The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More Part 8

Ernie and Raymond marched their prisoner to the edge of the lake and there they stopped.

"Now then," Ernie said. "What I suggest is this. You take 'is arms and I take 'is legs and we'll swing the little perisher one two three as far out as we can into them nice muddy reeds. 'Ow's that?"

"I like it," Raymond said. "And leave 'is 'ands tied together, right?"

"Right," Ernie said. " 'Ow's that with you, snot-nose?"

"If that's what you're going to do, I can't very well stop you," Peter said, trying to keep his voice cool and calm.

"Just you try and stop us," Ernie said, grinning, "and then see what 'appens to you."

"One last question," Peter said. "Did you ever take on somebody your own size?"

The moment he said it, he knew he had made a mistake. He saw the flush coming to Ernie's cheeks and there was a dangerous little spark dancing in his small black eyes.

Luckily, at that very moment, Raymond saved the situation. "Hey! Lookit that bird swimmin' in the reeds over there!" he shouted, pointing. "Let's 'ave 'im!"

It was a mallard drake, with a curvy spoon-shaped yellow beak and a head of emerald green with a white ring round its neck. "Now those you really can eat," Raymond went on. "It's a wild duck."

"I'll 'ave 'im!" Ernie cried. He let go of the prisoner's arm and lifted the gun to his shoulder.

"This is a bird sanctuary," Peter said.

"A what?" Ernie asked, lowering the gun.

"n.o.body shoots birds here. It's strictly forbidden."

" 'Oo says it's forbidden?"

"The owner, Mr Douglas Highton."

"You must be joking," Ernie said and he raised the gun again. He fired. The duck crumpled in the water.

"Go get 'im," Ernie said to Peter. "Cut 'is 'ands free, Raymond, 'cause then 'ee can be our flippin' gun-dog and fetch the birds after we shoot 'em."

Raymond took out his knife and cut the string binding the small boy's wrists.

"Go on!" Ernie snapped. "Go get 'im!"

The killing of the beautiful duck had disturbed Peter very much. "I refuse," he said.

Ernie hit him across the face hard with his open hand. Peter didn't fall down, but a small trickle of blood began running out of one nostril.

"You dirty little perisher!" Ernie said. "You just try refusin' me one more time and I'm goin' to make you a promise. And the promise is like this. You refuse me just one more time and I'm goin' to knock out every single one of them s.h.i.+ny white front teeth of yours, top and bottom. You understand that?"

Peter said nothing.

"Answer me!" Ernie barked. "Do you understand that?"

"Yes," Peter said quietly. "I understand."

"Get on with it, then!" Ernie shouted.

Peter walked down the bank, into the muddy water, through the reeds, and picked up the duck. He brought it back and Raymond took it from him and tied string around its legs.

"Now we got a retriever dog with us, let's see if we can't get us a few more of them ducks," Ernie said. He strolled along the bank, gun in hand, searching the reeds. Suddenly he stopped. He crouched. He put a finger to his lips and said, "Sshh!"

Raymond went over to join him. Peter stood a few yards away, his trousers covered in mud up to the knees.

"Lookit in there!" Ernie whispered, pointing into a dense patch of bulrushes. "D'you see what I see?"

"Holy cats!" cried Raymond. "What a beauty!"

Peter, peering from a little further away into the rushes, saw at once what they were looking at. It was a swan, a magnificent white swan sitting serenely upon her nest. The nest itself was a huge pile of reeds and rushes that rose up about two feet above the waterline, and upon the top of all this the swan was sitting like a great white lady of the lake. Her head was turned towards the boys on the bank, alert and watchful.

" 'Ow about that?" Ernie said. "That's better'n ducks, ain't it?"

"You think you can get 'er?" Raymond said.

"Of course I can get 'er. I'll drill a 'ole right through 'er noggin!"

Peter felt a wild rage beginning to build up inside him. He walked up to the two bigger boys. "I wouldn't shoot that swan if I were you," he said, trying to keep his voice calm. "Swans are the most protected birds in England."

"And what's that got to do with it?" Ernie asked him, sneering.

"And I'll tell you something else," Peter went on, throwing all caution away. "n.o.body shoots a bird sitting on its nest. Absolutely n.o.body! She may even have cygnets under her! You just can't do it!"

" 'Oo says we can't?" Raymond asked, sneering. "Mister bleedin' snotty-nose Peter Watson, is that the one 'oo says it?"

"The whole country says it," Peter answered. "The law says it and the police say it and everyone everyone says it!" says it!"

"I don't say it!" Ernie said, raising his gun.

"Don't!" screamed Peter. "Please don't!"

Crack! Crack! The gun went off. The bullet hit the swan right in the middle of her elegant head and the long white neck collapsed on to the side of the nest. The gun went off. The bullet hit the swan right in the middle of her elegant head and the long white neck collapsed on to the side of the nest.

"Got 'er!" cried Ernie.

"Hot shot!" shouted Raymond.

Ernie turned to Peter who was standing small and white-faced and absolutely rigid. "Now go get 'er," he ordered.

Once again, Peter didn't move.

Ernie came up close to the smaller boy and bent down and stuck his face right up to Peter's. "I'm tellin' you for the last time," he said, soft and dangerous. "Go get 'er!"

Tears were running down Peter's face as he went slowly down the bank and entered the water. He waded out to the dead swan and picked it up tenderly with both hands. Underneath it were two tiny cygnets, their bodies covered with yellow down. They were huddling together in the centre of the nest.

"Any eggs?" Ernie shouted from the bank.

"No," Peter answered. "Nothing." There was a chance, he felt, that when the male swan returned, it would continue to feed the young ones on its own if they were left in the nest. He certainly did not want to leave them to the tender mercies of Ernie and Raymond.

Peter carried the dead swan back to the edge of the lake. He placed it on the ground. Then he stood up and faced the two others. His eyes, still wet with tears, were blazing with fury. "That was a filthy thing to do!" he shouted. "It was a stupid pointless act of vandalism! You're a couple of ignorant idiots! It's you who ought to be dead instead of the swan! You're not fit to be alive!"

He stood there, as tall as he could stand, splendid in his fury, facing the two taller boys and not caring any longer what they did to him.

Ernie didn't hit him this time. He seemed just a tiny bit taken aback at first by this outburst, but he quickly recovered. And now his loose lips formed themselves into a sly, wet smirk and his small close-together eyes began to glint in a most malicious manner. "So you like swans, is that right?" he asked softly.

"I like swans and I hate you!" Peter cried.

"And am I right in thinkin'," Ernie went on, still smirking, "am I absolutely right in thinkin' that you wished this old swan down 'ere were alive instead of dead?"

"That's a stupid question!" Peter shouted.

" 'Ee needs a clip over the ear-'ole," Raymond said.

"Wait," Ernie said. "I'm doin' this exercise." He turned back to Peter. "So if I could make this swan come alive and go flyin' round the sky all over again, then you'd be 'appy. Right?"

"That's another stupid question!" Peter cried out. "Who d'you think you are?"

"I'll tell you 'oo I am," Ernie said. "I'm a magic man, that's 'oo I am. And just to make you 'appy and contented, I am about to do a magic trick that'll make this dead swan come alive and go flyin' all over the sky once again."

"Rubbis.h.!.+" Peter said. "I'm going." He turned and started to walk away.

"Grab 'im!" Ernie said.

Raymond grabbed him.

"Leave me alone!" Peter cried out.

Raymond slapped him on the cheek, hard. "Now, now," he said. "Don't fight with auntie, not unless you want to get 'urt."

"Gimme your knife," Ernie said, holding out his hand. Raymond gave him his knife.

Ernie knelt down beside the dead swan and stretched out one of its enormous wings. "Watch this," he said.

"What's the big idea?" Raymond asked.

"Wait and see," Ernie said. And now, using the knife, he proceeded to sever the great white wing from the swan's body. There is a joint in the bone where the wing meets the side of the bird, and Ernie located this and slid the knife into the joint and cut through the tendon. The knife was very sharp and it cut well, and soon the wing came away all in one piece.

Ernie turned the swan over and severed the other wing.

"String," he said, holding out his hand to Raymond.

Raymond, who was grasping Peter by the arm, was watching fascinated. "Where'd you learn 'ow to butcher up a bird like that?" he asked.

"With chickens," Ernie said. "We used to nick chickens from up at Stevens Farm and cut 'em up into chicken parts and flog 'em to a shop in Aylesbury. Gimme the string."

Raymond gave him the ball of string. Ernie cut off six pieces, each about a yard long.

There are a series of strong bones running along the top edge of a swan's wing, and Ernie took one of the wings and started tying one end of the bits of string all the way along the top edge of the great wing. When he had done this, he lifted the wing with the six string-ends dangling from it and said to Peter, "Stick out your arm."

"You're absolutely mad!" the smaller boy shouted. "You're demented!"

"Make 'im stick it out," Ernie said to Raymond.

Raymond held up a clenched fist in front of Peter's face and dabbed it gently against his nose. "You see this," he said. "Well I'm goin' to smash you right in the kisser with it unless you do exactly as you're told, see? Now, stick out your arm, there's a good little boy."

Peter felt his resistance collapsing. He couldn't hold out against these people any longer. For a few seconds, he stared at Ernie. Ernie with the tiny close-together black eyes gave the impression he would be capable of doing just about anything if he got really angry. Ernie, Peter felt at that moment, might quite easily kill a person if he were to lose his temper. Ernie, the dangerous backward child, was playing games now and it would be very unwise to spoil his fun. Peter held out an arm.

Ernie then proceeded to tie the six string ends one by one to Peter's arm, and when he had finished, the white wing of the swan was securely attached along the entire length of the arm itself.

"Ow's that, eh?" Ernie said, stepping back and surveying his work.

"Now the other one," Raymond said, catching on to what Ernie was doing. "You can't expect 'im to go flyin' round the sky with only one wing, can you?"

"Second wing comin' up," Ernie said. He knelt down again and tied six more lengths of string to the top bones of the second wing. Then he stood up again. "Let's 'ave the other arm," he said. Peter, feeling sick and ridiculous, held out his other arm. Ernie strapped the wing tightly along the length of it.

"Now!" Ernie cried, clapping his hands and dancing a little jig on the gra.s.s. "Now we got ourselves a real live swan all over again! Didn't I tell you I was a magic man ? Didn't I tell you I was goin' to do a magic trick and make this dead swan come alive and go flyin' all over the sky? Didn't I tell you that?"

Peter stood there in the suns.h.i.+ne beside the lake on this beautiful May morning, the enormous, limp and slightly bloodied wings dangling grotesquely at his sides. "Have you finished?" he said.

"Swans don't talk," Ernie said. "Keep your flippin' beak shut! And save your energy, laddie, because you're goin' to need all the strength and energy you got when it comes to flyin' round in the sky." Ernie picked up his gun from the ground, then he grabbed Peter by the back of the neck with his free hand and said, "March!"

They marched along the bank of the lake until they came to a tall and graceful willow tree. There they halted. The tree was a weeping willow, and the long branches hung down from a great height and almost touched the surface of the lake.

"And now the magic swan is goin' to show us a bit of magic flyin'," Ernie announced. "So what you're goin' to do, Mister Swan, is to climb up to the very top of this tree, and when you get there you're goin' to spread out your wings like a clever little swannee-swan-swan and you're goin' to take off!"

"Fantastic!" cried Raymond. "Terrific! I like it very much!"

"So do I," Ernie said. "Because now we're goin' to find out just exactly 'ow clever this clever little swannee-swan-swan really is. He's terribly clever at school, we all know that, and 'ee's top of the cla.s.s and everything else that's lovely, but let's see just exactly 'ow clever 'ee is when 'ee's at the top of the tree! Right, Mister Swan?" He gave Peter a push towards the tree.

How much further could this madness go? Peter wondered. He was beginning to feel a little mad himself, as though nothing was real any more and none of it was actually happening. But the thought of being high up in the tree and out of reach of these hooligans at last was something that appealed to him greatly. When he was up there, he could stay up there. He doubted very much if they would bother to come up after him. And even if they did, he could surely climb away from them along a thin limb that would not take the weight of two people.

The tree was a fairly easy one to climb, with several low branches to give him a start up. He began climbing. The huge white wings dangling from his arms kept getting in the way, but it didn't matter. What mattered now to Peter was that every inch upward was another inch away from his tormentors below. He had never been a great one for tree-climbing and he wasn't especially good at it, but nothing in the world was going to stop him from getting to the top of this one. And once he was there, he thought it unlikely they would even be able to see him because of the leaves.

"Higher!" shouted Ernie's voice. "Keep goin'!"

Peter kept going, and eventually he arrived at a point where it was impossible to go higher. His feet were now standing on a branch that was about as thick as a person's wrist, and this particular branch reached far out over the lake and then curved gracefully downward. All the branches above him were very thin and whippy, but the one he was holding on to with his hands was quite strong enough for the purpose. He stood there, resting after the climb. He looked down for the first time. He was very high up, at least fifty feet. But he couldn't see the two boys. They were no longer standing at the base of the tree. Was it possible they had gone away at last?

"All right, Mister Swan!" came the dreaded voice of Ernie. "Now listen carefully!"

The two of them had walked some distance away from the tree to a point where they had a clear view of the small boy at the top. Looking down at them now, Peter realized how very spa.r.s.e and slender the leaves of a willow tree were. They gave him almost no cover at all.

"Listen carefully. Mister Swan!" the voice was shouting. "Start walking out along that branch you're standin' on! Keep goin' till you're right over the nice muddy water! Then you take off!"

Peter didn't move. He was fifty feet above them now and they weren't ever going to reach him again. From down below, there was a long silence. It lasted maybe half a minute. He kept his eyes on the two distant figures in the field. They were standing quite still, looking up at him.