"Good—the fire's going well," he said. "I found a spring, so we needn't worry about water. Where's the tin of cocoa—and we must finish up that Nestle's milk we opened, or it will go bad."
The kettle soon boiled, and the children made thick cocoa. They added the tinned milk to it and drank with enjoyment. The cocoa was good. The twins, who were cold, felt warmed up at once. Their clothes were still wet, and although the sun now shone down hotly they felt chiefly.
Tom yawned. He was not used to keeping awake half the night. The girls were tired out, too, for they had been very sea-sick in the storm.
Andy had laid out the rugs in the sun. He felt them. They were almost dry.
"We'd better get off our wet things and hang them on the bushes to dry," he said. "We'll roll ourselves in these rugs, and lie down in that sheltered corner over there by the cliff, in the sun, and sleep off our bad night."
So in three or four minutes all that could be seen of the children were four tightly-rolled bundles lying peacefully asleep in the sunshine, well out of the wind in a cosy corner of the beach. Their damp clothes were spread out on bushes to dry, and were already steaming in the sun.
Andy awoke first. He knew at once where he was, and remembered all that had happened. He sat up to look at their ship. The tide was going down again now, and the ship looked queer, slanting sideways, caught fast between the two big rocks. Andy wondered what his father would say when he knew what had happened. It was a serious thing to lose a fishing-boat.
The sun was high in the sky. Andy threw off his rug and went to feel his clothes on the bush. They were perfectly dry. He put them on, and then went to the big pile of things they had taken from the ship. He looked among them and found a fishing-line.
He hunted about for a sand-worm, baited his hook, and clambered out on the rocks, where deep water swirled around him. He lowered his line into the water. In ten minutes he had caught his first fish, and was baiting the line again.
Tom awoke next. He sat up on the sand, astonished to hear the sea so close. Then he remembered all that had happened and leapt to his feet. He awoke the girls and they put on their warm clothes. They saw Andy, and waved to him.
"Andy's getting our dinner!" said Jill. "I suppose you're feeling as hungry as usual, Tom?"
"I could eat a whale!" said Tom, and he really felt as if he could.
It was fun cooking the fish over a fire. It smelt delicious. There was no bread left so the children had to eat the fish by itself, but they were so hungry that they didn't mind at all.
"It's about two o'clock in the afternoon," said Andy, looking at the sun. "Now the first thing to do is to find a good place to sleep for the night. Then we'd better explore the island, if we've time. The food we've got with us won't last a great while, but at any rate we can always get fish—and I expect we'll find some berries we can eat, too."
"Look!" said Tom, suddenly pointing to the pile of things not far off. "There's a gull there. Will he peck our tins open—or eat our cocoa!"
Andy clapped his hands and the gull flew off, crying loudly. "We certainly mustn't leave any food out," said Andy. "The gulls would have it at once. Look—there's two or three fishes left we can have for our supper. We'd better make a hole in the sand and bury them under some heavy stones till we want them. The gulls would soon make a meal of them if we left them uncovered!"
They buried the fish. Andy stood up and looked all round the cliff. "I wonder if there's a cave or anything we could sleep in at night," he said. But there didn't seem to be any cave at all, though the children hunted carefully all along the cliff.
"How will anyone know we are here?" asked Jill. "We shall have to put up some sort of a sign, shan't we, to show any passing ship do steamer that we are here?"
"Yes," said Andy. "I've been thinking about that. I'll take down the ship's sail, and we'll tie it to a tree on the top of the cliff. That will be a fine signal."
"Good idea!" said Tom. "It will flap in the wind and be seen for miles."
"We'll find a sleeping-place for the night before we do that," said Andy. "It looks like rain again now—see that low cloud over there? We don't want to be soaked in our sleep. Come on."
They left the sandy cove and climbed up the steep cliff. It was hard going, but they got to the top at last, and once more looked across the island. They could not see right across it because the hill in the middle stopped their view—so they did not know how big or small it was. All they knew was that, at present, they could not see any sign of anyone else there, or of any house or other building.
"How I'd love to see a cow or two!" said Jill.
"Whatever for?" said Mary in surprise. "I didn't know you liked cows so much, Jill."
"I don't," said Jill. "But cows would mean a farmer, silly—and a farmer means a farmhouse—and a farmhouse means lots of people, and help, of course!"
The others laughed. "Well, let's hope we see one or two cows for you, Jill," said Tom. "Which way shall we go, Andy?"
"We'll make our way to the hu? said Andy. "There's bracken there, and heather, and maybe we can find a hill-cave to snuggle in. Bracken and heather make a fine bed, and we've got the rugs for covers."
They ran to the hill. It had a little wood of windblown pines and birches, but there was no cave in the hillside they could shelter in. It was covered with thick-growing bracken and heather, with a few stunted gorse-bushes—but there was no place that would really give them a safe shelter to sleep.
"Well, we'll have to rig up a tent of some sort," said Andy at last. "I'm not going to be soaked through tonight. I've had enough of that to last me for quite a while."
"A tent, Andy!" said Tom. "Wherever would we get a tent from? Buy it from a shop, I suppose?"
"I'm going to get the old sail off the! boat," said Andy. "We can use it for a signal by day and a tent by night. It's big enough to cover us all quite well."
"Andy, you have got good ideas!" said Jill. "I should never have thought of that. Well, shall we go back then and help you?"
"No," said Andy. "You stay here with Tom and help him to build a kind of tent-house that we can just drape the sail over. You'll want some stout brunches, stuck well into the ground. I'll go and get the sail."
Andy went off down to the shore again, and clambered and waded out to the boat. He was soon taking down the old sail.
The others hunted for good branches. The ones lying on the ground were too brittle and old, they found.
"They'll make good firewood," said Tom. "we'll have to break a few growing branches off the trees."
It was difficult to do this, but they managed it at last. Then they drove the stout sticks into the heathery ground and made a kind of circle with them, big enough to hold them all.
They had just finished when Andy came back, bent double over the heavy sail. He threw it dawn and panted.
"I thought I'd never get it up the cliff," he said. "I say, you've made a fine set of walls. The sail will go over them nicely."
Eight willing hands helped to arrange the big brown sail over the circle of sticks stuck firmly into the ground. The weight of the sail kept it down, and when the children bad finished, they had made a kind of round, brown tent, with no doorway. But as the children could get in anywhere under the tent simply by lifting up the sail, it didn't matter having no doorway.
"We'll gather a nice pile of heather and put it inside the tent to lie on," said Tom. "And with our rugs, too, we shall be as cosy and warm as toast! In fact, we may be much too hot!"
"Well, if we are, we'll just Lift up one side of the tent,and let the breeze blow in," said Jill. "Oh, I do feel excited! I really feel as if we've got a sort of little home, now we've made this tent!"
"There isn't time to explore the island now," said Andy, looking in surprise at the sinking sun. "We've taken ages over the tent. We'll go all over the island to-morrow."
"That will be fun," said Mary. "I do wonder what we'll find!"
Chapter 5
Making the Best of Things
The children were all hungry again. Andy thought it would be better to bring everything up from the shore, and put it near their tent.
"We may have to make our tent a sort of home," he said. "We don't want to have to keep climbing up and down that rocky cliff every time we want a cup or a kettle! Besides, we are quite near the spring here, and we can easily get water whenever we want to."
So for the next hour or so the children fetched all their belongings. Some of them were very difficult to get up the cliff. The gramophone was almost impossible till Andy thought of the idea of tying a rope round it and hauling it gently up by that.
"Golly! All the records are broken!" said Tom in dismay, as he picked up the cracked records.
"Yes—they fell and broke when that dreadful storm was on," said Jill. "Leave them behind. They're no use. There's just one that's not broken—now, where is it?"
They found it at last and looked at it.
"What a pity! This is a silly record—it would be the only one that's left unbroken!" said Mary. "On one side it's a girl singing a kind of lullaby, without even any music—and on the other it's nursery rhymes. The silliest one we've got!"
"Oh well—bring it along," said Tom. "And where's my camera? It doesn't look as if I'll find any good pictures to take—but I may as well have it."
By the time they had got everything to the tent they were really very tired. They cooked the rest of the fish and opened a tin of peaches. They ate an apple each, broke a bar of chocolate into four pieces, and then drank some hot cocoa. It was a good meal and they enjoyed it. The sun was now almost gone and the first star was shining brightly.
"Well, we've had an adventurous day," said Jill, yawning. "I slept all the morning—but I feel awfully sleepy again already."
"We'll turn in early," said Andy. "I'm tired too."
"We can't clean our teeth," said Jill, who was always very particular about nails and teeth and things like that. "I wish I had a tooth-brush."
"Well, here's a brush for you," said Tom, with a grin, handing Jill the brush that was used to sweep bits of fish off the deck. "Brush your teeth with this."
Jill took it and at once brushed Tom's hair with it. Tom was disgusted.
"Don't, you cuckoo!" he said. "I shall smell of fish all night long."
"Come on," said Andy. "We want more heather for our beds. Tom, stamp out the fire. We don't want to set the hill alight, and the heather is very dry."
Tom stamped out the fire. The girls filled the tent with more, heather. Andy took the largest rug and spread it all over the springy pile.
"You girls can sleep on this side of the tent, and Tom and I will take the other," he said. "There are plenty of rugs, luckily."
Nobody undressed. For one thing they had no night-clothes, and for another they didn't even think of it Life seemed quite different on an unknown island. Nobody even thought of going to wash—though Tom's hair smelt so much of old fish that Andy threatened to pour a kettle of water over it.
"I'll wash my head under the spring to-morrow morning," said Tom sleepily. "I really can't go now. I'm simply dropping asleep whilst I talk!"
They rolled themselves up in their rugs and lay flat on the heathery bed. It was beautifully soft and springy, and very comfortable once they had pressed down several sharp bits that stuck into them.
Tom was asleep at once. The girls lay awake for a minute or two. Jill felt very hot, for the tent was airless, and the four of them made quite a crowd in it. The — roof was not more than arm's length above their heads.
"Andy," said Jill, in a low voice. "I'm so hot. Could we get some air in, do you think?"
"Yes," said Andy. He raised one side of the sail and let the breeze in. It was lovely, for now the girls could see out. The moonlight lay on the hillside and everything was clear till the clouds sailed across the moon. Mary fell asleep as she watched bracken outside waving, in the wind. Then Jill fell asleep. Only Andy lay awake, leaning on his elbow, looking out down the hillside, and listening to the sound of the waves in the distance, under the cliff.
He was old enough to feel that this adventure might not turn out at all well. He wondered what would be the best thing to do for them all.
"We must certainly hang out a signal every day," he thought. "It might be seen by some passing ship. We must find a better place to live their too, for if the weather should break up, this tent won't be any use. And I wonder if it's possible to get the ship off the rocks and patch her up. If we could do that, maybe we might have a shot at sailing home."
As he lay worrying about all these things his eyes closed. He was soon dreaming that he had got the boat off the rocks, but it changed into a large steamer that seemed to have hands and was fishing busily in a pool. There was such a strong smell of fish that Andy opened his sleepy eyes again—only to find that Tom's fishy-smelling head was just under his nose. Andy turned over, grinning. "What a silly sort of dream!" he thought—and then, in half a second, he was dreaming again.
All the children slept soundly that night, and even when the clouds piled up over the moon and a sharp downpour of rain came they didn't wake. The raindrops pattered over the tent, but did not soak through to the sleeping children. Some came through the side where Andy had raised the sail to let in the air, but the children felt nothing.
They awoke when the sun was fairly high—about eight o'clock in the morning. Andy as usual awoke first and rolled out of the tent quietly. But he had waked Tom, and when the boy yawned loudly the girls awoke too.
It was a fine sunny morning with clouds scudding across the sky like big pieces of cotton-wool. The first thing, of course, was breakfast—but it had to be caught!
So Andy and Tom went fishing on the rocks and the girls managed to catch about twenty large prawns in a pool on the sandy shore. They cooked their catch and ate hungrily.
"I do feel dirty," said Jill. "I shall go and wash at the spring. Coming, Mary?"
"Yes," said Mary. "And I vote we all have a bathe to-day. That will clean us up a bit too."
They all felt cleaner after a rinse and splash in the spring. Tom and Andy made the fixing of the signal their next job. They found a good tree—at least, it was a good one for their purpose, for it had been struck by lightning at one time and now stood straight and bare OB the top of the cliff.
It took the two boys about an hour to climb the tree and fix the sail-signal. It flapped out well in the breeze and. Andy was sure it could be seen from a great distance. They climbed down again and went back to the girls.
"What about exploring the island now?" asked Tom. "I feel just like a good walk!"
"Well, the island may be too small for a good walk!" said Andy. "We'll just see. Ready, you girls?"
They were all ready for their walk. First they climbed the bill and stood on the top, looking to see what they could spy.
From the top of the hill they could see all around their island—and certainly it was not very big—only about a mile and a half long and about a mile wide. They could see the blue water all around it.
But not far off were other islands! They lay in the sea, blue and misty in the distance. But as far, as the children could see, there were no houses or buildings of any kind on them. They seemed as desolate and lonely as their own island. The cries of sea-birds came as they stood on the hill, and big white gulls swooped around them—but except for that sound, and the far-off splash of waves, there was no other sound to be heard. No shout—no hoot of a horn—no drone of an aeroplane. They might be lost in the very middle of the ocean for all they could see or hear!