Jennings and Darbishire

So, what better way to start the year than with some Jennings. And Darbishire. Children's books. The leading promoter of joy in the world.(I mean come on, Harry Potter?)

The following scene was from Jennings and Darbishire by Anthony Buckeridge. When I read it, I think I spat out what I was eating because I was laughing so hard. If you're thinking of buying the Jennings books, try to get the original versions rather than the watered down later ones, which were updated and sanitized out of all recognition.

OK nuff preamble. Let's get on with it! This will carry us over the next three days. Day One: Destination Unknown

If only Darbishire had made his escape a little earlier, he could have taken a photograph of the winning goal, which was scored by Temple in the opening minutes of the game. But by the time the linesman had arrived painting at his action station, the play had settled down to a level struggle between two well-matched sides, and no more goals were scored.

It was a good,, fast game; too fast for Darbishire to make much use of the camera, for when the play was near his touchline he was too busy with his linesmanship, and when the ball veered across the pitch the players were too far away to be photographed.

Jennings did not discover this till they were in the railway carriage on their return journey.

"Smashing game, wasn't it, Darbi!" he said. "Did you get a photo of the winning goal?"

The camera-man had to confess that the only photograph he could be sure of was a snap of Bromwich major sucking a lemon at half-time.

"Well, you're a bright sort of character, I must say!" Jennings complained. "For all the help you've been, you might just as well have been back at the school sitting in the classroom."

Hastily, Darbishire changed the subject. "Supersonic tea, they gave us, wasn't it? That shepherd's pie was the wizardest garbage I've tasted for months. I had three refills."

In the corner seat, Mr Carter raised a painful eyebrow. "You had what, Darbishire?"

"Oh, sorry, sir. I mean I had three helpings of that delicious dish, sir."

A mumble of protest arose all around all round the carriage. "Coo, that's not fair, Darbishire wolfing three helpings. I only got one," complained Venables bitterly.

"Same here," grumbled Temple. "They told me they'd run out of shepherds by the time I'd got enough space for refuelling; and no wonder with old Darbishire belting into it like nobody's business."

"I don't think linesmen deserve any tea at all," added Atkinson. "After all, any one can prance up and down the touchline like a lobster in elastic-sided boots, and wag a flag till he's black in the face."

"Hear, hear!" said all the players who had had less than three helpings.

It was clear that linesmen as a class were unpopular, so Darbishire turned to admire the scenery through the open carriage window. But his critics would allow him no peace.

"There you go - bishing up all the regulations," bristled Atkinson, "There's a warning about people like you over the door. Can't you read?"

Darbishire glanced upwards. It is Dangerous for Passengers to put their Heads out of the Window, he read.

"I didn't put my heads out," he defended himself. "I've only got one head to put. That notice is bats. It ought to say - No Passenger must put his own head out."

"Fair enough! That means we can put somebody else's head out," said Bromwich major. "Whose shall we put?"

"Darbishire's, of course - he's only the linesman," was the unanimous verdict of the critics.

Jennings rallied to his friend's assistance. "It's jolly well not fair, all setting on one chap. The trouble is the railway people aren't very good at bashing out notices. What they should say is All passengers must not put his, her or its head out, respectively."

"You couldn't put your head out respectively," Atkinson objected. "What you mean is, reflectively." Because if you did, and another train came along with a supersonic whoosh-doyng, it wouldn't half give you something to reflect about."

Mr Carter groaned quietly. One of the disadvantages of being a schoolmaster, he maintained, was that one had to listen to idiotic nonsense for long periods. However, the train was approaching Dunhambury station by this time, so his ordeal would not last much longer.

"Start getting your cases down, and don't leave anything on the rack," he ordered. "Have you got your gloves, Jennings?

"I think so, sir. Here's one in my pocket, and the other's about somewhere, sir."

"Where are your football boots, Venables?"

"In my case, sir. I wrapped them in my clean towel because they were a bit muddy, sir."

The train slowed and stopped, and Mr Carter led the way on to the platform, while from the next carriage stepped Mr Wilkins and the rest of the team.

They had no time to waste, for the bus back to Linbury was due to leave in less than two minutes; so Mr Carter hurried ahead to detain it at the bus stop, leaving his colleague to marshal the boys on the platform and bring them along as quickly as possible.

"Come along, you boys, come along," commanded Mr Wilkins in a voice which could be heard clearly above, the explosive wheezings of a goods engine standing at an adjoining platform. "Get into line, Rumbelow, you silly little boy. This is no time to go loco-spotting."

He turned and marched rapidly towards the barrier, with the team trotting obediently at his heels.

Jennings and Darbishire hurried along at the tail of the procession, but after they had gone a few yards, Jennings suddenly stopped. He dropped his suitcase and started beating his raincoat pockets as though coping with an outbreak of fire.

"What's the matter?" asked Darbishire.

"It's my glove. I've lost it! I must have left it in the train."

"Oh, fish-hooks! Are you sure?"

"Yes. I've got this one in my pocket, look, but there's not a sausage of the other one anywhere. Let's bettle back to the carriage and see if we can find it. We'll soon catch the others up, if we run."

Hastily they retraced their steps along the platform, as Mr Wilkins and the rest of the team disappeared through the barrier and out of the station with never a backward glance.

It took the glove-hunters some seconds to find their compartment. "Here we are," cried Darbishire, tugging at a door. "This must be the one, because it's got that notice about not sticking heads out of windows."

"They all say that, you crumbling clodpoll! Ours was much further down."

Very soon they identified their carriage by a toffee-paper sticking to the window. In they jumped and searched frantically on the racks and beneath the seats. They found a newspaper, a bag of peanut shells and an empty tea-cup. but there was no sign of a fleecy-lined glove.

"It must be somewhere. Look harder!" Jennings urged.

"I am looking harder. My eyes are popping like balloons, but it just isn't here. I think we'd better get out now. The train will be starting in a ..."

It was at that moment that a porter slammed the door behind them and waved a "right away" signal down the platform. The electric engine which, until then, had been mumbling "jigger-jigger-jigger" suddenly became silent and pulled smoothly away from the platform.

"Oh gosh, it is starting!" yelled Darbishire in wild alarm. He made a dive for the carriage door, but was thwarted by the raised window from reaching the handle on the outside.

Jennings had leapt, too, and for a few feverish seconds all was confusion as he pulled downwards on the strap while Darbishire pushed upwards to lift the window-frame in its socket. By the time they realised they were working against one another, it was too late. The window came down with a bang as the end of the platform streaked past their horror-struck faces.

"Oh golly, whatever shall we do?" moaned Darbishire, while Jennings leaned out of the window uttering vain cries for help.

"It's no earthly good doing that, Jen. No one'll hear you. Besides, it's dangerous to put your head out; the notice says so."

Jennings withdrew his head from the danger zone. "I'll pull the communication cord," he cried in reckless despair. "That's not dangerous, at any rate."

"It wizard well is! Unless, of course, you happen to have four pounds nineteen and tenpence ha'penny on you. Go ahead and pull it, if you have, because I've got the other three ha'pence to make up the five pounds fine."

A moment's reflection showed that Darbishire's advice was sound; pulling communication cords would only lead to more trouble. But something would have to be done for although the situation was desperate already, it would become even worse when Mr Wilkins discovered what had happened. To miss the bus by accident was nothing less than a catastrophe.

Now that the first shock was over, Jennings felt cold and empty inside, but he refused to allow his feelings to get the better of him. He must keep calm and plan out the next move.

"Don't worry, Darbi," he said with forced assurance. "We'll just have to stay where we are till we get to the next station and then we'll walk back and hoe we haven't missed."

Darbishire flapped his fingers and hopped from foot to foot in agitation. "But how do we know the train's going to stop at the next station? It might be an express - next stop Land's End or John o' Groat's, or somewhere."

"It couldn't be both - not unless it went different ways at the same time," Jennings pointed out. "The real trouble is that Mr Carter's got our tickets, so it may be a bit tricky getting off the platform."

"Oh, fish-hooks! I hadn't thought of that. Why do these frantic hoo-hahs always have to pick on us to happen to? My father says that..."

"Never mind what your father says! And stopped jigging about like a cow on an escalator - you're giving me the fidgets. We'll manage all right."

Darbishire slumped into a corner seat and watched the rolling downland speeding past the carriage window. In his mind he compiled a gloomy catalogue of their troubles: (a) Prosecution by railway company for travelling without ticket; (b) Persecution by Mr Wilkins for disobeying orders and being absent without leave; (c) Listed at local police station as Missing Persons with no visible means of support. And all because that prize bazooka Jennings, had achieved new heights of clodpollery by losing his...Darbishire abandoned his catalogue and sat bolt upright, his eyes staring in amazement.

"I say, Jennings; there's your other glove, look - on your hand."

Jennings shook his head. "No it isn't. This is the one I haven't lost."

"But it can't be. You said you'd got the other one in your pocket."

Jennings' hand shot up to his mouth in guilty realisation. Then he felt in his pocket and produced the missing glove.

"Oh, heavens! Yes, you're right, Darbi. I was so busy searching my pockets for the second one I didn't spot I'd got it on all the time. What a decent bit of luck you noticed it."

Darbishire thumped the carriage cushions with exasperation. "Luck! Gosh, I like the cheek of that! You land us slap-bang-wallop into the most supersonic bish since the Battle of Hastings and then sit there calmly talking about decent chunks of luck! Dash it all, Jen, here we are, tearing off towards Land's End or somewhere at a hundred miles an hour, and before we know where we are, we'll find ourselves - goodness knows where!"

"No, it's after we know where we are that we'll find out where we've got to, because..."

Just then the train slowed down and both boys swivelled round to the window. A platform came into view, then a station sign-board marked Pottlewhistle Halt.

There was no doubt about it - they were stopping, and Jennings felt his spirits rising with renewed hope.

"Well, it's not Land's End, anyway, or we'd be able to see the Scilly Isles," he observed with an attempt at heartiness.

"Don't talk to me about the Scilly Isles. I could make a frightfully witty remark about a silly something else I can see, but I don't think this is the moment for jokes, somehow. My father says there's a time and place for everything."

"He's right for once, too," Jennings replied, as the train stopped and he opened the carriage door. "This is the time and place for getting out of the train."

It was a very small station. From the wooden shanty which served as booking-office and waiting-room an elderly porter came out and shouted what sounded like "Pollwillall!....Pollwillall!"

But nobody else left the train in spite of this invitation, and Jennings seized Darbishire's arm and drew him into the shelter afforded by a stack of milk churns. The porter was looking towards the front of the train and had not noticed them, but with no other passengers to cover their retreat, caution was necessary.

They crouched behind the milk churns hardly daring to breathe, and a moment later they heard the scrunch of heavy boots as the porter marched flat-footedly down the platform to the guard's van.

There was a thud as a sack of fertilizer was dropped on to the platform, and an even louder one was a crate of eggs was heaved into the van. Then the train moved on, the footsteps appraoched the milk churns, passed by and died away as the porter lumbered back into the booking office.

Jennings heaved a sigh of relief. "Phew! He never spotted us, thank goodness! Come on, we'd better beat it while the coast's clear. It'll be dark in two shakes of a lamb's tail."

Behind them a low wooden fence ran the length of the platform, and the boys had no difficulty in climbing over and on to the country lane beyond. Jennings was beginning to enjoy himself. It was, he felt, something of an adventure.

Not so, Darbishire. The camera slung round his neck might have been a millstone and his linesman's flag hung limp and dropping as though in surrender. In addition to his other troubles his conscience had started to worry him about travelling the extra distance without a ticket; he made a mental note to send the railway company sixpence in stamps at the earliest opportunity.

"I've had enough of this," he complained, peering shortsightedly into the gathering gloom. "Strikes me it's more dangerous than sticking your head out of the window. Still, it's your fault we're here, so you'd better start leading the way back."

It was a reasonable suggestion: the only snag about it was that Jennings had not the slightest idea which way to go, and could see no signpost to guide him.

Pottlewhistle Half was a station which seemed to have been built with no clear purpose in mind, for it was situated in open country, some distance from the nearest village. No bus route served it, few passengers used it, and only the slowest of trains ever stopped there. It did, however, possess an old-world charm, and the view from the platform was delightful.

The South Downs lay on either side and a country lane wound its way past the station, up the hill, and through a little wood. After that it climbed the steep slope of the Downs and branched out into a network of footpaths.

"I vote we follow this lane. We're bound to strike the Linbury road after a few miles," Jennings decided.

"A few miles - phew! You seem to forget I've been hoofing up and down the touchline all afternoon, wagging my flag. I think we ought to ask someone if it's the right way first."

"How can we? There's no one about to ask."

"Ask the old porter - he's about."

Jennings shook his head. "Don't be such a prehistoric remains, Darbi! We've got to keep out of his way in case he finds out about the tickets. Why, it'd be a wizard sight more dangerous asking him than putting your head out of the window."

It was growing dark as they set off up the hill and there was a peaceful stillness in the evening air which did much to comfort Darbishire's anxiety.

"It's supersonic scenery round these parts; rather like Gray's Elegy that Mr Carter was reading to us last week," he observed. "I can just imagine the lowing herd winding slowly o'er the lea and the ploughman homeward plodding his weary way; can't you?"

"Better wait till we've actually plodded home before you start nattering about weary ways," Jennings advised. "If we don't get weaving a bit faster than this the curfew will have tolled the knell of parting day before you can say 'Fossilised fish-hooks.'"