The Gamekeeper Read online

  He called the dogs from the edge of the wood and held open the pen door for them to go in. The labrador and the springer came straight away and walked in. The terrier appeared reluctant to pass him, and he had to threaten it before it would come. Then it sidled up to the door, pretending not to look at him. He knew what it was going to do, and when it did rush past him, he was ready for it, and able to time a boot up the arse to help it on its way. He locked the door and looked at the split in the wood again.

  ‘The buggers,’ he said.

  The gamekeeper picked up the bucket of grain and the watering can and walked across the yard towards the path which led to the feeding ride in the wood.

  The smallholding was built in a clearing at the edge of the wood. The gamekeeper’s cottage faced outwards across arable land. Three fields away was the main road, which marked the boundary of the Duke’s estate, and across the road stood the houses and maisonettes of a new council estate. The back of the cottage faced the yard, and the outhouses, and directly behind them, the wood.

  It was quiet amongst the trees. The loudest noise came from the gamekeeper’s boots crushing frost, and fracturing twigs and rigid blades of grass. As he walked he looked about him and listened. He was looking for signs of trespass; a partly eaten rabbit, a bunch of feathers or undergrowth flattened by poachers and their dogs. He was concerned with these signs, not out of compassion for the victims, but out of professional necessity to discover the killer. A rat? a fox? a stoat? a feral cat? or just a dog on the prowl? What could kill a rabbit or a woodpigeon, could do the same to a pheasant or a partridge. Whatever it was, it was an enemy of game.

  As he walked he listened for bird calls. He did not know many birds by their songs. He had never had the patience to stand with binoculars and watch a bird singing, then imprint the sight and the sound so that next time he heard those notes he could name the bird without looking for it. He knew them all by sight. He knew their flight, their habits and their habitat. On his rounds in the woods and fields he found their nests, their young and sometimes their bodies. He liked song birds. He did them no harm. They were not enemies of game.

  The crow family was. Their harsh notes made him look upwards immediately. The rook and the crow, the magpie, jay and jackdaw were the gamekeeper’s enemies. They sucked eggs and ate pheasant chicks. They had to be destroyed.

  But walking through the wood on this dun-coloured morning, the gamekeeper heard no crows and saw no suspicious signs. He heard the high bare branches combing the wind, and he saw a blue-tit searching the wrinkled bark of an elm tree for food. Nothing more.

  Before he reached the end of the path, which formed a T-junction with the feeding ride, the gamekeeper started to whistle; a staccato, one-note affair, repeated over and over. It was a functional sound, he could have been whistling a dog. But the pheasants hidden in the undergrowth, already alerted by the footfalls, now knew whom to expect. The reared birds had been fed to that whistle from birth, and the wild birds had also learned to recognize that it meant food.

  When he reached the end of the path, the gamekeeper could hear the pheasants scuttling around under the rhododendron bushes which lined the ride. Along the centre of the ride he had spread thick litters of straw. A car tyre had been sliced in half to provide two drinking vessels, and close by these feeding points, slatted boxes had been positioned ready for catching up the game.

  The pheasants watched him from the cover of the evergreens. The overlapping leaves formed dense green canopies. It was dark and safe under there.

  First, the gamekeeper refilled the drinking vessels. There was still water in them from the previous day, but it had been fouled, so he turned both tyres over and emptied them. He reverted the tyres, then refilled them from the watering can, pouring until the water overflowed and slid down the sides, making the rubber as shiny as seals.

  He did not have to water the birds. There were numerous drinking places close to the wood. There were the drains and ditches around the fields. There were the two ornamental lakes, and the old fish ponds which used to supply the Big House. But George Purse looked after his pheasants; by watering in covert he minimized the temptation to wander. By keeping them close to home, they were less available to poachers who might be stalking the hedges and fields. His job was to keep the birds alive for the official killers, not to provide a meal for a fox, or a trespasser with a gun.

  The gamekeeper picked up the bucket and began to walk along the ride, whistling as he broadcast handfuls of grain. He did not throw the food on to the mat of trodden leaves where the pheasants could easily see it; he threw it into the litters of straw where it immediately disappeared from sight. This was to make the pheasants work for their food, to make them scratch about and search the straw, to prolong their meal and keep them occupied. If the grain were just thrown on to the ground, the pheasants would quickly eat their fill, and then be off, foraging along the hedgerows, and across the nearby meadows.

  The straw also made it difficult for other woodland birds to get at the buried grain. Gamekeepers use various feeding methods to try to keep the food exclusively for their pheasants. Some use hoppers made from cleaned-out oil drums. They cut three or four vertical strips near the bottom of the drums and stand them up on two bricks. The slits are just wide enough to allow the grain to trickle out when it is pecked by the pheasants. They make sure that the bricks do not protrude from underneath the oil drums, or other birds might perch there and scrounge a meal.

  There are variations on this hopper. An inverted screw-topped drum can be used, with a small grille like a letterbox built into the lid. The drum is then secured to a post or tree at a height which allows the pheasants to walk underneath it and feed by pecking upwards, so that the grain trickles through the wire mesh. This precludes all small birds from feeding.

  Birds of the crow family can be discouraged by hanging the body of a dead rook over the hopper, but even this draconian measure does not deter finches and sparrows, which when hungry, still try their best to eat.

  The gamekeeper threw several handfuls of grain into the rhododendrons, and it rattled on their leaves like hailstones. He scattered food in and around the catchers, so that the pheasants, to whom these slatted boxes were as familiar as the bushes and the trees, would step through the doorways and feed contentedly inside.

  The following morning, after he had baited the catchers, he inserted wire-netting funnels into the doorways. Then he picked up his bucket and watering can and returned home through the wood, leaving the pheasants feeding busily on the ride.

  Some of the birds worked their way around the catchers, pecking and scratching for the grain amongst the leaves. They poked their heads between the slats to get at any grain they could reach inside, and then they approached the doorway to go in. But they balked at the funnel, they were unfamiliar with it. They strutted around the entrance, eyeing it. Some poked their heads into the funnel, and some even had a peck at the wire. But they would not go in to feed.

  But, during the morning, when there was no grain left in the shrubbery, and it was hard work finding it in the straw, one hen pheasant ventured down one of the funnels for easy pickings inside. And during the afternoon, a second hen entered another one.

  Once they were inside, and they had eaten all the grain, they did not know how to get out. They strode around the boxes poking their heads out between the slats. They jumped on and off the funnel, and occasionally tried to explode their way out by flying. One thing they did not do was walk out through the funnel, the way they had come in.

  And they were both still there the next morning, when the gamekeeper arrived with his sack to carry any captured birds back to the laying pen.

  The pheasants panicked as he approached the catchers. They ran two strides back. They pushed their heads between the bars as far as they would go, eyes staring, necks so taut that spaces appeared between the feathers, and the skin on their necks was visible. Then, as they withdrew their necks the bars backcombed the feathers, and
they overlapped into place like a row of dominoes going down.

  But the gamekeeper did not allow them to dash around for long, he did not want the birds to injure themselves. Injured pheasants were no good for breeding. He quickly bent down at one of the catchers, lifted it high enough to slot his other hand underneath and grabbed the bird across the back, clamping its wings to its sides. He stood up, holding the brown mottled hen in both hands to examine it for signs of disease or injury before placing it in the sack.

  Its eyes were big and bright. It was well-feathered, and when the gamekeeper stroked one hand firmly down its back, the bloom came up on the plumage. He scuffed up the breast feathers to look for lice on the skin, spread both wings to examine the flights, then checked the legs and toes. He nodded. It had passed its medical; it was fit to breed. He opened the mouth of the sack and placed it inside. It would be quiet in there, it would not panic in the dark.

  The laying pen had been built in line with the gamekeeper’s cottage and allotment, along the boundary fence which separated the wood from the fields. It had been sited in the clearing so that the pheasants could get the sunshine, yet it was still close enough to the wood for the trees to take the sting out of the cold winds which blew from the north and the east.

  The pen was made of rolls of wire netting six foot high, which had been nailed to posts spaced out to cover an area the size of a tennis court. Sheets of corrugated iron had been laid end to end around the bottom of the pen to give further protection from the wind and the rain. The more protection the pheasants received, the more reliable the egg production would be. Clumps of evergreen and conifer branches had been placed around the pen, some in the grassy central space, others against the corrugated iron walls. These branches formed little tunnels and retreats, which provided necessary privacy and cover for the birds.

  The laying pen had no roof. A roof was unnecessary because the pheasants would be unable to fly out. They would have one wing brailed before they were put into the pen.

  The gamekeeper put the sack down in the yard, and walked across to the outhouse where he kept his tackle. As he opened the door he turned round and called across to the house,

  ‘John!’

  He stood poised to enter the building, waiting for an answer.

  ‘John!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come here! I want you to give me a hand with these pheasants!’

  ‘I’m having my breakfast!’

  ‘Now! You can finish your breakfast when we’ve done!’

  He went inside and walked across to the bench. He seized the knob of the middle drawer and yanked it. It did not budge, and this immobility jerked him forward against the bench. He tried again, this time bracing his left hand against the bench, and flexing his knees, his force directly in line with the pull. The wood squealed. He pulled again. He could now get hold of the sides of the drawer with his thumbs inside, and, jerking it from side to side, he fought it open.

  The drawer contained the leather brails and tapes, which the gamekeeper fastened to the pheasants’ wings to prevent them flying out of the laying pen. He had checked the numbers and the condition of the brails the previous week, but apart from that occasion the drawer had not been opened for months, and the wood had swollen with the winter damp. The gamekeeper picked out two brails and half a dozen paper fasteners, left the drawer open, and went out into the yard.

  Two boys were crouching over the sack. Ian, the youngest one, was just untying the string to peep inside.

  ‘That’s it, Ian. Let the buggers out.’

  Ian left the string alone, and both boys quickly stood up and stepped away from the sack.

  ‘We were only having a look, Dad.’

  ‘You’d have been having a look at summat else, if they’d have got out and taken off.’

  Both boys were quiet, and thought about this. And although the threat remained unspecified, they were glad that the two pheasants had not escaped.

  ‘Anyway, Ian, you go back inside. I only want our John.’

  The seven-year-old ran back a few paces, to where he could enjoy a tantrum in relative safety.

  ‘It’s not fair. I don’t want to go in. I want to watch. I want to watch, Dad!’

  His wellingtons, his brother’s cast-offs, were too big for him, and when he jumped up and down they scarcely left the flagstones. His father advanced on him, and it was surprising how well-fitting his footwear suddenly became. Safe again, near the house, he began to stamp one foot, and his leg, sliding in and out of the wellington, was reminiscent of a bicycle pump at work.

  The gamekeeper turned away from him and went back to the sack, where John was still waiting.

  ‘The young bugger. I’ll tan his arse for him when I get hold of him.’ He bent down at the sack and looked up at John.

  ‘I’ll get ’em out for you, John. You know how to hold ’em don’t you? Firm, but don’t squeeze ’em to death.’

  John nodded. He knew what to do. They had moved here ten years ago when he was two. He had been brought up handling animals. He knew how to handle them when they were alive, and when they were dead.

  His father untied the sack, reached inside and had one of the pheasants out before the other bird realized that there had been any chance of escape. He gave it to John, who took it cleanly, with both hands spread across its back to keep its wings closed. The hen pheasant looked big in the boy’s hands, and he had to hold it close to his chest to take some of the weight off his arms.

  The gamekeeper took one of the brails out of his jacket pocket and prepared to attach it to the bird’s left wing. A brail is a leather fastener with two short straps and one long strap. All three straps have holes punched in them like a belt.

  ‘Right, John, let’s have hold of its wing.’

  John shifted his grip to release the pheasant’s left wing. His father took hold of it, wrapped the two short straps around the bird’s wing just above its elbow, checked this loop for tightness, then pushed a paper fastener through the appropriate holes to secure it. This left the long strap hanging loose. He passed it underneath the bird’s wing, slotted it up between the end two flight feathers, then bent it back to meet the other two straps, and fastened them all together with the paper clip. It was like putting the pheasant’s wing into a sling. It stopped it from straightening its elbow, which meant that it could not fly.

  The gamekeeper tried to bend the sharp ends of the paper fastener under the metal head to complete the job, but his big cold fingers did not have the necessary fine touch. During the operation on the bird he had not noticed that Ian had crept up close again to watch, and when he suddenly turned round and shouted his name, the little lad thought he was going to cop it again, and he started to cry.

  The gamekeeper laughed at the way he had startled the boy.

  ‘O, you’re there are you? Well, stop roaring, and go and fetch me them little pliers from the outhouse.’

  Ian was away across the yard, as fast as his slobbing wellingtons would carry him. He was still small enough to go through the bottom half of the stable door and leave the top half closed.

  There was the grind of a drawer being opened; then the sound of objects being moved around.

  ‘And I don’t want the pincers, or owt daft like that, Ian! I want them little pliers with the pointed ends!’

  He underestimated the boy. Ian knew what he wanted. He knew the difference between pliers and pincers, and he quickly found the right tool.

  ‘Wonders’ll never cease,’ was all his father said when Ian handed them over. He bent the sharp ends of the paper fastener neatly under the metal head, checked the brail to make sure that the pheasant’s wing was not completely immobilized, then told John to take it up to the laying pen.

  When John opened the wire-netting door and put the pheasant down, it ran away from him and tried to take off. Its right wing lifted it into the air, but without assistance from the other one, it overbalanced and came down on its left side. John stood in the doorway a
nd watched a whole series of these lopsided take offs and landings. He did not laugh at the bird’s failure to fly; he watched its efforts seriously, concerned at its plight. He wanted to wait there until the bird had settled down, but his father called him away to help him brail the second pheasant.

  When it was done, Ian wanted to carry the bird up to the laying pen. His father said he would drop it. The little boy immediately began his dance, but this time, having overestimated his bargaining power on the strength of the successful pliers errand, he did not retreat first, and immediately received a skelp across the back of his head.

  He ran across the yard, and into the house, crying. John carried the second pheasant up to the laying pen. But he had not time to stand and watch it, for he was immediately called away by his father for school.

  When they got into the house, Ian was sulking. He would not look at anybody, and he was not talking either. He was sitting at his place at the kitchen table with his head down, taking it out of the fried egg on his plate. He attacked the yolk so viciously with his bread, that he even destroyed the yellow clot at the bottom, leaving the egg a mere raggedy-ruff beside the untouched rasher of bacon. He pushed the mess away from him and started to climb down.

  At the sound of the plate sliding, and the chair legs scraping against the tiles, his mother turned away from the stove to see how much he had eaten. When she saw, she stayed his action with one hand, and pulled his plate back in front of him with the other.

  ‘Finish your breakfast now, Ian, and stop being silly.’

  ‘I don’t want it. I don’t like white.’

  ‘You liked it until this morning. And what about your bacon?’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  The gamekeeper sat down at the opposite side of the table to the boy.

  ‘Just pop that bacon back in the pan. I’ll have it if he doesn’t want it.’