The Power of the Dead (12 page)

“I remember that storm, Mr. Hibbs—it was my wedding day.”

*

Hilary and his guests stayed at the Royal Hotel in Shakesbury. He had arranged for luncheon to be delivered by van, with a waiter, to the keeper’s hut beside one of the rides in Turk Wood, about a mile from Rookhurst. There on the trestle table was a large steak-and-kidney pudding around the basin of which a deftly folded table napkin was tucked; potatoes baked in the jackets; a ham; an apple pie, a plum cake, bowl of cream, Stilton cheese. There was whisky, claret, and coffee. Among the guests was a large florid man who had been the commodore of the Mackarness Line; he couldn’t shoot for toffee. Hilary wasn’t much good, either, thought Phillip, drinking his fifth glass of claret. One wasn’t so bad, he was something on the staff of the
Governor-General
of Australia. Except for this man, Phillip regarded them as a lot of profiteers. When, after lunch, the talk came to the trouble in the coal-fields he made an excuse to go out and see if the beaters were getting their bread and cheese and beer.

There they were, sitting in line, a lot of oddmedodds wearing calico smocks as much for their own safety as for scaring birds, happy that they were being paid to enjoy themselves, with a couple of rabbits from ‘bird kipper’ Haylock thrown in at the end of the day. Most of them were labourers on the farms, others were out-of-works collected by the under-keeper.

The next day stops were put out before dawn—men in smocks carrying sticks to which white pieces of cloth were tied—along the eastern boundary of Skirr Farm, which adjoined the property of Sir Roland Tofield. After three stands near and around the various coppices and woods, the plan was to walk up the stubbles and leys and put the birds into a 20-acre field of roots near the western boundary of the farm.

While the guns were getting into position behind the farther hedge, the beaters were already walking in line across the swedes. Next to this plot were ten acres of beet-sugar. A score of pheasants,
many hares, and a few brace of partridges were laid in the game cart from this stand.

Then a buffet luncheon in the billiard room at Fawley, a table cloth covering the faded baize and perished cushions. Lucy had gone up with Mrs. Rigg previously to clean out what had been a lumber room, unused for play since Uncle John’s wife had died towards the end of the nineteenth century. Once again the caterers from Colham provided the food and drink.

Now for the big drive of the day, which would end the shoot.

The beaters were already on their way to the beech hanger under the down. There was no wind; the original plan was
unchanged
: south through the trees to the ploughed work; cross it in line, Haylock with a gun on one flank, the under-keeper on the other flank with Phillip, now carrying a gun, to deal with any birds breaking back. The advance was to be gradual, not to panic the birds, but to ‘lift’ them off the arable and so to the Big Wheatfield which adjoined the Shakesbury road.

Hilary led the way to the village, past the church and through the thatched cottages to the Shakesbury road and the line of hazel-sticks topped by numbered white cards lining the hedge across the turnpike road. There, as they sat on their
shooting-sticks
, sixty yards apart, some with Newfoundland retrievers on leash in front of their feet, while the game-cart waited well to the flank, Hilary blew a long note on the horn.

They waited. Tiny white figures came out from among the beech trees. They moved forward, and went out of sight in the dip under the crest of Lobbett’s.

Lucy, standing by Uncle John, tried to identify Phillip as the line reappeared; he would be on the right somewhere.

At the same moment she heard trundling and chuffing noises. Mr. Johnson was bringing back his tackle. Turning round, she saw drifts of steam rising above the thatched roofs of the village. The Iron Horses were on their way to the borstal. Billy, lifted up in her arms, pointed out the important event to Hilary.

“Iron Hosses. Daddy’s Iron Hosses come, Nuncle. Oh good!”

*

Across the centre of the Big Wheatfield one engine trundled, while Hilary yelled at the top of his voice for it to stop, holding out his arms.

“What idiot arranged for that thing to come here today?”

Covey after covey of partridges were in flight down Lobbett’s. Over the lower hedge the birds threw up, wheeled, and followed their leaders to right and left, breaking away from the monster chuffing across the Big Wheatfield. Another check before its fellow standing in the borstal and blowing off steam. Away the coveys sped south over the boundary and so to Tofield property.

Hilary was more than incensed. His father had had nearly a thousand acres of arable deep-ploughed in the ’eighties, spent a small fortune on guano—and then had to have the land
reploughed
to replace the sour subsoil.

Phillip, walking down with his unloaded 12-bore, saw the attacking waves avoiding the fortress of La Boisselle. Thank God they had outflanked the guns.

*

“You’re a fathead, an absolute fathead, that’s what you are,” Hilary told him after the guests had gone back in the hired Daimler to Shakesbury. “And who the devil gave you permission to hire that steam-tackle? You’re a farm-pupil, kindly remember in future. And let it be clearly understood that you are to get the agent’s approval, through Hibbs, before you undertake any hiring, buying, or selling—and that includes both live and dead stock—and if you interfere with the established policy again between now and next midsummer, when your agreement with me for the first year is up, I’ll have seriously to consider ending that agreement.”

“I’ve already apologised for the muck-up of the last drive, sir. It won’t happen again.”

“I sincerely hope for your sake that it won’t.”

“The trouble was that that old wooden lea-breaker didn’t last. It should have been in a museum.”

“Then why didn’t you ask Hibbs to lend you an iron plough?”

Phillip hesitated, not wanting to involve the farms’ manager, before replying, “I suppose I wanted to do things on my own.”

“Initiative is all very well in an emergency, but this wasn’t an emergency. You do see that?”

“Yes, Uncle, I see it. By the way, talking of museums, I found this bullock shoe in one of the fields. Uncle John said it might have been used in grandfather’s time. It’s exactly like the dark brown mark on one side of a partridge’s breast.”

“Don’t talk to me about partridges. Your damfool machinery, right across the drive, turned most of the coveys on to my
neighbour’s
land.”

“Yes, I’m awfully sorry——”

“Remember what I told you about young Tofield—keep clear of him—he’s a waster.”

“Oh, I don’t want to meet anybody. But talking about another kind of waster, Uncle, have you time to hear my idea about the rabbits? I don’t feel I want to spend any time shooting them while the keeper ferrets them. It’s too slow a job. Yes, I know about the traps; but isn’t there another way to get rid of them? Many of them are diseased. Their livers have got yellow streaks in them, due to inbreeding.”

“I won’t have any gin-traps on my land.”

“I agree. Uncle John says that trapping has caused the plague. The gin-traps catch the old bucks, who are first out of the buries at half-light. If they were not trapped, they would dig up and eat nests of young rabbits, in order, it seems, to bring the does sooner into season.”

“You don’t want them ferreted, and you don’t want them trapped. Then what do you want?”

“Don’t let Haylock allow badgers or foxes to be dug out. They’re the natural enemies of rabbits.”

“And of all game-birds.”

“But surely rabbits are their main diet? Wasn’t the lack of natural enemies the cause of the devastating plague of rabbits in Australia?”

“Rabbits are a dam’ nuisance, everyone knows that. Now no more interference in my plans, if you please. It’s time you developed a sense of balance. Well, I must be on my way. Where’s Lucy? Ah, there you are, my dear. It’s been a great pleasure to all that you were with us, and many thanks for today especially. I’ll write to you about my future movements. Hang the birds on a north wall for at least a week, they taste better then. Remember me to your father when you see him, won’t you, and to your grandmother. Give them a brace of birds apiece, with my compliments, will you? Goodbye, Billy my lad. Look after your Mother, won’t you, now the stork’s on the way.”

“Iron Hosses come back, Nuncle. Daddy’s Iron Hosses come back,” said Billy, from behind Lucy’s skirt. “Oh, good.”

*

Mr. Hibbs had been appointed by Hilary on the
recommendation
of the agent, Captain Arkell. Exempted from service in the Army as ‘indispensable’ during the war, the young man had
worked on his father’s farm; afterwards he had persuaded the old man to let him have a year at an agricultural college. On returning to his father’s farm he found that new ideas were not wanted, so he had left home: to find himself, as he put it to Phillip, out of the frying pan into the fire, condemned to carry out a policy which he believed to be old-fashioned and therefore unsound.

About a week after the shoot he asked to see Phillip, with a view to putting his ideas before him. The two walked round the estate together.

If he could have his way, explained the manager, he would combine all six farms in one unit, to cut out overlapping. The day of the small farm was gone; most of the hedges he would grub out, and having got rid of the rabbits, which were vermin, would replace the hedges where necessary with barbed wire.

“I would grass down all but the best of the arable, get rid of the ewe flocks and turn the land over to milk. Look at your farm premises, Captain Maddison. They need extensive repairs, but it would be money thrown away to attempt to restore them. I’d have no truck with the present cowsheds, but milk where the herds are grazing. No, not by hand-milking, but by machinery on wheels. It’s the coming thing. Most of our winters here are soft, the herds could remain out and lie where they feed except in hard weather.”

“Would that involve a lot of food being transported, often in wet weather, Mr. Hibbs?”

“No, sir. To start with, I’d fold them like sheep on a
catch-crop
of vetches and trifolium, followed by a clover ley, followed by kale. Hay would be a stand-by, but put in portable racks. This way all dung and liquid manure will be dropped back and not wasted down the drains as in the yards at present. The fertility of the soil would soon be built up. I’d follow with a catch-crop again, then with a ley, then kale—put the arable under a six-course rotation, all held together by milk.”

“How can you milk cows by machinery, Mr. Hibbs?”

“Nothing in it, sir. One of our leading downland farmers does it already. Draws the bail on wheels to the fields and milks by suction from a small petrol engine through pipes to half a dozen stalls. The suction is intermittent, acting through an interrupter valve which squeezes by means of a mechanical rubber band lining a cylindrical container. After milking”—went on Mr. Hibbs, as one having learnt the routine by heart—“the machine
has to be cleaned, but that is done by steam injection under pressure through pipes sterilising all channels and working parts.”

“I see.”

“The six-course shift would supersede the obsolete eight-course rotation of catch-crop—roots—roots—wheat—barley—catch-crop. And since it takes the same labour and fodder to feed a poor cow as it does a good cow I would have pedigree stock from the start, and for the first few years would rear my milk-calves only. I would clear out the present dual-purpose rubbish, which are neither beef nor milk, and go in for the hardy breed from the Friesian isles off Holland, which are big baggers.”

“You mean they bag most of the prizes?”

“Well, not exactly,” replied Mr. Hibbs, allowing himself the suggestion of a smile. “With their big milk-bags they yield up to four gallons a day of two milking periods, as opposed to an average two or two-and-a-half of our present redpolls.”

They were crossing the arable ploughed by Johnson’s Iron Horses. Mr. Hibbs kicked a lump of yellow marl.

“That won’t grow anything, not even carlick.”

“But isn’t that a weed?”

“Even carlick won’t grow on sour soil.”

He went on to explain that carlick had sprung up when some of the old pastures in the vale, which hadn’t felt the plough since Napoleonic days, were turned under on compulsory orders from the Ministry of Agriculture during the war.

“But carlick didn’t show itself much after the first ploughing. We had a plague o’ wireworm, which bred freely in the rotting sods and left the wheat bulb alone the first season. Father’s idea was to kill two birds with one stone the following season, when we adopted the then-new beet-sugar cropping. Beet-sugar requires deep cultivations, so he got the ploughing done by Johnson’s Iron Horses set-in twelve inches deep. We had so much carlick in May and early June that father had to hire school-children to pull up the yellow weed in handfuls. We couldn’t even use the
horsehoe
, the drills were smothered.”

“What a tremendous lot you know, Mr. Hibbs. Do tell me, why was there so much carlick? Surely wild mustard doesn’t grow in grass?”

“The rind or shell of the carlick seed contains a lot of oil, which preserves it. The seed had worked its way down worm
holes, and lain there for well over a hundred years. We got rid of it by hand-pulling, as I said.”

“And you think that this sour soil is so barren that even if any carlick were here, it wouldn’t flourish? What should one do?”

“You might try cross-ploughing in the spring, when the rubbish you put under should be well-rotted. But don’t let it worry you. You’re not the first who’s made a mistake. Rain will bring down nitrogen, and frost will help to weather the sour soil. I’ll see Cap’n Arkell and advise some artificial on the seed-beds.”

“For folding cows on—vetches and trifolium?”

“That’s the idea, sir. Milk. There’s an idea among the farming community to form a co-operative society to market dry milk and other milk products. If you can persuade Sir Hilary, I’ll work on the idea of milk with the agent.”