John Christopher - The Death of Grass

The headmaster was not in his study. His study door stood open, looking out, like a vacant throne-room, on to a disordered palace. There was a traffic of small boys in the hall and up and down the main staircase; their chatter was loud and excited and, John thought, unsure. From one room leading off the hall came the murmur of Latin verbs, but there were others which yielded only uproar.

John was on the point of asking one of the boys where he might find the headmaster, when he appeared, hurrying down the stairs. He saw the small group waiting for him, and came down the last few steps more decorously.

Dr Cassop was a young headmaster, comfortably under forty, and had always seemed elegant. He retained the elegance today, but the handsome gown and neatly balanced mortar-board only served to point up the fact that he was a worried and unhappy man. He recognized John.

“Mr Custance, of course—and Mrs Custance. But I thought you lived in London? How did you get out?”

“We had been spending a few days in the country,” John said, “with friends. This is Mrs Buckley, and her son. We’ve come to collect David. I should like to take him away for a little while—until things settle down.”

Dr Cassop showed none of the reluctance Miss Errington had at the thought of losing a pupil. He said eagerly:

“Oh yes. Of course. I think it’s a good idea.”

“Have any other parents taken their children?” John asked.

“A couple. You see, most of them are Londoners.” He shook his head. “I should be most relieved if it were possible to send all the boys home, and close the school for the time being. The news…”

John nodded. They had heard, on the car radios, a guarded bulletin which spoke of some disturbances in Central London and in certain unspecified provincial cities. This information had clearly only been given as an accompaniment to the warning that any breach of public order would be put down severely.

“At least, things are quiet enough here,” John said. The din all round them increased as a classroom-door opened to release a batch of boys, presumably at the close of a lesson. “In a noisy kind of way,” he added.

Dr Cassop took the remark neither as a joke nor as a reflection on his school’s discipline. He looked round at the boys in a distracted unseeing fashion that made John realize that there was more to his strangeness than either worry or unhappiness. There was fear.

“You haven’t heard any other news, I suppose?” Dr Cassop asked. “Anything not on the radio? I have an impression… there was no mail this morning.”

“I shouldn’t think there would be any mail,” John said, “until the situation has improved.”

“Improved?” He looked at John nakedly. “When? How?”

John was sure of something else; it would not be long before he deserted his charges. His immediate reaction to this intuition was an angry one, but anger died as the memory rose in his mind of the quiet, bloody young face in the ditch.

He wanted only to get away. He said briefly:

“If we can take David…”

“Yes, of course. I’ll… Why, there he is.”

Davey had seen them simultaneously. He dashed along the corridor and hurled himself, with a cry of delight, at John.

“You will be taking David to stay with your friends?” Dr Cassop asked,”—with Mrs Buckley, perhaps?”

John felt the boy’s brown hair under his hand. There would very likely be more killings ahead; that for which he would kill was worth the killing. He looked at the headmaster.

“Our plans are not certain.” He paused. “We mustn’t detain you, Dr Cassop. I imagine you will have a lot to do—with all these boys to look after.”

The headmaster responded to the accession of brutality in John’s voice. He nodded, and his fear and misery were so apparent that John saw Ann start at the perception of them.

He said: “Yes. Of course. I hope… in better times… Goodbye, then.”

He performed a stiff little half-bow to the ladies, and turned from them and went into his study, closing the door behind him. Davey watched him with interest.

“The fellows were saying old Cassop’s got the wind-up {84} 84 wind-up (to have the): very frightened . Do you think he has, Daddy?”

They would know, of course, and he would be aware of their knowledge. That would make things worse all round. It would not be long, John thought, before Cassop broke and made his run for it He said to Davey:

“Maybe. So should I have, if I had a mob like you to contend with. Are you ready to leave, as you are?”

“Blimey!” Davey said, “Mary here? Is it like end of term? Where are we going?”

Ann said: “You must not say ‘Blimey’, Davey.”

Davey said: “Yes, Mummy. Where are we going? How did you get out of London—we heard about all the roads being closed. Did you fight your way through?”

“We’re going up to the valley for a holiday,” John said. The point is—are you ready? Mary packed some of your things for you. You might as well come as you are, if you haven’t any special things to get.”

“There’s Spooks,” Davey said. “Hiya, Spooks!”

Spooks proved to be a boy considerably taller than Davey; lanky of figure, with a withdrawn, rather helpless expression of face. He came up to the group and mumbled his way through Davey’s hasty and excited introductions. John recalled that Spooks, whose real name was Andrew Skelton, had featured prominently in Davey’s letters for some months. It was difficult to see what had drawn the two boys together, for boys do not generally seek out and befriend their opposites.

Davey said: “Can Spooks come with us, Daddy? That would be terrific.”

“His parents might have some objection,” John said.

“Oh, no, that’s all right, isn’t it, Spooks? His father is in France on business, and he hasn’t got a mother. She’s divorced, or something. It would be all right.”

John began: “Well…”

It was Ann who cut in sharply: “It’s quite impossible, Davey. You know very well one can’t do things like that, and especially at times like this.”

Spooks stared at them silently; he looked like a child unused to hoping.

Davey said: “But old Cassop wouldn’t mind!”

“Go and get whatever you want to bring with you, Davey,” John said. “Perhaps Spooks would like to go along and lend you a hand. Run along now.”

The two boys went off together. Mary and Steve had wandered off out of earshot.

John said: “I think we might take him.”

Something in Ann’s expression reminded him of what he had seen in the headmaster’s; not the fear, but the guilt.

She said: “No, it’s ridiculous.”

“You know,” John said, “Cassop is going to clear out That’s certain. I don’t know whether any of the junior masters will stay with the boys, but if they did, it would only be postponing the evil. Whatever happens to London, this place is likely to be a wilderness in a few weeks. I don’t like the idea of leaving Spooks behind when we go.”

Ann said angrily: “Why not take the whole school with us, then?”

“Not the whole school,” John said gently. “Just one boy—Davey’s best friend here.”

Bewilderment replaced anger in her tone. “I think I’ve just begun to understand what we may be in for. It may not be easy, getting to the valley. We’ve got two children to look after already.”

“If things do break up completely,” John said, “some of these boys may survive it, young as they are. The Spooks kind wouldn’t though. If we leave him, it’s a good chance we are leaving him to die.”

“How many boys did we leave behind to die in London?” Ann asked. “A million?”