by K. M. Peyton
‘Go on ahead,’ Ros said to Leo. With luck the pony would go on following the bucket.
She started to lead him purposefully, and to her immense relief he started quite willingly up the wide steps. But when he got to the top he stopped, and would not go on. Leo held out the bucket in vain. Ros tugged at the head collar but Badger stood like a rock.
‘Please, Badger! We want to help you!’
Couldn’t he understand? The more Ros tugged, the more firmly he stood. He stuck his front feet out and stubbornly resisted.
‘Badger!’ Ros’s voice rose in a wail of despair.
Leo pushed behind and tried hitting him with the bucket, but Badger would not move.
‘Oh, what shall we do?’
They had stopped whispering and being secret, for they had the night to themselves. But below them, beyond the railway, two cars went by, and in the distance they could hear a faint clanking, as if from the goods yard.
‘It’s a train,’ Leo said.
‘They don’t come during the night!’
‘The gravel train does,’ Leo said solemnly. ‘Every night at two o’clock.’
‘I’ve never heard it!’
‘You’re always asleep then. I have.’
‘Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘I thought you knew.’
The noise of the approaching train was now quite distinct. Ros could feel the vibration of it in the soles of her gumboots. Badger stopped being mulish and pricked his ears, lifting his head. Ros clung to the rope grimly.
‘What shall we do?’
She could hear it now quite plainly, a heavy diesel train, travelling fast. Badger swung his head, obviously nervous. He backed a few steps and his back feet slipped off the top step.
‘Oh, come on, Badger! Quickly, before it comes!’
But there was nothing she could do. The train came with a roar and the whole bridge shook. Badger plunged and snatched at the lead-rope. Ros hung on grimly but was thrown on her face as Badger took off at a wild gallop. She let go with a shriek. Badger tore across the top of the bridge as the train thundered underneath, and Ros saw his muddy white tail disappear in a swirl as he galloped headlong down the the steps on the other side.
‘Badger, stop! Stop!’
Ros got up and ran. Leo sprinted after her, leaving the bucket bouncing behind. They got to the far side of the bridge in time to see Badger, having lost his footing, scrambling to his feet at the bottom of the steps.
‘Badger, please! Badger, stop! Oh, do stop!’
But Ros could tell the pony was thoroughly alarmed, as much at being loose as by the train, and, with an excited tossing of his muddy mane, he started to trot along ahead of them. He trotted out on to the main road and turned up along the carriageway, in the opposite direction to what Ros intended, rope lead trailing.
‘Oh, he’ll be killed if a car comes!’ Ros shrieked.
She ran as fast as she could, but Badger wasn’t stopping. He didn’t gallop, but just kept ahead, trotting fast. Ros was terrified. All thoughts of keeping hidden and secret had flown on the wind. Her expedition had taken off and was out of her control. Even as she ran, the lights of an approaching car began to beam over the slight rise ahead. Her worst fears were realized. Badger was on the wrong side, and the car was coming fast towards him.
Unlike trains, cars were familiar to Badger, and he did not turn and run. He stopped, and stood foursquare on the tarmac. The headlights picked him up and he looked for a moment like the old Badger, head up and eyes shining. The car swerved and braked. On the wet road it went into a screaming skid, slewing sideways and missing Badger by inches. Ros got a brief blurred glance of a man’s white face, quite close, then the car was past, and did not stop. It straightened up and accelerated away. Badger meanwhile turned and leapt across the central barrier and careered away into some bushes on the far side of the road.
‘Come on!’
Ros ran too. She jumped the barrier and Leo followed. Ros was aching with stitch and fear and having no breath. This was nothing like she had planned. Secrecy was no longer the problem. The problem was getting Badger back.
‘At least the train made him go!’ Leo panted behind her.
But go where?
There was now no sign of him. They were on the far side of the road and with Ros’s pocket torch they could see Badger’s hoofmarks in the wet grass. The verge had been planted with trees and bushes but they weren’t yet very big.
‘He can’t have gone far. Listen!’
They stood very still, and presently heard a bush-crashing noise quite nearby. Ros made for it, and found Badger eating twigs greedily, not at all upset with his adventure. When she made a dive for his head-rope he made no move to run away again, but carried on eating.
‘Oh, Badger! Thank goodness!’
Ros leaned against the pony’s warm shoulder, trembling now with relief.
‘Suppose that car had hit him!’
‘Or the car had turned over,’ Leo said with relish. ‘You’d have thought the driver would have stopped, wouldn’t you?’
‘He must have seen us. Suppose he’s gone to the police station to report it?’
‘They won’t be open,’ Leo said. ‘Not at two fifteen.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
He was making it up, but pleased to be impressing Ros. He was amazed to find that he was enjoying himself no end. This was miles better than being asleep, and more exciting than frogs. Leo had never done anything exciting in his whole life, only piano lessons and homework and Sundays spent cleaning the car for his pocket money. His father’s idea of a day out was going to watch a bowls match.
Ros, on the other hand, was not enjoying herself at all, and longing for the adventure to be over.
‘However do we get to Sid the Pigman from here?’
She had intended to take the lane past their own cottages, the way she knew. But now they were about a mile along the main road in the wrong direction.
Leo sensed that Ros was losing her general’s grip. His mind felt sharp and strong.
‘We are quite close, if you think of it. Our lane comes in this direction – we were going to come this way, only over there.’ He pointed across the fields. ‘A little bit further along here, a lane crosses this road underneath, through a tunnel. If we can get down there, we can easily get to Sid’s. He’s just a little way down the lane. Don’t you remember, when they built this road, the farmer made them give him a tunnel?’
Yes, Ros did remember. Her father said it was a triumph against the superpowers. The superpowers hadn’t wanted to waste money on a tunnel. They had wanted to block the lane off.
‘If we can climb down into the lane, we’ll be almost there.’
Ros was grateful for Leo taking over, but very nervous as to whether the lane was where he thought it was.
‘If you like, I’ll walk on and find it, and you can stay here and let Badger go on eating. You’re nice and hidden in the bushes.’
‘Don’t you mind?’
‘No.’
‘That’s a good idea. Don’t get seen, for goodness sake!’ Ros thought that drivers might stop if they saw a boy as small as Leo trotting alone alongside the carriageway at around two thirty in the morning. The two of them weren’t to know, either, if the man who nearly hit Badger might be reporting a loose pony on the road. On the telephone perhaps. Ros didn’t think the police slept all night, in spite of what Leo said. That’s when crimes were happening, surely? What they were doing was a crime, after all, and they certainly wouldn’t have attempted it in broad daylight.
She watched Leo hurry off to find the tunnel. At least they were on the right side of the road, and with luck would only have to scramble down an embankment.
She felt shaky and a bit tearful, and daren’t think about what she was doing. She was a thief! She was a criminal! That’s how other people would see it. But Badger was freed from his horrible chain and eating happily, tearin
g at the grass underfoot. You could see he was starving by the eagerness with which he ate. Already he seemed to her to have perked up, unlike herself. She was now the one who felt she had her back to the wind and her tail between her legs.
Thank goodness she had Leo to help her. Nothing had gone according to plan. She thought back over their adventures, and realized that the bucket had gone missing. They must have dropped it on the bridge! They had left a glaring clue, one even the thickest detective could not fail to see!
By the time Leo came back, she felt close to tears.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s just up the road. We have to climb down the bank when we get there.’
He sounded cheerful, but not entirely convincing.
‘It’s worth a try,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It might be a bit difficult.’
Ros tried not to panic. She didn’t ask him why it might be a bit difficult – she didn’t really want to know. She pulled Badger’s head out of the grass and led him back to the verge where it was clear of bushes.
There had been no cars for some time and she prayed it would stay the same until they were safely out of sight again. A police car might come along . . .
But Badger was being very good and came along willingly. Ros told Leo about the bucket.
‘I’ll go back and fetch it afterwards,’ he said.
He wanted the night to go on for ever. It was magic. When they saw the first gleam of approaching headlights, he helped Ros get Badger hidden in the bushes again. Luckily only one car came, and then after a few minutes’ walking they came to the tunnel. Ros saw at once the reason for Leo’s doubt.
The lane, deep in its cutting below them, had banks heavily covered in brambles, hawthorn, oak saplings and nettles. To get down the bank, they first had to get through a fence. The stout wooden fence that followed the road veered round and went away down the lane on the top of the bank, but two strands of barbed wire on a few posts were stretched across to the parapet of the bridge, cutting off their way.
‘However do we get through there?’ Ros wailed.
The verge was narrow at this point and they were standing in full view of any headlights that might come along. Ros felt her remaining courage fast draining away.
‘It’s rusty old stuff,’ Leo said. ‘I’ll try and break it.’
Badger started tearing at the grass again. Apart from the noise of his eating, the night was silent now and strangely hostile. The clouds covered the moon, but its brightness still shone eerily on the concrete ribbon of the road. The lane below was like a black pit. Ros could feel her heart thudding with fear, and she knew she was now depending entirely on Leo. He had managed to pull one of the posts out of the ground. If he stood on it, the barbed wire strands were stretched almost to the ground.
‘Will he step over?’
Ros hauled Badger’s head off the grass.
‘Come on, Badger! You’ve got to come!’
She stepped over the wires and pulled him after her. He hesitated, stopped.
‘Badger!’
The way ahead was not inviting, not compared with the juicy roadside grass. Leo bent down and pulled up handfuls of grass, passed them to Ros.
‘Hold these in front of him!’
Badger stretched out his neck, took one step.
‘Please, Badger!’
Ros stepped back and Badger followed. Leo could not move for standing on the wire. Badger stepped over and stood with only one hind leg on the wrong side.
‘Come on!’
A gleam in the distance warned of the approach of another car. It was on their side of the road.
Leo bent down and heaved at the laggard fetlock. Ros jerked on the lead-rope.
Badger walked on, but his hind leg was caught up. Leo gave him a great slap on the backside and he plunged mightily, bringing the whole fence with him. Ros went over backwards into the stinging nettles and Badger jumped over her with the whole fence behind him, posts and all.
Ros screamed.
The car swept past, not noticing the drama at all.
The barbed wire broke and Badger kicked himself free, and went plunging on down through the undergrowth with the same abandon he had showed earlier. Ros had let him go again, and now found herself weeping with fright and the nettles.
‘It’s all right!’ Leo was shouting. ‘We’re through!’
‘He’s gone!’
‘Not far, I bet. And it doesn’t matter down here! We’ll find him. Come on, Ros – we’ve done all the hard bits!’
It was all right for Leo – he hadn’t fallen in the nettles. Ros staggered to her feet and beat her way down the bank, choking with pain and anxiety. If only the night was over!
‘Where is he?’
The lane was dark and muddy, but at last they were hidden and safe. Ros straightened up, rubbing her tingling face, and felt herself coming together again, after the panics. Leo was right. They had done the bad bits.
With her torch, they found Badger’s hoofprints in the mud, going down the lane.
‘He’s gone the right way this time.’
‘He’ll stop at the first grass he comes to.’
Leo’s words proved right. As the lane opened out away from the tunnel cutting, the wooded banks gave way to grassy verge and trimmed hedges, and there was Badger grazing again, lead-rope trailing. He let Ros catch him, still eating.
‘Thank goodness for that!’ Ros examined his legs with her torch, and found a few bleeding gouges on one back leg, but not deep enough to worry about. His freedom was worth a scratch or two. She was sure he would think so.
They only had a few hundred metres to go down the lane. The woods that screened Sid’s place from the road made a dark blot to the right. To the left, across the open fields, Ros knew their own row of cottages lay – not more than ten minutes’ walk away.
Now, she was ashamed of being frightened. It was Leo who had risen to the occasion. The generalship had changed hands. She felt humbled, and warm with gratitude towards Leo. But she didn’t say anything.
‘I hope his dogs don’t bark,’ Leo whispered.
But greyhounds weren’t guard dogs. They slept in an elegant heap on Sid’s bed, keeping him warm. Leo and Ros crept past, and Badger followed them, quiet now, and trusting. The cow and the donkey were in the barn, both lying down, and the gate at the bottom of the field swung easily as Leo pulled back the catch.
Ros led Badger through and took off his head collar. She retreated, and Leo shut the gate silently behind her.
Badger started to graze, not stopping to explore his new surroundings. He did not bother to buck and kick and gallop about; he just wanted to eat. The cow and the donkey, undisturbed, did not even get up.
Ros stood watching him, with large tears rolling down her cheeks. She wept with gratitude to see her pony in his lovely new surroundings, with plenty to eat and a stream to drink from, and a cow and a donkey for companions. As if in celebration, the moon came out from behind the clouds and shone brightly on her wonderful achievement.
CHAPTER SIX
NOW IT WAS over, Ros felt very strange, weepy and yet, at the same time, elated, shivering with pride and excitement. They had done it!
She also felt very cold, tired and sore. Her face burned with nettle stings. She wanted desperately to be back in her warm bed.
‘But they’ll see the fence! And we left the bucket —’
‘I’ll see to all that,’ Leo said grandly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll go and do it now. I’ll stamp out the hoofprints, put the fence back, fetch the bucket – so nobody will know!’
‘What, by yourself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘No.’
Ros couldn’t believe it. She, General Palfrey, had been afraid. Very much so, in fact. But little squitty Leo, who never said boo to a goose, was acting six feet tall. His face in the moonlight seemed to
glow.
‘I’ll come back with you first, if you like,’ he said.
Ros was grateful. She seemed to have run out of both nerve and energy. She had the shivers. They started for home, which was only ten minutes’ walk away, but seemed anything but familiar. The moon had now decided to reveal itself, and rode serenely above the winter fields. It was bitterly cold, which Ros hadn’t noticed before. When they got to the turning into the road where they lived, Leo stopped.
‘I’ll go back now. Can I have the torch?’
Ros handed it over. ‘How long will you be? You mustn’t be found out!’
Leo shone the torch on his watch. ‘It’s only three o’clock. It won’t take long.’
‘And you can get in all right?’
‘Yes. I’ve got the key.’
‘Be careful then.’ But even as she said it, she knew she spoke only out of habit. Leo laughed.
Ros crept home. She slipped in like a shadow, feeling the warmth and security of her house folding her in, seeing Erm’s welcoming tail, the kitchen table set for breakfast, hearing the comfortable ticking of the hall clock. She was so relieved, she felt the feeble tears sliding down her cheeks again. She crawled up the stairs on all fours and tiptoed into her bedroom. The moon shone in, a stranger now, visiting from another world. She stood looking out for a moment, trying to take in the amazing adventure of her night. She had stolen Badger – it had worked, her plan, and he was rescued from the terrible Dad Smith and his miserable life. Beneath her incredible weariness, this knowledge was warm and secure. She was too tired now to wonder what might happen next. She rolled into bed and fell fast asleep.
And while Ros slept, Leo cavorted through the night. He stamped down the hoofprints in the lane, he pushed the fence posts back in the ground and hooked the broken wire together; he brushed away all the hoofprints along the verge, hid from several passing cars, and made his way back to the railway bridge. It took him ages to find the bucket, as it had rolled down the steps and halfway down the railway bank, but after he had retrieved it he went back to Badger’s chain and obliterated all the marks that led to the railway bridge.