them and presently returned dragging an old Victorian washstand behind him with an enamel jug and basin balanced precariously on its marble top. A second expedition netted a pair of oil lamps which Sam examined and found to be in good working order.
Then a further idea occurred to him and he turned to a large mahogany wardrobe which stood nearby draped in canvas. He’d looked inside it once, he recalled, and unless memory deceived him… Pushing back the folds of canvas from the doors, Sam tugged them open.
Yes, there it was!
The gleam of a mirror shone in the dark recesses of the cupboard. Formerly attached to the inside of one of the doors, it now stood loose, propped against the back. Sam hauled it out and bore it in triumph over to where he’d prepared Eddie’s bed. He leaned it against the wall beside the washstand.
‘He’s got to be able to comb his hair in the morning,’ he said to Sal, by way of explanation. ‘All the comforts of home. That’s our motto.’
Pleased with the outcome of his efforts, Sam examined his own reflection in the looking glass, grinning at the way the cracked surface distorted his homely features, giving an extra twist to the broken nose he’d had these past twenty years, a souvenir of his days as a fairground mauler.
One thing was certain: Ada hadn’t married him for his looks.
‘You’re no oil painting, Sam Watkin.’ She’d told him that often enough. ‘But you’re a good bloke.’
Sam didn’t know if he was a good bloke or not, but he felt warmed by the thought of what he was doing for Eddie, who’d looked older than his years when they’d sat together on the bank a little while back. Just worn out. As though life had been grinding him down.
Christ, times were hard.
‘There, now. That’s better.’
Sam lit his pipe and leaned back with a sigh. Their lunch had been unusually delayed that day. But the cheese sandwiches Ada had packed for him had gone down a treat, while the bit of cold sausage and biscuit he’d set aside for Sal had been equally well received. She was stretched out on the ground beside him now, fast asleep, muzzle twitching, chasing rabbits in her dreams.
Even when he’d finished with the barn, he’d still had his regular tour of inspection of the house and outbuildings to make and it had been close to three o’clock before they’d quit the yard and walked up the hillside to the wooded ridge behind the farm. Struggling up the slippery slope, Sam had chuckled to see what heavy weather his companion was making of the climb.
‘That’s what comes of overeating, my girl.’ Fat as butter she was.
Once they got to the top the going had become easier. Here the ground underfoot was cushioned by generations of fallen leaves, the still air rich with the stored scents of summer. Sam had paused to admire the dust motes dancing in shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy of foliage overhead. He loved the woods. They took him back to his boyhood, a time of innocence, in his mind, before the war, when the world had seemed different. To his poaching days, which even now seemed blameless, when he’d been a lad working on a farm up near Redford, and would slip away of an evening into the twilit forest.
Brushing through a stand of ferns, they had roused a cock pheasant, the sudden frenzied beating of its wings making them both start. Sally’s excited barking had shattered the deep silence of the trees.
The place where they’d finally settled, under a tall beech at the edge of the wood, was a favourite spot of his. From here he could see the whole valley spread out before him backed by the deep folds of the Downs, whose grassy crests still glowed with the fading light of afternoon.
‘The blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs.’
Sam was fond of quoting Kipling’s line, which he’d first heard from his eldest, Rose, who’d learned it herself at school. Now, whenever his eye fell on the broad green hillocks he thought how like giant sea creatures they were.
It wasn’t only the farm buildings he had to watch out for. Mr Cuthbertson wanted him to keep an eye on the land as well and from where he was sitting he was able to cast his gaze over a wide area, westwards in the direction of Elsted and east as far as the red roofs of Oak Green.
That day the valley seemed deserted. The only figure he spotted was that of a lone man and he was some distance off, on the bare crest of the ridge opposite, gazing up at the sky through a pair of binoculars.
Sam shifted his own gaze to the stream that ran down the centre of the valley, searching for telltale wisps of smoke, any signs of a camp fire in the straggling line of willows and tangled bushes that marked the course of the waterway. Not surprisingly, the empty farms had become a magnet for tramps and Mr Cuthbertson had told him to keep them away as far as possible and at all events to make sure they didn’t try to take up residence in any of the buildings.
He had a point, too. Once the weather turned chilly and they began to light fires for warmth and not simply for cooking there was the danger they would set fire inadvertently to whatever barn or stall they’d taken shelter in.
Sam had his own way of dealing with the problem. Whenever he came across any of these vagrants he would stop and chat with them for a while, letting them know in a friendly way that there was someone keeping an eye on the property. They were welcome to pause for a bit, he would tell them, so long as they did no damage, but not to linger unduly; not to make themselves at home. Above all, they were to keep away from the farm buildings; otherwise a charge of trespass might follow.
It wasn’t a part of his job he enjoyed. Quite a number of the tramps were known to him, familiar faces from years back. He regarded most of them as decent men down on their luck and more often than not these meetings ended with Sam the poorer by a florin or two.
The gypsies were another matter, sullen and close-mouthed when their paths crossed, the hostility in their eyes rooted in some centuries-old soil of resentment. Whether this arose from their own natures, from the manner in which they lived, or from the way they were treated by others – by people like himself, if it came to that – was a question Sam had never resolved, and for want of any satisfactory answer he’d fallen back on a brisk, no-nonsense front when dealing with them. But the business left a bad taste in his mouth and he was always relieved when it was over and he saw the backs of their caravans receding.
He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to four.
‘Come on, Sal. Time we were off.’
Tapping out his pipe, he rose, but had to wait while Sally levered herself up, groaning as she did so. Poor old girl. Rheumatism was starting to get into her joints. He hoped it wouldn’t reach the stage when he’d have to put her down. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to do it.
‘Off we go, then.’
The quickest way back to his van led along the ridge to the saddle where the path ran. They soon reached it and Sam paused for a moment to cast his gaze down the length of the footway. He was thinking how easy it would be for Eddie to walk over here after work.
‘Sally!’
The high-pitched cry came from behind them and he looked round. A young girl dressed in a gymslip and carrying a school satchel was hurrying up the path towards them from the direction of the road. Sam waved to her.
‘Look, Sal-there’s your friend.’
Sally, whose eyesight wasn’t all it had once been, seemed unconvinced. She let out a speculative bark. Then her tail began to wag.
‘Oh, Sally! Didn’t you recognize me?’ The girl came up to them.
Shedding her satchel and her white straw hat, she went down on her knees and threw her arms around Sal’s neck.
Sam stood over them, grinning. ‘I thought we’d missed you today,’ he said.
Nell was her name. Nell Ramsay. She lived in Oak Green, but went to school in Midhurst, returning on the bus every afternoon. It had been early spring when they’d first bumped into her on Wood Way and since then she and Sal had become bosom pals.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Watkin. I should have said good afternoon to you first.’ Smiling, she looked up, brushing the dark hair from her eyes.
‘How’ve you been, love?’
