Although the River Rhymney is a usually a small gentle stream, there are occasions when heavy rain on the hills and valleys of its headwaters around the town of Rhymney, can turn it into a raging torrent and as it is a relatively short river it can flood very quickly. This happens rarely and so people along the lower reaches of the River are taken by surprise when it sends its floodwaters into the fields and woods and gardens along its banks.
From time to time the hills of the south Wales coalfield can see some spectacular thunderstorms that will let loose a torrent of rain on the land below. In the early 1950’s such a huge thunderstorm over Exmoor on the south side of the Bristol Channel overwhelmed the small streams of the East and West Lyn and sent a torrent of water and boulders smashing into the small town of Lynmouth that sits at the confluence of the two streams near the coast. I well remember the harrowing stories of the survivors who were awakened in the middle of the night as the hungry torrent tore at the buildings that had been built right up to the edge of the bank.
These are rare events that may not be repeated in a person’s lifetime and so the tendency is to forget about the occasional danger and assume that the more or less gentle stream will only have the usual minor winter flooding. When the River did flood it would create a spectacular sight along its lower tidal section where, when the tide was low, one could stand on the bank and look down on the rushing surge of floodwater.
The following story is of the aftermath of one of these rare and devastating floods and of tragedy avoided with some comic consequences.
THE GREAT CHICKEN RESCUE
(copyright Robert F Heming, 2018)
“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day”
Despite Roddy repeating that plea for the last few days, the rain persisted and it seemed that it would never go away. Going outside to play was impossible in such heavy rain and although he loved to read and had a pile of books from the Village library he found he was becoming frustrated with being indoors. After all it was the summer and the great joy of that season was to be outside for as much of the day as possible.
He continued to read but his attention began to wander from the words in front of him and he glanced idly out of the window expecting to see more sheets of rain drifting across the fields opposite. Slowly, as his eyes began to focus on that outside world, he saw that the weather had improved greatly. The wind was now more like a strong breeze and the rain had stopped completely. Amazingly, the Lane itself was dry in places and there were bright patches of sunlight skimming across the fields and trees so that the world seemed to be alternating between shimmering green and dull greyness. Then he noticed his friend Peter and his brother walking along the Lane toward the fields. It was time to get going! Roddy rushed downstairs muttered something to his Mother and immediately headed for the back porch, quickly stuffed feet into still damp shoes and was off around the side of the house and down the drive before she could react.
He ran down the Lane and caught up with Peter and Derec as they were walking down the slope past the trees approaching the gypsy camp. The rain had meant that the gypsy families had not been able to leave the camp, which they did every day when the weather was fine. Roddy wondered once again what it was that they did every day. Whatever it was it meant that they had to leave early and never seemed to return until after dark. Today however the camp was surrounded by vehicles and instead of just Dora and her grandmother, there were other women and several men sitting on the steps of the caravan or standing in small groups, talking.
“Where are you going Peter”?
“Oh, ‘ello Roddy,” said Peter looking back over his shoulder, “we wanted to get out now that the rain has stopped and thought that we would go and see how high the River is after all of this rain. Also Derec was so bored and he was starting to be a real pest trying to get me to play games with him all the time. I needed to get outside and he just followed me.”
Glancing across at the caravans that had come into sight now that they had passed the line of trees, Roddy hoped for a sight of Dora but all he could see were men dressed in dark suits with black hair and fierce looks on their faces. Many were smoking cigarettes and looking and pointing at the pools of water that were around some of the caravans. The fields here did not always drain too well and it was lucky that they were not completely surrounded by water. Others were digging shallow ditches to help the water run out from the puddles that had formed around the caravans and the men with cigarettes were talking and pointing at the ground as if issuing directions to the diggers. Some of the men turned and looked with suspicious glances at the boys as they walked past, squinting through the skeins of smoke that escaped through their thin-lipped mouths. Peter and Roddy found these challenging looks intimidating and, after a brief glance at the gypsy men, they tried to look ahead and ignore those hard stares.
Their discomfort caused them to quicken their pace, except for Derec, who continued to saunter along, casting several quizzical glances at the gypsy men until one of them started to move toward them causing him to break into a run to catch up with the others. They didn’t look back until they were safely behind the black iron parapet of the bridge. Roddy stopped and, ducking below the parapet, crept back and carefully looked around the brick pillar at the end. The men were back talking to one another, still smoking but not taking any notice of anything else. It was as if they had dismissed the passing of the three boys as of no importance and had erased it from their minds. He wondered which of these fierce looking men was Dora’s father and the thought that he might meet him one day felt rather daunting. However, he still could not see Dora amongst the crowd and that disappointed feeling came over him once more.
The flooded River met dramatically all of their expectations. The tide was low and yet the volume of water coming down from the mountains and hills upstream was enough to fill the deep channel more than halfway. The torrent of water raged along carrying all sorts of flotsam, some of it was rubbish that people has carelessly scattered but most consisted of tree branches and even the trunks of large trees that the flood had plucked from the River banks. As they watched they were stunned to see the body of a cow float in front of them, bobbing and turning in the waving brown froth that surged past, hissing and growling on its passage to the sea. The boys were wide-eyed. That a cow had been sucked into this torrent was a shock to them. They had never seen such thing before.
Derec wondered aloud whether any bodies of people would come floating past and the other two boys grimaced at his macabre thought. Nevertheless, he could be right. After all if a cow could be trapped and drowned in this great flood, what else might appear? They turned back to watch the flood and to see if anything else of interest would be washed down.
Peter was peering upstream when he let out a shout that caused the other two to turn toward him. He was pointing upstream and shouting. There, bobbing and bouncing on the flood was a shed covered in black tar paper. It was a chicken coop and they looked at it expectantly to see if there were still any chickens alive inside it. Just as it neared them, a small tree that was being spun around in one of the flood’s many eddies, rammed into the shed causing it to split revealing some brownish lumps inside. Yes, there were chickens in the shed still but it seemed to the boys that they were already drowned. The grisliness of the sight of a shed full of dead chickens silenced them until they noticed some movement in the shed and suddenly a reddish brown object detached itself and fluttered its way out of the split and onto the top of the shed. Yet another violent movement and another and then another chicken managed to squawk and flap its way to the relative safety of the top of the shed. Soon there were four chickens perched precariously on the still intact ridgeline of the shed and it looked as if there were more inside still summoning the courage to join their fellows. Those on the roof were flapping their wings violently to keep their footing against the jerking and spinning of the shed but were also strangely silent as if aware that they were in a very tight spot. All the boys were shocked into silence by what they saw. Even though it was only chickens, they could not help but feel saddened at the thought of the terrible fate awaiting these poor creatures, as they would soon be swept out to sea and overcome by the pounding waves.
Roddy was imagining the horrible journey that faced them when he was suddenly struck by another thought. Downstream was the boat anchorage where their friend Albert kept his boat.
“Quick! The shed is going to go right past the moored yachts and if I know Albert, he’ll be down at the bank making sure that his new boat is not dragged away or damaged by the flood. We should warn him about this. He wouldn’t want that shed banging into his new boat and damaging it. Come on let’s run. If we hurry we can cut across the bend in the River and perhaps get there before the chicken coop.”
Peter understood immediately and both boys began to run straight toward the distant Channel while the River veered off to their right at the beginning of a major bend. The boys were cutting straight across the base of one of the great bends in the River over the short sea washed turf that was still surprisingly firm despite the huge amount of rain that had fallen. Although fast runners, usually their running was over quite short distances and this longer run required more stamina, so they soon began to feel pain in their leg muscles while their breathing became harder and throats drier so that by the time they reached the yacht mooring, they were almost doubled over with stitch pains in their sides and hoarse after the hard breathing. But they had beaten the floating chicken coop, which had yet to appear around the bend in the River.
Albert was on the far bank of the River along with several other people who must be the owners of the other boats at the mooring. They were looking anxiously at the flood of brown water and the flotsam that it was carrying out to sea. Somehow, they had managed to get a thick rope across the River that was anchored to a strong stake that had been driven into the ground on the bank close to where the boys were standing. They were using this rope to slow and then divert any larger logs or tree branches that the flood was carrying.
Roddy shouted across to Albert who looked up and waved briefly before turning back to watch the flood. He was clearly focused on the task before him and did not have time to talk. Cupping his hands to help propel the sound of his voice, Roddy shouted again and warned him of the chicken coop that was coming toward them. It took several repeats and a lot of pointing upstream before Albert was able to understand what was being said but he then nodded and waved that he understood. Then he turned and talked to the other men who, after some nodding and gesticulating turned to look upstream. So far they had only had to deal with errant logs and tree branches that they could catch, slow and divert with their primitive rope barrier. A chicken coop would be a very different challenge as it could overcome the rope, as it was larger and there was more current pushing it along.
Peter shouted across to tell them of the chickens that were still alive and sitting on the roof of the coop.
That caused the gaggle of men to begin to talk animatedly to one another. One man broke away from the group and ran to a dinghy that was nearby and dragged it to the River bank. Peter and Roddy looked on in amazement. How could he possibly launch a small dinghy into that roiling flood? The men began to work frantically at something near the bow of the dinghy, which they then attached to the rope that spanned the River. When they stood back, the boys could see that they had attached a line from the dinghy to a metal ring on the rope that dipped and swung in the raging brown flood water. The men then pushed the boat down the muddy bank and into the stream and one of them leapt into it and began to use the line to haul the dinghy out into the current. It bounced in the current and gyrated wildly and the boys felt sure that it would be overturned and the man swept away but they noticed that another line was attached to the man in the dinghy so that if he did fall into the River his friends could haul him to safety. Even so, it was a very dangerous thing to do and both Peter and Roddy wondered if just one man in such a small boat could do anything to catch the floating chicken coop and pull or push it away from the moored yachts.
The man in the dinghy did not seem very muscular, yet he was kneeling on the front thwarts and expertly manhandling the line that was looped over the large rope. It was difficult and dangerous work and Roddy watched anxiously. Looking over at Peter he noticed that he was also on tenterhooks and moving restlessly from one foot to another to help relieve the tension.
“We need to give them some warning of when to expect the chicken coop to arrive,” shouted Peter above the noise of the River. “We can see it better from this bank than they can.”
Roddy shouted across to Albert to let him know what Peter was going to do and Albert acknowledged with a wave and turned to the other men to talk. Peter had run back along the riverbank to where he had a better view upstream. Suddenly, he gave a shout and began to point upstream.
“Its about half-way toward the bend,” he yelled.
Roddy looked across at Albert and his mates and he could see if they had heard the message.
“We need to know where it is and which bank it is closest too,” Albert shouted back.
He now had a megaphone in his hand and his voice was much louder. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Roddy shouted that he understood. Running to where Peter was standing and told him what they wanted him to do. Peter pointed upstream to where the coop was still afloat and bobbing and lurching toward them. They could see that more chickens were now perched on the roof of the coop and by their stillness they assumed that they were a little calmer now. Both boys wore worried looks and glanced briefly at one another. Their strained looks clearly displayed their fear that it would be very difficult to save the coop and the chickens.
Both understood that the first priority for the men and their friend, who was courageously manning the dinghy, was to save their boats from the damage that would come from the coop hitting and scrapping its way along the hulls of the yachts. But for the boys, the prime object now was to save the chickens. The fathers of both boys had kept chickens at one time or another and while chickens did not promote the same feelings of affection that a dog or a cat did, they nevertheless felt protective of the birds. At night Roddy would go out to the chickens and make sure that they were safely inside the shed, or coop part of their house, and not in the run outside where foxes could get at them by digging underneath the wood that held the base of the “chicken wire” surround. Roddy had seen the damage that foxes on a killing rampage would do to chickens and that had made him very protective of the silly, but highly vulnerable creatures. Instinctively, he knew that Peter felt the same way. Neither of them wanted to see the poor chickens tipped into the floodwaters and drowned, as that would be a horrible death for them and one that would haunt their dreams for months.
Running back to the spot on the bank where the rope was anchored, he called across to Albert again.
“We need to save the chickens as well as push the chicken coop away from the boats,” he yelled.
Albert heard him and turned to talk to the knot of men who were watching the River and holding the safety line for the man who was in the dinghy. What followed was a lot of gesticulating and incoherent shouting that Roddy could not understand, as the men were not facing the River. He hoped that they were not refusing to do anything with the chicken coop other than push it away from the boats, and he watched anxiously for a sign that they would do more than just stop the chicken coop damage their yachts.
Just then he heard Peter calling. The floating chicken coop was close and Peter was trying to tell him which bank of the river it was closest to. He was pointing to the far bank, the one on which the men were gathered. Roddy called across to Albert and relayed the message, while also signaling wildly to indicate that the coop would be floating close to their bank. Albert raised his megaphone and talked to the man who was manning the dinghy, which was still bobbing wildly causing him to repeatedly grab hold of the gunwales to steady himself. He seemed to be more nervous now that the task was close. Roddy sympathised as this man would not have a lot of time to do what was necessary to both save the chickens and to prevent the coop from smashing into one of the boats. They may not be the best looking boats, with the notable exception of Albert’s new cutter which was by far the finest of the little fleet, but they were important to these men who had spent a lot of their money and time to buy and maintain them. But how was the man in the dinghy going to grab hold of the coop? Roddy was concerned about this, as he could not imagine that he would be able to grasp it with his hands. He then saw the man bend down, and from the bow withdraw a metal hook attached to a line that, until now, had been hidden. The line ran back to shore and had not been visible as it was running beneath the water, out of sight. So, they had thought this through then. Yet it would still be a very tricky task to hook the chicken coop in such a way as to allow the men on shore to readily haul it to the bank.
Feeling very nervous about this, he turned to look at where Peter was standing. As he did so, he saw the chicken coop come around the bend. For some reason it was not in the faster water that raced around the outside of the bend, but was on the edge of the slacker water that ran near the inner bank. Despite moving more slowly, the coop was spinning gently as well. Peter yelled and pointed, and this time the men could hear him and they waved back in acknowledgment. Roddy estimated that it would only take a few minutes for the chicken coop to arrive at the rope that had been stretched across the River; not much time in which to work out what to do. Peter began to walk back along the bank, keeping pace with the spinning chicken coop, which now sat lower in the water than previously. The wood must be getting saturated with water so that the structure was losing its buoyancy. Luckily the chickens were still perched on top and Roddy was able to get a better look now that the coop was moving more slowly. Nine, yes he was sure, nine chickens were perched on the roof, occasionally flapping their wings to keep balanced against the gyrations of the coop, and except for the occasional squawk, they were remarkably silent. As he examined the chickens, he noticed one of them looked quite different. Was it? Yes, there was a cock perched there near the end of the line of chickens and he knew from his experience that the chickens would tend to follow whatever lead the cock gave, so would the cock have the sense to see that they might be saved by the man in the dinghy, or would they panic?
He yelled across to Albert, “There’s a cock”, but all he got in return was a quizzical look.
Clearly Albert had little experience with chickens and it would be impossible to explain, over the noise of the floodwater, how the cock’s possible behaviour would influence the hens. All that he could do was wait. Peter was alongside him by now, having run ahead of the gently rotating coop so as to be in position to better observe the rescue. Roddy pointed at the cockerel and Peter nodded. He understood perfectly well what could happen. They turned back to the slowly unfolding scene near the far bank of the River. The man in the dinghy was hauling on the line to get his boat positioned to the part of the catch rope toward which the current was driving the coop. It was not easy work and was also quite slow. If there happened to be any last second change in direction of the coop due to some eddy in the River, or if the coop was bumped by one of the many tree limbs that were floating past, it would be difficult to quickly move the small boat to another spot. This was going to be a real touch and go situation, as Roddy’s Father liked to say. Both boys were so nervous that they could not keep still and were bouncing up and down with apprehension.
The coop continued to drift down toward the catch rope, rotating slowly as it went along. On board the dinghy, the man steadied himself in a half-standing position, with the grappling hook in his right hand, while on the bank; the group of men had fallen silent as they realized that it was all up to their mate in the dinghy and to a lot of good luck. As the gyrating coop neared the catch rope, an eddy suddenly caught it and swung it around more swiftly so that the gable end closest to the cockerel was now pointing directly at the catch rope. Peter began to hum to himself and the humming rose and fell with every movement of the chicken coop. Annoying as it was, Roddy could understand that this was his way of dealing with the tension. Trying to ignore it he focused even more on the drama unfolding on the River.
The end came so fast that it was only in retrospect that the spectators to the drama were able to piece together the details. After its last big spin in the eddy just upstream of the catch rope, the coop picked up some speed and began to quickly close the gap between it and the catch rope. The man in the dinghy seemed to notice this and his actions became more animated but it was also clear that he was not sure how best to deal with this change in situation. As the coop was nearer the west bank where the men were, it was not likely to hit any of the moored yachts, yet another eddy could catch it and spin it off toward mid stream quite easily. So, the danger to the moored boats was lessened while the need to save the chickens was unchanged. The last few yards were closed quite quickly and the coop hit the catch rope and, because of its size and the way in which it sat low in the water, it hit the rope quite hard and began to push it downstream. To the horror of all of the watchers, the coop began to break up with the roof being pushed forward, while the side that was against the catch rope was being forced back. All could see that it would only be a few seconds before the whole structure would collapse, pitching the roof part with its perched and now very agitated chickens, into the flood. What could be done was not at all clear. The grappling hook that the man in the dinghy was swinging in preparation for a throw, would not work if the structure fell apart, there would be nothing to hook on to. It was at this point that the chickens, more particularly the cock, realizing that their perch was disappearing beneath them, decided to make their leap to safety. With a loud squawk, the cock flapped its wings hard and left the collapsing roof. Whether it was planned or whether it was simply the result of an act of final desperation by a bird that had been living in the shadow of death for some time now, would forever be unknown. The result however, was clear. The cock managed to clear the space between the roof and the dinghy and it landed on the head of the man, dug in its claws for balance, let out a loud cockerel cry and poo’ed all over the man’s head. The hens, seeing the successful leap for safety began to squawk loudly, before following the cockerel and, flapping their way across the gap, managed to land in the dinghy except for one or two who first landed on the man, let out great jets of chicken poo, and then flapped down to the relative safety of the thwarts.
Everyone was stunned, not least the poor man in the dinghy who was spluttering and calling our to his mates to get him to the bank and quickly. They were so surprised by the speed of this unexpected ending to the drama, that they simply fell to pulling on the safety line to drag the dinghy back to the bank and, in their hurry almost pulled the man into the River. The cock remained at his perch on the man’s head and he, poor fellow could do nothing about it as long as the dinghy was out in the roiling current and bucking and shifting erratically beneath him. He had now had to rearrange the safety line and also manage the line that was still looped around the catch rope. After many hiccups the men managed to haul the dinghy to the bank. Luckily, unnoticed by all of the spectators in their excitement, the tide had begun to set and the speed of the flood was beginning to slow as the weight of tidal water began to push against the oncoming flood.
A few men broke away from the group on the bank and slid down the muddy bank to the dinghy. This caused further consternation amongst the chickens that squawked and flapped their wings to keep their balance. The men steadied the boat so that their friend could step ashore. He had tried to get the cock off his head but failed as its claws were tangled in the man’s thick black hair that was now streaked with white chicken poo.
The man gave up trying to get the cock to leave his head and make its own way up the muddy bank to the grass. Instead, with as much dignity as a person could muster who has a chicken perched on its head, he walked carefully up the muddy bank to the grass. Keeping his balance was quite tricky as it was difficult to get a firm foothold in the slimy mud left by the preceding tide. Every so often he would throw out his arms to steady himself and the cock, sensing that the balance of his perch was changing, would extend its wings and flap and give out the occasional squawk. The men who had gone to the dinghy to help steady it, were stood frozen on the water’s edge staring after their friend in silent disbelief at the sight unfolding before their eyes.
The hens, seeing their cock moving away on the man’s head, decided that they would follow and soon all of them were sliding around in the slop of mud that covered the bank, trying to keep up with the man and the cock. Both boys looked on with a sort of fascinated disbelief that they should witness such a sight. A man with a cock balanced on his head walking stiffly up the muddy bank of the River while simultaneously attempting to maintain both his balance and his dignity. Behind him, came a gaggle of squawking hens that despite their claws were finding the negotiation of the slimy mud to be quite a challenge and they too slipped and flapped their wings furiously to keep their balance. As they flapped their wings, the tips caught in the mud and flipped it skywards so that it fell indiscriminately on both the hens and on the man walking in front.
The men who had gone to help their friend on the boat remained frozen in place, helplessly watching their poor friend slipping and sliding his way up the bank through the tide slop and trying desperately to keep his balance. Nobody laughed, even though the sight was ludicrous. But there was also a tragic side to the event. The poor man with the chicken balanced on his head had just saved a cockerel and several hens from almost certain death in the muddy flood, yet his reward was to be the comic figure of many stories that would be told and embellished for years to come. He would not be remembered for his efforts to save the chickens and putting himself in danger to do so, but for the final fiasco when the cock flew to his head in a desperate attempt to save itself.
The man struggled over the last few steps and finally reached the level grassy ground that lined the River. His companions gathered there had watched his progress in silence and as he made the last few steps. They stepped back from the edge of the bank but without letting their eyes stray from the remarkable sight in front of them. The man stood for a moment and looked at his friends and then he turned and looked at the chickens as they flapped and jumped their way onto the grass. The feel of the grass beneath their feet seemed to calm them and they began to walk around slowly, pecking tentatively at the grass. The man slowly bent his legs until he was able to kneel on the grass and he then bowed toward the hens, as if in an act of religious genuflection and, lowering his head waited until the cock, feeling the pull of gravity as his perch tipped forward, made a final flap and half flew and half fell off the man’s head and landed on the grass. It looked back at the man’s head and then turned and began to strut around the hens, pecking at them and herding them into a tighter group.
Throughout this strange episode, neither Peter nor Roddy said a word, though they had exchanged glances of concern as it looked as if the chicken coop would break apart with the chickens still on it, followed by more quizzical glances as the drama unfolded before them. Finally as the rescue drama turned farcical, they both broke into broad grins of pleasure at the humour of watching an adult trapped in an incongruous and ridiculous situation. Yet the situation was not fully comic as there was the tension of whether the chickens would finally be saved, and it was this uncertainty that kept both boys mesmerized until the final scene when the cockerel flew off the man’s head. At that point all of the tension and concern evaporated, and they turned to one another and, grinning at first then smiling broadly both burst into hysterical laughter and fell to the ground, choking and spluttering while rolling around breathless and gasping for air, overwhelmed by both relief and the humour of the scene that had unfolded before them.
“Did you see the stiff way in which he walked up the bank with that cock on his head. He didn’t bend at all, just ramrod straight and not a peep out of him?”
Peter just managed to make a coherent comment before laughter overtook him again and, despite many attempts, he could not speak at all for several minutes. Roddy also tried to speak about some aspect of the episode that was particularly funny but all that he could manage was a series of gagging gasps that punctuated his laughter.
They went on like this for what seemed like several minutes until, realizing that they could be seen and probably even heard by the men on the opposite bank, they struggled to regain control over themselves. After all the men might not find it as amusing as they and might be offended and interpret their laughter as mockery. It had not been a straightforward rescue attempt and the men could easily have decided that, once it was clear that the chicken coop would miss the moored yachts, that it was easier to just let the thing float on by. Sitting up, they looked across at the other bank and were surprised to see that all of the men were also doubled over and heaving with laughter. Even his friend Albert was bent over and clasping his knees to keep himself steady as gusts of laughter racked his body. Both boys resumed their laughing but the spasms were lighter now and gradually subsided until some memory of some particularly comic aspect surfaced and caused them to start all over. It seemed that the same thing was happening to the men. Roddy would hear one of them say something and ending up spluttering with laughter, cause the rest of the group to stumble around laughing. All that is except for the poor man who had unwillingly provided the comic episode. He was standing there and rubbing his head carefully and feeling around his scalp with his fingers. The cock must have dug his claws into the man’s scalp, for although he seemed to have a thick head of wiry looking hair, it was unlikely that the hair alone would have given the cock a sufficiently secure grip on his chosen perch. One of the men had gone to the hut that they used to keep their equipment, and had returned with a bottle and some glasses. He poured some liquid from the bottle into a glass and gave it to the cockerel man who drank it quickly and held out the glass for more. Then the man with the bottle said something to the cockerel man who leant forward. The man then began to pour some of the contents of the bottle over the cockerel man’s head causing him to leap about and shout. The other man ignored his shouts however and recharged the glass, then poured more of the liquid in the bottle over the cockerel man’s head who resumed his jumping and yelling. The man with the bottle then grabbed the cockerel man’s shoulders and began to examine his head more closely. The others gathered around and an animated discussion followed. Others also took a look at the cockerel man’s head and there was much nodding as if a decision had been reached. The man with the bottle handed it to one of the others and then turned and, holding the cockerel man’s arm, he began to walk him toward the cars that were parked well back from the River bank.
Roddy called across to Albert, “Thanks for saving the chickens. What’s going to happen to the man who saved them?”
“Taking him to the hospital, the cock’s claws left some pretty deep scratches. He’ll be all right though. Just needs some cleaning up and lots of antiseptic to make sure that the scratches don’t become infected? He’ll survive it, though I’m not so sure that he will survive the ribbing that he will get down at the Pub once this story gets out.”
Roddy thought about that and felt rather sorry for the man who had, after all put himself in some danger so that the chickens might be saved. What would happen to the chickens? He suddenly realized that they had no idea where the chicken coop had started its journey and he could not see how they would ever find whom they belonged to.
“What’s going to happen to the chickens?” he yelled back across the water.
“One of my mates here keeps chickens and so he is going to take them. He’s already gone off to find some chicken crates to put them in so that they can be put in a car boot and taken to his house. They’ll be all right. Can’t say the same about whomever they belong to. He’s probably worried sick about what happened to his chicken coop and all. Not much that we can do about it though as that coop could have come from any of several dozen places upriver. Unless he puts a notice in the newspaper and one of us sees it, I don’t think he’ll see his chickens again.”
“Are you going to leave the rope across the River to catch more flotsam and keep it away from your boats?”
“We’ll see what its like when the tide turns. The setting tide has slowed the flood for a while at least. Some of the boys will be out tonight to see if it’s all right. They’ll have to use their car headlights to see what’s coming down though. None of us have seen a flood like this one before with so many big trees and other large flotsam coming down the River. Let’s hope that it’s over with soon.”
Albert gave a wave and turned to go. Both boys waved back and decided that it was time for them to go too.
Suddenly Peter looked around him, “where’s Derec?”
He looked dismayed and Roddy realized that they had not thought of Derec since they left him behind as they sprinted to get ahead of the floating chicken coop. It was expected that Derec would come after them at his own pace and he should have been here by now. But talking it over they realized that they had simply started running and had not said a word to Derec, expecting him to just follow them. But he hadn’t, or if he had he had kept out of sight and then just left. or had something happened to him. The last thought struck them more or less simultaneously and their concern deepened. Both boys turned and began to run back to the spot on the River where they had left him. Their rising fear drove them forward faster and even though they ran with labored breath, they hardly noticed it. As they ran they looked for signs of Derec, and in that flat country it should have been easy to see him from a long distance away. Both boys scanned the River bank as they ran but saw no sign of Peter’s young brother.
LAMBY MEMORIES 