The Classic Morpurgo Collection (six novels) Page 4
He hadn’t written, he told me, because he’d thought that each day at the front might be his last, that he might be dead by sunset. So many of his friends were dead. Sooner or later, it had to be his turn. He wanted me to forget him, so that I wouldn’t know when he was killed, so that I wouldn’t be hurt. What you don’t know, you don’t grieve over, he said. He had never imagined that he would survive, that he would ever see me again.
It was on one of our Sunday outings that I noticed the poster across the street on the wall of what was left of the post office. The colours were faded and the bottom half had been torn away, but at the top the print was quite clear. It was in French. Cirque Merlot, it read, and underneath: Le Prince Blanc – The White Prince! And just discernible, a picture of a lion roaring, a white lion. Bertie had seen it too.
“It’s him!” he breathed. “It has to be him!” With no help from me, he was out of his wheelchair, stick in hand, limping across the street towards the cafe.
The café owner was wiping down the tables outside on the pavement. “The circus,” Bertie began, pointing back at the poster. He didn’t speak much French, so he shouted in English instead. “You know, lions, elephants, clowns!”
The man looked at him blankly and shrugged. So Bertie started roaring like a lion and clawing the air. I could see alarmed faces at the window of the cafe, and the man was backing away shaking his head. I ripped the poster off the wall and brought it over. My French was a little better than Bertie’s. The cafe owner understood at once.
“Ah,” he said, smiling with relief. “Monsieur Merlot. Le cirque. C’est triste, très triste.” And he went on in broken English: “The circus. He is finished. Sad, very sad. The soldiers, you understand, they want beer and wine, and girls maybe. They do not want the circus. No one comes, and so Monsieur Merlot, he have to close the circus. But what can he do with all the animals? He keep them. He feed them. But the shells come, more and more they come, and his house – how you say it? – it is bombarded. Many animals are dead. But Monsieur Merlot, he stay. He keep only the elephants, the monkeys, and the lion, ‘The White Prince’. Everyone love The White Prince. The army, they take all the hay for the horses. There is no food for the animals. So Monsieur Merlot, he take his gun and he have to shoot them. No more circus. Finish. Triste, très triste.”
“All of them?” cried Bertie. “He shot all of them?”
“No,” said the man. “Not all. He keep The White Prince. He could not shoot The White Prince, never. Monsieur Merlot, he bring him from Africa many years ago. Most famous lion in all of France. He love the lion like a son. That lion, he make Monsieur Merlot a rich man. But he is not rich no more. He lose everything. Now he have nothing, just The White Prince. It is true. I think they die together. Maybe they die already. Who knows?”
“This Monsieur Merlot,” Bertie said, “where does he live? Where can I find him?”
The man pointed out of the village. “Seven, maybe eight kilometres,” he said. “It is an old house by the river. Over the bridge and on the left. Not too far. But maybe Monsieur Merlot he is not there no more. Maybe the house is not there no more. Who knows?” And with a last shrug he turned and went indoors.
There were always army lorries rumbling through the village, so it was not at all difficult to hitch a ride. We left the wheelchair behind in the cafe. Bertie said it would only get in the way, that he could manage well enough with his stick. We found the house, a mill house, just over the bridge where the cafe owner had said it would be. There wasn’t much left of it. The barns all around were shell-blasted, the ruins blackened by fire. Only the main house still had a roof, but it too had not gone unscathed. One corner of the building had been holed and was partially covered by canvas that flapped in the wind. There was no sign of life.
Bertie knocked on the door several times, but there was no answer. The place frightened me. I wanted to leave at once, but Bertie would not hear of it. When he pushed gently at the door, it opened. Everything was dark inside. I did not want to go in, but Bertie took me firmly by the hand.
“He’s in here,” he whispered. “I can smell him.”
And it was true. There was a smell in the air, pungent and rank, and to me quite unfamiliar.
“Qui est là?” said a voice from the darkness of the room. “Qu’est-ce que vous voulez?” He spoke so quietly you could hardly hear him over the rush of the river outside. I could just make out a large bed under the window at the far end of the room. A man was lying there, propped up on a pile of cushions.
“Monsieur Merlot?” Bertie asked.
“Out?”
As we walked forward together, Bertie went on: “I am Bertie Andrews. Many years ago you came to my farm in Africa, and you bought a white lion cub. Do you still have him?”
As if in answer the white blanket at the end of the bed became a lion, rose from the bed, sprang down and was padding towards us, a terrible rumble in his throat. I froze where I was as the lion came right up to us.
“It’s all right, Millie. He won’t hurt us,” said Bertie, putting an arm round me. “We’re old friends.” Moaning and yowling, the lion rubbed himself up against Bertie so hard that we had to hold on to each other to stop ourselves from falling over.
A Miracle, A Miracle!
The lion eyed Bertie for a few moments. The yowling stopped, and he began to grunt and groan with pleasure as Bertie smoothed his mane and scratched him between the eyes. “Remember me?” he said to the lion. “Remember Africa?”
“You are the one? I am not dreaming this?” said Monsieur Merlot. “You are the boy in Africa, the one who tried to set him free?”
“I’ve grown a bit,” said Bertie, “but it’s me.” Bertie and Monsieur Merlot shook hands warmly, while the lion turned his attention on me, licking my hand with his rough warm tongue. I just gritted my teeth and hoped he wouldn’t eat it.
“I did all I could,” Monsieur Merlot said, shaking his head. “But look at him now. Just skins and bones like me. All my animals they are gone, except Le Prince Blanc. He is all I have left. I had to shoot my elephants, you know that? I had to. What else could I do? There was no food to feed them. I could not let them starve, could I?”
Bertie sat down on the bed, put his arms around the lion’s neck and buried his head in his mane. The lion rubbed up against him, but he kept looking at me. I kept my distance, I can tell you. I just could not get it out of my head that lions do eat people, particularly if they are hungry lions. And this lion was very hungry indeed. You could see his ribs, and his hip bones too.
“Don’t worry, monsieur’ said Bertie. “I will find you food. I will find food enough for both of you. I promise.”
The driver of the ambulance I waved down thought at first that he was just giving a nurse a lift back to the village. He was, as you can imagine, a little more reluctant when he saw the old man, and then Bertie, and still more when he saw a huge white lion.
The driver swallowed a lot, said nothing all the way, and just nodded when Bertie asked him to let us out in the village square. And so there we were half an hour or so later, the four of us sitting outside the cafe in the sun, the lion at our feet gnawing a huge bone the butcher was only too pleased to sell us. Monsieur Merlot ate a plate of fried potatoes in complete silence and washed it down with a bottle of red wine. Around us gathered an astonished crowd of villagers, of French soldiers, of British soldiers – at a safe distance. All the while Bertie scratched the lion’s head right between his eyes.
“He always liked a good scratch just there,” Bertie said, smiling at me. “I told you I would find him, didn’t I?” he went on. “I was never sure you really believed me.”
“Well, I did,” I replied, and then I added: “After a while, anyway.” It was the truth. I suppose that may explain why I took all that happened that morning so much in my stride. It was amazing, surreal almost, but it was no surprise. A prophecy come true, like a wish come true – and this was both – can never be entirely surprising.
The whole plan was entirely Bertie’s idea. To be honest, I didn’t see how it could possibly be done. I should have known better. I should have known that once Bertie had set his heart on something, he would see it through.
As we walked the lion down the village street, Bertie leaning on the lion, me pushing Monsieur Merlot in the wheelchair, the crowd parted in front of us and backed away. Then they began to follow us, at a discreet distance, of course, up the road towards Bertie’s hospital. Someone must have gone on ahead to warn them, because we could now see a huddle of doctors and nurses gathered on the front steps, and there were people peering out of every window. As we came up to the hospital, an officer stepped forward, a colonel it was.
Bertie saluted. “Sir,” he began, “Monsieur Merlot here is a very old friend of mine. He will need a bed in the hospital. He’s in need of rest, sir, and a lot of good food. The same goes for the lion. So I wondered, sir, if you’d mind if we used the walled garden behind the hospital. There’s a shed in there where the lion could sleep. He’d be quite safe, and so would we. I know him. He doesn’t eat people. Monsieur Merlot here has said that if I can feed the lion and take care of him, then I can take him back to England with me.”
“The brass cheek of it!” the colonel spluttered as he came down the steps. “Who the devil do you think you are anyway?” he said. And that was when he recognised Bertie. “You’re the fellow that won the VC, aren’t you?” he said, suddenly a lot more polite. “Andrews, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, and I want to take the lion back to England when I go. We’ve got somewhere in mind for him to live,” and he turned to me. “Haven’t we?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
It wasn’t at all easy persuading the colonel to agree. He began to soften only when we told him that if we didn’t look after the white lion, no one else would, and then he would have to be taken away and shot. A lion, the symbol of Britain, shot! Not at all good for morale, Bertie argued. And the colonel listened.
It wasn’t any easier persuading the powers that be in England to allow the lion to come back home when the war was over, but somehow Bertie managed it. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer. Bertie always said afterwards that it was the medal that did it, that without the prestige of the Victoria Cross behind him he’d never have got away with it, and The White Prince would never have come home.
When we docked at Dover, the band was playing and the bunting was out, and there were photographers and newspaper reporters everywhere. The White Prince walked off the ship at Bertie’s side to a hero’s welcome. “The British Lion Comes Home” roared the newspapers the next day.
So we came back here to Strawbridge, Bertie, The White Prince and me. I married Bertie in the village church. I remember, Bertie had a bit of a disagreement with the vicar because he wouldn’t allow the lion inside the church for the wedding. I was very glad he didn’t – but I never told Bertie that. Nanny Mason adored both Bertie and The White Prince, but she insisted on washing him often, because he smelt – the lion, not Bertie. Nanny Mason stayed on with the three of us – “her three children”, she called us – until she retired to the seaside in Devon.
The Butterfly Lion
We never had children of our own – just The White Prince – and I can tell you, he was enough of a family for anyone. He roamed free in the park just as we had planned he would, and chased the deer and the rabbits whenever he felt like it; but he never did learn how to kill for himself. You can’t teach old lions new tricks. He lived well, on venison mostly, and slept on a sofa on the landing – I wouldn’t have him inside our bedroom, no matter how often Bertie asked. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Bertie’s leg never recovered completely. When it was bad, he often needed a stick, or me, or the lion to lean on. It pained him a lot, particularly when the weather was cold and damp, and he never slept well. On Sundays the three of us would wander the park together, and he would sit on the top of Wood Hill with his arm around his old friend’s neck and I would fly kites. As you know, I’ve always loved kites; and so, it turned out, did the lion, who pounced on several of them as they landed, savaged them and ripped them to pieces.
The lion never showed any interest in escaping, and even if he’d wanted to, the park wall was too high for an old lion to jump. Wherever Bertie went he wanted to go too. And if ever Bertie went out in the car, then he’d sit by me near the stove in the kitchen, and watch me with those great amber eyes, listening all the while for the sound of Bertie’s car coming up the gravel to the front of the house.
The old lion lived on into a ripe old age. But he became stiff in his legs and could see very little towards the end. He spent his last days stretched out asleep at Bertie’s feet, right where you’re sitting now. When he died, we buried him at the bottom of the hill out there. Bertie wanted it that way so he could always see the spot from the kitchen window. I suggested we plant a tree in case we forgot where he was. “I’ll never forget,” he said fiercely. “Never. And besides, he deserves a lot more than a tree.”
Bertie grieved on for weeks, months after the lion died. There was nothing I could do to cheer him or even console him. He would sit for hours in his room, or go off on long walks all on his own. He seemed so shut away inside himself, so distant. Try as I did, I could not reach him.
Then one day I was in the kitchen here, when I saw him hurrying down the hill, waving his stick and shouting for me.
“I’ve got it,” he cried, as he came in, “I’ve got it at last.” He showed me the end of his stick. It was white. “See that, Millie? Chalk! It’s chalk underneath, isn’t it?”
“So?” I said.
“You know the famous White Horse on the hillside at Uffington, the one they carved out of the chalk a thousand years ago? That horse never died, did it? It’s still alive, isn’t it? Well, that’s what we’re going to do, so he’ll never be forgotten. We’ll carve The White Prince out on the hillside – he’ll be there for ever, and he’ll be white for ever too.”
“It’ll take a bit of time, won’t it?” I said.
“We’ve got plenty, haven’t we?” he replied, with the same smile he had smiled at me when he was a ten-year-old boy asking me if he could come back and mend my kite for me.
It took the next twenty years to do it. Every spare hour we had, we were up there scraping away with spades and trowels; and we had buckets and wheelbarrows to carry away the turf and the earth. It was hard, back-breaking work, but it was a labour of love. We did it, Bertie and I, we did it together – paws, claws, tail, mane, until he was whole and perfect in every detail.
It was just after we’d finished that the butterflies first came. We noticed that when the sun comes out after the rain in the summer, the butterflies – Adonis Blues, they are, I looked them up – come out to drink on the chalk face. Then The White Prince becomes a butterfly lion, and breathes again like a living creature.
So now you know how Bertie’s white lion became The White Prince and how The White Prince became our butterfly lion.
And the Lion Shall
Lie Down with the Lamb
The old lady turned to me and smiled. “There,” she said. “That’s my story.”
“And what about Bertie?” I knew as I asked that I shouldn’t have. But I had to know.
“He’s dead, dear,” the old lady replied. “It’s what happens when you get old. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s lonely, though. That’s why I’ve got Jack. And Bertie, like his lion, lived on to a good age. He’s buried out there under the hill beside The White Prince.” She looked back at the hill for a moment. “And that’s where I belong too,” she said.
She tapped the table with her fingers
. “Come on. Time to go. Back to school with you before they miss you and you get yourself into trouble. We wouldn’t want that, would we?” She laughed. “Do you know, that’s just what I told Bertie all those years ago when he ran away from school. You remember?” She was on her feet now. “Come on, I’ll drive you. And don’t look so worried. I’ll make sure no one sees you. It’ll be like you’ve never been gone.”
“Can I come again?” I asked.
“’Course you can,” she said. “I may not always be easy to find, but I’ll be here. I’ll just tidy away the tea things, and then we’ll go, shall we?”
It was a very old-fashioned car, black and upright and dignified, with a leathery smell and a whiny engine. She dropped me at the bottom of the school park, by the fence.
“Take care, dear,” she said. “And be sure you come again soon, won’t you? I’ll be expecting you.”
“I will,” I replied. I climbed the fence before I turned to wave; but by that time the car had gone.
To my huge relief no one had missed me. And best of all, Basher Beaumont was in the sickroom. He’d gone down with measles. I just hoped his measles would last a long time, a very long time.
All through supper I could think of nothing but Bertie Andrews and his white lion. Stew and dumplings and then semolina pudding with raspberry jam – again! It was as I was picking my way through my slimy semolina that I remembered Bertie Andrews had been at this school. Maybe, I thought, maybe he’d had to sit here and eat slimy semolina just as we did now.
I looked up at the honours boards around the dining hall, at the names of all the boys who had won scholarships over the years. I looked for Bertie Andrews. He wasn’t there. But then, I thought, why should he be? Maybe, like me, he wasn’t brilliant at his school work. Not everyone wins scholarships.