Ian Fleming - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

But they got to the hidden opening to the cave all right, and Commander Pott turned the hood of the car into the opening. They nosed their way in, with a big bump, over the piled-up tide line.

“This is perfect,” called Commander Pott. (He had to shout because of the great BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of the exhaust inside the cave.) “It’s dry as a bone!” And he switched on the big headlights.

Excitedly, they all peered forward into the cave that seemed to widen out as it burrowed into the cliff until it came to what looked like a corner. “Come on,” called Commander Pott. He put CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG into low gear and they trundled forward over the pebbles while the boom of the exhaust echoed back at them from the walls and the roof just over their heads.

They came to the corner, and round it, and now the cave opened out and became still bigger. There were the marks of pickaxes or chisels of some kind on the walls that meant that humans had been at work making the cave broader, and there was a straight piece and then another corner and another, and CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG rumbled and boomed on and Jeremy and Jemima (and their parents too, for the matter of that) were breathless with excitement.

Suddenly Commander Pott called, “Look out!” and there was a great squeaking whoosh, and hundreds and hundreds of bats, disturbed by the noise of the car, swept out over their heads toward the entrance! But the children weren’t particularly frightened by them, because they knew they were only little harmless mice with wings. They had often seen them flitting about in the evening at home. And they knew, too, that it was all nonsense about bats getting tangled up in your hair (which is an old wives’ tale) because, as Commander Pott had explained to them, bats have the most wonderful built-in radar that works in their heads with the help of the tips of their big soft ears, making it almost impossible for them to collide with anything—as you can see for yourself by watching them dart about among the trees in your garden, diving now and then to catch flies so tiny that the human eye can hardly see them.

So the children just watched with curiosity as the bats poured out over their heads, and soon their squeaking disappeared and CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG came to the next corner. Now they all realized that they were far from the entrance and deep, deep inside the cliff, and they wondered, all of them rather anxiously, what they would find as CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG nosed carefully round the bend between the smooth chalk walls.

I must admit that what they found was such a shock that even CHITTY-CHIlTTY-BANG-BANG’S exhaust gave a kind of trembly gulp. And Commander Pott himself, who was a very brave man, gave quite a jump in the driving seat and at once put on the brakes and switched off the engine so that there was dead silence in the depths of the cave. As for Mimsie and Jeremy and Jemima, to be quite honest, they went all goose-pimply with fright and just stared and stared at the dreadful thing in front of them—a SKELETON, a human SKELETON, that hung down from the ceiling and swayed softly in the small breeze that blew down the cave!

It was probably only seconds, but it seemed like minutes, that they just sat and stared. And the empty eyeholes in the skull stared back at them and CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG’S big lights showed up each separate bone and the rope that hung down from the roof of the cave and was tied tightly round the skeleton’s neck.

Commander Pott spoke first, and it was good to hear his strong, human voice. “This is ridiculous,” he said scornfully. “It’s nothing but a scarecrow. There are secrets in this cave and someone wants to keep them secret and frighten people away. I vote for going on. What do you all say?”

Mimsie said doubtfully, “If you think it’s all right, darling.”

And Jemima said, in a rather trembly voice, “After all, it’s only a lot of old bones.” And Jeremy said, pretending to forget all about the skeleton, “It would be an awful bore to have to reverse the whole way back again. Besides it’ll be jolly exciting to find out the secret of the cave.”

And Commander Pott said, “That’s the spirit!” (which wasn’t a very good choice of words with the ghostly skeleton swaying there in front of them!) “Now we’ll just have to push against his knees, so don’t be worried by his feet dragging across the car,” and he started the engine and moved slowly forward.

Well, as you can imagine, it wasn’t very pleasant pushing against the dangling skeleton, feeling its feet scraping over the hood of the car and up over the windshield and flopping down almost into Mimsie’s lap and then over the front seat and scraping between Jeremy and Jemima. But they squashed up against the sides of the seats to avoid being touched by the bony toes and, with a last rattle on the trunk, they had left the skeleton behind. Only the silly Jeremy and Jemima would look back, and I must admit that they both gave quite a gasp to see the back of the skeleton swaying to and fro and all lit up by the red taillights of CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG! Then it really did look at its very spookiest, and they quickly swiveled round and gazed firmly ahead.

Now there was no more sand and pebbles on the floor but just beaten down earth and there was quite a slope upward as the cave wound on and on, but you can imagine that the whole family was absolutely agog to discover where the cave led to and what they were going to see round each bend.

Suddenly Commander Pott seemed to listen carefully, and again he stopped the car and switched off the engine. And now they could all hear what he had heard—a frightening, eerie moaning that rose and fell and rose and fell and sent shivers down the spine.

“What’s that?” they all asked, trying to keep their voices calm.

Commander Pott leaned forward and unclipped the spotlight beside the windshield. It was one of the useful spotlights you can use at night as inspection lights and to read high-up road signs. He shone the light carefully up and along the roof of the cave until the beam came to a sort of contraption strung with shiny copper wires that was fixed into the chalk.

Commander Pott laughed. “That’s an old trick,” he said cheerfully. “Someone really does want to scare people away from the cave. That’s a musical instrument called an aeolian harp, It’s much the same as an ordinary harp, only the strings or wires are much thinner so that even this small breeze blowing along them can make the strings sound this sort of moaning noise. It can get really spooky when the breeze varies and blows hard and soft in turns. I’ve seen them used before this—in ruined castles in Germany, to give the tourists a fright. Well, it hasn’t given these tourists a fright, has it?”

And the others all said, “Oh, no. Rather not,” a bit doubtfully—and Commander Pott started up the engine and on they went again, hoping that that was the end of the nasty surprises and wondering all the more who it was who was trying to guard the secret of the cave and what, for the matter of that, the secret could be!

Round the next two bends they crawled carefully along with the thunder of CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG’S exhaust echoing on ahead of them. And then, all of a sudden, on a perfectly straight stretch of cave, CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG stopped dead!

“Well, that’s funny,” said Commander Pott, examining the dials in front of him. “We’re a bit low on gas, but there’s still five gallons. Oil pressure all right, engine temperature a bit high, but not more than it should be going up this sloping tunnel in third gear.” And he got out to open the hood and have a look at the engine. He walked round to the front of the car and suddenly stopped. “So that’s it!” he said softly. “She saw the trap!”