William At War Read online

  Mrs Brown looked at William. William looked at the carrots and understood now only too well those faint sounds he had heard in the hall while Mrs Monks was writing her note . . .

  ‘William!’ said Mrs Brown reproachfully.

  With obvious reluctance, Mrs Monks exonerated William.

  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been William,’ she said. ‘Not actually William, at least. William was in here with me all the time.’

  ‘But who could have done it, then?’ said Mrs Brown. ‘William, you didn’t bring any of your friends home with you, did you?’

  ‘No, Mother,’ said William, assuring himself that neither Hector nor Herbert came under that category. ‘No, Mother, I didn’t bring any of my friends home.’

  ‘But I can’t think—’ began Mrs Brown, when Miss Thompson entered. She entered in her usual birdlike, fluttering manner, but she suggested now a bird in deep distress. She wore perched on her head a little plain, untrimmed hat.

  ‘I found the front door open, and so I just came in,’ she said. ‘Mrs Brown, I don’t know what to do. I can’t think what’s happened . . .’

  ‘Happened?’ said Mrs Brown, in a faint voice.

  ‘To my hat,’ said Miss Thompson. ‘I only bought it this morning. I came in it when I came to bring my rice.’ (‘Rice!’ put in Mrs Monk, and Miss Milton in indignant surprise.) ‘It had a band of ribbon round it and a little feather in the front. William knows it had. He saw it. I showed it him. I looked at it in the glass. I took it off because it was making my head ache, and put it on the chest while I came in here to write my note, and then I put it on again – Oh, very carelessly and without looking because I’m such a scatter-brain, you know – but when I got home and took it off I found that the trimming had gone.’

  The room spun round Mrs Brown. She caught hold of the table next to her to keep it still.

  William’s face wore a fixed and glassy look of horror. Gosh! They’d been up both times. They’d taken the things out of Mrs Monks’s handbag and the trimming from Miss Thompson’s hat.

  ‘The trimming gone?’ repeated Mrs Brown feebly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Thompson. ‘The trimming gone. It was quite untrimmed when I got home. It couldn’t have fallen off. A band of ribbon and a feather can’t fall off a hat while it’s on the head. I know I’m a scatter-brain, but I’m quite sure of that. It must have been taken off, and it must have been taken off here while I was writing my note . . . And it couldn’t have been William, because he was with me all the time.’

  Mrs Brown raised a hand to her head. She looked from the carrots that Mrs Monks was still holding out accusingly, to the plain, straw hat in Miss Thompson’s small, clawlike hand.

  ‘I – I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I mean – who could it have been?’

  THE ROOM SPUN ROUND MRS BROWN. SHE CAUGHT HOLD OF THE TABLE NEXT TO HER TO KEEP IT STILL.

  ‘A poltergeist,’ said Miss Milton, in a tone of deep satisfaction. ‘I’ve read about them in psychic papers. That was what I heard, and that was what put carrots in Mrs Monks’s bag and took the trimming off Miss Thompson’s hat.’

  WILLIAM’S FACE WORE A FIXED AND GLASSY LOOK OF HORROR.

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Mrs Monks rudely. ‘Anyway, what I want to know is, where my purse and engagement diary have got to, and where Miss Thompson’s feather is? That’s the question.’

  Mrs Brown made a supreme effort to recover her faculties.

  ‘William,’ she said, ‘do you know anything at all about this?’

  William was saved from answering by a loud noise from below. It sounded like – and probably was – someone sliding down a heap of coal.

  They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, then Mrs Brown went from the room to the cellar door and stood there listening. The others followed slowly.

  ‘There’s someone in the cellar,’ she said at last, her face paling as she turned to them. ‘I can hear them moving about quite plainly.’

  A thief in the cellar was something definite, something one could, to a certain extent at any rate, deal with, and Mrs Brown’s usual matter-of-fact manner returned to her. With a quick movement she twisted the key in the lock, then turned to William.

  ‘William, go round to the police station at once and fetch Sergeant Perkins. It’s no use ringing them up,’ she went on to the others, ‘because, if you do, the stupid one always answers and he’s deaf as well. Run as fast as you can, William. Tell Sergeant Perkins that I’ve got a man – say a dangerous man – locked in the cellar, and that he’d better bring help in case he’s violent. I was saying only the other day that that cellar’s not safe. A thief could so easily remove the grating and force the window and then conceal himself there till everyone was in bed. Hurry up, William! Don’t stand dawdling there. Run all the way . . .’

  William went out of the front door, his face set like the face of a sleepwalker. Long ago he had given up all hope of being able to control the situation. He was now the blind tool of Fate . . .

  The three women stood by the cellar door, watching the keyhole anxiously, as though it might unlock itself if not kept under close observation.

  ‘You did lock it, didn’t you?’ said Miss Milton apprehensively. ‘It would be rather a catastrophe if it had been locked and you’d unlocked it.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘It’s all right.’ She tried the key again. ‘It’s quite safe.’

  ‘I wonder if he knows we know,’ said Mrs Monks. ‘I hope he isn’t planning anything.’ Then a sudden thought struck her and she said: ‘But, Mrs Brown, that doesn’t explain the carrots.’

  ‘Nor my feather,’ said Miss Thompson.

  Then suddenly there came from the cellar another sound of falling coal, followed by a peal of unmistakably childish laughter.

  ‘It’s – children,’ gasped Mrs Brown.

  ‘So it is,’ said Mrs Monks. Her nervousness vanished abruptly. Children. She knew how to deal with children. She could control a whole Sunday school by the flicker of an eyelash. There was no choirboy in existence so unquellable that she could not quell him at once . . . She seemed to grow several inches taller as she assumed her official manner.

  ‘Let me deal with this,’ she said. ‘To begin with, at any rate. I’ll go down first, alone. If I need help I’ll call . . .’

  ‘But, Mrs Monks—’ began Mrs Brown anxiously.

  Mrs Monks paid no attention to her. With the air of a general at the head of a large army she marched down the cellar steps. At the bottom the dim light from the grating showed her the whole scene in a moment – Herbert as a Red Indian, wearing round his head the trimming of Miss Thompson’s hat, Hector as the Pale Face (his face paled by Mrs Monks’s powder compact), and, ranged in a small box, the contents of Mrs Monks’s handbag, by means of which the Pale Face had been purchasing native food (such as carrots and potatoes). Many half-eaten carrots lay about them on the floor. Their persons revealed generous traces of the coal-heap, which they had utilised for ‘shooting the rapids’. But this scene lasted only a moment. William had warned the twins that the enemy might come, and the twins had prepared a heap of ammunition in readiness for the contingency. No sooner had Mrs Monks taken in this amazing scene than one of Mrs Brown’s pickled eggs caught her full on the forehead, and another on her mouth, which she was opening for a majestic reproof. Almost immediately afterwards a large piece of coal struck her on the chest. Mrs Monks was a brave woman. She had once shoo’ed out a dangerous bull that had strayed into the Vicarage garden, and it had obeyed her meekly. But she was winded, choked and blinded. Dripping with coal and egg, she staggered up the cellar steps to rejoin the other three. They stared at her in blank dismay.

  ‘There are two children down there,’ she said indistinctly, but with as much dignity as could possibly be mustered in the circumstances. ‘Two children. Quite small, but – I think I’ll sit down for a moment. I seem to have swallowed an egg shell . . .’

  From below came the voices of t
he twins, now unrestrained and exultant.

  ‘We’re bombing the enemy,’ they shouted. ‘We’re bombing the enemy! The enemy! The enemy! We’re bombing the enemy!’

  ‘Come along, Miss Thompson,’ said Mrs Brown firmly. ‘We must do something at once.’

  They descended the steps – only to return a few moments later in much the same condition as Mrs Monks.

  ‘There’s no getting near them,’ gasped Mrs Brown, wiping egg out of her eye.

  ‘The little villains!’ panted Miss Thompson. ‘My poor feather! Oh, dear, I’ve swallowed such a big piece of coal. I hope it won’t do me any harm.’

  ‘Of course it won’t,’ said Mrs Monks curtly. ‘Carbon’s good for the digestion.’

  From below the exultant shouts increased in volume to the accompaniment of breaking eggs. Herbert and Hector were evidently carrying on a glorious fight.

  ‘Bombing the enemy!’ and they continued to shout: ‘Bomb! Bomb! Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!’

  ‘My poor eggs!’ moaned Mrs Brown. ‘I put down eight dozen.’

  Then William returned. He had no suspicion of recent developments, and had had the sudden and brilliant idea of pretending that Hector and Herbert had fallen through the grating accidentally and become imprisoned in the cellar through no fault of their own or his.

  But the sight of the three figures in the hall took away his power of speech and, before he had recovered it, Mrs Brown spoke in a firm voice.

  ‘William, I’ll ask you about this later. But for the present go down into the cellar at once and bring up those two children.’

  William obeyed. There was nothing else to do. He went down to the cellar and stopped the egg-battle.

  ‘We’ve bombed the enemy,’ sang Hector, and:

  ‘Is the war over now?’ asked Herbert.

  William assured them grimly that as far as they were concerned the war was over, and escorted them up the cellar stairs. Plastered with coal and egg they were still dimly recognisable as human beings. Miss Thompson pounced upon Herbert and took her hat trimming from his head.

  ‘It’ll need cleaning, of course,’ she said, examining it, ‘but I don’t think it’s damaged beyond repair.’

  Mrs Monks fixed them with a stern eye.

  ‘Why did you put carrots in my bag?’ she said.

  Then Ethel and Robert entered. They had just come from their A.R.P. class. Ethel had been practising bandaging, and Robert had been listening to a lecture on decontamination.

  There was a jagged cut on Hector’s temple caused by an unusually resistant egg shell. It was exactly the size and shape of the cut on which Ethel had just been practising. She seized on him with gleaming eyes and began to hustle him upstairs.

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’ she said, ‘but I’m going to bandage that cut. Come on.’

  The last egg thrown at Herbert had evidently been a bad one. He stank to Heaven . . . It was just such an object – blackened by smoke, soaked in noxious gases – on which Robert had imagined himself practising the art of decontamination.

  ‘And I don’t know who you are, but I’m going to decontaminate you.’

  ‘Yes!’ said William bitterly, thinking of his own ill-fated attempt at A.R.P. work. ‘They c’n do it all right. No one stops them.’

  Mrs Brown watched helplessly as Ethel and Robert swept the twins upstairs before them. The spirits of the twins were still undaunted.

  ‘Aren’t we having a lovely time, Hector?’ said Herbert.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hector happily. ‘I like wars.’

  Mrs Brown watched till they were out of sight, then turned slowly to the spot from which William had spoken.

  But William was no longer there.

  William had decided that the time had come to try a spot of evacuation on his own account.

  CHAPTER 2

  WILLIAM DOES HIS BIT

  WILLIAM was finding the war a little dull. Such possibilities as the black-out and other war conditions afforded had been explored to the full and were beginning to pall. He had dug for victory with such mistaken zeal – pulling up as weeds whole rows of young lettuces and cabbages – that he had been forbidden to touch spade, fork or hoe again. He had offered himself at a recruiting office in Hadley and, though the recruiting sergeant had been jovial and friendly, and had even given him a genuine regimental button, he had refused to enrol him as a member of His Majesty’s Forces.

  ‘You’re not quite big enough,’ he had said. ‘There’s very strict regulations about size.’

  ‘I grow quick,’ pleaded William. ‘I’m always growin’ out of things.’

  ‘Not quite quick enough for us,’ said the sergeant firmly.

  ‘Well, can’t I be a drummer boy?’ said William. ‘I can make a jolly fine noise on a drum. An aunt of mine said it made her head ache for weeks. I bet it’d scare ole Hitler off all right.’

  ‘No vacancies for drummer boys at present,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Well, will you let me know when there are?’ said William.

  ‘Certainly,’ said the sergeant, but he winked at a corporal standing near as he spoke, and William didn’t set much store by the promise.

  He next wrote to the Premier to offer his services as a spy, but received no answer. Thinking that it had been intercepted by German agents, he wrote again but still received no answer. He decided that he could at any rate practise being a spy, so went out wearing Robert’s hat and coat, but, despite the corked moustache that was supposed to conceal his identity, he was instantly recognised by Robert and his ears boxed so soundly that he reluctantly abandoned his spy career.

  ‘Cares more about an ole coat an’ hat than winnin’ the war,’ he muttered indignantly. ‘He oughter be put in prison, carin’ more for an ole coat an’ hat than winnin’ the war.’

  He had almost given up hope of being allowed to make any appreciable contribution to his country’s cause when he heard his family discussing an individual called ‘Quisling’ who apparently, and in a most mysterious fashion, existed simultaneously in at least a dozen places.

  ‘I bet there’s one of ’em in England,’ said Robert darkly. ‘Getting things ready or thinking he’s getting things ready . . . Gosh! I’d like to get my hands on him.’

  ‘But who is he?’ said William.

  ‘Shut up!’ said Robert. ‘They’re jolly well going to put a spoke in his wheel in Turkey. They never expected to find him in Holland or Belgium!’

  ‘Holland or Belgium?’ said William. ‘Thought you said he was in Holland or Turkey. Thought—’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Robert and went on darkly: ‘And he’s right here in England, too. We’ll have to keep our eyes open.’

  William was past further query or comment.

  He tackled his mother, however, the first time he found her alone.

  ‘I say,’ he said, ‘who is this Grisling man?’

  ‘Quisling, dear,’ corrected his mother.

  William waved the objection aside.

  ‘Sounds the same,’ he said. ‘Anyway he can’t be in Turkey an’ Belgium an’ Holland an’ England at the same time. No one could. Robert’s cracked, sayin’ he can be.’

  ‘Well, dear, he’s not really the same man,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘He’s a sort of – type.’

  ‘What’s that?’ demanded William. ‘Thought it was a kind of dog.’

  ‘No, dear,’ said Mrs Brown patiently. ‘This particular man was a Norwegian and helped the Germans to get a footing in his country, and other people in other countries who try to do the same, are all called Quisling.’

  ‘Why?’ said William. ‘Why can’t they call them by their real names?’

  ‘They don’t know what their real names are.’

  ‘Why don’t they ask them?’

  ‘Really William,’ said Mrs Brown helplessly, ‘I can’t explain it any more. Go out of doors and play.’

  ‘Well, listen,’ pleaded William. ‘Tell me jus’ one thing. How do they do it? How do they get people to let ole
Hitler in?’

  Mrs Brown sighed resignedly.

  ‘I’m not quite sure, dear. I think they sort of make people believe that they’d have no chance of resisting him and so it’s best to let him in. They try to frighten people. At least, I think that’s it.’

  ‘Why doesn’t the Gov’ment lock ’em up?’

  ‘They don’t know who they are.’

  ‘Thought they knew they were called Grisling.’

  ‘No dear, they don’t.’

  ‘I ’spose they pretend they’re called other things jus’ to put the Gov’ment right off the scent.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they do,’ said Mrs Brown, settling down to darn a pile of table napkins.

  ‘They might pretend to be called anythin’.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs Brown. ‘I suppose they might. This linen really ought to have worn better. If it weren’t for the war I shouldn’t trouble to mend them at all.’

  ‘There might be one here pretendin’ to be called anythin’.’

  ‘I suppose so, dear . . . It’s partly the laundry, of course. They simply maul things.’

  ‘An’ I bet no one knows who he is. If they did they’d have him in prison.’

  ‘What are you talking about, dear?’ said Mrs Brown, bringing her mind with an effort from the composition of a projected letter of complaint to the laundry.

  ‘Ole Grissel,’ said William.

  ‘Grissel? Oh, I know what you mean. He isn’t called that, but I’ve forgotten just for the moment what he is called.’

  ‘Bet I’d catch him all right if I was the Gov’ment.’

  ‘He’s not alone, of course, dear. He has a lot of people working under him. It’s a very complicated organisation, I believe . . . Now, William, do leave that table napkin alone. It was just a weak place before you started pushing your fingers through it, and now it’s a real hole.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said William. ‘I didn’t know it was goin’ to go through like that. I hardly pushed at all . . . Well – look here, are they tryin’ to catch this ole Grissel?’