My Friend Walter (13 page)

‘Looking for Humph,' said Will. ‘You seen him, Mother?' And he pocketed a handful of biscuits from the table.

‘I shut him in the shed,' she said. ‘He bit one of the removal men on the ankle. I think he knows we're going – he's not himself at all.' I gave Little Jim a kiss on his cheek which was clean for a change and he nearly tore my ear off. What is it that he likes so much about ears and noses? I managed to escape his clutches by offering him one of the biscuits Will had left behind on the table, and then I ran out after Will. I expected Mother or Father to ask us to do something to help, but perhaps they were glad to have us out from under their heels that day. Anyway it was always a good idea to be out of the way when Father was frantic, and he was frantic now, I can tell you.

In the end we found Humph curled up at the back of Sally's stable on a paper sack. He was looking very sorry for himself and he was clearly delighted to see us all. He started squeaking like a wild thing when he saw who it was, jumping up and down at Walter like a bouncing ball, and driving him up against the wall of the stable. Will retrieved him and tried to talk to him which was useless because Humph didn't even know what ‘Sit' meant. Anyway he wasn't used to being sensible with Will – he was used to playing the idiot and so he couldn't change no matter how hard Will
tried to calm him down. ‘You know where it is Humph, don't you?' Will said. ‘Course you do. There's a good dog. You just show us where you buried it and you can have all these biscuits.' And Will held a handful of biscuits above his nose. You could see that Humph wasn't the least bit interested in the deal. Of course he wanted the biscuits all right, but you'd expect that with any dog.

‘Miserable cur,' said Walter brushing down his paw-marked cloak.

‘It's no good,' I said.

‘Nothing ventured nothing gained,' said Will – another of Gran's favourites.

‘You've just got to let him out and then we'll follow him,' I said.

Will seemed to think that was a good idea. ‘Seek!' he said, opening the door and pointing Humph's muzzle in the direction of the orchard. ‘Seek!'

Well, of course Humph went out of the stable like a bullet and the last we saw of him he was crawling under the gate out into Sally's field. We tried to follow him but he was gone. Whistling was no good, but Will tried it anyway. He tried using his commanding voice, then his wheedling voice, then his angry voice,
but Humph never came back no matter what voice he used.

We asked one of the removal men (the one in the woolly bobble hat) if they'd seen him and he said that if he saw him again he'd kick him from here to kingdom come. We guessed he might be the one Humph had bitten on the ankle. He was not very helpful at all, but then I suppose you could hardly blame him. The other one who had his shirt off was tattooed with anchors and naked ladies from the wrist to the shoulders on both arms. He was a bit more friendly and he said he thought he'd seen Humph out in the orchard. We went to check but he wasn't there. Walter decided he would go off looking for Humph on his own – we'd cover more ground that way, he said. It made sense.

By lunchtime we still had not found Humph, and Will and I sat outside on the garden wall and ate our sandwiches and crisps and just waited for Humph to come back. We knew Humph could be anywhere; he was probably off rabbiting somewhere. Sometimes he'd go off for the whole day if there were a lot of rabbits about. Or perhaps Walter had found him and would bring him back.

In the removal van we could see them reading their papers and pouring tea out of a thermos. They had their radio on loudly. When they got out of the cab after lunch they were arguing. ‘And I'm telling you it was an inside job,' said the one in the hat. ‘I've been up to the Tower of London. It's like flaming Fort Knox in there. You'd have to blast your way in there with gelignite or dynamite and they didn't, did they?'

‘You've got to know your electronics, that's all,' said the one with tattoos, scratching himself on his wobbly stomach. ‘All you got to do is cut off the system and then you can get in and take out what you like.'

‘That's my point, though. You've got to know the system before you can nobble it,' said the other one. ‘Stands to reason, doesn't it? I mean all this talk about the “impregnable fortress” is a lot of old hogwash. Nothing's that impossible. You just think about it. All you need is one crooked Beefeater, who knows his way around, and you're in. And I'll tell you another thing, they won't never find it again neither – melted down by now and out of the country.'

The scratching one thought for a moment. ‘P'raps the Queen took it herself,' he said. ‘You know, perhaps she borrowed it for the day without telling anyone. I
mean it's hers after all, isn't it? She doesn't have to tell anyone does she?'

‘You daft hiccup,' said the one in the woolly bobble hat, ‘I'll tell you what though, have you seen that colour picture on the front page? It's a bit special isn't it? Wouldn't mind that on my mantelpiece, I can tell you.'

‘You haven't got a mantelpiece.'

‘I'd build one specially for it.'

‘Come on, let's get this lot finished. It's getting late.' And they were almost inside the house by now when the scratching one turned round and called out to us: ‘I seen that dog of yours. Looks as if he's digging something up in the flower garden.'

Will and me, we never finished our sandwiches. We found Humph in the flower garden just like the removal man said, and he
was
digging something up; but it wasn't the orb. I shan't tell you what it was because it was too revolting. But anyway we'd found him, and so we stalked him after that keeping our distance and watching him as he dug in the hedgerows for rabbits, as he prowled the hay barns for rats. He chased the black cat out of the woodshed and up a tree. He ferreted in the dustbin until he came out with some
cheese rind which he chewed, eyes closed with ecstasy on the front lawn.

Time was running out. The removal van was loaded and ready to go. We would be off in half an hour, Mother said. In a last ditch attempt Will lured Humph to the orchard leaving a trail of crisps and sandwich crusts and biscuits, and he snuffled round where the old dung-heap had been but it was obviously of no real interest to him. In the end he went off to his mattress of dry leaves under the diesel tank, tucked himself up and went to sleep. I could have killed him, I really could.

Walter suddenly appeared beside us as we sat silently on the garden wall waiting until the time came to leave. It was strange, really. He didn't seem at all gloomy about the failure of our search. On the contrary he shrugged it all off rather jauntily, I thought. We would find it again, he said. He was sure of it.

Mr Watts drove up to see us before we left, to wish us good luck, he said. He leaned in through the Land Rover door to offer us a last humbug. Will snatched the whole packet out of his hand. ‘Humph likes them,' he said. (That was true. Humph liked them just as much as he did.) It was a frosty goodbye after that and
Mother said we would have to have better manners at Aunty Ellie's, but Will never answered. He was looking out of the back window at the farm as the Landrover drove away, and I could see there were silent tears streaming down his face. Beside him Humph waited for the next humbug, and beside me sat my friend Walter puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. I couldn't cry a single tear. I felt as if I should but I couldn't. The farm didn't matter to me any more, nor the house. What's done is done, as Gran would say. The golden orb from the Crown Jewels was all that mattered now. We had to find it. We just had to. And then it occurred to me that maybe they'd find it some day in the future where Humph had buried it out on the farm and Mr Watts would be accused and condemned and sent to the Tower for ever. That would be justice, I thought. That would serve him right. And that cheered me up no end as we drove down the lane and away.

Aunty Ellie greeted us with one of her famous teas. There were plates of scones and sandwiches and chocolate cakes and of course cream, lashings of cream with everything; and Gran, who seemed quite recovered now, bustled about us trying to comfort Mother and Father who both looked pale and
exhausted. I coughed four times. My friend Walter was wandering around the room looking at the pictures and admiring himself in the mirror. He liked doing that a lot, I noticed. Then, irritatingly, he disappeared through a wall and I didn't see him again.

Gran prattled on merrily. ‘Of course when Ellie told me you might have to leave the farm I was a little upset, but not as much as you might think. To be honest with you, I felt the place was a millstone around your necks. Scrimping and saving all those years to keep it going. Running hard only to stand still, that's what it was. Lovely for the children of course, but there's other places, Will,' she said, kissing Will on top of his head. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining dear, you'll see.' And at that we all smiled together and laughed, and Gran was so delighted she had managed to lift our sunken spirits. ‘I never said so at the time,' she went on much encouraged, ‘but I never liked the farm very much, except Sally of course. There were always flies in the summer – millions of them, and all of them in my room. And in the winter there was the smell of that silage and well . . . you know what . . . indescribable, indescribable.' And she went on to describe it at length. Aunty Ellie stopped her in the end because Humph was
scratching to be let out of the door. ‘He'll have to go on a lead,' Aunty Ellie said firmly.

‘But he's never been on a lead, Aunty,' I said. ‘He's a country dog.'

‘Well, he'll have to go on one here, country dog or not. He's a town dog for the moment and he's going to have to learn town ways. You don't want him run over, do you?'

Father said he'd like to walk off his tea so we all three gathered in the front hall with Humph, and Aunty Ellie gave Father the lead. ‘I'll take him,' said Father clipping it on Humph's collar. As it turned out it was the other way round. Humph took him.

It was a tug of war from the start and Humph never let up, not for one moment. He dragged Father down the road so fast that he had to trot and we had to run flat out just to keep up. ‘Go round the block,' Aunty Ellie had told us. ‘Turn right and right and right again and that will bring you back home. It takes about ten minutes.' And so we did. As we ran it occurred to me that my friend Walter might not be with us, and even if he was that he wouldn't be able to keep up this pace. I slowed to a stop and coughed for him. I coughed again and looked back up the road. He wasn't with us.
I shouted for Will to stop and beckoned him back to me. ‘It's Walter,' I said, breathing hard. ‘Must've left him behind.'

‘You called him?' he asked. I nodded. ‘He'll come,' said Will. ‘He always comes in the end. You should know that by now. Come on.' And we ran on again as Humph and Father disappeared around the corner ahead of us.

Then we heard Father shouting. ‘What are you up to? Come here! Come here!' At first we thought he was shouting for us to hurry up, so we began to run faster. His bellowing filled the streets. Curtains moved and faces appeared at windows. Doors opened and heads popped up over hedges. We rounded the corner to find Father getting to his feet, a broken lead in his hand. ‘It just snapped,' he said, brushing himself down angrily. ‘That infernal dog. I'll get him. I'll get him. Come back here you beggar!' And he charged after Humph, who had stopped two lamp-posts away and was doing his best to push his head through a hedge, pawing at the ground and whining hysterically. Father got there first. He grabbed Humph by the collar and hauled him back. He was just tying up the two ends of the lead when he dropped to his knees by the hedge. By the time we got
there he was reaching through the hedge and brushing away at the leaves underneath it. When he stood up he was holding a small hessian sack in his hand.

Two or three people had come out of their garden gates to see what all the commotion was about and were standing on the pavement on the opposite side of the road. Father told us to hold the dog for him, so I hung on to Humph by the collar, which was not easy. He opened the sack and peered inside. ‘Cripes,' he said and he reached in and pulled out the golden orb from the Crown Jewels. I felt Will nudge me. Over the top of the hedge we could see into the park beyond, and there stood my friend Walter, legs crossed and leaning against a tree. He was looking almightily pleased with himself.

I DON'T KNOW WHERE ALL THE PEOPLE CAME from, but every new street seemed to swell the crowd so that by the time we approached the police station in the centre of town there must have been a hundred people or more in the cavalcade.

Humph led the way, his lead dragging along behind him on the ground, and he was accompanied now by a gang of ragged town dogs all eager to share in the celebrations. Behind them came Father, holding the golden orb in front of him in both hands. Will and I walked on either side of him catching each other's eye from time to time, and each time confirming to each other that there was nothing we could do any more, that events had taken their own
course. Of course we both understood – well, I did anyway – that our friend Walter had somehow set the whole thing up. Why else would he have been standing there behind that hedge and grinning like a Cheshire cat? It wasn't difficult to work out. After all, he knew we were coming that way. He must have been there when Aunty Ellie had told us to go round the block, and he'd just lain in wait for us. It was no accident that the orb had been found lying under the hedgerow – because he'd put it there. And if that was so and it was, then that meant he'd had it all the time we'd been looking for it, or at any rate he'd known all along where it was. And that meant he intended Humph to find it there, but why? What was he up to? I thought he wanted us to sell it and get the money to buy a new farm. That was his plan wasn't it? That's what he'd told us anyway.