by Mike Kent
‘Pencils down a moment, gentlemen. I shall leave you to finish off on your own. Don’t take too long though or you won’t get into the library before midnight. You will be expected to be up by seven in the morning. Breakfast is at seven thirty. Kindly be on time.’
MacKenzie raised his hand, thought better of it, and quickly lowered it again.
‘Do you want to ask something?’ said the Major, pulling the window closed behind him.
‘Aye. I was just thinking about lunch tomorrow…’
‘Well?’
‘I was wondering whether we come back here for it, or whether we can buy something out.’
‘We’ll be miles away at lunch time. We have packed lunches during the day. They are provided by my cook. I did mention this, I believe. I assume you didn’t have your hearing aid plugged in.’
‘What do we get for our…’
‘Lunch is neither here nor there, young man. This isn’t a gourmet’s convention. It’s a field course. Which reminds me, if you’ve brought any of your own puddling tools you’ll need them tomorrow. Small trowels will be useful for soil sections. Or if you have to dig about in dung.’
Duggan lurched forward with laughter and then swallowed it as he caught the Major’s eye.
‘Something amusing you, young man?’
‘No, it’s just that Milly would have been amused to hear you say that.’
‘Milly? Who’s Milly? I don’t recall saying anything amusing.’
‘No, you didn’t. It’s just that…’
‘Is this relevant?’
‘Not really. I…’
‘Then I suggest you return your efforts to your drawing.’
Gathering up his notes, he turned sharply and strode out of the room. Miss Fosdyke followed him at a safe distance.
(ii)
I found it very difficult to sleep. By the time I’d finished my notes, illustrated them, and organised my clothing for the morning, there seemed little else to do except read the latest edition of Country Life or go to bed. I’d also promised to ring Samantha as soon as I’d found a phone, but on enquiring I was told the only telephone was in a small side room which Major Beddington used as his office, and applying for the use of it was like asking for the keys to Fort Knox. I was also very hungry indeed, and cross with myself for not listening more carefully to students who’d been here before. At the very least I could have brought a few extra food supplies.
Because Duggan hadn’t slept on the coach, he’d fallen asleep in bed very easily. For several hours I lay awake listening to Duggan’s snores, punctuated at intervals by the enthusiastic hooting of an owl in a tree near his window. This was followed by the regular honking of what sounded like a pair of stray mallards talking to each other on the front lawn. It seemed I had only been asleep for a few moments when I felt a hand shaking me gently. I turned over quickly, and heard Duggan urging me not to make a sound.
‘Listen!’ he whispered. ‘Keep still!’
There was a rattling noise at the window at the far end of the room. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud and I peered intently through the darkness. The lower part of the window was stealthily being pushed upwards. I yawned and sat up quickly.
‘What is it?’
‘Burglars,’ Duggan whispered. ‘We’ve got bloody burglars!’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Catch the bugger! Get out of bed quietly and go on the other side of the window. At least there’s two of us. We’ll jump on him when he climbs through the window.’
I pushed the sheets aside, climbed cautiously out of bed, and moved to one side of the window, my senses sharpened as I caught the night breeze blowing through the opening. Duggan picked up a large bath towel and crawled on his hands and knees to the other side of the window. Then he hunched himself into a ball and screwed his eyes up in an effort to assess the size of the dark shadow moving outside. I noticed that he was naked, apart from a jockstrap embroidered with the Union Jack.
There was a sudden movement outside, and the window slid completely open. With a grunt of exertion, a figure in a black trench coat heaved himself through the opening and collapsed in a heap on the floor.
‘Right Mike,’ Duggan shouted triumphantly, ‘jump on him!’
The intruder yelled loudly and then struggled desperately to stop himself from being suffocated by the towel that had been thrown over his head. Suddenly, the bedroom door was thrown open, the light clicked on, and the huge frame of Major Beddington in a starched nightshirt filled the doorway.
‘What the devil is going on in here!’ he bellowed. ‘What sort of behaviour is this?’
‘You’ve got burglars,’ Duggan grunted.
‘Burglars?’ he roared. ‘We don’t have burglars here. Who is this fellow?’
He watched in disbelief as the intruder struggled round the room with the towel on his head, held tightly by the pair of us. We looked like a splinter group from a rugby scrum.
‘Stand still, man!’ the Major roared again. ‘You two, stand back! Get the towel off that fool’s head.’
Cautiously, we released the intruder. The towel dropped to the floor, revealing the bearded features of Dudley, who blinked in the light and looked severely put out.
‘Look, this is a bit much, old man,’ he complained, pushing his beard into shape and panting with exhaustion.
For a moment, the Major seemed lost for words. I noticed that Barton, in a red silk dressing gown, had also appeared in the doorway and was peering over the Major’s shoulders to see what was going on.
‘Who the hell are you?’ shouted the Major at Dudley, suddenly recovering his composure.
‘Dudley Hornpipe, old boy. Who are you?’
‘Hornpipe? Aren’t you supposed to be coming in the morning? What the devil are you doing here at this time of night?’
‘I got away earlier than I thought. I’ve just walked five miles from the station.’
‘What’s the matter with the bell, man? Didn’t it occur to your addled brain to ring it?’
‘I tried it. It doesn’t work.’
‘Why didn’t you knock, then?’
‘I tried that, too. Nobody came.’
‘Hardly surprising this time of night, is it? So you think you can shin up the walls instead, do you? Who do you think you are? Dracula?’
‘It was either that or sleeping on the lawn,’ said Dudley simply. ‘And frankly, I didn’t relish that idea.’
‘Didn’t you indeed. So instead, you wake up the entire hall and attack a dormitory?’
‘Force of circumstance, I’m afraid. I rather think the dormitory attacked me.’
The Major’s cheeks reddened and puffed out, as if a head of steam was rapidly building up inside them.
‘Kindly get the light off and go to bed,’ he barked. ‘You’ve got to be up by seven.’
‘Seven? Is that really essential? I think…’
‘Yes, it damn well is!’
The Major swung round from the door, and almost knocked Barton over. ‘Good God, another one!’ he said testily. ‘Who are you?’
‘I heard the noise,’ Barton said. ‘I just thought you might be having a midnight feast.’
‘Go away!’ the Major shouted at the top of his voice, glowering fiercely at him. Baron retreated quickly, and the Major turned and marched angrily off down the passageway.
‘Well, this really is a bit much, chaps,’ Dudley said again as the door slammed shut. ‘I get away from my Grandmother’s funeral early, and I get a welcome like this. He should think himself fortunate that I’ve bothered to come at all.’
‘You should have tapped on the window,’ said Duggan.
‘Didn’t want to wake you, old chap. Just shinned up the first drainpipe I found and looked in the window. You get used to climbing up things when you’re loo
king for bird’s nests.’
‘You took a risk, climbing in like that. Mike could have killed you. He’s got a black belt.’
‘Has he? That’s very impressive. So is your patriotic jockstrap, old boy’
‘I’m glad you like it. It’s part of the required equipment. You have to use them as slings for killing your own lunch.’
Dudley stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘I see. That bad, is it? So what have I missed so far?’
‘Food, basically,’ said Duggan. ‘There’s a shortage of it in these parts.’
‘Really? Well I rather think I’ve got a packet of custard creams in my rucksack. I’ve left it on the ground outside. Do you want me to shin down and fetch it?’
‘It’s alright,’ I said. ‘We can dream about them. It’ll be something to look forward to in the morning.’
‘Nonsense, old boy. It won’t take me a moment.’
He pushed his legs through the window and disappeared. In just under a minute he was back inside the room, carrying a small packet. ‘No custard creams, I’m afraid. I’ve got half a treacle tart and two packets of fish paste sandwiches. I’ve only brought the tart up, in a manner of speaking. The sandwiches look a bit iffy, if I’m honest. I’ve left them in the porchway.’
He took a penknife from his back pocket, carved the treacle tart delicately into three large portions and handed them round. ‘Have we really got to be up at seven?’ he said. ‘I usually skip breakfast at college.’
‘We’ll probably be skipping it here,’ said Duggan. ‘There probably won’t be any.’
‘Oh dear. Well I hope this isn’t going to be one of those formal events where we wander round in a cluster looking at clumps of fescu. I intend doing a study of owls while I’m down here. There’s a family of Tawnys in the trees just outside.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘They kept me awake for ages.’
‘I think you’ll find the Major’s itinerary doesn’t actually allow for individual expression,’ said Duggan. ‘If you’re lucky, you might get five minutes before bedtime.’
‘Really, old boy? Well I don’t think I shall be taking too much notice of that. Now, where do I sleep?’
‘You’ve got a choice of two,’ said Duggan, pointing to the beds in the corner of the room.
‘Two? Jolly good. I’ll take both.’
He pushed the beds together, stripped the bedclothes and remade them as one. Then he pulled off the heavy rambling boots he was wearing and tossed them onto the floor.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘Will it disturb you chaps if I read for a little while? Unless you want to go on a badger hunt or something?’
He raised his eyebrows questioningly. We stared at him in disbelief.
‘No? Well, perhaps you’re right.’
‘Not unless we can cook what we catch,’ said Duggan. ‘Turn the light off when you’ve finished reading.’
‘Of course, old boy. Give me a nudge in the morning, will you? Or do they bring tea round?’ He smiled pleasantly, tucked himself fully clothed into bed, put on his spectacles and settled down to read a book on woodland birdlife.
By eight o’clock the next morning we were sitting on the lush cool grass of Pinerose Valley in the hot morning sunlight, grouped around Major Beddington like wolf cubs at a very subdued pack meeting. The journey into the valley had hardly been a leisurely stroll, and Major Beddington had obviously not forgiven Dudley for waking him up during the night. Moreover, he seemed grumpily determined to make everybody else suffer for it too.
After walking several hundred yards into the valley, four of the students had removed their shirts in the boiling heat. They were instantly reprimanded by Miss Fosdyke, who seemed to feel that the Major’s methods of dealing with these often tiresome young men should be supported without question at all times.
Breakfast had been brief and minimal; a boiled egg, two triangles of toast, a solitary sausage and a cup of weak tea. Everybody had appeared on time except Dudley, who had refused to get out of bed until the housekeeper, a vast lady with muscles like a weight lifter, had ripped the blankets away and demanded to know why he happened to be sleeping in two beds. Since nobody had woken him up in this manner since he was ten, Dudley refused to answer, or even acknowledge that the woman was in the room, and she strode off in exasperation to look for the Major. Dudley then decided that since there wasn’t much chance of getting back to sleep, he might just as well go and wash instead.
Immediately after breakfast, the Major had divided the party into small groups and issued canvas bags of equipment to be carried to the site in the valley he intended the group to study. Ravenously hungry and uncomfortably hot, nobody had shown any enthusiasm for carrying anything at all, and they made themselves discretely busy whenever Miss Fosdyke or the Major approached them. Miss Fosdyke herself was entrusted with a smaller canvas bag containing the packed lunches, the Major obviously taking the view that if he’d given them to anybody else, they would almost certainly have been eaten immediately. Miss Fosdyke took up a rear position and followed the group into the valley cautiously, often looking over her shoulder as if half expecting some sort of prehistoric specimen to charge her from the bushes and steal a sandwich.
When we had reached the site for investigation, the Major stopped and looked around carefully as if checking the suitability of the area. Then he took a large rusty penknife from his pocket, cut a small piece of turf from between his feet, and rubbed a little of the soil from it between his fingers.
‘Right, gentlemen,’ he said, straightening up and dusting the soil from his hands, ‘this should be fine. For the first three hours we shall work in groups on soil sections, specimen collection and animal counts. You’ll find the equipment you need in the canvas bags. Don’t break it, lose it, or mistreat it. If you need help on points of recognition, Miss Fosdyke and I will assist. I also want a bag of soil taken back to the lab. You can use the soil kits on it out here but we’ll go into the composition thoroughly back at the Hall. The kits should give you a rough idea of the texturing.’
He gathered the canvas bags into a small pile, and tossed trowels, soil testers and specimen bags to each group.
‘We’ll make a monolith when we get back. Divide it into work sections, I think. What do you think, Phyllis?’
Miss Fosdyke hovered eagerly, like a large bird searching for a worm. ‘Oh certainly, Andrew. Shouldn’t have to puddle on too much with this stuff. It’s quite heavy soil for anybody to carry much of it back, though. I wonder whether…’
‘Nonsense Phyllis,’ the Major retorted. ‘Bribe ‘em with a sandwich.’ He barked heartily at his own joke and pulled a white peaked cap over his head to shield his eyes from the sunlight.
‘Now, keep your flora specimens in the plastic bags and anything else you consider interesting. You’ll find plenty of saxifrage, mouse-ear, ribwort, yarrow, keck…’
‘Och, I hope I find a slice of that,’ said MacKenzie.
‘What?’
‘A slice of keck, Major. Even a slice of Scottish oat-keck would be welcome.’
The Major screwed up his eyes and stared at him. ‘Is your stomach all you think about, lad?’
‘Och, no. I think about Scotland quite a lot too.’
‘Do you? Well kindly think about dropwort and campion instead of haggis and porridge, will you? You’ve got five week’s work to pack into five days. Now, where was I?’
‘You were talking about slices of cake,’ Barton offered. Miss Fosdyke tutted.
‘You were telling them to keep their specimens in bags, Andrew,’ she said.
‘Thank you Phyllis. Damn good job somebody’s listening. Now, you’ll probably need your floras for the rarer flower varieties, but you’ll recognise the common ones. I think…’
He stopped as Miss Fosdyke tapped him gently on the shoulder. ‘Don’t forget the orchids, Andrew.’
&nbs
p; ‘What orchids?’
‘You know. We usually warn them…’
‘Quite right. Make sure you are careful about what you pick. All plants need to be treated with respect, but some are rarer than others. Don’t tread on orchids, or pick them. Anybody not know what an orchid looks like?’
Several people raised their hands.
‘It’s a little early yet for them, of course,’ said Miss Fosdyke. ‘An erect little plant, anything up to about fifty centimetres. You might just spot an early purple. Look for the hood and spur. Occasionally mistaken for the foxglove, of course. Very distinct smell of… um… how would you describe it, Andrew?’
‘Cat’s piss,’ the Major said. ‘Now, I assume you’re all familiar with the standard animal count method? Since I seem to be doing all the talking, would one of you like to stop worshipping the sun and explain the animal count?’
He looked round the tired eyes and blank expressions, and then picked up a solid wire frame from the pile of equipment in front of him. Simon Daines raised his hand.
‘Well?’
‘You choose a piece of ground at random, and throw the frame. Then you count all the insects you can find inside it. Then you move the frame to a different section, and so on.’
The Major nodded.
‘Good. Not every brain here is an addled one, obviously. Of course, it’s not a strictly scientific method, but it does give you a very rough idea of the insect life. Especially if we compare it with the banks of a stream later on. Make a complete list of everything you find, will you? Spread right out on the floor of the valley.’
‘I expect you’ve tried this with the youngsters at school,’ added Miss Fosdyke.
‘There’s not a lot of call for it in the city centre,’ said Duggan.
‘Tommyrot!’ snapped the Major. ‘You’ve got parks, haven’t you? You’re not all going to teach in the middle of London, are you? Where’s the oat cake man?’