occupation by charlie taylor
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Charlie Taylor
Occupation
1
It was late morning when the soldiers came knocking on the door.
Such a polite knock. A bit like Mr Marsden from the Pru used
when he came to collect his money every month. "I'm here
again," he would say to Jimmy's mother, laughing. "Doesn't time
fly!" And he would collect his half a crown which he would put
into the small leather bag he carried around his waist before
stooping to refit the bicycle clips around his skinny ankles, mount
his sit-up-and-beg Raleigh and pedal off to knock on Mrs
Hutcheson's at number 143. Two-and-sixpence here, five bob
there, a tanner from old Granny Baxter at number 79 for her
funeral insurance! She was determined to have a good send off
was old Granny Baxter. She'd never hold her head up if there
weren't ham sandwiches for all followed by fairy cakes and
Jammy Dodgers.
The soldiers knocked again. A firm knock but not one
designed to alarm. Knock, knock, knock, as if by a gloved hand,
which was the case.
Jimmy knew it was the soldiers. He had seen them walking
along the road, past the troop carriers, six of them in uniform,
carrying guns.
"Dad," Jimmy had shouted up the stairs, "they're outside our
gate. They've stopped. They're looking at our door. I think they're
going to come here, to our house. Dad!"
He heard a frantic scuffling from the landing. He heard the
trapdoor to the roof space being moved and he saw his father's
feet on the top of the banister for a second before they were
drawn up into the loft behind him and the trapdoor scraped back
into place.
"Get away from the window, Jimmy," said his mother, all
hard-voiced and urgent. "Get away from it. Now! Come into the
kitchen with me. Jimmy, do as you're told. Now!"
There was a third knocking on the door, a more insistent
knocking, an offended knocking, a you'd-better-be-opening-
this-door-now sort of knocking, before-we-get-angry sort of
knocking. Jimmy scuttled backwards towards his mother who
clasped him to her pinafored bosom.
< 2 >
"It's alright, Jimmy," she said. "Everything's alright. Don't say
anything to them, love. Just keep quiet and let me talk?"
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Jimmy looked up at her face, her frightened face. He nodded.
The knocking became a slapping-banging, as if with the flat
palm of a gloved hand, and then there began a firm kicking at
the bottom of the door. Not enough to damage it but enough to
suggest damage would be done if it wasn't opened. A voice
shouted, superfluously: "Open the door!" One of the soldiers
came to the window and peered into the room, trying to see
through the net curtains. Jimmy's mother turned to the kitchen
and saw more soldiers, three of them, standing in the back
garden, hands on guns. Her trembling transmitted itself through
to the boy. He felt her arms shaking, her body shaking, her legs
shaking.
There was a moment's silence before the front door burst
open, the remains of the Yale lock spinning down the hallway to
fall with a ting, ting, ting on the hard red tiles. The soldiers
walked into the house, guns cradled, faces set, hard. Two stood at
the bottom of the stairs, looking up towards the landing, two
quickly searched the living room, dragging the sofa out of place
to check behind it, two pushed past Jimmy and his mother and
glanced around the kitchen pausing to acknowledge the soldiers
in the garden.
They gathered at the bottom of the stairs. Two climbed to the
landing and stood guard while the others pushed past them to
search the bedrooms, the bathroom. Nothing. The soldier in
charge looked up at the loft entrance. He nodded to one of his
team who climbed up on to the banister and poked the trapdoor
with the muzzle of his gun. It moved. He poked it harder and it
shifted a foot to his left. He moved it aside with his hand, pulled
a torch from his pocket, switched it on and eased his head into
the opening as he shone the light into the roof space.
The single shot made Jimmy's mother sag at the knees. Her
grip on her son tightened. He felt she was almost dragging him to
the floor. All was confusion. He felt, rather than heard, the
soldier's body fall from the banister and thump down the stairs
before the gunfire overwhelmed his senses. He tore himself away
from his mother's arms and ran to the hallway. The soldier lay on
his back, legs up the stairs, head on the red tiles, blood pooling
underneath him, eyes wide open in apparent astonishment at the
hole on the centre of his forehead.
< 3 >
He looked up to see the five soldiers crowded onto the small
landing, all firing their automatic weapons into the ceiling, the
plasterboard being ripped apart as the bullets' path weaved left
and right, around and around, spraying the whole area.
"DAD!" shouted Jimmy, starting up the stairs and as he did so
one of the soldiers turned around, swinging his gun to bear on
the ten year old, reacting, not thinking. His finger tightened on
the trigger. Above him, the plasterboard disintegrated. A body fell
through it onto the soldier, knocking him to one side as the first
bullets slammed into the wall on Jimmy's left.
"DAD!" shouted Jimmy.
2
Both bodies were removed within the hour. Jimmy and his
mother were taken in a black Humber Hawk to Maghull Police
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Station which had been commandeered by the soldiers as their
headquarters for the West Lancashire area. Jimmy was made to
sit in an office which was empty except for one desk and two
chairs. A woman in uniform sat with him, behind the desk, but
didn't speak to him at all, not even to ask if he was hungry. His
mother was taken along a corridor by the soldiers and into a
room at the end through a big, heavy steel door with bars across
the small glass window. Jimmy sat in the chair for two hours. The
uniformed woman read a book, occasionally crossing and
uncrossing her legs. She smelled of talcum powder and Coal Tar
Soap, Jimmy thought. Like his Aunty Freda.
"Never, ever speak to 'em, son," his dad had told him. "Not if
they ask your name or where you live or whether you'd like a
piece of chocolate. Tell 'em nothin'. Don't talk to 'em on the
street, don't tell 'em you're my son, don't listen to anything they
say 'cos it'll all be lies and it could get someone killed."
Jimmy had blinked at that.
"And that someone could be me or your mum. You hear me?"
Jimmy nodded and imagined his parents dead. Tears formed.
< 4 >
"Stop that!" his father had said. "Stop that now! And don't
you let 'em make you cry, 'cos that's what they'll want to do.
They'll want to frighten you 'cos you're only a kid. They'll want to
frighten you so's you'll tell 'em things about me and your mum.
Don't you say a word, you hear! You don't want us dead now do
you! Tell nobody nothing, son."
Jimmy nodded, then changed his mind and shook it and tears
trickled down his cheeks.
"Stop that, I said. Here!" And his dad gave him a
handkerchief, all bundled up and dirty, to wipe his eyes.
So Jimmy sat in the chair for two hours, hardly moving except
when pins and needles started in his legs where the chair cut in
under his thighs. Then he would wriggle his legs slightly, one at a
time, trying to ease the feeling back into them. He sat there and
tried not to cry for two hours. He wouldn't let his dad down, no
matter what they did to him. He wouldn't say anything. He would
tell 'em nothing. Nothing. He tried to be brave. Like his dad.
He searched his memory. Had he ever talked to them? There
was that young one he'd said thanks to who'd kicked his football
back to him across Southport Road, away from the traffic. But
that was all. Surely that wouldn't have got his dad killed? But
what if?
The door opened and a soldier, an older man with fancy
badges on his uniform, came in and whispered something in the
woman's ear. She looked at Jimmy. "Come!" she said and walked
out of the office, out of the police station, with Jimmy at her side,
her hand on his shoulder. They got into the black Humber Hawk
again and drove back along Southport Road into Lydiate until
they passed Jimmy's house on the left hand side, the front door
still hanging open, a soldier on guard outside, others searching
the gardens and wandering around inside the building. They
turned right 250 yards further on, into Lambshear Lane and
stopped outside the primary school. A woman was waiting for
them, standing at the school gate.
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< 5 >
"Hello Jimmy," she said, opening the car door. "Come with me.
You're safe now. She nodded at the woman in uniform, a curt
nod, a necessary nod but one devoid of any civility.
"My mum?" Jimmy said. "Miss MacIntyre! My mum? They've
got her at the police station."
He threw himself into the waiting woman's arms and sobbed,
hours of pent-up fear and frustration breaking through. Miss
MacIntyre looked again at the uniformed woman through the
open car door. "So, this is what it's come to. Waging war on ten
year old boys? You're scum, the lot of you," she said, turning on
her heels and leading Jimmy by the hand into the school
playground. "Come on, Jimmy. You're safe now with me."
Miss MacIntyre's little bungalow in Dodds Lane was as neat and
pleasant as the headmistress herself. Tall privet hedges, clipped
to within an inch of their lives, fronted the driveway where her
grey Morris Minor stood gently dripping oil onto the swept
tarmac. The front garden was paved except for diamond-shaped
patches of well-fed soil within which pruned, spiky rose bushes
displayed their blooms. Jimmy's Gran loved roses and early
summer. "That boy came with the June roses," she said every
year to her daughter when buying something for Jimmy's
birthday. The thought of his birthday made him cry. His present
this year was to see his father murdered and his mother taken
away from him. He rolled over on his bed in Miss MacIntyre's
spare bedroom and cried and cried until he could cry no more. In
the lounge, his new guardian cried too on his behalf, and patted
the head of her ageing Springer spaniel. "What a cruel world,
Shandy. What a cruel world," she murmured. "Who would do this
to a child?"
She looked out of the French windows leading to a long,
narrow lawn with a neat wooden fence at the end, separating her
little world from the flat farmland beyond with Maghull and
Aintree and Liverpool in the distance. It was quite some time
since she had sat there at night-time watching the explosions
light up the sky as bombs rained down on the docks. It was
peaceful now, for the most part. Defeat had its advantages. But
not for everybody. Not for Jimmy's father and others like him
who refused to accept defeat, who fought on. Not for Bob Mitchell
and Harry Scrivener and Ted Maughan who had all just
disappeared. And that was from this small village alone. And not
for those caught up in the aftermath. Not for Jimmy's mother,
and Jimmy himself. Not for wives and mothers and the children of
those who fought on. "It might be better if they just accepted the
situation, Shandy? What do you think?"
< 6 >
And now she had acquired a boy. In loco parentis during the
day at school for all her charges, and now in loco parentis at
home for Jimmy. What else could she do? The poor boy had no
relatives in the village, travel for those living elsewhere was
restricted, so who else would look after him? Miss MacIntyre
sighed. She had regretted not having children of her own but the
death of Stephen on a Normandy beach twelve years before had
committed to her to spinsterhood. A life lost, lives ruined, futures
destroyed, children unborn. And for what?
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She had heard Jimmy crying and thought it best to leave him
to exhaust his emotions. But enough was enough. Boys, she
knew, needed to be kept occupied. And so did dogs.
"Jimmy!" she called. "Jimmy, I'd like you to take Shandy out
for a walk, please. She hasn't had any exercise today and
neither have you. Come on now, quick's the word, sharp's the
action!" She lifted down the spaniel's lead from the coat hook in
the hallway and knocked on Jimmy's bedroom door. "Jimmy, come
on now. Shandy needs you to look after her. Dry those tears and
try to be brave." Try to be brave, she thought as his
tear-streaked face appeared at the door, eyes red, face pale,
snotty-sleeved. A ten year old boy, trying to be brave. "Wait a
second, Jimmy," she said, bustling into the bathroom and
re-emerging with a wet face cloth in her hand. "Can't have you
looking a mess, can we now." And she scrubbed at his face in
such a fussy way that he almost laughed through his misery.
"There, now," she said. You're fit to face the world. Off you go
with Shandy for twenty minutes while I get you both some dinner
ready. Try the fields past Ormerod's farm," she suggested. "Off
you go and make your parents proud. You're almost a man and
you'll need to behave like one."
And Miss MacIntyre, wondering whether her words were
ill-advised or not, watched the little man in his short pants walk
off down the driveway with a bouncy, pulling-at-the-lead, liver
and white Springer spaniel, looking to all the world like a waif
and stray. She was glad when they turned the corner onto Dodds
Lane. She could cry, then, without embarrassment, without
showing her own weakness to a ten year old boy.
< 7 >
Jimmy was hardly conscious of Shandy's excited pulling. His
head was full of sadness, confusion and homesickness. But the
dog's insistent ignorance of all things connected with human
stupidity gradually drew his attention. He stopped and pulled
Shandy up short. "Sit!" he said in his most authoritative voice.
"Sit!"
Shandy stopped, looked at him as though he was mad and
then, grudgingly, sat, mouth open, panting, eyes wide with
excitement. Jimmy knelt down and put his arms around the dog's
head, burying his face in her neck, nuzzling her floppy ears,
wallowing in the unmistakeable scent of a scruffy spaniel which,
when he mentioned it to Miss MacIntyre later, drew from her the
comment: "Not so different from the smell of a ten year old boy,
then! Time for your bath, I think."
The spaniel licked his ears and his face and his arms and
anything else she could reach, shifting her weight from leg to leg,
impatient to be running. She nibbled his arm and, in spite of
himself, Jimmy smiled. Miss MacIntyre had been right to
prescribe a spoonful or two of spaniel medicine to the boy.
The row of neat little bungalows stretched ahead of him on
his right for a half a mile, and then it was fields. Across the road
was Ormerod's farm and then, again, it was fields. Dodds Lane
stretched away into the countryside towards Millbank Lane and
the village of Aughton. The roads were quiet. Even without the
occupation's stifling effect, cars were few and far between. His
mother had said it reminded her of wartime rationing. "Which
war?" his dad had asked with a sour laugh.
"This isn't a war," she'd said, "it's just a military takeover. We
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never fought this time."
"How could we?" his dad had said. "We had nothing left after
'45. Twelve years on and we'd nothing left. No wonder they
simply marched in after a few well-placed bombs. Like taking
candy from a baby, as those Yanks used to say. And where are
they when we need them? Sitting at home, chewing gum, like in
'39."
< 8 >
"C'm on, Shandy," Jimmy said, standing up and squaring his
shoulders. "let's go find some rabbits."
The sound of gunfire rattled across the fields from the direction
of Aughton. Jimmy crouched low in the field of barley. He could
see where Shandy was running by the path she was making
through the crop, chasing imaginary rabbits. "Shandy, here girl!"
he hissed. She came running, scenting him out, and he grabbed
her by the collar, pulling her down to lie on the ground with him.
The gunfire continued, sporadically, but heading Jimmy's way. He
raised his head. He couldn't see who was firing but started
scrambling away, dragging Shandy by the collar as he went, the
barley stalks whipping him in the face, the spiky ears catching
him and sticking into his jumper. He reached the edge of the field
where Millbank Lane met Dodds Lane and Park Lane. He inched
forward and slid down into the drainage ditch, peering over the
edge. There was a man on a bike, pedalling furiously down
Millbank Lane from the direction of Butchers Lane and Aughton.
His head was down as he crouched over the handlebars, barely
looking in front of him, weaving all over the road. Jimmy
recognised him. He'd seen him talking with his dad in the street
in Maghull but didn't know his name. Jimmy raised his head and,
as he did so, Shandy lunged forward, breaking free from his
grasp. She dashed out into the road, almost under the wheels of
the bike, barking and yelping in excitement. A good game for a
spaniel. The man crashed off the bike in a flurry of gravel and
scraped skin, cursing and swearing at the 'bloody dog', before he
saw Jimmy.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Don't run. I know you. I know your dad."
He looked around, looked over his shoulder back towards
Butchers Lane. "Here," he said, fishing inside his jacket. "Do us a
favour. Hide this." And he flung a heavy object wrapped in
sacking at Jimmy's feet. "Hide it and don't tell anyone," he
shouted, mounting his bike again and pedalling off towards the
little housing estate on Kenyons Lane. "Hide it! In memory of
your dad!" he shouted. He skidded across the road and onto the
pavement before turning down a ginnell between two houses.
Shandy chased after him
< 9 >
"Shandy! Shandy!!!!" Jimmy screamed at the dog. "Come
here!" And then he heard the vehicles approaching down
Millbank Lane, from where the cyclist had come. He kicked the
sack bundle into the ditch and dashed across the road to where
Shandy was standing, sniffing at a fence post and wagging her
tail. He slipped the lead onto her collar as the first car full of
soldiers drew up alongside him.
"Which way did he go? The man on the bike! Which way did
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he go?" The soldier levelled his gun at Jimmy. "Answer me!
Which way did he go?"
Trembling, Jimmy pointed along Park Lane and the vehicles
roared off in a haze of exhaust fumes. As soon as they were out
of sight, he slid back into the ditch, dragging Shandy with him,
picked up the sack bundle, stuffed it under his jumper and set off
down Dodds Lane again, towards Miss MacIntyre's, looking over
his shoulder every few seconds, hurrying but not running.
When he got to Ormerod's farm he stopped. "I can't take this
back to Miss MacIntyre's," he announced to the spaniel, "not
without knowing what it is." He looked around, trying not to give
the impression he was doing anything out of the ordinary. "Come
on, Shandy, let's go and investigate."
The pair crossed the road and sidled along the outside of the
barn which edged Dodds Lane. Pausing at the farmyard entrance
to check there was nobody about, Jimmy slipped around the
corner and into the barn, pulling Shandy with him. "Shhhhhhh,"
he whispered as a low growl rumbled in her throat at the sight of
a couple of chickens strutting about on the bales of hay.
"Shhhhhhhhhhhhh or I'll leave you here!"
He clambered to the top of the stacked hay bales, urging
Shandy to follow him, and then he pushed several bales apart to
create an enclosed space, a den for himself and his new pal, out
of sight of any passer-by. The pair of them sat for a while, the
dog sprawled across Jimmy's legs, panting and giving the
unwarranted appearance of intelligence by cocking her head at
him every time he murmured to her. "We're best friends, you and
me," he said. He smiled and ruffled her floppy ears.
< 10 >
The package was heavy and was making Jimmy's jumper sag.
He pulled it out and laid it on the straw. Shandy sniffed at it.
"What do you think it is, Shandy?" He stared at it a while then
started to unravel the bundle until the mouth of the sack was
open. He stared into it and his eyes widened. There were two
guns. One of them was covered in a sticky goo. He pulled them
out of the sack and put them side by side on the bale. He looked
at his hand. Blood! "Heck, Shandy, we're in trouble now, you and
me."
3
"I was worried to death about you two," said Miss MacIntyre as
she and Jimmy sat at her dining table, scrambled eggs on toast
before them. "Did you not hear the guns?"
"They were over at Aughton," said Jimmy, slipping a piece of
toast crust to Shandy who sat under the table shifting her weight
from paw to paw in anticipation of treats.
"I wonder which poor soul's being hunted now?" she mused.
"Another slice of toast, Jimmy?"
"No thanks, Miss MacIntyre, I'm not too hungry."
"Yes, I know, but young boys must eat. It's one of the things
they do best."
"Miss MacIntyre?"
"Yes, Jimmy? And you don't need to put your hand up to
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speak to me when you're here just in class like all the other
children."
"Well, Miss MacIntyre do you know when I can go home? Do
you know where my mum is, what's happened to her?"
Miss MacIntyre put down her knife and fork and looked at the
ragamuffin sitting across the table. Five feet nothing of an unruly
mop of dark hair, skinny legs, skinny shoulders, cheeky face. Her
heart almost broke for him.
"Strange as it may sound, Jimmy, you'll have to accept that
even teachers, even headmistresses, don't know everything. And
the answer to both your questions is, I don't know."
< 11 >
Jimmy stared at her, eyes wide, waiting. What else could a
ten year old boy do?
"But," she said, "you're safe here for the moment you're
safe here as long as needs be and tomorrow, after you've had a
good night's sleep, I'll see what I can find out. The least I can do
is call at your house and pick up some things so that if you have
to stay here with me a few days, you'll have some clothes and
some of your own possessions. And I'll try to find out about your
mum too."
Jimmy stared at her.
"And as a special treat for both of us, no school tomorrow for
you or for me. I'll ask Mr Downing to take assembly and look
after the school while I'm away while we're both away. There
are more important things to do at the moment than go to
school, don't you think, Jimmy?"
"Yes, Miss MacIntyre." He almost smiled at the thought of no
school. He reached under the table and patted Shandy on her
head and the dog nuzzled his hand, looking for more toast. "Miss
MacIntyre?" he said again, half-raising his hand until she frowned
at him.
"Yes Jimmy?" she said, sensing a coming request by the
wheedling tone of his voice.
"Miss MacIntyre, if I'm going to spend the night here in that
bedroom," he said pointing at the spare room can, erm, can
Shandy stay with me in the night? Please, Miss MacIntyre? I'll
look after her and take her out in the morning and feed her and
brush her and"
"Well, Jimmy, I wouldn't have it any other way. The very idea,
a dog and boy sleeping in separate rooms. It's never been known.
Of course she can stay with you. But you must promise to look
after her and take her out in the morning and feed her and brush
her and" She smiled as Jimmy threw himself onto the floor,
wrapping his arms around Shandy's neck.
< 12 >
"Did you hear that, Shandy? You can stay the night with me!
Isn't that great!"
And Shandy certainly did think that was great.
Miss MacIntyre returned after lunch the following day
carrying bags full of Jimmy's clothes. "I couldn't manage any
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more than this," she said, "and the soldiers are still searching the
place. They're digging in the garden now. The one in charge said
they'd board up the house once they'd finished and that one of
his superior officers would be in touch about your mother. He said
he didn't know where she was. That's no surprise."
"They won't find anything," said Jimmy. "Dad was always
careful."
Miss MacIntyre looked at the boy. "It's better you don't tell me
anything, Jimmy. It's better you don't tell anybody anything. You
can trust me, you know that, but a secret's a secret if only one
person knows it."
"Dad told me never to talk to them, and I don't."
"Yes, he was right, but it's not just them. You shouldn't talk
about this sort of thing to anybody, anybody at all, even to your
friends at school. It's important, Jimmy, that you understand how
dangerous it is."
"Yes, Miss MacIntyre. I know that. They killed my dad, didn't
they, and others in the village. And yesterday they were shooting
at"
"That's enough, Jimmy. I don't want to know. If you need to
tell anybody, tell Shandy. She'll understand and she'll not give
you away. Here now, you and Shandy go to your room and put all
your clothes away. We'll assume you're staying for a couple of
weeks at the moment and hope we get some news of your
mother in the meantime. Off you go, the pair of you. And then I'd
like you to take her for a walk. When you get back I have a little
schoolwork I'd like you to do given that you've missed today's
lessons.
"Yes, Miss MacIntyre," said Jimmy, pulling his face as he
dragged the bags away to his room.
< 13 >
The dog-walking took Jimmy directly to Ormerod's farm and
into the barn. He climbed the bales and ducked into his den with
Shandy, safe in the knowledge he couldn't be seen from the
ground. "Shhhhhhhh, girl" he said to the spaniel, patting the
straw by his side and, obediently, she lay down quietly. He dug
down between two of the bales and pulled out the sacking,
checking that the guns were still there. "What do we do with
them now?" he murmured. "They can't stay here for ever. These
bales will have to be moved some time. What do you think,
Shandy?" She sniffed the sacking, drawn by the scent of the
blood. "Leave it!" he hissed. He pushed her away and forced the
bundle down between the bales again, then lay back, pulling the
dog into his arms for warmth and comfort, and listened to the
sounds of the barn. The wind gently eased through the slatted
side with a swishhhhhhhhhhh and the wooden structure creaked
gently. Now and again he would hear the scratchy scraping of a
mouse or rat as it scampered about the bales, no doubt looking
for food, wary of boys and dogs. He lay there for almost an hour,
day-dreaming, whispering to his doggy friend, stroking her,
calming her whenever he heard a noise from the farmyard.
Everything was at one and the same time strange and yet
ordinary, fantasy and yet strikingly real, unlikely and yet
guaranteed certainty. One day his life was that, the next it was
this. For a ten year old boy with a spaniel friend, everything was
true, everything was here, everything was now. He and Shandy
weren't very different. Not really.
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Jimmy left the barn carefully, crossed the road and turned
back into Miss MacIntyre's driveway. "Ah, there you are, you
two," she said from the front door. "I was beginning to wonder
where you'd got to. Long walk?"
"Yes, Miss MacIntyre. I think Shandy's tired now. Is it alright
if I walk down to the school to play out with Robert till teatime,
please?"
"Are you sure you'll be fine on your own? It's not far and you
know the way. I can't see any harm coming to you. Off you go
then. Back by six at the latest! Oh, and what about that school
work you were supposed to ...?"
< 14 >
"Thank you, Miss MacIntyre," Jimmy shouted over his
shoulder, already running down Dodds Lane. "I won't be late."
Robert Weldon was red-haired, freckly, snub-nosed and built like
a mini-weight lifter. He was Jimmy's best friend and the two were
inseparable, in or out of school. They were possessed of a fierce
brand of mutual loyalty that only innocence can support, and
they made a formidable team. Kick one and the other limped too,
and then there was trouble. So nobody kicked either of them.
Half past three, the school bell rang and Jimmy sat on the low
wall, facing the playground, feet dangling, heels kicking against
the brickwork, rhythmically scuffing his shoes to within an inch of
their lives. The doors were flung open and the new, flat-roofed
buildings disgorged their juvenile contents into the arms of
waiting mothers, aunties or neighbours, or to make their way
home in dribs and drabs if they lived not too far from school.
Robert lived in Haigh Crescent, just around the corner. His house
backed onto the playing fields which Robert regarded as part of
his back garden.
"Hey, Jimmy!" shouted Robert, charging across the narrow
strip of grass between playground and Lambshear Lane and
leaping at his friend on the wall, both of them falling backwards
in a tumbled heap. "Sorry, Jimmy. Didn't mean to do that,"
Robert said, picking himself up and sitting on the wall again,
rubbing his elbow where he'd scraped it. "Ouch!"
"Where'd you get to today. Why weren't you in school?"
"My dad got shot yesterday," Jimmy announced with a child's
matter-of-factness. "He's dead. And my mum got taken away by
the soldiers so I'm staying at Miss MacIntyre's. She said I didn't
need to come in to school today. She's got a great dog. It's a
spaniel called Shandy."
"Yeah, heard about your dad. I'm sorry, Jimmy. Sorry about
your mum too." He fixed his face in a suitably sorrowful
expression. "But that's good about the dog. And staying with old
Miss MacIntyre! Hey, what's that like? I bet it's scary."
< 15 >
"No, she's really nice and kind, but I miss my things. My bike
and my games and my football. I need my fishing tackle too."
"Hey, how're you going to manage without your fishing
tackle? Can't you go and get it from your house?"
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"Miss MacIntyre said the soldiers were still searching it"
"What're they searching it for?"
"Never mind I can't tell you but they're still searching it
and then they're going to board it up, Miss MacIntyre said."
"Bet they're searching for guns and ammo. Bet that's what
they're after!"
"Can't tell you. Miss MacIntyre says I mustn't talk to anybody
about things like that."
"You can tell me, Jimmy. I'm your best friend. Anyway,
everyone knows your dad was a fighter. My dad used to say he'd
get himself shot one day, and he was right. I'm sorry, though. I
liked your dad. My dad says the fighters are brave fools. That's
what he calls them."
"My dad wasn't no fool," said Jimmy, standing up and
rounding on his friend. "You just take that back!"
Robert looked at his friend who, according to his mother, was
'about as far through as a piece of lettuce', looked at the
fierceness in his eyes and, for a ten year old, felt something
approaching sympathy for another human being. "I'm sorry,
Jimmy," he said. "I don't think he meant it in a bad way. He just
thought the fighters didn't know that they were beaten. I liked
your dad. I thought he was great."
Jimmy sat down again, tears forming in his eyes.
Robert put his arm around Jimmy's shoulders. "Tell you what,
Jimmy, let's me and you go round to your house, sneak down the
canal bank and see what they're doing there. If we can, we'll get
your bike and fishing tackle. What do you think? I don't need to
be home before mum gets back from work. What do you think?
And if we see any soldiers, we can ask 'em what's going on? What
do you think? Come on, let's do it."
< 16 >
"Alright," said Jimmy, "but I've got to be back at Miss
MacIntyre's before six. Have you got a watch on? Right, come on,
let's go."
And they walked down Lambshear Lane, past the school main
gates where mothers and aunties and neighbours were gathering
their young about them, and some of the adults stopped as the
boys made their way along the crowded pavement, nodding at
Jimmy, faces set in socially acceptable expressions of concern and
sympathy and fear for their own.
"Come on, Jimmy," said Robert as they zigzagged through the
shifting mass, "you can tell me, you know. What're they
searching for?
4
167 Southport Road, Lydiate, was a small semi with a postage
stamp-sized front garden, a narrow driveway along the side and a
long, thin back garden running down to a very large sycamore
tree, behind which was a raggedy wooden fence. Beyond the
fence the Leeds-Liverpool Canal drifted its way at right angles to
the garden, left to Liverpool where it emptied into the Stanley
Dock, and right a meandering route via the famous Wigan Pier,
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eventually to Leeds. The canal at Lydiate, its banks, its fish, its
bridges, the houses backing onto it, the allotments nearby, the
farmers' fields in the background, the copses, the ponds, the
towpaths, the derelict buildings with smashable windows all
these were known by Jimmy and Robert. They knew things about
the area that only ten year old boys could possibly know. They
knew the best hiding places, the secret pathways, the hollows
where tramps sat and drank, the undergrowth where teenage
girls allowed teenage boys to do things that they didn't want
their mothers to see, they knew where rubbish was dumped and
what could be scavenged from it to make huts, they knew where
the rabbits burrowed and where foxes hunted them, they knew
where the water rats lived and why fishermen couldn't catch
roach near to Bells Lane Bridge. They knew all these things and
yet hated classes in school, as is the way with boys who learn
things best by playing Cowboys and Indians or Cops and
Robbers or war games.
The boys turned right into Bells Lane before reaching Jimmy's
house, down to the hand-operated, wooden swing bridge over the
canal, past the shop where they had bought many a lolly-ice.
They crossed the bridge and turned left along the towpath,
wandering idly along as though they were just boys doing boyish
things, until they were opposite the back of Jimmy's house. They
slid down the banking at the side of the towpath into familiar
games territory, hidden behind bushes and brambles.
< 17 >
"Can't see nobody in the garden," Robert whispered as he
separated the twigs in the bushes that hid them to peer across
the canal. He was in Commando mode.
Jimmy's head rested on his friend's shoulder as he took a look
too. "They must have gone. They didn't find nothing."
"How do you know that?" Robert asked.
"Can't tell you," said Jimmy. "I just know."
"Are you going to tell me what they were searching for or
not? I'm your best friend, remember!"
"I keep telling you, I can't, Robert. I just can't." He paused,
looked again across the canal. "Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you.
Alright?"
"Alright," said Robert, boy-loyalty and pester power rewarded
at last.
"But you've gotta promise you'll not tell anybody else. Not
your mum or your dad or your sister, God strike you down dead if
you do."
"I promise," said Robert, spitting on his hand and holding it
out to his friend. Jimmy spat on his own hand and they shook on
it. The promise was sealed and binding, even under threat of
torture or death. For little boys, with the certainty born of
ignorance, are convinced that such threats are bearable.
"Do you think they've gone?" Jimmy asked, peering through
the twigs again.
"Looks like it," said Robert.
"Let's go round the front and check."
"Just a sec," said Robert. He turned and stood up close to a
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chestnut tree, unzipping his shorts. "Bet you can't piss this high,"
he laughed, squirting his jet of urine up the trunk to almost chest
height.
"Bet I can," said Jimmy, joining him, both trying hard not to
splash themselves when standing on tip-toe, giggling as drops
spayed sideways onto their legs.
"Beat you, beat you, you dirty little bugger!" shouted Robert,
laughing and running out onto the towpath, zipping his shorts as
he went. "Race you to the bridge!"
< 18 >
They turned right out of Bells Lane onto Southport Road, idling
their way along the footpath that was separated from the
roadway by a grass verge about six feet wide. Every few yards,
Robert would find something interesting in the grass a stone, a
piece of wire and, sometimes, a decent-sized cigarette butt which
he'd slip into his pocket. They wandered past number 167. The
driveway was empty, the rusting wrought-iron gates left open
and the house was deserted. Three crudely cut lengths of wood
crossed the front doorway at random angles, their ends nailed
into the door surround, their middles nailed into the green-
painted door itself through blocks of wood underneath.
"You'll never get in there," said Robert. "Not without taking all
that wood off and then how would you close it again after?"
"Don't need to get in," said Jimmy. "Don't want to get in the
house. Come on, quick!" and he scampered down the driveway,
followed by his burlier friend.
They kept low as they rounded the corner of the house where
the wooden shed stood, door ripped off and left swinging, and
Jimmy crouched even lower, almost on hand and knees as he
made his way down the garden to the tree and the rickety old
fence. Robert followed, even more in Commando mode than
before. Jimmy slipped through the fence where a couple of
palings were broken. Robert squeezed through, ripping a hole in
his jumper with the end of a rusty bit of wire sticking out across
the gap.
"Down!" said Jimmy, and both boys flattened themselves in
the long grass behind the fence. Stinging nettles brushed their
legs making them both flinch, but stinging nettles were easily
dealt with once you could find a dock leaf. Neither boy made a
sound as old Mr Watkinson in number 165 put some rubbish in
his dustbin. They watched him rattle the lid back on the bin then
hawk and spit, and bend over to blow his nose through his
fingers onto the ground, long strings of snot hanging from his
nose for a moment before gravity got the better of them and they
fell to join his gobbet on the crazy paving. He wiped his fingers
on his trousers before going indoors.
< 19 >
"Ewwwwww," said Robert. "Wonder if he does that in the
house?" They both giggled at the thought and the giggles grew
wilder under the strain of the situation, threatening to become
hysteria as they tried hard not to look at each other, red in the
face, choking for breath with the effort of laughing quietly.
Jimmy eventually rolled over onto his back, staring at the
blue sky through the branches of the sycamore tree where he
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had spent many hours clambering like a little monkey among its
branches. He knew every crook and hollow and foothold in the
tree. He had been Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan only the day
before yesterday, rescuing Barbara Sharp's imitation of Maureen
O'Sullivan's Jane from the cannibal natives of Darkest Africa.
They had taken refuge in the sycamore and, as reward, Jimmy
had got to see Barbara's navy blue knickers as she climbed above
him.
"I'm done," said Robert. "Can't laugh any more."
"Me neither," said Jimmy. "I can't move yet though. My sides
are aching."
Robert lay on his side, head supported by his left arm. "Come
on, Jimmy, tell me. What were they searching for?"
"Watch," said Jimmy, and he crawled through the grass
toward the edge of the canal, paused, checked that nobody was
on the towpath and lay in his stomach, arms reaching down into
the murky water. He grunted with the effort of stretching, then
inched his way back holding the end of a rope. "Here, Robert,
give me a hand with this, will you. Pull!" Robert gripped the slimy
rope and the two boys pulled. "Slowly," said Jimmy.
The rope refused to move more than six feet or so. Whatever
was on the end of it was stuck at the lip of the canal edge. "Keep
hold of it," said Jimmy. "don't let it slip back into the water." He
inched forward on his stomach, leaned over the lip and with a
grunt pulled a small metal drum over the edge onto the grass.
Whole bricks were attached to it by ropes wrapped around the
drum. No wonder it was hard to pull up. He wriggled backwards
with it to where his friend had relaxed his hold on the rope.
"Quick, said Jimmy," let's get it over here, under the tree, out of
sight."
< 20 >
"What's in it, Jimmy? Open it. Let's have a look. Go on, open
it," said Robert.
"I can't get into it," Jimmy said. "Dad sealed it and tied these
bricks on it for weights so it wouldn't float. I don't know how to
get in it without a hammer or an axe or one of dad's saws, and I
don't want to spoil it. Come on, we've seen it's there. The soldiers
didn't find it so let's put it back."
"Wait! What's in it?"
"I promised I'd tell you tomorrow, not today."
"That's not fair."
"We shook on tomorrow not today so it's fair. Come on,
Robert, help me get it back in the water."
Robert pouted and sat looking at the drum. "I bet it's guns. Or
knives. Or secret maps."
"I'm not telling you today. Help me get it back in the water
and I promise I'll tell you tomorrow. I promise!"
"You better had," said Robert. "A promise is a promise."
"Did you have a good time with Robert?" said Miss MacIntyre as
she served Jimmy a plateful of sausage and mash.
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"Yes, thanks, Miss MacIntyre. We played football on the school
field."
"Ah, I wondered how your clothes had got so grubby. Did you
win?"
"Wasn't a proper game. We did swapsies with Dringo and
Sharkey and Stuart Pearson."
"Did you see any soldiers about the place? Mrs Evans was
telling me there was a bunch of them searching the fields up
alongside Millbank Lane. You know, where it runs though on that
footpath to Butchers Lane. She thought it had something to do
with the shooting yesterday but who knows? Whatever it is, some
poor soul's in trouble. Where will it end, where will it all end?"
Jimmy coughed and choked on a piece of sausage.
< 21 >
"Drink some water, Jimmy, and try not to choke yourself in
my house. Shandy would miss you and you'd look terribly untidy
on the floor here."
"Miss?"
"Yes Jimmy?"
"You know you said yesterday that perhaps it would be better
if everybody stopped fighting and accepted the occupation?"
"I was just thinking out loud, Jimmy, that's all."
"But did you really mean that, Miss? Should we let them steal
our country? My dad said they were murdering bastards"
"Jimmy! Language!"
"Sorry, Miss, but he did. He said they'd turn us into their
slaves, they'd steal all our things. He said this was our country
and we had a right to defend it. He said it was our duty to defend
it even though they'd beaten our army. He said that any man
who didn't defend it was a coward and deserved to be a slave."
Miss MacIntyre looked at Jimmy, still red in the face after
struggling with the sausage, made worse by this burst of passion.
She reached over and touched his arm. "I don't know, Jimmy, I
just don't know. I think about it every night. I think about the
waste of lives in the First and Second wars with Germany. I think
of all the brave young men slaughtered in France and Belgium. I
think about all the wars there have been throughout history as
greedy men got their young folk to fight and die for them and I
wonder what good it has ever done."
"But my dad says that you've go to fight for what you believe
in, that if you don't you're not a real man."
Miss MacIntyre sighed. "It all depends, Jimmy, what you mean
by 'real man'. Sometimes it takes more courage not to fight than
to fight. I just wonder how much worse it would be if we accepted
the situation we had now, stopped fighting them, and just got on
with our lives. Would it really make any difference to the
ordinary man and woman in the street? Politicians might say it
would, and so might those who would stand to lose lots of money
but would it really matter to you and to me? I have this horrible
feeling that we'd soon get used to it and, who knows, we might
even prefer it to what we have now."
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< 22 >
Jimmy glared at her. "My dad says," he began, putting his
knife and fork down onto the plateful of unfinished food with a
clatter, "that anyone talking like that is a traitor and"
The telephone rang. Miss MacIntyre went into the hallway and
answered it, grateful to calm the moment with a pause.
"Hello, yes," Jimmy heard her say. "Oh no, surely not. Say it's
not true. When did this happen? Oh, the poor boy... oh, what a
tragedy. I hardly know what to say, Gwyneth. The poor parents.
How on earth can I tell Jimmy oh, Gwyneth, what are we
coming to when is there anything I can do or is it..? Alright,
Gwyneth, thanks for letting me know. I'll see you in school
tomorrow. I'm heartbroken."
He heard her put the phone down and then sob. "I'll be with
you shortly, Jimmy," she called from the hallway, and the door of
her room opened and closed.
For half an hour Jimmy and Shandy played in the garden,
rolling around the grass, play-fighting. Shandy always won,
signalling her victory with a series of licks to Jimmy's face as she
lay on top of him, panting.
He heard the phone ringing again from inside the house.
"Jimmy!" said Miss MacIntyre a few minutes later from the
French window. "Can you come here a minute, please. I have
something I need to tell you." Her face was tear-stained, her
eyes were red and puffy. Jimmy walked over to her. "Sit down
here next to me on the bench if you would, please, Jimmy. I have
some terrible, terrible news to tell you. I'd rather not have to be
the one to break it to you but"
"Is it mum? Have they done something to her?" Jimmy's eyes
pleaded with her.
"It's not your mother, Jimmy. It's Robert."
"Robert?"
"They just recovered his body from the canal at the back of
your house"
< 23 >
"Who did? At the back of my house? What happened. I only
left him a couple of hours ago? What was..?" he gabbled.
"Shhhhh, Jimmy, shhhhhhh, take it easy. It seems a soldier
went back to your house and caught Robert in the back garden
doing something he shouldn't have been doing. Nobody knows
exactly what it was but the soldier grabbed hold of him and he
wriggled free then jumped into the canal"
"Robert can't swim!"
" and he just disappeared. They found him under the Bells
Lane Bridge. Oh, Jimmy, I am sorry."
Jimmy sat on the bench, stunned.
"And I just had another call from Mrs Evans, the school
secretary. She says the soldiers have found some gelignite in the
canal at the end of your back garden. Gwyneth is thinking that
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Robert was caught with the explosive and that's why the soldier
grabbed hold of him. That's why Robert was desperate to get
away."
Jimmy was silent.
"Look at me, Jimmy. Look at me now, and answer me
truthfully. How did Robert know about the gelignite? Did you tell
him? Did you know about it?"
"I never told him there was no gelignite there, Miss. Honest, I
never." And so literally honest was his reply that Jimmy was able
to look his headmistress squarely in the face and appear
innocent. "Honest, Miss. On my mum's life, I never told him
about no gelignite."
The loss of a best friend can penetrate even a ten year old
boy's immediacy in the world. It is true, innocent heartbreak
without closure if death is involved, without the satisfaction of
childish anger where the parting words are: "I'm not your best
friend now." The news was too numbing for Jimmy to cry. He
shouldn't have shown Robert the barrel. What did he expect him
to do? Wait until tomorrow? Wait as Jimmy demonstrated the
power of knowing something Robert didn't? But Robert had
betrayed him, had betrayed Jimmy, his head argued. And, as with
his response to Miss MacIntyre, he knew he was being literally
honest with himself. He went to his room without saying a word
and lay on the bed, holding Shandy.
< 24 >
"He let me down," Jimmy murmured into the dog's floppy ear.
"I promised. He promised. We shook hands on it. He got himself
killed, not me. Not me. That's right, Shandy, isn't it?"
Shandy lay on her side, one eye looking at him. She didn't
seem convinced.
"Miss MacIntyre was right. I can't trust anyone except you.
You wouldn't let me down, would you? You'd keep a promise and
not tell?"
"I don't want you to go to school again today," Miss MacIntyre
had told him the following morning. "I think you should only go
back next week." Jimmy nodded, his breakfast toast uneaten. "I'd
like you to stay here and look after Shandy again while I go in to
see what I can do to help. And please stay in the house or the
garden. Don't go wandering, do you hear?" Jimmy nodded again.
"Yes, Miss MacIntyre," he had said.
The big black Bakelite phone rang at half past ten. "It's Miss
MacIntyre, Jimmy," the voice said. "The soldiers are on their way
to pick you up. They just called to ask if you were in school. They
want to speak to you about Robert and about Michael Davey.
They caught him last night. They say he killed one of their
soldiers in Butchers Lane the other day. That's what all the
shooting was about. He killed the soldier and stole his gun and he
says he gave it to a young boy on Millbank Lane. They must have
tortured him, Jimmy"
Jimmy said nothing.
"Are you still there, Jimmy?"
"Yes, Miss MacIntyre."
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"Jimmy, was it you he gave the gun to?"
Jimmy said nothing.
"Jimmy, it must have been you. The boy had a spaniel with
him. That's how they know it was you. They've been asking
questions around there. Are you still there, Jimmy?"
"Yes, Miss MacIntyre."
< 25 >
"Was it you, Jimmy?"
"You told me not to tell you anything, Miss MacIntyre."
"But Jimmy, they are driving round to the house now as we
speak. Quick, Jimmy, I want you to run round to Mr Waterly's on
Northway. Tell him I sent you. He'll know what to do!"
He said nothing. He remembered what his dad had said: "Tell
nobody nothing, son." He put the phone down, grabbed his coat
from the back of the chair and ran out through the open French
windows, Shandy, barking in excitement, running along with him.
He climbed the fence at the end of the garden, leaving Shandy
behind with a quick stroke and a kiss to her spaniel face "Be a
good girl for Miss MacIntyre." - and made his way along the backs
of the other houses until he came out higher up on Dodds Lane.
A quick look left and right and he dashed across the road into
Ormerod's hay field, then along the inside of the hedgerow where
thrush, sparrow and blackbird eggs had provided fair game for
young boys in the past, and into the barn. Leaping up the stacked
bales he dived into his hiding place and lay panting, heart
thumping in his chest. He'd hide there till dark, then make his
way down to his house, force his way in, get some food, his knife
and some spare clothes, and he'd use the towpath to walk down
into Liverpool. He was sure he'd find someone in Liverpool to hide
him. His Uncle Ralph lived there. He'd know what to do.
He sat and waited, hearing the occasional vehicle driving
along Dodds Lane, watching spiders on the wooden slats of the
barn, listening to the rustling of the hay as small creatures
moved about, hiding in their turn.
The guns! He thrust his hand down into the space between
the bales. He pulled the bundle out and unwrapped it. Both guns
were there, one with dried brown blood on it, the other clean and
old-fashioned, looking for all the world like a gun that Hopalong
Cassidy might have drawn in a gunfight at the Albany Cinema on
a Saturday morning. It was heavy. He gripped it, like old Hoppy
might have done. He put his finger on the trigger and pretended
to shoot a soldier on top of the hay bale. "Pachaowwwww," he
murmured, imagining the bullet sending his enemy spinning
down to the farmyard. "Pachaowwwwww," and another one!
< 26 >
He lowered the gun as he heard a familiar bark from the road.
Then another from the farmyard. A bark followed by shouts in a
foreign language, then running footsteps. He heard yelps of
doggy excitement and Shandy appeared on top of the bales in
front of his hiding place, panting, wagging her tail. More
footsteps clattered into the farmyard and stopped in front of the
barn
"Come out from there! We know you're there, Jimmy. Come
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out before we come and get you!"
Shandy jumped down onto Jimmy's lap and licked his face.
"You told them, Shandy, you told them were I was! Tears
poured down his face. I trusted you and you told them!" He
pushed the spaniel away, roughly, with the gun in his hand,
catching her on the ear with the muzzle. She cried in pain.
"Come out, Jimmy. We won't tell you again."
He pushed the spaniel out of his den. He stood up, gun in
hand and saw the soldiers. Two of them were carrying rifles. He
lifted his gun, put his finger on the trigger and pretended to send
one of the soldiers spinning to his death as the shots rang out
from below.
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