CONSTABLE BENEATH THE TREES a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 13)

by Nicholas Rhea

  As I found more of these odd birds during that ramble through the deep, quiet part of this wood, I thought they looked like cockerels or even fighting cocks. To my knowledge, however, the awful and highly illegal sport of cockfighting was not practised in this area, although rumours of its existence in some parts of rural Yorkshire did persist. But no breeder of fighting cocks would risk rearing his valuable birds in the wild like this.

  If these were all cock birds, though, where were the hens? How were they breeding? I felt sure there were no hens around and was equally unsure whether these were some exotic breed or several exotic breeds which had reverted to the wild.

  Another factor to consider was whether new species of wild birds had come to this country since my knowledgeable childhood days. I knew that this did happen — birds moved around the world in quite an astonishing way and exotic or rare species did sometimes find their way to Britain.

  Whatever they were, these birds were very shy and they were not domesticated; they concealed themselves from view and flew away at the slightest hint of danger, just like any other wild bird, so I never achieved a really good view of any one of them. All my sightings were brief, too brief to really secure a proper description, but as I explored that part of Low Hollins Wood I began to realize there was a colony of these strange birds, with many different types living here. I had not counted the numbers of different varieties I’d seen, but guessed it was about a dozen, in some cases with two or more examples of the same bird.

  Baffled, I decided it was time to return to the village. I had not reached the far end of the footpath but my short period of exploration had come to an end because time had run out. As I walked back my mind was ranging across the varieties of large game birds such as pheasant, capercaillie, partridge or even the tiny quail, but none fitted the description of my sightings. I was convinced they looked very much like farmyard cockerels but their colours were far more exquisite and, of course, they were wild birds.

  As I entered Aidensfield luck was on my side because, emerging from the post office, was the familiar figure of Albert Firth, chairman of the Ryedale Hen Watching Society. In his late seventies, Albert was a mine of information about domestic poultry and had been chairman of the society for more than fifty years. The ancient and highly active group of experts held regular meetings about all aspects of domestic poultry, listening to lectures about their history, breeding, care, behaviour and lore. Society members kept observations upon hens in the domestic situation, keeping detailed records of their behavioural traits, language, nesting habits and the effect of the moon and the wind upon egg-laying. In addition, the society discussed difficult problems such as whether eggs with brown shells are more nutritious than those with white ones, why hens always take two steps backwards after scratching for grubs, whether mood music affects egg-laying, whether the feathers of a cockerel’s tail make good flies for fishermen and a whole range of similar topics. One of the problems which caused immense discussion was why hens run across the road when a car is approaching. No one has yet found a satisfactory answer and it is the theory of the society that not even hens know why they cross the road.

  ‘Now then, Mr Rhea,’ said the ruddy-faced Albert when he saw me approaching.

  ‘Now then, Albert,’ I returned the traditional greeting. ‘Not a bad day for the time of year.’

  ‘It could be better and it could be worse,’ he nodded gravely.

  ‘It could indeed,’ I agreed with him. ‘But we’ve got to take what we’ve got, we can’t change it. There’s always something different happening with our weather.’

  ‘Aye,’ he nodded. ‘And there’s allus a lot of weather about at this time of year.’

  ‘True,’ I muttered. ‘Well, Albert, I’m really pleased I caught you. I need the benefit of your expertise on hens. I’ve come across some very strange birds down Low Hollins Wood,’ and I explained what I had just seen, adding that they did look very like unusual types of cockerels.

  ‘They’re not hoopoes or rollers, are they?’ he suggested.

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I know what they look like.’

  ‘Ornamental pheasants? Lady Amherst’s pheasants? Silver pheasants?’

  ‘Nope,’ I shook my head. ‘They don’t have the long tails of pheasants.’

  ‘Well, that caps hen racing,’ he said.

  ‘Could they be fighting cocks gone wild?’ I suggested.

  ‘Not in all them colours you mentioned,’ he shook his old head. ‘And you say there were no hens?’

  ‘They didn’t look like hens to me,’ I said, adding, ‘But I’m no expert, Albert. They might have been hen birds of some species I’ve never come across.’

  ‘Well, if there’s no hens, they’ll not be breeding, will they?’

  ‘That’s true,’ I admitted.

  ‘Nor laying eggs,’ he added.

  ‘True,’ I agreed.

  ‘Nor nesting.’

  ‘No,’ I had to admit.

  ‘That’s a rum ’un, if they’re not nesting either,’ he was thinking seriously now. ‘Now, that is a fair capper, Mr Rhea. I’d better get myself down there for a look.’

  I gave him directions to the spot where I’d seen most of the birds and he said he would take a walk down there this afternoon. I left him to go about his business as I continued my patrol, now engaging myself on more conventional police work. I had an appointment to interview a witness to a road accident which had occurred in Middlesbrough a week earlier and therefore made my way to the witness’s house.

  It would be a week later when I next saw Albert and he hailed me with a huge wave of his hand. I halted my van and climbed out.

  ‘Now then, Mr Rhea,’ he said.

  ‘Now then, Albert,’ I returned.

  ‘Not a bad day for the time of year,’ he smiled. ‘And I shouldn’t be surprised if it rains before night.’

  ‘It’ll do a bit of good,’ I said. ‘We need a bit of rain, things are very dry.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right. Well, what I stopped you for was this. I went down Low Hollins Wood and saw them birds.’

  ‘Oh, good. So what’s your opinion?’ I put to him.

  ‘Cock birds,’ he said. ‘They’re all cock birds, different breeds, all living wild down there.’

  ‘You mean ordinary domestic cockerels?’ I was surprised.

  ‘Not ordinary ones, Mr Rhea. Decorative ones. Did you know there’s more than seventy species of domestic hen? And as many species of cock birds? All descended from gallus gallus, that’s the red jungle fowl that still lives wild in some parts of Asia.’

  ‘No, I never knew that,’ I had to admit.

  ‘Well, that’s summat you’ve learned. Now them birds down Low Hollins Wood, they’re all species of cock birds, different ones, all living wild.’

  ‘Don’t they fight for territory?’ I sought expert advice on this.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bit of jockeying for position,’ he said. ‘Boss bird an’ all that. Anyroad, that’s what they are. Cock birds living wild. Probably with their own bit of woodland as territory, but all staying in one spot or near enough to one spot.’

  ‘But Albert, this raises more questions. How did they get there? If they’re all cockerels, how are they sustaining their numbers?’

  ‘You’ve got me now, Mr Rhea,’ and he shook his head.

  ‘So you don’t think it’s got anything to do with any of your members?’ I suggested.

  ‘Nay, lad, I would think not. Our folks would never turn good cocks into t’wild like yon.’

  ‘So where could they have come from?’

  ‘Now that’s a right capper. I couldn’t rightly say, but I’ll tell you what. Next time our society has a meeting, I’ll see if anybody knows owt about them birds. But you’d think we would know, being the only Hen Watching Society hereabouts.’

  ‘Exactly my sentiments, Albert.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s summat for t’society to get their teeth into, it’ll sto
p ’em arguing about whether free range eggs is better than them from battery hens, or whether hens can see t’colours of traffic lights. Now that happened because awd Mrs Rymer from Rigg Top Farm reckoned her hens would never cross t’road when t’red light was showing on some road works up yonder. Makes you think, that sort o’ thing, Mr Rhea.’

  ‘It does indeed, Albert. There’s something I’ve always wondered as well. That’s whether hens can recognize their own names. When I was a child, we had pet hens, you see, one called Clara Cluck, another was Bunty Chops and another was Biffy. When we took their food out and called their names, they all came running. I often wonder what would have happened if we’d only shouted for Clara Cluck.’

  ‘By gum, Mr Rhea, that’s a puzzler, it’s summat else we can discuss. Can hens recognize their own names? That’ll keep our members going for weeks and I reckon some’ll want to run tests with their own stock. Thanks, it’s a good subject.’

  ‘Well, thanks for your help, Albert,’ I said. ‘It would be nice if we knew why those birds were living there, so I’ll make my own enquiries too. I’ll let you know if I discover anything.’

  ‘Aye, right you are, Mr Rhea. Now while I’ve got you here there’s a matter to settle about them cocks in yon wood. You’re not interested in them from an official police point of view, are you? I mean, have they been stolen from somewhere? Are they t’proceeds of crime, is that why you’re interested? Keeping ’em under observations in case t’thief comes back for ’em, perhaps?’

  ‘To my knowledge, Albert, they are not the subject of any crime. We’ve had no reports of any stolen cockerels, I think we would have known if exotic or rare ones had been stolen. I just happened to come across them the other week and was curious about them, that’s all. It’s a personal puzzle.’

  ‘Well, it’s just that there’s a lot of good blood stock going to waste down there and some of our members’ hens might enjoy meeting them lads. I did wonder what the position would be if we rounded ’em up and brought ’em into domestic use.’

  ‘I can’t see anything wrong with that,’ I said. ‘They’re not a protected species of wild bird, and they don’t have an owner, so it appears. So I can’t see why you shouldn’t try to capture them, although they’re a bit cunning, I reckon.’

  ‘Not as cunning as some of our chaps, though,’ he grinned. ‘In fact, one of our members is just the fellow to round them up for us. He’s an expert in that sort of thing.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Claude Jeremiah Greengrass,’ he said. ‘He keeps hens, you know, and is very knowledgeable. It was him who reckoned his hens prefer brown bread to white bread, and he reckons if you feed ’em with brown bread, it makes ’em lay brown eggs while white bread produces white eggs.’

  ‘I’ve never heard that before,’ I told him, adding, ‘But a lot of hens never eat bread at all, do they?’

  ‘Nay, you’ve got a point there, Mr Rhea,’ smiled Albert. ‘Well, I’d better be getting along. You’ve given me a lot to think about, a lot for the Ryedale Hen Watching Society to discuss and test. They might even make you a member, Mr Rhea. How about that?’

  ‘I should be very honoured, Albert,’ I said. ‘But I don’t keep any hens now.’

  ‘You don’t have to keep hens to qualify, Mr Rhea, you’ve just got to be interested. We’re a Hen Watching society, not Hen Keeping society. You’ve just got to study and watch ’em and I reckon you’ll see a lot of hens when you’re on duty.’

  ‘Well, we do see a lot which are injured, Albert. In road accidents, generally. Did you know that a hen is not classed as an animal for road accident purposes?’

  ‘Nay, I never knew that!’

  ‘Well, it means we have no statistics about hen casualties on the roads, so the society might be able to campaign for hens to be classified as animals, like dogs, goats, cattle, horses, asses, mules, pigs and sheep.’

  ‘Not cats?’ he asked.

  ‘Not cats or hens,’ I said. ‘Nor even ducks, geese, turkeys or peacocks for that matter.’

  ‘By gum, you learn summat every day! You would be a very useful chap to have on our committee, Mr Rhea. Knowing the law like you do. Now, talking about the law, if you see Claude Jeremiah Greengrass chasing hens in yon wood, you won’t arrest him for poaching, will you?’

  ‘Not if he gets permission to take them. He’ll have to inform the owner of the wood. It’s part of Elsinby estate, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, right, good thinking, Mr Rhea.’

  ‘If he gets permission from the landowner, it means he’s not trespassing, Albert, and if he’s not trespassing, it means he can’t be prosecuted for trespassing in pursuit of game, just in case some bright spark thinks those cockerels are game birds. Maybe a note from the chairman of your society authorizing him to round them up might be a good idea?’

  ‘By gum, that’s me, that’s another bright idea!’ beamed Albert and so he trotted off to organize the great cockerel round-up.

  I thought I had better have words about this charade with the gamekeeper for Elsinby estate and found him in the estate office the following morning. A genial man, he was called Doug Thorpe and invited me to join him for a coffee. As I enjoyed his hospitality, I explained about the curious birds in Low Hollins Wood and he smiled.

  ‘Oh, those, Nick. Sure, I know about them. Actually, they’ve become a bit of a nuisance now. There’s rather too many. Some of them get a bit frisky and they’re moving towards the farms and villages, to have a go at the hens. Some farmers have been getting very strange chicks!’

  ‘Where have they come from?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a chap from Strensford, I think, he’s a breeder of chickens and has dozens of varieties, so he says. Well, when his broods hatch, he always has too many cockerels. As you know, most farmers destroy any surplus cock chickens but well, this chap can’t bring himself to do that. So instead of wringing their necks, he releases them in the wild. He never asked us permission to dump them in our wood, but I caught him one day and well, I couldn’t see why he shouldn’t release one or two. But I never got his name or address, so I don’t know who he is or how to get in touch with him. Anyway, he keeps coming back when I’m not around and dumps a few more.’

  ‘So there’s generations of cock birds living in that wood?’

  ‘There is, it’s been going on for a few years now, Nick.’

  ‘Well, Doug, I’ve got news for you,’ I told him. ‘The Ryedale Hen Watching Society wants to round up a few of those birds for their own domestic purposes.’

  ‘They’re welcome to as many as they can catch!’ he expressed a sigh of relief.

  ‘There’s only one problem,’ I added, tongue in cheek.

  ‘What’s that?’ he frowned.

  ‘Their chief rounder-up of hens will be none other than Claude Jeremiah Greengrass,’ I said.

  ‘Well, so far as rounding up game birds goes, they couldn’t have found a chap with more skill, but I’m not sure I can trust him to be at large in our woods! He might get his eye on some of our pheasants instead!’

  ‘I suppose if he was supervised, it would help?’ I put to him.

  ‘I could help him,’ said Doug. ‘Yes, that’s it. Tell whoever’s making the arrangements to get in touch with me and I’ll help Claude to round up a few of those cockerels. I’ll be glad to see the back of them, to be honest.’

  ‘If we can find out who the phantom cockerel depositor is,’ I suggested, ‘we could ask him to get in touch with the Ryedale Hen Watching Society direct, I’m sure they’d take some good specimens off his hands instead of him having to leave them to fend for themselves.’

  ‘If I see him, I’ll tell him,’ said Doug.

  And so Claude Jeremiah Greengrass found himself performing an authorized type of poaching, using his skills with nets and brandy-filled raisins to round up a few wild cockerels. The trick was to persuade the cockerels to eat lots of the brandy-filled raisins, which would make them drunk and fall asleep. It was
easy thereafter to collect them, pop them into hessian sacks and deliver them to Albert Firth and his society members.

  So far as I know, the phantom dumper of the cockerels was never located, but new birds did continue to arrive in that wood, whereupon the society would capture them with the aid of Claude Jeremiah and the Estate.

  For my efforts I was made an honorary member of the Ryedale Hen Watching Society. I was quite pleased by this because membership of such an august society might enable me to discover whether it is possible to house-train a pet hen.

  * * *

  I was to call upon Claude Jeremiah’s woodcraftsmanship on another occasion. It was a quiet summer morning when someone knocked on my police office door. When I opened it, I found Claude Jeremiah outside looking as pale as a piece of putty and visibly shivering.

  ‘By gum, Mr Rhea, I’ve had summat of a shock . . .’

  ‘You look shattered, Claude, what is it?’

  ‘I’ll have to come and sit down,’ he said. ‘My legs are like jelly . . . I nearly died out there, so I did.’

  ‘Has somebody taken a pot shot at you?’ I wondered if he’d been on a poaching expedition or engaged upon some other nefarious deed.

  ‘Nay, worse than that. I nearly got blown to bits. Up in Howe Plantation.’

  He was literally quivering with fright so I invited him into the office and called through to Mary to make him a hot, strong coffee with lots of sugar. I said I’d have one too, though not quite so sweet.

  When he’d calmed down and was drinking the coffee I asked for an account of his experience. It seemed that, for some reason he declined to explain, he had been walking with his lurcher, Alfred, in Howe Plantation early that morning. It had been about half past seven, when he was homeward bound, that his boot had caught a metal object which was almost entirely buried. Thinking he might have stumbled across some concealed treasure, he’d begun to scrape away the earth with a piece of wood when he realized what the object was. It was an unexploded bomb from the Second World War; it was German, four feet long and apparently in a very fragile condition.