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AFTERNOON NAP

It all happened so long ago that it could have been a dream. Perhaps it was. Judge for yourself!

It was one of those hot sultry days that we often get in July. Even up there on the hill there was hardly a breath of air. There was certainly not enough movement to stir the leaves on the bushes in the hedgerow. I’d been up there since four that morning and it had been very chilly then. As the sun had come to life and slowly risen like a ball of fire balanced on the far skyline, so it had got warmer and warmer. Every now and then I would stop the tractor and take off a garment. I didn’t have to stop but it was an excuse to stretch my legs.

By eleven o’clock I had been stripped to the waist for some time and the sweat ran in tiny rivulets down to the waistband of my jeans. The chatter of the mowing machine and the drone of the engine tended to send me to sleep. If only there had been a breeze.

I looked across the earthworks towards the sea. The parched brown land threw back the heat in a shimmering haze and reminded me of my time in the Middle East during the war when every day had been the same with no escape from the heat for months on end. There was one mirage that looked like a Wellington bomber and it was always there in the same place as we made our regular run to Teheran and back to the Gulf.

There was no escaping from the heat then, but here, English weather being what it is, I knew that this heat could not last for very long. Looking past Golden Cap and on into Devon the black clouds were already beginning to gather.

The solitary thorn in the middle of the Ramparts caught my eye and I found myself thinking about Gulliver. You know! The smuggler who once escaped the Excise men by being carried in a coffin through Wareham. He is said to have planted a bunch of trees on the hill so that they could be seen from the boats off shore at Bexington. The Smugglers’ trail led from there through Puncknowle via Spyways just below the Hill to Powerstock, then through the Common to Toller and Halstock and on to Bath. There’s only the solitary thorn left and that looked sad and lonely out there in the heat.

The hotter it became the more the flies bit me and I put my shirt back on but it only stuck to my wet body and the damned things just went right on biting. At least they helped to counteract the mesmerising effect of the noise in my ears. I only had about two and a half hours work left before it would all be finished. It was the last field to be cut and was generally left until we had finished the grounds in the lower part of the farm. It was a fair cut, and the swathes were already turning from green to blue in the bright sunshine. Years ago the mower with his scythe, and later, the horse drawn machine, would have had the sweet smell of the fresh mown grass in his nostrils all the time, but all I could smell was the heat of the engine and the fumes of the exhaust as they lingered in the still air.

Now it was well past midday and I began to look for the tell-tale cloud of dust that would mean that my dinner was on the way. I should be able to see that long before the car came into sight on the outside rampart, the Road across the Top.

The line of black clouds in the West was advancing at a snails pace but was now covering a front from the sea to well inland, as far as I could see in fact, which must have been Somerset.

Still no sign of my dinner. I was speculating on the delay when the cloud of dust appeared at the bottom of the hill and got longer and longer and hung in the air over the road which I couldn’t see. Then the sun’s rays caught the car as it came into sight on the flat. A few minutes later it stopped at the gate to the field and my wife got out with the basket. I stopped the tractor and switched off the engine but the noise went on in my head for minutes.

Barbara came across to me, stepping high over the swathes of new mown grass. She said, “You’ve got on. I can’t stop, I’ve left something on the stove.” She handed me the basket and
went back to the car and I made my way over to the old hut circle. It’s said to be the site of an ancient British village. It’s a circular mound about a hundred and twenty feet across with another, slightly higher, mound in the centre of the circle. The whole thing is covered in soft grasses and heather, with harebells growing in the grass and some brambles which produce fine blackberries in the Autumn. There’s also a few gorse bushes about the site. I sat down in the hollow at the foot of the mound and idly watched the car as it turned at the cross roads and made its way back along the road in a cloud of dust. It was hotter than ever and the harsh clatter of the machinery had now been replaced by the soft murmuring of the bees as they went about their business. The black clouds had almost reached us and I thought that it must rain soon. I unpacked the basket and was unscrewing the top of my flask when a voice said urgently, “Come on, no time for that!” “I’ll finish by milking,” I said as I looked up. Standing there in front of me was a short stocky man, barefooted and a skin of some kind about his waist. His exposed body was covered in hair. “Come on!” he said again, reaching out towards me. I thought it a nerve but before I could say anything he had grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me to my feet. I tried to pull free but his grip was too strong for me and I’m not particularly weak.

He started to run, pulling me behind him like a dog on a lead. Right across the flat of the hill we went, over to the side that looks over Askerswell. There were a lot more people there all looking the same, both men and women. The women were bringing rocks and the men were hurling them over the side at some more people who were trying to climb the steep side. They’d been using slings - I could see the remains of the heaps of sling stones - but the enemy had got too close.

My captor put a large stone in my free hand. “Go on! Throw!” I looked at the clouds. I prayed for the storm to break. A good storm would put an end to this nonsense. “Go on! Throw!” There was nothing for it, I heaved the stone at the nearest head. “Hey! You’ll break the flask!” It was Barbara. “I forgot,” she said, “Tom rang up. Have you seen a heifer?. He’s lost one.” She handed me back the flask.