By four thirty, Robbie had climbed up to the area being planted. The men completed their work and gathered around him. A scattered high cumulus had come with afternoon and light airs stirred pleasingly with a freshness of spring.
The burly ganger removed reading glasses from a slim spectacle case and settled them low on his nose. Head bent over a black notebook, he began his routine, pencil in hand. Pages flicked upwards in the breeze and the ganger extended his thumb to hold them down.
“Blue?”
“Thousand.”
“Ruairidh?”
“Thousand.”
“George?”
“Twelve hundred.” (Louis and Guy glanced at each other).
“Iain?”
“I put down the five hundred arctic pine.”
“Good, that’s them out of the way.”
Robbie made a painstaking entry in his notebook. Arctic pine were in short supply and rarely planted. Their bushy root system was designed for thin soil and exposed locations. No-one made bonus on arctic pine. Tucking in roots was awkward and the Commission as represented by Mr. Munro refused to recognise the resulting time loss.
In turn, each of the others spoke the total he had planted, that total to be later recorded in the bonus calculation sheet for the relevant planter. The location would be hatched on a Commission map and the date noted for long term planners to ponder.
Robbie pushed the notebook and pencil into the breast pocket of his old fashioned dungarees and carefully folded reading spectacles into a metal case that shone with age. The squad began to make their way downhill to the landrover clothed in Commission livery of dark green. They plodded carefully, for the ground was broken where it was unploughed, tussocks of husked white grasses, dry twists of old heather, patches of myrtle and bog mosses, keeping heads bent as they left the planting ground, spades balanced on their shoulders.
The ganger brought up the rear, observing the same groups form. Louis wouldn’t be staying much longer, he was certain, watching him attach to Roland and Guy as usual. George ambled along with Ruairidh and Blue; the three had arrived together in early January and shared a bothy. Alex and Noel, become inseparable, were joking about something. They said Noel had recurring nightmares, he was ex-military and had done a tour somewhere in Aghanistan. Silas, the quiet one, and Iain, eighteen years old, the local lad, walked alone.
Robbie mistrusted all those who used what he regarded as superficial expressions of individualism. In this category he included Guy, whose upper arms were both leaden with tattoos, and Blue, whose light beard was untidy rather than unkempt. The first of these two was veneering a personal uncertainty with modern woad; the other deliberately gave an impression of the rebel seeking a cause. Or so the ganger thought.
He was aware of minor tensions among the group. There was healthy competition for the best planting areas where greater bonuses could be earned. Ground condition was critical to the ability to plant efficiently and, therefore, quickly. He had recently promoted George over the old hands, Roland and Guy, to the best planting ground and this was not sitting well with the latter. The ganger was unconcerned. George had proved himself worthy by planting big numbers and whether miffed or not, Guy could hardly cry ‘foul’.
Planting targets were being met. If this squad stayed on through to early summer, all would be well. Summer tasks, such as ‘beating up’, hand spreading of fertiliser, or assisting the fencing squad at a few arbitrarily selected areas, were largely incidental, serving principally to keep the squad in gainful employment until the next planting season began.
His only concern was the tinderbox dry conditions that existed, given the huge area of mature forest that stood nearby. A period of wet atmospheric depressions sweeping in from the southwest would relieve him of worry but disrupt his planting schedule. Trouble was, forecasts continued to be dominated by arrows curving clockwise and repetition of ‘an area of high pressure is moving in…’
The Commission, however, had expressed satisfaction with totals being planted. He should be content. He had a good squad this year, all things considered. None were slackers. Absenteeism was rare and drunkenness rarer. Given the mindlessness and low pay of planting, this was unusual.
Still, for there to be a lengthy dry spell during early spring…he shrugged. This time last year it had hosed down. No target had been met. Everyone had been moody, discontented with thin wage packets and the Office had been furious, looking out of streaming windows day after day, unable to control the weather.
Robbie stepped off the end of the path and walked to the driver’s door of the landrover. The squad had already taken their places inside. He put the vehicle into gear and it moved off, bumping steadily along sunken wheel tracks separated by a grassy hump. The working day was ending.