The ship's children get worried
Next morning when the children woke up they found that a difficult atmosphere had sprung up, seemingly overnight. Only Mac seemed unperturbed. Peggy, tight-lipped, was cooking breakfast. Bridget presented herself with hair brush and hair-ribbons to Titty, who was sitting in the cockpit next to the pilot, who was ignoring her attempts to communicate. Titty took the hint and when she had finished plaiting Bridget's hair, summoned Elspeth over and brushed her hair as well. Their guest murmured something in German. Titty felt Elspeth stiffen slightly under her fingers.
On the fore-deck, Dick and Dot were talking together with their backs to the rest of them. Dick appeared to be lecturing Dorothea. Dot's manner was defiant. She broke away from the railing abruptly and made her way swiftly back to the cockpit. This morning she had her "better" summer frock on and, despite the cool breeze, a white cardigan rather her usual green jersey. Her fair plaits were wrapped and pinned around her head like a crown. She made her way to the galley and was just in time to help Peggy dish up the bacon. Bridget did not think it was entirely coincidental that it was Dorothea who put the plate down in front of the German pilot, so that while Peggy had done the work, Dorothea received the thanks.
"I hope, Colin," said Bridget in her most casual conversational tone as they sat around the cabin table, "That you haven't been spitting in visitors' meals again. It really isn't polite."
Almost everyone stopped eating momentarily and most of them glanced at either Bridget or Colin. Only the pilot glanced first at his plate.
Gotcha! thought Bridget. If you were just following other people's reactions you would have looked at Colin with the rest of them.
"Oh no!" replied Colin, gamely, "I only do that in the marmalade nowadays."
They all resumed eating, and the pilot finished his bacon, but declined all offers of toast and marmalade.
"Now," said Mac when he had finished his toast. "We are somewhere here," he gestured to a spot on a land map which he had lifted over from the bunk behind him. "So if we drop our guest here," he pointed to a small town, "He should be able to catch a train back to wherever it is he's from. If I were his CO, I'd tear a strip off him for messing around playing the amateur Bulldog Drummond, but that's his look out."
Bridget thought the pilot probably hadn't understood what Mac had said - but then perhaps he was more on his guard with Mac. Maybe he didn't understand colloquialisms.
By nine o'clock, they were lowering the dinghy and Dorothea, Elspeth, Colin and Bridget were sent to row the pilot ashore. Dick and Peggy seemed unhappy with Mac's choice of shore party, but made no demur. The pilot seemed delighted, and no sooner had Colin tied the painter to the ring on the jetty, than he suggested that Dorothea accompany him to the station.
"Eine gute Idee! Ich sollte den Kindern etwas anderes zu tun." She exclaimed "Why don't you buy yourself some ice-cream?" and Dorothea handed over some German coins from her purse to Bridget, giving a slight pressure from her fingers as she did so.
Bridget wasn't quite sure how to interpret the pressure – if indeed she had not simply imagined it – but was not going to let it spoil her plans. The minute Dorothea and the pilot rounded the building and passed out of sight she said,
"Colin, someone has got to mind the boat, and it has to be you, but pass Elspeth your cap. If I do this," she let her plaits out and dropped her sunhat in the bottom of the dinghy, "and this," she picked up Dorothea's white cardigan from under the thwart and shrugged it on, "there, that's as different as I can manage in a hurry. Come on, Elspeth, we don't want to lose them. Just stay here Colin, you'll be perfectly alright."
The two girls ran off down the jetty. Inevitably, they had lost their quarry.
"My fault for delaying." said Bridget, although it cost her something to admit it.
"We know they're going to the station." said Elspeth, "and the town isn't that big, so it probably has only one station. We just keep asking for it and people will point. As long as we know which way we've been, we can always find our way back."
"I thought Titty said not to let on you spoke German?"
"Only to the pilot. These people haven't a clue who we are and what's better they won't care." said Elspeth. "I shall have to listen to instructions, although I probably won't understand them, so you had better be in charge of making sure we can find our way back."
They found they could walk to the station easily, and the route was so straightforward they could hardly have missed Dorothea walking back another way.
"So where are they?" said Bridget.
"You don't suppose he's kidnapped her do you?" asked Elspeth.
Bridget snorted, "Not too likely at her size!" Dorothea was an inch or so taller than Titty, and while not exactly hefty, was built on a bigger scale.
"Would she be daft enough to get in car with him? I am thinking that she's turned daft enough in other ways." Elspeth suggested. "There's been no train out of here in the past half hour." And she nodded at the departures and arrivals boards. She wasn't too sure which was which, but as long as she could read the times it didn't actually matter.
Bridget shook her head. "I'm beginning to wonder whether she's daft at all. She's being a bit too daft, if you see what I mean."
"No, I don't."
"Well, I've never known her upset other people like this, especially not Dick. And I thought she was giving me some kind of signal when she gave us the money."
"Well, we can wait and see if they arrive for the next train. But I'm no happy leaving Colin on his own any longer than that."
"He's nine! Titty stayed by herself on Wildcat Island overnight at that age. Mind you, I don't think Mother or Susan were all that happy about it. John and Susan shut up pretty quickly if anyone mentions it."
"And this is abroad." said Elspeth, "Anyway let's split up so we are less obvious. Do you want to watch the entrance and I'll hang around near the ticket office and see if I can hear when he asks for a ticket."
"Here," Bridget fumbled in the pocket of her skirt and handed her a marble. "Take this and you can drop it to get closer."
"I'll not lose it for you."
"If you have to lose it, it's in a good cause."
Bridget herself discreetly removed a comic from the rubbish bin and sat on a bench from which she could see the entrance. They did not have long to wait. When Dorothea and the pilot arrived, it immediately became obvious what had taken so long. Dorothea was carrying a posy of pink roses. Bridget thought for a minute that Dorothea had seen her, but Dot's eyes swept past her with barely a flicker. The pilot approached the ticket office window with Dorothea watching him. Elspeth dropped the marble, but Bridget did not wait to see what happened next. She wandered on to the platform. Did they expect you to have platform tickets in a station so small? Apparently not. She wandered down to the end of the platform, still clutching the comic and stood behind a pillar, apparently absorbed.
Dorothea and the pilot walked onto the platform, Dorothea's hand on his arm. Elspeth slipped onto the platform a few seconds later and crouched down behind a trolley apparently adjusting her socks. She caught Bridget's eyes and in a brief, sketchy gesture, mimed vomiting so well that Bridget wanted to laugh. The airman was writing something down on a piece of paper for Dorothea. She was writing something down in return on a piece of paper she gave to him. Surely she couldn't be stupid enough to give him her address? The platform was wooden and Bridget could feel the vibration of the approaching locomotive. He kissed Dorothea's hand. For anyone else, that would be ludicrous. For Dorothea, it was probably just perfect, Bridget thought gloomily. Dorothea looked as if she really had gone soft in the head. Not a glance, not a gesture to show she was play acting.
The train pulled in and there was a certain amount of bustle. Dorothea tilted her cheek so the pilot could kiss her. This could not possibly get any more nauseating, Bridget thought. Elspeth's cover had disappeared, pulled over to the goods van. She had settled for sitting with her arms folded and her head down on a nearby bench, looking as sulky as she knew how. With her hair tucked under the cap and wearing brown shorts, she might just pass for a boy. The whistle blew. Thank goodness, thought Bridget, he'll be gone before it can get any worse. The train pulled out. Handkerchief-waving, Bridget thought, that's fine, but does anyone over five years old blow kisses? Dorothea watched until the guards van had rounded the corner then spat onto her hankie and scrubbed at her cheek. She was looking straight at Bridget's pillar.
"You can come out now, Bridget." Dorothea's voice was not loud, but carried clearly enough in the quiet after the train's departure. "What have you done with the other two?"
"I'm here." It was Dorothea's turn to be surprised as Elspeth stood up almost within arm's reach of her. "And we left Colin with the dinghy and we should be getting back to him."
"He'll be worried." Dorothea agreed.
"Not as worried as the others." Bridget suggested.
"Let's get back anyhow." Elspeth urged.
"Drop that filth in the bin on the way past." suggested Dot, "No, I suppose you'd better keep it, it's all straws in the wind, I suppose."
Elspeth had certainly expected to find Colin a bit agitated when they returned to the dinghy, and he was, but not in the way that they had expected.
"Peggy keeps signalling like a windmill." he announced. "She will use semaphore and I can hardly understand a word she says. Our Arkala is a lot more keen on Morse, so I'm not that good on semaphore." I keep telling them Stay there, all OK. But now they're messing about with that blasted folder. Sorry, Dot."
"There's a lot worse words than that – but don't get into the habit. The folder is a bit of a nuisance, but it came in jolly useful once. Signal and head them off, Bridget. Say "stay put, coming back now." And then you'd better plait your hair again – it's quite a nuisance blowing about."
This new Dot was as far away as she could possibly be from the simpering duffer of the early morning, who had had to let Colin and Bridget row and said that she preferred to be "richtig fraulich". She was also a different Dot from the one who cooked for the Sea-bear and worried whether about things were being done as Susan would have liked them. She was, Bridget thought, rather more like Susan herself in her Captain Susan mood. Colin and Elspeth didn't know Susan, but they recognised that Dorothea had taken charge.
They were well away from the confusion of the jetty, and Dorothea was pulling strongly toward Sea-bear, before Elspeth ventured, "Bridget realised that you were just putting it on. I fell for it I'm afraid, so did Colin. You're a brilliant actress."
"Yes, well there's some excuse for you. You've barely known me two weeks."
The children could not tell if Dorothea's shortness was due to the rowing or to something else. Dot's eyes caught Bridget's, but she said nothing more.
"What will I do with the flowers?" asked Colin.
"Better give them to Peggy. I was beastly enough to her, I suppose."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"So what do we think?" asked Bridget almost ceremonially. The ship's children had decided to keep their heads well down for the rest of the day, but could not resist another conclave at bedtime. Bridget assured them that Titty was not very likely to "Drop them in it."
"Dad's put them on watch two by two. He must think something might happen." said Colin.
"Should we stay awake, do you think?" Bridget asked.
"He's going to bed himself. It'll be OK. What could they arrest us for? Saving someone's life? Dot's giving a false address?" Elspeth spoke rhetorically.
"I heard Dad say it probably wasn't a false address. Dot said she's chosen one to sound probable and there's a Queen's Road in most towns. Dad said it would be worth keeping an eye to see what turns up."
"I wonder how they're going to do that? Send a letter saying Send anything with a foreign stamp to the Admiralty or the police and don't ask any more questions? Do you think anyone would?" Bridget asked.
"It isn't any stranger than what we're doing." Elspeth pointed out. "Nancy is Peggy's sister, isn't she?"
"Yes, why?"
"I heard her saying to Dorothea Nancy couldn't have done it half so well. What does that mean?"
"You're absolutely brilliant."
"Thank you. So were you." said Elspeth, plainly confused.
"No, I mean, that's Peggy's way of telling Dorothea that Dorothea was brilliant. It also means she's sorry she ever doubted Dorothea and it's quite alright Dot's being beastly to her about the breakfast and the rescue and not sticking up for her and that, well, basically things are alright again." Bridget explained.
"It wouldn't have worked in the slightest if we hadn't all been fooled and worried." Elspeth suggested.
"We don't know that it has now." said Colin, abruptly. "The pilot could have been giving a false address just as much as Dot."
"Pretty revolting to go through all that for duff information." said Bridget.
"I saw her throw the hankie over-board." added Elspeth.
"Let's go to sleep." suggested Bridget. "They are sure to be tired and cranky tomorrow, if they've been up half the night. No need for us to be tired too."