Occupation by Charlie Taylor

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Charlie Taylor

Occupation

1

It was late morning when the soldiers came knocking on the door.

Such a polite knock. A bit like Mr Marsden from the Pru used

when he came to collect his money every month. "I'm here

again," he would say to Jimmy's mother, laughing. "Doesn't time

fly!" And he would collect his half a crown which he would put

into the small leather bag he carried around his waist before

stooping to refit the bicycle clips around his skinny ankles, mount

his sit-up-and-beg Raleigh and pedal off to knock on Mrs

Hutcheson's at number 143. Two-and-sixpence here, five bob

there, a tanner from old Granny Baxter at number 79 for her

funeral insurance! She was determined to have a good send off

was old Granny Baxter. She'd never hold her head up if there

weren't ham sandwiches for all followed by fairy cakes and

Jammy Dodgers.

The soldiers knocked again. A firm knock but not one

designed to alarm. Knock, knock, knock, as if by a gloved hand,

which was the case.

Jimmy knew it was the soldiers. He had seen them walking

along the road, past the troop carriers, six of them in uniform,

carrying guns.

"Dad," Jimmy had shouted up the stairs, "they're outside our

gate. They've stopped. They're looking at our door. I think they're

going to come here, to our house. Dad!"

He heard a frantic scuffling from the landing. He heard the

trapdoor to the roof space being moved and he saw his father's

feet on the top of the banister for a second before they were

drawn up into the loft behind him and the trapdoor scraped back

into place.

"Get away from the window, Jimmy," said his mother, all

hard-voiced and urgent. "Get away from it. Now! Come into the

kitchen with me. Jimmy, do as you're told. Now!"

There was a third knocking on the door, a more insistent

knocking, an offended knocking, a you'd-better-be-opening-

this-door-now sort of knocking, before-we-get-angry sort of

knocking. Jimmy scuttled backwards towards his mother who

clasped him to her pinafored bosom.

< 2 >

"It's alright, Jimmy," she said. "Everything's alright. Don't say

anything to them, love. Just keep quiet and let me talk?"

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Jimmy looked up at her face, her frightened face. He nodded.

The knocking became a slapping-banging, as if with the flat

palm of a gloved hand, and then there began a firm kicking at

the bottom of the door. Not enough to damage it but enough to

suggest damage would be done if it wasn't opened. A voice

shouted, superfluously: "Open the door!" One of the soldiers

came to the window and peered into the room, trying to see

through the net curtains. Jimmy's mother turned to the kitchen

and saw more soldiers, three of them, standing in the back

garden, hands on guns. Her trembling transmitted itself through

to the boy. He felt her arms shaking, her body shaking, her legs

shaking.

There was a moment's silence before the front door burst

open, the remains of the Yale lock spinning down the hallway to

fall with a ting, ting, ting on the hard red tiles. The soldiers

walked into the house, guns cradled, faces set, hard. Two stood at

the bottom of the stairs, looking up towards the landing, two

quickly searched the living room, dragging the sofa out of place

to check behind it, two pushed past Jimmy and his mother and

glanced around the kitchen pausing to acknowledge the soldiers

in the garden.

They gathered at the bottom of the stairs. Two climbed to the

landing and stood guard while the others pushed past them to

search the bedrooms, the bathroom. Nothing. The soldier in

charge looked up at the loft entrance. He nodded to one of his

team who climbed up on to the banister and poked the trapdoor

with the muzzle of his gun. It moved. He poked it harder and it

shifted a foot to his left. He moved it aside with his hand, pulled

a torch from his pocket, switched it on and eased his head into

the opening as he shone the light into the roof space.

The single shot made Jimmy's mother sag at the knees. Her

grip on her son tightened. He felt she was almost dragging him to

the floor. All was confusion. He felt, rather than heard, the

soldier's body fall from the banister and thump down the stairs

before the gunfire overwhelmed his senses. He tore himself away

from his mother's arms and ran to the hallway. The soldier lay on

his back, legs up the stairs, head on the red tiles, blood pooling

underneath him, eyes wide open in apparent astonishment at the

hole on the centre of his forehead.

< 3 >

He looked up to see the five soldiers crowded onto the small

landing, all firing their automatic weapons into the ceiling, the

plasterboard being ripped apart as the bullets' path weaved left

and right, around and around, spraying the whole area.

"DAD!" shouted Jimmy, starting up the stairs and as he did so

one of the soldiers turned around, swinging his gun to bear on

the ten year old, reacting, not thinking. His finger tightened on

the trigger. Above him, the plasterboard disintegrated. A body fell

through it onto the soldier, knocking him to one side as the first

bullets slammed into the wall on Jimmy's left.

"DAD!" shouted Jimmy.

2

Both bodies were removed within the hour. Jimmy and his

mother were taken in a black Humber Hawk to Maghull Police

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Station which had been commandeered by the soldiers as their

headquarters for the West Lancashire area. Jimmy was made to

sit in an office which was empty except for one desk and two

chairs. A woman in uniform sat with him, behind the desk, but

didn't speak to him at all, not even to ask if he was hungry. His

mother was taken along a corridor by the soldiers and into a

room at the end through a big, heavy steel door with bars across

the small glass window. Jimmy sat in the chair for two hours. The

uniformed woman read a book, occasionally crossing and

uncrossing her legs. She smelled of talcum powder and Coal Tar

Soap, Jimmy thought. Like his Aunty Freda.

"Never, ever speak to 'em, son," his dad had told him. "Not if

they ask your name or where you live or whether you'd like a

piece of chocolate. Tell 'em nothin'. Don't talk to 'em on the

street, don't tell 'em you're my son, don't listen to anything they

say 'cos it'll all be lies and it could get someone killed."

Jimmy had blinked at that.

"And that someone could be me or your mum. You hear me?"

Jimmy nodded and imagined his parents dead. Tears formed.

< 4 >

"Stop that!" his father had said. "Stop that now! And don't

you let 'em make you cry, 'cos that's what they'll want to do.

They'll want to frighten you 'cos you're only a kid. They'll want to

frighten you so's you'll tell 'em things about me and your mum.

Don't you say a word, you hear! You don't want us dead now do

you! Tell nobody nothing, son."

Jimmy nodded, then changed his mind and shook it and tears

trickled down his cheeks.

"Stop that, I said. Here!" And his dad gave him a

handkerchief, all bundled up and dirty, to wipe his eyes.

So Jimmy sat in the chair for two hours, hardly moving except

when pins and needles started in his legs where the chair cut in

under his thighs. Then he would wriggle his legs slightly, one at a

time, trying to ease the feeling back into them. He sat there and

tried not to cry for two hours. He wouldn't let his dad down, no

matter what they did to him. He wouldn't say anything. He would

tell 'em nothing. Nothing. He tried to be brave. Like his dad.

He searched his memory. Had he ever talked to them? There

was that young one he'd said thanks to who'd kicked his football

back to him across Southport Road, away from the traffic. But

that was all. Surely that wouldn't have got his dad killed? But

what if?

The door opened and a soldier, an older man with fancy

badges on his uniform, came in and whispered something in the

woman's ear. She looked at Jimmy. "Come!" she said and walked

out of the office, out of the police station, with Jimmy at her side,

her hand on his shoulder. They got into the black Humber Hawk

again and drove back along Southport Road into Lydiate until

they passed Jimmy's house on the left hand side, the front door

still hanging open, a soldier on guard outside, others searching

the gardens and wandering around inside the building. They

turned right 250 yards further on, into Lambshear Lane and

stopped outside the primary school. A woman was waiting for

them, standing at the school gate.


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< 5 >

"Hello Jimmy," she said, opening the car door. "Come with me.

You're safe now. She nodded at the woman in uniform, a curt

nod, a necessary nod but one devoid of any civility.

"My mum?" Jimmy said. "Miss MacIntyre! My mum? They've

got her at the police station."

He threw himself into the waiting woman's arms and sobbed,

hours of pent-up fear and frustration breaking through. Miss

MacIntyre looked again at the uniformed woman through the

open car door. "So, this is what it's come to. Waging war on ten

year old boys? You're scum, the lot of you," she said, turning on

her heels and leading Jimmy by the hand into the school

playground. "Come on, Jimmy. You're safe now with me."

Miss MacIntyre's little bungalow in Dodds Lane was as neat and

pleasant as the headmistress herself. Tall privet hedges, clipped

to within an inch of their lives, fronted the driveway where her

grey Morris Minor stood gently dripping oil onto the swept

tarmac. The front garden was paved except for diamond-shaped

patches of well-fed soil within which pruned, spiky rose bushes

displayed their blooms. Jimmy's Gran loved roses and early

summer. "That boy came with the June roses," she said every

year to her daughter when buying something for Jimmy's

birthday. The thought of his birthday made him cry. His present

this year was to see his father murdered and his mother taken

away from him. He rolled over on his bed in Miss MacIntyre's

spare bedroom and cried and cried until he could cry no more. In

the lounge, his new guardian cried too on his behalf, and patted

the head of her ageing Springer spaniel. "What a cruel world,

Shandy. What a cruel world," she murmured. "Who would do this

to a child?"

She looked out of the French windows leading to a long,

narrow lawn with a neat wooden fence at the end, separating her

little world from the flat farmland beyond with Maghull and

Aintree and Liverpool in the distance. It was quite some time

since she had sat there at night-time watching the explosions

light up the sky as bombs rained down on the docks. It was

peaceful now, for the most part. Defeat had its advantages. But

not for everybody. Not for Jimmy's father and others like him

who refused to accept defeat, who fought on. Not for Bob Mitchell

and Harry Scrivener and Ted Maughan who had all just

disappeared. And that was from this small village alone. And not

for those caught up in the aftermath. Not for Jimmy's mother,

and Jimmy himself. Not for wives and mothers and the children of

those who fought on. "It might be better if they just accepted the

situation, Shandy? What do you think?"

< 6 >

And now she had acquired a boy. In loco parentis during the

day at school for all her charges, and now in loco parentis at

home for Jimmy. What else could she do? The poor boy had no

relatives in the village, travel for those living elsewhere was

restricted, so who else would look after him? Miss MacIntyre

sighed. She had regretted not having children of her own but the

death of Stephen on a Normandy beach twelve years before had

committed to her to spinsterhood. A life lost, lives ruined, futures

destroyed, children unborn. And for what?


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She had heard Jimmy crying and thought it best to leave him

to exhaust his emotions. But enough was enough. Boys, she

knew, needed to be kept occupied. And so did dogs.

"Jimmy!" she called. "Jimmy, I'd like you to take Shandy out

for a walk, please. She hasn't had any exercise today and

neither have you. Come on now, quick's the word, sharp's the

action!" She lifted down the spaniel's lead from the coat hook in

the hallway and knocked on Jimmy's bedroom door. "Jimmy, come

on now. Shandy needs you to look after her. Dry those tears and

try to be brave." Try to be brave, she thought as his

tear-streaked face appeared at the door, eyes red, face pale,

snotty-sleeved. A ten year old boy, trying to be brave. "Wait a

second, Jimmy," she said, bustling into the bathroom and

re-emerging with a wet face cloth in her hand. "Can't have you

looking a mess, can we now." And she scrubbed at his face in

such a fussy way that he almost laughed through his misery.

"There, now," she said. You're fit to face the world. Off you go

with Shandy for twenty minutes while I get you both some dinner

ready. Try the fields past Ormerod's farm," she suggested. "Off

you go and make your parents proud. You're almost a man and

you'll need to behave like one."

And Miss MacIntyre, wondering whether her words were

ill-advised or not, watched the little man in his short pants walk

off down the driveway with a bouncy, pulling-at-the-lead, liver

and white Springer spaniel, looking to all the world like a waif

and stray. She was glad when they turned the corner onto Dodds

Lane. She could cry, then, without embarrassment, without

showing her own weakness to a ten year old boy.

< 7 >

Jimmy was hardly conscious of Shandy's excited pulling. His

head was full of sadness, confusion and homesickness. But the

dog's insistent ignorance of all things connected with human

stupidity gradually drew his attention. He stopped and pulled

Shandy up short. "Sit!" he said in his most authoritative voice.

"Sit!"

Shandy stopped, looked at him as though he was mad and

then, grudgingly, sat, mouth open, panting, eyes wide with

excitement. Jimmy knelt down and put his arms around the dog's

head, burying his face in her neck, nuzzling her floppy ears,

wallowing in the unmistakeable scent of a scruffy spaniel which,

when he mentioned it to Miss MacIntyre later, drew from her the

comment: "Not so different from the smell of a ten year old boy,

then! Time for your bath, I think."

The spaniel licked his ears and his face and his arms and

anything else she could reach, shifting her weight from leg to leg,

impatient to be running. She nibbled his arm and, in spite of

himself, Jimmy smiled. Miss MacIntyre had been right to

prescribe a spoonful or two of spaniel medicine to the boy.

The row of neat little bungalows stretched ahead of him on

his right for a half a mile, and then it was fields. Across the road

was Ormerod's farm and then, again, it was fields. Dodds Lane

stretched away into the countryside towards Millbank Lane and

the village of Aughton. The roads were quiet. Even without the

occupation's stifling effect, cars were few and far between. His

mother had said it reminded her of wartime rationing. "Which

war?" his dad had asked with a sour laugh.

"This isn't a war," she'd said, "it's just a military takeover. We


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never fought this time."

"How could we?" his dad had said. "We had nothing left after

'45. Twelve years on and we'd nothing left. No wonder they

simply marched in after a few well-placed bombs. Like taking

candy from a baby, as those Yanks used to say. And where are

they when we need them? Sitting at home, chewing gum, like in

'39."

< 8 >

"C'm on, Shandy," Jimmy said, standing up and squaring his

shoulders. "let's go find some rabbits."

The sound of gunfire rattled across the fields from the direction

of Aughton. Jimmy crouched low in the field of barley. He could

see where Shandy was running by the path she was making

through the crop, chasing imaginary rabbits. "Shandy, here girl!"

he hissed. She came running, scenting him out, and he grabbed

her by the collar, pulling her down to lie on the ground with him.

The gunfire continued, sporadically, but heading Jimmy's way. He

raised his head. He couldn't see who was firing but started

scrambling away, dragging Shandy by the collar as he went, the

barley stalks whipping him in the face, the spiky ears catching

him and sticking into his jumper. He reached the edge of the field

where Millbank Lane met Dodds Lane and Park Lane. He inched

forward and slid down into the drainage ditch, peering over the

edge. There was a man on a bike, pedalling furiously down

Millbank Lane from the direction of Butchers Lane and Aughton.

His head was down as he crouched over the handlebars, barely

looking in front of him, weaving all over the road. Jimmy

recognised him. He'd seen him talking with his dad in the street

in Maghull but didn't know his name. Jimmy raised his head and,

as he did so, Shandy lunged forward, breaking free from his

grasp. She dashed out into the road, almost under the wheels of

the bike, barking and yelping in excitement. A good game for a

spaniel. The man crashed off the bike in a flurry of gravel and

scraped skin, cursing and swearing at the 'bloody dog', before he

saw Jimmy.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Don't run. I know you. I know your dad."

He looked around, looked over his shoulder back towards

Butchers Lane. "Here," he said, fishing inside his jacket. "Do us a

favour. Hide this." And he flung a heavy object wrapped in

sacking at Jimmy's feet. "Hide it and don't tell anyone," he

shouted, mounting his bike again and pedalling off towards the

little housing estate on Kenyons Lane. "Hide it! In memory of

your dad!" he shouted. He skidded across the road and onto the

pavement before turning down a ginnell between two houses.

Shandy chased after him

< 9 >

"Shandy! Shandy!!!!" Jimmy screamed at the dog. "Come

here!" And then he heard the vehicles approaching down

Millbank Lane, from where the cyclist had come. He kicked the

sack bundle into the ditch and dashed across the road to where

Shandy was standing, sniffing at a fence post and wagging her

tail. He slipped the lead onto her collar as the first car full of

soldiers drew up alongside him.

"Which way did he go? The man on the bike! Which way did


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he go?" The soldier levelled his gun at Jimmy. "Answer me!

Which way did he go?"

Trembling, Jimmy pointed along Park Lane and the vehicles

roared off in a haze of exhaust fumes. As soon as they were out

of sight, he slid back into the ditch, dragging Shandy with him,

picked up the sack bundle, stuffed it under his jumper and set off

down Dodds Lane again, towards Miss MacIntyre's, looking over

his shoulder every few seconds, hurrying but not running.

When he got to Ormerod's farm he stopped. "I can't take this

back to Miss MacIntyre's," he announced to the spaniel, "not

without knowing what it is." He looked around, trying not to give

the impression he was doing anything out of the ordinary. "Come

on, Shandy, let's go and investigate."

The pair crossed the road and sidled along the outside of the

barn which edged Dodds Lane. Pausing at the farmyard entrance

to check there was nobody about, Jimmy slipped around the

corner and into the barn, pulling Shandy with him. "Shhhhhhh,"

he whispered as a low growl rumbled in her throat at the sight of

a couple of chickens strutting about on the bales of hay.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhh or I'll leave you here!"

He clambered to the top of the stacked hay bales, urging

Shandy to follow him, and then he pushed several bales apart to

create an enclosed space, a den for himself and his new pal, out

of sight of any passer-by. The pair of them sat for a while, the

dog sprawled across Jimmy's legs, panting and giving the

unwarranted appearance of intelligence by cocking her head at

him every time he murmured to her. "We're best friends, you and

me," he said. He smiled and ruffled her floppy ears.

< 10 >

The package was heavy and was making Jimmy's jumper sag.

He pulled it out and laid it on the straw. Shandy sniffed at it.

"What do you think it is, Shandy?" He stared at it a while then

started to unravel the bundle until the mouth of the sack was

open. He stared into it and his eyes widened. There were two

guns. One of them was covered in a sticky goo. He pulled them

out of the sack and put them side by side on the bale. He looked

at his hand. Blood! "Heck, Shandy, we're in trouble now, you and

me."

3

"I was worried to death about you two," said Miss MacIntyre as

she and Jimmy sat at her dining table, scrambled eggs on toast

before them. "Did you not hear the guns?"

"They were over at Aughton," said Jimmy, slipping a piece of

toast crust to Shandy who sat under the table shifting her weight

from paw to paw in anticipation of treats.

"I wonder which poor soul's being hunted now?" she mused.

"Another slice of toast, Jimmy?"

"No thanks, Miss MacIntyre, I'm not too hungry."

"Yes, I know, but young boys must eat. It's one of the things

they do best."

"Miss MacIntyre?"

"Yes, Jimmy? And you don't need to put your hand up to


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speak to me when you're here just in class like all the other

children."

"Well, Miss MacIntyre do you know when I can go home? Do

you know where my mum is, what's happened to her?"

Miss MacIntyre put down her knife and fork and looked at the

ragamuffin sitting across the table. Five feet nothing of an unruly

mop of dark hair, skinny legs, skinny shoulders, cheeky face. Her

heart almost broke for him.

"Strange as it may sound, Jimmy, you'll have to accept that

even teachers, even headmistresses, don't know everything. And

the answer to both your questions is, I don't know."

< 11 >

Jimmy stared at her, eyes wide, waiting. What else could a

ten year old boy do?

"But," she said, "you're safe here for the moment you're

safe here as long as needs be and tomorrow, after you've had a

good night's sleep, I'll see what I can find out. The least I can do

is call at your house and pick up some things so that if you have

to stay here with me a few days, you'll have some clothes and

some of your own possessions. And I'll try to find out about your

mum too."

Jimmy stared at her.

"And as a special treat for both of us, no school tomorrow for

you or for me. I'll ask Mr Downing to take assembly and look

after the school while I'm away while we're both away. There

are more important things to do at the moment than go to

school, don't you think, Jimmy?"

"Yes, Miss MacIntyre." He almost smiled at the thought of no

school. He reached under the table and patted Shandy on her

head and the dog nuzzled his hand, looking for more toast. "Miss

MacIntyre?" he said again, half-raising his hand until she frowned

at him.

"Yes Jimmy?" she said, sensing a coming request by the

wheedling tone of his voice.

"Miss MacIntyre, if I'm going to spend the night here in that

bedroom," he said pointing at the spare room can, erm, can

Shandy stay with me in the night? Please, Miss MacIntyre? I'll

look after her and take her out in the morning and feed her and

brush her and"

"Well, Jimmy, I wouldn't have it any other way. The very idea,

a dog and boy sleeping in separate rooms. It's never been known.

Of course she can stay with you. But you must promise to look

after her and take her out in the morning and feed her and brush

her and" She smiled as Jimmy threw himself onto the floor,

wrapping his arms around Shandy's neck.

< 12 >

"Did you hear that, Shandy? You can stay the night with me!

Isn't that great!"

And Shandy certainly did think that was great.

Miss MacIntyre returned after lunch the following day

carrying bags full of Jimmy's clothes. "I couldn't manage any


8 of 19 7/29/2013 4:48 PM

more than this," she said, "and the soldiers are still searching the

place. They're digging in the garden now. The one in charge said

they'd board up the house once they'd finished and that one of

his superior officers would be in touch about your mother. He said

he didn't know where she was. That's no surprise."

"They won't find anything," said Jimmy. "Dad was always

careful."

Miss MacIntyre looked at the boy. "It's better you don't tell me

anything, Jimmy. It's better you don't tell anybody anything. You

can trust me, you know that, but a secret's a secret if only one

person knows it."

"Dad told me never to talk to them, and I don't."

"Yes, he was right, but it's not just them. You shouldn't talk

about this sort of thing to anybody, anybody at all, even to your

friends at school. It's important, Jimmy, that you understand how

dangerous it is."

"Yes, Miss MacIntyre. I know that. They killed my dad, didn't

they, and others in the village. And yesterday they were shooting

at"

"That's enough, Jimmy. I don't want to know. If you need to

tell anybody, tell Shandy. She'll understand and she'll not give

you away. Here now, you and Shandy go to your room and put all

your clothes away. We'll assume you're staying for a couple of

weeks at the moment and hope we get some news of your

mother in the meantime. Off you go, the pair of you. And then I'd

like you to take her for a walk. When you get back I have a little

schoolwork I'd like you to do given that you've missed today's

lessons.

"Yes, Miss MacIntyre," said Jimmy, pulling his face as he

dragged the bags away to his room.

< 13 >

The dog-walking took Jimmy directly to Ormerod's farm and

into the barn. He climbed the bales and ducked into his den with

Shandy, safe in the knowledge he couldn't be seen from the

ground. "Shhhhhhhh, girl" he said to the spaniel, patting the

straw by his side and, obediently, she lay down quietly. He dug

down between two of the bales and pulled out the sacking,

checking that the guns were still there. "What do we do with

them now?" he murmured. "They can't stay here for ever. These

bales will have to be moved some time. What do you think,

Shandy?" She sniffed the sacking, drawn by the scent of the

blood. "Leave it!" he hissed. He pushed her away and forced the

bundle down between the bales again, then lay back, pulling the

dog into his arms for warmth and comfort, and listened to the

sounds of the barn. The wind gently eased through the slatted

side with a swishhhhhhhhhhh and the wooden structure creaked

gently. Now and again he would hear the scratchy scraping of a

mouse or rat as it scampered about the bales, no doubt looking

for food, wary of boys and dogs. He lay there for almost an hour,

day-dreaming, whispering to his doggy friend, stroking her,

calming her whenever he heard a noise from the farmyard.

Everything was at one and the same time strange and yet

ordinary, fantasy and yet strikingly real, unlikely and yet

guaranteed certainty. One day his life was that, the next it was

this. For a ten year old boy with a spaniel friend, everything was

true, everything was here, everything was now. He and Shandy

weren't very different. Not really.


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Jimmy left the barn carefully, crossed the road and turned

back into Miss MacIntyre's driveway. "Ah, there you are, you

two," she said from the front door. "I was beginning to wonder

where you'd got to. Long walk?"

"Yes, Miss MacIntyre. I think Shandy's tired now. Is it alright

if I walk down to the school to play out with Robert till teatime,

please?"

"Are you sure you'll be fine on your own? It's not far and you

know the way. I can't see any harm coming to you. Off you go

then. Back by six at the latest! Oh, and what about that school

work you were supposed to ...?"

< 14 >

"Thank you, Miss MacIntyre," Jimmy shouted over his

shoulder, already running down Dodds Lane. "I won't be late."

Robert Weldon was red-haired, freckly, snub-nosed and built like

a mini-weight lifter. He was Jimmy's best friend and the two were

inseparable, in or out of school. They were possessed of a fierce

brand of mutual loyalty that only innocence can support, and

they made a formidable team. Kick one and the other limped too,

and then there was trouble. So nobody kicked either of them.

Half past three, the school bell rang and Jimmy sat on the low

wall, facing the playground, feet dangling, heels kicking against

the brickwork, rhythmically scuffing his shoes to within an inch of

their lives. The doors were flung open and the new, flat-roofed

buildings disgorged their juvenile contents into the arms of

waiting mothers, aunties or neighbours, or to make their way

home in dribs and drabs if they lived not too far from school.

Robert lived in Haigh Crescent, just around the corner. His house

backed onto the playing fields which Robert regarded as part of

his back garden.

"Hey, Jimmy!" shouted Robert, charging across the narrow

strip of grass between playground and Lambshear Lane and

leaping at his friend on the wall, both of them falling backwards

in a tumbled heap. "Sorry, Jimmy. Didn't mean to do that,"

Robert said, picking himself up and sitting on the wall again,

rubbing his elbow where he'd scraped it. "Ouch!"

"Where'd you get to today. Why weren't you in school?"

"My dad got shot yesterday," Jimmy announced with a child's

matter-of-factness. "He's dead. And my mum got taken away by

the soldiers so I'm staying at Miss MacIntyre's. She said I didn't

need to come in to school today. She's got a great dog. It's a

spaniel called Shandy."

"Yeah, heard about your dad. I'm sorry, Jimmy. Sorry about

your mum too." He fixed his face in a suitably sorrowful

expression. "But that's good about the dog. And staying with old

Miss MacIntyre! Hey, what's that like? I bet it's scary."

< 15 >

"No, she's really nice and kind, but I miss my things. My bike

and my games and my football. I need my fishing tackle too."

"Hey, how're you going to manage without your fishing

tackle? Can't you go and get it from your house?"


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"Miss MacIntyre said the soldiers were still searching it"

"What're they searching it for?"

"Never mind I can't tell you but they're still searching it

and then they're going to board it up, Miss MacIntyre said."

"Bet they're searching for guns and ammo. Bet that's what

they're after!"

"Can't tell you. Miss MacIntyre says I mustn't talk to anybody

about things like that."

"You can tell me, Jimmy. I'm your best friend. Anyway,

everyone knows your dad was a fighter. My dad used to say he'd

get himself shot one day, and he was right. I'm sorry, though. I

liked your dad. My dad says the fighters are brave fools. That's

what he calls them."

"My dad wasn't no fool," said Jimmy, standing up and

rounding on his friend. "You just take that back!"

Robert looked at his friend who, according to his mother, was

'about as far through as a piece of lettuce', looked at the

fierceness in his eyes and, for a ten year old, felt something

approaching sympathy for another human being. "I'm sorry,

Jimmy," he said. "I don't think he meant it in a bad way. He just

thought the fighters didn't know that they were beaten. I liked

your dad. I thought he was great."

Jimmy sat down again, tears forming in his eyes.

Robert put his arm around Jimmy's shoulders. "Tell you what,

Jimmy, let's me and you go round to your house, sneak down the

canal bank and see what they're doing there. If we can, we'll get

your bike and fishing tackle. What do you think? I don't need to

be home before mum gets back from work. What do you think?

And if we see any soldiers, we can ask 'em what's going on? What

do you think? Come on, let's do it."

< 16 >

"Alright," said Jimmy, "but I've got to be back at Miss

MacIntyre's before six. Have you got a watch on? Right, come on,

let's go."

And they walked down Lambshear Lane, past the school main

gates where mothers and aunties and neighbours were gathering

their young about them, and some of the adults stopped as the

boys made their way along the crowded pavement, nodding at

Jimmy, faces set in socially acceptable expressions of concern and

sympathy and fear for their own.

"Come on, Jimmy," said Robert as they zigzagged through the

shifting mass, "you can tell me, you know. What're they

searching for?

4

167 Southport Road, Lydiate, was a small semi with a postage

stamp-sized front garden, a narrow driveway along the side and a

long, thin back garden running down to a very large sycamore

tree, behind which was a raggedy wooden fence. Beyond the

fence the Leeds-Liverpool Canal drifted its way at right angles to

the garden, left to Liverpool where it emptied into the Stanley

Dock, and right a meandering route via the famous Wigan Pier,


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eventually to Leeds. The canal at Lydiate, its banks, its fish, its

bridges, the houses backing onto it, the allotments nearby, the

farmers' fields in the background, the copses, the ponds, the

towpaths, the derelict buildings with smashable windows all

these were known by Jimmy and Robert. They knew things about

the area that only ten year old boys could possibly know. They

knew the best hiding places, the secret pathways, the hollows

where tramps sat and drank, the undergrowth where teenage

girls allowed teenage boys to do things that they didn't want

their mothers to see, they knew where rubbish was dumped and

what could be scavenged from it to make huts, they knew where

the rabbits burrowed and where foxes hunted them, they knew

where the water rats lived and why fishermen couldn't catch

roach near to Bells Lane Bridge. They knew all these things and

yet hated classes in school, as is the way with boys who learn

things best by playing Cowboys and Indians or Cops and

Robbers or war games.

The boys turned right into Bells Lane before reaching Jimmy's

house, down to the hand-operated, wooden swing bridge over the

canal, past the shop where they had bought many a lolly-ice.

They crossed the bridge and turned left along the towpath,

wandering idly along as though they were just boys doing boyish

things, until they were opposite the back of Jimmy's house. They

slid down the banking at the side of the towpath into familiar

games territory, hidden behind bushes and brambles.

< 17 >

"Can't see nobody in the garden," Robert whispered as he

separated the twigs in the bushes that hid them to peer across

the canal. He was in Commando mode.

Jimmy's head rested on his friend's shoulder as he took a look

too. "They must have gone. They didn't find nothing."

"How do you know that?" Robert asked.

"Can't tell you," said Jimmy. "I just know."

"Are you going to tell me what they were searching for or

not? I'm your best friend, remember!"

"I keep telling you, I can't, Robert. I just can't." He paused,

looked again across the canal. "Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you.

Alright?"

"Alright," said Robert, boy-loyalty and pester power rewarded

at last.

"But you've gotta promise you'll not tell anybody else. Not

your mum or your dad or your sister, God strike you down dead if

you do."

"I promise," said Robert, spitting on his hand and holding it

out to his friend. Jimmy spat on his own hand and they shook on

it. The promise was sealed and binding, even under threat of

torture or death. For little boys, with the certainty born of

ignorance, are convinced that such threats are bearable.

"Do you think they've gone?" Jimmy asked, peering through

the twigs again.

"Looks like it," said Robert.

"Let's go round the front and check."

"Just a sec," said Robert. He turned and stood up close to a


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chestnut tree, unzipping his shorts. "Bet you can't piss this high,"

he laughed, squirting his jet of urine up the trunk to almost chest

height.

"Bet I can," said Jimmy, joining him, both trying hard not to

splash themselves when standing on tip-toe, giggling as drops

spayed sideways onto their legs.

"Beat you, beat you, you dirty little bugger!" shouted Robert,

laughing and running out onto the towpath, zipping his shorts as

he went. "Race you to the bridge!"

< 18 >

They turned right out of Bells Lane onto Southport Road, idling

their way along the footpath that was separated from the

roadway by a grass verge about six feet wide. Every few yards,

Robert would find something interesting in the grass a stone, a

piece of wire and, sometimes, a decent-sized cigarette butt which

he'd slip into his pocket. They wandered past number 167. The

driveway was empty, the rusting wrought-iron gates left open

and the house was deserted. Three crudely cut lengths of wood

crossed the front doorway at random angles, their ends nailed

into the door surround, their middles nailed into the green-

painted door itself through blocks of wood underneath.

"You'll never get in there," said Robert. "Not without taking all

that wood off and then how would you close it again after?"

"Don't need to get in," said Jimmy. "Don't want to get in the

house. Come on, quick!" and he scampered down the driveway,

followed by his burlier friend.

They kept low as they rounded the corner of the house where

the wooden shed stood, door ripped off and left swinging, and

Jimmy crouched even lower, almost on hand and knees as he

made his way down the garden to the tree and the rickety old

fence. Robert followed, even more in Commando mode than

before. Jimmy slipped through the fence where a couple of

palings were broken. Robert squeezed through, ripping a hole in

his jumper with the end of a rusty bit of wire sticking out across

the gap.

"Down!" said Jimmy, and both boys flattened themselves in

the long grass behind the fence. Stinging nettles brushed their

legs making them both flinch, but stinging nettles were easily

dealt with once you could find a dock leaf. Neither boy made a

sound as old Mr Watkinson in number 165 put some rubbish in

his dustbin. They watched him rattle the lid back on the bin then

hawk and spit, and bend over to blow his nose through his

fingers onto the ground, long strings of snot hanging from his

nose for a moment before gravity got the better of them and they

fell to join his gobbet on the crazy paving. He wiped his fingers

on his trousers before going indoors.

< 19 >

"Ewwwwww," said Robert. "Wonder if he does that in the

house?" They both giggled at the thought and the giggles grew

wilder under the strain of the situation, threatening to become

hysteria as they tried hard not to look at each other, red in the

face, choking for breath with the effort of laughing quietly.

Jimmy eventually rolled over onto his back, staring at the

blue sky through the branches of the sycamore tree where he


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had spent many hours clambering like a little monkey among its

branches. He knew every crook and hollow and foothold in the

tree. He had been Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan only the day

before yesterday, rescuing Barbara Sharp's imitation of Maureen

O'Sullivan's Jane from the cannibal natives of Darkest Africa.

They had taken refuge in the sycamore and, as reward, Jimmy

had got to see Barbara's navy blue knickers as she climbed above

him.

"I'm done," said Robert. "Can't laugh any more."

"Me neither," said Jimmy. "I can't move yet though. My sides

are aching."

Robert lay on his side, head supported by his left arm. "Come

on, Jimmy, tell me. What were they searching for?"

"Watch," said Jimmy, and he crawled through the grass

toward the edge of the canal, paused, checked that nobody was

on the towpath and lay in his stomach, arms reaching down into

the murky water. He grunted with the effort of stretching, then

inched his way back holding the end of a rope. "Here, Robert,

give me a hand with this, will you. Pull!" Robert gripped the slimy

rope and the two boys pulled. "Slowly," said Jimmy.

The rope refused to move more than six feet or so. Whatever

was on the end of it was stuck at the lip of the canal edge. "Keep

hold of it," said Jimmy. "don't let it slip back into the water." He

inched forward on his stomach, leaned over the lip and with a

grunt pulled a small metal drum over the edge onto the grass.

Whole bricks were attached to it by ropes wrapped around the

drum. No wonder it was hard to pull up. He wriggled backwards

with it to where his friend had relaxed his hold on the rope.

"Quick, said Jimmy," let's get it over here, under the tree, out of

sight."

< 20 >

"What's in it, Jimmy? Open it. Let's have a look. Go on, open

it," said Robert.

"I can't get into it," Jimmy said. "Dad sealed it and tied these

bricks on it for weights so it wouldn't float. I don't know how to

get in it without a hammer or an axe or one of dad's saws, and I

don't want to spoil it. Come on, we've seen it's there. The soldiers

didn't find it so let's put it back."

"Wait! What's in it?"

"I promised I'd tell you tomorrow, not today."

"That's not fair."

"We shook on tomorrow not today so it's fair. Come on,

Robert, help me get it back in the water."

Robert pouted and sat looking at the drum. "I bet it's guns. Or

knives. Or secret maps."

"I'm not telling you today. Help me get it back in the water

and I promise I'll tell you tomorrow. I promise!"

"You better had," said Robert. "A promise is a promise."

"Did you have a good time with Robert?" said Miss MacIntyre as

she served Jimmy a plateful of sausage and mash.


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"Yes, thanks, Miss MacIntyre. We played football on the school

field."

"Ah, I wondered how your clothes had got so grubby. Did you

win?"

"Wasn't a proper game. We did swapsies with Dringo and

Sharkey and Stuart Pearson."

"Did you see any soldiers about the place? Mrs Evans was

telling me there was a bunch of them searching the fields up

alongside Millbank Lane. You know, where it runs though on that

footpath to Butchers Lane. She thought it had something to do

with the shooting yesterday but who knows? Whatever it is, some

poor soul's in trouble. Where will it end, where will it all end?"

Jimmy coughed and choked on a piece of sausage.

< 21 >

"Drink some water, Jimmy, and try not to choke yourself in

my house. Shandy would miss you and you'd look terribly untidy

on the floor here."

"Miss?"

"Yes Jimmy?"

"You know you said yesterday that perhaps it would be better

if everybody stopped fighting and accepted the occupation?"

"I was just thinking out loud, Jimmy, that's all."

"But did you really mean that, Miss? Should we let them steal

our country? My dad said they were murdering bastards"

"Jimmy! Language!"

"Sorry, Miss, but he did. He said they'd turn us into their

slaves, they'd steal all our things. He said this was our country

and we had a right to defend it. He said it was our duty to defend

it even though they'd beaten our army. He said that any man

who didn't defend it was a coward and deserved to be a slave."

Miss MacIntyre looked at Jimmy, still red in the face after

struggling with the sausage, made worse by this burst of passion.

She reached over and touched his arm. "I don't know, Jimmy, I

just don't know. I think about it every night. I think about the

waste of lives in the First and Second wars with Germany. I think

of all the brave young men slaughtered in France and Belgium. I

think about all the wars there have been throughout history as

greedy men got their young folk to fight and die for them and I

wonder what good it has ever done."

"But my dad says that you've go to fight for what you believe

in, that if you don't you're not a real man."

Miss MacIntyre sighed. "It all depends, Jimmy, what you mean

by 'real man'. Sometimes it takes more courage not to fight than

to fight. I just wonder how much worse it would be if we accepted

the situation we had now, stopped fighting them, and just got on

with our lives. Would it really make any difference to the

ordinary man and woman in the street? Politicians might say it

would, and so might those who would stand to lose lots of money

but would it really matter to you and to me? I have this horrible

feeling that we'd soon get used to it and, who knows, we might

even prefer it to what we have now."


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< 22 >

Jimmy glared at her. "My dad says," he began, putting his

knife and fork down onto the plateful of unfinished food with a

clatter, "that anyone talking like that is a traitor and"

The telephone rang. Miss MacIntyre went into the hallway and

answered it, grateful to calm the moment with a pause.

"Hello, yes," Jimmy heard her say. "Oh no, surely not. Say it's

not true. When did this happen? Oh, the poor boy... oh, what a

tragedy. I hardly know what to say, Gwyneth. The poor parents.

How on earth can I tell Jimmy oh, Gwyneth, what are we

coming to when is there anything I can do or is it..? Alright,

Gwyneth, thanks for letting me know. I'll see you in school

tomorrow. I'm heartbroken."

He heard her put the phone down and then sob. "I'll be with

you shortly, Jimmy," she called from the hallway, and the door of

her room opened and closed.

For half an hour Jimmy and Shandy played in the garden,

rolling around the grass, play-fighting. Shandy always won,

signalling her victory with a series of licks to Jimmy's face as she

lay on top of him, panting.

He heard the phone ringing again from inside the house.

"Jimmy!" said Miss MacIntyre a few minutes later from the

French window. "Can you come here a minute, please. I have

something I need to tell you." Her face was tear-stained, her

eyes were red and puffy. Jimmy walked over to her. "Sit down

here next to me on the bench if you would, please, Jimmy. I have

some terrible, terrible news to tell you. I'd rather not have to be

the one to break it to you but"

"Is it mum? Have they done something to her?" Jimmy's eyes

pleaded with her.

"It's not your mother, Jimmy. It's Robert."

"Robert?"

"They just recovered his body from the canal at the back of

your house"

< 23 >

"Who did? At the back of my house? What happened. I only

left him a couple of hours ago? What was..?" he gabbled.

"Shhhhh, Jimmy, shhhhhhh, take it easy. It seems a soldier

went back to your house and caught Robert in the back garden

doing something he shouldn't have been doing. Nobody knows

exactly what it was but the soldier grabbed hold of him and he

wriggled free then jumped into the canal"

"Robert can't swim!"

" and he just disappeared. They found him under the Bells

Lane Bridge. Oh, Jimmy, I am sorry."

Jimmy sat on the bench, stunned.

"And I just had another call from Mrs Evans, the school

secretary. She says the soldiers have found some gelignite in the

canal at the end of your back garden. Gwyneth is thinking that


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Robert was caught with the explosive and that's why the soldier

grabbed hold of him. That's why Robert was desperate to get

away."

Jimmy was silent.

"Look at me, Jimmy. Look at me now, and answer me

truthfully. How did Robert know about the gelignite? Did you tell

him? Did you know about it?"

"I never told him there was no gelignite there, Miss. Honest, I

never." And so literally honest was his reply that Jimmy was able

to look his headmistress squarely in the face and appear

innocent. "Honest, Miss. On my mum's life, I never told him

about no gelignite."

The loss of a best friend can penetrate even a ten year old

boy's immediacy in the world. It is true, innocent heartbreak

without closure if death is involved, without the satisfaction of

childish anger where the parting words are: "I'm not your best

friend now." The news was too numbing for Jimmy to cry. He

shouldn't have shown Robert the barrel. What did he expect him

to do? Wait until tomorrow? Wait as Jimmy demonstrated the

power of knowing something Robert didn't? But Robert had

betrayed him, had betrayed Jimmy, his head argued. And, as with

his response to Miss MacIntyre, he knew he was being literally

honest with himself. He went to his room without saying a word

and lay on the bed, holding Shandy.

< 24 >

"He let me down," Jimmy murmured into the dog's floppy ear.

"I promised. He promised. We shook hands on it. He got himself

killed, not me. Not me. That's right, Shandy, isn't it?"

Shandy lay on her side, one eye looking at him. She didn't

seem convinced.

"Miss MacIntyre was right. I can't trust anyone except you.

You wouldn't let me down, would you? You'd keep a promise and

not tell?"

"I don't want you to go to school again today," Miss MacIntyre

had told him the following morning. "I think you should only go

back next week." Jimmy nodded, his breakfast toast uneaten. "I'd

like you to stay here and look after Shandy again while I go in to

see what I can do to help. And please stay in the house or the

garden. Don't go wandering, do you hear?" Jimmy nodded again.

"Yes, Miss MacIntyre," he had said.

The big black Bakelite phone rang at half past ten. "It's Miss

MacIntyre, Jimmy," the voice said. "The soldiers are on their way

to pick you up. They just called to ask if you were in school. They

want to speak to you about Robert and about Michael Davey.

They caught him last night. They say he killed one of their

soldiers in Butchers Lane the other day. That's what all the

shooting was about. He killed the soldier and stole his gun and he

says he gave it to a young boy on Millbank Lane. They must have

tortured him, Jimmy"

Jimmy said nothing.

"Are you still there, Jimmy?"

"Yes, Miss MacIntyre."


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"Jimmy, was it you he gave the gun to?"

Jimmy said nothing.

"Jimmy, it must have been you. The boy had a spaniel with

him. That's how they know it was you. They've been asking

questions around there. Are you still there, Jimmy?"

"Yes, Miss MacIntyre."

< 25 >

"Was it you, Jimmy?"

"You told me not to tell you anything, Miss MacIntyre."

"But Jimmy, they are driving round to the house now as we

speak. Quick, Jimmy, I want you to run round to Mr Waterly's on

Northway. Tell him I sent you. He'll know what to do!"

He said nothing. He remembered what his dad had said: "Tell

nobody nothing, son." He put the phone down, grabbed his coat

from the back of the chair and ran out through the open French

windows, Shandy, barking in excitement, running along with him.

He climbed the fence at the end of the garden, leaving Shandy

behind with a quick stroke and a kiss to her spaniel face "Be a

good girl for Miss MacIntyre." - and made his way along the backs

of the other houses until he came out higher up on Dodds Lane.

A quick look left and right and he dashed across the road into

Ormerod's hay field, then along the inside of the hedgerow where

thrush, sparrow and blackbird eggs had provided fair game for

young boys in the past, and into the barn. Leaping up the stacked

bales he dived into his hiding place and lay panting, heart

thumping in his chest. He'd hide there till dark, then make his

way down to his house, force his way in, get some food, his knife

and some spare clothes, and he'd use the towpath to walk down

into Liverpool. He was sure he'd find someone in Liverpool to hide

him. His Uncle Ralph lived there. He'd know what to do.

He sat and waited, hearing the occasional vehicle driving

along Dodds Lane, watching spiders on the wooden slats of the

barn, listening to the rustling of the hay as small creatures

moved about, hiding in their turn.

The guns! He thrust his hand down into the space between

the bales. He pulled the bundle out and unwrapped it. Both guns

were there, one with dried brown blood on it, the other clean and

old-fashioned, looking for all the world like a gun that Hopalong

Cassidy might have drawn in a gunfight at the Albany Cinema on

a Saturday morning. It was heavy. He gripped it, like old Hoppy

might have done. He put his finger on the trigger and pretended

to shoot a soldier on top of the hay bale. "Pachaowwwww," he

murmured, imagining the bullet sending his enemy spinning

down to the farmyard. "Pachaowwwwww," and another one!

< 26 >

He lowered the gun as he heard a familiar bark from the road.

Then another from the farmyard. A bark followed by shouts in a

foreign language, then running footsteps. He heard yelps of

doggy excitement and Shandy appeared on top of the bales in

front of his hiding place, panting, wagging her tail. More

footsteps clattered into the farmyard and stopped in front of the

barn

"Come out from there! We know you're there, Jimmy. Come


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out before we come and get you!"

Shandy jumped down onto Jimmy's lap and licked his face.

"You told them, Shandy, you told them were I was! Tears

poured down his face. I trusted you and you told them!" He

pushed the spaniel away, roughly, with the gun in his hand,

catching her on the ear with the muzzle. She cried in pain.

"Come out, Jimmy. We won't tell you again."

He pushed the spaniel out of his den. He stood up, gun in

hand and saw the soldiers. Two of them were carrying rifles. He

lifted his gun, put his finger on the trigger and pretended to send

one of the soldiers spinning to his death as the shots rang out

from below.

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Occupation by Charlie Taylor

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