Last time Anatoly, Bentley and Thompson found Puffin Island along with several clues that someone had been there recently.

Chapter 21

Anatoly plucked the paper from Bentley’s fingers and examined it as the other man hauled himself out of the hole. Disappointingly it was blank. “Useless,” he said with a shrug, holding it out so they could both see it contained no writing.

Thompson took it and examined the paper, holding it up to the sky to see if there was any indentations, or other marks on the paper. “Nothing,” he agreed, handing it back to Bentley.

Bentley curled the paper into his fist. “Why can people never drop nice obvious things like letters with their names on?” he sighed.

“Or monogrammed handkerchiefs,” Anatoly suggested.

“Never mind leaving good clues, if they could just avoid going missing in the first place,” added Thompson.

“I vote for not going missing,” Anatoly agreed. “We should have just locked Bill up at HQ until the heat had died down,” he added with a smirk.

“He would still get into trouble, he’d find evidence of a spy in our ranks or something,” Bentley said, cracking a smile.

“Most likely, but he’d be easier to keep track of,” muttered Thompson.

“Well we’ve lost track of him entirely, so we’d better get back to it,” Bentley said, grabbing a nearby stick and plunging it into the soft ground near the hole as a warning marker.

“Do we reckon the paper fell out of someone’s pocket and ended up here? Must have been recently,” Anatoly said as he went back to his knees to search the ground at close quarters.

“I don’t think it fell in from above, it’s too light to get through all that heather,” said Bentley. “Maybe someone fell into the hole just like I did, it’s impossible to see even though I know it’s there! The paper’s dry but then so’s everything in that hole, I doubt much rain gets in unless it’s absolutely pouring and it hasn’t rained since the storm the other night.”

They all contemplated that for a moment and then Anatoly said, pragmatically, “It is not hard evidence, we need to keep looking, though this hole is good to know about. If Bill knew about it, then there is a chance he would have used it if he thought he was being followed.”

Bentley thought about warning them not to mention his fall to anyone else, but decided against it. He had no doubt that they’d deliberately let it slip if he forbade it. At least he didn’t think either of them had actually seen him fall. He motioned them to continue on the search, though they were all more cautious as to where they put their feet, he noticed.

Their explorations took them towards the Western rise of cliffs and then up; they paused every few minutes to scan the parts of the island revealed to them at that height but saw nothing noteworthy. There wasn’t much to see on the cliff-tops themselves, they were scrubby and mostly barren due to the high winds that would whip around such an exposed area, but as Thompson checked around a small ridge of rock there came a shout.

“Hey! Come over here a minute!” Anatoly and Bentley made their was around the ridge to where Thompson was crouched over the blackened remains of a fire.

“Bits of wood, seaweed…” Bentley pushed the charred remains around with the toe of one boot. He turned around in a full circle, looking out to sea. “Looks like they were signalling for help.”

“Signalling to whom?” Anatoly asked sitting back on his haunches and throwing the charred piece of stick back into the fire pit.

“Anyone near enough to see the smoke, I’d guess,” Bentley said. “But Bill knew something was afoot, he would know that setting a fire could bring the wrong people.”

“He mightn’t have had a choice,” said Thomson. “If the boat and the wireless were out of action  and there was some emergency… someone fell down that hole and broke a leg or something.” He shrugged. “Maybe he was hoping we were already out looking for him.”

Anatoly bit his lip, “What if Bill and the children got separated?” he suggested after a moment, not wanting to think that it may have happened. “The children may have been desperate enough to signal if they were left alone.”

“Yes, they might have taken the risk willingly if something had happened to Bill,” Bentley agreed. “That is, if they were the ones actually on this island, and not some trippers who thought it would be fun to start a bonfire.”

“So, you don’t think this was them?” Thompson waved an arm at the fire.

“I think it probably was, but we’re running on a lot of assumptions here. More than I like,” Bentley said.

“It is not proven that it was them,” agreed Anatoly. “If they have left a clue we have not found it yet!”

“What sort of clue are we expecting to find anyway?” Thompson asked with a sigh. “They aren’t on this island and if they are half the children Bill thinks they are, none of them will have left anything behind. If Bill thought that there was any danger, he’d have not left anything either.”

“Unless it was a message for us!” he added as an afterthought.

Deep in thought they made their way back down what appeared to be a well-trodden path before exploring the Eastern cliffs. There was nothing of interest there, no suggestion anyone had climbed or walked up that side of the island, and so after they felt they had covered as much of them as was reasonable, back down they came.

At the bottom of the cliffs they had intended to head back towards the boat; taking in any areas they hadn’t already covered, but Anatoly drew their attention to a space in the rocks. A natural sort of path ran there, with handy steps here and there as it sloped downwards. Presently they came to the channel they had brought the boat into earlier that day, the trailing piece of rope still caught around the rock.

“Dead end,” Bentley remarked and Anatoly shrugged apologetically. “No, you were right to check it out,” he said to the young man. “If they moored up here then they must have come through this way and across to where we found the camp site.”

As they turned around and began to make their way back up the path Anatoly didn’t know what made him look down, but his eyes caught sight of something unexpected wedged in between two rocks. He fell to his knees, his hand scrabbling for what he had seen. The others looked at him like he had lost his mind, but when he held it up, a stupid grin on his face, they looked confused. Anatoly was holding up a stub of a pencil.

“It’s… a pencil,” Thompson said, no seeing the significance. “Obviously whoever had the notebook also had a pencil.”

“It is Bill’s pencil!” Anatoly said. “He always carries one, he always wears them down to the stub and always sharpens them with his pen knife.”

Bentley reached out and took the pencil from Anatoly and looked it over. “It’s just a pencil. The kind you can buy anywhere. You’re probably right about Bill – I’ve never seen him without a pencil and he does sharpen them until they’re almost gone… but so do a lot of people.”

Anatoly took the pencil back from Bentley and examined it closely. He gave a sudden exclamation and thrust the pencil back at him. “Tell me when you see it,” he said smugly.

Bentley rotated the pencil carefully and then held it up so it caught the light better. “S,” he said, though not with great certainty.

“Well I’ll be blowed,” Thompson laughed. “Smugs! I’ve seen him mark his pencils with S, or a zigzag like an S so people can’t pinch them!”

It was true that the marking was more of a lightening-bolt than an S, but it was challenging to quickly carve a flowing S shape with a penknife on a pencil. “I wouldn’t know about that,” Bentley said, but he was smiling. “I’d never stoop low enough to nick anyone’s pencil.”

“So Bill has been here,” he said thoughtfully, looking at the pencil again. “If only this pencil could tell us where he is now!”

To be continued…

Last time Bill and Horace were marched out of their shack and ended up below deck on a boat.

Chapter 20

The next morning, Anatoly, Bentley and Thompson packed up and boarded their boat again. They had decided on their next island already and Bentley steered the boat out of the cove and into deeper waters while Anatoly took the binoculars and scanned the seas for any signs of the children, the boat and Bill.

They were relieved to leave ‘Wreckage Island’ as they had named it, but were now wary of what they may find out there. The next few islands were small, and apart from a few bits of flotsam and jetsam which appeared to have the same source as the wreckage they’d found the day before, they found nothing of interest. After lunch they approached their first large island of the day, and with still a good half-mile to sail they began spotting black and white birds bobbing and diving in the water around them.

“Puffins,” Anatoly said aloud.

“Puffins,” Thompson agreed, lifting the field-glasses and gazing through them with a fresh intensity.

“Wasn’t one of the boys that Cunningham brought with obsessed with birds?” asked Bentley as they neared the island. “This could be a likely place for them to have made camp, then.”

“Jack, yes,” Anatoly agreed, leaning out over to get a better look at one of the curious striped-beaked birds. One or two gazed solemnly back, ruffling their wings as the wake of the boat disturbed their position in the water. “He was very keen to see puffins on this trip.”

“Any further forward and you will fall in yourself!” laughed Thompson. “Keep on course, Bentley, maybe we are getting closer to finding them all.”

Bentley steered the boat around the fringes of the island, as he had done with so many islands before. On the south side they pointed out a sheltered cove which would make a good landing spot, but then after going at least two thirds of the way around they saw a natural channel in the eastern cliffs, a natural harbour of sorts.

“I’ll just take a quick look,” Bentley said, even though they hadn’t completed their circle of the island. “Might be nothing, you know, no way on to the island itself.”

The boat nosed carefully between the rocky walls, and drew up alongside a handy ledge, perfect for stepping off the boat. And there, on a jutting out rock, was a length of knotted rope, ragged and torn at one end.

“Newish,” Thompson said, reaching out to take a hold of it. “Good quality. The sort of stuff we’ve got on board.”

“Could it be from the smashed up boat we found?” Anatoly said keenly. “Should we moor here and get searching? The children and Bill might be stuck here without supplies!”

“It could be,” Bentley said. “I don’t want to leave the boat here, though. If something happened to the last one here… I’d rather head around to that sheltered cove and start from there.”

Anatoly tried not to grumble and merely submitted to Bentley’s authority. The boat was piloted out of the bay and round to the better, ‘safer’ bay that Bentley preferred to moor in. He jumped out of the boat as it pulled into the cove and went to tie the mooring rope, hoping that their search may soon be over.

While previously they had split up to cover the ground better, today they had chosen to search in a tighter formation. They all felt like they were getting closer to their quarry, and the boat wreckage had unsettled them. Before long they had spotted their first signs that someone had been here recently. Some of the sea-pinks and heather had been trampled by heavier feet than any sea-bird had, and it was almost possible to follow a path from the cove which indicated that it had been walked several times. Perhaps by someone unloading a boat in order to set up camp.

In fact they didn’t have to search too much for clues. There were patches of flattened ground where tents must have been pitched, and Thompson even found a few scraps of sweet papers, blown by the wind and caught on the heather. “I think we are on the right track, gents,” Thompson proclaimed.

Bentley was bending down to examine the ground where two tents had once been. He could just make out a few small holes where the tent pegs had once been. He thought of the tent that had blown miles away onto another island completely, and wondered just what had happened. Further over he spotted a slightly rusted tin can poking out of a hole.

“Someone’s definitely camped here within the past few days,” he said. “I wish we could say for sure that it was Bill and his lot. It’s likely, very likely, but I wish we could turn up something concrete. Let’s keep looking.”

The search began in earnest, the three men spreading out to cover as much ground as possible without losing sight of each other. Anatoly was checking under some bushes when there was a yell of shock from Bentley.

Anatoly sprang up, looking over to where Bentley had been the last time he looked. He had been searching a heathery area across to his left, but now there was no sign of him. Was it possible that there there someone else on the island, and that person had harmed Bentley?

Thompson appeared looking rushed and confused. “Where’s Bentley?” he demanded of Anatoly. “What happened?”

“I have no idea! He was there one minute,” Anatoly gestured towards where he had last seen Bentley, “and then he was gone!”

They gazed over the flattish ground that Bentley had been in the middle of. There was nowhere for him to hide – no rocks, no bushes, no trees. Even if he had been shot and was lying on the ground they should have been able to see him.

Then, from apparently nowhere, came Bentley’s voice. It was swearing profusely.

“Where are you?” Thompson called after exchanging puzzled and surprised looks with Anatoly as they started to move towards the source of the foul language.

“I’m down here. Watch your footing!” Bentley shouted back, his voice coming from low down, so low he appeared to be under the heather.

Thompson and Anatoly got to their knees and started pushing aside the heather, searching for Bentley. It didn’t take long for them to come across Bentley in a hole under the heather. “What on earth…?” Thompson asked, trying not to laugh at Bentley sprawling under him in a hole.

After a few more choice expletives Bentley growled something about the ground just disappearing beneath his feet. “I’m not hurt. Much,” he assured them, carefully getting up. His head broke free of the heather for a moment before he ducked back down. The next time he came up he was holding a scrap of paper, the sort that came out of a notebook. “Looks like someone else has been down here.”

To be continued…

Last time Anatoly retrieved one of the children’s tents from up a tree and they began to wonder just what had become of Bill and the Mannering-Trents.

Chapter 17

They searched as long as they dared, up until they struggled to see anything in the gathering dark. Not best pleased, the men unpacked the boat and got ready to bed down on the island in the shelter of the bushes for the night. Anatoly started a small fire to provide some warmth and cook their meal. They were rather quiet that evening, as the rough sleeping and constant uncertainty was beginning to get to them. The slept fitfully that night, and rose early to make the most of the light to search for clues.

The only thing they found was a solitary tent peg, lying in amongst a scrubby bit of heather. A lack of anything else found led them to conclude that the peg had come loose from the tent as it had been blown across the island. Information requested from Bennett on the mainland had come as they finished breakfast and they marked on their map a strip which encompassed some or all of another dozen island at least, those from which their lone tent was most likely to have come from based on the trajectory of the storm a few days earlier.

With a fresh objective to focus on they headed determinedly for the first island in that strip and searched it, followed by several more. Their fruitless searching carried on through the next day too, until, rounding their third island of the day, they spotted a jumble of detritus littering a sandy cove on the north side. They exchanged glances and wordlessly Bentley piloted the boat towards the shallows there, instead of continuing his circle around the island.

They dropped anchor and splashed ashore. “Looks like it’s stuff that’s been washed up,” Thompson said, turning over a ragged plank with the toe of his boot.

It didn’t look like anything, just scraps of wood and rope but they checked it over thoroughly. “Bill’s boat was green, wasn’t it?” Thompson said as he looked at one piece that he had picked up.

Bentley turned his head sharply to look. “Dark green, yes.”

Thompson held the bit of green wood up. “Looks dark to me.”

“I have found some lettering,” Anatoly announced a moment later, and brought over another green piece of wood with a small amount of white at the broken end. “A R” he said.

“Could be A B,” Thompson interjected, as neither letter was complete.

“AR. Lucky Star,” said Bentley. “Well, this could explain why Bill hasn’t been in contact.”

Bill was having trouble keeping track of time in the shack. He hadn’t given up on getting free, but the right opportunity just hadn’t arisen yet. When he hasn’t mentally testing out escape plans he was getting as much sleep as possible, which wasn’t easy with the wind whistling through the gaps in the hut. Twice a day he was brought food and water but it wasn’t much more than some thin porridge or a slice of bread.

He was interrogated at regular intervals, as if they expected that he would suddenly start blabbering if they caught him at the right moment. They seemed to be convinced now that one of their own had been passing him information, and were trying to get Bill to reveal his source. As nobody had been giving him inside information there wasn’t anything that he could tell them, but his flat denials were falling on deaf ears.

He was dosing once again when the door to the shack rattled open and someone was thrown bodily into the darkness and onto the floor near him.

The door was shut again before Bill could identify his new companion. Perhaps it was whomever they suspected was sharing their secrets with him. The body scrambled away from him with a small shriek, and the thin strips of light fell on a narrow, sunburnt face wearing rather bent sunglasses.

“Well, hallo,” Bill said cautiously, feeling that this chap wasn’t much of a threat. He didn’t recognise him as one of the gang, certainly.

“Who are you?” quavered the thin man. “Why are you in here? Are you here to torture me?” Bill pursed his lips and settled back against the wall of shack. “No, I’m not, I’m a prisoner here too.”

The man looked at him suspiciously and tried to adjust his glasses. In the end he took them off, revealing pale, watery eyes. “How long have you been here?” he asked in his high voice.

“A few days,” Bill replied vaguely. “I’m Bill, by the way. Bill Smugs. What can I call you?” He wasn’t sure what to make of this strange bloke. He seemed too weak and weedy to be one of the gang, but, he couldn’t rule out that he had been chucked in here to trick him into revealing something.

“Horace, Horace Tipperlong,” the man said. “Why have they put us in here? I was minding my own business and then I get ambushed, and a sack thrown over my head! I passed out, well who wouldn’t, and now I find myself here!” he babbled.

“You’re lucky,” Bill said wryly, tilting his head down to reveal the lump on the top of his bald head. “They conked me over the head.”

Horace looked at him, aghast, and sank lower into his corner. “What do they want from us? Money? Are they holding us ransom? I’ve got my boat, that’s about all, it’s not worth much but they can have it!”

“No, I don’t think they want money,” Bill said. “From what they have said to me, they think we are spying on them.”

“Spying?” Horace squeaked, his face turning pale under his sunburn. “I-I’m not a spy.” He was quiet for a moment and when he spoke again, it seemed to be mostly to himself. “They’ve got the wrong chap, that’s all. Well, when they come back I’ll just have to say to them that they’ve made a dreadful mistake. I’m an ornithologist, that’s all, on a bird-watching trip. Yes, that’s it, once they realise they’ve make an error they can let me go.”

Bill listened to Horace, and tried not to roll his eyes. “I’m not sure that will work. I’ve been assuring them I’m not a spy and I’ve been here a few days!”

Horace didn’t appear to be listening. He just carried on muttering to himself in his corner, until the door opened some time later. He blinked at the light streaming in and jammed his crooked glasses back on the best he could. “I say,” he began, “you’ve made the most dreadful mistake.”

The man cut him off. “Had a nice catch up with your friend, have you?” he asked, looking at Bill and then Horace.

“I’ve never seen this man before in my life!” Horace began to protest at the statement about knowing Bill. “In fact, I was saying that you have made such a mistake! I’m not a spy, I’m just a bird watcher!”

“So we have caught two “bird watchers” snooping around here in a week,” the man said. “Do forgive me if I find it a little bit of a coincidence that you are apparently strangers to each other.”

“I’m telling the truth!” Horace protested again as Bill chipped in with, “I’m not lying!” The man smiled nastily. “I wasn’t born yesterday you know! Maybe a few more days in here will change your minds and you will start to tell me the truth!” with that, the door was slammed shut and the two men were left in the gloomy darkness once more.

To be continued…

Last time Anatoly, Bentley and Thompson discovered their boat had developed a fault leaving them stranded on their search. They also spotted something unusual on a distant island, making the need to get moving all the more pressing!

Chapter 16

After a few hours and a lot of bad language the engine finally spluttered into life again. Anatoly resisted the urge to cheer as Bentley and Thompson were flustered, tired and covered in motor oil. After a final check of everything the boat started to chug along, and Bentley began to steer the it towards their island of interest.

It was late in the afternoon but the sun wouldn’t set until around half-past nine, so they hoped to have enough light to do a decent search once they arrived. After sending a radio message to inform headquarters that they were on the move again they ate some hastily thrown together sandwiches and the boat powered across the calm sea. Whoever wasn’t piloting the boat took turns to sweep the vast expanse of the water – and skies – for any signs of their potential, unidentified enemy.

After circling the island the best spot happened to be on the opposite side to what they were now sure was a tent trapped up a tree. They had gotten a fairly good look at it from the water as they navigated around the rocky coast, and although they couldn’t be sure it had been one of Bill’s tents, it was certainly a tent and it hadn’t been there very long either. They tied the boat up to a large tree which was hanging over the water’s edge and splashed ashore.

“Let’s head straight for the tent, but keep your eyes peeled for anything untoward along the way,” Bentley ordered. “We’ll search that area and work our way back.”

Anatoly nodded as he checked that his gun was in its holster and loaded, waiting for Bentley and Thompson to be ready to move. He lead the way up the bank to the flat grass, his eyes scanning the whole area as they reached the main bulk of the island.

The landscape was similar to several islands they had been on. Lots of heather and sea-pink, various birds but not as many as on the island with the cliffs. They made swift progress across the island as they were not searching too closely yet, and they were eager to reach the tent. They spotted it from a distance and were able to walk more or less straight to it with only a few minor detours to cross small streams and avoid the boggiest areas.

They hadn’t seen anything of interest along the way, and after a cursory look around the area the tent was in they stood at the base of the tree looking up at it. “We’d better retrieve it,” Bentley said, looking meaningfully at Anatoly.

Anatoly sighed, nodded, handed Thompson his gun and torch and started to agilely climb the tree in a way that suggested he was used to doing things like this. As he came face to face with the tent, he wondered the best way to tackle it. He didn’t think that the tent would be wedged too much into the tree and he hoped it wouldn’t be caught on any difficult to reach branches. Soon the tent, mostly in one piece was being disentangled from the last branch and thrown down to Thompson and Bentley. “One tent,” Anatoly declared as he set the canvas free. “I am coming down now, look out below!”

Thompson, who hadn’t quite recovered his good humour since the debacle with the boat engine, glared at him as he extricated himself from the tent which had fallen to rest over his head. They spread it out to examine the canvas and discovered it was in good condition. The one or two tears could be put down to it being caught in the tree.

Anatoly picked up one of the guy-ropes and held it out. “The peg is still attached,” he said.

“So that will mean that there’s disturbed ground somewhere, if the tent was ripped from the ground,” Bentley said. “I wonder why the tent wasn’t retrieved though? If you are able to shin up and get it, why didn’t the children do that?”

“Perhaps they were unable to… if someone had pulled the tent up in an attack…” Anatoly said haltingly, not wanting to believe that was true.

“It would need to be more than one man,” said Thompson, lighting his pipe. “That is a strong tent, and secured into the ground, well… it takes a lot of force to rip a tent up to take someone by surprise. Why not just wait until morning and capture them all when they exited the tent?”

Anatoly shook his head, unable to answer. Bentley looked at the tent again. “It’s possible they were in the process of taking the tent down when they were attacked. If they were attacked! The wind could simply have carried the tent away from them in the storm a few days ago.”

“So we could be on the wrong island, is that what you’re saying?” Thompson challenged. “Like there aren’t enough islands here but to get the wrong one… well we’d just as well hope that Smugs’ radio just broke and this is all a wild goose chase.” Thompson’s temper wasn’t improving at the thought of there being nothing on this island either. In truth the whole thing was rather like a game of hide and seek, except the game was being played over dozens of islands instead of in a house or garden, which in a way rendered the searchers at a huge disadvantage.

“We should keep looking here for now, spend the night anyway, and then have a proper scout around in the daylight,” Bentley said calmly though he understood Thompson’s frustration. He knew however that they had to do their job, regardless of their feelings, otherwise they would never make it out on a field mission again if they went rogue.

“The tent could have come from this island,” Anatoly said after a long silence. “We have not explored it fully, after all. If we find nothing, we could radio in and ask for details of the storm, could we not? Give them our coordinates and see if we cannot work out the likeliest direction a tent could have come from.”

The two older agents looked at each other and gave a slight nod. “It’s possible,” Bentley agreed. “All right, let’s start searching. We don’t have the good light much longer.”

To be continued…