work!” said John. “Hullo! Theirs is going down again. They want to start skating. Anyway we’ve done enough for today. All we’ve got to do now is to make a code. Half a minute! I’ll whack another nail in down here, so that you can belay the halyards and leave a signal hoisted, without having to stand by and hang on.”
“Halyards?” said Dick.
“String,” said Dorothea.
A good place was found for a nail, within easy reach of the ground. John drove it in and showed Dick and Dorothea how to fasten their halyards. Two or three times, just for practice, they hoisted square and triangle, and both together. There were no answering signals from Holly Howe, but that, they knew, was because the others were already climbing the hillside.
John explained how the idea had come during the flashings of the night before. “You see, this way, we’ll be able to signal what the plans are for the day even before you know Morse. Nancy said last night you’d got to learn.”
“But what are the signals going to mean?” asked Dick.
“Look here,” said John, “we’ve got four single ones. North cone, with the triangle right way up; south cone, the other way; square, and diamond. And then by hanging two together, one above another, we can make a whole lot more. The main thing is to be able to say what the plans for the day are. We want to be able to hang up something meaning ‘Come to the igloo’ or ‘Come to Holly Howe.’ ”
“Or ‘Come to Mrs Dixon’s,’ ” said Dorothea.
But very little had been done towards making a code when they saw two red-capped explorers leaping through the dead bracken on the other side of the tarn.
“Here they are,” cried Dorothea.
Hurriedly the halyards were belayed, the wooden triangle and square stowed with the hooks in the loft. Hurriedly they picked up their knapsacks and ran down the steps. Already Susan, Titty, and Roger were in sight. There was a distant cheer and the sun glinted on Roger’s skates as he held them high above his head.
“You see,” John was saying as they crossed the ice together, “the whole point of these signals is that once they’re hoisted there’s no need to hang about for an answer. We can start for wherever we’re going, and you’ll know where to come. We can hoist the signals the moment Nancy comes over in the morning, and we can leave them up till we come back. No one will be able to read them except us.”
It certainly sounded as if Dorothea and Dick were considered members of the party. But it was the skating that settled it.
“Jib-booms and bobstays!” shouted Nancy Blackett, violently wrestling with a screw in one of her skates. “Nobody could beat those signals. We could see them as clear as anything, even without the telescope.”
“What about fixing the code?” said John.
NORTH CONE
SOUTH CONE
SQUARE
DIAMOND
“In the igloo,” said Nancy, “when we’re stewing with the dinner. Skating first, anyhow.”
Dorothea had been a little shy of skating with these Arctic explorers who knew all about ships and could signal in half a dozen different ways. She thought they would probably be as much better than Dick and her at skating as they seemed to be at everything else.
She and Dick sat together on some heather at the side of the tarn, fixed their skates on their boots and fastened the straps. She looked round. Everybody else was still busy with the screws. She fumbled with her straps, not wishing to be the first to start. But Dick had never a thought of the others who might be watching. The moment his skates were on he pushed himself off from his clump of heather, rose to standing height as he slid away, and was off. Every day of the holidays he had been with Dot on the indoor skating rink close by the University buildings at home, and this was a trick he had practised again and again, to start off from a sitting position instead of stepping awkwardly about before getting under way.
The Arctic explorers stared, open-mouthed.
“But he can skate,” said Titty.
“Like anything,” said Roger.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” said Nancy. “Of course, you ought to be in the Polar expedition. Not one of us can skate like that.”
“Golly!” said Peggy. “He can do it either way.”
Dorothea was now almost afraid they would think that Dick was showing off. But anybody could see that he had forgotten all about them and was simply skating for himself. He went flying up the little tarn, spun suddenly round and flew backwards, spun round once more, and came flying back to Dorothea.
“Come along, Dot,” he said. “This is lots better than doing it indoors.”
Titty and Roger were skating for the first time. John and Susan had had a little skating at school the winter before. But the Walkers lived mostly in the south, and year after year had gone by with never a patch of ice for them to skate on.
Nancy and Peggy were sturdy, straightforward skaters. Living in the north, at the foot of the great hills, they had had skating every year since they could remember anything, even though the big lake had frozen only once or twice. The smaller lakes and tarns were frozen every year. And at school, too, they had always had a few days when skating took the place of duller games. They could skate, but they knew enough about skating to know that skating was to Dick as natural and easy a thing as sailing their little Amazon was to them.
“You too?” said Nancy to Dorothea. But Dorothea did not hear her. She was already gliding off to join Dick, who had held out his hands to her. They crossed hands and went off together. Left, Right, Left, Right. Dick, in his methodical way, was keeping time aloud as he always did.
“They’re letting us be part of it,” said Dorothea, “because of your skating. Nancy’s just said so.”
“Part of what?” said Dick.
But they were turning now at the end of the tarn where a beck trickled in and warned them to keep their distance in case the ice might be weak near the running water. Nancy was coming to meet them. She was coming at a good pace, with a balancing jerk now and again, for this was her first day on the ice since last year, but anybody could see that she was putting her strength into it. She did not come swooping over the ice like a bird flying. And she knew it very well.
“Hi!” she called out. “You teach me how to twiddle round and go backwards and I’ll teach you signalling. You’ve got to learn anyhow.”
“You just put your weight on one foot and swing yourself round with the other,” said Dick. “At least that’s what it feels like.”
“Like
