Billy the Kid by Michael Morpurgo

Author:Michael Morpurgo [Michael Morpurgo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007374199
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2000-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

The soldiers just shot them up against the barn wall, and the sound of it echoed around the mountains. It was my jacket that did it, my jacket that killed them.

We reached France in the end, more by luck than by judgement. We hadn’t a clue where we were going, not really. We kept to the wild country, the high country, sleeping rough, always going west, living off the land, begging what food we could, stealing it sometimes when we had to. But we were always hungry. The people were kind, and brave too. Nine times out of ten they’d give us something to eat, and we knew now what terrible risks they were taking.

All this time Robbie looked out for me as best he could. He’d never let me take chances. It was always him who went knocking on doors for food, while I waited out of sight until he was quite sure it was safe. He was brimful of kindness, that man. I’d never have made it without him.

One night, lying there under the stars, we were asking each other what we most looked forward to. “Toad in the hole,” I told him. “What about you?”

“I want to wake up in the morning at the Shed End, Billy, and watch you bamboozle the Arsenal again.”

When we woke the next morning we were still on our hillside. And crouching all around us was a bunch of wild looking men, some in berets, all of them armed to the teeth, and not at all friendly. Maquis, they called themselves, resistance fighters. They took us to their camp high up in the hills, and there we found dozens more like us, all escapees from Italian camps. We felt a bit like prisoners again – there was always someone keeping an eye on us. They fed us and made us as comfortable as they could – but I think we were a bit of a nuisance. They had more important things to be doing. Soon enough, they said, they’d be taking us down to the Americans who had landed in Southern France, then we could go home. And that’s what happened.

So there I was on yet another ship, this time going from Marseilles to Liverpool, back home. When we landed they gave us a week’s leave. Robbie and me came to the parting of the ways. He went north to Aberdeen to see his wife who was in the Land Army up there, and I went south to London. We said we’d keep in touch, but we never did.

I could have sent a telegram home, but I didn’t. I thought I’d just walk in and surprise them. It was tea time. I never even knocked on the door. Emmy was there, they were all there. God, did I get a hugging – three of them all at once, and Mum going on and on about how I was just skin and bone. Emmy wept buckets, and even Ossie had to dry his eyes.

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