They made valiant efforts to keep one another awake that night, but both succumbed at about eleven o’clock and it was five in the morning before they tiptoed downstairs, shoes in hand, and crept out of the house. They turned their backs on the road which crossed the heath on which Travis’s note to his father had stated that they would be camping and made their way south-eastward. Travis had decided that Southampton and a ship must be their objective. They must go abroad.
By eight o’clock, leg-weary and ready for breakfast, they had reached the next town and here they went into a churchyard, rested by seating themselves on a flat tombstone and waited for the shops to open.
‘When we’ve had something to eat,’ said Travis, ‘we’ll get on to the main road and hitch a lift.’
‘Will they give boys a lift? I thought it was only hikers.’
‘Well, we
They bought buns, sweet biscuits, cheese and cans of fizzy drinks and then tried their luck as hitch-hikers, but nobody was interested in two young boys, it seemed, and no car or lorry pulled up to give them a lift.
‘Better push on, I suppose,’ said Maycock. ‘I’m sick of standing here and seeing all the cars whizz by. Come on, shall we?’
They covered another five miles, occasionally standing at the roadside and thumbing the passing cars and lorries again. When this failed, they trudged on once more. It was after they had left the main road and were branching off for a road which would take them across the New Forest and down to Cadnam that a car pulled up about twenty paces in front of them and the driver leaned across, lowered the onside window and beckoned to them.
‘Oh, golly!’ exclaimed Travis. ‘It’s Old Piebald! I know the number of all the staff cars and that’s his. We don’t want a lift from
Mr Scaife, however, was never in receipt of this information for the simple reason that on neither the Monday nor the Tuesday had Mr Pybus, the art master, any idea that the boys had not turned up at school or that Mr Travis had been to see the headmaster.
‘What do we do?’ asked Maycock. ‘Make a dash for it? There’s trees over there.’
‘Be your age, you ass. Leave this to me. Come on. He’s waiting for us.’
‘Well, well!’ said Mr Pybus, with the uneasy geniality of a despised although not altogether unpopular pedagogue. ‘Pilgrim’s progress is it, or are we off to join the Foreign Legion? Can I give you a lift? I am going to Southampton, if that’s any help to you.’
‘Oh, thank you, sir,’ said the bold Travis, ‘but my father is meeting us with the car. We’re going across to the Isle of Wight for the day, sir, from Lymington.’
‘It’s a shorter crossing than from Southampton, sir,’ said Maycock, making his contribution.
‘Why, so it is. Oh, well, have a good day.’
‘He’ll have forgotten by Monday that he ever saw us. That’s if he even knows our names, which I doubt,’ said Travis. ‘I once signed one of my paintings Eva Brick and he never queried it. Preston — no, it wasn’t Preston, it was Prouding — betted me I wouldn’t, but I did and Old Piebald never said anything.’
They watched the car until it rounded a bend and then Maycock said, ‘Perhaps we ought to-have gone in his car. After all, it’s Southampton we want.’
‘I know, but the less he sees of us the better. If we’d gone all the way to Southampton with him he might have remembered us on Monday and found out we weren’t in school.’
Long before they reached Cadnam both boys were desperately tired and Maycock announced that he had a blistered heel. They still had some food left, although the drinks had gone and the cans had been discarded. They retreated into one of the New Forest plantations and decided to spend the rest of the daylight hours there and push on as soon as night fell.
‘We don’t want to be spotted by anybody else,’ said Travis. ‘Old Piebald was bad enough and next time it might be somebody who would remember us. We’ve got to get to Southampton by the morning and then see what the prospects are for smuggling ourselves on board a liner. It ought to be easy enough if we can find a big enough ship. I expect most of the crew will be on shore leave, and there will be a gangplank down. We need only wait our chance. I went over a big liner once with my father and there were simply dozens of places where we could hide. We’ll have to wait until the ship is too far out for the captain to put back and then they will give us some grub and tell us to work our passage. It’s always being done.’
‘Won’t they wireless the shore and say we’re on board?’
‘Oh, we’ll have to give false names and addresses, that’s all. The captain won’t know any different.’
‘How much further would you say it is?’
‘Oh, not far now, I reckon.’
‘What will happen if we don’t get a ship?’
‘We’ll have to hang on until we do. I can get money out on demand at a post office when I show them my savings book and we’ll just lie up somewhere in the docks area and watch and wait. It’s quite simple.’
‘If we go into the post office or buy grub, somebody will spot us. We’ll have been missed and they’ll be looking for us, the murderers, I mean, or our mothers or the police or somebody.’
‘Our mothers won’t worry. I put in the note we were staying Sunday night with my aunt.’
‘Well, what about the murderers? I bet they will find out we’ve left home.’
‘We’ll do the post office — that’ll be me — and the shop — that’ll be you — separately. We mustn’t be seen together more than we can help. The murderers will be looking for two of us, won’t they? I’ve read about people on the run and seen it on films. Usually it’s a man and a girl and so long as nobody actually sees them together it’s perfectly all right.’
They ate the biscuits they had left, and shared the cheese and then lay concealed until dusk. When they moved