Donkey Boy

by Henry Williamson

  “I saw a notice board down over there, Father. I walked down and back. It said houses.”

  “Well, I suppose it had to come sooner or later. We must make the best of it, that’s all. There’s some wonderful leaf mould under here, you know. It’s the very thing for the garden. Better get it while we can. Would you like to collect some of it in a pail for me, or as much as you can get up, and just tip it over the fence at the bottom, where it is low?”

  “Yes, Father. Now, Father?”

  “Oh no, we are just going to have tea. I have brought something home for tea. We must wash now, to be ready in time. How are you getting on at school, old chap?”

  “Very well, thank you, Father. I can do woodwork now, under Mr. Mansard in the Woodwork Shop. Satinwood is very nice, my favourite wood, I think.”

  “Yes, it is a good working wood, though your tools have to be sharp to cross the grains properly. I don’t suppose you are allowed very sharp tools, though. A chisel can give you a very nasty cut if it slips. Shall I give you a leg up?”

  “No thank you, Father, I can get over easily.” And placing his hands on the fence the boy sprang up, his two toecaps bumped the wood, he swung his right boot lightly on the top, and vaulted over, with a quick glance at Father to see if he saw how well he could do it.

  The something extra for tea was scotch shortbreads. After bread and butter, they melted sweetly in the mouth, and took away hunger.

  “The Scots work on oatmeal,” said Father, “so do horses.”

  After tea Phillip went into the front room with a list of Kings, Queens, and Dates to be learned. He was busily frowning when Father looked round the door.

  “Hullo,” said Father. “Would you like to come for a walk with me, and see if we can spot that big chub that is supposed to be lingering on in the Randisbourne? Or are you too busy?”

  “No, Father,” said Phillip, looking up from the page.

  “He is very good, he has already been learning his dates before tea,” said Hetty, peering round beside her husband.

  “There you go,” Richard remarked, half playfully. “I cannot have a word with the boy on my own, but you have to come and prompt him. I have not the least intention of taking him from his work,” and putting on his tweed cap, and taking his walking stick, Richard went out of the house.

  “What have you been doing to annoy your father, Phillip?”

  “Nothing, Mother!” He scowled. “Father and I understand each other.” Hetty had to go away into the kitchen, to hide laughter, which was near to tears.

  *

  The trees in the Backfield were soon down. Phillip watched, after running all the way home from school at midday, the last of the elms tottering after a great creak, then a sort of shriek and a swishing noise as down it went, and thump, it seemed to bounce before getting small all at once and lying still. Men with axes lopped and topped it; then when he came home in the afternoon the trunk had been sawn into sections with two-handled cross-cuts with teeth like the huge pike in the Brickhill pits. At the end of the week only the branches were left; but the rooks still cawed high in the sky.

  Hundreds of navvies appeared early one morning. They had leather straps holding up their corduroy trousers below the knee, and with little wooden scrapers thrust in the straps, to clean their spades as they dug away the grass for a road. Carts took the sods and made a huge heap in the middle of the level place below the slopes of the Backfield. Then the carts took all the sections of branches which had been cut up with axes, and men built a great bonfire of them, but without setting it alight. Next they covered the bonfire with an enormous amount of clay, all the carts taking it up. Only then did they set light to the bonfire.

  While the heap was burning, day after day, other men were building foundations and walls of houses, in two rows down the new road where many smaller branches had been laid for a foundation. A steam-roller went over the branches and crushed them flat. The enormous heap of yellow clay went on burning day after day, and at night there were little flames over the heap, which Father said was a miniature Etna. After a fortnight the heap had turned red.

  This was ballast, said Father, to lay on the new road; but the builder had changed his mind, and had put down gravel and flint instead, from the pit near the poplars where the kites sailed over. This was harder and better altogether for road metalling, said Father.

  So the red ballast heap remained after the houses were built; and so did the marn ponds just behind the garden. The builder was an ass, said Father, and was asking to be made bankrupt, to go to all the trouble of mixing and pouring the marn, to make bricks with, and then to swop horses in midstream and decide to buy bricks instead.

  Phillip was forbidden to go anywhere near the ballast heap, which was still burning. Steam and smoke sometimes issued from the cracks in the mass of several hundred tons. If he fell in, said Father, only his white bones would be found in many years’ time.

  The bricklayers departed. The windows of the houses were glazed, each pane of glass bearing its warning nebula of whitewash, as a warning to painters with ladders, said Father.

  One morning a frightful smell was wafted into all the houses of Hillside Road. It came as the shelter of the workmen’s privy was being pulled down, fifty yards beyond the row of garden fences. Gran’pa, after making everyone gargle with Sanitas, went down to Randiswell Police Station about it, to learn that Mr. Bigge had already called to complain. The pit was strewn with lime and filled in.

  In addition to gargling, Hetty had made the children wear handkerchiefs soaked in Dodder’s disinfectant over their noses, and sent them on the Hill. Mildenhall was there with some of his gang. They threw stones at Phillip as he ran away, and shouted out, “Laugh at ’im! Laugh at ’im! Frightened of a little——,” a very rude word. The Lanky Keeper chased the boys for using the word which, he said, “was not even in the Bible, and that’s sayin’ a lot!”

  The marn pits remained in Phillip’s mind as things of terror, worse than quagmires, worse than the Exmoor bog which had sucked down Carver Doone after Jan Ridd had torn out the muscles in Carver’s arm like the string out of an orange. Gerry said that even frogs were drowned in the yellow marn. But Phillip had seen something much worse than frogs drowning. He was looking over the fence one Saturday morning when he saw a dog chase a cat into the marn, and the dog jumped in after the cat. Phillip cried out to Mrs. Bigge, to Grannie, to Mummy, to anyone to come quick, for all their fur was gone and their heads and tails were hidden, too, in thick yellow marn. As he watched they became shapes hardly moving; and only little bumps showed day after day where they had drowned.

  When the wood of the stinking shed had been removed, and the houses were all finished, men came and cut channels in the sides of the marn pits, so that the water underneath the yellow pug trickled out; and the following Saturday morning when Phillip climbed over the fence, and laid a flat board on the marn and slowly walked out, in terror lest suddenly yellow squeeze up and suck him down, he discovered that there was no more danger.

  The marn was firm; cracks were opening across it everywhere; soon he was stepping upon it without fear. There was the cat’s skull. Its skin easily came off, with the whiskers; and near it the dog’s white teeth seemed to be wanting to bite it. With Father’s fork he dug both skeletons out, washed them in a pail of water drawn from the butt, and reburied them in Grandpa’s garden, for the time when he should make his underground museum, like the one made by the mad genius whose inventions Jack Joker saved for England from the spies of Germany, in the new Emerald Library.

  *

  Richard looked forward to his kite-flying in the fine summer evenings. One late July evening was a special occasion, for he had a new pilot box kite, and hoped it would go so high as to be almost out of sight. Phillip was asked to go upon the Hill after his homework was done, and take turns with cousin Gerry at holding the heavy winder.

  As soon as Father was gone, Phillip closed the book and decided to have some music. He played the
Polyphone for a couple of tunes, and then decided to go and see Gerry.

  This cousin was a tall, blue-eyed boy who liked “young Phillip” as much as Phillip admired “old Gerry”. Gerry knew lots of nice things to talk about, and was never sarcastic like Ralph. Gerry was as tall as Ralph, who had rabbit teeth and cold sort of eyes, like a cod’s on the fishmonger’s slab. Ralph went to the West Kent Grammar School. He was one of the Yah Boo Boys, who had a feud with the prefects. The boots of the Yah Boo Boys often thumped on the tricky asphalt paths of Hillside Road, as they ran past, shouting and laughing, their books in straps over their shoulders, to be thrown down when they stopped and shouted up the gulley to their pursuers, “Yah Boo! Yah Boo!” The Yah Boo Boys cheeked the keepers on the Hill, too, particularly the Lanky Keeper, who was very thin and tall, with a gruff voice and a huge brown bushy moustache. The other keepers were fat and round, with the exception of Skullface, who was always trying to catch you among the forbidden bushes, or hiding while you tried to get sparrows’ nests up the trees or under the eaves of the lavatory. To do this you had to climb the spiked railings, and tread among the flowers, which was strictly forbidden. The eggs therefore were more valuable.

  Phillip did not care for cousin Ralph. He thought he was a fool, ever since the day when some of the Yah Boo Boys, dashing down through the bushes, had settled in the grassy corner where the hurdle fence met the spiked railings, opposite Grandpa’s house across the road. They had begun to light Ogden’s Tabs. Ralph had called Phillip over, and said,

  “Would you like to see smoke coming out of my eyes?”

  Phillip said smoke couldn’t do it.

  “You watch steadily, and see, if you don’t believe me,” replied Ralph. “Hold my hand to see there is no deception. Hold it tight.”

  Phillip did so.

  “Now look hard at my eyes.”

  The other Yah Boo Boys were grinning. Ralph drew a lot of smoke from his Tab, so that it glowed bright red, and then drew it into his lungs, while staring at Phillip’s eyes. Suddenly Phillip cried “Oh!” then “B—— you!” for the end of the cigarette had been put on his wrist. Ralph’s toothy grin came through the green bars of the railings.

  “I suppose you think you are funny, don’t you?” shouted Phillip, after looking at the little white blister on his skin.

  “I do,” grinned Ralph.

  “You are, you know, too! You look exactly like a monkey in the Zoo, behind bars!” and so saying, Phillip had gone in to see Uncle Hugh, pleased that the other boys had laughed at Ralph, who had said, “You young s——,” another very bad word.

  But that was long ago, at the beginning of Standard Three, and since then Phillip had had nothing more to do with his cousin Ralph. Gerry was the one he liked.

  Hastening up the gully, that fine July night, he found Gerry holding the winder, while the kites were ever so high in the sky.

  Winking an eye, Gerry beckoned Phillip; then transferring the handles to Phillip, he said “So long, old man, see you later. I’m meeting my Dinah by the Refreshment House.” Phillip thought Gerry was a wonderful grown-up person to be able to speak of a girl like that, much less to dare to meet one.

  Certainly Phillip did not dare to think of—he dared not even formulate in his mind the name of Helena Rolls. She was too far above him, she was remote as the high blue of the sky.

  *

  The summer wind, blowing from over the distant downs and the fields of Kent, coming from the high chalk cliffs above the fretted edge of ocean, passed over the streets and houses, the open spaces and the diminishing trees south of the river; and streaming up from the heated slopes of the Hill, ascended in flowing strata under remote cloudlets which lay at the zenith seemingly without movement. Under the speckled white flitch of cirrus the small speck of the pilot kite was trying ever to rise higher against the weight of the twine holding it to the wooden backbone of its big brother below, the broad double-box with wings giving it a bat-like appearance; or an Emperor Moth, thought Richard, with its hues of purple, brown, and black. He thought of his splendid kite as alive above the earth, a thing inanimate but with a soul, as it strove to break away, as it hummed its plaint, moth-like, upon the ascending cord curved by wind and terrestrial gravity in tension from himself. He imagined the kite looking down upon the scene below, wanting freedom, but attached to its master. Unaware of the thoughts of the small boy behind him, the human captive holding with tired arms the ends of the horizontal rod that supported the winder, Richard felt glad to be alive.

  Two hundred yards away, aloof, lest his home-made newspaper kite foul those of the dogmatic Mr. Maddison—for the two had by now exhausted all conversational possibilities—stood Mr. Muggeridge, wondering by the feel in his abdominal scar if the weather was about to change.

  Phillip looked about him to try and find interest in something. There was only the usual sight of people standing still, looking up at Father’s kites for a while before moving on. The pilot on top was lifting the double-box. Father wore his two thick leather gloves, and had to hold on as hard as he could. The cuttyhunk line scorched the flesh if it slipped, said Father. Looking across the grass, Phillip saw Mr. Muggeridge holding his silly old paper kite with one hand, while it swung to and fro and wiggled its tail like a lamb when it punched the ewe for milk. Mr. Muggeridge’s kite was a soppy newspaper one, its tail in curl-rags. Huh! Any fool could make a kite like that; he had made one himself earlier in the summer, and given it away for nothing.

  Father was hauling in now, hand over hand, slowly, and he had to ask someone to wind the slack on to the winder. A smaller boy obliged. The double-box that Father called the Emperor Moth was slowly moving from left to right against the grey clouds which had half covered the white flossy ones up above. Then the cuttyhunk jerked on the winder, and nearly pulled it out of his hands. The wind was gusty.

  “I can’t hold it, I daren’t take a turn round my hand,” Father was saying to another man. “It would cut my hand in two.” Others were waiting now, ready to help. Someone said a storm was coming up.

  “Take the boy’s winder, do you mind?” Father said. A man took the winder and Phillip, happy to be free, ran forward to watch. It was like a tug of war! Father was saying that he would try and go forward to fasten the line to a seat; that would hold it.

  Mr. Muggeridge’s paper kite was now weaving like a mongoose before a snake. Suddenly it turned right over and plunged down with a flapping noise. Hurray, thought Phillip, that would teach the old fool a lesson for daring to argue with his father! He hoped it would hit the keeper’s hut and stick in the roof like a harpoon. The wind was now very cold under his jersey. A grumble of thunder came from behind the Crystal Palace. A storm was coming, hurray! The pilot kite, very high up in the sky, was swinging from side to side. Father and the man helping to hold the cord by the winder were now being pulled over the grass.

  “I ought to warn you!” cried Father: “If the seat won’t hold it, you must watch that the line doesn’t foul you anywhere.”

  Many people were now hurrying up. When Father got to the seat, he shouted to the man to lower the winder, so that he could pass the line under the top bar of the seat, at the side. The line hummed a dangerous high note as it was held taut on the wood. Father took a turn round the top bar, and once again, and then again, and tied a knot, saying: “By Jove, my palm felt on fire”, and shaking off his leather glove, there was a blue line right across like a cane mark where the cord had cut his skin.

  Several people pressed to see, and Father cried: “Stand back, please! If this powerful cuttyhunk breaks it will crack like a whip-lash, and may take an eye out!”

  Then the seat began to tilt back on the grey galvanised loops of its legs and several men tried to grab it, but it fell over backwards, and so did they, and, Oh glory, on the strong wind that turned the trees grey the seat was bouncing and sliding over the empty tennis court. It hooked up the net and went on dragging and tearing it.

  People were shouting, “B
illo! Billo there! Look out! Hi!” but the seat caught in the big thorn tree and started to climb up it, then it went right through the branches and over the grass where the East London Industrial boys played football in the winter. A lot of boys were running after the seat, and hanging on to it. It was terribly exciting!

  Phillip ran after them with the others, shouting out “Let it go! Let it go!” for he wanted to see the seat rise up into the air and go on forever, like Johnny-head-in-air in Struvelpeter. But the seat was held at last, and then to Phillip’s utter disappointment, Father took out his ivory penknife and cut the line. At once the kites dropped away, waggling slowly, falling about limply and growing smaller and smaller, shaking their heads as though sadly as they went far over the poplar trees at the end of the Hill and at last were lost to sight.

  Thunder was rolling nearer with livid flashes of lightning. They all hurried away off the Hill, while Father said he would see the keeper later, measly Skullface who tried to catch boys, about the damage to the seat. The trees all had a pale, grey look in their twirling leaves.

  “You see, old chap,” he said to Phillip, as they hastened down the gully, the winder with only a little line left on it under his arm, “wet cord is a conductor of electricity, and we all might have been struck dead if lightning had taken it into its head to travel down from those nimbus clouds overhead. I wonder if I shall see the kites again? I marked my name and address in indelible pencil on the struts, with promise of a reward.”

  *

  Later that evening, when Phillip was in bed, there came a knock on the front door. He heard the bell ring as well. He hopped out of bed and crept along the passage. Three rough voices spoke at once when Father opened the front door on the chain. Then there was talking, the men calling Father “Guv’nor”. Phillip heard the chain go off, and then the chink of money. A voice said, nastily, “Blimey, what’s this?” Father said, “That is one-tenth of the value to which you are entitled by law. You can take it or leave it.”