The Shield

by CJ Bentley

  “What’s going on, Peggy?” he asked. “Have you found something?”

  “Not sure, Hugh, but there is something down here that feels a bit strange,” I replied, still feeling it with my toes and feet. “It feels like a very large flat stone but it doesn’t feel as cold as stone if you know what I mean and it is very smooth.”

  “No, Peggy, I very rarely know what you mean as I often think you are on your very own planet.” Hugh sometimes referred to me as an alien from the planet Zod.

  “There really is something down here, Hugh, and if you would stop being the wise guy and come and give me a hand we might be able to find out what it is.” I asked him for help although I was not sure how we would remove whatever it was from the silt.

  “Can you feel it under your feet?”

  “Feels cold and slimy, perhaps if we make our way around it we can find out how big it is?” I was more than curious now and Hugh was quietly pondering what it could be and if we could remove whatever it was with just the two of us, as the others were downstream and well into catching fish.

  “What do you think it is?” Hugh asked me.

  “Don’t know, Hugh, but whatever it is it must be manmade because it is too smooth to be a natural stone, I think,” I replied.

  “Can you feel an edge with your feet?” I asked him, thinking that if he could explain what he thought the shape was he might have more of an idea as to what it could be.

  “You won’t think I’m daft, Peggy, if I say it feels like a shield shape, you know those trophies for the house sports at school made of wood, that’s what I think it is.” He looked at me as he uttered those words and I felt an impulse to laugh but I knew if I did it would harm him and so I chose to keep serious.

  “It’s funny you should say that Hugh, but that was my first thought too.” I knew then we had found something of interest but how to get it out of the silt from under the water was going to be a challenge.

  “Oh well, I am hungry, any of those sarnies left?’ Hugh started to climb out of the beck and onto the bank.

  “How can you think of your stomach at a time like this, aren’t you curious as to what it is and how it got there? I asked him. “Honestly, Hugh.”

  “Look, I need to think about this, and I always think better on a full stomach.” Hugh was out of the beck now and scrummaging in the bags for the sandwiches.

  “What are we going to tell the others?” I enquired. “Are we going to let them help us get it out?”

  “Hey now, Peggy, we are a gang and what do gangs do, we share everything.” (Apart from food, the majority of which always seemed to go the boys’ way.) “Of course we will tell them when they get back and of course they will help us to release whatever is down there, although my guess is that it’s a lump of old wood , worn smooth by years in the beck.” Hugh looked indignantly at me as he spoke, then back at the sandwiches where he chose another and munched in total oblivion as the rest of the gang made their way back to us, laughing and splashing as they came.

  “Why is Hugh eating all of the picnic, Peg?” Richard wanted to know. “Has he left any for the rest of us?” (I rest my case as far as boys and eating goes.)

  The next few minutes were taken with sorting out socks and sandals and admiring the sticklebacks they came back with. Richard had managed to catch five, two of a decent size. Linda was complaining about her feet being cold and Jeanette was telling her not to be a wuss. I wondered if this was the time to tell them what I had found under the water.

  “Hey guys, while you were downstream I found something under the water.” I took a deep breath. “We need to get it out so we can look at it, it’s quite big and I think made of metal and Hugh and I think it could be a shield, so what do you think?” I exhaled all in one breath.

  “What, Peggy?” asked Jeanette. “A shield, how on earth could a shield get under the water in the beck? Don’t be daft.”

  “I don’t know, but that’s what it feels like under my feet and anyway, Hugh agrees with me, don’t you Hugh?” I didn’t expect them to question me, I thought they would jump right in and help because that’s what we do as a gang, and we go along with schemes each of us thinks of and we stick together.

  “She’s lost it, finally lost it.” Richard looked at me. “Oh good, there are lots of biscuits from Linda’s mum. What sort, Linda?”

  “Chocolate chip I think mum said, is that right Peggy?” Linda looked at me as she asked the question.

  “I’m sorry you lot, but all you can think about is food and there might be a treasure lying under the beck ready for us to find. It might be made of gold.” I was getting quite cross now as I felt let down by them all; even Hugh was munching and looking around for more to eat.

  Well, if I had wanted their attention, I certainly had it now.

  “Gold, do you really think so?” Linda stopped halfway to putting a sandwich in her mouth. “Real gold like mum’s necklace, that’s worth a lot of money type of gold.”

  “Ah, now you are all of a sudden interested, you think it might be worth a lot of money and you want to help,” I replied as I waded into the beck again.

  “Hey,” Richard shouted at me, “if it is made of gold it will be heavy, yes? We might not be able to get it out of the beck without help.”

  “Maybe, but we need to try, if it rains tonight the beck will rise and the water will be too deep to get it out and it may even move somewhere else.” I didn’t know this for certain but I thought it sounded good and more than a bit logical.

  “Come on in with me and we will try all together.” I encouraged them to move off the bank and into the water.

  “Can I please finish my apple first?” Hugh again, always eating.

  “Me too, these biscuits Linda’s mum’s made are really good.” Richard of course.

  “I’m coming in now.” Linda could always be relied upon even though her feet were cold. Jeanette too made her way into the beck and they came to where I stood and gingerly felt with their feet the strange coldness under the water.

  “Oh my goodness, Pegs, you are not wrong,” Linda exclaimed, “something definitely down here and yes, it feels like metal.”

  “Ow, I think I just found an edge.” Jeanette pulled one foot out of the water and inspected it for any signs of blood. “No it’s okay, not bleeding thank goodness.”

  “I think we may get a little wet bending down to pull it up, let’s try to feel for the edges with our hands this time.” I was feeling a little cold myself by now and wanted to see what I’d found and get it out on dry land.

  “We need the boys if they can tear themselves away from the picnic.” Linda looked up and shouted at both of them, “Come on you two, we need your extra muscles.”

  They looked up and sighed, put the remaining few biscuits back into the plastic bag and then Hugh took his socks off again and Richard put his feet back into his Wellingtons and they both waded into the beck to help.

  Hugh started organising. He was the eldest and thought this gave him something of an advantage sometimes. We all made our way to what we thought were the edges and I warned them that Jeanette said they were sharp and to be careful when feeling under them. We all surrounded the ‘shield’, and decided to pull at the same time when we were all in place. We pulled and nothing happened. Pulled again and I shot backwards and fell into the water, getting soaked.

  “Divine retribution Peggy, for getting us into this,” laughed Hugh.

  “Thank you Hugh, I am okay, not that you were concerned,” I spluttered as I shook most of the water from me.

  “Come on, we need to really put some muscle into it, the thing moved a little last time so if we all count to three and then lift it might come away.” Richard was always the optimist. It took at least four attempts before it moved sufficiently to make us think we could achieve to lift the ‘shield’ free of the silt. As we carried it towards the shore we looked down at the filthy brown item we were carrying. We all felt let down by its appearance.

 
“Doesn’t look like gold to me,” stated Linda. “I got all excited over nothing, looks like a bit of old wood and dirty metal.”

  “No, I don’t think it’s made of wood, it’s too heavy for wood and if it was wood it would not last in the mud,” Jeanette insisted.

  “Hang on a minute,” said Richard, “didn’t they discover a boat made out of wood in the silt down in Norfolk some time ago? I seem to remember reading about it, Sutton Hoo, or some funny name like that, a big discovery.”

  “Yes, I remember reading about that too in Dad’s Sunday paper,” Linda piped up. “Dad said it was very old and some sort of important Saxon burial ground, but it was found years ago. What has been reported recently is that they are going to do another dig there soon, within the next few years. Do you think we will be in the Sunday papers? Will we have to remember where we found this in case the British Museum want to come and dig for other things?”

  This caused quite a lot of laughter from the boys, but they didn’t say anything else as we neared the bank and tried to slide the shield onto the bank from our very dirty hands. We all climbed up and stood back and looked in awe at what we had found. Linda started cleaning it with one of her socks which I thought a good idea, so I joined in with one of mine, but it was way too dirty so we gave up and put our now very wet and extremely dirty socks into our shorts pockets.

  What we had discovered was a rather plain looking shield, made of hard wood and with some sort of metal in the centre and chased around its edges. I have to admit to being more than a little disappointed. I expected gold with jewels encrusted, a real treasure trove worth thousands, which led to being interviewed on our local TV news programme, getting collected by a big black car and driven to Newcastle with mum to the TV station and meeting the TV interviewer – I couldn’t remember his name but he always looked to me like a really jolly, kind sort of man – and getting my name in the papers and maybe even going to the BBC in London for national television. I was in a daydream again, on Planet Zod. Hugh always said this was my place when my mind started going into overdrive.

  “Well, what a let-down that is. You would have thought it would be gold, or some other expensive metal, it was heavy enough.” Hugh sounded as disappointed as I felt. “Wonder what it is made of, any ideas Richard?” He looked at Richard for inspiration.

  “I can’t even guess what time it comes from. If we knew that, we could gauge what materials it is made of,” our absent minded professor replied. “Perhaps if we look in my encyclopaedia when we get home we can find out by the shape.”

  “Hey, if there’s a red cross and the background was white it could be a crusaders shield.” Maybe even owned by Richard the Lionheart. I was well into the crusades as we had just been learning about them before the school break for the summer and I had enjoyed reading ‘Ivanhoe’ by Sir Walter Scott, as I imagined castles being defended, princesses being saved and dragons being slain.

  “Whatever colour it has been has now well gone, as for the Lionheart, he was always away fighting in foreign lands, so you just keep on imagining, Peggy.” Hugh brought me back to earth with a bang.

  “It is going to take some muscles to get it home,” I stated as I looked at them all in expectation.

  “No way Pegs, not in your wildest dreams are we heaving that thing through the fields, up the hill and back to the street.” Richard was looking at me aghast at the thought of me even wanting to take it home.

  “Oh come on guys, we can take it slowly and rest every so often, it is important we show our parents what we found. It might be worth taking to the museum in the car to see what they think.” I was full of anticipation, not quite making the national news of my imagination but we had recently visited the Preston Park museum on a school trip and I had enjoyed a full conversation about knights of old with a curator there, near the suit of armour and swords area. I remembered being impressed with his knowledge of ‘Ivanhoe’. Besides, I could imagine what my sister would say if I told them at dinner tonight what we had found in the beck.

  “Oh my, here we go again, her imagination in overdrive. Get real Peggy, get real.”

  “It won’t take us long you guys, if we get tired going uphill we can rest, please let’s do it, we may be able to clean it better with a hosepipe on it and find out what it really looks like.” I sounded desperate, I was desperate, I really needed to show my sister what we had found, she needed proof, she would never believe we had found a shield without the evidence itself.

  “The ancient Egyptians used a roller method to transport heavy blocks of stone over the sand when they built the pyramids. Maybe we could make something like they used to move it if we get tired.” I tried more persuasion.

  “Oh Peggy, your knowledge of history is impressive I’m sure, but where are we going to get rollers from in the middle of the fields?” Hugh looked down at me from his greater height of one and a half inches. I knew it was one and a half inches as we had all measured ourselves at the start of the holidays and marked our heights on the inside of our garage wall. We did this at the start of each summer holidays to see how much we grew in the six weeks we had off school.

  “Okay, we are surrounded by trees and trees have branches and we could use those as rollers, surely.” I was beginning to get impatient with Hugh. “Negative thoughts are not good, Hugh, you always say we should not have them, positive thoughts make positive deeds, yes?”

  “I know that’s what I say but it is really getting quite hot and we have drunk all the water we brought and I am getting hungry.” I honestly couldn’t believe the way that boy could eat.

  “Well I am going to try, who’s with me?” I really hoped it was just Hugh who was the reluctant one.

  “As long as there are no cows around I will help.” Thank goodness I could rely on Linda. “It will be difficult if there are cows, as we will have the shield in the centre and not me and I won’t feel safe unless I am in the centre.”

  “Fingers crossed the cows are in one of the other fields then. Thanks Linda, what about you two?” This was directed towards Jeanette and Richard, who were suddenly busily packing up the rubbish and emptying water from Wellington boots respectively.

  “Well, I suppose we can try and see how far we get before we collapse in a heap,” Richard answered, “If we can’t manage it we will just leave it in the field until tomorrow, should be okay. I can’t see the cows being interested in a lump of wood and metal.”

  “Do you think we can manage the nets, jam jars and the shield?” Jeanette obviously didn’t want to leave her catch.

  “I think we should leave everything down here and let the fish go back in the beck, the nets will be safe and maybe we could meet again tomorrow and do some more stickleback catching.” I hoped they would like my plan.

  “Come on then you lot, let’s get going as it could take some time and effort and the sooner we get it back home the sooner we can get ready for dinner.” Hugh had thought and decided to help after all, his stomach getting the better of him.

  With that, we gathered our stuff into a heap on the grass but under as much of the hedge as we could to hide it. Once we were satisfied all of our things were as hidden as we could make them, we lifted the shield between us and carried it to the hedge. It was very heavy and I knew we were going to have to put some effort in to get it through the fields and to home. We decided to let the boys go first through the hedge and then they could pull and we could push it through to the other side.

  Hugh was the first through. “Oh no, cows in the field Linda.” This was followed by a laugh from Richard.

  “If you two are joking there will be trouble,” exclaimed Linda, as she gingerly struggled through the hedge to the other side to check. Jeanette and I pushed, they pulled and the shield moved slowly under the hedge and out into the field on the other side.

  “There are no cows, you really are rotten sometimes you two.” Linda sounded very relieved more than angry.

  “I said no cows in the field, Linda,” Hugh l
aughed. “The way I said it meant it came across as there were, because that was the way you heard it.”

  Linda gave him a shove to show how annoyed she was; he could be very annoying sometimes.

  “Right, we need to take this slowly and carefully, I remember reading about when archaeologists lift things in a dig that have been covered with earth, or sand, or silt and sometimes they come apart. If we aren’t careful that could happen to our shield.” I sounded concerned and more than a little bossy.

  “It’s made of wood and metal, Peggy, I don’t think it’s going to break. If it does it might make it easier to carry uphill.” Hugh always had to get the last word.

  “Come on then you lot, let’s see how long it takes before we tire and have to rest, are we going to have a bet on it?” Richard was all for timing how long things took since he had been given a new watch with a stopwatch in it for his birthday. “I say twenty-five minutes.”

  A discussion then followed as to how long we thought we could keep going; this lasted a good two minutes so I thought Richard would lose his bet quite easily. Hugh thought we could last forty minutes, Linda an hour, Jeanette two hours. Me, well I always thought positive thoughts and came up with three hours, to beat Jeanette. It was all silly really as we were only about an hour away from home at the most, but that would be without carrying a heavy object.

  Chapter 3

  Present meets past…

  As we were so intent on carrying the heavy shield between us and joking as to who the first person to let go would be, we didn’t notice what was happening in the distance.

  “Can you lot see that dust cloud over there?” Jeanette was facing the field and had to move her head to where she meant as her hands were full. “It looks as though it’s coming this way, I wonder what it could be.”