(You might notice a passing reference to another mid-20th century children's series here.)
It had clearly been daylight for some time when Roger awoke. His neck was stiff and his head was pounding, which seemed very unfair considering he had drunk nothing stronger than tea last night. Roger drank what remained of his bedside glass of water and padded across to open the curtains and the window.
Captain Flint's bedroom looked out over the yard rather than the lawn and the boathouse, but sounds drifting on the light breeze from the south suggested that preparations for a voyage were being made.
Some scraps of paper on the floor behind him stirred. They hadn't been there last night. They looked as if they might have been slipped under the door.
Dear Uncle Rogger, Please wake up!
Dear Uncle Roger, please wake up. Mum says we can go to Wild Cat Islland.
And in larger, more wobbly letters Unkle RoGer Wake UP and Play wiTh us.
He'd better get washed and dressed then.
The creak of the floorboard on the landing brought an immediate response. Mrs Blackett shot out of the dining room below and tilted her head up to address him through the banister rails.
"I told Nancy you hadn't slept well and she wouldn't let Jane and Julia wake you. It's only two hours until dinner time – but would you like some breakfast? We've got plenty of eggs."
"Anne Bonny laid another one!" came a voice from the kitchen. Roger wasn't sure which niece it was.
"Barbequed Billygoats, Jane, will you stop waving it round like that and let me boil it."
"Will it be scrambled in the shell that way? Maybe Uncle Roger would like scrambled eggs better."
"Boiled will be fine." Roger said hastily.
Nancy came out from the kitchen. "Look, you may as well have breakfast now and then get washed and dressed. There's not actually any hot water at the moment. I think I put a dressing gown in your room."
If it was pink or frilly, Roger thought darkly, he wouldn't be wearing it. He didn't altogether trust Nancy's sense of humour. The dressing gown turned out to be a perfectly respectable dark blue and grey wool. It probably belonged to Dick rather than John, judging by the relative shortness of the sleeves and the two fragments of russet and orange striped rock in the pockets.
Breakfast, even with only one person breakfasting, was a lively meal. Only Robert remained silent – or perhaps speechless would be a better description. Roger had to give Nancy credit for removing the saucepan lid and spoon from her son's grasp and handing him a beaker of milk very promptly.
"Your uncle's already got a headache." she said.
"Actually I have." Roger said.
Nancy went upstairs, leaving her mother to dispense the two boiled eggs carefully timed by Jane, and make the pot of tea, and returned with the bottle of asprin.
"Do you want toast, or will bread and butter do?" Mrs Blackett asked. "Cook's gone to Kendal for the day and she's the only one who ever gets toast right. I forget and Nancy takes it out too soon."
"Bread and butter is fine." said Roger, still listening with half an ear to Julia's recital of everything that happened in the Easter holiday in no particular order.
"We were going to go to Wild Cat Island for dinner and cook it there, but then Mummy, Mum I mean, said we may as well have dinner early-ish and then go." Jane said when her sister paused for breath. "What would you like to play before dinner?"
"Perhaps Uncle Roger won't want to rush about playing." Mrs Blackett suggested.
"I bet he does." Julia said.
"I probably ought to wash and shave first and get dressed, don't you think?" Roger liked his nieces, but rather wished they hadn't inherited their mother's loud, jolly voice. Nancy took the hint and put the already refilled kettle on to heat some water.
Mummy was being slightly odd again, Jane thought as they sailed towards Wildcat Island. Jane liked it when Mummy was being slightly odd, although she had found it difficult to explain why. Daddy had understood surprisingly well, though, when he had been home on leave last time.
"It's not because of the odd things. It's because she's happier when she's doing them. She more like my Mummy and not as much like – well you know how people, well you know people at school, well jolly nearly everyone's mummy does the same things, you know about please-and-thank-you and looking-both-ways-before-you-cross."
"I think you pretty much have to when you're a parent." Daddy had said. "Mostly it's because we wouldn't like it if you got squashed."
"Oh, I know about that. I can see that it's sensible and Mummy needs to do it. But I liked it in Malta, when sometimes Mummy did things that were like she had a plan a secret plan and no-one else can see all the pieces, so they don't even know when there is a secret. I think that's the best sort of secret. Not like Brenda at school."
"What does Brenda at school do?" Daddy had asked.
"Oh nearly every day she says she has a secret and she'll only tell if you promise to be her best friend. And then it turns out to be something everyone knows anyway, but she makes people promise not to tell and then does it to someone else and someone else and then cries and says you're being mean if you tell her you already knew. I say "It's entirely up to you" if Brenda says do I want to know a secret now. Granny Molly says it's a politerer thing to say than "push off and stop showing off" which is what I would like to say."
"I would definitely follow Granny's advice. " Daddy had said.
"But I liked it when Mummy had secrets and did odd things, like buying lampuka when we already had some and giving it to Nina's mother, and saying she was tired and had to sit in a café and talk to the café lady, when I knew she wasn't tired really, and buying slippers and bowls and things and talking for ages to the people selling them and not liking us to listen. I saw her hand over the money once and it seemed a lot for just a fish we didn't even get to eat, but Mummy was still happy."
"Have you mentioned this to anyone else?" Daddy said, and his voice had been careful and he had sat very still.
"No, only you because you understand things and you love Mummy too."
"Good girl. Let's keep it that way. Sometimes Mummy does very important things but it's best and safest if they're keep secret. They wouldn't work properly otherwise. Don't say anything to anyone, not Granny Molly, or Granny Mary or Auntie Peggy or anyone."
"Not Julia?"
"Not even Julia. Someone like Brenda might start showing off and saying Julia doesn't know any secrets."
"And Julia would tell her just because Brenda is really annoying and always has to be best even when she isn't."
"Exactly." Daddy had said.
"Mummy's very clever isn't she?"
"Yes, very clever and very special."
Jane remembered this when Mummy sent Julia and Jane back to the house to fetch Daddy's compass – the one he had had when he was had first discovered Wild Cat Island and Mummy and Auntie Peggy – for the voyage that afternoon.
And when they had finished showing Uncle Roger Anne Bonny, Ching Shih, Mary Read and Back-from-the-dead-Red, who were wandering about pecking at things, and had given them all a little bit extra food, just to show how it was done and were telling Uncle Roger about the actors who had come and put on an Easter play in the biggest classroom in the school,
"Acting students really, from BAGA" Mummy had said.
"Well, they were quite grown-up anyway." Jane had said.
"I'm going to be angel." said Julia, "With glittery dust all golden in my hair."
"….and we say next to Mrs Dixon and…"
"Jane, why don't you go and see whether Granny would like a hand with the cabbage?"
Jane didn't mention that she was still forbidden use the big sharp kitchen knife, but obediently ran back to the kitchen and waited a suitable length of time before she re-joined the others. (Granny had remembered about the cabbage, unfortunately, and predictably didn't want help.) Jane even changed the conversation herself at dinner when Granny seemed about to mention something about Mr Dixon breaking his leg.
Jane knew that there had been three small bottles of lemonade and two bottles of beer when they had packed the picnic in Swallow that morning, but now there was a kettle and a packet of tea and a milk-can instead. She had been looking forward to the lemonade, but still didn't say anything. (Mummy said Cook had used to make lemonade for her and Auntie Peggy, and would do again when sugar stopped being rationed and it was loads better than the lemonade you could buy in Rio.)
When Mummy suggested that they take Swallow and Amazon, Jane wasn't very keen on the idea. It wasn't going to be much fun for the one in charge of making sure Rob didn't fall in, life preserver or no life preserver, while Mummy sailed Amazon and Uncle Roger sailed Swallow. Jane knew exactly who that person would be. Jane still said nothing, but felt rather relieved, when Uncle Roger said there was plenty of room in Swallow and they could have a race another day, if Nancy liked, with Robert safely left at home and Julia and Jane for crew.
Once they were out of the Amazon River and Mummy had explained to Uncle Roger how the spit of shingle had shifted position a bit last year, Uncle Roger took the tiller and steered all the way to Wild Cat Island. Like Daddy, he didn't seem to want to talk much when he was at the tiller, but he was conversational enough once they got to Wild Cat Island and told them about how Daddy had climbed the lookout pine to put the lantern up there, and how Auntie Titty had captured the Amazon, just when it seemed that the Swallows had lost the war that first summer. They had shown him the leading marks which Mummy had repainted that Easter with them to help her. They had thrown stones in the water (Robert's current favourite occupation) and Uncle Roger had tried to teach them how to skim stones without much success, although he got 7 bounces three times in a row.
Mummy had laid and lit the fire and was boiling a kettle to make tea. She had already poured some milk for Rob and was just starting pouring for Julia and Jane when….
Jane wasn't quite sure exactly what had happened. It wasn't as if any of them were particularly near Mummy or had jostled her. Still there is was; all the milk, except the small amount in Rob's mug, was soaking through the not yet completely-decayed-leaves from last autumn and into the soil.
"Never mind, proverbially no use crying. We can drink it black well enough." Uncle Roger said.
Rob made haste to start drinking his milk. Jane wasn't sure if that was because he might be asked to share it or in case his mug too might mysteriously fall over.
"We can – but what about the girls? Julia doesn't drink tea at all. And Jane only drinks it with loads of milk. And I'm not letting them drink out of the Lake – I don't exactly look forward to dealing with the consequences for one thing - if it can be avoided. We'll just have to go to Dixon's and see if they'll let us have a little."
"It's rather late in the day for that." Roger said doubtfully.
"Even half a pint would be enough," said Mummy, "although a pint would be better. We came to sail, after all."
"By the time we've embarked the crew it will be pretty much time to go back to Beckfoot." Uncle Roger pointed out.
"It isn't a school day tomorrow, but you've got a point about the crew. I'll stay here with them and you go, unless you'd rather…"
"No, no that will be quite alright, I'll go." And Uncle Roger took the can with him and set sail for Dixon's farm with as little time wasted as if he had been Daddy or Mummy.
"Are we marooned?" Julia asked.
"Yes," said Mummy, "but possibly not for very long. We'd better make the most of being shipwrecked on a deserted island."
"Can we build our own shelter?" Julia asked.
"Yes." Mummy said, "But no using sticks from the woodpile – find your own. And you'd better drink your milk first."
"But we haven't got any milk. That's what Uncle Roger went to get."
Mummy uncrossed her legs, stood up and brought a cup from its hiding place in the wood pile. There was enough milk in it for Julia and Jane to have a third of a mug each.
Julia set off to look for sticks, Robert trailing after her.
Jane looked solemnly at her mother. Mummy looked back, not quite so solemnly.
Jane didn't quite know what to say. Instead she pointed to the six mugs in turn. The crinkling round Mummy's eyes was joined by her usual wide grin.
"I'm probably being over –optimistic." Mummy said. "But you never know until you try."
"I still don't understand. I'm mean, I can tell that you're up to something and Daddy said never to say anything to anyone else if you're up to something, except for maybe you and him but only privately. Only I'd like to know."
"If it was my secret I'd tell you, " Mummy said. That gave Jane a warm feeling somewhere inside in a way she couldn't quite explain to herself. "but it would be jolly rotten of me to tell someone else's secret."
Jane nodded. "It's Uncle Roger's secret, isn't it? And you're doing something for his own good."
"I hope I am." Mummy said. "I can't completely be sure, but that part is up to other people. And I think perhaps I'd better rinse your mugs out now."
"In the habour," Jane suggested, "so Uncle Roger can't look back and see."
Mummy laughed and gave Jane a big hug.