He tagged along for an hour, watching Harry sardonically but with detachment. Eventually Harry paused, straightening up and looking at the others with a pathetic ruefulness.
‘Not much going on this morning,’ he said.
Ray said, ‘I think it’s a total fuck-up, man.’
‘What?’ Harry said. ‘What did you say?’
‘Like the whole scene is a nothing.’
Harry said, ‘Get out. Go on, get out.’
His face was shrunken with rage. He took a step forward, holding the metal detector like a weapon.
He said, ‘Clear off. You’ve sponged on us, taken our food, our hospitality, our friendship, and all you’ve done is abuse it all. Sniffing round Cheryl. And now this.’
Genuinely puzzled, Ray said. ‘I’m sorry. Now what?’
Harry said, ‘It’s the last straw. I thought at first you were the right sort of material for us, but I soon saw I was wrong. And now you use that language. I’m not having anybody with us who uses words like that, so you can take yourself off now. Just clear out and leave us alone.’
The others stood silent.
Ray said, ‘You think I used a dirty word? But I didn’t say “communism” or “capitalism” or anything like that. They’re dirty words, depending on where you happen to be standing. But that!’
‘Just get out,’ Harry said. ‘Can’t you be told? We don’t want anything more to do with you. Go away.’
Ray looked at the others, one by one; they remained quite impassive except for Cheryl, who made a small, enigmatic movement of the head. Ray turned, unwilling to waste even a gesture of farewell on this bunch of morons, and walked slowly back in the morning’s tracks, heading for the camp to pick up his tent and rucksack.
Harry breathed out a sigh of relief and pure pleasure.
‘That’s seen the back of him,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, gang. It was a mistake ever to have anything to do with him, but you can’t tell straight away, can you? Now we’ll get cracking, and you’ll see: the luck will change.’
It did. Half an hour later Simon had dug up a small bronze statuette of evident antiquity. When they had cleaned it as well as they could, they saw that it was a representation of a female shape, though smooth and worn: perhaps some goddess of the Roman pantheon. What it was did not matter. As Harry held it up, and they all crowded round to look at the little figure, five or six inches tall and still encrusted with traces of dirt, all their bodies were touching as the LYF made noises of interest and pleasure. They were one again, the irritant particle of foreign matter expelled before it could ever begin the process of salutary accretions which, after who knew how long, might have resulted in the formation of a pearl.
Thank goodness for that, Linda was thinking. I mean, he was nice, even if he did say that; but he’d started us all going to bits. They’d have been knee-deep in babies before you could turn round.
Cheryl felt sad, but in a pleasant way. It served him right, really, breaking his promise like that. And when you thought it all out, the world really wouldn’t have been well lost for the sake of an hour in the prickly heather, blanket or no blanket. And she was beginning already to transmute the encounter into a form which would be acceptable at some future date for amused recollection. (‘You remember that Ray? You know, that American. Yes, you remember him. Well, do you know what…?’ And, soon, the laughter, the hint of a melancholy at what might have been, but no more than a hint; the pleasure over what never had been; the compensating solidarity. And, perhaps, farther in the future, Linda elsewhere, the possibility of Harry.)
Peter and Ann were quietly happy too, now that Ray had gone, because each had reasoned that Ray’s departure would be certain to make Harry relax his vigilance.
And Harry himself was genuinely happy. The threat to the LYF had been removed. That was one thing. They had found some ancient object with the metal detector; that was another. But what had profoundly affected him was the realisation that while Ray had been with them, he had provoked sexual jealousy in Harry for the first time in his life. The emotion had enraged him, but it had also astonished him by its strength. Disregarding the fact of Ray’s disability, he had sent Ray down and back to fetch the spade simply and solely out of jealousy over Cheryl. This emotion was un-Christian and sinful, but no one could deny its power. Or, for Harry, its fascination. He thought, Fancy that: am I in love?
He dropped back as they walked, and in a few minutes found an opportunity to say quietly to Cheryl, ‘Never mind, Cherry. You’ll see — it’ll be all for the best,’ and then he gave her a wink and what he thought was a significant smile, testing its reciprocity on himself. It worked. As Cheryl smiled back, she patted his shoulder.
‘Nice old Harry,’ she whispered.
He felt a thrill of pleasure. It’s happened, he thought. Well, it’s normal; I mean, people do have feelings. Can’t say anything yet, though. Have to go very carefully and slowly. Can’t do anything for months yet, or I’ll end up messing it all up like that Ray almost did. How can I go about it? No idea. So just leave things as they are till this holiday’s over, then sit down and make a plan of campaign. Got to keep the LYF. So how about a Happy Families version? Paired off. Peter and Ann, that’s easy. Me and Cheryl. Happy married couples; what a thing, me thinking like that. But then, Linda…and Simon? Impossible, he thought. But you never know. Discreet encouragement might work wonders. Take it slow, take it easy. No more significant smiles: that one just now, well that one was natural enough in the circumstances. But no more of that.
So they drifted westward with the metal detector, and at noon or thereabouts, they began to hear the persistent sound of gunshots in the distance.
*
The shooting was fine, Egan had to admit that. The weakest link in the chain as Egan had regarded it, was proving the strongest. Lumpy. He just never missed. His shots either killed at once, or if by some mischance he occasionally failed to kill, the shot always proved so disabling that Genius was able to finish the animal off where it lay, when he got around to it on the ToteGote. The trouble was that they couldn’t get the sheep down to the truck fast enough. They had worked the night before until it had been almost too dark to see, and still the backlog of carcasses had accumulated. He stood glumly by a small mountain of dead sheep, at the head of the ropeway, and he ached in every muscle. Up and to his right, Lumpy was still killing, and Genius was still collecting carcasses. Egan sighed. He left the ropeway and waved to Genius and Lumpy.
When they reached him he said, ‘Look, fellers. We’ll have to stop that and start getting this lot down.’
‘What, again?’ Lumpy said.
‘Yes, again.’
Genius said, ‘Too much like hard work, Neeg.’
Egan said, ‘I didn’t think it’d be like this, getting them down. I thought it would be easier, what with the ropeway and all.’
Lumpy said, ‘Well, it’s not what I signed up for.’ He patted the stock of his gun; the barrel was too hot to touch. ‘This is my job, not humping sheep. I’m not a porter, for f…for God’s sake.’
Egan said, ‘Don’t you take the name of the Lord in vain. Look, I want five hundred sheep out of this place in three days. What did we get yesterday? Fifty. That’s ten days’ work, and we can’t risk it. Three, yes. Ten, no. We’ve got seventy-odd sitting here or laying out there, and we can get another fifty before the afternoon’s half over if Genius drives some more down with the Gote. But we can’t get ’em down to the bottom. It’s enough to give a man ulcers, if I hadn’t got ’em already. Here am I trying to give a service, with a market sitting there and holding out a hand full of cabbage, and I’m stymied.’
Genius said, ‘You need helping hands to pull your wire.’
‘The ropeway. Yeh. I need labour. So what do I do? Go down the nearest village and say, “Look, men: I’m rustling your sheep up there faster than you can breed ’em, so how about nipping up and giving me a hand? Don’t make me tired.’
‘You’re tired alr
eady,’ Genius said. ‘And so are we.’
Egan thought for a moment, and then said to Lumpy, ‘Well, there’s no help for it that I can see. Knock off another ten or fifteen, will you, Lump? Then we’ll just have to start getting them down to the truck. This is a disappointment, I must confess. Not your fault at all, fellers. It’s all my fault. We’ll just do the best we can on this lot, and next trip we’ll bring two or three big strong lads with us wherever we go. No problem then. After all, this is a kind of first exploration, if you see what I mean. We’re bound to have some teething troubles, just to begin with.’
Lumpy said, ‘Yeh. Bound to.’
And Genius thought, This is getting to be no fun at all.
*
Harry led the LYF out of a fold of ground to a ridge overlooking a shallow bowl in the plateau. Cloud was building up in the south-west and the wind was beginning to strengthen, but the weather was still fine; somewhere to their left one of the ubiquitous wrens was singing through the sound of the rifle-fire: .22 high velocity shots, inaudible at half a mile’s distance.
They could see a figure lying in the heather. Away beyond, on the far rim of the bowl, a man was riding a small motor-cycle, dragging something behind him, and between the two men the ground was littered with dead and dying sheep; animals for the most part lying still, but here and there legs kicked, or a bloodstained heap of wool strove upward and then slumped, or wriggled on the ground like a maggot. A spurt of smoke jetted from the rifle; then they heard another shot. A sheep fell.
‘Shooting sheep!’ Harry said. ‘I wonder why they’re doing that. Nasty, it looks to me.’
Simon said, ‘Someone ought to tell the RSPCA.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Peter said. ‘Look how that chap’s shooting. He’s an expert.’
As they walked nearer to the marksman they saw a third figure finish drying hands and arms at the pool, then put on a jacket and move towards them, shouting to them to keep still. He hurried to them. He was middle-aged and fussy-looking, dressed in neutral tweeds, which made him difficult to see against the vegetation. He had black eyes, restless eyes which seemed to dart about everywhere at once, and a pained and worried expression.
He said, ‘Good afternoon. Almost walked right into the line of fire, didn’t you? You want to be more careful.’
The marksman had risen and was moving towards them; so was the man on the funny motor-bike, Harry noticed.
He said, ‘More careful? We want to be more careful? We’re only walking here. We aren’t the ones with guns blazing away over the place, are we?’
The stranger said, ‘Ah, but it isn’t your land, is it now? That’s why you want to be careful. And what’s that thing you’ve got there, eh?’
Harry said, ‘It’s a metal detector.’
‘Well, you see what I mean: you want to be careful,’ the stranger said obscurely.
The marksmen joined them. He was a huge man, carrying his gun easily at the trail. He had faded blue eyes, and a bovine face covered with small white cysts.
‘Having bother?’ he asked the first man.
‘No, no, nothing like that. I was just explaining to these people they have to be careful up here while the culling’s going on.’
Now the man on the funny motor-bike arrived: a small man on a small machine, he had a face which was unclouded and cheerful, and when he spoke it was with a strong Welsh accent.
‘Having trouble, are you?’
The black-eyed man said again, ‘No, no. Just asking these people to mind out, that’s all.’
Harry said, ‘What is this culling, then?’
‘It’s a new idea. Before we send the sheep down for wintering we take some out for market.’
Linda said, ‘But isn’t it cruel, shooting them like that? It looks horrible to me.’
‘Not at all,’ the black-eyed man said. ‘To a young lady, it might seem a bit off, I grant you that, but you weren’t invited here, were you? Anyway, never mind that. But cruel? Have you ever seen what goes on in a slaughterhouse, young woman? I bet you have not. Else you’d think twice before saying this is cruel. This is humane, this is. It just looks worse because it’s done out in the open, all above board and with nothing to hide.’
‘Oh,’ said Linda. ‘Oh, I see.’
Harry was rotating the ball bearings in his pocket.
He said, ‘Just the three of you?’
‘What do you mean, just the three of us?’
‘Well,’ Harry said. ‘I’d have thought you’d have needed more men. And dogs, too. I’ve never seen anybody in sheep country working without a dog.’
The black-eyed man said, ‘Ah, but you see they’re behind the times, most of ’em. That little bike’s worth a hundred dogs. We don’t need to collect the sheep, you see? All we need is to have them in range; the bike can collect ’em for us. New methods, see? You got to move with the times, mister.’
He was weighing up Harry and the others.
‘Camping out, are you?’
Harry said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘It’s a bit hot and thirsty,’ the black-eyed man said. ‘I tell you what. We’re just going to have a brew-up. Could you fancy a nice drop of tea?’
Linda shook her head; so did Cheryl, while the others, except for Harry, looked undecided.
But Harry said, ‘Well, that’s nice of you. Must say I’m ready by this time. It’ll save us going all the way back. Thanks very much.’
‘Not another word. Just you come along with us and we’ll see you right.’
*
They sat well away from the mound of dead sheep, but still close enough to hear the hum of a couple of hundred bluebottles. They drank hot, sweet tea. The girls had at first been disgusted by the evidence of carnage around them, but it was surprising to them how soon they accepted it all as part of the scenery. After all, as the black-eyed man had pointed out, you weren’t disgusted by a butcher’s shop, and that was all this was: the raw materials of a butcher’s shop, sort of thing.
Lumpy sat well back from the others, cradling his rifle and watching the girls.
‘That stream,’ Simon said, pointing. ‘When we came up it went all pink. It must have been blood.’
‘Yeh, well, it kind of builds up, then a lot runs down at once,’ the black-eyed man said. ‘When I’m on the job.’
He took in their blank expressions and said, ‘It’s the Indo-Pak market. They like their mutton, but it’s got to be bled first. All those restaurants and that. They know they can trust me to get it to ’em the way they want it.’
‘You’re not a farmer, then?’ Harry said.
‘Eh?’ the black-eyed man said, his eyes flickering. ‘Who, me? No, not a farmer. You could call me a subcontractor if you wanted to put a name to it.’
‘A subcontractor,’ Harry said. ‘I see.’
‘That’s why I’m up to date. That’s why I use modern methods.’
The motor-cycle man hadn’t joined them. He was busy bringing sheep to the pile of carcasses, and the note of his bike rose and fell according to the distance away from the tea-drinking group. They finished their tea.
‘Well, that was great,’ Harry said, and stood up. The others rose also, but the black-eyed man held up a hand.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘I bet you all like sheep’s liver, don’t you? Think of a pile of sheep’s liver to go with your breakfast. I tell you what. Give us a hand with this lot, and you can have enough sheep’s liver to last you as long as you can keep it. What do you say?’
‘Sheep’s liver? Ugh,’ said Cheryl. ‘I hate it.’
‘Not the girls,’ the man said. ‘I wasn’t thinking of asking them. It’s a man’s job.’
‘What did you want exactly?’ Harry asked.
‘Just a bit of a hand. We’ve got to get all this lot down to the truck. Down the ropeway. It isn’t all that killing, but a few willing hands would help a lot. Friends in need. Will you give us a hand for a bit? Look, I’ll give you a fiver between you i
f you’ll help. And the sheep’s livers thrown in.’
Harry considered, dubiously. Hauling dead animals all over the place wasn’t his idea of a holiday. On the other hand, if the man needed a bit of help…?
The man said, ‘Why not just come over and I’ll show you what I mean?’
They all trooped after him, passing the lip of the stream. Simon was still thinking about the blood and the phenomenon of the pink water.
He said, ‘Yes, I can see now how it must build up. Funny, you wouldn’t have thought it was blood. Ray knew, though.’
‘Ray?’ said the black-eyed man.
Harry said, ‘Some feller that was with us for a bit. I got rid of him.’
‘Why’d you get rid of him, then?’
‘Language,’ said Harry. ‘Language, that was all. I turfed him out, quick sharp.’
The man said. ‘Good for you. That is one thing I will not have. Foul language I will not tolerate.’
‘Nor me,’ Harry said.
So, when the man explained how the sheep were roped together and sent in threes down the ropeway, and almost pleaded for help, Harry thought they could see their way to giving him the rest of the afternoon, and perhaps a little of the evening. It was a duty to help others. Of course, they wouldn’t take any money, but a few sheep’s livers would certainly help to eke out their pretty monotonous diet. The girls would be happy doing nothing, since the weather was still fine; they would just laze about somewhere, out of range of the bluebottles.
You didn’t often find two people who met like that, just by chance, and who both felt so strongly about things like bad language. If one couldn’t give the other a helping hand, then the world would really be in a terrible state, wouldn’t it?
*
It was hard work, and extremely unpleasant. Three sheep weigh a lot. The animals, though skinned and eviscerated, were smelly, often with maggots seething in the hindquarters; and when the carcasses dropped blood on to hands and faces and clothing, the work became revolting. Simon and Peter were fed up inside an hour, and Harry scarcely less so. They watched another three carcasses sway down out of sight along the ropeway, which worked like a gravity-operated endless belt, the weight of the carcasses bringing the unladen length back up to the top.
Harry Doing Good Page 7
