The Otterbury Incident

by C. Day Lewis

  Meanwhile, Charlie and young Wakeley slapped their bombs on to the side of the tank, two each, and young Wakeley crawled underneath and stuck another bomb on its bottom – five being, incidentally, a record in our battles. What’s more, the tank being now abandoned, Nick and I climbed up into it and got a grand-stand view of the fighting. Terrific scrimmages were going on all over the Incident. It was hand-to-hand fighting; everyone had chucked away their weapons, except two chaps who were having a duel with swords on a rubble heap. Bodies, locked in mortal combat, were rolling about everywhere: the air was rent with the screams of the dead and the dying. I saw Ted land the Prune a Joe Louis upper-cut, which tumbled him backwards over a rusty old drainpipe. Just then, Toppy blew his whistle, and all his men who weren’t casualties began streaming back towards the tank. In the heat of the battle, the enemy hadn’t yet realized that their tank was captured. As they shot past behind the tank, Nick leant out and bopped one after another of them on the head with his football, yelling out: ‘You’re dead! You’re dead! You’re dead!’ He got four of them like that, and last he got Toppy himself.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ shouted Toppy.

  ‘Lie down,’ I said. ‘Don’t you know when you’re dead?’

  ‘And we’ve destroyed the tank,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ve put five sticky bombs on it, honest. Look.’

  ‘Oh, you have, have you?’ Toppy said, when he’d examined the side of the tank, and underneath it. ‘Yes, that’s OK. Five bombs. The tank’s blown to smithereens. And so are you two fools in it. And therefore Nick couldn’t have conked anyone with his football. And therefore I’m not dead.’

  Well, as you can imagine, this started a proper argument. Both armies were jostling round the tank now, and everyone talking at the top of their voices. Personally, speaking as an impartial historian, I must admit that Toppy was right; but of course I didn’t say so then. We were still arguing, and Ted, with his nose about an inch from Toppy’s, was just saying, ‘You’ll admit the tank is knocked out, and that was the objective, and therefore we’ve won,’ when the school bell rang.

  I started pedalling the tank down the lane, with half a dozen chaps pushing. The rest rushed on ahead, dribbling Nick’s football. I was just roaring through the school gates when there was an almighty crash and tinkling of glass. Someone had kicked the football slap through the big window of the classroom next to the Headmaster’s study.

  2. Hell to Pay

  For a moment or two everyone was paralysed. Then the crowd broke and rushed for cover, as if an air-raid siren had gone. In ten seconds, when the Headmaster came out on to the steps, the school yard was empty. I was hiding in the bicycle shed with Ted, Nick, and some others. I saw the Headmaster examine the broken window, very deliberately. Then he turned round and spoke to the empty yard.

  ‘Will the boy who broke this window come forward at once?’

  Dead silence. I’d no idea myself who had done it. I felt sort of excited, comfortable, and ashamed, all at once, as you do when someone else is in trouble. The Headmaster repeated his request. I noticed Nick begin to start forward; but Ted clutched his arm and held him back.

  ‘If the boy who did this doesn’t own up at once, I shall cancel the half-term holiday,’ said the Headmaster, in a positively deadly voice. Nick moved again, and this time Ted let him go. Nick walked across the yard, very slowly, his head down, like a chap who’s been bowled out first ball walking back to the pavilion. Boys emerged from their hiding-places, till there was a crowd of us standing at a respectful distance behind him.

  Nick Yates owns up

  ‘It was you who broke the window, Yates?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Nick.

  The Head inflated himself, like he does when he’s going to make a speech. But, after a shrewd look at Nick Yates, he seemed to change his mind. ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘I kicked my football through it, sir. By accident.’

  ‘Hm’ff. I should hardly suppose that you would do it on purpose. However. There’s been far too much of this ragging about on school premises lately, and far too many breakages.’ The Head gave us all a nasty look. ‘You will have to pay for a new window, Yates.’

  Poor old Nick looked like a puppy with distemper.

  ‘But, sir, I haven’t any money,’ he said.

  ‘You should have thought of that before you started breaking up the school,’ replied the Head. ‘I’ll give you a week to pay in. If you haven’t got the money, your par– your guardians will have to stop it out of your pocket money. Now go to your classrooms, all of you.’

  By a strange coincidence, Nick and I were in the classroom with the broken window for that period. It was a maths lesson with Mr Robertson.

  ‘Good lord, how on earth did this happen?’ he asked when he came in.

  ‘Yates kicked his football through it,’ said the Prune. ‘The Headmaster has told him he’s got to pay for the damage. I should think it’s pounds’ worth, isn’t it, sir?’

  ‘Well, Prune, as you’re feeling so helpful, you can get a dustpan and brush and clean up the broken glass,’ said Mr Robertson. Which put that foul Prune in his place all right. ‘And in the meantime, Muswell, take your rule and measure the window … Try, if possible, not to sever the arteries of your wrists on the jagged edges. There might be awkward questions in Parliament if a boy bled to death in my classroom … Right, what do you make it?’

  ‘Six foot by three and a half, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Now take your exercise books and work out this problem, all of you. If a square foot of glass costs 4s. 6d., how much will it cost to replace a window six foot high by three and a half broad?’

  It was a pretty easy one, of course. In a couple of minutes we all had our hands up, except Nick, who was staring in front of him like a stone image.

  ‘What’s the answer?’ said Mr Robertson, pointing at me.

  ‘£4 14s. 6d.’

  ‘Quite correct … I said sweep up the broken glass, Prune, not grind it to powder beneath your clodhopping feet.’

  ‘Plates of meat,’ murmured Dick Cozzens, who is an expert in slang.

  ‘You’ll have to lend Yates the money, sir,’ said Charlie Muswell. ‘He’s broke.’

  ‘Not as broke as the window,’ said Mr Robertson. And a pretty feeble joke too, but we all laughed, just to keep him in a good temper.

  The next hour was a slack one – English with Rickie. English is my best subject, so I’m in the top form, with Ted and Toppy. I noticed them glaring at each other, and wondered if there’d be a fight afterwards. Rickie was reading to us, out of The Three Musketeers – not bad stuff, though a bit old-fashioned for my liking. You know that saying about great events casting their shadow before them? Well, Rickie came to the Musketeers’ slogan, ‘All for one and one for all’, and he fairly bellowed it out: he’s a jolly good reader, I don’t know why they don’t get him to read for the BBC instead of some of those types who sound as if their gobs were stuffed with cotton wool. Anyway, it occurred to me that this would be a good motto for Ted’s company. Little did I realize then just how true it was going to turn out. And not for Ted’s company only. Within the next twenty-four hours there were destined to take place the Armistice, and the Peace of Otterbury, and – but I anticipate.

  After school was over, Ted and I walked home together. My people live in Abbey Close, and Ted lives with his grown-up sister who keeps a bookshop in West Street – that’s Otterbury’s main shopping street, just beyond the Close. We had to pass by the Incident to get there. Well, as we were approaching it, I saw the door of Skinner’s yard begin to open. I pulled Ted in against the wall, thinking it was Skinner coming out and he might have heard how we’d used his yard for the ambush. A face stuck out of the door, glancing up and down the street in a furtive sort of way. Then Johnny Sharp emerged. He must have spotted us, for he walked straight up, baring his discoloured teeth in what he fondly imagined to be a smile.

  ‘How’s your dear sister Rose?’
he said to Ted.

  ‘She’s all right.’ Ted was rather taken aback. ‘You don’t know her, do you?’

  ‘Why not?’ replied Johnny Sharp, tilting his hat at an even more spivvish angle. ‘Why not? I can read, can’t I? I can go into a shop and buy a book, can’t I? Any objection? Nice bit of goods, your sister is.’

  Ted flushed, and started to walk on. But Johnny Sharp flapped out his hand and took hold of him by the top button of his coat.

  ‘Say! What’s the hurry? Running home to do your homework?’

  You could tell what a fearful outsider he was, because he talked in a put-on American accent; and, besides, anyone knows we call it ‘prep’, not ‘homework’, at our school.

  ‘Yes, real class your sister is. Too good for a schoolteacher, don’t you think?’

  ‘She’s not a schoolteacher.’

  Johnny Sharp flapped his hand. ‘Don’t be dumb, kid. I’m talking of that Mister Richards of yours – him she’s fixing to marry.’

  ‘That’s no business of yours,’ answered Ted.

  ‘Oh no? But it’s yours, chum, ain’t it? You’re the man of the house, see? You should put your foot down. You don’t want this Mister Richards living in the family, standing over you every evening to see you get your homework done, giving you double homework, like as not? Cor, suffering cats, you don’t want that, do you?’

  Ted looked a bit shaken. I suppose the idea hadn’t occurred to him before. But he said stoutly:

  ‘Rickie – Mr Richards is a decent chap.’

  Johnny Sharp flapped his hand again. ‘Take it easy! Take it easy! Did I ever say he wasn’t? All I’m telling you is you don’t want a schoolteacher about the place all the time, with his lesson books and canes and all. It ain’t natural. Besides, he’s got no dough. Schoolteachers never have. Not what I call dough.’ And he flipped his fingers, like a conjurer, into a pocket and flipped out a whacking great wad of notes and tapped Ted on the nose with it. ‘See what I mean, kid? Know what these are?’

  ‘Banknotes.’

  ‘That’s just where you’re wrong. They’re fur coats and slap-up meals and the best seats at the flicks and maybe a nice little sports car. Mister Richards couldn’t do that for your sis. Take him a year’s pay to buy her a bunch of flowers, I guess. Huh, he’s no good. You want her to be a shopkeeper all her life?’ He put on a sort of refined accent: ‘Ooh, dyar me, fraightfully infra dig, keeping a shup, how ken she do it!’

  ‘Oh shut up! Come on, George.’

  We were just about to buzz, when the yard door opened again, and Skinner came out. His voice rumbled like a volcano.

  ‘Look yurr,’ he said, ‘was it by any chance you little blighters who broke into my yard this morning?’

  ‘Broke into your yard, Mr Skinner?’ I said.

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘No,’ said Ted.

  ‘Oho! No, sez you.’ His bloated great figure seemed to swell visibly, as he whipped something out from behind his back. ‘The yard doors were unbolted when I got home, and I found this school cap inside. A King’s School cap, see? Suppose you wasn’t by any chance coming back to fetch it out on the sly?’

  ‘Whose name’s it got inside?’ I asked.

  ‘Not so fast, sonny,’ rumbled Skinner. ‘Where’s your cap, may I make so bold as to ask?’

  I pulled it out of my satchel.

  ‘And yours?’ He turned to Ted.

  Well, we’d had it then. You see, I’d borrowed Ted’s cap that morning, having left my own at school, as a distinguishing mark for the leader of the main attack, and Charlie had knocked it off my head by accident just as we dashed out of the yard, and I’d forgotten about it in the heat of the battle. Ted had gone a bit pale, as you can imagine, with that great bruiser glaring down at him. Then Johnny Sharp said,

  ‘I can explain.’

  ‘And who the hell are you?’ roared Skinner.

  Skinner turns nasty

  ‘Name of Sharp. I happened to be passing this morning, and I saw some boys ragging about. One of them snatched this kid’s cap and chucked it up in the air – the way kids do – and it sailed over into your yard. They couldn’t get it, because the door was bolted. So that’s the way it was. No bones broken, mister.’

  Of course Skinner had to give Ted his cap then, though he gave him a pretty suspicious look with it, out of his piggy little blue eyes.

  As we went off down Abbey Lane, Johnny Sharp muttered from the corner of his mouth, ‘One good turn deserves another, young Ted. Cheer-oh. Be seeing you.’

  Ted was silent for a while as we walked. At last he said, ‘What I’d like to know is why they pretended not to recognize each other.’

  ‘You mean, Skinner saying “Who the hell are you?” to Johnny Sharp just after Johnny’d come out of his yard?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Perhaps they don’t know each other.’

  ‘Don’t be feeble-minded!’

  ‘Well, couldn’t Johnny have been in the yard for some nefarious purpose? Loitering with intent? Burglars do often make a reconnaissance before they actually crack the crib. And he peered around in a furtive way before he slid out, didn’t he?’

  ‘You’re not such a fool as you look,’ remarked Ted, after chewing this idea over.

  ‘Wish I could say the same for you.’

  He whanged at me with his satchel, and we raced off homewards. Thus ended the events of Tuesday, June the 10th.

  3. How We Signed the Peace of Otterbury

  The next day, in break, I saw Ted talking to Nick. Ted made our secret sign – scratching his Adam’s apple – which meant that I was to follow him at a distance. Presently the three of us were in an empty classroom. Nick looked very depressed. Have you seen a bullock wedged in a cattle-truck? That’s how he looked – sort of meek and desperate, as if he was caught in something and didn’t know how to get out. Of course he was. And how!

  ‘Nick hasn’t told his guardians about it,’ Ted began. ‘He funked it.’

  Then the story came out. When Nick had gone home last night, he had begun to tell his uncle about the broken window: but he lost his nerve and finally said it was another boy who had done it; and his uncle said that, if it had been Nick, he’d have thrashed him as well as taking away all his pocket money till the window was paid for. Nick’s uncle had pretty well foamed at the mouth with righteous indignation, I gathered, and what can you do when grown-ups get like that and refuse to listen to reason? It’s easy enough to talk about ‘owning up like a man’: but sometimes, when you really do mean to own up, you suddenly lose your nerve and start making up a story, and then you have to go on with it – particularly if you’ve had a thrashing the week before, as Nick had. I’m no believer in corporal punishment anyway; I’d like to find a boy who is. But I digress …

  ‘We’ve got to do something about it,’ said Ted. ‘Any suggestions?’

  I thought for a bit. ‘Suppose we form a deputation, and go to Nick’s people, and explain –’

  ‘He’d never listen,’ Nick interrupted. ‘It’s hopeless.’

  ‘Well, what’ll you do?’ I asked him.

  ‘Run away from home, I suppose.’ The word ‘home’ set him off and he began to weep.

  ‘Don’t be a twerp,’ Ted said. ‘People always get caught when they run away, sooner or later. And you can’t run away without money.’

  ‘I’ll kill myself, then.’

  ‘Turn it in, Nick!’ Ted punched him in a friendly way on the shoulder. ‘Look here, we’ll all help. We’ll think of something. We’ll have a council of war at lunch-time. Give the call immediately after morning school, George.’

  Nick looked as if he’d been thrown a lifebuoy. That’s why Ted is leader of our company, I suppose: when he says something can be done, you really believe it can.

  So, after morning school, I began to whistle Lillibullero. It was our rallying call. The idea was that each member of the company, when he heard it, was to start whistling it too – all except Charlie Muswe
ll, who can’t whistle, but he’s in the Abbey choir, so he sings it instead. We only used the call in a state of emergency, of course; it meant ‘Rally at once to the Incident.’

  When Ted’s company were all collected there, we had the roll-call. Ted then climbed on to a rubble heap and made a speech, like the Captain in In Which We Serve. He told them what had happened to Nick. He said the motto of any decent company ought to be ‘one for all and all for one’. He said we’d got to do something about the broken window.

  Just then, we heard feet marching along the lane. It was Toppy’s company. They halted opposite us. Toppy and his second-in-command advanced, carrying a flag of truce. They’d come to challenge us to a return battle.

  A challenge to combat

  ‘We don’t want a return battle yet,’ Ted told them. ‘We’ve got something else to do.’

  Of course Toppy’s lot all started to jeer us for being windy. Ted flushed, but looked more determined than ever, as he does. Then the idea came to him which was destined to write a new chapter in the history of Otterbury.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you chaps can come in on this, if you like. We’re going to help Nick Yates pay for the window he broke. He’s in trouble at home about it, and –’