The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (31 page)

‘Come in here!' he shouted. ‘Come in here and tell me what's the meaning of this!'

They followed him into the room, and saw that he had pulled down the bed-clothes and discovered in his bed something which they would have great difficulty in explaining. On the under-sheet there lay a long piece of seaweed, now almost dry, and one of the frog-like shoes which were worn by the sailors under the sea.

‘What sort of a mess is that?' demanded the Captain. ‘I go away from home on most urgent business, and when I come back I find my bed looking like Brighton beach at the last of the ebb, littered with seaweed and old boots. What is that fantastic object, and how did it get here?'

‘Well, sir,' said Sam, scratching his head and looking very unhappy, ‘I never did expect to see that there. I give you my word, sir, it's almost as big a surprise to me as it is to you. We've had some difficult times here, with very heavy weather while you were away—'

‘Heavy weather, my wooden foot!' roared the Captain. ‘Do you tell me the tide came in through the upper windows of Popinsay House and covered my bed with seaweed? Is that your story, you dog, you renegade, you scorpion?'

‘No, sir,' said Sam, ‘that's not what I was trying to say. I was just trying to explain that there's some things which can't be explained, and perhaps didn't ought to be, and when a gentleman comes home from abroad and finds his collar-box stuffed full of rubies and diamonds, perhaps he ought to be satisfied with that and not ask questions which only embarrass those who are called on to answer them.'

‘So that's your point of view, is it?' asked the Captain. ‘You refuse to answer me, do you? And you know what that means, don't you? That means mutiny!'

‘I think Sam is perfectly right,' said Timothy.

‘So do I,' said Hew.

‘Shut the door,' said the Captain. ‘Shut it quietly so as not to wake your mother. Now stand over there, all three of you. This is mutiny beyond a doubt of it, and as such requires serious consideration, careful treatment, and in all probability very
heavy punishment.—Be quiet, Timothy! If you have anything to say, I shall listen to you at the proper time. But say nothing until I give you permission.'

On the opposite side of the room to that where the three mutineers were standing there was a small writing-table, and the Captain, hopping towards it, pulled a chair into a convenient position and sat down beside it. On the table were a blotting-pad, a silver inkpot, a pen-tray, and a visitors' book bound in red leather. The visitors' book had not been much used for several years, but the Captain valued it highly because he had had it ever since he first commanded a ship, and many distinguished people and nearly all his friends had at one time or another written their names in it. Now he saw that someone had recently been handling it, and handling it carelessly; for a pen from the pen-tray had been left between its leaves.

‘Who's been tampering with my visitors' book? ‘he demanded, and opening it where the pen stuck out as a marker, shouted, ‘What's the meaning of this?'

Nervously the three mutineers approached him, and looking over his shoulder saw written on a clean page of the book three names, one below the other:

Davy Jones

Aaron Spens

Gunner Boles

‘Who wrote that?' demanded the Captain. ‘Who are the scoundrels who've been scribbling in my book?'

‘Well, that's torn it!' said Sam. ‘Torn it from luff to leech!'

‘We'll have to tell him now,' said Timothy. ‘Tell me what?' cried the Captain. ‘Everything,' said Hew.

‘Then you were lying to me before, were you? Lying as well as mutineering?'

‘Not exactly, sir,' said Sam. ‘It was a difficult situation we were in, and it's going to be difficult to explain it. I think you ought to have your toddy before I start to tell you about it.'

The Captain was about to refuse indignantly, when he began to sneeze again. So he changed his mind, and told Sam to make it hot and strong and waste no time about it.

Sam hurried downstairs and the Captain, having thrown the frog-shoe and the seaweed out of his bed, climbed in and sat up against the pillows, and pulled the quilt over his knees.

‘Give me my collar-box and the visitors' book,' he said, and sat there now looking at the jewels and now at the strange signatures in his book until Sam returned.

The jewels were real and that was very gratifying indeed, but the only possible explanation of the signatures—or so it seemed to the Captain—was that someone had written them for a joke. But who was that someone? Davy Jones's name was
written in the narrow, pointed, ornamental way of the Elizabethans. Aaron Spens's signature was in the clear neat style of a much later date; and whoever had signed
Gunner Boles
had been able to copy the bold but laborious writing of a man who had taught himself to use a pen but had never had much time to practise it. It was quite clear that neither Timothy nor Hew nor Sam Sturgeon had written these mysterious names—and who else had been in Popinsay House while he was away? Restless and impatient because he was quite unable to answer his own questions, the Captain shifted from one part of the bed to another, tried this position and that to see which was the more comfortable, and suddenly exclaimed, ‘Now what's this?'—Again he pulled down the bedclothes, and near the foot of the bed discovered a large pink shell.

‘My bed's like the bottom of the sea!' he shouted. ‘I'll find a foul anchor and a dead skate next. What's been going on here? Who brought that shell in? What sort of a game have you been playing while I was away?'

He was about to throw the Shell into the fire-place when Timothy cried, ‘Don't do that! Oh, please take care of it! It's very valuable.'

‘A common shell!' exclaimed the Captain. ‘What value's in a shell?'

‘Listen to it,' said Hew.

The Captain, sitting cross-legged with all the bed-clothes in disarray, the collar-box on one side
and the visitors' book on the other, put the Shell to his ear, and the expression on his face slowly changed from anger and impatience to bewilderment and wonder. Sam came in with a glass of toddy on a little silver tray, and the Captain, because he had only one hand, said to Timothy, ‘Come and sit beside me and hold the Shell.' Then he took the glass of toddy and slowly drank it, sip by sip, while Timothy held the Shell to his ear. Nobody spoke for quite a long time, and when his glass was empty the Captain took the Shell from Timothy and looked at it very curiously.

‘I think,' he said, and now he spoke quietly and gently, ‘you should tell me the whole story from the beginning.'

It took them a long time to tell him everything—there was so much to tell—but the Captain heard them very patiently, and because he had already listened to the Shell he understood without asking questions all those parts of the story which would otherwise have been hard to explain. They took it in turns to tell their tale, and when they had reached the end of it and Sam was describing the visit of Davy Jones and Aaron Spens, and how happy they had been in his bed, Mrs. Matches came in with the Captain's supper on a tray.

‘Does she know?' he asked.

‘I don't know anything that doesn't concern me,' she answered snappily, ‘and what's more, I don't want to.'

‘You're very wise,' said the Captain, and Sam
put on his artificial hand for him so that he could eat his supper more conveniently.

‘You can leave me now,' he said. ‘You've given me a lot to think about and I want to think about it in peace. See that the boys go to bed in good time,' he told Sam, ‘because to-morrow's Sunday and we're going to church.'

‘Good night, Father,' they said.

‘Good night,' he answered. He spoke in an absent-minded way, and when Timothy looked round the bedroom door, just before closing it, he saw that his father was not eating his supper, but listening to the Shell again.

At half-past ten on Sunday morning a little procession came out from the front gates of Popinsay House and went down the road towards the parish church, which stood on a small hill nearly two miles away. Leading the procession were Captain Spens and Mrs. Spens, then came Sam Sturgeon and Mrs. Matches, and in the rear walked Timothy and Hew. Mrs. Spens, who was now quite well again, was wearing one of the new hats which she had made in South Africa, and Mrs. Matches was wearing another that Mrs. Spens had given her as a present. Captain Spens and Sam Sturgeon were very embarrassed at having to walk beside them, for the hats, they thought, were quite horrible to look at, and already a pair of terns, three lapwings, and a couple of black-headed gulls were flying
above them, swooping and screaming and diving at what they evidently thought were strange and perilous foreign birds.

Before they reached the church there was a whole flock of lapwings and crows and terns and starlings and rooks and black-headed gulls crying angrily above them, darting at the dreadful hats, and now and then plucking a feather from them; but Mrs. Spens and Mrs. Matches paid no attention at all and walked proudly on, feeling very pleased with themselves. Sam Sturgeon, however, was by no means happy, for he felt like a scarecrow and thought the birds were attacking him. He had discovered, when he was about to dress himself, that someone had stolen his Sunday suit, and he was wearing clothes he had borrowed from the farmer who lived beside them. They belonged to the farmer's youngest son who was in the army, and the trousers were a good deal too short for Sam, and the sleeves of the coat did not come within six inches of his wrists. Timothy and Hew had told him that he looked exactly like a scarecrow, and they enjoyed their walk very much because they were hoping all the time that the birds would carry off either Mrs. Matches' hat or their mother's.

When they were half-way to church the bell began to ring, and the Captain looked at his watch and said they were in good time and there was no need to hurry. But the ringing of the bell had a very different effect on Dan Scumbril and Inky Poops, who were sleeping in the pulpit. It woke
them up, and they looked at each other in the greatest consternation.

‘What does that mean?' asked Scumbril.

‘I'm afraid to tell you, Dan, I'm afraid to tell you,' said Inky with his hands over his ears.

‘I thought,' said Scumbril, ‘that they only rang the bell on Sunday morning.'

‘That's right,' said Inky. ‘They ring it to tell the people it's time to come to church.'

‘But to-day's not Sunday,' said Scumbril. ‘This is only Thursday—unless Pott was lying to us!'

‘Perhaps he made a mistake,' said Inky. ‘Oh dear, oh dear! Perhaps the newspaper he saw was quite an old one!'

‘Why didn't you think of that to begin with?'

‘I don't know, Dan, my dear, I don't know, I'm sure.'

The fact was that although Sam Sturgeon had been kind enough to give Pott and Kettle something to read while they were prisoners in Popinsay House, he had not thought that it mattered very much whether they read the day's newspaper or a paper that was a week or two old. Sometimes they had had one and sometimes the other, and the last one they saw had been three days old. This little accident had completely upset Inky's calculations, and now, instead of lying quiet and undisturbed in the pulpit, as they would have done had it been Thursday, they were to be surprised and surrounded by a congregation consisting of almost
everybody who lived in the northern part of Popinsay. When they stood up in the pulpit, and looked through the diamond-shaped panes of the long church windows, they could see people coming towards them from all sides. Here was a man by himself, and there a family group; on the one side a cluster of girls, on the other a batch of children. Here were two ploughmen on their bicycles, there the minister and his wife, and there—in bowler hats and smart blue suits—Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall.

“Well, what are we going to do?' cried Scumbril. ‘You brought us here! It was your fine idea that we could lie-up in a pulpit, and hide safely for a whole week, and what's the result? You've landed us in a trap!'

‘It's not my fault, Dan; it's all the fault of the newspaper that gave us the wrong day of the week. You can't blame me for a mistake like that!'

‘Blame or no blame, what are we going to do? We're in a trap, and how do we get out of it? You're the man with the brains, Inky, and if you don't use them—and use them quickly! —I'll beat them out upon the floor!'

‘Give me time, Dan, give me time, and I'll think of something. I've never failed to think of something yet.'

‘Time's short and getting shorter,' said Scumbril, and the bell cried,'
Ding-dong, ding-dong!'

The two pirates crouched in the pulpit and now Scumbril, despite his bravery, was as frightened as
Inky Poops. Inky's fingers were trembling and he was nervously licking his lips; but Dan Scumbril was beginning to hiccup. Then, quite suddenly, Inky looked a little happier and exclaimed, ‘I've got it, Dan! I've thought of something. Oh, what a brain I've got! You can always depend on me, Dan, always!'

‘Tell me,' said Scumbril. ‘What is it you've thought of?'

‘We're disguised, do you see? And they're good disguises, they couldn't be better! That's a fine suit of clothes you're wearing—if only you'd a pair of boots to complete it—and this dress of mine is just the sort of thing for a woman to put on when she's going to church on a Sunday morning!'

‘And how does that help us?'

‘Why, it helps us right out of our difficulty, Dan! Here we are, all dressed for church like respectable people, and here we are in church. There's only one mistake we've made, and that's to be in the pulpit where the minister ought to be. But if we go and sit in one of those pews, Dan, and if we choose that nice-looking one in the shadow there at the end of the church, and sit down like ordinary people, then nobody won't pay any attention to us! We'll just be two good, kind members of the congregation, Dan, and if we keep our feet tucked under the seat, there's nobody going to see that we haven't got any boots on. But you'll have to stop hiccuping, Dan, because
that's not the way that people behave in church. You've got to sit nice and quiet until you start singing hymns and such-like, and then you've got to sing like thunder.'