“I wondered who it could be. Thought you had a phonograph with you,” he said mildly. “Is that your trap with the pony tied to the tree, sir?”
Mr. Jones said it was; and the farmer went on to say something about not drinking from the pond across the lane unless it was well-boiled first, owing to mosquitoes there. The only safe drinking water was from the well in his farmyard.
“I didn’t expect your boys until tomorrow, sir. I told your sergeant that these ’ere woods was thick with ’skeeters when he come and see me at Shrofften, about a camp in the paddock end of the orchard. You like the woods better, eh?”
“Good God, are there any more of you? Did you all squeeze in under that little brolly last night?” asked Mr. Jones, pointing at the tent.
“Oh, Peter Wallace has to go to the Unitarian chapel on Sundays,” said Phillip quickly. He trod on Cranmer’s foot to warn him not to say anything about them. Peter Wallace wore three stripes of silver on his sleeves taken from his father’s old Volunteer uniform. Unobtrusively Phillip rolled his tell-tale Bloodhound pennant round the top of his pole.
When the farmer had gone, Mr. Jones said the woods were not healthy. Phillip agreed, thinking of the coming of Peter Wallace and the Greyhounds. He thought that they would leave fairly soon. Then, looking up, he saw a policeman coming through the wood; and beside the policeman was his father.
Phillip remembered all his life the details of that Sunday towards the end of August, 1908. First, the ride through the forsaken early morning along the empty tram-lines, then the open road to Whitefoot Lane corner, the quiet creeping into the wood, hiding his bicycle, and the smell of tobacco smoke across his nostrils; avoidance of the policeman; the closed tent and the robin peering at him; the frying of breakfast around the fire; Mr. Jones appearing like a Jack-in-the-box; and then the awful shock he got when he saw Father with the policeman.
Father looked grave. He spoke to Mr. Jones apart, with the policeman. Then Mr. Jones said he wanted to speak to Basil. Basil looked very frightened afterwards, and began to cry. He left with Mr. Jones, in his trap. Then Father, when Mr. Jones had driven off, and the policeman had saluted him and left also, told him to see that the other boys got to their homes as soon as possible.
“No need to hurry, Phillip, but do not delay,” smiled Father, giving them all a salute. “Mrs. Jones, you see, has been taken ill, so we came out to find Basil.”
When Phillip got home he found Mother talking to Mrs. Bigge and Grannie in the front room. They all looked as though they had been crying. Then Mother told him that God had taken Basil’s mother, and his little baby brother, too.
*
The baby had a tiny white coffin to itself, beside the big wooden one. This, said Mother, was because it had lived for a few hours after it had been born early on the Sunday morning, long enough for the rector of St. Cyprian’s, a very good and broad-minded man, to baptise it in Mrs. Jones’ bedroom. Mother told them about it at tea, on the day of the funeral. She cried as she told them, her face wrinkled up. Mavis and Doris cried, too.
“I was the poor little baby’s godmother, you see, children. Mrs. Jones was all alone, and when Basil had joined Phillip’s patrol, she confided in me. She told me”—here Hetty cried again, and her voice was stifled for a few moments—“that the reason why she wanted Basil to join Phillip’s patrol was because she thought that Phillip was a perfect little gentleman, and she said she would like her little son to be called Phillip.”
This was so surprising to Phillip that he began to cry too, before immediately leaving the room; and that night he said his prayers, for the first time for many weeks, telling God that he would try and be a better boy in future, and please would God forgive him for being so wicked in church in the past. Mrs. Jones’ pale face, with her faint reddish hair and pale blue eyes seemed to be smiling gently at him in the darkness, as he hid his face in the damp pillow, feeling himself to be very small and clear, as he had when a child, when Father was Daddy, who was warm to lie upon, whose arms had kept the darkness from him.
Part Two
SOME SCOUTING FOR BOYS
“A Scout smiles and whistles under all difficulties.”
The Sccut Law.
Chapter 13
ENTER MR. PURLEY-PROUT
ONE Friday evening in the autumn Phillip went as usual to return his library book. This one was called Forty Years among Cannibals, by a Missionary. He had changed the title round, but in pencil, so that it now read Forty Years among Missionaries, by a Cannibal. Having handed in the volume, which was disappointing since it had been very little about cannibalism—“over that we will draw a discreet veil”—he went into the reading room, to look at the newspapers.
Phillip’s motive in taking out the missionary book had not been due entirely to a desire for sensationalism. For a week or two he had, after joining the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, attended meetings held in St. Simon’s Church Hall, and found them rather depressing. There were prayers, and talks, all in a subdued key, from which he learned nothing; for Mr. Mundy seldom appeared, though when he did, he was interesting, as he spoke about Roman Britain, and in particular the Hill and surrounding country, in the pre-Christian era. The other people in the meeting were rather doleful, Phillip thought; they made him feel sort of foggy. But what had closed his phase of semi-religiosity had been a rather scaring experience in the High Street one night.
He was passing the Salvation Army hall, when a salvationist spoke to him; and when he stopped, invited him inside. Rather fearfully Phillip went, to find a kind of bare little church or mission room where old people, one of them tipsy, were sitting on wooden chairs. There were prayers; each one present had to pray out loud. One old woman called Mary moaned and said, “I have slipped back”, and she did not pray. Then the old tipsy man shouted out that his load was too heavy, so it must be transferred to the Lord Jesus. Then, to his horror, the salvationist who had brought him in knelt by him and said, “Now tell the Lord Jesus your sins, brother, and He will wash them all away.” Phillip did not know what to say; so he knelt there, wondering if they were going to kidnap him, and would he ever see his home again? When he said nothing, the man kneeling beside him said, “This child’s heart is too full, O Lord, for him to speak; but we will all say the Lord’s Prayer together, and when he is stronger, he will be able to cast away sin, and trust in the Lord.”
Then they all cried Hallelujah! several times; and at last Phillip got away; but not before they had asked for his address. Still in a flurry, he had given his name as Wilberforce Pye, with an address of a made-up number in Charlotte Road. That was a new worry he had added to his mind; which he had escaped by avoiding both the Salvation Army uniform and the meetings of the S.P.G. in St. Simon’s Hall.
Another adventure was in store for Phillip, however. It began when, in the Free Library that night, he read in The Kentish Mercury a letter signed Yours in Xt, Rupert Purley-Prout, Scoutmaster, The North West Kent Troop of Baden-Powell Boy Scouts.
He read the letter eagerly. The writer invited all who were scouts already, or who wanted to be scouts, in the district lying within three miles of the Crystal Palace to write to him at his Mother’s address in Sydenham. Phillip copied the name and address into his Scout’s diary, and having said goodbye to Cranmer, hastened home. He intended to tell his news to Peter Wallace, with whom he had made a truce, after returning the brothers’ subscriptions to the Tent Fund.
Bloodhounds and Greyhounds were now on good terms. Clad in proper uniforms, they had manoeuvres together on Reynard’s Common, followed by camp fires almost side by side.
When Phillip got to the Wallaces’ house he saw a hollow turnip, in the form of a skull, with a lighted candle flickering inside, hanging in the porch. By the noise within, the Wallaces were having a party.
“Come in, Phillip, come in!” cried Nimmo Wallace, opening the door.
Inside, the front room was lit by candles only. The Wallace girls and boys were trying to bite apple
s on strings, or hold oranges in their teeth as they floated on the water of a hip-bath. There were several pairs of hazel nuts roasting, like chestnuts, on the lower bars of the grate. These were to tell the fortunes of the bright-eyed lassies, said Mrs. Wallace.
The Wallace family consisted of, besides the parents, three boys and three girls. The youngest of them was Nimmo, whom Phillip liked. Nimmo was very thin and merry, with big teeth in front; he had blue eyes and fair curly hair, and was always laughing. He gave Phillip a handful of walnuts he had cracked for himself.
“Go on, Phillip, do have ’em, I’ve had lots already!” Nimmo was always giving things away.
Cakes, grapes, figs, dates, almonds and raisins stood on the table, with ginger wine and shortbread. Phillip was surprised to find that Mr. Wallace, a genial man with big white teeth and a curled black moustache, did not look a bit like a man who had thrashed Peter; though he had the scar of Peter’s bite on the back of his left hand, as Phillip saw when Mr. Wallace put his arm on Peter’s shoulder. They both seemed to like each other. Mr. Wallace said that boggles, flibbertigibbets, and wandering wullies were about on that night, playing tricks, for it was Hallowe’en. He suggested that Phillip should go and ask his Father for permission to join the party, which was to end at midnight. He and Mr. Maddison, he said, were members of the Miniature Rifle Association. “Give him my compliments, Phillip, and say I sent you to ask him.”
“Yes, Mr. Wallace! Thank you very much indeed!”
Phillip ran all the way up Hillside Road, finally dashing up under the porch with a shriek, feeling a ghost was about to grab him.
In the sitting room Father and Mother were playing chess. Mother looked up and smiled at him, but Father continued to stare at the board, his beard resting on his hand, the finger up by his moustache as usual.
“Well, dashed if I know how to get out of this,” said Father at last, looking up with a genial expression. “In two moves you will have me checkmate, Hetty. My word, I do not like the look of this at all!”
“I am very sorry, dear,” said Mother, looking pleased. “I didn’t mean to.”
“O-oh!” replied Father. “Why spoil it by telling me? Surely you knew what you were doing when you moved that knight there?”
Mother was laughing now. She shook her head at Phillip, to mean she had no idea of what she had done. “I thought it might be a good move, dear, certainly. Isn’t it?”
“You women are the blessed limit, ’pon my soul! Don’t you want to win?”
“Yes dear, of course, naturally,” replied Hetty, leaning back and smiling at Phillip, who winked at her. Father had tried to teach him chess, too, without result. “I don’t really know what made me make that move.”
“A ghost,” suggested Phillip. “It’s Hallowe’en, you know.”
At this Father looked up at him, seeming to be quite pleased.
“Mr. Wallace sends his compliments to you, Father, and asks me to ask you to let me join his Hallowe’en party, until it ends at midnight. All the Wallace children are staying up for it.”
“What do you say, Mother?”
“Why yes, Dickie, provided Phillip has done his homework.”
“Yes Mum, I did it before I went to the library.”
“Very well, I give my permission,” said Father. “But mind you come straight home afterwards.”
“Yes Father, thank you,” said Phillip; and having washed, and flattened his hair with water and brush, he ran back to the house in Charlotte Road. There he told Peter Wallace about the letter in The Kentish Mercury.
*
The Bloodhounds were now up to full strength. After Basil Jones had left, his place had been filled by a boy called Ching, but only after a certain amount of bother. Phillip had never liked Ching. They were in the same form, and sometimes walked to school together over the Hill. Milton was an occasional third; he lived in one of the big houses of Twistleton Road, and sometimes walked over the Hill for variety. Ching, thought Phillip, was a hanger-on; he never knew when he was not wanted.
Ching’s talk about girls, how babies came, and other such matters embarrassed Phillip when in the company of Milton. Milton never answered, or took part in Ching’s talk. Phillip felt that Milton was far above it; for was he not a friend of the Rolls? Milton lived in the next house to Mr. Gould, the father of Mrs. Rolls.
Ching had a red round face with protruding eyes and ears, and thick lips. Phillip had disliked him ever since, sitting with him in the bushes above the gully, Ching had showed him how to do something, and then, breaking off, had tried to do it to him. Being rebuffed, Ching had suddenly spat in Phillip’s eye, and then run away. Phillip had refused to speak to him for a full week after that, not for what Ching had wanted to do, but for the beastly way he had spat; and then, tired of silence, Phillip had spoken to Ching again, but without shaking hands, as Ching would not agree to apologise.
When Ching joined the Bloodhounds he was tiresome. In Phillip’s words, he mucked about all the time. He took no heed of orders on manoeuvres, he tried to trip up other scouts by putting his pole between their ankles, and was always inventing enemies who were not there. And when Ching did not pay his subscription for three weeks, Phillip sent him a postcard informing him that he could consider himself drummed out. He addressed the card to Mr. Tom Ching, M(ud) P(usher), afterwards smudging the ink across the face of the card, to give it a funny appearance—the sort of joke Ching would play on anyone.
To his surprise Ching called at his house the next evening, to complain. Mother went to the door, and from the kitchen Phillip heard Ching’s doleful voice. He got up; and seeing him, Ching intensified his injured air, and asked to talk with him in private. Admitted into the kitchen, Ching demanded an apology for the insult done to him. Why had Phillip called him a Mud Pusher? What had he done to deserve such a slur?
“Can’t you take a joke?”
“I don’t call it a joke.”
“I do.”
“I know you do.”
“Well then, what’s all the fuss about?”
“You know very well.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“You’re a liar.”
“So are you.”
“Will you fight?” cried Phillip.
“Why should I?”
“Because you complain of a joke of the kind you play on people—only worse!”
“I don’t!”
“You do! I can prove it!”
“Prove it then!”
“I will when I want to, not before.”
“You can’t!”
“I can.”
“You can go to old Nick!”
“So can you, Brother Smut! You filthy spitter!”
“What about your postcard? You ought to apologise.”
“I certainly will not! You never did, after gobbing in my eye!”
It seemed to be a deadlock. The two boys stood by the table, Ching with his injured air, Phillip with a suggestion of amused superciliousness on his face as he regarded the pale blue glass-bottle-stopper eyes, so pretending to be hurt, before him. The greasy hypocrite!
“Then Father says I ought to leave your patrol.”
“That will be good riddance to bad rubbish. Anyway, you’re drummed out already.”
Richard returned home while they were standing there. After hanging up hat, coat, and umbrella, he entered the kitchen to change his boots.
To Phillip’s silent contempt, Ching showed him the postcard, saying, in a very doleful voice, “I have asked your son for an apology, Mr. Maddison, but he refuses to give it.”
Richard looked at the smudged address.
“Phillip, you should apologise for that piece of gratuitous rudeness!”
Phillip said nothing.
Richard waited. At length he said,
“Very well, I shall apologise on your behalf to your friend!”
“He’s not my friend,” muttered Phillip.
Mavis came into the room
just then, and Ching, seeing her, licked his lips quickly, and brightened up. He would not go, after Father had picked up his slippers and taken them down to the sitting room, so Phillip, for a hint, led Ching to the front door, opened it, and said goodnight.
Still Ching would not take the hint, so Phillip pushed him out, and shut the door. He was doing his homework when Father came into the kitchen and said he must go round to Ching’s house and apologise to Mr. Ching.
“If you use a householder’s letter-box as a means of insulting others, at least you shall, while you live under my roof, express your regret to the householder in no uncertain fashion. Do you understand? There is such a thing as libel and defamation of character, my boy!”
“Yes, Father.”
“And if you are punished tomorrow for not doing your homework, you will have only yourself to blame.”
Scared about possible legal action, Phillip went round to Ching’s house. Ching’s sister came to the door.
“It’s Phillip,” she called over her shoulder. “Ask him in, dear, do not let him remain standing at the door,” called a voice that he recognised as belonging to Mrs. Ching.
Phillip had been once before in that house. It had a peculiar musty smell, probably from Mr. Ching, he thought. Mr. Ching was short and rather toad-like, with wide mouth and heavy clean-shaven face. He had a shaking right hand like a fin, and spoke slowly, rolling his tongue round his wide mouth. He had had a stroke, Phillip understood, not knowing what that was, except that it was rather unpleasant to have to shake hands with a cold flabby hand working all the time like a flipper. He had dead sort of eyes, like Mrs. Ching’s, and those of Tom Ching also. Mrs. Ching spoke dolefully, reproving him for calling her son a Mud Pusher.
“It isn’t very nice, is it, Phillip, to call a friend of yours by such a term? It upset Mr. Ching very much, and he has had a lot to contend with in life as it is.”
Young Phillip Maddison Page 19