The Ravenmaster Read online

  This minimum trim approach has a lot of advantages. It allows the ravens to use their wings, which keeps them healthier through exercise and the use of their flight muscles, and it gives them more of a chance of escape if they are ever attacked by a predator. It does also mean that the birds are capable of leaving the Tower—but it’s a risk I am willing to take.

  I judge how much I should trim from each raven by observation and intuition. If I see a raven fly from the enclosure up to around the level of the steps at the White Tower, that’s about right. But if they can fly up and around the top of the Tower like a helicopter whizzing about, then I know that they might need a haircut.

  The ravens’ feathers only grow from about March until the end of September, so trimming takes place for each bird only a few times a year. With the aid of one of my assistants I catch the raven as gently as I possibly can, hold it to my chest, stretch out the wing and then trim a tiny amount of the feather with a pair of scissors, sometimes the primary but mostly the secondary flight feathers. An inch of feather makes all the difference. I then let them calm down and they’re straight back out again.

  And so far, so good. We have never lost any ravens on my watch.

  Well, not quite.

  11

  THE GREAT ESCAPE

  October 2010. Early morning. Dark, cold, but dry. An autumn day like any other. The White Tower had been covered in scaffolding for a few years, as part of a major conservation project to ensure that the ancient stonework would be around for future generations to enjoy. The whole of the western side of the Tower was wrapped in canvas and metal. The only parts of the Tower still visible were the weathervanes and the golden crowns at the top, a constant reminder that the Tower is indeed a royal palace—and that the prevailing winds in the U.K. are predominantly from the southwest.

  During the work on the Tower we had to move the ravens’ cages. The constant clanging of the scaffold poles and the tapping of the stonemason’s mallet was likely to cause them stress, so we set up a temporary enclosure a good distance away, comprising a few old cages with some wooden sheds inside. The shed windows had all been removed, allowing access for the birds to be able to perch and shelter.

  In the dawning light of this October morning I made my usual way to check on the birds.

  I stopped just short of the cages to watch the birds and noticed that Munin didn’t seem to be around. At first I wasn’t too concerned, because she often preferred to stay inside the shed at night.

  I shone my flashlight to get a better look. Bran, Munin’s partner at the time, was happily perched on a branch, going through his morning routine, grooming his long black flight feathers. He looked up, stared at me menacingly for a moment and then, reassured that I was no threat, continued on. Bran was an absolute brute of a bird and hated all humans. He’d attack any visitor who happened to get in his way or who had something that he thought should have been his. Bran it was who once attacked a cameraman while I was conducting an interview for a news program. So notorious were his antics that the raven team had nicknamed him Bran the Thug, which isn’t very nice, but which was perfectly accurate. (It’s said that one of the ravens who worked on Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds—based on the story by Daphne du Maurier about a family coming under attack from all types of murderous birds—was so easygoing that he refused to attack any of the actors. Bran was the opposite. We always handled him with extreme caution, using thick leather gloves and protective glasses. Alas, he never really settled into Tower life and was finally discharged, SNLR—Service No Longer Required. Some ravens just never settle here, and rather than see them get sick or distressed, or cause problems with the other birds, I always send them to a breeder, where they can live away from the public and the very particular demands of Tower life.)

  Anyway, Bran never stirred as I unlocked the door and popped inside the shed to check if Munin was there. Indeed, to my great relief, she was—but in a flash she darted through my legs, out of the shed and out the door, which I had conspicuously failed to shut behind me! Mistake number one. Munin clearly wanted out of her temporary lodgings, and I had been well and truly ambushed. I whirled around to see Bran watching me. He was definitely in on it.

  * * *

  So I had a raven unexpectedly on the loose, which is bad enough because it can upset the other ravens’ routines, but worse, as part of my minimum-trim program I hadn’t trimmed Munin’s feathers for several weeks, which meant she was almost in full flight …

  Munin’s powerful wings allowed her to gain height quickly and she flew higher and higher and higher into the dawning sky, until finally, majestically, she looped her way around the White Tower, as if on a victory lap, and then disappeared.

  The oldest and by far the most cunning of all of our ravens, Munin has always preferred to spend her time around the Tower up as high as she can possibly get, watching the throngs of tourists below, scanning for opportunities for food theft and general mischief-making. I’m a pretty good climber—or at least I was—and have long since become accustomed to coaxing Munin down from some high defensive wall. Even today, one of her favorite games is to hide from me in the evenings when it’s time to put the ravens to bed, especially when it’s pouring rain, freezing cold, and I’m exhausted.

  But this was different. This was clearly a full-scale breakout. I had no idea what to do. I just stood watching, mouth wide open, like some helpless chick waiting to be fed. I’d never had a raven fly off on my watch before. I needed to regain control of the situation—and fast.

  I shut the cage door, ensuring all the other ravens were present, and then moved as swiftly as I could to the south side of the White Tower to see whether I could spot the escapee. Nothing. I hurriedly searched all of her normal hiding places in the hope she might have landed somewhere familiar, but to no avail. Munin had well and truly gone. I had failed in my duty. I had let down Her Majesty, the Tower, and indeed the ravens, who were all now getting restless and requiring feeding and taking care of, so I rushed through the rest of my morning routine, cleaning, feeding, chopping meat, scrubbing the water bowls, all the while hoping that Munin would miraculously appear back at the enclosure with a cheeky smile, and everything would be back to normal. It was not to be.

  I knew that Munin was mischievous, but I just couldn’t work out why she would want to leave the Tower, though in retrospect I suppose all the disruption with the maintenance on the White Tower must have disturbed her. Maybe she just needed to get away. Maybe she needed a break. It was all too much. We’ve all had that feeling.

  I finished my chores, checked the sky once more in forlorn hope and resigned myself to the fact that she’d gone.

  I went back to my home in the Casemates and informed the Tower control room about the loss of a raven, which was duly logged. Later during the day I informed the rest of Team Raven, the Tower’s Head of Operations, the press team, and the Duty Governor. Does the Tower really crumble and the kingdom fall if the ravens leave? No, but it certainly causes a bit of a headache.

  * * *

  The Tower has lost birds before, for all sorts of reasons. An article in the Cork Examiner in 1896, for example, states that two ravens flew from the Tower to the dome of St. Paul’s and never returned. On the night of September 13–14, 1946, meanwhile, the Tower records simply note that “Gripp the raven disappeared. He had hopped about Tower Green since April 1939 and was 17 years old.” And on September 13, 1960, according to the same Tower records, Raven Grog was reported AWOL: “Last seen in the ‘Rose and Punchbowl’ pub in the East End of London!” A shock report in the London Evening Standard on August 23, 1995, “Treason at the Tower as Charlie kills raven,” revealed that a police sniffer dog, a springer spaniel named Charlie, killed a raven also named Charlie during a routine security check. (According to the report, no disciplinary action was taken against the dog.)

  * * *

  Standard operating procedure if we lose a raven is this: If one raven goes missing we replace it immediately. And
if two ravens were to go missing—we would replace them immediately. But if we ever had a catastrophic loss of all of the birds—well, let’s just hope that never happens.

  If we do lose a bird, it’s obviously very sad for me and my team. We Yeoman Warders consider the ravens to be the true guardians of the Tower, so you can imagine our distress if we’re a raven down. Fortunately, though, we do like to keep one another going with a bit of good old-fashioned soldierly banter and ridicule—and on the day Munin disappeared I certainly got both barrels from my colleagues.

  I couldn’t get her off my mind. Where had she flown to? Which direction would she have traveled in? Would she be okay on her own? Was she even alive? Had she been attacked? Perhaps someone would realize she was a raven from the Tower of London and phone to report her. Ravens are, after all, relatively easy to spot in a crowd—they’re certainly not sparrows or pigeons—and they tend to make one hell of a racket. I found myself waiting for a call with good or bad news, staring helplessly into the sky in case Munin might just appear, soaring over the Tower.

  My duty for the day was guarding the inner circuit, which we Yeoman Warders patrol in rotation. I was on my last rotation, at the Bloody Tower, a job that involves looking after the safety of visitors while they queue. Once the queue had died down, I retreated to one of the little black sentry boxes provided for us well over a century ago, in case of inclement weather. As I sat miserably watching the last remaining visitors walk past, I realized that I wasn’t the only one missing Munin that day. The other ravens had all been unusually quiet. I sensed that they felt her loss too.

  The day was nearly over when my radio crackled into life.

  “Ravenmaster Chris Skaife. Over.” It was one of my colleagues, sounding rather animated.

  “Send. Over.”

  “Chris, look on top of the gold crown on the south side of the White Tower. Is that a raven? Over.”

  “Roger, let me check. Wait out.”

  I climbed out of the sentry box and looked up at the White Tower, bandaged in its canvas and scaffolding. My eyes strained to see what looked like a small black dot right on the very tip of one of the White Tower’s golden crowns. Was that her? It was impossible to tell. You get little black dots sitting up on top of the White Tower every day. It’s the favorite lookout post for every crow in London, and from a distance it’s difficult to distinguish a crow from a raven. It’s only in flight you can tell, by the raven’s distinctive diamond-shaped tail and its four long, thin flight feathers. I stood for a moment staring and listening, and then suddenly I heard it: Munin’s distinctive cr-r-ruck-ing sound. It was her! She’d returned to the Tower. Great!

  All I needed to do now was to get her down.

  “Last caller, yes, it’s Munin. Thank you for spotting her. Over.”

  “Roger, Chris. Good luck getting her down. Out.”

  It wasn’t luck I needed. What I needed was a rope and some crampons.

  The Tower was finally closed for the evening and the last remaining visitors were being shepherded out by the Yeoman Warders. I stood looking up at Munin. I wondered if she might be hungry. Maybe I should go and get a delicious mouse or a rat from the store and she would see me waving it around and would glide down, perch on my arm and gratefully take the mouse in her beak? No. That was never going to happen. This was Munin, after all. My old adversary. I had one option and one option only.

  I should state clearly, before I explain what happened next, that I was not at any time asked, persuaded, or coerced by any member of Historic Royal Palaces to carry out the actions I undertook! This was my decision, foolhardy as it was. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time for the sake of raven preservation—and, possibly, my pride.

  * * *

  Now, you might well be thinking that it’s no big deal to climb the White Tower, that a former British infantry soldier with plenty of free-fall parachute experience and nearly twenty-five years of service all around the globe could easily scale the White Tower, grab a raven, and climb back down again with the bird under his arm, thus ensuring that the nation is saved. But remember: I was only in the army, I’m not James bloomin’ Bond! I may at one time have been perfectly happy throwing myself out of airplanes at twelve thousand feet, but a few years on and I have to say that the prospect of climbing the White Tower and risking my life for the sake of a raven was rather daunting. I’m not quite as agile and fit as I used to be. I used to be able to run with fifty or sixty kilos on my back every day, but jumping out of airplanes and firing machine guns can leave you with a few aches and pains: my right knee is made of steel, I’ve got five prolapsed discs in my back, and I’m a little bit hard of hearing from all the gunfire. Plus, I’ve been in a few car crashes in my time. Nonetheless …

  A complex system of scaffold poles surrounded the west side of the White Tower, supporting a series of wooden platforms allowing the stonemasons to carry out work on the ancient stone walls. There were seven or eight levels connected by ladders, not unlike a set of metal fire escapes running up the side of a building.

  I checked to make sure no one was watching me and took a last glance up at the golden crown where Munin was triumphantly perched, busy preening herself. Right, I thought, I’m coming to get you, you little minx.

  I climbed over a barrier and into the stonemasons’ yard. Sitting on a dusty old table were two bright-yellow hard hats. I removed my precious Yeoman Warder’s bonnet and tried on one of the hard hats for size, conscious that during my ascent I should try to observe at least some basic health and safety rules. But then I realized I looked utterly ridiculous in a yellow hard hat and my Yeoman Warder’s uniform. I decided on the high-risk, high-style no-hat option.

  I made my way to the scaffold steps and started to climb, level by level, higher and higher in a continuous spiral of metal, until I reached the very last platform on top of the roof of the White Tower. I paused to regain my breath and looked over the narrow wall at the tiny world below. I’d been up here once before, but that time I’d climbed the internal staircase, not the scaffold steps on the outside. This is pretty high, I thought.

  And there she was. Munin’s jet-black feathers glistened in the fading light of the evening as she rubbed her powerful beak from side to side, cleaning it on the edge of the gold crown and gazing out over London’s vast glass-and-concrete horizon, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. The view was certainly impressive, but I wasn’t here for sightseeing. Cautiously, very cautiously, I made my way along the upper platform to the base of the turret. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might faint. I just about squeezed my way along, my uniform snagging on the clamps that joined scaffold pole to scaffold pole. Above my head just one narrow wooden platform remained, at the very base of the weathervane. If I could just hold my nerve and get up there, then I could assess the situation and plan the capture. My uniform was by now filthy with stone dust, but it was too late to worry about keeping up appearances. Nobody could see me from here. I suddenly felt very vulnerable and alone.

  I was barely twenty feet from Munin and could see through a small gap in the canvas hoarding that she was becoming sleepy as the light was fading. She must have been exhausted. It was now or never. I managed to scramble up onto the top platform. Now I had her in my direct line of sight. I was actually standing on top of the turret and its lead-lined cupola. All that was above me was the sky and the weathervane—and Munin. Below me, 150 feet away, was the cold hard earth. If I could just balance on the cupola and pull myself up toward Munin by hanging on to the weathervane with one hand, then I could perhaps get enough of a stretch to make a grab for her with the other. I had no choice but to make my move.

  The moment I realized that my plan was deeply flawed was when I found myself spinning around, watching the sky above me like water disappearing into a whirlpool. I remember catching a glimpse of Munin flying off in the direction of the setting sun and somehow managing to grab hold of the weathervane—how I survived I’ve no idea. I had c
atastrophically failed to account for the simple fact that a weathervane turns on its axis according to the changing whims of the wind, and as I reached out and held it, I’d been spun around in a northeasterly direction, turning me away from Munin and missing my chance to grab her.

  On my long list of bloody stupid things that I’ve done in my life, this one is right up there. In fact, it’s only now, years later, that I can confess to this ludicrous escapade. And all for the sake of the birds.

  As I always warn: Do as I say, not as I do.

  The climb down the Tower was a long walk of shame. Munin had outwitted me and escaped again.

  She had flown the Tower.

  12

  RESISTANCE TO INTERROGATION

  After Munin’s disappearance from the White Tower, days passed, and then the weekend came, and there were still no reports of a raven hanging around London or chilling out with the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. It would have been unheard of for a raven to return to the Tower after so many days away, so we marked her down officially as AWOL. Then I got the call—a radio message from the Tower’s control room.

  “Ravenmaster, over.”

  “Send. Over.”

  “We have just received a call from a Blue Badge Guide in Greenwich, stating she has seen a raven at the Royal Observatory and she wondered if we’re missing one.”

  “How does she know it’s a raven?”

  “She said it’s very large and wearing a dark green leg band.”

  Munin!

  “Is the bird still there?”

  “Yep. Up a tree in Greenwich Park.”

  “Thank you, control room. I’m on my way. Roger, out.”

  I had a chance to redeem myself after my weathervane antics. This time Munin would not escape.