Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming

smell dirty work! Now then everyone, switch on the brains! Full power! What do we do next?"
    Mimsie, who was, like all mothers, worried about the children, said at once, "Darling, let's close the secret door again and reverse quietly back down the way we came. I don't like the look of this at all."
    But Jeremy and Jemima just wouldn't agree to this. They were both the tiniest bit trembly about the way the adventure was going, but they had inherited some of their father's exploring bug and they were terribly eager to discover the secrets of the big underground vault. "Oh, please, Mimsie," they both pleaded together, "do let's find out what it's all about."
    Commander Pott reflected and said, "Well, Mimsie, after all, no one's going to eat us. And the children don't seem worried. I vote we see the adventure through. It would be ghastly reversing CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG the whole way back now over a mile of cave to the sea. Besides we've been climbing ali the way and we can't be far from the top of the cliff. The cave obviously goes on out of this vault on the other side and leads on to the top. Come on, we'll drive the car up on to the level floor of the vault and give her a rest and then have a good explore. After all, this is pretty thrilling and we really must get to the bottom of this secret."
    "All right, darling," said Mimsie rather reluctantly. "You know I'm just as keen as you are to find out what this is all about. But if you ask me, there's something pretty fishy about all—this something, well, something criminal. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we hadn't come upon a nest of crooks and gangsters. I only hope none of them appear while we're looking into their secret hoard!"
    "Oh, well," said Commander Pott cheerfully, "have to take the rough with the smooth. You never get real adventures without a bit of risk somewhere. Come on!" And they all piled back into CHITTY-CHITTY-BANG-BANG and crept up the last bit of slope
    until they were parked slap in the middle of the huge secret vault.
    While the others piled out and began carefully sniffing about round the edge of the bales and barrels and packages, Commander Pott went back and found the switch on their side of the secret door and, with a grind and a hum of machinery, the two halves came together again. Then he came back and they all systematically began to pry and peer into the secret stocks that were piled up round the walls of the big echoing vault.
    Jeremy was the first. "Machine guns," he cried excitedly, "packed in grease paper. They're in sections ready to be assembled !"
    Mimsie said, "Oh, heavens! Boxes and boxes of bombs and hand grenades!"
    "Daggers," called Jemima, "all kinds of them. And bayonets with rifles to go with them!"
    "Well, I'm dashed," said Commander Pott, "dynamite in these cases, and yards and yards of fuse. And gelignite the stuff burglars use to blast open safes and vaults."
    "Revolvers," called out Jeremy, "automatic pistols. Big ones and small ones—every kind. With boxes and boxes of cartridges."
    Mimsie called out anxiously, "Now don't touch anything, children. You can look, but not touch. Something might go off." (Mothers are always thinking something is going to go off—on Guy Fawkes' day, for instance, with the fireworks. And very often mothers are right about this. I must admit that Jeremy and Jemima knew this through one bitter experience with a box of firecrackers, and they were very careful about the way they peered into the boxes and bales.)
    So the search went on. And there was no doubt about it, the family had come upon a great secret arsenal of weapons that certainly hadn't been hidden down in the vault except for some secret and probably criminal purpose.
    Finally they all came together again in the middle of the vault and they looked at their father to see what he was going to say about this extraordinary and rather frightening discovery.
    Commander Pott had a scruffy bit of paper in his hand and he said, "You know what