Times of War Collection (5 page)

And with that, off he went bouncing along towards the hedge, his engine spluttering. I thought he couldn't possibly lift off in time. He managed it, but only just, his wheels clipping the top of the hedge, before he was up and away. He did one steep turn, then flew straight at us. There was no time to run. All we could do was throw ourselves face down in the long grass. We felt the sudden blast of the wind as he passed above us. By the time we rolled over he was climbing up over the trees and away. We could see him laughing and waving. We watched him soaring over Iddesleigh church tower and then away into the distance. He was gone, leaving us lying there breathless in the silence he'd left behind.

For some time afterwards we lay there in the long grass watching a single skylark rising above us, and sucking on our humbugs. When Charlie came to share them out we had five each, and five for Big Joe, too.

“Was that real?” Molly breathed. “Did it really happen?”

“We've got our humbugs,” said Charlie, “so it must have been real, mustn't it?”

“Every time I eat humbugs from now on,” Molly said, “every time I look at skylarks, I'm going to think of that yellow aeroplane, and the three of us, and how we are right now.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Me too,” said Charlie.

Most people in the village had seen the aeroplane, but only we three had been there when it landed, only we had talked to the pilot. I was so proud of that — too proud as it turned out. I told the story, several embellished versions of it, again and again at school, showing everyone my humbugs just to prove all I'd said was true. But someone must have snitched on me, because Mr Munnings came straight over to me in class and, for no reason at all, told me to empty out my pockets. I had three of my precious humbugs left and he confiscated them all. Then he took me by the ear to the front of the class where he gave me six strokes of the ruler in his own very special way, sharp edge down on to my knuckles. As he did it I looked him in the eye and stared him out. It didn't dull the pain, nor I'm sure did it make him feel bad about what he was doing, but my sullen defiance of him made me feel a lot better as I walked back to my desk.

As I lay in bed that night, my knuckles still throbbing, I was longing to tell Charlie about what had happened at school, but I knew that everything about school bored him now, so I said nothing. But the longer I lay there thinking
about my knuckles and my humbugs the more I was bursting to talk to him. I could hear from his breathing that he was still awake. For just a moment it occurred to me this might be the time to tell him about Father, and how I'd killed him in the forest all those years before. That at least would interest him. I did try, but I still could not summon up the courage to tell him. In the end all I told him was that Mr Munnings had confiscated my humbugs. “I hate him,” I said. “I hope he chokes on them.” Even as I was speaking I could tell he wasn't listening.

“Tommo,” he whispered, “I'm in trouble.”

“What've you done?” I asked him.

“I'm in real trouble, but I had to do it. You remember Bertha, that whitey-looking foxhound up at the Big House, the one we liked?”

“Course,” I said.

“Well, she's always been my favourite ever since. And then this afternoon the Colonel comes by the kennels and tells me … he tells me he's going to have to shoot Bertha. So I ask him why. Because she's getting a bit old, a bit slow, he says. Because whenever they go out hunting she's always going off on her own and getting herself lost. She's no use for hunting any more, he says, no use to anyone. I asked him not to, Tommo. I told him she was my favourite. ‘Favourite!' he says, laughing at me. ‘Favourite? How can you have a favourite? Lot of sentimental claptrap. She's just one of a
pack of dumb beasts, boy, and don't you forget it.' I begged him, Tommo. I told him he shouldn't do it. That's when he got really angry. He said they're his foxhounds and he'd shoot them as and when he felt like it, and he didn't want any more lip from me about it. So you know what I did, Tommo? I stole her. I ran off with her after dark, through the trees so no one would see us.”

“Where is she now?” I asked. “What've you done with her?”

“Remember that old forester's shack Father used, up in Ford's Cleave Wood? I've put her in there for the night. I gave her some food. Molly pinched some meat for me from the kitchen. She'll be all right up there. No one'll hear her, with a bit of luck anyway.”

“But what'll you do with her tomorrow? What if the Colonel finds out?”

“I don't know, Tommo,” Charlie said. “I don't know.”

We hardly slept a wink that night. I lay there listening out for Bertha all the while. When I did drop
off,
I kept waking up suddenly thinking I had heard Bertha barking. But always it turned out to be a screeching fox. And once it was an owl hooting, right outside our window.

I haven't seen a fox while I‘ve been out here. It's hardly surprising, I suppose. But I have heard owls. How any bird can survive in all this I‘ll never know. I‘ve even seen larks over no-man's-land. I always found hope in that.

“He'll know,” Charlie whispered to me in bed at dawn. “As soon as they find Bertha gone, the Colonel will know it was me. I won't tell him where she is. I don't care what he does, I won't tell him.”

Charlie and I ate our breakfast in silence, hoping the inevitable storm wouldn't break, but knowing that sooner or later it must. Big Joe sensed something was wrong — he could always feel anxiety in the air. He was rocking back and forth and wouldn't touch his breakfast. So then Mother knew something was up as well. Once she was suspicious Mother was a difficult person to hide things from, and we weren't very good at it, not that morning.

“Is Molly coming over?” she asked, beginning to probe.

There was a loud and insistent knocking on the door. She could tell at once it wouldn't be Molly. It was too early for
Molly, and anyway she didn't knock like that. Besides, I think she could already see from our faces that Charlie and I were expecting an unwelcome visitor. As we feared, it was the Colonel.

Mother invited him in. He stood there glaring at us, thin-lipped and pale with fury. “I think you know why I've come, Mrs Peaceful,” he began.

“No, Colonel, I don't,” said Mother.

“So the young devil hasn't told you.” He was shouting now, shaking his stick at Charlie. Big Joe began to whimper and clutched Mother's hand as the Colonel ranted on.

“That boy of yours is a despicable thief. First of all he steals the salmon out of my river. And now, in my employ, in a position of trust, he steals one of my foxhounds. Don't deny it, boy. I know it was you. Where is she? Is she here? Is she?”

Mother looked to Charlie for an explanation. “He was going to shoot her, Mother,” he said quickly. “I had to do it.”

“You see!” roared the Colonel. “He admits it! He admits it!” Big Joe was beginning to wail now and Mother was smoothing his hair, trying to reassure and comfort him as she spoke. “So you took her in order to save her, Charlie, is that right?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Well, you shouldn't have done that, Charlie, should you?”

“No, Mother.”

“Will you tell the Colonel where you've hidden her?”

“No, Mother.”

Mother thought for a moment or two. “I didn't think so,” she said. She looked the Colonel full in the face. “Colonel, am I right in thinking that if you were going to shoot this dog, presumably it was because she's no use to you any more — as a foxhound I mean?”

“Yes,” the Colonel replied, “but what I do with my own animals, or why I do it, is no business of yours, Mrs Peaceful. I don't have to explain myself to you.”

“Of course not, Colonel,” Mother spoke softly, sweetly almost, “but if you were going to shoot her anyway, then you wouldn't mind if I were to take her off your hands and look after her, would you?”

“You can do what you like with the damned dog,” the Colonel snapped. “You can bloody well eat her for all I care. But your son stole her from me and I will not let that go unpunished.”

Mother asked Big Joe to fetch the money mug from the mantelpiece. “Here, Colonel,” she said, calmly offering him a coin from the money mug. “Sixpence. I'm buying the dog off you for sixpence, not a bad price for a useless dog. So now it's not stolen, is it?”

The Colonel was utterly dumbfounded. He looked from the coin in his hand to Mother, to Charlie. He was breathing
hard. Then, regaining his composure, he pocketed the sixpence in his waistcoat and pointed his stick at Charlie. “Very well, but you can consider yourself no longer in my employ.” With that he turned on his heel and went out, slamming the door behind him. We listened to his footsteps going down the path, heard the front gate squeaking.

Charlie and I went mad, mostly out of sheer relief, but also quite overwhelmed with gratitude and admiration. What a mother we had! We whooped and yahooed. Big Joe was happy again, and sang
Oranges and Lemons
as he gambolled wildly round the kitchen.

“I don't know what you've got to be so almightily pleased about,” said Mother when we had all calmed down. “You do know you've just lost your job, Charlie?”

“I don't care,” said Charlie. “He can stuff his stinking job. I'll find another. You put the silly old fart in his place good and proper. And we've got Bertha.”

“Where is that dog anyway?” Mother asked.

“I'll show you,” Charlie said.

We waited for Molly to come and then we all went off up to Ford's Cleave Wood together. As we neared the shack, we could hear Bertha yowling. Charlie ran on ahead and opened the door. Out she came, bounding up to us, squeaking with delight, her tail swiping at our legs. She jumped up at all of us, licking everything she could, but right away she seemed to attach herself particularly to Big
Joe. She followed him everywhere after that. She even slept on his bed at nights — Big Joe insisted on that no matter how much Mother protested. She'd sit under his apple tree howling up at him while he sang to her from high up in the branches. He only had to start singing and she'd join in, so from now on he never sang his
Oranges and Lemons
unaccompanied. He never did anything unaccompanied. They were always together. He fed her, brushed her and cleared up her frequent puddles (which were more like lakes). Big Joe had found a new friend and he was in seventh heaven.

After a few weeks going round all the farms in the parish looking for work, Charlie found a job as dairyman and shepherd at Farmer Cox's place on the other side of the village. He would go off before dawn on his bicycle to do the milking and was back home late, so I saw even less of him than before. He should have been much happier up there. He liked the cows and the sheep, though he said that the sheep were a bit stupid. Best of all, he said, he didn't have the Colonel or the Wolfwoman breathing down his neck all day.

But Charlie, like me, was very far from happy, because Molly had suddenly stopped coming. Mother said she was sure there could only be one reason. Someone must have put it about — and she thought it could only be the Colonel or the Wolfwoman or both — that Charlie Peaceful was a thieving rascal, and that therefore the Peaceful family were
no longer considered fit folk for Molly to visit. She said Charlie should just let things cool down for a while, that Molly would be back. But Charlie wouldn't listen. Time after time he went to Molly's cottage. They wouldn't even answer the door. In the end, because he thought I'd have a better chance of getting to see Molly, he sent me over with a letter. Somehow, he said, I had to deliver it to her. I had to.

Molly's mother met me at the door with a face like thunder. “Go away,” she yelled at me. “Just go away. Don't you understand? We don't want your kind here. We don't want you bothering our Molly. She doesn't want to see you.” And with that she slammed the door in my face. I was walking away, Charlie's letter still in my pocket, when I happened to glance back and saw Molly waving at me frantically through her window. She was mouthing something I couldn't understand at all at first, gesticulating at me, pointing down the hill towards the brook. I knew then exactly what she meant me to do.

I ran down to the brook and waited under the trees where we'd always done our fishing together. I didn't have long to wait before she came. She took my hand without a word, and led me down under the bank where we couldn't possibly be seen. She was crying as she told me everything: how the Colonel had come to the cottage — she'd overheard it all — how he'd told her father that Charlie Peaceful was a thief; how he'd heard Charlie Peaceful had been seeing
much more of Molly than was good for her, and that if he had any sense Molly's father should put a stop to it. “So my father won't let me see Charlie any more. He won't let me see any of you,” Molly told me, brushing away her tears. “I'm so miserable without you, Tommo. I hate it up at the Big House without Charlie, and I hate it at home too. Father'll strap me if I see Charlie. And he said he'll take a gun to Charlie if he ever comes near me. I think he means it too.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why's he like that?”

“He's always been like that,” she said. “He says I'm wicked. Born in sin. Mother says he's only trying to save me from myself, so I won't go to Hell. He's always talking about Hell. I won't got to Hell, will I, Tommo?”

I did what I did next without thinking. I leant over and kissed her on the cheek. She threw her arms around my neck, sobbing as if her heart would break. “I so want to see Charlie,” she cried. “I miss him so much.” That was when I remembered to give her the letter. She tore it open and read it at once. It can't have been long because she read it so quickly. “Tell him yes. Yes, I will,” she said, her eyes suddenly bright again.

“Just yes?” I asked, intrigued, puzzled and jealous all at the same time.

“Yes. Same time, same place, tomorrow. I'll write a letter back and you can give it to Charlie. All right?” She got up and pulled me to my feet. “I love you, Tommo. I love you both. And Big Joe, and Bertha.” She kissed me quickly and was gone.

That was the first of dozens of letters I delivered from Charlie to Molly and from Molly to Charlie over the weeks and months that followed. All through my last year at school I was their go-between postman. I didn't mind that much, because it meant I got to see Molly often, which was all that really mattered to me. It was all done in great secrecy – Charlie insisted on that. He made me swear on the Holy Bible to tell no one, not even Mother. He made me cross my heart and hope to die.

Molly and I would meet most evenings and exchange letters in the same place, down by the brook, both of us having made quite sure we were not followed. We'd sit and talk there for a few precious minutes, often with the rain dripping through the trees, and once I remember with the wind roaring about us so violently that I thought the trees might come down on us. Fearing for our lives, we ran out across the meadow and burrowed our way into the bottom of a haystack and sat there shivering like a couple of frightened rabbits.

It was in the shelter of this haystack that I first heard news of the war. When Molly talked it was often, if not always, about Charlie — she'd forever be asking news of him. I never showed her I minded, but I did. So I was quite pleased that day when she started telling me about how all the talk up at the Big House these days was of war with Germany, how everyone now thought it would happen sooner rather than
later. She'd read about it herself in the newspaper, so she knew it had to be true.

It was Molly's job every morning, she told me, to iron the Colonel's
Times
newspaper before she took it to him in his study. Apparently he insisted his newspaper should be crisp and dry, so that the ink should not come off on his fingers while he was reading it. She didn't really understand what the war was all about, she admitted, only that some archduke — whatever that was — had been shot in a place called Sarajevo — wherever that was — and Germany and France were very angry with each other about it. They were gathering their armies to fight with each other and, if they did, then we'd be in it soon because we'd have to fight on the French side against the Germans. She didn't know why. It made about as much sense to me as it did to her. She said the Colonel was in a terrible mood about it all, and that everyone up at the Big House was much more frightened of his moods than they were about the war.

But apparently the Colonel was gentle as a lamb compared to the Wolfwoman these days (everyone called her that now, not just us). It seemed that someone had put salt in her tea instead of sugar and she swore it was on purpose — which it probably was, Molly said. She'd been ranting and raving about it ever since, telling everyone how she'd find out who it was. Meanwhile she was treating all of them as if they were guilty.

“Was it you?” I asked Molly.

“Maybe,” she said, smiling, “and maybe not.” I wanted to kiss her again then, but I didn't dare. That has always been my trouble. I've never dared enough.

Mother had it all arranged before I left school. I was to go and work with Charlie up at Mr Cox's farm. Farmer Cox was getting on in years and, with no sons of his own, was in need of more help on the farm. He was a bit keen on the drink too, Charlie said. It was true. He was in the pub most evenings. He liked his beer and his skittles, and he liked to sing, too. He knew all the old songs. He kept them in his head, but he'd only sing if he'd had a couple of beers. So he never sang on the farm. He was always rather dour on the farm, but fair, always fair.

I went up there mostly to look after the horses at first. For me it couldn't have been better. I was with Charlie again, working alongside him on the farm. I'd put on a spurt and was almost as tall as him by now, but still not as fast, nor as strong. He was a bit bossy with me sometimes, but that didn't bother me — that was his job after all. Things were changing between us. Charlie didn't treat me like a boy any more, and I liked that, I liked that a lot.

The newspapers were full of the war that had now begun, but aside from the army coming to the village and buying
up lots of the local farm horses for cavalry horses, it had hardly touched us at all. Not yet. I was still Charlie's postman, still Molly's postman. So I saw Molly often, though not as often as before. For some reason the letters between them seemed less frequent. But at least with me now working with Charlie for six days a week we were all three together again in a kind of way, linked by the letters. Then that link was cruelly broken, and what followed broke my heart, broke all our hearts.