Fluke (18 page)

'People?'

'Big things, on two legs.'

He shrugged. 'Never seen them.'

'Don't people ever pass this way?'

'Never seen them,' he repeated. 'Never seen a town, either. No towns here.'

'There's a town not too far off.'

'Can't be any such thing. Never seen one.'

'No, not here in the woods, but further away.'

'There is no other place.'

'Of course there is. The world's far bigger than just this woodland!'

'What woodland?'

'Around us,' I said, indicating with my nose. 'Beyond these nearby trees.'

'There's nothing beyond those trees. I only know those.'

'Haven't you ever gone further than this glade?'

'What for?'

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'To see what else there is.'

'I know all there is.'

'You don't. There's more.'

'You're mistaken.'

'You've never seen me before, have you?'

'No.'

'Well, I come from beyond the trees.'

He puzzled over this for a minute. 'Why?' he said finally. 'Why have you come from beyond the trees?'

'Because I'm passing through. I'm on a journey.'

'A journey to where?'

'To a town.'

'What's a town?'

'Where people ... oh, forget it!'

He did, instantly. The frog wasn't really that concerned.

I stomped away, exasperated. 'You'll never turn into a handsome prince!' I shouted over my shoulder.

'What's a handsome?' he called back.

The conversation made me ponder over the animals' point of view. This amphibian obviously thought that the world was only that which he could see. It wasn't even that there was nothing beyond, for he had never even asked himself the question. And it was that way for all animals (apart from a few of us): the world consisted of only what they knew - there was nothing else.

I spent a restless and anxious night beneath an oak tree, the sound of an owl and its mate keeping me awake for most of the night. (It surprised me to discover the 'to-whit-to-whoo' was a combination of both birds - one hooted while the other twitted.) It wasn't so much their calling to each other that bothered me, but their sudden swoops down on to vulnerable voles scurrying around in the dark below, the sudden screech culminating in the victim's squeal of terror which disturbed and frightened me. I didn't have the nerve to upset the owls, since they seemed vicious and powerful creatures, nor did I have the courage to wander around in the dark looking for a new sleeping-place. However, I did eventually fall into an uneasy sleep and the following morning I went hunting for chickens with my new friend, (I thought) - a red fox.

I awoke to the sound of yapping. It was still dark - I estimated dawn was a couple of hours away yet, and the yaps came from not too far off. Lying perfectly still, I tried to detect in which direction the yaps came from, and from whom. Were there pups in this wood? Sure that the owls were now at rest, I
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inched my way forward away from the trees, my senses keened, and had not gone far when I came across the fox's earth in a hollow under a projecting tree-root. A musty smell of excrement and food remains hit my nostrils and then I saw four sets of eyes gleaming out at me.

'Who's there?' someone said in a half-frightened, half-aggressive, manner.

'Don't be alarmed,' I reassured them hastily. 'It's only me.'

'Are you a dog?' I was asked, and one set of eyes detached itself from the others. A fox skulked forward out of the gloom and I sensed rather than saw she was a she. A vixen.

'Well?' she said.

'Er, yes. Yes, I'm a dog,' I told her,

'What do you want here?' Her manner had become menacing now.

'I heard your pups. I was curious, that's all.'

She seemed to realise I was no threat and her attitude relaxed a little. 'What are you doing in these woods?' she asked. 'Dogs rarely come in here at night.'

'I'm on my way . . . somewhere.' Would she understand what a town was?

'To the houses where the big animals live?'

'Yes, to a town.'

'Do you belong to the farm?'

'The farm?'

'The farm on the other side of the woods. Over the meadows.'

Her world was larger than the frog's.

'No, I don't belong there. I'm from a big town, a city.'

'Oh.'

The vixen seemed to have lost interest now and turned back when a small voice called from the darkness.

'Mum, I'm hungry!' came the complaint.

'Be quiet! I'm going soon.'

'I'm hungry too,' I said, and I really was.

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The vixen's head swung back to me. 'Then go and find yourself some food!'

'Er ... I don't know how to in a forest.'

She looked at me incredulously. 'You can't feed yourself? You can't find yourself a rabbit, or a mouse, or a squirrel?'

'I've never had to before. I mean, I've killed rats and mice, but nothing bigger than that.'

She shook her head in wonder. 'How have you survived, then. Coddled by the big ones, I suppose -

I've seen your kind with them. They even use you to hunt us!'

'Not me! I'm from the city. I've never hunted foxes.'

'Why should I believe you? How do I know you're not trying to trick me?' She showed me her pointed teeth in a grin that wasn't a grin but a threat.

‘I’ll go away if you like, I don't want to upset you. But perhaps me and your mate can go and find some food for all of us.'

'I don't have a mate any more.' She spat the words out and I could feel the anger and hurt in them.

'What happened to him?' I asked.

'Caught and killed,' was all she would say.

'Find us some food, Mum,' came the plaintive cry again.

'Well, perhaps I could help you,' I suggested.

'Huh!' scoffed the vixen, then her voice changed. 'There may be a way you can be used, though,' she said thoughtfully.

I stiffened to attention. 'Anything. I'm starving.'

'All right, then. You kids stay here and don't go outside! You hear?'

They heard.

'Come on, you.' The fox brushed past me.

'Where too?' I asked eagerly, following behind.

'You'll see.'

'What's your name?' I called out.

'Hush up!' she whispered fiercely, then said, 'What's a name?'

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'What you're called.'

'I'm called fox. Vixen to be exact. You're called dog, aren't you?'

'No, that's what I am. Fox is what you are. I'm called Fluke.'

'That's daft. Flukes are flatworms!'

'Yes, but men called me Fluke - it's an expression.'

She shrugged off my silliness and didn't speak again till we'd walked for at least a mile and a half. Then she turned to me and said, 'We're nearly there now. You have to keep very very quiet from here on -

and move very carefully.'

'Right,' I whispered, trembling with excitement.

I could see the farm stretched out before us and from the stench I guessed it was mainly a dairy farm.

'What are we going to do - kill a cow?' I asked in all seriousness, the excitement draining from me.

'Don't be daft!' the fox hissed. 'Chickens. They keep chickens here too.'

That's all right then, I thought. That could be quite interesting.

We crept towards the farm and I copied the fox's style exactly, running forward silently, stopping, listening, sniffing, then padding forward again, from bush to bush, tree to tree, then stealthily through the long grass. I noticed the wind was coming towards us, bringing lovely rich farmyard smells. We reached a huge open shed and slid easily into it. On our left were the remaining bales of last winter's barley straw, and on our right bags of fertiliser piled high. When we emerged, I stopped at a water-trough and, resting my paws on its edge, had a good tongue-lapping drink.

'Come on!' the vixen whispered impatiently. 'No time for that. It'll be dawn soon.'

I padded after her, feeling quite refreshed now, every nerve alive and dancing. The fox and I passed through the collection yard, over the feeding-troughs, by the silage pit, then past a nearly empty but pungent manure hold. I wrinkled my nose — you can have too much of a good thing - and sped after the wily fox. We could hear the cows snoring in their enormous shed, and the smell of barley managed to cover the smell of manure (although not entirely) as we went by a giant barley bin. We were soon through the yard and I could see the dark outline of a house in the moonlight ahead of us.

The fox stopped and sniffed the air. Then she listened. After a while, her body relaxed slightly and she turned to me.

'There's one of your sort here, a big ugly brute. We must be careful not to wake him - he sleeps up near the house. Now this is what we'll do. ..." She came closer to me and I saw she was quite attractive really in a sharp-looking way. 'The chickens are over in that direction. A thin but sharp barrier keeps them in and us out. If I can get a good grip with my teeth at the bottom of the barrier, I can pull it up so we can get underneath. I've done it before - it's just a knack. Once we get in, all hell will break loose ..." (did she understand the concept of hell or was it only my mind translating her thoughts) "... and when it does, we'll only have a short time to grab a hen each and make a bolt for it.'

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I'm sure her eyes must have gleamed craftily in the dark, but I was too excited - or too dumb - to notice.

'Now,' the vixen went on, 'when we run for it, we must go separate ways. That will confuse the big dog and the big thing who keeps him. The two-legged thing...'

'Man,' I said.

'What?'

'Man. That's what he's called.'

'Like Fluke?'

'No. That's what he is. Man.'

The vixen shrugged. 'All right. Man has got a long stick that screams. It kills too - I've seen it kill - so you must be careful. You had better run back this way through the yard because there's plenty of cover, and I'll go the other way across the fields at the back because I'm probably faster. O.K.?'

'Right,' I said keenly. Rumbo was probably turning over in his grave just then.

On we stalked, silently and breathlessly, and before long we'd reached the chicken-coop and its surrounding wire-mesh fence. It wasn't a particularly large coop - the farmer probably only kept chickens as a sideline, his profit coming from his cows – but it could have contained thirty to fifty hens. We heard an occasional flutter from inside, but it was obvious they hadn't detected our presence.

The vixen scuffled around at the base of the wire fencing and tried to get a grip on it with her teeth. She managed to do so and pulled upwards with all her strength. The wiring tore loose from its wooden base, but my companion was unable to keep her grip and it fell back down again, although it remained loose.

There had been a ripping sound as the wire mesh tore loose and the noise had alerted the hens inside the hutch. We could hear them moving around inside. Soon they would be jabbering and screeching.

The fox tried again and this time she was more successful. The wiring sprang up and sank back only slightly when she released it.

'Quickly,' she whispered and shot through the opening. I tried to follow, but my body was bigger than the fox's and the wire cut into my back, trapping me half-way through. Meanwhile, the fox had climbed up a short run, lifted a small flap with her nose, and in a flash was inside the hutch. The screams and the thrashing sounds that came from inside paralysed me. The sudden deep barking that came from somewhere near the house made me mobile again. I struggled to get free, knowing the farmer and his

'screaming stick' would soon be down there.

The small hatch to the chicken-hutch suddenly flew open and out poured the squawking poultry, feathers and bodies flying through the air like torn pillow-cases.

Now I don't know if you know this, but hens, as do many groups of animals, have their own hierarchy.

It's called the 'pecking order', and the hen who has the biggest and meanest peck is the boss, the second meanest pecker is under the first, but boss over the others, and so on all the way down the line. But now it looked as though everyone was equal.

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They all ran around like lunatics and the only competition was who could fly the highest.

The fox emerged, a hen as big as her own body fluttering feebly in her grasp. She ran towards the gap where I was crouched neither in nor out.

'Move yourself,' came her muffled command.

Tm stuck! 'I yelled back.

'The dog's coming, quickly!' she said, desperately pacing backwards and forwards along the side of the pen. But the dog must have been chained, for although we could hear him barking, he was still nowhere near. Then we heard the roar of the farmer as a window flew open back there at the house.

That moved me. With a terrific wrench backwards I tore myself free of the wire, scratching my back nastily as I did so. The fox, chicken and all, was through in a flash.

'You go that way!' she shouted at me, feathers spraying from her mouth.

'Right!' I agreed. And then I ran up towards the house, towards the dog, towards the farmer and his gun, while my friend flew off in the opposite direction.

I was half-way there before I stopped and said to myself, Hold on! I looked round just in time to see a fleeting black shape tearing across a field before being swallowed up by the dark line of a hedge.

I turned back as I heard the door of the house crash open and out leapt the farmer wearing vest and trousers and heavy boots. The sight of the long object he held in two hands before him nearly made me faint. The other dog was going mad now trying to get at me and I saw it was a very healthy looking mastiff. I had the feeling his stretched chain would break at any moment.

I groaned and wondered which way to run. The end of the cowshed lay to my left, outhouses to my right. Ahead was the farmer and his monster dog. There was only one way to go really, and of course the fox had taken it. I turned in my tracks and made for the open fields.

A choking kind of shout came from the farmer as he saw me and I heard him lumber out into the yard. I didn't have to look to know he was raising the gun to his shoulder. The blast told me it was a shotgun and the whistling over my ears told me the farmer wasn't a bad shot. My speed increased as my quickening heartbeat acted as a crazy metronome to my legs.