Free Ferney by James Long Page B

he said.
    Ferney made a tiny nod to Mike and turned and surveyed the house, glancing back at Gally as if considering. He went to the right-hand end of the wall, thought for a bit and tapped at the ground
with his stick.
    ‘It started coming in about here,’ he said, and Gally pushed a broken piece of wood into the earth to mark the spot. He turned and stared towards the trees up the slight slope,
parallel to the road. After a minute or two of concentration, he walked slowly past the caravan to the hedge about thirty yards from the house.
    ‘Back here, I’d say,’ he called, pointing again. ‘A line from here to the house.’
    Gally, following him, pushed in another stick. ‘A straight line?’ she said.
    ‘Near enough.’ He considered again. ‘Get young Eric to start this end, in case I’m a bit out, and tell him to go gently.’
    Slash started up his digger, noncommittal. Mike, his face showing strong reservations, came to watch. The digger crashed through the undergrowth, crushing a bush, and Gally winced. It rocked to
a stop, pivoted, and the grab came down for its first gouge of earth. It was on the third scoop that they heard, over the noise of the engine, a scraping sound. Looking into the hole, they saw that
the digger had uncovered the top of an earthenware pipe, scarring but not breaking it.
    ‘Whoa there. Stop!’ Mike called urgently to Slash and pounded on the side of the cab with his fist as the grab reared up again.
    They looked into the hole.
    ‘It’s a drain, for God’s sake,’ Mike said crossly. ‘A drain or a water main. Lucky it didn’t break.’
    ‘Drains don’t run uphill,’ Gally objected, ‘and you told me the mains water came straight in from the road.’
    They both looked at Ferney. ‘Well, whatever it’s doing there, that’s your answer,’ he said. ‘You follow that down and you’ll see I’m right.’
    Mike wasn’t happy but they did it anyway. Slash was bullied into exercising restraint, scooping the earth out in conservative steps until he met the pipe each time and piling it beside the
trench as they went. It still made a mess, but at least it was a dry mess and within half an hour it was clear that the pipe, which was about six inches across, did indeed run in a straight line
towards the wall. After the first few yards the contours of the ground brought it much nearer the surface and for the most part there was little more than eighteen inches of earth covering it. They
did the last bit with a spade while Slash ate his lunch. Ferney sat on a stone throughout, seemingly content to take in the sunlight. When they got near the wall of the house, they found they were
digging into dampness. The stonework of the outside wall extended down into the earth, footed on to larger blocks. The pipe ended just two inches short of the wall and they could see the slow
stream of water emerging from the end of it and making its way through the gaps in the stone into the cellar beyond.
    Mike and Gally looked at each other. ‘It’s as if someone did it on purpose,’ said Mike. ‘What other reason could there be?’
    ‘Perhaps someone tried to put in a water supply and they made a mess of it?’
    Mike considered, frowning. ‘If it went through the wall and there was a tap or something, okay maybe, but it never even went through the wall, there’s no hole. It’s not the
usual water pipe, is it? It’s much bigger. Whatever, it should have been easy enough to put right. Someone just let it flood the house. Anyway, how did the old man know?’
    ‘Ask him.’
    Mike looked uneasy. ‘You ask him. He just looks straight through me.’
    Gally went to Ferney and sat down next to him.
    ‘That’s good, then,’ he said. ‘You can fix it now. Put it back as it was.’
    ‘I suppose so,’ she said, ‘but what was it? Why did someone put the pipe there?’
    ‘Some daft idea, I expect,’ he said, looking hard at her. ‘Someone probably had a good reason.’
    She knew that was