Matty Doolin (9 page)

‘Can we come over to the farm and look round again, Mr Walsh?’ piped up Joe.

‘Well, yes. If you don’t get in the way, that is.’

‘Oh, we won’t get in the way,’ Joe assured him. ‘And thanks, Mr Walsh.’

Mr Walsh now turned from the boys and whistled, and the next minute they saw the two sheepdogs come racing from a fell in the distance. And when they were bounding round their master’s legs, Matty dared to ask, ‘Could we take them for a walk some time, Mr Walsh?’

‘What! Take these dogs for a walk.’ Mr Walsh laughed. ‘It’ll be the other way I think; they’ll take you. Why, would you like to go out with them?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Matty. Mr Walsh stared at him for a moment before saying, ‘Well then, when you’re all ready for a hike again you’ll have to come over the fells with them and see them at work. I’ll be moving some sheep down the valley towards the end of the week.’

‘Thanks. Thanks.’ Matty nodded his head. His eyes looked bright, his face alive. Mr Walsh kept his gaze fixed on him again for some time before turning away and remarking abruptly, ‘Aye. Well, this won’t do. And don’t forget about that lat, mind.’

‘No, Mr Walsh.’ Both Willie and Joe chorused after him, although it was to Matty the order had been given.

‘So she never did it.’ Joe was speaking below his breath, looking up at Matty, and Willie asked, ‘Did what?’

‘We thought Jessica had dug the hole,’ said Joe.

‘Aw, no, her dad did it.’

‘Well, we know now, ’cos we’ve just been told. But don’t say that you didn’t think she did it.’

‘I never thought about it at all,’ said Willie candidly. ‘Nor digging a lat either. Can’t see the point of that.’

Matty refrained from adding his comments to this. Willie was the one who was supposed to know all about camping. Willie had been camping on his own, and with others. He knew the rules from A to Z. That is, when he had been discussing them in the schoolyard or in their backyard. Now Matty realised he knew less about real camping than he did himself.

Matty had been in the cubs. He had also been in the scouts for a short time. Not long enough to experience camping out, yet his own sense should have told him, he chided himself, that they needed a grease pit and a lat. It wouldn’t have mattered if the grease pit hadn’t been done so meticulously as the one Mr Walsh had cut as long as there had been a hole, into which to drain their slops.

Matty was in two minds about going round the farm again. Not that he didn’t want to explore every nook and cranny of it, but somehow he didn’t want to come up against Mr Walsh. Mr Walsh could laugh and make a joke, but there was a side to him that appeared all eyes, and that side, Matty felt, was looking at him all the while.

Later on, when they had cleared up and made themselves presentable, Matty said, ‘You two go on over, I think I’ll go down to the stream and have a plodge.’

‘Aw, no,’ protested Joe straight away, ‘I’m not going without you.’

‘Me neither,’ put in Willie. ‘We all go, or we all stay.’

In an odd way, Matty felt comforted by this declaration of camaraderie and he said hastily, ‘All right, we won’t argue. Come on, let’s get going.’

There was no sign of Mrs Walsh on the farm, nor yet of Jessica, but they saw a good deal of Mr Walsh. They passed him several times in their aimless wanderings. The aimlessness was much more apparent in Willie and Joe than in Matty. Matty would have liked to stand longer staring at the cows, the pigs, the chickens, and, from a good distance, the bull, but Willie and Joe kept moving on. Round and round the yard they sauntered, through the alleyway to the yard where the pigs were, across the field to the chicken run, then back again to the big barn.

When for the third time they entered the dairy, Mr Walsh, coming behind them, said abruptly, ‘You fellows want a job?’

‘Oh, yes, yes.’ The chorus was quick and general.

‘Well now, it’s nothing fancy, and you’ll likely get yourselves mucked up, but there’s no dirt on a farm that water won’t wash off. So, over to the shed there.’ He pointed across the yard. ‘You’ll find some long prong forks and you can amuse yourselves on the heap.’

Joe, about to dart across the yard, stopped and said, ‘That big pile in the other yard? The manure heap? You mean the manure heap?’

‘The very same.’ Mr Walsh’s face looked quite expressionless. ‘It wants turning. It’ll give off a bit of steam, but that won’t hurt you.’

Mr Walsh now stood looking to where the three boys were going into the shed, and he smiled to himself. He’d had long experience in getting rid of unwanted company around his farm. There was no need to be uncivil, just put a fork in their hands and send them to the manure heap. He jerked his chin upwards and turned quickly into the dairy to hide the expanding grin on his face.

‘Well, that’s the last time you’ll get me on that lark.’ Joe was hanging over the bank of the stream sloshing his shorts in the running water. ‘And this the only pair of shorts I’ve got. I’ll have to wear me long pants now.’

‘You can cut the bottoms off,’ said Willie with a laugh. He, too, was lying on the bank. But it was his shirt he was washing, and he held it by the collar and let the rushing water fill it out.

Further along the bank Matty was rubbing away at his socks.

‘Do you know something?’ he said. ‘Do you know why he set us on that heap?’ He watched them as they shook their heads at him. ‘He wanted to get rid of us.’

‘Get rid of us!’ Joe’s face was screwed up.

‘Aye, I saw him at least three times having a peep at us. I figure that he thought we wouldn’t last out ten minutes, what with the smell, and the steam, and the weight of the stuff, and those forks nearly twice as big as you.’ He pushed at Joe, and Joe fell onto his side, and from that position he said, ‘No kiddin’, Matty. You think that’s why he did it?’

‘Sure. We’ve got all our things mucked up, haven’t we? We’ve got to wash them. And even me, I’ve got a blister on me hand. Look.’ He held out his palm.

‘But you kept on the longest,’ said Willie.

‘I only kept on,’ said Matty, ‘just to show him. I thought to meself I’ll let him see what the lads from the Tyne can do, and when Joe here kept digging away I could see he was puzzled. But mind’ – Matty again pushed at Joe – ‘he couldn’t see the size of the lumps you had on that fork. Big as peas some of them.’

‘Well, he won’t put us on that again. We don’t want to stop going over,’ said Willie.

‘No?’ said Joe in a high squeaking voice. ‘Well, if you want to visit, you visit. If you want to see Jessica, you go.’

‘Aw, man, don’t be daft. Who wants to see Jessica?’

‘You do.’ Joe poked his face at him. But now he was grinning. ‘And I wouldn’t mind seein’ her either if her mam invited me to tea every time. Oh no, I wouldn’t mind staying in the kitchen. But as for jaunts round the farm . . . no, thanks. What you say, Matty?’

Matty lying on his back now, his hands under his head, staring up to where white tufts of cloud seemed to be resting on the tops of distant peaks, said dreamily, ‘I wouldn’t mind turning manure, no; I enjoyed it. It’s only a stink if you think so.’

Behind him, Joe and Willie sat back on their hunkers and looked at each other with widening eyes.

It became so hot as the afternoon wore on that the boys, donning their trunks, lay on the stones in the shallow stream and splashed and larked about. At one period they were making so much noise that they weren’t aware they had a visitor, and Matty, raising himself from his place in the foot of water where he had been pretending to swim, looked towards the bank, to see Jessica standing there.

‘Oh, hello.’ He pulled himself onto his hands and knees, but didn’t rise. Then, turning his head, he shouted, ‘Give over, you two.’

Lower down the stream, Willie and Joe stopped their capers and came scrambling up towards Matty.

‘You all look lovely and cool.’ Jessica laughed down on them. ‘Did you find it cold at first?’

‘Freezin’.’ Joe shivered. ‘That’s when we first got in, but it’s lovely now.’

‘There’s a place where you can swim near the river.’

‘No kiddin’.’ Willie was leaning against the bank now, looking up at her. ‘How far is it?’ He sounded excited.

‘Not very far, just over a mile and a half.’

Joe closed his eyes. ‘Just over a mile and a half, she said.’

‘Could we get there by road?’ It was Matty asking the question, and Jessica looked at him as she answered, ‘That would take you twice as long. It would be quicker if you followed the stream.’

‘Do you swim there?’ asked Willie.

Jessica shook her head. ‘Not unless my father’s with me. It’s very deep, and there’s rocks all round; you’ve got to be careful. They call it Satan’s Hole.’

‘What do they call it that for?’ asked Joe.

‘Oh. Because some people were drowned there. A boy and a girl, one holiday.’

‘Well, that’s nice to know,’ said Willie brightly. ‘Let’s go straight down.’

They all laughed at this. And then Jessica said, ‘You’d better not today. My father sent me down to tell you there’s a storm coming up and you’d better see to your tents.’

‘A storm?’ Joe put his head back on his shoulders and looked up into the clear sky. ‘Why, it doesn’t look like a storm here.’

‘It does over the hills, and it’s black behind the house. And because of the heat these last few days it’ll be a bad one.’

‘That’s something to look forward to.’ Willie had pulled himself onto the bank and was pressing the water from his hair as he looked down on Jessica. But she paid no attention to him; she addressed herself pointedly to Matty as she went on, ‘Father says you should get yourselves a meal prepared quickly, and take as much stuff inside your tents as you can. And put your clothes where they won’t get wet.’ As she waited for a response from Matty, she continued to stare down on him, and after a moment he jerked his head at her and said gruffly, ‘Thank your da . . . your father. Tell him we’ll do what he says.’

‘All right. I’ve got to go now; I’m helping mother in the dairy.’ She flashed a bright smile from one to the other; then, turning abruptly, she ran from them.

Matty, on the bank now, said to the others, ‘Well, come on. Get into your clothes.’

‘I don’t see what all the rush is for. And you know something?’ Joe waved his towel towards Matty. ‘I think Mr Walsh thinks we’re numskulls; he’s always telling us what to do.’

‘Well, let’s face it.’ Matty was pulling on his shorts. ‘We are numskulls. At this game anyway. And as far as he’s concerned we’ve never done anything to prove him wrong, have we?’

‘Yes, but if we’d not camped near a farm we’d have found these things out for ourselves, wouldn’t we?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Willie endorsed.

‘Oh, be quiet, the pair of you, and get into your things, and come on.’

Matty was halfway up the field towards their camp when the light around him changed. It was as if somebody had turned a lamp down, from a bright clear flame to a dull flicker. There was no horizon in front of him, and when he reached the encampment and looked in the direction of the farm, although he couldn’t see it, he knew it was lying under a low black cloud, and this cloud was moving rapidly towards him. Everything about him was quiet, and although the sun was no longer visible it was much hotter than it had been before. Hurriedly, he began gathering up their blankets and sleeping bags, which they had laid out to air, and as Willie and Joe came up the hill he called to them, ‘Put a move on, will you? Put a move on.’

‘By, it’s hot! Eeh! Man, I’m sweatin’.’ Willie came panting up to Matty’s side.

‘I’ve rolled your kit up.’ Matty pointed. ‘Get it inside. And yours, an’ all, Joe.’

‘Mr Walsh said we should have a meal, didn’t he?’ said Willie, as he went into his tent.

And Joe called after him, ‘You and your belly! It’s too hot to eat.’

Matty, too, shouted to Willie, who was still in his tent, ‘What you doing in there? Come on, get a brick and knock your pegs in, and loosen the guy ropes.’

Coming out of his tent, Willie said, ‘We should have the tents together. It would be better.’

‘We’re not having the tents together. I told you this morning we weren’t. You keep jabbering until dawn. If you want company you can go in with Joe again, and I’ll take yours.’

Joe, a food tin under one arm and a loaf under the other, going towards his tent, spoke as if to himself saying, ‘Joe’s got no say in this. Joe’s just the shuttlecock.’

‘Poor old Joe!’ shouted Matty after him. ‘And don’t take that loaf in there like that. Bring it back and cut some bread, and butter it. Then open that tin of corned beef.’

‘But I don’t feel hungry, Matty man; I don’t feel I want to eat again.’

‘That’s what you feel like now, but if you’ve got to sit in there for hours’ – he thumbed in the direction of the tent – ‘it’ll be a different tune. There’s no room inside to start cutting bread and preparing food, so get going and put a move on.’

‘Eeh, by gum! Look at that!’ Joe stopped in his slicing of the corned beef, and, sitting back on his heels, gazed upwards. ‘The whole sky looks as if it’s going to drop on us. And look at the funny colour . . . It’s getting darker. Coo!’ He began with renewed vigour to slice up the remainder of the corned beef and slap it onto the bread.

Matty was now laying stones on the hessian flaps of the tent, and he said, ‘If it doesn’t come on to rain I’ll make a can of tea on the Primus and take it in with us.’

When they had stacked everything they could in the back of their tent, cases, bedding, and food boxes, it looked as if there wasn’t going to be any room for themselves; and after they had crawled in and got themselves arranged, Willie, on hands and knees, made his appearance at the open flap, and asked plaintively, ‘Could I squeeze in?’

‘Look at us, man.’ Matty moved his hand over the congested space. ‘We’re packed.’ He stared at Willie’s long thin face, which was not smiling now, and which was only just discernible in the growing darkness, and, turning swiftly, he pushed Joe with an angry movement, saying, ‘Bump the tins and cases out. He’ll put them in his tent and that’ll make the extra room . . . We hope.’

‘Strewth! Here we go again.’

There began another whirl of compressed activity as they rearranged themselves, and they were no sooner crouched in more or less comfortable positions than the heavens above them seemed to split open. The thunder was so terrific, so terrifying that even after its rumblings had become faint, they were still huddled together, faces pressed downwards, in the middle of the tent.

Matty was gasping as if he had been fighting against a strong wind. When he lifted his head he saw that it was almost like night now, and, following the noise of the thunderclap, so quiet as to be eerie. When neither of the others moved, he shook Joe, and then Willie, and whispered, ‘You all right?’

‘Eeh!’ Joe’s voice was trembling. ‘That’s what they call a thunderbolt, I suppose. Eeh! Man, I’ve never heard anything like it.’ His voice was awe-filled.

As yet, Willie hadn’t moved, and Matty shook him again, saying, ‘You all right, Willie?’

Slowly Willie brought himself upwards, and the whiteness of his face seemed to shine through the dimness, and as Matty peered at him he realised that this big, overgrown pal of his, this laughter-making, joke-loving pal, was frightened. Well, that was nothing to be ashamed of; that bang had frightened him. But Willie’s fright, he saw, was a different kind somehow; it was stark fear, more than temporary fright. Matty couldn’t explain the difference to himself but it brought his hand onto Willie’s shoulder as he said, ‘Coo! That scared the daylights out of me.’ He watched Willie’s head make a little nod now, and he waited for him to speak. But he didn’t.

‘I could do with a drink of tea.’ Matty touched Joe’s arm. ‘Hand the can over here; we’ll have a sup all round.’

When Matty handed the can lid full of tea to Willie, he found he had to steady it before Willie could get a grip on it, and he thought again, It’s funny a big fellow like him. But he did not despise his pal for his abject fear. In some, not quite understandable, way he felt he had come to know Willie better in the last few minutes than ever before. It was all very puzzling.

The hot tea made them sweat, and Joe exclaimed, as he wiped his face with his hand, ‘Eeh! I’m wringin’. I’ve never felt so hot in me life.’

‘You hot, Willie?’ Matty leant towards the quiet, dim figure.

‘Aye . . . aye, Matty, I’m hot.’

‘Once it starts to rain it’ll get cooler. I wish it would hurry up; storms are not so bad if it rains.’

‘I haven’t seen any lightnin’.’

Joe had scarcely finished speaking when, as they all swore later, the lightning came straight through the tent. Certain it was that it not only illuminated the small space with a light, brighter than any sunshine, it also seemed to lift the tent, and themselves, from the ground, for it was accompanied within a split second by another terrific burst of thunder. Once again they were huddling together, and it was some longer time before they moved. When finally they came to disentangle themselves Matty found he had his arms about Willie, that Willie’s face was buried somewhere near his side, and that they were both leaning over Joe.

‘I’m scared. I don’t mind tellin’ you, I’m scared, Matty. Th . . . that was awful . . . ’

Joe’s admission of fear did not disturb Matty half as much as Willie’s silence, his trembling silence now, for the boy’s whole body was shaking. Matty’s own voice had a tremor in it when he said, ‘It’ll be all right now. Listen. Here it comes . . . Hear it?’ He lifted his head and looked up at the roof of the tent, so near to his face.

‘It’s wind,’ said Joe.

‘No, rain. I heard it like that once afore, the day when Mr Tollet took us on the fells. The storm came up just as we were going home and the rain sounded like wind coming from a distance, and he had to stop the car . . . There it is.’

As the first huge drops hit the canvas they all sighed with relief. It would be better now. Everybody knew that thunderstorms were soon over when it rained.

Whereas they had never experienced such thunder, or lightning, they were used to heavy rain. But within seconds they were made aware that this wasn’t just rain; this was a force, a terrible force. All the clichés about raining cats and dogs, coming down in buckets, hailstones as big as marbles, a solid sheet of rain, seemed far short of an accurate description of this deluge that seemed bent on pressing them into the earth. The noise was such that if they had tried to speak they wouldn’t have been heard.

Matty had pegged the tent flap in such a way as to leave a space to let the air in. Now, leaning forward, he groped wildly at the tape around the peg in an effort to shut the flap, but when once he had released it, it was torn from his hand. When he put his head out of the tent and grabbed at the wildly flapping canvas the rain stung his face like a hail of gravel.

The tent flap at last secure, he had pulled himself back into a sitting position, when Joe, nudging him hard in the ribs, thumbed the apex of the tent.

‘Oh, no. No!’ Willie groaned inwardly. They would be in a mess if the tent leaked.

It was evident in a very short space of time that they were in a mess. The tent was not only letting water in through the ridge, but it was coming in at the sides. Wherever their belongings touched the canvas there came a stream of water. Desperately, they drew their baggage and beds around them, and Matty and Joe struggled into their raincoats. Willie had a bicycle cape with him, and also a mack, but they were both in his tent. Matty, realising this, pulled off his raincoat again and put half of it over Willie’s head. He tried to laugh as he did so, but his effort was a failure, for it had no assistance from Willie. And so, huddled up, they sat in silent misery waiting for the storm to wear itself out, which, Matty reassured himself, couldn’t be long. No storm, he imagined, could keep up this force for very long. He was to learn a lot within the next hour or so.

They were sitting in miserable dejection, the water pouring on them from all sides, the wind howling as they had never heard wind howl, and the thunder, although less violent, still crashing around them, when the main guy ropes snapped. In the deafening turmoil of the storm they didn’t hear them go, but when the canvas suddenly collapsed about them they had all the evidence of their going that was needed.

Calling to each other, they disentangled themselves from the material that had taken on the weight of sailcloth, and, struggling blindly and soaked to the skin, they now fought their way to the dim outline of Willie’s tent. And when, breathless, they collapsed together like sardines on top of bedding, tins and cases, they realised that their plight had not improved, for the rain was pouring straight through every pore in the little tent.

‘What we going to do, man?’ Although Joe was shouting into Matty’s ear, his voice came like a tiny whisper; and Matty shouted back, ‘It’ll soon be over. It’s bound to wear itself out.’

How much longer they lay in wet, abject misery Matty couldn’t recall, but he was always to remember Mr Walsh’s voice as it came from the mouth of the tent, bawling, ‘Come on! Get out of that.’ Music had never sounded more sweet to Matty, nor had he seen a face so angelic as the hard, rock features of Mr Walsh peering from under the black brim of a sou’wester.