Patrick stooped and opened his hand so Boone could step out onto the seed tray. As far as Omri could judge, the cowboy looked as always; but Little Bear seemed to know at once that something had happened. He even guessed what.
“Where horse?” he asked Boone.
“Daid,” Boone answered shortly.
No more was said, but the Indian touched Boone briefly on the Shoulder before turning back to Omri.
“Now we put braves in box.”
But this time it was Patrick who had been doing some thinking.
Just a minute, Little Bear.”
Little Bear turned to him. “What minute? Do now!”
“Okay, so say we bring forty Indians to life. Then what?—I mean, what will happen right away? Because you can’t go back and start fighting the French right away.”
“I go back ry-taway! Why no?”
“Because you’re not well enough. No, Little Bear! You can’t be. So we’ll have forty other people on our hands. We’ll have to feed them and look after them until you’re ready. That might be day s—weeks.”
“Who weak? I strong!”
“Seven days,” said Patrick, holding up seven fingers. “That’s a week.”
Little Bear glowered. “No week. No wait. If stay here, not help tribe, they make new chief.”
“I tell you what,” said Patrick. He reached into his pocket. “We’ll get Matron back. See what she says.”
“May Tron?”
“Yes.” Patrick held up the formidable little figure in her tall cap.
Little Bear made a face. “What use white woman with face like old beaver?”
“She saved your life, so you’d better not be rude. She’s like a doctor.”
Little Bear looked shocked. “No woman, doctor!” he exclaimed.
“Well, this one is. She took the metal out of your back last night. If she says you’re healed enough to fight, okay, we’ll get started on your army. If not—we’ll wait.”
And he put Matron in the cupboard.
When he opened the door, she was standing blinking at the sudden sunlight. She had a newly starched cap perched on her head.
“Ah-ha!” she cried when she saw the boys. “I thought as much! The more I thought about it, the more certain I was you’d need me again! So, do you know what I did? I popped a few things into my apron pocket, just in case.”
She hitched up her skirt and climbed over the rim of the cupboard.
“Think ahead,” she said. “That’s my motto.” Then she saw Little Bear standing before her with folded arms and uttered a shriek, but it was not of terror.
“What on earth are you doing out of bed! Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“Not kill seif,” said Little Bear calmly. “Maybe kill you.”
She bore down upon him. “Nonsense, my good man, you’re delirious, and no wonder. This is absolutely out-rageous, twenty-four hours after—ahem!—major surgery and here you are, on your feet instead of flat on your back—I mean, on your front! Lie down at once!”
To the amazement of the boys, and no less perhaps to Little Bear’s own surprise, he found himself obeying her commands. Clearly it never occurred to her that he wouldn’t. He lay down on the pile of leaves and she knelt to examine him. Bright Stars ran to help her. Together they took off the dressings. Matron peered closely at the wounds, then sat back on her heels.
“Unbelievable,” she said. “Fantastic! If I didn’t see it I would never credit it. Beautiful! You know,” she went on as she took a tiny bottle and some cotton from her capacious pocket, “the trouble is, we live an entirely unnatural and unhealthful life. Eat the wrong foods, don’t exercise enough … Look at this man. Just look! Superb specimen. Not an ounce of fat on him. Bright eyes, perfect teeth, skin and hair gleaming with health—splendid!
And if something does go wrong, his magnificent, well-oiled defense system springs into action and hey presto! He’s practically healed.”
She washed the wounds, then took out a hypodermic needle, and squirted it briefly at the sky.
“Just to be on the safe side,” she said. “Trousers down!” And before Little Bear could grasp her intention, she had pulled his buckskins down and plunged the needle into his bottom.
Little Bear had borne a lot of pain without a flinch, but this humiliation was too much. He let out a roar as if he’d been gored by a buffalo.
“What a silly fuss! There! All over!” said Matron brightly, withdrawing the needle and rubbing the spot briskly with the cotton. “Just in case of infection, but really there’s little fear of that. He’s practically as good as new. What a Constitution! Of course,” she added mod-estly, “I didn’t do a bad job on him, if I do say so myself.”
“Would you think he’d be well enough to—well, to do something—pretty active?” Omri asked.
“Try stopping him,” said Matron. She rose to her feet and dusted the earth off her knees. “Personally, if he were on my ward I’d say bed rest for another day or so, but a body like his knows its own business best.”
“Could he ride, say?”
“That’s up to the horse!” quipped Matron, laughing rather horsily herseif. “Well, I must be off!”
Meanwhile, Little Bear, who had scrambled hastily to his feet, now drew his knife and threatened her with it. But Matron, not at all alarmed, wagged her finger at him.
“Tsk, tsk, naughty man! That would never do at St. Thomas’s.” She turned her back on him without a qualm. Baffled, he lowered the knife. “Astonishing, these primitives,” she remarked to Omri as she strode back to the cupboard. “Perfect control over the body—none at all over the emotions.”
Back in the cupboard she offered Omri her hand, and then burst out laughing again.
“Aren’t I silly? How could we shake hands? Oh, but do try! I’d just love to shake hands with a giant, even if it is all a very convincing dream.” Omri took her tiny hand between finger and thumb and solemnly shook it.
“Cheerio! Do call on me in any future hour of need!”
“We will,” said Omri, closing the door.
He turned from the cabinet to find Little Bear’s eyes fixed on him.
“Old white she-bear say I good,” he said. “Now Patrick, Omri, keep word.”
The boys looked at each other.
“Right,” said Omri, taking a deep breath. “Let’s get started.”
Chapter 14
Red Men, Red Coats
Bringing forty Indians to life sounds like quite an undertaking, but it took a remarkably short time to accom-plish. They did a few first, just to be on the safe side; but when the first half dozen had clambered out of the cupboard and were at once greeted by Little Bear, who regaled them in his strange language, which they all seemed to understand, Omri and Patrick didn’t delay further.
“Let’s put all the rest in at once!” said Patrick excitedly, and this time Omri made no objections.
Soon the seed tray was jammed with men, milling around, sitting on Patrick’s fence, admiring Little Bear’s pony, exclaiming in dismay at the ruined longhouse, gazing covertly at Bright Stars and examining the paintings on the side of the tepee. One or two tried to enter this, but Little Bear barred the way. Boone was in there. None of them knew how the Indians might react to him, so they’d decided to hide him.
The new Indians didn’t pay any attention to the boys at first, or to anything in what, to them, was the distance. Everything on the seed tray was in scale with them, and soon they settled down in rows, cross-legged, to listen to what Little Bear had to say.
He dragged the matchbox bed into position before the tepee and stood on it, making it a platform. From there he addressed them in a loud, commanding tone for several minutes.
Omri and Patrick sat well back, shaded by bushes.
“It was a good idea of yours to be outdoors,” whis-pered Patrick. “Seems more natural, and there aren’t huge bits of furniture and so on to worry them.”
Omri didn’t react to this praise for his
idea. If they had stayed inside, Boone’s horse would still be alive.
They watched. After a while, Little Bear stopped speaking and beckoned imperiously to the boys, who crawled forward on their knees till they hung over the seed tray. Little Bear pointed to them dramatically, and all the little Indians turned to look.
Their reaction was curiously unsensational. Some uttered muted cries; one or two leapt to their feet, but then sank down again after glancing at Little Bear and seeing him unafraid. Evidently he had given them some explanation for the presence of giants in their midst, which they had no difficulty in accepting. The “Great Spirits” business, no doubt. Omri couldn’t help smiling at Little Bear’s obvious pride in having such beings at his command. It clearly gave him a lot of prestige in the eyes of these tribesmen he was hoping to lead into battle.
After a few more words to his audience, Little Bear turned to the boys.
“Make now-guns,” he ordered.
They knelt, irresolute. Omri had never really taken to the idea of Indians running amok with machine guns, hand grenades and artillery. Anything could happen, especially if they got overexcited. But Little Bear was scowling horribly at their hesitation.
“Make now-guns now!” he thundered. “Little Bear give word to braves!”
“Oh, dear,” said Patrick ironically. “That does it, then. I’d better fetch them.”
He jumped to his feet. Omri said, “While you’re in the house, ask my mum to give you something for us to eat. For them to eat.”
“Anything else you can think of?”
“Yes. Bring some horses for Boone to choose from.”
“One thing at a time,” said Patrick. “Boone’d better stay out of sight.” And he pushed off through the bushes.
While he was gone, Omri thought he ought to have a word with Little Bear.
“These now-guns, as you call them, are very, very powerful. And they’re complicated. They can’t be used without special training.”
Little Bear curled his lip in scorn.
“I see what soldier do. Point gun. Pull trigger, like gun French, English soldier fight with Indian. But kill more! Shoot many, many!” Little Bear made a noise like the chatter of a machine gun. The other Indians reacted with excitement.
“But the bigger ones—”
“Omri show how!”
“You don’t think I know, do you? As you keep reminding me, I’m only a boy.”
Little Bear frowned. The rows of seated Indians below him seemed to sense his doubt, and began murmuring to each other uneasily. Little Bear raised his hand to silence them.
“Omri put now-soldier in box. Him show.”
Omri considered. There was actually no option to bringing some modern soldiers to life, however briefly, because their plastic figures were attached to their weapons. Omri’s plan had been to do as he had done once before, when he’d wanted a bow and arrows for Little Bear. He had brought an old Indian to life and taken his weapons from him, meaning to transform him at once back into plastic. But he had promptly dropped dead of a heart attack. Omri thought that some artillery sergeant might be made of sterner stuff. Perhaps it would be worth a try.
“And what about these?” he asked, holding up a soldier from the time of George the Third (who, according to a verse Omri recalled from somewhere, “ought never to have occurred”).
“Try,” said Little Bear tersely.
Feeling a bit guilty at doing it without Patrick, Omri put the five scarlet-clad soldiers into the cupboard. At once the clattering of metal on metal announced that the soldiers and their mounted officer were ready to emerge.
“Little Bear, you’d better go in there with them. Better if you talk to them first, and decide if you want them.”
“Good!”
Omri opened the door a crack and Little Bear slipped over the edge of the seed tray straight into the cupboard. Omri put his ear to the opening at the top to listen.
Little Bear began at once to harangue the British officer in his broken English. Omri heard the word “French” and the word “kill” but he couldn’t make out much more until the shrill bark of an English voice cut him short.
“Who do you think you are, giving orders to an officer of His Majesty’s 20th American Regiment, you filthy savage!”
There was a deathly silence. Then Little Bear shouted: “I no savage! I Iroquois chief! Iroquois fight at side of English soldier! English happy have Indian help, braves spill blood in English quarrel, now I ask help from English! Why redcoat give insult?”
There was a brief pause, and then the English voice said, with icy contempt: “Insolent bounder! Kill him, Smithers.”
Omri put his hand on the door to slam it shut, but another voice spoke.
“Is that wise, sir? After all, we have used them in the past.”
“Plenty more where he came from.”
“But if he’s a chief, sir—might lead to trouble—”
“Of course, Smithers, if you’re squeamish, I’ll do it myself!—Here! Come back, you blackguard—”
But it was too late. Little Bear had already slipped silently over the bottom rim of the cupboard and was throwing his weight against the door. Omri was very happy to assist him, and in short order the arrogant British redcoats were reduced to their plastic condition again.
Little Bear, his eyes slits of rage and every tooth in his head bared, gave Omri a look of reproach. Omri felt he was being blamed just because he was English too.
“Surely they’re not all like that,” he muttered.
“Some English no better than French” was all Little Bear had to say. “Braves fight alone.”
Just then, Patrick came crashing back through the rhododendrons. He had a tray in his hand, on which were two glasses of milk, two packets of salted peanuts and a couple of red apples. Also a paper bag containing the “now-soldiers.” Omri only hoped they might do some-thing to redeem the character of the British Army in the eyes of his Indian.
There was a pleasant interlude while they fed the Indians. They crushed some of the nuts between two more or less clean stones and served the bits on platters made from the round leaves of a nasturtium. Patrick bit a piece off one of the apples and broke it up small, while Omri filled and refilled the toothpaste caps which were passed reverently from hand to hand along the rows of seated braves. Among them, they put away nearly half a glass of milk.
Boone, who had been peeping from behind the flap of the tepee, sent a private message with Bright Stars, suggesting a bit of “the hard stuff” should be added to the milk “to put fire in belly,” as Bright Stars solemnly explained. Boone evidently felt it would be no bad thing if these Indians did go a bit loco. But Omri and Patrick agreed that everyone ought to keep a clear head.
Then it was time to bring the modern soldiers to life again and see what could be done about guns.
After consultation with Little Bear, they began with a hulking Royal Marine corporal, kneeling behind his machine gun. He was the one who had sprayed Omri with bullets, so Omri had a sort of warped affection for him.
“We can’t risk Little Bear again,” said Omri. He had told Patrick what had happened with the eighteenth-century soldiers. “A modern soldier would probably be just as unbelieving about a Red Indian as he would about finding himself tiny.”
“We’ll just have to hope he can accept it, somehow. After all, he’s seen us once, the first shock’s over. Come on, no good putting it off.”
Patrick slipped the corporal into the cupboard.
Chapter 15
Corporal Fickits
“We’ll have to watch it. Last time I did this, they all just started shooting like mad the second the door opened.”
So they opened the door the merest crack at first, and Omri put his mouth to it and said, “Don’t shoot! We want to talk to you.”
A very ripe soldierly oath answered him, followed by: “… I’ve gorn off me trolley again!”
“Just don’t shoot. Okay?” And Omri slowly swun
g the cupboard door open.
The corporal had stood up. He gazed around. The machine gun gleamed in the sun, oiled and ready for action.
“Blimey, now I’m outdoors! What the ‘ell is goin’ on?”
Omri went into his spiel. “Of course it must seem incredible, but the fact is, for the moment you’ve become small. You can tell your grandchildren about it … And it’s going to get even more interesting. What we want is for you to tell some friends of ours, who are your size, how to work your machine gun.”
“And ’oo are they planning to shoot wiv it, if it’s not a rude answer?”
“Well, you see—” But it was too complicated. Omri looked helplessly at Patrick.
“Who do you shoot with it?” Patrick cut in quickly.
The man gave a barking laugh. “The Queen’s enemies, and anyone else who looks sideways at the Royal Marines.”
“And are you an expert on guns—I mean all kinds?”
“You could say so. We’re trained to ’andle just about anything. And anybody.”
The boys gave each other a quick look. This suited them.
“Right,” said Patrick briskly. “Here’s your chance to prove it. I’m going to put you and your machine gun in front of a bunch of men. And you’re going to demonstrate how to use it. You’ll go through it once, and then let some of them try it. Only, be careful, we don’t want anybody hurt—this is only a training exercise.”
The corporal’s face had gone rigid and he stood at attention while Patrick spoke. Then he gave a smart salute.
“Sir!”
“What’s your name, Corporal?”
“Fickits, sir, Corporal Royal Marines Willy Fickits.”
“How much ammunition have you, Corporal?”
“Three ’undred rounds, sir.”
“Don’t waste any.”
“Sir!”
“Now, don’t be scared when I pick you up.”
The corporal’s adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed, but his face didn’t change.
“Sir!”
Patrick carried the man, stiff as a tiny pencil, between finger and thumb and set him down, still at attention, on the platform. At the sight of him there was a buzz of astonished interest among the Indians, most of whom leapt to their feet. The corporal allowed his eyes to rove briefly across the mass of half-naked redskins. His adam’s apple did a jig in his throat and his eyes popped. Then his rigid expression came back.
The Return of the Indian Page 8
