The headless horsemen of Cragmoor
Saturday, February 4
The day started badly enough: At seven o’clock, BBC Radio One News reported ‘an overnight raid on the tiny North Yorkshire village of Skipton-le-Beans by hooded activists, this time targeting residents.’ No one was injured, but nine of the eighteen houses around the village green were superficially scorched by homemade fire bombs, an ominous ultimatum ‘FINAL WARNING. ABANDON THE HOGGS NOW!’ spray painted on the road.
No sooner had I absorbed the shock from this than Fergus Blaine turned up. He’d tried to call me. Ten times. He’d left messages for me. Ten times. He’d thought I was dead. Two times. He’d had, as he put it: ‘a truly special idea for the Asok Marauder TVC’ (translated – television commercial). An idea he was convinced was going to land us both dream jobs in our mutual dream agency. He wanted to show me his idea. He wanted me to approve of it, buy into it, tweak the copy, take ownership of it, treat it like my own.
‘No one needs to know it was my idea, Bailey. We’re a team! And you know what teams do, Bailey? They play doubles. You hit a few, I hit a few. It doesn’t matter who’s hit this one. You’ll be serving next!’
It was a pitiful analogy. An inopportune one as well, recovering as I was from a very recent and very nasty brush with mixed doubles. To shut him up and get him out of the house, I listened to his idea, agreed to his idea, photocopied his idea on the Court Room printer, promised to tweak the wording of his idea; be there with him at JAS 360 Monday week to present his idea. We high fived. He left. I washed my hands and hung my head in the sink.
*****
The road into Cragmoor was barely two cars wide at the best of times. This morning, when I made a belated trip for morning papers (surely containing more detailed accounts of the newly embattled Skipton-le-Beans) and milk, it was barely one lane wide. At least the last mile into Cragmoor was. As I dove into the final copse-filled gully before the steep, winding climb out the other side into ‘the heart of town’, I came upon a most un-Cragmoorlike queue of cars, maybe fifty of them, all in a snaking line hugging the cliff edge, some full of people, some spilling people out into the road, people standing around, skipping to the verge when non-queuing cars threaded their way through.
I went past, slowly, peering at faces, peering in car windows, wondering what so many cars and so many people could possibly be waiting outside Cragmoor for. Unless the Cragmoor Grocers, Sweet Merchants, Post Office and Tea Rooms was having a 'very special' special on fudge.
Then I reached the end of the snaking line of cars and came upon the snaking line of empty horse boxes. Loads of them attached to empty Volvo XC90s, Range Rover Discoverys, Land Rovers and tractors, all parked on the left verge leading to the very edge of Cragmoor, even more clogging small flat fields below.
A more enlightened country soul would have had enough clues right there. I was not an enlightened country soul. I was not destined to be a country soul at all if the enlightenment thus far and its detrimental effects on my sleep patterns and sex life were anything to go by. I assumed there must have been a race course or polo field nearby, this despite quite considerable topographical hints to the contrary. I drove slowly up the hill towards Cragmoor none the wiser.
The next thing I saw was what I expected to see – the low slung, thatched roof of the Fox & Hound rising from the crest like a long black cloud on the horizon. As the tallest structure at this end of Cragmoor – not to mention the only structure – the Fox & Hound stood out like the Taj Mahal. I saw it first. But only by a nose.
As I neared the crest, the Fox and Hound’s white walls beginning to rise beneath its thatched roof, I could now make out the vague shape of an entirely new structure. A structure that hadn’t been there yesterday, yet a structure as tall as the Fox & Hound and slap bang in the middle of the road. A strange multi-spired structure, black at its many peaks, red as far down as I could see. Then my eyes began to play tricks on me. The structure in the middle of the road appeared to be moving, evolving, black peaks and red core merging and separating like a budget kaleidoscope. Crest conquered, I saw the horses at its foundation.
I drove slowly in.
A cluster of red-coated hunt masters, huntsmen and Whips of Penny’s ugly Tickle Toby tales sat in a haughty huddle astride massive black and brown horses, beautiful creatures all – beauties beneath their beasts. A dozen of them. All men. All clean cut, immaculately presented and sporting prim smiles of pompous superiority atop their steads. Aristocratic savages all. Heartless, headless horsemen toting whips and fine whisky.
Fifty hounds (each five times the size of a fox) moved as a tail high, excited pack around the horse’s hooves. Behind this at least forty more horses and riders, all in black blazers (for the men) or dark blue (for the women) and hard black hats designed to cushion the blow were they to be hit by a low flying activist at high speed. Some young, fresh faced and flat stomached, some old and filling out their blazers as if mutilated fox carcasses were already stashed within. Hundreds of onlookers, young and old loitered like groupies up and down Cragmoor’s normally deserted ‘High Street’ as cheery staffers from the Fox & Hound bustled about among the horses and hounds with silver trays of shorts for the riders (port and whisky, according to my Tickle Toby adviser) and snacks (sausage rolls, sausages and fruit cake). Plying and feeding, feeding and plying in a short, sharp frenzy of intoxication and padding.
Pulling over outside the Cragmoor Grocers, Sweet Merchants, Post Office and Tea Rooms, I sat and watched, Kurt and Courtney bouncing about and whining at the enormous alien creatures outside their window. I saw ten minutes of this pre-hunt ritual. Penny had told me it only ever lasted fifteen. The hunt gathered at precisely 11:45am. The hunt set out at precisely noon. Fifteen minutes of binge drinking and eating on horseback before they departed for six hours of country-style terrorism, hip flasks at the ready.
Speaking of Penny, suddenly there she was as plain as day, my eyes having scanned past her a dozen times. Aside from fogged up car windows, all those identical hats, blazers and tight cream pants had a tendency to obscure identities, hide hair, and clone riders into smartly dressed carbon copies of fat and thin.
As it was, Penny was literally five yards away through my driver’s side window. I only saw her because she was glaring down at me. I only recognised her (without the hair and sparsely clad body) because of her pug puppy face, orange and elongated.
Our moment of recognition was less like two friends exchanging a breezy ‘Hi’, more like opposing fighter pilots locking on. Up there looking down on me from atop a mighty stead – eyes burning, mouth zipped tight – she exuded an air of anticipated confrontation. Down here looking up at her from within a misty Volvo, I exuded an air of confrontation as well, an air of confrontation I was having extreme difficulty conveying as I couldn’t for the life of me find the right ignition position to lower the driver’s side window. I found it, fumbled with the window button and sneered up at her as the window lowered.
‘Well, well – wait on.’ The window went straight back up again, almost decapitating me. I fumbled with the button until the window went down and stayed down. I leant out, craned my neck skywards. ‘I can never remember if it’s a short press or a long press to lower it automatically,’ I said peering up at her mounted person.
‘Why are you here, Bailey?’
I looked around, peered up. ‘I live here.’
‘Bailey. You’re not planning anything stupid, are you?’
‘No, most of my stupidity tends to be fairly unplanned, actually, Penny. I assume you’re referring to your hunt, and as I literally only found out about it five minutes ago and have therefore planned nothing, the chances of stupidity would have to be quite high.’ I smiled sweetly up at her. ‘Gabriel left me, Penny. I’m not a well man.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said looking down on me in more ways than one.
I sneered up at her. ‘Penny, a couple of things for you to consider as you embark on this hunt. One. Without Gabriel, I have a free licence. Two. Ow!’ My neck spasmed from all the upward peering. I grabbed it and hauled my head in, Penny seizing upon my seizure as an opportunity to trot off with a condescending smirk back over her shoulder.
I leant out the window clutching my neck. ‘Don’t you underestimate me, Penny! I’m, ow! Not well!’
*****
Kurt, Courtney and I watched the hunt leave Cragmoor to the hissing accompaniment of a windscreen demister on high. Red coated hunt masters, huntsmen and whips led them out at a trot, followed by a broad swathe of black and blue blazered backs, horse and dogs’ bottoms and swishing tails. Children on bicycles then rode after the riders. Cars and quad bikes set off after them, a slow steady stream behind the hunt, like mourners behind a hearse, fifty cars at least, in it, as Penny put it, ‘for the spectacle.’
And, I can’t deny, it was a spectacle. As mesmerisingly, rivetingly wrong as watching a convoy of tanks rumble into battle.
Then, just as suddenly as I’d happened upon this altogether foreign, yet captivating scene, it was gone. And I was left to ponder. An ineffective ‘anti’ in a now empty Cragmoor as the same people who had run about with silver trays now ran about with industrial strength pooper scoopers cleaning the horse and dog shit off the road.
Selfishly I was pleased the hunt was headed out of the moors rather than in towards Hartley Castle House. Then again, I had no idea what ground a hunt covered in an afternoon’s port and whisky-fuelled blood lust. I assumed it was plenty.
I got out of the car, stood around a while, and ultimately approached a young fat girl scraping up horse manure with a shovel. ‘Where are they going?’ I asked her.
‘Oop there,’ she said pointing oop there. I looked around for someone older, wiser and less weighed down in an XL coat of stupidity, but they’d all scurried inside the Fox & Hound or off to their cars to follow the massacre.
‘Are they going to continue to go oop there or are they going to coom back through ere?’
‘Noa,’ she said, then flung her eyes over the Fox & Hound. ‘They’re oop there t’High Sober Farm, then back through ere.’
‘How far will they get?’
She scratched at a particularly hard to shift piece of steaming shit. ‘How should I know?’
‘Will they get as far as Hartley Castle Farm?’
She managed a scoop, frown, leer and speech all at the same time. ‘Aye! They’ll be oop there before dark!’
I ran to the Volvo.
*****
Dave Land opened his front door.
‘Dave, hi. Sorry to bother you on a Saturday afternoon. But I need you to stop the hunt.’
‘Which hunt?’
‘The fox hunt. They’re coming through here tonight!’
‘Yes, Bailey. Because I told them to! I have a fox problem.”
‘Do it as a favour. You killed my bullocks.’
‘I’d love to, but I can’t. Those foxes will be killing new born lambs come spring. You ask yourself what’s more important.’
‘Well Dave, I’ve been checking the small print of my lease as related to my expansive views. I got three days of fog which I didn’t complain about. I’ve had guys slaughtering pheasants for weeks, sheep full of footrot and lampers blasting rabbits until all hours of the night, which, again, I haven’t complained about. I am complaining about the hunt! If I’d rented an apartment overlooking a bullring, fine! If clause five, part fifteen of our lease had said occasional expansive views of horsemen and hounds running down small animals, I might have questioned that expansive view!’
‘Good day, Bailey.’
He closed the door politely in my face.
‘Have they paid you like the pheasant shooters, Dave?’ I yelled at the door.
The door didn’t reopen and I had to assume they had.
*****
I heard them before I saw them – distant whistling and shouting and the low hum of cars and quad bikes. Then they came in droves along the low road, an endless trotting posse of horses, horsemen, horsewomen and dogs; behind them the hunt followers, a rabid, mechanised mob of villagers storming Frankenstein’s castle.
High on the hill above them I was ready. More ready than I could have believed possible in the few hours at my disposal: Three chilled cans of Carlsberg were lined up on the Great Hall table. Tobacco, papers, filters, rolling machine, lighter and ashtray all sat at the ready beside them. A high back wooden chair sat angled beneath the Great Arch and I sat in that. I rolled a cigarette, lit it, cracked a can, sipped it and sat forward, looking down as the hunt reached the valley gate leading onto Dave Land’s farm. I waited, watched, smoked, sipped and jigged my legs. I imagined Penny somewhere down there in the valley amongst the pack, eyes surreptitiously raised to the grey hilltop visage of Hartley Castle House for signs of trouble. She expected trouble. I was an ‘anti’ and she was on my land. Dave Land’s land, but my land as long as I paid the rent. As long as he didn’t kick me out. As long as I didn’t run stark bollocking mad at a huge posse of fox hunters brandishing a barbi-mate.
I gasped and peered right as what Penny probably hadn’t expected now swept in across the valley like the Charge of the Light Brigade, light unfortunately being the operative word. Yet to the converging mass of the hunt, this was something far more threatening than the charge of an ill-advised 1854 infantry. This was the charge of the seven available members of the Pickering and District Hunt Saboteurs Association.
The seven available members of the Pickering and District Hunt Saboteurs Association had come at extremely short notice and with great speed. They had literally dropped everything and driven an hour to get here. While the Cragmoor Hunt was officially outside their boundaries, it had clearly slipped under the radar of the local Hunt Saboteurs Association (as many hunts did these days – only the huntsmen and paid members knew where any hunt would be until the night before). They had nevertheless leapt into action the moment I ratted. And been a frenzy of practiced activity ever since. They had also been incredibly easy to find.
In the minutes after Dave Land shut me out of his house, I’d been in a state. I had to do something to disrupt the hunt – righteousness was in my blood now and, with nothing left to lose, it was in my actions as well. I was all set to stock up on eggs, tomatoes and other such weapons of mass disruption when Kurt and Courtney wandered into my plans. I did have something to lose. Them. They who sometimes went unnoticed through sheer innocence and reliability. They who were the only consistently loyal aspects of my life. They who would not understand were I to have myself incarcerated, thus depriving them of a dad.
Accepting this furry clause in my contract, I raced to the Court Room computer in search of a more legal means of obstruction. I typed ‘disrupting fox hunts’ into Google’s UK search engine. 0.00013 seconds later, there it was.
The seven available members of the Pickering and District Hunt Saboteurs Association had arrived in three vehicles and immediately set about beating hedgerows and woodlands with sticks in a fast moving line, shouting and thrashing; this to chase off any foxes. They sprayed a mixture of crushed garlic, citronella and water randomly about the woods and fields; this to mask scents. No sooner had they completed these tasks than the hunt swept inexorably down the road.
It was like watching a defiant Asian man confront the entire Chinese Army. From the west, the hunt funnelled into and gushed out the other side of the gate leading onto Hartley Castle Farm. From the east, the seven available members of the Pickering and District Hunt Saboteurs Association ran at them in a seven strong line spanning the width of the field. A line not helped in its quest for Braveheart-charging scariness by a preponderance of plump young mothers and balding accountants, none of whom looking particularly scary running. Fortunately, their plan did not revolve around brawn.
As the dogs ran ahead, they ran ahead shouting ‘On, on, on, on!’ They blew hunting horns – identical horns to the huntsmen’s – in fast calls designed to hunt the hounds on, run them past them and get themselves between the hounds and the riders. As the hounds ran past, the saboteurs converged, forming a human gate. They blew slow horn calls, the same calls huntsmen used to make the dogs stop.
The dogs stopped. Whips were cracked in the air to control them and the standoff began.
Two red coated hunt masters trotted forward atop their mighty steads. Angry words were exchanged between huntsmen, young mothers and balding accountants, none of which I could hear. Arms were thrown about. Fingers were raised in the air. People got out of their cars and lined the drystone walls like spectators at a school rugby match. Children sat on the walls beside bristling fathers, uncles and nephews. The seven members of the Hunt Saboteurs Association were heavily outnumbered. I sensed I was about to witness a quite different sort of carnage. I sensed I was about to witness a war.
It was over as quickly as it began. Turning their horses, the hunt masters pointed threatening fingers and whips at the line of saboteurs. They moved back to the waiting posse. A brief conversation ensued before the dogs were called back. The posse then funnelled slowly back through the gate. Spectators behind the wall hurled abuse, but nothing else. Everyone was angry, yet everyone seemed to just…know. It was as if they were operating under some tacit country code of practice and today was a victory for the Antis.
There was always next week.
The hunt, the cars, the quad bikes, the bicycles, they all dispersed back up the road to Cragmoor as a convoy of cars towing horse boxes began to appear down it. The foxes of Hartley Castle Farm had survived to flee another day.
‘Nice work!’ someone called from behind me in the Great Hall.
Had there been a roof, my head would have hit it. I jumped, whirled, tipped my chair, fell, stood and stared, all in one elegant motion. An indiscernible black duffle-coated figure stood in shadows against the back wall patting the heads of two dogs who, interestingly, had not barked, not a peep out of either them to announce the indiscernible figure’s arrival; the indiscernible figure then moving forward from the shadows and in doing so going some way to explaining why. This particular indiscernible figure, now discernible, had an even more discernible love of animals, a love clearly discernible even to the animals themselves. A love some would say bordered on the insane.
