The 1-1 draw had been thoroughly discussed, and the table in the local pink thoroughly digested (the point meant survival, unless Leicester could score infinite goals in the next two games); and so, as the train pulled out of Southampton, talk in the smoking compartment inevitably returned to the beginning of the day. It was agreed by all that the “mission” could have gone better, but the key error was a matter of debate.
“The camouflage is what did it,” said AB Reg Crainey with the first puff of his Woodbine. He had been against using army clothing from the start out of loyalty to the Navy.
“That’s easy to say now,” objected Colin Bridges, whose idea it had been, “but if we’d been hiding in a hedge in civilian clothing for an hour and a half we’d have probably been spotted and questioned long before.”
“The whistle,” shaking my head and jemmying a bottle of Pale Ale open with my front door key, “Sorry, Colin, but why on earth did you start blowing it? That was supposed to be for negotiation.”
“Nobody runs away from a whistle,” said Colin dismissively, “Kids love whistles.”
“Which is why we were going to offer it in exchange for the rattle, rather than piercing his eardrums with it!”
“‘Kids’ – that was the problem,” came Dicky Toolan’s response, “The intelligence was inaccurate. We didn’t know what we were dealing with…”
“My intelligence has got us to that blasted rattle twice now. Do not blame the intelligence.”
“You never said it was a kid!”
“How many grown men do you know employed as bird scarers, Dicky?”
“In Wolverhampton? None. How did you become an expert in agriculture, Reg? Are they broadcasting The Archers on the World Service now, or what?”
“Calm down, chaps,” I said, grateful that we had a compartment to ourselves.
“Who started the screaming?”
“Anyway, I thought the camouflage was for surprise. Why did we all start screaming?”
“I just did it because everybody else was doing it.”
“Who started the screaming?”
There was silence.
“Dicky I’m sure it was you.”
“It wasn’t me. I don’t think I even screamed, actually…”
“Mate, you sounded like a screech owl being tackled by Eddie Clamp!”
This brought our current midfield ball-winner to mind. “Bailey had another good game today,” I said, and all but Gerry Betts muttered agreement.
“Putting to one side the whistling and the screaming for a moment,” said Joey Cutler, in his calm but scratchy tones, “Why does a twelve-year-old child run away from men in uniform, anyway? I thought boys loved the army…”
“The camouflage was obviously effective. He hadn’t seen us and we made him jump.”
“We were running, too. Had we decided we were running? Was that part of the plan?”
“No, nobody mentioned running. Or rugby tackling…”
Like a full bath with slow plumbing, which drains imperceptibly at first before every drop learns its fate, and surrenders to it, ever more keenly arriving at the same focal point, the conversation reached its inevitable destiny and the eyes in the compartment – all but two – came to rest upon Gerry Betts. His eyes, set in a bright red face, were set at the floor.
“I slipped,” he said sheepishly.
There was silence around the compartment, as we watched the Hampshire fields roll past under bright Spring sunlight. I thought of Percy Belter, drying out in the sun in East Park or the shopping parade in Heath Town, his dogsmell becoming fainter but tangier. It was a shame we couldn’t give him his rattle back.
“Not to worry, Gerry,” I said, opening another bottle. “How’s the bite?”
“The dogbite or the kidbite?” he asked.
Reg chuckled. “That was a mean old dog,” he said.
“And he could bloomin’ move!” said Joey Cutler.
“I can bloomin’ move when there’s a gunshot,” said Dicky.
Once the farmer had escorted Gerry into the house, prodding him with his shotgun, we considered paying a more conventional visit to the front door in order both to retrieve our friend and to explain our claim to the rattle the boy was using to scare birds off the fields. But kick-off was upon us and we only had just enough time to make the bus from Battley into Southampton, so we quickly abandoned that idea. We met him after the game, looking rather forlorn on a station bench, still in his fatigues as we had the key to his left luggage. He brightened a bit once he’d got changed and explained that the farmer had demanded instant retribution rather than forbear the law’s delay, and persuaded the village bobby to punch Gerry in the face rather than taking him in. Neither were interested in the story of the rattle’s provenance. Gerry returned to Southampton on foot in ripped fatigues, nursing a quickly-blackening eye in addition to the dog bite on his arm.
Not too disappointing a day, then, all in all, and by the time we had crossed into Oxford we were looking forward to the next fixture, a visit from high-flying Chelsea with the spectre of relegation all but exorcized.