by K. M. Peyton
‘The car park is lit up all night. You can see it from here. And the police drive through it, my dad says, to stop the public toilets getting vandalized.’
The car park was the only way out of the rough field, apart from the footbridge over the railway. One side was all houses, and the other had a high wire fence and the back of an industrial estate.
‘I’ll work it out,’ Ros said defiantly.
The idea, having taken hold, possessed her.
‘The only way out is over the footbridge, and across the main road,’ Leo said. ‘You can’t do that!’
‘Who says I can’t?’
‘Mr Smith will know it’s you.’
‘He’ll have to prove it. We’ll leave no clues. No clues at all.’
Leo didn’t like the ‘we’. He wriggled anxiously.
Ros, softening, said, ‘Honestly, Leo. It will work if we plan it very carefully. I will think it out.’
‘Like a general?’
‘Yes, like a general.’ General Palfrey. It sounded good. Badger could depend on General Palfrey.
Armies had training exercises. She would have a training exercise.
‘I’ll have a practice! I’ll try it out, going to Badger when everyone is asleep! I’ll try it!’
‘When? Tonight?’
‘Tonight!’ Ros was startled. The snow lay slushy and uninviting over the damp fields and sleet was forecast. But the title she had just given herself put the prospect in a different light.
‘Yes. Why not? Tonight. I will go tonight!’
‘Me too?’ Leo’s voice was deeply apprehensive.
‘Not this time, no.’
‘What shall I do then?’
Ros considered.
‘We’ve got to find somewhere to take him to. That’s going to be tricky. You could think about that.’ Leo was good at thinking. He got high marks at school. He wasn’t a lot of good at doing though.
‘Over this way would be easiest, not far from home,’ she said.
‘You’ll never get him over the bridge!’
Generals overcame all obstacles. Ros was not going to make the bridge an obstacle. She stuck out her jaw.
‘Why not?’
The idea, having take root, would not leave her. But as the day wore on, she decided to shelve the practice run . . . not tonight, anyway. The thought of it, even just the practice, frightened her quite a lot. She must have time to get up her courage. Finding the place to take him to could be tackled first. It was the most important thing, after all.
‘We’ll go looking on Saturday,’ she decided. ‘Both of us. And when we’ve found a place, I’ll have the practice.’
She studied the footbridge carefully the next morning on the way to school. Leo was right. It was the only way to take Badger; the car park was out of the question, leading as it did into the main shopping centre. The footbridge was not used much, even in daytime, and Ros thought it was unlikely they would meet anyone after midnight. Crossing the main road would be tricky, as cars went along it more or less all night. Perhaps at three in the morning there would a gap, after late-night parties, before work . . .
The footbridge was stoutly built, and the steps up and down were shallow and fairly wide so that bicycles and pushchairs could be manhandled without too much difficulty.
‘You will go over it, won’t you, Badger?’
Badger gobbled her carrots greedily and pushed at her pockets for more. Ros thought that for food he would follow her anywhere, now he was so hungry. If they took a bucket of carrots and porridge oats, and Leo walked in front . . . she would need Leo.
She told him that. He looked wan.
On Saturday they took their bikes and went exploring, to find a place. It needed to be as close as possible, so that they could get home and back in bed without being discovered. The land on their side of the main road was all farms, but mostly crops, and what cow fields there were were all empty now and the gates padlocked. Although Ros was friendly with all the neighbouring farmers, none of them were likely to want to have anything to do with stolen property, even if they were sympathetic. There was a riding school a mile away, but all the ponies were now stabled and the fields empty.
‘We could bring him here and leave him in the field.’ Leo noticed that there was no padlock on the gate. ‘They’d find him in the morning.’
‘And tell the police,’ Ros said darkly.
‘Well, anyone would. Anyone honest.’
‘We want someone dishonest then.’
‘Sid the Pigman is dishonest,’ Leo said.
Sid the Pigman lived quite close, in a caravan. He had been turned out of a farm cottage when the farm had changed hands, but had been given the use of a field and a site for a caravan by the farmer. His place was along the arterial road, separated from it by a wide stretch of scrubby woodland. His caravan had its back to the wood, and looked down the field which sloped steeply to a stream. He kept a cow and a donkey in the field, and a large barn housed them at night. Half of it was filled with good hay provided by the farmer. The caravan was full of greyhounds, which Sid led out on leashes down the side of the arterial, and raced on Saturday nights.
‘Who says he’s dishonest?’ Ros enquired, feeling a lift of interest.
‘My dad.’
Leo’s dad, Ros knew, would assume that anyone who lived in a caravan and raced greyhounds was dishonest. Leo’s dad was a terrible snob. He called his cottage Rose Manor End. Rose Manor was the old farmhouse that had been pulled down years ago, and End meant the cottage was the end one of the terrace. But it sounded very smart. Ros’s house was called Enuff. It was called Enuff when they bought it, and her parents thought it was funny and had never bothered to change it. ‘Enuff money, you can say that again,’ Harry said. ‘That’s what it means.’
Ros asked her dad about Sid the Pigman.
‘Leo’s dad says he’s dishonest.’
‘Dishonest? Not that I know of. If something came his way, mind you, he wouldn’t go looking for the owner.’
Ros felt a prickling of anxiety at her father’s words. It was almost as if he knew what was in her mind. But he was reading the newspaper at the time and answered in an offhand way, not very interested. He didn’t ask her why she wanted to know. His answer fitted Ros’s requirements exactly. If he found a piebald pony in his field one morning, he wouldn’t go looking for the owner.
The more she thought about Sid the Pigman, the more Ros felt he was the answer to her problem. The riding school people would be bound to call the police, if she left Badger in their field, but Sid’s field was hidden away behind overgrown hedges, and if Sid didn’t say anything . . .
‘We’ll go and spy it out,’ she said to Leo. ‘See if it will do.’
It was very difficult, the days being dark as soon as they were home from school. She could only do her spying at the weekend. If Sid’s place was suitable, she decided she would move Badger as soon as possible.
* * *
It was now nearly Christmas. They broke up from school and the same afternoon bicycled down the lane to Sid the Pigman and saw that his gate had no padlock on it and that it would be an easy matter to let Badger in. The greyhounds did not bark, and the cow and donkey looked at them serenely. At the top of the field was the barn where the animals could stand out of the rain, and at the bottom a stream of clear running water where they could drink. The grass was good, and the field sheltered by the wood and high hedges. It was a perfect, happy field.
‘This is where we’ll bring him,’ Ros said.
‘What about your practice?’
Ros rather wished she’d never mentioned the practice. Suppose she was caught practising? The real thing would then be very difficult. But the General Palfrey tag had taken hold: real campaigns were worked out in great detail. She said nothing to Leo, but put on her general’s face, bossy and superior.
‘Wait and see.’
She knew she had to go.
She must make a decision, and hold to it. Th
ere was really no alternative: tonight.
Her parents went to bed at around eleven o’clock, but the traffic on the arterial road went on until after midnight. The best time to go would be about one o’clock. Ros had an alarm clock but wasn’t very good at setting it. She put it under her pillow timed for one o’clock, but if it went off she never heard it, for she didn’t wake until five o’clock, by which time it was too late. But while they were having lunch the next day, a frantic burring noise came from upstairs, and Dora Palfrey said, ‘What ever’s that?’ It was just one o’clock.
‘It sounds like an alarm clock,’ Ros said feebly.
Not much of a general . . . lucky Leo didn’t know about it.
The next night she determined to stay awake.
She heard her parents come to bed, and lay listening to the wind and rain on the window. She had to stay awake for two more hours. She didn’t feel very general-like at all, but during the time she had to think about it, she supposed that generals were quite often as worried as she was about what they were planning. It was a part of being a general, being worried. She dozed off, and awoke with a start. Her clock said ten to one.
She pressed the button to stop the alarm going off (she hoped), and lay listening. The distant swishes of the cars on the arterial were down to almost nothing, and nothing stirred in the house.
She slithered out of bed and got dressed. She had a torch, and had arranged her clothes very tidily, in order of putting on, and her anorak and gumboots were handy in the back porch.
She had already prospected squeaking floorboards and had left her bedroom door ajar, and so managed to get downstairs without a sound. She had to go out the back way, through the kitchen, which meant Erm lumbered out of her basket looking expectantly for a walk, even in the middle of the night. Thank goodness she was old and didn’t caper about and bark. The only noise she made was a wheeze, and the thump of her tail against the cooker.
Ros pushed her to one side and unbolted the kitchen door. The bolt was well-oiled and did not make a sound. It was all surprisingly easy. None of the doors stuck or squeaked, and Ros was out in the garden without any hitches. The night was very dark and cold, with sleet on the wind, but the way was well-trodden and the lights from the road cast an orange glow over the field.
Ros set off across the familiar path. She was excited rather than frightened. Her senses seemed much sharper than usual, and she could feel herself shivering, although she wasn’t cold. There was a moon that came fleetingly through the flying clouds and disappeared again, but its lightness remained, silvery above the golden glow of the town.
There was no need to use the road crossing, for there were no cars. Ros hopped over the central reservation, and was across and climbing the railway bridge only five minutes after leaving home. It was much quicker, not having to make a detour for the crossing. Over the bridge and, from the top of the steps, she could make out Badger in the moonlight, standing hunchbacked against the wind, his thick tail tucked tightly between his legs. Ros ran down the steps and across the muddy slime of the bedraggled field.
When she got to Badger, she burst into tears.
‘Oh, Badger! Poor Badger!’ she wept, seeing him so forlorn in the rain and the wind. Unable to move freely, he had no way of finding shelter or keeping warm. Her pockets were stocked with carrots and old crusts which he gobbled eagerly. She flung her arms round his neck and wept copiously into his muddy tangled mane. She could not bear to think of him abandoned day and night with his mouldy hay blown away by the wind and his water bucket kicked over. His thick coat barely hid his staring ribs, and his once proud head drooped sadly, all the fire and enthusiasm gone from his eyes. And yet his name was Mountfitchet Meteor Light and he had once been a famous showjumper.
‘Why did they sell you to that awful man, Badger?’ But Dad Smith had paid the large price, according to the gossiping ladies at the show. The pony’s owners had taken their money, and not cared that Dad Smith didn’t know anything about how to look after a pony.
‘They are just as wicked as Mr Smith,’ Ros thought, with justice.
She longed to take Badger there and then, and half decided to – then she realized she had nothing to lead him with. The chain was fastened to the leather neck collar with a shackle she hadn’t the strength in her fingers to undo, and she could hardly carry all the chain with her. She would have to get a head collar and lead-rope before she attempted the real thing.
‘Oh, Badger, I will come soon, I promise! I promise!’
She would find herself a head collar that very day.
When she left, the pony followed to the end of his chain and then let out a quite piercing whinny after her. Ros, gulping back the tears, ran for her life. Suppose somebody heard him? But, back on the comparative safety of the railway bridge, she looked behind and nothing stirred. Nobody cared about Badger’s cry of loneliness and despair. Not a person save herself lost any sleep over a starving pony in the winter night.
So much for being bold General Palfrey making a survey of tactics. Ros ran all the way home, not caring who might see her or hear her. Only when she got to her back porch and kicked off her muddy boots, did she remember that she owed it to Badger to complete her practice-run successfully. It was terribly important that she got back to bed undiscovered, so that she could safely venture out again on the real mission.
She crept in, bolting the doors behind her. Erm did not bother to get up this time, only waving her tail vaguely once or twice, and Ros tiptoed upstairs, head down, scratchy with guilt. Nothing stirred. She slipped into her bedroom and threw off her clothes. She still had her pyjamas on underneath. Her bed was cold and she couldn’t stop shivering, although she felt as if she was burning. She could not get to sleep again, thinking all the time of Badger calling after her.
‘I will come tomorrow, Badger, I promise,’ she whispered into her pillow.
She fell asleep at last, only two hours before she had to get up again. She did not feel very general-like, pulling on her clothes, but her mind was made up.
The campaign was timed for the following night.
CHAPTER FIVE
ROS CROUCHED BENEATH the hedge at the bottom of her garden, waiting for Leo. He had had strict instructions to join her at one thirty. It was now one thirty-five and there was no sign of life from Rose Manor End.
It was very quiet. There was no wind tonight, but the moon was hidden behind heavy cloud and it was very cold. Ros was worried it was going to snow. If it snowed they would leave footprints, not to mention hoofprints – a worrying thought. The alarm clock had awoken her from a heavy sleep. She had thought it must have roused the whole house, but no – not a sound anywhere. She had slipped out easily. A burglar could have a field day in their house, the way they all slept like the dead. Ros felt slightly indignant – cheated almost – that her dangerous mission proved so easy.
Waiting wasn’t good for the spirit. Ros felt herself becoming increasingly annoyed and nervous. The burning zeal of adventure was slithering away into cold, damp annoyance.
There seemed to be no cars on the road. Far away a dog barked. Ros could hear her own breath on the cold air.
Suddenly there was an almighty clang of metal on concrete, very close. Ros nearly leapt out of her skin. It was the Cross’s dustbin, overturned on the concrete path and the round lid rolling backwards and forwards with a great racket. She heard Leo’s squeak of alarm, and at the same time the upstairs window opened and Mr Cross’s uncertain voice shouted, ‘Who’s there?’
Ros froze, her heart hammering.
How lucky it was so dark! Leo had flattened himself against the wall of the house, and had the sense to keep as still as a shadow. He was such an idiot Ros had half expected him to answer his father’s question.
‘It’s a cat or something – a fox, perhaps,’ Mr Cross called back to his wife. ‘Only the dustbin.’
The window closed.
After a tense minute, Leo came down his garden path and slipped out of t
he gate. He was white and quivering, near to tears.
Ros, ready to castigate, decided encouragement would suit the situation better. ‘It’s OK! Don’t worry. You were really clever to keep so still! Come on, there’s nothing to be scared of.’
She set off at a great pace, so he had no choice but to follow her. They had a bucket of food, and Ros had borrowed a head collar and lead-rein off a girl in the form above her at school who had a pony. It would be a good clue for any police that might come snooping later, but Ros hadn’t enough money to buy one – later would have to look after itself.
Leo stopped whingeing and cheered up when he discovered how empty the world was. The way was so familiar the darkness did not hinder them. Only one car came down the road, and its headlights swung past as they waited in the shadow of the hedge.
‘All clear!’ Ros called out.
They ran across the road and up over the railway bridge. Ros was bursting with excitement. She felt no fear, only an enormous relief that the moment had come at last, to rescue Badger from his misery.
It was almost as if the pony was expecting them. He came towards them on his chain and Ros heard his soft rippling knucker of greeting. Leo held the bucket up to him but Ros said sharply, ‘No, you’ve got to save it for the bridge, in case he won’t go over.’ But Badger, having smelled the food, almost pulled the tether pin out of the ground to get to it. Leo backed off nervously. Badger started to paw the ground, ripping up clods of mud.
‘Oh, shut up, Badger! We’re going to give it you!’
Ros fastened the head collar behind his ears, and tried to unbuckle the leather neck-strap. But Badger was pulling on it so hard, she couldn’t release the buckle.
‘Here, Leo, you’ll have to let him have a noseful.’
With the pony’s head in the bucket, she was able to get the strain off the collar, and the rusted buckle came undone after some bruising effort. The chain dropped on the ground with a satisfying clank. Ros picked up the lead-rein firmly.
‘Go on, Leo, get a move on. Walk in front.’
The food was nearly all gone and they hadn’t started off yet. Leo backed off and Badger plunged after him. Ros held the rope firmly, trying not to get her feet trodden on. Even thin and poor as the pony was, he still felt terribly strong on the end of the rope and Ros began to feel worried. She couldn’t get him to take his nose out of the bucket, and by the time they got to the bottom of the footbridge steps the carrots were all eaten.
