Little Nelson (10 page)

Not that it was by any means unique. Reports of other gnome massings were coming in nationwide – a contingent of over a hundred seen crossing open moorland at Bodmin; the beach at Bexhill looking as though a whole coach party of very small people had just disembarked there; a ragged, rather strung-out column marching two abreast down the A72 from Peebles.

Once more public anxiety mounted. Children were kept off the streets, and the theatres remained closed. Clearly the Government had to do something. And it did it. They brought pressure to bear on Scotland Yard to change the Deputy Commissioner in charge of Emergency Operations. The outgoing
DC had been an old stalwart, a grizzled and highly respectable veteran with thirty years service both in and out of uniform behind him. The incomer was one of the new kind of policeman, young, intellectual and unpopular. His attitude was entirely different. He distrusted the road-block and traffic-barrier approach. Instead he appointed his own Advisory Committee of psychologists, students of the paranormal, social workers and statisticians and graphologists.

And, quite soon, the Committee came up with something of more than passing interest. Nothing positive as yet, but still possibly a clue, a pointer. It was one of the statisticians who spotted it. Did his fellow members, he asked, realize that there were two different kinds of gnomes within the borders of Great Britain? There were the 24-inch gnomes with three buttons on their jackets and tasselled hats as supplied by Nursery Gardenware Limited, and there were the 20½-inch gnomes with four buttons but no tassels on their hats. The latter came from Ornamental Pottery Associates.

The Deputy Commissioner was not slow to appreciate the significance of this discovery.

Life at the Vicarage was at its lowest ebb. Hilda's doctor, not knowing about Little Nelson, could make nothing of the whole affair. He simply told her to take things easy and not worry so much. To be on
the safe side, he put her on to a whole course of the latest tranquilizers. They had their effect. Instead of tearing round the house in Mrs Mewkes's absence, frantically dusting, polishing, scrubbing – anything, in fact, that would help her to forget that Little Nelson was gone – she now sat about all day on chairs and sofas and things, half-doped and tearful, remembering Little Nelson all the time.

In a way it was even worse for the Vicar. With Hilda immobilized, he had to do so much more for himself – seeing about the altar flowers, the Parents' Annual Sunday School get-together, and the delivery of the Parish Magazine to the elderly and the bedridden. He and his sister had worked in double-harness, as he always put it, for so many years that he now found single-haulage almost too much for him.

Nor was that all. For the first time in his life the Vicar himself was now on drugs. He had fallen to the temptation simply because one of the regular parochial invalids had decided that her visitor looked even worse than she felt. Out of compassion, coupled with the desire to get rid of an unwanted bedroom intruder, she gave him an aspirin. And in an impulsive, reckless moment, the Vicar took it. That is how it was that on the night of the massed parade outside the Vicarage, Cyril Woods-Denton knew absolutely nothing about it.

He was tucked up, sweating slightly, and dreaming peacefully.

By now, reports of gnome massings were becoming something of a commonplace. They were relegated to the middle, or even back pages of the popular journals; and they occupied only the last thirty seconds or so of TV and radio bulletins. A fully authenticated account of a company of more than forty marching down Amersham High Street at three o'clock in the morning and all whistling cheerfully, received no national coverage at all.

Then broke the truly dramatic news, the sort of item that sends up the pulse-rate of a jaded copytaster. It came over the tape in the usual way, amid reports of murders, kidnappings, derailments, broken-off engagements and unemployment figures. And it hit every front page in the country. GNOME WAR was what the banner headlines said. Apparently, at Scotch Corner where the A66 meets the A1, a company of vigorously marching gnomes had encountered another contingent of approximately the same strength, stepping out equally energetically, and both heading south. But instead of joining up and proceeding towards London, a small army of some two hundred strong, they immediately fell to fighting. In consequence the traffic in all three directions was disrupted. The AA reported a tail-back of over a mile and a quarter, and recommended
diversions at Richmond (Yorks) and Darlington. Meanwhile the battle continued unabated. The two companies continued to hurl themselves upon each other, wave after wave attacking fiercely, only to give way to fresh recruits ranged up ready in the rear.

Casualties were correspondingly heavy. An eyewitness, trapped in the cab of his lorry on the very point of the intersection, described the scene as unparalleled by anything in the whole of his twenty- six years' driving experience. Even so, some of the newspaper reports were regrettably exaggerated. Accounts of shallow graves, hastily dug and marked by swathes of hedgerow flowers, were exposed as no more than the invention of sentimental sensationalists. On the other hand, there was ample corroboration of accounts of small bands of walking wounded, supported on the shoulders of their comrades, seen hobbling off across adjoining fields in search of rest and shelter.

As soon as the new Deputy Commissioner had studied the in-coming reports he despatched his. team of experts up north to pursue enquiries of a rather more penetrating nature. And it was just as he had expected. A sub-postmistress on the Gateshead road, awakened by the sound of marching feet, expressed surprise at the conspicuously diminutive stature of the gnome soldiery endlessly filing past her window, while a retired bank manager in Hartlepool asserted
that he had never seen a more robust-looking or better-fed gang of small outlaws in all his life. The Deputy Commissioner made his own deduction, and began probing deeper still. Sales records and delivery sheets revealed the truth. Those coming down from Newcastle-on-Tyne and thereabouts were predominantly from the Nursery Gardenware area, whereas the copy invoices showed that the East Coast and those parts were practically controlled by Ornamental Pottery Associates.

The Deputy Commissioner, however, soon had more than gnome turnover figures to think about. Fireworks were not the only dangerous merchandise that had been stolen. There were now matches as well, and these presented a unique and baffling problem. They were not being purloined in quantity. There was nothing organized or wholesale about it. Indeed, at first glance it all seemed disconcertingly trivial, even domestic. The task facing the Police thus appeared insurmountable. Within the United Kingdom some two hundred million matches are consumed every year. What is more, the flat cardboard ones are deliberately designed to be appropriated, taken away and exhibited on the coffee tables of suburban drawing rooms. The statisticians were confronted by a whole battery of unknowns and variables. Additional mathematicians had to be called in, and nationwide computer facilities became stretched to the limit. Even then, the report was
prominently marked ‘Provisional'. But it was enough. It revealed the astonishing figure of over a quarter million boxes (or books) of matches entirely unaccounted for.

One explanation soon began to present itself – a blazing hayrick here, a gutted sports pavilion there. Reports began coming in of wisps of burning newspaper thrust wantonly into the slots of pillarboxes, of Corporation litter bins unaccountably spouting smoke and flames, and of piles of hymn books, scorched almost beyond recognition, discovered in the chancels of remote, unlocked country churches.

Then came a new phenomenon, the night flares and beacons. On a single night in September as many as eleven entirely separate conflagrations were observed by a company of Boy Scouts camping on the hills by Ivinghoe; and hardly a full twenty four hours passed without dancing lights being seen, piercing the darkness in places where no light had ever been observed before.

The Deputy Commissioner was wholly unprepared when the day's case-sheet from Larceny listed a major raid on a world-famous West End toy emporium. Here again meticulous planning was immediately apparent. No fewer than three – the Traffic Department contended that there must have been a minimum of four – lorry-loads must have been employed to cart the stuff away. And the nature of
the stolen goods was in itself remarkable. Some departments were utterly cleared out. All air rifles, bows and arrows, boomerangs, catapults and water pistols had been painstakingly removed, and the entire garage of pedal motors, scooter cars, tricycles and fairy cycles were cleared out, leaving nothing but tyre marks on the polished boards.

One floor above, the electronic toy section, was similarly cleared out. Miniature racers with remote control were all taken, and a full showcase of toy airplanes including one toy helicopter – all expensive demonstration models – was emptied on the spot. Here again it was significant that the kind that simply had miniaturized petrol engines and were kept tethered on a string were left untouched in their separate showcase, and that it was only the fully manoeuvrable sort that was stolen. Plainly the theft had been methodically planned in advance because the department's entire stock of batteries for the operating panels had all been removed, too.

It is to the RAF that the credit must go for discovering the eventual destination of the stolen goods. A Nimrod aircraft, returning from a more than usually pointless sea reconnaissance, spotted something unusual on the runway of a disused air station on the Norfolk coast. Coming down from some thirty-five thousand feet, the Captain made three low-level runs across the field and, despite deteriorating weather conditions, secured irrefutable
photographic evidence. This revealed six lines of extremely small vehicles all drawn up along the tarmac, and all in the hands of equally small drivers in bright, unfamiliar uniforms. What was of particular interest, however, was the picture sequence of the rapid-succession camera. It showed that the runway was being used for intensive training exercises – rapid acceleration from a standing start with the drivers bent low over the steering wheel and peddling away like mad; U-turns taken at full speed; and delicate reversing operations into narrow and confined spaces. Some of the photographic frames even showed up minor collisions, and one a quite nasty pile-up involving a road racer, a toy fire-engine, a kiddy's go-cart and a fairy cycle complete with bell, headlamp and wicker shopping-basket.

It is noteworthy that, at the very moment when gnomes were congregating in the shires and counties of the kingdom, Cyril Woods-Denton's Vicarage should have been singled out for special attention.

Up to that moment the evening which the Vicar and his sister were sharing together had been a quiet and placid one – baked beans on toast, ‘This Is Your Life', cocoa boiled up in a saucepan, the News, a few simple prayers, one last check on door locks and window fastenings, and bedtime. Not until 12.30 or thereabouts – neither of the occupants had thought to consult a clock – did anything untoward occur.

Then they were both wakened by the sound of a fairy cycle being parked in the driveway. The noise made by the rear bracket scraping on the gravel was unmistakeable. Brother and sister rose hastily and looked out of the window, he from his room, she from hers. Below was revealed a remarkable sight. In the glow of a match that had recently been struck
they saw a travel-stained midget, heavily goggled and wearing elbow-length driving gloves, peering up at the nameplate on the door. The match went out and the rider, still clearly uncertain that he had found the right address, thrust his goggles up onto his forehead and began fumbling with the matchbox again. This time he dropped the match altogether, and began peeling off his driving gloves. When at last he had succeeded in striking the third match, Hilda was surprised to see how young he was.

By now he was apparently satisfied that he had reached his destination. Reaching for a strap that was hanging across his right shoulder, he promptly began opening his despatch rider's wallet. In the half light they saw him take out a crumpled-looking envelope and, with no attempt of concealment, walk boldly up to the front door. A moment later they heard the flap of the letterbox being raised and the sound of something being pushed through.

It was Hilda who beat her brother in the race to the doormat. She was already halfway down the stairs when the Vicar came stumbling out of his bedroom, drawing on the woolly dressing-gown that had so alarmed Little Nelson. And it was Hilda who snatched up the crumpled parcel. She knew at once that it was precious and, for a moment, she held it pressed close against her bosom.

By now Cyril was there on the linoleum beside her.

‘But who is it addressed to?' he kept asking. ‘Who is it for?'

He was already holding out his hand as though he expected her to give it to him.

‘It's mine. It's mine,' was all that Hilda could say.

And, pushing past him, she went hurriedly upstairs again.

Seated on the end of the bed she began tearing at the brown paper. It was tattered enough already. And the string round it had been made up of quite short pieces: there were three large knots holding it together. And when she finally got the wrapping apart she could see that the contents had been wrapped up separately. Newspaper was what had been used this time; and very carefully used, too, with the torn edges all neatly folded over and tucked in. One by one she opened the tiny packets.

The first contained two pennies of the big old-fashioned kind – one of them mint-fresh and gleaming. Then came a playing card, the six of hearts, with one corner missing; an acorn; the gold top of a Devon cream milk bottle; and the button that Hilda had been missing from her housecoat. There it was, one of the set, with the torn strands of cotton hanging from it.

The sight of the button broke Hilda's heart. It was just as she had always suspected. Though she had
not actually seen it happen she had never doubted that Little Nelson had already put it in his pocket while still pretending to look for it. And, as she had told herself a hundred times, if that was what had really happened it was devotion and not deceit that had driven him to it.