A Little Bit on the Side (9 page)

Jack’s closer inspection of the damage to the cage was enough to convince him that the only sensible course was to bring the whole thing down and forget about it. From now on the birds could have their share, as they did from all his neighbours’ crops. He was hoping for better things though from their pregnant ewes, and turned back to inspect them where they had gathered for shelter under the extension built at the end of the barn.

Despite the doubts they had expressed to the vicar on their first meeting, the temptation to run some of their own stock had proved to be irresistible to Kate. At a local farm auction the previous summer, taking expert advice and guidance from Davey Bache, their immediate farming neighbour, who accompanied them and inspected the ewes, Jack put in his bids at Kate’s continuous urging, and they returned home with seven clean and healthy-looking ewes tucked into Davey’s stock trailer.

Looking back at the evening courses they had attended almost two years earlier, they felt quite adequately prepared for their undertaking, and had no doubt about their ability to cope with any of the problems that might be thrown at them. During the sheep handling exercises Jack had turned and manipulated his sheep with ease, and Kate, who was chosen as being conveniently small-boned, had excelled herself in the practical experiment of shoving her hand up the back end of a mock-up, in-lamb ewe, to identify and deal with any presentation problems that might be encountered at birth.

With the ewes grazing contentedly on his meadow, Jack had set off at once to Jackson’s Agricultural with a short list from Davey of the few bits and pieces he might need to see him through his first winter and spring as a shepherd: hurdles, troughs, sheep netting and a run of electric fencing.

‘Make sure to ask for Charlie, and mention my name when you give him your order … Oh and I nearly forgot: add a pair of dagging shears to the list. You might find you need them later.’

The one man working in the stock yard at the suppliers responded silently to Jack’s enquiry for Charlie by pointing towards a door in the buildings marked Trade Desk — Please Enter.

Inside, having established that the man behind the counter answered to the name of Charlie, Jack handed over his list, and said that he had been told particularly to mention that he had been recommended to them by Davey Bache.

Charlie took the list and looked Jack over doubtfully.

‘No account with us have you?’

Jack shook his head.

‘And Davey told you that it would be cash not cheque, did he?’

No he bloody didn’t, thought Jack, and realised at once that he ought to call it a day there and then and leave, but he didn’t.

‘That’s OK if you’re happy with COD.’

That brought another doubtful look and a request for his address.

‘That’s just above Davey’s place isn’t it?’

‘Adjoining,’ said Jack. ‘We’ve just taken over a few acres up there, and Davey’s giving us a hand with the sheep.’

‘Right then, well let me price this lot up for you.’

With that he disappeared into the back of the office to return a few minutes later with the prices marked up alongside each item on the list, but even before he spoke Jack had no doubt what he was going to hear.

‘I’ve listed everything at full price, but the usual arrangement with Davey is 20% off for cash, and I’ll look after the VAT. That OK with you?’

Davey knew bloody well that this would happen, thought Jack. Knew it was a tax scam, and pointed me right towards it: the cheeky bugger. A couple of days and the story would be all round the village. He could have stopped right there: knew very well that he should have stopped right there, but he didn’t. He nodded his head in agreement with the amount, plus a small addition to cover the cost of delivery the following evening.

Unable to resist his taxman’s instinct he nosed around the shop and yard before he left, trying to make some rough assessment of the nature and size of the business. Lovely little arrangement they’ve got going here, he thought. Wonder how long it will be before they get rumbled.

So that’s how easy it is to slip over the line is it? And that’s how they all start, the tax dodgers. A little bit here and a little bit there, and then they start to get greedy. Well what the hell. They’re all at it — join the bloody club. Why not? He thought he’d keep it to himself though: best all round if Kate didn’t get to know.

The following evening the goods arrived spot on time, and he handed over the agreed sum in cash: no receipt offered or asked for. That would be standard practice — no paper trail.

It was soon clear that Davey’s belated mention of the dagging shears had been made in anticipation of an earlier need for them than Jack himself might have hoped for.

Their ewes had arrived from leaner grazing than Jack’s lush pasture, and he in his ignorance had simply released them onto his meadow and left them to it. Inevitably they overindulged and within days, as the scours overtook them, what had been seven snow-white rumps were turning into a foul, slimy, evil-smelling, pea-green disgrace.

On Davey’s advice Jack immediately restricted their grazing, and was rewarded as the ewes’ revoltingly liquid discharges slowly reverted to the neat little raisins that he had been expecting. But the filthy back-ends remained, gradually caking hard in the late summer heat, and Jack simply could not summon up the courage to put his shears to work.

And so they remained until October when a ram borrowed from Davey was due to come in to do his stuff. But when Davey saw the state of the ewes’ backsides he left Jack with no option but to buckle down to the job if he wanted to have any lambs.

‘You’ll have to clean them up before Norman gets at them Jack. In the state they’re in he’ll smell nothing but shit when he sniffs around them to see if they’re ready.’

By midday the following Saturday Jack and Kate, with some difficulty, had the ewes hurdled up inside the barn and ready for Jack to do his stuff.

As he stood, legs astride, across the back of the first, and bent to his task over the stinking, tangled mass of wool and shit, the stench that assaulted his nose was almost too much. His gorge rose, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he mastered an urge to throw up. Then, for the first time, Roger’s warning words came back to haunt him: ‘Foot-rot, scours and a lot of hard work for no return with God’s most stupid creation.’

Unfortunately their evening course had included no practical tuition on the use of dagging shears, and despite his best efforts Jack found them a difficult, demanding device. He was clumsy and awkward with them, which meant that each ewe was taking him almost fifteen minutes to clean up. Finally, however, the job was done and Jack, who by then felt that he had been defiled, sought relief in a long, hot shower and a stiff whisky.

In due course Davey delivered Norman to them, raddle harness in place, and all ready for action.

‘My God, he’s a big beast,’ said Jack.

‘Tops 125kg when he’s really in condition,’ said Davey with pride.

Opening the gate, they released Norman into the paddock with the ewes, and left him to it, but a week later the ewes showed no sign that he’d been active, and Jack noticed that he was starting to limp.

The limp soon became worse, and as it seemed to be diverting Norman from his ladies and the task in hand, Jack, still full of the confidence his course had given him despite his dagging setback, identified foot rot, and decided to do something about it. At least he’d had instruction in that, if not with dagging.

Norman, although he was built like a tank (and exceptionally well endowed for his job) was a docile, almost affectionate young chap. Enticed by Jack with a few sheep nuts in a bucket, he readily followed him into the back end of the barn where Jack had his trimming knife, clippers and spray ready to hand, and Kate to assist. Now all he had to do was turn Norman to get at his feet.

‘Doing a bit of foot trimming then Mr Manning?’

Jack groaned. The voice was that of young Martin Ellis, son of another of Jimmy’s neighbours, who had a habit of wandering around the local farms in his free time. Once he had met Jack he seemed to identify him as one who was an innocent in the ways of the countryman, and he now frequently appeared to oversee Jack’s smallholding activities and occasionally offer advice. This irritated Jack, but Martin was a pleasant young lad, and he didn’t like to chase him away: not good for public relations anyway.

Resigned to having an audience, Jack turned his attention to Norman, and casting his mind back almost two years, strove to recall the technique which had been so successful when he was turning the ewes, the light and delicate little ewes, at the evening course.

‘Standing at the sheep’s left shoulder, restrain its head with your left arm’: no problem with that, Norman was a nice, steady chap.

‘Reaching over, grab right front leg with right hand, lift foot firmly up until foreleg is parallel with ground. Release head and switch hands on foot’ OK… Done; and Norman barely showing any interest in proceedings.

‘Grasp sheep’s right hind leg with right hand, lift and turn.’

Nothing! Norman didn’t struggle. He didn’t even offer sullen resistance. He just stood there, rooted to the ground like a rock, and showing what Jack considered to be a contemptuous indifference to the whole proceeding.

Jack tried again. He might as well have been trying to turn the Sphinx. Norman was utterly unmoved, an interested observer now, it seemed, of an activity that had absolutely nothing to do with him.

‘Won’t he go then Mr Manning?’ asked Martin.

‘We shall not, we shall not be moved,’ sang Kate with a giggle.

Jack ignored them both. Releasing his hold on Norman, and standing back to consider the problem, he noticed several lengths of rope hanging in neat coils from hooks on the wall. He thought his difficulty through again, and decided that with the help of the rope he might have an answer.

He chose two lengths of rope, soft but thick, gave Norman a reassuring scratch on his head, and put the bucket with the nuts on the floor to occupy him. Then kneeling by his side, he slipped one length of rope around his back legs about six inches above the ground and gently tightened the noose until he felt pressure against the legs, when he knotted it.

Moving to the front feet he made a running noose at the same height, and then gently tightening it, he stood up alongside Norman, still happily nibbling at his nuts. Handing the end of the running noose to Kate, Jack gave her his instructions.

‘When I give you the word, pull the noose tight.’

Reaching across Norman’s back, Jack grasped the top of his right leg firmly, reached down for his left side and called, ‘Now.’

The noose tightened as Jack took a deep breath, heaved and pulled. Restrained by the ropes, Norman’s attempts to retain his balance were futile: so were Jack’s, and both subsided to the floor in an undignified collapse which left Norman cradled between Jack’s legs.

‘Just as well the neighbours can’t see this Jack,’ said Kate. ‘It looks for all the world as though you’re screwing the poor beast.’

From then on Norman offered no real protest at the proceedings, and even when Jack set to work on his feet merely turned his sad, grey-green eyes on him with a look of deep reproach at man’s duplicity.

When Kate had released the ropes, Jack turned to dealing with Norman’s feet. Three needed little more than trimming, but the one at the front that he had scarcely been putting to the ground was a stinking mess that Jack cleaned out with distaste before spraying with a proprietary mix. Allowed to regain his feet Norman showed no malice, and looked for no revenge beyond giving Jack a friendly butt when his back was turned that sent him staggering against the wall.

Jack had almost forgotten Martin who had been watching all this, until he heard his comment.

‘Dad don’t turn’um that way, Mr Manning.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Jack, ‘But there’s more than one way to skin a cat.’

Martin clearly didn’t know the expression, and turned for home with a puzzled look on his face, and as Jack had realised, another good story for the village to enjoy when he passed on his account of proceedings to his father. Davey, who like the rest would have got to hear it, said nothing, but Jack was left with the feeling that he did not approve of the unorthodox methods adopted with a ram that was his pride and joy.

Back in the paddock, and no longer in discomfort, Norman showed renewed interest in the ladies, and by the time he had to leave them it looked from the ewes’ markings as though he might have earned his keep, and enjoyed himself a little in the process.

Although there were no further falls of snow after the destruction of the fruit cage, the New Year’s drifts lingered on under the hedgerows until early February, when the cold weather left as rapidly as it had arrived as a warm front swept in from the west bringing wind and rain with it.

Through late February and into March, Jack and Kate cosseted their ewes and watched them swell as the lambs grew inside them: as they believed. Working from the date when Norman had departed in mid-November they were expecting to see some of the lambing signs they had been told to watch for from early April onwards.

But a week passed, then two, and then three with no signs of restlessness from their seven ewes, until eventually Jack asked Davey to pop over and have a look at them.

With the ewes confined in the lambing area prepared for them at the end of the barn, Davey set about his methodical examination. He squeezed and prodded the rump and back, ran his hands down the sides and belly, gently felt around in front of the udders, lifted the docks and examined the vulva. Eventually, satisfied with his examination, he stood up and turned to Jack.

‘What have you been feeding them?’

‘Hay ad lib, and a daily ration of nuts and supplements. They’ve always had plenty.’

‘And when did you start?’

‘Well I’ve always let them have a few nuts, but upped their rations about six weeks before the ram came in and added a little sugar-beet pulp.’

Davey’s analysis was brutal.

‘You’ve been over-feeding them. They were and are too fat, and they aren’t pregnant.