The Runaways (23 page)

Tonks saw the green van go by Danebury House and barked his head off until Mrs Lakey, half in sleep, reached for a cushion and nearly knocked him from the window seat.

Pat Bagnall was back in bed, lying awake and dreaming. Down below she could hear her father stirring in the kitchen.

At Ford Cottage the barn owl had just returned from its night duties, full of food. In the cottage Major Collingwood was lying flat on his back, mouth open and snoring loudly. Mrs Collingwood pushed him over on to his side and said loudly, ‘ Quiet!' The Major became silent.

In her bedroom at Danebury Miss Milly lay awake having a little cry to herself and wrestling with temptation. She wanted to get up and drive to Joe's cottage to warn Johnny. But she knew she could not do it. She was a woman of honour, and anyway in the long run it would all be for Johnny's good. After a while she started to chuckle to herself. Fancy never guessing that Johnny dyed his hair! Right under her nose, too. Perhaps she needed glasses.

And in Joe's cottage, Joe lay abed and chuckled too. They wouldn't see Johnny for smoke. No more than they had ever seen
him
for smoke when he had run away from the Army. Some things you just had to run away from. Just as there was some things you just had to run towards … Like a bit of poaching or a nice pint of cider. Good lad, Johnny was. Wonder whatever it was that made him so fond of the plain? Not a girl, that was sure, ' cos there was none up there. Animals, he'd bet … Just loved animals, Johnny did. God bless him.

At the Vedette hut Smiler got out of the van and lifted the road pole. He drove through and then went back and lowered the pole.

From the hut the road ran due north to drop finally into the Imber valley. By now Smiler knew all the roads and tracks like the back of his hand.

The sky was lightening fast. The pearl-gold flush in the eastern sky was beginning to strengthen with the coming of the sun. The larks were already aloft and in first song. A pair of greenfinches flirted across the road in front of the van. A kestrel hovered over the tank which Yarra had first used as a shelter, watching for the movement of mice around its rusted sides. There was a heavy dew over the grass and the spiders' webs, hung from thistle to thistle and mantling the small bushes, were beaded with glittering moisture drops. High in the morning sky a jet fighter drew a long, straight vapour trail which began to rag away at the edges into little curls of cloud.

Within ten minutes Smiler was at Imber. He drove the van under the cover of the open barn at the rear of Imber Court. Taking his old haversack in which he had brought some dogs' meat, he walked around the side of Imber Court towards the valley in which the cubs lived. Under the tall trees at the foot of the valley a grey squirrel scurried away from him and raced up one of the trunks. The pack of jackdaws from the church tower flew overhead. The lip of the rising sun broke the edge of the far plain, throwing long bush and tree shadows.

Smiler walked up the valley bottom, alongside the tank tracks. He tried not to think that it was the last time he would go up to the den. Instead, he thought of how good Pat and Joe had been to him last night. Going by Danebury and hearing Tonks bark had been a bad moment. He was leaving all the animals there. Then, as he began to climb the steep slope to the cave plateau, he could think of nothing else but Yarra. He sniffed hard. Yarra had gone for good. And now he was going … right away, miles away. Because he felt so miserable, he gave himself a good talking-to. It's no good, Samuel M., he said, snivelling about things. Life is always changing. Like Joe said, if it didn't, then men would grow moss on 'em – just like the rocks.

At the den mouth he pulled up the planks and Afra and Rico came leaping out to him. They had heard his whistle as he came up the slope. The sight of them cheered him up at once.

They were well grown now and their tawny, spotted coats rippled and caught the day's new light as they moved. Afra had a creamy mantle showing under her neck. Rico's tail was long and drooping and could give you quite a crack if he happened to swing it across your face when you knelt to fondle him.

He dropped to his knees and played with them for a moment or two. After a while Rico, always the greedier, began to worry and paw at the haversack on Smiler's back.

‘All right, my beauties,' said Smiler. ‘A walk first and then food.'

He started off down the steep slope, back towards Imber. Rico raced ahead and began mouse-hunting from tuft to tuft of grass. Afra found a tattered little white parachute from an old signal flare, picked it up and carried it for a while.

The birds and the beasts of the little valley watched them go. The three buzzards, low flying at the ridge-top, soared and hung over them. The carrion crow, dealing with a dead rabbit on the far slope, looked up and watched their movements and wondered what Afra was carrying. A deer couched in bracken followed them with large, liquid eyes. A hare got up well ahead of Rico and raced away followed by the cub. But there was no fear in the hare because it had more speed than Rico. The cub soon gave up the chase and came galloping back at the sound of Smiler's whistle. A pair of yellow hammers scolded them from an ash tree and a grass snake fifty yards ahead slid away to safety as it caught the thud, thud of Smiler's approaching footsteps.

At the small spring, which was now down to a feeble trickle, Smiler let the cubs drink. When they had taken their fill, they followed him up to the van.

He opened one of the back doors of the van, took meat from his haversack and tossed it inside. Rico jumped in immediately for the food, but Afra stood her ground for a moment or two. She sniffed around the back of the van and Smiler wondered whether he was going to have trouble with her. He took another piece of meat, held it briefly under Afra's nose, and then jerked it into the van as she made a move for it. Afra leaped into the van after the meat.

Smiler closed the door and locked it. He went round and got into the driving seat. The back part of the van was boarded off from the front. At some time Joe had made a small hatchway in it so that he could reach back and take things from the interior without getting out The hatchway was fastened with small bolts, top and bottom. Smiler made sure that they were secure and then drove off.

He went back through the shattered, derelict village. Beyond the village, instead of taking the right-hand turn which led to the Heytesbury Vedette hut, he carried straight on.

The road rose up a gentle slope and came out on to the wide, open stretches of grass land. Half a mile down the road he turned left at a crossroads and began to bump his way along a narrow, rutted track. After a while the surface of the track grew better. Some minutes later Smiler was driving down the northern scarp of the plain, not far from the spot where Yarra had been attacked by the Ayrshire cow. He passed another empty Vedette hut. A little later he was off the plain near a small village called Erlestoke through which ran a main road. Smiler turned the van left-handed, westwards along the road. A mile along the main road, he drew up. He slipped the hatch bolts and peeped through at the cubs. There was straw in the van for them to lie on. They both came to the hatchway. Smiler rubbed their masks and then pushed through some more meat from his haversack.

He bolted the hatchway and drove on. He knew exactly where he was going, and he knew all the roads from the many drives he had taken with Joe. As soon as he could he left the main road. By now the police might be at Joe's cottage. If Joe couldn't keep from them the fact that the van was missing the police would put out a call for it. Well, if they did, they did. That was a risk he had to take.

In fact, he need not have worried. When the police came to Joe's cottage, Joe had been long up. He had taken Smiler's bicycle, wheeled it to the river and thrown it in. When the police arrived Joe at once told them that Johnny and his bicycle were gone. Which he could truthfully do. The police never asked him about his van. Joe reported its loss at mid-day when he went to the Angel.

Later that morning, not long after Longleat Park had been opened to the public, Apollo, the cheetah male, who had been the mate of Yarra, lay along the bare length of a branch of the fallen tree not far from the sleeping hut.

The sky was cloudless. Now and then Apollo raised his head and blinked in the strong light. Across the road and the grass two or three other cheetahs were pacing up and down the wire enclosure, their eyes on the free parkland beyond, the parkland over which Yarra long ago had escaped.

A few early cars were beginning to trickle through the animal enclosures now. Apollo watched them come around the curve of road which held the fallen tree. They had no interest for him. Every day he saw them. They usually stopped a little higher up the road from the tree where they could get a good view of the whole enclosure.

Apollo yawned and wrinkled his mask, then snapped at a worrying blue bottle fly. One of the cheetahs by the fence flopped to the grass and began to roll on it, its long legs high in the air. A nuthatch landed on the far end of the old tree and began to work its way around and along a branch with short, jerky movements. Apollo watched it, half made to rise and then subsided. It was hot. He swung his long tail and thumped the tree trunk. The nuthatch flew off.

At that moment a small green van came around the curve of the road behind Apollo, turned up the little slope and then drew in to the side of the road. It was about twenty yards upwind of Apollo. Apollo watched it.

In the van was Smiler. He knew all about Longleat Park and its animal kingdom. This was the place that Joe had brought him to for his treat. On that day, when they had got as far as the cheetah enclosure, it was as much as Smiler could do not to tell Joe all about Yarra and her cubs. He had made Joe stay a long time in the enclosure, the other cars drawing out and passing them.

Now Smiler had returned bringing with him, safely hidden in the van, as he had long planned, Afra and Rico. They were now out of the cub stage, were young cheetahs.

Smiler looked across at Apollo, and the size and beauty of the animal made him think of Yarra. Behind him Afra and Rico moved restlessly in the van. The various animal scents that had come to them as they had passed through the other enclosures had roused them.

Smiler sat for a moment wishing he didn't have to go on with his plan, but knowing he must. It was the best thing for the cheetahs. Once it was done, he knew that he could not hang about and see how Afra and Rico would be received. He would have to move on because at the entry to the enclosure he had seen one of the black and white Land-Rovers of the Game Wardens.

Smiler turned and drew the bolts on the hatch. You've got to do it, Samuel M., he told himself. You've just got to do it.

He opened the hatch wide. Afra and Rico came to the opening. Smiler held up a piece of meat he had saved and then leaned over and quietly opened the door of the cab.

Rico slid through the hatchway and went for the meat Smiler held. Before Rico could take it, Smiler threw it out on to the grass. Rico jumped out after it.

Afra came through the hatchway after her brother and sat on the seat at his side. She looked out at Rico.

‘Go on, Afra, go on!' urged Smiler. But Afra sat on her haunches, twisted her neck, and rubbed the top of her head against Smiler's shoulder.

‘Afra, please,' Smiler pleaded. Afra sat where she was. Desperate, Smiler eased himself sideways and pushed Afra off the seat to the floor. She turned briefly, spat-snapped nervously at him and then lifted her muzzle. A mixture of new and familiar scents came flooding through the open door. She jumped down on to the grass to join Rico.

Relieved, Smiler pulled the door shut and drove off. He drove, sniffing and fighting back the tears which pressed against the back of his eyes. He went up the road as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself. As he went he watched Afra and Rico in the mudguard mirror. Rico was couched on the grass, chewing at his piece of meat. Afra was standing up, slowly swinging her blunt head and long neck as she looked around the enclosure.

A turn in the road at the top of the enclosure took them both from Smiler's sight, and he told himself, You've looked after the cubs, Samuel M. You've done the right thing. Now you start thinking about yourself.

Apollo was the first living thing in the enclosure to see the young cheetahs. Even before he saw them he had caught their scent coming downwind to him. As the van drew away they came into view. His head jerked up alertly. Slowly he raised himself to a stalking position and began to move out along the length of the fallen tree trunk. At the end he stopped, watching Afra standing and looking round, seeing Rico on the ground worrying at the meat. Their scent was strange, but it was cheetah scent. Cheetahs in captivity do not always take kindly to the introduction of new members.

Suddenly Apollo leapt from the end of the trunk in a long curving spring. Ignoring the few cars that moved up the road, he walked slowly, deliberately across to the young cheetahs. Afra turned and faced him and then dropped her shoulders and opened her jaws in a silent gape, half-menace, half-fear. Rico looked up from his meat and rumbled a caution for Apollo to keep away.

By the fence the other cheetahs had caught the new scent. Slowly they began to move towards the young cheetahs, not directly, but in small, exploratory arcs.

Apollo moved to Rico and lowered his head. Rico – Apollo's own son – snapped at the big male to guard his meat. Apollo's right forepaw swept out and cuffed Rico away from the meat. Rico rolled over and over for about a yard. He came to his feet, shook himself and then moved confidently back to his meat. Apollo had done to him no more than Yarra had sometimes done.

Apollo watched Rico come back and drop to the meat, almost under his muzzle. For a moment Apollo's paw rose and then the movement stopped. He let Rico take the meat, and turned. Afra was standing just behind him. Ten yards away the other cheetahs had bunched together, some standing, some squatting, all watching Apollo. All of them knew the power of Apollo and respected him.