Sons and Daughters (14 page)

‘Kids grow up with saucy ways, and give their parents worrying days,’ said Matthew.

‘Crikey, you made a rhyme, Dad,’ said Giles.

‘Just another piece of ancient Dorset doggerel,’ said Rosie, ‘but we’d feel deprived without it.’

‘We’ll be watching for the beasts tonight,’ said Matthew.

‘You and Jonathan?’ said Rosie. Jonathan and Emma were enjoying their own supper in the annexe.

‘Oh, can I watch with you, Dad?’ begged Giles.

‘Will you be awake, my lad?’ asked Matthew.

‘Yes, course I will,’ said Giles.

‘We’ll see,’ said Matthew.

Dusk was descending over the gentle hills of Surrey, and there was no sign of the foxes. Matthew
and Jonathan were close to the wired-in henhouses. Giles was absent, having failed to stay awake, of course.

‘I wonder,’ whispered Jonathan, ‘do those four-legged chicken-slayers know we’re here?’

‘I’m thinking about laying traps if we don’t bag ’em soon,’ murmured Matthew.

‘That won’t please everyone in the village, Matt.’

‘Nor the four-legged enemy.’

Night followed dusk, but they stayed where they were. They were both handymen, and Matthew’s war years with REME had made him the complete electrician. With Jonathan’s help he had fixed a floodlight to illuminate the wire-guarded henhouses and beyond. Close to his recumbent body was a remote control, and on this occasion he and Jonathan both had shotguns. They were armed to protect their livelihood.

Time went by. Eyes strained in attempts to penetrate the darkness. They were prepared to wait until midnight at least, when they would keep solo watch in three-hour shifts.

At eleven, they drank hot coffee from a flask, their movements as quiet as possible, their whispered exchanges the bare minimum. Bless my good old pa who used to put paid to foxes down in Sussex, thought Jonathan, these contrary Surrey foxes are lying low, and I’ve got an ache in every muscle.

Beside him, Matthew alerted. Jonathan whispered.

‘You hearing something?’

‘I’m hearing a vehicle in the lane,’ whispered Matthew.

The lane ran past the bottom of the field. Jonathan listened. The noise of a motor engine reached his ears, the vehicle hidden by hedges. But they heard it stop. The lights and the engine were switched off.

‘Visitors?’ murmured Jonathan.

‘RSPCA?’ murmured Matthew.

‘Someone’s informed them we don’t care too much for foxes?’ murmured Jonathan.

In the deep quiet of the night, a creaking sound was audible.

‘Well, blow my boots off,’ said Matthew, ‘whoever it is, Jonathan, is coming through the hedge gate.’

‘I’d like to know who,’ whispered Jonathan, ‘but I can’t see for looking.’

Down at the gate, Large Lump was doing some whispering himself.

‘The sheep first, Rollo.’

‘You sure there’s sheep?’ said Rollo, a heavy.

‘Didn’t Poky Prodnose inform the boss there was?’ said Large Lump. ‘And didn’t Mr Ford inform me likewise? So get at ’em.’

‘I ain’t against taking one home,’ said Rollo, ‘me and the missus is partial to roast mutton.’

‘Find ’em, and run ’em out through the gate,’ said Large Lump.

‘Find ’em?’ said another heavy. ‘In the dark?’

‘We use our torches, you faggot,’ said Large Lump, ‘and don’t forget Mr Ford wants ’em to
keep running till they fetch up at Land’s End.’

‘Ain’t that where the sea is?’ asked one more heavy.

‘Yus, and where they start swimming the Atlantic,’ said Large Lump. ‘Get moving.’

On went the torches. Startled sheep stood up. So did Matthew and Jonathan as they spotted four tiny beams of light in the distance.

‘Ruddy cows,’ breathed Jonathan, ‘what’s going on?’

‘My guess is black market sheep rustlers,’ said Matthew. Meat shortages had resulted in the emergence of more than a few such opportunists.

The sheep and their fat lambs were running, a frightened herd, but not towards the gate. They were heading for the area of the henhouses. The beams of light followed them.

‘Well, sheriff?’ said Jonathan.

‘Let ’em come, cowboy,’ said Matthew.

The running sheep were bawling, the lambs bleating.

‘Sod me,’ panted Large Lump, ‘that Poky Prodnose didn’t mention no noise, the bleeder, did he? I hate noise.’

The sheep and lambs scattered as they neared the wired enclosure. Booted feet thudded after them, torches piercing the darkness. Their bright beams, however, were suddenly lost in the totality of a dazzling floodlight.

‘’Ere, what’s ’appening?’ hollered Rollo.

‘We’re bleedin’ nailed, that’s what,’ shouted Large Lump, and turned tail. He had enough savvy
to know Mr Ford would get cross, very cross, if any of them landed in the arms of the law. So he bolted. So did the other three, the floodlight encompassing their going.

‘Jonathan!’ Matthew was urgent. ‘I think the gate’s open!’

‘Christ,’ said Jonathan, ‘the sheep!’

They were running all ways, the ewes, their lambs bleating for their mothers. The shotguns stayed silent. To blast off would panic the already frightened animals. Matthew and Jonathan took off as fast as they could, Matthew’s gammy ankle not as much of a handicap as Jonathan’s tin knee.

The Fat Man’s bruisers heard them coming at a thumping run.

‘Bloody hell, it’s got to be the cops!’ panted Large Lump. ‘This ain’t what I like.’

He galloped over the ground. The other men picked up pace. They didn’t like the prospect of letting the law catch up with them any more than he did. Cops weren’t friendly. They had badtempered ideas about how a bloke earned his oof. You could never trust a flatfoot to mind his own business.

Torches lit the way for the four bruisers, although the beams wavered and shook in hands that moved to the tempo of each man’s flight. At this stage of the sweating retreat the open gate seemed as far away as Land’s End. Large Lump felt shocked at the growing suspicion that somehow some coppers’ nark had listened at a door and used his squeaky cakehole to spill the beans. He
plunged on, panting, and his heavies panted with him.

Matthew, legging it at a fast limping run, was yards in front of Jonathan, whose liability was slowing him down. Need Emma’s legs, so I do, he thought. Best runners in the family, Emma’s got. Her sister Annabelle would have queried that, so would Eloise and Helene. Rosie, who had unequalled stems, would have laughed and told Jonathan to keep going. He kept going anyway, conscious that the sheep, led by a robust if fearful ewe, were following.

Bleedin’ elephants, thought Large Lump, where’s the perishing gate? He was hot, wet with perspiration, and short of breath. Rollo reached the open gate first and bounded through the wide gap to pound for the van. After him lurched Large Lump and the other men. Matthew was coming up fast and, just as conscious as Jonathan of the following sheep, he slammed the gate shut. It shook and vibrated, and the metal connections rattled. He glimpsed what he thought were the black market rustlers, an active breed these days. He shouldered his shotgun and fired a burst high over their heads. High it might have been, but Large Lump felt something like a fiery needle prick his backside. He bawled. Two of his confederates were tumbling into the back of the van, which contained axes and fire-lighting items. The third man, Rollo, was climbing into the driving seat. Large Lump threw himself into the back, swearing about the fact that unless the
redhot pain in his bum went away, he wasn’t going to be able to sit next to Rollo. Nor sit at all. Lying on his broad stomach, he thumped on the partition.

‘Get going!’ he bawled.

The van jerked forward and motored off noisily. Jonathan, arriving at the closed gate, said, ‘Damn all, they’re away.’

‘They won’t come back,’ said Matthew. ‘How’s the knee?’

‘Complaining,’ said Jonathan.

The sheep were all around them, nuzzling close to known bodies.

‘I don’t think the foxes will turn up now,’ said Matthew, ‘but we’ll keep the floodlight on just in case. That’ll keep them away from the henhouses. If they attack any of the lambs, I tell you, I’ll set traps.’

‘Those lambs are due for the market,’ said Jonathan.

‘I’ve let the butcher know,’ said Matthew, ‘and he’s arranging collection on Tuesday.’

‘What’s he offered?’ asked Jonathan, as they began their walk back.

‘Top price,’ said Matthew.

‘My knee feels better,’ said Jonathan.

Matthew clapped him on the shoulder.

‘On my Sunday boots, Jonathan, I’m happy to be related to you.’

Well, he was married to Emma’s cousin Rosie, and that was as good a relationship with Jonathan as he could get.

Saturday arrived. Boots and his family were up early, very early. So were Sammy and his family. The journey to Cornwall could take ten to twelve hours. They had to cover over two hundred and fifty miles, and with few town by-passes available on the route, they would be lucky to average twenty-five miles an hour.

So they were away from their respective houses just after six a.m., having arranged to meet for breakfast at the Hog’s Back Hotel, a little way on from Guildford.

Large Lump, reporting to the Fat Man that afternoon, was complaining that failure to get the sheep running and to chop up the chickens was due to the fact that a squad of interfering rozzers had been waiting for them with a shotgun.

‘You useless fairy,’ wheezed Fat Man, ‘rozzers with a shotgun?’

‘I tell you, guv, I got potted in me exterior,’ said Large Lump. ‘Had to go to ’ospital this morning to have it dug out. Talk about painful, and there was blood as well. And it’s still sore, it’s interfering with me walking.’

‘Are you telling me you’re responsible for a washout?’ growled Fat Man.

‘Guv, we had to scarper bloody quick, like,’ said Large Lump. ‘If it wasn’t the cops, it must’ve been Sammy Adams’s whole bleedin’ family.’

‘You’re making me spit,’ said Fat Man evilly. ‘Stop fidgeting, will you?’

‘It’s me sore backside.’

‘Oh, is it?’ said Fat Man. ‘Take a seat.’

‘’Ere, have a heart, guv, I ain’t going to be able to take a seat for a week and more.’

‘I’m crying my eyes out, ain’t I?’ said Fat Man.

‘Kind of yer, guv,’ said Large Lump. ‘Listen, I think we’ve got a nark in the firm, yer know, and that he’s been listening at keyholes. Well, it’s me honest belief that it was either the cops or Sammy Adams’s family waiting for us.’

‘Shut up,’ said Fat Man. ‘We’re going to have to think again about Sammy Adams’s business. I’ve still got his factory and all that nylon keeping me awake at night.’

‘I can put a couple of bombs together,’ said Large Lump.

‘You’ll blow up Belsize Park and Happy Hampstead as well,’ said Fat Man. ‘I want a fire job done, one that won’t look like arson. So I need an expert. Someone like Sparky Dewdrop, known for his runny nose and his baptismal monicker of Cyril Juggins.’

‘Jenkins, guv.’

‘Shut up. You and the other wallies can take your orders from him.’

‘Guv, ain’t I done you some high-class jobs in me time?’ said Large Lump, looking as if his pride was paining him as well as his rear end.

‘I ain’t disputing that,’ said Fat Man, ‘but your brain’s falling about and you’re slipping. Go and talk to Sparky Dewdrop and tell him I want to see him. Take a bus.’

‘Right, guv,’ said Large Lump, wincing. ‘It’ll have to be standing room only.’

In Tenterden, Kent, that evening, Jeremy Passmore had returned from his relaxing and leisurely holiday in the Lake District. He brought with him a delightful oil painting of Lake Windermere for his English aunt and uncle, Amy and Dan Passmore, a middle-aged couple who were parents and grandparents, and had been good-natured and willing hosts to him for over two years. Jeremy had found it so easy and pleasant to lodge with them that he had, at their encouragement, extended his original stay of a few months, although he often said he really ought to find a place of his own or to think about going back to Chicago. Aunt Amy, who had acquired a motherly affection for her quiet-living American nephew, always responded to the effect that as long as he was happy with things as they were, he might as well stay until he did go home.

She and Uncle Dan were delighted with their gift, which she said was ever such a pretty picture and could be hung in the parlour.

Jeremy had also brought back a book of poems by William Wordsworth of Lake District fame. He put that in a drawer in his bedroom.

Aunt Amy said how well he looked, and what a blessing it was that having made up his mind to go home at last to Chicago, he could sail there in the pink.

‘Brown, I’d say,’ said Uncle Dan, who had a wellkept iron-grey moustache and a bit of a twinkle.

‘Brown?’ said Aunt Amy, comfortably plump. ‘No-one says you’re in the brown. It’s in the pink.’

‘From where I am,’ said Uncle Dan, observing Jeremy, ‘I can’t see any pink. You haven’t been at your elderberry wine, have you, Amy?’

‘Me?’ said Aunt Amy. ‘I just have one glass with Sunday dinners, that’s all. Oh, you daft thing, you’re talking about pink elephants, aren’t you?’

‘Just a thought,’ said Uncle Dan, winking at Jeremy.

‘Jeremy,’ said Aunt Amy, ‘have you made up your mind exactly when you’ll sail?’

‘Before you left for the Lakes, you mentioned you’d like to book a passage on the
Queen Mary
when you got back,’ said Uncle Dan.

‘From Southampton,’ said Jeremy. ‘That, at least, was the idea. I came over on that great old tub. With the
Queen Elizabeth
it was turned into a troopship for the GIs, and both ships could outrun the fastest U-boats. For sure, what a couple of game old girls.’

‘Wait a bit,’ said Uncle Dan, ‘did you say something that meant you were changing your mind about going?’

‘I’m thinking, after all, that I’ll postpone my return,’ said Jeremy.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Aunt Amy, ‘we’d be the last ones to push you, but what’s made you have second thoughts?’

‘There’s my employers,’ said Jeremy. ‘I know they’d like me to stay through to harvest time. I guess I will. It’s that kind of summer.’

‘Well, so it is,’ said Uncle Dan, filling his briar pipe. He was fond of Jeremy. He wasn’t loud or obtrusive, he had a very even temperament and a likeable personality, and he gave a hand with anything that needed a young man’s technique. ‘Now and again we get a summer like this.’