Young Phillip Maddison

by Henry Williamson

  And that was the end of the Bloodhound Patrol.

  Part Three

  THE WIND’S WILL

  “Not I, but the wind——”

  D. H. Lawrence

  Chapter 18

  SPRING FEVER

  DURING the winter Phillip discovered a big red book in the Free Library which had a list of all the villages of Kent, with their populations, industries, and principal landowners. The first place he looked for was where he had camped at Whitsun. The lord of the manor and principal landowner was the Right Honourable the Earl of Mersea, K.G. Knollyswood Park was the residence of the Dowager Countess of Mersea.

  Reading the description, Phillip thought of writing to the Dowager Countess for permission to photograph birds in the park with his camera. Peter Wallace had got permission to go in Whitefoot Lane woods, so why shouldn’t he, in this ever so much better place?

  In another volume among the thick red reference books he read how to write a letter to a peer or peeress of the realm. He copied out the specimen letter carefully upon a piece of paper; then returning to the Gazetteer, he searched for other names of landowners in North West Kent. Excited by the idea, he imagined Desmond and himself, with his Christmas-present five-bob Brownie, exploring far and wide in their secret preserves. They would study Nature and take wonderful photographs!

  Obsessed by his idea, he hastened to the lending section and took out a book on the topography of North West Kent. It had several maps and photographs. He spent the next hour looking up villages on the map within a dozen miles of his home, where woods and streams were marked, and in transcribing particulars from the large red Gazetteer. Why not fishing, too? But perhaps he had better not ask for too much at once, in case it looked greedy, and permission therefore be refused.

  There was no Cranmer to be met at the Free Library nowadays; so with his information he hurried home, and copied out the names and addresses, in code, into his Schoolboy’s Diary. This had been another Christmas present: it had sketches of birds and animals in the corners of some of the pages, with brief descriptions. He knew them all by heart—fox, otter, badger, deer, hare, rabbit, stoat, pine-marten—capercailzie, pheasant, partridge, wren, ring-dove, owl, eagle.

  Phillip had entered the most important things of the New Year in code. Therein were the names of rare motorcars; the times he had seen Helena Rolls in the distance; and when he had met Cranmer, one Sunday afternoon, down in the Warm Kitchen, below where the promenaders walked by the bandstand. In code, now, went the names and addresses of his preserves, as he thought of them.

  The Rt. Honble Dowager Countess of Aesrem. Doowsyllonk Park, Vulpine’s Vulgar, Kent.

  Major Sir H.A.H.F. Drannel, Trab. Lampbacon Court, West Lampbacon.

  Henry Souman Esq., The Swizzery, Bee Yoho ley Common.

  The Dowager Lady Ynasnud, Finished Stall Priory, Poemoaks.

  The Honble Mrs. Edraw, Sq Norfolk Broadses Court, Easterbacon.

  The Lord Yrubeva, Tall Yellow Leaves in Autumn, Closen-borough.

  The Earl Epohnats, Drofsnye, Kent.

  These precautions would conceal the whereabouts of his preserves should he lose his diary, and some spy such as Ching find it and try and copy him. However, even if Ching found out that some of the names were spelt backwards, he would have to think very hard to puzzle out that when you were swizzed you were rooked, that Tall Yellow Leaves in Autumn meant High Elms, Lamp was Wick, Bacon Ham, Yoho—fifteen dead men on a dead man’s chest, Yoho for a bottle of rum—Finished was Dun, Close was Far, and hardest of all, Norfolk Broads was wherries, or the Old English spelling Uerries.

  Phillip’s handwriting in his diary was almost of a copperplate engraving care and precision: in his diary was his pride of life, his passion, expressed in the regularity of the lettering made with firm strokes, and careful forming of loops and circles. This was his writing when he lived in what he was recording; in contrast to the formless and irregular scrawl of perplexity and distaste, the deadness in his school exercise-books. The letter he wrote that evening in the kitchen would have pleased, and certainly surprised Richard, had he seen it before Phillip slipped out to catch the half past eight collection in the red pillar-box in Charlotte Road.

  The letter was not entirely of his own composition. Mr. Newman, in his little cottage opposite the Randiswell Baths, had made some suggestions as to how to make the best impression on so great a lady as the Dowager Countess of Mersea. Phillip borrowed a piece of Gran’pa’s best rag-made grey writing paper for the copperplate final draft.

  Lindenheim,

  Wakenham,

  Kent.

  2 March 1910.

  To

  THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE DOWAGER COUNTESS OF MERSEA Madam,

  I have the honour to present my Compliments to your Ladyship, and to request that the cause of scientific knowledge be advanced by permission for myself and my friend to roam your Ladyship’s land, both arable, grazing, and park, for the purpose of taking photographs of wild birds and their nests in situ, without disturbance or in any way causing distress to the feathered songsters for which the writer has the greatest regard. I have some knowledge of the art and mystery of farming, and would in no wise cause damage or leave any gates open, so to cause possible straying of cattle, horses, sheep, or other live stock. I am fourteen years of age, and a student at Heath School, founded in Elizabethan times by the famous donor of our local Almshouses.

  I have the honour to be,

  Madam,

  Your Ladyship’s Most Obedient Serva

  PHILLIP MADDISON.

  The envelope of this missive, as he called it to himself, was sealed with red wax, and impressed with a signet ring he borrowed from a drawer in Father’s bedroom.

  When a reply came two days later, in a grey envelope with a thin black band all round it, and a crest with motto on the flap, he opened it with trembling fingers holding the bread-knife to cut the top carefully; and taking out a white card, also lined with black, read first the signature beneath, Constance Mersea, then the word Permission on top, in shaky slanting writing. Permission for Mr. Phillip Maddison and friend to enter the woods!

  “Hurray, hurray, hurray!” he shouted.

  When he had told Mother she said, “Finish your tea, dear, before going down to see Desmond. And be sure to write a note and thank your benefactor for her great kindness, won’t you?”

  Phillip was too excited to listen; and pressing two pieces of bread and beef dripping together, he gulped his cup of tea, and with cheeks bulging ran down the road to give the wonderful news to Desmond. There he had a second tea, before going on down to tell the news to Mr. Newman.

  The housekeeper, shawl over shoulders, small round wrinkled face and white hair scrimped up in a wispy bun at her neck, opened the door to him, and with her smiling little bow stepped back for him to come in. Mr. Newman was sitting in his parlour, the walls of which were lined with all the same kind of pictures. Blue and red predominated. In each one a volcano was erupting above the sea, while below ships were at anchor in icy cold water. There were seven such pictures, two on each of the three walls side by side, while the largest was alone, over the fireplace.

  Phillip thought that Mr. Newman’s treasures represented his past life. If this was so, he must have spent some time at anchor, canvas furled so closely that he had never been able to sail away in time from those great eruptions of flame, steam, and cinder. Mr. Newman had told him about his visits to Italy, Japan, Iceland, and Mexico; and Phillip had assumed that he had been a sailor, as sometimes Mr. Newman wore an old peaked cap, while sitting by his iron grate shaped like a sea-shell. What adventures he must have had! The largest picture over his chimney piece was one of the Great Fire of San Francisco, while his frigate, every stitch rolled, lay at anchor in the bay.

  Mr. Newman must have seen some fighting with cannibals, too. On the wall hung a cutlass with its golden hanging knot; next to it a Polynesian painted mask and two crossed boomerangs; a jagged-bladed fishing spear with a
light wood shaft. There were models of wooden ships in bottles, all with sails flying; and beside the hearth, by the bellows, a funny brown velvet cap, a pill-box hat, with a tassel hanging from it. Mr. Newman said it was a smoking cap, from Heidelberg in Germany.

  Then there were the cabinets, shells, and bird’s eggs which lay, some in cotton wool, in many tiers of shallow drawers, around the walls.

  “Ah, it is my little friend!” exclaimed the thin old gentleman, rising from his tattered leather armchair to bow and take Phillip’s hand. “What a pleasure to see you again. Pray take a chair, and draw up to the fire. I have wondered since last we met how you have fared with your letter writing. Ah, I see you have something to show me,” as he felt for his glasses in his breast pocket. To his housekeeper he said, “The tray, if you please, and the barrel of biscuits.”

  Mr. Newman always said this whenever Phillip called; and his housekeeper always half-curtsied before withdrawing behind a curtain, to reappear with a silver tray on which was a decanter of wine and two glasses. She took the biscuit barrel from a shelf, and put it on a hassock beside Phillip. Mr. Newman was reading the card Phillip had given him.

  “Permit me to congratulate you, dear boy, and to say that I am sure you will prove worthy of such a privilege. Now may I offer you a little port wine, with a biscuit?”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Newman.”

  Phillip liked Mr. Newman’s port wine. It gave him a rusty-stinging warmness as it went down his gullet, to lay warm in his stomach. The biscuits were Osbornes, oval and crisp. He ate two; and after looking at some of the birds’ eggs in their trays, he said, unconscious of his abruptness, “I must go now, I think,” and shaking hands with Mr. Newman remembered the half-mechanical “Thank you for your hospitality, sir,” and hurriedly left the house to hasten back to Desmond.

  *

  Exhilarated by his success, Phillip borrowed more writing paper from Gran’pa, and sent his requests to the owners of woods and coverts at the places he had recorded in code in his diary. The baronet of “Lampbacon Court” replied in clear but shaky handwriting, giving permission; but asking Mr. Phillip Maddison kindly to see the keeper before entering the coverts. The squire whose Queen Anne red brick house was behind the noisy and extensive rookery set back from the road along “Bee Yoho ley” Common also gave permission to Mr. Maddison and friend to walk over his estates. The chatelaine of the big house at “Easterbacon” likewise gave her consent, adding that fishing in the mere was permitted only after hay-making; while his Lordship of “Tall Yellow Leaves” wrote that he would be most pleased to give permission for Mr. Phillip Maddison to pursue his Nature Studies on his property.

  Phillip swore both Desmond and Mrs. Neville to secrecy, before he showed them these replies. After tea, he and Desmond sat at the kitchen table, when it was cleared, and experimented with Desmond’s electrical apparatus. There was a coil of green-silk-covered wire, which when connected with Desmond’s curved pocket accumulator, with its transparent celluloid case, buzzed almost evilly with a hard little star-like spark. Two hollow brass handles extended on wire from the terminals; and when you touched these you got a shock.

  So far Phillip had been afraid to hold them while the blue spark was buzzing like a little fly of hell that would never die under a spider’s fangs. Sometimes the blue spark turned green and threw off a wisp of smoke about a red speck; it was eating the brass spring away. Now, emboldened by his good fortune, he held the handles firmly while the coil was switched off, and said, “Try me!” Desmond moved over the switch, and the next moment Phillip had fallen sideways off his chair, with a loud and surprised shout. Picking himself up, he asked Desmond in an anxious voice if he supposed his Mother up in the drawing room had heard the word he had used, and been shocked? In case she had, he went up to apologise.

  Mrs. Neville, crochetting in her armchair by the fire, showed surprise on her large face at the subdued question. No, she had heard nothing to shock her, she said gently. Had Neville’s experiment been a little strong? Oh no, replied Phillip, it had caught him on the hop, that was all; and after showing an interest in her work, he withdrew, with a slight bow, leaving Mrs. Neville with her face as straight as his … until he had gone out of the room, when the fat woman began to shake with silent laughter. There was another shout soon afterwards, when Desmond held the brass handles in order to do what Phillip could do.

  After that, it was time for Phillip to leave, to do his homework. He had given up taking The Scout, The Gem Library, and The Magnet; and in their place he bought the week-old copies of The Field and The Autocar from the Public Library, for two-pence. The only trouble with the copies was that they were dirty, particularly at the bottom corners of the pages, where the print was usually rubbed out by the grimy fingers of the Dogeared Brigade.

  *

  One Wednesday afternoon in Eastertide two boys on bicycles, each wearing a haversack containing a packet of banana sandwiches and slices of plum cake, crossed the familiar flint and gravel road across Reynard’s Common. It was a warm day; the wind of morning had dropped; sunshine lay over the linnet-haunted heath.

  They entered Knollyswood Park by three oak steps, which led up to a swing gate, built in the long oak-cleft fence. Lifting over their bicycles, they hid them in the bracken growing below silver birch and other trees within. Walking away, eager to explore the new hunting grounds, Phillip was startled to hear a laughing, almost mocking cry in front. He stopped, his hand on Desmond’s shoulder, as a bird of many bright colours seemed to dive up in its flight over the greensward and stick to the white bole of a big birch in front.

  “A green woodpecker!” he whispered. “I saw one on the Socialist Oak on the Hill once, just like it!”

  The woodpecker looked at them round the bole, its red head moving snake-like; then it moved back and hid. Phillip could hear its claws on the bark. Again came the wild mocking cry, then it was flying away from the top of the tree, rising and falling in a series of half-loops.

  “Come on, man!” said Phillip, and they ran to the tree.

  The birch was a thick one, with many chippings spread around its base. One of the upper branches was snapped off, and lying below in the ferns. The wood had rotted, becoming tinder, but the white bark was still round and firm.

  “It’s the oil in it that preserves it, Desmond. And look, can you see the holes in the trunk up there?” he pointed. “That’s where it chisels out insects in the wood. And golly, that round hole among them is its nest! Here, give us a bunk up!”

  He started to climb. Desmond pushed him up until he reached the lowest branch. The nesting hole was about twenty-feet above. Phillip reported, as he clung to the trunk, that it went in about three inches before it turned downwards. “It’s the nest, all right. But it is too early for eggs. We ought to leave it, in case the bird deserts. You can have a look next time.” He climbed down, dropping the last six feet upon the sward.

  “Come on, man, isn’t it a wonderful preserve?”

  The next nest they found was in a holly tree, out of which a woodpigeon clattered noisily. There was a small platform of crossed black twigs on one of the branches. It was Desmond’s turn to climb up. The tree was easy.

  “Careful of any eggs” called up Phillip. Desmond reached the nest, and said, “Two white eggs.”

  “The ring dove is the farmer’s enemy, but we will leave them, for a photograph later on. Some people tie the young pigeons, called squabs, by their legs to the nest, for their parents to feed long after they are fledged, Desmond. Can you guess why?”

  “For pets?”

  “Well, hardly. To get them nice and juicy, for cooking. It’s rather cruel, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. I would like to keep pigeons in my garden.”

  “Well, we’ll see. Come on, my ambition is to get a young hawk, to train it for sparrows in the Backfield, but it’s too early for them nesting now. Jumping Jehoshafat!”

  A mottled brown bird, with a long beak and liquid dark eyes, had
flown up with a whirring, clicking noise from the dead leaves of the woodland, seeming to dart away through the trees.

  “A woodcock! Father saw one here once, he told me. They don’t usually nest in England, but a few stay behind in the migration, and lay their eggs on the ground. Carramba, this is a wonderful place! Come on, let’s explore!”

  Phillip felt that they must miss nothing. Here was the world he had dreamed about during foggy evenings with the soiled copies of The Field before him on the kitchen table; while sitting quietly behind Father’s armchair later in the evening, reading library books (none of them glossed nowadays) about birds, animals, fishes, and rural customs. He had searched through the bound copies of The Gentleman’s Magazine in Father’s glass-fronted bookcase, and lived in the accounts of fishing and collecting birds for stuffing in Norway and other foreign countries; and best of all, descriptions of English fields and village people. He had put up nesting boxes in the elm in the garden, and watched through the window tits and starlings inspecting them at the beginning of spring, determined never to shoot at the starlings in the close season. All that he had read and seen, together with what Father had told him of his own boyhood doings, during Sunday morning walks, now seemed to be coming real in his own life.

  A flattish nest made of brown beech leaves in another holly was recognisable from one of the engravings in an article in The Illustrated London Magazine. He was sure it was a squirrel’s drey, but said nothing, in case of disappointment.

  Trembling, he told Desmond to climb up, and feel in a hole he would find in the side. He felt too weak, almost too dream-like, to climb up himself.

  Desmond picked his way up through the spiny leaves of the holly, which surrounded the base of the tree. Phillip had read that holly leaves often had no spines on them above the reach of grazing cattle. He told Desmond this; and Desmond called down, “You’re quite right, Phillip, the leaves are quite a different shape up here, more rounded and smooth.” He reached the nest. “I can’t find the opening.”