Spare

It happened at Balmoral. Early morning, fog on the hills, mist in the hollows. My guide, Sandy, was a thousand years old. He looked as if he’d stalked mastodons. Proper old-school, that was how Willy and I described him and other such gents. Sandy talked old-school, smelt old-school, and definitely dressed old-school. Faded camo jacket over ragged green sweaters, Balmoral tweed plus fours, socks covered with burrs, Gore-Tex walking boots. On his head was a classic tweed flat cap, thrice my age, browned by eons of sweat.

I crept beside him through the heather, through the bog, all morning long. My stag appeared ahead. Inching closer, ever closer, we finally stopped and watched the stag munch some dry grass. Sandy made sure we were still downwind.

Now he pointed at me, pointed at my rifle. Time.

He rolled away, giving me space.

He raised his binoculars. I could hear his rattly breath as I took slow aim, squeezed the trigger. One sharp, thunderous crack. Then, silence.

We stood, walked forward. When we reached the stag I was relieved. Its eyes were already cloudy. The worry was always that you’d merely cause a flesh wound and send the poor animal dashing into the woods to suffer alone for hours. As its eyes turned more and more opaque, Sandy knelt before it, took out his gleaming knife, bled it from the neck and slit open the belly. He motioned for me to kneel. I knelt.

I thought we were going to pray.

Sandy snapped at me: Closer!

I knelt closer, close enough to smell Sandy’s armpits. He placed a hand gently behind my neck, and now I thought he was going to hug me, congratulate me. Atta boy. Instead he pushed my head inside the carcass.

I tried to pull away, but Sandy pushed me deeper. I was shocked by his insane strength. And by the infernal smell. My breakfast jumped up from my stomach. Oh please oh please do not let me vomit inside a stag carcass. After a minute I couldn’t smell anything, because I couldn’t breathe. My nose and mouth were full of blood, guts, and a deep, upsetting warmth.

Well, I thought, so this is death. The ultimate blooding.

Not what I’d imagined.

I went limp. Bye, all.

Sandy pulled me out.

I filled my lungs with fresh morning air. I started to wipe my face, which was dripping, but Sandy grabbed my hand. Nae, lad, nae.

What?

Let it dry, lad! Let it dry!

We radioed back to the soldiers in the valley. Horses were sent. While waiting, we got down to work, gave the stag a full gralloching, the Old Scottish word for disemboweling. We removed the stomach, scattered the junky bits on the hillside for hawks and buzzards, carved out the liver and heart, snipped the penis, careful not to pop the cord, which would douse you with urine, a stench that ten Highland baths wouldn’t cleanse.

The horses arrived. We slung our gralloched stag across a white drum stallion, sent it off to the larder, then walked shoulder to shoulder back to the castle.

As my face dried, as my stomach settled, I felt swelling pride. I’d been good to that stag, as I’d been taught. One shot, clean through the heart. Besides being painless, the instant kill had preserved the meat. Had I merely wounded him, or let him get a glimpse of us, his heart would’ve raced, his blood would’ve filled with adrenaline, his steaks and fillets would’ve been inedible. This blood on my face contained no adrenaline, a credit to my marksmanship.

I’d also been good to Nature. Managing their numbers meant saving the deer population as a whole, ensuring they’d have enough food for winter.

Finally, I’d been good to the community. A big stag in the larder meant plenty of good meat for those living around Balmoral.

These virtues had been preached to me from an early age, but now I’d lived them, and felt them on my face. I wasn’t religious, but this “blood facial” was, to me, baptismal. Pa was deeply religious, he prayed every night, but now, in this moment, I too felt close to God. If you loved Nature, Pa always said, you had to know when to leave it alone, and when to manage it, and managing meant culling, and culling meant killing. It was all a form of worship.

At the larder Sandy and I took off our clothes and checked each other for ticks. Red deer in those woods were rife and once a tick got onto your leg it would burrow deep under the skin, often crawl up into your balls. One poor gamekeeper had recently been felled by Lyme disease.

I panicked. Every freckle looked like doom. Is that a tick? Is that?

Nae, lad, nae!

I got dressed.

Turning to Sandy to say goodbye, I thanked him for the experience. I wanted to shake his hand, give him a hug. But a small, still voice inside me said:

Nae, lad. Nae.

28.

Willy enjoyed stalking too, so that was his excuse for not coming to Klosters that year. He preferred to stay behind at Granny’s estate in Norfolk, twenty thousand acres we both adored: Sandringham.