INTERLOPERS

The fields where the four boys gather to play their various games, well away from the eyes and admonishment of adults, were considered to be their private space. Of course it was not their sole space at all as the fields were owned by a farmer who would put cattle there from time to time and also take a crop of hay in the middle summer. But for most of the time the fields were deserted, at least during the daytime hours which was when the boys had the place to themselves. Because of this they assumed that only they knew about the fields as in their experience nobody else, except for the farmer, came near. This was of course a fiction as many people from the Village knew of the fields and would sometimes use  them, but that was usually at a time when the young boys were elsewhere. So the belief that they were the denizens of the isolated cluster of fields grew unchecked.

Hence the deep shock when they were on one of their rambling explorations of the fields and hedgerows and came across evidence of others who not only had been there but seemed to be putting down some permanent roots. 

What the boys did not know at this time was that this small discovery would lead to la series of events  that would change their small and seemingly safe world and introduce them to new and surprising people. 

So what follows is the tale of the  discovery of interlopers, or invaders as one of the boys chose to call them and the decision of what should be done about it.

(copyright Robert F. Heming, July 2019)

It was a Saturday afternoon and Rhodri or Roddy as his friends called him, had arranged to get together with Peter and do some exploring. Lunch was over and he had helped clear up the dishes and wash them. Now it was time to get out of the house and that needed some careful planning.

For all of the members of the Gang, finding the time to build dens and play games required planning and guile. Parents always had lists of chores for their children to do, and the lists always seemed to grow, never shrink, and then would soak up more and more free time.

So, a prime objective of every child was to get out of the house as early in the day as possible and to then stay out for as long as possible. Staying at home during the day held few attractions and hiding in a bedroom was too risky. Of course there was always the attraction of a book with an exciting story but, if the weather was dry and the sun was shinning, the lure of the outdoors was just too great, Also, if your mother knew that you were within summoning distance it was inevitable that sooner or later you would be asked to go and do some shopping or be asked to help with some task around the house or, and this was the worst, weed or dig some part of the garden. So, an early escape was the objective, and this had to be done as quietly and surreptitiously as possible.  The best way was to help to do some minor task such as washing dishes or putting some dishes away and by doing so lull your mother into a sense of false security and then wait for her to move on to one of the bigger jobs that only she could do, such as cleaning the bathroom, and then silently disappear like an evaporating mist. One moment you were there and then, when your mother turned to ask you to take the list and go to the greengrocer’s, you were no longer in sight.

For Roddy and his friends, this evasion was not a matter of being work-shy but had more to do with a balanced approach to work and life, as in ensuring that there was always time carry out one’s obligations to the Gang. It was also a matter of self-respect as a modest amount of time spent on family chores was acceptable among friends but too much time was a sign of a serious lack of character and independence and the fellow members of the gang would think that you were a bit “namby pamby”. More to the point for Roddy especially, going to the greengrocers would always result in the purchase of some mistake, such as overly bruised fruit, or potatoes with too much mud on them, and he would then have to go back with the offending item and ask the grocer, to exchange the fruit or the muddy taties in front of gosh knows who. These were very embarrassing encounters and were dreaded, not only because “Mr. Sprout”, as the Village children called him because of his unruly hair, would look down on you with all the despairing contempt that he could never use on your Mother, but also because a friend, or worse a girl whom you liked and admired, would be there to witness the potential humiliation.

Oh how he hated those shopping jobs and steering clear of them needed the skilled application of evading tactics. Afraid that a shopping list was looming somewhere, as tomorrow was Sunday and that was when the family ate an elaborate lunch, and elaborate lunches needed lots of vegetables and other groceries, he put the last of the dishes away and waited for his Mother to sit down and rest, which she often liked to do in the early afternoon.

“Mum, I’m just going out to look at the garden and put the tools away”

His Mother was reading the parts of the paper that she had missed earlier and was thinking of other things. She nodded and turned back to the open page in front of her. Roddy sauntered out of the back door and across to the shed before turning toward the street and quickening his pace. Once through the gate he walked faster and faster until he decided that it was safe enough to run. He believed that such a gradual increase in speed was in some way more inconspicuous than just dashing off immediately.

Soon he was in the fields and running toward the den looking for signs of his friends. The field was empty and so he guessed that they must be inside the den doing something. While the den was a place for its members to gather and retreat from the demands of the adult world, it was not a place in which they spent large amounts of our time, preferring to be out roaming the fields or playing a game of soccer using coats to delineate the goal mouth. He could hear voices and he crawled into the den to find that everyone had managed to get away from homes and chores.

“We were thinking of going down and looking at the pond,” said Peter. “I think it would be really exciting to build a raft and sail out to the little island. Perhaps we could build a den there too.”

The others nodded in agreement though they had no idea how they might build a raft, as they had never seen it done before.

Derec raised the obvious question.“Don’t we need something like empty oil drums to keep the raft afloat?”

“Well they don’t have to be oil drums,” said Peter. “We can use any large cans. Anyway, we aren’t going to do it today, I just think it would be good to go there and scout the place out for a bit.”

The other boys mumbled agreement and as nobody else had a good suggestion, one by one, they crawled out into the field and waited for Peter to lead them on their exploring. The Gang often wandered far and wide; the compass of their wanderings depending on the weather and the time available and today it was dry and sunny, which was perfect. They set off in single file keeping close to the hedgerows so as not to be conspicuous. They had to cross several fields to get to the pond and the last field was close to the railway. It was in there that the boys had their big shock.

At first the walk was routine with the younger boys especially  trailing Peter and Roddy who led the way. It was Peter who first saw the signs of trampled grass leading directly across the field from the reed beds that surrounded the pond, ending in a wide arc of flattened grass in front of the hedge.

“Whoa! What’s going on here then? Look at all of this trampled grass.”

He looked carefully around and then found what he was looking for.

“Look at the hedge. There’s a hole in it right next to the tree. It looks just like an entrance tunnel to a den.”

“Who around here would do that?” said Roddy

Everyone began to look around the field and the nearby hedgerows, but the field was empty and there was no sign of anyone. All was quiet with the only sound coming from the trains on the railway.

“Well, I’m going to take a look,” said Peter. Kneeling, he looked into the gap and then  crawled into the hedge through the tunnel-like entrance. The others followed and they emerged into a spacious den that had been hollowed out of the centre of the hedgerow. It was a surprisingly large and well-made den. Whoever had done this had taken their time to do it well and the four boys were stunned that something like this could be built under their noses without them knowing a thing about it.

Derec was the first to react.

“Who did this and how did they manage to do all this without us noticing anything?”

Peter looked back at his friends and shrugged.

“I don’t know, but whoever it was has done a good job. This is much better than our den. Let’s look around to see if there are any clues that can tell us who built this.”

Although they searched the den thoroughly looking for any clues that could help tell them something about who had done this, they found nothing except the well-made den and its substantial and sophisticated furnishings. Whoever had done this clearly was more skillful than they, and had either better scavenging skills or came from wealthier homes that discarded much better quality rubbish.

The den contained an old chair and some comfortable, if dirty cushions to sit on. Shockingly there were also what looked like weapons, sharp sticks and what seemed to be clubs with long handles and one of them had some rusty nails embedded in its bulbous end. Further search revealed nothing to help answer the key questions of who these people were and where they came from.

The next question was what to do about this. Derec took an aggressive tack and recommended immediate aggression; destruction of the den and the weapons.

“We don’t know who these people are but they are a threat. These are our fields and everyone knows that only we play here.”

Even though the fields did belong to the farmer, few others came here to play or to walk, so it did feel as if the fields were their territory. Derec’s assertion that the fields “belonged” to the Gang was silly and the others knew it, but then he always did react more emotionally than the rest of boys, Amongst the children of the Village however, there were informal but well understood rules about who played where. So if the children who had built this den were from the Village, they would have knowingly crossed a boundary.

Clive, the cautious and thoughtful one of the gang, counseled restraint.

“Let’s find out who they are and what they are up to before doing anything. Remember what Hoppalong always does in this sort of situation, he goes out scouting first to find out what the outlaws are doing”.

This was good advice as Hoppalong Cassidy was the hero of Saturday morning cinema and he was a slow talking, wise man that always outsmarted the outlaws and made them look silly in the end. Clearly following Hoppalong was a good thing and to argue against it was to call into question one of the fundamental beliefs of the gang; that Cassidy was much smarter and cleverer than any of them and even most adults. After all he survived week after week without being caught, injured or even humiliated and was never seen to panic even in the most threatening situations.

The shock of finding that strangers were wandering around these fields was palpable as the four boys thought they knew everything about that small space and they believed that it was theirs alone and invisible to all others, especially adults. To find evidence of other beings in this small safe world must have been like a tribe of Stone Age people coming across signs that others had invaded their traditional hunting grounds. Feelings of shock and fear on seeing signs of unknown beings whose size and capabilities were mysterious and all the more frightening because, who they were and where they were from, was an enigma.

The discovery of what seemed to be weapons was a particular shock. This was new, an escalation in the age of gangs. The Village Gang was still happily in the age of innocence when taunting words and the occasional fight were all they knew. Yes, they made primitive bows but the technology was poor they were never powerful enough to be accurate or even the slightest bit dangerous. It was luck if the arrows flew more than a few body lengths, as they had not discovered the technology of selecting sufficiently elastic wood and the proper material to produce taught bowstrings. Swords were but primitive sticks with perhaps a poorly nailed cross stick to do duty as a hand guard and they had little use for spears or clubs except for the occasional sharpened stick to be used to idly poke at things. The Village Gang was generally a peaceable and unsophisticated group. All the more shocking then to see what seemed to be seriously dangerous weapons? What could this mean? Who were these people and where did they come from?

So, after a lot of argument about what to do next it was decided that they needed to scout around for clues and learn as much as possible about these strangers. It was Peter who suggested that they keep a lookout in the fields to see if they could catch these people coming to visit the den. They needed to work in shifts to cover the day and so they worked out who would do this and when. Peter said they needed to start at the end of the following week on a Saturday and Roddy was given the job of being lookout in the morning.