“He’ll be pulled out to sea. He’ll drown!” I said.

“I’ll go after him,” said Old Tom, taking off his shoes.

“You’ll drown, too!” I said. “You know you can’t swim well enough.”

Old Tom, for all his years by the ocean, hated the water, didn’t swim well, and never got into it if he could help it.

“I’ve got to try,” said Old Tom.

“Oh dear,” I said, because I knew there was no dissuading him then.

“Well, honestly, am I going to have to do this every two years or what? This is getting to be monotonous,” said Miss Macy in exasperation.

She further amazed us by stripping down to her underwear in two seconds flat. But what was even more amazing was that underneath her khaki uniform she wore gold-sequined underpants and bra.

“A Girl Guide never wavers!” she shouted, and plunged into the sea, greatly exciting the cormorants and gulls that thought they had that patch of sea to themselves.

Miss Macy swam out toward the hermit in swift, measured strokes as if she did this every day. She then quite competently wrapped her arm around the hermit’s chest and swam back to shore. While she did this, I ran into the woods to the hermit’s cabin and grabbed a blanket and a towel. I gathered up Miss Macy’s clothes and, once she and the hermit had reached the shore, threw the blanket on the hermit and the towel to Miss Macy and we hustled them immediately into the woods.

“It will take the sentinel a while to get here, but other soldiers are sure to have seen the plane, if not landing, at least heading this way,” said Old Tom as we ran deeper into the forest. “We must get the hermit out of here. I don’t know how we’ll get him to our house without being seen. And seen wet.”

“We’ll bushwhack to my place,” said Miss Macy. “I’ll hide him there.”

“But you don’t even know what this is about,” I said.

“A Girl Guide is a friend in need, that’s all I need to know,” said Miss Macy.

I was suddenly glad as could be that she was a bit touched. A sane person would have certainly had questions or reservations at this point.

The hermit wasn’t looking any too sprightly. He kept staring at Miss Macy and saying, “You did come. I knew you would.”

“Well, I’ll thank you to stop landing in the water like that,” said Miss Macy acidly. “It’s getting to be a bore. It’s not like I enjoy morning swims in my skivvies. As you can see, salt water is simply heck on sequins. They’re falling off all over the place. I’ll never recover half of them. Do you have any idea how much sequined underwear costs?”