“Do you know what I’m thinking?” asked Candon. “I’m thinking there’s not many would stick this out just to save a couple of men from being guyed.”
“Maybe—I don’t know. Anyhow the other thing is I want to see the end of this business and that stuff got out of the sand and handed back to its owners. Lord, can’t you see? If we turned back now we’d be quitters, and I don’t know what you’d do with yourself; but I tell you what I’d do with myself, I’d take to making lace for a living—or go as mother’s help—paugh!”
Hank, as before mentioned, was a man of resource; there was nothing much he could not do with his hands backed by his head. In two hours on board the _Wear Jack_ he had found the materials for and constructed three tent poles; in the sail room, and by sacrificing the awning, he had obtained the necessary canvas; ropes and pegs evolved themselves from nowhere as if by magic. Then in some way, and from the interior of the _Wear Jack_, he managed to get planking, not much, but enough for his purpose. Whilst he worked on these matters, George superintended the removal of stores, bully beef, canned tomatoes, canned kippered herrings, biscuits, butter, tea, condensed milk, rice. He sent two Chinks ashore with a boat-load; then, when they came back, the rest of the stuff was loaded into the boat, together with the tent poles and canvas and blankets. Last came a small bundle containing Tommie’s night things and tooth brush. Then they pushed off.
Candon helped in the unloading of the boat and then they set to raising the tents.
In this section of the bay there were two breaks in the line of cliffs, a north and a south break. Hank drew the line of the tents between the breaks and at right angles to the cliffs, so as to escape, as much as possible, the hot land wind when it blew. Also he put a long distance between each tent. Tommie’s was nearest the cliffs, the Chinks’ nearest the sea. By sunset the canvas was up, a fire lit, a beaker filled with fresh water from the issue in the cliff and the stores piled to leeward of the middle tent. Hank had even brought mosquito netting and a plan for using it in the tents. He seemed to have forgotten nothing, till Tommie opened her bundle.