Young Phillip Maddison Page 18

  Soon the heat of noon made them silent. They walked on more slowly. Their faces were red when at last they turned up Whitefoot Lane, to rest in the cooler shade of the hedge, before going onwards and upwards, and to enter the northern strip of woodland from the edge of which could be seen, across the potato fields, beyond the red misty lines of new houses, far away in the summer haze the City of London from which arose, very small and blue, the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  *

  The blunt little chopper, in the shape of an axe, struck branches of trees at right-angles, merely banging them and leaving dints, so the idea of a leafy shelter to screen the white tent and the yellow milk-cart was abandoned. There were plenty of dry sticks for a fire, from which the aromatic smoke of hazel and oak wandered. No one disturbed them; only the wood pigeon’s wings smacked as he flew out, the jay screamed in the distance; a robin came near, to share crumbs with its new friends. The sun was brilliant in the treetops; then more golden as it moved away and down past the trunks; red-gold as the beams, concentrated in a fiery silken cocoon, sank down upon the horizon.

  It was time for Phillip to return. He put off departure as long as possible.

  “Well so long, men. I’ll be out early tomorrow. Don’t forget to clean your teeth with sticks beaten out on stones, like in the book.”

  “So long, Phillip.”

  The way home lay between those familiar elms whose lower leaves in summer were grey from the road-dust which arose in long billowing clouds behind nearly every motorcar. Phillip noticed that motorists crept very slowly through the police trap, having been warned by A.A. men who held up white plates. Having got through the trap, the more sporty motorists moved down the levers of their throttles on the steering columns until their carburettors were hissing with the intake, as Phillip had often heard. Now, imagining himself driving a Napier, a Grand Prix Napier, three tons in weight, its bright driving chains crashing, a mile-long funnel of dust behind him swirling up to the topmost leaves of the wayside elms, he pressed on homewards, pedalling his fastest, his thoughts away from reality; to be jerked back to reality as he came near the outer limit of the trap when he saw the figure of Father on the Sunbeam cycling towards him, well into the left of the road as usual. Father was unmistakable in the distance; no one else on a bike wore a brown Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers with brown stockings that had an adder-pattern around the tops. No one cycled so upright, in such a straight line, so near to the left of the road, as Father. As the figure came nearer, Phillip began to feel himself becoming all bits and pieces from what he had been in the woods, and he made up his mind to pretend not to see Father, not to salute him or to stop. He pedalled his very fastest, bending head and back over the handlebars, pretending to be racing home in the greatest hurry as he stared at the blurred grey of the front tyre, and heard the cyclometer below going tick-tick-tick-tick rapidly.

  When he got home, his supper was on a tray ready for him—a slice of cold mutton, slices of buttered bread, and a jar of sweet chutney. Mother was next door, playing her nightly game of bezique with Gran’pa. Cocoa in the pot, already mixed with milk, stood on the gas-stove. A message on paper by his plate said, in pencil, Back soon, don’t forget to keep flame low under cocoa and turn out all taps, Mother.

  Phillip chewed his mutton in solitary enjoyment; it was nice to be alone in the house. He was eating his cold prunes and custard when Mother came in through the scullery and asked him how he had got on.

  “Oh, all right, Mum.”

  “Did you find a good dry site for the tent, dear?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Good boy, you’ve turned out the gas at the main, as well as in front.”

  “Just to prevent the prophesied paternal explosion.”

  “Hush, Sonny!” laughed Hetty. “You must not laugh at your Father like that.”

  “I’m not laughing; you are. Where is he? Kite-flying?”

  “Oh, didn’t you see him, dear? He cycled out to look at your camp, to see if you were all right. He has slung the hammock under the tree in the garden, and says you can sleep out in it, if you like.”

  “Oh lor’, I hope he won’t find our camp, and see Cranmer.”

  “Well, perhaps he will then see what a nice boy he really is.”

  “Huh. I think it’s beastly of Father to make me come back every night like this, when I am the patrol-leader.”

  “Father is only thinking of your own good, dear, as you will realise when you are older.”

  “How old, Henrietta?”

  “Phillip, how dare you! Don’t you let your Father hear you calling me that,” laughed Hetty.

  “I quite understand,” replied Phillip, as he went down the garden to look at the hammock.

  He was lying in it, undressed and between a sheet and blankets, when his father returned. Hearing him walking down the grass, Phillip pretended to be asleep. He watched through his lashes Father quietly going back to the sitting room; then drawing a deep breath, he snuggled down to enjoy the deepening twilight alone.

  Through the dusk lights in the back rooms of houses up and down the road were visible. He imagined the people within going to bed. There was no light showing at the back of Turret House; Mrs. Rolls’ cook-housekeeper and parlourmaid had already gone to bed, while Helena’s bedroom was in the turret in front of the house. He knew this because one morning, at half past seven, as he passed the house on his way to the Hill, to earn twopence by retrieving balls for the early morning tennis players, he heard Mr. Rolls from the main bedroom opposite call out, in a master-of-the-house voice that seemed to come itself from bedclothes, “Helena! Get up!” a lazy, easy voice. Mother said Mr. and Mrs. Rolls were a perfect love match. Phillip knew that Mrs. Rolls was going to have another baby.

  Something was moving near the hammock, in the corner of the garden, where the fence was low. It rustled, then grunted. Peering over the smooth edge of the slippery esparto grass, gingerly lest he tip himself out, Phillip watched a dark shape moving over the lawn, around the base of the tree. It was only Father’s hedgehog, which he had had for years, sometimes feeding it with milk in a saucer.

  Stars showed above the slated roofs and the black chimney stacks. He wondered how his men were getting on, in the gleam of the camp-fire just outside the tent.

  The air was cool and clear to breathe, so much nicer than in the bedroom, even with the window wide open. Pleasantly tired by the day’s exertions, he fell into a deep sleep, from which he awakened soon after dawn.

  *

  In this chill, steel-clear morning air Phillip got out of the hammock, dressed, and with boots in hand crept to the door by the back steps leading up to the porch. His bicycle stood in the porch. He had oiled the lock the previous morning, meaning to leave early, with no sound. Lifting his bicycle down the path between the rockery, he carried it over the lawn, and under the railing to Gran’pa’s lawn. The reason was in the gates; No. 12 stood permanently open, held by a brick, while his own had a heavy coiled spring along the hinge to the post, to keep it always shut. It might go bang, and waken Father. Phillip was taking no chances of being stopped getting to his men for breakfast round the camp fire.

  Boots tied round his neck, he cycled down the pavement to Randiswell, feeling himself like Mr. Mundy the vicar, only he didn’t take off his boots and sling them round his neck. Feeling delightfully free, Phillip sat on the pavement by Hern’s, and put on his boots. Then he cycled onwards, fast through the solitary clear morning, into the High Street and so to the main road damp with dew.

  Smoke was rising from the rear chimneys of the big walled house at the corner of Whitefoot Lane, and sinking down broadly, like the grey chiffon scarf worn by Mrs. Rolls, among the cedars in the park on the right of the sandy lane. He passed the tall hollies in the hedge, seeing the haystacks across the paddock, on the other side, the field of Sheppherd’s farm. Sheppherd was said to chase away all who trespassed on his farm with the aid of a very big and fierce dog. Sheppherd was also rumoured
to shoot at boys’ trousers, as they ran away, with a gun loaded with tintacks.

  Phillip hid his bicycle just inside the wood, and having covered it with green leaves, he went forward along the path trodden among the trees, walking on tip-toe, feeling himself to be part of the silence of the new morning. He looked about him, ready to freeze if he saw any movement; perhap she would see a fox, stealing home with a rabbit in its mouth. He had gone fifty yards or so down the path when he stopped still, his nostrils expanded, every sense alert: for he had smelled tobacco smoke. Someone must be in the wood!

  Remembering the wrinkle in Scouting for Boys how to find the wind’s direction, he wetted an index finger and held it up. It felt cold to the east, from the direction of the low sun, shining direct into his face. He could see nothing in that direction, and could easily be seen. He dropped on hands and knees, and began to creep forward with extreme care, first picking up and removing any twigs on the path before him. He reached the shelter of a big oak, and looking at ground level to his right, saw a man in shirt-sleeves standing by an upturned bicycle, repairing a puncture. He had a big pink face, and wore dark blue trousers. With alarm Phillip saw a policeman’s helmet and tunic hanging on a branch-stump beside him. Christmas, a bobby!

  He lay on the ground, wondering if he would be seen if he crept back to his bicycle, to make his escape while he could. But supposing the patrol started to make a noise, singing, or Cranmer imitating a stoned dog? Would the tent be confiscated, if they were summoned for trespass? What should he do? Go back to the bike, or creep on to warn the patrol? Any moment Cranmer’s idiotic yelping might come through the trees. Would his bicycle be confiscated by the policeman if he saw it, in order to force him to claim it, and so give himself away for trespassing?

  The bike was well hidden, and nowhere near the gap by which the policeman probably had entered. With relief he heard him whistling the tune of Three Juicy Juicy Jews, a comic song the red-wigged funny man had sung in the Merry Minstrels; and though this might be a trap to lure him to be careless, perhaps after all he had not seen him. He crept on until he was well out of sight, then rising to his feet, went on tensely and fast, beginning to enjoy the adventure the more because he had been saved by his sense of smell and deduction, like a real scout.

  With relief he saw that the tent was still where it had been the evening before. It was closed. The fire was out before it. He felt the ashes. They were cold. The robin was waiting for him, perched on a nearby branch. That seemed to show that all was well; and peeping through the flap, he saw that the others were asleep inside, all looking tumbled up as though bent, for the tent was only four feet in diameter. Cranmer’s face with open mouth lay between the boots of Desmond and Jones. His face looked swelled.

  Phillip pressed his hand, having read that this was the way to waken a man without giving him too much of a start. Cranmer opened his eyes and stared a few moments with what seemed to be misery in them, then he gave a sigh and said, “Blime, I was dreaming th’ slops were arter me.” He raised himself on his elbow, and grinned, looking pleased to see Phillip.

  There was no time to be lost. Phillip awoke the others, who scratched and sighed dully, after their uncomfortable night, before creeping out and yawning.

  “Quick, there’s no time to be lost! Desmond, roll up the blankets and get them into the hand-cart! Cranmer, take down the tent and put it in too! Not a sound! We may be surrounded by a posse! Don’t leave this place until I give the order! I’m going back to reconnoitre. If you hear me give the Bloodhound bay, then make off up that way”—pointing to the northern edge of the wood—“and follow the hedge to the sunken lane, which leads down to the main road. There I’ll join you.”

  “What’s up, Phillip?” asked Cranmer.

  “Police are in the wood! It may be a posse! I scented their tobacco smoke just in time. I’m going back to spy out the land.”

  He felt a little alarmed by the thought that his invention of a posse might be true.

  The two tenderfeet, Jones and Allen, their faces swelled and weary, looked frightened. Seeing this Phillip said, “No need for panic! On second thoughts I don’t think they can be after us, else they’d have been here before now. Only keep absolutely quiet until I return.”

  Phillip was in time to see the policeman, helmet and jacket on, cycling away up the lane. He watched him out of sight; then after an interval in case it was a blind, and he should return, he went back along the path and reported that the coast was clear.

  “A narrow escape, chaps, lucky I crossed his wind, sniffed his shag, and immediately lay doggo. You must always creep through a wood, and speak in whispers, if you must talk, but it is best to remain absolutely silent when you are on the trail.”.

  “Yes, Phillip.”

  Soon the fire was going. Mess-tins were held out in acrid smoke and flame for the frying of bacon and eggs, the sausages having been eaten the previous day. Phillip knew how to fry eggs, and showed the tenderfeet how to avoid making them black underneath, after sticking to the pan. The secret, he said, was to fry them after the bacon, in the fat, and swish them about as soon as they were dropped into the pan, to get the fat well under them.

  “An egg on roller-skates of fat,” he said. “It’s best to break the yoke at once, then this mixed in with the white makes a very nice pat of tasty stuff, and you don’t then drop egg all over your lap or down your shirt.”

  Food and tea made them all feel better. They had not been able to sleep in the tent, except in snatches, said Cranmer.

  “Trouble is the moskeeters, proper bloodsuckers they are. All night long they was ’ummin’ and whinin’, they ‘atch art’v’r dirt, for when the flap was shut the ’ummin’ and whinin’ got mor’an’ more. Wors’n bugs they is.”

  “You must all put on some of Mother’s Zam-Buk, and rub it in,” said Phillip. “Zam-Buk cures all complaints quickly, it says so on the lid.”

  The pale green grease certainly seemed to ease the itch of bites.

  The patrol had an unexpected visitor during breakfast. This was Mr. Jones. His appearance was something of a shock, for he appeared suddenly from behind a tree and said in a deep voice, “You’re all dead, wiped out in an ambush!” while pointing a finger at them, pretending it was a revolver. “Ha ha! Caught you all napping, didn’t I, eh? So this is the famous Bloodhounds’ camp, is it? Well well well,” he said, in a jovial sneering voice.

  Later he sat on a log by the fire and insisted on singing to them. He had a biggish red face, with a large black moustache waxed to points at the ends. The whites of his eyes were yellow and livery. Phillip could not help noticing his breath, since Mr. Jones held his face close to his and fixed him with his eyes as he rolled out, in a deep nasal voice,

  Come, come, come to me Thora!

  Come once again to me!

  Light of my life, dream of my dreams

  which made Phillip a little sad, despite Mr. Jones’ awful breath, and his livery eyes.

  Phillip had overheard Mrs. Bigge telling Mother that Mr. Jones had left Mrs. Jones, and when she was going to have a baby, too, poor thing. There was something about a court order, but Phillip had not been interested enough to listen; all he had cared about was that Mrs. Jones had given permission for Brian to join the patrol.

  Mr. Jones’ breath might have been beer, or it might have been sherry and smoking together, thought Phillip, trying to remember what his own breath had smelt like, when once he had puffed it into his hand and sniffed it after drinking Father’s sherry and smoking an Ogden’s Tab at the same time. Mr. Jones’ voice was loud, and he wished he would moderate it. But after Thora was ended, Mr. Jones went on to sing a song that Uncle Hugh sometimes played on his cigar-box violin with the brass horn sticking out of it, only Mr. Jones sang it vulgarly. Uncle Hugh said it should not be sung as though you were calling the cows home. He wished Mr. Jones would not hold him by the arm, while fixing him with his brown-yellowy eyes as he waved his other hand with a diamond ring on the little finge
r.

  Uncle Hugh played the song softly, like the breeze murmuring in the trees in Alice, Where Art Thou. Uncle Hugh had played it to him in his room so beautifully that the tears had run down Uncle’s cheeks, and he himself had nearly cried, too. Thank goodness Mavis had not been there, for she laughed whenever she saw tears in his eyes. He hated Mavis for pointing at them, and jeering. She had not done it, however, since she had tried to run away from home, after Father found out about her going in the long grass of the Backfield with Alfred Hawkins. Once or twice since then he had seen tears in her eyes, when he came upon her talking with Mother on the sofa in the front room.

  “Come on now, you boys, let’s have a rousin’ chorus. How about ‘Out Went the Gas’? Come on, there doesn’t seem to be overmuch spunk in the Bloodhound patrol! You fellers are too quiet by half. Come on now! ‘Out Went the Gas.’ When Harry Champion sings it, he brings down the ’ouse.”

  “We don’t know how it goes,” replied Phillip, quickly, to cover his confusion. Spunk was an embarrassing word, for it meant something besides what grown-ups meant when they used it, a word out of old-fashioned stories like Midshipman Easy and Harrison Ainsworth’s books. Phillip tried not to giggle, as he stared into the livery eyes under the tilted straw hat with the red and yellow band around the crown, which Mr. Jones said were the colours of his cricket team, the Rushy Green Ramblers.

  “Well then, now’s your chance to learn! I’ll sing the song first, then you can pick it up.”

  Mr. Jones sang the rapid pattering song about someone giving him a big cigar, and when he lit it out went the gas, so loudly that Phillip was sure he would be heard as far as the lane; and this was just about what did happen. For when Mr. Jones was about to finish, an alarming figure with a dog appeared, walking on the path through the trees. Phillip saw that it was Sheppherd the farmer, the rumoured tin-tack pepperer of boys running away.