William At War Read online

  The Outlaws brightened. Better go down with colours flying . . . Better strike a blow at the enemy before yielding to superior force.

  ‘What can we do?’ said Douglas.

  ‘Well, that’s what we’ve gotter think out,’ said William.

  A new animation possessed the little band. Secretly each had been growing bored with such limited scope as their A.F.S. activities allowed them, and welcomed the wider field afforded by a plan of revenge.

  ‘We’ve gotter find out somethin’ about him first,’ said William. ‘Where he lives an’ suchlike. When I have a revenge I like to take a bit of trouble over it. I’m jolly good at revenges,’ he ended modestly.

  ‘We’ll all have a good think,’ said Ginger. ‘Anyway, it’s nearly one o’clock now an’ we’d better go home. ’S no good getting into any more rows. We’ve all got a jolly big one comin’ tonight, anyway.’

  ‘A’right,’ said William. ‘We’ll meet in the ole barn after lunch. Let’s all have a jolly good think while we’re havin’ lunch . . . Hope it’s jam roly-poly. I can think better on jam roly-poly than on rice puddin’.’

  They met in the old barn soon after two o’clock. By a lucky chance Henry’s family had been discussing Section Officer Perkins during lunch and he came primed with news of him.

  ‘He lives at that house called Green Gates jus’ outside Hadley an’ he’s not married—’

  ‘’Spect he is, an’ murdered her,’ put in William darkly.

  ‘An’ he’s got a housekeeper, but she’s had to go home to look after her father what’s ill an’ he was askin’ Mrs Monks if she knew of another an’ she said she’d try’n’ find him one. He’s jus’ got a char in the mornings now.’

  ‘’Spect he murdered that housekeeper,’ said William. ‘He’d’ve murdered us soon as look at us.’

  ‘Well, what’re we goin’ to do to him?’ said Ginger.

  ‘Have our revenge on him,’ said William.

  ‘Yes, but how?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t jam roly-poly,’ said William, ‘but I got a sort of idea.’

  ‘What was it?’ said Douglas.

  ‘Suet pudding’n’ syrup. Better than rice puddin’ anyway.’

  ‘No, I meant the idea.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said William. ‘Well, it’s gotter be somethin’ to do with the A.F.S. Somethin’ to do with a hose or water or somethin’.’

  ‘We’ve not got a hose,’ said Henry, ‘an’ if we squirted him with a syringe we’d get in a worse row than ever.’

  ‘I was wond’rin’ about the bucket of water,’ said William.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I was wond’rin’ if we could fix it up over a door so’s it fell down soon as he opened it. I’ve read of people doin’ that. It’d be a jolly good revenge.’

  The Outlaws considered the idea with interest. There was something of poetic justice in it that appealed to them. Section Officer Perkins had got them into trouble over water. It was only fair that he should get into trouble himself over water. It would be a glorious and fitting end to the Outlaws’ branch of the A.F.S. thus thoroughly to douse the man who had brought about its end.

  ‘Might be difficult to fix up,’ said Douglas dubiously.

  ‘We can try, anyway,’ said William. ‘We can have a jolly good try. I bet it won’t be difficult.’

  ‘Well, he’s bein’ down at the garage all this afternoon,’ said Henry. ‘I found out that. That’ll give us time.’

  ‘We’ll have to be careful,’ said Douglas.

  ‘Oh, we’ll be careful all right,’ said William carelessly. ‘Corks! When I think of him goin’ into that room an’ the bucket of water fallin’ right over his head . . .’

  He chuckled. As usual, he saw the scheme in its finished perfection, magnificently ignoring the intervening details.

  Again Douglas looked doubtfully at the bucket.

  ‘It’s jolly heavy to carry full of water,’ he said. ‘I dunno how we’re goin’ to get it fixed up on top of a door.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll find a way,’ said William. ‘First thing to do is to get it to the house . . . We’ll get it there, an’ then we’ll find a way to fix it up all right. Come on . . . ’S time we started.’

  They filled the bucket with water and carried it in turn across the fields to the outskirts of Hadley. As each one took the weight of the bucket he felt secret doubts about the success of the scheme, but William’s glorious optimism swept them along with it.

  ‘We c’n stand on a chair,’ he said vaguely. ‘We’ll fix it up all right, once we get it there. I bet it’ll be easy fixin’ it up, once we get it there.’

  They approached Green Gates cautiously from the back, making their way into the garden – a neat little garden with an ornamental pond – by way of the hedge and sending Ginger on in front to spy out the land.

  ‘’S empty all right,’ he said when he returned. ‘There’s no one in it. An’ there’s a room full of steam same as there was in that cottage this mornin’. He must’ve left a kettle on, too.’

  Still carrying the bucket, they approached nearer. William put down the bucket and stared in at a downstairs window through clouds of eddying smoke.

  ‘Gosh! This is a fire, all right,’ he said. ‘I can see flames. G’n’ ring up the fire station, Henry,’ he went on, ‘an’ I bet we put it out before they come.’

  He flung up the window and carefully lifted himself and the bucket of water into the room, then flung the water in the direction of the flame. There was a sizzling sound.

  ‘Good!’ said William, half choked with smoke. ‘Get some more water from the pond.’

  Ginger filled the bucket there and handed it to William through the window. Douglas fought his way into the kitchen and finding another bucket there, filled it at the tap. Gradually the flames died down, leaving a large hole burnt in the carpet, the walls and ceilings blackened.

  At that moment the fire brigade arrived. The Outlaws, their faces blackened almost beyond recognition, received them proudly.

  ‘We’ve put it out,’ they said.

  The captain entered and looked round the waterlogged room.

  ‘It wasn’t much of a fire, of course,’ said William modestly, ‘but it cert’nly was a fire.’

  ‘Yes, it certainly was a fire,’ agreed the captain. His practised eye fell on the groove burnt on the table obviously by a lighted cigarette before it fell on to the carpet.

  AT THAT MOMENT THE A.F.S. ARRIVED, HEADED BY SECTION OFFICER PERKINS.

  At that moment the A.F.S. arrived, headed by Section Officer Perkins, looking white and tense. The captain met him at the door.

  ‘Well, Perkins,’ he said with rather a malicious smile, ‘you’re just too late. So were we, as a matter of fact . . . You left a lighted cigarette on the table, didn’t you?’

  ‘WELL, PERKINS,’ SAID THE CAPTAIN WITH RATHER A MALICIOUS SMILE, ‘YOU’RE JUST TOO LATE.’

  ‘Y – y – yes,’ stammered Section Officer Perkins. ‘I – I remembered as soon as the call came through. The telephone went and I put down my cigarette to answer it and then someone came round with a car to give me a lift to the garage and I quite forgot about the cigarette and—’

  ‘Well, you’ve got these plucky boys to thank for putting it out,’ said the captain, waving his hand towards the blackened Outlaws.

  Section Officer Perkins turned to the blackened Outlaws, recognised them slowly through their coating of grime, and stared at them as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. His mouth dropped open. He looked like a man in the throes of a nightmare. He gasped and gulped.

  ‘W – w – what happened?’ he said at last.

  ‘They saw the fire,’ said the captain, ‘and very pluckily came in and put it out. They telephoned us as well. They’ve shown great pluck and presence of mind, and I think you ought to be very grateful to them.’

  ‘Y – y – yes,’ stammered Section Officer Perkins. ‘Yes, of course, I am.’

  ‘A very
dangerous habit, leaving lighted cigarettes about,’ said the captain. He had always disliked Section Officer Perkins and was enjoying his discomfiture.

  ‘Y – y – yes,’ stammered Section Officer Perkins.

  He was still staring at the four Outlaws in the manner of a fascinated rabbit, as if he could never take his eyes off them again. If he hadn’t – unfortunately – remembered putting his cigarette down at the sound of the telephone bell and not going back into the room again, he would have thought they’d set fire to the place themselves. They were devils enough for anything . . . But the captain of the fire brigade was shaking hands with them and obviously expecting him to do the same. He did it, muttering unintelligible thanks and congratulations. William savoured the moment to the full, then said carelessly:

  ‘I s’pose you won’t be goin’ round to see our fathers tonight?’

  ‘N – n – n – no,’ stammered Section Officer Perkins. ‘No, of course not.’ He was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then went on: ‘Er – how did you come to see the fire at all? You couldn’t have seen it from the road.’

  But William hadn’t thought out the answer to that question yet. He pretended not to hear it.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to his Outlaws. ‘Time we went home to tea.’

  CHAPTER 4

  THE OUTLAWS AND THE PARACHUTIST

  ‘GET out of here, you kids!’ said the Home Guard man impatiently.

  William and the Outlaws withdrew a few steps and continued to watch the fascinating spectacle – Home Guard men with tin hats and uniforms, carrying rifles and manning a fortress of camouflaged sandbags with loopholes for shooting through. It was incredibly impressive, exciting and romantic . . .

  ‘I said, get on out of here,’ repeated the Home Guard man, advancing threateningly upon them.

  The Outlaws knew, of course, that he was only Billy Foxton, the blacksmith, who had let them watch him shoe horses and even occasionally lend a hand, but the tin hat, uniform and rifle invested him with such majesty that, obeying reluctantly, they turned and wandered disconsolately down the road.

  ‘Gosh! I wish I was grown-up,’ said William. ‘They have all the fun.’

  ‘An’ I bet you anythin’ the war’ll be over by the time we’re grown up,’ said Ginger. ‘I bet you anythin’ it will. I bet that when we’re grown up we’ll jus’ have to go to offices with no fun at all. Grown-ups didn’t have any fun till this war started, an’ they won’t have any more when it’s over.’

  ‘Fancy Billy Foxton with a uniform an’ a gun an’ a tin hat.’

  ‘They’ve got wire things they can put right across the road, too.’

  ‘I know . . . Tank traps,’ said Henry.

  ‘Crumbs! Wun’t you like to shoot through one of those little holes?’

  ‘One of ’em brought down a German plane the other day.’

  ‘Our cook’s cousin’s a ’contamination man. He wears things jus’ like a diver.’

  ‘I’d sooner be a Home Guard man. I’d like to shoot through the little holes.’

  ‘Our gardener knows a man what’s got a friend what knows someone what caught a parachutist dressed up as a woman.’

  ‘Gosh!’

  ‘They do that, you know. They dress up as women.’

  ‘Crumbs!’

  ‘Yes, if ever you see a woman what looks like a man you c’n be jolly sure it’s a parachutist. If we were one of them we’d jus’ put that wire thing across the road an’ start shootin’ at ’em through the little holes. Jus’ think! They might find one any minute any day. Or whole armies of ’em. An’ all we’ve gotter do,’ in a tone of bitter disgust, ‘is jus’ do nothin’. It’s not fair.’

  ‘An’ I bet we could do it all as well as them,’ said Ginger.

  ‘I jolly well bet we’d do it better.’

  ‘An’ I don’t see why we shouldn’t.’

  ‘They wouldn’t let us.’

  ‘Don’t see how they could stop us. We’d have one of our own. Somewhere where they’ve not got one. I bet there’s lots of places where they’ve not got one. An’ I bet if we did we’d catch a parachutist before they did.’

  ‘It wasn’t much good when we had an A.F.S.,’ said Douglas.

  ‘No, but we had it too near the other one,’ explained William. ‘They got jealous an’ there was that mess-up about that fire . . . I say, we could get a thing to put across the road, an’ we could make a fort with holes in.’

  ‘They’d find out we’d got one an’ stop us,’ said Henry again.

  ‘Bet they wouldn’t,’ said William, the optimist. ‘We’d go somewhere where they couldn’t see us. Gosh! There’s hundreds of roads an’ lanes an’ places where they haven’t got ’em, an’ where those ole parachutists might easily come along . . . Well, I think it’s our juty to have one.’

  They considered this aspect of the question in silence. William was, as ever, persuasive, convincing his hearers even against their will.

  ‘We’ve got no guns,’ said Douglas at last.

  ‘Well, we’ve got weapons, haven’t we?’ said William. ‘Weapons is all you need. We’ve got an air-gun haven’t we, an’ a pea-shooter, an’ catapults, an’ bows an’ arrows, haven’t we? Gosh! I nearly killed our gard’ner with a pea-shooter. At least he told my father I did, an’ my father nearly killed me for it. An’ I bet I can’t count the windows an’ things I’ve broke with my bow an’ arrows an’ catapult. If they’d all been Germans I bet the war’d ’ve been over by now.’

  ‘We haven’t got little holes to shoot through,’ said Henry.

  ‘We can make ’em, can’t we?’ said William. ‘Anyone can make holes, can’t they? Well, holes are there ready. You’ve only got to put somethin’ round ’em.’

  ‘Where’ll we have it?’ said Ginger.

  ‘Somewhere where they can’t see us,’ said William. ‘They’ll only start bein’ jealous an’ try to stop us if they see us. They jus’ won’t b’lieve that we can do it as well as what they can. Grown-ups never do . . .’ He paused a moment and considered. ‘There’s that lane that goes from Hadley Road to Marleigh. They’ve got nothin’ there, an’ I bet the Germans could use it as a short cut to get to Hadley. They’ve not thought of that – those ole Home Guard men. They’ve put forts an’ traps an’ things all on the main road an’ forgot that that lane’s a short cut.’

  ‘It’s too small for tanks to go along,’ objected Henry.

  ‘Yes, but parachutists dressed up as women could go along it,’ said William earnestly, ‘an’ I bet they will, too, if we don’t make a fort there. I bet we’ve gotter do it jolly quick, too . . . They might be comin’ tonight for all we know.’

  ‘There’s those ole packing-cases in the ole barn,’ said Ginger thoughtfully. ‘We could use them.’

  ‘An’ we’ve got some ole sandbags,’ added Douglas. ‘They took ’em away from in front of our shelter an’ built a sort of wall instead.’

  ‘An’ we’ve got lots an’ lots of wooden seed boxes in our shed,’ said Henry. ‘I bet we could fill ’em up with earth an’ they’d do as well as sandbags . . . I bet our gardener won’t notice they’ve gone.’

  ‘An’ there’s some green paint in our garage,’ said Ginger. ‘That’ll do for camouflage.’

  ‘Gosh!’ breathed William ecstatically. ‘We’re going to have a jolly fine one.’

  *

  It took the Outlaws all day to erect the ‘fort’ to their satisfaction. As it happened, no one passed by except a butcher’s boy, who was so deeply interested in the proceedings that the butcher was receiving complaints all afternoon of joints delivered too late for lunch, and a village ancient, who was, apparently, so absorbed in memories of the past that he did not even notice it. By dusk it was completed. It was a somewhat fantastic erection, taking up, in fact, most of the roadway. At the base were the seed boxes from Henry’s tool shed filled with earth and piled on top of each other. Above these came the sandbags laboriously carried from Douglas’s air-raid shelter, and
arranged so as to leave at intervals gaps forming the ‘shooting holes’, which were the crowning glory of the whole thing. Above this were ranged packing-cases brought from loft or boxroom as well as the old barn. The whole looked so crazy that you would have thought it would come down at a breath, but by some miracle of balance it resisted the force of gravity. Four large stones ‘borrowed’ from Ethel’s rockery were placed at intervals across the remainder of the road to form a ‘tank trap’. As William pointed out, there was no reason why a parachutist should not land with a small portable tank along with his motor bicycle and other equipment. Finally, the Outlaws took up their positions in the rear of the fort pointing arrows, air-guns, pea-shooter and catapult through the ‘shooting holes’.

  The minutes passed. The lane remained deserted. Dusk began to fall.

  ‘We’ve jus’ not gotter mind nothin’ happ’nin’ at first,’ William encouraged his band. ‘They’ve been waitin’ for months an’ months . . . We’ve jus’ not gotter mind waitin’ months an’ months, but it might happen any minute. Any minute we might see a man dressed up like a woman comin’ down the lane an’ when you see a man dressed up like a woman you jolly well know he’s a German parachutist. You—’

  ‘Someone’s comin’ down now,’ Ginger whispered excitedly. ‘Gosh! It looks someone queer, too. Bet you anythin’ it’s a parachutist.’

  The figure approached. It was a large, unwieldy figure. It wore a curious feather-trimmed bonnet tied under its chin, a rusty black cape, and long, voluminous black skirts. The face beneath the bonnet showed masculine and heavy-featured through the dusk. Stout boots, suggesting of a farm labourer’s, appeared beneath the rusty skirts.

  ‘It is one of ’em,’ whispered William tensely. ‘It’s – one, two, three – fire!’

  ‘IT IS ONE OF ’EM,’ WHISPERED WILLIAM TENSELY. ‘IT’S – ONE, TWO, THREE – FIRE!’

  Air-gun, arrows, pea-shooter and catapult discharged themselves from behind the ‘fort’ with such devastating effect that the whole ramshackle structure quivered and collapsed, hurling seed boxes, sandbags, packing-cases and Outlaws in glorious confusion to the ground. Having extricated themselves with some difficulty, they retrieved their weapons and looked round for the parachutist. The parachutist lay outstretched and motionless in the middle of the road. In falling beneath the barrage of seed boxes, sandbags, packing-cases and human boys, he had hit his head against one of the rockery stones that formed the ‘tank trap’ and was apparently, for the time being at any rate, knocked out. It was certainly a case of ‘he’. Bonnet and wig had rolled off, revealing a cropped head surmounting an unmistakable male countenance, and the large hands and boots removed all possible further doubt.