Over here the hawthorn tree grows wild. The woods are full of them. In about June to September little green buds appear. They are as hard as hell and we used to gather them and a suitable length of cow parsley, which is a hollow tube. This gave us a magnificent pee shooter and as much ammunition as the heart coud desire. Of course the possesion of such a weapon gave us trouble. I can remember watching while the Church Lad's Brigade formed up, in uniform, outside the old church hall. They were a fine sight. They had drums and bugles and little forage caps on their heads.
What was terrible to see were the shamed-faced little boys who stood in the ranks. Their mothers cooed and brayed with delight.
We who had escaped this indignity were convulsed with unkind laughter at our unfortunate friends. We were lucky. Our school studies had prevented us from going to a few evening meetings. We were therefore deemed unfit to join in the glory of marching to the church with flag flying, drums beating and bugles blaring. And besides, several of us had lost our forage caps under our beds where our mothers could not find them. We were safe. Sadly, it was old Soapy Saunders that caused the trouble. He had been scrubbed clean with the help of Sunlight soap and the thick forearms of his mother.His face glowed a red that can often be seen on a butcher's slab when loaded with prime beef and he carried a huge bass drum that was as big as he was.
Soapy Saunders wore an expression of holy delight and superiority on his ugly face. He sneered at the rest of us who were condemed to the sidelines of the pavement. From time to time he would tap on his drum, sending a rude signal in Morse code to the effect that he was far better than we were.
We were crushed by his superior knowledge. We had all tried to master the Morse code under the instruction of the Leader and had failed miserably. All we knew were the few sequences that carried a rude message.
"You lot wont get back in," Soapy yelled suddenly."You'll all be fourteen soon and then you've had it! You've gotta be seniors then and you lot're too thick to pass the exams."
We were horrified. It was not the fact that at fourteen we would be too old to be in the ranks. Neither was it the fact that we would have to be seniors.None of us could face the thought that we might grow up to be like the rigid and pompous men who stutted at the head of the column. It was the sheer nastiness of Soapy's atitude that got us.
A brief confernce was called and a boy was dispatched to gather hawthorn hips and cow parsley. Soon all of us were equiped with pee shooters and we hid behind the front wall of the church hall to arm them.
On the command "Fire" we let loose a terrible barrage of pees. The Church lad's brigade broke ranks and ran down the road, their clumsy musical instruments clattering on thier running legs.
Victory was ours for a moment until the seniors and our mothers had gathered us into a tight group.
"You lot will march behind us as we go to church," the Leader bellowed."I shall tell the vicar to give a sermon on decency to our fellow man."
After about forty years in the church, Old Owen's sermon came to an end. All of us were cowed and the Church Lad's Brigade had won.
"Never mind", a little lad of ten said. "I've been talking to your grandfather and everything will be all right."
" What are you on about", I asked crossly. "That's for me to know and you to wonder about." We dragged the lad over to a large high tree in the churchyard for his insolence and threatened to hang him up there by the thick braces that held his trousers up.
"OK, I'll tell you," he said as the high branches of the tree loomed over him. "I caught your grandfather putting some stuff on the chairs, just before the old women came in to play whist at the church hall. I said I'd shop him if he did not tell me what it was.I've been collecting rose hips from the wild rose trees for a month. You split them open and let them dry. Wonderful itching powder they make! My sister has had to change her vest six times this week." In the fullness of time the village came to believe that the Church Lad's Brigade were the victims of some new and terrible disease. Their heads and bodies were examind by experts for signs of infestation by micro- organisms. None were found. Odly there was at least half of the company that were unaffected.We of course knew the source of infection and so did my grandfather.He must have seen us put the fearful rose hip fibres on all the clothes pegs in the church hall.
"Let that be a lesson to you", he said as things got back to normal after a fortnight."There is a great revelation to be found in itching powder. A philosophical conundrum. You now know how to tell who washes and who dosen't. The clean ones itch and the dirty ones don't. That should come in great when you start courting some farm girls!"
Sadly, we never got around to trying this selection process out. The Army got us all and gave us a rifle to worry about and all the women that we knew from then on sniffed at us and turned their noses up at the smell of our Army soap.
by Richard Walker
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Copying, reprinting, or distribution of this story, in whole or in part, is prohibited without written permission from the author.
About the author:
Richard Walker is an English author who has had these four books published in hardback version and is now presenting his work in electronic form: Sing A Song of Stopsley, To Catch The Shadow of The Moon, The Ballad of Baggy Mag, and Vox Angelicus (The angel voices of Luton). Read about them here: ebooks