Let's Kill Uncle

by Rohan O'Grady; Rohan O’Grady

  ‘Oh, hell!’ roared Barnaby.

  They were now halfway to the plane. Turning, he shouted.

  ‘Go home!’

  He glanced at the eddying waters and paled.

  ‘Don’t look down, whatever you do,’ he gasped.

  Finally they reached the plane, where Christie, with chattering teeth, put her hand on the wing to steady herself. She felt faint at the thought of playing that awful game of hopscotch in order to get back on dry land.

  They watched old Shep, still only a yard from the shore, with his eyes bulging and his neck straining out of the water as he tried to breast the current.

  ‘Oh, go back!’ shouted Christie, and put her hands over her eyes.

  ‘It’s all right, you can look now,’ said Barnaby, pointing.

  A large wave had caught Shep and flung him back to the beach. He slipped and struggled over the glistening rocks, shook himself violently when he reached the sand, and ran off with his tail between his legs.

  ‘Okay,’ said Barnaby. ‘Come on, up where the engines are. I’ll start there. You come along to hold the wrench while I’m working.’

  Christie gritted her teeth and nodded.

  They were just in the act of climbing aboard the plane when the high-powered hum of the police launch startled them. Barnaby took one look and prudently dropped the wrench into three fathoms of water.

  The prow of the launch cut through the waves like a shark, a V-shaped white wave in its wake.

  Constable Browning was at the helm and Sergeant Coulter, veins of anger standing out on his temples, was on deck.

  Constable Browning cut the motor and the launch glided up to the plane.

  ‘Get the- ’ Sergeant Coulter stopped. ‘Get down from there,’ he shouted. ‘Onto the deck of the launch! Come on, both of you!’

  Constable Browning cast them a look of sympathy.

  Christie really wasn’t too sorry to be rescued. She had a feeling it was just plain luck she’d made it out to the plane, and she wasn’t at all sure she could have returned. It was merely a matter, at that minute, of whether she was more afraid of the water or Sergeant Coulter.

  ‘On the double!’ shouted Sergeant Coulter.

  Silently they dropped to the deck.

  Sergeant Coulter was in a most unpleasant mood.

  ‘You’ve been warned about this beach. Everybody around here has warned you, and you went right ahead, didn’t you? Well, you’re in for it this time!’

  The memory of his own near-drowning was still too fresh for comfort.

  ‘Don’t tell Uncle,’ whispered Barnaby.

  Sergeant Coulter wheeled on him.

  ‘Who do you think told me?’ he snapped. ‘And a good thing for you two he just happened to be on the wharf with his field glasses and saw you.’

  The launch, at a slower pace now, cruised back to the wharf and the shaking culprits were led up the dock.

  Sergeant Coulter piloted them by the scruffs of their necks, and gave Barnaby a nasty little shove when they reached Uncle.

  ‘Here they are! And I know what I’d do to this boy if he were mine!’

  Uncle was not angry. Heavens, no. Uncle was distre-ssed.

  ‘My dear children,’ he said hoarsely, ‘don’t you know the danger you were in? You were told, time and again. Oh, Barnaby, how could you!’

  He wiped his brow with his silken handkerchief.

  ‘Upon my word,’ he cried, ‘it’s a mercy you weren’t drowned.’

  He turned to Sergeant Coulter. ‘Really, I don’t know what to do with him. Barnaby, I am shocked!’

  ‘I know what I’d do with him!’ said Sergeant Coulter.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ cried Uncle, overcome with remorse. ‘To save myself a few steps! Children are naturally curious. I should never have left the plane in such a dangerous spot.’

  He placed a pontifical hand on Barnaby’s head.

  ‘Now, Barnaby, I am not going to punish you. But you must promise me, solemnly, Barnaby, never to go on that dreadful beach again!’

  Barnaby, with lowered head, nodded.

  ‘Very well,’ said Uncle. ‘I trust you, Barnaby.’ He turned to Christie. ‘And you too, my dear. Now off you go and play somewhere else, and remember, never, never go to that beach again, children.’

  Sergeant Coulter braced his shoulders and stared hard at the children.

  ‘You two got off easily this time,’ he said. ‘Don’t expect to next time, if I’m around.’

  The miserable children slunk off.

  Uncle turned to Sergeant Coulter.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant. Thank you a million times. I am sorry he’s such a nuisance to you. I suppose I must face the fact that he is a problem.’

  ‘A good thrashing would straighten out a lot of that boy’s problems,’ said Sergeant Coulter.

  Uncle looked shocked again.

  ‘Barnaby is a sensitive child,’ he said. ‘As you can see, a harsh word is more than enough for him. Furthermore, Sergeant, I do not approve of beating children. It solves nothing.’

  He began to walk away, but turned and added icily, ‘Good day, sir.’

  Humming ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ he strolled back toward the cottage. Mission accomplished.

  Twice Sergeant Coulter had rescued them. He wouldn’t be around the third time. It was difficult to outfox Uncle when he applied himself to a project.

  Planning, thought Uncle serenely, was the basis of all successful operations. Take his escape from the POW castle at Colditz. Germans said it couldn’t be done. Stupid race. No imagination. Why, it had been a romp. Absolute romp. Of course, it couldn’t have been done alone, known that from the start. Had to enlist the help of the Senior British Officer, and the Escape Committee. And of course, it had been necessary to take along those two Royal Navy idiots. Committee insisted. That teamwork nonsense. But, he travels fastest who travels alone, and fortunately the pair had been captured by the Gestapo and executed while trying to re-escape. Or so the British thought. Ah well, c’est la guerre. Survival of the fittest and all that.

  Uncle laughed. Chaps at Colditz called him Silly Billy, or, sometimes jokingly, The Murdering Major, because of his mild disposition.

  ‘ “If you go down in the woods today- ” ’

  He bowed gallantly as he passed Agnes Duncan staggering bent-kneed under a hundred-pound sack of flour, then, sounding his native wood-notes wild, he padded home with his tireless lope.

  The children were not punished by Mr and Mrs Brooks or the goat-lady. Instead, their latest transgression was greeted by wounded looks and lamentations.

  The goat-lady, for once truly agitated, wrung her hands.

  What would Christie’s poor, overworked mother do without her little girl? Entrusting her child to Auntie, only to have her carelessly drowned.

  ‘If you ever go near that beach again, I’m sending you home on the next boat!’

  Mr Brooks vowed he would not have believed Barnaby would deceive him so, after promising. And they had been warned time and time again. If Barnaby would not think of himself, he should at least have some consideration for his uncle. That good and patient man, already cruelly burdened by the loss of Barnaby’s Aunt Maude. And Barnaby his only link with her!

  Mrs Brooks’s lips trembled alarmingly as she called for her digitalis. She could not bear a repetition of the Dickie saga. She could not go on living if that child were borne dripping on a shutter to his uncle.

  Their beloved Sergeant, the children had to admit, was fair about the whole thing. After hinting that he would be pleased to kick them into the middle of next week if he ever found them near that beach again, he dismissed the subject, apparently holding no grudge.

  Uncle was still distressed when the children saw him at the store later in the day. He patted their heads mournfully, lingering especially on Christie’s. He was sincerely fond of little girls.

  And the children, looking on the attempt in retrospect, realised it had been a foolhardy gesture. B
ut Christie was puzzled.

  ‘Why,’ she said, ‘if Uncle wants to kill us, did he send Sergeant Coulter to save us?’

  Barnaby cast her a look of disdain. She was smart enough in some ways, but she was still dumb like most girls.

  ‘Don’t you see,’ he said patiently, ‘it was a trap. Now, no matter what he does, no one would believe us. Even Sergeant Coulter. It’s the way it always is, everybody believes him and nobody believes me.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Christie. ‘It seemed like a good time to get rid of us, if that’s what he wants.’

  ‘But he didn’t, did he?’ asked Barnaby. He was almost amused. She still didn’t understand Uncle.

  ‘I can’t think of any reason,’ she continued, ‘unless- ’ here she paused and gave Barnaby a startled and horrified look; ‘unless - oh, no, Barnaby - you don’t think? Unless- ’

  Unless, said Barnaby, finishing her sentence, unless he was looking forward to doing it himself. People drowning accidentally wasn’t Uncle’s idea of fun.

  THE HEAT WAVE CONTINUED and even the children were listless now. They spent more and more time playing in the store, which was cool. It was also a delightful spot for make-believe.

  In one corner stood the post office, strictly off limits to them, but fascinating to peek at.

  Opposite the post office were the gardening implements and clothing. From the rafters hung hoes, rakes and shovels, the metal parts of the tools blue-black and shiny, and the handles a virginal white, emblazoned with red paper crests.

  Behind the counters were long piles of rubber boots, thick gray wool socks banded in white, denim work pants studded with brass nails, and fleecy heaps of winter underwear.

  By the door were buckets and axes, coils of lemon-coloured ropes, candles, kerosene lamps, kettles and saucepans, brooms and fishing gear. In front of the serving counter stood barrels of flour and sugar, and a big, dry, orange-hued cheddar cheese, almost the size of a cartwheel.

  There was a coffee grinding machine which smelled aromatically, and a large zinc box of tea, and shelves and shelves of canned goods with faded labels. In the center of the room was a potbellied stove, cold and unlit now.

  Although dim and crowded, the high ceiling of the store gave it an air of roominess, and on soft summer evenings when the coal-oil lamp was lit, it was a comforting place.

  This particularly hot day the children amused themselves weighing out sugar into small brown paper bags and sealing them for Mr Brooks. Tiring of that, they equipped themselves with brooms, hoes, axes and rubber boots, for safaris into strange lands.

  They made pyramids of canned goods and gave the shelves the most thorough dusting they had had in thirty years.

  They sold each other quarter pounds of orange pekoe tea and boxes of soda crackers, gravely inquiring after each other’s health, and quaintly asking each other if they had heard from the old country recently.

  Then, weary from commerce, they sat on a pile of blankets under the counter and chewed their daily ration of licorice.

  The bell on the door rang, but they lay hidden, too indolent even to arise.

  Mr Brooks came scurrying out from the back room.

  ‘Ah, Sergeant Coulter, there’s a letter here from London for you.’ Mr Brooks paused and added delicately, ‘I - uh - I suppose your trip to New York is off? Mrs Brooks and I were sorry to hear about that Metropolitan Museum business. Those Americans are inexcusably careless. It would never have happened in the British Museum.’

  The subject was still too painful for Albert to discuss. He merely nodded and asked where the children were.

  ‘Oh, out playing, I expect,’ said Mr Brooks. ‘I don’t know how they can bear this heat.’

  ‘You’d better tell them to stick pretty close to home for a while. One of Mr Allen’s collies found a half-eaten deer on the mountain. It may be One-ear’s work. Mr Allen found a right front paw mark, and he thought the pad was damaged. Damned dogs tramped all over it before I got a chance to see it.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ cried Mr Brooks. ‘One-ear here? But he was last heard of on Vancouver Island. Surely he couldn’t swim all the way here? How could he do it? It’s much too far for him to reach our Island.’

  Sergeant Coulter took off his hat and wiped the inside band with his handkerchief.

  ‘I’d give my eyeteeth to know,’ he replied. ‘It is too far, but nevertheless, he does it. He was on Benares last year. It’s the same cougar all right. It’s too much of a coincidence to have two with an ear missing and that right front paw.’

  One-ear could have told them. It was really very simple. Under cover of darkness, he swam to a passing log-boom, climbed aboard, and sat, like a first-class passenger, till he was towed to a likely-looking island. Then he jumped off and paddled ashore.

  ‘If he’s on this Island, I’ll get him,’ said Sergeant Coulter grimly.

  Ever since One-ear had killed the Indian child, Sergeant Coulter had been hoping his path would cross that of the unapprehended murderer.

  ‘You know,’ he continued, ‘Browning saw him over on Vancouver Island. Just got a glimpse of him. He’s as big as a lion, Browning says, must weigh three hundred pounds. Of course, you can’t believe eyewitness accounts, even a policeman’s. That one they shot in the middle of Victoria was described as being huge. Turned out to be a hundredpounder, not much bigger than a bobcat.’

  He started for the door, but Mr Brooks called him back.

  ‘Your letter, Albert.’

  As Sergeant Coulter walked toward the launch, he opened the letter and began to read it.

  The children, sneaking out of the store, saw him suddenly stop in his tracks.

  He walked over to the war monument, sat on the step, took his hat off, scratched his head, and read the letter again.

  With a gesture of irritation, he shoved the letter into his pocket.

  His broad back looked formidable and unbowed as he stomped down the ramp to the police launch.

  After leaving the store, the children felt their first duty lay in warning One-ear that his presence was suspected on the Island. Perhaps, if they shouted loud enough, he would understand.

  Though they hunted in all his accustomed napping and lounging spots, they could not find him.

  He saw them, for he was flopped in the fork of a tree, ten feet above their heads, surveying them lazily with halfopened, slit-pupilled, jewel-green eyes.

  They finally gave up their search and went over to poor Desmond’s shack.

  Barnaby took the precious gun from its hiding place and dismantled it on the bed. From the gun case he took an oiled rag which the former owner had thoughtfully left, and cleaned the gun with care.

  Christie sat on the edge of the table, swinging her legs and gazing with renewed interest at poor Desmond.

  Barnaby stared longingly at the gun.

  ‘What time does Sergeant Coulter leave today?’ he asked.

  Christie thought.

  ‘He just dropped in for his mail, so I guess he’ll be going back now. He wouldn’t be going hunting for One-ear all by himself.’

  Barnaby smiled.

  ‘Good, because I’m going to try shooting this gun as soon as he’s gone.’

  He too looked at poor Desmond with renewed interest.

  Since scuttling Uncle was obviously out of the question, their attention was again driven back to Desmond. They fought against their rebellious thought, but the gun was temptingly present and so was Desmond. It was too good to pass up; they were like a couple of savages with a nice, plump missionary.

  ‘You’d better start thinking again,’ said Barnaby.

  Christie nodded. She walked over to the wavy mirror above Desmond’s washbasin and made faces at herself for a few minutes. She smiled becomingly, inspected her teeth and pulled her hair up to a bun on the top of her head.

  ‘Do you think I’ll look nice when I’m grown up and I wear my hair like this? I’ll have a permanent then, of course.’

 
‘Never mind your hair,’ said Barnaby, ‘think!’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ She sat next to him on the bed and put her chin in her hands, her pretty grey eyes dreaming and secret. Finally she turned to Barnaby.

  They had intended originally to instruct Desmond to say that he had found the gun.

  ‘Why not,’ said Christie, ‘if Desmond’s going to be blamed for having the gun anyhow, why not blame him for killing Uncle, but leave him some way out?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well,’ said Christie, ‘Mr Allen found the dead deer on the mountain, and now everybody will be afraid because there’s a cougar on the Island. Won’t people be out with guns looking for One-ear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barnaby.

  ‘How about if poor Desmond found this gun, and he went out looking for One-ear too, only he shot Uncle by mistake?’

  Barnaby nodded. She had something there.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we’d have to do it, but we could teach poor Desmond to say he did it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Christie. ‘Just a mistake, and poor Desmond’s so dumb he’ll say anything we tell him to. And Sergeant Coulter can’t hang him for making a mistake, can he?’

  Barnaby sat back, pondering.

  ‘Are you sure Sergeant Coulter won’t hang Desmond?’

  ‘Of course not, not if it’s a mistake. It would be mean to hang someone for making a mistake. Sergeant Coulter is never mean, he’s always fair.’

  Barnaby agreed, and they both sighed with relief. Then, picking up the gun, Barnaby announced he was going out to try firing it.

  Christie, rummaging through Desmond’s food cupboard, nodded. She took out a box of soda crackers and a lump of stale cheese.

  She and Desmond sat eating the cheese and crackers while they waited for Barnaby to return.

  When Barnaby did return, his face was very white. He went directly to the bed, put the rifle down and sat rubbing his shoulder.

  ‘We hardly heard the shot at all,’ said Christie. ‘You want some crackers and cheese? What’s the matter with you, you look as if you’re going to cry.’

  Barnaby stared at the rifle the way a man looks at his dog when it has just bitten him.

  ‘It knocked me down,’ he said. ‘It scared me.’