(Originally written and published under the pen-name
Augustus Devilheart)
Cover Art: malleni at deviantART
In The Graveyard At Dawn
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Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. While some of the place names are real, characters are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
In The Graveyard At Dawn
Dedicated to those who love life and nature,
and who accept death as a part of living.
'Death smiles at us all.
All a man can do is smile back.'
Marcus Aurelius
Contents
Chapter 1—The Graveyard
Chapter 2—Grief
Chapter 3—A Soldier's Bones
Chapter 4—The Vicar
The End
About The Author
Also by Paul Whybrow
Novellas
Short Stories
Song Lyrics
Poetry
Novels
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In The Graveyard At Dawn
Paul Whybrow
Chapter 1—The Graveyard
The boy slid the loop of his dog's braided-leather lead up his arm as he bent to lift the old wooden gate onto the catch on the post. One of the gate's rusted hinges was snapped through, allowing the gate to drag on the ground. He was in two minds about whether to close the gate or not, as an old person would have problems opening it again, but it was unlikely that any pensioners would be venturing down the steep farm-track beyond which was a quagmire.
The boy was conscientious about keeping to the Country Code and knew that fastening gates could be vitally important. He would never forget the sight of half-a-dozen ponies running down the high street, after they'd escaped from a field whose gate had been left open by a careless or malicious walker. One of the ponies lost its footing and fell under a lorry's wheels. Its front legs were broken, and it lay there screaming in agony until a vet could get there to humanely destroy it.
Looking out over the ploughed fields, the boy scanned the furrows for pheasants and partridges. Pheasants were territorial, though less aggressive at this time of year than in Spring, when fierce fights took place and the feathers literally flew. The boy had a collection of their tail feathers in his bedroom, along with many other souvenirs from nature.
Bird and mammal skulls decorated his book-shelves, along with round plaster-casts that he'd made of animal tracks. A large collection of fossils weighed down a drawer in his bedside cabinet. The boy's dog was skilled at finding belemnites, sea-urchins and ammonites. More macabrely the young naturalist had just begun to collect the corpses of birds, which he preserved by injecting with formaldehyde. He was fascinated by the plumage and wing-form of the birds, which he made pastel drawings of in a sketch-book.
The fields he'd just walked were large and devoid of hedgerows, which were grubbed-up in the name of efficiency. Those that remained signified property borders and had the feel of being guidelines for ancient route-ways. Farming here was devoted to arable production. Gaunt grey metal pylons marched across the land, swathed in power cables like men of steel carrying rescue-ropes to an unseen wrecked ship.
The huge tracts of land were starting to resemble prairies. In summer dust-devils whirled. On windy days in winter the boy would crouch down looking for the sheltering silhouettes of hares, and see spumes of soil blowing off the waved furrows. Small shards of flint and chalk floated across the soil. On this chilly autumn morning, mist sulked in lurking patches within sheltered folds of land. A thick coiled skein of fog draped along the course of a stream in a ditch, like discarded dirty wool snagged on a strand of barbed-wire.
The graveyard was an immediate quiet shelter, ringed by thick beech hedges. A line of mature beech trees hundreds of years old led from the gate, their silver-grey trunks scarred by stigmata of discarded branches and carved lovers' initials. The shallow roots of the trees made low hurdles across the narrow stony path that ran alongside them. The roots were polished and squared-off by the tramping of many soles. Their passage through the graves of children and babies was inexorable.
The grave-plots were tiny, some with simple wooden markers, others small grave-stones. A few stone angels sat in mossy contemplation of their young charges. The boy's father told him who was buried in this part of the grave-yard, when he'd asked why the plots were in miniature. Till then, he didn't know that infants died.
The boy avoided looking at the details of the youngsters' lives. It made him sad to see that a girl with an old-fashioned name died when she was only seven. He couldn't stop doing sums in his head, trying to work out how old she'd be now. Overhead the bare branches and twigs rattled their souls into a thin breeze. Underfoot the round forms of beech-nut cupules lay soaked and torn, their contents filched by grey squirrels long ago.
It had rained heavily during the night. The boy laid in his bed listening to the water stab at the glass in the window. He wondered how much pressure it would need to break though. Little scared him about the natural world. He'd been born during a violent thunderstorm, and didn't mind walking through the fiercest rain. He was out in all weathers with his dog, immersed in wild thoughts, happily feral.
Walking this early in the pre-dawn light held a promise of seeing a changing-of-the-guard, as nocturnal creatures sought shelter, and sunlight probed sleeping life-forms into wakefulness. The boy's attention was drawn to a flurry of tiny wings in a yew tree. Furious hedge-sparrows, hen blackbirds and a solitary wren beat out a brown-feathered protest at the presence of a barn-owl. The scallop-faced owl shook its head in disgust, and took to honey-dappled wings with an admonishing “kewick" ghosting between the family tombs in search of shaded silence.
Wiping ribbons of clay-heavy soil from the welt of his Wellington-boots against the tufted grass at the side of the path, the boy patted his dog for reassurance. His hound was a black mongrel, bought from a London street-market as a reward to the boy for making it to grammar-school. He couldn't imagine his dog trapped by city pavements, wearing his claws down. They were best friends and loved being in the wilderness together.