William At War

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘What have you done with it?’ the soldier was saying.

  ‘I dunno wot yer mean, guv’ner,’ whined the tramp. ‘I ain’t done nuffin’. I ain’t took nuffin’. You ain’t got no right ter knock me abaht like this ’ere. I paid the little varmint fourpence fer me cake, I did. I can’t ’elp it if ’e didn’t oughter’ve sold it me. I’ve et it, I tell you. I can’t give it you back.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said the soldier. ‘What have you done with it?’

  ‘Give him something else to refresh his memory,’ said Miss Smith in that low vicious tone that was not Miss Smith’s at all.

  The soldier raised his fist and the tramp cowered down before him, whimpering, putting up his elbow to ward off the blow.

  William turned and ran as fast as he could back to the village. By good luck a policeman was standing outside the general shop, idly examining a row of dusty birthday cards that had been there for the past eighteen months.

  ‘Come quick!’ gasped William. ‘Miss Smith’s soldier’s killin’ the tramp.’

  The policeman turned and stared at him.

  ‘Killin’ him, I tell you,’ repeated William. ‘Come on quick or you’ll be too late.’

  ‘None of your tricks, now,’ said the policeman, but there was something convincing about William’s excitement, and, in any case, he was tired of the birthday cards . . . He accompanied William across the field to the old barn.

  ‘Go on! Look through the crack,’ urged William.

  But this was, apparently, inconsistent with the dignity of the policeman. Instead, he put his shoulder to the large but insecure door and shoved it open. The scene it revealed was different from the one William had watched through the crack. The soldier was still standing over the tramp in a threatening attitude, but Miss Smith was now crouching on the ground in an attitude of distress. To William, it looked like a hastily-assumed attitude of distress, but he realised that to the policeman, seeing it for the first time, it must appear real enough. The soldier turned to the policeman. He was Miss Smith’s soldier again – courteous, gentle, if a little stern.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come, officer,’ he said. ‘I found this brute assaulting Miss Smith. I heard her cries for help as I came up the field and I’ve been giving him a little of what he deserved.’

  MISS SMITH WAS CROUCHING IN AN ATTITUDE OF DISTRESS.

  ‘I ain’t done nuffin’, guv’ner,’ whined the tramp. He shuffled to his feet and came into the light, revealing a black eye and a bleeding nose. ‘I ain’t done nuffin’ an’ look ’ow ’e’s knocked me abaht . . .’

  ‘You brute!’ sobbed Miss Smith.

  The policeman laid an ungentle hand on the tramp’s shoulder.

  ‘You come along with me,’ he said sternly, and then, respectfully, to Miss Smith’s soldier: ‘If you’ll just give me the particulars, sir . . .’ He took out note-book and pencil. ‘You say you found this man assaulting Miss Smith?’

  ‘Yes. Assaulting Miss Smith.’

  The policeman began to write slowly and laboriously.

  ‘Ass-aulting . . . How many s’s, sir?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘I gone and put three.’

  He began to hunt in his pocket. William suddenly remembered his newly acquired rubber and brought it out proudly, wiping the crumbs from it.

  ‘Here’s a rubber,’ he said.

  The policeman took it, rubbed the offending s, then scowled suspiciously at William.

  ‘None of your tricks!’ he said. ‘This ain’t no rubber. It don’t rub, anyway.’

  ‘I thought it was,’ said William apologetically. ‘I found it in a tea-cake.’

  Then, for the first time, he noticed Miss Smith and her soldier. Their eyes were fixed in frozen horror on the rubber. Their faces had turned a greenish white. The policeman was still examining the rubber.

  ‘Seems to have a sort of cap on,’ he said.

  He took the cap off and pulled out a small roll of paper. Then the strangest event of the whole afternoon happened. For the tramp was no longer a tramp, except in appearance. He sprang at Miss Smith’s soldier and pinned him in an expert grip from behind.

  THE TRAMP SPRANG AT MISS SMITH’S SOLDIER.

  ‘Get the woman, Constable,’ he said. ‘Don’t let her go, whatever you do . . . And you,’ to William, ‘cut down to the police station and tell them to send a car at once. My name’s Finch. They know me . . .’

  The policeman was no less bewildered than William, but he recognised the voice of Authority when he heard it and sprang to Miss Smith, who fought and bit and scratched with unexpected ferocity before she was finally mastered. William, also recognising the voice of Authority, cut down to the police station . . .

  It turned out the Fräulein Schmitt did not, after all, love the ‘country of her adoption’. She was, in fact, a fanatical Nazi agent who had come over among the refugees in order to carry on the work of espionage. Her soldier had not fought in the last war or in any other war. He was not even lame. He was the son of German parents who, though naturalised, had worked for the ‘Fatherland’ ever since they came to England. It turned out that Miss Smith, hovering attentively over the airmen at the canteen while they ate their scrambled eggs or beans on toast, picked up a good many items of news that were of interest to the Führer’s representatives. These, together with other items that she picked up from the conversation of the officers who came to tea or dinner at the Vicarage, were carefully recorded in code, packed into a small asbestos container, in shape resembling a rubber, and baked into the ‘tea-cake’ for which her ‘soldier’ called each week. Authority had for some time suspected Fräulein Schmitt of pro-enemy activity but could prove nothing. She wrote no letters and received no letters. She never left the neighbourhood and seemed to have no friends among the other refugees. It was Mrs Mason’s article that had first given Mr Finch (of what is known as the Secret Service) the idea. There might be nothing in this tea-cake business, of course, but it was worth investigating. A stranger visiting the village would have caused comment and put Fräulein Schmitt on her guard. An old tramp, wandering through the village and cadging food at the canteen, would rouse no interest. He was lucky, of course, to find William there . . .

  ‘Why didn’t you biff him one while he was knocking you about?’ asked William when he heard the story. ‘I bet you could have done.’

  Mr Finch grinned.

  ‘I could have done, my boy, and, I can tell you, I wanted to, but I hadn’t got hold of anything.’

  ‘You mean you hadn’t got a clue?’ said William, remembering his detective stories.

  ‘I mean I hadn’t got a clue,’ said Mr Finch. ‘I felt that, if I held on, something might slip out that would give it to me.’

  ‘I gave it you,’ said William proudly.

  ‘You did, my boy, and I’m grateful to you . . . Good thing the bobby couldn’t spell, eh?’

  The news had already sped round the village. William walked homewards with a rollicking swagger. He would be famous now, he thought, for the rest of his life . . . But he was too late. Already Mrs Mason was typing her latest article: ‘How I Trapped a German Spy’.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE BATTLE OF FLOWERS

  ‘WE’VE gotter get somethin’ ready for Vict’ry,’ said William. ‘Everyone else is doin’ somethin’.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’ demanded Ginger.

  ‘Some people are gettin’ up Vict’ry balls . . .’ said Henry.

  ‘We jolly well don’t want a Vict’ry ball. Dancin’ with rotten ole girls! We get enough of that at the dancin’ class. I never have seen what people see in it, dancin’.’

  ‘They’re gettin’ up a pageant where my aunt lives,’ said Douglas. ‘She’s goin’ to be Queen Elizabeth.’

  ‘I thouldn’t mind bein’ her,’ said Violet Elizabeth graciously. ‘It wath only ’cauth of mumpth I wathn’t her before.’

  ‘You won’t be in it at all,’ said William sternly. ‘No one asked yo
u to the meetin’ anyway.’

  ‘If Joan can come, why thouldn’t I?’ demanded Violet Elizabeth.

  ‘’Cause we asked Joan. She helps. You only mess everything up.’

  Violet Elizabeth looked at Joan who sat, small and shy and earnest, on an upturned packing case in a corner of the old barn.

  ‘Thee’s got thoot on her nothe,’ she remarked dispassionately.

  Joan took out her handkerchief and rubbed off the infinitesimal speck.

  ‘We had the chimney sweep this morning,’ she explained.

  ‘You leave her alone,’ said William indignantly to Violet Elizabeth.

  ‘I only thaid thee had thoot on her nothe,’ said Violet Elizabeth with devastating sweetness. ‘I thought thee’d like to know. I’d like to know if I had thoot on my nothe. Anyway’ – she smiled on them serenely – ‘you can’t turn me out. If you try I’ll thcream an’ thcream an’ thcream.’

  William sighed, deciding for the hundredth time that girls complicated every situation into which one admitted them. Joan was a different matter. She lacked the ruthlessness and dominating personality of Violet Elizabeth. She was quiet and amenable and willing to help. She joined the Outlaws as a slave. Violet Elizabeth, despite the disarming camouflage of meekness that she could assume for her own ends, joined it as a tyrant.

  ‘Well, we aren’t havin’ any girls in whatever we do for this Vict’ry show,’ said William.

  He spoke firmly, but there was something in the curve of Violet Elizabeth’s cherubic lips and in the light of her wide blue eyes that made him feel a good deal less confident than he sounded.

  ‘You can help if you want,’ he added, ‘but that’s jolly well all.’

  ‘That’th all we want to do, ithn’t it, Joan?’ said Violet Elizabeth.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Joan earnestly.

  ‘What do they do in pageants?’ asked William.

  ‘They sort of act things out of hist’ry,’ said Henry.

  ‘You’ll have to have girlth if ith hithtory, William,’ said Violet Elizabeth with quiet satisfaction. ‘Hithtory’th full of them – queenth and thingth.’

  ‘They sort of act without talkin’,’ said Henry, ignoring her.

  ‘How do people know what they’re actin’ if they don’t talk?’ said William.

  ‘They’ve jus’ gotter guess, I s’pose,’ said Henry.

  ‘I see,’ said William thoughtfully. ‘If a man comes on in a crown, wearin’ a rose, it’d be Charles I in the Wars of the Roses, or somethin’ like that.’

  ‘Yes, somethin’ like that,’ agreed Henry doubtfully, ‘but I don’t think it was Charles I in the Wars of the Roses.’

  ‘Well, Charles II, then,’ said William impatiently. ‘An’ if someone comes on an’ puts a coat over a puddle it’d be that man who put his coat down for Queen Elizabeth. The Black Prince, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Sir Walter Raleigh,’ murmured Henry.

  ‘Yes, I knew it was either him or the Black Prince,’ said William.

  ‘I thaid you’d have to have girlth,’ said Violet Elizabeth with a radiant smile. ‘I thaid tho.’

  ‘Well, we’re not goin’ to,’ said William. ‘I bet I could do Queen Elizabeth all right.’

  ‘I’m sure you could,’ said Joan, but Violet Elizabeth burst into a peal of silvery laughter.

  ‘I’d love to thee you,’ she said. ‘You’d look tho funny.’

  ‘Anyway, we’re not doin’ that,’ said William irritably. ‘We’re not goin’ to copy anyone. We’re goin’ to think out somethin’ of our own.’

  ‘Sometimes they have someone readin’ aloud in po’try what they’re actin’ while they’re actin’ it,’ said Henry, reluctant to leave a subject on which he felt himself to be an authority.

  ‘Well, we’re not goin’ to have anythin’ out of hist’ry,’ said William firmly. ‘We get enough of that in school. All that fuss las’ week jus’ cause I said that ole Caxton invented the steam engine ’stead of Wat Tyler or whoever it was!’ Henry opened his mouth to protest then closed it again as William continued: ‘Anyway, what does it matter what they’re called? It’s jus’ a name their mother happened to think of an’ she might jus’ as well have thought of somethin’ else. I bet she’d have called him Wat Tyler, or whatever it was, if she’d thought of it. I’ve got an aunt that always calls me Robert an’ Robert William an’ no one tells her that she’s a monument of c’lossal ignorance an’ crass stupidity an’ all the things ole Markie called me. What does it matter what people’s names are, anyway?’

  He paused for breath, and Ginger said mildly:

  ‘Well, we aren’t any nearer findin’ what to do for this Vict’ry show.’

  ‘No, but we can jolly well keep off history,’ said William, in a voice that still held the aftermath of bitterness.

  ‘If it’s a Vict’ry show,’ said Joan, ‘let’s have somethin’ about Vict’ry.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said William, impressed.

  ‘I wath juth going to thuggetht it,’ said Violet Elizabeth serenely.

  ‘We could have Britannia,’ said Joan, ‘riding in a sort of chariot. A wheelbarrow would do. Or that box on wheels you’ve got.’

  ‘I’ll be Britannia,’ said Violet Elizabeth. ‘My mother’th got a Britannia fanthy-dreth cothtume.’

  ‘You jolly well won’t,’ said William. ‘If we have girls in it at all, Joan’s being Britannia.’

  ‘Thee can’t be,’ said Violet Elizabeth. ‘Thee hathn’t got a Britannia fanthy-dreth cothtume.’

  ‘You could lend her yours, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Yeth,’ said Violet Elizabeth, still smiling serenely. ‘But I won’t . . .’

  ‘Then you’re a rotten mean ole girl.’

  ‘And after Britannia we could have some British soldiers,’ said Joan, hastily intervening before the quarrel could reach such proportions as to hold up progress indefinitely ‘We could easily get some boys to be those. And then we could have Germany and captured German prisoners.’

  ‘Who’d be them?’ said Douglas doubtfully. ‘I bet no one’d want to be them.’

  ‘We could fix that up later,’ said William. ‘It’s a jolly good idea, anyway.’ He turned to Violet Elizabeth. ‘Would you like to be Germany? It’s a jolly good part.’

  ‘What thould I wear?’ said Violet Elizabeth. ‘It dependth on what I’d wear.’

  They considered the question.

  ‘Swashtikas,’ suggested Henry.

  ‘No,’ said Violet Elizabeth firmly. ‘I don’t like thwathtikath!’

  ‘Sackcloth,’ said Ginger.

  ‘No,’ said Violet Elizabeth, still more firmly. ‘I don’t like thackcloth.’ Suddenly her small face beamed. ‘Tell you what! I’ve got a fanthy dreth at home I could wear. Ith a fanthy dreth of a rothe. Ith got a thkirt of pink thilk petalth, all thtanding out, and pink thilk thtockingth and thoeth. And ith got a pink rothe-bud for a cap. A couthin of mine had it before the war and thee sent it to me ’cauth thee’d grown out of it and it would juth fit me now. I wouldn’t mind being Germany if I could wear that.’

  ‘Well, you can’t,’ said William shortly.

  ‘But, William, ith a pretty dreth,’ she assured him earnestly. ‘You could thow a thwathika on if you like,’ she conceded. ‘Thomewhere where it wouldn’t thow.’

  ‘If you think—’ began William portentously, but she interrupted him.

  ‘And I muth ride in the chariot and I muth go on firtht in front of Britannia.’

  She smiled at them radiantly, as if she had completely solved the problem.

  ‘You can’t do that if you’re Germany,’ said William.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘’Cause – ’cause you’ve gotter be sorry for all the wrong you’ve done.’

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ said Violet Elizabeth with spirit, ‘and I haven’t done any wrong.’

  ‘You started the war.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ snapped Violet Elizabeth. ‘I wath in bed with a billiou
th attack the day the war thtarted. Athk the doctor if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘You’re bats,’ said William. ‘It’s no good talking to you. An’ we jolly well don’t want you in the show anyway.’

  ‘Then you can’t have the Britannia cothtume.’

  ‘We don’t want it,’ said William untruthfully.

  ‘I don’t mind Violet Elizabeth being Britannia,’ said Joan, anxious that the success of the pageant should not be jeopardised by jealousy among the cast.

  ‘Well, we do,’ said William. He turned to Violet Elizabeth. ‘You’re not going to be in it, so you can clear off. We’ve got a lot of things to discuss.’

  ‘I’ll thtay and lithen to you dithcuthing them,’ said Violet Elizabeth, with the air of one granting a favour.

  ‘People with manners,’ said William crushingly, ‘don’t stay where they’re not wanted.’

  ‘I’m not a perthon with mannerth,’ said Violet Elizabeth, uncrushed, ‘and I like thtaying where I’m not wanted. It’th gen’rally more interethting than where I am wanted.’

  ‘We’ll carry on as if she wasn’t there,’ said William to the others. ‘She’s just not worth taking any notice of. I’m glad she’s not going to be in it. She’s always more bother than she’s worth.’

  He could not help glancing at Violet Elizabeth as he spoke, hoping to see her look conscience-stricken or at least abashed, but she met his glance with a smile of shattering sweetness.

  ‘Well, now,’ he went on hastily. ‘We’ve got a lot to arrange. Joan’ll be Britannia, and we can easily fix up a costume for her with flags and things an’ she’ll come on in this cart, drawn by two of us, an’ we’ll write some po’try for someone to say when she comes on. Who can write po’try?’ He looked round the circle, carefully avoiding Violet Elizabeth’s eye.