by Barry Hines
‘It was a funny feeling though when he’d gone; all quiet, with nobody there, and up to t’knees in tadpoles.’
Silence. The class up to their knees in tadpoles. Mr Farthing allowed them a pause for assimilation. Then, before their involvement could disintegrate into local gossip, he used it to try to inspire an emulator.
‘Very good, Anderson. Thank you. Now has anyone else anything interesting to tell us?’
No hands went up.
‘No? What about you, Casper?’
Billy was bending over, inspecting his hands under cover of the desk. Pink weals were stamped across his fingertips. When he opened his fingers the weals broke into segments; each segment resembling a bump of nettle-rash. He blew on them, and cooled them with his tongue.
‘Casper!’
Billy sat up and put his hands away.
‘What, Sir?’
‘What, Sir. You’d know what if you’d been listening. Have you been listening?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Tell me what we’ve been talking about then.’
‘Er… stories, Sir.’
‘What kind of stories?’
‘Er…’
‘You don’t know, do you?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘He’s been asleep again, Sir!’
Billy scraped his chair round and shouted above the laughter:
‘Thee shut thi mouth, Tibby!’
‘Casper! Tibbut! You’ll both be asleep in a minute. I’ll knock you to sleep! The rest of you – QUIET.’
He slid off the desk edge and took one step down the nearest aisle. The result – quiet.
‘You haven’t heard a word of what’s been said, have you, Casper?’
‘Yes, Sir – some of it.’
‘Some of it. I’ll bet you have. Stand up, lad.’
Billy sighed and pushed the chair away with the backs of his knees.
‘Right, now you can do some work for a change. You’re going to tell us any story about yourself, the same as Anderson did.’
‘I don’t know any, Sir.’
‘Well you can just stand there until you do.’
Mr Farthing began to pace across the space between the board and the desk.
‘There’s always somebody to spoil it. There’s always someone you can’t suit, who has to be awkward, who refuses to be interested in anything, someone like you, Casper.’
He pivoted round on one foot and thrust an arm out at Billy.
‘I’m giving you two minutes to think of something lad, and if you haven’t started then, the whole class is coming back at four!’
There was a general stiffening of backs and looking round wide-eyed, accompanied by grumbling and interspersed with Eh’s and threatening encouragements.
‘Come on, Billy.’
‘’Else tha dies.’
‘Say owt.’
‘If I’ve to come back I’ll kill him.’
Billy tried to blink back the tears shining in his eyes.
‘I’m waiting, Casper.’
Mr Farthing sat down and nudged back his jacket sleeve to look at his watch.
‘We haven’t got all day, Casper.’
‘Tell him about thi hawk, Billy.’
‘If anyone else calls out, it will be the last call he’ll make!… What hawk, Casper?… Casper, I’m speaking to you.’
Billy continued to show Mr Farthing the top of his head.
‘Look this way boy when I’m speaking to you.’
Billy looked up slowly.
‘And stop sulking just because somebody says a few words to you!… Now then, what’s this about this hawk? What is it, a stuffed one?’
The shout of laughter from the class spilled the first tears on to Billy’s face, and left Mr Farthing looking about in surprise at these opposing reactions to his question.
‘What’s funny about that?’
Tibbut half stood up, placing the weight of his body on the desk top as he shot one arm up.
‘Well, Tibbut?’
‘He’s got a hawk, Sir. It’s a kestrel. He’s mad about it. He never knocks about wi’ anybody else now, he just looks after this hawk all t’time. He’s crackers wi’ it!’
Billy turned on him, the movement releasing a fresh head of tears into wobbly halting motion down his cheeks.
‘It’s better than thee anyday, Tibby!’
‘I told you, Sir, he goes daft if you say owt about it.’
‘Right, Casper, sit down.’
Billy sat down and wiped his cheeks on the shoulders of his jacket. Mr Farthing rested his elbows on his desk and tapped his teeth with his thumb nails, waiting for Billy to collect himself.
‘Now then, Billy, tell me about this hawk. Where did you get it from?’
‘Found it.’
‘Where?’
‘In t’wood.’
‘What had happened to it? Was it injured or something?’
‘It was a young ’un. It must have tumbled from a nest.’
‘And how long have you had it?’
‘Since last year.’
‘All that time? Where do you keep it?’
‘In a shed.’
‘And what do you feed it on?’
‘Beef. Mice. Birds.’
‘Isn’t it cruel though, keeping it in a shed all the time? Wouldn’t it be happier flying free?’
Billy looked at Mr Farthing for the first time since he had told him to sit down.
‘I don’t keep it in t’shed all t’time. I fly it every day.’
‘And doesn’t it fly away? I thought hawks were wild birds.’
‘’Course it don’t fly away. I’ve trained it.’
Billy looked round, as though daring anyone to challenge this authority.
‘Trained it? I thought you’d to be an expert to train hawks.’
‘Well I did it.’
‘Was it difficult?’
‘Course it was. You’ve to be right… right patient wi’ ’em and take your time.’
‘Well tell me how you did it then. I’ve never met a falconer before, I suppose I must be in select company.’
Billy hutched his chair up and leaned forward over his desk.
‘Well what you do is, you train ’em through their stomachs. You can only do owt wi’ ’em when they’re hungry, so you do all your training at feeding time.
‘I started training Kes after I’d had her about a fortnight, when she was hard penned, that means her tail feathers and wing feathers had gone hard at their bases. You have to use a torch at night and keep inspecting ’em. It’s easy if you’re quiet, you just go up to her as she’s roosting, and spread her tail and wings. If t’feathers are blue near t’bottom o’ t’shaft, that means there’s blood in ’em an’ they’re still soft, so they’re not ready yet. When they’re white and hard then they’re ready, an’ you can start training her then.
‘Kes wa’ as fat as a pig though at first. All young hawks are when you first start to train ’em, an’ you can’t do much wi’ ’em ’til you’ve got their weight down. You’ve to be ever so careful though, you don’t just starve ’em, you weigh ’em before every meal and gradually cut their food down, ’til you go in one time an’ she’s keen, an’ that’s when you start getting somewhere. I could tell wi’ Kes, she jumped straight on my glove as I held it towards her. So while she wa’ feeding I got hold of her jesses an’…’
‘Her what?’
‘Jesses.’
‘Jesses. How do you spell that?’
Mr Farthing stood up and stepped back to the board.
‘Er, J-E-S-S-E-S.’
As Billy enunciated each letter, Mr Farthing linked them together on the blackboard.
‘Jesses. And what are jesses, Billy?’
‘They’re little leather straps that you fasten round its legs as soon as you get it. She wears these all t’time, and you get hold of ’em when she sits on your glove. You push your swivel through…’
‘Whoa! Whoa!’
&
nbsp; Mr Farthing held up his hands as though Billy was galloping towards him.
‘You’d better come out here and give us a demonstration. We’re not all experts you know.’
Billy stood up and walked out, taking up position at the side of Mr Farthing’s desk. Mr Farthing reared his chair on to its back legs, swivelled it sideways on one leg, then lowered it on to all fours facing Billy.
‘Right, off you go.’
‘Well when she stands on your fist, you pull her jesses down between your fingers.’
Billy held his left fist out and drew the jesses down between his first and second fingers.
‘Then you get your swivel, like a swivel on a dog lead, press both jesses together, and thread ’em through t’top ring of it. T’jesses have little slits in ’em near t’bottom, like buttonholes in braces, and when you’ve got t’jesses through t’top ring o’ t’swivel, you open these slits with your finger, and push t’bottom ring through, just like fastening a button.’
With the swivel now attached to the jesses, Billy turned to Mr Farthing.
‘Do you see?’
‘Yes, I see. Carry on.’
‘Well when you’ve done that, you thread your leash, that’s a leather thong, through t’bottom ring o’ t’swivel…’
Billy carefully threaded the leash, grabbed the loose end as it penetrated the ring, and pulled it through.
‘… until it binds on t’knot at t’other end. Have you got that?’
‘Yes, I think so. Just let me get it right. The jesses round the hawk’s legs are attached to a swivel, which is then attached to a lead…’
‘A leash!’
‘Leash, sorry. Then what?’
‘You wrap your leash round your fingers and tie it on to your little finger.’
‘So that the hawk is now attached to your hand?’
‘That’s right. Well when you’ve reached this stage and it’s stepping on to your glove regular, and feeding all right and not bating too much…’
‘Bating? What’s that?’
‘Trying to fly off; in a panic like.’
‘How do you spell it?’
‘B-A-T-I-N-G.’
‘Carry on.’
‘Well when you’ve reached this stage inside, you can try feeding her outside and getting her used to other things. You call this manning. That means taming, and you’ve got to have her well manned before you can start training her right.’
While Billy was talking Mr Farthing reached out and slowly printed on the board BATING; watching Billy all the time as though he was a hawk, and that any sudden movement, or rasp of chalk would make him bate from the side of the desk.
‘You take her out at night first and don’t go near anybody. I used to walk her round t’fields at t’back of our house at first, then as she got less nervous I started to bring her out in t’day and then take her near other folks, and dogs and cats and cars and things. You’ve to be ever so careful when you’re outside though, ’cos hawks are right nervous and they’ve got fantastic eyesight, and things are ten times worse for them than they are for us. So you’ve to be right patient, an’ all t’time you’re walking her you’ve to talk to her, all soft like, like you do to a baby.’
He paused for breath. Mr Farthing nodded him on before he had time to become self-conscious.
‘Well when you’ve manned her, you can start training her right then. You can tell when she’s ready ’cos she looks forward to you comin’ an’ there’s no trouble gettin’ her on to your glove. Not like at first when she’s bating all t’time.
‘You start inside first, makin’ her jump on to your glove for her meat. Only a little jump at first, then a bit further and so on; and every time she comes you’ve to give her a scrap o’ meat. A reward like. When she’ll come about a leash length straight away, you can try her outside, off a fence post or summat like that. You put her down, hold on to t’end of your leash wi’ your right hand, and hold your glove out for her to fly to. This way you can get a double leash length. After she’s done this, you can take her leash off an’ attach a creance in it’s place.’
‘Creance?’
Mr Farthing leaned over to the blackboard.
‘C-R-E-A-N-C-E – it’s a long line, I used a long nylon fishing line wi’ a clasp off a dog lead, tied to one end. Well you clip this to your swivel, pull your leash out, and put your hawk down on a fence post. Then you walk away into t’field unwindin’ your creance, an’ t’hawk sits there waitin’ for you to stop an’ hold your glove up. It’s so it can’t fly away, you see.’
‘Yes I see. It all sounds very skilful and complicated, Billy.’
‘It don’t sound half as bad as it is though. I’ve just telled you in a couple o’ minutes how to carry on, but it takes weeks to go through all them stages. They’re as stubborn as mules, hawks, they’re right tempr… tempr…’
‘Temperamental.’
‘Temperamental. Sometimes she’d be all right, then next time I’d go in, she’d go mad, screamin’ an’ batin’ as though she’d never seen me before. You’d think you’d learnt her summat, an’ put her away feelin’ champion, then t’next time you went you were back where you started. You just couldn’t reckon it up at all.’
He looked down at Mr Farthing, eyes animated, cheeks flushed under a wash of smeared tears and dirt.
‘You make it sound very exciting though.’
‘It is, Sir. But most exciting thing wa’ when I flew her free first time. You ought to have been there then. I wa’ frightened to death.’
Mr Farthing turned to the class, rotating his trunk without moving his chair.
‘Do you want to hear about it?’
Chorus: ‘Yes, Sir.’
Mr Farthing smiled and turned back to Billy.
‘Carry on, Casper.’
‘Well I’d been flyin’ it on t’creance for about a week, an’ it wa’ comin’ to me owt up to thirty, forty yards, an’ it says in t’books that when it’s comin’ this far, straight away, it’s ready to fly loose. I daren’t though. I kept sayin’ to missen, I’ll just use t’creance today to make sure, then I’ll fly it free tomorrow. But when tomorrow came I did t’smack same thing. I did this for about four days an’ I got right mad wi’ missen ’cos I knew I’d have to do it sometime. So on t’last day I didn’t feed her up, just to make sure that she’d be sharp set next morning. I hardly went to sleep that night, I wa’ thinking about it that much.
‘It wa’ one Friday night, an’ when I got up next morning I thought right, if she flies off, she flies off, an’ it can’t be helped. So I went down to t’shed. She wa’ dead keen an’ all, walking about on her shelf behind t’bars, an’ screamin’ out when she saw me comin’. So I took her out in t’field an’ tried her on t’creance first time, an’ she came like a rocket. So I thought, right, this time.
‘I unclipped t’creance, took t’swivel off an’ let her hop on to t’fence post. There was nowt stoppin’ her now, she wa’ just standin’ there wi’ her jesses on. She could have just took off an’ there wa’ nowt I could have done about it. I wa’ terrified. I thought she’s forced to go, she’s forced to, she’ll just fly off an’ that’ll be it. But she didn’t. She just sat there looking round while I backed off into t’field. I went right into t’middle, then held my glove up an’ shouted her.’
Billy held his left fist up and stared out of the window.
‘Come on, Kes! Come on then! Nowt happened at first, then, just when I wa’ goin’ to walk back to her, she came. You ought to have seen her. Straight as a die, about a yard off t’floor. An’ t’speed! She came twice as fast as when she had t’creance on, ’cos it used to drag in t’grass an’ slow her down. She came like lightnin’, head dead still, an’ her wings never made a sound, then wham! Straight up on to t’glove, claws out grabbin’ for t’meat,’ simultaneously demonstrating the last yard of her flight with his right hand, gliding it towards, then slapping it down on his raised left fist.
‘I wa’ that pleased
I didn’t know what to do wi’ missen, so I thought just to prove it, I’ll try her again, an’ she came t’second time just as good. Well that was it. I’d done it. I’d trained her.’
‘Well done, Billy.’
‘It wa’ a smashin’ feeling. You can’t believe that you’ll be able to do it. Not when you first get one, or when you see ’em wild. They seem that fierce, an’… an’ wild.’
‘And was that the end of it then?’
‘More or less, Sir. After that I introduced her to t’lure; that’s a leather weight tied on t’end of a cord. You tie meat on to it and swing it round and she flies round an’ keeps stoopin’ for it.’
‘Yes, yes. I remember a falconer once demonstrating it on television. He swung it round in a similar fashion to a bolus, and each time the hawk swooped in, he swung it down and kept it just out of its reach. The donkey and the carrot principle.’
‘That’s right. You fly ’em to a lure to keep ’em fit. An’ that’s as far as you can go wi’ a kestrel. You can’t catch owt wi’ ’em, but you train ’em smack same as other hawks. Only difference is, that after you’ve introduced other hawks to t’lure, you can enter ’em at game.’
‘Tell me something. Is it difficult, swinging this lure?’
‘It is at first. It’s murder. You can’t judge t’swing right, t’hawk don’t know what it’s supposed to do, an’ you just finish up wi’ it all wrapped round you, else hitting t’hawk in t’chest or summat. It’s a right pantomime ’til you get used to it.’
Mr Farthing set up a series of nodded agreements.
‘Yes, yes. I suspected as much when he made it look so simple.’
‘It’s not, Sir.’
‘But then that’s the mark of an expert, isn’t it? Someone who makes a difficult skill look easy?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘And makes us think that we can all do it. Which we can’t, of course.’
