Читать книгу Peter & Co. - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 7

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WHEN I woke up in the morning Mr. Garfield’s bed was empty. I looked at my watch, and to my horror saw that it was nearly nine o’clock. I dashed to the bathroom, but on the way I met Mrs. Wilson. She had a big glass of orange-juice.

“Drink that before you have your bath, Master Peter,” she said. “There’s no hurry. Master Hubert’s gone.”

“Gone!” I gasped. “I say, why didn’t he wake me?”

“That was a thing he was very careful not to do,” she said, laughing at me. “He was that keen to have you sleep on, he went about on tiptoe, like a mother with a new baby. Don’t you worry. Your breakfast’ll be ready when you are.”

“But look at all the bother I’m giving you!” I said, feeling very horrified.

“Now, what bother?” she said. “It’s a treat for me to have someone young about the flat. And Master Hubert couldn’t take you with him this morning, and he wanted you to have a lazy time. Nothing matters here, so long as Master Hubert gets what he wants. He told me to tell you to do whatever you liked. There’s the radiogram, and lots of books. And if you’re thinking of going out, he thought there might be a chance you’d need money, coming away so sudden, so he’s left some on your dressing-table.”

Well, I reckoned that Mr. Garfield was something special as a host. It was queer to feel that I practically owned the flat, but even better to know that I hadn’t to dash round and go into school. I went for a walk after breakfast, taking the road down to the water, where I sat on a jetty and made friends with a couple of fishermen. Then I went home and got the radio going—it was a super one—and I found a John Buchan I hadn’t read, and curled up on a couch with it. Everything was good and peaceful. Mrs. Wilson fussed over me at lunch, trying to make me eat more. “You’re that thin I can nearly see through you,” she said sadly: “I’d put some flesh on your bones if I had you here for a month!” We nearly had a fight afterwards because I took a hand in the washing-up, but I was firm over that. It was raining by the time the job was done—we were a good while over it, because Mrs. Wilson got talking about Mr. Garfield when he was a boy. So she lit the fire, and I got back to the couch and my book; and the next thing I knew, it was four o’clock, and Mr. Garfield was there, sitting in an armchair smoking. I’d slept for two hours.

Gosh, I felt ashamed of myself. I’d never done anything like that before, even when I was ill—the pain of the leg used to keep waking me up then. But Mr. Garfield looked quite pleased.

“Just what I wanted to see you doing,” he said. “I’m rather keen to have you go on board next Tuesday able to enjoy the trip from the start. And you will, too, Peter. A really slack week-end’s my prescription, with no time-tables to keep and no need to talk unless you feel like it. But we might go out presently and pick up your things from school: I can tell Matron what you’ll need. Got a suit-case there, by the way?”

I told him no, I’d only my big trunk: and he said, “That won’t do: anyone arriving with large trunks at the island is definitely unpopular. I can lend you something smaller. And I’ve asked Watty to spend the evening with us, so we’ll call for him afterwards. I thought you’d like that.”

“By Jove, yes!” I said: “I’ve been wanting badly to see Watty, only I didn’t like to go out when he wasn’t expecting me.”

“The week-ends are a busy time for him, but he’s agreed to dodge out this evening,” Mr. Garfield said. “There will probably be quite a number of annoyed footballers there to-night hoping to get their muscles loosened up for to-morrow, but Watty’s going to chance that. He’ll have silently stolen away. Better get your coat, Peter—it’s pretty cold.”

So it was, though it had stopped raining. There was a keen wind, and the streets were glistening with wet; everybody was hurrying along muffled up, as if they were anxious to get under cover. It didn’t seem possible that in a few days I’d be sailing north and finding sunshine. At school we found that Matron had all my things laid out, which was jolly good of her. Mr. Garfield went through them quickly.

“You’ll want a decent suit on the ship for the evenings—otherwise only sports kit,” he told me. “On the island, people live in shirts and shorts; you put on a coat in the evening, if you’re fussy. Your blazer will do for that. No khaki shorts? Well, we’ll have to get those, and some khaki shirts—it may be hard to get any washing done. Two pairs of sand-shoes—you’ll need an old pair for wading.”

“Wade in sand-shoes!” I exclaimed. “What on earth for?”

“Because it’s not safe to wade barefooted, my son. Coral makes nasty wounds, hard to heal; and nobody takes any chances with stone-fish.”

“What are they?” I asked.

“Beastly things—the ugliest brutes you ever saw, and very hard to spot. In fact, very few white men can spot them, even in a shallow pool, though natives can always see them. Dirty-brown things with a hideous square sort of head. They bury themselves in the sand, only their eyes showing: and if you tread on one he erects a nasty little outfit of spines, each spine carrying poison. Quite a lot of people have died from standing on one. But they’re not very plentiful, and you’re safe enough in shoes.”

“But you don’t mean to say we’ve even got to bathe with shoes on?” I asked.

“No—you’ll be bathing in safe water, well inside the island reef. They don’t come in there. It’s anywhere near a reef you have to be extra careful. There are queer things wherever coral is, and don’t you let Binkie and Clem forget it. Even old hands take no risk. It’s the cock-sure people who think they know everything who ask for trouble. Well, I think we’ve got all you need out of this lot—we’ll buy the other oddments to-morrow.” He snapped the locks of the suit-case. “Now we’ll go and collect Watty.”

Watty was waiting for us on his verandah, looking very spruce in a dark blue suit. He had a parcel that he pitched into the car before he got in; it wasn’t very big, but it sounded heavy. We went home as fast as we could travel, and it was just great to see Mr. Garfield handle that big car in the Sydney traffic—it’s bad enough in those narrow streets at any time, but in the six-o’clock rush it was hair-raising at times, with taxi-drivers going like demons and everybody taking chances.

Old Watty sat very still, but once or twice I felt him stiffen—we were all in the front seat. When we got out he said, “Well, there’s some that think going to sea’s a dangerous life, an’ there’s times I’ve been nervous myself; but I’d rather handle a ship in a West Indian hurricane than tackle yon bit of navigation, Major!” And Mr. Garfield grinned and said he ought to see the driving in Paris.

After dinner we settled down round the fire, and Watty brought in his parcel and opened it.

“You’ll be doing some deep-sea fishing up North, bo’,” he said: “an’ when a man goes fishing he wants his own tackle, an’ he wants to know it won’t let him down. So I’ve brought along some of the gear you’ll need.”

There were four lines, not coarse, but wonderfully strong, beautifully wound on wooden frames—real sailor’s work; and a mixed lot of hooks of different sizes, and wire traces and a tin box of strong gut. And there were a lot of sinkers, the heaviest I’d ever seen; round ones, with a hole for putting a line through. I puzzled a bit over those, but Watty explained.

“A light sinker’s no good to ye up there,” he said. “You fish deep, an’ there’s often such a current it’s mighty hard to keep a sinker on the bottom. An’ I know what ’tis on an island—you find you haven’t a sinker, an’ someone grabs a job-lot of old iron bolts or such-like and ties ’em on together—just a bunch of lumps, an’ the next thing ye know ye’re caught hard an’ fast in the coral, an’ there’s nothing for it but to cut the line. An’ no shop anywhere to buy new lines. But those sinkers won’t hold in the coral—they’ll always slip out if you do get caught.”

“You are a brick, Watty,” I said. “If I don’t catch fish with this gear I ought to be ashamed of myself.” “You’ll catch ’em all right, bo’,” Watty said. “I only planned hand-lines, that being what I’m best at. But the Major flies a bit higher than I do. Where’s your part of the outfit, Major?”

Mr. Garfield went out and came back with a rod in a canvas cover.

“That’s about your size and weight, I think, Peter,” he said. He took it out and put it together. I didn’t know much about rods then, but I knew at the first glance that it was a beauty: stronger than anything I’d ever owned, split cane, with agate rings and the latest and best thing in reels. And there was one for Clem, too. I just didn’t know how to thank them both. But they aren’t the sort of people who want a whole lot of thanks—they knew how I felt.

That was a ripping evening. They never once made me feel that I was only a kid, even though they are men who have been all over the world and done all sorts of things. Not that I had cheek enough to put my oar in much while they talked—but they treated me as one of themselves, not letting me feel out of it. Some grown-ups talk right over your head, and you know they’re just putting up with you and will be jolly glad when it’s your bedtime. Mr. Garfield and Watty didn’t. Bedtime was never even mentioned.

I told them what some of the fellows at school had said about our being caught on the island if war broke out, and perhaps stuck there; and I asked what they thought about it. They said they didn’t believe we’d have any difficulty. Watty had his doubts about war coming at all.

“Too much newspaper talk, if you ask me,” he said. “If old Hitler had wanted to fight us he had his chance last September, instead of patching up things at Munich. We weren’t ready then, an’ he knew it; now we’re getting ready every day, an’ once the British Navy’s ready he won’t want to bump into it.”

“Well, it isn’t only Germany we’ve got to think of,” said Mr. Garfield. “How about Japan?”

“Aye, trouble’s more likely from that quarter, to my way of thinking,” Watty said. “Mind you, I’ve always believed that Japan wouldn’t go for Australia first—she’d try for the Dutch East Indies. Once she’d got ’em she’d be all set for tackling Australia in comfort, as you might say: an’ mighty little comfort there’d be for us about it.”

“Mighty little,” agreed Mr. Garfield.

“Well, if they made me boss of the Defence Department—which as far as I can see there’s not much chance they will,” said Watty, grinning, “it isn’t big battleships I’d be planning. But I’d have a chain of defence right along the north coast—destroyers an’ fast little torpedo-boats an’ mine-layers. A mosquito fleet. An’ air bases linking up with ’em. Then we could talk, Major.”

“And that would all lead to settlements of people on the north,” said Mr. Garfield. “It will have to come some day—the sooner it does, the safer for Australia. It could be done, Watty.”

“It could ha’ been done years ago, if they’d only tackled it. ‘No money!’ they say. But they’ll find money for war fast enough if it does come: we’ll all pay the piper then. An’ there’s the Japs to-day going just as far as they dare against white people in Tientsin—stripping men an’ insulting women. Only that they’ve got their hands pretty full with China, we’d have ’em down here quick an’ lively, if war did come—taking the Dutch on the way.”

They smoked in silence for a couple of minutes.

“But even supposing war did come, you folks on the island wouldn’t have to worry, bo’,” said Watty. “There’d be warning enough: the island’s got wireless. I expect a lot of the coastal steamers ’ud be commandeered right off by the Government, but Burgess ’ud get you across to the mainland in a launch if necessary. An’ they’d only commandeer the best ships—they’d have to leave the small ones and the old ones to carry on the coast trade. So you needn’t go looking for adventure that way.”

I was half-sorry, because I’d thought it would be rather fun to be kept on the island. Even if we had to live on fish, there wouldn’t be school, and it would all be pretty exciting. But I didn’t say so, in case it sounded sort of young.

“I don’t expect they’ll meet anything more dangerous than stone-fish, Watty,” Mr. Garfield said. “I’ve been warning Peter about them.”

“Nasty brutes they are,” said Watty. “I saw a man stung by one of ’em; his leg swelled up like it was a bolster, an’ the pain he suffered had him crying like a child. We filled him up with rum—it was all we had—an’ a storm came up an’ we couldn’t get him to the mainland to a doctor. So we carried on with the rum. It cured him, but he was a sick man for days. He’d have died all right if it hadn’t been for the rum. An’ he never drank another drop after that, as long as he lived. The very smell of drink made him think of stone-fish. So perhaps it was a good thing. Only he didn’t live very long, on account of not dodging a car quick enough in Brisbane.”

“Could a doctor have cured him when the stone-fish got him?” I asked.

“Might—a good deal depends on whether the one that’s stung has healthy blood. But a chap from one of the islands told me a new thing the other day, an’ it’s worth remembering: if anyone’s stung, roast an onion, cut it in half, an’ clap it on the place.”

“And eat the other half?” asked Mr. Garfield scornfully. “I think that’s a bit of a yarn, Watty.”

“Well, an’ so did I. But he told me a young doctor had heard of it an’ said he was game to try it out. An’ this doc. actually got some native boys to catch a stone-fish, an’ he let it sting him. The onion worked all right.”

“If that’s so,” said Mr. Garfield, “I withdraw and apologize. A man who did that ought to have the V.C.”

“I reckon so,” Watty agreed. “He had half an hour’s agony over it anyhow, and a good old burn on his leg afterwards, from the hot onion. Not that he noticed it at the time—the pain was so bad he never felt the onion burn him. They say you could dip a stung leg in boiling water an’ the owner wouldn’t feel it. But there’s not enough stone-fish to worry about, if people take care; hundreds of tourists go to the Reef every year an’ never even hear of one. Sun-burn’s more likely to trouble you, Peter.”

“Oh, I never burn,” I said. “I only get browner and browner.”

They looked at each other and grinned.

“That’s what they all say, poor innocents!” said Watty.

“But true as life I don’t,” I said, a bit hotly. “I’ve never been sun-burnt—not even in the hottest summer.”

Mr. Garfield said, “But you don’t know the tropical sun, together with the tropical sea, old chap. That mixture can cook even a hardened sinner like me. It’s across the shoulders you get it, and even worse down the backs of your legs. You go wading about on the island reef at low tide, in and out of pools more than knee-deep: and then you bend over to watch clams and coral-fish and things, with the sun beating down on your wet legs. Very enthralling: you never even dream of sun-burn, even when you begin to sting gently. But that night you know all about it, and the next day you’re a nice pillar-box red, especially behind the knees—even if you’ve the luck not to blister. That means no more fun for days—and you can only sleep lying on your face, which takes years to learn.”

“Gosh!” I said. “Did that really happen to you?”

“It did—and to lots of other hardy men. That’s why I’m able to describe it so feelingly. And it would happen to you very quickly this year because you’ve been leading such a refined life. But you can dodge it—paint yourself with picric acid over every inch of skin that’s likely to be exposed. It turns you a lovely yellow, but it’s worth it. And even then you’d better be very careful until your skin toughens a bit. You don’t need to fuss, but it’s a pity to spoil your first week—as so many do.” He laughed a little. “I was one of those who said, ‘Oh, I never burn!’ ”

“Right-oh,” I said; I was only half convinced, only I knew he must know what he was talking about, “Any other horrors?”

“I don’t think so. Oh, you might as well remember not to be too free with a green tree-ant’s nest. You’ll see lots of them in the trees. They build them by joining leaves together at their edges to make cells, and sometimes they get so enthusiastic that they go on building until the thing is as big as a football. And an inquisitive tourist comes across one and starts investigating it with a stick; and the ants pile out in hundreds and drop on him—and can they bite! I’ve seen some really interesting things happen that way, but fortunately they happened to other people.”

Watty gave one of his deep chuckles.

“That’s the pleasantest way of learning things, only we don’t always have the luck to manage it that way,” he said. “Most of what I know came to me by way of kicks and a rope’s-end. You don’t like ’em, but you learn very thorough.”

I said, “You two know so much about the Reef district I think it’s an awful pity you’re not coming with us. Couldn’t you manage it? It would be gorgeous fun if you were there.”

They looked at each other, and Watty shook his head.

“No chance for me, bo’. What would those poor footballers of mine do without me in the season?”

“I would say, ‘Let the footballers rip,’ if I saw a chance of going myself,” Mr. Garfield said. “Only I’m afraid there’s none. July is going to be a pretty busy month for me. No, Peter, old chap—it can’t be done. But you won’t need us—you’ll have the crowd, and there won’t be a dull moment. Anyhow, Watty, we must have a big welcome party when Peter and Co. come back, eh?”

“Too right we will,” said Watty.