Guy Smith - Snakes

She began to clear the table, Sam would end up an ignorant pig, just like his father. She couldn't change either of them so she might as well go along with them. They would still be scratching for a living in another twenty years' time.

Work was a way of life to Sam Jervis. Seven days a week, 365 days a year, he did not expect anything else. On a holding like this one you did every job yourselves, spent as little money as possible; a cycle that you began again as soon as the old one ended.

This bloody heat was a bit much, though. He wondered how the old man could stand not just a shirt on but a woollen waistcoat worn over it. Trousers and heavy boots, too. All Sam was wearing was a pair of denim shorts, hacked from his old working jeans when the lower legs became threadbare, and a pair of scuffed pumps.

The routine was always the same. Dad drove the tractor and trailer, Sam rode on the back. Then between them they loaded the trailer with bales, stacked high and precariously, and trundled back home where they unloaded them into the barn. They managed three loads before lunch and estimated that there were probably another five left. They would finish around teatime—a late tea.

The upright exhaust belched black fumes as they drove past the church. Sam glanced idly at the track leading into the quarry. The old sandpit was technically theirs, its acreage included in the rent they paid the council each quarter for the field. Now that was a bloody waste, a piece of ground that you could not plough up, would not hold stock. He wondered if there was any way of filling it in, levelling it up to the field that surrounded it.

The Ferguson struggled up the steep incline, shuddered to a halt by the first stack of eight bales. Jack Jervis leapt down, shouted at Sam to hurry. 'We ain't got all bloody day, boy.'

Eight bales loaded, drawing up to the next pile; another eight layered on top of those. Now it was Sam's job to clamber up on to them, take the bales from his father as the old man hoisted them up to him on the prongs of a pitchfork. Jesus, the old man would have a heart attack if he didn't slow up, working in a near-frenzy in this bloody heat. It had to be ninety in the shade today. One day the silly old fucker would drop in his tracks, just like that. And I'll bloody well load him up on top of the hay and take him down home. And it won't spoil our tea, either.

Hay bales were coming up on to the trailer as though they were on a mechanical conveyor belt. Ease up, you daft bat.

Suddenly Sam Jervis stopped, ignored the bale that had just bounced against those he was trying to stack, toppling them in a heap. Above the drone of pollen-hunting bees he detected the sound of a human voice, a muffled cry. He listened hard and it came again. 'Help!'

It was difficult to discern just where the shout had come from. Either it was muffled or else it was a long way away, even as far as the village. It could, on the other hand, be as close as the sandpit a few hundred yards down at the bottom of this sloping field.

'What the bloody hell's happening up there? You bloody well fallen asleep?' Another bale flew up, bounced off the fallen pile and rolled off the trailer, thudded on to the ground ten feet below.

'Listen,' Sam snapped back, 'just shut up and listen for a second.'

'What the hell are you on about, boy?'

'Just listen a minute, will you, Dad.'

''Help.'' The cry came again, weaker this time as though the caller was growing tired. But it definitely came from the sandpit.

'There you are, you heard that didn't you, Dad?' Sam peered anxiously over the bales, saw his father retrieving the fallen one, spearing it with the pikle, lifting it up to throw it back up again. 'Don't tell me you didn't hear that.'

'I heard bloody nothin',' Sam Jervis grunted, his red face perspiring freely. 'You're paid to work not to sit about listening for things.'

'I tell you, Dad, somebody's in trouble and it sounds like they're in the . . .' Sam broke off as the flying bale hit him, caught him off balance and sent him staggering back to sprawl amongst the pile of bales. 'You silly old bastard! There's something happened to somebody . . .'

Sam Jervis screamed a shrill cry of pain. That daft old fucker had tossed the pitchfork up at him, caught him on the leg. He bounded up with a roar of rage that turned to a shriek of terror. All around his feet were little black wriggling things like burned sausages, slithering to and fro, and amidst them was a much larger one, somewhere between a foot and eighteen inches long; a furious creature that whipped and lashed him, struck at his legs with its venomous fangs.

'Adders? He tried to flee but a heap of bales prevented him. 'There's fucking adders up here!'

At least Sam thought they were adders, they looked like the ones he'd seen before except that they were much darker in colour. He didn't care what species, just that they were snakes and everybody in Stainforth was hiding from them.

Jack Jervis moved with surprising agility, clawed his way up on to the trailer, clambered over the mountain of bales, a stubby unlit pipe clenched between his teeth, the pitchfork in his hands. His son was lying on a bale, directing a series of futile kicks at the snake which was attempting to wriggle up after him. And down below the smaller snakes were milling in a heap like maggots that had fallen from a piece of putrefying meat. Black bloated worms.

'Get yer fuckin' legs outa the way,' the farmer hissed, poised his pikle as though he was about to hurl a javelin, and struck savagely downwards. His aim was true, a prong speared the enraged reptile, and he held it up. It thrashed furiously but could not dislodge itself. 'Got you, you bugger!'

Sam closed his eyes. The pain in his leg was making him feel faint and he certainly did not wish to be a spectator to a bout of his father's cruelty. Old Jack Jervis was going to have a field day, enjoy every second of this massacre just as he had gloated over that sheep he had killed for the freezer last autumn; he had cut its throat and stood there and watched its life's blood spout all over the yard. 'Come and watch this, boy, or e'll be gone. Waste o' time and effort stunning 'em first.'

With a deft twirl such as an accomplished spaghetti-eater might have used to unfurl a length from his fork, Jack sent the mortally wounded adder flying through the air. 'E's as good as dead.'

He turned to the nest of young, and began jabbing and chopping, piling wrigglers up the prongs of the pitchfork one after another. Seven in all, in as many seconds.

'Look at them lot, boy.' There was a note of pride in his rough voice. 'Black adders. Ain't seen no black ones for years, not since I was your age. But they die just as easy as the brown 'uns.'

Sam sprawled with his back against a bale, his vision darkening, clinging to some taut baling twine in case he blacked out arid fell from the trailer. His leg was beginning to swell up, the pain coursing upwards. Oh Christ, and all that stupid old bugger thought about was killing.

'Ah-ha!' a grunt of triumph from Jervis as he held the spiked snakes aloft. 'Just look at that lot, the little devils never dreamed they'd meet up with old Jack when they got caught up in the baler. That'll teach 'em! A forward motion with the long fork, sending the baby adders hurtling into the air, frantic death wriggles as they hit the ground beyond the tractor. 'That'll bloody teach 'em!'

'Dad.' Sam was clinging on to that bale, trying not to spew.

'Now, what's the matter with you, son?'

Stupid old fucker. 'I've been bitten . . . my leg.'

Jack Jervis laid the pikle down, turned towards his son, saw the puffy blotched patch just above the ankle on Sam's exposed leg, twin pinpoint pricks that oozed a trickle of blood.

''Old easy.' The farmer dropped on to his knees, felt in his pockets and produced a bone-handled penknife. 'Nowt to worry about. It won't be the first adder bite I've dealt with, took one out o' meself on more than one occasion when I was a boy. There used to be adders aplenty in those days, don't hardly see 'em at all today. Now, let's get this done so's we can get on.'