Children of the Archbishop (28 page)

Boring holes in things was something different. Boring holes, in fact, was what was now occupying his entire leisure attention. He had even managed to take time off from writing the interminable words “I must not spit” to make two holes, deep ones that came out the other side, in the lid of the desk at which he was now working.

It was, however, not so long ago—eleven o'clock that morning to be precise—when spitting had seemed all-engrossing. Because he had felt so strongly about it, he had issued a challenge. And Spud had accepted it. Nor would any real harm have been done if Spud had been ready to admit defeat. But he hadn't been ready. Decisively, overwhelmingly out-spat, beaten by a good eighteen inches in fact, he had issued a counter challenge. In front of everyone, he had bet Ginger that he couldn't spit into the open classroom window. And in the face of such unreasonable defiance there was nothing for Ginger to do but take up the challenge.

It was a good six feet up to the window. And clearly there
was nothing for it but to step back a full couple of paces and trust to sheer lung-power. Taking up his position, and screwing up his lips in readiness, Ginger prepared for his bombardment.

Not that he was successful immediately. The first two rounds merely flicked the lower window-panes. But the third was a beauty. Still perfectly globular even at the height of its trajectory, and gleaming like a pearl in flight, it entered the open portion of the window and landed audibly on the floor within.

Faced by such consummate mastery of a difficult and notoriously exacting art, even Spud let out a cheer. And Ginger, carried away by such acclamation, took up his position once more to repeat his achievement. It was this vainglory that was his undoing. For while he was still standing there with his eyes closed, sucking hard at his cheeks in preparation, Mr. Dawlish's head appeared at the open window.

Considering the danger and indignity of his position, Mr. Dawlish behaved very moderately. He withdrew. Then, when the peril had passed—and, when it came, the shot was no better than an outer—he re-appeared quickly before Ginger could possibly have had time to re-load. Emerging from the side door that led straight into the playground, he took Ginger by the ear, and conducted him back into the classroom. And once he had got him there he handed Ginger a piece of blotting-paper and indicated with his foot the exact spot on the floor where he wished him to blot.

That done, Mr. Dawlish went over to the window once more and stood there looking out, while he absent-mindedly ran a long discoloured pipe-cleaner backwards and forwards through the chewed stem of his pipe. The incident had not seriously disturbed him. There was no point in raising his voice or losing his temper: he had realised that long ago. The infinitely varied beastliness of boys was something that no longer even seriously troubled him.

Not that Ginger had got off lightly. There were twenty lines to each of the school pages and the ten pages that Mr. Dawlish had set him would mean that by the time he had finished he would have written the words “I must not spit” exactly two hundred times. It was cruelty of the most refined and devilish kind. Already his hand was aching, and the ink that was all over his index and second fingers was making various sore places and scratches hurt and tingle.

While he was sucking his fingers, a new thought came to him. Supposing he bored a hole right through the lid of the locker, he
might be able to lift up the lid and spit
through
it. It was an agreeable and entertaining project, a graceful variation of his earlier barbarous pastime. But, unfortunately, it came to nothing. To make a hole that was sufficiently large for his purpose would have been to court immediate discovery. So he explored other possibilities. Going through his pockets, he found a button, the end of a comb, a small piece of rubber, the crinkly metal-top off a lemonade bottle, a piece of string—and his gimlet. With patience he was at last able to make a series of holes in all the solid objects. And the rest was simple. Passing the string through the holes, he now had a neat bunch of treasures. Then he resumed his writing-exercise.

It was going better now. He seemed to be getting along faster. And the mechanical nature of the labour drugged him. He found that while he was writing he could think about other things as well—railway accidents, and massacres, and torture, and starving to death on uninhabited islands, and executions.

Another happy idea came to him by the time he had got to the fifth sheet. If he held two pens in his hand at the same time perhaps he could fill two lines at once. The idea was attractive and daring in its novelty. But, like the hole in the locker lid, it too proved a failure. Something always went wrong with one of the pens and the two nibs kept colliding. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to slog along in the slow old-fashioned fashion. One boy; one pen; one line at a time.

“Bet Spud couldn't have spat into the window,” Ginger told himself. “Bet he couldn't have got it right inside, even if he'd climbed on to the window-sill. Bet he hadn't enough spit in him to do it properly.”

It was some time later—just after Ginger had managed to prise out the two screws that held the locker lid in position—when Dr. Trump came into the room.

He came quietly, discreetly, unostentatiously, passing silently down the corridor like a prowling panther. But not so silently or panther-like that Ginger had not heard him. Sitting there as he was, with his gimlet at the ready, he suddenly became aware of danger. Real danger. Danger, immediate and unavoidable. The muscles at the back of his neck tightened for a moment and he thrust his gimlet hurriedly into his pocket. Then reason conquered fear. Taking out his collection of treasures and the gimlet, he dropped them into the locker behind him.

By the time Dr. Trump entered, Ginger was diligently writing
once more. Dr. Trump stood in the doorway regarding him. It was a hot afternoon and the windows of the classroom were all closed. Even from where he was standing, Dr. Trump was unpleasantly aware of the distinctive odour of small boy. He would have liked to turn back into the airy corridor again. But clearly there was something here close at hand for him to investigate. His afternoon's snooping had not been entirely fruitless.

“What are you doing?”

Ginger got up politely.

“Writing, sir.”

“Writing what?”

“Words, sir.”

Dr. Trump's eyebrows came closer together, and he pursed up his lips. In the entire Hospital there was no one else, child or master, who could produce quite Ginger's effect upon him. Sooner or later he was going to lose his temper with him: he could feel it in his bones. In the meantime, however, he must control himself, must show that it was beyond the power of any boy to aggravate him. Therefore he continued icily.

“What words?”

“Words Mr. Dawlish told me to write, sir.”

“Why did Mr. Dawlish tell you to write them?”

“Because he wanted me to, sir.”

Dr. Trump's breathing deepened, and the whistling sound began high up in his face where the nose joined the eyebrows. Ginger recognised this for the alarm signal: Dr. Trump was getting ratty.

“Are they words that you couldn't spell?” Dr. Trump asked in the same hard, frozen tone.

“No, sir.”

“Are they words of which you didn't know the meaning?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why are you writing them?”

“Because I was told to, sir.”

Dr. Trump's patience snapped suddenly. Snapped even before he knew it.

“Read them out to me,” he shouted. “All of them.”

“They're all the same, sir.”

“Then read any page.”

“I must not spit,” “I must not spit,” “I must not spit,” Ginger began. “I must not …”

“That's quite enough, thank you.”

Dr. Trump stood there confronting him. He had closed the door behind him and crossed the stuffy classroom so that Ginger should be within arm's length if he wanted to shake him.

“So you are a spitter, are you?” he asked as soon as he felt that the silence had been long enough to be effective.

“No, sir.”

Dr. Trump shot out his hand and gripped Ginger by the shoulder. He had hard, strong fingers and he hurt. But Ginger knew better than to resist. He just stood there limply, while Dr. Trump shook him.

“Don't lie to me,” Dr. Trump commanded, his voice rising and growing louder. “Don't try to cover up your filthiness by lying.”

“I'm not, sir.”

“And don't contradict me.”

“No, sir.”

Dr. Trump let go of him.

“I shall remain here until you speak the truth,” he announced quietly.

He paused impressively.

“Did you or did you not spit?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Trump's breathing was now so noisy that Ginger wondered if he could hear it himself. Perhaps he's going to have a fit, he thought. Perhaps he's going to start foaming.

But Dr. Trump was never more master of himself.

“So you did lie to me,” he declared triumphantly. “You are a spitter.”

“No, I'm not, sir,” Ginger answered. “I've stopped.”

Dr. Trump had gone away again and the room was quiet once more. Ginger had got to see Dr. Trump in the morning; and that meant another caning, he supposed. It wasn't fair, not coming on top of all those lines. But it might have been worse. A lot worse. If Ginger hadn't taken precautions, he'd have lost everything, his entire treasure trove.

Because the last thing that Dr. Trump had said to him was: “Turn out your pockets.”

The way things were going, with The Warden's Residence re-painted throughout entirely in white, and with the fish-servers, for which the staff had collected, actually at the silver-smith's for engraving, and with the banns already read for the first time—the year would have been memorable for Dr. Trump's wedding alone.

But, when it came, the perspective of things was different. When, at last, Felicity Warple passed up the chapel aisle on Bishop Warple's arm, and Dr. Trump waited nervously behind the cleaner's cabinet ready to step forward and claim his bride, the event was not the crescendo for which everyone had been waiting. There was an air of bathos and anti-climax that was unmistakable. And that was not surprising considering what people had just been through.

For, by then, the Hospital, St. Mark's Avenue, even the whole neighbourhood, had endured the ordeal of a fire.
The
Fire, as it was now known.

In the ordinary way nowadays there is nothing particularly alarming about a fire. Some passer-by notices a glow, or spots a thin spiral of ascending smoke, or even merely smells burning, and he or she—usually it is
he
—rushes off to summon the brigade. Women are by nature reluctant to make such public exhibitions of themselves and are less good at smashing glass in street corner fire-alarms. But either way it is the same. Immediately the firemen come sliding down their slippery pole, straight from bed into the engine. The apparatus they bring with them is of the most modern. Pressure huge, jets enormous. The discipline of the men is exemplary, their courage superb. The very ringing of the bell spells confidence. And there is always the knowledge that close behind—a kind of faithful Sister Martha to scurry round and mop up the mess—will come the Salvage Corps. More, in fact, could not have been done to make modern fires orderly,
undangerous, even comfortable. Even so, when there are five hundred children inside a blazing building, the situation seems somehow different. Nerves are subjected to unheard-of strains. Authority is everything. Panic is always just around the corner.

And, when the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital suddenly lit up the night sky of Putney on the 23rd of May, 1928, it was Dr. Trump's testing time. Between 1 a.m., when the Brigade arrived, and 2.15, when the Superintendent reported that the fire was under control and everyone could safely return to bed—the Warden had been both hero and victim in his own domestic drama.

From the very start, from the first clanging of the alarm bell, Ginger regarded it as
his
fire. And he was possibly right. Even probably right. Almost certainly right, in fact. As proof of his rightness, he could have led any fireman to the exact spot among the charred and smoking ruins and shown him exactly where in his opinion combustion had begun. If cross-examined, he could have substantiated his case. He could have convinced a Grand Jury. And the extraordinary thing is that among all the investigators no one asked him, no one so much as thought of Ginger. He was ignored completely. The fire was explained away to everyone's satisfaction, and attributed to other causes. And, in the circumstances, Ginger saw no reason to disabuse the theorists.

Up to the moment when it publicly declared itself, the fire had been Ginger's especial secret. And it was Sergeant Chiswick who had made him a present of it. The Sergeant had been cleaning out the clinkers in the main boilers and carrying up bucketfuls of the stuff to throw on the slag-heap behind the boiler-shed. He had made eight journeys already and, when he went down for the ninth time all that he really intended to do was to give the boiler-room a sweeping. At the last moment, however, he had decided to put the rod through the furnace once more to see that everything was really clear. And it was this that had given Ginger his opportunity. For the furnace was now working perfectly. It was nothing but red-hot nuggets of fire that came dropping through the bars when Sergeant Chiswick poked. And because there wasn't so much as a trace of clinker in the whole firebox the little gems of coke came pouring through like fiery hail. There was such a hail-storm of them indeed that Sergeant Chiswick decided to scoop them up in one final bucketful and start clean for the morning.

Then, his work done, he set the bucket neatly against the wall,
turned his back on the slag-heap and made his way back to his porter's lodge and the racing editions.