William the Good Read online

  ‘We’ve put ’em to flight,’ roared William triumphantly, ‘we’ve p—’

  But at this point the whole erection of plant pots, table and cucumber frame collapsed with a terrific clatter of breaking glass and pots. Shaken and apprehensive the Archers picked themselves up from the debris. Their apprehensions were not unfounded for immediately the kitchen door burst open and caretaker and gardener rushed out in avenging fury. The Archers, leaving their weapons ignominiously behind in the enemies’ territory, scrambled precipitately through the hedge and were not a moment too soon. In fact the gardener seized the foot of the last Archer, who, with great presence of mind, wriggled his foot out of his shoe and, leaving his shoe in the gardener’s hand, fled after the others down the road pursued by the shoe which the gardener flung after them, and which hit William neatly on the head. William was just about to throw it back and see if he could hit the gardener equally neatly on the head when its owner, who had been trying to invent a plausible explanation of its absence for his mother, snatched it from William’s hand and put it on as he ran. The Archers did not dare to go down the road again towards the field where the irate gardener and caretaker presumably awaited them. So they marched down the road where they had left Ginger and his band, chanting paeans of victory. It was almost dark when they met Ginger and his band. They also were coming down the road chanting paeans of victory.

  ‘ONE, TWO, THREE – FIRE!’ SAID WILLIAM. THEY FIRED.

  THE SOLDIERS SWARMED UP OUT OF THE TRENCH AND BEGAN TO RUSH ACROSS THE FIELD.

  ‘We put ’em to flight,’ yelled William as soon as he caught sight of his friend.

  ‘He’s drowned hisself,’ yelled Ginger joyously.

  They met and began excitedly to exchange reports. ‘We just fired once,’ said William, ‘an’—’

  ‘We shut the gate on him,’ said Ginger, ‘an’—’

  ‘They went dashin’ out of their hole terrified an’—’

  ‘He went moanin,’ an’ groanin’ about the garden—’

  ‘Simply terrified—’

  ‘Gettin’s desperater an’ desperater.’

  ‘An’ went tearin’ away over the field.’

  ‘An’ at last went an’ drowned himself in a pond. . . .’

  ‘We saw ’em tearin’ away over the field.’

  ‘We heard a big splash and then saw his dead body in the pond an’—’

  The Archers would have liked to have gone back to the field to see whether they were any traces of the routed enemy, but the thought of the caretaker and gardener, who probably still lay in wait for them with hostile intent, deterred them.

  ‘We’d better not go back,’ said William, ‘they may’ve left bombs or – or snipers or somethin’, but,’ he ended impressively, ‘I can jolly well tell you that there won’t be one of ’em left tomorrow mornin’. They’ll all go back home in their ships tonight.’

  And William was right in the first part of his prophecy. There was not one of them left in the morning. They had, as originally arranged, departed with praiseworthy dispatch and smartness in the early hours of the morning.

  It was the next week and they were in William’s back garden. William was still discussing the affair. The other Outlaws were beginning to get rather bored with the airs William put on about it. William seemed not to have stopped talking about it since it happened, and his boasting grew more unbearable every day.

  ‘I oughter have a statchoo put up to me,’ he said. ‘I did it. It was all my idea. I’ve saved the country an’ conquered a foreign enemy an’ I oughter have a statchoo put up to me.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Ginger, ‘so ought I too, anyway, an’ anyway I’m jolly tired of it an’ let’s go fishin’ again.’

  ‘All right,’ said William, taking up the stick which bore a bent pin attached to it by a length of damp string. ‘All right. I don’t mind. But wot I say is that I ought to have a statchoo put up to me for savin’ the country. Yes, you ought to, too,’ he concluded hastily as Ginger began to speak, ‘you ought to, too, but I oughter have the biggest one because it was my idea anyway. I oughter be put up on a tall piller like Nelson. I ought—’

  He stopped abruptly and stood as if petrified, his eyes staring in horror and amazement at a figure which was just coming in at the front gate.

  General Bastow had returned after the manoeuvres to spend a few days with his friend, Mr Hunter, had met Mr Brown there and had today been invited to the Browns’ to lunch. William did not know this. Ginger and Douglas were equally petrified. The three of them stood transfixed with horror – eyes and mouths open wide. The visitor strode jauntily up to the front door. He did not see the three boys who were crouching behind the bushes.

  William recovered from his stupor first. He turned to Ginger and hissed:

  ‘Thought you said he’d drowned himself . . . thought you said you’seen his dead body.’

  Ginger’s face was pale with horror.

  ‘I did,’ he gasped, ‘I did honest. This must be his ghost.’

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Douglas. ‘You can’t see through it.’

  ‘You c-can’t always see through them,’ said Ginger faintly.

  ‘Dun’t look like a ghost,’ said William grimly.

  ‘It mus’ be,’ said Ginger recovering gradually his normal manner. ‘It mus’ be. I tell you I sor his dead body in the pond. He’s haunting us ’cause we made him kill himself same as you said you’d haunt the man what nearly killed you with a motor car. I bet you anythin’ that if you went up an’ gave him a good hit the hit’d go right through him.’

  General Bastow had reached the front door and rung the bell. He stood there twirling his white moustaches still unaware of the three boys behind him.

  ‘All right,’ said William, ‘go’n’ do it. Go’n’ give him a good hit and see if it goes through him.’

  ‘All right, I will,’ said Ginger unexpectedly.

  Ginger had been so convinced that the black shadow at the bottom of the pond was General Bastow’s dead body that he had no doubt at all that this apparition was General Bastow’s ghost come back to haunt him. He had decided to show it once for all that he was not afraid of it. He would jolly well teach it to come haunting him.

  Before either William or Douglas could stop him he had crept up behind the gallant warrior and dealt him a sound punch in the small of his back. The General started round, purple-faced and snorting with anger. The impact of his fist with the solid flesh of the General had convinced Ginger at once that this was no ghostly visitant from another world, and panic-stricken he had darted off into the bushes like a flash of lightning. Douglas, with admirable presence of mind, had followed him, and when the General turned, purple-faced and snorting, only William was there standing behind him, rooted to the spot in sheer horror. And at that moment William’s father opened the door. The General pointed a fierce finger at William.

  ‘Th-a-t boy’s just hit me,’ he spluttered, going a still more terrific purple.

  At this monstrous accusation the power of speech returned to William.

  ‘I d-didn’t,’ he gasped, ‘Ginger did. Ginger hit you b-because he thought you were a ghost.’

  The enormous figure of the General seemed to grow more enormous still and his purple face more purple still. His eyes were bulging.

  ‘Thought I was a g— Thought I was a what?’

  ‘A ghost,’ said William.

  ‘A GHOST?’ roared the General.

  ‘Yes, a ghost,’ said William; ‘he thought he’d drowned you and you’d come back to haunt him.’

  ‘He thought – WHAT?’ bellowed the General.

  ‘He thought he’d drowned you and you’d come back to haunt him. He was hitting you to see if the hit would go through you.’

  The General stared back at him and stared and stared. And a memory came back to him – a memory of a dusty road, a bullet-head in his stomach and an unavailing pursuit. He looked as if he were going to have an apoplectic fit. He pointed a t
rembling finger at William,

  ‘Why – you’re the boy,’ he sputtered, ‘who—’

  William’s father intervened quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Come and tell me what he did indoors.’

  It was evening. William and Ginger and Douglas sat gloomily in William’s back garden. ‘That’s all one gets,’ said William bitterly, ‘for savin’ one’s country. That’s all one gets for puttin’ a foreign enemy to flight. Bein’ treated like that. Oh, no, no one believes me, do they? Oh no. They’ll believe any lies any foreign enemy tells them, won’t they? But not me, not me what’s saved the country. They won’t believe anythin’ I say. Oh, no. I can save the country from a foreign enemy, but that doesn’t make any difference. Oh, no. They won’t listen to a word I say. Oh, no. But they’ll listen to a foreign enemy all right. Oh, yes. Well. I’ve jolly well finished with ’em and now – now ’ – impressively he brought out his terrible threat – ‘if they came to me on their knees beggin’ to put up a statchoo to me. I wouldn’t let ’em.’

  CHAPTER 4

  WILLIAM THE MONEY MAKER

  THE Outlaws stood around and gazed expectantly at William.

  ‘Well, where’re we goin’ to get ’em?’ said Ginger.

  ‘Buy ’em,’ said William after a moment’s deep thought.

  There was another silence. The solution was felt to be unworthy of William.

  ‘Buy ’em!’ echoed Douglas in a tone that expressed the general feeling, ‘buy ’em! Who’s got any money?’

  This question being unanswerable remained unanswered. It was a strange fact that the Outlaws never had any money. They all received pocket money regularly and they all received the usual tips from visiting relatives, but the fact remained that they never had any money. Most of it, of course, went in repairing the wreckage that followed in the train of their normal activities – broken windows, shattered greenhouse frames, ruined paintwork and ornaments which seemed to the Outlaws deliberately to commit self-destruction on their approach. As William frequently remarked with deep bitterness:

  ‘Meanness, that’s what it is. Meanness. Anythin’ to keep the money themselves ’stead of givin’ it to us. Seems to me they go about makin’ things easy to break so’s they c’n have an excuse for keeping it themselves instead of givin’ it us. Meanness. That’s what it is.’

  The parents of the Outlaws who formed a sort of unofficial Parents’ Union and generally worked in concert had evolved the system of fines – one penny for being late to a meal, a half-penny for dirty hands at meals and a farthing for not scraping their boots before coming into the house (merely wiping them was insufficient. The Outlaws always brought in with them the larger part of the surrounding countryside). What was salvaged from the general wreckage of their finances caused by this ruthless tyranny seldom passed the test of the close proximity of Mr Moss’s sweet shop with its bottles of alluring sweets and its boxes of less lasting but more intriguing chocolate ‘fancies’.

  ‘Buy ’em,’ echoed Henry with deep feeling. ‘What’re we to buy ’em with? There’s laws to stop people takin’ money off other people, but my father’ – with heavy sarcasm – ‘don’t seem to have heard of ’em. He’ll be getting into trouble one of these days takin’ other people’s money off them. He’s startin’ with me, what he thinks can’t do anythin’ back, but he’ll be going’ on to other people soon like what the Vicar said people always do what begin pickin’ an’ stealin’ in little things an’ then he’ll be gettin’ into trouble. Takin’ sixpence off me jus’ for bein’ late for a few meals! An’ then they keep sayin’ why don’t we save. Well, what I say is why don’ they give us somethin’ to save, ’fore they start goin’ on an’ on at us for not savin’. Not that I b’lieve in savin’,’ he added hastily, ‘I don’ b’lieve in savin’ an’ I never have b’lieved in savin’. Money isn’t doing’ any good to anyone – not while you’re savin’ it. I think it’s wrong to save money. Money doesn’t do any good to you or to anyone else. Not while you’re savin’ it. It’s kinder to help the poor shop people by spendin’ money at their shops. How’r the poor people in shops goin’ to live if all the people save their money an’ don’t spend any of it? . . . Well, anyway that’s what I think.’ This was for Henry an unusually long and an unusually eloquent speech. It showed that he had been stirred to the depth of his feelings. There was a moment’s impressed silence. Then the others murmured in sympathy and Douglas said: ‘Let’s go’n look at ’em again.’

  They were in the window of the little general shop at the other end of the village. . . . Three of them, beautiful in shape and strength and size and symmetry, with brass tops – cricket stumps. They were priced eight and sixpence.

  ‘Golly!’ said Ginger wistfully. ‘Just think of playin’ with ’em!’

  ‘You can get ’em cheaper than that,’ suggested Douglas tentatively, ‘you can get ’em for three and six. Smaller, of course, and not so nice.’

  The Outlaws, who were flattening their noses against the glass and gazing at the stumps like so many Moseses gazing at the Promised Land, treated Douglas’ suggestion with contempt.

  ‘Who’d want to play with cheap ones after seeing these ones?’ said William sternly. ‘There’s no sense in talkin’ about cheap ones now we’ve seen these ones. I – I’d sooner go on playin’ with the tree than play with other ones now we’ve seen these ones.’

  The Outlaws had these holidays developed a passion for cricket. They had, of course, partaken in the pastime in previous years, but listlessly and with boredom as in a pastime organised by the school authorities and therefore devoid of either sense or interest. Fielding had, of course, provided ample opportunity for studying the smaller fauna which infested the cricket pitch (last term Ginger had several times been hit squarely in the back while engaged in catching grasshoppers at mid-on), and batting was usually of short duration, but not until these holidays had the Outlaws regarded cricket as a game to be played for its own sake when not under the eye of Authority. The discovery was a thrilling one. The Outlaws in this as in everything threw moderation to the winds. They played cricket in season and out of season. They began the game before breakfast and continued it throughout the day with intervals for meals. They considered cricket far more enlivening when played with four players than when played with twenty-two. Ginger’s elder brother gave them an old ball and Douglas had had a bat for a birthday present. Stumps they did not worry about. They chalked stumps on a tree trunk and played quite happily with them for a long time. But they found that stumps chalked on a tree trunk have their drawbacks, of which the chief one is that the bowler and batter are seldom agreed as to when one is hit. The Outlaws generally settled the question by single combat between batter and bowler, which at first was all right because the Outlaws always enjoyed single combats, but as the game itself became more and more exciting the perpetual abandoning of it to settle the score by single combat became monotonous and rather boring.

  It was then that the Outlaws decided to procure stumps. Had they not happened to see the eight and six set all would have been well. They would have stuck sticks into the ground or scraped together enough money to buy an inferior set at one and eleven. But – not now. Now that they had seen the eight and six set of stumps, the set of stumps de luxe, the set of stumps with brass tops from the Land of the Ideal, they knew that all the savour would be gone from the game till they possessed them.

  ‘Eight and six,’ said Douglas gloomily. ‘Well, we shall never get eight and six, so we may as well stop thinking of them, and just do the best we can with sticks.’

  This spiritless attitude irritated William.

  ‘Why can’t we get eight an’ six?’ he said. ‘Of course we c’n get eight an’ six if we want it.’

  ‘All right,’ challenged Douglas, as irritated by William’s attitude as William had been by his. ‘If you c’n get eight an’ six, go an’ get eight an’ six.’

  ‘All right, I will,’ said William.

  He hadn
’t exactly meant to say this, but the words were out so he accompanied them with a careless swagger.

  They eyed him morosely and yet with a gleam of hope.

  ‘Course you can’t get eight an’ six,’ they said. ‘How c’n you get eight an’ six?’

  William having taken up a position, however rashly, was not going to abandon it.

  ‘P’raps you can’t,’ he said kindly. ‘I daresay you can’t, but if I want to get eight an’ six I bet I c’n get eight an’six.’

  ‘Before tonight?’ said Ginger. ‘You’ll bring ’em here tonight?’

  William was for a second taken aback by thus having the soaring flights of his fancy tied down to time and space.

  He blinked for a moment, then recovering his swagger said:

  ‘Course. You wait and see.’

  He walked home rather thoughtfully. Eight and six. The magnitude of the sum staggered his imagination. How could he get one and six or even sixpence, let alone eight and six? Not for the first time he regretted those rash impulses that always seemed to visit him at critical moments and make him undertake quite impossible tasks. The actual undertaking was, of course, a glorious moment – the careless swagger, the impression he gave himself as well as his audience of hidden resources, secret powers – almost of omnipotence.

  But afterwards – and eight and six! William felt as helpless as if he had undertaken to provide a million pounds. He did not remember ever possessing as much money as eight and six. He did not remember ever knowing anyone who possessed as much money as eight and six. And yet – he knew that his prestige was at stake. With simple, touching faith the Outlaws were now looking to him to provide eight and six before tonight.