The Runaways (16 page)

On the plain Yarra put up a hare from a small hollow filled with dead bracken drift. One of the buzzards high above saw the movement of the hare and the fast take-off of Yarra as she went after it. The buzzard mewed loudly, calling to its mate. The other buzzard swung downwind to close formation. The buzzards hung together, swinging round in a tight circle, watching the hunt.

Yarra closed rapidly with the hare, which was one she had chased before. It was a big, well-fleshed animal that knew its way around the plains. Before, it had escaped from Yarra by diving under a derelict tank where she could not reach it. But this time there was no such refuge in sight. The hare raced away with ears and eyes laid back. He could see Yarra following and gaining on him, no matter how much he swerved and switched, side-jumped and doubled and twisted. Yarra overhauled him fast. When she was three feet from him she went into her killing leap. The hare saw Yarra spring from the ground behind him. Desperate, he produced the only trick he had to offer. As Yarra took off – the hare stopped dead in his tracks. One moment he was going at top speed and the next he was crouched motionless in the grass. Yarra sailed right over the top of him, overshooting him by a yard.

The hare flashed round and was away. Yarra, angry and hungry, screwed sideways as she landed, her talons tearing up grass and soil. In fifty yards she was on his tail again – and this time she did not miss.

The buzzards above saw her make her kill, mewed excitedly to one another, and began to drift lower on the evening wind.

In the cave on the hillside the carrion crow was now standing two feet from the cubs. He could see them clearly. Although he had never seen anything like Yarra before, the cubs were no surprise to him. He had killed many litters of wild-cat kittens. These were kittens, young and tender.

He waddled forward, beak poised for the kill. As he did so, a stone in the roof, loosened by the mortar bomb during the day, dropped from its place and thudded to the ground behind him. The crow turned with a jump and a flap of his wings. He faced the cave entrance warily. After a while his tenseness faded. He turned and moved again towards the cubs. They were lying a little separated and the crow instinctively chose the larger for his kill.

He stood a foot from it, lowered his head and sharp beak and prepared to jump in and thrust with all his power. At that instant a shadow passed over the back wall of the cave.

The crow swung round to face Yarra as she came quickly into the cave, carrying a large hare in her mouth.

It was the last thing the carrion crow ever saw. Yarra dropped the hare and leapt for him. Her jaws took him under the neck as he tried to fly up. Holding him, she killed him and then, still gripping him in her teeth, shook and swung him about so that long black primary and small breast feathers floated about the cave. Then she dropped him and went to the cubs, waking them as she nosed and muzzled and licked them. They had been saved because, as Yarra had settled on the grass to eat her kill, a new instinct in her had suddenly been born, an instinct which was soon to become a maternal habit – the instinct to take food back to her lair for the cubs. She had brought the hare back to share with her young, though it was going to be many days yet before they would be ready for solid food.

At Ford Cottage Major Collingwood came into the kitchen. He had been pottering around the garden and barn. It was now time for him to tidy himself up before having dinner. He was a kind, pleasant-looking man, his dark hair well streaked with grey over the ears.

He said to his wife, who was mixing up eggs to make an omelette, ‘You know, love – some blighter's pinched that old bike from the barn.'

Mrs Collingwood smiled and said, ‘Then you should be glad. It was just a load of old junk. And you'd better get cleaned up. Omelettes won't wait for anyone – not even retired Army majors.'

‘It's funny,' said the Major. ‘Not just about the bike. But I got a funny feeling in the barn.'

‘Indigestion?' Mrs Collingwood smiled and cocked an eyebrow at him.

‘No, my dear. But I'm pleased to see that you are now back in all your former
rude
health.'

‘What kind of feeling then?'

‘As though something's been about.'

‘You mean a ghost?'

‘No. Somebody. I just got that feeling.'

‘Well, then, perhaps it's the one who had the sardines because I'm quite sure Mrs Bagnall would never have taken them.'

‘You mean you've missed sardines? From in here?'

‘Either that. Or I miscounted before we went away. Six tins, I thought. Now there's only three.'

‘How could you possibly remember?'

‘A woman does. Now go and get cleaned up. I told you –'

‘That an omelette, like Time, waits for no man.'

Major Collingwood went upstairs looking thoughtful and a little puzzled. And Major Collingwood, since he had done all his service in the Royal Corps of Military Police, was the kind of man who rather enjoyed a puzzle or a mystery. Since his wife had now mentioned the marks on the bathroom curtain, he studied them carefully before beginning to tidy himself up.

The cause of Major Collingwood's puzzlement was at that moment sitting with Joe in his kitchen having supper. Each of them was enjoying a grilled brown trout from the River Wylye which ran along the end of the field below Joe's cottage. Although it was a few days before the trout fishing season opened officially, it would have made no difference to Joe if there had been two months or more to go.

An hour before he had given Smiler his first experience of poaching trout. They had gone down to the river at the end of the field. Here, across the stream, was a set of hatches – like large wooden doors – that could be raised or lowered to regulate the flow of water to the weir pool below.

They sat on the hatchway run above the top of the pool and Joe tied a hook on the end of a spool of nylon line, which had a small stick through the centre of it. He showed Smiler the right knot to use. A half-blood knot, he called it. Then he threaded several worms on to the hook and clipped a heavy lead weight on to the line three feet above the hook.

They sat on the hatchway planks and Joe dropped the hooked, baited and weighted line into the water. He paid it out very gently as the bottom current took the lead weight slowly downstream along the river bed.

‘You sits here like this, Johnny me lad,' said Joe. ‘And it being still light you looks all innocent and enjoyin' the view. Then, if 'n a river keeper shows up, or one of the gents what has fishin' rights, you just lets go the spool gentle. The whole lot sinks and you come back next day and fish it out. Always lookin' innocent and enjoyin' the view is important.'

As he spoke he paid out line slowly, keeping a slight tension on it through his fingers.

‘But if you is left in peace, you just pays away the line like this. Sooner or later one of them big trout below the hatch what the fishing gents can't ever get with their little bitty flies, will go for the worms. And, Johnny me lad, let 'em go for 'em you must. Even when you feel 'em. Let 'em take it all. No striking like the fly-fisher folk do. That old trout'll hook himself in no time. Like this one! Whoa!'

The line in Joe's hand suddenly streaked away and Joe let it run for a moment or two from the spool. Downstream a fish suddenly broke water in a great silvery jump. Joe held the line firm now, and the trout dived and darted all over the pool for a while. Then Joe began to haul the fish in without any finesse and lifted it up to the hatch on the end of the line.

‘Always use a good, strong nylon line. Six or eight pounds breaking strain. The old trout won't worry about the thickness of the line if 'n there's a bunch of worms on the end.'

He smacked the head of the trout across a wooden post of the hatch opening, unhooked it, and dropped it into his pocket. He said, ‘Now then, you have a go. I've got my supper.'

He made Smiler thread fresh worms on the hook. Smiler paid out the line as Joe had shown him. Within five minutes he had caught his supper. It was a beautiful brown trout, firm flanked, and flecked with lovely red and yellow spots.

‘Kill 'un quick. That's a kindness some of these fancy fishers don't always bother about. That's a nice fish. Pound and half. It'll eat like nothing you've ever tasted before. Leave it to Uncle Joe. You'll see.'

Later Smiler sat with Joe in his new lodgings, the both of them eating grilled trout and drinking cider (Smiler being very careful how much he took, and Joe treating it like water). As he washed up the supper things for Joe afterwards, Smiler remembered how worried he had been that morning about how it would all turn out. And it couldn't have turned out better! It just showed that it did no good to worry too much about things that
might
happen. Though what he would have done without Joe, he just didn't know. Samuel M., he said, don't you ever forget what a good sort Joe is … and one day … Well, one day you've got to find some way of paying Joe back. Say, for instance, you got really rich. Rolling in it, because you invented something that was bringing in thousands … Well then, you could buy Joe a new van … Yes, that was it. A new van.

He stood there day-dreaming over the washing up. There wasn't a cloud on his horizon. In five or six more months his father would be back.

While Smiler day-dreamed. Major Collingwood and his wife were having their after dinner coffee. The Major went to get himself a glass of brandy. His wife said she did not want one. This time, seeing the cigar box and feeling extra happy to be back and that his wife was in such
rude
health and, because, after all, there was no place quite like home – particularly when you had a wife like Mrs Collingwood – he told himself that he jolly well would have a cigar with his brandy.

So, he opened the cigar box and found Smiler's letter. As he looked down at it, the telephone began to ring in the hallway. Mrs Collingwood went to answer it. Major Collingwood stood there, reading Smiler's letter.

Major Collingwood liked the tone of the letter. Whoever ‘ Hunted' was, he was a decent sort of chap with some kind of conscience. But if he liked the letter, he also liked mysteries even better. Being retired he had plenty of time on his hands. He had already found the transistor set in the bam, and had said nothing to his wife. The letter offered him a little detection work which he felt might fill many a long hour. However, because he knew his wife wouldn't like the idea that someone had used the house while they were away – it might make her nervous and upset – he decided for the moment to say nothing to her.

He slipped the letter into his pocket before she came back from the hall, and sat down with his brandy and cigar. He had decided that he was going to trace
Mr Hunted
, quietly on his own. When he found him … well, then he would decide what to do.

When his wife came back, she said, ‘ That was the Cokes. They want us to go to dinner next Friday.'

‘Splendid,' the Major said. His friend Mr Coke was a retired Chief Constable who still kept in very close touch with all police affairs and criminal incidents in the area. He could have an interesting chat with him without giving his private mystery away.

When he went up to bed that night, the Major took a closer look at the bathroom curtain, and then a closer look at the contents of the bathroom cabinet. He smiled to himself. If you used dark brown hair dye it could only be to make your hair darker, surely? But if you used sun-tan stuff before summer came … Well, that was interesting now, wasn't it? He would have to think that one out.

The next morning Smiler rode to work as happy as a lark. He was so light-hearted, in fact, that he had to sing aloud to himself. Smiler had a good voice and he sang a favourite ditty of his father.

Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
The old grey goose is dead.

The one that she's been a-savin',
The one that she's been a-savin',
The one that she's been a-savin',
To make a feather bed.

Some days later Joe heard him singing one of his songs, and Joe joined in. At some time in his life Joe had been to America and he taught Smiler lots of new songs. Sometimes of an evening they would have a concert just for themselves, and Joe would bang away on an old piano he'd bought for five pounds and Smiler would sing his head off.

But this morning Smiler was singing just for himself because of the happiness inside him. He went about his work singing and whistling. Every time Miss Milly heard him outside she would stop what she was doing and smile and nod. Sometimes, if she knew the tune, she would go on with her work, humming it to herself. Only Mrs Lakey said to herself, ‘That Boy's worse than having a canary about the place.' But even she was pleased because the only thing with a long face she liked was a horse.

It was the beginning of two months of bliss for Smiler. April ran into May and early Summer smiled on the valleys and plains. Marsh marigolds, frogbit, and water crowfoot flourished on the pond in the paddock. The primroses went and the bluebells came. Bryony wreathed up the hedges and the wild garlic flourished under the trees by the river. The trout and graylings grew fat on flies, nymphs and caddis grubs. The fledglings feathered up and felt an urge in their wings that made them restless in their overcrowded nests. The cuckoo pints unfurled their green sheaths and attracted small insects to crawl about over their stigmas and pollinate them. In the hedgerows, the real cuckoos had long deposited their eggs in other birds' nests.

Up on the plain Yarra looked after her cubs and hunted for them. Their eyes opened and their pelts began to take on the characteristic cheetah markings. Yarra brought them small birds, mice, shrews, once or twice a green lizard, and rabbits and hares. They grew stronger and steadier on their feet but still stayed within the cave. When they were bored they fought one another. When fighting bored them, the male would sometimes explore towards the mouth of the cave. Whenever Yarra saw him doing this she would cuff him back.