"Ah," he said. "That was quite a trick. We used to build a fire outside the caravan and roast them on a spit, the way the gipsies do."
"What"s a spit?" I asked.
"It"s just a long metal spike and you stick it through the pheasant and put it over the fire and keep turning it round. What you do is you push two forked sticks into the ground, one on each side of the fire, and you rest the spit on the forks."
"Did it roast them well?"
"Fairly well," he said. "But an oven would do it better. Listen Danny, Mr Wheeler has all sorts of marvellous ovens in his shop now. He"s got one in there with so many dials and k.n.o.bs on it, it looks like the c.o.c.kpit of an airplane."
"Is that the one you want to buy, Dad?"
"I don"t know," he said. "We"ll decide tomorrow."
We kept walking and soon we saw the filling-station glimmering in the moonlight ahead of us.
"Will Mr Rabbetts be waiting for us, do you think, Dad?" I asked.
"If he is, you won"t see him, Danny. They always hide and watch you from behind a hedge or a tree and they only come out if you are carrying a sack over your shoulder or if your pocket is bulging with something suspicious. We are carrying nothing at all. So don"t worry about it."
Whether or not Mr Rabbetts was watching us as we entered the filling-station and headed for the caravan, I don"t know. We saw no sign of him. Inside the caravan, my father lit the paraffin lamp, and I lit the burner and put the kettle on to make us a cup of cocoa each.
"That", my father said as we sat sipping our hot cocoa a few minutes later, "was the greatest time I"ve ever had in my whole life."
19.
Rockabye Baby At eight-thirty the next morning my father went into the workshop and dialled Doc Spencer"s number on the telephone.
"Now listen, Doctor," he said. "If you could be here at the filling-station in about half an hour, I think I might have a little surprise present for you." The doctor said something in reply, and my father replaced the receiver.
At nine o"clock, Doc Spencer arrived in his car. My father went over to him and the two of them held a whispered conversation beside the pumps. Suddenly the tiny doctor clapped his hands together and sprang up high in the air, hooting with laughter.
"You don"t mean it!" he cried. "It"s not possible!" He then rushed over to me and grasped my hand in his. "I do congratulate you, my dear boy!" he cried, pumping my hand up and down so fiercely it nearly came off. "What a triumph! What a miracle! What a victory! Now why on earth didn"t I think of that method myself? You are a genius, sir! Hail to thee, dear Danny, you"re the champion of the world!"
"Here she comes!" my father called out, pointing down the road. "Here she comes, Doctor!"
"Here who comes?" the doctor said.
"Mrs Clipstone." He spoke the name proudly, as though he were a commander referring to his bravest officer.
The three of us stood together beside the pumps, looking down the road.
"Can"t you see her?" my father asked.
Far away in the distance I could just make out a small figure advancing towards us.
"What"s she pushing, Dad?"
My father gave me sly look.
"There"s only one way of delivering pheasants safely," he said, "and that"s under a baby. Isn"t that right, Doctor?"
"Under a baby baby?" Doc Spencer said.
"Of course. In a pram with the baby on top."
"Fantastic!" the doctor said.
"My old dad thought that one up many years ago," my father said, "and it"s never been known to fail yet."
"It"s brilliant," Doc Spencer said. "Only a brilliant mind could think of a thing like that."
"He was a brilliant man," my father said. "Can you see her now, Doctor? And that"ll be young Christopher Clipstone sitting up in the pram. He"s one and a half. A lovely child."
"I birthed him," Doc Spencer said. "He weighed eight pounds three ounces."
I could just make out the small dot of a baby sitting high up in the pram, which had its hood folded down.
"There"s more than one hundred pheasants under that little nipper," my father said happily. "Just imagine it."
"You can"t put a hundred pheasants in a child"s perambulator!" Doc Spencer said. "Don"t be ridiculous!"
"You can if it"s been specially made for the job," my father said. "This one is built extra-long and extra-wide and it"s got an extra-deep well underneath. Listen, you could push a cow around in there if you wanted to, let alone a hundred pheasants and a baby!"
"Did you make it yourself, Dad?" I asked.
"More or less, Danny. You remember when I walked you to school and then went off to buy the raisins?"
"The day before yesterday," I said.
"Yes. And after that I went straight on to the vicarage and converted their pram into this Special Extra-large Poacher"s Model. It"s a beauty, really it is. You wait till you see it. And Mrs Clipstone says it pushes even easier than her ordinary one. She did a practice circuit with it in her back-yard as soon as I"d finished it."
"Fantastic," the doctor said again. "Absolutely fantastic"
"Normally", my father went on, "an ordinary bought pram is all you"d ever need. But then no one"s ever had over a hundred pheasants to deliver before now"
"Where does the baby sit?" the doctor asked.
"On top, of course," my father said. All you need is a sheet to cover them and the baby sits on the sheet. A bunch of pheasants makes a nice soft mattress for any child."
"I don"t doubt it," the doctor said.
"He"ll be having a very comfortable ride today, young Christopher," my father said.
We stood beside the pumps waiting for Mrs Clipstone to arrive. It was the first of October and one of those warm windless autumn mornings with a darkening sky and a smell of thunder in the air.
What was so marvellous about my father, I thought, was the way he always surprised you. It was impossible to be with him for long without being surprised and astounded by one thing or another. He was like a conjuror bringing things out of a hat. Right now it was the pram and the baby. In a few minutes it would be something else again, I felt sure of that.
"Right through the village bold as bra.s.s," my father said. "Good for her!"
"She seems in an awful hurry, Dad," I said. "She"s sort of half-running. Don"t you think she"s sort of half-running, Doctor Spencer?"
"I imagine she"s just a bit anxious to unload her cargo," the doctor said.
My father squinted down the road at the approaching figure. "She does appear to be going a bit quick, doesn"t she?" he said carefully.
"She"s going very very quick," I said. quick," I said.
There was a pause. My father was beginning to stare hard at the lady in the distance.
"Perhaps she doesn"t want to be caught in the rain," he said. "I"ll bet that"s exactly what it is. She thinks it"s going to rain and she doesn"t want the baby to get wet."
"She could put the hood up," I said.
He didn"t answer this.
"She"s running! running! Doc Spencer cried. "Look!" Doc Spencer cried. "Look!"
It was true. Mrs Clipstone had suddenly broken into a full sprint.
My father stood very still, staring at her. And in the silence that followed I fancied I could hear a baby screaming.
"What"s up, Dad?"
He didn"t reply.
"There"s something wrong with that baby," Doc Spencer said. "Listen."
At this point, Mrs Clipstone was about two hundred yards away from us but closing fast.
"Can you hear him now, Dad?"
"Yes, I can hear him."
"He"s yelling his head off," Doc Spencer said.
The small, shrill voice in the distance was growing louder every second, frantic, piercing, non-stop.
"He"s having a fit," my father said. "It"s a good thing we"ve got a doctor handy"
Doc Spencer didn"t say anything.
"That"s why she"s running, Doctor," my father said. "He"s having a fit and she wants to get him in here quick and put him under a cold tap."
"Some noise," I said.
"If it isn"t a fit," my father said, "you can bet your life it"s something like it."
"I doubt it"s a fit," the doctor said.
My father shifted his feet uneasily on the gravel of the driveway. "There"s a thousand and one different things keep happening every day to little babies like that," he said. "That"s right, isn"t it, Doctor?"
"Of course," Doc Spencer said. "Every day"
"I knew a baby once who caught his fingers in the spokes of a pram wheel," my father said. "It cut them clean off"
The doctor smiled.
"Whatever it is," my father said, "I wish to heavens she"d stop running. It"ll give the game away"
A long lorry loaded with bricks came up behind the pram and the driver slowed down and poked his head out of the window to stare. Mrs Clipstone ignored him and flew on. She was so close now I could see her big red face with the mouth wide open, panting for breath. I noticed she was wearing white gloves on her hands, very prim and dainty. And there was a funny little white hat to match perched right on the top of her head, like a mushroom.
Suddenly, out of the pram, straight up into the air, flew an enormous pheasant!
My father let out a cry of horror.
The fool in the lorry began roaring with laughter.
The pheasant flapped around drunkenly for a few seconds, then lost height and landed on the gra.s.s by the side of the road.
"Crikey!" Doc Spencer said. "Look at that!"
A grocer"s van came up behind the lorry and began hooting to get by. Mrs Clipstone kept on running.
Then WHOOSH! a second pheasant flew up out of the pram.
Then a third and a fourth.
"Great Scott!" Doc Spencer said. "I know what"s happened! It"s the sleeping pills! They"re wearing off/" It"s the sleeping pills! They"re wearing off/"
My father didn"t say a word.
Mrs Clipstone covered the last fifty yards at a tremendous pace. She came swinging into the filling-station with birds flying out of the pram in all directions.
"What on earth is happening?" she shrieked. She pulled up sharp against the first pump and seized the screaming infant in her arms and dragged him clear.
With the weight of the child suddenly lifted away, a great cloud of pheasants rose up out of the gigantic pram. There must have been well over a hundred of them, and the whole sky above us was filled with huge brown birds clapping their wings.
"A sleeping pill doesn"t last for ever," Doc Spencer said, shaking his head sadly. "It always wears off by the next morning."
The pheasants were too dopey to fly far. In a few seconds down they came again and settled themselves like a swarm of locusts all over the filling-station. The place was covered with them. They sat wing to wing along the roof of the workshop and about a dozen were clinging to the sill of the office window. Some had flown down on to the rack that held the bottles of lubricating oil, and others were sliding about on the bonnet of Doc Spencer"s car. One c.o.c.k bird with a fine tail was perched superbly on top of a petrol pump, and quite a number, those that were too drunk to do anything else, simply squatted in the driveway at our feet, fluffing their feathers and blinking their small eyes.
My father stayed remarkably calm. But not poor Mrs Clipstone. "They nearly pecked him to pieces!" she was crying, clasping the screaming baby to her bosom.