The Happy Mariners (20 page)

‘Can't we do
anything
?' cried Elizabeth.

No one answered her. There was a long silence, nothing being audible but the night wind sighing
through the forest, the muffled crash of breakers on the shore, and the hiss of the pirates' oars growing ever more faint as they neared the
Resmiranda.
The sea shone like grey satin, and the
Resmiranda,
graceful and glittering, with her masts and half her deck silvered by moonlight, looked like some lovely phantom of the seas, a ship in a dream.

Suddenly Guy exclaimed, in quick excited tones: ‘Look! There's someone aboard her. There's a man on the
Resmiranda's
deck.'

‘So there is,' said Rex, while Elizabeth and Martin only gazed and gazed with yearning eyes across the rippling silver field of water. ‘Who can it be?'

Something fell into the water two yards from the longboat's prow, and a moment later the sound of cannon-fire was heard.

‘Good!' cried Rex. ‘He's firing at 'em, whoever he is. He's got that gun going.'

‘It must be Phineas,' said Elizabeth. ‘Who else?'

Martin clapped his hands. ‘Hooray! Phineas for ever! Go it, Phineas! They're a nasty lot, those pirates.'

Another cannon-ball fell into the sea, missing the longboat, as it seemed, by inches. And then—
smack I
The children danced with delight. ‘That got 'em,' said Rex. ‘Plump in the middle.'

And now the pirates, what were left of them, were struggling in the water, some of them clinging to the fragments of the shattered boat.

‘Jolly good riddance!' said Guy.

‘But how,' asked Elizabeth, are we going to get to the
Resmiranda?
We can't swim there…. Why, listen!'

Somewhere in the forest a cuckoo was calling. It called four times.

‘Four o'clock,' said Martin. ‘That's Aunt Cuckoo, I expect. The one I shouted for, you know. Four o'clock, and we've got to be back to tea at five, Mother said.'

‘And so you shall, Martin Robinson,' remarked the loud voice of Aunt Cuckoo, just behind them.

The children wheeled round in astonishment. The elder ones began to think that they must be dreaming when they saw this huge painted wooden bird blinking and nodding at them. But Martin took her quite for granted. ‘Oh, Aunt Cuckoo,' he said, ‘I've been calling you for a long time, over and over again.'

‘I dare say you have,' replied Aunt Cuckoo, nodding her wise old head with every word. ‘But duty must be done, and I had me four o'clock to strike, don't forget, before I could bother with you. And now,' she added briskly, ‘tell me what you want and be quick about it, for I've less than half an hour to waste on you.'

‘Please,' said Martin, ‘we want to get back to the
Resmiranda,
and there's no boat.'

‘That's easily done,' Aunt Cuckoo assured him. ‘Jump on my back, child, and I'll give you a ride there.'

Martin stared. ‘Can you fly as well as talk?' he asked admiringly.

‘Can a duck swim?' retorted Aunt Cuckoo. ‘Can a pig squeak? Can a dog bark? Can a cat howl? Can a clam cling?'

‘Oh,' said Martin,' and there's Fandy too.' Fandy sat near, unconcernedly washing his face. ‘Do you mind taking Fandy as well?'

Aunt Cuckoo snorted, or she came as near to snorting as a bird can. ‘I'm not afeard of fifty Fandies,' she said.

‘Oh, there's only one,' Martin promised eagerly. ‘And he's always quite polite to birds. And have you room on your back for Elizabeth and Rex and Guy as well?'

‘One at a time,' answered Aunt Cuckoo. ‘Jump up now, Martin, and don't keep me waiting any longer.'

Martin took her at her word, climbing on to her back, one arm clutching Fandy, the other wound round Aunt Cuckoo's neck. Then the queer old bird spread her wooden wings, and with the sound of creaking timbers she flew swiftly across the sea.

As soon as Aunt Cuckoo had deposited him and Fandy on the deck of the
Resmiranda,
and flown back to fetch the others, Martin ran up to Phineas Dyke with a shout of joy. Phineas, who stood dreaming by the gun, turned at the boy's approach and greeted him with a puzzled smile.

‘Oh, Phineas!' cried Martin. ‘Don't you know me? I'm the young fighting cock of the party!'

Phineas's grin broadened, but it was evident that he had not yet emerged from his dreams. ‘Now what party be that, youngster?' said he.

‘The Robinsons,' answered Martin. ‘You can't have forgotten us already. Have you been asleep again, one of your funny sleeps I mean?'

‘Mebbe I have.' Phineas slowly nodded, his gaze fixed on a remote distance. Even Martin, young as he was, could see that the man was living at that moment in another world, a world crowded with jostling memories. Old ships sailed in his eyes; the voices of vanished comrades struck upon his inward ear. The sea in which the
Resmiranda
now lay straining at anchor was moving and tossing all about him?
for a sharp wind had arisen to whip the dark green moonlit water into foam-crested waves; but it was other and older oceans whose music he now heard, it was the salt winds of centuries earlier that he felt a-buffeting his face. Martin did not understand all this, but he understood enough to be awed into silence. Gazing at Phineas, he became so deeply absorbed that when Elizabeth arrived and ran to his side he could only say: ‘Hullo, Elizabeth!' and fall to thinking again. But presently he plucked up courage enough to ask: ‘How did you get back to the ship, Phineas? And if you don't remember us, and our voyage together, why did you fire at the pirates? I mean, how did you know they
were
pirates?'

‘Ah yes, the pirates,' murmured Phineas.

Elizabeth had taken in the situation at once. ‘I think, Martin,' she said, ‘poor Phineas is too tired to talk now. He'll be better when we sail. He's better already than he was on the island.'

‘I wonder why, Elizabeth?'

‘He belongs to this ship, don't you see? He's lived on her for three hundred years. It's his home, and he's helpless and kind of lost anywhere else. That's why he came back, I'm sure. He just forgot all about us and went back to his old ship without quite knowing what he was doing. Like people walking in their sleep.'

‘He couldn't have walked across to the
Resmiranda.
Did he come in the boat, or did he swim?'

After a silence Elizabeth answered: ‘I don't know. I'm only guessing. Perhaps he swam. Or perhaps … Oh, I don't know,' she ended, as if not wishing to say what was in her mind.

‘Oh, Phineas, look out!' yelled Martin suddenly.

An evil face, ghastly grey in the moonlight, had appeared at the deck rail—a face with a crooked nose, two black patches, copious red whiskers, and a squint. These features were crowned by a head so bald and white that if you had cracked it with a soup ladle you wouldn't have been at all surprised to see a chicken hop out. That Gory Jake succeeded in inspiring fear in all beholders, in spite of his natural disadvantages, says much for his professional skill. Certainly Martin and Elizabeth were terrified at sight of him, and they yelled again as he leaped nimbly on to the deck and danced threateningly towards them. Phineas roused himself only just in time to seize a cutlass and parry the villain's first blow. Gory Jake snorted and cursed, but Phineas fought silently, like a man in a trance, though nothing could have exceeded the dexterity with which he dodged the murderous blade or the swift cunning with which he thrust and slashed.

When the fight was at its fastest and most furious, Guy arrived, on Aunt Cuckoo's back. ‘You naughty boys!' cried Aunt Cuckoo, as she spread her wings for the return flight. ‘Quarrelling again!' Guy ran down the hatch like lightning, and in ten seconds was back on deck with a cutlass. But he forbore to join in
the fight, for the two were fairly matched, man to man, and short of dealing Gory Jake a treacherous blow from behind, which was not to be thought of, he saw no way of helping. So he stationed himself, cutlass ready, eyes alert, in front of Elizabeth and Martin, lest the pirate's attack should unexpectedly converge on them.

The blades singing through the air, the clash of steel meeting steel, the hissing breath of the fighters and the pad-pad-patter of their feet as they ran to and fro and round each other, dodging and parrying, feinting and thrusting, leaping like lions or crawling and crouching like cats—these things set Guy's blood boiling with excitement. He had no eyes or ears for anything else. ‘Is that you, Rex? Don't interfere with 'em. My, he's a grand fighter, Phineas is! Oh, well played, sir! ‘But the cry came a bit too soon. Phineas was down, borne down by the impetus of his own tremendous attack, and Jake, turning in a flash, rushed upon him with horrible glee. Guy and Rex dashed forward: they couldn't stand by and watch Phineas slaughtered. But Phineas had already recovered himself, and, as Gory Jake bent down to administer the fatal slash, with incredible agility he sprang in under the upraised arm and with a mighty upward stroke made an end for ever of Captain Gory Jake, who had just time to mutter, the moment before his wicked head fell off: ‘Thwarted! And only six hundred and thirty-three!' Then he expired; for
without a head not even a pirate can survive, and Gory Jake's head was now severed from his body, and sawdust spurted from both parts in a copious flood. Elizabeth and Martin turned their eyes away, but the two elder boys made no bones about helping Phineas to clear the deck of these piratical fragments. In two pieces, Captain Gory Jake Blackheart was dropped into the sea, where his infamous crew had already perished. And may his miserable fate prove a warning to all pirates into whose hands this book shall fall!

‘Are you much hurt, Phineas?' asked Elizabeth anxiously.

‘Never a scratch, lady,' returned the ancient mariner. ‘But ah, my poor old head be full of sleep, full of dreams. Seems I must go back where I came from, lady. Yonder.' He waved a hand towards the hatchway. ‘There 'ee found me, there 'ee shall leave me. Yes, it all cooms back, the voyage us had, and the cupful of storm, and the black flag, and little Queen Elizabeth commanding, and a martal deal of queer fantastical talk. It all cooms back to me, lady. But now I must take a tot mebbe, or mebbe two, and lie down where I belong.'

‘But won't you help us sail the ship home?' said Rex. ‘Like you did on the way out. We've been counting on you, Phineas.'

‘The ship be right enough. Trust she,' replied Phineas. ‘Her's making good speed, lad.' He passed a hand over his brow in a gesture of infinite weariness,
moved slowly towards the hatch, and disappeared into it.

‘What did he mean?' asked Guy.

‘Look!' Elizabeth answered. ‘That's what he meant. The ship's moving fast. Perhaps we shall be home to tea after all.'

The children stared wonderingly about them. As far as they could see stretched the rippling dark green ocean, and above them, in a moon-washed sky, the stars seemed to race. No sign of the island. No sign of any land. The wind was fresh and strong, and the ship, with all her sails full and all her tackle strained and creaking, rode high and queenly over the rushing, churning, galloping water. The Robinsons stood on her deck, drinking in the lovely soft colours of night, feeling the fingers of the wind in their hair, dreaming of all their adventures and of the home towards which they were now being so swiftly borne. They did not exchange many words, for they were subdued by a deeper joy than they had known before, the joy not only of coming home but of coming home laden with rich memories, full of adventures that could be lived over and over again in their minds.

‘Pity we had to leave the treasure behind,' remarked Rex. ‘But it doesn't really matter.'

‘We've had the best of it,' said Elizabeth. And nobody, not even the youngest, was silly enough to think that she meant the cake. ‘See,' she added, ‘it's getting lighter, Morning will soon be here.'

Even as she spoke, and the eyes of her brothers followed her pointing finger, the rose-flush deepened in the east, became crimson, became golden; the sun appeared over the world's rim and poured himself, pure gold, into the sea; yet mounted the blue sky undiminished, travelling, it seemed to the children, as fast as the minute hand of a clock. A little way past noon he seemed suddenly to stop.

‘It's tea-time,' said Elizabeth. ‘And here are the cliffs of home.'

Yes, they were back at the point from which they had first set out; and Rex recalled how he had stood anxiously watching Guy descend that steep cliff-side. ‘We shall never be able to climb that cliff,' he said, half to himself. ‘How shall we get back?'

But as the ship came nearer to the land he saw that the cliff which he had thought so high was in fact almost level with the deck. Every one seemed surprised at this except Elizabeth, who was too full of the prospect of seeing home again to have any thought to spare for other marvels. It was she who, taking everything for granted, was the first to jump out. Her brothers quickly followed.

‘Well, that's funny!' exclaimed Guy.

The others, whatever they may have felt, said nothing at all. In front of them stretched their familiar brickfield, with its scaffolding and its stack of new bricks. And there was their own back-garden fence. Moved by the same startling thought, they
wheeled round to look at the ship from which they had just disembarked. They rubbed their eyes in bewilderment, and stared and stared; and every moment of staring made it more believable, more altogether natural, that they should now see, not a blue expanse of ocean, but their own small pond, and, floating on its surface, a beautiful little model ship measuring eight inches from prow to stern.

Rex was the first to break the spell of wondering silence that had fallen upon them all. ‘Well,' said he, with an effort to speak naturally, ‘we'd better be getting in, I suppose. It must be quite tea-time.' Dropping on one knee, and leaning over the pond, he lifted the little
Resmiranda
out of the water and wiped her dry with his handkerchief.