Brendon Chase

by B. B.

  Robin laughed. ‘Of course, you silly chump. I know what you’re thinking, you’re going to make a waistcoat out of it. I know, you can’t hide your thoughts from me! Well, we don’t mind, do we, Little John? We’ll catch some more badgers, won’t we?’

  ‘Rather, of course we will,’ answered Little John, ‘and Big John can have his rotten old badger skin and swank as much as he likes!’

  Next day, they took the skin to Smokoe and laid it in triumph on the table in the shack. By the light of the oil lamp they examined it. ‘Blame me! But it’s a fine pelt,’ said Smokoe, ‘that’d be worth a bit, you know. They make shavin’ brushes outer badger ’air.’

  ‘Would it make a muff?’ asked Big John, a little awkwardly.

  ‘A muff? Wot, one o’ they things ladies wear on their ’ands? Ah, it might do, it ’ud make a warm ’un an’ all, blame me ef it wouldn’t.’

  ‘Big John wants to make a coat for himself,’ said Robin.

  ‘Ain’t big enough fer a coat,’ said Smokoe. ‘Anyroad, I’ll cure it fer you, I’ll ’ave it ready fer you in a day or two, next Friday mebbe.’

  ‘Then I’ll call for it,’ said Big John, eagerly. ‘May I, next Friday? I’ve got some squirrel skins for you to cure, too. I’ll bring them.’

  ‘Yes, as long as you don’t come until I’se finished me work, an’ it’s got darkish. I don’t trust that Bunting. You never know wedder ’ee, or that other cop, ain’t sneakin’ round.’

  Since the outlaws had made friends with Smokoe Joe, they had, in a measure, been able to take count of the days, but they still kept a stick, with notches on it, hidden in the tree, otherwise they would have lost their reckoning.

  Big John seemed preoccupied during the next few days, even Little John remarked upon it and he did not usually notice things. The others would see him staring into the fire as though something was on his mind and when spoken to he would start and laugh it off.

  At last came Friday, the day he was to fetch the skin from Smokoe’s, and a wild autumn day it was, a day of equinoctial gales. November had come, first cloaked around with cold and clinging fogs, making more mystery in the forest. Now the north wind was roaring and tearing at the last leaves, and bringing with it fieldfares, woodcocks and wild geese.

  That gloomy evening, when Big John, carrying the squirrel skins, set out from the tree and waved goodbye to his brother outlaws, seemed fraught with peril.

  What was it about the oncoming darkness, the roaring wind, which told of dreadful things? On this night of all nights he would maybe meet the Martyr with a grinning skull for face, mounted on a headless steed – for so the legend ran – riding, riding, through the forest, a flaming cross borne aloft in his thin and bony hand.

  The others had pleaded with him not to go on so wild an evening. ‘Wait until tomorrow,’ they said, ‘the wind will have dropped by then. Go tomorrow night instead.’

  But no, he must go. He would have gone had it been hailing molten lead. Big John had made up his mind on a bold course. He had determined that the badger skin, that soft rich pelt which he prized so much, which the forest, in a sense, had grown, should adorn a female form, the fayre ladye of his choice, the adorable vision, Angela!

  For Big John had seen her, bowed, weeping over the empty hamper, not heeding even the green waving head of the snake, and this was to be his penance, aye, never a knight of old had purpose more high!

  He would go through this turbulent night to her very door, and somehow or another she should have his offering. Doctors were accustomed to being called out at night. Had he not noticed ‘NIGHT BELL’ written on a little brass plate on the doctor’s door in Yoho?

  Someone would come, he would thrust the bundle into their hands and flee. It should be addressed to Angela, the donor should remain unknown. He might never get her thanks, but his honour would be saved. So had he planned it out. Many hours he had lain and pondered how to deliver the pelt. He might have got Smokoe to send it by post from Cheshunt Toller but that might serve as a clue and bring the hounds once more to the forest baying for their blood. Besides, that was the more cowardly way. It must be delivered in person.

  Make fun if you will of Big John, that draggled scrap, clad in skins, black of face and scarred of limb, who looked like a gippo’s child in his ragged wild attire. Even had he dared broad day to deliver his prize to his fair one it is doubtful if he would have been recognized, but he certainly would have been hounded from the door and the skin, his beautiful badger pelt, be carried in the tongs to the nearest dustbin.

  Two pictures he carried of her in his mind. One of her at the party when she had danced with him, her straight dark brows which almost met – Robin once said they showed a bad temper, which was untrue, for Angela was a gentle child – her large green eyes with iris dark, dewy and limpid as a fawn’s; the other picture, the bowed figure by the Blind Pool, weeping silently over her shattered birthday party.

  An absurdly romantic child was Big John or ‘mushy’ as Robin once described him. Yet he was not ‘mushy’. He was as brave as a lion as many of his grubby-necked schoolfellows in the Lower School at Banchester would have testified.

  Some adults make fun of calf love. Perhaps that is the wisest thing to do. But to many children approaching adolescence it is very real and rather frightening, as are many other things about growing up.

  As Big John sped down the woodland paths and dived here and there under the brakes and briars, the wind raved in the oaks. How it raved! The whole Chase seemed on the march, or engaged in some mighty wrestling match. The gusts came booming over the forest, bursting like combers on the creaking trees. The dim dusky night was full of whirling leaves that spun and eddied about him. Even the thickets stirred as if alive. Two things were rather terrifying about the forest when you were alone. The silence of night when no breeze moved among the watchful trees and everything seemed to be holding its breath, or a night such as this, when all the winds of heaven were up and out and every tree was pulling at its anchor.

  A wild moon hung in the sky, a moon in its last quarter, over whose pallid face flying clouds were hurrying, hurrying, urgently, in flocks of wool. And across that fitful light, the whipping branches rocked and swayed, the numberless last leaves flew.

  In Big John’s ears there was the continual drum like a hundred rivers pouring over a hundred waterfalls, swelling to a crescendo, dying away to a low undertone of grief. He saw no beast or bird in his wild flight; no rabbits crossed his path, no slinking fox. Even the wild things seemed to have shrunk underground into their holes and hollow trees.

  He felt he was the only living thing besides the wind in all that vast tract of groaning tortured forest. With uncanny light the moon shone upon some little clearing, or a wind-tossed bush top seemed like the mane of an ebon horse, rearing for an instant before it plunged once more into the welter of the fray.

  Here might come some helmed knight, horsed and spurred, the moonlight winking on his armour, his foam-flecked steed breathing flames of blue fire; there a hurrying mass of grotesque bowed figures, hooded like monks, their faces invisible, seemed to vanish into the thickets carrying a body, foully done to death.

  And at any time there might appear the dread Martyr himself, bearing the flaming cross on high!

  Oh! Would he ever reach the shack and see the subdued glim of Smokoe’s kilns defying the shadows of night! Oh, to see the gleaming window through the trees, the glow from Smokoe’s cosy room beckoning him, a friendly beacon for the benighted traveller!

  It says much for Big John’s courage that, he, alone on such a night, should brave the terrors of this malevolent wilderness! No one must ever, ever call him ‘mushy’ again!

  At last he came to a familiar bend in the path. Another yard or two and he must see Smokoe Joe’s beacon and smell the reek of kilns.

  But when at last he came out into the clearing the shack was silent, silvered in the moonlight, its single window blindly frowning upon him! A loose piece of corrugated iron on the t
umble-down pigsty behind the hut was clanging dismally, clank, clang!

  An unnameable dread seized him. Smokoe was not at home. Smokoe had forgotten and gone to sleep. Smokoe was dead! Smokoe is dead! Smokoe is dead! raved the wind, and the trees seemed to take up that maniacal shriek.

  And then Big John heard a sound which turned his heart to water. It was a long drawn howl, dreadful, pitiful, full of the horror of the unknown, a lost soul wailing for its sins. He stopped, rooted to the spot. The wind caught that fearful noise and fled with it, shrieking with glee, until it died away. And then it came again, wailing, wailing, and Big John knew it was the voice of Gyp, alias Bang, mourning for his loved one, whom he would never see again!

  It was the voice of a newborn thing which cries aloud to heaven because it does not understand, the same cry that a doctor sometimes hears from a babe which has not long to live.

  And Big John, aghast, sank down among the restless leaves, his face covered in his hands.

  17. Doctor Bowers

  The dismal howls were coming from the darkened cabin. Big John soon realized this. Why was he being such a fool? Smokoe had no doubt gone out, into Yoho perhaps, though the boys had never known him go anywhere but to Cheshunt Toller for his supplies and he had no friends in the adjoining hamlet. Besides, this was a Friday. Smokoe always fetched his provisions on a Saturday.

  It was no good crouching here among the bushes. He must investigate. When he came up to the shack the howls ceased. He heard a scuffle from within – it was Gyp whining and blowing under the crack of the door. Big John knocked, but all he heard was another low whine. Then he opened the door and stepped inside.

  Gyp jumped round him barking. At first Big John could see nothing save four squares of moonlight lying across the floor and one corner of the deal table on which lay the badger skin. The stove was nearly out.

  He looked towards Smokoe’s bed. Something dark was humped upon it. It was Smokoe, lying on his side as if asleep. ‘Smokoe! Smokoe!’ called Big John in a thick voice because his heart was thumping so hard. No answer! The wind moaned through the keyhole. Gyp was now sitting, motionless, watching him.

  Big John thought he heard a drip, drip of moisture, and a little chill ran up and down his spine. He bent over the old man and put his hand out to shake him by the shoulder. Then he drew it back with a start. There was a snap and a hiss and a wing flapped. It was the tame owl. It was sitting on Smokoe’s shoulder.

  Big John turned swiftly and groped for the lamp. With trembling fingers he lit it from a matchbox which Smokoe always kept above the stove. And then, as he turned up the flame, he saw that Smokoe was not asleep for his eyes were open. He lay on his back, one leg stretched out awkwardly, and to Big John’s horror he saw blood was welling from the knee.

  ‘What’s the matter, Smokoe? What’s happened?’ gasped Big John, sinking to his knees by the bed and taking the cold claw which moved feebly on the leather jerkin.

  But Smokoe did not reply; he looked through Big John as though he were invisible.

  Now Big John’s first reactions were these. Someone had tried to murder Smokoe. Smokoe was not yet dead. Smokoe must be saved. Many boys of lesser calibre would have been overcome by the sight of that little old man with the monstrous nose, lying so still and sorely hurt, and a white owl perched upon his shoulder. They would have run back to the oak tree in a panic.

  But Big John did none of these things. He bent swiftly and examined the wound in the leg. It was a deep gash, a very deep gash, and Smokoe had lost a great deal of blood as was evident from the state of the floor.

  Big John had a Scout’s knowledge of first aid and now it was to stand him in good stead. He cut open the sodden trouser leg with his knife to bare the wound and made a tourniquet from Smokoe’s neckerchief. It was far from clean but it served well. He next fetched a faggot from the grate and wound it inside the cloth until it was drawn tight and the blood ceased to flow.

  He made sure as far as possible that Smokoe was not injured in any other way, covered him with an old coat he found behind the door – a threadbare coat it was, green with age – and turning down the lamp, fled out into the night.

  How trivial those other things seemed which, a few minutes ago, had so occupied his mind! The badger skin, Angela, his silly baby fears of the storm-tossed forest! It takes the big things to give true proportions. Smokoe was in deadly peril, perhaps he was dying; he looked it, and he felt so cold. Smokoe, their faithful ally and generous friend. Branches slashed Big John wickedly across the face, thorns tore at his jacket and tried to hold him back. The wilderness did not care! It did not care any more for him than it did for Smokoe. If a branch was to smite him down now as he ran along this forest path, the wilderness would not care. It would let him lie … He ran on.

  Big John sped down the woodland paths

  After what seemed an age Big John saw the lights of Yoho, like a little cluster of stars. He ran up the drive to the doctor’s house and pealed upon the bell. Evidently the doctor had not gone to bed for lights showed in a lower window.

  He heard steps approaching and there stood Doctor Bowers in his dressing gown, a pipe in one hand and a book in the other. A tall, clean-shaven man with bushy brows and grey hair.

  ‘Yes, my boy, what is it? Is someone ill?’

  ‘Are you Doctor Bowers?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘It’s Smokoe Joe, who lives in the Chase. He’s badly hurt.’

  ‘Smokoe!’ exclaimed the doctor, ‘The old charcoal burner?’

  ‘Yes, and please come quickly, I think he’s dying.’

  With a few rapid questions the doctor had the details. ‘Wait in there,’ he commanded, pushing Big John into a room and shutting the door, ‘I’ll be with you in a jiffy.’

  A lamp was burning on a desk and a bright fire flamed in the grate. Big John sat down on the edge of a chair. What a sight he was in his skin clothes, with his hair all matted, his muddy face bleeding from briar scratches, his shoes falling to pieces and bound with thongs! One thing was certain, the doctor would guess who he was. It meant the end of their stay in the Chase, the end of the great adventure, but that was one of the trivial things.

  His eyes roved round the room, at the bookcase full of rows of learned-looking medical tomes and gardening books. How to make a rockery, Rose growing for amateurs, Delphiniums, Practical Surgery; his eyes ran over them rapidly. It was strange to be in a well-ordered house again after the rough cold forest. Then on the desk he saw a framed photograph of Angela, a recent one. He saw the straight black brows, the thick-lashed eyes … what was Angela to him now? Why didn’t the doctor come? Why didn’t he come?

  Somewhere upstairs was Angela … what was Angela to him now? ‘Come on.’ It was Doctor Bowers’ voice. He carried a leather bag and a motoring cap with flaps pulled down over his ears. He never seemed to notice Big John’s strange attire. ‘This way!’ The doctor led him round into the yard and the doors of a coach house were flung back. The car was started and the next moment they were humming down the narrow lane for the Chase, the acetylene headlamps spluttering and jumping, filling the car with fumes.

  What a drive that was! Flying along down the moonlit road with the leaves whirling and chasing across their path and the wind blowing and roaring in the trees!

  ‘You don’t talk like a gipsy’s kid,’ said the doctor, after a long silence, ‘though I must say you look like one. I saw some vans by the Chase this afternoon; d’you come from there?’

  ‘Yes,’ lied Big John and then remained silent.

  ‘I’ve never known a gipsy talk like you do,’ said the doctor. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who are you then?’

  Silence, save for the fluttering wind on the side panels and the throb of the car’s engine.

  ‘All right, you needn’t say,’ said the doctor, ‘that’s not my business. Smokoe’s my business, that’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’


  ‘So we’ll say no more about it and ask no questions, eh?’

  ‘I’d rather it was that way,’ replied Big John, feeling very uncomfortable.

  The doctor now asked him about Smokoe; how he had found him, whether he was bleeding badly, and many another question, which Big John answered as best he could.

  ‘Hullo!’ said the doctor, suddenly applying his handbrake. ‘We shan’t get any farther, there’s a tree down.’

  And, sure enough, a huge ash tree lay sprawled right across the road from hedge to hedge.

  Half an hour later, stumbling and panting, they reached the clearing and entered the shack. The doctor went straight to the lamp, turned it up, and carried it across, holding it over the recumbent man.

  Big John heard the doctor draw in his breath. ‘Um, um, bad hæmorrhage. Get out of it!’ this was to the owl which, hissing and snapping, flapped off Smokoe’s shoulder to the corner cupboard, where it sat bobbing up and down.

  ‘Can you get me a bowl of water? Anything will do,’ said the doctor, after a quick examination of Smokoe’s leg. ‘I’m afraid we’re too late, old chap,’ he tossed over his shoulder to Big John as he unwound the tourniquet; ‘he’s lost too much blood and this tourniquet has been on too long.’

  When he had bathed and rebound the wound and felt the old man’s pulse, Doctor Bowers turned to the trembling Big John, who was fighting to keep back the tears which welled slowly from his eyes.

  ‘Well, that’s all we can do, young man; with care he may pull round. If you hadn’t found him when you did he would have gone; your tourniquet may have saved him. Where did you learn your first aid?’

  ‘In the Scouts at Banchester,’ and then Big John bit his lip.

  ‘Oh, so you’re a Scout are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The doctor stood awhile in thought, looking at the still form of Smokoe on the bed. ‘He’ll want feeding up a bit; he’ll need care you know, for a day or so. An old fellow like that can’t afford to lose much blood. If you’d made the tourniquet any tighter he’d have lost his leg. As it was it just allowed the wound to bleed a little, otherwise he might have had gangrene. Will you stay with him tonight?’