William The Outlaw (20 page)

‘Don’t go in,’ he whispered, ‘there’s danger.’

Mr Morgan’s jaw dropped.

‘What?’ he gasped.

‘I say there’s
danger
,’ said the boy again rather irritably, ‘if you go in that house you’ll never come out alive.’

‘B-but it’s
my
house,’ said Mr Morgan, ‘I’ve
often
been in and come out alive.’

‘Come here and I’ll show you,’ whispered William. ‘Come round here.’

He led the amazed but unprotesting householder round to the lighted window of the library.

‘There!’ he said, ‘look at that.’

Mr Morgan looked at it while his mouth and eyes slowly opened to an almost incredible extent and his cheeks grew paler and paler. There in his library with feet on his writing table, sat a
brutal communist commander beneath the red flag. Brutal communist soldiers lounged in all his best chairs and some poor unhappy prisoner stood trembling before the brutal communist commander.

‘W-what is it?’ he gasped.

‘It’s broke out,’ said William succinctly, ‘the revolution – it’s broke out.’

‘B-but I heard nothing on the way,’ gasped the poor man again, drops of perspiration standing out on his brow.

‘No, it’s been very sudden,’ explained William unabashed, ‘quite a lot of people don’t know anything about it yet.’

‘What I always said would happen,’ groaned Mr Morgan. ‘On us before we know where we are! The first blaze kindled in this very village and my home – my
own
house
– taken for headquarters. I’ve always feared it – always.’

‘They’re having the people from the village in one by one,’ said William cheerfully. ‘They’ve got ’em all locked in the cellars. They’re killin’
most of them.’

‘And – and all my valuables there,’ groaned Mr Morgan, ‘all my money and everything. If only I could collect some of it I could make good my escape.’

He shuddered as the brutal communist commander within shook his fist with a particularly brutal gesture in the shrinking prisoner’s face.

‘Well,’ said William slowly. ‘When first I started watchin’ through this window it was open an’ they were alone – it was before they started havin’ in
the prisoner – an’ I heard them saying that they were afraid the reg’lar army’d soon be upon them an’ the signal that the reg’lar army was comin’ upon
’em was three blows on a whistle from the road so as soon as they heard three blows on a whistle from the road it’d mean that the reg’lar army was comin’ upon ’em
an’ they’d have to clear out quick – so if we could give three blows on a whistle from the road they’d clear out jolly quick an’ you could nip in an’ get your
stuff before they come back. But – but, I’ve not got a whistle, have you?’

There was a tense silence during which William held his breath.

‘I have, as it happens,’ said the old gentleman excitedly, ‘by a curious chance, one came into my possession the other day – but it’s in my bedroom. How am I to get
at it?’

‘Where’s your bedroom?’ said William shortly.

‘Just above us. The window, I see, is open.’

‘Where’s the whistle?’ said William trying not to sound too eager.

‘In the right-hand small drawer in my dressing-table. What are you doing?’

‘THERE!’ SAID WILLIAM. ‘LOOK AT THAT!’ MR MORGAN LOOKED AT IT, WHILE HIS MOUTH AND EYES SLOWLY OPENED AND HIS CHEEKS GREW PALE.

THERE IN MR MORGAN’S LIBRARY, WITH HIS FEET ON THE WRITING TABLE, SAT A BRUTAL COMMUNIST COMMANDER, WITH A PRISONER TREMBLING BEFORE HIM IN THE HANDS OF BRUTAL COMMUNIST
SOLDIERS.

‘Brave boy!’ said the old gentleman fervently, ‘now go down to the road and blow three times.’

William crept away into the darkness with the whistle. He could not refrain from chuckling as he reached the road. The old gentleman waited and waited, but no blast came from the darkness into
which William had disappeared.

William was creeping back. He knew that it was a dangerous proceeding, but curiosity triumphed over caution. He wanted to know what had happened to the old gentleman and the brutal communist
commander and – everyone. Cautiously he approached the library window. The old gentleman was sitting in his chair and the brutal communist, the prisoner and a lot more people were sitting on
other chairs and on the floor drinking lemonade and eating sandwiches. Someone had opened the window and William could hear what they were saying. The three girls and Freddie were there.

‘You gave me quite a fright, Uncle,’ the red-haired girl was saying, ‘when I saw you out there in the dark. Whatever were you doing?’

‘Oh – er – nothing much,’ said Mr Morgan, who had evidently not given himself away, ‘just having a look round – er – just having a look round at the
garden before I came in.’

‘We thought you weren’t coming back till tomorrow.’

‘I hadn’t meant to.’

‘You don’t mind us having had the rehearsal here, do you?’

‘Not a bit, my dear. Not a bit.’

‘The real reason we didn’t tell you was that we knew you were just a bit nervous of communists and things like that. I told the others so that day we arranged it – the day that
boy was here.’

‘What boy?’ said Mr Morgan sharply.

‘Oh, a poor boy we picked up on the road unconscious and nearly dead, and Freddie examined him and found that he was suffering from some terrible disease of the spine.’

Mr Morgan’s sniff expressed no great respect for Freddie’s diagnosis.

‘The poor child had come for his whistle.’

‘What whistle?’ said Mr Morgan still more sharply.

‘He said you’d borrowed a whistle from him and promised to give it back that day. We looked all over the place for it, but couldn’t find it so he had to go away without it. . .
. What’s the matter, Uncle?’

Mr Morgan was staring into space, his complexion changing from pink to a dull red. He’d
thought
there was something familiar about that boy though he hadn’t been able to see
him plainly in the darkness. There came to him memories of that curious snigger he’d heard as the boy disappeared in the darkness with the whistle.

The red deepened to an apoplectic purple.

He gave a sudden furious bellow of rage.

William, chuckling to himself, crept away again through the night. . . .

CHAPTER 8

P
ROBABLY if she hadn’t been so pretty the Outlaws would not have noticed her at all. But as it was they not only noticed her but noticed also
that she was crying. She was sitting on the doorstep of a small house and her hair was a mass of auburn curls, and her eyes were blue and her mouth – well, the Outlaws were not poetic but
they dimly realised that her mouth was rather nice. They looked at her and passed on sheepishly, then they hesitated, and, still more sheepishly, returned. William was the spokesman.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said gruffly.

She raised blue, tear-filled eyes.

‘Wot?’ she said.

‘What’s the matter?’ repeated William still more gruffly.

She wiped away a tear with the corner of a pinafore.

‘Wot?’ she said again.

‘Anyone been hurtin’ you?’ said William still gruffly, but with the light of battle in his eye. She looked up at him.

‘No,’ she said, and returned to the corner of her pinafore.

The light of battle died away from William’s eye. He looked disappointed.

‘Lost anythin’?’ he then asked, assuming the expression of one who is willing to search every corner of the globe for whatever she had lost. She looked up at him again.

‘No,’ she said listlessly.

‘Well, what’s the
matter?
’ persisted William.

‘My daddy’s out of work,’ said the little girl.

This nonplussed the Outlaws. They’d have fought anyone who’d hurt her, they’d have found anything she’d lost, but this seemed outside their sphere.

‘What d’you mean?’ said Douglas, ‘d’you mean he’s got nothin’ to do?’

‘Yes,’ said the little girl, ‘nobody’ll give ’im any work to do, an’ he’s got to stop at home all day.’

‘Coo!’ said Ginger feelingly, ‘I wish I was him.’

‘Well,’ said William, ‘don’ you worry, that’s all. Don’ you worry. We’ll get him some work,’ and added as an afterthought, ‘What can he
do?’

‘He can do anythin’,’ said the little girl peeping at him from behind the corner of her pinafore. ‘Wot can you do?’

Then someone called her in and the Outlaws found themselves standing around in a semicircle gazing with ardent sympathy and admiration at a closed door. They hastily assumed their normal manly
expressions and went on down the road.

‘Well,’ said Ginger the optimist, ‘he can do anythin’, so it ought to be pretty easy to get him a job.’

‘Yes,’ said William, ‘we’d better start on it at once, ’cause we want to go out shootin’ tomorrow.’

‘My bow’s broke,’ said Henry sadly.

‘Lend you my pea-shooter,’ said Douglas.

‘Let’s think of the things he could be,’ said William, ‘there’s lots of ’em.’

‘A doctor or a lawyer or a clergyman,’ said Henry dreamily. ‘Let’s make him a clergyman.’

‘No, he couldn’t be any of those,’ said William irritably, ‘those are special sorts of people. They start turnin’ into those before they leave school. But he could
be a gardener or a butler or – or a motor car driver—’

‘Shuvver,’ put in Ginger with an air of superiority.

‘Motor car driver,’ repeated William firmly, ‘or – or a sort of man nurse. I read in a book once about a man what once had a sort of man nurse – he sort of went
queer in his head – the man, not the man nurse – an’ the man nurse looked after him – or he could be a sort of man what looks after people’s clothes—’

‘A valley,’ put in Ginger.

‘A man what looks after people’s clothes,’ repeated William firmly, ‘or – or a fireman, or a policeman, or a postman, or servin’ in a shop. Why,’ with
growing cheerfulness, ‘we’ll be able to find hundreds an’
hundreds
of things for him to do.’

‘He only wants one,’ said Douglas mildly.

‘What’ll we start on?’ said Ginger.

William assumed his frown of generalship and mentally surveyed the field of operation.

‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I’ll try’n get him a job as a man what drives a motor car, an’ Ginger try’n get him one as a gardener, an’ Henry
try’n get him one as a man what looks after people’s clothes, an’ Douglas as a man what looks after people what aren’t quite right in their head, an’ we’ll have
a meetin’ in the ole barn after tea an’ tell how we’ve got on . . . an’ if we’ve
all
got him work, of course,’ he added with his unfailing optimism,
‘we’ll let him choose.’

William began to make tentative efforts at lunch.

‘When are we goin’ to have a car?’ he demanded innocently.

‘Not while I’m alive,’ answered his father.

William considered this in silence for some minutes, then asked:

‘How soon after you’re dead?’

His father glared at him and William cautiously withdrew into silence. A few minutes later, however, he emerged from it.

‘Seems sort of funny to me,’ he remarked – meditatively, to no one in particular, ‘that we don’t have one. Neely everyone else I know’s got a car.
They’re an awful savin’ in bus tickets an’ shoes an’ things. Seems to me sort of wrong to keep spendin’ money on bus tickets an’ shoes when we could save it so
easy by buyin’ a car.’

No one was taking any notice of him. They were discussing an artist who had taken The Limes furnished for a month. Robert, William’s seventeen-year-old brother, was saying, ‘One
daughter, I know, I saw her at the window.’ William continued undaunted:

‘We’d jus’ want a man to look after it that’s all an’ I could easy get that for you. I know a man what’s good at lookin’ after ’em an’ I
could get him for you. An’ they’re cheap enough. Why, someone told me about someone who knew someone what got one for jus’ a few pounds – an ole one, of course, but
they’re jus’ as good as new ones – only a bit older, of course. The ones what were made when first they was invented must be goin’ quite cheap now an’ one of
them’d do quite all right for us – jus’ to save us bus tickets an’ shoes – with a man to look after it. Ginger an’ me’d paint it up an’ it would be
as good as new. Shouldn’t be surprised,’ with rising cheerfulness, ‘if you could get an ole one – a really ole one – for jus’ a few shillin’s an’
Ginger’n me’d paint it for you and this man’d mend it up for you an’ drive it for you an—’