Sadly, Smiler went back to the cottage and counted his savings. He had thirty odd pounds, a few bits of clothing, a bicycle and a suitcase which he’d bought to carry his gear in. All he needed now was a plan. It would have to be good, because when he disappeared that would start questions, too … Crikeys, it wasn’t going to be easy to work out.

  However, during the next week while Smiler was worrying at his plan for disappearing, he had the cubs to look after.

  This was very hard work. He was up before dawn and away from the cottage long before Joe was awake. He would ride up past Danebury House, hide his bicycle, and make his way across the plain to the cubs. Food was no problem. He packed his haversack with dog meat from Joe’s store and dropped fivepence into Joe’s cash box now and then to pay for it. He would give the cubs their breakfast, refill their water bowl, and then shut them up and be back at Danebury in time for work. In the evening when he had finished work at Danebury, he would take some dog meat from the kennel store and go back up to the cubs and give them their evening meal.

  Within three days the cubs got to know him. When he came to the cave door he would whistle to them. The moment he pulled up the plank they would be waiting for him, snapping and spitting with excitement. But he was worried about giving them exercise. Young animals could not be kept shut up all the time. Fortunately the male cub solved this problem for him.

  Smiler arrived on the fourth evening to find that the middle door plank had been butted away. Both cubs were playing around by the tree screen. He saw them as he came up the steep slope and they saw him.

  Smiler stood where he was, not knowing what to do. Then, to his surprise, the cubs began to move down towards him. He gave his low whistle. They broke into a fast trot through the long grasses, every high-shouldered movement and graceful stride they made reminding him of Yarra.

  Smiler crouched down. The cubs came to him, but stopped a few feet short. The female squatted on her haunches. The male circled slowly round at a safe distance. Smiler pulled his haversack round and took out a piece of meat and held it up. Immediately the female came towards him.

  Smiler got to his feet and, holding the piece of meat high, began to move up to the den entrance. Both cubs followed him. Just before they reached the small plateau, the male cub made a sudden leap towards the meat that nearly took Smiler by surprise. It was a higher jump than he had thought the cub could make.

  After that it was easy. Smiler tossed two large lumps of meat into the den and the cubs went in after them. Smiler watered them. Before he left, he made the door much firmer so that they could not get out. On the way back to the cottage he thought about exercising the cubs and worked out a plan for the next morning.

  It worked perfectly. He pulled up the plank door and held his meat-filled haversack close to the opening. Both cubs came to it. Smiler moved away and slung his haversack high on his back. He moved up the valley side for a hundred yards. The cubs followed him and the scent of the meat in the haversack. When he turned and went back to the cave the cubs turned with him. At the cave entrance, he threw meat inside and the cubs went in after it. That was the beginning of their training, and they learnt quickly.

  By the weekend, so long as he had meat in his haversack and they had not been fed, they would follow him. By the middle of the next week Smiler could hang his haversack high on a branch of one of the screening trees and walk off. The cubs would go with him though the first time the male sat obstinately under the tree for a while.

  At the end of two weeks, the rule was firmly fixed. Both cubs followed him for a walk before returning to the cave to be fed from the haversack that hung from the tree. By this time, too, the cubs would let him handle them, stroke them, and massage their necks which they loved. If they strayed a little from him they would come back at the sound of his whistle. Smiler was delighted with all this.

  It was nearing high summer now. The cubs were growing fast and were well used to Smiler. So long as the weather was good and the cubs were fed and watered, there was no hurry, Smiler told himself, about settling their future. The days wore into July and every morning and evening Smiler would exercise the cubs up the long narrow valley and across a small stretch of plain at its head. Fed or not, they came with him, answered his call, and had no fear of his touch. Though Smiler was always careful when he did this. Twice the male cub had scratched him inadvertently in a moment of rough play.

  The buzzards knew the trio and so did the other birds and beasts. At the valley head one evening a young rabbit got up from the grass and the male cub went after it and caught it. For a moment or two Smiler did not know what to do. He realized that it would be dangerous to try and take the rabbit from the cub. So he turned and began to walk back towards the den. The female followed him. He whistled to the male as he walked. After a moment or two the male, mouth closed over the rabbit’s neck, turned and followed him, carrying his prey. The male cub carried the rabbit back and into the den.

  So, slowly, Smiler learnt how to handle the cubs in different situations and the cubs came to know Smiler. And Smiler gave them names. The male he called Rico and the female Afra. He didn’t know why he called them that, but he was rather pleased with his inventions.

  Although by now Smiler had long made up his mind what he eventually must do about things he kept on putting it off because he enjoyed being with the cubs so much. Each time that he made up his mind to do something, he had changed it within a few minutes of being back with them.

  During the fourth week of his taking charge of the cubs, unknown to him, a decision began to be made for him.

  One Friday evening Joe said to him, ‘Johnny my lad, tomorrow afternoon I’m a-going to give you a treat. And don’t tell me you don’t want to come because you want to go up on that old plain. What you got hidden up there, anyways? A gold mine?’

  ‘I just like being up there, Joe.’

  ‘And so do I, Johnny. But a change won’t do you any harm. A treat I’m going to give you and a treat you’re goin’ to have. We’ll be back by six so you can slip up there for an hour after, if you want.’

  So Smiler, who never liked disappointing Joe – and even felt a bit guilty for keeping his cheetah secret from him – said he would like to have a treat.

  Joe duly gave him his treat, the both of them driving off in the green van. By the time Smiler – who had thoroughly enjoyed himself – got back he knew exactly how to solve part of his remaining problem.

  While Joe was giving Johnny his treat, Major Collingwood was having tea with his wife at Ford Cottage. They were having it out on the small front lawn that overlooked the river. The Major, although he still thought about it now and then, had long ago lost his interest in tracing Mr Hunted. He had come to a dead end. The Major was the kind of man who, when he came to a dead end, didn’t like to stay there long. He turned round and found something else of interest to do.

  He was reading his newspaper and feeling rather sleepy from the hot sun. The sound of the river running by lulled him. Now and again he dozed off as his wife chatted to him. Sometimes he came out of his doze to catch the end of one of her sentences and to make some polite reply.

  From a somewhat deeper doze-off, he surfaced briefly to hear his wife finishing a sentence.

  ‘… and although they work him hard enough over there, I thought now in the long evenings he could give you a hand.’

  ‘Give me a what, dear?’ The Major blinked his eyes open.

  ‘Give you a hand in the garden. He’s a good worker, Angela Lakey tells me.’

  A little more awake, the Major said, ‘Who is?’

  Mrs Collingwood laughed. ‘ Why, Johnny, of course.’

  ‘Who on earth is Johnny?’ asked the Major.

  His wife shook her head. ‘ Sometimes I think your memory is going altogether. Johnny, the boy who works for Danebury House. And if you want to know where Danebury House is, it’s where I go riding sometimes as you well know. I’ve spoken to you about him before.’

  ‘Not that I remember. Perhaps I was asleep at the time.’

  ‘Well, he’s a nice boy. He lives with that awful Joe Ringer. He’s a tall, strong boy with dark-brown hair and sort of freckled under his sunburn. I don’t know where Angela found him. She doesn’t seem keen ever to talk about him. Almost as though there was some sort of mystery about him, I feel.’ She laughed. ‘ You’d think he was an escaped convict, or something. Would you like some more tea, dear?’

  The Major sat forward in his chair, suddenly deep in thought. ‘Tea?’ he questioned.

  ‘Yes, dear. The brown liquid that comes out of a teapot and which you drink from a teacup. Really, I think this sun is too much for you!’

  But it was not the sun that was too much for the Major. It was his old interest in Mr Hunted which had suddenly revived, though he was careful not to show it.

  He said casually, ‘ Oh, yes, I think I’ve seen him cycling about Heytesbury. Does he wear an old green anorak sometimes? Like one I used to have?’

  ‘I believe he does. Yes, he does sometimes. Well, anyway, I was thinking that if he had the time we might …’

  The Major didn’t hear her because he was thinking, too; thinking that he would like to have a look at this Johnny, a good look without Johnny seeing him.

  This he managed to do twice during the next few days. He also met Miss Milly in Warminster shopping the following Monday and had a chat with her – among other things about Johnny. He learnt that Johnny had an aunt called Mrs Brown who lived at Hillside Bungalow in Crockerton. She was away at the moment tending a sick sister in Bristol. Since the Major lived almost in Crockerton himself he knew perfectly well that there was no Mrs Brown and no Hillside Bungalow there. With all this knowledge, his certainty grew that Johnny was really Samuel Miles. The Major, who was a good-hearted, conscientious, and kind man, but one used to Army discipline, found himself with a problem which he knew would take him a little while to think out. To think out, that is, for the real good of Samuel Miles, known to his friends as Smiler or Johnny.

  It was more than a week before the Major, who had a few other inquiries to make, came to his decision and knew exactly where his duty lay.

  13. The Sleep-Walker

  Smiler was never to forget the happiness of his days with Afra and Rico. They were bright summer days and rainy summer days. They were days when the movement of the cubs racing and hunting at the top of the valley printed pictures in his mind which he would always remember. They came to his whistle now and, unless they were hunting, trotted close to him. Their pelts were taking full colour, the amber, black-spotted coats rippling above their muscle movements. They caught mice and rabbits, and twice they packed together and ran down a very young hare. When they killed Smiler never attempted to take their kill from them. If he had time he would wait until they had eaten. Otherwise he would go back to the den and they would follow, carrying their catch. He still regularly fed and watered them. Also, he had forever a watchful eye for Land Wardens or late exercising troops.

  Sometimes he lay in the grass and the cubs would romp over him as they played together. The early morning and late evening air was full of the smell of wild thyme. With the passing of the days Smiler hated the thought of the day that was coming, the day already fixed in his mind when they would have to part company. He would have liked to stay up on the plain with them forever. If there had been no other people to bother them they could have lived easily. There was water, food to be found, and plenty of shelter. Even in the winter he reckoned they would be able to manage. He saw himself in a commodious cave, a fire burning at the entrance, and Afra and Rico lying together well away from the flames, while the winter wind shrieked outside. He knew it was all a dream. But it was a good dream to have.

  One warm moonlit night, he spent the whole time on the plain with them because Joe had gone away on business to Southampton and was staying with a friend down there.

  When Mrs Lakey met him at the kitchen door next morning she took one look at him and said, ‘Boy, you’re as red-eyed as an albino. Don’t tell me you had too much of Joe Ringer’s cider last night?’

  ‘No, Mrs Lakey, I’m always careful how much I have of that stuff.’

  ‘St Patrick himself keep you that way, Boy. He always prescribed it in moderation – and left each mortal to decide for himself what moderation was.’

  At lunchtime Miss Milly said, ‘That’s a bad scratch on your hand, Johnny. I’ll fix it for you with a plaster.’

  Rico a little rough in play had bit lovingly at Smiler’s hand that night and torn the flesh. While she was attending to his hand. Miss Milly went on, ‘Jelly and I are going to dinner with a Major Collingwood at Crockerton on Friday. He asked me some time ago if you’d care to do a little weekend gardening work for him? Shall I tell him, yes?’

  Smiler’s hair nearly stood on end.

  He stammered, ‘ Well … well, Miss Milly, I don’t think … Well, I like to have a bit of time to myself at weekends.’

  ‘And it’s right you should. I’ll tell him to cast his eyes elsewhere.’

  If he could have told her the truth Smiler would have said that the coming weekend was going to be his last at Danebury, his last in this part of the world. On Sunday morning he meant to be up early and away in Joe’s green van with Afra and Rico. It would mean creeping into Joe’s bedroom to get the key of the van from his jacket pocket, but Joe always slept like a log on Saturday nights after his visit to the Angel. Smiler knew that he would have no difficulty in getting the key. He planned to leave a letter for Joe explaining where he could find the van. The thought of leaving Joe was almost as bad as that of leaving the cubs.

  The last few days of Smiler’s time on the plain slid by. The buzzards had brought off a young one from a pair of eggs and were teaching it acrobatics high above. The carrion crow flew solitary about her foraging and scavenging. Charms of goldfinches worked the tall thistles and weeds on the plains, and the barn owls quartered silently and soft-winged on their night hunting. Each morning and evening Smiler was with Afra and Rico. He had put all his affairs in order ready to move off, to stay free until his father returned. He knew his father would believe him when he told him that he had not robbed the old lady. His father would turn the world upside down, too, until other people believed it – and then he wouldn’t have to go back to the reform school. He hadn’t robbed the old lady and that was that!

  On Friday evening Mrs Lakey and Miss Milly went to dinner with the Major and his wife. They had drinks in the evening sun on the lawn just outside the open dining-room windows. An occasional trout rose to a fly on the river, dimpling the surface. A kingfisher flashed downstream, and a family of yellow wagtails bobbed and played over the gravel spits along the banks.

  Mrs Lakey and Miss Milly were very old friends of the Major and his wife so that the Major did not much relish what he was going to have to say and do. Being a military man he had decided that, if a thing were to be done, then it was better to do it quickly.

  Mrs Lakey was seated with her glass of whisky. Miss Milly with her sweet marsala, Mrs Collingwood with a glass of dry sherry, and the Major with a slightly larger whisky than the one he had given Mrs Lakey because he felt he was going to need it.

  After a few minutes’ pleasant social chat, the Major cleared his throat and said to Mrs Lakey, ‘Angela, there’s something which I must discuss with you and Milly. It’s serious and it’s about your boy, Johnny. Johnny Pickering who lives with Joe Ringer.’

  Miss Milly said, ‘ Johnny’s a good boy, Major. But he just wants his weekends free. So I’m afraid he doesn’t want to garden for you.’

  ‘Afraid of a little extra work. Like all boys,’ said Mrs Lakey. ‘Though the Boy is better than most. Furlongs ahead of any other I know.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean about working for me,’ said the Major.

  ‘Then what else could you possibly mean, dear?’ asked his wife. ‘After all, we can just get someone else to do –’

  Very firmly, the Major said, ‘ I am not talking about gardening. And I would appreciate it if you ladies would kindly give me your attention for a few minutes without interruption.’

  ‘Very military all of a sudden, isn’t he, Jelly?’ said Miss Milly. ‘Just like father used to be when anything went wrong. Like when one of the grooms –’

  ‘Be quiet, Milly, and drink your marsala,’ said Mrs Lakey. ‘Though how you can like the stuff –’

  ‘What about Johnny, dear?’ asked Mrs Collingwood. ‘Has he been poaching with that awful Joe Ringer?’

  Even more firmly, the Major said, ‘ Dear ladies, I would like to get this matter settled, but if you keep interrupting it will take all night –’

  ‘And the dinner will be spoiled,’ said Mrs Lakey. ‘ But carry on, Major. I think I know what maggot has got into your apple. The Boy is Samuel Miles, isn’t he?’

  The Major looked at her in astonishment, and cried, ‘You knew?’

  ‘Almost from the first. You don’t always have to look at a horse’s mouth to tell its age. Think I can’t spot it when a boy’s got something to hide that dyed hair can’t cover?’

  ‘Who is this Samuel Miles?’ asked Miss Milly.

  ‘The Boy,’ said her sister.

  ‘Your Johnny,’ declared the Major. ‘He’s escaped from an approved school.’

  ‘Johnny’s a good, kind, honest boy,’ said Miss Milly stoutly. ‘I don’t believe a word of anything you’re going to say.’

  Mrs Collingwood sighed. ‘ So far as I am concerned I would just like to know what everyone is talking about.’

  ‘Then listen,’ declared the Major almost crossly. ‘His name is really Samuel Miles and he’s been in this house, dyed his hair, and eaten our sardines, and taken my anorak and covered up his freckles and … How on earth, my dear, do you think your bathroom curtains were stained?’

  Mrs Lakey smiled and said, ‘It’s the most lucid explanation I ever did hear, Major. Worthy of an Irishman. And what is more the Boy has no aunt called Mrs Brown of Hillside Bungalow, Crockerton, and if he escaped, from an approved school and then from the police, more power to his elbow. Any two things better escaped from I can’t imagine. But it’s not our job to do the work of approved schools or the police so –’