The Crowstarver

by Dick King-Smith

  ‘Took him two days to do that one set,’ said Ephraim, ‘but he kept on steady.’

  ‘I’ll leave him with you for the time being then, Eph,’ said Percy.

  ‘Even at this rate, he’ll have done all my tack in a couple of weeks,’ said the horseman.‘That’ll be a real help to me. T’was never my favourite job.’

  ‘Don’t drive him too hard, mind,’ said Percy.‘He’s only a kid after all. Give him the afternoon off, now and again.’

  So one day the following week Ephraim said to Spider at midday,‘Well done, boy. Now then, you can have the rest of the day off.’

  Seeing that Spider did not understand, the horseman took him by the shoulders, propelled him towards the stable door, and said,‘Off you go, there’s a good lad. Have a little holiday.’

  ‘Where go?’ Spider said.

  ‘Why, to your house of course,’ said Ephraim, meaning to Tom’s cottage.

  ‘Spider’s house?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  So Spider set off. He did not know why he was going but he knew where he had to go, so up the drove he went and off across the fields to the spinney that lay between Maggs’ Corner and Slimer’s, and so to his house, as he’d been told.

  He pulled aside the flap and went and sat on the box and got out his lunch and began happily eating. For a moment he thought about his fox, but did not worry at not seeing it, especially as a robin now appeared on the ground in front of the shelter. Spider particularly liked robins, and he threw out some crumbs.

  ‘Tic-tic-tic-tic,’ he called softly.‘Tssip! Tseee!’ and the robin, intrigued at hearing its own voice, hopped nearer. Soon a large number of other small birds appeared on the ground outside Spider’s house – sparrows, chaffinches, dunnocks, tomtits, and what he always called a ‘birdblack’, and between them they accounted for a large part of Spider’s lunch. All of them showed no sign of fear of the boy, but all of them disappeared in a hurry when a big carrion crow dropped down.

  Perhaps because it was alone, perhaps because it was not stealing corn and only croaks that did that were bad, Spider did not think of trying to frighten it away. Instead, he spoke to it in its own tongue.

  ‘Kraa!’ said Spider, realistically hoarsely for his own voice was beginning to break, and ‘Kraa!’ the crow replied.

  Spider threw it his last crust, and it took it in its strong bill and flew up into the trees above.

  Spider was very hungry that evening.

  ‘I don’t reckon I’m giving you enough for your lunch,’ said Kathie.‘Growing boy like you.’

  ‘Birds!’ said Spider with his mouth full, and then he swallowed and illustrated his meaning by giving some bird calls, the robin’s, the ‘cheep’ of sparrows and the ‘tseep, tseep’ of the dunnock, and the unmistakable song of the cock chaffinch, a cascade of a dozen notes ending in a loud ‘choo-ee-o!’ At the same time, he mimed the throwing of bits of food.

  ‘Giving half his lunch to the birds!’ said Kathie to Tom.‘I might have known.’

  Tom went down to the pub that evening (it had always pleased him that his local should be called The Lamb) for a glass or two of the rough cider that most of the farm men drank, and there, by chance, met Ephraim Stanhope.

  ‘Evening, Eph,’ he said.‘Do us a favour, will you?’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the horseman.

  ‘Let our Spider have a pocketful of tail corn to feed his blessed birds with. He give them half his lunch today. Dunno if you saw him feeding them?’

  ‘I never,’ said Ephraim.‘I sent him home midday.’

  ‘That’s funny. Kathie never said.’

  ‘I give him the afternoon off.“Have a little holiday”, I said.“Go on back to your house” .’

  Spider’s house, thought Tom, so that’s where he went!

  He said nothing of this to Kathie, but next day, as he and Spider set out together from the cottage, he said ‘You had the afternoon off yesterday, did you?’

  Spider nodded, grinning.

  ‘Hol-i-day!’ he said.

  ‘Where’d you go then?’

  ‘Spider’s house! Good un!’

  They parted, Spider towards the stables, Tom up the drove, dog at heel.‘He’s happy, Moll,’ said Tom.‘That’s the main thing. Don’t matter he’s got no learning, don’t matter he can’t run and play games like other kids his age. Just so long as he’s happy. Which he seems to be, whether ’tis cleaning harness or thinking he’s a sojer, marching up and down banging his drum to frighten they croaks. Thank God he’ll never be able to be a real sojer, no matter how long this war do last.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Thus far the War, although now a few months old, had not really impinged upon most people in Britain. Life in the Wylye Valley went on much as usual, and at the beginning of March 1940 Spider Sparrow once more took up his duties as crowstarver.

  Percy had found work for him where he could throughout the winter, and now, with the sowing of both spring wheat and barley, there was once more need for his shouting and whistling and barking and banging, in his war against the ‘croaks’.

  The spring corn was drilled on the lower grounds, not far from the lambing field, which meant that, though no longer able to use the shelter in the spinney, Spider could if needs be take refuge in the shepherd’s hut.

  On pouring wet days (and there were many) he stayed in the lambing-pens and helped his father, and at midday and in the evening they ate together, in the hut, the food which Kathie brought out for the two of them. At suppertime she waited till Spider had finished his meal and then took him back home with her.

  ‘You’ve got to get your proper sleep,’ she said.‘Your father has to do the best he can, this time of year, but you need yours, you’re growing so fast.’

  And indeed Spider was shooting up, ‘like a runner bean’Tom said. He did not put on much weight but only height, it seemed, and by his fourteenth birthday he was taller than his mother and not far short of his father.

  For a birthday present they gave him two things, one because it would be useful, one because they knew, from little things he had said, he very much wanted.

  The first was a big silver whistle that could hang round his neck on a lanyard.

  ‘You blow that when you need to rest your voice,’ they said.‘That’ll put the wind up the croaks,’ and it did for a while, until of course the birds grew used to it, as indeed they’d grown used to all Spider’s noises. They flew up, and over to the next nearest piece of corn, and down again.

  The other present was a knife. All the farm men carried pocket-knives, and Tom had a big one with a single curved blade which he used for paring the sheep’s hooves, and for years now Spider had murmured ‘Good un’ whenever he set eyes on it. So they bought him a really good knife with two long blades that folded into a stout handle, metal-capped at either end, the haft made from stag’s horn. Let in to the stag’s horn was a little plate, on which Tom had carefully scratched the initials J.J.S.

  Kathie was not as happy about this present as Tom.

  ‘He’ll cut himself,’ she said.

  ‘He’ll learn,’ said Tom.

  Both were right.

  A day or so after his birthday Spider, whittling at a bit of stick with the blade of his new knife facing towards the hand in which he held the wood, cut the ball of his thumb quite deeply, as Kathie had said he would. But as Tom had said, he learned by that always to cut with the blade facing away.

  On his actual birthday something rather unusual happened, as though in honour of the event.

  They had just eaten their lunch in the hut, and Tom told Spider not to go back to his crowstarving but to stay a little while and help with what Tom suspected would be a difficult birth.

  One way of denoting the age of a ewe was to describe her, when young, as a two-tooth, then a four-tooth, and later as full-mouthed.

  This ewe was a big old full-mouthed Border Leicester, and Tom had already felt around and knew that she was carrying tw
ins. He could feel forelegs and hindlegs muddled together, and now, putting a hand inside her, he began to manoeuvre the lambs, pushing one back, easing one forward, then turning it round till its forelegs were presented, and then, gently, drawing it.

  ‘That’s one of ’em,’ he said to Spider after he had cleared its mouth of mucus.‘Here, take thisyer towel and give un a good rub.’

  Then he knelt down again in the straw of the pen and began work on the other. This too was a breech presentation, the backside trying to come out first, and again the shepherd had to push the second lamb back in order to grasp its legs, hindlegs this time. Things did not seem to be going easily, and the ewe blatted loudly in pain, and Spider left the now dry firstborn and began to stroke the mother’s head. He made reassuring sheep noises, as though he were the ewe and she the lamb, and it seemed to comfort her.

  Tom meanwhile was frowning in puzzlement, and then suddenly he began to smile as the truth dawned on him.

  ‘Must be to celebrate your birthday, son,’ he said as he drew the second lamb and handed it to Spider. Then, quite easily now, for it was released from the traffic jam of its siblings, he delivered a third lamb and placed it by the ewe’s head.

  ‘Triplets!’ he said to Spider.‘Wass think of that then?’

  Spider looked at the three lambs, his face splitting in a great grin. He held up a hand and counted upon the fingers.‘One! Two! Three!’ he said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  While Tom was seeing to the triplets, Spider stood stock still, staring fixedly at their mother. After a while, he pointed at her back end and called, ‘Dada!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom.‘What is it?’

  ‘Four?’ said Spider, and looked quite disappointed when Tom shook his head.

  Lambing over, and the spring corn no longer in need of Spider’s protection, life on Out overdown Farm followed its usual tranquil pattern, but in April things began to boil up abroad.

  Poland had surrendered to the Germans not long after the outbreak of war, and in March the Russians had overrun Finland. Now, in April, Germany first invaded Denmark and Norway, and then, the following month, Belgium and the Netherlands.

  Between 29 May and 4 June, 38,000 Allied troops were rescued from Dunkirk.

  On 10 June, Percy Pound and his wife received a telegram from the War Office, regretting to inform them that their only son, Private Henry Pound of the Wiltshire Regiment, had been killed in action during the retreat.

  So, for the first time, the War impinged upon the life of the village and of the farm in particular. Major and Mrs Yorke, whose only son was training as a fighter pilot, came to the foreman’s house to offer their sympathy, and in the stables all the men, including on this occasion Tom and Stan Ogle, mumbled condolences in one way or another. Only Spider said nothing, and the men presumed it was because he had not understood.

  Percy, though his heart was breaking and his knee hurting him abominably, received the halting words with a nod and a quiet ‘Thank you’, and all went about their business.

  And the business of the farm went on as usual, though now all (except Spider) realized that Britain was in imminent danger of invasion by the German forces.

  Haymaking came and went, with every available hand helping, including Mister driving the old Lea-Francis with a sweep on the front of it, and soon it was September and harvest-time.

  In the hayfield Spider had not been allowed to use a fork but had been given a wooden rake, to pull in the outermost swath from the headlands and to tidy up odd corners. All this he did very meticulously but very, very slowly.

  At harvest time he carried sheaves of wheat or of barley to the other men, who set them up in stooks. The binder on its journey round the field would throw out the tied sheaves, which must then be collected and arranged in stooks of six or eight, each sheaf leaning against one opposite, butts to ground, heads upwards, forming a kind of tent or tunnel, for maximum drying on the one hand, and, should the weather break, for maximum protection.

  For Spider, a stook was another kind of house, and he liked to creep into one to eat his lunch. Until of course he knocked one down and was sworn at. But mostly the men treated him kindly. He was useful too for running errands (though running was a misnomer), and one day, a beautiful September day, Percy sent him back down to the farm to fetch something.

  They were harvesting barley at the furthermost southern end of the farm, where Mister had had a piece of virgin downland ploughed up, and all the men were at work pitching the now dry sheaves up on to the wagons. The biggest of all was drawn by Flower, with Jack in the traces in front of her. Two other wagons were drawn by two of the hairy-heels, and Em’ly pulled the Scotch cart.

  Deftly, the pitchers speared each sheaf on their two-grain prongs and then threw them up on to the wagons, and deftly the loaders on top built their loads, butts facing outwards, building quickly, carefully, skilfully, so that the whole would be secure on its bumpy journey to the stack.

  It was a traditional English country scene, as peaceful as could be. But suddenly the War intruded.

  The first the men heard was a distant roar of engines, and then as they leaned upon their pitchforks and looked about, they saw, approaching at speed, two fighter aircraft. The sun was in the men’s eyes, and they could not see that the leading plane had black crosses on its wings, but then suddenly they heard the rattle of machinegun fire from the chasing aircraft. Then the two planes were directly above them, and they could see the RAF roundels on the curved wings of the pursuing Spitfire. The German plane – a Messerschmitt – rocked in the hail of fire pouring into it and its engine began to stutter. It dropped lower and lower, over Tom’s sheep a quarter of a mile away, which ran in a panic-stricken white blanket, over a bunch of the Irish heifers half a mile away, which galloped and buckjumped wildly in all directions, and then at last, losing height all the while, disappeared from sight over the shoulder of the downs. The watching men, all but one of whom had never in their lives heard a shot fired in anger, were cheering wildly at the outcome of this single combat. But Percy Pound, whose knee the Germans had smashed and whose son the Germans had killed, stood silent. He tried to make himself hope that the pilot would survive, but failed.

  Meanwhile Spider, marching down the drove on his errand, suddenly heard the noise of the aircraft and then the rattle of the firing, and he stopped and stood in a gateway, staring back up. He saw one aeroplane high above, twisting itself in what, though he did not know it, was a victory roll, and then he saw, coming over the shoulder of the hill, another. It was quite silent, this second plane, for its engine was dead, and as the Luftwaffe pilot looked desperately for somewhere safe to land, it dropped lower and lower, the wind whistling past its rocking wings. Spider stood rooted to the ground as the Messerschmitt swept directly towards him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The enormous wind of the fighter passing only a few yards above his head knocked Spider flat, and when he picked himself up, it was to see the plane, its landing gear damaged and useless, sliding fast on its belly across the grass of the field that led towards Slimer’s.

  At the end of the field it ran into a four-strand barbed-wire fence, which burst like string but nevertheless acted as a brake on its further progress, and it slewed round and came to a shuddering halt.

  Spider, watching, saw a figure climb out of the cockpit and jump to the ground. The German pilot, miraculously unhurt, was standing uncertainly beside his aircraft when he heard, coming from the higher ground above, the noise of a farm tractor.

  Like any hunted animal, his immediate thought was to try to evade capture, to find somewhere to hide from possible pursuers, and he ran off across the stubble, clumsily in his flying-suit and boots, making for the nearest cover. He did not look behind him as he ran, but had he done so, he would have seen the figure of a tall thin boy, hurrying, splay-footed, towards the crashed plane.

  When the aircraft had disappeared from the sight of the men in the harvest field, the general
impulse was to rush off in the direction it had taken. The brothers Red and Rhode Ogle, the most impulsive, were in the act of doing so when Percy called them back.

  ‘Steady, you two,’ he said.‘You wait a minute.’ Don’t want them all getting there before me, he thought, which they would do, even old Billy, with this gammy leg of mine. I’ve got most reason to be keen to see a dead German.

  As well as the horse-drawn wagons, they were using the Fordson tractor and its trailer, which chanced at that time to be empty, so Percy told Ephraim and Stan Ogle to stay with the horses, and he and the rest climbed on to the trailer. Frank Butt started up the tractor, and away they went towards the top of the drove, Percy and Tom and Red and Rhode and Phil and Billy Butt.

  ‘Wonder where he come down?’ said Tom to Percy.‘Nowhere near Spider, I hope, it’d scare the lad to death.’

  Billy was in bloodthirsty mood. He alone had brought his pitchfork with him, and, as they bounced about on the trailer, Frank driving at top speed down the bumpy drove, he told everyone, in his loud shrill voice, just what he would do with it.

  ‘If so be the bagger’s alive,’ he squeaked,‘old Billy’ll soon put that right. Stick un right through his bleddy German guts I shall, which I shoulda done with the bayonet if I’d been a sojer. I’d a made a bleddy good sojer, I would, thees know, won one of they Victorian Crosses I shouldn’t be surprised, but there, I were too old when the War come.’

  ‘You coulda fought in the Boer War though, Billy, couldn’t you?’ asked Rhode Ogle innocently, but before Billy could answer, they came in sight of the downed plane.

  Turning off the drove, the tractor roared across the grass towards it. Beside it, they could see, a figure was standing, and Billy, whose eyesight was not what it had been, cried excitedly, ‘There, lookzee, the bagger’s alive!’ and he waved his pitchfork in the air and shouted ‘Now then, you bleddy German, I’m going to stick thisyer pick in thy bleddy arse!’

  ‘Bide quiet, Billy,’ said Tom as they neared the plane.‘That’s no German, that’s our Spider.’