Five Go Off In A Caravan Chapter Sixteen A SURPRISING DISCOVERY（在线收听）

Chapter Sixteen A SURPRISING DISCOVERY

'Listen - somebody's coming!' said Nobby, and Pongo gave an ugly growl. 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 ledge, 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  caravan  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 butted 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 caravans too - maybe put a fire underneath 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 marvel 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, sniffing 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 exclamation.

'Look! Boards under the heather!'

'Laid neatly across and across. What for?'

'Pull them up!'

The boys  pulled up the  planks 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 mighty 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 enviously. 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!'