Okeydokey, this weekend four of us decided to investigate some WWII Sentry posts and pill-boxes near the sea on some scrubby marshland near our weekend retreat. We were going to do it during the day, but an extended body surfing session followed by supper put paid to that. Also the allure of finding these relics by torchlight/flashlight was irresistible.
So off we set at around ten PM. armed with a Fenixes HL1, LD20, L2T(Q3), TA21 and a Tiablo TL1. Of course, being a Flashaholic, I had several backups and batteries in my jacket pockets. All along with an Ordnance Survey map of the area.
We found the path to the field where the artefacts lay, but it was barred by a locked gate, which we climbed over.
Now here's the thing. These torches were great at illuminating the ground all around us for a considerable distance - 50 - 100 feet of clear navigation all around. But this field was big - most fields are much bigger than that radius after all - and it had hillocks and dykes, which of course we couldn't see over.
About a hundred yards in we found our first cow-pat (dung) and stepped over it. That should have told us something...Cows make pats...where were the cows in this empty field at night.
Then we passed a circular construction made of metal and filled with hay - about seven to eight feet across - it loomed up on us as the extreme distance torchlight illuminated it at first in the gloom. Like your first sight of a floating mine in the fog in one of those WWII movies starring Jack Hawkins or Bernard Lee. A cow feeder of course - still we continued on our dark path.
I suppose subconsciously, I thought the cows were probably asleep in some farmer's sheds - it was past eleven by now after all.Then we saw a lone brick building far away - it looked like a military type and all thoughts of cattle faded as we tramped across the, now I come to think about it, well trodden ground all around us to this architectural oddbod with all due speed.
Old and abandoned, with more holes than roof, a privy at the end and a raised concrete platform on one side, this dwelling stood proud from the mud and dung surrounding it. No idea what it was, probably never will either. There was no vegetation near it, just the bare, hoof marked and churned dry mud...
Took a few pics inside and out before moving on. Just then one of us saw something in the light of his TL1 - a pair of eyes, then another, then several, then more than we could count. There were lots of them - a large bank of orange glowing eyes about seventy feet across the field. About forty pairs of eyes in all, all about four and a half feet off the ground. There was the silence of mutual rumination, for the cattle, literal.
Now we are city folk through and through. True we have been to the country, but as far as we knew, all you had to be careful of was to close the gates after you, and since we didn't open one at all, we were OK?
The cows decided they were interested and started to move towards us with low moaning and mooing and gurgling that in other circumstances would have been a pleasant and almost soporific sound. Trouble is they each weighed 800-1000 kilos and we didn't know our cows from our Bulls! Some of them, most of them had horns on - I didn't know that still happened.
Here you go then, twenty-first century Man, with some high tech illumination devices, mobile phones, etc. confronted with a herd of large, inquisitive and possibly hungry bovines. I know who I'd put my money on!
Retreat seemed to be the order of the day, but they decided to join us for the trip. Walking, we knew, would be better than running. We had all seen Rawhide or even Lion King. So we slowly but hysterically walked as lightly as we could back to the brick shack, now we supposed, a safe haven. Just as we decided to go there, a good two thirds of the cattle started running before us and circled it, coming round the back. You know what, the sound of lots of beef running at close quarters is a little unsettling, but not as loud as you might think.
We reached the shack, cattle in our way was inclined to move out of our path once you shone the torch in its eyes. Score one for torches! It was at this time that I realised none of the 'Cows' had udders. Steers or bullocks then - hopefully not young bulls!
Once inside our refuge we took stock. We had lots of torches, a couple of asthma pumps, mobile phones with little signal, and no idea how to deal with cows in a field at night. I considered the merits of overloading an unprotected Lithium Ion cell and chucking it at them. BTW at this stage the Tiablo TL1 decided to show us that absolute regulation is never a good thing. It went out, completely and without warning! Thank god we had the Fenixes. ( a spare LD20 was issued and gratefully received. I slung a new cell into the TL1 and it fired up again so now I had one torch in each hand. That felt better.
The cattle were obviously perplexed by our uncommon behaviour. They stopped an waited outside, wondering what to do next. It became very still. Thoughts turned to what would happen if they came inside, there being no door! We could always climb up to the green and mouldy rafters? I think not!
All the impetus we needed was when one cow decided to try and come in. I shouted at it in a manly way and gave it the full force of the TA21 and the TL1. Shouting helped me, because it was loud and definitive and also because that was exactly how Clint Eastwood used to deal with an unruly steer. But then he was on a horse and could outrun the bull if they decided to cut up rough! So with shouts of 'AWAY! BACK OFF! DO PLEASE GO AWAY I BESEECH YOU!' which, strangely I shouted with the accent of a Yorkshire farmer, we proceeded back on our extended path slowly and carefully to the gate. It probably took only a few minutes, but felt like we would never get there, so slow and vivid was our progress.
All the time the cattle would run in bursts past us to stop and lower their heads right in front - only to be warded away by the bright lights and the shouts. When the gate was in sight all the cattle suddenly took heel and stampeded! There was no way we could run as fast as they. Luckily they ran away from us and by the time we climbed the gate as one, they were right across the field.
In some ways their behaviour was like playful puppies, the curiosity, the playful running and rearing and challenging. Much like a dog with a stick. But when you're being chased by several tonnes of meat, the playfulness kinda leaves you cold. Especially when the playing might include things like ramming and tossing and trampling, all in the name of fun.
The Fenixes performed very well indeed. Not one of them needing a fresh set of batteries for the whole 2 and a half hour walk. But the Tiablo will forever be consigned to the drawer of unused torches from now on.
We never did see the pill boxes, nor did we care. And the next day celebrated surviving our stupidity by having burgers galore for supper, eating cattle is much more to my taste than dancing with them. And I, for one, will never venture into a dark field again with a light heart.
Thank God for streets, buildings and buses - and all the polluting smells and sounds of the city!
Yes I know I'm a Wuss! Wussaholics unite.
Moo!
