That letter, the last circular order issued by the great Postmaster General to the staff of the Swallow Mail, was treasured by Cheapside for many years. He hid it under his untidy nest in St. Edmund's left ear on the south side of the chancel of St. Paul's Cathedral. He always hoped that the pigeons who lived in the front porch of the British Museum would some day get it into the Museum for him. But one gusty morning, when men were cleaning the outside of the cathedral, it got blown out of St. Edmund's ear and, before Cheapside could overtake it, it sailed over the housetops into the river and sank.
The sparrow got back to Junganyika late that afternoon. He reported that Speedy had immediately, on receiving the Doctor's message, forwarded it to the postmasters of the branch offices with orders to pass it on to all the bird-leaders everywhere. It was expected that the first birds would begin to arrive here early the following morning.
It was Speedy himself who woke the Doctor at dawn the next day. And while breakfast was being eaten he explained to John Dolittle the arrangements that had been made.
The work, the Skimmer calculated, would take three days. All birds had been ordered to pick up a stone or a pebble or a pinch of sand from the seashore on their way and bring it with them. The larger birds (who would carry stones) were to come first, then the middle-sized birds and then the little ones with sand.
Soon, when the sky over the lake was beginning to fill up with circling ospreys, herons and albatrosses, Speedy left the Doctor and flew off to join them. There, taking up a position in the sky right over the centre of the lake, he hovered motionless, as a marker for the stone-droppers. Then the work began.
All day long a never-ending stream of big birds, a dozen abreast, flew up from the sea and headed across Lake Junganyika. The line was like a solid black ribbon, the birds, dense, packed and close, beak to tail. And as each dozen reached the spot where Speedy hovered, twelve stones dropped into the water. The procession was so continuous and unbroken that it looked as though the sky were raining stones. And the constant roar of them splashing into the water out of the heavens could be heard a mile off.
"A never-ending stream of big birds"