The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (30 page)

‘Is that enough to repair your house?' asked Aaron Spens.

‘There's enough to build a palace,' said Timothy.

‘Hardly, hardly,' said Aaron Spens. ‘It would be a very small palace, I fear, and not all that's there belongs to your father. Each of my crew kept his own money-box, some of which you have found, and I kept for them as well a certain share in the profits of the voyage. Now there upon the bed are all the profits, and here in your island there must be descendants of my crew. Before I go I shall tell Sam Sturgeon the names of those who sailed with me, and the shares they were entitled to. Then
when your father returns he can divide that little treasure as I should have divided it, had I, more than two hundred years ago, come safely home—and his own share, I think, will be more than enough to mend his roof and paint his walls.'

Timothy and Hew were admiring the jewels and letting them trickle through their fingers. But Sam spoke sharply, after watching them for a little while, and said, ‘Now take care what you're doing, or before you know what's happened you'll have lost half of them. You give them to me and I'll put them in a safe place till the Captain comes back.'

He took from a drawer the round leather box in which the Captain kept his collars, and gathering up the diamonds and the rubies, the emeralds and the sapphires, dropped them in and put the box in its proper place between the Captain's neckties and a pile of handkerchiefs. Then he set the three skulls on the chimney-piece, and tidily dropped the lead wrappings into a waste-paper basket.

‘Thank you very much indeed, sir,' he said to Aaron Spens. ‘The Captain will be most grateful, I'm sure, and I only wish he was here himself to say so.'

Gunner Boles stirred the rum-punch, and having filled everyone's glass again said in a husky voice, ‘About this time O' night, being in good company among cheerful friends and with a glass in my hand, I've always felt much inclined to raise my voice in song. It would be an honour, sir'—he bowed to Davy Jones—‘and a pleasure too, if you would
give us a lead, and we'll bring in the chorus.'

‘I know two hundred songs,' said Davy Jones. ‘Which one do you want?'

‘It comes into my mind, sir, seeing how snug you are, that you couldn't do better than to start off with
The Big Four-Poster Bed.'

‘As you will,' said Davy Jones, and having cleared his throat with a noise like a clap of thunder, began to sing in a voice like the rolling sea:

‘To Cadiz in a galleon,

To Yarmouth in a smack,

To Galway Bay with a load of hay

And donkeys coming back—

I've sailed the Arctic ocean

Where the sun is white as lead,

But the finest ship for a midnight trip

Is a Big Four-poster Bed!'

Aaron Spens sang the next verse:

‘In a sloop to St. Helena,

To Java by canoe,

I've fished for skate in the Denmark Strait

To sell in Timbuctoo;

I've sailed from the Roaring Forties

By the Cape to Beachy Head,

But the finest ship for a midnight trip

Is a Big Four-poster Bed!'

Then it was Gunner Boles's turn:

‘To Ushant in a frigate,

Bermuda in a brig,

At Trinidad when quite a lad

I didn't care a fig!

I've loaded a Maltese bumboat

With butter and eggs and bread,

But the finest ship for a midnight trip

Is a Big Four-poster Bed!'

Sam Sturgeon stood up and shut his eyes, for that was always the way he sang:

‘To Rio in a cruiser,

Manila in a junk,

I caught a seal at gay Deauville

And kept it in my bunk.

The sea's bright blue at Chios,

At Mocha it is Red,

And the very best ship for a midnight trip

Is a Big Four-poster Bed!'

Then, all together, as loud as a gale of wind, they sang the chorus:

‘Oh, haul your night-shirt down, sir!

The sheet is trimly spread,

The King's took off his crown, sir,

And he's called the Queen to bed—

Hear 'em snore!
                 Hear 'em snore!

Hear 'em snoring like the roaring

Of the waves upon the shore!'

‘Thank you kindly, sir,' said Gunner Boles, bowing again to Davy Jones. ‘You're in very good voice, if I may say so. And what shall we have next?'

‘Before we have anything next,' said Sam, ‘I'm going to take the boys to bed. They're dropping off to sleep already.'

‘We're not!' said Timothy.

‘We're wide awake!' said Hew.

‘You won't be so wide awake at breakfast-time,' said Sam, ‘and that's what I'm thinking of. So just you say good-night to the Admiral and your great-granddad, and come along with me and let's have no argument about it.'

Davy Jones, in his most solemn voice, assured them that when he was their age he had never been allowed to stay up late, and Timothy and Hew, after saying good-night all round, went off unwillingly to their own room. They were very tired, and in the morning, when Mrs. Matches came in to wake them, they still felt tired; for they had been dreaming of gales and storms and hurricanes.

Mrs. Matches herself looked tired, for she had slept badly too. Davy Jones and his companions had sung a lot of songs, and they believed in singing loudly.

Captain Spens and Mrs. Spens were flying home from South Africa. They were sitting side by side in the aeroplane, for in spite of all his doubts and fears he had found it very easy to persuade her to come back with him; it had been quite unnecessary to say anything about the sack that he had brought in case she was obstinate. The truth of it was that Mrs. Spens had been thinking so much about hats that she had almost forgotten how very fond of her husband she really was; but when she saw him again, it all came back to her. She realised, too, that he must be very fond of her, or he would not have gone to so much trouble and expense to bring her home; and that pleased her so much that she agreed almost at once to return to Popinsay. But neither of them was enjoying the journey, because flying made Mrs. Spens feel sick, and the Captain had caught a cold.

They arrived in London, and spent a day there. Mrs. Spens went shopping, and the Captain, whose cold was rather worse, began to feel seriously ill; for everything in the shops was very expensive indeed. On the following day they went aboard another aeroplane to fly to the north of Scotland,
and landed on an airfield between a little town and an angry sea that broke against tall grey cliffs. From there they drove to a near-by harbour and went aboard the small steamer that crossed every day to Popinsay. The steamer looked even smaller than usual, for the sea was extremely rough: it was the day on which Timothy and Hew and Mrs. Matches all felt tired when they woke up, and though the gale that had been blowing the night before was wearing off, the sea was still running high and the waves were grey-bearded like old bad-tempered giants.

Mrs. Spens, who felt sick even before she went aboard, lay down at once in the only cabin and said she was going to be very ill indeed; but Captain Spens walked about the deck and said that a good fresh gale was exactly what he needed to cure his cold. They had a very rough crossing, and when they reached Fishing Hope, Mrs. Spens had to be helped ashore. Sam and Timothy and Hew were there to meet them with the old shooting-brake, for Captain Spens had sent them a telegram before leaving London. The boys were delighted to see their mother again, and she was very pleased to see them, but asked them not to talk much until the following day; when she hoped she would feel better.

As soon as they reached Popinsay House she went to bed in her room that had originally been Aaron Spens's wife's room. Mrs. Matches had lighted a fire, which was smoking badly, but Mrs. Spens said that a little smoke could not make her more miserable than she was already. So she drank
a cup of tea, swallowed two large white pills, and went to sleep.

Captain Spens, in the meantime, was listening with great excitement to a story that Sam Sturgeon was telling him. Sam and the boys had been taken completely by surprise when they received the telegram that said he would be home again within a few hours. They had not expected him for several weeks. They had, indeed, been so fully occupied with the war between the pirates and Davy Jones that they had scarcely given him a thought; and now, without warning and with very little time to spare, they had to decide what to tell him. They had recovered the treasure from the wreck, but they had recovered it only with the help of Aaron Spens; and they could not tell him about Aaron Spens without also telling him about Gunner Boles and Cully and Dan Scumbril and Inky Poops and Davy Jones himself. About these people, however, and about all the life that went on under the sea, they had been pledged to secrecy. They could not tell him of the cutting of the knot, nor of the boys' journey to Davy Jones's summer court. They could tell him nothing of all the great and momentous events in which they had been taking part except one thing only: and that was that they had found the treasure. But even to tell him that they could not tell the truth. They were sadly worried by the problem, and it seemed more difficult still because the boys were so tired that morning, and Sam himself, who had sat up very
late with Davy Jones and Aaron Spens and Gunner Boles, was not feeling very well. After a great deal of discussion, however, they decided to pretend that Sam had found the wreck all by himself, after a long search for it, and diving steadily, day after day, had recovered eighteen skulls that held gold coins and three more valuable skulls that were packed full of jewels. They would say nothing about the help they had received, nothing at all about Cully and Davy Jones and the pirates.

This, then, was the story that Sam was telling, and Timothy and Hew sat beside him in the study and watched their father closely to see if he would be satisfied by it. They had warned Mrs. Matches and Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall to keep quiet about all the strange sights they had seen, and they hoped that their father would be so pleased by the recovery of the treasure that he would not bother to ask many questions. Captain Spens, however, wanted to know everything that had happened, and every detail of the search. Sam Sturgeon had to invent the details and tell a great many lies, but he was very good at making up stories, and he had no trouble at all until the Captain exclaimed, ‘But where are the jewels?'

He had examined the eighteen skulls which had been used as money-boxes with great interest and pleasure, and congratulated Sam on his good work. Now, quite naturally, he wanted to see the diamonds and the rubies—and Sam, for the moment, could not remember where he had put them.

‘In the collar-box,' said Timothy.

‘Why, of course,' said Sam. ‘That's where they are, sir. I put them in your collar-box.'

‘What for?' asked the Captain.

‘Well, sir,' said Sam, ‘I wanted to put them somewhere safe, and it seemed to me that your collar-box was the very place; because there's nobody here except yourself that's going to bother about looking for a clean collar, now is there?'

‘You may be right,' said the Captain. ‘Well, go and get them, will you?'

Then Sam went upstairs and brought down the collar-box, and tipped out the jewels on the Captain's desk. The Captain felt them and weighed them and counted them, and divided the diamonds from the rubies, and the sapphires from the emeralds, and sat looking at them in great wonder and delight. But then he sneezed so violently that he blew half a dozen emeralds on to the floor, and sneezed again and again, and scattered rubies and diamonds all over the carpet.

Sam and the boys went down on their hands and knees to gather them up again, and the Captain, wiping his eyes, declared that his cold was getting worse and he must go to bed.

‘My room's ready for me, I suppose?' he asked.

‘Yes, sir,' said Sam, and Timothy and Hew looked at him rather doubtfully. They remembered that Davy Jones and Aaron Spens had spent the night in their father's bed, and they wondered if Sam had removed all the traces of their party.
Sam, however, appeared to be quite confident, and when the jewels had been found and put back in the collar-box, the Captain took it and walked to the door, where he stood for a moment and sneezed again.

‘Bring me some hot toddy in half an hour's time,' he said, ‘and tell Mrs. Matches that I only want a very light supper. Then I'll have another glass of toddy, and that will cure this confounded cold of mine. To-morrow's Sunday, isn't it? Your mother will be better too, I hope, and we'll all go to church together; the whole family together for the first time in many years.'

‘Good night, Father,' said Timothy and Hew, and the Captain went upstairs.

‘Did you tidy his room properly?' asked Timothy as soon as he had gone.

‘It's all right,' said Sam. ‘We put everything shipshape and in good order before we left. We pulled the sheets up, smoothed the pillows, straightened the quilt, took away the glasses, and left the room looking as neat as a row of new pins. Don't you worry yourselves about that.'

He went out to make the Captain's toddy, and Timothy told Hew, and Hew told Timothy, that their story had gone very well. Their father, they thought, would probably not bother to ask many more questions, and that was very satisfactory; though it was disappointing, of course, that they could not tell him about their adventures under the sea. They sat for a little while thinking of
Cully and the battle with the pirates, and then they were startled by an old familiar noise—a noise they had not heard for some time. Their father was shouting.

‘Sam!' he roared. ‘Sam Sturgeon, you villain, you miscreant! Come here at once. Come here, I say!'

They heard Sam running, and following him upstairs saw their father standing at his bedroom door. He had undressed, he was ready for bed—he had taken out his glass eye, he had taken off his artificial foot and his artificial hand—he was wearing his red silk pyjamas, and he was in such a flaming temper that anyone who did not know him would have thought that he and his pyjamas were all on fire and burning together.