Chasing Crows

About the Author

Richard was born and grew up at Horton Farm and enjoyed the rugged life of a farmer’s son growing up in Shropshire. When he left school, he at first worked on the farm alongside his father before going to the RMAS Sandhurst as a TA Officer Cadet. He then joined the Regular Army and served with the 10th Bt Gurkha Rifles in Hong Kong and Borneo and then the Light Infantry in Northern Ireland and Germany. When he left the Regulars in the mid-1990s, he again worked on the farm for a few years before joining the Police in which he now still serves. Richard remained a Reservist and has seen operational service in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2002-03.

Very happily married to Louise to whom Chasing Crows is dedicated and in memory of his parents. Richard now runs the farm with his wife and three children where they run a small Aberdeen Angus herd and breed Shire Horses.

Dedication

Dedicated to Louise and in memory of Mum and Dad.

Copyright Information ©

Richard Jones 2022

The right of Richard Jones to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398493735 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398493742 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398493759 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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E14 5AA

Chapter 1

St Anne’s Shropshire 2013

Crows can live for up to 60 years in captivity and over 30 years in the wild. They mate for life and the old men of the fields always warn not to shoot the crow as it will bring bad luck… The farmer has one pair of crows to his farm.

The old man was now in his 75th year and he felt it! He was perched halfway up the church spire, an ugly old church built in mid-eighteenth century, the result of a rift between the village and the church authorities. He had been warned when he had bought the place that it was cursed but he dismissed such nonsense.

Granddad George, are you okay? George’s grandson stood on the bottom rung of the ladder peering up at him, concern etched upon his face. The younger man had been raised by his granddad since his own father had been killed when he was an infant.

George clung to the ladder, ignoring the calls from below. He felt faint; there was a weird light at the edges of his vision. George had never feared heights or indeed feared much in his long life, but he was afraid now. He looked up into the sky, past the dragon weathervane he had had to erect himself as he couldn’t persuade any of the farm workers or villagers to scale the steeple.

Past the weathervane, George gazed into the cobalt blue July sky. Cloudless and empty and yet there was in that blue expanse a presence. The weird light around his vision continued and he knew he needed to get down from the spire fast. For once leaving the tiling job undone. It was never his way to leave a job half-finished, but he rapidly descended the ladder down to the flat turret roof of the church.

I am fine, Charlie! George shouted down, lying to his grandson. Just the wrong nails for the tiles. I will have to go back to the farm. Anyway, you get off; I had better get home to your nan. I thought you were going out tonight anyway so get off early.

Charlie knew that he was dismissed, there was something odd or different about the old man, but he could not put his finger on it. Anyway, he had his own problems. He was only back on leave from his Regiment based on Salisbury Plane and he hadn’t had time to catch up with his girlfriend much to her annoyance as his granddad had immediately grabbed him to help with the Church roof. The young man didn’t need to be told twice and jumped in his Jeep and drove off down the green lane leading to the main road and the village.

George was alone, the swallows whizzed around the church spire and roof, rearing their second brood of the year. Nesting in the same spots that they had used since he was a boy and beyond then back generations to when the church had been built during the Napoleonic Wars before even George’s ancestors had farmed the land.

The old man struggled down the steeple ladder and then across the flat roof of the tower before going inside and slowly climbing down the stairs inside the Church itself. Once on the ground outside, he calmly walked to his clapped-out old Land Rover and climbed behind the wheel. The lights in the sides of his vision were still there and he felt faint. He knew he needed to get back to Rachel, his wife, but he just needed to rest for a moment. As usual, he had rushed out of the house that morning not thinking of any lunch, in order to get to work on the Church spire.

He had called Rachel many times during the day from his mobile, but she had failed to pick up and he feared the dementia that he tried to hide from their friends, family and community was gripping his wife’s once beautiful and vibrant mind.

He sat in the 4x4, his mind a blur with what had just happened. He was still struggling and these bloody lights in the corner of his vision would not go.

The inside of the Land Rover was warm and snug. He closed his eyes and drifted off into a deep sleep. A crow flapped down from the church roof and landed lightly on the bonnet of the Land Rover. The crow stared unblinkingly at the sleeping old man sat behind the wind shield. It then flapped away silently.

Chapter 2

The Farm Spring 1942

George was running as fast his young ten-year-old legs could carry him. He had been picking oats in the wheat field with the two newly arrived Italian prisoners of war, Massimo and Fabiano, when they had all heard a loud snort and to his horror he saw the old Ayrshire bull had been spooked by the passing munitions train and had broken through the thick blackthorn hedge into the wheat field they were in. The munitions train had puffed away unaware of the drama it had caused, the driver intent on getting his heavy load of shells from their ammunition dump hidden away on the Ness cliff moor down to the railhead in Birmingham. He would then collect a totally different consignment of prisoners of war, refugees and wounded soldiers to be transported up to the camps and hospitals scattered around the west and north Shropshire area.

At first, the bull seemed somewhat dazed. He had finally escaped the confines of his two-acre patch, and he had fled from that infernal roaring machine that passed his field twice a day. The pain of the blackthorn spikes, so much more painful and effective than the more common hawthorn, began to register in the flanks and under carriage of the bull, enflaming his already short temper. The bull quickly spotted the two men and boy and focused his rage, fear and pain onto them and so began the chase.

Massimo and Fabiano, barely more than children themselves at eighteen, hardly had a word of English between them and the young George had delighted in trying to teach them the rudiments of the language. In the two weeks since they had been sent from their POW camp, the three young people had become unlikely friends. Young George found in these two Italian older boys a kindness and friendship he did not yet have with his own older brother, the truculent Idris.

The three lads began to run from the bull, back along the wheat field towards the safety of the farm and the sheds. Despite it being early June, the ground was still damp from a heavy spring shower and