Young Phillip Maddison (24 page)

*

Phillip did so hope that Father would give his permission to go to camp at Easter that year. Mr. Purley-Prout promised to come and see Mr. Maddison about it. He had managed to buy a real tent after all. For seven shillings and sixpence a grey canvas bivouac, six feet long and six feet wide, had been ordered from Murrage’s. It had been used during the Boer War: broad black arrows stamped on it in one corner showed it had been Government property.

When it arrived by Carter Paterson, in great excitement Phillip put it up on the lawn, and sat in it for a while in silent wonder; then he lay down on the wrinkled rubber groundsheet, and hoped for rain. The canvas had a funny musty smell, which he thought must come from the troopships in which the army had returned.

The half yearly payment of the scholarship grant into his Post Office Savings Account had enabled him to buy the tent, as well as a new Swift bicycle, with three-speed gear, on easy payments, from Wetherly’s opposite the Fire Station. It was black, lined out in gold. He kept it oiled and clean, like the Sunbeam, which stood on one side of the downstairs lavatory, while the Swift stood on the other.

“Oh, if only Father would give his permission for me to go camping at Easter!”

Mr. Purley-Prout called one evening, when Phillip was in bed. Phillip put his ear to the floor of his bedroom, hoping to hear what was said down below in the sitting room; but all he heard was the long murmuring of Mr. Purley-Prout’s tenor voice, followed at intervals by Father’s deeper rumbling, which sounded through the floor like grumbling, but was not, Mother
had often said. “When Father speaks in the kitchen at breakfast, your grandfather in the bathroom hears the rumbling of his voice, and mistakes it for grumbling, dear,” she had said many times. Was Father’s voice rumbling now, or grumbling? Pray that it was not grumbling before Mr. Purley-Prout.

When Mother came upstairs, after Mr. Purley-Prout had gone, Phillip was feeling almost sick with suspense.

“Oh, I knew Father would never let me camp out,” he wept, on being told the news. “I have recovered fully from scarlet fever! I am not delicate any longer!” and he hid his face under the clothes.

*

Phillip was allowed to cycle out to the camp beyond the Fish Ponds by day, but he had to be home by six o’clock every evening. Thus he missed all the fun, he told his mother. Mr. Purley-Prout was a hero. He was out all night, raiding the camps of the Bereshill and Fordesmill troops, returning with their flags, after they had raided the North Western’s camp and failed to take their flag.

“The chaps get no sleep at all at night, Mum, as the raids go on all night. Oh, why didn’t Father let me go?”

“Perhaps he will at the Whitsun Camp, dear, when the weather is warmer. But surely Mr. Prout allows the scouts to have some sleep? It must be very bad for growing boys to be on the go all the time.”

“It’s not his fault, Mum. It’s those awful Bereshill and Fordesmill roughs. Their scoutmasters simply hate Purley-Prout. He says it’s due to envy, as he has the smartest troop in the district. I say, don’t tell Father about the lack of sleep, will you? You know what he is. Else he’ll say ‘No’ to the Whitsun Camp. He’s a spoil-sport.”

“Phillip, that is most unfair. Your Father has only your good at heart.”

“Well, then, try and persuade him to let me go at Whitsun.”

“You must ask him yourself, dear.”

*

It was a fine Whitsun; and Phillip’s anxious request was duly granted. With wild enthusiasm he set about rebuilding the baggage waggon. The only wheels he could get were old, but with care they would last out.

The great moment arrived at last.

On Friday, May 28, just before 6 p.m., the Bloodhound Patrol, in a somewhat hot condition, after carrying the baggage waggon (which had broken down
en
route)
arrived upon the parade ground of the North Western Troop near Fordesmill Bridge Station. Richard had made one stipulation: that the faulty groundsheet be replaced by the remains of a roll of oil-cloth, “which I will lend to your patrol, provided you return it in good condition.”

Phillip was rather ashamed of the roll of oilcloth, which had had to be carried with the waggon, from the Fire Station onwards, by Cranmer and Desmond. Half way to Fordesmill, after a taunt of “Doin’ a moonlit?” from some boys, they had stopped to wrap the tent around the roll, to disguise it. The patrol arrived a quarter of an hour late.

“Where have you been? Do you want to be left behind?” asked Mr. Purley-Prout, when they halted. “Phillip, the eternal tenderfoot, I see! Whatever is in that bundle?”

“It’s to keep the patrol dry, please sir,” gasped Phillip. They had run the last quarter of a mile.

“Fall in behind the others!”

Excitement started early. While they were waiting on the platform for the train to Reynard’s Common, a bowler-hatted head and shoulders, with big white moustaches under its bushy eyebrows, stared down at them from the parapet of the road bridge above. This was Captain Blois, from St. Anselm’s College. The St. Anselm’s Troop were rivals of the North West Kents, who had ambushed them more than once. Captain Blois was considered to be spying as he stood there. Phillip did a little jig on the platform towards the bowler hat, taunting it. Cranmer let go his terrific four-finger whistle. Captain Blois glared down revengefully, he thought, before disappearing. He had obviously come to find out their strength, and in plain clothes!

The train puffed in, just after a quarter past six. The troop rushed for carriages. Mr. Purley-Prout had cycled on with some of the other scouts. They wanted their bikes for midnight raids, explained Mr. Swinerd, in charge of the train party. St. Anselm’s Troop were camping around Reynard’s Common, as well as the Fordesmills and Berehills, he told them. Oh, there would be some sport!

The railway terminus was a familiar place of pleasure: here the Maddison family had arrived in past times, for Sunday
picnics on the common, Father joining them there on his bicycle, finding them by the family whistle.

The engine turned round on a wooden turn-table at the end, in order to go back the way it had come. It was the end of the ordinary world. This was the real country. There were roses growing along the platform fence, and large oil lamps on wooden posts. Phillip felt very happy as they jumped out on the platform and saw the cyclists coming in, led by Mr. Purley-Prout, half a minute later. The train had raced them!

“Fall in, the North West Kent Troop! Leave the baggage, a cart is coming for it. Peter, detail a scout from your patrol to remain as baggage guard. He can ride on the cart.”

They marched across the common, with its silver birches and clumps of gorse giving out a sweet scent of blossom, its linnets and stonechats and warblers among the rising honeysuckle bines and plants of foxglove. When they rested, Phillip could hear the chirp of grasshoppers and crickets in the sun. There was a low line of dark clouds on the horizon of the west, which Mr. Swinerd, a man with a dull face and loose mouth, said he did not like the look of. While they were sitting there, he told them a story about a man who asked at London Bridge station for a return ticket to the Crystallised Palace, meaning to cheat the railway company by not going back by train. The same man spat on the carriage floor, while going to the Crystallised Palace, and someone else in the carriage said, “You cannot expect to rate as a gentleman, if you expectorate on the floor.”

Mr. Swinerd had to explain what the long word meant, then they laughed.

Mr. Swinerd continued to be a funny man. When they fell in again, he said, “Now for another amble onwards, forward my merry men, to honour, glory, and bags of mystery for supper!” They could laugh at that, knowing that he meant sausages.

They reached camp at eight o’clock, and set about putting up the tents. The camp was in the same paddock as at Easter. It was about an acre, with tall fir trees rising along three sides. The fourth side had a hedge growing over posts and rails, to keep sheep and cattle from dropping to the road below the steep bank. The subsoil was chalk; the road dipped down and rose again some distance away, to Farthing Street. There was a quarry below the lower end of the field, and in this were cow-sheds and a piggery. Phillip knew that it was the home-farm of the
Dowager Countess of Mersea, which the bailiff, a small neat man in cord jacket and breeches with cloth gaiters, managed for her.

The bailiff’s cottage was across the road, on the corner of the other long white road which ran under the cleft-oak fencing of Knollyswood Park. The bailiff came to see if they wanted anything beside the milk and eggs he had already brought.

“It looks like rain,” he said to Mr. Purley-Prout, and Mr. Prout said, “Oh, do not be a Jeremiah, Mr. Wilson.” The bailiff laughed a short laugh and said, “Well, I can’t control the weather, sir, and a little rain just now will bring on the malting barleys nicely. They need it.”

“They are never satisfied, those horny-handed sons of toil,” Mr. Purley-Prout said to Mr. Swinerd, when the bailiff had gone.

Phillip laid out the patrol tent and knocked in the pegs, then unrolled the linoleum. It was nine o’clock before they had their supper. Then they had to turn in, as they had a long day before them on the morrow, said Mr. Purley-Prout. Prayers first. After prayers, a scout was put on guard at the entrance, at the five-barred gate under the pine tree at the road junction. Mr. Purley-Prout told them that the Greyhounds would provide hourly guards for the first night.

“The Bloodhounds can try their mettle tomorrow night, when we can expect attempts to capture our Flag.” It was wonderfully exciting.

Each of the six Bloodhounds had twelve inches of lateral space for his bed. Each had a blanket. Rolled capes were used as pillows. Hardly had they taken off their boots, and were trying to settle down, when it began to rain.

“Lucky we put up the tent when we did,” said Phillip.

The sides of the tent were open; and Phillip, lying on the outside, towards the west, soon felt drops on his face. He tried to get farther into the tent. The need for adjustment passed from boy to boy, until the one at the other end, Ching, exclaimed, “Don’t push, Cranmer! You’re deliberately shoving me out!”

“I ain’t! I was shoved, see?” replied Cranmer. “Move up, Lenny.”

“I can’t, my ribs are almost crushed!”

“Silence everyone!” said the voice of Mr. Purley-Prout.

He occupied a small khaki bivouac between the Bloodhounds and the Lions and Kangaroos who were in a large bell-tent. Beyond the bell-tent was another small tent, in which the
Assistant Scoutmaster, Mr. Swinerd, slept. Then came the Greyhounds, in their tent.

The rain pattered down. After a quarter of an hour’s sleeplessness, writhing, and muttering, Ching suddenly cried out, “Aow! It’s raining down my neck! You’ve pushed me outside again, Cranmer!”

He struggled to sit up. His head touched the canvas. “I thought so! The tent’s rotten!”

“Be quiet,” whispered Phillip.

“I’ll get pneumonia!” wailed Ching.

“Well, you insisted on being on the outside, you know,” said Phillip.

“Yes, to get away from the smell of Cranmer’s toe-jam.”

“I washed me feet ’smorning,” protested the corporal.

“Shut up, everybody,” said Phillip. A few minutes later he rose on his elbow and said, “The tent is wet down the inside everywhere! I told you fools to be careful not to touch the canvas.”

“The splashes from the trees are coming in my end as well. I wish I hadn’t come,” moaned Ching.

Phillip flashed his electric lamp. The interior certainly was glistening in places. “Don’t touch it above your head, Ching, whatever you do!”

At once Ching’s fingers went up. A dribble of drops pattered on his head.

“You damned fool, I told you not to! I hope you like it!”

“Phillip, let your voice be silent from now onwards!” called the voice of Mr. Purley-Prout through the rainy darkness.

Phillip rested disconsolately on his elbow, after he had switched off the lamp, to save the battery. A battery cost 4½d., and did not last for many flashes.

“Did you hear me, Phillip?”

“Yes, Mr. Prout.”

“Then say ‘Yes’, the next time.”

“The rain’s coming in where I am, too,” whispered Desmond.

“Did you hear what I said, Phillip?”

“Yes, Mr. Prout.”

“Then don’t you consider it a matter of common courtesy to reply when your Scoutmaster is speaking to you?”

“I thought you told me to say ‘yes’ the next time, so I was waiting for the next time, Mr. Prout.”

“Don’t split hairs. Now, understand this, there will be no further talking among your patrol. Shut up, you Bloodhounds!”

“Yes, Mr. Prout.”

“And shut up yourself, Phillip.”

“Yes, Mr. Prout.”

Ching whispered, “My blanket’s covered with wet! Oh, why did I come? Curse you, Cranmer, take your bony elbow out of my stummick!”

“You take yer stummick, Ching, and put it where v’ monkey puts v’ nuts!”

“Aow! Something walked over my face,” Ching complained next.

“Phillip, I hope I shall not have to tell you again to keep your men in order! For the last time, shut up!”

“Stop talking, men!” Phillip cautioned his unhappy patrol.

“Shut up, yourself, Phillip! How can you expect to be obeyed, when you set a bad example?”

“Ask Old Nick,” muttered Phillip.

An uneasy half hour followed. Then complaints began to arise once more from the cramped boys lying under the dripping canvas. Phillip felt unhappy, that a real Boer War tent should have behaved like that. “I hope the rain stops before long. I expect it will,” he encouraged his men.

“For the last time, will you keep your men in order, Phillip!”

“I’m doing my best, Mr. Prout.”

“Then your best is not good enough, Phillip! How can you command without having learned to obey? For the very last time, will you be quiet! Can’t you keep your men in order?”

“Shut up, everybody!” said Phillip.

From inside the dry bivouac tent of the Scoutmaster came a dreadful command.

“Phillip! Go home!”