Hammond Innes - High Stand

The single-purposedness of the man was quite extraordinary. He must have been as tired as I was, and yet he could still radiate a sort of demonic energy, his obsession with trees filling his mind to the exclusion of anything else, so that I felt it was a sort of madness that had taken hold of him. And Tom went unresisting, a dazed expression on his face as though he were in the grip of Fate and had no volition of his own.

Only once did he break away. ‘Must have a pee,’ he murmured. And it was the same as it had been up near Ice Cold. I heard him snorting the stuff up his nose, and as we went on down into the forest, he developed a spring to his step, something near to a swagger in his walk. Miriam was by my side and she said, ‘Stop them, can’t you? They’re so — explosive. The two of them together.’ She was very tense herself. ‘They’ve always had this effect on each other.’

I shook my head. It wasn’t for me to interfere, and anyway we were nearing the end of the track, light showing through the tree boles and the sound of the saws getting louder every moment.

We came to the edge of the clear-felled area, the time 15.55 and the only difference from when I had been there in the morning was that the two fellers had moved half a dozen trees or more northwards, so that our view of the camp was partly obscured by the piled-up brash of lopped branches. Also the thunder was nearer, a closeness in the air and the lowering cloud base getting darker. The sound of the saws was loud here, a small wind carrying it towards us, one man working his way along the bole of a newly fallen tree, snicking branches off with the tip of his saw, the other bent over a standing giant that already had a gaping wedge sawn out of its base to guide the fall.

Brian had hold of his father’s arm again, moving him forward under cover of the standing stems. He was talking all the time, but the sound of the chainsaws was so loud I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then timber splintering and the man nearest us looked up from the fallen tree, his chainsaw idling, the other man stepping back from the base of the stem he had been cutting into.

‘… Stop them.’

‘How?’

‘For God’s sake, you’ve got a gun.’

Both saws idling now, the top of the tree beginning to move, branches snapping and the three of us staring as the tree slowly toppled forward, the green top of it arcing down across the backcloth of cloud-filled mountainside, black rock and the pale gun-metal flatness of the water… Then the splintering crash of the branches, the thud of the stem hitting the ground, an explosion of dust and debris. ‘That must be about the tenth I’ve seen felled today — ten in the few hours I’ve been here.’ Brian’s voice was harsh with anger. ‘You watch — he’ll move straight onto the next in line.’ And suddenly he swung Tom round, facing him. ‘Remember what you told me, all those years ago — about your father, what he’d written in the deeds. Remember? And now I’ve read it. And if you won’t stop them…’

‘You can’t do it, Brian.’ Miriam had moved forward, tugging at his arm, trying to push her way between them. ‘He’s your father. You can’t goad him like that.’ She was half-sobbing, her voice vibrant. The saws started up again. The feller had moved and was bending down by the next tree, the saw labouring under full power as the blade cut into the base of it.

Tom pushed Miriam away, his eyes fixed on the man as though mesmerized, watching the first cut made, Brian silent now, and Miriam standing there, her mouth open, her eyes wide. ‘No!’ I heard her cry that, and then the blade was making the slanting cut, her voice drowned.

Slowly, like a man in a trance, Tom moved out into the open. For a moment he stood there, the gun held ready across his body. The saw laboured, both men intent on what they were doing, the one felling, the other trimming. At last the guide wedge was finished, the feller straightening up, pushing it out with the tip of his saw, the motor idling. Then he was moving round to the rear of the tree, and the sight of him settling himself into position to begin the main saw cut that would fell the tree seemed to trigger something off in Tom’s mind. He suddenly started forward, shouting at the man to stop.

The man didn’t hear him at first. Neither of them seemed to hear him. By then he was half-running towards them, yelling to them at the top of his voice. The laboured sound of the saw ceased abruptly, the blade withdrawn and the engine dying as the man straightened up, staring at Tom. ‘Drop that saw! Drop it!’

‘Who are you?’

Tom told him his name and the man laughed. ‘You don’t give orders around here.’ And he bent to the base of the tree again, the note of the saw rising.

I suppose it was the man’s manner, his deliberate, almost contemptuous ignoring of him, that touched off the rage that had been building in Tom, so that it became a desperate hepped-up madness. He raised his gun and fired, a snap shot. But the man had seen it coming; he ducked round the end of the tree, slipping the saw blade out from the cut, so that it was held in both his hands as he stood up, flattened against the still-standing stem. The other had also stopped sawing, both of them watching as Tom stumbled forward, working the bolt.

Then he had stopped and was fumbling in his pocket. ‘Oh God!’ Miriam was close beside me, Brian just starting to move, and I stood there, staring, as Tom started forward again, reversing the gun so that he held it by the barrel to use as a club.

‘No!’ The exclamation, forced out of her by fear of what was going to happen, rang out in what seemed a desperate stillness, everything happening in slow motion, Tom running forward, and the man stepping out from behind the tree, the engine of his saw revving and the chain of it screaming on the blade.

Tom shouted something, the gun rising in his hands, ready to strike, and the man swinging his saw up so that the blade was stuck out in front of him. Whether Tom stumbled, or whether the man thrust the blade forward and he ran straight onto it, I shall never know. All I recall is the sight of him lunging forward, the rifle coming down and then the thin scream as the blade bit into his chest, bone and flesh flying, blood streaming from it where before I had seen only sawdust, and the poor devil pitching forward, the scream cut off, his body almost ripped in half.

And at the same instant the rifle I was holding was plucked from my hands and Brian had fired it, the crack of the shot followed by the man with the saw being slammed round. His hand clasped at his shoulder. Then he had ducked behind the tree again.

Suddenly all was still, the saws silent, both fellers hidden, and Tom’s body lying there, the green of his anorak merged with the green of lopped branches, and Miriam standing beside me, her eyes wide with horror, a low moaning sound coming from her open mouth.

‘You got any ammunition for this thing?’ Brian’s voice sounded half-choked, his face white against the black of his hair.

I shook my head, remembering how Tom in the euphoria of his singing had plucked it out of Camargo’s hands.

The fool! I never thought…’ He had turned to Miriam, trying to exonerate himself, and she just stared at him in blank horror, glassy-eyed.

The man Brian had wounded was crawling into the forest, dragging his chainsaw behind him. I thought at first he was merely trying to get away from us, but then I saw he was making for the place where they had left their anoraks and their lunch packs.

Brian had seen it, too. He raised his gun, though there was nothing in it, shouting at the man to stop. But at that moment Miriam started forward. He reached out, catching hold of her arm. ‘There’s nothing you can do for him.’