The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (10 page)

‘I don't think there's very much food on board,' said Timothy, ‘but I daresay there's some bread and jam.'

‘Bread and jam!' exclaimed Cully. ‘Did you say
jam
? Oh, but I adore jam—and cake—birthday cake, especially—and chocolate biscuits, and hot crumpets, and mince-pies—but please don't apologise if you haven't everything that I like on board, because I shall be perfectly satisfied with bread and jam, especially if there's plenty of jam.'

James William Cordiall brought up a loaf of bread, a dish of butter, and a pot of raspberry jam. Cully took slice after slice, as fast as he could cut and spread them, and presently he was holding four slices—two in his left-hand tentacles, two in the right—from which he took bites in turn. He lay half in and half out of the water, resting very comfortably on the rail, and ate all the bread and jam that Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall offered him. They were very pleased to see what a good appetite he had, and James William asked him if he would like a boiled egg. Cully said he
would, and they felt still more friendly towards him. An octopus who ate bread and jam could not, they thought, be very dangerous, but must be a good simple creature with homely tastes like their own. So James William boiled an egg, and then he and Old Mattoo sat down beside Cully, with another loaf of bread and a new pot of jam between them, and they all became the best of friends.

Sam Sturgeon, in the meantime, had slowly been recovering his strength. Timothy and Hew had been watching him rather anxiously, but now he seemed quite well again, and in good spirits. For he winked at them and said, ‘Well, that was a close call, so it was! If it hadn't been for Cully, I'd be down there still.'

‘Did Cully save your life?' asked Hew.

‘There's no denying that,' said Sam. ‘I was at my last gasp when he found me, and he ought to have a medal by rights.—But what are we going to do now? That's the question, and I wish your Father was here to answer it. I'd be glad to have his advice, though I don't suppose he's ever had much experience with fellows like those two down in the hold, and he might be just as much puzzled and bewildered as we are.'

‘Do you think there are any more of them in the wreck?' asked Timothy.

‘There weren't so far as I could see,' said Sam.

‘But you aren't sure?'

‘I wouldn't take my oath on it,' said Sam, ‘but
we'll soon find out. —Cully,' he called, ‘would you take another trip down below, and see if there's any more of those fellows in the wreck?'

‘Oh, how tiresome!' cried Cully. ‘Surely I can stay and finish my tea first?'

‘You can finish it when you come up again,' said Sam.

‘Well, it rather spoils the party,' said Cully reproachfully, ‘but if you insist, I suppose I must. It's a hard life we lead, a hard, hard life! Nobody knows what it is to be an octopus with a sense of duty!'

He put another slice of bread and jam in his mouth, all at once, and sliding off the boat, disappeared below the water.

‘Where's that skull I brought up with me?' asked Sam.

‘A skull?' asked Timothy.

‘It was all overgrown with weed,' said Sam.

‘Is this it? I thought it was a lump of coral.'

‘Just wait a minute and you'll see what it is,' said Sam, and borrowing a knife from Old Mattoo began to scrape off the weed. In a few minutes he had cleaned it thoroughly. The bone was stained and green, and two front teeth were missing from the top row. Timothy took it and looked at it closely.

‘There's writing on the forehead, he said, ‘and there's something inside it.' He shook it, and it rattled like a money-box with a few pennies in it.

‘That's what it is!' he cried. ‘It's a money-box, and it says so.'

He pointed to the words which had been carved on the forehead, and slowly read: ‘
Jon Flet hys monie box'

Sam took it and said, ‘It's another of the same sort that your father found on the beach a long time ago—and here's where you put the money in,' he exclaimed.

On the top of the skull a little strip of bone had been cut out, and so carefully fitted in again that it could scarcely be seen; but when Sam pressed hard on one end of the strip with the blade of a knife, it opened. He held the skull upside down, and shook it, and one by one eight gold coins fell out.

‘That isn't much of a treasure,' said Hew.

‘But there may be a lot more money-boxes in the wreck,' said Timothy. ‘I wonder who Jon Flet was?'

‘He may have been the captain's steward,' said Sam. ‘I found that skull behind a panel in the saloon when I got shut up there. I was feeling round to see if I could get out again, and one of the panels in the wall was rotten. I put my hand through it, into a sort of cupboard, and that's what I found. It wouldn't be one of the crew that kept his money there, but the captain's steward might have thought it was a good hiding place.'

Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall were shaking their heads over the greenish skull, and Hew was counting the money again, when Cully
reappeared in the sea beside them. He pulled himself up the side of the boat and exclaimed, ‘You'll never believe it, but I feel almost as hungry as I did to begin with! That little swim has given me such an appetite again! Don't tell me that the jam's all finished? Don't tell me that, I couldn't bear it!'

‘I'll soon get some more,' said James William Cordiall, and hurried below.

‘And what did you find?' asked Sam.

‘Nothing,' said Cully, ‘nothing at all. It was merely a waste of time going all that way and back again. There's nothing in the wreck except some crabs and eels and creatures like that, and I'm quite sure that no one else would ever want to go there. It's one of the gloomiest wrecks I've ever seen.'

‘I hope you like black-currant,' said James William Cordiall, coming up with a new pot in his hand.

‘Black-currant!' screamed Cully. ‘It's absolutely and faraway and completely my favourite! Oh, what a good party this is!'

But Sam interrupted him and asked, ‘When do you go on duty again?'

‘Not till eight o'clock this evening,' said Cully.

‘I've got plenty of time for my tea, and there's no need to hurry at all.'

‘I wasn't thinking about your tea,' said Sam. ‘I was thinking about Gunner Boles. I want you to give him a message. I want you to tell him
that I'm very anxious to see him as soon as possible on a matter of great importance. I don't know when he'll be able to come ashore, but tell him I'll be waiting for him, on the little beach on the Hen, from ten o'clock onwards. Can you remember that, do you think?'

‘I can remember everything,' said Cully with his mouth full. ‘We octopuses—or
octopodes,
I should say. Everybody who's had a really good education calls us octopodes, and I do think it sounds better, don't you?—Well, we octopodes have all got excellent memories, and we never forget anything at all.'

‘I don't want to hurry you,' said Sam, ‘but I'll be much obliged if you'll give Gunner Boles my compliments, and tell him what I've just been saying to you, as soon as ever you can; so that he can make his arrangements. And then we'll up anchor and get home again.'

‘And what are you going to do with those two fearful creatures in the hold?' asked Old Mattoo.

‘They'll need to stay there,' said Sam. ‘You and James William Cordiall will be sleeping on board, so you can look after them.'

‘Not me!' exclaimed Old Mattoo. ‘I wouldn't be left alone with those two, no, not for all the gold in the ocean!'

‘Nor me,' said James William Cordiall. ‘I'd never get a wink of sleep if I thought those two ugly, desperate fellows were lying only a yard or two away.'

Sam argued with them for a quarter of an hour, but nothing he could say would make them change their minds; so at last it was decided that the two strangers should stay in the hold till evening, when Sam would take them up to Popinsay House in a farm-cart—hidden under a tarpaulin—and smuggle them into the house, and lock them in a cellar. By that time Cully had finished his tea, and there was nothing left to eat on board. So Cully said ‘Thank you,' in his politest manner and Sam thanked him for saving his life. Timothy and
Hew said good-bye, and Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall said they hoped they would see him again some day when they were out fishing. Then Cully slid down into the sea, the anchor was hauled up, the engine started, and the
Endeavour
headed for home.

Late at night Sam came into the boys' room, and woke them, and told them to keep quiet.

‘Gunner Boles is downstairs in your father's study,' he said, ‘and he's got something very important that he wants to tell you. So put on your dressing-gowns and come down, but don't make any noise. We don't want Mrs. Matches interrupting us.'

Gunner Boles was standing in a corner of the study where a big globe of the world stood on a table. But he turned when the boys came in, and shook each of them by the hand in a very polite and formal manner. He looked extremely serious. Sam closed the door behind them, and they sat down. All the curtains were closely drawn, so that no light could be seen from outside.

‘Now, first of all,' said Gunner Boles, ‘I've got to explain about a lot of things that you don't understand as yet. And then when I've finished explaining, I'm going to ask you a difficult question. I'm going to ask you to do something that's very important, and there's no one here can do it but you. But it's dangerous, I'm bound to admit, and if you don't feel inclined to take it on, then nobody's going to make you, or try to persuade you.'

‘What sort of a thing is it?' asked Timothy.

‘You'd better listen to the explanation first,' said Sam.

‘That's good advice,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and to begin with I'll have to give you a lesson in geography. But it isn't the kind of geography you learn in school. It's real geography, if you see the difference.'

He got up and took the globe of the world from its table, and set it down on the floor in front of the boys.

‘Now,' he said, ‘you see all those lines that go round the world, don't you? There's some that go down from the North Pole to the South Pole, and some that go round the middle. But has anyone ever told you what they're called?'

‘The parallels of latitude,' said Timothy.

‘And the parallels of longitude,' said Hew.

‘That's right,' said Gunner Boles. ‘And now can you tell me what those parallels do? What are they for, and what good are they?'

‘Well,' said Hew, a little doubtfully, ‘they help
you to know where you are.'

‘They're used in navigation,' said Timothy.

‘So far, so true,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and that's what you were told in school, I suppose. But they never tell you enough in school. They never tell you the really interesting things. Now just you look at this globe again, and tell me what you see.'

‘I could see New Zealand if you hadn't got your thumb on it,' said Timothy.

‘And what's New Zealand?' asked Gunner Boles.

‘It's two islands.'

‘Right,' said Gunner Boles. ‘And if you look at it properly, you'll see that all the world is just a lot of islands. Some of them, like Australia, are big islands; and some of them, like Popinsay, are little islands; and some of them, like Asia and America, are usually called continents. But there's water all round them, and so, strictly speaking, they're islands too. Now what is it, do you think, that keeps them all in place and holds them together?'

‘I suppose they've got good foundations,' said Timothy.

‘Well, of course they have,' said Gunner Boles. ‘They've got very good foundations, and what's more than that, they've got the parallels of latitude and longitude. Those lines that you see on the globe—and this is what you were never told in school—represent great big strong cables lying at the bottom of the sea, made fast at either end to
some island or continent. And what they do is to hold the world together and keep everything in place.'

‘And who looks after them?' asked Timothy.

‘Ah, ha!' said Gunner Boles. ‘Now there's a bright boy if ever I saw one! He's gone right to the very point of it, hasn't he, Sam? He's put his finger on what truly matters. That's what we are all concerned about, Timothy, my boy. Who looks after them?'

Timothy felt rather embarrassed, because Sam and Gunner Boles were looking at him in a very admiring way, as though he had said something particularly clever; and Hew was trying to look extremely wise, as though he too understood what it was all about.

‘Who looks after them?' said Gunner Boles again. ‘That's what we're all worried about, and more especially about who's to look after the knots.'

‘What knots?' asked Hew.

‘The knots where the parallels of latitude cross the parallels of longitude, of course. Wherever you see them crossing on the globe, there's a big strong knot at the bottom of the sea, and everyone of those knots has to be watched and guarded night and day.'

‘Is that what you do?' asked Timothy.

‘That's my job,' said Gunner Boles, ‘and has been these many years.'

‘Is there a knot near Popinsay?' asked Hew.

‘If you look at the map,' said Sam, ‘you can
answer that for yourselves. Don't you see where the 59th parallel of north latitude crosses the 4
^th
parallel of west longitude, and isn't that just a mile or two north-west of the Calf?'

‘And who's looking after it now?' asked Timothy. ‘You said that all the knots had to be guarded night and day.'

‘Why, Cully's on duty now,' said Gunner Boles. ‘That's how he's useful to me. He's been with me ever since he was a little octopus, and I've taught him all sorts of things in the last thirty or forty years. He can do the job well enough so long as he doesn't fall asleep, as he's inclined to, or go off and take a holiday, which is what he likes to do.'