boys! I do so trust you have slept well and had a good night's rest? — You have? Oh, how glad I am! That's splendid! Splendid,
splendid! And I hope, dear boys, that you didn't hear the absurd little song I was singing?'

‘We heard it all,' said Timothy. ‘It was very interesting.'

‘But what happened?' asked Hew. ‘Did the fisherman catch Freddy's father and mother?'

‘Oh, no!' cried Cully in great distress. ‘No, no, no, no! It isn't a true song, it's just nonsense really, because no one could possibly be as wicked as that, could they? I learnt it from a friend of mine, another octopus, a very clever creature, but not quite respectable, I'm afraid, and I sometimes sing it because it has a pleasant tune. I often sing the silliest songs if they have good tunes, because I'm very musical. But you mustn't think for a moment that I
believe
what I sing! Oh, dear me, no! No, no, no, no! I'm a good octopus, I really am, and if I sing horrid songs, it's just because they happen to have nice tunes. That's all.'

His big grey eyes were full of tears, and some were rolling down his orange-coloured beak. He was wiping them away, with his second arm on the right-hand side, when Gunner Boles shouted to him: ‘Ahoy there, Cully! Show a leg, my boy! Slip your cable, Cully, it's time to go!'

‘Oh dear!' said Cully. ‘He's always in such a hurry. I like to take my time about things, but Gunner Boles is most impatient. A busy man, with such a sense of duty. — Well, I must leave you now, dear boys, and I do hope you'll remember that in spite of my silly songs I really am a good
octopus, and you must be good too, because to be good is the most important thing in the world. Be clever if you can, be very clever if it's possible, but above all be good. — And now I must bid you adieu, but some day, I trust, we shall meet again in happier circumstances.'

‘That's what all grown-up people tell us,' said Hew glumly as Cully swam round to the other side of the raft. ‘Be good, they say.'

‘It will be very tiresome,' said Timothy, ‘if being grown-up simply means being good.'

‘Perhaps it doesn't,' said Hew. ‘Perhaps it only means that you want other people to be good.'

‘Well, that's all right,' said Timothy. ‘I shouldn't mind that.'

Gunner Boles was already in the water, holding on to the edge of the raft and exchanging a last word with Sam Sturgeon. Now he climbed on to Cully's back, and having shaken hands with Sam, said to the boys, ‘Good-bye, my dears, good-bye to you both, and I hope you have a good voyage. You'll be all right now, have no fear of that. But let me give you a piece of advice before I go: say nothing about me and Cully when you get home again! Not a word. Nobody would believe you, even if you did!'

‘Isn't it sad,' exclaimed Cully, ‘to think that people wouldn't believe in
me
!'

‘You're talking too much,' said Gunner Boles, and pushed Cully's head under the water. ‘So long,' he said to Sam.

Then Cully, indignant at being treated so rudely, dived deeply down into the blue-black depths of the sea, taking the Gunner with him, and they both disappeared from view in a swirl of water.

‘But why have they gone?' asked Timothy.

‘Look down there to the south'ard,' said Sam Sturgeon; and there they saw, rising above the edge of the sea, some eighteen or twenty little plumes of smoke, as though in the distance the fires had been lighted in the fire-places of eighteen or twenty houses in some small town. ‘Don't you see,' said Sam, ‘there's another convoy coming up?'

So an hour or two later they were all rescued from the raft, and after a comfortable voyage in a large ship where they were well treated, they landed in Liverpool. There they were met by their grandfather, their mother's father, who took them to his house in Hampshire. But their mother, who had been saved by an outward-bound ship going to Cape Town, stayed in South Africa. She always liked to have her own way, and she had decided to remain there till the war was over.

The war came to an end, and still she did not return. Captain Spens, having been wounded again, retired from the Navy and lived in his own home on the island of Popinsay, off the north coast of Scotland; and Timothy and Hew lived with him. Mrs. Spens wrote a letter every week to say they should all come out to South Africa; and every week Captain Spens replied that nothing
would ever make him leave Popinsay again — for he liked to have his own way just as much as she did. So that was how matters stood, and Timothy and Hew were quite content to be looked after by Sam Sturgeon and Mrs. Matches the housekeeper.

They went to the village school, and they learnt much that was useful from Sam: such as swimming and the names of the stars, and how to tie knots and sail a boat and snare a rabbit, and when it would be high tide next Wednesday — and matters of that sort. Sam had also told them, very seriously, what Gunner Boles himself had said: that never must they speak of their strange experience in the South Atlantic Ocean. Nor had they, except to each other, and as time went on they thought of it more and more as a dream, or a story they had heard, rather than as something which had really happened to them.

But now, when again they saw Gunner Boles's bald head and red whiskers bobbing up and down in the bright sea, they remembered their days on the raft quite clearly; and Timothy and Hew both wondered if Cully had also come to their island.

‘Ahoy there!' shouted Sam, and Gunner Boles turned an astonished face towards them—they could see his bushy red eyebrows rising high on his forehead, and his mouth open, and his pipe fall out—and suddenly he disappeared.

‘He'll be up again in a minute,' said Sam, still treading water, and eagerly they waited, and waited a little longer, but still there was no sign of him.

‘Perhaps you frightened him,' said Timothy.

‘Gunner Boles isn't the man to get frightened,' said Sam, and at that moment Hew, pointing farther out to sea, shouted, ‘There he is!'

In a big wave rising and curving and curling over like a green hood, he had seen him come up and poke out his head from the crest of it—and then the wave had fallen in a crash of white water.

‘Oh, he'll be hurt!' exclaimed Timothy.

But Sam Sturgeon said in a comfortable voice, ‘Gunner Boles can look after himself'; and a moment or two later he reappeared no more than ten yards away, took another look, and dived again. Then his bald head came up in the midst of them, and shaking the water from his whiskers he shook hands first with Sam, and then with Timothy and Hew.

‘You might have scared me out of my wits, with that shout of yours,' he said. ‘I thought you were strangers, and it gave me such a turn I nearly lost my pipe. —And how are you keeping, Mr. Sturgeon? And the two little boys? But bless my soul, they've growed enormously! They're big lads now!'

‘Hew's bigger than me,' said Timothy, ‘though he's a lot younger.'

‘But Timothy's cleverer,' said Hew modestly.

‘A nice nature counts for a lot too,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and who lays claim to that?'

‘They've both got nice natures,' said Sam Sturgeon, ‘or otherwise they'd get a clip over the ear from me.'

Gunner Boles nodded approvingly: ‘That's the way I was brought up too.'

‘But he never gives us a clip over the ear,' began Timothy indignantly.

‘Now, now!' interrupted Sam. ‘Not so much chatter from you when your elders and betters have got something to talk about. Won't you come ashore, Mr. Boles, and sit down comfortably, and let's hear your news?'

‘It's against orders, in the usual way,' said Gunner Boles, ‘but as I'm on special duty at present, well, I dare say I might stretch a point and see what it feels like to sit on dry land again. There's a pretty piece of shore over there.'

‘That's the Hen of Popinsay,' said Timothy. ‘Nobody lives there except a lot of rabbits.'

‘Then it will suit me very well indeed,' said Gunner Boles, and they all swam towards the beach of the little island that was called the Hen. As they were going ashore, Hew asked where Cully was, and Gunner Boles looked extremely grave and said that Cully hadn't been behaving very well, and was doing extra duty by way of punishment.

‘I wish we could see him again,' said Hew. ‘He's the only octopus I've ever spoken to.'

‘Well,' said Gunner Boles, ‘it all depends on Cully himself. If he's good and nothing unforeseen occurs, I dare say I could give him shore-leave in a few days' time—he's not very far away, I'll tell you that much—but duty comes first, of course, and everything finally depends on what we call the exigencies of the service. But I'll tell him you were asking for him, and that will please him, it will indeed; for he's often spoken of you both.'

‘And now,' said Sam Sturgeon, ‘you take a run round the island and warm yourselves up a bit. You're looking white and cold, and what you need is exercise; and while you're taking a run, Mr. Boles and I'll have a chance to talk.'

Timothy and Hew were most unwilling to go, and miss an interesting conversation, but Sam refused to let them stay; so they ran along the beach to a ruined sheep-fold at the edge of the turf, where they stopped and looked back, and saw Gunner Boles drawing what appeared to be a picture on the level sand—or it might be a map or a plan—which Sam Sturgeon, stooping with his
hands on his knees, examined with close attention. Then they talked together, very seriously, and every now and then Gunner Boles pointed to some particular part of the plan, or bent down to draw some new detail with a little stick he had found.

‘What do you think they're talking about?' asked Timothy.

‘I don't know,' said Hew, ‘but it may be the pirate ship. Perhaps Gunner Boles knows how to find it.'

‘He said he had come here on special service, and that Cully was doing extra duty for punishment. I wish I knew what their duty was.'

‘And where does he live?' asked Hew. ‘He can't spend all his time in the sea, can he?'

‘He was hundreds of miles from land the first time we met him.'

‘Was he dressed in the same way?'

‘I can't remember,' said Timothy.

They had both admired the bathing-suit which Gunner Boles was wearing. It consisted of a white vest with two pockets, buttoned with brass buttons, and dark-blue trunks made of a thin rough material like shark-skin, on which the water-drops glistened when he sat in the sun; and on his vest was printed, in neat blue letters, ‘H.M.S. Royal Sovereign.' He wore a broad red belt, with a small satchel on one side and a sheath for a long knife on the other; and on his feet were curious large slippers that made his feet look like the feet of an enormous frog.

‘It's all very mysterious,' said Timothy, ‘but
perhaps Sam will explain if we ask him very confidentially.'

‘He won't,' said Hew. ‘He would never let us talk about Gunner Boles, or Cully either.'

Timothy shivered and said, ‘I'm feeling cold. Let's run round the Hen.'

They set off up-hill, over the springy turf that covered the little island with a green carpet, tufted here and there with cushions of pink thrift, and holed with sandy burrows where rabbits lived; but near the cliffs to the west and the north some of the burrows had been deserted by the rabbits, and puffins nested in them. They ran at a steady pace till they came to the eastward side of the island, that looked across Inner Bay to the beach where they had been seeking for treasure; and there they heard someone shouting.

‘It's Father,' said Timothy.

‘He's found the cannon-ball,' said Hew, as their father shouted again.

Captain Spens had a very loud voice, and the noise of it boomed across the bay, but they could not quite distinguish his words.

‘I suppose he wants us to come ashore,' said Timothy.

‘We'll have to go and tell Sam and Gunner Boles,' said Hew. ‘They can't see him from where they're sitting.'

‘And we'd better hurry, or he'll be angry,' said Timothy.

They waved, to let their father know they had
heard him, and ran back to the bay where Sam Sturgeon and Gunner Boles were still talking together about something that was, to judge from their appearance, very important indeed. But as soon as Sam heard that Captain Spens was waiting for them—and shouting—he said, ‘Well, we'll have to go now,' and Gunner Boles bent down and wiped out the plan he had drawn.

‘I'll be seeing you again, Mr. Boles?' asked Sam.

‘I'll keep a look-out for you,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and if I need help I shan't be slow in coming to ask for it.'

‘Good luck to you,' said Sam.

‘Thank 'ee,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and so-long to you, boys. I'll remember you to Cully, shall I?'

‘Yes, please,' they replied.

They shook hands and ran down to the sea, leaving the Gunner sitting all by himself on the sand. When they were half-way across the bay Hew asked, ‘What sort of duty is it that Mr. Boles has to do, and what were you talking about, Sam?'

‘You mind your own business,' said Sam in his gruffest voice, ‘and let other people mind theirs. And remember this, both of you: you mustn't say anything about Gunner Boles to the Old Man. You understand that?'