Five Boys

by Mick Jackson

  “Is his boat there?” he said and tried to look down the side of his boathouse.

  “Whose boat?” said Arthur Noyce.

  “The chap who keeps the bees,” said Tom.

  It took over an hour for Arthur to round up the other fathers. The Reverend Bentley and the Captain had been checking the allotments and volunteered to join the search party; Howard Kent insisted on doing so. When they gathered by the boathouse there were seven of them in all but by the time they managed to commandeer a couple of rowing boats and push them out onto the river it was already late afternoon.

  Jem and Lester took an oar apiece in one boat while Howard rowed the other on his own. The tide was turning against them and they struggled down the river for twenty minutes before Alec Bream suggested that each boat stick to one bank—a suggestion which the others pretended to have been so obvious as not to have been worth mentioning—but found it difficult to see more than twenty feet into the woods, and for an hour plowed on without a single reason to raise their hopes.

  Howard Kent loathed the woods. He loathed the river. He had never been to Africa but this was how he imagined it to be. The mad chatter in the trees; the sudden bristle in the branches. The untold procreation going on in the dark.

  From its perch high up on a leafless branch a heron cast itself forward, lurched over the river and settled in a tree on the other side.

  “This isn’t England,” thought Howard. “This isn’t England at all.”

  Goodnight, Children

  IT WAS A LONG hard climb from the beach to the cliff top. The Bee King headed off up a path which zigzagged precariously between rocks and boulders, the Boys followed, and when they reached the top they sat and looked out over the water in their dressing gowns like convalescents at some mountain retreat.

  For the rest of the morning the Boys played tag in and out of the gorse bushes and by midday lay asleep on the grass, dreaming of boats and rivers and Egyptian bees. When they woke the Bee King was sitting among them and they propped themselves up on their elbows and watched him open his Gladstone bag. There must have been a couple of dozen jars of honey in it—gold-lidded and pristine, like the haul from a bank robbery. He picked a couple out, unscrewed their lids and placed them on the grass. Broke some bread and handed it out. Then they all sat around, dunking their crusts in the honey, bringing them streaming up to their mouths and lifting the jars to look in at the crumbs suspended there.

  In the late afternoon they did some waggle dancing, listened to a few stories and sang a song or two. But when the sun began to head toward Start Point they crept into the bunker and began to settle themselves in for the night. The Boys had never been inside a pillbox. Outside, its walls had weathered, like the rocks around it, but inside it was cool and dry. For a while the Boys kept watch at the narrow windows and picked off imaginary Germans, but as the light faded they faded with it and slowly slumped to the floor. The Bee King had fired up a paraffin burner, and the Boys kicked off their slippers and warmed their feet at it.

  All six had their own wall to rest against and the Boys were gazing at the burner’s flame and growing drowsy when the Bee King reached into his bag and produced a Golden Syrup tin. It was exactly the same as the one they’d sent flying over the roofs of the village and the ones they’d seen in the Bee King’s shed. He lifted it up to his ear and gave it a rattle. Then he brought it into the light of the burner and the Boys shuffled forward to have a look.

  “What do you see?” said the Bee King.

  The Boys stared at the label.

  “Is it a lion?” said Harvey.

  The Bee King nodded.

  “Is it Samson’s lion?” said Aldred.

  The Bee King nodded again and the Boys suddenly saw that the speckled cloud hovering above the lion was the colony of bees they’d heard so much about.

  A horseshoe of tiny words was printed beneath it and as the Bee King inched his finger across them the Boys read them out.

  “‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness,’” they said.

  The Bee King took a coin from his trouser pocket, slid it under the lid and prized it open. The Boys squeezed forward. He reached in with his finger and thumb.

  “Perpetua,” he said, holding it up, then offered it to Aldred.

  He dipped his fingers back into the tin.

  “Campanile,” he said and presented it to Finn.

  Basalt, Onyx and Stygian Black were handed out to Hector, Lewis and Harvey. Then the Bee King put the tin away, put his hands together and rested his cheek against them.

  “Sleep,” he said.

  A Door into the Mountain

  ALL THE MEN took turns at rowing, each doing his best to outrow the one before. But after a couple of hours they were spending most of the time bent over the oars, trying to catch their breath, as the tide gently pushed them back to where they’d just come from.

  The air was hot and ripe under the trees. They kept getting tangled in the roots and branches, and when the stifling heat became unbearable they rowed back out into the open water and all the midges and mosquitoes accompanied them. For the first few hours they called out from one boat to the other, if only to confirm that they had nothing to report, but by the time they were halfway down the river hardly a word was spoken and they all just stared at the woods as they crept by.

  They pulled in at every shack and hamlet along the way without a scrap of encouragement, and as the sea began to loom in their minds the men became more and more desperate. Who was to say, said Alec Bream, that the boat they were after hadn’t gone upstream, and that with every stroke they weren’t putting another yard between themselves and their boys? Arthur said that Old Tom had been quite insistent that the beekeeper always set out downriver, but as Jem Hathersage pointed out, Old Tom would sometimes have difficulty telling you what year it was.

  They had no luck until they were all the way down at Dartmouth and the ferryman confirmed seeing a boat full of boys go by, first thing. He couldn’t say whether they headed east or west when they reached the sea, but the fact that he’d seen them at all was enough to raise everyone’s spirits and put some power back into the oars.

  When they crossed the bar they headed east and followed Kingswear’s jagged coastline, investigating every inlet, and the sun was almost down before it occurred to them that one boat should have gone west, by which time all they could do was blame one another for the oversight.

  No moon rose and soon they were having trouble seeing where they were going—could hardly make out the waves breaking on the shore—and decided to land for the night. They had no food or drink. They just pulled their jackets around them and lay down on the pebbles. Then tossed and turned until first light.

  Within the hour they were back out on the water, then heading west past the river’s mouth. They heaved away, half asleep and hungry. The Captain couldn’t stop thinking of all that water beneath him and how little timber was keeping the two of them apart. Then Lester Massie suddenly got to his feet and threatened to tip the boat over.

  “There,” he said and pointed to a boat, abandoned on a stretch of sand.

  They rowed in with the waves. Dragged their boats up onto the pebbles and gathered around the abandoned boat. There were no discarded slippers, no dressing gowns. They tried to imagine their boys and the Bee King sitting in it. Howard Kent stepped forward, picked up an oar tucked under the gunwales. Brought the handle up to his nose and took a long, deep sniff. He turned triumphantly to the other men.

  “Honey,” he said.

  It was Jem Hathersage who found the path. He set off up it and all the others went scrambling after him. It seemed to have no end. But they kept on, from rock to rock, kicking the dust up into one another’s faces and sweating and cursing, until they finally stumbled out into the sky.

  They stood panting and looked around. The place was deserted—just rock and gorse and the cold blue bay behind and far below. The sun was up now and Alec Bream had a sudden, sickening feeling that it
had brought into being an evil, lamentable day. There was something wrong, he thought. He turned to Lester, but Lester was pointing again.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  One by one, the men picked out the hexagonal pillbox tucked into the hillside, and Lester was already on his way toward it when he saw the smoke seeping from the slits in its sides.

  “God, no,” he said.

  Then all the men were running toward the pillbox. Lester got there first but couldn’t find a way in. Ran around the bunker, screaming. The rock was solid—was sealed shut. He put his face up to one of the windows but fell back, choking on the thick, sweet smoke.

  It was Jem Hathersage who finally found the door around the back, among the bushes. He barged in, waving the smoke away with his hands. Found the Boys, slumped in a circle around the Bee King’s burner. All five of them in their gas masks, with a frying pan in the middle.

  One of the Boys lifted a fork from the pan, with a blackened lump speared to the end of it, and with the other hand pulled the gas mask away from his chin.

  “Pugfoist,” he said.

  The Five Boys sat on the grass with their gas masks pushed back on their foreheads and their fathers coughing and spluttering by their side. The Boys seemed perfectly happy. Seemed to be quite enjoying themselves.

  Lewis still had the fork in his hand. He took an ostentatious bite of the mushroom, then offered it to Harvey but Jem Hathersage had been watching them and suddenly couldn’t contain himself.

  “Christ Almighty,” he said and snatched the fork from him. “You’re like a bunch of fucking girls.”

  The other men turned and looked but Jem wasn’t the least bit bothered. In fact, he was feeling better than he’d felt in days and was beginning to wonder how much better he might feel if he was to give the Boys a good hiding and beat the beekeeper right out of them.

  The Reverend Bentley was shielding his eyes and looking over toward the gorse bushes.

  “There he is,” he said.

  The men turned and found the Bee King standing in the distance, watching.

  “What the hell’s he up to?” said Lester Massie.

  The Bee King didn’t move for a while. Then slowly brought his hands up to his mouth.

  “Mr. Kent,” he called out. “I’d like a word.”

  Howard was suddenly conspicuous among his peers. He looked at the others and shrugged his shoulders.

  “About that boy,” the Bee King shouted. “That boy Steere found in his field.”

  The Bee King now had Howard’s undivided attention. All the blood seemed to drain from his face. And as the others watched, he began to walk toward the Bee King.

  “Whom do you answer to, Mr. Kent?” the Bee King called out.

  Then Howard was running.

  “Whose laws do you obey?” the Bee King said.

  Howard raced across the grass but the Bee King just stood and waited. Just stood stock-still, as Howard charged toward him—until he finally arrived and threw himself at him and the two of them flew back into the gorse.

  The Bee King seemed to crumple in Howard’s embrace. His coat seemed to suddenly empty. Then the gorse was gone and the sea flashed far below.

  Howard fell. Hit the rock face twice. Heard something snap. Slid, flailing until he managed to grab ahold of the rock. Hung there.

  “Help,” he screamed.

  His left arm dangled off him—wasn’t working. His feet were scrambling about. When he looked around to try and find a way out he saw that the whole slab of rock had been worked and chiseled, like one vast headstone—was covered with words.

  “Help,” he screamed again.

  A figure appeared high above him and Howard called out to him. But the Bee King just stood and watched him tiring on the stone.

  “That boy,” the Bee King said. “He had a father.”

  Howard could feel his strength failing. He looked at his hand and saw how his fingers clung to the rim of the letter O. He glanced to his right and saw “THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER” stretching away.

  His fingers slowly betrayed him. The sound of the waves swept up from below. The other commandments began to slip beneath his fingers. Then he fell, and this time fell all the way.

  Telling the Bees

  JESSIE BRAINTREE’S first impression when he stepped into Howard Kent’s cottage was that the contents weren’t likely to raise more than a couple of quid. The sunken sofa and the ancient dresser were barely standing, and all the rugs had paths worn through them from Howard’s daily routine.

  Jessie went around all four rooms, making notes on the back of an envelope—turning the key on the wardrobe door, with some trepidation, and lifting the mattress on the old brass bed. He went out on the landing, opened his stepladder and popped his head up into the loft. Didn’t expect to find anything but a few old rags, but when he turned his torch on, saw a great glittering stash of treasure packed between the joists.

  Miss Minter’s hinges and handles were there, along with Steere’s window latches. The letter boxes of Duncannon were piled up next to a stack of collection plates. It gave Jessie Braintree such a shock he nearly lost his footing—could easily have fallen and broken his neck. But as he told his wife that night just before they put the light out, “It was amazing—like a regular Aladdin’s cave.”

  The day after the Boys returned to the village Aldred woke early. He dressed, crept out of the house and left his mother sleeping. Went and stood beside the war memorial. The Captain’s house and the church seemed almost unfamiliar—seemed nowhere near as solid as they had done a few days before.

  He walked up the hill to Askew Cottage, slipped down the alley and into the garden. The hives were all still there, the bees still went about their business, but the cottage was as quiet as the grave. Aldred crept over to the first hive the Bee King had introduced him to and bent beside it. Listened to all the tiny cogs turning inside.

  “Howard dead,” he whispered. “The Bee King’s gone.”

  He stayed and listened for a while, then went over to the next hive. Told them the news. And by the time he reached the last one it seemed to Aldred that the apiary was almost silent—almost still.

  He sat on the steps. Took his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and picked out the tiny charm the Bee King had given him in the pillbox two nights before. It looked like something from a broken typewriter—a small metal tablet, smooth on one side, with a single letter on the other, reversed, standing proud of it.

  “Perpetua,” he said out loud.

  He placed it against his tongue. The metal was cold and he could taste the ink’s bitter residue. Then he put it on the back of his hand and pressed down hard, until he could feel the metal dig into the nerves and bones. When he pulled it away it left a distinct indentation, faintly inked, of the letter A.

  The Reverend Bentley met the coffin at the church gates and led it slowly back up the path.

  “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord,” he said. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live …”

  The same four men carried Howard Kent on their shoulders as the day of the pig memorial. The rest of the village came shuffling along behind. A solitary bell tolled high above them and slowly drew the mourners in.

  They carried the coffin into the church and laid it on the trestles. The Reverend Bentley climbed the steps to his pulpit and the mourners filed into the pews. When everyone was settled the reverend read a couple of psalms—one about how “man walketh in a vain shadow” and another all about destruction and “children of men”—then Aldred pumped out Mr. Mercer’s rendition of “The Lord Is My Shepherd” and the congregation groaned along.

  The reverend cleared his throat. It was his belief, he said, that when we depart this world we each deserve a moment’s consideration, no matter what sort of life we have led. Then he said a few words in which he sought to draw attention to some of Howard’s finer qualities, without dwelling too long on all the rest.

  Afte
r one or two prayers, the coffin was lifted back onto the pallbearers’ shoulders and the reverend led it out into the sun. And once the church was empty Aldred helped Mr. Mercer to his feet and they joined the stragglers making their way over to Howard’s grave, which was newly dug, with a clean, white headstone and a mound of earth at a respectful distance, waiting to go back in.

  The hole itself was considerably deeper than Aldred had imagined and when the reverend nodded and the coffin was lowered into it he had to stand on his tiptoes to see where it ended up.

  “Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live,” the reverend said, “and is full of misery …”

  The villagers stood and stared into the pit. The reverend’s words were unrelenting and some of the mourners were beginning to wonder how many more were still to come, when the sky suddenly darkened and the bees came sweeping in.

  They poured over the graveyard in one great wave. A bristling cloud, which rolled and turned above the treetops as if stirred by an Almighty hand.

  An awful drone sawed through the air. An insect heat descended. And the graveyard rattled with a million wings.

  As the villagers watched the bees began to settle—began to gather in the trees around the grave—until every inch of bark was coated and every branch was draped with them.

  The sky was crystal clear. The drone receded. The bees shimmered on the trees. Nobody dared move—nobody except Will Henderson, the undertaker, who leaned over to the reverend.

  “Forasmuch as …” he whispered.

  The Reverend Bentley turned and stared blankly at him.

  “Forasmuch as …” Will Henderson whispered again.

  The reverend seemed to come to his senses. Lifted his book and tried to find his place.

  “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God,” he said, “of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed we therefore commit his body to the ground …”

  Aldred stood with Mr. Mercer’s hand on his shoulder. He looked down and managed to find a clod of earth not far from his foot. He got his toe behind it and nudged it forward. Heard it strike the coffin. Saw it spill across its lid.