Writing for Fun
July 2018
Catch Me If You Can - Jeff Kebbell
I’ve told you about being evacuated during the Second World War to a village in Essex with my grandparents. Life was many miles away from the streets and bombs of Tottenham and no one had seen the flights of bombers going overhead to bomb London.
I didn’t tell you of my conversion to the Dark Side of village life, well, here it is and where it started.
I was walking behind George, the most infamous poacher in the district. He did not know I was behind him and we were walking up a lane that passed through a farmyard. As we reached the gate into the yard I stepped behind an elder bush. George had his dog with him, a cross of several breeds, the dog bounded over a stone wall and went noiselessly through a backyard. George slouched along, a piece of grass between his teeth. There was no sound but like a shadow the dog squeezed under the gate. George leaned over and took the chicken from the dog’s mouth. In a moment he had the fowl in the lining of his jacket and was patting the dog when I reached him.
‘A clever dog you’ve got there,’ I said.
‘Infernal clever,’ he agreed.
He did not mention the chicken, a feather fell out from under his jacket. He shook his lapel and another fell to the ground. Chewing on the grass he said, ‘I’ve sold him twice and would you believe it, he came back the very next day. I laughed but kept the episode to myself and later when George wanted an assistant he would call on my services.
Over the next year or so I learnt a great deal about the art of poaching and its infinite techniques. If the coast was clear George and |I would walk either side of the Squire’s trout stream with a line between us, in the centre a catgut drop to a hook with a blowfly impaled on it. As we walked along we would drop the fly onto the streams surface where sooner or later a hungry trout would grab it and be hooked himself. George would pull the trout over to his side of the stream, kill it and throw it to a known spot, to be collected later. The innkeeper aroused suspicion from the Squire who could prove nothing when he enjoyed smoked trout for dinner.
Sometimes George would bring out from concealment two or three sections of a pole and, joining these together with a spike on top would walk through the Squire’s woods and catch an unwary wood pigeon or pheasant perching just out of reach of a fox but not out of the reach of George. He was very professional in his work and the butcher, the innkeeper, others and occasionally the vicar, when the bishop was visiting, would come up to George, who would produce a small notebook, a stub of pencil and a careful ear. He might go away for a few days and quietly appear out the back of the butcher’s, vicar’s etc. and deliver the goods. His prices were low and there was always work for an industrious man. Friday nights I might be asked to help him and one Friday we had been in the Squire’s game woods and had a bag, just as we were about to make our way out a voice thundered from the bushes, ‘I told you I’d get you one day, you little squirt!’
Quick as a flash I was away through the bushes with a laden Post Office bag as the gamekeeper hadn’t seen me and as instructed in case something like this happened I dragged the bag to a hole in the hedge and went through and dragged the bag to George’s cottage. I just heard George say, Hello, old chap, how are you?’ then the smack of a fist hitting flesh and then the gamekeeper and two of his mates set about George – silence.
I got to George’s house and his wife took the bag of pheasants, hid them and gave me a wheelbarrow. ‘Go and get George,’ she said, ‘I’ll get the doctor.’
Off I hurried and found the gamekeeper and friends talking in the distance. ‘I hope you didn’t kill him, Fred, you really gave him a hiding.’
‘Good riddance to bad rubbish. Let’s go and have a drink.’
George was in a bad way, his face and clothing smothered in blood. It was not easy getting him onto the wheelbarrow but I managed it and made my way back to George’s cottage. Halfway there a Morris 10 belonging to the doctor pulled up and gave George a check over. ‘The bastards have nearly killed him, let’s get him to the nearby hospital.’ He gave me a lift home afterwards and I lay in bed that night unable to sleep.
‘George will get him for that,’ said granddad, ‘Just you wait and see.’
George was in hospital for two weeks and any spare time I had I spent around his house and tended his vegetable garden. ‘Say nothing to anyone,’ he said and we let the incident fade from people’s minds.
Some months later the Squire had his friends over for a rabbit shoot. It was important to keep all the rabbits alive – no poaching. The rabbits would then be sold to the butcher who didn’t like the pellet strewn carcases any more than his customers did. George and he concocted a plan and the night before the shoot George, his brother Bill and me went in Bill’s van to the edge of the estate. It was well guarded by the gamekeeper and his friends but just before the estate the ditch beside the road had an uncut hedge that overhung it. The ditch was dry and the three of us quickly made our way into the estate and set up a hundred yard long net to the hedge where the rabbits were going to feed that evening.
You can catch a lot of rabbits with a hundred yard net and two poachers and an infernally clever dog and we filled five Post Office bags with the carcasses.
George fixed up a trap for the gamekeeper which was a line across the pathway at head height with about twenty sea fishing hooks dangling on snoods about face level.
When we had loaded up the van George went back to be almost caught by Fred.
‘Catch me if you can!’ shouted George. Fred in quick pursuit tripped on a log and fell with his face going into the mesh of hooks. As he screamed in pain we got the van going and first stop the butchers where he waited; with three sons and assistants the rabbits were quickly skinned and cut up and the butchers closed with no evidence of any rabbits. There was an exchange of money and I got one of those large old fashioned fivers which I later handed to Granny who wouldn’t take it and bought me some savings certificates with it.
‘You’re probably the richest boy in the village,’ said granny and granddad said, ‘Crime pays.’
George went and stayed at his brother’s for three months and Fred’s spirit was broken. He lost the sight in one eye and ended up doing odd jobs for the Squire to keep his cottage.
Next year the war ended and I went back to Tottenham and started at my new school.