CHAPTER SIX
My camp had very soon become my place of refuge. I had figured out the routes of passage into my clearing, so now I knew which way to run if I heard any unfamiliar sounds when away from the base camp and I had found several great places to hide, my bolt holes, dotted around the area.
Six months had passed, it was February, and there was still some snow on the ground. With the trees so bare, and the white of the snow showing up anything that wasn’t white more easily, I had to be more careful. All the same, I felt safe here.
Surprisingly untroubled by human life, my neighbours were birds, squirrels, insects, small creatures like mice and the occasional adder, owls, deer, and other creatures I - being fairly ignorant about nature - couldn’t identify, but increasingly noticed were gathering nearby. They were getting used to me, and I to them.
As a child of technology, this new outdoorsy way of life had initially come as quite a shock, it took a lot of practise to build a good fire,to get it to light without matches, and to find food for myself when my own supplies had long-since dwindled. To begin with I was occupied with practical tasks, organising the camp and making it secure, more comfortable, insulating against the cold.
I survived by hunting, trapping, killing, skinning, cooking rabbits and the occasional squirrel. Sometimes I ventured a little further up river and caught fish, but it required a lot of time for little reward, so I didn’t attempt it very often. I had tried to construct a fishing net from a pathetic twine I produced from stripped leaves and stalks, but it wasn’t very successful and I threw the mangled mess of a so-called net down beside the river and stomped off to check my rabbit snares, which usually proved far more fruitful.
The things I learned to do, successes and failures, took time. What I would have given many times for internet access, a quick search to find out the easiest way to prepare a squirrel, which plants are edible, how to skin a rabbit and turn its fur into clothing. All of these things I learned the hard way. The plants: I had learned there were a couple of species I would be avoiding in future, and had no intention of experimenting further with those.
Plants, berries, fungi - I was surrounded by them - but unfortunately had no clue which were edible and which would kill me. I had made a mistake more than once, and was just lucky not to have poisoned myself. The irony of that scenario wasn’t lost on me. That I should dodge bullets and flee to the dense woodland to escape death, only to die from consuming a bad berry.
Learning from my neighbourly squirrels, I had packed out the corners of my hollow with dry leaves and twigs, and was quite impressed by the almost immediate effectiveness, my burrow had become warmer and somehow cosier with it. Of course I was merely attempting a less-adept emulation of nature, of the nests I observed around me in the trees. Wildlife had perfected the art and been expert builders far longer than I, and were clearly far more accomplished. Mine took far longer to complete - and had to be rebuilt several times following numerous collapses - it didn’t look quite as sturdy, but in the end it came together and I was feeling good. For the foreseeable future, it was home.
Within a few hours back on that first day, I was fortunate to have located the small stream showing on the map. It took some tracking down and when I finally did stumble upon it with my foot, I realised why it would be easy to miss, concealed as it was beneath branches and foliage. The map suggested that a few miles along it widened a little, but here it was about a foot wide and quite shallow.
It was quite sufficient for my needs though, I accessed it several times daily, deliberately arriving via different routes and accessing it at different points - still trying not to leave any noticeable dent in the landscape, it wouldn’t do to create my own pathways and the longer I spent here the greater the chances of that happening. So I followed the narrow tracks made by rabbits - collecting water in the larger of my two mess tins, which I filtered through one of my socks before boiling over a fire making it fit to drink. I could wash myself and my clothes here too, it was freezing cold in the winter months, so I started to boil the washing water too.
Dressed in the tattered clothes I arrived in, an overcoat of rabbit fur, what I thought to be a scruffy-looking beard, and unkempt long hair; I imagined I must resemble a proper ‘wild man of the woods’ now. My family wouldn’t know me.
From time to time my thoughts turned to returning to civilisation, and wondering how I might be able to achieve it. I knew that I couldn’t return to my own home, nor contact any of my family or friends. I might try travelling to another part of the country, but Glasses would expect that. Perhaps the reason I was still safe was because I hadn’t tried to travel far.
I didn’t think about him very much any more. Perhaps I was becoming complacent, too safe in my haven. I considered how they obviously hadn’t found me yet, perhaps they had even given up looking? They may have thought I’d left the country, or travelled somewhere distant and remote, I had considered Wales or Scotland. Even if they were still searching, it was for a young clean-shaven man in a hoodie, not a tramp in rabbit skins. I chuckled at that.
What the people who knew me would make of it if they were to see me like this - hey’d never believe it - not least that I’d managed to forage, hunt, KILL. I had killed, yes for food, but I’d never killed anything in my life before. I was a pacifist. No-one would believe that I’d done all of these things.
I was changed.