Mick Jackson: Five Boys

Reviewed by MICHAEL LARSEN

This is a tale of life during wartime and beyond in a Dorset village. It has an innocence that is lent weight by it being told generally from the point of view of the five boys in the title. There is some adult input, but the naivete of the children allows them insights that the adults no longer have access to, having built up barriers to learning with all the usual adult prejudices.

The story starts with the arrival of Bobby in the village.

An evacuee from London, Bobby is billeted with an ageing spinster and inducted by the five boys in a way known only to bored, mischievous little boys.

He is soon accepted by the group who go about the village generally performing the kinds of pranks that boys without father figures and with time on their hands would be expected to perform.

The arrival of American soldiers and the visitation of a Focker Wulfe provide endless excitement for the boys and the gossiping villagers. Jackson mines this field brilliantly.

The use of an empty coffin and the staging of a fake funeral to smuggle a pig past the GIs is one of many hilarious events.

And the characters are wonderful. Miss Pye who considered herself peerless when it came to interfering in other people's business, Mr Mercer and his bath chair, the Captain and his strange late-night semaphore signals are all delightful.

The boys tend to be treated as a fluid, interchangeable entity, with only Aldred singled out by Jackson for any detailed characterisation.

Only the frequent appearance of the stay-behind soldier causes any real discomfort among the villagers. Dishevelled and confused, he uses the fields around the village to hide in. Of course a man from the ministry comes to hunt him down and it niggles that we don't really discover the soldier's fate. Or so we think.

The book is divided quite distinctly into two sections, the second dealing with the arrival of the Bee King. He turns up apropos of nothing and takes the boys under his wing, showing them a whole new world, that of the hives.

He explains how the ordered existence of an apiary works and the incredible systems and structures of the bees' existence.

The boys become fascinated. The Bee King has a purpose, it would seem and I will give away no more. Suffice to say that what seems like an entertaining, harmless and amusing read carries some sinister undertones and ties up rather cleverly.

Humorously written, keenly observant and with a charming quirkiness, this has more to it than you suspect initially. The fact that the wartime dramas carry surprisingly less impact on the village than the supposedly safer peacetime occurrences probably sends a message about human behaviour.

But, like a great deal of this book, it is subtly and cleverly done. Not mind-blowing, but intriguing indeed.

Faber $24.95