Danny the Champion of the World Read online

'Where are you, Danny?' my father called out.

  'I'm here, Dad! I'm coming.'

  With the beam of the torch shining ahead of me, I ran towards the voice. The trees were bigger here and spaced farther apart. The ground was a carpet of brown leaves from last year and was good to run on. I didn't call out any more after that. I simply dashed ahead.

  And all at once, his voice was right in front of me. 'Stop, Danny, stop!' he shouted.

  I stopped dead. I shone the torch over the ground. I couldn't see him.

  'Where are you, Dad?'

  'I'm down here. Come forward slowly. But be careful. Don't fall in.'

  I crept forward. Then I saw the pit. I went to the edge of it and shone the light downward and there was my father. He was sitting on the floor of the pit and he looked up into the light and said, 'Hello, my marvellous darling. Thank you for coming.'

  'Are you all right, Dad?'

  'My ankle seems to be broken,' he said. 'It happened when I fell in.'

  The pit had been dug in the shape of a square, with each side about six feet long. But it was the depth of it that was so awful. It was at least twelve feet deep. The sides had been cut straight down into the earth, presumably with a mechanical shovel, and no man could have climbed out of it without help.

  'Does it hurt?' I asked.

  'Yes,' he said. 'It hurts a lot. But don't worry about that. The point is, I've got to get out of here before morning. The keepers know I'm here and they're coming back for me as soon as it gets light.'

  'Did they dig the hole to catch people?' I asked.

  'Yes,' he said.

  I shone my light around the top of the pit and saw how the keepers had covered it over with sticks and leaves and how the whole thing had collapsed when my father stepped on it. It was the kind of trap hunters in Africa dig to catch wild animals.

  'Do the keepers know who you are?' I asked.

  'No,' he said. 'Two of them came and shone a light down on me but I covered my face with my arms and they couldn't recognize me. I heard them trying to guess. They were guessing all sorts of names but they didn't mention mine. Then one of them shouted, "We'll find out who you are all right in the morning, my lad. And guess who's coming with us to fish you out?" I didn't answer. I didn't want them to hear my voice. "We'll tell you who's coming," he said. "Mr Victor Hazell himself is coming with us to say hello to you!" And the other one said, "Boy, I hate to think what he's going to do when he gets his hands on you!" They both laughed and then they went away. Ouch! My poor ankle!'

  'Have the keepers gone, Dad?'

  'Yes,' he said. 'They've gone for the night.'

  I was kneeling on the edge of the pit. I wanted so badly to go down and comfort him, but that would have been madness.

  'What time is it?' he said. 'Shine the light down so I can see.' I did as he asked. 'It's ten to three,' he said. 'I must be out of here before sunrise.'

  'Dad,' I said.

  'Yes?'

  'I brought the car. I came in the Baby Austin.'

  'You what?' he cried.

  'I wanted to get here quickly so I just drove it out of the workshop and came straight here.'

  He sat there staring at me. I kept the torch pointed to one side of him so as not to dazzle his eyes.

  'You mean you actually drove here in the Baby Austin?'

  'Yes.'

  'You're crazy,' he said. 'You're absolutely plumb crazy'

  'It wasn't difficult,' I said.

  'You could have been killed,' he said. 'If anything had hit you in that little thing, you'd have been smashed to smithereens.'

  'It went fine, Dad.'

  'Where is it now?'

  'Just outside the wood on the bumpy track.'

  His face was all puckered up with pain and as white as a sheet of paper. 'Are you all right?' I asked.

  'Yes,' he said. 'I'm fine.' He was shivering all over though it was a warm night.

  'If we could get you out, I'm sure I could help you to the car,' I said. 'You could lean on me and hop on one leg.'

  'I'll never get out of here without a ladder,' he said.

  'Wouldn't a rope do?' I asked.

  'A rope!' he said. 'Yes, of course! A rope would do it! There's one in the Baby Austin! It's under the back seat! Mr Pratchett always carries a tow-rope in case of a breakdown.'

  'I'll get it,' I said. 'Wait there, Dad.'

  I left him and ran back the way I had come, shining the torch ahead of me. I found the car. I lifted up the back seat. The tow-rope was there, tangled up with the jack and the wheel-brace. I got it out and slung it over my shoulder. I wriggled through the hedge and ran back into the wood.

  'Where are you, Dad?' I called out.

  'Over here,' he answered.

  With his voice to guide me, I had no trouble finding him this time. 'I've got the rope,' I said.

  'Good. Now tie one end of it to the nearest tree.'

  Using the torch all the time, I tied one end of the rope round the nearest tree. I lowered the other end down to my father in the pit. He grasped it with both hands and hauled himself up into a standing position. He stood only on his right leg. He kept his left foot off the ground by bending his knee.

  'Jeepers,' he said. 'This hurts.'

  'Do you think you can make it, Dad?'

  'I've got to make it,' he said. 'Is the rope tied properly?'

  'Yes.'

  I lay on my stomach with my hands dangling down into the pit. I wanted to help pull him up as soon as he came within reach. I kept the torch on him all the time.

  'I've got to climb this with hands only,' he said.

  'You can do it,' I told him.

  I saw his knuckles tighten as he gripped the rope. Then he came up, hand over hand, and as soon as he was within reach I got hold of one of his arms and pulled for all I was worth. He came over the top edge of the pit sliding on his chest and stomach, him pulling on the rope and me pulling on his arm. He lay on the ground, breathing fast and loud.

  'You've done it!' I said.

  'Let me rest a moment.'

  I waited, kneeling beside him.

  'All right,' he said. 'Now for the next bit. Give me a hand, Danny. You'll have to do most of the work from now on.'

  I helped him to keep his balance as he got up on to his one good foot. 'Which side do you want me on?' I asked.

  'On my right,' he said. 'Otherwise you'll keep knocking against my bad ankle.'

  I moved up close to his right side and he put both his hands on my shoulders.

  'Go on, Dad,' I said. 'You can lean harder than that.'

  'Shine the light forward so we can see where we're going,' he said.

  I did as he asked.

  He tried a couple of hops on his right foot.

  'All right?' I asked him.

  'Yes,' he said. 'Let's go.'

  Holding his left foot just clear of the ground and leaning on me with both hands, he began to hop forward on one leg. I shuffled along beside him, trying to go at exactly the speed he wanted.

  'Say when you want a rest.'

  'Now,' he said. We stopped. 'I've got to sit down,' he said. I helped him to lower himself to the ground. His left foot dangled helplessly on its broken ankle, and every time it touched the ground he jumped with pain. I sat beside him on the brown leaves that covered the floor of the wood. The sweat was pouring down his face.

  'Does it hurt terribly, Dad?'

  'It does when I hop,' he said. 'Each time I hop, it jars it'

  He sat on the ground resting for several minutes.

  'Let's try again,' he said.

  I helped him up and off we went. This time I put an arm round his waist to give him extra support. He put his right arm round my shoulders and leaned on me hard. It went better that way. But boy, was he heavy. My legs kept bending and buckling with each hop.

  Hop...

  Hop...

  Hop...

  'Keep going,' he gasped. 'Come on. We can make it.'

  'There's the hedge,' I said
, waving the torch. 'We're nearly there.'

  Hop...

  Hop...

  Hop...

  When we reached the hedge, my legs gave way and we both crashed to the ground.

  'I'm sorry,' I said.

  'It's O.K. Can you help me get through the hedge?'

  I'm not quite sure how he and I got through that hedge. He crawled a bit and I pulled a bit, and little by little we squeezed through and out the other side on to the track. The tiny car was only ten yards away.

  We sat on the grassy bank under the hedge to get a breather. His watch said it was nearly four o'clock in the morning. The sun would not be up for another two hours, so we had plenty of time.

  'Shall I drive?' I asked.

  'You'll have to,' he said. 'I've only got one foot.'

  I helped him to hop over to the car, and after a bit of a struggle he managed to get in. His left leg was doubled up underneath his right leg and the whole thing must have been agony for him. I got into the driver's seat beside him.

  'The rope,' I said. 'We left it behind.'

  'Forget it,' he said. 'It doesn't matter.'

  I started the motor and switched on the headlamps. I backed the car and turned it round and soon we were heading downhill on the bumpy track.

  'Go slowly, Danny,' my father said. 'It hurts like crazy over the bumps.' He had one hand on the wheel, helping to guide the car.

  We reached the bottom of the track and turned on to the road.

  'You're doing fine,' he said. 'Keep going.'

  Now that we were on the main road, I changed into second gear.

  'Rev her up and go into third,' he said. 'Do you want me to help you?'

  'I think I can do it,' I said.

  I changed into third gear.

  With my father's hand on the wheel I had no fear of hitting the hedge or anything else, so I pressed down hard on the accelerator. The speedometer needle crept up to forty.

  Something big with headlamps blazing came rushing towards us. 'I'll take the wheel,' my father said. 'Let go of it completely.' He kept the little car close in to the side of the road as a huge milk-lorry rushed past us. That was the only thing we met on the way home.

  As we approached the filling-station my father said, 'I'll have to go to hospital for this. It must be set properly and then put into plaster.'

  'How long will you be in hospital?'

  'Don't worry, I'll be home before evening.'

  'Will you be able to walk?'

  'Yes. They fix a metal thing into the plaster. It sticks out underneath the foot. I'll be able to walk on that.'

  'Should we go to the hospital now?'

  'No,' he said. 'I'll just lie down on the floor of the workshop and wait till it's time to call Doc Spencer. He'll arrange everything.'

  'Call him now,' I said.

  'No. I don't like waking doctors up at four-thirty in the morning. We'll call him at seven.'

  'What will you tell him, Dad? I mean about how it happened?'

  'I'll tell him the truth,' my father said. 'Doc Spencer is my friend.'

  We pulled into the filling-station and I parked the car right up against the workshop doors. I helped my father to get out. Then I held him round the waist as he hop-hopped the short distance into the workshop.

  Inside the workshop, he leaned against the tool-bench for support and told me what to do next.

  First, I spread some sheets of newspaper out over the oily floor. Then I ran to the caravan and fetched two blankets and a pillow. I laid one blanket on the floor over the newspaper. I helped my father to lie down on the blanket. Then I put the pillow under his head and covered him up with the second blanket.

  'Put the phone down here so I can reach it,' he said.

  I did as he asked.

  'Can I get you anything, Dad? What about a hot drink?'

  'No, thank you,' he said. 'I mustn't have a thing. I'm going to have an anaesthetic soon, and you mustn't eat or drink anything at all before that. But you have something. Go and make yourself some breakfast. Then go to bed.'

  'I'd like to wait here till the doctor comes,' I said.

  'You must be dead tired, Danny'

  'I'm all right,' I said.

  I found an old wooden chair and pulled it up near him and sat down.

  He closed his eyes and seemed to be dozing off.

  My own eyes kept closing, too. I couldn't keep them open.

  'I'm sorry about the mess I made of it all,' I heard him saying.

  I must have gone to sleep after that because the next thing I heard was Doc Spencer's voice saying to my father, 'Well, my goodness me, William, what on earth have you been up to?'

  I opened my eyes and saw the doctor bending down over my father, who was still lying on the floor of the workshop.

  9

  Doc Spencer

  My father once told me that Doc Spencer had been looking after the people of our district for nearly forty-five years. He was over seventy now and could have retired long ago, but he didn't want to retire and his patients didn't want him to either. He was a tiny man with tiny hands and feet and a tiny round face. The face was as brown and wrinkled as a shrivelled apple. He was some sort of an elf, I used to think to myself each time I saw him, a very ancient sort of an elf with wispy white hair and steel-rimmed spectacles; a quick clever little elf with a swift eye and a flashing smile and a fast way of talking. Nobody feared him. Many people loved him, and he was especially gentle with children.

  'Which ankle?' he asked.

  'The left one,' my father said.

  Doc Spencer knelt on the floor and took from his bag a pair of large scissors. Then to my astonishment he proceeded to slit the cloth of my father's left trouserleg right up to the knee. He parted the cloth and looked at the ankle but he didn't touch it. I looked at it too. The foot seemed to be bent round sideways and there was a huge swelling below the ankle-bone.

  'That's a nasty one,' Doc Spencer said. 'We'd better get you into hospital right away. May I use your phone?'

  He called the hospital and asked for an ambulance. Then he spoke to someone else about taking X-rays and doing an operation.

  'How's the pain?' Doc Spencer asked. 'Would you like me to give you something?'

  'No,' my father said. 'I'll wait till I get there.'

  'As you wish, William. But how on earth did you do it? Did you fall down the steps of that crazy caravan?'

  'Not exactly,' my father said. 'No.'

  The doctor waited for him to go on. So did I.

  'As a matter of fact,' he said slowly, 'I was mooching around up in Hazell's Wood...' He paused again and looked at the doctor, who was still kneeling beside him.

  'Ah,' the doctor said. 'Yes, I see. And what's it like up there these days? Plenty of pheasants?'

  'Stacks of them,' my father said.

  'It's a great game,' Doc Spencer said, sighing a little. 'I only wish I was young enough to have another go at it.' He looked up and saw me staring at him. 'You didn't know I used to do a bit of poaching myself, did you, Danny?'

  'No,' I said, absolutely flabbergasted.

  'Many a night,' Doc Spencer went on, 'after evening surgery was over, I used to slip out the back door and go striding over the fields to one of my secret places. Sometimes it was pheasants and other times it was trout. Plenty of big brown trout in the stream in those days.'

  He was still kneeling on the floor beside my father.

  'Try not to move,' he said to him. 'Lie quite still.'

  My father closed his tired eyes, then opened them again. 'Which method did you use for pheasants?' he asked.

  'Gin and raisins,' Doc Spencer said. 'I used to soak the raisins in gin for a week, then scatter them in the woods.'

  'It doesn't work,' my father said.

  'I know it doesn't,' the doctor said. 'But it was enormous fun.'

  'One single pheasant', my father said, 'has got to eat at least sixteen gin-soaked raisins before he gets tiddly enough for you to catch him. My own d
ad proved that with roosters.'

  'I believe you,' the doctor said. 'That's why I never caught any. But I was hot stuff with trout. Do you know how to catch a trout, Danny, without using a rod and line?'

  'No,' I said. 'How?'

  'You tickle him.'

  'Tickle him?'

  'Yes,' the doctor said. 'Trout, you see, like to lie close in to the river bank. So you go creeping along the bank until you see a big one... and you come up behind him... and you lie down on your tummy... and then slowly, very slowly, you lower your hand into the water behind him... and you slide it underneath him... and you begin to stroke his belly up and down with the tip of one finger...'

  'Will he really let you do that?' I asked.

  'He loves it,' the doctor said. 'He loves it so much he sort of dozes off. And as soon as he dozes off you quickly grab hold of him and flip him out of the water on to the bank.'

  'That works,' my father said. 'But only a great artist can do it. I take my hat off to you, sir.'

  'Thank you, William,' Doc Spencer said gravely. He got up off his knees and crossed over to the door of the workshop and looked out to see if the ambulance was coming. 'By the way,' he said over his shoulder, 'what happened up there in the woods? Did you step in a rabbit hole?'

  'It was a slightly bigger hole than that,' my father said.

  'What do you mean?'

  My father began to describe how he had fallen into the enormous pit.

  Doc Spencer spun round and stared down at my father. 'I don't believe it!' he cried.

  'It's perfectly true. Ask Danny'

  'It was deep,' I said. 'Horribly deep.'

  'But great heavens alive!' the little doctor shouted, jumping up and down with fury. 'He can't do that! Victor Hazell can't go digging tiger-traps in his woods for human beings! I've never heard such a disgusting monstrous thing in all my life!'

  'It's rotten,' my father said.

  'It's worse than that, William! It's diabolical! Do you know what this means? It means that decent folk like you and me can't even go out and have a little fun at night without risking a broken leg or arm. We might even break our necks!'

  My father nodded.

  'I never did like that Victor Hazell,' Doc Spencer said. 'I saw him do a filthy thing once.'

  'What?' my father asked.

  'He had an appointment with me at my surgery. He needed an injection of some sort, I've forgotten what. Anyway, just by chance I was looking out of the window as he drove up to my door in his whacking great Rolls-Royce. I saw him get out, and I also saw my old dog Bertie dozing on the doorstep. And do you know what that loathsome Victor Hazell did? Instead of stepping over old Bertie, he actually kicked him out of the way with his riding boot.'