The Pandervils

by Gerald Bullet

  At this very moment something began to happen.

  ‘I spy blaggs,’ said Nicky, suddenly breaking the silence.

  ‘Where?’ asked his companion sharply.

  ‘Over there!’ Nicky jumped to his feet and pointed. ‘There’s one, two …’

  His computation was interrupted. ‘Get down, you goat!’ said Tooley. ‘If they’re really blaggs, we’ll have to jolly well look out.’

  Nicky, dropping into the grass, realized that his hero Tooley was afraid. This distressed him: not because he despised the weakness but because, on the contrary, he shared it. His own fear was as yet of negligible dimensions, easy to control and to conceal: it owed its tenuous existence only to the face that ‘scooting’ at sight of an enemy was against the code.

  ‘There’s four of em,’ said Tooley, having crept on his belly to a point of vantage. ‘One’s got a basket. Wonder what they’re up to.’

  ‘Have they seen us, do you think?’ asked Nicky. ‘Our smoke’ll give us away, I expect.’

  Tooley made no answer, being still absorbed in his work of observation. Presently he said over his shoulder: ‘It’s two to one, Pandy. And one of ’em’s got a basket.’

  It made matters the worse, to Nicky’s mind, that one of them should carry a basket. The phrase had a sinister quality for him, and he wondered if Tooley shared this feeling. The enemy was no longer in his line of vision, for he still, remembering Tooley’s rebuke, kept under cover. It was in his mind to ask: ‘Shall we do a bunk, or stick it?’ But by long experience he knew himself incapable of voicing the suggestion. Two to one was heavy odds, in face of which you might retreat with dignity; but he looked to Tooley for a lead, that being the convention of their relationship; a chap could not seem to show funk until encouraged by his seniors to do so. Had the enemy been folks of their own kind, Nicky would not have felt like this. But these were different. The alien world, the world that existed beyond his immediate circle of friends and acquaintances, was divided for Nicky into blaggs and sops. These were enemy. He and his friends were ordinary folk. Sops, most of whom attended the Farringay Grammar School and flaunted green velvet caps with a golden badge, were objects rather of derision—perhaps of secret envy—than of definite hostility. But blaggs were quite another story, something almost subhuman. Blaggs—a term etymologists take pleasure in relating to blackguards — comprehended board-school boys, junior tramps, ill-disposed and ill-dressed strangers, and, pre-eminently, errand-boys with baskets. They were malicious and dirty; above all, dirty. There are two kinds of dirt. There is the honest dirt acquired by climbing trees and making mud-marbles, and, in general, not being a sop; and there is a dirt more than skin-deep, a pungent terrifying foulness perceptible equally to ears and eyes and nostrils—an emanation, as it seemed to Nicky, from the very soul of this alien race. In conflict with your fellows you might get black eyes and a bloody nose, and, what was even worse, you might get torn clothes that would mean dire trouble at home. All this was natural and acceptable enough. But once get caught by blaggs, and there was no knowing what they would do to you. In was this unknown that Nicky dreaded. There were bloodcurdling stories told, and these, though he happily did not recall them now, had left a precipitate of terror in him.

  ‘Are they coming this way?’ asked Nicky.

  ‘Shut your row!’ whispered Tooley. ‘They’ll hear you.’

  Without more words it was understood between them that though honour did not demand as yet that they should provoke a battle they were none the less precluded from deserting the field of danger. They were permitted to remain under cover; they were not permitted to retire. Each in his secret heart recognized, and perhaps a little resented, this romantic prohibition.

  Once again Tooley glanced sharply over his shoulder, but now, though his lips moved, he made no sound. By this portent Nicky knew that the worst of the ordeal was yet to come and that the enemy was nearing them. Exquisite the anxiety of the next few minutes, during which time the boy, not being absorbed in the emotion of the moment, was able at times to stand aside and see the whole episode objectively. It did not lose by this process anything of its essential quality, being rather enriched till this onlooker in Nicky had to admit that it was all very much worth while. This mood, however, was gone as soon as come, leaving him comfortless, unheroic, and the adventure unbeglamoured. More for company than for any strategic reason, he crawled on his belly towards the edge of the slope, not resting until he lay side by side with Tooley.

  Tooley said: ‘They’ve got some frogs or something down there. In the basket.’

  It was too dark to discern what was in the basket, but the conjecture was so plausible, and so well supported by past experience, that Nicky shivered, feeling a little sick.

  ‘What for?’ he said.

  The question was an idle one and was answered by the silence it deserved. Nicky knew as well as Tooley, as well as anyone, that ‘a bit of fun with frogs’ was one of the chief delights of blaggs. It was such things that constituted their blaggishness and made the very idea of them turn Nicky’s stomach. As the silence lengthened he was aware of a sickness moving inside him. Finding suspense unbearable he moved forward several stealthy inches and peered over the edge. The enemy, grouped at the bottom of the slope, were now clearly visible. One of their number was seated on an upturned basket, a straw in his mouth and something dark and alive in his hand. Three others stood by, watching, nudging, giggling, and encouraging him with obscene remarks. As the torture moved nearer its crisis Nicky knew that he could stay there no longer: he must go either backwards or forwards. At the same moment he heard Tooley whisper, close into his ear: ‘ Let’s go and stop it. What do you say?’ Nicky remembered that his right hand was clutching a large stone. Exultation filled him. The passive agony of watching was at an end.

  ‘You armed?’ he asked excitedly. And hardly waiting for an answer he struggled to his knees, gave a loud yell, and hurled his stone. He had aimed, having no thought for consequences, at the head of the Blagg-in-Chief, the fellow on the basket, but by happy chance his stone struck either the frog, so ending that bit of fun, or the hand that held the frog—he couldn’t see which. There was immediately an outburst of screaming blasphemy. Nicky jumped to his feet recklessly exposing himself, a stone in each hand. The other blaggs, at sight of him, shouted to their leader: ‘Geou on, Sid! Do ’im in, mate!’ It seemed tacitly agreed that the quarrel was to be tried by single combat, but Nicky, having been companioned for many months with more experienced warriors than himself, knew better than to trust these others to stand by and see fair play. The frog-torturer took a pace or two forward. ‘You come dahn ’ere!’ he said invitingly. ‘And see what you’ll blurry well git.’ By way of extra inducement he promised to castrate Nicky by an exceptionally painful process. Nicky stood waiting. His heart pumped furiously. That savage anger being once and for all spent in violence, he had nothing now but his own spirit to support him.

  ‘You’d better be off,’ he advised. ‘Better go home.’

  The blagg, encouraged by this mild cool voice, in which the trembling could hardly be disguised, began steadily and quickly climbing the slope.

  ‘Stand back,’ cried Nicky, ‘or you’ll get another one.’

  Yet now, lacking unequivocal provocation, he could not bring himself to fling, from his greater height, another stone at this enemy. He stood in an agony of indecision and saw with dismay that the three other blaggs were following close in the wake of their leader, growling like dogs. He had almost forgotten Tooley, who lay strangely passive in the grass.

  And now the foremost blagg was all but upon him. ‘’It ’im in the blurry eye, Sid, and ’ave done with it!’ shouted his gallant supporters. And at this cry the attack suddenly and dreadfully quickened its pace. It seemed to Nicky that monsters from all sides were bearing down upon him. But they were not bearing down, they were bearing up; and in that simple distinction lay his one advantage. Nervously at last, rather than with deliberation or i
ntention, Nicky flung his stones. Both went wide of the mark, and the four threatening forms coalesced and became, in this fast gathering darkness, an octopus of horror. Nicky clenched his fists and struck out wildly; and at the same time there came a tremendous shout at his side and Tooley, making enough noise for an army, was laying about him furiously with his heavy stick. Nicky’s fist reached something soft; the enemy scattered and gave ground. In ten seconds they were back on level ground at the bottom of the slope. Here they rallied and began a circling movement. Nicky, dancing round his burly but less nimble opponent, and not daring to come within reach of his long arm, saw in a quick glance to his left that the three others were closing murderously on Tooley. It became essential therefore that this big fellow should somehow be disposed of. There was no time to lose. Nicky ceased his cavorting and stood quite still, waiting for his opponent, who thereupon took up the dance and in a series of lurches and feints, withdrawals and advances, came at him with both fists threatening. Came nearer, but not much nearer; the fellow was taking his time, and Nicky felt as perhaps a mouse feels when the cat’s paw stretches towards it. Quite suddenly he got sick of waiting. He crouched, darted at his opponent, seized him round the hams, and flung him on his back. It was all over in a second. The body had fallen with a thud; Nicky paid no more attention to it, but turned at once to the rescue of his friend, to whose back a redheaded dirty-nosed blagg was clinging in an effort to throw him, while the other two, now armed with roughhewn cudgels, were rushing at him from the front. Nicky, wasting no time, thrust his hand under the chin of the climber and gave it a sharp jerk backwards; the fellow fell limply into the grass. It was all unbelievably easy; but Nicky judged, and judged truly, that this set-back, if it came short of finally defeating the enemy, would but infuriate them the more. It was on the tip of his tongue to say: ‘Quick, Tooley! Let’s do a bunk for it!’ But, as the two rascals picked themselves out of the grass, another idea visited him. He ran two paces up the slope, and making a trumpet of his hands called to the heights above: ‘Cooee, Brown! Cooee, Jones! Blaggs here! Up and at ’em!’ He was back in the battlefield in time to see Tooley making gestures of derision at four retreating figures. The battle was over.

  Vociferous, mutually admiring, and relating over and over again the chief incidents of the late war, the two boys hurried homewards.

  ‘I didn’t half give him a wunner,’ said Tooley. ‘But three to one was a bit too thick, it was. Lucky you came along when you did, Pandy.’

  ‘Funny the way my one flopped down,’ said Nicky. ‘Like as if he was dead, almost. Flabby lot they seem when you get at them.’

  And so on, a feast of triumph, excited rather than boastful, and already coloured a degree more richly than life by the artist hand of memory. They burst into song, a topical song of which Edward the Seventh’s hoped-for coronation was the theme:

  We’ll be merry

  Drinking whisky, wine and sherry,

  We’ll be merry

  On Coronation Day.

  ‘Walloping for me very likely,’ said Tooley. ‘Must be jolly late, you know.’ They reached the end of Tooley’s road and here their ways divided. ‘Glad it’s Saturday to-morrow, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicky. ‘You coming out, I s’pose?’

  ‘You bet,’ agreed Tooley. ‘Have you got to help your pater in the morning?’

  ‘Dessay I shall, but I’ll be coming out some time ‘fore dinner.’

  ‘All right then. See you down Coppice.’

  Nicky Pandervil walked thoughtfully on and turned into Farringay High Street. To his alarm he found Pandervil’s Stores in darkness. It was after closing-time! Already conscious of being in disgrace he knocked at the house door his special knock—two short taps close together, pause, and two more. It was opened to him by Selina Bush the young woman of all work.

  ‘Where you bin,’ said Selina, ‘this time of night? And just look at them dirty boots on my nice clean floor.’

  Nicky estimated these reproaches at their true worth and significance, which was nothing at all. He knew that he could get round Selina, and that Selina enjoyed being got round. ‘Where’s Ma?’ said he. ‘I say, Selina, is she in an awful wax about me?’

  ‘Your Ma’s ill-a-bed. Took worse she is, and calling people out of their names something dreadful. If it wasn’t for your poor father I wouldn’t stay another minute, and I don’t care who knows it.’

  To this recital the boy paid but little attention: he had heard it all so often before. That his mother was ill did not surprise or alarm him; she was always more or less ill. ‘Where’s Dad?’ said he.

  ‘In the kitchen at his supper,’ answered Selina. ‘Where else? And you just wash them hands, me lord, before you takes a single bite. Why, what’s this?’ She seized Nicky by the shoulders and drew him towards the jet of gaslight that dimly lit the little hall. Nicky, flinching under her scrutiny, became aware of his swollen underlip. He wriggled free and plunged into the kitchen to greet his father.

  ‘Hullo, Dad!’

  His father, thin, grey-whiskered, elderly, was seated at the kitchen table munching bread and dripping, with one eye on his newspaper, which was propped against the loaf. At his son’s entry he looked up, peered over the rims of his reading spectacles, and gazed in mild surprise. It was his customary welcome, for he had never, it seemed, quite outlived his astonishment at being the begetter of so young and lively a thing as Nicky. Always when taken unawares, as now, he had the air of seeing the miracle for the first time.

  ‘Well, my boy?’ said he. Then, remembering something, he shook his head gravely. ‘Where’ve you been all this time? Didn’t I tell you you got to be in at seven o’clock sharp? And your lip’s swollen, if I know anything.’

  ‘Yes, but you see, Dad, me and Tooley got into an adventure …’

  ‘I dessay you did,’ said his father grimly. ‘But that doesn’t answer my question. Seven o’clock sharp means seven o’clock sharp, and it doesn’t mean half-past eight, not by any manner of means. See?’

  Nicky saw. He was silent. He took his place at the table without a word, but during the next five minutes he shot many a shy tentative glance at his father, who, having resumed his reading, contrived to appear not to notice these mute appeals, and made a stern show of opening out the newspaper, re-folding it at a new page, and holding it before his face.

  Presently Nicky ventured to say: ‘Hullo, Dad!’

  ‘Well?’ said his father.

  ‘Tooley and me,’ said Nicky, ‘we had an adventure to-night down Coppice.’

  ‘H’m!’ Mr Pandervil did not raise his eyes from his reading. ‘Down Coppice Piece?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicky. And then he achieved a phrase that had been running like music in his mind for half an hour past. ‘We had a brush with the blaggs, Dad.’

  His father let fall the newspaper and leaned forward. ‘A brush with the blaggs, eh? Let’s hear about it, my boy.’

  2

  After that grim experience school was for a while a definitely pleasant part of life, not merely something neither good nor bad that was taken for granted. All the world, it seemed—a world comprising the thirty-three boys in Nicky’s form— was talking of Tooley and Pandervil’s marvellous exploit: how they had assaulted and put to flight a dozen large and dreadful blaggs. It was Hart who, in the excess of his devotion to Pandy, had multiplied the number of blaggs by three: not in a spirit of mere mendacity but because he was carried into a poetic flight by the exuberance of his feelings. Hart was a small, dark, dynamic creature, and Pandy’s special friend in school and playground, Tooley being his boon companion only out of school hours. To Tooley, who was a Fifth Form boy, Nicky Pandervil was a mere kid, and it was only the accident of their homes being so near each other that drew them together. Tooley was a home friend; Hart, who lived two miles in the opposite direction, was a school friend; and Nicky, who had never given to this distinction, or to the paradox arising from it, a moment’s thought, was yet aware of
it. The paradox was that with Tooley, who was merely ‘a chap he knew’, he was on visiting terms, whereas of the domestic life of Hart, his sworn chum, he knew and was content to know nothing at all.

  ‘Did you hit him on the nose, Pandy?’ Days had passed since the great event, but Hart had not yet tired of it.

  ‘Well,’ said Nicky, ‘it felt like a nose, but I couldn’t exactly see.’

  ‘Good man!’ Hart’s eyes flashed in vicarious triumph. ‘Did it bleed a good lot, d’you think?’

  Unanswerable question. ‘First it felt sort of hard and then it felt sort of soft, like … like bread and milk.’

  ‘Oo!’ cried Hart. ‘P’raps you broke his beastly nose for him, hey?’

  Nicky shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said modestly. He was surprised and a little repelled by Hart’s pleasure in the slaughter, though warmed by his admiration. ‘There goes first bell.’

  First bell was a warning tinkle; second bell, longer, was a summons. The noise in the playground did not perceptibly diminish, although plump Mr Glove, the youngest of the three masters, stood watchful in the schoolroom doorway with the bell in his hand ready to ring again.

  ‘I say, Pandy!’ A rawboned lad with red ears and prominent teeth came running up. ‘Have you and Hart seen what old Mountain’s been and written up in the lavvatry?’

  ‘No,’ said Nicky. ‘What has he?’

  Red Ears giggled. ‘Come and have a squint at it.’ Nicky made no response. ‘Come on, Hart!’

  ‘If it’s so funny, tell us, can’t you!’ suggested Nicky. ‘First bell’s gone.’

  ‘Oh come on, Pandy,’ said Hart, pulling at his arm.

  Old Mountain, whose age was twelve and a half, was still admiring his own handiwork when Nicky and Hart joined his audience. They pushed forward to get a clear view of the masterpiece. Nicky rather disliked Mountain, but he was curious to see what he had written. He saw, and made a grimace at what he saw. It was the usual thing and just like Mountain, thought Nicky; and he felt a twinge of shame for his now satisfied, or frustrated, curiosity. He suddenly wanted to take it out of that swanker Mountain, who was now adding to his laurels by reciting all the naughty words he knew.