was their outdoor 'survival'
week. There hadn't been much to survive, for the nearest shop was under two miles away, and wild lions, tigers and crocodiles were not reputed to inhabit that part of Epping Forest. The younger boys, however, did believe bears roamed free in that particular area. The field was empty of any other form of life, for it was not one of the official forest camp-sites, but a certain benevolent Lord Something-or-Other the boys could never remember his name allowed the Woodford orphanage to use that corner of a field on his estate for camping purposes. As he did not live on the estate any longer but rented the land out to local farmers, he was only a mythical figure to the boys, vague and aloof, like God.
Gordon Baddeley had been a Barnardo boy himself a few years before and was, so everyone said, a shining example of the goodness and honesty that could come from an orphanage background. After only three years in the outside world, working in a supermarket as a shelf-filler, winning promotion to assistant on frozen meats, he had returned to the orphanage that had reared him, turning his back on success because he wanted to help those like himself, the underprivileged. The home had been proud to accept him, although it wasn't common practice to take back those who had left, for Gordon had been an exceptional boy.
Well-mannered, soft-spoken, hard-working, no outward emotional problems he was a boy the staff could point at and say: 'You see, it works.
Even though we can't give them the love and affection of true parents, we can turn out well-balanced young people like this.'
Not that Gordon was regarded as soft by the other boys; on the contrary, he was looked upon as 'a tough nut'. He was friendly but firm, could be rough but not unkind, funny when he wanted to be and serious when others wanted him to be. No chip on his shoulder, no nurtured grievances; he seemed to like most people and most people seemed to like him. All in all, they said, he was the perfect Dr.
Barnardo boy. And after three years on the outside, he had come to realize that was all he ever wanted to be.
The world frightened him. It was too aggressive and too big. There were too many strangers. When out on the streets, he ran everywhere; it was as though he were naked and that by moving swiftly he could shorten the period of exposure. It was a common enough syndrome among fledgling orphans, that awkward reaction to the world in general, but most managed to overcome their uneasiness in time. But not so Gordon; he missed the home and its security to a distressing degree. The orphanage had found him a bed sitter in the house of a friendly and tight-knit family, and their very closeness towards each other had made him feel even more the intruder. They tried to make him feel welcome and he accepted their hospitality with due gratitude, but the more time he spent with them the more he was aware of what he had missed in his own upbringing; he felt no resentment, but he did feel different.
Girls were a problem, too. He was attracted to them and several in the supermarket where he worked were kind towards him, yet again he felt there was a barrier between him and them, that he could only watch their world through an invisible glass screen. Given time he would have joined the people inside, but the loneliness of the interlude between became too hard to bear. Inside the home he had been someone; outside he was nothing. He returned and they turned his defeat into triumph. The home was his home, and it was there he wished to stay.
Gordon turned in his sleep and his eyelids twitched, then opened wide.
He stared at the tent's sloping ceiling for a few moments, his dream-thoughts tumbling over themselves to disperse. The night-light gave the slumbering shapes in the tent an eerie, green tinge as he looked around to see if anyone was awake. He listened for the tell-tale and not uncommon sob in the night, the sudden spasmodic jerk from a curled-up form beneath a tightly clutched covering, but the snores and sighs of the sleeping boys assured him all was well. Then what had caused him to awaken?
He lay in the gloom and listened.
The soft scratching noise made him turn his head towards the canvas wall of the tent and the sound stopped. He held his breath.
Something pushed against the coarse material, something low, near the ground. The bulge was at a point near his hips and it suddenly began to move towards his head. Gordon carefully slid his sleeping-bag encompassed frame away from the protuberance and the movement outside came to a halt.
It was as though whatever was out there had sensed his presence, had been aware of the movement inside.
Gordon had to restrain himself from crying out and leaping away from that side of the tent. It would frighten the younger boys, he told himself. Besides, it was probably only a fox or some other curious night animal and it would never penetrate the tough canvas. He slowly unzipped the sleeping-bag and eased out his arms.
The bulge began to move again, upwards, towards his face, and he saw it was at least a couple of feet long. It had to be a fox! Maybe, but not likely, a badger? Whatever the creature was, it wasn't very tall.
Or was it just crawling along on its stomach? It could be a dog. The movement stopped again and the bulge seemed to press even further in.
Gordon drew his head away, but it was still less than a foot from the straining canvas, and he had an uncanny feeling that the creature beyond could see through the material, could smell his fear. Gordon's free hand groped down towards his side and scrabbled around for the torch he always kept close by when camping. The boy nearest to him stirred restlessly as Gordon's hand brushed against his sleeping-bag, but the searching fingers finally closed around the cold tube of metal.
The torch had been pushed to one side by Gordon's sliding body and had come to rest against the nearest boy's sleeping form. Gordon gripped the handle tightly, then froze as the thin, scratching sound came to his ears once more.
With a barely suppressed cry he swung the heavy torch in an arc and struck hard at the swelling and the canvas became slack again, the creature obviously having fled. He thought he heard a high-pitched squeal as the makeshift weapon had struck, but couldn't be sure it could have been the screaming inside his own head.
Gordon switched on the torch, keeping it low, his own body screening the light from the rest of the dimly lit interior, and studied the bright, circular shape of canvas before him. He settled back into his sleeping-bag, but kept the torch on, studying the loose material to see if the creature's scratching had caused any damage. No, it was still intact; it would take more than a nosey old fox to make a hole in such tough canvas. His body began to relax and his breathing became more even; his thumb moved against the switch to turn off the harsh beam of light, and it was then that a heavy weight threw itself at the tent's side, the bulge showing clearly in the centre of the circle of light.
The scratching sound became frantic and Gordon gazed on, mesmerized as a small tear appeared in the canvas and a long curving claw pushed its way through. The rent tore downwards in a violent movement, then the claw disappeared to be replaced with tiny, scrabbling protuberances on either side of the hole. Gordon screamed as the two sets of claws broke through and ripped the material to shreds before his eyes. The black, bristling-furred body that launched itself through the gap lunged at Gordon's exposed face and sank its teeth deep into the open jaw, knocking him backwards, rolling with him onto the startled boys trapped inside their sleeping-bags.
They cried out in alarm, not realizing what was happening to their supervisor, the thrown torch shining
