Brian Jacques - [Flying Dutchman 01] - Castaways of the Flying Dutchman

“Haha, fetch the bobbies. We don’t care, old pruneface!”

Wearily the old woman carried her cleaning stuff down to the front lawn. Flicking the bloated toad carcass from the sill, she started in mopping the filth from the parlor windowpanes. Again a voice challenged her.

“Hurry up, Winnie, fly off and bring the bobby, hah. Fat lot of good that’ll do you!”

She knew they were right. Her tormentors would leave the moment she made a move for the police, but once the constable had come and gone, they would return to renew the persecution. It was an all-too-familiar pattern during the last months. Her house was isolated, standing alone on the far hill slope outside the village. She had no neighbors to call upon for help. Clamping her jaw resolutely, she grabbed her pail of soapy water and hurled it at the bushes. It fell short, splashing on the lawn. This caused great hilarity from the gang in hiding. They rattled the bushes until several clumps of rhododendron blossoms fell to the ground.

“Hahaha! Silly old witch, you missed! Witchie, witchie!”

Horatio’s tail swirled around the doorjamb. He stalked smoothly back into the house. Mrs. Winn watched him go. She swayed slightly in the hot afternoon sun, wiping a bent wrist across her forehead, then, gathering up her cleaning implements, she trekked wearily in after the cat. As she closed the front door, a fresh battery of rubbish rattled against the panels outside.

“Winn, Winn, Winnie the Witch! Hahahahaha!”

Striving to ignore the children, she boiled a kettle and made tea, pouring some into a saucer and adding extra milk for the cat. Horatio liked the drink of milky tea. She stroked the back of his head as he bent to lap it up.

“They won’t leave us alone, Horatio. If it’s not those youngsters, then it’s Obadiah Smithers with his legal notices, trying to get me out. Oh dear, Horatio, only one week left after today. Those lawyers from London will be here to enforce the clearance notices—I could lose my house! Unbelievable! And the village, oh, Horatio, the poor village.”

Horatio licked a paw and wiped it carefully over one ear, staring solemnly at her, as if expecting an answer to the problem. However, it never came. Mrs. Winn sat looking at her work-worn hands, a tidy, plump little old lady, with silver hair swept into a bun, her slippered feet scarcely touching the rustic, tiled floor from the chair she sat in.

Outside the golden afternoon rolled by, punctuated by the guffaws and mocking comments from behind the rhododendrons. Mrs. Winn toyed absently with her thin, gold wedding band, turning it upon her finger. From out in the mosaic-tiled hallway, flat chimes from a walnut-cased grandfather clock announced the arrival of half past three. A shaft of sunlight from the kitchen window, which illuminated the old woman’s chair, had shifted slightly, leaving her face in the shade. Her half-filled teacup stood on the table in its Crown Derby saucer, a wedding present from her favorite aunt. The tea had grown cold.

She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the din from outside. It was no use, an afternoon nap was out of the question. Horatio prowled about for a while, choosing finally to settle at her feet. Mrs Winn was seldom prone to feeling sorry for herself, but now she dabbed away a threatening tear with her apron corner. Clenching a fist in a sudden show of temper, she spoke to her cat. “Ooh! If only somebody would happen along and teach those wretches outside a lesson! . . . If only . . .”

Then she sat staring at the white-and-blue flower-patterned tiles around her kitchen sink. Some summer afternoons could be very lonely for an old widow and her cat.

13

BEN AND NED WERE WALKING ALONG together, still discussing the merits and drawbacks of barns. In the absence of anything better, the dog was warming to the idea. “I like lots of nice deep straw in a barn. Good fun, straw is. You can roll about in it and jump off bales.”

Ben smiled mischievously as he answered his dog’s thought. “Huh, you can brush your own self off tomorrow if you’re planning on rolling about in straw all night. I’m not your kennel maid.”

The Labrador looked indignant. “Never said y’were, and by the way, when did I last roll about in a barnful of straw, eh?”

Ben mused a moment before answering. “Er, April the ninth, 1865, if I remember rightly. The day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant. We were in a barn somewhere outside Kansas City.”

“Oh yes, you jumped on my head, I remember that much!”

“Had to jump on your fat head. Otherwise you’d have kicked off doing your barking exercises and betrayed us to those renegades. Don’t forget, Ned, I saved you from becoming a dogskin saddlebag.”

The Labrador sniffed airily. “Thank you kindly, young sir, but this isn’t the American Civil War. ’Tis nought but a sleepy English backwater village. I’ll bark to my heart’s content. Got to exercise the old bark now and again, y’know. Never can tell when it’ll come in useful!”

Ben halted. “Quiet, Ned, d’you hear that? Sounds like shouting?”

The dog’s keen ears raised. “It is shouting. ‘Winnie the Witch with the crinkly face, come on out and give us a chase.’ Might be some type of quaint local custom, eh, Ben?”

As they rounded a tree-fringed bend, Ben caught sight of the big, old, redbrick house, standing alone on the hillside.

“What did Alex say that gang’s name was, Ned?”

“Er, the Grange Gang, I think. Why?”

“I think we may have found them. Come on, let’s go and take a quiet peep at what’s going on.”

There were ten of them altogether, led by Wilf Smithers and his cousin Regina Woodworthy. Wilf kept the others busy searching for more ammunition to throw, whilst he and Regina stood by, shaking the rhododendron bushes. A fat boy with piggy eyes, who had been searching the garden, came creeping back through the shrubbery. He was carrying a double handful of rotten vegetation.

Wilf pulled a face, turning away from the stench that emanated from the mess. “Phwaw! That doesn’t half stink. Where’d you get it, Tommo?”

The fat boy threw the stuff awkwardly. It landed short of the house, splattering on the front steps. He snickered with glee, wiping his hands upon the grass. “ ’Round the back there, Wilf. Winnie the Witch has a big compost heap piled up against the wall!” He watched Wilf’s tough, sun-reddened face for signs of approval.

The leader of the Grange Gang ignored his minion and gave orders to the others. “You lot get ’round to that compost heap and fetch a load back here. We’ll make the witch’s house smell like a sewer before we’re finished. Bring as much as you can!”

Ben and his dog had been eavesdropping from the other side of the garden wall. Ned’s hackles rose. “Witch hunters persecuting some poor old lady! Grr, stupid ignorant louts, I can’t abide them!”

Ben was of the same mind. “There’s always bullies to pick on somebody who can’t defend themselves, Ned. Let’s go and upset them a bit.”

The Labrador shook his head. “If we’re staying ’round here awhile, it won’t do for you to invite trouble right off. Leave this to me, pal!”

Ben cautioned his friend. “Don’t go causing them any real damage, Ned. This isn’t the Battle of Trafalgar, you know.”

Ned’s face was the picture of injured doggy innocence. “Who, me? What possible harm could a gentle, ancient pooch do to a gang of great, tough teenagers?”

Thinking back to past adventures, Ben was about to remind Ned of several incidents. But when he looked around, the Labrador had vanished like a black shadow.