‘The bow, sir?’
‘Yes. The first thing to note is that it’s in exceptionally good condition, no rot at all that I can see, but that’s not the only remarkable thing about it. See here?’ He pointed to faint carved lines in the wood. ‘That pattern looks very like some photographs I’ve seen of Red Indian workmanship – Sioux or possibly Cherokee. Extraordinary isn’t it?’
Sioux. Had he just said Sioux? When they’d first seen the tapestry they thought the Hidden looked like Sioux! Ralf’s eyes met Seth’s in an, ‘are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ kind of way. Seth gave the tiniest of nods. Had one of the Hidden placed his bow in the Barrow? Who? Why? Questions bounced around in Ralf’s head like the balls in the lottery draw machine. He leaned forward to have a closer look.
‘But, how can that be possible, sir?’ King asked.
‘I don’t think it is, Julian.’ King winced at the use of his first name. ‘It’s almost as if the contents of several different archaeological sites have been muddled together. But of course, that can’t have happened. The Barrow has definitely not been disturbed – previous to poor Captain Keen stumbling across it. The bow, and the knife too actually, simply don’t belong here. This must be something entirely new.’
‘No sword then, sir?’ he asked.
Oddly, for someone who’d previously shown little interest in the subject, King was staring at the box of artefacts with a puzzled expression on his face.
Winters looked up from the papers on his desk. ‘Curiosity peaked at last eh, Julian?’
‘Yes, sir,’ King said slowly. ‘I was just wondering. Isn’t it a bit strange? There’s no sword or shield in here.’ The boy looked almost dazed. ‘There ought to be a sword.’
‘No, no sword,’ Winters replied. ‘But that’s not so unusual. Often weapons were thrown into rivers or lakes, rather than buried with the dead.’
‘Sounds like ruddy waste,’ said Tank. ‘Why would they do that?’
Winters looked surprised at the sudden interest. ‘Some scholars think that weapons were given as offerings to the local spirits or water gods. Others believe that it was a way of them trying to take their most prized possessions with them to the afterlife. Certain rivers, lakes and springs were regarded as doorways to the world of the dead, you see,’ he said. ‘Think about that next time you go for a dip in the Dribble, eh?’
Ralf and Seth stared at each other. Ralf almost felt as if there should be a little light bulb, glowing above his head.
‘It’s the water,’ he whispered simply.
‘It has to be the water,’ Seth’s hand strayed to the map in his blazer pocket. ‘The Falls only ever appear next to water!’
The Turnarounders sat in the living room of Springfield cottage slurping tea and nibbling some melt in the mouth shortbread Alfie had found in a tin in the kitchen.
‘They won’t keep,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll be doin’ that Hart fella a favour to eat ‘em.’
Seth spread his well-worn map out on the table, using their cups to pin down the corners. He’d spent the journey home marking it and by the time the train had pulled into King’s Hadow he’d been able to confirm their theory.
‘Every single Fall has appeared right next to water of some sort. There’s the Fall by Sparra’s Pond,’ he said pointing to the place he’d marked. ‘Another one in King’s Meadow that’s surrounded by all that marshland and the one we came through, at the station, backs on to the River Dribble. Chax Forest has a mess of little rivers and streams.’
‘And Gloria is talking to someone through the lake at Hawke’s Manor,’ said Leo.
‘What about the High Street, though?’ asked Alfie.
‘And the ones in the Church and on the Green?’ asked Valen.
‘There’s a stream that runs right under the village. It follows that line and comes out down the back of Merle Farm,’ said Ralf running his finger over the map. ‘Poor Urk has also got a couple of small ponds on his bottom meadow as well.’
‘Yep, any number of Falls at his place,’ said Seth. ‘It’s no wonder the guy is Hatter Mad.’
‘Hey, you don’t think it could be him, do you?’ Valen asked. ‘The King’s Hadow Spirit? Maybe he’s the one playing all these vile tricks? He’s a pagan too,’ she said, as if that proved everything. ‘He might even know The Old Speech. Maybe it was him who did that bloody graffiti in the Hall!’
Ralf shook his head. ‘No, Valen. Urk’s a pagan and a loner. But let’s not burn him as a witch just yet! I still think the poor bloke’s actually doing his best to look out for us. We all got rabbit’s feet for Christmas, remember?’
‘You’ve heard him though around the village and what he said about us!’ said Val. ‘He was deliberately trying to frighten everyone!’
‘You think so? To me he just sounded like a very scared person trying to convince everyone to believe him.’ Leo nodded slowly. ‘In fact, I think he’s so scared he might have been the one who opened the Fall that let the galleon through.’
‘Anyway’ said Ralf, ‘we’ve got to remember that there’s two things going on here. There’s the supernatural ghosts, Falls and timeline business that we can’t explain and then there’s the man-made evil pranks and scary things stuff –’
‘Which we also can’t explain,’ interrupted Valen laughing.
‘Talking of which,’ said Seth, looking at Ralf. ‘You making any headway with the whole Elk Cub Rat Rah thing?’
‘No,’ said Ralf slamming his cup down on the table. ‘I’m not!’
‘I’ve had no joy on the numbers yet, either,’ Seth admitted.
‘We’re doing about as well as the police are trying to find Hart,’ said Leo. The actor’s mysterious disappearance was still playing on his mind.
‘What about them Muntons, though?’ said Alfie.
‘They’re petty crooks,’ said Seth, dismissively.
‘They’re definitely wrapped up in this though,’ said Valen. ‘Else why would they have chloroformed me? It must be them, surely?’
Ralf nodded. ‘We should watch them. They’ve definitely got a base somewhere in Tarzy Wood.’
‘Well I might be able to help you on that one. I have kinda been keepin’ an eye out already like we said.’ said Alfie, looking sheepish but speaking quickly before the others could react.
‘No, it made sense. You were all in school during the day and you’ve been busy most evenings. I’m the only one here in the village. I finish earlier and I can see The Lot's Lady from my school desk. I look out the window quite a bit anyway, to be fair. I’ll just up the effort and get me crew workin’ 24/7.’
‘Your crew?’ Valen sniggered. ‘Twenty under elevens with a liking for gob stoppers! Look out Gadd!’
‘We’ve done alright so far!’
Ralf looked at the others who were nodding in reluctant agreement. Each of them would have liked to do it, but Alfie was the man on the spot.
‘Alright,’ said Ralf. ‘Do what you can. But be careful. I don't–’
Alfie looped his gas mask box string across his body and knelt to tighten his laces. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he said grimly. ‘Watch the Muntons. Locate their hideout. Find out what they’re up to. Don’t get caught.’
Ralf grinned. ‘Couldn’t have said it better myself!’
‘Serious. We’ve got ‘em surrounded but, most of the time, they don’t even know they’re being watched. It’s like Cowboys and Indians Kent style!’
Seth raised his eyebrows at this and Ralf and Valen chuckled but Leo’s reaction took everyone by surprise. He burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter. He snorted and hiccoughed until tears rolled down his cheeks and he had to hang on to the mantelpiece for support.
‘Am I missing something?’ Valen looked at Ralf for an explanation.
Ralf shrugged helplessly.
Eventually, after a couple of false starts, Leo managed to spit it out. ‘Today Tank told me to go back to Africa where I came from!’ he sniggered.
Valen
’s face clouded. ‘And that’s funny how, exactly?’
‘I don’t get it, either,’ Alfie frowned.
But Leo shook his head. ‘No, it’s hilarious,’ he gasped, clutching his stomach. ‘Tank’s just done us a huge favour.’
‘He has?’
‘Yep. ‘Go back to Africa where you come from!’ he said,’ said Leo, calmer now. ‘As far as he’s concerned every black person is an African.’
‘Honestly, Leo, you should knock him out!’ Valen spat.
‘No! Think about it,’ said Leo, beaming from ear to ear. ‘Say Gloria’s language is just as out dated as Tank’s, which as we’re in 1939 is a good bet.’
‘Yes?’
‘She said ‘Indian’, didn’t she? Well, that makes us think someone from India. What if Gloria didn’t mean from India? What if she actually meant Indian, as in Cowboys and Indians like Alfie said? Red Indian. Native American?’ He threw his hands in the air and looked at them triumphantly. ‘What I’m saying is, I think her ‘Indian’ in the lake was one of the Hidden!’
Ralf’s mind whirled with the possibility. It made sense! Even Winters had said ‘Red Indian’ when he was talking about the bow from the Barrow!
Leo pulled his cards from the pocket of his overalls and fountained them from one hand to the other, grinning. ‘Ambrose couldn’t get to us, but one of the Hidden has been trying to help!’
A week after their breakthrough at Springfield, Ralf, Seth, Leo and Valen were on the train home, watching Leo’s latest attempts to make a coin crawl across his fingertips when Will Tomkins came over with a small gang of village kids.
‘Have you decided? Will you be running for the Village or the School?’ he asked.
‘Do say it’s Village, Ralf, do!’ squealed an apple-cheeked girl excitedly.
Ralf turned to the group. Their anxious faces made him hesitate to say ‘no’.
‘I haven’t decided if I’m even running yet,’ he said firmly.
‘Oh come on, Osborne!’ said an oily-looking Dark Ferry boy. ‘Everyone knows you’re the only one who’s got a cat in hell’s chance of winning against those Crispin’s boys. Are you running or aren’t you?’
‘Firstly, I am one of those Crispin’s boys and secondly…’ Exasperated, Ralf gave up trying to explain. ‘I’ll tell you what, Albert, you go out and catch a hundred weight of mackerel for me that day and I’ll do the flipping race, alright?’
Grumbling, the inquisitive group backed away and the Turnarounders were left alone.
‘Why is everyone going on about it?’ Ralf asked Leo and Val. ‘I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.’
Leo stared at him. ‘Really?’
When Ralf didn’t answer Val launched into an explanation in a tone that would have been more suited to talking to a five year old. ‘I thought you Crispin’s lot were supposed to be clever!’ she exclaimed ‘The District Run’s really massive and this year it’s more combat than a competition. It’s Village versus School.’
‘Just what we need,’ said Ralf. ‘More bad feeling. We haven’t even got over the raffle yet.’
Sensing his mood, Seth extracted his Latin book and started mouthing silent conjugations. Leo went back to his coin trick as Valen watched and offered quiet advice. Ralf pushed the race to the back of his mind and, once again, tried to make sense of Gloria’s message. Could it really be one of the Hidden she’d been talking to? And if it was, what on earth were they trying to tell him? He stared out at the flooded fields until, in a flurry of books, pipe and umbrella, Winters appeared.
‘Sorry to do this to you, chaps! Used to hate having to sit with a master!’ he said, not sounding sorry at all. ‘But First Class is chock-a-block with chattering ladies and clothing – WVS and a large number of Bundles for Britain,’ he added when he saw their blank faces. He turned to Ralf. ‘You’ve signed up for the run, of course?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Mind if I ask why?’
Well, he could ask, but there was no way Ralf was going to tell him the truth. He loved running but he had to get time back on track and get all of them back to the twenty-first century. The raffle ticket nonsense had been distracting enough but he’d been forced into that. This time he had a choice and, let’s face it, he didn’t really have the time to be training for a race.
‘Bit busy, sir.’
Winters raised a bushy black eyebrow. ‘Busy, eh?’ He wagged his finger. ‘Listen, Osborne, The Dark Ferry and King’s Hadow District Run has been happening for over a century. Did you honestly think that Major Kingston-Hawke and the Headmaster would let a little thing like a war prevent it?’
Ralf blinked in surprise. ‘Er – No sir,’
‘Then, Osborne,’ Winters stopped and looked at him sharply. ‘I fail to see how your responsibilities are any greater than theirs. If they can do it, you can.’
Ralf squirmed. He hated to say no to Winters but it was ridiculous to even think about it. He had Falls to check, fish to catch, the five Righteous Echoes to find and despite what Burrows had said, he was determined to catch Brindle red-handed. He was pretty swamped, to be honest.
‘Yes sir.’
His little lecture complete Winters unfolded his newspaper and settled himself for the journey. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he winked. ‘I won’t hear a word!’ He unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen and got to work.
‘One down, ‘It’s in charge’, six letters...’ Winters muttered. ‘Hmmm, anagram? Ha! Lev-it-y!’ he chortled, rapidly filling in the squares. Ralf froze as a thought struck him. It couldn’t possibly be that simple, could it?
He rummaged in his satchel for pencil and paper and wrote down the letters that were now etched on his brain:
ELK CUB RAT RAH
With furious speed, he scrambled them, writing them in new positions, reordering them to see if he could make them make sense. With a trembling hand he stared down at the paper, too shocked to gasp, too stunned to move.
ARBUCKLE
Prefixed by T and R for Tom and Ron. And just to be completely clear, their Hidden friend had provided their middle initials as well – A for Amos and H for Horatio.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Two in One
‘Can you believe it?’ Ralf gasped. ‘It was just back to front! It’s so simple!’
They hadn’t talked about it on the train. One look at Ralf’s white face told the others a breakthrough had been made. They rushed from King’s Hadow Station to find Alfie, in sou’wester and gumboots, sheltering from the driving rain under a tree. Four long Shifts and they arrived; dripping but exhilarated, at Springfield and Ralf filled them in on his discovery.
‘Gloria said he was a reflection,’ Seth breathed, when Ralf finished. ‘She told us that she had had to read everything backwards! Why didn’t we work it out sooner?’
‘Because Gloria said she was turning the messages round as she wrote them down,’ said Valen.
‘But, she was in such a state the day her Spirit Guide disappeared, she must have forgotten,’ said Leo.
‘She was so upset she didn’t think to reverse the letters and I didn’t check,’ said Ralf. ‘Doh! How stupid am I?’
‘Do you want us to answer that?’ Leo chuckled.
Ralf ignored him. ‘It’s not like I don’t know Gloria can be a bit scatty!’
‘You’re not wrong!’ Seth sniggered. ‘God help us all, if she really does end up parachuting into France!’
‘She parachutes in to France?’ Alfie exclaimed, laughing. ‘So, is that to help the Allies or just to get her out of England?’
‘Before she wrecks everything here, you mean?’ said Valen, sniggering.
‘Give her a break,’ said Leo. ‘She forgot to turn the message round. It’s not like she organised a riot. Think of all we know! We’ve now got the name of ‘the greatest of them.’
Ralf slapped a hand to his forehead as, abruptly another chunk of the rhyme became clear. ‘‘Two in one’!’ he cried. ‘It means two brothers, one nam
e. Both the Arbuckles! That’s why we got both sets of initials too. It couldn’t be any clearer!’
‘Oh yes it could!’ said Seth, his face lighting up ‘Quick! Paper! Pen!’
‘What now?’ Alfie asked.
Seth scribbled furiously. ‘I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours trying to work out what these numbers mean. But, Gloria didn’t turn the messages round that day! The numbers are backwards too. And – er – let’s see, if you reverse them you get: 000414062764!’
‘Yeah, and it’s still as clear as mud!’ Alfie cried.
‘Im gegenteil – sorry,’ Seth was laughing again. ‘I mean, on the contrary. It means everything! It’s a time and date!’
‘Eh?’
‘Break it down. 00:04 is four minutes past midnight. Then you’ve got the 14th day of the sixth month –’
‘So that’s June?’ said Valen doubtfully.
‘No,’ Leo shook his head, his brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Not June…’
‘No!’ Ralf clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘The rhyme!’
‘And Urk,’ said Leo.
‘Urk?’ Valen repeated.
‘Yes!’ Ralf was hopping from foot to foot in excitement now. ‘Urk!’ he cried. ‘He kept telling us! I was fixating on the trees but he was telling us a time!’ Leo grinned as Ralf nodded furiously. ‘The Old Calendar! Elder and Hawthorn are months of the year!’
‘In the Old Calendar, Hawthorn is the sixth month, which runs from the thirteenth of May! So the 14th of Hawthorn would be – would be the twenty-seventh of May!’
‘I get it!’ said Alfie excitedly but then his face fell. ‘But the year? Tell me we don’t have to wait till 2764 to sort this. I don’t think we’ll be able to Shift that well with Zimmer frames!’
‘No,’ said Seth smugly. ‘If you go by the Old Calendar, the Hidden Calendar…the calendar we used to know, for goodness sake, you get something much closer!’
‘Yes!’ Leo exclaimed. ‘The Hidden began their Calendar again from The Battle of Darkling Vale, which makes the year…I dunno…?’
‘This year!’ Seth exclaimed. ‘2764, by Hidden reckoning, would be 1940!’ Seth’s eyes shone in triumph. ‘We know when it’s going to happen!’
The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue Page 34