Five Go Off In A Caravan Chapter Sixteen A SURPRISING DISCOVERY

Chapter Sixteen A SURPRISING DISCOVERY

'Listen - somebody's coming!' said Nobby, and Pongo gave an ugly growl¹. The sound of voices could be heard coming up the hill. Then a dog barked.

'It's all right. It's Timmy - and the others,' said Julian, unspeakably glad to welcome them back.

He stood up and yelled.

'All right! Come along!'

George, Timmy, Dick and Anne came running up the track. 'Hallo!' shouted Dick. 'We thought it would be safe, because we saw Lou and Dan in the distance, running along at the bottom of the hill. I say - there's Pongo!'

Pongo shook hands with Dick, and then went to the back of Timmy, to shake hands with his tail.

But Timmy was ready for him, and backing round, he held out his paw to Pongo instead. It was very funny to see the two animals solemnly shaking hands with one another.

'Hallo,  Nobby!'  said  Dick.  'Goodness  -  what  have  you  been  doing  to  yourself?  You  look  as  if you've been in the wars.'

'Well, I have, rather,' said Nobby, with a feeble grin. He was very much shaken, and did not get up. Pongo ran to Anne and tried to put his arms round her.

'Oh, Pongo - you squeeze too hard,' said Anne. 'Julian, did anything happen? Did the men come?

Have you any news?'

'Plenty,' said  Julian.  'But what  I  want  first  is  a jolly  good drink.  I've had  none all day. Ginger-beer, I think.'

'We're all thirsty. I'll get five bottles - no, six, because I expect Pongo would like some.'

Pongo loved ginger-beer. He sat down with the children on the rocky ledge², and took his glass from  Anne  just  like  a  child.  Timmy  was  a  little  jealous,  but  as  he  didn't  like  ginger-beer  he couldn't make a fuss.

Julian  began  to  tell  the  others  about  his  day,  and  how  he  had  hidden  on  the  caravan³  roof.  He described how the men had come - and had gone under the caravan - and then moved it. They all listened with wide eyes. What a story!

Then Nobby told his part. 'I butted⁴ in and almost gave the game away,' he said, when Julian had got as far as the men falling asleep and snoring. 'But, you see, I had to come and warn you. Lou 72

and  Dan  swear  they'll  poison  Timmy  somehow,  even  if  they  have  to  dope  him,  put  him  into  a sack and take him down to the camp to do it. Or they might knock him on the head.'

'Let them try!' said George, in her fiercest voice, and put her arm round Timmy. Pongo at once put his arm round Timmy too.

'And they said they'd damage your caravans⁵ too - maybe put a fire underneath⁶ and burn them up,'

went on Nobby.

The  four  children  stared  at  him  in  horror.  'But  they  wouldn't  do  a  thing  like  that,  surely?'  said Julian, at last. They'd get into trouble with the police if they did.'

'Well, I'm just telling you what they said,' Nobby went on. 'You don't know Lou and Tiger Dan like I do. They'll stick at nothing to get their way - or to get anybody out of their way. They tried to poison Timmy, didn't they? And poor old Barker got it instead.'

'Is - is Barker - all right?' asked Anne.

'No,' said Nobby. 'He's dying, I think. I've given him to Lucilla to dose. She's a marvel⁷ with sick animals. I've put Growler with the other dogs. He's safe with them.'

He stared round at the other children, his mouth trembling, sniffing⁸ as if he had a bad cold.

'I daren't go back,' he said, in a low voice, 'I daren't. They'll half-kill me.'

'You're not  going back, so that's settled,' said Julian, in a brisk voice. 'You're staying here with us. We shall love to have you. It was jolly decent of you to come up and warn us - and bad luck to have got caught like that. You're our friend now - and we'll stick together.'

Nobby  couldn't  say  a  word,  but  his  face  shone.  He  rubbed  a  dirty  hand  across  his  eyes,  then grinned  his  old  grin.  He  nodded  his  head,  not  trusting  himself  to  speak,  and  the  children  all thought how nice he was. Poor old Nobby.

They  finished  their  ginger-beer  and  then  Julian  got  up.  'And  now,'  he  said,  'we  will  do  a  little exploring and find out where those men went, shall we?'

'Oh yes!' cried George, who had sat still quite long enough. 'We must find out! Do we have to get under the caravan, Julian?'

''Fraid  so,' said  Julian. 'You sit there quietly, Nobby, and keep guard in case  Lou or Dan come back.'

He didn't think for a moment that they would, but he could see that Nobby needed to sit quietly for a while. Nobby, however, had different ideas. He was going to share this adventure!

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'Timmy's guard enough, and so is Pongo,' he said. They'll hear anyone coming half a mile away.

I'm in on this!'

And he was. He went scrabbling underneath the low-swung base of the caravan with the others, eager to find out anything he could.

But it was impossible to explore down in the heather, with the caravan base just over their heads.

They had no room at all. Like Dan and Lou they soon felt that they would have to move the van.

It  took  all five of them, with Pongo giving a shove, too,  to  move the caravan a few feet  away.

Then down they dropped to the thick carpet of heather again.

The tufts came up easily by the roots, because the men had already pulled them up once that day and then replanted them. The children dragged up a patch of heather about five feet square, and then gave an exclamation⁹.

'Look! Boards under the heather!'

'Laid neatly¹⁰ across and across. What for?'

'Pull them up!'

The boys  pulled up the  planks¹¹ one by  one and piled them on one side.  Then  they saw that the boards had closed up the entrance of a deep hole. 'I'll get my torch,' said Julian. He fetched it and flashed it on.

The light showed them a dark hole, going down into the hillside, with footholds sticking out of one side. They all sat and gazed down in excitement.

'To think we went and put our caravan exactly over the entrance of the men's hiding-place!' said Dick. 'No wonder they were wild! No wonder they changed their minds and told us we could go down to the lake and camp there instead of here!'

'Gosh!' said Julian, staring into the hole. 'So that's where the men went! Where does it lead to?

They were down there a mighty¹² long time. They were clever enough to  replace the planks and drag some of the heather over them, too, to hide them when they went down.'

Pongo  suddenly  took  it  into  his  head  to  go  down  the  hole.  Down  he  went,  feeling  for  the footholds  with  his  hairy  feet,  grinning  up  at  the  others.  He  disappeared  at  the  bottom.  Julian's torch could not pick him out at all.

'Hey, Pongo! Don't lose yourself down there!' called Nobby, anxiously. But Pongo had gone.

'Blow him!' said Nobby. 'He'll never find his way back, if he goes wandering about underground.

I'll have to go after him. Can I have your torch, Julian?'

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'I'll come too,' said Julian. 'George, get me your torch as well, will you?'

'It's broken,' said George. 'I dropped it last night. And nobody else has got one.'

'What an awful nuisance!' said Julian. 'I want us to go and explore down there - but we can't with only one torch. Well, I'll just go down with Nobby and get Pongo - have a quick look round and come back. I may see something worth seeing!'

Nobby  went  down  first,  and  Julian  followed,  the  others  all  kneeling  round  the  hole,  watching them enviously¹³. They disappeared.

'Pongo!' yelled Nobby. 'Pongo! Come here, you idiot!'

Pongo  had  not  gone  very  far.  He  didn't  like  the  dark  down  there  very  much,  and  he  came  to Nobby as soon as he saw the light of the torch. The boys found themselves in a narrow passage at the bottom of the hole, which widened as they went further into the hill.

'Must be caves somewhere,' said Julian, flashing his torch round. 'We know that a lot of springs run out of this hill. I daresay that through the centuries the water has eaten away the softer stuff and made caves and tunnels everywhere in the hill. And somewhere in a cave Lou and Dan store away things they don't want anyone to know about. Stolen goods, probably.'

The passage ended in a small cave that seemed to have no other opening out of it at  all. There was nothing in it. Julian flashed his torch up and down the walls.

He saw footholds up one part, and traced them to a hole in the roof, which must have been made, years before, by running water. That's the way we go!' he said. 'Come on.'

'Wait!' said Nobby. 'Isn't your torch getting rather faint?'

'Goodness  -  yes!' said  Julian in  alarm,  and shook his  torch violently to  make the light  brighter.

But the battery had almost worn out, and no better light came. Instead the light grew even fainter, until it was just a pin-prick in the torch.

'Come on - we'd better get back at once,' said Julian, feeling a bit scared. 'I don't want to wander about here in the pitch dark. Not my idea of fun at all.'

Nobby  took  firm  hold  of  Pongo's  hairy  paw  and  equally  firm  hold  of  Julian's  jersey.  He  didn't mean to lose either of them! The light in the torch went out completely. Now they must find their way back in black darkness.

Julian felt round for the beginning of the passage that led back to the hole. He found it and made his way up it, feeling the sides with his hands. It wasn't a pleasant experience at all, and Julian 75

was thankful that he and Nobby had only gone a little way into the hill. It would have been like a nightmare if they had gone well in, and then found themselves unable to see the way back.

They  saw  a  faint  light  shining  further  on  and  guessed  it  was  the  daylight  shining  down  the entrance-hole. They stumbled thankfully towards it. They looked up and saw the anxious faces of the other three peering down at them, unable to see them.

'We're  back!'  called  Julian,  beginning  to  climb  up.  'My  torch  went  out,  and  we  daren't  go  very far. We've got Pongo, though.'

The others helped to pull them out at the top of the hole. Julian told them about the hole in the roof of the little cave.

That's where the men went,' he said. 'And tomorrow, when we've all bought torches, and matches and  candles,  that's  where  we're  going,  too!  We'll  go  down  to  the  town  and  buy  what  we  want, and come back and do a Really Good Exploration!'

'We're going to have an adventure after all,' said Anne, in rather a small voice.

''Fraid  so,'  said  Julian.  'But  you  can  stay  at  the  farm  with  Mrs  Mackie  for  the  day,  Anne  dear.

Don't you come with us.'

'If you're going on an adventure, I'm coming, too,' said Anne. 'So there! I wouldn't dream of not coming.'

'All right,' said Julian. 'We'll all go together. Golly, things are getting exciting!' 

1 growl   

v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣

参考例句：

• The dog was biting,growling and wagging its tail.那条狗在一边撕咬一边低声吼叫，尾巴也跟着摇摆。
• The car growls along rutted streets.汽车在车辙纵横的街上一路轰鸣。

2 ledge   

n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁

参考例句：

• They paid out the line to lower him to the ledge.他们放出绳子使他降到那块岩石的突出部分。
• Suddenly he struck his toe on a rocky ledge and fell.突然他的脚趾绊在一块突出的岩石上，摔倒了。

3 caravan   

n.大蓬车；活动房屋

参考例句：

• The community adviser gave us a caravan to live in.社区顾问给了我们一间活动住房栖身。
• Geoff connected the caravan to the car.杰弗把旅行用的住屋拖车挂在汽车上。

4 butted   

对接的

参考例句：

• Two goats butted each other. 两只山羊用角顶架。
• He butted against a tree in the dark. 他黑暗中撞上了一棵树。

5 caravans   

（可供居住的）拖车（通常由机动车拖行）( caravan的名词复数 )； 篷车； （穿过沙漠地带的）旅行队（如商队）

参考例句：

• Old-fashioned gypsy caravans are painted wooden vehicles that are pulled by horses. 旧式的吉卜赛大篷车是由马拉的涂了颜色的木质车辆。
• Old-fashioned gypsy caravans are painted wooden vehicles. 旧时的吉普赛大篷车是涂了颜色的木质车辆。

6 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

7 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

8 sniffing   

n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了，一个劲地抽鼻子，打喷嚏。
• They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了，呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 exclamation   

n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词

参考例句：

• He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.他禁不住喝一声采。
• The author used three exclamation marks at the end of the last sentence to wake up the readers.作者在文章的最后一句连用了三个惊叹号，以引起读者的注意。

10 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

11 planks   

（厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点

参考例句：

• The house was built solidly of rough wooden planks. 这房子是用粗木板牢固地建造的。
• We sawed the log into planks. 我们把木头锯成了木板。

12 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

13 enviously   

adv.满怀嫉妒地

参考例句：

• Yet again, they were looking for their way home blindly, enviously. 然而，它们又一次盲目地、忌妒地寻找着归途。 来自辞典例句
• Tanya thought enviously, he must go a long way south. 坦妮亚歆羡不置，心里在想，他准是去那遥远的南方的。 来自辞典例句