Let's Kill Uncle

by Rohan O'Grady; Rohan O’Grady

  He took a deep breath and came over to the table, helping himself to the cheese and crackers.

  ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I know what to do now, anyway. You’ve got to hold it very tight to your shoulder, and then it won’t spring back that way.’

  He paused and pointed to the gun.

  ‘Look, you’ve got to learn how to shoot it too, in case anything happens to me. You won’t have to fire it unless I’m dead and you’ve got to shoot Uncle, but you’ve got to learn how to load it and aim it and fire it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Christie. She hated the gun. ‘Let’s go to Auntie’s now. What are you having for dinner?’

  ‘Boiled beef and boiled carrots and boiled potatoes.’

  Christie made a face.

  ‘Ugh! We’re having roasted stuffed salmon with chopped egg sauce and baked tomatoes with rice and mushrooms in them and lettuce and cucumber salad with oil and vinegar on it the way you like it. And we’re going to have apple upside-down cake and whipped cream for dessert. Auntie told me so this morning.’

  Barnaby looked hungry.

  ‘Ask her if I can stay for dinner,’ he coaxed.

  ‘Oh, she’ll let you. She always does because you always like what she cooks. We’d better come here early tomor row to start teaching Desmond what to say about killing Uncle.’

  Like Uncle, they didn’t leave much to chance.

  It never occurred to them that poor Desmond, who had spent most of his adult life trying to master the can opener, would be unable to load and fire a high-powered rifle without instruction.

  Constable Browning turned from the police radio to Sergeant Coulter.

  ‘It looks as if it’s going to be some party for One-ear. Sven Anderson has the best pair of cougar hounds on the coast, and he’s coming. Charlie Wilkinson from Courtenay is coming all the way over with his dogs, and Colonel Allardyce, who has those two big African Ridgebacks, wants to be included. They’re so big they’re liable to be mistaken for cougars themselves.’

  Sergeant Coulter raised his head absently and nodded. He was reading that letter again.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘this letter, it’s a personal matter and I’d like your advice. I wrote and told Professor Hobbs that Major Murchison-Gaunt had been at Colditz. I got this letter in reply this morning. Read it and give me your opinion.’

  Constable Browning took the letter and sat down. After the first page, an expression of distaste came over his face. He finished it and handed it back to Sergeant Coulter.

  ‘Well, what do you think of it?’

  ‘Burn it,’ said Constable Browning. ‘It’s the most libellous, vicious thing I’ve read for a long time. Your professor sounds as if he’s going around the bend.’

  Sergeant Coulter nodded.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘That business of the Etruscan statues hit him a lot harder than I expected. You see where he says he’d heard rumours that he’d be on this year’s honours list, but any chance of a knighthood has gone by the boards now. Then he says he’s the laughingstock of the scientific world, even though he had nothing to do with the purchase or sale of those figures.’

  ‘Yes, but he still doesn’t have to make these statements about Murchison-Gaunt. There’s not a phrase in the whole letter that’s substantiated by common sense, let alone evidence. You can’t go around saying things like that about other people. If he writes letters like this very often, I’m surprised he hasn’t ended up in a libel court. You asked for my advice, well, I’d burn that letter. After all, they are on opposite sides of the world now.’

  Sergeant Coulter nodded.

  ‘You’re right. I’m glad I asked your opinion.’

  He sat rereading the letter, the vicious remarks leaping at him from the pages:

  I had the dubious pleasure of being in the same block as that animal, and he is an animal, you know. He’s the sort of person who invariably eats well during a famine. God knows, he’s probably a cannibal. Silly Billy was never quite silly when it came to hoarding food.

  I sincerely want you to believe I am not impugning his war record, no doubt he was a fine soldier; after escaping from Colditz he made his way hack to England and was decorated by the King. There must have been a paucity of heroes at the time.

  He was one of a commando party dropped into Yugoslavia by parachute, to contact wartime leaders. The Jerries transferred him from his original POW camp for security reasons, or so he said. I believe they must have tabbed him for a psychopath.

  I was closely, if reluctantly, associated with him for two years and I had ample time to observe him. I cannot impress upon you strongly enough the feeling I had that the man was, at that time, anyway, unstable and actually dangerous.

  Oh, I know he has a deceptively mild appearance and manner, and very few people ever saw beneath his mask. But allow me to assure you he is one of the cleverest, toughest soldiers I ever encountered, and there were plenty at Colditz.

  The holograph went on and on, repetitious, and at times surprisingly foul.

  I don’t claim to know much about psychiatry, but-

  Albert smiled grimly. Hell, he didn’t even know much about archaeology.

  I was never able to overcome a feeling of repugnance to the man. Frankly I detested him. If there are such things as werewolves, you’ve got one on your Island now.

  Albert was startled at the crudity of some of the phrases. But, crude or not, the facts still emerged. Major Murchison-Gaunt had been decorated by the King, and Percival Hobbs had not. Murchison-Gaunt had been a brave, tough soldier who had guts enough to escape from the most impregnable prison in Europe, and Percival Hobbs had not.

  Albert’s own POW days were still sufficiently vivid for him to remember the almost homicidal dislikes that could develop between quite ordinary men who got on each other’s nerves when they had no way of avoiding each other.

  There was no doubt about it, and Browning was right, Hobbs’s mind was affected. The letter was an addled, uncorroborated, meaningless hodgepodge of spiteful hints.

  Albert felt saddened to think that Hobbs, his hero, had fallen so low.

  ON CAPE MERCER fire struck the Indian village of Klomtook and half burned it to the ground. The mosscovered totem poles of the ancestors, bug-eaten and tortured by the creeping flames, toppled on the shacks that sheltered the descendants, with many an infant caught in the holocaust of a cedar attic.

  The Indians drank home brew and brooded. Then they took out their old drums to bring rain and destruction on the enemy who had destroyed their past and their future.

  Wearing fantastic headdresses, they shook stone-filled gourds and pranced through a vague imitation of the ancient cannibal dance. They retrieved half-forgotten relics that had once belonged to famous shamans, and they prayed.

  Sergeant Coulter, investigating, without result, a rumour that gin and Scotch had been smuggled onto the reserve, felt it was a little late to deal with the fire god, but he hoped at least they would be successful in their endeavors to bring on the rain god.

  Tum-tum, tum-tum went their drums. Old klootches, shod in cheap Japanese running shoes, shuffled a dance whose meaning had been lost even before the coming of the white man. The old men, with antiquated ceremonial robes draped over gaudy sports shirts, sat in a circle shaking tambourines and monotonously chanting, ‘Hey-Haaaaaaw! Hey-Haaaaaaw!’

  The young warriors, for mysterious symbolic reasons, kidnaped a woman of a neighbouring tribe. At least, Sergeant Coulter fervently hoped it was symbolic. He was concerned in case she had come to harm. When he asked where she was, the other maidens merely stood around chewing gum, looking at him with flat, expressionless eyes, although one turned to an ancient grandmother and said, ‘Yuh seen Mabel? This guy’s looking for her.’

  If Grandmother knew, she was not telling any Mountie. Mabel was dead all right, dead drunk, and if the policeman wanted her, he could go and find her himself.

  An old brave, being questioned about the liquor, hi
ccuped and said of course he hadn’t been drinking. It was against the law, on the reserve, didn’t Sergeant Coulter know? Then, pointing a crooked, contemptuous finger at the sky, he announced that the policeman could tell the white men that the thunder god had heard his people, and it would begin to rain in exactly seven hours.

  Exactly seven hours later, despite the weather forecasts, it began to rain. And how it rained!

  The children, having given up their shouting to warn One-ear of the impending cougar hunt, were making daisy chains for his thick neck. They sat quietly on his back under a huckleberry bush, alternately stringing flowers and filling their insatiable little maws.

  When they heard an insistent pitter-patter over their heads they refused to believe it was rain. But the patter soon took the sound of a thump, and then it became a drumming noise with drops of water half the size of teacups emptying down on them.

  Amazed, they stood, held up their hands and stuck out their tongues.

  Yes, it was certainly rain. A pounding, beating, heavy and very wet rain that made their cotton shirts stick to their shoulderblades like glue and clotted their hair against their skulls.

  But the thunder god began to play too roughly on his drum; he struck with wicked abandon, and they were alarmed. The god’s golden finger, jagged and hot, split a tree and they clung to each other, too surprised to move.

  When the god struck closer and melted a rock near them, Barnaby and Christie were unhurt but terrified. They joined hands and fled.

  One-ear, as frightened as they, had his coat singed. Spitting with rage and still wearing his gay garland, he pounced into the bushes, stopping only once to turn a snarling, defiant face to the heavens.

  Sobbing for breath, the children reached the edge of the forest and paused. But only for a second, for, peering through the bushes, and cunningly clad in a green suède jacket which made him almost invisible, was Uncle.

  Clasping hands again, and like leaves driven before a gale, they raced on until they reached the road. They saw Mr Allen and his dogs driving sheep along and they knew they were safe while in his sight.

  It was any port in a storm, and each headed for home, but not before Barnaby had turned a stricken face to Christie and said he must find a new hiding place for the gun. If Uncle followed them to the forest, he might well have followed them to Desmond’s. They felt time closing in on them, and they could take no more chances.

  Actually, although they had no way of knowing it, Uncle, like themselves, had been caught unawares by the storm. He had been busy watering his giant ferns in the heart of the forest when the downpour hit him.

  How cosy and warm and safe seemed the drab little parlour behind the store now. The old Franklin stove was like a beacon of comfort during the storm, with the damp, fragrant driftwood glowing and spitting cheerfully. The red milk-glass lamp on the table was lit, making even the shadows look like rosy old friends, while Mr and Mrs Brooks fussed lovingly over Barnaby and his wet clothes.

  His worn running shoes and dripping shirt and trousers were put on a chair before the fire to dry, and clad in a blanket he sat before the stove, gazing into the flames, wishing he never had to leave that little room again.

  Mrs Brooks spread a white cloth over the fringed green velvet cover as she laid the table for tea, setting out bread, butter, boiled eggs, jam, sardines and fruit cake. Barnaby toasted cheese sandwiches for them all on the open grate, looking over his shoulder to the two old people, who sat nodding on either side of the table. It was right to have them there, waiting for him, loving him, answering his smallest needs with anxious pleasure, and he knew now that he too loved them.

  When tea was finished, Mr Brooks brought out some of Dickie’s old books, and just as Sergeant Coulter had prophesied, there were Chums and Chatterboxes, some of them going back thirty years before even Dickie’s time.

  Barnaby thumbed through them, fascinated by the illustrations. Proud little girls swimming beneath big tam-o’- shanter hats and carrying muffs, their tiny ankles encased in fragile buttoned boots, and handsome boys wearing Eton jackets or sailor suits, leading ponies and dogcarts. How good it must have been to have lived then, when everything was so comfortable and solid and so safe. Not one of those boys looked as if he had a wicked uncle, and if he had, Barnaby knew that the stalwart little Berties and Toms and Georges would have made short shrift of such villainy.

  He began to read a story of a group of boys on holidays in Egypt. They were his age, and how brave! They went into the pyramids at night and found the treasure of an ancient king. Barnaby wondered if they would have been afraid if they had had to leave their warm beds, as he must, after Mr and Mrs Brooks were asleep, and go out alone into the dark and the storm, halfway across the Island to Desmond’s shack, to get the gun.

  He had already decided where he would hide it. Under a pew in the church.

  But how he hated to leave Mr and Mrs Brooks and the sanctuary of the little parlour. Only the thought of all those intrepid, splendid boys from Chums and Chatterbox helped him through the ordeal.

  It was all very well trying to be brave with Christie, but it was terrifying. It could have been such fun if he had had Steems Major and Minor along, and Tubby Toffee and the peerless Baines who was in the sixth form and captain of the cricket team.

  Arranging a murder wasn’t any fun on a dark night alone, with your only accomplice, a girl, probably sitting worrying if her hair would be curly tomorrow. He could almost see Christie, cosy in her flannel nighty, with Trixie and Tom, and the big black stove with the kettle bubbling as Auntie made hot cocoa for his partner in murder.

  Trembling and miserable, he accomplished his mission so quietly that he did not even awaken Desmond.

  The next morning poor Desmond began his third lesson. He was not an apt pupil, and the children were very discouraged. Fear, they discovered, put a slight edge to his wits, and it was reluctantly, but with a stern sense of duty, that Barnaby took the little grass snake from his pocket.

  Desmond began to whimper and dived under the table, but the children dragged him out.

  ‘Gee, Desmond, I sure hate to do this,’ said Barnaby as he dangled the snake before Desmond’s glazed eyes.

  Christie closed the door and turned with a sorrowing face.

  ‘Try and be brave, darling. It will only take a few minutes. Remember, it’s for your own good, so you won’t get hung. Now, you don’t want Sergeant Coulter to hang you, so please, dear, listen carefully.’

  Desmond’s lesson began.

  Five minutes later Christie sighed.

  ‘I see what my mother meant when she said children could try the patience of a saint.’

  ‘I think he’s got it straight now. Okay, Desmond, let’s hear it once more, that’s a good boy. I’ll put the snake away.’

  Poor Desmond sighed with relief as the snake disappeared into Barnaby’s pocket.

  ‘I shot the uncle,’ he said. ‘I mistaked him for the cougar.’

  ‘Mistook, darling.’

  ‘All right, once more, Desmond.’

  ‘I shot the cougar, I mistook him for the uncle.’

  ‘No! No!’ Christie stamped her foot.

  ‘Don’t shout at him, that doesn’t help,’ said Barnaby, taking the snake out of his pocket again.

  Desmond moaned and wrung his hands.

  ‘Only once more, Desmond.’

  ‘I shot the uncle, I mistook him for the cougar.’

  ‘Good boy, good boy. Now where did you get the gun, Desmond?’

  ‘I found it on the wharf.’

  The snake went back to Barnaby’s pocket as the children hugged Desmond.

  Barnaby went to the door, opened it, took the snake from his pocket again, patted its little head and gently set it free. It flipped its tail and slithered off the porch into the grass.

  Christie shuddered with relief. She hated the snake treatment, as did Barnaby, but it was necessary for poor Desmond’s salvation and there was nothing they wouldn’t do for p
oor Desmond.

  Christie’s conscience bothered her, and she tried to assuage it by stuffing Desmond with sweets and cookies. She kissed his empty brow as she offered him her day’s ration of licorice, plus an orange she had been saving for a week and some crumbly date squares. Barnaby gave him toffee, an apple and a wad of gum he had chewed for only half an hour.

  Sated, poor Desmond put his head wearily on the table and fell asleep. The children looked at him tenderly.

  ‘Well, we’ve done our best,’ said Barnaby, as they tiptoed away so they would not disturb him.

  THE ALMOST TROPICAL DOWNPOUR of rain replenished the water supply of the Island. The wells were filling, the gardens began to revive and dozens of little rills and streamlets again flowed bubbling and happy to the ocean.

  The heavy rains subsided and were replaced by a grey drizzle. Eerie mists crept through the Island, a fog hung over the water, and the inhabitants of the Island, their blood thinned by almost three months of unremitting heat, were chilled to the bone. Dove-coloured plumes of smoke floated like gauze streamers from every chimney and overnight the atmosphere became autumn.

  The children, who had no rain clothes, were outfitted haphazardly by their guardians. Barnaby wore a ragged Mackinaw which had once belonged to Per Nielsen. Auntie turned the sleeves back to the elbows, but they still reached his knuckles, and the tail of the coat dragged at his heels.

  Christie was garbed in a rusty-looking Burberry cape which Mrs Brooks had bought before the First World War. They were far too concerned about Uncle to care much about their appearance, but when Sergeant Coulter saw them he burst out laughing.

  They looked for all the world like two pathetic little characters from Oliver Twist, bent on a handkerchief-snitching mission.

  Sergeant Coulter, making arrangements for the cougar hunt, was almost gay. Clad in oilskins, he looked bigger and handsomer than ever to the two children when they met him on the porch of the store.

  He chucked Christie under the chin and winked at her, then, ruffling Barnaby’s damp yellow hair, he said cheerfully, ‘Well, Dodger, what did you steal today?’