The Mystery of Smugglers Cove (The Mystery Series, Book 1) (8 page)

“Thank goodness I didn’t arrive any earlier,” Joe said.

“Yes. I wasn’t sure if the men were still about, and that’s why I wanted you to be quiet. So, what do we do now?”

“We should see if we can hear what the men are talking about. We might find out some information that the police would be interested in.”

Will followed Joe as they made their way along the ledge to the cave window. They peered through the opening, but were disappointed.

They had hoped to find a meeting in place, but there was nothing of the sort. A lamp sat on the table while several men walked back and forth lowering boxes down the hole.

“Well, this doesn’t help,” Will whispered, as they slowly headed back.

Joe didn’t answer. A thought had just occurred to him, and he was wondering if it could possibly work. If it did, it would solve all of their problems. “Has the guard gone from the dinghy?”

“I’m not sure. Let me have a look.” Will peered through the binoculars. “I only see boxes.”

“Good,” Joe replied. “Why don’t we see if the dinghy has a name on the side of it? If it does, the police will be able to track the boat.”

“Well, I guess we could,” Will said. “But if we see any sign of the crooks we should make a run for it.”

After grabbing the torch, they set off down the rocks and onto the beach. They continued down the beach, hugging the rocks so they would blend into the shadows.

Soon, they were near the dinghy. Luckily, clouds now covered the moon, meaning there was just enough light to see where they were going, but not enough for the crooks to spot them if they happened to come out of the cave.

“I’ll go since I thought up the plan,” Joe offered.

“Okay,” Will said. “Just be careful.”

Joe nodded and stepped forward, but he didn’t get any farther than that as, a moment later, Will grabbed him and pulled him to the ground.

“The men are coming,” Will quickly whispered.

Slowly getting up, Joe joined Will in peering around the rocks to see what the men were doing. There were five of them and they were putting the boxes that they had brought from the tunnel into the dinghy.

When they had finished, the dinghy was almost full. In fact, it looked as though there was only enough room for two people, as the back part of the craft was filled with boxes. The men then pulled a big sheet of plastic over the boxes, tying it at all of the corners except one. This done, they moved back up the beach and were soon out of sight.

“Phew, that was a close call,” Joe muttered. “Thanks, Will. If it hadn’t been for you, they might have caught me.”

“Just as well I had my eyes open,” Will replied.

“It looks to me as though the men have almost finished. They’ve probably gone back to get one or two more boxes, or maybe some final instructions.”

“I think you’re right,” Will said. “If so, you’ll have about seven minutes. That’s how long it should take to go to the tunnel and come back.”

“All right, time me,” Joe said. “As soon as there’s a minute left, give me a hoot. Also, give me a hoot if you hear someone coming. That will let me know that I had better get out of there quickly.”

Joe hurried towards the dinghy and arrived in good time. Now that he was actually standing next to it, he could see that it was actually a bit bigger than he had first thought. He quickly checked the craft for any names. In doing so, he discovered that the whole of the dinghy had been painted over in black.

Frustrated that he had achieved nothing, he attempted to see if he could find out anything from the boxes. Finding a few nails that hadn’t been pushed down fully, he attempted to open a crate to get some of the fake money, which he imagined would be in there.

~

Will, who was keeping an eye on the time, failed to see that fog was rapidly swirling in from the
sea. When he did glance up to see if any of the men were about, he was shocked. The whole beachhead
was covered in thick, white, mist that was getting thicker every second.

Disgusted with himself for not noticing it sooner, he hooted to Joe. He did this three times.
Hopefully, Joe would get the message and come back. It was too dangerous to stay there with the fog
rolling in. It would be almost impossible to spot the men before they reached the dinghy. As it was,
Will couldn’t even be sure that they hadn’t reached it yet.

~

Upon hearing the hoots, Joe stopped what he was doing. He couldn’t understand why there had been three hoots as they had only agreed on one.

Deciding to wait a little longer, and dismissing the hoots as a real owl, he continued what he was doing. He had nearly managed to break open a box. A few moments more and he would have it, and then he could go back.

~

Will was in a state of distress. He had imagined that Joe would run back as soon as he had hooted, but there was no sign of him. And now the fog was so thick that he couldn’t see five feet in front of him.

Giving another hoot, Will was about to set out for the dinghy when he heard voices. He glanced at his watch. He’d thought the men would be at least another two minutes before they came back, but this was not the case.

The men’s voices became louder and the light from a strong torch penetrated through the fog. There was no doubt about it. The men had returned!

~

Joe was still working on getting the box open when he heard voices. He quickly pulled back the plastic that he had been working underneath and stopped in shock.

All around him was a thick blanket of fog. He realised that it must have been Will hooting earlier to warn him of the fog rolling in. Surprised, he climbed out of the dinghy just as a torch light stabbed through the fog and landed on him.

Moving as quickly as he could, Joe tumbled back into the dinghy. He wasn’t sure if he had been spotted or not, but he wasn’t going to wait and see. He moved over to the other side and climbed out.

He paused as another torch light appeared in front of him. He could hear voices up ahead. He only had one option.

He scrambled back into the dinghy and crawled underneath the plastic near the back of the boat. He manoeuvred himself in-between two boxes.

There was a chance that the men would tie the plastic down without looking at it too closely, and thus he would not be noticed. It was a slim chance, but it was better than nothing.

If he could remain unseen until the craft started moving, then his chances would improve greatly. He could hear the men getting into the dinghy. Two of them were having a conversation, but he couldn’t understand anything they said because it was in a foreign language.

Hoping that they would forget to tie the plastic down, Joe was disappointed when he heard footsteps right next to him. He tried holding his breath for as long as he could. He was relieved when the crook pushed the last box only partly underneath the plastic. The man then moved away and Joe let out his breath.

The man called goodbye to the others and Joe heard the men push the dinghy into the water and start rowing.

Will peered through the binoculars, trying to spot the dinghy that he knew must be out there. He had gone back to the alcove to gather up their belongings and had hoped that, as it was higher up, the fog wouldn’t be as thick as it was down on the beach.

Fortunately, it wasn’t. Due to a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea, he could make out patches of water. But it was still hard to see. Almost as soon as the wind had pushed a clump of fog away, a new batch floated in.

He was about to stop looking when he saw the dinghy going slowly out to the mouth of the cove. He was able to see that three people were on board before the fog covered them.

Relieved, Will removed the binoculars from his eyes and hung them around his neck. He had only seen three people and hadn’t heard a scuffle, so he believed that Joe had gone undiscovered. It would still mean that Joe was in a desperate position, but Will knew that if there was chance to escape, his new friend would find it.

Not wanting to give up so easily, Will decided to give the beach a thorough going over. If Joe was somewhere nearby, he was going to find him. He spent the next hour tediously going over every stretch of beach within a mile of where he was.

But he couldn’t find Joe. In his heart, he knew that if Joe had escaped, he certainly wasn’t on the beach. Otherwise, he would have found him. With these thoughts in his head, he headed back to Rose Cottage.

~

As the black dinghy travelled across the water, Joe tried to think of a plan that he could put into action as soon as it stopped. He would have to do something quickly. The men would start unloading the goods immediately.

Try as he might, he couldn’t think of anything. Behind him sat a number of boxes, so there was no chance of getting out that way. And in front of him sat the crooks, so that way was also useless. It looked as though he would have to wait until the dinghy reached the boat.

Before long, one of the men called out and, a voice that he hadn’t heard before, answered. Joe knew that they must have arrived. This was confirmed by the grating of a chain being released from a small crane.

Moments later, the dinghy started to rise up. Joe stayed quiet and didn’t move. Now wasn’t the time to be discovered.

He could feel the dinghy swaying, and in a few moments it stopped with a slight bump. He guessed that the dinghy was now on the deck of the boat. After releasing the chain, the men climbed out and walked away.

Realising that the men were probably going to celebrate their haul before packing the goods away, Joe decided that this was the chance that he’d been waiting for. Peering from underneath the plastic, he saw that the coast was clear. He jumped out. From what he could see, he was on a medium-sized fishing vessel that had been converted to suit the needs of the crooks.

Crawling along the deck, he headed towards the railing. He stood and looked to see if there was some way of getting down the side of the boat. There were no obvious safe ways.

A loud noise startled him. The engine was warming up! If he didn’t get moving now, he would be on his way to
France
.

Joe peered out across the water and was glad to see that the fog was lifting. Now he could make out a strip of land in the distance. That was the only thing he could see besides water. Once the boat started to move away from the strip of land, there would be no hope of escape.

The boat lurched into motion. Scared, but trying to stay calm, Joe hurried to the far end of the ship. By the sound of things, the men had started unloading the goods. Hopefully, that would keep them occupied for some time, at least until he found a way to escape.

At the back of the boat, Joe was glad to find a rope ladder that descended down to the water. What made him even happier was that he could see a small rowboat tied to the end of it.

After looking around to make sure that none of the crewmembers had spotted him, he climbed over the railing and started to climb down the ladder. All was going well until he was halfway down. Then he heard footsteps. Stiffening, he paused and held on tight. He didn’t know where the person was, but he knew that he was close. Praying that the person would pass, he waited.

Joe didn’t know how long he waited. It seemed like hours, but it was probably only a few minutes. The man was fixing something near the railing but, for the life of him, he couldn’t think what it could be.

Instead, he concentrated on holding onto the ladder. The breeze had now turned into a strong wind and was pushing the rowboat from side to side. The ladder also swung back and forth.

Tired from hanging on, and with the wind getting stronger, Joe started to climb down to the rowboat.

He tried to make as little noise as possible. He hoped the wind would swallow any noise he made. In any case, he wasn’t going to wait any longer.

Moments later, Joe reached the rowboat. Now the difficult part remained. He needed to untie it and row to the shore.

Luckily, the fog was all but gone, but now something else unpleasant had taken its place. The wind had strengthened yet again, and the waves were getting higher. To make things worse, rain began to splatter down.