Brendon Chase

by B. B.

  As soon as it was light on Boxing Day the boys were up and out to see if the animal had been back during the night. But there were no new tracks in the snow and no more hens were missing. The outlaws, after a vast breakfast of smoked ham and two eggs apiece, laced with crisp rounds of fried potato, set off to track the bear.

  Even though more snow had fallen in the night, the old spoor was faintly visible in the deeper drifts, but after searching far back into the Crown spruce woods, all signs petered out and they had to give up.

  It was nearly dusk when they returned to the shack, ravenously hungry and weary with walking through deep snow. Smokoe had an appetizing meal awaiting them; cold roast pheasant, venison cutlets and Brussels sprouts. He had also a surprising piece of information. During the day he had had visitors, PC Cornes and the bear’s keeper!

  It appeared that the bear had escaped from Brendon where it was taking part in the pantomime The Babes in the Wood. Somehow or other it had broken out of its quarters on the theatre premises two days before Christmas. After a chase almost as thrilling as the pursuit of Little John, it had been seen by a shepherd, entering the Chase.

  ‘Cornes nor the panto chap didn’t stay long ’cos I told ’em nowt about seein’ the bear,’ said Smokoe. ‘Ef I’d a let on we’d ’ave ’ad everybody ’ere a-lookin’ fer ’im. I tells ’em that if the bear did come inter the Chase, ’e’d make for the larch plantations in the Crown lands. There’s spruce there an’ it would be warmer than this side.’

  ‘Lucky we didn’t run into him, we’ve been into the Crown lands this afternoon,’ said Robin, helping himself to a large spoonful of Brussels sprouts. ‘We didn’t see anything of the old bear there. We went into the spruce plantations too, but all we found was a dead jay lying in the snow.’

  ‘Yes,’ put in Big John, ‘I’ve brought it back. I want to skin it, Smokoe, if you’ll show me how.’

  ‘You’ll ’ave to look sharp, my masters,’ replied Smokoe, ‘there’ll very likely be a lot o’ folk roamin’ around termorrer, lookin’ fer the bear. Ef I was you, I’d stick close ’ere and kip yer eyes peeled. An’ there’s another thing you ain’t thought on. You say you’ve bin to the spruce plantation, well, there’s snow on the ground ain’t there?’

  ‘Yes, what of it?’ asked Robin, with his mouth full.

  ‘Well, I was thinkin’ that ef Cornes, or other folks, go lookin’ fer the bear they may cum across yer footprints, that’s all.’

  Robin lay down his knife and fork and whistled. ‘My, Smokoe, you’re right!’

  ‘Ah, o’ course I’m right,’ said Smokoe. ‘Three pairs o’ footprints, small uns, not man’s size, might cause some people to think a bit. You ain’t bin seen yet be anyone but meself an’ Doctor Bowers – in the Chase, I mean – so nobody knows fer certain you are ’ere. But ef the likes o’ Buntin’ should ’appen along, or Cornes maybe, they’ll begin to put two an’ two togedder like, see my point?’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Big John, ‘it’s no use worrying. The forest is a big place. I expect other boys beside ourselves go mucking about the Chase, they won’t know it’s us for certain.’

  But Smokoe Shook his huge nose and began to busy himself over his wood carving.

  When supper was over the boys produced the jay and begged Smokoe to show them how to skin it. The owl flew down from its perch in the corner and alighted on Smokoe’s shoulder, blinking at the dead body of the bird on the table and snapping its bill. The good-natured old man laid his work aside and took up the jay. It was a beautiful specimen with no mark upon it. Smokoe said the great cold had killed it.

  He stuffed a small piece of wool into the bill and turned the bird on its back, laying it flat on the table. With a sharp knife he made a neat incision down its stomach, parting the feathers carefully so as not to cut them in any way. When this was done – he was careful not to cut into the flesh of the breast – he began to work his fingers under the skin on either side of the keel-like breast bone. Gently pushing and pulling, he loosened the skin, scraping with the blade of the knife at the fine binding tissues until he had rolled the skin back to the root of the neck. This he neatly severed, sprinkling flour on the damp skin and on any particles of blood which appeared.

  Next, he felt for the junction of the wing and body and cut through the bone, repeating the operation on the opposite side. The old man worked intently and skilfully.

  ‘Who taught you to skin?’ asked Robin. ‘You seem to do it so easily.’

  ‘Taught meself mostly,’ said Smokoe. ‘I’ve skinned most things. There used to be an underkeeper who could set up birds; he larnt all ’e knowed from the old Duke, ’e larned me a bit. The secret is to take yer time an’ not get ’urried like; ef you pulls too ’ard you’ll tear the skin.

  ‘There you are, masters,’ said Smokoe, as he skinned round the second wing joint, ‘now we’ll ’ang ’im up.’

  He tied a piece of string to the root of the severed neck, fastening it to a bacon hook which hung from the ceiling. The skin, now free from the neck and wing joints, hung downwards, and as Smokoe worked away, skinning carefully and gently down the back, the art seemed easy. He cut the thigh bones as he came to them and the skin was peeled down to the tail root, which he cut through, and the next moment the neat, floured carcass swung free like a pendulum and Smokoe held the jay’s skin in his hands.

  He laid it on the table and turned the neck inside out, until the base of the skull appeared. Very gradually he turned the neck skin inside out, cutting the tendons as he came to them and cleaning away all the flesh from the bone. When he came to the eyes and brain, he scooped these out with the point of the knife. At last he had cleaned the skull to his satisfaction and returned the skin over it. It was slow, delicate work, but the whole head suddenly pulled back over the skull and there was the completely cleaned skin, lying on the table.

  ‘Be rights you should cure it wi’ arsnic,’ said Smokoe, stroking the soft feathers into place, ‘but as we ain’t got any, we’ll use pepper; pepper’ll cure a skin, though not so well as arsnic.

  ‘An’ you want proper eyes fer ’em, which we ain’t got, so you’ll not be able to set ’im up wi’ a false body, but that’s the way you skin a bird.’

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Big John, stroking the beautiful blue wing feathers which looked as if they had been painted, like blue ripples in a Japanese silk painting. ‘It looks so mighty easy.’

  Smokoe smiled and took up his carving again. ‘You get an old starlin’ and try out on ’im,’ he said. ‘Starlings be tough-skinned birds, an’ pretty too. One day I’ll show you ’ow to skin a squirrel.’

  Robin filled his cob pipe and lit it with a professional air. He had now mastered the art of smoking. In a few weeks, he reflected, such luxuries would be forbidden; very soon now they must say goodbye to the Chase, and the oak tree and Smokoe too. He sighed … Ah, but it had been a glorious time; these last few months had been wonderful … the shooting and trapping, the fishing and birdnesting, the free, wild life and the incomparable companionship of Smokoe, who liked all the things they liked and could skin birds and carve wonderful beasts and birds out of wood. And finally, this glorious Christmassy weather, the jolly times they had had, and to cap it all a real live bear scaring them out of their wits! He let his eyes rove happily round the little shack. Smokoe was bent like a hideous but kindly old gnome over his carving. The owl, which was now hopping on the table, was gobbling up the scraps of meat from the jay’s skin, and Big John and Little John had their heads together over Smokoe’s work. Robin felt that in a moment or two he would wake up and find that it was all a dream.

  Somehow, sitting in that cosy shack of Smokoe’s, he felt that there would be little fun now in going back to the oak tree. The more he thought about it the more he disliked the idea. Why was it? Had they tired of their forest life?

  The Easter term would be starting soon at Banchester; the time was slipping by. No, they must go back to the Dower House next week. Father and Mother were
coming home in the New Year. They must be back by then; it would be dreadful to be away when they arrived … dreadful. Yes, this great time was over, or nearly so. But whatever happened, whatever punishments were coming to them, this wonderful adventure would have been worthwhile, it would never, never be forgotten!

  Why is it that there is always a sense of anticlimax in the days immediately following Christmas? So much seemed to have happened: the Christmas party at Smokoe’s, the magnificent wintry forest wrapped so deep in snow, the excitement of the bear … all three boys sensed it. In those last remaining days of the old year, the outlaws spent their time helping Smokoe with his kilns and visiting their trap lines. The great cold still held and the forest was a silent deserted wilderness of dazzling white snow with purple-black trees and underwood limned against it. Little John came back one evening with a pure white stoat which he found in one of the traps and Smokoe said it was the first white stoat he had ever seen. It was the continued Arctic weather which had made the little animal change his coat, so Smokoe said.

  With his help they skinned and mounted it and for eyes they used boot buttons procured by Smokoe in Cheshunt Toller. As for the bear, no further trace was found nor was there any fresh news of it. Perhaps it had left the forest.

  One night as they all sat round the fire in the shack, Robin made an announcement.

  ‘We’ll go back to the oak tomorrow and fetch away the rest of our stuff, the pots and pans and things.’

  ‘Wot’s the idea?’ grunted Smokoe, who was, as usual, busy over one of his carvings. ‘Ain’t you goin’ back there no more? I suppose you think it’s more comfortable like, livin’ wi’ me ’ere, eh? Well, that’s all right wi’ me, I likes yer company!’

  ‘The fact is, Smokoe,’ said Robin, a little awkwardly, ‘we think we ought to go back home the day after tomorrow; you see, our parents are coming back from abroad.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve got fed up wi’ livin’ in the Chase, ’ave yer?’ said Smokoe, eyeing Robin keenly and spitting into the stove. ‘Well, I can’t blame ye.’

  ‘It isn’t that, Smokoe,’ said Robin impatiently. ‘We love this life but we can’t stay here forever, not like you. We’ve got to go back to school. We shan’t ever be free again, not like we’ve been these last few months,’ he added mournfully.

  Smokoe did not reply, but kept chipping away at his block of wood. ‘Ah, I wuz fergettin’ yer schoolin’. Aye, ye’re right, masters, you’ll ’ave to pack up sure enough, but I’ll be main sore at partin’, we’ve ’ad some good times in the Chase, one way an’ another.’

  ‘We have,’ exclaimed the outlaws with enthusiasm, ‘and you’ve been a trump, Smokoe; if it hadn’t been for you, we don’t know what we should have done.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll come an’ see me sometimes,’ said the old man wistfully. ‘I shall feel mighty lonesome when you’ve gone, blame me, ef I won’t. I reckon Ben an’ Gyp’ll miss ye, too.’

  The following day brought a thaw. The outlaws awoke to find a world of mist; their feet no longer scrunched crisply on the snow. It seemed to Robin, as he gazed out of the doorway at the foggy, damp wilderness, that somehow such a change in the weather suited his present mood. All the jollity and sparkle of the snow was going, even the novelty of their woodland life was wearing thin.

  Soon after midday a sorrowful procession set out on their last visit to the old oak tree. On all sides the bushes dripped; now and again a mass of snow fell to the ground with a strange, rustling rush which was quite uncanny.

  In the dense fog it was no easy matter to find their way, and when at last they reached the clearing, something made them approach their old encampment with caution. Robin in the lead was brought to an abrupt halt. He said nothing, but pointed silently at the snow. For there, leading directly to the tree, were the footprints of the bear! The outlaws stood irresolute, poised for instant flight.

  ‘He’s gone into the oak sure enough,’ whispered Robin, excitedly. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘See if he’s inside,’ said Big John; ‘it’s your job as chief,’ he added pointedly. Robin went stealthily forward. The opening to the oak tree was dark and yawning. The slab of bark which they had used as a door lay on one side; the bear’s footprints led directly within.

  Step by step Robin went forward until he was close to the door. At first he could see nothing, the gloom was impenetrable, but as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he made out the shapeless form of some large, dark animal, half covered with the bracken which they had used as bedding. There was a strong smell of bear, and he could hear the sound of heavy breathing.

  He tiptoed back to the others. ‘He’s in there all right, as cheeky as you please, and fast asleep too, I think.’

  ‘That’s pretty cool,’ said Big John, ‘making himself comfortable in our tree!’

  ‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed!’ whispered Little John.

  ‘Well, what are we going to do?’ asked Robin. ‘Fancy him finding our oak tree when there must have been plenty of other places in the Chase. It’s the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of!’

  ‘I think the best thing is to tell Smokoe,’ said Big John. ‘We shan’t do any good by stirring him up. The poor old thing will be still feeling sore, anyway, after what Smokoe did to him the other day.’

  ‘If we tell Smokoe he’ll only want to shoot him,’ said Robin. ‘I vote we just don’t say anything and let him sleep in peace. After all, he’s as much right there as we have.’

  ‘I’ll bet he’ll sleep there until the warmer weather comes,’ said Little John. ‘Bears do that, they go into their sleeping quarters under some brush pile and places like that, and hibernate just like hedgehogs, at least, that’s what I’ve read in books. In Russia the hunters track them down to their sleeping quarters with dogs and shoot ’em when they come out.’

  ‘But what about our pots and pans and things? Our fishing rods are in there too,’ said Big John, in a plaintive voice. ‘It seems to me it’s a lucky thing we took the rifle over to Smokoe’s place because, bear or no bear, one of us would have had to go in and fetch it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Robin, ‘we’ll have to leave the pots and pans; after all, we shan’t want ’em any more. Of course,’ he added, ‘if either of you would like to go in and get ’em you can, they’re up in the right hand corner, under the bracken.’

  But neither Big John nor Little John showed marked enthusiasm at this suggestion, and after one last look at the tree which had been their home for so long, they turned down the trail for Smokoe’s.

  Their footsteps left ragged holes in the melting snow; there was a harsh, marrow-freezing chilliness in the damp air which seemed far colder than those other sparkling, frosty days which they had experienced before Christmas.

  It was funny to think of their oak tree with another tenant, a hunted outlaw like themselves; the same thought occurred to each of the boys as they trudged onwards through the fog. ‘I wish him luck,’ said Robin, voicing his thoughts, ‘and may he live in the Chase for years and years and never be caught.’

  When at last they reached the cabin, early dusk had come, and the orange lamplight from Smokoe’s window shone out at them in a cosy glow. No word was said as to the bear’s hiding place; not one of the boys gave Smokoe the merest hint that they had found him.

  After supper Smokoe took up his carving and began chipping busily. Gyp lay stretched before the stove, grunting and squeaking in his sleep – no doubt he was dreaming of the grizzly – and the owl flew out of its corner and came to Smokoe’s shoulder, where it intently watched the yellow chips as they flew outwards from under the sharp knife.

  There was a feeling of depression in the air, few words were spoken and the old man, normally so talkative, seemed unusually intent upon his task. Robin, watching him keenly, wondered what Smokoe was thinking about; was he thinking how lonely he would be when they had gone?

  Robin thought of the day when he first came to the shack, of how Smokoe pounced upon him fro
m behind, of how he hid under the bed in the corner, watching each movement of Bunting’s huge, shiny boots not five feet from him. What a time it had been! How far away those dreamy days seemed when they swam in the Blind Pool and he had climbed to the honey buzzard’s nest. It was that ‘last night’ feeling all over again.

  ‘’T’will soon be the New Year, masters,’ said Smokoe at last, glancing at the battered alarm clock on the mantelshelf, which showed but an hour to midnight. ‘An’ ef I’d thought, I’d a got some booze o’ some sort in, but to tell yer the truth, I clean fergot it! Now, if we ’ad some o’ ’Is Grace’s port, that would be something like!’

  Robin went to the door and opened it. The light from the shack made a strange white wall in the fog but looking up he could see dimly, far above, a few stars. He heard the drip of melting snow from the log roof and all around the pat and tick of falling moisture. And clearly came the buzz of Brendon bells, just as they had heard them on Christmas Eve.

  ‘Shut that door, you!’ called Smokoe. ‘We don’t want that old fog in ’ere.’

  Robin closed the door. ‘The bells are ringing, Smokoe!’

  ‘Ah, I ’eard ’em; ringin’ out the old year, they be.’

  Again there was nothing but the click of the chips flying from his knife and the muffled dream barks of Gyp.

  It was so warm before the stove that Robin fell into a doze. His head nodded forward and soon he was asleep. The next moment, so it seemed, he was wide awake and his heart thumped madly. Gyp barking, barking with shrill, staccato yelps!

  ‘Lor’ luv us!’ exclaimed Smokoe. ‘Someone’s a-cummin’, either that or it’s the bear!’

  Then Robin heard the unmistakable sound of steps crunching outside. ‘Quick, under the bed, you,’ snapped Smokoe, ‘it’s someone a-cummin’, Bunting, I’ll warrant!’

  The three outlaws dived under the bed and Gyp, his hackles standing up like a wire brush, and treading on the tips of his toes, was staring at the closed door.

  The outlaws had barely hidden themselves when there came a loud double knock, which drove Gyp nearly demented. Smokoe advanced and slowly lifted the latch.