The Last English Poachers (26 page)

He asks Brian what he’s doing and the boy tells him he’s out walking his dogs, giving them a bit of roadwork to keep their toes up.

‘And where’s your father?’

‘He’s at home.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s his van doing parked over there, then?’

Brian looks across and pretends he knows nothing about it.

‘Is that his van?’

‘It is. You sure you don’t know where he is?’

‘No.’

So he lets Brian go on his way with the dogs.

Meanwhile, the Asians decide to come out of hiding and give themselves up. I has no option but to come out too. The coppers are from Thornbury, not local men.

‘What you buggers doing?’

One of the Asians tells him ‘Mister Bob’ invited them down for a run on his land.

‘
His
land?’

I intervene and push the bloke to one side.

‘Don’t mind him, they come down to buy some goats.’

‘Goats? What about all these dogs?’

‘What dogs?’

‘These greyhounds.’

‘Oh them, they’re not greyhounds, they’re goathounds. Needed for the herding back home.’

By that time, copper Harris has made his way over and tells the Thornbury police he’ll deal with it and they can get back to their station for a cuppa. He checks out the motors, but finds
no game on us, so he has to let us be on our way, but not before he gives the Asians a lecture.

‘Mister Bob is a bad man. Keep away from him. You’ll only get into trouble coming down here.’

Then he turns to me.

‘You got no tax on that van and a bald tyre. I got to pay tax, Tovey, so you have to as well. Get it done!’

And he leaves it at that.

He was alright, copper Harris – one of the few that was. But every time I saw the Asians after that, they’d say to me as they moved away:

‘Police told us “Mister Bob is a bad man!”’

Thirty odd years later, and they still call me a ‘bad man’ when they comes drag racing.

As I told you, we has our own drag course now. A field full of hard hands holding on to long leashes in the rain and the shine. Sly tout voices scowling ‘ten pounds for a
punt on any dog you fancies now?’ Mutton sandwiches with mustard to keep out the chill and heat up the blood. Toughs and gruffs and dog-fanciers and shit-kickers and all sorts of other
strange shite-hawks – if you gets the gist of it. Cans of beer and curses and a commotion of shouts and shrieks and snarls. Drag coursing’s also called lure coursing – where a
lure is tied to a line that runs through several pulleys onto a specially made wheel, fitted onto a jacked-up van. The lure we use makes a noise like a hare, a squealing sound that gets the dogs
going. But no live game is used and the lure’s drawn into an escape of hay bales at the end of the course. Brian runs the lure, because he knows how to keep it just the right distance in
front of the dogs, and we has 400-yard and 280-yard courses. There’s normally four eight-dog stakes with a few trials beforehand, and there’s cups and trophies and prizes of up to
£1,000 and people can lay bets on the dogs if they wants. We charge an entry fee of up to £50 for each dog, depending on the prize money. And that might seem a bit steep to some, but
not to them who loves the sport – and it only covers the costs; we don’t do it for profit or pay.

You might think the greyhounds wouldn’t have the same enthusiasm running after a lure as they would after a live hare on an open course, but that’s not so. People have pegged out
rabbits on the drag course field, but the dogs would rather chase the squealing lure than go after the live coneys; that’s how much it’s in a greyhound’s nature to chase something
that’s running – or it thinks is running. We’ve had some good times on the drag, and the licensed track people can piss off, with their frowns and their inflated prices. Even
though it had its detractors, I considered it my right to go on doing it and living this little life as I see fit – and to allow my sons to do the same. If they wants to.

But time and tide, as they says . . . we don’t run the meetings ourselves no more – just rent out the drag and let other people do the organising, print the race cards and stuff.
Brian still operates the lure, because he’s been at it for twenty-seven years and he knows what he’s doing better than anyone else. We takes care of the equipment and makes sure
it’s all in good working order and we’ll act as officials on the day, if they wants us to. The organisers, especially the Asians, like someone who’s impartial to operate the drag
and slip the dogs, so there’s no cheating. They also has an independent judge standing on the finish platform with a white flag and a red flag, to adjudicate which dog’s first over the
line. Sometimes they use cameras as well, to decide a photo finish.

This has nothing to do with drag racing, but I’ll mention it here, because it’s as good a place as any. You know the old saying ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ – well,
I was a gamekeeper for a while in my later years, for a private shoot on the edge of the Duke of Beaufort’s estate. Me and Brian was already lamping their pheasants so they thought, by
getting me as gamekeeper, they’d kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I agreed, because I wanted to see what it was like on the other side of the law for once. I put up pens for the
young birds and placed feeders around and organised the shoots and beaters and drives and looked after the birds and kept ’em safe from other poachers. I could walk round and have a shot and
do anything I wanted, but there was no fun in it. There was too much work and not enough freedom.

I lasted one season – then I was clearing away some stuff for the pheasants when I got bit by an adder, which if you don’t know is Britain’s only poisonous snake. I never knew
it was an adder at the time, just thought it was a thorn or something, so I didn’t go to the hospital to get it treated. I never got bit by nothing when I was poaching but this time I bled
like a pig and could have died. I was bad for a few days with swelling and vomiting and dizziness, but I recovered and I took it as an omen that I wasn’t meant to be on the right side of the
law. I went back to poaching, so I could roam where I wanted and when I liked and have the freedom of a poacher’s domain.

Anyway, that’s a bit of a sidetrack from the dragging I was talking about – and so is this. There was one man called Alf who used to come to the drag racing, but he wanted to go out
poaching, just to see what it was like. He was a big talker and thought he was a very hard man and he kept asking me to take him out of a night. I didn’t want to because I know that them who
makes the most noise is usually the least tough. Anyway, he kept on at me, so I takes him this night just to put an end to it and, when we gets to the woods, I’m looking up in the trees for a
bird. But Alf keeps talking and talking – like he’s nervous or something. This is getting me nowhere, so I think I’ll shut him up. I put a finger up to my lips.

‘Shhhh!’

‘What is it, Bob?’

‘Did you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘A cough . . . and something stepped on a dry twig.’

I can see he’s beginning to flap a bit now. I tell him to get hold of a stick or a small tree branch and wait under cover to see if somebody comes along. I know there’s nobody about,
but he don’t.

‘What do I do then?’

‘Trip him up with the branch and then sort him out.’

‘Where will you be?’

‘I won’t be far.’

Anyway, he’s sitting trembling in a bush with a big stick and I move off. I circle round behind him and whisper, ‘He’s getting closer.’

He whirls round, but can’t see me.

‘Who’s there?’

I whisper again.

‘Closer.’

He’s shitting hisself by now, so I pick up a big stone and throw it into the bush right beside him. He nearly dies of fright and starts calling out for me.

‘Bob! Bob!’

I circle back round and come over to him. He’s shaking like a leaf and I think he might have wet hisself.

‘What’s up, Alf?’

‘There’s something in the trees.’

‘What is it?’

‘Dunno . . . but it’s whispering.’

‘Whispering?

He’s nodding his head like a demented pigeon.

‘Could be the whispering Wodwose.’

‘The what?’

‘The furry man of the woods. I think we better go take a look see.’

‘No, no. I think we better go home.’

He never asked to come out with me again.

But, getting back to the drag – there’s something in the air this Sunday morning, as we set up the equipment and test it to make sure it’s all working well and there’ll
be no problems – it’s like I got this bad feeling something nasty’s going to happen. It’s only a little after daylight and I can see the early morning lights of the village
in the distance. Our helpers turn up after a while and we has some tea out of the warm flasks and a chat about this and that. Then the dogs start to arrive. There’s a few Asians too, not the
ones who calls me Mister ‘bad man’ Bob, but some I ain’t never seen here before. They has this Chinese fella with them and they tell me his name’s Kan. I see him looking at
my communist hat, so I gets talking to him, just to be sociable, and he’s not a Chinaman at all, but a Mongolian. I speak to him in pidgin English and he answers me with a posh Oxford accent.
He tells me he went to school under the Soviet system back in his home country and, after Mongolia got its independence, he came to college over here. He works now as an advisor in some financial
institution.

I tells him about how Ernie got me the hat and how I wears it a lot just to wind people up. The Asians brought him along today because he misses the closeness to nature he had back in
Ukulele.

‘Ukulele?’

‘Ain’t that the capital of Mongolia?’

‘Certainly not! It’s Ulaan Baatar, which means “red hero” and I come from the Mountains to the north of Uliastayi.’

He says it’s a lucky country, with gold and copper and cashmere and camels and many, many horses. And in the mountains they has wild boars and wolves and snow leopards and elk that see
humans so seldom they’re almost tame.

‘Great hunting country, then?’

‘Perhaps you can come and visit sometime?’

‘Is it hot there? Don’t like it too hot.’

‘Sometimes . . . in summer. But cold in winter.’

‘Colder than here?’

‘Much!’

Well, you certainly learns something new every day. He’s an eloquent speaker and he tells me the trees there are eternal and the high hills are the axis of the world and the bridge between
heaven and earth and the spirits of the mountains and the forests provide his people with everything they needs.

‘Why are you here, then?’

‘My father insisted.’

He’s some talker, this Kan fella and, now that I’ve started him off, I can’t get him to stop – going on about how his race is the best handlers of horses in the world and
how a blue wolf and a fallow doe were the spiritual ancestors of all the Mongols. And how his country’s a land where the wolf and wild horse runs free and eagles hang in the bare blue sky. I
gets a bit fed up with all this flag-wagging and bragging and say why don’t he go back there if he misses it so much.

‘Because I like your English tea.’

And he’d love to come out hunting with me sometime to renew the closeness to nature that he lost in Oxford. But vans and pickups are arriving now, so I leave him to his half-baked
homesickness. Dogs is yelping in anticipation of the chase and gruff voices growling and kids running round and women setting up their food trestles. There’s all sorts here, West Country
people like ourselves and the Asians from Birmingham and Welsh from over the border and others I couldn’t tell you the origins of. All waiting for the racing to begin.

It’s an eight-dog stake, which means four runs to begin with, with the four winning dogs going through to the semi-finals, then two runs to determine the finalists. The two finalists will
have to run up that drag three times – it’s a hard task and takes a lot out of an animal. We has our own dog running in the first race. He’s a black two-year-old greyhound called
‘The Coalman’ and he’s wearing red, which means he’ll be slipped on the left. I’m confident of our dog though I don’t bet on him because I’m here for the
sport and the spectacle, not to make money. Brian starts to wind the lure. The dogs can see it and they’re going mad. The slipper lets ’em go and they comes flying up the field.
They’re neck and neck for the first hundred yards, urged along by the shouting, cheering, cursing crowd. Halfway up the course and The Coalman takes a slender lead. I’m at the finish
and I throw my hat into the air as he crosses the line first. One course down and two to go. The Coalman takes a rest while the other three races is run off and I slips a raw egg down his neck and
washes his feet with warm soapy water.

He’s drawn agin’ a large, fawn dog in the second course. But the bigger greyhound’s slow getting into his stride and The Coalman builds up a nice lead over the first half of
the field. But then the big dog gets going and he’s closing fast. My heart’s in my mouth and I’m screaming at him to hold on. The big dog keeps gaining, gaining, and it seems like
they’re running in slow motion. Then they flash past the line and I’m waiting to see which flag the adjudicator will raise. He takes a lifetime. But it’s red! There’s bedlam
in the crowd, with swearing and squawking and objections being raised and calls for enquiries and threats and the shaking of fists. But the decision stands. The other semi-final is run and
there’s a break for refreshments and for the dogs to get their breaths back. The Coalman’s breathing heavy and I know the first two courses has taken it out of him. I just hope he has
enough energy and stamina left for the final.

The two victorious greyhounds go to slips for the last race. Brian mans the winder. The lure starts to move. The dogs see it and go mad. The slipper’s ready. Away they go. The other
finalist is a brindle dog called ‘Blinder’ – and he is. He’s away first and leading up the course. Halfway and the brindle dog’s ahead by nearly a length and it seems
like the race is lost for The Coalman. Then, coming up the gradient, Blinder starts to slacken. This is the test of a true dog, to see who has the most heart, with three gruelling courses taking it
out of them. Blinder slows again; the sting’s gone out of him. He’s had it. The Coalman passes him twenty yards from the finish. The race is won. Double delight and delirium tremens.
All hand-shaking and back-slapping and three cheers for the Chinese!