Last time Jack and Philip rescued Bill from the enemies’ boat.

Again, much of this dialogue is straight from the book.

Chapter 23

Jack, the sensible boy that he was asked if they ought to use the oars to row out, to avoid the sound of the engine being heard. Bill had already considered that and discarded the idea – they needed to get away as swiftly as possible, as he felt sure they would be chased and he told Jack as much. He wanted the children out of the line of fire, so just before he started the engine he ordered them to lie flat on the deck.

The ruckus on the other boat stopped as soon as Bill started the engine, and he realised that they’d had no idea there was another boat. Perhaps they could have snuck off quietly, but well, it was too late and they were committed now! Almost immediately came the sound of gunshot, the enemy firing wildly in the direction of the engine-sound and Bill hunched down as low as he could to protect himself.

He warned the children to stay down as despite the poor visibility a few of the bullets had come quite close to the boat already. He swore under his breath and revved the engine of the boat as hard as he could, wishing it was a service boat which was always ready to go at top speed. He was doing his best to avoid the bullets when there was an ear shattering squawk from Kiki. It was so unexpected, that Bill jerked involuntarily at the wheel.

As Kiki continued to screech,  Jack began to rise up to check her. “Oh! Kiki’s hit!” he was shouting. Bill felt an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach, he really was fond of the idiotic bird even if she could be annoying at times. He turned to check on the situation, dimly realising that if Kiki was badly hurt she couldn’t possibly be making such a racket.  “Keep down, you idiot!” he roared as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He yelled words to that effect to Jack who wasn’t heeding his instructions and was risking being shot himself as he continued to fuss over Kiki.

With Jack lying down again at last Bill refocussed on the boat and the enemy, and as the shooting stopped he distinctly heard the sound of their boat. He groaned inwardly, the last thing he wanted was a pitch-dark boat chase on the open sea. He shouted a warning to the children, lest they try sitting up like Jack had just done, and told them they would just have to keep going as long as the petrol lasted.

They were lucky to be beyond the reach of the searchlight that the enemy had on their boat, and on information from Jack, Bill began heading towards the ‘lagoon-island’ that the children had visited earlier, leaving the enemies’ boat on a different course entirely.

As Bill began to relax slightly, there came a guttural “Arrrrrrr!” from somewhere in front of him. He jumped at the noise but then had to laugh. The children had brought the puffins with them. “My goodness–have you still got Huffin and Puffin?” He looked at Kiki who was beginning to make noises now she wasn’t the centre of attention, as he had noticed the puffins. “Now don’t start screeching again, Kiki. I’m absolutely certain you’re not hurt.”

As Jack began to ask if he could check Kiki over, the boat coughed and spluttered as it began to run out of petrol. Bill sighed and said bitterly, “Petrol’s run out. It would, of course!? Now we’ll have to row, and it won’t be long before the enemy catch us up!” Everyone got up and stretched as the boat began to drift, and there was grumbling about how heavy the boys were on the part of Dinah and Lucy who had been squashed underneath the boys, but everyone, luckily was unhurt.

Bill was glad when Jack confirmed that Kiki wasn’t really hurt, but his mind was busy elsewhere, as was Dinah’s clearly as she told Jack to forget Kiki and think about what they were going to do.

What ought they to do? Making for the lagoon-island was one option, or was that too close to the enemy and should they try to get as far away as possibly but risk being far from land if a storm blew up? In the end he decided that striking for the nearest land was the best option for the moment, they could always divert at the last minute if they saw anything that worried them.

The boys’ sharp eyes could make out the dark shape of the island, and so he trusted them and they began to row in that direction. Just as Jack was reassuring him that there were no rocks around this island, there was an awful grinding noise and the boat shuddered to a stop.

Bill was dismayed, “On the rocks! And somehow I don’t think we will get her off! She means to stay here alright!” They had a look around and found they were wedged hard on the rocks and with rocks all around them too, so they were indeed rather stuck. At least the boat was still in one piece.

Lucy-Ann eventually had the idea of wrapping up in rugs and having a good long talk as they waited for the morning, and enough light to see if they could do anything about their predicament.

Bill and the boys got some dry clothes on, and sat down with hastily sourced rations of biscuits and chocolate. The children insisted he share his story first, and so he began with being abducted from his boat the night of the storm. He sketched a few details of his time in the shack, careful to keep his tone light, and then told them about Horace Tipperlong’s arrival. He couldn’t resist telling them what Horace had said about them, nor from exaggerating slightly to tease Lucy-Ann about her being the most vicious of the group.

Then it was his turn to sit and listen and he was amazed at all they had been through, as well as how much they had discovered about the enemy. They quite put him to shame, in fact. He had run away from the enemy, only to end up accidentally running into them and being kidnapped, while the children had not only worked out where they were but what they were doing, and had rescued him from their midst!

One thing he didn’t understand was, why hadn’t they headed for safety once they had Horace’s boat? When he asked them this, and they said they’d considered their options and chosen to try to find him, Bill found himself suddenly choked up. He swallowed hard, glad it was dark enough that they couldn’t see the sudden glint in his eyes as he told them they were the finest friends anyone could have, and he was proud of them.

The girls were clearly touched, though the boys were quiet. Before anyone could say anything else, however, Lucy-Ann pointed at the far horizon. The sun was coming up.

To be continued…

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…