Drink With The Devil

by David Woods

  DRINK WITH

  THE DEVIL

  David Woods

  Copyright © 2013 by: David Woods

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4927-6612-7

  ISBN-13: 9781492766124

  DRINK WITH

  THE DEVIL

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter One

  It was 5.30 am on a wet April morning. Jim Grainger reached out from the small single bed, groping around until he found and silenced the alarm clock. He rose quickly to avoid going to sleep again and sat on the bed staring at his feet. Outside the wind was gusting and beating against the window. When he remembered what day it was, his heart sank. Sale Day. All the cows and calves were to be sold this morning. He sat a while longer, recalling the conversation he’d had with his boss, Andrew Jones, six months earlier.

  Jim had just come in for breakfast. Andrew and his wife Ruth had obviously been up for some time because there were cold dregs in the bottom of the dirty cups on the kitchen table. Jim looked at his boss rather nervously.

  “Well Jim. We’ve come to a decision. The farm’ll be sold in the spring. We’ve getting on now, and it makes sense to sell up while I’m still young enough to get a job.”

  Jim was staggered. All he could think of to say was, “Why?”

  “I’ve been offered a job as a storeman at the machinery dealers in town. We’ll buy a small house nearby.”

  “And what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re a clever chap. And lucky enough to be able to turn your hand to almost anything.”

  “All I want is to work here. With the animals.”

  “You could get a job with another farm, and stay here with us in the meantime.”

  Jim had thought about this for a minute and known immediately he could not face living in a town.

  Ruth Jones had given him his breakfast. “Don’t worry, Jim. You’re only nineteen and can get another job anywhere.”

  “Oh yeah. But it’s not going to be the same.”

  Jim had known he would miss the couple who had taken him in and given him a home after years in an orphanage. His own parents had been killed in a car accident when he was a baby, and he had no other family. This situation did not worry him, but occasionally he wondered how his parents would have looked by now. Their old wedding photograph, the only one he had, indicated they were both tall and dark haired and Jim had grown himself into a tall well-built man with blue eyes and thick black hair.

  After shaking himself out of a trance, he got dressed. The cows greeted him as he walked into the warm and humid cowshed, the heat generated by twenty-five hot bodies. Some of them mooed gently as he closed the door behind him and started his normal routine, cleaning behind them and then preparing the milking machine buckets.

  He fed the first cow a large scoop of cow cake and then put the teat cups on. He talked to a young cow gently, as he stroked her back leg. “You’ll be fine on another farm, ole girl.” She turned her large head towards him, breathing heavily on his back, and he felt her hot moist breath on the skin exposed between his shirt and trousers. The teat cups were holding on all right, so he let go of them. Before he could stand up the cow gave him a lingering lick, which felt like a hot wet rasp being dragged across his back. He stood up slowly, trying not to act startled, and rubbed her behind the ears.

  Milking seemed to go on forever, and he talked to each cow as he gave each one an extra scoop of cake. They seemed to respond to his soft voice, watching him with their large eyes and their ears cocked forward. They moved as he approached to milk them, and when he had finished and was alone in the dairy next to the cowshed, he felt his world was coming to an end. These cows had been his friends for four years and he would have to face losing them very shortly.

  His solitude was shattered by Andrew entering the dairy, all bright and cheerful. “Good morning Jim. I’ll give you a hand to wash up.”

  “Okay. I’ll clear out the cowshed.” He walked out quickly to hide his misery.

  Conversation over breakfast was almost non existent, with Jim just picking at his food. Ruth was worried about him and spoke softly. “The cows’ll be well looked after on a larger farm.”

  He just nodded. “I suppose so.”

  After breakfast Jim went back out to the cowshed. The cows looked at him again, expecting now to be let out to new grass, but instead found they were to be brushed down ready for sale. They mooed loudly and fidgeted. Some of them tossed straw bedding up in the air with their heads, much of it landing on Jim whilst he tried to make them look presentable.

  Two lorries arrived mid morning and Jim had the unhappy task of coaxing the animals up the ramps. After an hour, all the animals including calves, had been loaded and the lorries drove out of the farmyard towards the local cattle market.

  Jim stood and gazed around the old wooden cowshed, which had the names of the cows written on small blackboards above the mangers. He tried not to imagine the fate of some of the older animals, but was sure they were destined for the abattoir before the day was out.

  Home Farm was set in lush countryside on the lower slopes of a hill in Sussex. It had always been a dairy farm, and the old stone farmhouse had a cheese and cream making room attached. The farm buildings were in a poor state of repair, and would need much money spent on them during the next few years. Jim guessed the farm would never be a dairy again.

  During lunch Andrew Jones announced, “We’ve sold the farm to our neighbour, Sir William Osborne. He wants to expand his arable acreage and make Manor Farm more efficient.”

  “I don’t think it’ll make a scrap of difference. He’s already got a thousand acres.” Jim said dryly.

  Andrew looked him straight in the eye. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “The first thing he’ll do is sell the house and pull out all the hedges.”

  Ruth nodded gravely. “Yes. Then he’ll knock down the old farm buildings and turn our little farm into one big field. Growing wheat every year.”

  Sir William Osborne lived in a large white mansion on the side of a hill. His estate included two hundred acres of woodland, which reached from the top of the hill down into the valley. Being a city financier, he only stayed in the country at weekends, and left the farm to be run by a manager.

  The day after the animals went to market was deadstock sale day, when all the farm machinery and other movable items were auctioned on the farm. Neighbouring farmers arrived with items to add to the collection, placed in lots around the five-acre field by the farmhouse. It was a pleasant sunny day and by eleven o’clock the farmyard was full of Land Rovers, cars and trucks. The buyers were mainly farmers and dealers, hoping for a bargain. The first lot, a quantity of scrap iron, was sold at eleven thirty, and the slick auctioneer had sold all the rest of the items by one, well in time for his usual pub lunch accompanied by five pints of beer. He was a large fat individual with a florid complexion and a big nose, and his podg
y hand gripped an old walking stock. As he walked around the field, his body swaying from side to side, he would prod each piece of machinery to indicate which lot he was selling, and then use the stick to hit the item when he declared the lot sold. He had quite a following of admirers, who would just come to the sale to see him in action. His sales talk was so fast it was legendary, but it was a different matter in the afternoon after his five pints!

  Andrew Jones was delighted with the outcome of the day’s events. “Well, Jim, the sale went better than I hoped.”

  “Oh good. At least you’ll have something to show for all your years of hard work.”

  Jim spent the rest of the week clearing dung out of the cowshed and calf buildings, and getting rid of the rubbish. Some of the time was spent cleaning and preparing his old 350 cc motorcycle, a B.S.A. model B31, which he bought from a neighbouring farm worker for five pounds. It started out as a wreck, which he had stripped down and re-built, hand painting the frame black and the tank green. He had fitted a large rear carrier frame, and was proud of the machine and its performance though he did not venture far, just to the local village and occasionally to town when he had to do shopping.

  Jim was a solitary type, without any friends, and had never had a girlfriend. He preferred his own company and loved the countryside with its animals.

  The Jones’s were due to move to their house in the town in a week’s time, and were getting rather concerned about Jim, as he had not made any obvious attempts to acquire another job. That evening after dinner Andrew stared at his ex-employee across the kitchen table. “What are your plans then, Jim?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be leaving at the weekend.”

  “But where are you going, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I’ve decided on a camping holiday for a while. Then I’ll get a job on a farm.”

  Ruth frowned. “We’d like to keep in touch, and you must come and stay with us after your holiday.”

  “Yes,” said Andrew enthusiastically. “You can apply for a job. I’ll give you an excellent reference. And I’ll have a word with some of the local farmers, too.”

  “Oh yeah. That might be a help.”

  Jim knew that this stage of his life was over, and he would try to manage on his own. The following Sunday he loaded up his old B.S.A. with all his possessions, and the camping gear he had collected over the last six months. He set off after a lunch of roast beef, and Ruth appeared quite upset as he started up his bike.

  “You will come back to see us?”

  Jim just smiled as he kicked the bike into action, and rode out of the farmyard, waving cheerfully.

  Ruth turned to her husband tearfully. “We’ve really let him down badly. I don’t think we’ll ever see him again.”

  “Don’t get so upset. He’ll be back in a fortnight looking for a place to sleep. And a good meal.”

  She shook her head and walked indoors.

  Jim rode carefully along the narrow country lane with its steep banks either side, up the hill and then turned right along the top. He stopped and stared down on the farm buildings for a minute, then a mile farther on slowed down again as he passed through a dense forest of oak and elm trees. A quarter of a mile from the forest edge, he turned and squeezed through a gap in the hedge. The trees were more widely spaced apart here. He carried on slowly through a bed of beautiful bluebells, trying to avoid breaking the stems of the flowers. He was tempted to stop and admire the carpet of blue, but pressed on, getting out of sight of the road as soon as he could. The trees got closer together as he progressed down the hill, requiring him to weave carefully left and right in low gear, with the rear wheel skidding on the wet stony ground.

  After ten minutes he stopped and got off the bike, leaned it against a tree and walked between two rhododendron bushes. In front of him was an unused shooting lodge, which had been built some time ago, of local stone with a slab stone roof. It was a single-roomed building, about twenty feet square, with a large fireplace and shuttered windows. The only furniture inside was a large table, benches around the three outside walls and a gun rack on the fourth wall.

  Jim had visited the lodge many times before and had repaired the door and shutters. When it was built, rhododendrons were planted all around it, but these had grown so large the building had become almost hidden. He found it by accident one Sunday afternoon when he had taken a longer walk than usual and was hurrying home. In his haste he had tripped over a rhododendron root, looked up and there it was.

  The forest and lodge were owned by Sir William Osborne, who bought the estate just after the war, but he had no interest in shooting, and had allowed the forest to become as nature intended. No one was allowed to shoot and there was only one bridleway, which led directly to Manor Farmhouse. The only people to use the track regularly were Sir William’s family and farm workers.

  Jim unloaded the bike and carried his supplies into the lodge to join the other things already stacked neatly in one corner. He laid out his camp bed and sleeping bag under the gun rack, putting the smaller items on the table. The bike was left against the lodge wall and covered with a green tarpaulin.

  All this activity had made him thirsty, so Jim found his enamel water carrier and walked along the side of the hill. A few minutes later he found a spring where water emerged from an outcropping of rocks, and then flowed in a stream down the hill, in small waterfalls over the rocks. He filled the two-gallon container, and drank directly from its spout. It was the purest, sweetest water he had ever tasted. The remainder of the day was spent stacking tins of food away and cutting wood for the fire, which he lit when it became dark.

  He did not sleep well the first night. A breeze rustled the leaves against the building, and other strange noises kept him awake.

  The next day he set off with a spade, working hard all day to dig out a small pool and dam the stream. When at last he had finished and the water flowed in one side of the pool and out the other, he ran back to the lodge to get a towel. Returning out of breath and hot, he took off his clothes and stepped carefully into the water, the coldness taking his breath away. He soon got used to it and washed himself vigorously. This was to become part of his daily routine; which came to include collecting dead branches and sawing them up, collecting herbs, edible leaves, nettles and anything his “country book” said he could eat. An iron pot was filled with these items during the day and boiled over the fire in the evenings.

  After about three weeks he began to wander away from the lodge and, one moonlit night, he reached the edge of the forest. Looking across the fields he saw the large mansion on the side of the hill. All the windows were lit up. Jim stared for a while, wondering what the people inside were like, but soon retraced his steps back to his spring with its little pool. He had become fascinated by the animals all around him. After having sat down on a rock for ten minutes, a hedgehog appeared on the other side of the pool, just a few yards away. He watched as the creature drank from the pool and hurried off. Another few minutes passed and a much larger animal approached, slowly sniffing the air.

  The fox stopped dead when it noticed him and started backing away. Jim said softly, “Don’t be afraid. Come and have a drink.” The vixen stopped again and cocked her head to one side, looking at Jim and sniffing. “Come on, don’t be afraid,” he repeated. She advanced slowly and drank, hardly taking her eyes off Jim, who was sitting still and trying not to fidget. The lean agile creature turned and walked away, but ten minutes later returned with her cubs. Jim was thrilled and watched as they all drank. When they had finished he talked to them softly, and the cubs played by the edge with their parent looking on.

  Jim was getting stiff from sitting so long and stood up slowly. The family took no notice, and was joined by another larger fox, who looked up at Jim before having a drink. Dawn had just broken when he finally went to bed tired, but delighted, and slept until mid-day. When he got up the rain was pitting against the windowpanes, the wind causing the cabin to creak and groan. He decided
to light the fire and try some new ingredients in the vegetable stew pot.

  His routine changed after the encounter with the foxes, and his nights were spent with the forest animals. He had made friends with the two families of foxes and lots of furry animals including mice, stoats and weasels. One night as he sat in his usual place by the pool, he heard a scraping, snuffling sound. A badger appeared, but scurried away when it saw him. Feeling disappointed, he called softly after it. The foxes arrived soon after and he played with the cubs, who would lightly nip his fingers when he tickled their tummies. The vixen sat by Jim and liked having her ears scratched. The badger returned two nights later, staying longer this time and drinking at the pool whilst Jim talked to it softly. The next night the badger returned with two cubs, and Jim was delighted that gradually he had been able to make friends with them.

  With the arrival of autumn, the squirrels had become less timid and competed for nuts, even trying to pinch the odd one from Jim’s large jacket pockets. It was great fun to have them sitting on his shoulder and being able to hand feed them. During daytime trips into the forest to collect wood, some of his animal friends followed him. The fox cubs would suddenly appear, wanting to play, and soon after their mothers would turn up to guide them in the direction of home.

  Looking at himself one day in his old cracked mirror, Jim was shocked at the face that stared back at him. A long black beard nearly covered his face and his hair had grown longer. Although it was often washed, he had not bothered to comb it regularly.

  The first snow of winter fell in mid December, covering the lodge roof with a full two inches. The trees looked beautiful and the floor of the forest had become a white carpet, soon criss-crossed with animal tracks. A daily routine was adhered to, but bathing in the rocky pool was a much shorter and more vigorous affair than before. Christmas came and passed without him realising - in fact he had long ago lost track of dates. Every day was the same in his isolated world, which he regarded as Heaven on earth, despite the cold. The only problem during the winter months was food, until he discovered Sir William’s beef cattle were fed on reject potatoes! Nocturnal excursions became longer and took him over the nearby fields, where he filled his bag with potatoes, kale and cow cabbage — even trying mangels. These discoveries meant it was not necessary to leave the forest to buy food, and the only reminders of the outside world were his own material possessions. He had pushed his bike inside the lodge and cleaned it, wondering when he would ride it again. He kept warm during the day by sawing up wood, but began to wonder whether anyone had noticed all the dead branches were disappearing.