Dogfall – Kevin Hutchinson
When Cumberland and Westmorland wrestlers
land together, side by side, nobody wins.
They call it a dogfall.
1. With Freddie. Westmorland, 1977
Ya shoulda seen me, boy,
cheek to cheek with Clark himself!
Him too slow from the slack hold,
and me, slick as ya like,
feinting the cross click
to catch Clark full buttock,
sending him sack-heavy on the sod.
I shook the Earl’s hand, boy…
My legs weren’t always
so skinny.
Those were the lucid days,
when fairer skies bore bright blue
from the depth of his eyes
and tales of bouts and belts
fought from the allotment ring
to Grasmere and Keswick
held me tight in his wrestler’s grip.
Ten shillings, the prize, boy.
No barneying, mind ya,
no falling for the fix.
But then,
when his grip fell loose
and the slack hold broke,
when the cross click caught
and he landed low,
the fighting talk fused, confused;
Grasmere felt the Ancre shells
and fighters fell together, side by side
without winners or prizes,
dogfallen.
He calls to Joe or John or Jack,
I think — names inked on the back
of a black and white photo;
cursive, joined up; shot
no more than a cursory glance
back then, but I see them now,
these bull-chested men, lungs
bellowing their furnace days
before the draft of 1916
blew them cold.
I shoulda held fast,
kept ya tight in the butcher’s grip,
stood firm in the field
‘sted of letting my heels slip.
Shoulda thrown ya high
over my shoulder
‘sted of leaving ya cold on the sod.
Is that you, sweet lad?
Did ya land soft?
Did ya stand after all?
Hush now.
She lifts the spoon to his lips
and he sips the salt marsh lamb.
He tastes wild samphire
and drinks deep into him
the scent of sea lavender
sweetened with her jasmine
as she leans and whispers
of Lindale,
of Morecambe Bay.
2. With Lily. Remembering Lindale, 1913
I dreamed we were flying, Freddie,
high above greens and browns and blues,
tracing Turner’s brushstrokes free and wide
over Castle Head. You said we found our wings
and fell, only to be lifted;
fledglings courting the wind.
I see you, Freddie,
waistcoated, cap in hand,
sweating the Herdwick weave,
wiping each beaded minute
of a borrowed watch
waiting for Father;
and at the parlour door, Mother
hushing me to hold short breaths,
each syllable lengthening
that long summer of 1913.
I hear you, Freddie,
pledging the full frame of our lives;
not twenty-one but hand to fifty acres;
not Methodist but hand on heart as sober as
a song in church or heaven judge your soul
unworthy of a timber merchant’s daughter.
Father heard your heart, Freddie,
and heeding for my part it beat in time,
shook your hand
and gave you mine.
He turns the old ring,
slack on his finger.
Fifty acres. Free and wide.
A field to furrow
by nightfall.
Pull away gentle, boy;
do ya feel the share bite shallow?
Do ya hear the sod split soft
against the knife?
Straight and true, now;
keep the traces tight
in the turn.
Hush now.
You should have seen him, child,
thin as a lat, but fat on milk porridge
and black pudding if there was a sow
to slaughter. Driving the horse and plough
for thirteen shillings a week,
but sixteen more when Sweet Thistle
won twenty pounds at Shap for stud;
plenty more besides for a chap with
a good eye for the flat clean bone
and muscular thigh, they said.
Tight in the turn
then dead straight, boy;
Dead
straight
thigh
and bone.
3. With Freddie. Remembering Joe, 1914
He used to tell me something
lived inside his camera;
I pitied it —
caught fast in the bellow,
caged between the criss-cross
struts of the VPK.
He said there was nothing
it hadn’t seen,
but painted its scenes
in black and white because
it didn’t like the colour
of the world.
He said it saw everything
but resolved
to filter out the meaning,
to bear only the briefest burden
and shift the focus with shallow
depth of field.
He eyes every inch
of JUNE ’14;
mapping the moment,
thumbing every wrinkle
from furrowless brows,
looking for the laughter
creases.
God bless ya, Jack
God rest ya, John
God save us, Joe
I saw ya fight at the Flan;
said ya were tight in the hank,
swift in the outside stroke
like Knight or Goold.
Ya took me
high with the inside hipe
then thigh to thigh
on the turn and fall.
Ya landed me hard, Joe.
Sent me deep
but cast me shallow.
Why did ya throw me over, Joe?
Why did ya sweat turn cold?
Lost ya legs and ya life
on the sod at the Somme.
Straight and true, now;
Dead
straight
thigh
and bone.
Hush now.
The picture slips from the tips
of his fingers; feather light
now as she takes the weight
from him; her softer skin
still feeling
the stab of sharp corners,
the fray of rough edges
time-worn smooth.
She slides it between the covers
of Robert Frost,
stiff-spined but stripped thin
of pages, clean-torn and shipped
five hundred miles
in fifty letters to the front.
She shelves it; hides it away
between Graves and Sassoon
where he’s sure to find it.
4. With Lily. Remembering Midnight, 1914
You should have seen them, child,
quick as hares but not so shy
come fair sky and furlough
at the two o’clock bell;
before the morning sweat was dry,
I’d find them, stripped to black socks
and grey pants bleached white;
each locked tight in the loose grip,
hip-thrown but landing soft
on smooth raked soil; slipping
free to find themselves
in fifteen feet of space
paced, marked out, earned
on account of the midnight foal…
I see him, child,
lamp-lit, sweating
the stable heat,
bare chested, arms deep
inside the heaving mare;
feet firm against the soaked
and shifting straw,
feeling for a jaw to pull
straight and true before
the legs are born.
I hear him whisper
through her weaker screaming breaths,
soothing searching,
finding grasping teeth and tongue,
wrenching the head between the knees
to slip the young colt free.
It lies unmoving, child,
but still I see him rise above the falling hope,
gathering low, staggering the limp weight
high in his arms, then sending it hard
and down to find its final rest
or fighting gasp.
She said they drank the birth of Midnight
deep through the soft light of the morning,
cheering the dawn, chasing its promise
with fear and faltered breath behind them.
Strong and sturdy, see that fella go,
the foal would surely show at Shap
or Kirkby Stephen — purse enough
to promise half a rood for beets
and beans, and room enough for
Freddie’s fifteen feet of freedom.
As the shutter closed on JUNE ’14
and the soft light failed
to find the August sky, they cried
for Mons, for Le Cateau and mourned
the fall of Midnight.
5. With Freddie. Remembering John, 1916
When a foal falls to colic,
its dam will pace close by,
nudging it to stand and fight
the melancholy.
It will not feed or drink.
In its gut it will feel
the end
but it will not die alone.
God rest ya, John.
Are ya home, big lad?
Did the fighting douse ya fire?
Ya held too tight in the slack hold;
stepped too close, too soon
for the inside click;
left ya self open for the push
and the fall.
They said they’d cut ya balls
if ya showed ya face behind Tan Hill,
turning the hank, stealing the outside stroke.
Better a bull than a seg, big lad;
better the ring than a cell.
Skinny words
but they chased ya, caught ya
fast in the head with the hate,
bated ya fears,
called ya featherweight.
Shoulda broken off slack,
‘sted of taking the grip.
Shoulda slipped from the hipe,
‘sted of taking the fall.
Were ya man enough, big lad,
when ya sweat the khaki felt?
When ya cut the Ancre scar
though shit and snow, to throw down
where no man should have to land?
Had ya balls enough
when ya dredged through mud so deep
it drowned a horse? And slashed through
stirrup straps and thrashing hooves
to free the lad from under?
Or when ya pushed
and fell
and I held ya,
and though ya felt
the cold take grip,
ya told me not to stay,
did ya feel ya were enough?
God rest ya, John;
no need to wrestle
with it now.
6. With Freddie. Remembering Jack, 1916
We used to count the copper coins
he stacked in a brass tin
he swore was made of gold.
Feel the weight, boy.
Imperium Britannicum.
A gift from the Princess herself!
He said they smelled of blood
and good tobacco;
unto the breach;
each penny polished so thin
he could barely see the faces
or the dates, now fading
out of sequence.
God bless ya, Jack.
I cowled more coin than whin
from the soil when ya scrapped
in ya breeches with Little!
Eleven stone wet but he lifted ya
short with the shoulder,
high with the outside hipe,
scattered ya wages
like hand cast seed;
never saw ya laugh so hard,
never saw ya land so light
again.
I still feel the cold, sweet lad;
its slack grip at my back,
slipping low between the shoulders,
pulling close for the back heel
and throw;
tight at the chest when Hake fell
home from the Dardanelles,
scarred, discharged, missing
an eye that got septic from flies
and burst on a bayonet, they said;
weak in the leg when Pegg cut
free from Loos with a lung full
of pepper and pineapple,
coughing up bile at the side the ring,
eyeing the able bodied.
Could ya furrow straight and true, sweet lad,
when the sod was split too deep?
Could ya keep it tight in the turn
with ya traces loose and the draft horse
pulling fast away?
Rakes for rifles,
traces for trenches.
Sixty-six pounds of kit
on our backs, bearing it
lighter than a look or an eye,
but still that chill dead weight
of dread to lift and carry.
Do ya think they heard
the good news
at Chantilly?
About Billy,
stark mad in the mud
facing his brother;
stuck to their waists
one dead, the other
begging for the bullet?
I see him lift his head;
the lead, loving the air,
like Mad Jack said, stops
dead quiet in that split
second — no fear or fury
in its kiss.
He’s gone, like Joe and John;
meat for the midnight rats
and the morning crows, fat
from scavenging
canned horse and bully beef;
cold carrion, now.
Ya bore the dead weight
straight and true,
but pulled too fast,
too far, too faint
through smoke and snow,
too slow
to reach the Frankfort trench.
Did ya feel that dread
lift light at ya back?
Did the slack hold
grip ya tight
or set ya free?
Did the bullet land ya soft
and swift?
When ya felt it kiss,
did ya think of me?
7. With Lily. Remembering 1919
Hush now.
She closes the brass tin lid
and he drifts once more
to the scent of sweet jasmine.
Her whispers slow the fall
of each faltered breath,
settling unspoken
as the smoke clears
and her own kiss lingers.
I see you, Freddie,
slipping back;
demob dapper
in pin stripes and felt hat;
ill-fitting,
ill-suited, lost
in loose pants and long sleeves,
ill at ease
with your own stride.
I would watch you pace
the empty ring;
fifteenfeetofspace
closing in, you said;
shouting at the silence;
scattering the morning crows;
throwing the sweat of midnight,
tight in its grip,
too firm in its hold.
But still I saw you rise above the falling hope,
standing from the hipes and strokes
of each new day; holding slack, bearing true
as fear and fury fought to send you low.
You cursed the men
that worked the road
at Wasdale Head;
dead straight, thigh and bone.
You broke hard ground
to plough with lads
from Rowrah camp,
furrow straight and true.
When Lloyd George signed
to send them home;
did you feel the dread weight lift?
I see you, Freddie,
taking the slack hold;
easing your stride;
raking the rough ground
beside the cabbage seed
and sprouting kale;
clearing and sifting
fifteen feet of space
to slip free and fall soft
as the crows watch on.
8. Remembering Lily and Freddie
Each spring, she would harvest
half her crop while the leaves
were loose and tender,
slicing every other stem
level with the soil, exposing
gaps, leaving room for
those that stayed behind
to swell and grow
to fill the space between.
He would pace the ring,
slipping full buttock
late in the summer sweat,
stripped-off, landing the farm hands
flat with the hank and the back heel;
breathing slow and deep,
expanding to fill his fifteen feet
as the crows fed fat
on newly planted seed.
He closed his eyes and couldn’t see
the autumn; he knew there should be
reds and browns, but thought
his thoughts had bled them pale.
He couldn’t place the names of men
that lay beneath the ring
or reason why their faces smelled
of smoke and blood, while
the sunrise lingered jasmine.
In the winter, when their fire
burned low in the grate,
she would lift the short rake
and riddle the embers free
from ash and slag, shaking
the last of life from spent coals;
patiently rekindling; calmly
willing each spark to catch
his eye and set the night ablaze.
Can ya see the star shells,
tracing bright, sweet lad?
Flying through the smoke
thick sky to light ya way;
straight and true through
sleet and snow; too slow
on ya heels for Frankfort.
Four hundred and fifty tons
of bronze, they said. Tin
and copper melted down
to send ya ma the dead
man’s penny. Imperium
Britannicum. Feel the weight,
boy. Lifting. Fledglings courting
the wind. Did we
all land soft?
9. Remembrance. Westmorland, 2022
They say I have his eyes;
passed down like pennies
in a brass tin box
I swear is made of gold.
I see him see
the bright blue skies;
the reds and browns of autumn
bleeding pale;
the colours of the world
in black and white.
I see him fight
the bouts and belts; the tight
pull of traces in the turn;
the skinny words; the outside
stroke; the eye that sees the thigh
and flat clean bone;
the shallow cast; the splitting sod;
the share that bites too deep
and finds the frost;
the cost; the cold; the loss
of dates and laughter lines;
the lamp-lit sweat that sees the rise
and fall of Midnight;
the fear; the fury; the coming home;
the kiss of lead; the weight of gold;
the fifteen feet that closes in; the crows
that gather fat while seeds grow thin;
the breaking hold; the slipping free;
the man that sees the boy
that sees the man he used to be.
Hush now.
I see her take his hand
and fly once more
above the greens and browns
and blues of Castle Head;
a single spark
rising with the smoke
to blaze the night
then cool and lose itself
in the morning wind.
She finds him, lost again,
half-dressed in long johns,
and loose vest, barefoot;
pacing the old ring,
circling the rough patch
where cabbage and purple kale
have gone to seed
and pennies from the pockets of
old wrestlers are buried
deep.
Kevin Hutchinson has lived in several places, but was raised in rural Cumbria, which he still calls home. He loves the characters and the character of the place, each finding their way into his work through a lyrical voice and narration in which the boy is ever present. He holds an MA in Creative Writing and an MA in Literature and History of Ideas.
