,ards Gravesend. He grunted, so I asked him directly h ere
he i was making for, but he countered that he was on a fig holiday. Puzzled, I drove on. The roads were suddenly wet. We were catching up a storm. A windcheater and jeans; ridiculous apparel for a hiking holiday, I thought, and ventured to remark as much. My passenger answered that he had a fine, American-style drape-suit at home—a bottle green, he said it was.
I watched the road, and the clouds piling up. A difficult stretch, but my guest held lightly on to my waist, and did not try to steer me round the corners. I wondered what he looked like, but realised I had taken very little notice of him. The road straightened out and I asked him where he was hiking to. " I'm going round the world," he said. It grew darker than ever; the clouds were no longer visible, for the sky was overcast, and I realised that it was raining fast. Had I been alone I would have continued, but I wanted to look At the person behind me. " I'm stopping—you've motor cycled before—no fun in the rain, is it ? ' He replied he bad never ridden before. What manner of person stopped and rode pillion for the first time on a stranger's motor bike, with absolute confidence ? " I'll stop in that wood." He was about eighteen and of smallish stature, not particularly clean and rather cold. He flicked the rain from his shifty eyes and I gave him my abandoned goggles. We sheltered under the trees with my cape around our shoulders, and although I asked nothing—there seemed nothing to ask —he must have sensed my curiosity and at last thought it justified. " Lost my job—engineer—lost my wallet too." A pause. " It's still raining," I said. " What do you do, work I mean ? " " I don't," I said. " Got a friend like that; goes to see his girl friend all day while her parents are out." Really," I said—and repeated rather foolishly, " It's still mining." " You don't like girls," he ventured. I laughed Ind that seemed to alter our relationship. He .stuck out a hand. " I'm John Deal," he said, " and pleased to meet you." We turned off A5 and thundered up on to the Downs. John had suggested that we had a cup of tea somewhere, but I had replied that I thought he had lost his wallet. 19 he was quiet, and I was cursing myself for lack of tact, ha I seldom dismount on a long run. Again the sky darkaud. We had turned into the same storm, only this time there was no shelter and so we were soaked, and that gave us rather an affinity.
" Where are you sleeping ? " I called, but he did not know.' Nothing was certain except that he would get pneumonia, so I pulled up at a village call-box. " You had better come home with me and have a hot bath for a start anyway." He agreed and luckily did not accompany me into the box.
I kicked the engine over and we splashed on. Once thoroughly wet I never mind the elements, just sit and fancy I am carrying vital dispatches, or am King Lear, or something, but I felt a huddled form shivering behind me. " Is it far ? ' he asked.
I realised that, though I had given John dry clothes, I had forgotten some socks, so I knocked on the bathroom door and took them in. He did not wrap a towel around himself but stood unashamedly naked. If that meant a boarding school, it could only be of one type. He shook hands all round, called my father Sir, and ate his supper—yet now I saw his confidence had gone and he was nervous. He talked about crime and Craig—it seemed he lived near Croydon. He was desperately anxious to impress. My sister was marvellous : she asked him no questions and soon had him enjoying some of her horrible gramophone records. They sat by the fire, he drew her pictures, she darned his socks. I had mistaken his age I thought, he could have been only fifteen, or was he young again in her company ?
It was obvious for me to excuse myself and ask the police to help. He has run away from home, I said. They wanted to send a constable up to get a statement, but I would have none of that. He has almost certainly escaped from Borstal, they warned me. I eventually got taken through to the CID. A call to the Yard revealed the descriptions of three young thugs, all of whom were possibles. One was loose from Borstal but was a good twelve inches too tall, though I was some time convincing the officer that I had not incorrectly estimated John's height. But the second one fitted, and a call to a probation home provided us with the information that he had absconded, and. the warden, with the officer's name for future reference, spelt out J-O-N-E-S. The Yard described his offence as robbery with menaces—next door to robbery with violence, the officer said. No, we could not keep him that night, or my sister would be attacked and the family plate stolen. Two of them drove me home. John was sitting by the fireside, in one breath saying he would bring his little sisters to show my mother, and in the next that he had no family or friends—except me. " Don't tell him you are policemen," my mother said. My father glanced at their hats, size and shoes, and laughed aloud. " You know who I am.. I am a Police officer. You are John Deal. On such and such a day You committed robbery with menaces and have now broken the probation order of residence. Come on." They took John away, the old John with a sneer on his face, and a glance of bewildered hatred for me—he was ten years older. Yet he thanked my mother for everything before he went. The probation home was sited on a high ridge overlooking an expanse of fine open farmland. The warden wore his Hawks Club tie. He and his charming wife had given up a House in one of the leading public schools, 'because, they said. " These boys need us much more." One of some thirty boys showed me round. My old school dormitories were much more institutional than these—even the bedspreads were of different colours. " How could John run away from such a marvellous place ? " my guide asked, " though they often want to just at first," he added. We met one of the probation officers, a jolly tubby man, coming up from the farm and carrying some eggs in his hat. " On the thieve again, Mr. Lewis,' said my young companion, and we all laughed. I looked at John's records and found him educationally sub-normal and practically' illiterate. The psychologist had said he was emotional, liable to act on the spur of the moment and sometimes unable to distinguish between films and reality. His mother lived with another man, and had had two daughters by him; John had felt his position insecure even before he had been discharged from a series of jobs. And his crime ? He had threatened some small children with his hand in his pocket, and taken a toy. It was a stick-up— and for one brief moment John was Al Capone. Next door to robbery with violence, I reminisced. A week later I went to the juvenile court. John had been living at Wormwood Scrubs in the interim and was brought P on the old charge of robbery with menaces because he had broken his probation order. His mother ,gave him four cigarettes but refused to have him home again. The warden once more offered the care,' guidance and security of his House if John would undertake to try again. He was asked but did not understand. .He was asked again. " What you The ! "—the words came from the corner of his mouth. 'Lae magistrates conferred and shook their heads. John saw Me. He muttered, " He'd .better keep out of my way "- and they took him back to Wormwood Scrubs, to await a vacancy at an Approved School.
Previous page
