The Stone Book Quartet (10 page)

‘Number Six-six Battery, Royal Field Artillery, ready for inspection! Sir!’ shouted Faddock Allman.

Uncle Charlie didn’t answer. He was on his heel, chewing a straw of stubble, and looking at the standing corn. His face had gone different. It was thinner, and Robert couldn’t tell what was in the eyes. He spat the straw out and drank from a flask he carried in his pocket, enough to wet his mouth, no more.

Uncle Charlie stood up. He took the rifle. ‘Get aback of me,’ he said.

Robert made Wicked Winnie safe with chocks of stone.

Faddock Allman pushed his helmet off his forehead. The men and boys were standing around the square of corn, and were silent. The women had moved away down the hill.

‘Ready?’ Ozzie Leah called.

Uncle Charlie nodded. He loaded the magazine with real bullets, grey iron and brass, clipped the magazine into the rifle, put another bullet in the breech and rattled the bolt. He held the rifle across his body; pointing to the earth, flexed his shoulders and breathed deeply, and then was still.

Ozzie Leah looked at Uncle Charlie once more, raised his hand, his cap in it, and brought it down.

‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o! Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’ The men and boys yelled the cry. They yelled and yelled and clapped their hands and waved their caps and banged sticks together. Uncle Charlie didn’t move. ‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’ The noise was tremendous.

But through the noise came another, a scream, a squeal, and, in terror, rabbits broke out of the last standing corn. All day they had worked inward from the scythes, and now they ran. Uncle Charlie watched. Over the field, between the kivvers, dodging, driven by noise, the rabbits went and their screaming pierced all noise.

Uncle Charlie swung the rifle to his shoulder, turning on his hips. He fired. The sound of the rifle deadened Robert’s ears. Left. Left. Right. Left. ‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’ Right.

One rabbit was going uphill, in line with the men. Uncle Charlie watched it go until it climbed above them. The rabbit was at the top cornerpost of the held when he shot it.

The others got away. Their squealing stopped when they reached the bracken of the wood.

And Saint Philip’s church was still black, and there were no shadows.

Ozzie Leah shouted, ‘Good lad, Sniper!’

Robert looked at Uncle Charlie. The face was no different. ‘When there’s too many,’ said Uncle Charlie, ‘you can’t tell them from poppies. They’re all alike the same, you see.’

‘Cop hold, Sniper,’ said Ozzie Leah. ‘Three for you, and a sixpence for the bullets.’ He had brought the rabbits down to Uncle Charlie. They had all been shot in the head, and none of the meat was spoilt, though the heads had gone. ‘Me and Ollie can finish,’ said Ozzie Leah. ‘You get off home, there’s a good lad.’

‘Ay,’ said Uncle Charlie.

He took the three rabbits and the spade and the sash cord and his rifle and walked off the hill, as if Faddock Allman was leading him, like a big dog. And Robert followed.

They sat by the heap of road flint stone and gutted the rabbits. Uncle Charlie lifted his eyes to look at the work he had done, at the harvest got.

‘That’s my trade, Dick-Richard,’ said Uncle Charlie. ‘I stop rabbits skriking. There’s me craft, and there’s my masterness.’

They wiped their hands on grass. Together Robert and Uncle Charlie pulled Faddock Allman as far as the house. At the gate, Robert carried the hammers in to the end room while Uncle Charlie went to fetch Faddock Allman his brew for the night. Father was finishing supper. Mother began to skin the rabbits.

Uncle Charlie boiled out his rifle, dried it and cleaned it and took it into the kitchen. He sat down at the table.

‘Now then, Joseph,’ said Uncle Charlie.

‘Now then, Charlie,’ said Father.

They looked at each other, and they laughed.

The corn kivvers waited on three church bells. The last cry went up, ‘Who-whoop! Wo-whoop! Wo-o-o-o!’ and was quiet at Leah’s Hill. Wicked Winnie took Faddock Allman home. Father and Uncle Charlie played the great tune of the Hough, E Flat cornet and rifle, on either side of the fire, and the day swung in the chapel clock, escapement to the sun.

TOM FOBBLE’S DAY

‘Tom Fobble’s Day!’

The first snowball caught William in the teeth. The second burst on his forehead; the third on his balaclava helmet.

He let go of his sledge, and ran, blindly. The snowballs kept hitting him, on the back, on the legs, softly, quietly, but he couldn’t stand them.

The snow gathered between the iron of his clogs and the curved wood of the sole and built into rockers of ice. His ankles twisted and he fell over, trying not to cry. He curled himself against the attack.

But it had stopped. He opened his eyes. He wasn’t even out of range. Stewart Allman had stopped throwing and was sitting on William’s sledge.

William stood up. ‘Give us me sledge!’ It had taken him a day and a morning to build it out of an old crate. ‘It isn’t yours,’ said Stewart Allman.

‘It is!’

‘It isn’t. I’ve Tom Fobbled it.’

‘You can’t! You can’t Tom Fobble sledges! Only marbles!’

‘What are you going to do about it?’ said Stewart Allman.

‘And only after Easter!’ William was getting more angry than he was scared.

‘It is after Easter,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘Last Easter!’

He laughed.

William charged. The snow on his clogs made him trip, and he rolled down the hill and Stewart Allman sat on him.

‘Easter! Tom Fobble’s Day’s Easter and marbles! You know it is!’

Stewart Allman pushed a handful of snow into William’s mouth.

‘I only want to lend it, you boiled ha’penny,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it in turns.’

‘Where’s yours?’ said William.

‘Bust,’ said Stewart Allman.

Lizzie Leah’s was the place where everybody went to sledge. It was two fields, one above the other and above the road. The bottom field was short and steep, and all that had to be done was to stop before the thorn hedge. The top field was long, and there was a gate in the corner to the bottom field. But there weren’t many who could sledge the top field, corner to corner, across the slope, and through the gate and down the bottom field.

It was fast, and the sledge had to be turned sharply for the gate, and at the only patch in the whole field where it could be turned, there was a hump that made the sledge take off. And the chances for the sledge then were to land against a tree, or in barbed wire, or the gatepost, or to go through to the bottom field.

‘I’ll swap you,’ said William.

‘What for?’ said Stewart Allman.

‘An incendiary,’ said William.

‘Show us.’

William pulled the incendiary bomb out of his jacket inside pocket. He had found it that morning, after the air raid. The bomb was the shape of a bicycle pump, but corroded and sticky, like an old battery.

‘OK,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘I’ll swap.’

He pulled both his trouser pockets out, and two piles of shrapnel dropped into the snow. ‘Hot last night,’ he said. Shrapnel picked up hot from the gunfire was worth more than cold-found. ‘Give us the sledge.’

‘I meant swap you instead of lending,’ said William.

‘I didn’t,’ said Stewart Allman.

‘You’ll bust it,’ said William.

‘You have first go, then,’ said Stewart Allman.

William collected up the shrapnel. It was a jagged, brown metal, sharp enough to cut and to pierce, and even its surface was harsh, like sand.

‘All right,’ he said. He put the shrapnel in his jacket, and walked along the bottom field to where the girls had a sledge run.

‘Top field,’ said Stewart Allman.

Stewart Allman’s sledge had disintegrated against the tree. William went a few yards above the hump and turned his sledge round.

‘Is that all you’re doing?’ said Stewart Allman.

‘It’s new,’ said William. He lay down on the sledge. It was no longer than his chest, and his head stuck out.

‘Want a shove?’ said Stewart Allman.

William got up and sat on the sledge, holding the string.

‘You’re frit,’ said Stewart Allman.

‘Don’t care,’ said William. He pushed with his feet. The sledge moved and sank into the snow and stopped. He tried again, and slipped forward off the front of the sledge. The third time, the thin, flat runners passed over the ridge of snow they had built, and William was away. He wasn’t going fast enough at the hump, and had to heel himself along to get over. He rode down the bottom field and braked before he reached the hedge.

‘How is it?’ Stewart Allman shouted.

‘Smashing!’

William pulled the sledge back up the hill. Stewart Allman had climbed to the middle of the top field and was waiting. The middle of the top field was as high as it was safe for the best sledgers to go. William had to stop to knock the snow off his clogs.

‘Don’t be all day,’ said Stewart Allman.

‘You’ve got boots,’ said William.

‘What’s that cissy way of riding?’ said Stewart Allman.

‘It’s my sledge,’ said William.

‘You look a right betty.’

Stewart Allman lay on the sledge and bent his knees.

‘Shove us,’ he said.

William took hold of Stewart Allman’s feet and ran as if he was pushing a cart.

‘Let go!’

William fell over.

The rickety crate bobbed down the field. William thought it would shake to pieces, but it didn’t. He saw it hit the hump and turn in the air. Stewart Allman had his foot down hard just before he left the ground. He was through the gate and out of sight behind the hedge between the fields.

William waited. He heard a cry.

‘You what?’ he shouted.

He heard the cry again, but couldn’t tell what Stewart Allman was saying.

He set off down the field, following the tracks. They turned at the hump and there was a gap before they began again. The brow of the bottom field hid the road hedge. If there had been an accident there was no one else on Lizzie Leah’s to help him.

But Stewart Allman was sitting by the hedge. He had pulled up exactly right. The marks of his toecaps had dug down to the frozen grass to brake him. The lines of green looked wrong in the snow.

‘What’s up?’ said William.

‘Nowt,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘It’s your turn.’

‘Why couldn’t you bring it back?’ said William.

‘It’s not mine,’ said Stewart Allman.

‘You should’ve fetched it!’

Stewart Allman began to make snowballs.

William took his turn from the same place as before, but kicked harder and had enough speed to ride the hump. At the bottom he waited for Stewart Allman, but he didn’t come, so William went back up the field.

‘One more,’ said William, ‘then I’m off.’

‘What doing?’

‘I must go see me Grandad.’

‘Why now?’

‘I must catch him while he’s at work. And anyroad, it’s going to snow a blizzard.’

‘You can’t tell that,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘Sun’s shining.’

‘It isn’t at the back of Saint Philip’s,’ said William.

The sky was clear, but behind the church and across the plain there was a cloud that made the seagulls white against it, and the weathercock on the church was golden.

‘Snow’s not that colour,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘Snow’s not black. You’re daft.’

‘It’s still last goes,’ said William.

‘I tell you what,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘You lie on top of me, and I’ll steer, and we’ll get a fair old baz up with that weight.’

‘No,’ said William.

‘Are you frit again?’

‘It’d squash your gas mask.’

‘Mardy!’ said Stewart Allman, and ran down the hill, pushing the sledge in front of him. When he could run no faster he dived on and was away.

As he reached top speed, just before the hump, the left hand runner began to squirm. Even William could see the movement. Stewart Allman tried to brake, but couldn’t, and he lost direction by putting both toes down. The runner cracked, and the sledge lifted into the air sideways, and Stewart Allman rolled with it so that the sledge was between him and the gatepost. William heard the crunch and the smash and was already running. The shrapnel chimed in his pockets.

‘I’ve bent me incendiary,’ said Stewart Allman. ‘Whatever made you think that was a sledge?’ He held the splintered boxwood dangling together on lengths of tin. ‘Two wrecked in one day’s not bad, is it? Shall you be coming after tea?’

‘How can I, now you’ve bust me sledge?’ said William.

‘Oh, there’ll be plenty tonight,’ said Stewart Allman, ‘never fret. And it’s a bomber’s moon: should be good.’

‘I’ll have to see,’ said William.

‘Play again, then?’ said Stewart Allman.

‘Play again,’ said William.

William left his sledge on the pile of other broken sledges and set off for the village.

Grandad’s house was at the bottom of Lizzie Leah’s, and it was a measured mile from the house to where he worked. William tried to pace it, one thousand seven hundred and sixty strides, but his stride wasn’t a yard long and the snow packed under his clogs, and the wind came with the blizzard out of the cloud.

The worst part of sledging was always after. The flakes melted in his balaclava, and he had to keep sucking the chinpiece to keep it from rubbing sore. His mouth tasted of sweet wool. He drew his hands up inside his jacket sleeves, but his khaki mittens were wet. His trousers chafed below his knees, and his sock garters were tight. Each kneecap was blue.

The air raid siren sounded the alert. The alert often went during the day, although the bombers came only at night.

William crossed the village street in frog-hops and giant-strides to reach the grid above the ironmonger’s cellar where Grandad worked. He made it: one thousand seven hundred and sixty yards, jumps and strides.

William stood on the grid. He could see Grandad’s bench below, and the silver gleam of his hair.

William sniffed the drop off his nose. He was cold. He dragged his feet sideways across the grating, to free his clogs, but all he did was to push loose snow onto Grandad’s window.

‘Oh, flipping heck,’ said William.

He had been watching the silver of Grandad’s hair: now he was looking at his blue eyes and sharp red nose.