The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (12 page)

Therefore, Peter told himself, he must continue to be passive. Do not insult
them. Do not aggravate them in any way. And above all, do not try to take them
on physically. Then, hopefully, in the end, they might become bored with this
nasty little game and go off to shoot rabbits.

The two larger boys had each taken hold of one of Peter's arms and they were
marching him across the next field towards the lake. The prisoner's wrists were
still tied together in front of him. Ernie carried the gun in his spare hand.
Raymond carried the binoculars he had taken from Peter. They came to the lake.

The lake was beautiful on this golden May morning. It was a long and fairly
narrow lake with tall willow trees growing here and there along its banks. In
the middle, the water was clear and clean, but nearer to the land there was a
forest of reeds and bulrushes.

Ernie and Raymond marched their prisoner to the edge of the lake and there they
stopped.

"Now then," Ernie said. "What I suggest is this. You take 'is
arms and I take 'is legs and we'll swing the little
perisher
one two three as far out as we can into them nice muddy reeds. '
Ow's
that?"

"I like it," Raymond said. "And leave 'is 'ands tied together,
right?"

"Right," Ernie said.
" '
Ow's
that with you, snot-nose?"

"If that's what you're going to do, I can't very well stop you,"
Peter said, trying to keep his voice cool and calm.

"Just you try and stop us," Ernie said, grinning, "and then see
what '
appens
to you."

"One last question," Peter said. "Did you ever take on somebody
your own size?"

The moment he said it, he knew he had made a mistake. He saw the flush coming
to Ernie's cheeks and there was a dangerous little spark dancing in his small
black eyes.

Luckily, at that very moment, Raymond saved the situation. "Hey!
Lookit
that bird
swimmin
' in the
reeds over there!" he shouted, pointing.
"Let's '
ave
'
im
!"

It was a mallard drake, with a curvy spoon-shaped yellow beak and a head of
emerald green with a white ring round its neck. "Now those you really can
eat," Raymond went on. "It's a wild duck."

"I'll '
ave
'
im
!"
Ernie cried. He let go of the prisoner's arm and lifted the gun to his
shoulder.

"This is a bird sanctuary," Peter said.

"A what?"
Ernie asked, lowering the gun.

"Nobody shoots birds here. It's strictly forbidden."

" '
Oo
says it's
forbidden?"

"The owner,
Mr
Douglas
Highton
."

"You must be joking," Ernie said and he raised the gun again. He
fired. The duck crumpled in the water.

"Go get '
im
," Ernie said to Peter.
"Cut 'is 'ands free, Raymond, 'cause then '
ee
can be our
flippin
' gun-dog and fetch the birds after
we shoot '
em
."

Raymond took out his knife and cut the string binding the small boy's wrists.

"Go on!" Ernie snapped. "Go get '
im
!"

The killing of the beautiful duck had disturbed Peter very much. "I
refuse," he said.

Ernie hit him across the face hard with his open hand. Peter didn't fall down,
but a small trickle of blood began running out of one nostril.

"You dirty little
perisher
!" Ernie said.
"You just try
refusin
' me one more time and I'm
goin
' to make you a promise. And the promise is like this.
You refuse me just one more time and I'm
goin
' to
knock out every single one of them shiny white front teeth of yours, top and
bottom. You understand that?"

Peter said nothing.

"Answer me!" Ernie barked. "Do you understand that?"

"Yes," Peter said quietly. "I understand."

"Get on with it, then!" Ernie shouted.

Peter walked down the bank, into the muddy water, through the reeds, and picked
up the duck. He brought it back and Raymond took it from him and tied string
around its legs.

"Now we got a retriever dog with us, let's see if we can't get us a few
more of them ducks," Ernie said. He strolled along the bank, gun in hand,
searching the reeds. Suddenly he stopped. He crouched. He put a finger to his
lips and said, "
Sshh
!"

Raymond went over to join him. Peter stood a few yards away, his trousers
covered in mud up to the knees.

"
Lookit
in there!"
Ernie whispered, pointing into a dense patch of bulrushes. "
D'you
see
what I see?"

"Holy cats!" cried Raymond. "What a beauty!"

Peter, peering from a little further away into the rushes, saw at once what
they were looking at. It was a swan, a magnificent white swan sitting serenely
upon her nest. The nest itself was a huge pile of reeds and rushes that rose up
about two feet above the waterline, and upon the top of all this the swan was
sitting like a great white lady of the lake. Her head was turned towards the
boys on the bank, alert and watchful.

" '
Ow
about that?"
Ernie said. "That's
better'n
ducks,
ain't
it?"

"You think you can get '
er
?" Raymond said.

"Of course I can get '
er
. I'll drill a 'ole
right through '
er
noggin!"

Peter felt a wild rage beginning to build up inside him. He walked up to the
two bigger boys. "I wouldn't shoot that swan if I were you," he said,
trying to keep his voice calm. "Swans are the most protected birds in
England."

"And what's that got to do with it?" Ernie asked him, sneering.

"And I'll tell you something else," Peter went on, throwing all
caution away. "Nobody shoots a bird sitting on its nest. Absolutely
nobody! She may even have cygnets under her! You just can't do it!"

" '
Oo
says we
can't?" Raymond asked, sneering. "Mister
bleedin
'
snotty-nose Peter Watson, is that the one '
oo
says
it?"

"The whole country says it," Peter answered. "The law says it
and the police say it and
everyone
says
it!"

"I don't say it!" Ernie said, raising his gun.

"Don't!"
screamed
Peter. "Please
don't!"

Crack!
The gun went off. The bullet
hit the swan right in the middle of her elegant head and the long white neck
collapsed on to the side of the nest.

"Got '
er
!" cried Ernie.

"Hot shot!" shouted Raymond.

Ernie turned to Peter who was standing small and white-faced and absolutely
rigid. "Now go get '
er
," he ordered.

Once again, Peter didn't move.

Ernie came up close to the smaller boy and bent down and stuck his face right
up to Peter's. "I'm
tellin
' you for the last
time," he said, soft and dangerous. "Go get '
er
!"

Tears were running down Peter's face as he went slowly down the bank and
entered the water. He waded out to the dead swan and picked it up tenderly with
both hands. Underneath it were two tiny cygnets, their bodies covered with
yellow down. They were huddling together in the centre of the nest.

"Any eggs?"
Ernie shouted from the bank.

"No," Peter answered.
"Nothing."
There was a chance, he felt, that when the male swan returned, it would
continue to feed the young ones on its own if they were left in the nest. He
certainly did not want to leave them to the tender mercies of Ernie and
Raymond.

Peter carried the dead swan back to the edge of the lake. He placed it on the
ground. Then he stood up and faced the two others. His eyes, still wet with
tears, were blazing with fury. "That was a filthy thing to do!" he
shouted. "It was a stupid pointless act of vandalism! You're a couple of
ignorant idiots! It's you who ought to be dead instead of the swan! You're not
fit to be alive!"

He stood there, as tall as he could stand, splendid in his fury, facing the two
taller boys and not caring any longer what they did to him.

Ernie didn't hit him this time. He seemed just a tiny bit taken aback at first
by this outburst, but he quickly recovered. And now his loose lips formed
themselves into a sly, wet smirk and his small close-together eyes began to
glint in a most malicious manner. "So you like swans, is that right?"
he asked softly.

"I like swans and I hate you!" Peter cried.

"And am I right in
thinkin
'," Ernie went
on, still smirking, "am I absolutely right in
thinkin
'
that you wished this old swan down 'ere were alive instead of dead?"

"That's a stupid question!" Peter shouted.

" '
Ee
needs a clip over
the ear-'ole," Raymond said.

"Wait," Ernie said. "I'm
doin
' this
exercise." He turned back to Peter. "So if I could make this swan
come alive and go
flyin
' round the sky all over
again, then you'd be '
appy
.
Right?"

"That's another stupid question!" Peter cried out. "Who
d'you
think
you are?"

"I'll tell you '
oo
I am," Ernie said.
"I'm a magic man, that's '
oo
I am. And just to
make you '
appy
and contented, I am about to do a
magic trick that'll make this dead swan come alive and go
flyin
'
all over the sky once again."

"Rubbish!" Peter said. "I'm going." He turned and started
to walk away.

"Grab '
im
!" Ernie said.

Raymond grabbed him.

"Leave me alone!" Peter cried out.

Raymond slapped him on the cheek, hard. "Now, now," he said.
"Don't fight with auntie, not unless you want to get '
urt
."

"
Gimme
your knife," Ernie said, holding out
his hand. Raymond gave him his knife.

Ernie knelt down beside the dead swan and stretched out one of its enormous
wings. "Watch this," he said.

"What's the big idea?" Raymond asked.

"Wait and see," Ernie said. And now, using the knife, he proceeded to
sever the great white wing from the swan's body. There is a joint in the bone
where the wing meets the side of the bird, and Ernie located this and slid the
knife into the joint and cut through the tendon. The knife was very sharp and
it cut well, and soon the wing came away all in one piece.

Ernie turned the swan over and severed the other wing.

"String," he said, holding out his hand to Raymond.

Raymond, who was grasping Peter by the arm, was watching fascinated.
"Where'd you learn '
ow
to butcher up a bird like
that?" he asked.

"With chickens," Ernie said. "We used to nick chickens from up
at Stevens Farm and cut '
em
up into chicken parts and
flog '
em
to a shop in
Aylesbury
.
Gimme
the
string."

Raymond gave him the ball of string. Ernie cut off six pieces, each about a
yard long.

There are a series of strong bones running along the top edge of a swan's wing,
and Ernie took one of the wings and started tying one end of the bits of string
all the way along the top edge of the great wing. When he had done this, he
lifted the wing with the six string-ends dangling from it and said to Peter,
"Stick out your arm."

"You're absolutely mad!" the smaller boy shouted. "You're
demented!"

"Make '
im
stick it out," Ernie said to
Raymond.

Raymond held up a clenched fist in front of Peter's face and dabbed it gently
against his nose. "You see this," he said. "Well I'm
goin
' to smash you right in the kisser with it unless you
do exactly as you're told, see? Now, stick out your arm, there's a good little
boy."

Peter felt his resistance collapsing. He couldn't hold out against these people
any longer. For a few seconds, he stared at Ernie. Ernie with the tiny
close-together black eyes gave the impression he would be capable of doing just
about anything if he got really angry. Ernie, Peter felt at that moment, might
quite easily kill a person if he were to lose his temper. Ernie, the dangerous
backward child, was playing games now and it would be very unwise to spoil his
fun. Peter held out an arm.

Ernie then proceeded to tie the six string ends one by one to Peter's arm, and
when he had finished, the white wing of the swan was securely attached along
the entire length of the arm itself.