Five Boys Read online

  “I thought the churches were are all locked up,” he said.

  The Captain felt suddenly faint. He tugged at his dog collar and stared at the horizon, trying to recall the rehearsal in which this eventuality had come up. But Dexter Fadden, who stood a few feet behind him, knew all too well there had been no such rehearsal and saw his precious pig diminish—saw it shrink and all but disappear.

  The whole pig chase foundered right there on the barricade, and Dexter’s many accomplices saw their dreams of ham and home-cured bacon dashed before their eyes. The cortege had finally assumed an air of genuine mournfulness—their heads hung heavy, their feet had turned to stone—when Aldred slipped a hand inside his jacket and pulled out his string necklace with his own church key dangling from it.

  “I’ve got the key,” he said.

  The GI shrugged, stepped out of the way and the mourners surged forward. Their pig flickered back to life. The pallbearers got a firm grip of the coffin, Cyril called out “Left, right, left” and in no time they had got up a decent head of funereal steam.

  Sylvia Crouch glanced back over her shoulder. One of the soldiers was standing and staring after them; the other was winding a telephone. She turned back to the others.

  “Let’s just find this bloody pig and get out of here,” she said.

  There had been all sorts of stories—of barns being smashed to pieces for firewood and houses being razed to the ground—but most of the places the villagers passed seemed to be in much the same condition as when they last laid eyes on them. Once they were out of sight of the checkpoint everyone relaxed a little. The Captain undid his collar, felt the sunshine on him and told himself that he should try and get out and about like this a little more.

  It took longer than anticipated to get to the orchard. The path they’d intended taking over the fields had been blocked off, which meant they had to go around all the lanes. They stayed in formation in case they met any more Americans, but increased their pace to something a bit more practical and, apart from a wrong turning out by High End which obliged them to make a tight U-turn a few hundred yards farther on, the star on Aldred’s pole fairly flew between the hedges and in less than an hour Raybe’s orchard swung into view.

  As soon as they were under the trees the older members of the party slumped to the ground and Will and Cyril directed Sylvia and Maureen in the removal of the coffin lid. Over the weeks Dexter’s pig had become so inflated in his imagination he had convinced himself that only a coffin of exceptional dimensions could contain it, and when Jackie Taylor had brought it around the previous evening had insisted on loading it with sandbags so that it wouldn’t look any heavier when it left the evacuated area than it had done going in.

  Maureen and Sylvia were still heaving the sandbags out and dumping them under the hedge when Dexter, Jackie, Howard and Aldred set off in search of the pig. They ail crept forward in a tight little scrum, until Dexter said that this was bloody ridiculous and ordered the others to fan out between the trees.

  Dexter went off on his own. After a couple of minutes he thought he heard something rustle and suddenly stopped, to try and establish where it had come from, only for Aldred to go crashing into him and almost lop his ear off with his staff.

  Dexter turned, ready to give Aldred a roasting, but hesitated when he saw just how anxious he looked.

  “Are you all right?” said Dexter.

  Aldred nodded, but seemed to be in no hurry to get back to the pig hunt.

  “What’s the matter?” Dexter said.

  Aldred’s eyes were practically popping out of his head.He leaned toward Dexter, as if he was about to share the gravest confidence.

  “I keep thinking about its piggy little eyes,” he said.

  Dexter patted him on the shoulder and sent him off toward the part of the orchard which seemed least likely to have a pig in it. Then he turned, took a breath and went back to tiptoeing through the undergrowth.

  The apples on the ground were brown with rot and flattened themselves under Dexter’s boots like boiled potatoes—must have been lying there for the best part of six months. And if Harry Snape really had seen the pig here way back in December, thought Dexter, there was no earthly reason why the animal should have hung around. It could have holed itself up somewhere. Could have swum across the river. The Americans could have caught it and roasted it on a spit.

  Dexter’s speculations were interrupted when a pigeon went clattering up into the trees and he turned to find Aldred running hell-for-leather back toward him with his tablecloth cape flapping behind as if he was about to take flight himself. He was almost home when he caught his pole in a tree’s lower branches. His feet flew out from under him and he landed on his back with a thump.

  After a moment or two Aldred sat up in the long grass.

  “I found him,” he said. “I found the pig.”

  “A horrible big brute he is,” said Aldred, as Dexter galloped past him. “I reckon he’s dead.”

  Dexter ran through the orchard like a primitive. Saw himself running in a leopard-skin loincloth, like that trapeze artist he’d seen at a circus a couple of years before.

  He finally found the pig in a clearing—not, by any means,the biggest pig Dexter had ever set eyes on but it was pink and had a fair bit of meat on it and lay on its side, with its eyes shut and all its teats exposed. Dexter was still standing and gawping at it when Will Henderson joined him.

  Will had seen a few dead things in his time. “She’s not dead,” he said. “She’s just having herself a little kip.”

  Within two minutes the other mourners had gathered around them—all except for Maureen. Maureen was creeping back to her pram. When she got to it she checked to make sure her little girl was still sleeping. Then slid a hand down the side of the blankets.

  “Gently,” she said to herself. “Gently.”

  She managed to pull out the carving knife, had her hand on the Indian club and was telling herself what a grand job she was doing when she must have knocked the pram or let a cold draft in. Her baby’s eyes suddenly whipped open. There was a second or two’s silence, as she filled her little lungs. Then she let out a terrible scream which carried through the orchard like a rifle shot.

  The pig, who hadn’t seen a soul in months, came around to find its own small audience peering at it. It blinked twice to make sure it wasn’t still dreaming.

  Dexter turned and called out over his shoulder, “Come on, Mo. She’s waking up.”

  Maureen plucked her baby from the pram with one hand, grabbed the knife and Indian club in the other and started running. Meanwhile, the pig was getting to its feet—very slowly, as if doing its best not to startle anybody.

  Maureen ran toward the other mourners but the closer her bawling baby got the more agitated the pig became. It was on its feet now, looking around, and Dexter, seeing a gap in the bushes behind it, spread his hands wide and low and began edging in that direction before the pig had the chance to make a dash for it.

  Man and pig slowly circled each other, like boxers. Only the wailing baby racing toward them threatened to intervene. But as they slowly swung on their axis the pig caught sight of the gap in the bushes and at the very moment when Maureen and her baby arrived it feinted left, wrongfooting its assailant, and made a bolt for the undergrowth.

  Dexter Fadden had spent too many hours daydreaming of this meeting—was not about to surrender all that living meat without a fight—and as the pig bundled past him he threw himself at it.

  My pig, he said to himself as he caught hold of it. Mine.

  He managed to get one arm around its neck and the other around its middle which started it squealing. He held on and tried to get his legs around it and there was a hopeful moment or two when he genuinely believed he might win the day. But it bucked and thrashed with such ferocity that its torso slowly slipped from his grasp and when it finally broke free and its back trotters caught him in the face Dexter’s last conscious thought was how surprisingly warm its fles
h had felt in their brief embrace.

  It ran at its audience, who, despite their love of pork chops and streaky bacon, were only too keen to get out of the way. But the pig seemed a little weary—was not moving quite as freely as its mourners might have expected—and Dexter lifted his face from the ground to see Howard Kent grab the Indian club from Maureen, run alongside the lumbering pig and bring the club down on its head. The second blow seemed to convince the pig that it was done running and the next brought the pig to its knees. Howard tossed the Indian club aside and turned to Maureen.

  “Give me the knife,” he said.

  He inserted the blade up under its chin and yanked the handle backward and forward. From where Dexter lay it looked as if he was cranking a car. Then Howard stepped back, the pig slowly toppled and from the hole in its throat a great spout of blood pumped out onto the orchard floor.

  If the pig had not been existing almost solely on a diet of fermenting apples for the last four months and accumulated the most colossal hangover it might have been a little quicker on its feet. Oblivious, the villagers carried it home in its coffin fairly bursting with pride and would have slung it from Aldred’s pole like a hunting trophy if they’d thought they could have got it past the Americans.

  Howard Kent was already rehearsing his story of the day he wrestled a wild pig. Dexter Fadden, though bruised and beaten, was happy. The others had brushed him down and tried to make him presentable but by the time they passed Miss Minter’s he was limping so badly that the coffin was rocking from side to side. There was such a sense of well-being among the mourners that Dexter thought he should remind the others not to look too cheery, but just then the checkpoint appeared through the hedgerow and the job was done for him.

  A jeep was parked by the bridge and a third soldier had joined the other two. From the way he stood it was clear that this new fellow was a man of authority.

  “Whoa,” said Dexter and drew the cortège to a halt.

  When the coffin came around the corner the American soldiers could barely conceal their relief—seemed ready to welcome them with open arms.

  The Captain decided to take the bull by the horns. “Thank you so much,” he told the soldiers. “I think we all feel a great deal better after that.”

  The officer cast a withering glance over the whole ramshackle gang.

  “My boys tell me,” he said with great deliberation, “that you’ve been having some sort of service.”

  “That’s right,” the Captain said. “A few hymns … a few prayers … a few words of remembrance.” He’d once heard how Americans like a bit of history. “It’s an old tradition, you know,” he said.

  He was still wondering what other aspects of this tradition he might be called upon to invent when the officer fixed him in his sights.

  “There’s not a church down that road for five miles,” he said.

  A terrible chill swept through the mourners. In the circumstances, Dexter was impressed by the speed with which the Captain came up with what seemed like quite a plausible explanation.

  “It was an outdoor service,” he said

  But the American officer was nowhere near as impressed as Dexter. He looked at Aldred and saw nothing but a bug-eyed boy with an old tablecloth wrapped around him. Aldred, feeling deeply uncomfortable, looked to his religious pole for strength, only to find that he had lost the star off the top.

  “Open the coffin,” the officer said.

  Suddenly every mourner had their own idea why the coffin should not be opened. The commotion woke Maureen’s baby but the American officer stood his ground.

  “Nobody leaves until it’s opened up,” he said.

  The pallbearers carefully lowered the coffin. Will and Cyril undid the screws and lifted the lid away. All three soldiers crowded around and peered inside. The eyes of the corpse were closed, his hands folded across his chest, but he looked far from peaceful. In fact, he looked as if he had suffered a violent, bloody death.

  When the officer looked up his face was ashen. In Sylvia Crouch he now saw a bereaved sister, in Mo Tucker, a widow with babe-in-arms.

  “Christ Almighty,” he said. “Forgive me. I don’t know what I was thinking of.”

  They were over the bridge and halfway up the hill before Dexter gave the order to stop and open up the coffin, by which time Howard was hammering at the lid. When they helped him out his teeth were chattering and his whole body was shaking like a leaf.

  “That was horrible,” he said and stood in the lane, rubbing his shoulders. “Just horrible.”

  Back at the checkpoint the Americans were absolutely sickened. The officer leaned against the wall of the bridge and stared into the water below. How could so much blood come to be inside a coffin, he asked the others. What terrible death must the poor man have met? A dozen different questions demanded to be answered, but the two he significantly failed to ask were why a dead man’s boots would be so muddy and why a pram without a baby in it should ride so close to the ground.

  Ballistics Reports

  ALL THE BOYS wanted to do was to make a little whizz-bang. Something to liven up a Sunday afternoon. The idea that this might have somehow helped conjure up the Bee King would not occur to them until much later on.

  They had done their rounds, winding up at the allotments around four o’clock with no obvious means of entertainment until Aldred found the remains of a bonfire, with its embers still glowing under the ash. A boy on his own might have warmed his hands at it. Two might have tried stoking the fire back into life. But it took all five to create the conditions necessary for them to organize a party to look for something combustible which might be introduced to it.

  The first shed Finn and Lewis forced their way into was full of old rakes and spades and piles of potting trays, which might have made a nice little bonfire of their own and brought a good deal of misery to their owner, but lacked the explosive element they were after, so they went onto the next shed along.

  The other boys were breaking up beanpoles and adding them to the embers and managing to fan some flames into being when Finn and Lewis reappeared, looking mightily pleased with themselves.

  Finn held up a tin. “This’ll do it,” he said.

  In the face of such overwhelming smugness Hector felt compelled to offer some resistance.

  “It’s just a syrup tin,” he said.

  “Smell it,” said Finn.

  Hector took the tin, popped the lid open and peered in at the black liquid swilling around inside. Inserted his nose and took a deep sniff. A muddy sweetness filled his head. Both lungs locked up. He was transported to a dim and dangerous place. And when he finally returned, blinking, to the allotments and his lungs finally spluttered back to life, he found his thoughts swam in the same peculiar fashion as that time he’d fallen out of a tree and landed on his head.

  He passed the tin to Aldred and Harvey, who both sniffed, recoiled and nodded their approval, as if they were connoisseurs of the stuff. Then they handed it back to Finn, who stamped the lid down on it and carried it over to the fire. He held it above the flames for a while, like an offering, with the others watching. But the moment he let go of it they all scattered—dived behind sheds and compost heaps and covered their heads with their arms.

  For a while the sky seemed to threaten to buckle—to rupture. There was a period of almost unbearable anticipation. Then the growing realization that the Golden Syrup tin had, in fact, neither the potential nor the least inclination to explode.

  One by one, the Boys raised their heads above the parapet. The fire still smoldered. A trail of smoke went straight up into the winter sky. Hector got to his feet and stood with his hands on his hips, squinting.

  “You didn’t put the bloody lid on tight enough,” he said.

  The tin exploded. Exploded with such infernal anger it was as if the laws of physics had been tampered with, shaking the windows in all the nearby houses and almost knocking the Boys off their feet. But in those few seconds before they started r
unning they quite clearly saw the tin take off. Saw it fly up and head toward the river. And as they ran, with the embers showering down on them, the Boys saw no sign of that tin can flagging. And whenever they recalled their little experiment imagined it continuing through its trajectory.

  Back in 1941, when the wind was in the right direction, the villagers could sometimes hear the distant drumroll of Plymouth taking another pounding. But by ‘44 the only bombardments to be heard were the ones from the evacuated area—bombardments which steadily grew in frequency and ferocity until reaching their peak in April of that year.

  One night, Miss Pye stood at her bedroom window in her dressing gown, having been shaken from her dreams. Each flash of light on the horizon turned the sky into a mottled sea of red and amber, and a rumble of thunder rolled through the fields and shook the floorboards under Marjory Pye’s slippered feet. She pinned the curtain back in her hand, peered out into the darkness and smoothed a sarsaparilla lozenge against the roof of her mouth. Wondered what it must be like to be caught up in all those explosions and what chance there was of one of those shells straying off course.

  In the morning the villagers agreed that the firepower of the previous night’s exercise easily outweighed any that had gone before and the days which followed were rife with rumors of botched landings, of American troops caught by their own artillery and even ships going down in the bay. The LST which limped into Dartmouth with its stern bent out of shape was there for all to see, and there were so many stories—of makeshift hospitals, of lorries piled with bodies and even the digging of mass graves—that it was hard not to believe that some monumental, bloody disaster had come to pass.

  The culmination of the Captain’s tabletop labors was that moment when the ship’s hinged masts were temporarily flattened and the model was eased down the neck of the bottle before the sails were hoisted back into shape.