Saturday was a difficult day on which to escape the house without being called upon to go on errands. Roddy guessed that the interlopers would not be around very early on a Saturday and that if he could manage his chores carefully he might be able to get them out of the way early and then be in position at a good time. After all Saturday morning was the also day for the cinema matinee which was a favourite with all children in the Village and surely the matinee experience would be just as popular with whoever had built that den as with everyone else. It was not only a chance to see the Gang’s favourite cowboy, the unflappable Hoppalong, but they could also see cartoons and participate in the screaming mayhem that was part and parcel of the cinema matinee experience. How anyone ever heard anything above the high-pitched racket of shouts and arguments amongst the rabble of overheated and overexcited children was not clear. At least once every Saturday, the manager of the theatre would have to come to the front of the stage and threaten to turn off the film if the audience did not calm down. It had little effect on the multiple high-pitched shouting matches between various young tykes and the myriad of shoving and tugging contests. It was amazing that the children exited with their clothes intact as grabbing and pulling on the jackets and pullovers was a major activity. It was not looked on as an aggressive act but rather as simply an easy way of getting someone’s attention in the screaming melee that was Saturday morning cinema. The noise was worst during the first part of the program, which was when they showed cartoons, many of which were dated and dull. In the second part when the youngster’s favourite cowboy pictures were shown, the noise level did not so much abate as morph into a ragged rhythm whose pitch and speed was dictated by the action on the screen.
Everyone loved the final chase when the gang of bad guys would gallop their horses around the great clump of large round rocks, followed seconds later by a gaggle of the good guys, led by the hero of the hour. Round and round they would go and it didn’t matter that these were the same rocks and that if the good guys had used their common sense and just waited, they would have been able to catch the baddies on the very next circuit and round them all up. Children would stand and scream encouragement at the goodies and hurl insults at the baddies, each trying to outcompete their companions in the inventiveness and humour of their comments. Finally they would tumble and rumble out of the sugary smelling fug, fuelled by hundreds of mouths, simultaneously screaming while sucking or chewing on their favourite, tooth-destroying confection. The next hour or two were then devoted to re-creating the exciting scenes from the morning’s picture.
Usually any young boy or girl would not miss the experience of the Saturday matinee for the world, but today Roddy had more serious work to do. His first approach to escaping the house as quickly as possible was to offered to run some errands thinking this would be so novel a tactic that his mother would be quite disarmed and would immediately accept his offer and not think of anything beyond the grocery list. Hopefully, at a carefully chosen moment, he could then make good his escape to the fields and watch for the intruders. Luckily he only had to make two trips to the grocer and everything seemed to go well with no bruised fruit or unacceptable vegetables. Then, while his Mother was checking the order, he mumbled something about going around to Clive’s for a moment and then made good his escape.
Once safely away from the house, he bounded down the Lane to the fields and then worked his way along the hedgerow, in best “Indian Scout style”, trying to be as invisible as possible, and casting frequent glances around to check that he was not being observed. After all, he reasoned, the intruders might be at their den already and on the lookout for any locals.
He needed to find a good observation post with good all around vision and that meant being well above ground level in this more or less flat terrain. A tree was the only real choice and he needed to find one that was well placed for viewing not only the invader’s den but also the approaches, as this would tell him where these children were from. The den belonging to the Village Gang was in a hedgerow that ran along the boundary of a field adjacent to a wide swathe of allotment gardens situated behind a row of houses. The gardens were edged with tall trees and bushes that effectively screened the field from anyone working on their garden plots.
That belonging to the invaders was closer to the River and to the old flooded clay pit. Between the den belonging to the Village Gang and the River were some tall elms, used by magpies for their large and untidy nests. Magpies are moderately large, glossy black birds with a white stripe on their wings and a prominent white stomach area. Handsome looking, but also very noisy and aggressive and with a well deserved reputation as thieves as they were always pecking at any bright and shiny objects that they could find.
They were also very defensive birds and the children had learned to stay away from their nests as they were attacking birds that loved to dive at the head. Still, Roddy thought that he would not need to be close to their nests as the trees were very high and he only needed to climb part of the way to get a good view. He carefully looked around for the best tree to climb. It had to be one that was not only fairly easy to climb but also one that had lots of bushy branches so that he would be well hidden.
Not all trees offered a good, manageable climbing route from their base and it was often necessary to find an adjacent tree or sizeable bush with thick limbs, which allowing you get a good start, were close enough and with plenty of spreading branches to allow the climber to get from one to the other without having to jump. One tree, next to a perfect sapling with good handholds near the ground, seemed to offer the best opportunity. Gripping the lower branches of the sapling carefully and being very sensitive to the thinness and flexibility of the lower limbs of the smaller tree, he hauled himself up, adjusting his weight by pulling steadily with his arms. Slowly he managed to get a good way off the ground but now faced the trickiest part of the ascent, as he had to shift from the weaker sapling to the larger tree next to it. Just jumping would not work, as a strong push on the thin flexible branches of the sapling would force them to bend and he needed a stable branch. To his left and just above his head was a strong lower branch of the big tree. He decided that if he could shift his weight without losing his balance and lift his left arm up high enough, he should be able to grasp it and swing across and there just a few feet lower on the trunk of the bigger tree was a lump where an old cut had caused the bark to grow outward forming a large knob. By grasping the strong branch and swinging over he thought that he should be able to plant his left foot on the protrusion. This was the sort of move that Peter could do so easily, but for Roddy it was a much harder maneuver.
He held his breath and looked at the gap and the position of bump that would be his foothold and the place where he had to grip the branch above. Tightening his handhold he swung his legs over toward the large tree. Unfortunately he had not thought about exactly how he would manage the landing. The first part was perfectly all right but what he had not worked out was, once the swing was complete, how his feet were to grip that knob of bark. His legs banged against the trunk of the other tree and he scrambled to gain a foothold but his centre of gravity was somewhere in between the two trees and so his feet, unable to maintain a grip on the other tree, slipped off and swung back, but with reduced momentum so that they did not return to their starting point.
Also, he had failed to take into account the nature of the bark of a sapling, which is smooth and not rough and fissured like the bark of older trees and also prone to tearing, which makes it wet and very slippery. So as his feet swung across to the smaller tree and he desperately tried to put get his foot back on the branch, he felt his foot slide and looked down to see the green scar left by his shoe beginning to ooze sap. In their desperate searching for a foothold, his feet slipped and shot out ahead of him, the force of the jerk almost making him lose his grip on the upper branch.
Horrified, Roddy realized that he had lost the momentum of his initial swing and was just hanging helplessly by his arms above a thorny bush. Unlike the heroes of his Saturday morning films who, in situations like this, could effortlessly heave their way up with their arms, Roddy found his arms were not even strong enough to support his weight for more than a few minutes. His arms and shoulders began to burn and his desperate attempts to swing from side to side and get his flailing feet back to a foothold, any foothold, were making matters worse.
In that moment of despair he looked up and there, in the distance, scrambling alongside the railway line fence, near the River bridge, were three figures. A sixth sense told him that these must be the interlopers who had built the den and, judging from where they were coming from, somehow they had crossed the River. That meant that these kids were not from somewhere near the Village but from the City, and here he was hanging, just, from a tree in full sight of them. He and his friends thought that boys from the City were tough. If they saw him he would be in deep trouble. At the very least they would probably delight in taunting him and try to make him fall. Luckily, they were still several fields away and, unless they stopped and looked directly up at the tree from which he was hanging perilously, they might not spot him.
Something needed to be done and quickly or he would be seen and as he was supposed to be the Gang’s eyes and ears, that would be a huge embarrassment. His arms were burning with pain and unless he could find a solid foothold soon he realized that he might fall. In one last desperate attempt, he swung his legs back toward the smaller tree and managed to wrap them around the trunk. It wasn’t a foothold but at least he was not just swinging around. By now his arms were so tired that they began to tremble with fatigue. He was almost crying with the pain but the threat of being caught by these kids, who were almost certainly going to be very unfriendly, had given him a new surge of desperate strength. He had to get down and quickly. Even though the pain from all of the banging and scraping and the screaming protestations from his tired arm muscles were nearly unbearable, all he could think of was the need to get out of sight. Just the thought of them laughing at him and taunting him was bad. Worse perhaps, they would throw stones at him until he lost his grip and fell headfirst to the bushes below and then he would be at their mercy.
Spasms of panic were beginning to surge through him and it was perhaps because of this that, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm muscles, he made one last desperate lunge, grabbed at the trunk of the sapling and while clinging tightly, was able to gain a foothold and take the pressure off his aching arms. That last desperate lunge caused his chest to crash into the trunk of the tree with such force as to knock the wind from his lungs. He opened his mouth to suck air into them while clinging tightly to the trunk of the sapling.
Scrambling down as fast as possible, he slipped and fell the last few feet and landed in the bramble filled hedge below. He lay there for a while, gasping for a breath and feeling the rising stinging pain from the scrapes and cuts on legs and arms. All that he could do was to lie still and reflect on the whirling and crashing of the last few minutes. The wind was knocked from his lungs and he felt the most terrible panic as if he were drowning. He gasped for air in desperation and for a while it seemed that he would never be able to breathe normally again. Finally and with painful slowness air came back into his lungs again, the normal subconscious rhythm of life resumed and the black panic of drowning on dry land faded.
Crouching by the base of the tree that he had failed to climb, he tried to work out what to do next. He could not stay where he was, as he would likely be seen by anyone walking past. The first thing was to get out of the bush that he had landed in. Slowly he began to gently work his way out of the thorns and sharp branches. He did this carefully for if he moved too quickly the thorns would tear is flesh and his clothes. Scrapes and cuts would get little sympathy from his Mother when she saw the torn clothing and calculated the cost in time and money to make repairs.
Finally he succeeded in freeing himself from the bush and reached a small space by the trunk of the large tree. Crouching there he looked for a good hiding place as he needed to become invisible and soon. Ruefully he reflected that Peter would never have ended up like this. Instead he would have been safely crouched in a good hiding place high in one of the trees carefully and silently watching the approaching alien gang, confident of not being discovered and calmly observing what these kids from the City were doing so that he could give a full report to the his friends when they met later in their own den.
Roddy could now hear voices of the approaching gang. They made no attempt to be stealthy and were approaching as if they owned the place.
‘How could they act like that? Didn’t they realize that these fields and hedgerows and trees belonged to the Village children and that they were trespassing? Why were they acting so confidently, as if these fields held no danger for them and they could safely wander where they pleased?’
A surge of anger at their impudence and brazenness rushed through him and he felt like leaping up and challenging them. But he quickly realised that that would be stupid and instead continued to look for somewhere to hide. He spied an opening that led to a hidden place at the base of the elm and he squirmed his way into it as quickly and silently as he could.
Once safely in hiding he began to think about what he had seen. They must have come from across the River. To do that they would have to walk all the way through the railway yards, cross several sidings and then get across four busy railway tracks where they would have been in full view of the signalman whose signal box was next to the River by the railway bridge. Yet they were sauntering along without any attempt to make themselves inconspicuous. No stealthy scampering for these boys who just walked boldly across the fields with hardly a glance to either side, and directly toward their den. Not only were they encroaching onto the Village children’s territory, they didn’t seem to give a hoot about it.
Roddy desperately wanted to move to a better position from where he could more clearly see what these boys were doing, but he was surrounded by thorns and nettles and to move would have been very painful and he could not trust himself keep silent if he scratched himself badly. He already hurt a lot. His legs and arms were covered in scrapes that stung so much that they caused fat tears to well from his eyes. With great care and whimpering quietly from the pain of his scratches as he did so, he settled back into as comfortable a position as possible. These boys could be in their den for a long time but luckily he had chosen a tree that was several yards away and not on any direct path from the River, so they would not have to come near in order to return home. Nevertheless he tried to squeeze down and make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible.
He was close enough however, that he could hear the rustle of the undergrowth as they squeezed their way through the narrow entrance tunnel into the den. Then Roddy heard a cry of surprise and annoyance and loud voices complaining that someone had disturbed their den. He clicked his tongue in irritation. After discovering the den they had all agreed that it was better not to damage the interloper’s den but just leave it as they had found it. Did one of his friends go back and mess with things. Which one of the gang would have done that? He wondered if it was Derec as he had been the keenest to break things as a warning for these interlopers to stay away. If he did go back, he must have left some signs of having been there.
“ Whass this then” said a hard voice in a pronounced City accent, “ some kids ‘ave been in yure and messed around with our stuff, like”.
“Wot stuff ‘ave they messed with then”, responded another, higher pitched voice.
“Some ‘un has been shifting around the seats and the tin roof was not like that when we left the lass time. Some of those Village kids have bin ‘ere and messed with our den”, said another voice.
“Aye, Aye!!, this means trouble”, the first, deeper voice responded.
From the deeper sound of the first voice, Roddy surmised that least one of them was older than any one in his gang. That was not a good sign as if it came to a confrontation they were going to be stronger than he and his friends as none of the Village Gang was older than ten years, and from the sound of that voice this boy was at least twelve or maybe even thirteen.
Then began the sounds of the corrugated metal that they had installed as a roof, being moved and making that familiar squealing sound as it rubbed against the bushes and tree branches. ‘Skkrreeekk, skreeeeeekk’ it went. It sounded as if they were pushing it around a lot. But, how could that have possibly been moved. While he and his friends may have bumped and slightly moved a few things, he thought that they had been very careful to leave no sign that the den had been discovered. Peter had been very careful about that and the rest of the gang had all learned from watching their Saturday morning heroes who were always meticulous about not leaving any tracks. So, did someone make a mistake and move things, but who? He tried hard to cast his mind back to that day and remember who was the last to come out of the enemy den. His memory was that none of his friends had stayed behind for even a few minutes. He clearly remembered them leaving together. So, did someone else find this den?
Another shout went up, “Where’s the weapons”, said the deeper voiced boy.
“I dunno”, replied a younger higher voice, “I shoved them under the bush next to the tree when we wos ‘ere las’ time. They should still be there?”
“Well they ain’t “, replied the deep voiced one. “Sure that you didn’ put ‘em somewhere else you dopey bugger. Would’n put it past you?”
This was followed by a lot of cursing using swear words that Roddy had not heard before. He was so impressed with the swearing that it did not cross his mind for a while that he was only hearing two voices, while he distinctly remembered having seen three boys come along the path from the River that ran between the pond and the railway line. Where was the other one, he wondered?
A sudden noise alerted Roddy and he instinctively crouched lower to the ground. His hiding place was not a bad one but if someone looked carefully through the bushes he might be spotted. Someone was moving along the hedge and hitting it with what sounded like a stick. What was he doing, he thought? Whatever it was he was getting nearer to Roddy’s hiding place and if he beat down the bushes enough he might easily see him. Roddy surreptitiously looked around him. Moving deeper into the hedge was not possible because the noise would certainly give him away. All he could do was to keep very still and hope that he blended in to the background. The noise of the boy’s stick beating the bushes drew nearer and Roddy stiffened with tension.
Suddenly the boy with the deep voiced shouted “ ‘Arry, wot the ‘ell are you doin’ pissin around out there and making a lot of noise. Do some’in useful and scout around to see if any of those Village kids is out in the fields or somewhere. We don wanna be tak’n by surprise even though they are probably weak cry babies anyway”.
“Awright, said the third boy, “I was jus lookin to see if there was any of ‘em ‘idin in the bushes”.
Roddy tensed even more and tried to crouch lower. He felt that he was close to being discovered, as surely the boy could not miss him crouching next to the tree with only a thin screen of bushes between himself and the field. He kept as still as he could and then felt a surge of relief as the boy called Harry veered away from the hedge and into the field, possibly searching for any stray Village children, or anyone else who might be just wandering around in the fields who might be the perpetrator of the damage to their den. Despite stiffness and a cramping feeling in his knees, Roddy continued to crouch against the tree trunk hoping that the boys or his friends would not come by his hiding place again. Although the thorn scratches were making him miserable and the welts on his legs where he had been stung by nettles were becoming so painful that he badly wanted to rub at them, he managed to keep still. Gritting his teeth he did his best to ignore the pain and itching by thinking of other things but then, just to make things worse, his nose began to run.
The work on the tin roof ceased and now all that could be heard was the low noise of murmured conversation and it was impossible to make out what was being said. Then came the sound of hammering. So these boys were well prepared also, as they must have “borrowed” their father’s hammer. To have come all the way from the City; a trek that none of his gang had ever done or even contemplated, as it would have been a long and dangerous one, and to come prepared with tools and nails was surprising and very worrying. These boys intended to occupy this den for a while.
To keep himself occupied and take his mind off his painful scratches and his cramped position, Roddy went back to the puzzle of how these boys managed to cross both the River and the busy railway. To get to these fields from the City was a very risky journey. First you had to negotiate the allotment gardens and the piggeries from which, each evening, came the smells of cooking pig offal accompanied by the squeals of hungry pigs. He had only seen these allotment gardens from across the River but remembered seeing many adults working on their plots. Adults were usually suspicious and watchful of groups of children, assuming that they were up to some mischief or other, especially if they were hanging around your carefully tended plot.
Then came the most difficult part of all, the crossing of the River and the railway line. Where the railway crossed the River, it was extra wide because sidings from the nearby goods yard ran alongside the running tracks so anyone trying to cross would have to run over eight tracks. Also, right there at the River bridge was a signal box, which, with its large windows on three sides gave the signalman a clear view of anyone crossing the tracks. The Village children were constantly admonished to not trespass on the railway and so, if caught had no excuse. Roddy was puzzled by how these boys managed to get across that stretch of track, unless they were just lucky. Yet that made no sense as they were clearly frequent visitors to this side and children repeatedly crossing the railway would have been noticed by the signalman and surely someone would have caught them by now. No, there was some other secret way that they knew about and Roddy decided that it was important that he and the gang find out where and how they crossed the railway without being caught.
Desperate to do something about the scratches and lesions caused by the thorns and nettles as they were hurting him more and more, he decided that it would probably be safe to change his position so that he could at least rub the nettle stings and look for some burdock leaves that were such a good antidote. Even though he would make some noise it seemed that the City boys were now inside their den and so busy talking over each other that his struggles would not be heard above the racket. That was his hope, anyway. Carefully he began the painstaking procedure of picking out each of the thorns that were holding his clothes and eventually was able to move and get out of the uncomfortable position next to the tree trunk. The bruises and scrapes were beginning to throb and sting unmercifully and every so often Roddy had to stop and hold back the tears that were squeezed from eyes as a he removed a particularly nasty thorn that had hooked his skin. Steadily, the thorns and snags trapping him were removed and he was able to move around more freely. It was a tedious operation especially as he had to be careful not to become ensnared again by some sudden careless lurch into more thorns.
Luckily, the dense brambles into which he had fallen thinned near the trunk of the tree and he was able to wriggle even closer to it and carefully and slowly move his body into a standing position next to the trunk. The tree was not a very large one and his arms could reach part of the way around it and that gave some support and leverage. Once standing, he was able to concentrate on these interlopers again. Looking through the hedge he was surprised to see that the boy who had been beating his way along the hedge toward the hiding place was still out in the field where something had attracted his attention and diverted him from the scouting mission he had been sent on. He was poking at something in the grass and turning it over with a stick that he was carrying. What it might was a mystery as all that could be found in the fields besides plants were large stinky cow dung patches left behind by the animals that were put in the field from time to time by one of the local farmers. These would appear and disappear without apparent rhyme or reason. The fields would be empty on a Sunday evening and then sometime during the week the farmer would sneak them in and on Friday evening there they would be, munching on the grass and squirting their green smelly dung all over the nice piece of flat grass that served as their football pitch.
Then the boy bent down and picked something up. His back was toward Roddy and so he was not able to see it at first. Then he turned towards the den entrance and I could see that he was holding up a piece of clothing that looked very much like underwear. He had a big grin on his face, a look almost of triumph, as he began to run with his find toward the den. He disappeared in the den entrance and then Roddy could hear animated conversation and the loud shouts of laughter that punctuated it. Where did that piece of clothing come from? It was a real puzzle as he pondered how he and his friends spent so many of their spare moments out in those fields and thought that they knew everything that went on there, apart from the cow happenings. Why would someone leave underwear in the middle of a field?
He and his friends had always assumed that these fields were more or less forgotten by everyone except themselves. Other than seeing the farmer and his workers cutting and baling hay in the summer, they were always empty. Now he was beginning to realise that others came here too, perhaps older children who were able to be out later in the evening when he and his friends had to be at home. It was a surprise to find that their seemingly private world was shared with shadowy others and now, to make it even worse, their special place was being taken over by interlopers who had built a den and looked as if they meant to make this place their own playground. He decided that needed to talk to the others as soon as possible and tell them what he had leaned and to work out what should be done about it.
LAMBY MEMORIES 