Jacko, p.1
Jacko, page 1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Afterword
Jacko
Acknowledgements
First published in 2023 by
Andersen Press Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA, UK
Vijverlaan 48, 3062 HL Rotterdam, Nederland
www.andersenpress.co.uk
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
The right of Jeanne Willis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Text copyright © Jeanne Willis, 2023
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
ISBN 978 1 83913 322 0
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
To Bill Carman 1925–2007 who instilled a love of wildlife in his son, Mick, who told me the story of Jacko.
J.W.
Chapter One
The white rabbit that Mick had just rescued from the butcher was a lot friskier than it looked. It had been fattened up for Easter and at first glance it reminded him of an overstuffed pyjama case. However, as he carried it down the alley, it was spooked by a yappy terrier and in a fit of terror it delivered a savage kick to his stomach which knocked the wind out of him.
Somehow, Mick didn’t drop the rabbit. He clung onto it, doubled over, and having caught his breath, held it at arm’s length and had a word with it.
‘Pack it in, Thumper! I’m trying to help you. You clearly hate dogs and we’ve got two at home to guard our pub, so it’s not safe for you to run free in the yard. That’s why I’m taking you to live with the station master.’
The rabbit stared at him with pink eyes and swivelled its ears. Dangling by its armpits, it seemed to have grown to the size of a small child.
‘Mr Sampson’s got a massive lawn,’ said Mick. ‘And I only live down the road, so I can visit you any time – you’ll still be my rabbit.’
With some difficulty, he settled the enormous buck in the crook of his elbow, held its feet to prevent its lethal claws from disembowelling him and set off again. But by the time he’d travelled the short distance to the station master’s house, it felt as if he’d been carrying a bag of wet sand. His right arm had gone numb. Reluctant to release his grip on the rabbit with his free hand, he rang the doorbell with his nose.
Mr Sampson appeared and looked the rabbit up and down.
‘Good Lord, he’s a whopper... Is that the Easter Bunny?’
‘He’s a New Zealand rabbit,’ replied Mick. ‘He’s called Thumper. The butcher was going to put him in a pie.’
‘He’d need rather a lot of pastry,’ remarked Mr Sampson. ‘Where are you going to keep him? Your dogs will eat him for breakfast – quite a big breakfast.’
‘Well, I thought he could live in your shed,’ said Mick, hopefully. ‘I noticed you had a bag of straw in there the last time I came, but I’ll pay for his hay and stuff.’
‘Will you now?’
There was a long pause while Mr Sampson thought about it, struggling to keep a straight face as the rabbit’s enormous rump began to slip through Mick’s grasp until it was almost sitting on the doorstep.
‘Please hurry up and say yes,’ said Mick. ‘I can’t hold him much longer.’
Mr Sampson threw up his hands in mock exasperation.
‘Oh, bring him through for goodness’ sake. You’ve twisted my arm yet again.’
~
Having spent the morning settling Thumper in the shed, Mick wandered back home to the Railway Hotel clutching a tin of small red worms that he’d dug out of Mr Sampson’s compost heap. He needed them to feed his pet newts, which lived in a vivarium his dad had made from panes of glass taken from an old cucumber frame. It was attached to the yard wall with metal brackets and positioned near a window, so the newts could be viewed from inside the pub as well as out.
Once the wriggling worms were dropped into the water in front of the newts’ snouts, Mick wiped his hands down his shorts and went to knock for his best mate, Ken, who lived a few doors down. He wanted to tell him about the rabbit but unfortunately it was Holy Week and Ken had been dragged along to another church service by his devoutly Catholic mother. So having nothing better to do, Mick helped himself to a bag of crisps from the public bar and climbed onto the roof of the gents’ toilets – the perfect spot to keep a lookout for Ken when he returned.
He’d just finished his crisps when Brian Bond sauntered out of the bar and stopped in the street below to light a cigarette. If it had been Ken, Mick would have blown up the crisp bag and burst it to make him jump, but you didn’t mess with Brian like that. Mick rolled onto his stomach and lay flat on the roof in an attempt to hide. Although Brian had a certain charm, he was unpredictable, like a dog with a dodgy past who’d lick your hand then tear your arm off.
He belonged to the Stanley Road Mob – notorious troublemakers barred from most pubs in Teddington, but who were all regulars at the Railway Hotel. They worshipped Mick’s dad, Bill, who was the landlord, and were very protective towards his mum, Marie. She reckoned the mob prevented trouble and for reasons Mick couldn’t really understand, she seemed to have a soft spot for Brian.
‘Oi, what are you up to, Mick?’ Brian called. He’d been seen.
‘Nothing.’
‘Can’t have that, can we? Come here, I want to ask you something.’
Mick crawled to the edge of the roof and peered down, dreading the question – he had no idea what it could possibly be. Brian blew a smoke ring in his face and glanced over his shoulder.
‘Fancy going poaching tomorrow?’
‘Who, me?’
‘Yeah, why not?’
Transfixed by Brian’s stoat-like stare, Mick froze – he’d just saved Thumper’s life, that’s why not. He loved animals, that’s why not. But if he gave excuses like that not to go, Brian would think he was soft and laugh at him. Brian often went hunting with ferrets, and Mick knew he thought nothing of sending them down a warren to flush out the screaming quarry. No, Brian wouldn’t understand about Thumper. On the other hand, how understanding would he be if his invitation were turned down?
‘So d’you want to come or not, Mick? Can’t beat a bit of poaching.’
‘For rabbits?’
‘Ducks.’ He pointed an invisible gun at Mick’s head: ‘Boom!’
‘Ducks? Oh... all right, then. What time, Brian?’ Damn. Why was he doing this?
‘Crack of sparrow’s. Keep it under your hat.’
Having accepted Brian’s invitation, Mick felt queasy with dread and remorse but by late afternoon, those feelings were almost overtaken by the thrill of being asked to go on an illicit expedition with a member of the mob. It was a dubious honour, but he was flattered – he still couldn’t quite believe that Brian had asked him and he couldn’t imagine many other eleven-year-olds being invited out with the mob.
Satisfied that rabbits were not on the hit list, he’d even managed to convince himself that dispatching ducks was no worse than eating chicken and if it was, Brian would be the one with blood on his hands. All Mick had to do now was come up with an escape plan so he could leave before dawn without his parents noticing.
While they were busy serving in the bar, Mick opened the cupboard under the stairs and found his dad’s tool box. As he lifted the lid, the box released a waft of linseed oil from a neatly folded rag. Mick held it to his nose and breathed in the fumes – it was an interesting smell, like the inside of a damp fishing bag.
The tools were arranged inside with military precision. Even the screws were lined up on parade, as if at any moment his dad was expecting a kit inspection. He’d been in the Royal Air Force – Bill Carman, flight sergeant 1237632, No. 83 Squadron RAF, serving with the Pathfinders. He’d made thirty-three raids in a Lancaster bomber, but he never mentioned a thirty-fourth.
None of the regulars talked about the war, apart from Gus Wilson. He had an artificial limb and when he was drunk, he’d roll his trouser leg up, stub his cigarette out on his wooden knee and ask Mick’s mum to kiss it better.
‘Please, Marie – it burns!’
‘Oh, put it away, Gus.’
Usually she could handle him but sometimes he had a major meltdown, and then PC Liddle took control if Dad wasn’t around. Downing his pint, he’d steer Gus across the carpet and out into the street. Sometimes Gus burst back in again and startled the customers, then he’d dive under a table, quivering and gibbering, until PC Liddle convinced him that the war was over and coaxed him out.
‘Mick, whatever you do, don’t ask Gus how he
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’ll tell you and it doesn’t do him any good to be reminded.’
Mick took a saw out of the tool box but it was too big for the job he had in mind. He picked up a file and tested it on the door handle – perfect! He wrapped it in the oily rag and went upstairs to the spare room. In his haste, he bumped into the model railway set on the table and derailed an engine – he ignored it and went over to the window.
Down below, the guard dogs dozed in the yard. Mick took the file and began to saw slowly through the window bars. The rasping woke the blond Alsatian and she looked up at him, thumped her tail and gave a low ‘Bouf!’
‘No, no – don’t bark, Sylva. Please don’t bark.’
‘Bouf!’
He waited for her to settle, then set to work again, but hearing the strange noise coming from above, the other Alsatian now opened one eye and sprang to his feet.
‘Go back to sleep, Satan. It’s only me... shhh.’
Mick looked at the clock – the 4:30 p.m. from Waterloo was due. The railway line was close by – if he sawed hard each time a train rattled into Teddington station, it would mask the sound. It was a good plan and it worked, but because his sawing was restricted by the train timetable, it took a lot longer than he’d hoped.
In between trains, he chewed through a packet of bubble gum and rolled it into luminous pink slobbery balls which he kept to one side. As the 6:30 p.m. from Waterloo departed, he sawed through the last window bar and, using the tacky gum as putty, he stuck them back in their original positions. His escape route was ready.
~
That evening, Mick put his pyjamas on to say good night to his mum and dad, then changed straight back into his day clothes. He wished he had a pair of jeans like Brian’s instead of his stupid shorts and changed his outfit several times, but nothing in his wardrobe said ‘mobster’ when he looked in the mirror – he still looked like a kid. Hopefully Brian wouldn’t notice in the dark.
At 11 p.m. the bell rang for last orders. ‘Let’s be having you. Everybody out!’
It took ages for the punters to leave and for Ernie Harvey the pot man to clear away the glasses. Finally, Mick heard Muriel the barmaid saying goodbye, then the scraping of the bolt being drawn across the front door.
Mum came upstairs and he quickly pulled the blankets over his head. Sometimes, she popped in to make sure his light was out but thankfully not tonight, or she might have questioned why he was wearing his balaclava. He set his alarm clock for 3:30 a.m. and put it under his pillow to muffle the bell in case it woke her when it went off.
He woke up on the hour, every hour, to check that the clock hands were still moving. They were, but unbearably slowly, and he worried that being smothered by a pillow full of feathers might have affected the mechanism so he put it next to his ear. Exhausted, he fell into a deep sleep seconds before the alarm rang. Dazed and deafened, he juggled with the clock, fumbling frantically with the off button.
Mick held his breath, listening to make sure his parents hadn’t woken up, then threw off the blanket, put his shoes on and crept into the spare room. He removed the window bars from the bubble gum putty, shinned down the drainpipe then climbed onto the roof of the gents’ toilets and sat in the dark with his feet dangling, waiting for Brian Bond.
The air was cold and clammy and he fidgeted as his shorts sucked up the damp – surely half an hour had passed? Maybe Brian had changed his mind and didn’t want a kid tagging along. There was already a glimmer of yellow on the horizon. It was no good going poaching if the sun was up.
That was it, then – Brian wasn’t coming. Of course he wasn’t. Mick felt foolish for thinking he ever would and was about to climb back up the drainpipe, when he heard a faint whistle in the alley next to the pub.
‘Brian?’
‘Keep it down, will you? Your old man will kill me if he catches us.’
They walked in silence down the alley, illuminated by Brian’s glowing cigarette end, then up the sleeping streets towards Bushy Park. They entered the gates and marched past the deserted U.S. Air Force base.
‘They used to have dances there on a Saturday,’ said Brian. ‘The dolly birds loved those GIs.’
Mick felt under pressure to reply and, not fully understanding what Brian was going on about, he said the first thing that came into his head: ‘Yeah, well, they would, wouldn’t they, Bri?’
There was a long pause.
‘You don’t get to call me Bri.’
‘OK. Sorry.’
Mick followed a few paces behind him along the overgrown path, wading through chest-high bracken and trying to avoid his legs being thrashed by vicious brambles that sprang back in Brian’s wake, until they arrived at Leg of Mutton Pond.
‘Here we are, then, Mick. Keep an eye out for the gamekeeper for me.’
Brian pulled an air rifle out of his coat and let Mick feel the weight of the stock against his shoulder. Mick’s finger trembled as he curled it round the trigger – he felt an overwhelming urge to squeeze it.
‘Give it back now, Mick.’
‘But can’t I... ?’
‘Maybe later.’
Reluctantly, he handed the rifle back to Brian and watched him load the pellets. They sank down and crawled along on their bellies until they were hidden among the reeds and waited... and waited... then Brian aimed the gun.
Mick’s heart thumped against the cold earth as he heard the clumsy slap, slap, slap of webbed feet against the filmy surface of the pond. He watched as the duck rose into the air, its feathers dripping with silver, then without warning, it jerked and fell out of the sky.
There was no bang, just a soft splash as its body hit the water. Brian Bond was triumphant.
‘How come there was no bang?’ muttered Mick.
‘Fitted a silencer in my lunch break at the tool factory. Good shot or what?’
Mick didn’t reply. He watched miserably as Brian waded in, picked the duck up by the neck and dropped it on the bank.
‘Should’ve brought the retriever,’ laughed Brian. ‘Got a hole in my boot.’
He swore, pulled it off and tipped the water out, nodding proudly at the dead duck.
‘Beautiful bird, in’t she?’
But she wasn’t beautiful – not any more. She was a twisted, ugly mess. Mick stared in horror. Her ducklings were searching frantically for her in the bulrushes, calling with shrill, desperate cries. Mick put his hand over his ears. Only last week, he’d persuaded the superintendent to give him two permits so he and Ken could use the bird-watching lodges in Bushy Park. He liked birds that much, so why had he craved this killing trip? Why had he done this to those ducklings? He felt sick with shame.
‘Bagged a good one, didn’t we?’ said Brian, stuffing the duck into his knapsack like an old pillow.
‘You did,’ said Mick. ‘I just sat and watched.’
Something in Mick’s tone seemed to annoy Brian. He was watching him out of the corner of his eye as he rolled a cigarette.
‘Doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger. You sat and acted as lookout, you’re party to the deed, mate.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yep, you’re as guilty as I am. Don’t wet yourself, it was just a duck. It’s not like I’m the Luftwaffin’ Nazi who shot your dad’s plane down.’
‘What?’ laughed Mick. ‘He never got shot down.’
At first, he thought it was a spiteful joke, but Brian wasn’t smiling – if anything, he looked a bit awkward.
‘Oh, sorry, mate – he never told you? I thought you knew, or I’d never have said anything. Probably not something he’d want to boast about, is it? Being beaten by the Nazis.’
He took a long drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the pond. Mick sprang up and took a few steps backwards.
‘It’s not true, Brian. I’ve seen Dad’s medals.’
‘Medals? Ten a penny, Mick – where you off to? We haven’t finished here yet.’
He held the gun out like a peace offering.
‘I’ll let you take the next shot. You know you want to.’
Mick glared at him, then turned and zigzagged away through the trees.
‘Don’t go crying to Daddy,’ called Brian. ‘And don’t tell anyone what I told you. Keep your trap shut. I’m the one with the gun, remember.’
Chapter Two
