The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1705 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

It was after tea that I got the phone call. Darren, one of my survey team reported that half the boxes in one of the woodlands had been ripped off the trees and smashed, and it couldn’t be a wild animal, it had to be humans.

We usually tie the nest boxes to the trees with old electric cable, it seems to cope better with the weather than string and doesn’t seem to damage the trees, either. Usually all we do if we suspect an occupant in one, is to block the hole in the back, and lift the box out from its holding wire. Then, after checking it, it’s returned and any cover over the hole removed. Some people use a piece of cloth, some collect up a handful of grass and leaves, and some use their hand. The hand is the safest thing, you can’t forget to remove it, however, there is an outside chance it could also get bitten by a wood mouse if there’s one in there, while dormice hardly ever bite.

I changed and went out to check the nest boxes, Danny asked if he could come with me and as I couldn’t think of a good reason to say no, I agreed. I keep a rucksack with all my kit in it, from night vision equipment to a pen knife. I also have a walking pole which has a hook like a shepherd’s crook on it with is useful for pulling down branches. I handed that to Danny and told him he was responsible for that.

As we were going into dense woodland, we wore jeans with walking boots and gaiters, plus in my case, an old Barbour jacket while Danny wore his old anorak, which would be pretty thorn proof. I told him to bring his torch and I checked the batteries in mine and also in the night vision stuff–they were all okay.

It was still light when we met Darren in the car park by the wood, he’s a post grad student, so his ancient Nissan looked rough in contrast to my nearly new Jaguar. “I thought you had a Porsche, Cathy?”

“No, swapped it for this.”

“She crashed it actually, didn’t you, Mum?” Danny trotted out despite my daggers scowl at him. “She swerved to miss a deer, ended up down a slope–wrote it off–didn’t ya, Mum?”

“Oh,” said Darren and presumably thought wiser of further comment. We loaded up, he’d brought some nails and a small hammer to see if we could repair any of the boxes. It was half past six, so we had two hours of daylight left. Danny helped us carry some stuff as well as my crook.

Whoever broke the boxes up, must have stamped on them, they were smashed to smithereens, some with footmarks on them. I photographed several–and fortunately, none of them seemed to have been occupied. I’d have to ask the university to replace them–a dozen boxes, which at a fiver each is sixty quid which could have been used for something else. The cable we tie them on with had been cut, presumably with pliers, because it was in bits on the ground near the host trees.

I think we managed to repair one box before the failing light meant it was time to go. It was just after I suggested we call it a day when the cows in the field at the edge of the wood sounded very restless and then we heard a dog.

There were stories in the local press about someone worrying cattle with new calves. In Dorset and Hampshire the odd one had been killed–calf, that is, and horribly, by disembowelling. The police were of the opinion that it was a dog kill, others had different ideas varying from Satanist groups, sadists, to aliens.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, there was something going on that didn’t oughta, I suggested we take a look. Danny was keen, although he ought to know my reputation by now, Darren was less so, probably because he does know my reputation.

It was just light enough to see where we were going and we tried to quietly traverse the wood and see what was what in the field. Unless the farmer was out there with a dog, no one else should be near livestock with one–it’s illegal and dangerous, a cow with a calf will happily trample a dog or its owner.

I slipped on the night vision equipment as we neared the field, keeping ourselves hidden in the shadow of the trees. I handed the spare set to Darren and pointed to movement about a hundred feet away, someone was driving a cow and her calf away from the rest of the herd towards us. I could see two men and a large dog, Darren confirmed he could see the same.

It was when they separated the cow and the calf I felt very uneasy and then I saw the knife glint in the moonlight. “Hoy, what the hell are you doing?” I shouted which made the man step away from the calf, which rejoined its mother.

“Where are you, bitch?” called the man with the knife.

I handed my mobile to Danny, “Call the police, suspected cattle mutilators, tell them where we are, you should get a signal, but stay here, whatever happens, okay?”

He nodded. I dropped the rucksack and holding the torch in one hand and my crook in the other, I set forth to do battle–or delay them until the police could get here. Darren reluctantly agreed to join me, picking up a stick as we went down to the fence.

I was too angry to feel fear, I hate cruelty in any shape or form, and the sort of thing these creeps do makes my blood boil. Darren seemed to be shaking as we walked. I’m five foot seven inches, he’s over six foot tall and a rugby player. I think he was scared of the dog.

We crept to the fence. The man was still shouting profanities at me and walking round in circles looking for where my voice had come from. I wasn’t going to help him. His friend suggested they leave, but he wanted to sort the bitch who’d called at him.

He was carrying what looked like a powerful lantern type torch, but he hadn’t switched it on yet, so he was possibly intending to use it as a weapon. I was hiding behind a bush near the fence when he walked past–temptation was too much, and I hoicked him by the neck with my crook, pulling him backwards into a large fence post. He grunted and sat down, coughing and spluttering. I quickly shoved a large cable tie round his neck and secured it to the fence wire. He went a bit wild after that, but he couldn’t move very far.

His friend lit his torch and ordered the dog to attack, it rushed at his friend and began licking his face, I could see now, it was a lurcher. The torch beam shone into the wood and Darren moved away from me, breaking a stick. The guy with the torch shone it towards my colleague, enabling me to slip through the wire of the fence and attack him from the rear.

I grabbed his ankle with the crook, and pulled sharply, he fell heavily, face first into a fresh pile of cow pat. The next thing a helicopter was over head with a searchlight, and presumably thermal imaging equipment. I waved to it and pointed to the two thugs and the dog, the chopper used a loud speaker to tell me we were all under arrest. If that was the case, they’d be grounded for the rest of their naturals, but then they didn’t know who they were dealing with.

Minutes later a police Land Rover came bouncing over the field, scattering cows and calves. I was restraining the second thug while Danny was standing with the dog, holding it by its collar. Darren was nowhere to be seen.

The interview process was long and involved, but they eventually believed me because we’d made the call. The knife was the ultimate evidence, and they found trophies back at the place where one of the thugs lived–apparently they kept sex organs and the ears of their victims–weird or what?

The downside was we had the press at the university on the Monday morning, and they wouldn’t go until I spoke to them. Great, just what I needed, but we had saved a calf from a horrible fate.