Jack arrived first with his servant and a large hamper of fish. The air lorry followed with the tents and the fishing tackle and the mastiffs.
“But where is Catherine,” asked Michael, as Jack came in pulling off his leather helmet and goggles.
Jack grinned and said with a spice of malice:
“Catherine fell into the sea.”
“She didn’t!” said Serena. “That’s the second time. How tiresome. She always has a cold on her chest if she gets wet.”
“Where did you leave her?” asked Michael.
“In mid-Atlantic. We kept to the highway. It was her own fault. I warned her not to loop the loop with that old barge of hers, but she would try and do it. She was fastened in all right. I saw to that, but her stuff was loose, and you should have seen all her fish and kettles and the electric cooker shooting out one after another into the deep. It was in trying to grab something that she lost control, and fell, barge and all after her crockery into the sea. I circled round—that is why I am a quarter-of-an-hour late—till I sighted one of the patrol toddling up, old Granny Queen Elizabeth it was. Catherine wirelessed to me that she was all right, and would start again as soon as she was dry and had had a cigarette, so I came on.”
Catherine arrived an hour later, full of apologies about the lost crockery, and the electric cooker, and was at once put into a hot bath by her mother and sent to bed.