Monster Mission

‘They might have brought the sheep to put people off,’ he said, ‘or they might come up and shoot them for meat’—and he ordered the Hurricane to put down her anchor.

Leaving Casimir to guard the boat they rowed to the island and went ashore.

It was not a pleasant place. Sheep are not often cheerful once they are grown up and these sheep were the wettest, gloomiest sheep you could imagine. They stood pressed together, the water running down their noses, giving off a smell of wet wool and lanolin. Some of them had foot rot and though sheep-pats are not as squelchy as cow-pats, they are not agreeable to walk on in the rain.

‘We must go round and round the island in smaller and smaller circles; that way we won’t miss any openings. It’s like looking for a ball in a field,’ said Stanley Sprott.

So they trudged round and round, the water dripping down their necks, slipping and sliding on the wet grass and on the wet other things, while the sheep huddled together, too miserable even to lift their heads, and occasionally made a gloomy bleating noise which did not sound much like Baa but more like the crying of doomed spirits in hell. If the mad aunts had brought them to put people off they hadn’t done so badly.

‘There won’t be any caves,’ said Des. ‘The soil’s wrong for caves.’

But Stanley Sprott only told him to keep his mouth shut.

Then, almost in the middle of the island, they did find an opening which led underground.

‘Down you go,’ said Mr Sprott, very excited. ‘Make sure they know you’re armed. We’ll keep you covered.’

So Des went down into the hole and came back almost at once looking very sick.

‘Well? What’s down there?’

‘More sheep,’ said Des, rubbing his behind. ‘Rams. Two of them and as mad as hatters.’ He turned round so that Mr Sprott could see the jagged holes in his trousers. ‘Lucky they didn’t get through to the flesh. It can give you rabies, being butted by rams.’

While Stanley Sprott had been pursuing his son among nudists and sheep, the police had been following in a fishing boat. Now, though, they ran into bad weather; fog came rolling in from the west and the skipper of the fishing boat found that his radar was jammed. He insisted on turning into the next port to get it fixed, and this meant that the Hurricane steamed on without being tailed.

There was only one island left that fitted Lambert’s description. It was a long way away but it had to be the right one; it had to!

‘Full steam ahead!’ barked Mr Sprott to the skipper, who only raised an eyebrow. He’d had the Hurricane doing twelve knots ever since they’d seen the last sheep and he wasn’t going any faster till the weather cleared.

Meanwhile in London, Minette’s parents and Fabio’s grandparents had called a meeting to complain about the police and the feeble way they were handling their case. The superintendent had told the Danbys and the Mountjoys that there was a possible lead on the children’s whereabouts and having some hope again brought out all their disagreeableness.

The meeting took place in the Mountjoys’ cold house with the brass gong in the hall and the portraits of dead Mountjoys on the wall. The Mountjoys didn’t like the look of Mrs Danby, who was as usual chain-smoking and wearing a blouse which showed more than they thought was right. They liked Professor Danby a bit better because he was stern and gloomy like themselves. But the main point of the meeting wasn’t to make friends, it was to complain.

‘If you ask me, the police are too busy finding homes for dirty tramps and mollycoddling the unemployed to do their job properly,’ said old Mr Mountjoy.

He had decided not to send for Hubert-Henry’s family after all. His wife had been having nightmares about Indians with poisoned arrows ambushing her in her bed, and her heart was not strong.

Professor Danby agreed. ‘Even when they find the kidnappers I expect they’ll just send them to prison. In the old days they’d have been hung, and rightly so.’

The Mountjoys nodded their heads. ‘It is absolutely shocking the way this case has been dealt with. Outrageous.’

They decided to complain to their Member of Parliament, and Professor Danby said he would insist on a full inquiry.

Mr Mountjoy approved of that. ‘And I shall write to the Minister for Law and Order. God knows what the country is coming to when three children can vanish off the face of the earth without anything being done about it!’

Mrs Danby stubbed out her cigarette and lit another one. ‘I’m thinking we might sue the police,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Get some, money out of them. We might as well have something for the anxiety we’ve been through.’

Professor Danby was about to disagree with her. He always disagreed with his wife—but this time he didn’t.

‘It’s an idea,’ he admitted.