William_the Dictator Read online

  “Who were they?” he said with interest.

  “Black shirts,” said Henry, who always seemed to know everything. “They’re fascists.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They want to be dictators and make everyone do what they want ’em to. An’ then there’s Brown shirts an’—an’ Red ’uns. They’re called Communists, the Red ’uns.”

  “What do they want?” asked William.

  “Oh, they jus’ want to be the dictators, same as the others, an’ make everyone do what they want ’em to. An’ they all shout ’n’ salute ’n’ that sort of thing.”

  “It sounds jolly,” said William. “Do children do it, too?”

  “Yes,” said Henry. “I saw ’em at the pictures once. All in black shirts. Drillin’ an’ such like.”

  “Well, we could, then,” said William, brightening.

  “We’ve not got any black shirts,” objected Douglas.

  “We can black ’em with ink,” suggested Ginger.

  “No, we can’t,” said William. “You know what a fuss they make when ink gets on ’em natural. They’d make an awful fuss if we blackened ’em prop’ly.”

  “What can we do, then?” said Ginger.

  “Well, we needn’t have black shirts,” said William. “We’d rather not, come to that, ’cause they’d only think we’d been copyin’ them, an’ we don’t want ’em to think we’ve been copyin’ them. We won’t have black or brown or red. We’ll have a different colour altogether.”

  “Well, how’re we goin’ to get ’em?” demanded Douglas, who had an irritating habit of being practical. “We’ve only got white shirts, anyway, an’ no one’s likely to buy us any others, an’ we’ve not got any money ourselves, so-—”

  He left the sentence unfinished. They looked at him a little reproachfully. They’d all been seeing themselves as magnificent figures in coloured shirts, saluting and shouting and throwing their arms about, and it was unpleasant to be brought down to earth so abruptly.

  “Let’s ask for them for our Christmas presents—I mean, say we’ll have ’em now to do for our Christmas presents. I bet they’ll have forgotten when Christmas comes an’ give us somethin’ else as well.”

  “No,” said William gloomily. “I’ve often tried that for things. They won’t do it. They’re too mean.”

  “Well, how do these other people get theirs?”

  “I ’spect the government gives them them.”

  “Well, why shu’n’t they give them us?”

  “They won’t,” said Henry with conviction. “They never give anyone anythin’, the government don’t. You should hear the way my father goes on about them.”

  “I say,” said William, struck by a sudden idea, “we could wear our ordin’ry shirts an’ a coloured band round the arm. I’ve seen people doin’ that in pictures.”

  “That’s a jolly fine idea,” said Ginger approvingly. “What colour’ll we have?”

  “We’ll jolly well have to wait till we see what we can get,” said William cautiously. “Tisn’t as if we’d got any money. I’ll have to see if I can pinch anythin’ from Ethel. She gets stuff like that for hats an’ things.”

  “Yes, an’ as soon as we start it that ole Hubert Lane an’ his gang’ll copy it,” said Ginger. “Same as they did our Mayor an’ Corp’ration. They can never think of anythin’ themselves.”

  “Well, let ’em,” said William. “It’ll make it more excitin’. They’ll do for the enemy.”

  “What’ll we call ourselves?”

  “It’ll depend what colour we can get. We’ll all have a good try to get a colour to-night.”

  They all had a good try and assembled with their spoils the next morning. Ginger had found an old tie of his father’s in the rag-bag. Douglas had taken some purple ribbon trimming from an old hat of his mother’s that was among the Rummage Stall contributions on the spare-room bed. Henry had surreptitiously removed the ribbon bow from the neck of his small sister’s Teddy Bear.

  “An’ she’ll make an awful fuss when she finds out,” he said apprehensively. “I never knew anyone like her for makin’ a fuss about nothin’.”

  William, however, had struck lucky. Ethel had run out of stamps and had asked him to go into the village to get some for her. William, as usual, had demanded compensation for his trouble. He had demanded it with unusual politeness, even meekness. “I don’ want money, Ethel,” he had said, “but if you’ve got jus’ a bit of ole ribbon you can let me have I’d be jolly grateful.” Ethel was touched by the unusual humility of his manner. Moreover, she had no halfpennies in her purse and certainly did not mean to give William more than a halfpenny. It happened, too, that she had been tidying her drawers that afternoon and had found a length of peculiarly virulent green ribbon, which she had once been misguided enough to buy at a sale. She had dropped it into her waste-paper basket with a shudder, but her mind now turned to it as a possible solution of the problem.

  “What do you want ribbon for?” she said suspiciously.

  “Well, I—er—sort of want it,” said William mysteriously. “It’s a secret why I want it. A jolly important secret. You’ll be jolly grateful to me one day. It’s somethin’ to do with the gov’nment.”

  “Rubbish!” said Ethel. “Anyway, if you really want some ribbon, I’ve got a beautiful piece upstairs that I’ll give you. But—” for Ethel was more commercial minded than her ethereal looks would have led one to suppose—“it’ll have to do for more than just going once to the post-office. You’ll have to do three things for that.”

  “What three things?” said William, suspicious in his turn.

  “Well, I don’t know yet,” said Ethel. “Into the village or upstairs or anything I want you to do. It’s beautiful ribbon.”

  “I’ll do two for you for it,” offered William.

  “Three.”

  “Two.”

  “Three.”

  ‘Two.”

  “Three.”

  “Well, let me see it.”

  “It’s upstairs. You can fetch it. I—er—put it in my waste-paper basket, because I thought it was a nice safe place for it. It’s beautiful ribbon. I don’t really want to give it away.”

  “Well, can going up for it count for one?”

  “Very well,” agreed Ethel, who was getting tired of the argument. “It can count for one. Then you’ll have to do another, besides going for the stamps, if I give you the ribbon.”

  “All right,” said William, “but it’s not to be anywhere but upstairs or jus’ to the village. I’m not fielding tennis balls for it or anythin’ like that.”

  “You’re not exactly going to put yourself out, are you?” said Ethel sarcastically.

  William was already half-way upstairs, so made no retort to this. He returned a few moments later with the ribbon.

  “Yes, it’s jolly nice,” he said. “Thanks awfully. I’ll field tennis balls once for it, if you like.”

  “I don’t suppose we’ll want you to,” said Ethel generously. “You’re not much good at it, anyway. You generally start doing something on your own and forget all about it. Anyway, you can go and get me those stamps now.”

  William put the ribbon in his pocket, fetched the stamps, then set off to join his Outlaws at the old barn. The ribbon, about two inches wide, was enough to make armlets for them all. Henry promised to get the necessary safety-pins to-morrow from his little sister’s nursery.

  “We’ll call ourselves the Green shirts,” said William, “an’ we’ll do same as the others—drill an’ salute an’ make speeches an’ all that.”

  Henry brought the safety-pins the next morning (he had been pursued down the road by the nurse, who had, unfortunately, seen him take them), and Ginger hacked the ribbon into four pieces with a very blunt penknife then, discarding their coats, they slipped the armlets up their sleeves and at once began to drill energetically under William’s leadership. After that they marched in military fashion through the village, then William
stood on a stile by the roadside and harangued them, throwing out his arms, in the fashion of his model as he emphasised his points.

  “You’ve gorrer have a dictator . . . you’ve all gorrer be Green shirts same as us . . . We’re goin’ to fight everyone that isn’t. We’re goin’ to fight everyone in the world. We’re goin’ to conquer the world. We’re goin’ to be dictators over the world . . .”

  He then saluted Henry, Ginger, and Douglas, and they all marched on through the village.

  As Ginger had foretold, this proceeding attracted the attention of the Hubert Laneites. Hubert Lane himself approached them as they marched past his house, looking cautious and inquisitive, followed by Bertie Franks.

  “What’re you doing?” said Hubert, trying to speak carelessly, but obviously consumed by curiosity.

  “Never you mind,” said William, not because he didn’t mean to tell Hubert, but in order to whet his curiosity the further.

  “Go on—tell us,” said Hubert, a nauseating note of coaxing in his voice.

  “You’ll know soon enough,” said William, in a tone that he strove to make menacing and sinister. “You’ll know all right when you wake up one morning an’ find yourself in a dungeon an’ us dictators.”

  Hubert Lane looked slightly taken aback. Then he rallied his forces.

  “Go on!” he said. “Who’d make you dictators?”

  “We’ll make ourselves,” said William darkly. “It’ll all happen quite sudden. They’re gettin’ the dungeons ready for you now.”

  Hubert Lane went slightly pale, but Bertie Franks rallied to his chief's rescue.

  “Dungeon yourself!” he said. “Anyway, what are you?”

  “Green shirts,” said William. “An’ we’re goin’ to be dictators over the whole world.”

  “Can anyone join?” said Hubert anxiously.

  “No,” said William. “We don’t want you anyway. We’re very partic’lar who we have in the Green shirts. We’re goin’ to have you in the dungeon.”

  He started forward, winking at his followers, and added: “Come on! Let’s capture him now!”

  Hubert and Bertie ran off as fast as their fat legs could carry them. The Outlaws pretended to pursue them for a few yards, then returned to the old barn, where William drilled them again and made a few more speeches.

  The next day Hubert and his followers appeared in white shirts with handsome broad blue ribbons round their arms.

  “We’re the Blue shirts,” shouted Hubert from the safe refuge of his garden hedge, “an’ we’re jolly well goin’ to get a dungeon for you.”

  “Oh, you are, are you?” retorted William. “Well how’re you goin’ to manage it, shut up in one yourself?”

  Exchanging similar pleasantries, the two bands patrolled the village, drilling and marching and making speeches. Hubert couldn’t think of anything to say himself, so he simply repeated what he heard William say. He also avoided meeting the Green shirts, contenting himself with hurling insults at them over the hedges as they marched past his garden.

  “Come out and have a fight!” William would shout. “We’re ready for you.”

  But the Hubert Laneites would never come out and have a fight.

  There didn’t, therefore, seem very much to do except march about and drill, salute each other, and make speeches of a very limited scope, and the Outlaws would soon have tired of the affair had not the Hubert Laneites introduced a new element into it.

  “Yah!” called Hubert Lane to them over the hedge one morning as they marched past. “We’ve gotter col’ny.”

  William stopped.

  “A what?” he said.

  “A col’ny,” said Hubert. He climbed up on to a garden seat and grinned down at them. He looked very fat and smug in his white shirt with the broad blue armlet. Through the hedge the Outlaws could see the other Blue shirts standing in a group, listening. “Don’t you know what a col’ny is?”

  “’Course I do,” said William hastily. “I know a jolly sight more about col’nies than what you do.”

  “Well, all these shirt people want col’nies,” said Hubert, “I heard my father talkin’ about it yest’day an’ my aunt’s given us her garden for a col’ny so we’ve gotter col’ny an’ you haven’t. Yah!”

  “Oh, you think we’ve not gotter col’ny, do you?” said William, with what was meant to be a short, dry laugh. “Oh, that’s what you think, is it? Well, you’d be jolly surprised if you knew about our col’ny. It’s a jolly sight better than any ole aunt’s garden, I can tell you.”

  “Where is it, then?” said Hubert, incredulous but impressed, despite himself, by William’s manner.

  “You’d like to know wouldn’t you?” said William, repeating the short, dry laugh not very successfully, and quickly moving his followers on beyond earshot.

  “What is a col’ny?” he said, as soon as they had safely turned the bend in the road.

  “It’s a place where c’lonials live,” said Douglas. “My cousin knows some c’lonials. They’re jus’ the same as English, but they talk a bit different.”

  “Why should these shirt people want ’em?”

  Even Henry was rather vague on this point.

  “I dunno,” he said, “but I bet I can find out.”

  When they next met they gathered from the somewhat complacent expression on Henry’s face that he had managed to find out, to his own satisfaction at any rate.

  “They want col’nies,” he said, “’cause there’s food and stuff there.”

  “I bet you’re thinking of a sankcherry,” said William.

  “A what?”

  “A sankcherry. Bird sankcherry an’ boy sankcherry an’ such like. Nuts an’ stuff everywhere.”

  “Dunno about that,” said Henry vaguely, “but it’s col’nies these shirt people want.”

  “An’ they’ve got one,” Ginger reminded them.

  “I bet they haven’t really,” said William. “They were jus’ swankin’. I bet they’ve not got one. I bet no one’s aunt would give ’em a garden. Not if they’re anythin’ like my aunts, anyway. Where does his aunt live? Let’s go’n’ see.”

  A few cautious enquiries led to the discovery of Hubert’s aunt’s address, and the Green shirts set off at a march to investigate matters further.

  “Messin’ it all up with col’nies and stuff!” grumbled Ginger. “They never can leave anythin’ alone. Green shirts an’ Blue shirts were all right, but—col’nies!”

  Hubert’s aunt lived at a cottage at the other end of the village. She was one of the more foolish kind of aunts and shared with Hubert’s mother the delusion that Hubert was sweet. She thought everything he said and did wonderful and she gave him pennies whenever she met him. And there, sure enough, was a large notice on the gate—“Blue Shirts Col’ny”—with a small blue flag waving above.

  The Green shirts looked cautiously about, but there was no sign of the Blue shirts.

  “Let’s get away quick before they see us an’ start swankin’,” said William.

  They marched on quickly down the road.

  “We’ll have to get one now,” said Ginger firmly.

  “Y-yes,” agreed William.

  His imagination had visualised his “Boy Sanctuary” at Gorse View, set out with nuts and sweets and cakes, so plainly that he could hardly believe that it wasn’t actually there, stocked with dainties, his own private property. It would make a wonderful col’ny. It would knock Hubert’s aunt’s garden hollow.

  “Yes,” Henry was saying, “we’ll have to get something. Let’s all think over our aunts.”

  They all thought over their aunts. It was a depressing meditation. Their faces grew longer and blanker.

  “Mine won’t even let me go into her garden,” said Douglas, bitterly, “much less give it me.”

  All the Outlaws seemed similarly situated with regard to aunts and aunts’ gardens.

  “I never meant to fall through her old greenhouse,” said Ginger. “I was only jus’ trying to
climb over it, an’ ever since then she’s not even let me go inside her gate.”

  It appeared that Henry, having been asked recently by his aunt to post a letter, had forgotten all about it, and it had stayed in his pocket for a week. It had been, according to Henry’s aunt, a most important letter. (“Askin’ ole Mrs. Monks to teal” said Henry, in disgust. “As if that was important!”) and they were now not on speaking terms, while William, after an unsuccessful attempt to graft one of her new apple trees on to another, according to some instructions that he had read in the paper, had been forbidden by his aunt ever to enter her garden again.