سورتمه

CHAPTER NINE

The Sledge

Later in bed, I thought, ‘That barrel of butter was very heavy. We must find a way to carry heavy things.’ I thought about our animals, tied up at the foot of the tree at night. They weren’t safe. We must make huts for them. We needed wood for this, but more than we used for the floor of our house. We also needed bamboo.

The donkey couldn’t carry so much, so we must make a sledge. Those two pieces of wood on the beach were just the right shape for the bottom of a sledge.

So early in the morning, Ernest and I climbed quietly down the ladder. I took some tools, nails and a piece of light rope. We found the two pieces of wood, and nailed them together with smaller pieces.

Then we put a lot of bamboo and wood across the top. I tied a rope on the front, and we pulled the sledge back along the beach. It moved very easily across the sand.

When we were finishing our breakfast, we heard a loud noise from the chickens. We all ran to them.

‘It’s the monkey!’ cried Ernest, ‘He’s running after them.’

Then we saw the monkey hiding behind a tree. He was eating an egg. The monkey ran away to another tree, and Ernest ran after him. Soon Ernest came back with four more eggs. My wife went and looked in the grass.

‘One of the chickens is sitting on her eggs,’ she said. ‘Soon we’ll have some little ones. We must make a safe place for the chickens. Then we can keep the monkey away from them.’

After lunch, Ernest and I went out again with the donkey. The donkey pulled the sledge to the beach. We put more wood and bamboo on the sledge, and then I looked at the sky.

‘We must go home,’ I said. ‘There are clouds in the sky, and the wind is getting stronger.’

Then I looked at the place where the ship was still on the rocks. Another storm could carry the rest of it away. We must make one more journey to the ship before it broke into pieces. Why was I so stupid on our last journey?

We brought back the animals, butter, salt meat, bedclothes, gunpowder, some books. But we knew then that we were on the island for a long time - a year, two years. perhaps for the rest of our lives. Why didn’t I think of other, more important things?