The Wouldbegoods (5 page)

There was a great noise of splashing. And besides that a feminine voice, looking out of the dairy window and screaming –

‘Lord love the children!’

It was Mrs Pettigrew. She disappeared at once, and we were sorry we were in such a situation that she would be able to get at Albert’s uncle before we could. Afterwards we were not so sorry.

Before a word could be spoken about our desperate position Dora staggered a little in the water, and suddenly shrieked, ‘Oh, my foot! Oh, it’s a shark! I know it is – or a crocodile!’

The others on the bank could hear her shrieking, but they could not see us properly; they did not know what was happening. Noel told me afterwards he never could care for that paintbrush.

Of course we knew it could not be a shark, but I thought of pike, which are large and very angry always, and I caught hold of Dora. She screamed without stopping. I shoved her along to where there was a ledge of brickwork, and shoved her up, till she could sit on it, then she got her foot out of the water, still screaming.

It was indeed terrible. The thing she thought was a shark came up with her foot, and it was a horrid, jagged, old meat-tin, and she had put her foot right into it. Oswald got it off, and directly he did so blood began to pour from the wounds. The tin edges had cut it in several spots. It was very pale blood, because her foot was wet, of course.

She stopped screaming, and turned green, and I thought she was going to faint, like Daisy did on the jungle day.

Oswald held her up as well as he could, but it really was one of the least agreeable moments in his life. For the raft was gone, and she couldn’t have waded back anyway, and we didn’t know how deep the moat might be in other places.

But Mrs Pettigrew had not been idle. She is not a bad sort really.

Just as Oswald was wondering whether he could swim after the raft and get it back, a boat’s nose shot out from under a dark archway a little further up under the house. It was the boathouse, and Albert’s uncle had got the punt and took us back in it. When we had regained the dark arch where the boat lives we had to go up the cellar stairs. Dora had to be carried.

There was but little said to us that day. We were sent to bed – those who had not been on the raft the same
as the others, for they owned up all right, and Albert’s uncle is the soul of justice.

Next day but one was Saturday. Father gave us a talking to – with other things.

The worst was when Dora couldn’t get her shoe on, so they sent for the doctor, and Dora had to lie down for ever so long. It was indeed poor luck.

When the doctor had gone Alice said to me –

‘It
is
hard lines, but Dora’s very jolly about it. Daisy’s been telling her about how we should all go to her with our little joys and sorrows and things, and about the sweet influence from a sickbed that can be felt all over the house, like in
What Katy Did
, and Dora said she hoped she might prove a blessing to us all while she’s laid up.’

Oswald said he hoped so, but he was not pleased. Because this sort of jaw was exactly the sort of thing he and Dicky didn’t want to have happen.

The thing we got it hottest for was those little tubs off the garden railings. They turned out to be butter-tubs that had been put out there ‘to sweeten’.

But as Denny said, ‘After the mud in that moat not all the perfumes of somewhere or other could make them fit to use for butter again.’

I own this was rather a bad business. Yet we did not do it to please ourselves, but because it was our duty. But that made no difference to our punishment when Father came down. I have known this mistake occur before.

chapter three

bill's tombstone

There were soldiers riding down the road, on horses two and two. That is the horses were two and two, and the men not. Because each man was riding one horse and leading another. To exercise them. They came from Chatham Barracks. We all drew up in a line outside the churchyard wall, and saluted as they went by, though we had not read
Toady Lion
then. We have since. It is the only decent book I have ever read written by
Toady Lion
's author. The others are mere piffle. But many people like them. In
Sir Toady Lion
the officer salutes the child.

There was only a lieutenant with those soldiers, and he did not salute me. He kissed his hand to the girls; and a lot of the soldiers behind kissed theirs too. We waved ours back.

Next day we made a Union Jack out of pocket-handkerchiefs and part of a red flannel petticoat of the White Mouse's, which she did not want just then, and some blue ribbon we got at the village shop.

Then we watched for the soldiers, and after three days they went by again, by twos and twos as before. It was A1.

We waved our flag, and we shouted. We gave them three cheers. Oswald can shout loudest. So as soon as
the first man was level with us (not the advance guard, but the first of the battery) – he shouted –

‘Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!' And then we waved the flag, and bellowed. Oswald stood on the wall to bellow better, and Denny waved the flag because he was a visitor, and so politeness made us let him enjoy the fat of whatever there was going.

The soldiers did not cheer that day; they only grinned and kissed their hands.

The next day we all got up as much like soldiers as we could. H.O. and Noel had tin swords, and we asked Albert's uncle to let us wear some of the real arms that are on the wall in the dining room.

And he said, ‘Yes', if we would clean them up afterwards. But we jolly well cleaned them up first with Brooke's soap and brick dust and vinegar, and the knife polish (invented by the great and immortal Duke of Wellington in his spare time when he was not conquering Napoleon. Three cheers for our Iron Duke!), and with emery paper and wash leather and whitening. Oswald wore a cavalry sabre in its sheath. Alice and the Mouse had pistols in their belts, large old flint-locks, with bits of red flannel behind the flints. Denny had a naval cutlass, a very beautiful blade, and old enough to have been at Trafalgar. I hope it was. The others had French sword-bayonets that were used in the Franco–German war. They are very bright when you get them bright, but the sheaths are hard to polish. Each sword-bayonet has the name on the blade of the warrior who once wielded it. I wonder where they are now. Perhaps some of them died in the war. Poor chaps! But it is a very long time ago.

I should like to be a soldier. It is better than going to the best schools, and to Oxford afterwards, even if it is Balliol you go to. Oswald wanted to go to South Africa for a bugler, but Father would not let him. And it is true that Oswald does not yet know how to bugle, though he can play the infantry ‘advance', and the ‘charge' and the ‘halt' on a penny whistle. Alice taught them to him with the piano, out of the red book Father's cousin had when he was in the Fighting Fifth. Oswald cannot play the ‘retire', and he would scorn to do so. But I suppose a bugler has to play what he is told, no matter how galling to the young boy's proud spirit.

The next day, being thoroughly armed, we put on everything red, white and blue that we could think of – nightshirts are good for white, and you don't know what you can do with red socks and blue jerseys till you try – and we waited by the churchyard wall for the soldiers. When the advance guard (or whatever you call it of artillery – it's that for infantry, I know) came by, we got ready, and when the first man of the first battery was level with us Oswald played on his penny whistle the ‘advance' and the ‘charge' – and then shouted –

‘Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!' This time they had the guns with them. And every man of the battery cheered too. It was glorious. It made you tremble all over. The girls said it made them want to cry – but no boy would own to this, even if it were true. It is babyish to cry. But it was glorious, and Oswald felt differently to what he ever did before.

Then suddenly the officer in front said, ‘Battery! Halt!' and all the soldiers pulled their horses up, and
the great guns stopped too. Then the officer said, ‘Sit at ease,' and something else, and the sergeant repeated it, and some of the men got off their horses and lit their pipes, and some sat down on the grass edge of the road, holding their horses' bridles.

We could see all the arms and accoutrements as plain as plain.

Then the officer came up to us. We were all standing on the wall that day, except Dora, who had to sit, because her foot was bad, but we let her have the three-edged rapier to wear, and the blunderbuss to hold as well – it has a brass mouth and is like in Mr Caldecott's pictures.

He was a beautiful man the officer. Like a Viking. Very tall and fair, with moustaches very long, and bright blue eyes. He said –

‘Good morning.'

So did we.

Then he said –

‘You seem to be a military lot.'

We said we wished we were.

‘And patriotic,' said he.

Alice said she should jolly well think so.

Then he said he had noticed us there for several days, and he had halted the battery because he thought we might like to look at the guns.

Alas! There are but too few grown-up people so far-seeing and thoughtful as this brave and distinguished officer.

We said, ‘Oh, yes', and then we got off the wall, and that good and noble man showed us the string that moves the detonator and the breech-block (when you
take it out and carry it away the gun is in vain to the enemy, even if he takes it); and he let us look down the gun to see the rifling, all clean and shiny – and he showed us the ammunition boxes, but there was nothing in them. He also told us how the gun was unlimbered (this means separating the gun from the ammunition carriage), and how quick it could be done – but he did not make the men do this then, because they were resting. There were six guns. Each had painted on the carriage, in white letters, 15 Pr., which the captain told us meant fifteen-pounder.

‘I should have thought the gun weighed more than fifteen pounds,' Dora said. ‘It would if it was beef, but I suppose wood and gun are lighter.'

And the officer explained to her very kindly and patiently that 15 Pr. meant the gun could throw a
shell
weighing fifteen pounds.

When we had told him how jolly it was to see the soldiers go by so often, he said –

‘You won't see us many more times. We're ordered to the front; and we sail on Tuesday week; and the guns will be painted mud-colour, and the men will wear mud-colour too, and so shall I.'

The men looked very nice, though they were not wearing their busbies, but only Tommy caps, put on all sorts of ways.

We were very sorry they were going, but Oswald, as well as others, looked with envy on those who would soon be allowed – being grown up, and no nonsense about your education – to go and fight for their Queen and country.

Then suddenly Alice whispered to Oswald, and he said –

‘All right; but tell him yourself.'

So Alice said to the captain –

‘Will you stop next time you pass?'

He said, ‘I'm afraid I can't promise that.'

Alice said, ‘You might; there's a particular reason.'

He said, ‘What?' which was a natural remark; not rude, as it is with children. Alice said –

‘We want to give the soldiers a keepsake and will write to ask my father. He is very well off just now. Look here – if we're not on the wall when you come by, don't stop; but if we are, please,
please
do!'

The officer pulled his moustache and looked as if he did not know; but at last he said ‘Yes', and we were very glad, though but Alice and Oswald knew the dark but pleasant scheme at present fermenting in their youthful nuts.

The captain talked a lot to us. At last Noel said –

‘I think you are like Diarmid of the Golden Collar. But I should like to see your sword out, and shining in the sun like burnished silver.'

The captain laughed and grasped the hilt of his good blade. But Oswald said hurriedly –

‘Don't. Not yet. We shan't ever have a chance like this. If you'd only show us the pursuing practice! Albert's uncle knows it; but he only does it on an armchair, because he hasn't a horse.'

And that brave and swagger captain did really do it. He rode his horse right into our gate when we opened it, and showed us all the cuts, thrusts, and guards. There
are four of each kind. It was splendid. The morning sun shone on his flashing blade, and his good steed stood with all its legs far apart and stiff on the lawn.

Then we opened the paddock gate, and he did it again, while the horse galloped as if upon the bloody battlefield among the fierce foes of his native land, and this was far more ripping still.

Then we thanked him very much, and he went away, taking his men with him. And the guns of course.

Then we wrote to my father, and he said ‘Yes', as we knew he would, and next time the soldiers came by – but they had no guns this time, only the captive Arabs of the desert – we had the keepsakes ready in a wheelbarrow, and we were on the churchyard wall.

And the bold captain called an immediate halt.

Then the girls had the splendid honour and pleasure of giving a pipe and four whole ounces of tobacco to each soldier.

Then we shook hands with the captain, and the sergeant and the corporals, and the girls kissed the captain – I can't think why girls will kiss everybody – and we all cheered for the Queen. It was grand. And I wish my father had been there to see how much you can do with £12 if you order the things from the Stores.

We have never seen those brave soldiers again.

I have told you all this to show you how we got so keen about soldiers, and why we sought to aid and abet the poor widow at the white cottage in her desolate and oppressedness.

Her name was Simpkins, and her cottage was just beyond the churchyard, on the other side from our house. On the
different military occasions which I have remarked upon this widow woman stood at her garden gate and looked on. And after the cheering she rubbed her eyes with her apron. Alice noticed this slight but signifying action.

We feel quite sure Mrs Simpkins liked soldiers, and so we felt friendly to her. But when we tried to talk to her she would not. She told us to go along with us, do, and not bother her. And Oswald, with his usual delicacy and good breeding, made the others do as she said.

But we were not to be thus repulsed with impunity. We made complete but cautious enquiries, and found out that the reason she cried when she saw soldiers was that she had only one son, a boy. He was twenty-two, and he had gone to the War last April. So that she thought of him when she saw the soldiers, and that was why she cried. Because when your son is at the wars you always think he is being killed. I don't know why. A great many of them are not. If I had a son at the wars I should never think he was dead till I heard he was, and perhaps not then, considering everything. After we had found this out we held a council.

Dora said, ‘We must do something for the soldier's widowed mother.'

We all agreed, but added, ‘What?'

Alice said, ‘The gift of money might be deemed an insult by that proud, patriotic spirit. Besides, we haven't more than eighteenpence among us.'

We had put what we had to Father's £12 to buy the baccy and pipes.

The Mouse then said, ‘Couldn't we make her a flannel petticoat and leave it without a word upon her doorstep?'

But everyone said, ‘Flannel petticoats in this weather?' so that was no go.