The Great Pig Escape

by Linda Moller

  He lifted his head and pricked up his ears, listening. It sounded again. A triumphant brassy blare – Tarantara! Tarantara! It flashed fearfully through Meadow’s mind that it could be saying, ‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Here the pigs are, they are.’ He hid behind a bush. He could still peer out down the valley without being seen. Below, in the distance, he could see men in pink coats on horseback following a pack of foxhounds.

  The leading hounds ran, tail up, nose down to the ground, following a scent. For two hours they had been following this scent, losing, then finding it again. It was the scent of a fox on the run, and it would lead them like a pathway to where they would find him. Then they would have it. Sink their teeth in it, shake it like a stick. Fight each other for bits of it.

  But Meadow knew nothing of this. To him it could only be the pig hunt they all feared, only more awful, much more awful. Not in their worst imaginings had there been a pack of dogs and men on horseback. Meadow fled back into the wood.

  ‘Stop! … Stop munching!’ he yelled. ‘Hide! They’re coming … A pack of dogs … Men on horseback.’

  ‘Where? Where are they?’ Runtling shouted.

  ‘Down in the valley … Heading this way.’

  The pigs pushed and crammed themselves under bushes and low boughs. Stiff with fear, they crouched there with closed eyes.

  A fox, fur matted with sweat, tail dragging with exhaustion, turned up the hill towards the covert. There he’d go to earth, and he’d stand to fight if needs be, just where his earth’s dark interior narrowed and tunnelled between tree roots and the hard-banked soil. There he’d fight … his last fight?

  The fox was halfway up the hill. He caught the strong whiff of pig. He veered towards it, knowing that the scent of pig was stronger than the scent of fox. He cast around for where the smell was thickest.

  It will smother my scent, he thought.

  He reached the covert and made for a large hole between the roots of an old beech tree. He disappeared into it.

  The foxhounds were rounding the foot of the hill, baying and yelping with excitement, for the scent was strong and fresh. The pigs heard them and crouched lower. The fox heard them and pressed against the far side of the earth, waiting in suspense. But in his eyes was a sly, even cocky look.

  Halfway up the hill the hounds stopped, puzzled. The scent of fox had given way to a strong scent of pig. This was of no interest to them. They had grown up among farm animals. If they had dared to chase any they would have been whipped.

  They ran here and there, frustrated, then appeared to give up. They were tired anyway. Some lay down. The riders reined in and waited below. In the end, they called the hounds off, turned back along the valley and jogged slowly homewards.

  CHAPTER 10

  Anger in the Wood

  A BRIEF SILENCE FELL in the wood. The two crows flew down. They pecked energetically at the upturned earth, finding an unusual number of insects and other goodies. They were still at it when the pigs, rather subdued, crept out of hiding. The hunt had been a shock.

  The crows were now even angrier with the pigs, for this time they were interrupting their feeding. They started cawing and flapping again, taking large hops towards the pigs. The pigs grew nervous.

  ‘This is our wood,’ cawed the crows. ‘You’ve no right here. You’re in our way. We’re feeding … feeding …’

  Runtling said quickly, ‘It’s just a short visit. We’ll be gone by dark.’

  But Fern was bolder. ‘And who provided you with this feast anyway? Who turned over the soil so that you could get all those creepy-crawlies? We did!’

  The crows cocked their heads to one side and considered this. Finally, they replied, ‘We have agreed that you may stay here and continue digging – as it’s only temporary. And, may we ask, where are you off to this evening?’

  ‘We won’t know ‘till we arrive,’ sighed Runtling.

  ‘That’s not much of an answer.’

  ‘Well, the truth is we’re running away from Taggerty’s, and we must take the shortest route to get as far away from him as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Taggerty’s! We’ve been over Taggerty’s, but not often. He has a gun. He shot my cousin. We’d be most happy to help you escape him.’

  ‘You must do this,’ continued one crow. ‘Look where the sun sets. Due west. Go due west. That’s the opposite direction to Taggerty’s. He’s due east. And the shortest way is always the straightest way. It’s the way we take. So go as straight as a crow flies, and don’t meander round.’

  ‘But what happens if due west leads straight through a village?’

  ‘Then tip-toe through the village. Of course, we would just fly over.’

  ‘Thirteen pigs tip-toeing through a village!’ The pigs fell over laughing at the idea. ‘Pigs can’t tip-toe!’

  ‘Stop,’ squawked the crow. ‘The only village due west is twenty miles away. There’s a tall church spire in the middle of it. No distance by air. An easy flight. But overland … well … that’s a matter you’d know more about. Don’t envy you though. Four legs – quite a handicap – always earthbound. Better off with a couple of legs and a pair of wings, like us. Move anywhere, anytime. Distance no object.’

  ‘And by the way,’ chipped in the other crow, ‘that’s not the only village hereabouts. There’s a nearer village northwest, and another northeast. No, to be exact, it’s east northeast.’

  ‘Wrong again!’ interrupted the first crow. ‘It’s north northeast.’

  The second crow hopped in annoyance. ‘Ignore that. I repeat. East northeast. Not that it matters, for both are off course. But should you approach either village, reverse! You are travelling in the wrong direction. Remember, head west towards the setting sun. Then navigate by the stars. You’ll find it easy, quite easy really. Well. Bon voyage!’

  I’ve heard that before too, thought Runtling. ‘Easy’ means it’s difficult, or impossible. Let’s hope it’s only difficult.

  The fox slept deeply. It was afternoon before he came out from the earth. He looked around his covert, dismayed. There were thirteen pigs digging it up. He rushed at them, barking harshly.

  ‘This is my covert. This is where I live. Look what a filthy mess you’ve made of it. What are you doing here anyway? You’re trespassing. Now clear off. Go!’

  What could the pigs say? Go they couldn’t, wouldn’t. It was still broad daylight.

  Runtling stepped forward. ‘I’m very sorry. We had no idea … I’ll explain …’

  And he told the fox their whole story right from the beginning. In spite of himself, the fox grew more and more interested and sympathetic. His own life was pretty dramatic too from time to time.

  ‘But, about the poisoned sprouts,’ said the fox thoughtfully, ‘it’s unbelievable that a farmer would sprinkle, or maybe paint, each sprout with poison. Hundreds – thousands – of sprouts! Think of the time. Think of the cost. No, it’s my belief those rabbits were snared. Nearly every farmer keeps snares. They’re cheap. And they’re deadly. They set snares for foxes too. There’s little I don’t know about snares. Of course you pigs haven’t the eyes to see snares at night, especially among leaves and grass.’

  The pigs looked at Runtling. He turned his head in embarrassment and looked away. He had got it completely wrong!

  Then the fox told them all that had happened in the hunt, of his clever idea of diving into the thick of their pig smell, of staying in it ‘till he reached his earth, and of how it threw the hounds off his scent. So the rest of the day passed happily. The fox told breathless tales of the hunt, and the pigs told stories of the farmyard and humans.

  And now it was dusk and time for the fox to become the hunter rather than the hunted. The first rabbits would be out, and he was hungry.

  ‘And you’ll be leaving very soon too,’ he reminded the pigs. ‘You know what lies due west. The moon is rising, so you’ll be able to see to find your way. As for the covert, well, I suppose it’ll grow over again one day and I admit that
having you here saved my life!’

  They were all a little sorry to part.

  CHAPTER 11

  They Came to a River

  THIS WAS THE THIRD NIGHT of the great escape and the pigs were tired and hungry again.

  ‘I’m not used to all this trotting. Trotting … trotting … trotting. Trotting all night and every night.’

  ‘Neither am I. My hooves are wearing thin.’

  ‘Why do we always have to go through brambles instead of around them?’

  ‘My left ear is hurting.’

  ‘My left leg is, and that’s worse.’

  They kept on asking Runtling, ‘How far have we got to go now? Are we nearly there? How much further is it?’

  ‘No idea. Not the slightest idea yet,’ Runtling confessed.

  ‘Don’t you know where we are then?’ they asked him.

  ‘Not that either.’

  One of the Piglings was weeping. ‘We’re lost. Hopelessly lost.’

  ‘Are we, at least, going in the right direction?’

  ‘Well,’ said Runtling. ‘The crow said “Go straight as the crow flies”. Straight means straight on.’

  ‘Oh, straight on again!’ they groaned. ‘Going straight on is so awful. Why can’t we go round things instead of always straight over things or straight under things or straight through things? Things which hurt too. Hawthorn hedges. Barbed wire. Squeezing through gates.’

  Runtling tried to explain. ‘I’m only making sure we go straight like the crow said. If we went round things that turn corners, like hedges, we could lose our direction. We could find we were going a roundabout way back towards Taggerty’s. Anyway the next bit looks all right. And it’s downhill. Cheer up.’

  At the bottom of the slope their way was suddenly barred. Hidden by the trees that overhung it was a river. The pigs stood on its banks, staring at the dark water. Now all that the pigs had ever seen of water was a large puddle in the pigyard. It was always there for a day or two after a lot of rain. It was cool and splashy and nice.

  They were puzzled. ‘This is a very large puddle.’

  ‘And it seems to have no end either way,’ said Bramble.

  ‘But, look, you can just see more trees there. That must be the other side.’

  ‘Well,’ said Runtling, ‘straight on means straight across this water, doesn’t it? It’ll be nice! Come on … let’s go.’

  It was exciting. All crowded together, pushing and splashing, they rushed in.

  But this was not like the puddle in the pigyard. ‘The water’s coming up to the top of my legs,’ called out Meadow from the front. ‘Better than the puddle in the yard!’

  But he spoke too soon. A step or two further in and he was no longer sure that water was fun. ‘It’s splashing over my sides now.’ This was frightening.

  ‘There’s too much water here,’ screamed a Pigling.

  Then the water closed over their backs and they were straining their necks to keep their heads above it. The water was pulling at them, trying to carry them along with it as it flowed past into empty darkness. In a panic they fought the water with pounding legs. Striking legs. Fast, faster and faster. Keeping their heads up. Keeping their heads above the water to get to safety, the safety of the other bank.

  And they found they were actually running in the water — running, without their feet touching the bottom. For this running was a swimming, in the kind of way all four-legged animals swim.

  At last, one by one, the pigs reached the other bank. Panting, excited, they scrambled up it.

  ‘That was marvellous!’ said Mist.

  ‘It was terrible!’ said the Piglings with one voice.

  ‘Well, terribly marvellous then!’ said Runtling as he bounced ahead, all clean and fresh.

  CHAPTER 12

  Tell-tale Hoof Prints

  EARLY NEXT MORNING a fox strolled along the river bank. Suddenly he stopped and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

  Pig! The smell is unmistakable and awful. About an hour old, I’d guess. And there must have been many more than one pig. Could it be that lot who messed up my covert? My friends, the runaways? Then they’ve come a remarkable distance in a short time. Well, for pigs, that is.

  The fox studied the soft earth and mud on the bank. Idiots! Just look at all those hoof prints. They should have jumped from grass into the river. And they should have spread out instead of taking off together, and taking off from mud too. They might just as well have put up a notice to help everyone who’s looking for them:

  We were right here.

  Now cross the river

  to find more signs.

  Love,

  The Pigs.

  Oh Pink and Hairless Ones, who know not the ways of the wild, I will yet save you from your folly, he intoned.

  The fox then rose on his hind legs and began a strange jumping, stamping dance exactly on top of their hoofprints. When he had finished, the ground was churned up as though a great fight had taken place on the bank, but between what sort of animals it would be hard to say.

  I think I’ll check on where the pigs are lying up, the fox thought.

  He swam the river with ease, shook himself dry and, nose to the ground, trotted off. He would hunt on the way. He was in no hurry, not yet.

  This same morning, after she had settled Mr Taggerty comfortably on the sofa, Mrs Taggerty got the van out to look for the pigs. The village had been wrong. The pigs had not come home for food. And believe it or not, it was possible to lose twelve pigs.

  Mrs Taggerty called at farmhouses. She dropped in at pubs. She leaned over gates and asked tractor drivers. Nobody had seen them. But everybody declared they would watch out for them.

  It was lucky for the pigs that people had lost the habit of walking any distance more than about a mile. Long ago, before cars were on the road, country people walked everywhere. There was time then to notice the many little things they passed even when taking shortcuts along the tracks and footpaths and fields. Certainly to notice the footprints of thirteen pigs. And in those days this story would have ended there.

  CHAPTER 13

  Hopeless Farm

  IT WAS DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to daybreak. Still the pigs had found no sort of cover. They were in a lane with a stone wall on the right, too high to climb, and a thick brambly hedge with one or two old trees sticking out of it on the left.

  What was behind that thick hedge they wondered? Well, somewhere there must be a gate they could look through. Further on they found it, a heavy old wooden gate. Fastened, chained up and padlocked, with bars too close together to squeeze through.

  Leaning crookedly on the gate-post was a large notice. It looked as though it had been there for a long time. It read ‘FOR SALE: HOPE FARM – TWENTY-FIVE ACRES’. Some-one had added the ‘LESS’ after ‘HOPE’, so that the sign read: ‘FOR SALE: HOPELESS FARM’.

  And hopeless it was. The last farmer who had owned Hope Farm had grown too old to work the land. He sold off his cows, and sat in front of the fire all day. He let the fields do as they pleased. He could no longer be bothered.

  The grass grew very long, bent over, and yellowed. The weeds grew stronger and invaded the fields and with every year they had become taller and more numerous.

  The pigs were delighted with what they saw – a field full of nettles and thistles and docks, gorse too. Bracken was growing head high and thick on a bank above a stream. Beyond that field was another field and another, all in the same state.

  ‘It’s marvellous.’

  ‘Just look at it all!’

  ‘Look at that bracken cover. There’s enough food there for a year. But how do we get in?’ Runtling asked.

  ‘Through the hedge?’

  ‘But it’s all blackthorn here.’ Even pigs avoid blackthorn’s long needles that stick in flesh and cause swellings.

  ‘It may be hawthorn further down the road. That’s not so bad,’ suggested Fern.

  And they turned to look for a less damaging kind of bush to push th
rough.

  Through the sleepy, silent dawn came a distant sound – the dig-dig-dag of a tractor starting up.

  ‘Ssh! Ssh! Listen!’ hissed Runtling. ‘A tractor! Through the hedge. Quickly!’

  Runtling had no choice. What was he leader for? He lowered his head, half-closed his eyes and pushed and thrust into the blackthorn hedge taking the needles in his own flesh. Through the gap he made, the others followed. They streamed through the first field and through a gap into the second field.

  There, waiting for them, was another large thicket of blackthorn. The bushes grew in a circle which had not quite closed up. Animals had used it long ago for shelter. Their constant treading had kept the way in open, and had kept its grassy centre flattened. The pigs flung themselves down on the soft centre. The tractor passed down the road. The driver saw nothing. As the sound of the engine faded away, the pigs, too tired to move, fell asleep in a heap where they lay.

  And there the fox found them.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ he remarked.

  The pigs slept on.

  He looked them over. ‘You’re even thinner than you were two days ago. Lost a lot of weight trotting every night, haven’t you? You have length, and you have height, but no width. Your sides are flat! Well,’ he said, as no-one was sufficiently awake to answer him, ‘I’ll take a stroll round the new estate.’

  They were still asleep when he returned.

  ‘I think you’ll be around here for a long time, and that suits me. Ah Runtling!’ the fox nudged him awake. ‘Runtling. There’s a house on your estate. It’s deserted. Invite me there for dinner one day. Make it chicken – head and all – underdone. And, by the way, go easy on the bracken.’ Runtling blinked, nodded and fell asleep again.