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and Jeremy run off to the right, and let's hope we find a safe place, because otherwise we'll just have to put to sea again and none of us wants to spend the night out in the Channel. All right then, off we go!"
    It was Jeremy, running on ahead of Mimsie, who found it. Round a big headland, tucked right in under the cliff so that you couldn't see it from seawards, was the mouth of a CAVE! The sideways opening was quite big, about as big as garage doors, which was the first and most important comparison that came to Jeremy's mind. He called Mimsie and together they went in, over the tide line of seaweed and washed-up cans and bottles and bits of plastic bags and all the other junk that gets carried in on the tide. They could see that, farther in, the cave widened out and got bigger. But then it got a bit spooky and they both decided that the thing to do would be to bring CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG in with her tremendous lights before they went any farther. So they ran back, scrambling and rattling over the beach, and shouted and called for Commander Pott and Jemima, who presently came back to where Jeremy and Mimsie waited beside CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG whose back wheels were already being dangerously approached by the rising tide.
    When Commander Pott had heard what they had to say, they all climbed into the car and, with her usual two sneezes and two bangs, she turned and moved slowly, humping and bumping over the beach, toward the cave. At the noise of her great rumbling exhaust, the sea gulls flew screeching out from the top of the cliff and the vibration of her rumble even dislodged small pebbles and scraps of chalk that came tumbling down the gigantic high cliff and once or twice made them cover their heads with their hands and duck.
    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