Sea of Adventure - During the Storm

[Moonraker]

Having just re-read Sea of Adventure, I am puzzled at the incidents happening whilst the storm raged. The children's tents both blew away; however, I would have gambled a great deal of money that before Philip fell down the hole, they sheltered in a semi-derelict barn-type building. I can picture it in my mind since reading it years ago. It was the next day that Philip 'found' the hole leading into the puffin burrow.

Obviously I am getting the plot muddled with another story. It is not the outhouse in Valley of Adventure, though.

[Lucky Star]

I'm pretty sure that there were no buildings of any description on the island in Sea of Adventure. The children have a meal on the motorboat before retiring to their tents which then blow away and, while walking away from the campsite, Philip falls down the hole.

I think you are thinking of The Adventurous Four. There the children are living in a wooden hut when they are discovered by the enemy. After a storm one night they conceive the idea of pulling down the hut and using the planks to build a raft. They do this and tell the soldiers who come the next morning that the hut blew down in the storm. The men bring them a tent to live in and the hut is duly turned into a raft.

The only other incidence of Blyton characters sheltering in a derelict building are in the Famous Five books Secret Trail and On a Hike Together.

[Moonraker]

I think you are thinking of The Adventurous Four. There the children are living in a wooden hut when they are discovered by the enemy. After a storm one night they conceive the idea of pulling down the hut and using the planks to build a raft. They do this and tell the soldiers who come the next morning that the hut blew down in the storm. The men bring them a tent to live in and the hut is duly turned into a raft.

You are spot on, John, I remember it now. Thanks for putting me out of my misery!

[Lucky Star]

No problem Nigel. I had to puzzle over it myself for about half an hour before it came to me.