Donkey Boy (43 page)

“There’s your dags,” he said.

Phillip stood still, his hands unclenched by his stomach.

Mildenhall dapped him again, saying “There’s your cowardies, as you won’t fight.” Shutting his eyes, Phillip poked out with his left hand. To his surprise and dismay, Mildenhall stepped back, holding his nose, which began to bleed.

“’it ’im!” cried the boys. “Go on Mildy, ’it ’im, ’it the sawny Donkey Boy!”

Mildenhall stood there, his mouth twisting as he tried not to cry. Blood ran down to his mouth.

“Go on, slosh him, you can fight him,” urged Gerry, but Phillip, though he wanted to give Mildenhall a straight left, of the kind he had imagined a hundred times when reading the
Pluck
Library,
found that he could not move. His arms would not lift up. He stared at the blood running down Mildenhall’s chin, and was sorry for Mildenhall.

The fight was over. Phillip did not feel like the winner.

Mildenhall’s friends jeered, and followed in a bunch, chanting “Donkey Boy! Yah! Donkey Boy! Thinks he’s better’n us wearin’ a white collar on!” as Phillip walked away with Cranmer and Gerry. There was a low cry of “Billo, Twiney!” as Mr. Twine looked out of the doorway. The shouting stopped immediately.

The three walked out of the side-gate, followed by the others,
some saying “Funk!” as soon as they were out of sight behind the playground wall.

“Try again, Mildy, ’e ’it you when you warn’t ready. I seed him, yah, Donkey Boy! Bah! Donkey’s Ass, your farver fed you on donkey’s piss, old Tin Wheels what got two boys dahn Pit Vale put away in quod fer nuffink, only a bit o’ sport! Cowardy cowardy custard, eat your muwer’s mustard, what comes aht’v ’er——”

In a fury Gerry turned the boy taunting Phillip and struck him two blows on the chest in quick succession, crying “
Cowar
dies
and Dags, come on!” and danced round the boy, then with a swing of his right hand struck him on the side of the head. The boy sat down, howling. “Any more?” cried Gerry, looking round with weaving fists. He caught Mildenhall by the coat collar.

“D’you give Maddison best, eh? Want to fight? Go on, Phil, paste him!”

Seeing that Mildenhall did not want to fight, Phillip, who was now beginning to enjoy himself, squared up to him, while the boys made a ring, shouting out, “A fight! A fight!” then “Billo! Twiney’s coming!” whereupon the whole lot took to their heels, to Phillip’s relief.

He had won a fight! His elation was slight, for he could not forget the sight of Mildenhall’s nose bleeding. It must have hurt Mildenhall a lot, and it wasn’t a real fight. If Mildenhall had done it to him, he would have had to cry more than
Mildenhall
.

The next day Mildenhall did not look at Phillip, but went home first. Soon the fight was forgotten, as the end of term drew on.

There were hot cross buns to look forward to on Good Friday, and best of all, they were going the following week to Aunt Liza’s at Beau Brickhill. Phillip was thinking of fishing, of nesting in the fields and spinneys, of sleeping with Percy, of the wonderful talks they would have, in whispers, when they were in bed together, when the classroom door opened and Mr. Garstang stood there, looking straight in his direction.

Mr. Twine went to Mr. Garstang. They spoke together, while Phillip pretended to be working. He knew they were
talking about him. Mr. Garstang had found out about his composition. His heart thudded in his ears.

“Phillip, come with me,” said Mr. Garstang.

Phillip got up and saw himself following Mr. Garstang out of the classroom, into the hall, past the Black Line, up the stairs to the dreaded study with its glass doors. He waited by the open door, afraid to do the wrong thing, frightened of the room before him. Mr. Garstang turned his head and said in his deep voice, “Come in, my friend”, and at the mode of address Phillip felt a colder, more ominous fear.

He was just aware that an old gentleman was sitting in a chair in the room. He had a pink thin face, and silver hair. He wore spectacles like Father’s, with a thin gold frame. Phillip wondered why the old gentleman was smiling.

“This is the boy, Sir Park,” said Mr. Garstang. Phillip recognized with a start that his composition paper was lying on Mr. Garstang’s desk. He was found out. He was going to be expelled.

“Don’t look so scared, Phillip,” said Mr. Garstang, and when he smiled he seemed quite different from Mr. Garstang. Phillip smiled, but did not know what to do. He waited, with dry throat.

“Under some tension,” said the old gentleman. “Now, with your permission, Headmaster, I will ask my questions. First, will you introduce to me your pupil.”

“Phillip, Sir Park Gomme, of the London County Council, has come to tell me the results of the scholarships examination. This is Phillip Maddison, Sir Park.”

At the phrase LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL Phillip went pale again. They were great big black words which ruled everything and were everything.

“How do you do, Phillip,” said LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL, holding out a hand.

Phillip could not speak. A swallowed cluck, a voiceless tremor of the lips greeted Sir Park Gomme.

“You must not be afraid of me, I am the friend of all little children,” said the old gentleman.

After swallowing, Phillip found he could speak.

“Considerable tension as a normal condition, I should say, Mr. Garstang.”

“Quite well, thank you, Sir,” said Phillip.

“That’s right,” said the old gentleman genially. “And so you speak German, Phillip. Your old nurse Minnie must have been a very good friend to you.”

Phillip began to feel happy talking to the nice old gentleman of LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.

“Yes, sir, only it was long ago, when I was little.”

“And you love the countryside, do you?”

“Yes, sir, very much.”

“Have you ever lived there?”

“I go holiday-making, to my cousins, sir, at Beau Brickhill, near the river, sir.”

“And you wrote about Beau Brickhill; what a delightful place it must be.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Well, your Headmaster has told me before that one of his boys had an uncommon gift for writing, and your English paper, that is to say your composition, certainly bears it out.”

Phillip was still puzzled.

“Are you happy?” said the old gentleman, looking at him keenly.

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

“Always?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I am delighted to have met you. I congratulate you again on your description of the walk by the river. Thank you, Headmaster.” The old gentleman sat back, Phillip knew it was over, and he was all right.

“Now, Phillip,” said Mr. Garstang, “you may return to the classroom. Give this note to Mr. Twine, with my compliments, and ask him to send the boys whose names are written there into the hall at once. Your name is among them,” he smiled.

When Mr. Garstang had told the ten boys that each had won a scholarship, he said that they could have the rest of the day free, and he would trust them to go straight home to tell their mothers. Eagerly they set off, some turning north of the entrance to Wakenham School, others to the south, along the road now without the trees which had lined its way for centuries. East of
the road lay the cemetry, once the Great Field of thirty acres, of Lammas or half-year land.

Here, under a yellow mound of clay not yet grown with grass, set with a single jam-jar whose flowers had long since withered, lay the very old man whose act in bringing a jug of ass’s milk to Richard Maddison one morning eleven years before, when his baby son was dying, had saved the baby’s life. The ancient man lay in a pauper’s grave: in his own boyhood he had plowed, with a yoke of oxen, the land where now he rested: he had seen corn cut with the sickle on the Great Field when Napoleon was master of Europe; he was back where he began.

The boy who owed his life to the old man, and through him to his donkey, the boy who feared, almost as much as he dreaded physical pain, the stigma of his nickname, was passing the railings and the evergreen shrubs without knowledge of the grave’s existence, and yet with such happiness for life in his breast it might well have been that in the moment’s freedom a feeling of deep instinctive love had passed from the human relics in the soil to the medium of the boy’s mind; since, for no reason known to him the boy suddenly stopped, peered through the shrubbery, and smiled in secret, to what he did not know: except that now he must hurry home to tell his mother news which he knew would bring her happiness.

November 1951—March 1952
Devon.

By Henry Williamson in Faber Finds

THE FLAX OF DREAM

The Beautiful Years

Dandelion Days

The Dream of Fair Women

The Pathway

The Wet Flanders Plain

A CHRONICLE OF ANCIENT SUNLIGHT

The Dark Lantern

Donkey Boy

Young Phillip Maddison

How Dear Is Life

A Fox Under My Cloak

The Golden Virgin

Love and the Loveless

A Test to Destruction

The Innocent Moon

It Was the Nightingale

The Power of the Dead

The Phoenix Generation

A Solitary War

Lucifer Before Sunrise

The Gale of the World