The two boys saw the kids, running, screaming . . . the pool behind them was quiet, the water smooth, reflecting the pale blue of the morning sky. Pete began to relax, to think that he was not to be put to the test after all; the croc must have given up on them, returned to the river . . .
It had not. It had quit the pool and was coming after the kids, moving with a swiftness and a smoothness which terrified Pete, for the kids were no longer running all out. Harry glanced back, did not appear to see the beast on his heels, actually waved to his brother and Pete as they continued to tear across the muddy ground between them. Then the reptile seemed to see Pete and Bo, and it was as though that tiny, agile brain said, ‘Bigger game!’ It swerved towards them, coming on at a waddling run, its snout elevated, its mouth opening to show the rows of hideous yellow teeth. Pete and Bo skidded to a stop. Pete was trembling all over but he knew he must keep cool.
Between the eyes
, his father had instructed him,
aim between the eyes because that way you stand the best chance of getting him in the brain
. Waveringly, he lifted the rifle barrel; so little time, so little time! But Pete felt cooler now, more in command, with the rifle stock cuddled against his shoulder and the barrel pointing steadily at his enemy. God, but Bo had been right; it was
huge
. He could see the cold gold of the crocodile’s eyes, even see the liquid running from them, running down the great scaly face . . . crocodile tears. Then he squeezed the trigger, heard the explosion . . . but still the beast came on. Thanking God it was a repeater rifle, Pete fired again, again, again. The beast was so near he could smell the fetid stench of it, feel its hot breath. He longed to run but knew that if he tried to do so on the slippery mud, it could easily be the end of him.
Then Bo was punching his shoulder, trying to pull the gun from his grasp, jumping up and down in front of him, shouting, ‘You done it man, you done it! Clean between the bloody eyes, dead as a dodo! Biggest one I ever did see! Wait till your daddy gets home. Why, it had to be a big ’un to get over that wall the fellers made so’s the kids could play in the pool.’
Pete was shaking; he was shaking so much he was afraid Bo might notice and think him cowardly. Well, he had been frightened; anyone would have been. The croc had seemed gigantic when he looked at it along the smooth-backed gun barrel, but then it had been head on. Now he and Bo paced it out, both keeping well clear of the wicked teeth and claws, though no crocodile had ever been deader than this one, with the top half of its head blown away. Having satisfied themselves that the creature was at least thirty feet long, and maybe more, Bo shouted to Harry and his brother to come back and see for themselves what had been chasing them up from the pool. They came, eyes round with astonishment in their shining black faces, clutching each other, shuddering and exclaiming.
‘Good thing I’m not a trophy hunter, eh, Bo?’ Pete said, indicating the bloody mess of the reptile’s head.
‘Yeah, but I reckon we’d best get ropes round it and tow it back to the river,’ Bo said, ‘else the predators will be attracted by the smell of blood and we’ll end up worse off’n we started. I’ll go up to the camp and fetch most everyone down here. You go up to the house and get ropes and your ma. Reckon she oughta see it.’
‘Right,’ Pete said, and presently returned with ropes, accompanied by his mother who looked with astonishment at the enormous creature.
‘I heard shots and thought your pa and the men were back,’ she said. ‘I wish Andy could see this, but Bo’s right: it’ll attract more attention than we want or need. Hold on a moment, though, and I’ll fetch my measuring tape. Then at least we can tell your pa exactly how big it was . . . oh, my lor’, look at those kids!’
Pete followed the direction of her pointing finger. Already, Harry and the little one were back in the water, shouting and splashing one another, without a thought of danger.
Jess was teaching Debbie how to make poached eggs on toast when Nancy’s letter popped through the door. Debbie had browned the toast nicely and was hanging over the poacher, watching the transparent white gradually grow filmy and then solid, so Jess read the letter aloud to her as her daughter took the pan off the heat and began to butter the toast. When Jess reached the description of Pete shooting the crocodile she gasped, and Debbie, who was carefully scooping the eggs out of the poacher, glanced questioningly across at her. ‘What’s up, Mam? Oh, don’t say the horrible crocodile got one of the little boys! Gosh, crocodiles are horrible, aren’t they? Remember the one in Peter Pan, the one who had an alarm clock in his tummy and ate up Captain Hook?’
‘No . . . I know Nancy said it chased the children but I don’t think they can run on dry land. No, the reason I gasped is because she said Peter shot it, but that can’t possibly be right; he’s only eleven or twelve, not old enough to hold a gun, lerralone fire it. I expect she was in such a hurry to write that she meant to say Andy, but put Pete by mistake.’
‘Crocodiles can run on land; I read it in a book somewhere,’ Debbie said. ‘And boys of eleven are pretty strong, Mam. I bet it wasn’t a mistake. I bet it really was Pete who shot the crocodile.’
‘Oh well, I s’pose anything’s possible in that barbarous land,’ Jess said dismissively. ‘Poor Nancy, stuck out there with hardly any women and no dear little daughter to give her a hand. My, queen, those poached eggs look delicious.’
After the meal, Jess left the room to change into her uniform, and as soon as she had gone Debbie dived on the letter. She adored Aunt Nancy’s letters and always read them as soon as she could decently do so, and now she perused this one eagerly, putting it back on the table only when she had read it through twice.
Of course it had been Pete who had slain the crocodile – why on earth should Aunt Nancy be so pleased and excited if it had been her husband who had done the killing? He and his men went on crocodile hunts regularly when the wet was at its height, but Pete . . . well, he was only a boy when all was said and done.
But what a boy! One who picked a snake out of the bath and then coolly killed a huge crocodile! Debbie wished that she could go to Australia and meet this hero amongst men, this eleven-year-old boy who could shoot a crocodile without thinking twice!
Chapter Four
Summer 1938
It was the first day of the summer holidays and Jess was doing the eight till eight shift on Geriatric under the eagle eye of Sister Thomas. Because she and the sister had never got on – Sister Thomas was heartily disliked by almost all of the staff and definitely all of the patients – Jess was determined to be early, so she bundled her porridge plate and mug into the sink and decided it was time to wake her daughter. She crossed the kitchen and stood at the foot of the stairs looking contentedly about her. She and Debbie had moved out of the flat above the cycle shop some years ago because life there had become unbearable for both of them. At first, it had only been Debbie who had suffered, for Sam Platt, the son of one of the nurses who had shared the flat with Jess, had hated Debbie on sight and had made her life a misery by constant bullying and taunts – though never, of course, when adults were present. The trouble was, the two children had often been left to their own devices, and though Debbie had grown adept at slipping out of the flat whenever she and Sam were alone, there had always been the odd occasion when she could not do so. Because the flat share had been cheap and she knew her mother was hard up, Debbie had not complained about Sam until the dreadful day when he had pushed her downstairs, causing her to break an arm and crack two ribs. Then, of course, it had all come out and Nurse Platt, when confronted, had actually said it was all Debbie’s fault, that she had taunted and bullied Sam until he had been forced to give her a little shove in self-defence.
Despite being almost of an age, Sam was twice Debbie’s size: a hulking great brute of a boy with little intelligence but plenty of muscle, and the thought of Debbie’s giving him a push was almost laughable. Jess had said so and Nurse Platt, using language so obscene that it had taken Jess’s breath away, had announced that she would get her feller to come round one dark night and teach snooty Nurse Ryan a thing or two.
After this, the atmosphere in the flat had become difficult, to say the least; not that it had ever been easy. Three women sharing one kitchen is never a good idea but when they also shared a communal lavatory in the back yard, and a rather poky living room, small differences began to seem very large and tempers frequently flared.
Jess had done her best to pretend her nest egg did not exist, but during the years they had lived in the flat various things had happened which had forced her to dig into her savings. Twice she had had a recurrence of the sepsis which she had caught from wounded soldiers during the war years, through dressing septic and gangrenous wounds when the skin on her own hands was broken by small cuts or cracking chilblains. When her hands were really bad she could not work, for her fingers were too stiff to allow her to pick up so much as a teaspoon, quite apart from the danger of infecting others as she had been infected. On these occasions she was not paid, and was grateful for Ken’s good sense in not allowing her to spend the money on new furniture or even on a home of their own. She and Debbie had got by on as little as they possibly could but her share of the rent still had to be paid and she and Debbie had had to eat.
Nevertheless, when things had come to a head, she still had a little left of her inheritance, and she had decided that they must move out of the flat. If she could manage the rent of a small house, then she might take lodgers, and she had sounded out Nurses Pennymore and Barker to discover whether they would be willing to leave the nurses’ home and move in with her should she be fortunate enough to find a small house in the district.
Nurse Pennymore was a fat and jolly woman in her mid-thirties, sweet-tempered and friendly. She had agreed at once that she would be happy to take a room in Nurse Ryan’s house, should she find one to rent, and as soon as the question had been put to Nurse Barker she, too, had hailed the idea with enthusiasm.
Jess loved working on the geriatric ward, finding many of the old ladies under her care to be women of great character, and it had been one of these, a Mrs Dawson, who had suggested that she might try the street directly behind the Stanley Hospital. ‘When my husband were alive it were handy for his work at Ogden’s tobacco factory,’ she had explained, ‘but I’m moving in wi’ me daughter Mollie, so I shan’t be goin’ back no more; I give me landlord notice only two days ago. It’s a grand little house in Wykeham Street; why don’t you go after it? I doubt Mr Potts will have let it yet.’
Jess had loved the house from the first, though it had needed completely redecorating, and when Mrs Dawson had offered to sell her, for a very small sum, most of her furniture, Jess had accepted gladly, knowing that this would help the old woman and would also mean that she and Debbie could move in at once, though it had been several weeks before the house had been ready to receive Pennymore and Barker.
Jess had looked at the small sum of money left in her savings account, had taken a deep breath, and had withdrawn enough to buy some decent curtains and four almost new beds. These had been necessary because Mrs Dawson’s ancient feather mattresses had gone lumpy and in the damp of an unoccupied house had turned mouldy as well.
Now, however, Jess was well content with their little home. Whenever she could afford it, and saw something she liked, she would buy another item of furniture to replace the old items she had bought from Mrs Dawson. Now the house was growing downright respectable and Jess knew that, should either of her lodgers decide to move on, she would have a queue of nurses at the door, eager to take their rooms.
She had been standing in the hall, glancing contentedly at the gleaming brown linoleum on the floor and the strip of blue carpet which led up the stairs, when she remembered abruptly that she had come out to shout to Debbie. Had her lodgers been in, she would have run up the stairs and woken Debbie quietly, but Pennymore and Barker were both on nights this week and would not return home for another half hour or so. Accordingly, Jess shouted. ‘Debbie! Debbie? Are you awake, queen? I’ve left your porridge in the black enamel saucepan on the back of the stove, but there’s a good wind out today so the fire’s blazing up. If you leave it too long the porridge may burn on the bottom of the pan, and you know you hate burnt porridge.’
Jess waited and heard the thump as her daughter’s feet hit the floorboards before padding across the room. The door creaked open and presently Jess saw Debbie’s tousled head and sleepy eyes appear round the corner of the newel post at the top of the stairs. ‘Wharrisit, Mam? Have you forgot it’s the first day of the holidays? I meant to have a lie-in today, ’cos me and Gwen’s goin’ out later to try to find ourselves jobs. We’re sick of havin’ no money and Gwen says there’s heaps of folk what’ll employ a bright girl for the summer hols, so they can give their own workers a bit of time off.’ She yawned hugely, then knuckled her eyes and ran her hands through her shining bob of hair. So like mine used to be, Jess thought sadly, before Ken’s death and the hardships that followed began to turn me grey. Debbie has inherited my colouring, though she’s like Ken in lots of ways. She’s got his grit and courage. If it had been me who had been bullied by Sam, I’d have told my mam straight off, but Debbie never complained. Ken was just like that; he never wanted to worry me, always kept fears and bad news to himself if he could, and Debbie takes after him, so she does.