A country tale of the unexpected
By
HM Stevens
The picturesque little Suffolk village of Lower Butley and the lush green valley in which it nestled were swamped in a sea of darkness as heavy rain gorged clouds lumbered slowly across the black skyline, blotting out the silvery moon. The lights of Lower Butley twinkled in the inky blackness, betraying its presence and from a distance resembling a picture of sparkling diamonds. The night was cold, damp and heavy with moisture and without the moonlight to betray their presence, a good feeding night for the rabbits of the little green vale. After living through the terrors of the gamekeepers ferret by day, it was wonderful for the rabbits, young and old to run, play and feed amongst the lush green grass. Their quiet and tranquil night was shattered by the screaming engine of an old Landover, its blinding search lights penetrated the dark night like a monster from outer space, bouncing over the undulating pastures to seek out the feeding rabbits.
Down in the village of Lower Butley sat the Tap Room bar of the ‘Hare and Rabbit’ public house, the large open logfire crackled loudly sending sparks up the cavernous chimney and bellowing out a warming glow throughout the room. A few of the local regulars were there, quietly supping their pints of a local brew known simply as ‘Nellie’s Old’ made famous by the landlords wife who created it, Nellie Armitage. If the truth was known, the brew was concocted by mixing all the previous days bar slops with a locally grown wild herb which gave it a mysterious and magical added strength as well as a sweet nutty taste.
A local and regular supper of the brew was once heard to remark, ‘Ye gets pissed quicker than the regular brewers stuff, so it makes sense don’t it, as it makes supping much cheaper!’
Maybe so, but it’s illicit sales were certainly making a nice little profit to add to Nellie and husband George’s pension pot. Providing they could keep their little sideline hidden from the brewery, but then in these rural parts secrets were easily kept as the locals talked little amongst themselves and even less to strangers.
In one corner of the tap room sat old Tom Morgan, a constant regular at the ‘Hare and Rabbit’. Man and boy, he’d only ever missed coming to the pub for one period in his life when he went away to fight for his country. He’d been wounded at Arnhem, and evading capture, he had been repatriated to the UK for medical treatment and now he walked with a permanent limp. Now retired from working on the local estate, Tom’s pastime was breeding rabbits in an old piggery behind his small thatched roof cottage. The sale of these rabbits as domestic pets supplemented his state and army pension. Some years ago, he’d set free several of his domesticated ‘Bucks’ into the surrounding countryside as an experiment. Contrary to what he’d been told, the ‘Bucks’ interbred well with the wild rabbits of the valley and produced a strain of hardy semi-tame young rabbits.
The quiet slumberings of Lower Butley were suddenly shattered by the rapid successions of shotgun fire echoing down the valley. The low murmuring of voices momentarily stopped as the public house occupants looked in the direction of the windows as though it was some sort of giant television screen.
‘It’s that new young gamekeeper after them rabbits agin,’ commented George the Landlord as he wiped dry a pint glass, just taken from the dishwasher.
‘Aye, tis a dangerous game that, but the bloody little whippersnapper won’t be told,’ grumbled old Tom Morgan.
Out in the vale, John Ness, the recently appointed gamekeeper to the big farm estate that surrounded the village of Lower Butley, was strapped into a custom made seat bolted on to the bonnet of the landrover. This seat, rather like the turret of a tank, could transverse, making it easy for John to shoot at any rabbit that came within the arc of the powerful spot lights fixed to the top of the driving cab. In his hands he held a brand new and beautiful made Browning automatic shot gun. In the cab, his young underkeeper Bob driving the vehicle with glee as it bounced over the rough meadow. Just about every rabbit picked out by the probing beam was picked off by John Ness with deadly accuracy and precision, he hardly missed one. The tally of dead rabbits lying in the back of the Landover was already approaching one hundred.
‘A nice little bonus at the end of the week when the game dealer calls,’ thought John Ness with a smile of satisfaction spreading across his face as he put the gun to his aching shoulder again and expertly brought down a couple of more rabbits.
It had been many years since a gamekeeper had last been employed on the large estate owned by Lord Tidbury, a friend of Prince Charles. Due to family financial problems, Lord Tidbury had been forced to seek financial aid from the city, turning the estate into a company. Consequently, his new co-directors had decided to introduce a shooting syndicate to the estate and had appointed John Ness, a young dynamic gamekeeper, along with his under keeper, Robert Smith.
Around 10 o’clock John called a halt to the evenings carnage and after hanging the dead rabbits in his game hut he and Bob drove down to the ‘Hare and Rabbit’ for a night cap.
John Ness made a grand entrance into the ‘tap room’ with Bob following obediently behind.
‘Evening Landlord, two pints of best bitter, not that local muck if you please,’ John bellowed.
‘Cheeky young sod!’ thought old Tom Morgan as the murmuring voices of the now nearly full room fell briefly silent as heads turned to see the man behind the loud voice.
‘A very good evening to you Mr.Ness,’ said George Armitage cordially, as he set about drawing the beer from one of the large old brass hand pumps on the bar, then setting down the foaming pints on the bar in front of John and Bob.
‘Here’s to a profitable evening Bob,’ said John Ness propping up the bar and raising his glass. John greedily swallowed nearly half the glass of beer before stopping to smack his lips pleasingly, holding the glass of beer aloft and admiring the amber liquid. Turning, he saw old Tom Morgan standing next to him.
‘You bin shootim them rabbits agin then’? asked Tom accusingly.
‘What if I have old man,’ John replied with the cocksure arrogance of the young.
‘It’s not reet that’s wot, shootin them ‘armless little things’ Tom argued.
‘You from the rabbit preservation society then,’ John shot back sarcastically before continuing ‘Anyway, as for harmless, they cause thousands of pounds worth of damage to crops and it’s part of my job to see they don’t! Furthermore, they deserve to be shot, some of them don’t even run away when they see my lights coming, they just accept their fate,’ John snapped.
Ignoring John’s comment Tom asked, ‘Why do you think there are so many rabbits here anyway, well I’ll tell thee, cos they ‘aven’t bin shot for years and them last two gamekeepers on this land larnt tha lesson the ‘ard way and left, sem thing ‘ll ‘appen to you me lad if ya not careful.’
‘That old legends a load of bullshit,’ said John raising his voice, ‘And now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to finish my drink in peace, so clear off and leave me alone old man.’ With that, John turned his back on old Tom Morgan, finished his pint and said to Bob, ‘Right let’s be off, we’ve got an early start in the morning.’
Walking past Tom Morgan, John momentarily rasied his eyebrows dissmissively and walked out of the pub, bidding the landlord Goodnight, with young Bob following in his wake and Tom’s words following in the cold draught that came in from the night, ‘Just you mark me words young’un that’s all, you be warned,’ said Tom Morgan to the retreating backs of John and Bob.
Outside as they boarded the Landover Bob turned to John, ‘What was he talking about Mr.Ness?’
‘Oh nothing,’ replied John irritably, ‘It’s an old legend in these parts that this valley is quite well known for its unusual high population of rabbits and a few years ago in the days of our employers father’s time two gamekeepers in quick succession disappeared mysteriously. They too both used to shoot the rabbits in an effort to get them under control and over the years a legend concerning their disappearance has grown up, it’s nothing more than old men’s pub gossip, so forget it. We’ll have a nice little bonus to add to our wages this week boy. The sale of the rabbits is the only perk we’ve got in this job apart from working in a wonderful environment but that alone doesn’t pay this bills, so I don’t intend to stop just ‘cos of some old men’s pub gossip.’
Several weeks later, the incident in the pub with Tom Morgan long forgotten, John and Bob were once again careering across the meadows, with Bob in the driving seat and John perched on the bonnet picking off the rabbits as easy as if they were in a fair ground shooting gallery.
Suddenly, the powerful lights picked out six large fat bucks nibbling away voraciously as Bob turned the Landover and headed towards them.
The startled rabbits started to run.
‘Come on Bob, I can get all six of them’, yelled John quickly slamming more cartridges in to the shotguns magazine from the ammunition belt around his waist.
The rabbits were moving very fast and the needle of the Landover’s speedometer started to hover around the 50 mph mark as Bob pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator trying to close the range for John to shoot them but these athletic rabbits were still out running the Landrover.
So taken up with the adrenaline rush of excitement of the high speed chase, John Ness couldn’t have been aware of the hordes of rabbits which were now running after the Landrover. It was as if the hunter had now become the hunted.
‘What the hell?’ said John aloud as the six rabbits suddenly jumped up together high in the air. All too late, John realised why the rabbits had jumped so high, it was to avoid a huge black hole that he’d never seen before.
‘Bob, look out!’ screamed John Ness as he threw away his gun in panic and tried to unbuckle and jump off the Landrover. It was no good, he was imprisoned by the safety harness. With it’s engine racing and drowning out the screams of the two men the Landrover plummeted over the edge and down into the black hole of the pit.
Eerily the rim of the top of the pit was now surrounded by hundreds of pairs of bright red eyes looking down, almost in delight at the tragedy as the Landrover fell becoming inverted as it sailed down the cavenous hole crashing into the rocky bottom crushing the cab and bonnet, the enormous impact pressure driving the life out of the two bodies of John Ness and Bob Smith.
From the shadows of the night, a limping figure of an old man appeared, picking up the discarded shot gun of John Ness he walked to the edge of the pit, the surrounding rabbits obediently parted to allow him through and, without even looking into the pit, he threw the shot gun down the hole. Then turning away he spoke, ‘Come on me beauties, lets cover up the ‘ole’ murmured the old man Tom Morgan.
As the rabbits scurried and played around his feet, Tom Morgan heaved and pulled some large old thorn bushes across the gaping hole.
Had the broken and smashed bodies of John Ness and his young under keeper been alive then they would have been able to see that this black hole was not their grave alone, as lying there were two more broken skeletons along with the rusting remains of two old shotguns.
HM Stevens © May 2022
