Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming Read Free Book Online

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