The Runaways (17 page)

Smiler began to know the plain, too, for Joe often now took him up there poaching. Sometimes of an evening, for the evenings had now grown long with daylight, Smiler would go up on the plain by himself. He knew the movements of the Land Wardens' Land-Rovers now and easily avoided them. He came to learn every dip and slope, every hollow and valleyside for miles around the deserted village of Imber. He had, too, his own ways of going on to the plain, avoiding the Vedette entrances. Since he now lived with Joe he could walk from Joe's cottage to Imber in little over an hour.

Often when Smiler went up to the plain he took with him Joe's field glasses. He loved to lie just below some ridge-top and watch the wild sweeps of country. Through the glasses he came to know the movements of many of the animals. He knew the foxes and the buzzards and, on the fringe of the plain not far above Danebury House, he knew a badger's set. Watching late into the dusk one day, he had seen the old boar badger come out for his night's foraging.

But the thing that really excited Smiler – and something he had never told Joe about – was that he had three times seen Yarra. The real reason he had not told Joe about it was that about four times a week Joe went down for the evening to the Angel Inn at Heytesbury. When Joe took too much cider aboard he had a habit of slipping the guard on his tongue. Smiler didn't want him to talk about Yarra in the Angel because that would mean a search and hunting party going up for her. Smiler didn't want her caught. Her freedom had somehow become linked with his own freedom. He felt in a funny way that it would be dead unlucky for him if he ever betrayed her.

He first saw her through his glasses on a Sunday evening. She was some way from Imber, hunting. He picked her up as she came quickly over the skyline. For five minutes he watched her quarter and hunt along a slope a mile from him. She took a hare and he saw for the first time in his life the tremendous turn of speed cheetahs can produce. The second time she was much closer to him. He was sitting up on one of the high-stilted observation platforms which the Army used for soldiers to watch the fall of shot around tank targets. It was on the side of the valley that ran eastwards from Imber. In the valley bottom was the small brook that came down through the village. The stream had almost died out to a trickle now as its spring source slowly fell ten off. But there were still a few pools along its length. Yarra came down to the brook to drink not a hundred yards from him. She lapped like a cat for a while. Then she turned and disappeared behind the trees that fringed the road leading to Imber.

The third time he saw her was from the farm buildings at the back of Imber Court. He was watching the pair of buzzards circling over a narrow combe that ran up to the north from the village. One of them suddenly mewed and planed downwards out of sight beyond the steep valley-side. The other buzzard followed. As Smiler brought his glasses down, following the birds, he saw Yarra come quickly over the ridge crest.

She came a few yards down the steep side and then disappeared behind a leafy screen of ash and alder trees. Smiler moved up the opposite side of the valley and examined the trees through his glasses. His observation being now from a different angle, he saw at once the tunnel entrance behind the trees. He watched it for an hour and there was no sign of Yarra. He guessed that it was probably her resting place or den, and made a note to himself to keep well away from it. There was plenty of room for both of them on the plain.

So the days passed for Smiler and Yarra. Smiler worked at Danebury, grew stronger and brown-tanned over his freckles so that he needed no artificial sun-tan. But every few weeks he had to dye his hair. (When it wanted cutting Joe would do it for him in the yard.) He always dyed his hair on an evening when Joe was down at the Angel, and he was very careful to clear up all signs of his operation afterwards. And he now knew where Pat Bagnall was working. He had gone into the food market in Warminster to get some supplies for Joe – and there she was sitting at a checkout point! There were a lot of people waiting to pay for their goods so he only had a brief talk with her. He met her again one Sunday morning when he was down at the river getting a couple of trout for his and Joe's evening meal. She had come down for a ride with her father, the river-keeper. He was doing something to the hatches lower down river.

Smiler was glad to hear this because he already had two fat trout hidden in the bushes not four yards from them.

Although he liked her, he didn't care for the direct way she put personal questions.

She wanted to know where he lived.

Smiler nodded his head across the fields to Joe's cottage. ‘ Over there – with my uncle, Joe Ringer.'

Pat laughed. ‘ My dad knows him all right. Fancy you being related. Hope you don't carry on like he does sometimes. Dad says he's worse than otter or heron where fish is concerned.'

‘Uncle Joe's all right, believe me,' said Smiler stoutly.

‘Where do you work, then? Still at the garage, Heytesbury way?'

‘Not now. Got a job at Danebury House. With Mrs Lakey.'

‘Oh, her. My dad knows her, too.' She giggled. ‘Lash-'em-and-Bash-'em Lakey he calls her. Says she should have been a man. But he likes her.'

‘So do I,' said Smiler. He grinned at the description of Mrs Lakey. It was not far off the mark. Then, with a sly twinkle in her eye, Pat said, ‘ Still dye your hair,

then?'
Under his tan Smiler blushed. ‘ What do you mean?'
Pat laughed. ‘Girl I know in Woolworth's says you used to buy

hair dye there – and sun-tan stuff.'
Thinking quickly, Smiler said, ‘What if I did? It wasn't for me.'
‘For who, then?'
‘Well … For my Uncle Joe.'
‘What's he want it for?'
Desperate, feeling himself led into deep waters, Smiler said, ‘I

can't really tell you. He mixes it all together and … and …' A

brainwave came to him. ‘Well, if I tell you, promise never to let

on to anyone? You'd get Uncle Joe in trouble.'
‘Promise.'
‘Well, this mixture. He uses it on white hens' eggs. Dyes 'em

brown and it don't come off when you boil 'em. People prefers

brown eggs and Uncle Joe sometimes only has white ones. But

don't you tell.'
Pat laughed. ‘What a crook. But I won't tell.'
It took Smiler another ten minutes to get rid of her. He went

back, with his trout, feeling limp with all the effort of making up

his story, and had two mugs of cider instead of one with his dinner.

When the cheetah cubs were well over a month old they no longer stayed all day in the valley-side den. Although they were growing stronger each day, they were still clumsy on their feet and were a long way from being able to hunt for themselves. A rabbit or a hare could easily outrun them. Early each morning and late in the evening Yarra would take them out on to the hillside or up over the ridge on to the plain. For their education she would stalk and catch a mouse or shrew. Without killing the animal, she would release it so that the cubs would chase it. Then they would fight and quarrel as to which one should eat it.

Yarra never took them far away. She stayed by them during the day and made sure that they never went far beyond the entrance to the den. Sometimes when they were out together she would leave them briefly to hunt down a rabbit or a hare, and then, the cubs following, trot back to the den where they would all eat. Although her milk was now drying up, the two cubs still suckled at her during the night. Feeding the cubs during the day and keeping near them often left Yarra hungry. When they were fast asleep at night, and there was no danger of their straying, Yarra would go out on her own and kill for herself.

The nights now were mostly warm and light. Her eyesight was keen and it was seldom that she failed to turn up some game. She knew now the patches of bracken and small spinneys where the deer rested. She hunted always upwind, waiting for the scent of deer, hare or pheasant and partridge to come drifting down to her.

It was towards the end of May that Smiler first saw the cubs. Always when he was Imber way in the evenings he would take up a position on the far side of the valley and spend half an hour watching the entrance to the den. One evening he saw Yarra come out of the entrance and stand sniffing the air for a while. She moved farther out and the two cubs followed her.

Smiler nearly dropped his field glasses in surprise. Although he knew from local gossip that Yarra was a female, it had never occurred to him that she would have cubs. No mention had ever been made that she was carrying young when she had escaped.

Tense with excitement, he watched Yarra lead the cubs along the valley side. He saw her pouncing into the long grass after mice and grinned and chuckled to himself when the clumsy cubs imitated her example.

He went back to Joe that evening hardly able to conceal his excitement. He wanted to tell Joe all about it. In fact, he felt guilty that he couldn't share this wonderful piece of news with Joe, but he knew what Joe was like. It would make such a good story in the bar of the Angel Inn that Joe would never be able to keep it to himself.

So, Smiler kept quiet. It gave him a nice warm feeling that he was the only one who knew. It was his secret. Also, there was another feeling in him. Yarra had escaped from captivity. She had become a wild animal again and was raising a family. She was doing it, too, in a wild area of ground right in the heart of civilized England. Smiler, although town-bred, had now become a country boy. From talks with Joe and Mrs Lakey and – most of all – with Miss Milly, he knew how the countryside was becoming spoiled and polluted and how hard it was these days for wild animals to survive. The hedgerows in which the birds nested were being pulled down and wire fences put in their place, making it harder for them to find breeding sites. He knew that mechanical reapers and binders had almost exterminated the corncrakes. He knew, too, that long ago Salisbury Plain had held the great bustard. He heard Miss Milly go on about the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers that poisoned birds and animals and seeped into the rivers to kill fish. Sometimes he even felt bad about the poaching that he and Joe did, but as the game they took was usually rabbit, hare, pheasant or woodpigeon of which there were plenty he did not feel too guilty. That Yarra – not even a native animal – was managing to survive in the midst of all this gave him a great sympathy for her. He was determined that Samuel M. wasn't going to be the one to give her away.

Meanwhile other secrets were being kept or defended unknown to Smiler.

First of all there was Major Collingwood, who by now had discovered the loss of his old green anorak, and guessed, too, what had happened to the old bicycle. Weeks before, during his dinner with Mr Coke, he had pretended that he wanted to be brought up to date on the local events which had occurred while he and Mrs Collingwood had been abroad. He was told, of course, about the escaped cheetah, Yarra. He was told, also, a lot of other things which were of no great interest to him. But he
was
told that a young lad, named Samuel Miles, who had run away from a reform school only to be caught by the police, had escaped again in a storm while being taken to Salisbury. The escape had taken place some six or eight miles south of Warminster. This interested Major Collingwood very much. ‘Hunted's letter, he felt, read like a young lad's letter.

Some days later, he went into the police station at Warminster. He knew the Police Inspector there and got a description of this Samuel Miles and all the facts that were known about him.

The Police Inspector, who was a friend of the Major, said, ‘What do you want to know all this for?'

The Major winked and said, ‘Sounds a very enterprising young chap – if
you
haven't picked him up yet. I thought I'd like to try my hand at it.'

‘Well – you'll have to go abroad again if you want him. He wrote a letter to his sister some months ago, saying he was shipping to sea.'

By the time the Major left he had been given the address of Ethel and Albert. A few days later he drove to Bristol to see them. Of course, he knew by now that Samuel Miles was very fair-haired and very freckled. The question of hair dye and sun-tan stain no longer puzzled him.

When he met Ethel and Albert and talked to them there was no doubt in his mind that the person who had taken his bicycle and anorak, eaten his wife's sardines, borrowed his fivepenny pieces (and paid them back) and stained the bathroom curtain was none other than Samuel Miles, known as – Albert told him this – Smiler. Ethel, who had got it back from the police, showed him the letter which she had received from Smiler. One glance told the Major that the handwriting was the same.

The Major said, ‘Do you think he really went to sea?'

Albert said, ‘Could have done. It's in the blood. That's where his Dad is – and won't be back for another six months or more.'

‘There's more than sea in his blood,' said Ethel. ‘There's wildness. Bad company did it. Led ' im astray. Fancy – knocking an old lady down and taking her bag.'

‘I don't believe it!' said Albert.

‘You did when it happened,' said Ethel.

‘Changed my mind,' said Albert. ‘Smiler wouldn't 'ave done that. And wherever he is, Smiler won't turn up until his Dad's back. Thinks the world of him, he does. Thinks he can straighten it out. You mark my words – moment his Dad's back, he'll turn up.' ‘You must both be very worried about him,' said the Major.

Albert grinned. ‘About Smiler? No. If ever there was a boy that could look after himself, it's Smiler.'

When the Major left he was inclined to agree. He found himself more than ever interested in Smiler. Driving home Major Collingwood decided that if Smiler had used the cottage and the barn then someone around the place, one of his friends or Mr and Mrs Bagnall, or their daughter might have seen him. He decided to make a few innocent inquiries. He asked Mr Bagnall and got no help from him. He asked Mrs Bagnall with the same result. Then one day, meeting Pat Bagnall pushing her bicycle up the hill from the bridge, he stopped and had a chat with her. He talked about this and that for a while and then said, ‘While I was away did you ever see a young lad – say between fifteen and sixteen – around the place? Tallish, strong lad, he'd be. Darkish brown hair and very sun-tanned. He could have been wearing a pretty old, green anorak.'