The continuing story of Malcolm Brown and his transition from art student to arb expert on the local parks department.

THE rain hit the metal roof of the garage with a deafening roar that drowned any conversation not shouted. Malcolm stood watching the sheet of water falling past the garage doors, hoping he wouldn’t be called upon to go out in it. This was a day for tinkering in the garage with a spot of machine maintenance or lounging in the messroom with a good book, not sailing the high seas of Hanbridge. The path that ran down the side of the depot had turned into a raging torrent. Malcolm was a bit concerned as the new river surged past his parked car. Normally he would have cycled in, but waking up to rain lashing his bedroom window, he’d decided to drive.

Now he just hoped his prized Mini Cooper wouldn’t end up flushed down to the bowling green.

“Hope you brought your swimming trunks,” yelled Karl, sidling up and peering out at the rain.

Malcom huffed and replied: “More likely I’ll need snorkel and flippers if this carries on much longer.”

Karl laughed and wandered off to sharpen the chainsaws, while Malcolm went to the office to catch up on paperwork. 

After an hour though, a call came through from his boss on the works mobile.

“Malcolm, can you nip down to Riverside Drive on the Brookheath estate? A councillor just called in to say they have a flooding problem.” 

“Why me? We’re the tree gang, remember. You need the water board.”

“He says it’s a fallen tree causing it.”

“Fine. I’ll take a look.” So much for an easy day.

WANT MORE MALCOLM? 

Leaving the rest of the team behind at the depot, Malcolm took Leon and they headed out to brave the deluge. 

Compared to other places, built on flood plains, Hanbridge had the advantage of being a fairly hilly location. True, in past times the main river, running through the central valley, had been named for its tendency to flood, but had long since been tamed. Marshlands had vanished under tarmac and concrete channels directed the flow away from the city, so that sudden deluges no longer sent insurance premiums soaring. However, at key points in the dips, where tributaries ran openly and silted up drains did little good, local floods might still occur. Not on any large scale, but enough to disrupt traffic and make a few homeowners worried.

Malcolm and Leon soon found themselves stuck in a jam caused by one such flood.

The two main roads to Brookheath from the depot dipped under the railway line and both sections were now home to lakes over a foot deep. Traffic was being slowly diverted to the higher ground up the Longshaw road, a detour of around a mile and a half. Progress was unsurprisingly slow and cars with sodden engines littered the sides of the road.

“Should have brought sandwiches,” said Leon, peering at his watch as break time slipped away.

“Shouldn’t be out in this in the first place. It’s ridiculous,” muttered Malcolm, straining to see what was happening on the road through a curtain of rain hammering the windscreen. “There had better be a good reason for dragging us out here.” 

Actually, that wasn’t true. Malcolm hoped it was all a wild waterfowl chase, for the idea of having to do any actual work in this weather was not a pleasant prospect. But finally they made it to site and the problem became evident. Riverside Drive had become a lagoon.

“Bloody hell.” Malcolm stared across a vast expanse of water rising inexorably towards nearby houses on the estate. A children’s play area over what should have been the road, separated from raised fields by what should have been a narrow brook, was rapidly disappearing under an expanding lake. Glad of the van’s high wheelbase, Malcolm drove on, carefully trying to gauge how deep the water was and how all this was tree-related. 

“Over there.” Leon pointed to the far side of the play area. A large willow had fallen where a culvert took the brook underground and debris and litter, swept down by the storm, had piled up against it forming a very effective dam. 

“Bugger,” said Malcolm, knowing his cosy day in the office had sailed over the horizon.

Tackling the tree was going to be a problem. The culvert was a good 100 yards away from the road behind railings. There was no way to get the van close, even if without a small ocean in the way.

Leon nodded in agreement. “We’re going to need a boat.”

“Or waders.” Malcolm wasn’t keen on the boat idea. 

In the first place, getting the park’s large boat over would be a problem without hitching up the trailer. Secondly, Malcolm had previous experience of chainsaws and boats when a tree had fallen across the canal. It hadn’t ended well and he was in no hurry to repeat the experience.

At least the rain was finally easing as Malcolm and Leon headed back to collect the rest of the team. The morning traffic had also subsided, but Malcolm didn’t want to waste any time. This looked like a job likely to take longer than you might expect it to.

A bit of searching around the depot unearthed a pair of waders and one of the gardeners loaned them a pair of fisherman’s chest waders. And so, with Spudda and Karl more or less tagging along for the ride, they returned to Riverside Drive. 

As Malcolm, in the chest waders, sloshed with heavy strides over to the fallen tree, he said to Leon: “I don’t fancy wading back and forth through this. We’ll chuck any rubbish over the railings and deal with it properly when the water level drops.” 

His plan, he said, was to cut away branches and clear away as much debris as possible to unblock the culvert. Removing the tree itself would probably have to wait until the situation improved. 

Standing on the edge of the brook, he cut away at the branches with a chainsaw, while Leon dragged them out using a rope. However, the water around the culvert was a lot deeper than expected and it was hard to get in close. It came well nearly to his knees as he stood on the raised section behind the tree and was even deeper in the swollen channel. Twice they both nearly slipped over on the submerged grass.

They struggled on but more and more bits joined the debris in the dam until after half an hour the culvert was still blocked and the dam had grown to epic proportions.

“This is futile. I can’t get anywhere near to hack away more branches.” Malcolm switched off the chainsaw and stood back, sweating despite the cold.

Leon let the rope hang loose. “We need a rake, or something with a hook, to pull away the congestion.” 

“Sod it. Let’s have lunch and think about it.”

Back in the messroom, they were eating their sandwiches and supping welcome cups of tea when it was announced on the radio that more rain was on its way. No pressure then, thought Malcolm.

Straight after lunch they rummaged around the store room for any tools they might use to disperse the blockage. A little later they loaded rakes, Dutch hoes and a long boathook from the boating lake on to the van and headed out once more. This time Malcolm let Spudda and Karl take a turn working. Karl in chest waders gathered up items that spudda, in the larger sized waders, flicked out with the boathook from the dam. Malcolm and Leon relaxed and watched from the comfort of the van.

Leon asked: “You sure this is a good idea letting him loose with that boathook?”

In typical fashion, Spudda was going at it like a madman, sending up huge sprays of water every time he flung another load of twigs and plastic bags out from the stream. Each time narrowly missing his co-worker. 

“Come on Karl, put your back into it. It’s going to rain,” yelled Spudda and heaved hard on the boathook. Too hard. His feet shot out from under him and, with an incoherent bellow, he disappeared into the brook. 

Faces pressed against the van window, Malcolm and Leon watched in grim fascination as Karl reached down with a rake to help Spudda only to lose his own footing and join him in the drink. There followed a lot of frantic splashing and flailing limbs. With spots of water dotting the van’s windscreen, Malcolm looked at Leon and Leon looked back at Malcolm.

Leon shrugged and grinned. “Sorry. Team leader’s job.”

“Fine.” With a resigned sigh, Malcolm put his wallet and phone on the dashboard and grabbed the rope from the back seat. “If I’m not back in five call the coastguard.”

Cursing the responsibility of being a team leader and the lack of waterproofs, he leapt from the van into the freezing water. By the time he reached the culvert, he was cold and soaked, but not half as much as Karl and Spudda. Both were still struggling to extract themselves from the brown swirling water. 

Forestry Journal:

Malcolm managed to rescue Karl with the rope after a comedy of errors in which he slid under twice on the slippery hidden grass. Malcolm and Karl now turned their attention to Spudda, who was up to his shoulders in the brook.

“Grab this,” cried Malcolm and Karl together, casting the rope towards him.

However, Spudda showed no inclination to leave. Instead, he clawed away at the dam like a mad ferret throwing what he broke loose up to Malcolm and Karl. Soon a whirlpool appeared around him and Spudda clung to the black branches of the tree as water drained away around him.

The main trunk still lay across the flow but with the level dropping Malcolm could finally get in with the chainsaw and remove enough branches to keep the channel open. Just as well for daylight was fast fading and the rain was getting heavy once again. 

It was a very drowned-looking bunch of lads who squelched their way back to the van. Doubtless the culvert would block again but for the moment it was draining.

Karl said gloomily, as the water in his chest waders was making strange sloshing sounds: “I was going out tonight but I think I might just call it off.”

“Oh? Were you going anywhere nice?” enquired Malcolm, wringing out his jacket as he went.

“Swimming.”