Omega (25 page)

Everybody laughed and Angie asked: 'And what does "recce the place" mean, young lady?'

'Put the tents on it, of course.'

'Orders is orders,' Dan said. 'Come on, let's get cracking.'

They drove carefully along the edge of the trees for a couple of hundred metres, watching the surface but it remained good. Then they reached a feature that had been invisible from the logging lane - a re-entrant in the f
orest, a little bay in the tree
line, that curved back in an approximate semicircle embracing about a hectare.

'Even better,' Greg said. 'Can't be seen from the lane. But I wonder why it's not planted?'

Examination of the ground answered him. The floor of the re-entrant was thin soil on a flat bed of rock which extended out into the edge of the meadow to form the shelf Angie had noticed; a freak of stratification unsuitable for tree-planting but ideal for a camp-site. They parked the vehicles by the trees at the mid-point of the semicircle and erected the two big frame-tents and the inflatable igloo tent, in front of them at either side, to form a C-shaped, inward-facing laager. The sun was higher now, the shadow of the opposite mountain moving away across the meadow like an ebbing tide. Dan and Greg went to erect the screen for the chemical closet, just out of sight in the trees, while the women furnished the tents, unpacked stores from a big plastic dustbin so that it could be used for rubbish, spread bedding to air, began to plan the midday meal and generally 'made the place like home' as Rosemary put it. Moira noticed, without comment but with a lifting of the spirit, that there was no hint of nostalgia in Rosemary's remark and that everyone - including herself - took it quite naturally. This isolated and beautiful spot had achieved, for the moment at least, what they had instinctively looked for; an immediate change of scene so complete that Staines, the witch-hunt, their burning homes, seemed distant and unreal. She noticed, too, that nobody had switched on the radio, or Angie's television, to keep track of the news - a rest, too, from that.

A shot rang out in the woods and they all froze in what they were doing, the talk and laughter cut off.

Dan and Greg ran back and fetched the pistol and the shotgun and stood looking around, wary and silent. Angie appeared in the door of her caravan, with the .22 rifle in her hands.

'For heaven's sake,' Sally cried. 'It's somebody hunting. What
are
we all scared of?'

They all relaxed a little. Sally was obviously right and the startling report became natural in retrospect.

'Lot of townies, aren't we?' Rosemary laughed, a little nervously.

Dan said: 'All the same, we might as well start as we mean to go on. Weapons handy but out of sight - and one of us always close to them. Angie, are you a good shot?'

'Very good,' Angie told him calmly, patting her telescopic sight.

'Right - stay in your caravan; you're our armed guard for the first stint. And at night, we'll always have one sentry awake - two hours each, on a roster.'

Nobody argued. Moira
felt her stomach tighten and
realized it was only partl
y fear; there was an element of
excitement in it —an atavistic tingling of the nerves.
This
is no holiday, this is the tri
be and the tribe must survive -
we must learn the ways

More cautiously, they all went back to work - except for Angie, shadowed and watchful in her caravan. After a while they began talking again, in low voices.

'Listen!' Greg snapped suddenly.

They all heard the footsteps for a second or two before the young man stepped out of the forest edge. He had a double-barrelled twelve-bore, broken open, in the crook of his arm and he carried the body of a grey squirrel in his other hand.

'Hullo!' he called cheerfully, and came towards them.

Nobody spoke for a moment as he approached. He looked from one to the other, smiled a little shyly, and laid the twelve-bore on the trestle table they had set up in the middle of the laager. The gesture was so deliberately peaceful that it broke the spell.

'Hullo,' Dan said. 'Sorry if we seemed nervous. Are you Forestry?'

'That's right. My name's Peter O'Malley. Don't apologize - a lot of people are feeling a bit nervous at the moment.'

'We've just got a kettle boiling,' Moira said. 'Would you like some tea or coffee? We're making both
...
Or there's a can of beer.'

'Coffee'd be fine, if there's some going.'

He looked in his middle twenties, lean and black-bearded, about a metre seventy-five tall; his jeans, tee-shirt, bush-jacket and soft boots suited his unself-conscious Celtic good looks. More of a young poet than a forestry worker, Moira thought, and then wondered why she had thought of it as a contradiction.

'Why did y
ou shoot that squirrel?' Eileen
asked unexpectedly and there was an edge to her voice that made Moira wonder.

'My job, I'm afraid, or part of it,' Peter O'Malley told her. 'I'm not responsible for the timber, directly, though I keep my eyes open for anything wrong, of course, just like the others. . . . No, I work for the Forestry Commission but my job's ecology. Animal population census, protecting rare species, watching for disease and so on. Culling, where necessary. Like this little chap. There's been a bit of a population explosion of grey squirrels in Dyfnant Forest this year and they're destructive buggers.'

'Like man,' Eileen said.

'Yes, like man. But you can try to teach man, or even put him in jail or fine him if he won't learn. You can't with grey squirrels, can you?' He flashed his shy attractive smile at her.

Eileen looked a little ashamed of herself and said: 'Sorry, I was rude. I hate killing things, that's all.'

‘D
o you think I don't? But if protecting the other species means I've got to cut my grey squirrel population by thirty per cent, then I do it - and if it makes you feel any better, I never wound 'em, I shoot 'em dead, first time.'

'Actually, we're just cooking up lunch,' Moira interrupted to save both of them further embarrassment. 'Why don't you join us? After all, it's your forest.'

Peter grinned his thanks. 'You know, I think I'll take you up on that. I get tired of cooking for myself.'

'And of your own company? It must be lonely up here sometimes.'

'Oh, I don't mind that. But yes, it's nice to see people now and again. Often I don't for a couple of weeks or more at a time.'

'Not even your own colleagues?' Dan asked.

'Not around here much, this summer. There's no planting or felling going on in this section right now. Nearest is two, three kilometres away - and even that's finished for the year. They're felling still below New Dyfnant.'

'Is that out of your territory?'

'Oh, no - I cover the whole forest. But I base myself in one section each year, study that intensively and just keep an eye on the rest. I've got my trailer about a kilometre away, back there off the logging road you came up. I'm your nearest neighbour.' Again the smile. 'In fact, your only neighbour, till the village.'

Dan asked 'Is it all right if we camp here?' He asked it naturally, but Moira knew his question was less casual than he made it sound.

'Sure, as far as I'm concerned. People do sometimes, though you're the only ones this summer. Just don't light a fire within about fifty metres of the trees or at all if there's much of a wind. And never leave it unattended.'

'We'll be disciplined, I promise you.'

Peter hesitated, and then asked: 'How long are you here for?'

'Oh... we hadn't decided. A while, anyway.'

The young ecologist looked from face to face, shrewdly. 'Even up here, I listen to the news. I've been kind of expecting someone like you.'

'Like us?'

'Shall we say - people who can guess which way things are going? . . . Oh, don't worry. I
..."
He seemed shy again. 'Well, ecologists don't like mass hysteria. And I'm constitutionally inclined to mind my own business. . . .

Look, if anyone does come up here - and once in a blue moon they do - tell 'em Peter O'Malley said you could camp here. I'm in well with my boss so you'll be all right.'

'You're a pal,' Dan told him, and Moira, on an impulse, leaned over and gave him a quick hug.

Peter cleared his throat awkwardly but looked pleased. 'Got to earn my lunch, haven't I?'

They all laughed and got on with preparing it.

Later, when he was brief
ly alone with Dan, Peter said: ‘I
may be talking out of turn and I'm not asking questions - but if things
do
break down . . . That meadow there and the stream . . . Well, the stream's full of trout - and the meadow's lovely soil. Should grow vegetables well.'

Dan was silent for a moment. 'We do happen to be well-stocked up with seeds - just in case, you know. And we've got rods and tackle..
..
The seeds can wait for a bit, while we see how the cat jumps. But we might as well get the rods out. I'm very fond of trout.'

'Are your guns licensed?'

'What guns?'

Peter just grinned. 'Forget I asked. But there's plenty of rabbit . . . Only one thing - there's a pair of peregrine falcon nesting over the cliff up there. It's their second season and there haven't been peregrine in Dyfnant Forest since 1987. Disturb them, and I'll be after your scalp, in person.'

It was Dan's turn to grin. 'Show me exactly where and we'll put their patch out of bounds. If any of our lot go near them,
I'll
have their scalps - never mind you.'

'Loner I may be,' Peter said. 'But people like you I can do with as neighbours. Look after those seeds, won't you?'

They all slept for two or three hours during the afternoon, except for Angie and Eileen, who had spent the night before in their own bunks and did not need extra rest.

When they got up again, they found Angie and Eileen had been collecting firewood, of which there was plenty lying around without any necessity of cutting. The weather was very warm for August but they lit a fire in the evening, well clear of the trees. Greg took a spade and stripped a couple of square metres of topsoil off the rock to make a hearth-pit, edging it with stones. There they cooked their evening meal. They had, between them, a good stock of gas cylinders for their camp cookers and planned to buy more. However it would obviously be wise to hoard these as much as possible for quick boiling of water and bad-weather cooking, so they agreed that
camp-fire cooking would be the
general rule. Tonight's meal was, deliciously, grilled trout. Dan and Rosemary were both good fly-fishers and two of their assortment of rods were suitable, so at about five o'clock they had taken them to the stream and quickly proved Peter right about it; by half past six they had the necessary eight fish - 'though I doubt if we'll be so lucky when they get wise to us,' Dan said. 'They must have been undisturbed since God knows when.' Rosemary had caught five of the eight and was understandably cocky.

Diana had sulked a little because she had been shooed back to camp after five minutes of running up and down the banks screaming with delight, making success unlikely and casting hazardous, but had forgotten about it when Sally recruited her to help build the fire.

The meal over, they sat around the fire as the light faded, sharing a litre of red wine Angie had bought the day before ('Sorry it isn't hock') and slipping into a half-serious debate on what they should agree to call their meals, to avoid confusion.

'English is a daft language that way,' Sally complained. 'Lunch at midday and dinner in the evening is middle-class; dinner at midday is working-class, and in the evening it may be tea or supper according to where you live. French is much more sensible - everyone knows what you mean by "dejeuner" and "diner". And German
says
what they are "Mittagessen" and "Abendessen".'

'Oh, but English is more complicated than that,' Dan said. 'It's not
just
a class t
hing. A London wo
rking man'll talk of "dinner" and "tea" at work and at home, but if he takes his wife to a restaurant he'll call it "lunch" and "dinner".'

'Period differences, too,' Angic pointed out. 'Dinner has shifted about, over the centuries.... But it's always tended to be the
main
meal. So since it looks as though our main meal's going to be in the evening, when work's over and we've all settled down - I suggest we call that dinner and the midday one lunch. Sorry if it sounds middle-class but at least we'll understand each other.'