Homer was in the yard before ever Titty saw him. Her eyes were almost blind with staring into the sky, trying to see a black speck that would come nearer and nearer, bigger and bigger, and turn at last into a pigeon. But she never saw how Homer came. Suddenly there was the fluttering of wings, and Homer was already in the yard, flying uncertainly from house roof to stable roof, puzzled, perhaps, by the sight of Titty sitting on the steps.
“Dick,” called Titty softly.
There was no answer.
The pigeon flew across towards the loft.
“Dick,” cried Titty, desperate. “He’s here.”
She heard a low murmur, “Go and tell Peggy.”
The next moment Homer had lighted on the narrow shelf, stretched and closed his wings, and pushed his way in under the swinging wires which lifted to let him pass.
Titty slipped down the ladder and ran round the corner of the house to the camp on the green lawn.
“Peggy,” she shouted, “one of the pigeons has come home.”
A saw was left sticking in the half-sawn plank that was going to be the armadillo’s bedroom door. Roger dropped the hammer.
“Did Dick see it all right?” asked Dorothea.
“There’ll be a message,” said Peggy.
“They may want us to come along at once,” said Roger.
All four of them ran to the stableyard. Peggy was first at the steps to the loft, the others close behind her.
“Got to go quiet now,” she said. “Don’t all barge in together. Sometimes they’re a job to catch. Where’s Dick?”
“In the loft,” said Titty.
Peggy gingerly opened the door and slipped in. The others waited on the steps.
In the loft Homer was enjoying his dinner, watching Dick out of one red-rimmed eye. Dick was still looking at the swinging wires through which the pigeon had pushed its way.
“It ought to be quite easy,” he said. “If only we can make sure of a good contact when the wire is pushed up …”
“Eh, what’s that?” said Peggy. “Have you caught him?”
“Not yet,” said Dick. “But he’s got a message. Left leg.”
“Coo … coo,” murmured Peggy, and whistled the low pigeon call, “Pheeu … phiu … phiu … phiu … phiu.”
Homer took a drink of water. Peggy caught him and took a tiny roll of paper from under the rubber ring on his left leg, let him go again, and Homer settled by the drinking-trough while Peggy carefully unrolled the message.
“Can we come in?” said Titty, just outside.
“Come along,” said Peggy. “It’s all right now.”
The others crowded into the loft. Peggy read aloud from the crinkled scrap of paper that tried to roll itself up again as she read:-
“NO SUPPLIES FROM ATKINSON’S. OCCUPIED BY TREACHEROUS ENEMY.”
The signature was a skull, particularly grim.
“Bowlines and gaskets,” said Peggy, in the Nancy manner. “That’s pretty bad. The only other farm’s right down in the bottom of the valley. Jolly long way to go for the milk.”
“Oh, I say,” said Roger.
“Shall we have to give it up?” said Dorothea.
“Nancy’ll manage somehow,” said Titty.
“Come on,” said Peggy. “Let’s get our part done. We’ll want the hutch for Timothy whether we go or not.”
“Well,” said Mrs Blackett, who had heard the rush to the stableyard and put her head out of the back door as they came down from the pigeon-loft.
“We’ve had a message from them,” said Titty.
“We can’t get milk from Atkinson’s,” said Peggy.
“I was afraid you might not be able to,” said Mrs Blackett, but she did not look particularly disappointed. “And did the pigeon ring a bell?”
“I think the next one will,” said Dick.
“It may be no good even if it does,” said Dorothea.
“Will you want me to watch?” said Titty.
“No. It’s all right now,” said Dick. “I’ve seen how they come in. I’ve only got to make a bell-push for them.”
“Come on, Titty,” said Peggy. “There’s some painting to be done.”
Dick, who meant pigeons to ring bells no matter how melancholy were the messages they carried, knew now exactly what he had to do. Homer had shouldered through those swinging wires in the most encouraging way. There was going to be no difficulty about that. What he had to do was to make a little swinging trigger that would move with the wires as the pigeon pushed through and make contact between two strips of copper springy enough to grip and hold it till someone came to let it go. He did it, after two or three false starts, with the help of some stiff wire, a cork, a scrap of lead and the copper Dorothea had brought from Rio, which he cut with a pair of scissors borrowed from the unsuspecting cook. He worked as hard as he could to have it ready for the next pigeon, but by the time he had finished his pigeon bell-push and joined it up to the old wires across the stableyard, the afternoon was over and the workmen had gone for the day.
It was funny that second pigeon had not come. Good thing, though. He might yet have time to get the bell itself fixed up at the other end.
There was a sudden shouting in the yard.
“Ahoy!”
“How are you getting on?”
“Hasn’t another pigeon come yet?”
The carpenters from the camp, their work done, were at the foot of the steps. Dick looked down, but hardly saw the finished sleeping-box for the armadillo, with a door to open and shut, and Timothy’s name painted upon it. There wasn’t a second to lose.
“Nearly done,” he said, and ran down the steps, picked up the bell and the coil of flex and bolted into the house. Lucky the batteries for the house bells were close to the kitchen door. He had not any too much flex to spare. With trembling fingers, he connected up his bell and put it on a chair in the passage. Better than nothing. He was ready now, but in the stable he had seen a discarded, rusty tea-tray. That would be wanted too, before everything was quite as he had planned.
“No more news?” That was Mrs Blackett in the yard. “Surely they’ll have sent off another pigeon before now. Isn’t it a blessing to have the place to ourselves and the workmen gone? Well, I must say, you’ve made a very handsome hutch, and those leather hinges to the door … Peggy, you awful child, you haven’t been cutting bits off your blue belt?”
Dick started to cross the yard. There might yet be time to fix that tea-tray.
“That belt was miles too long,” Peggy was saying.