by Roald Dahl
Peter didn’t answer.
‘Well, let me tell you something,’ Raymond went on. ‘We don’t like anything you do either.’
Peter’s arms were beginning to ache. He decided to take a risk. Slowly, he lowered them to his sides.
‘Up!’ yelled Ernie. ‘Get ’em up!’
‘What if I refuse?’
‘Blimey! You got a ruddy nerve, ain’t you?’ Ernie said. ‘I’m tellin’ you for the last time, if you don’t stick ’em up I’ll pull the trigger!’
‘That would be a criminal act,’ Peter said. ‘It would be a case for the police.’
‘And you’d be a case for the ’ospital!’ Ernie said.
‘Go ahead and shoot,’ Peter said. ‘Then they’ll send you to Borstal. That’s prison.’
He saw Ernie hesitate.
‘You’re really askin’ for it, ain’t you?’ Raymond said.
‘I’m simply asking to be left alone,’ Peter said. ‘I haven’t done you any harm.’
‘You’re a stuck-up little squirt,’ Ernie said. ‘That’s exactly what you are, a stuck-up little squirt.’
Raymond leaned over and whispered something in Ernie’s ear. Ernie listened intently. Then he slapped his thigh and said, ‘I like it! It’s a great idea!’
Ernie placed his gun on the ground and advanced upon the small boy. He grabbed him and threw him to the ground. Raymond took the roll of string from his pocket and cut off a length of it. Together, they forced the boy’s arms in front of him and tied his wrists together tight.
‘Now the legs,’ Raymond said. Peter struggled and received a punch in the stomach. That winded him and he lay still. Next, they tied his ankles together with more string. He was now trussed up like a chicken and completely helpless.
Ernie picked up his gun, and then, with his other hand, he grabbed one of Peter’s arms. Raymond grabbed the other arm and together they began to drag the boy over the grass towards the railway lines.
Peter kept absolutely quiet. Whatever it was they were up to, talking to them wasn’t going to help matters.
They dragged their victim down the embankment and on to the railway lines themselves. Then one took the arms and the other the feet and they lifted him up and laid him down again lengthwise right between two lines.
‘You’re mad!’ Peter said. ‘You can’t do this!’
‘ ’Oo says we can’t? This is just a little lesson we’re teachin’ you not to be cheeky.’
‘More string,’ Ernie said.
Raymond produced the ball of string and the two larger boys now proceeded to tie the victim down in such a way that he couldn’t wriggle away from between the rails. They did this by looping string around each of his arms and then threading the string under the rails on either side. They did the same with his middle body and his ankles. When they had finished, Peter Watson was strung down helpless and virtually immobile between the rails. The only parts of his body he could move to any extent were his head and feet.
Ernie and Raymond stepped back to survey their handiwork. ‘We done a nice job,’ Ernie said.
‘There’s trains every ’arf ’our on this line,’ Raymond said. ‘We ain’t gonna ’ave long to wait.’
‘This is murder!’ cried the small boy lying between the rails.
‘No it ain’t,’ Raymond told him. ‘It ain’t anything of the sort.’
‘Let me go! Please let me go! I’ll be killed if a train comes along!’
‘If you are killed, sonny boy,’ Ernie said, ‘it’ll be your own ruddy fault and I’ll tell you why. Because if you lift your ’ead up like you’re doin’ now, then you’ve ’ad it, chum! You keep down flat and you might just possibly get away with it. On the other ’and, you might not because I ain’t exactly sure ’ow much clearance them trains’ve got underneath. You ’appen to know, Raymond, ’ow much clearance them trains got underneath?’
‘Very little,’ Raymond said. ‘They’re built ever so close to the ground.’
‘Might be enough and it might not,’ Ernie said.
‘Let’s put it this way,’ Raymond said. ‘It’d probably just about be enough for an ordinary person like me or you, Ernie. But Mister Watson ’ere I’m not so sure about and I’ll tell you why.’
‘Tell me,’ Ernie said, egging him on.
‘Mister Watson ’ere’s got an extra big ’ead, that’s why. ’Ee’s so flippin’ big-’eaded I personally think the bottom bit of the train’s goin’ to scrape ’im whatever ’appens. I’m not saying it’s goin’ to take ’is ’ead off, mind you. In fact, I’m pretty sure it ain’t goin’ to do that. But it’s goin’ to give ’is face a good old scrapin’ over. You can be quite sure of that.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Ernie said.
‘It don’t do,’ Raymond said, ‘to ’ave a great big swollen ’ead full of brains if you’re lyin’ on the railway line with a train comin’ towards you. That’s right, ain’t it, Ernie?’
‘That’s right,’ Ernie said.
The two bigger boys climbed back up the embankment and sat on the grass behind some bushes. Ernie produced a pack of cigarettes and they both lit up.
Peter Watson, lying helpless between the rails, realized now that they were not going to release him. These were dangerous, crazy boys. They lived for the moment and never considered the consequences. I must try to keep calm and think, Peter told himself. He lay there, quite still, weighing his chances. His chances were good. The highest part of his head was his nose. He estimated the end of his nose was sticking up about four inches above the rails. Was that too much? He wasn’t quite sure what clearance these modern diesels had above the ground. It certainly wasn’t very much. The back of his head was resting upon loose gravel in between two sleepers. He must try to burrow down a little into the gravel. So he began to wriggle his head from side to side, pushing the gravel away and gradually making for himself a small indentation, a hole in the gravel. In the end, he reckoned he had lowered his head an extra two inches. That would do for the head. But what about the feet? They were sticking up, too. He took care of that by swinging the two tied-together feet over to one side so they lay almost flat.
He waited for the train to come.
Would the driver see him? It was very unlikely, for this was the main line, London, Doncaster, York, Newcastle and Scotland, and they used huge long engines in which the driver sat in a cab way back and kept an eye open only for the signals. Along this stretch of the track trains travelled around eighty miles an hour. Peter knew that. He had sat on the bank many times watching them. When he was younger, he used to keep a record of their numbers in a little book, and sometimes the engines had names written on their sides in gold letters.
Either way, he told himself, it was going to be a terrifying business. The noise would be deafening, and the swish of the eighty-mile-an-hour wind wouldn’t be much fun either. He wondered for a moment whether there would be any kind of vacuum created underneath the train as it rushed over him, sucking him upwards. There might well be. So whatever happened, he must concentrate everything upon pressing his entire body against the ground. Don’t go limp. Keep stiff and tense and press down into the ground.
‘How’re you doin’, rat-face!’ one of them called out to him from the bushes above. ‘What’s it like waitin’ for the execution?’
He decided not to answer. He watched the blue sky above his head where a single cumulus cloud was drifting slowly from left to right. And to keep his mind off the thing that was going to happen soon, he played a game that his father had taught him long ago on a hot summer’s day when they were lying on their backs in the grass above the cliffs at Beachy Head. The game was to look for strange faces in the folds and shadows and billows of a cumulus cloud. If you looked hard enough, his father had said, you would always find a face of some sort up there. Peter let his eyes travel slowly over the cloud. In one place, he found a one-eyed man with a beard. In another, there was a long-chinned laughing witch. An aeroplane came across the cloud trav
elling from east to west. It was a small high-winged monoplane with a red fuselage. An old Piper Cub, he thought it was. He watched it until it disappeared.
And then, quite suddenly, he heard a curious little vibrating sound coming from the rails on either side of him. It was very soft, this sound, scarcely audible, a tiny little humming, thrumming whisper that seemed to be coming along the rails from far away.
That’s a train, he told himself.
The vibrating along the rails grew louder, then louder still. He raised his head and looked down the long and absolutely straight railway line that stretched away for a mile or more into the distance. It was then that he saw the train. At first it was only a speck, a faraway black dot, but in those few seconds that he kept his head raised, the dot grew bigger and bigger, and it began to take shape, and soon it was no longer a dot but the big, square, blunt front-end of a diesel express. Peter dropped his head and pressed it down hard into the small hole he had dug for it in the gravel. He swung his feet over to one side. He shut his eyes tight and tried to sink his body into the ground.
The train came over him like an explosion. It was as though a gun had gone off in his head. And with the explosion came a tearing, screaming wind that was like a hurricane blowing down his nostrils and into his lungs. The noise was shattering. The wind choked him. He felt as if he were being eaten alive and swallowed up in the belly of a screaming murderous monster.
And then it was over. The train had gone. Peter opened his eyes and saw the blue sky and the big white cloud still drifting overhead. It was all over now and he had done it. He had survived.
‘It missed ’im,’ said a voice.
‘What a pity,’ said another voice.
He glanced sideways and saw the two large louts standing over him.
‘Cut ’im loose,’ Ernie said.
Raymond cut the strings binding him to the rails on either side.
‘Undo ’is feet so ’ee can walk, but keep ’is ’ands tied,’ Ernie said.
Raymond cut the strings around his ankles.
‘Get up,’ Ernie said.
Peter got to his feet.
‘You’re still a prisoner, matey,’ Ernie said.
‘What about them rabbits?’ Raymond asked. ‘I thought we was goin’ to try for a few rabbits?’
‘Plenty of time for that,’ Ernie answered. ‘I just thought we’d push the little bleeder into the lake on the way.’
‘Good,’ Raymond said. ‘Cool ’im down.’
‘You’ve had your fun,’ Peter Waston said. ‘Why don’t you let me go now?’
‘Because you’re a prisoner,’ Ernie said. ‘And you ain’t just no ordinary prisoner neither. You’re a spy. And you know what ’appens to spies when they get caught, don’t you? They get put up against the wall and shot.’
Peter didn’t say any more after that. There was no point at all in provoking those two. The less he said to them and the less he resisted them, the more chance he would have of escaping injury. He had no doubt whatsoever that in their present mood they were capable of doing him quite serious bodily harm. He knew for a fact that Ernie had once broken little Wally Simpson’s arm after school and Wally’s parents had gone to the police. He had also heard Raymond boasting about what he called ‘putting the boot in’ at the football matches they went to. This, he understood, meant kicking someone in the face or body when he was lying on the ground. They were hooligans, these two, and from what Peter read in his father’s newspaper nearly every day, they were not by any means on their own. It seemed the whole country was full of hooligans. They wrecked the interiors of trains, they fought pitched battles in the streets with knives and bicycle chains and metal clubs, they attacked pedestrains, especially other young boys walking alone, and they smashed up roadside cafés. Ernie and Raymond, though perhaps not quite yet fully qualified hooligans, were most definitely on their way.
Therefore, Peter told himself, he must continue to be passive. Do not insult them. Do not aggravate them in any way. And above all, do not try to take them on physically. Then, hopefully, in the end, they might become bored with this nasty little game and go off to shoot rabbits.
The two larger boys had each taken hold of one of Peter’s arms and they were marching him across the next field towards the lake. The prisoner’s wrists were still tied together in front of him. Ernie carried the gun in his spare hand. Raymond carried the binoculars he had taken from Peter. They came to the lake.
The lake was beautiful on this golden May morning. It was a long and fairly narrow lake with tall willow trees growing here and there along its banks. In the middle, the water was clear and clean, but nearer to the land there was a forest of reeds and bulrushes.
Ernie and Raymond marched their prisoner to the edge of the lake and there they stopped.
‘Now then,’ Ernie said. ‘What I suggest is this. You take ’is arms and I take ’is legs and we’ll swing the little perisher one two three as far out as we can into them nice muddy reeds. ’Ow’s that?’
‘I like it,’ Raymond said. ‘And leave ’is ’ands tied together, right?’
‘Right,’ Ernie said. ‘ ’Ow’s that with you, snot-nose?’
‘If that’s what you’re going to do, I can’t very well stop you,’ Peter said, trying to keep his voice cool and calm.
‘Just you try and stop us,’ Ernie said, grinning, ’and then see what ’appens to you.’
‘One last question,’ Peter said. ‘Did you ever take on somebody your own size?’
The moment he said it, he knew he had made a mistake. He saw the flush coming to Ernie’s cheeks and there was a dangerous little spark dancing in his small black eyes.
Luckily, at that very moment, Raymond saved the situation. ‘Hey! Lookit that bird swimmin’ in the reeds over there!’ he shouted, pointing. ‘Let’s ’ave ’im!’
It was a mallard drake, with a curvy spoon-shaped yellow beak and a head of emerald green with a white ring round its neck. ‘Now those you really can eat,’ Raymond went on. ‘It’s a wild duck.’
‘I’ll ’ave ’im!’ Ernie cried. He let go of the prisoner’s arm and lifted the gun to his shoulder.
‘This is a bird sanctuary,’ Peter said.
‘A what?’ Ernie asked, lowering the gun.
‘Nobody shoots birds here. It’s strictly forbidden.’
‘ ’Oo says it’s forbidden?’
‘The owner, Mr Douglas Highton.’
‘You must be joking,’ Ernie said and he raised the gun again. He fired. The duck crumpled in the water.
‘Go get ’im,’ Ernie said to Peter. ‘Cut ’is ’ands free, Raymond, ’cause then ’ee can be our flippin’ gun-dog and fetch the birds after we shoot ’em.’
Raymond took out his knife and cut the string binding the small boy’s wrists.
‘Go on!’ Ernie snapped. ‘Go get ’im!’
The killing of the beautiful duck had disturbed Peter very much. ‘I refuse,’ he said.
Ernie hit him across the face hard with his open hand. Peter didn’t fall down, but a small trickle of blood began running out of one nostril.
‘You dirty little perisher!’ Ernie said. ‘You just try refusin’ me one more time and I’m goin’ to make you a promise. And the promise is like this. You refuse me just one more time and I’m goin’ to knock out every single one of them shiny white front teeth of yours, top and bottom. You understand that?’
Peter said nothing.
‘Answer me!’ Ernie barked. ‘Do you understand that?’
‘Yes,’ Peter said quietly. ‘I understand.’
‘Get on with it, then!’ Ernie shouted.
Peter walked down the bank, into the muddy water, through the reeds, and picked up the duck. He brought it back and Raymond took it from him and tied string around its legs.
‘Now we got a retriever dog with us, let’s see if we can’t get us a few more of them ducks,’ Ernie said. He strolled along the bank, gun in hand, searching the reeds. Suddenly he stopped. He cr
ouched. He put a finger to his lips and said, ‘Sshh!’
Raymond went over to join him. Peter stood a few yards away, his trousers covered in mud up to the knees.
‘Lookit in there!’ Ernie whispered, pointing into a dense patch of bulrushes. ‘D’you see what I see?’
‘Holy cats!’ cried Raymond. ‘What a beauty!’
Peter, peering from a little further away into the rushes, saw at once what they were looking at. It was a swan, a magnificent white swan sitting serenely upon her nest. The nest itself was a huge pile of reeds and rushes that rose up about two feet above the waterline, and upon the top of all this the swan was sitting like a great white lady of the lake. Her head was turned towards the boys on the bank, alert and watchful.
‘ ’Ow about that?’ Ernie said. ‘That’s better’n ducks, ain’t it?’
‘You think you can get ’er?’ Raymond said.
‘Of course I can get ’er. I’ll drill a ’ole right through ’er noggin!’
Peter felt a wild rage beginning to build up inside him. He walked up to the two bigger boys. ‘I wouldn’t shoot that swan if I were you,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘Swans are the most protected birds in England.’
‘And what’s that got to do with it?’ Ernie asked him, sneering.
‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ Peter went on, throwing all caution away. ‘Nobody shoots a bird sitting on its nest. Absolutely nobody! She may even have cygnets under her! You just can’t do it!’
‘ ’Oo says we can’t?’ Raymond asked, sneering. ‘Mister bleedin’ snotty-nose Peter Watson, is that the one ’oo says it?’
‘The whole country says it,’ Peter answered. ‘The law says it and the police say it and everyone says it!’
‘I don’t say it!’ Ernie said, raising his gun.
‘Don’t!’ screamed Peter. ‘Please don’t!’
Crack! The gun went off. The bullet hit the swan right in the middle of her elegant head and the long white neck collapsed on to the side of the nest.
‘Got ’er!’ cried Ernie.
‘Hot shot!’ shouted Raymond.
Ernie turned to Peter who was standing small and white-faced and absolutely rigid. ‘Now go get ’er,’ he ordered.