The Runaways (21 page)

He was reading his newspaper and feeling rather sleepy from the hot sun. The sound of the river running by lulled him. Now and again he dozed off as his wife chatted to him. Sometimes he came out of his doze to catch the end of one of her sentences and to make some polite reply.

From a somewhat deeper doze-off, he surfaced briefly to hear his wife finishing a sentence.

‘… and although they work him hard enough over there, I thought now in the long evenings he could give you a hand.'

‘Give me a what, dear?' The Major blinked his eyes open.

‘Give you a hand in the garden. He's a good worker, Angela Lakey tells me.'

A little more awake, the Major said, ‘Who is?'

Mrs Collingwood laughed. ‘ Why, Johnny, of course.'

‘Who on earth is Johnny?' asked the Major.

His wife shook her head. ‘ Sometimes I think your memory is going altogether. Johnny, the boy who works for Danebury House. And if you want to know where Danebury House is, it's where I go riding sometimes as you well know. I've spoken to you about him before.'

‘Not that I remember. Perhaps I was asleep at the time.'

‘Well, he's a nice boy. He lives with that awful Joe Ringer. He's a tall, strong boy with dark-brown hair and sort of freckled under his sunburn. I don't know where Angela found him. She doesn't seem keen ever to talk about him. Almost as though there was some sort of mystery about him, I feel.' She laughed. ‘ You'd think he was an escaped convict, or something. Would you like some more tea, dear?'

The Major sat forward in his chair, suddenly deep in thought. ‘Tea?' he questioned.

‘Yes, dear. The brown liquid that comes out of a teapot and which you drink from a teacup. Really, I think this sun is too much for you!'

But it was not the sun that was too much for the Major. It was his old interest in Mr Hunted which had suddenly revived, though he was careful not to show it.

He said casually, ‘ Oh, yes, I think I've seen him cycling about Heytesbury. Does he wear an old green anorak sometimes? Like one I used to have?'

‘I believe he does. Yes, he does sometimes. Well, anyway, I was thinking that if he had the time we might …'

The Major didn't hear her because he was thinking, too; thinking that he would like to have a look at this Johnny, a good look without Johnny seeing him.

This he managed to do twice during the next few days. He also met Miss Milly in Warminster shopping the following Monday and had a chat with her – among other things about Johnny. He learnt that Johnny had an aunt called Mrs Brown who lived at Hillside Bungalow in Crockerton. She was away at the moment tending a sick sister in Bristol. Since the Major lived almost in Crockerton himself he knew perfectly well that there was no Mrs Brown and no Hillside Bungalow there. With all this knowledge, his certainty grew that Johnny was really Samuel Miles. The Major, who was a good-hearted, conscientious, and kind man, but one used to Army discipline, found himself with a problem which he knew would take him a little while to think out. To think out, that is, for the real good of Samuel Miles, known to his friends as Smiler or Johnny.

It was more than a week before the Major, who had a few other inquiries to make, came to his decision and knew exactly where his duty lay.

Smiler was never to forget the happiness of his days with Afra and Rico. They were bright summer days and rainy summer days. They were days when the movement of the cubs racing and hunting at the top of the valley printed pictures in his mind which he would always remember. They came to his whistle now and, unless they were hunting, trotted close to him. Their pelts were taking full colour, the amber, black-spotted coats rippling above their muscle movements. They caught mice and rabbits, and twice they packed together and ran down a very young hare. When they killed Smiler never attempted to take their kill from them. If he had time he would wait until they had eaten. Otherwise he would go back to the den and they would follow, carrying their catch. He still regularly fed and watered them. Also, he had forever a watchful eye for Land Wardens or late exercising troops.

Sometimes he lay in the grass and the cubs would romp over him as they played together. The early morning and late evening air was full of the smell of wild thyme. With the passing of the days Smiler hated the thought of the day that was coming, the day already fixed in his mind when they would have to part company. He would have liked to stay up on the plain with them forever. If there had been no other people to bother them they could have lived easily. There was water, food to be found, and plenty of shelter. Even in the winter he reckoned they would be able to manage. He saw himself in a commodious cave, a fire burning at the entrance, and Afra and Rico lying together well away from the flames, while the winter wind shrieked outside. He knew it was all a dream. But it was a good dream to have.

One warm moonlit night, he spent the whole time on the plain with them because Joe had gone away on business to Southampton and was staying with a friend down there.

When Mrs Lakey met him at the kitchen door next morning she took one look at him and said, ‘Boy, you're as red-eyed as an albino. Don't tell me you had too much of Joe Ringer's cider last night?'

‘No, Mrs Lakey, I'm always careful how much I have of that stuff.'

‘St Patrick himself keep you that way, Boy. He always prescribed it in moderation – and left each mortal to decide for himself what moderation was.'

At lunchtime Miss Milly said, ‘That's a bad scratch on your hand, Johnny. I'll fix it for you with a plaster.'

Rico a little rough in play had bit lovingly at Smiler's hand that night and torn the flesh. While she was attending to his hand. Miss Milly went on, ‘Jelly and I are going to dinner with a Major Collingwood at Crockerton on Friday. He asked me some time ago if you'd care to do a little weekend gardening work for him? Shall I tell him, yes?'

Smiler's hair nearly stood on end.

He stammered, ‘ Well … well, Miss Milly, I don't think … Well, I like to have a bit of time to myself at weekends.'

‘And it's right you should. I'll tell him to cast his eyes elsewhere.'

If he could have told her the truth Smiler would have said that the coming weekend was going to be his last at Danebury, his last in this part of the world. On Sunday morning he meant to be up early and away in Joe's green van with Afra and Rico. It would mean creeping into Joe's bedroom to get the key of the van from his jacket pocket, but Joe always slept like a log on Saturday nights after his visit to the Angel. Smiler knew that he would have no difficulty in getting the key. He planned to leave a letter for Joe explaining where he could find the van. The thought of leaving Joe was almost as bad as that of leaving the cubs.

The last few days of Smiler's time on the plain slid by. The buzzards had brought off a young one from a pair of eggs and were teaching it acrobatics high above. The carrion crow flew solitary about her foraging and scavenging. Charms of goldfinches worked the tall thistles and weeds on the plains, and the barn owls quartered silently and soft-winged on their night hunting. Each morning and evening Smiler was with Afra and Rico. He had put all his affairs in order ready to move off, to stay free until his father returned. He knew his father would believe him when he told him that he had not robbed the old lady. His father would turn the world upside down, too, until other people believed it – and then he wouldn't have to go back to the reform school. He hadn't robbed the old lady and that was that!

On Friday evening Mrs Lakey and Miss Milly went to dinner with the Major and his wife. They had drinks in the evening sun on the lawn just outside the open dining-room windows. An occasional trout rose to a fly on the river, dimpling the surface. A kingfisher flashed downstream, and a family of yellow wagtails bobbed and played over the gravel spits along the banks.

Mrs Lakey and Miss Milly were very old friends of the Major and his wife so that the Major did not much relish what he was going to have to say and do. Being a military man he had decided that, if a thing were to be done, then it was better to do it quickly.

Mrs Lakey was seated with her glass of whisky. Miss Milly with her sweet marsala, Mrs Collingwood with a glass of dry sherry, and the Major with a slightly larger whisky than the one he had given Mrs Lakey because he felt he was going to need it.

After a few minutes' pleasant social chat, the Major cleared his throat and said to Mrs Lakey, ‘Angela, there's something which I must discuss with you and Milly. It's serious and it's about your boy, Johnny. Johnny Pickering who lives with Joe Ringer.'

Miss Milly said, ‘ Johnny's a good boy, Major. But he just wants his weekends free. So I'm afraid he doesn't want to garden for you.'

‘Afraid of a little extra work. Like all boys,' said Mrs Lakey. ‘Though the Boy is better than most. Furlongs ahead of any other I know.'

‘No, I don't mean about working for me,' said the Major.

‘Then what else could you possibly mean, dear?' asked his wife. ‘After all, we can just get someone else to do –'

Very firmly, the Major said, ‘ I am not talking about gardening. And I would appreciate it if you ladies would kindly give me your attention for a few minutes without interruption.'

‘Very military all of a sudden, isn't he, Jelly?' said Miss Milly. ‘Just like father used to be when anything went wrong. Like when one of the grooms –'

‘Be quiet, Milly, and drink your marsala,' said Mrs Lakey. ‘Though how you can like the stuff –'

‘What about Johnny, dear?' asked Mrs Collingwood. ‘Has he been poaching with that awful Joe Ringer?'

Even more firmly, the Major said, ‘ Dear ladies, I would like to get this matter settled, but if you keep interrupting it will take all night –'

‘And the dinner will be spoiled,' said Mrs Lakey. ‘ But carry on, Major. I think I know what maggot has got into your apple. The Boy is Samuel Miles, isn't he?'

The Major looked at her in astonishment, and cried, ‘You knew?'

‘Almost from the first. You don't always have to look at a horse's mouth to tell its age. Think I can't spot it when a boy's got something to hide that dyed hair can't cover?'

‘
Who
is this Samuel Miles?' asked Miss Milly.

‘The Boy,' said her sister.

‘Your Johnny,' declared the Major. ‘He's escaped from an approved school.'

‘Johnny's a good, kind, honest boy,' said Miss Milly stoutly. ‘I don't believe a word of anything you're going to say.'

Mrs Collingwood sighed. ‘ So far as I am concerned I would just like to know what everyone is talking about.'

‘Then listen,' declared the Major almost crossly. ‘His name is really Samuel Miles and he's been in this house, dyed his hair, and eaten our sardines, and taken my anorak and covered up his freckles and … How on earth, my dear, do you think your bathroom curtains were stained?'

Mrs Lakey smiled and said, ‘It's the most lucid explanation I ever did hear, Major. Worthy of an Irishman. And what is more the Boy has no aunt called Mrs Brown of Hillside Bungalow, Crockerton, and if he escaped, from an approved school and then from the police, more power to his elbow. Any two things better escaped from I can't imagine.
But
it's not our job to do the work of approved schools or the police so –'

Pompously, the Major said, ‘ He attacked an old lady and stole her handbag.'

‘Never!' said Miss Milly. ‘What an awful thing to say about Johnny! I think I must have some more marsala.'

Mrs Collingwood, moving to help Miss Milly to more marsala, said to her husband, ‘Darling, take a deep breath, count ten, and then start at the beginning. Funny, I thought it looked like your anorak. There was a splotch of red paint on it that –'

The Major snorted and cried, ‘Will you all listen to me!'

Mrs Collingwood smiled, Miss Milly sipped at her marsala and Mrs Lakey began to light a small cheroot. A blackbird sang from an ash tree. In the woods across the river a woodpecker drummed against the trunk of a beech. A pack of sparrows began quarrelling on the thatched roof, and the Major – who had used almost his parade ground voice – began to explain, telling the story of Samuel Miles as he knew it.

One afternoon in Bristol an old lady had been jostled off the pavement by a boy and her handbag stolen. A policeman, seeing the act from a distance, had gone after the thief. Around the corner he had spotted a boy running down the pavement. The policeman had caught him and found that he was holding the old lady's handbag with ten pounds in it. The boy was Samuel Miles. His father was away at sea and he was living with a married sister. Samuel Miles had denied the theft, though he
had
been in some small bits of bother with the police before.

Samuel Miles's story, however, was that he had been standing just round the corner when a boy he knew had come rushing past him and had tossed him the handbag, shouting ‘Hide it!' The boy was one Johnny Pickering. They were not friends. In fact they disliked one another. Samuel Miles had said that when he was caught running away he was really running after Pickering to make him take the handbag back. Both boys were about the same height, and both had fair hair. Samuel Miles had said that Pickering must have seen the policeman and, once around the corner, tossed the handbag to him and run on.

But, the Major explained, in the juvenile court the father and the mother of Pickering had both sworn that their son had been at home all afternoon. One of their neighbours had sworn the same. The court had decided that Samuel Miles – and evidence had been given to show that Samuel Miles did not like Pickering – was lying to save himself. They had found him guilty and decided that he must go to an approved school.

At this point Miss Milly said stoutly, ‘It's not true. Johnny would never do such a thing.'