by Colin Dann
‘Until eventually we are destroyed with the wood.’ Tawny Owl finished the sentence with determined pessimism.
‘And all this – how long will it take?’ asked Hare.
‘The very question I myself asked yesterday,’ nodded Badger. ‘Though all the time I suppose I knew the answer. We animals can never accurately forecast what the humans will do; we only know what they are capable of doing. And they’re capable of cutting down the remainder of Farthing Wood in twelve months, perhaps less.’
There was a stunned silence for a moment, then one or two animals coughed nervously. Kestrel began to preen his wings. His livelihood was not as completely threatened as the others’ by the advancing destruction.
‘And on top of all this,’ Badger said in pained tones, ‘comes a drought.’
‘The very last straw,’ said Mole.
‘Merely accelerating the end,’ Tawny Owl muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.
‘Friends, we are up against a brick wall,’ Badger intoned with deadly seriousness. ‘Leaving aside the threat of our extermination, if we don’t, in the next couple of days, find a safe, secluded place where we can all go to drink, we’re going to find ourselves in the worst kind of distress.’ He coughed huskily, already feeling his throat to be unusually dry. ‘This is why I’ve asked all of you to join me tonight. The greater the gathering, the better the chance we have of finding a solution to end our immediate danger. So I entreat you all: don’t be afraid to speak up. Size and strength have no bearing on anyone’s importance at an Assembly. The only important fact is that all of us live in Farthing Wood, and so we all need each other’s help.’
The smaller animals seemed to receive some encouragement from Badger’s remarks, and began to murmur to each other and shake their heads in bewilderment. But none of them seemed to have any definite ideas.
Badger looked at Tawny Owl, and then at Fox, but they were both scanning the circle of faces to see who was going to be the first to make a suggestion.
‘Surely you birds can help us?’ prompted Weasel. ‘You cover a wider stretch of country than we ground dwellers. Can any of you say where the nearest water is to be found outside our boundaries?’
Pheasant’s dowdy mate shifted uncomfortably, as she felt many pairs of eyes turning towards her. ‘Say something, Pheasant,’ she whispered to him.
‘My mate and I don’t really venture outside the wood,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Being game birds, there is always the danger of being shot at.’ He thrust out his gaudy breast. ‘I’m told we’re considered to be a great culinary delicacy by all well-bred humans,’ he added, almost smugly.
‘Kestrel, can you offer a more worthwhile piece of information?’ Badger enquired, directing a withering glance at Pheasant. ‘Of all the birds present, you spend more time than any outside the wood.’
Kestrel stopped preening and looked up with his habitual piercing glare. ‘Yes, I can,’ he said evenly. ‘But I doubt if it will be of any real use. There’s a sort of marshy pond on the enclosed army land on the other side of the trunk road. I haven’t hunted over there for some weeks – it’s never very rewarding at the best of times – and for all I know that, too, could have dried up. Apart from that, the most secluded expanse of water is a goldfish pond in a garden near the old church.’
‘But that’s in the old village, well over a mile away!’ exclaimed Badger. ‘Is there nowhere else?’
‘Oh yes,’ Kestrel replied without concern. ‘There’s a swimming-pool in one of the gardens on the new estate.’
‘How close?’
‘I suppose, for you, about fifteen minutes’ travelling.’
‘There’d be no cover: no cover at all,’ Fox warned.
‘I know,’ Badger answered worriedly. ‘But it’s nearer. The smaller animals could never walk as far as the church and then back again, all in one night.’
‘We could try!’ piped up one of the fieldmice.
‘Of course you could, and you would be very brave to do so,’ said Badger kindly. ‘But that would only be one journey. If this drought continues we’ll all have to make several journeys to drink what we need.’
‘The only suggestion I can make,’ said Hare, ‘is for the larger animals to carry the smaller – as many as we can manage.’
‘Yesss,’ drawled Adder. ‘I could carry several little mice and voles in my jaws, and I should be so gentle, they wouldn’t feel a thing.’ His tongue flickered excitedly. ‘I should so enjoy carrying the plump ones,’ he went on dreamily. ‘And Owl could manage a young rabbit or two in his talons, couldn’t you, Owl?’
‘You’re not looking at the situation in at all the right frame of mind, Adder,’ admonished Badger, looking with some sympathy at the smaller animals, who were huddling together as far away from Adder as they could manage without actually bolting into the tunnel. ‘You’re merely thinking, as usual,’ he went on, ‘of a way in which you can benefit personally from it. I know what you’re thinking, and it won’t do. It won’t do at all. We’re a community, facing a dangerous crisis. You know the Oath.’
‘Just a suggestion,’ hissed Adder, with a scarcely disguised leer. He was quite undismayed by the effect his words had had on the fieldmice and voles.
‘Now calm down, mice,’ soothed Badger. ‘Calm down, rabbits. You’ll come to no harm in my set.’
When the Assembly appeared to be more relaxed again, one of the squirrels said, ‘Couldn’t we dig for water?’
Badger looked towards Mole. The latter shook his black velvet head. ‘No, I don’t think it’s really possible,’ he said. ‘We’d only be wasting our energy, I’m afraid.’
There was silence then, while every animal cudgelled his brains for a way out of the difficulty. The seconds ticked past.
Suddenly, a voice was heard calling from the passage outside. ‘Hallo! Who’s there? Who’s there?’
Weasel ran to the tunnel. ‘I can see something moving,’ he said. Then he called out, ‘This is Weasel! The other animals are here, too . . . Good Heavens, it’s Toad!’ he exclaimed.
‘I’ve been looking all over the place for everyone,’ said the newcomer, as he stumbled into the Chamber. ‘I’ve been so worried: I thought you’d all deserted the wood. Then I heard voices.’ He sat down to regain his breath. ‘And I noticed the lights.’
‘Toad, whatever happened to you?’ Badger cried, as all the animals gathered round him. ‘We’d given you up for lost. Wherever have you been? We haven’t seen you since last spring. And you’re so thin! My dear chap, tell us what has happened.’
‘I . . . I’ve been on a long journey,’ Toad said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when I’ve got my breath back.’
‘Have you had anything to eat recently?’ Badger asked with concern.
‘Oh yes – I’m not hungry,’ he replied. ‘Just tired.’
The heaving of his speckled chest gradually quietened as he recovered from his exertions. The other animals waited patiently for him to begin. He looked wearily round his audience.
‘I was captured, you know,’ he explained. ‘It happened last spring, at the pond. They . . . they took me a long way away – oh! miles away! I thought I would never see any of you again.’
He paused, and some of the animals made soothing, sympathetic noises.
‘Eventually, though, I managed to escape,’ Toad went on. ‘I was lucky. Of course, I knew I had to make my way back here – to the pond where I was born. So I started out that very day. And ever since, except during the winter months, I’ve managed to get a little nearer: little by little, mile by mile, covering as much ground as I was able to each day.’
Fox looked at Badger, and Badger nodded sadly.
‘Toad, old fellow, I . . . I’m afraid there’s bad news for you,’ Fox said with difficulty. ‘Very bad news.’
Toad looked up quickly. ‘What . . . what is it?’ he faltered.
‘Your pond has gone. They’ve filled it in!’
3
Toad’s st
ory
Toad looked at Fox with an expression of disbelieving horror. ‘But . . . but . . . they couldn’t!’ he whispered. ‘I was born there. My parents were born there . . . and all my relatives, and acquaintances. And every spring we have a reunion. Toads all around leave their land homes and make for their birthplace. They couldn’t take that away from us!’ He looked pathetically from one sad face to another, almost compelling someone to deny this awful piece of information; but he received no answer.
‘Filled all of it in? Is it . . . quite gone?’ Toad’s voice shook.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Badger mumbled. ‘But, you know, there was very little left of it really. With this drought the water had nearly all dried up anyway.’ He knew his words were of no comfort.
‘What about the other toads?’ Toad asked hoarsely.
‘I think they had probably left the pond before this happened,’ Fox said encouragingly. ‘After all, it is May now . . .’
‘Yes, yes,’ Toad agreed morosely. ‘I’m late. It’s not spring any more, really. Not what we toads call spring.’
‘This drought,’ Badger rejoined, ‘is a danger for all of us. That’s why I called this Assembly. There’s no water left, Toad. None anywhere in Farthing Wood. We just don’t know what to do.’
Toad did not reply. His downcast face took on a new expression. He looked considerably more hopeful. ‘I’ve got it!’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘We’ll leave! All of us! If I could do it, so can all of you!’
‘Leave Farthing Wood?’ Badger queried with some alarm. ‘How could we? What do you mean?’
‘Yes, yes! Let me explain.’ Toad stood up in his excitement. ‘I know the very place to go to. Oh, it’s miles away, of course. But I’m sure we could manage it, together!’
The other animals began to chatter all at once, and Badger completely failed to quieten them.
‘We must face the facts!’ Toad cried. ‘What you’ve just told me about the pond has brought our danger home to me with a jolt. Farthing Wood is finished; in another couple of years it won’t even exist. We must all find a new home. Now – before it’s too late!’
The other voices broke off. Toad’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘The Nature Reserve,’ he announced dramatically. ‘We shall all go to the Nature Reserve, where we can live in peace again. And I shall be your guide.’ He looked round triumphantly.
‘Dear, dear! I don’t know.’ Badger shook his striped head. ‘You’d better tell us all about it, Toad. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. If it’s so far . . .’
‘Go on, Toad,’ Fox broke in. ‘Tell us about your adventure, right from the beginning.’
Toad sank back into his accustomed comfortable squat, and cleared his throat.
‘You’ll recall how last spring was very warm – in March particularly,’ he began. ‘Well, one weekend there were a tremendous number of humans at the pond; young ones with their horrible nets and glass jars – and a lot of them had brought their parents along. Everything in the pond was in a panic; there seemed to be no escape anywhere. The young humans were even wading out nearly to the middle of the pond in their eagerness to capture us. I remember I dived underwater and tried to hide in the mud on the bottom. So did a lot of others. But it was no use. They found me; and I was prodded into a jam-jar and carried away.’
‘How awful for you,’ one of the lizards commiserated. ‘They come after us, too, with those stifling glass jars that are made specially slippery, so that you can hardly grip the bottom.’
‘Ghastly things,’ muttered Toad. ‘I must have been kept in it for three or four hours, I should think. I was submitted to the indignity of watching my captors eat their food by the side of my pond, while I was left out in the sun, trying frustratedly to scale the sides of the jar, without so much as a leaf to protect me. If the weather had been any hotter, I’m sure I would have dried up.’
‘I like to sunbathe, myself,’ said Adder. ‘But, of course, you amphibians have never really learnt to live comfortably on dry land.’
‘Just the same as you reptiles can’t adapt to swimming and diving!’ retorted Toad.
‘I can swim when I have to,’ Adder returned.
‘Well, well,’ nodded Badger. ‘What happened next, Toad?’
‘They took me away,’ he said. ‘I don’t know for sure how far, because I took the opportunity of having a nap during the journey. They put me in the back of their car, and the next thing I knew I was being tipped into a glass box in their garden.’
‘How long did they keep you in this glass box?’ asked Fox.
‘I suppose about four weeks,’ replied Toad. ‘They put some netting on the top as a lid, and one day their wretched cat, who was always prowling around trying to get at me, knocked it off. So I leapt as high as I could, and I managed to jump out of the box and hide behind a shed. That very night I started my journey home.
‘I hadn’t got very far before I decided I ought to strengthen myself with a good meal. All the humans had ever given me was mealworms; tasty enough, but so boring without some change to relieve the diet. I still think you can’t beat a juicy earthworm, fresh and moist from its burrow.’
‘Hear, hear!’ cried Mole feelingly. ‘Nothing like them! I could eat them till I burst. Never tire of ’em.’
‘It’s a wonder there are any left at all, with your appetite,’ remarked Tawny Owl.
‘Oh, nonsense, there are plenty for everyone,’ Mole justified himself a little shamefacedly. ‘Though during this dry weather I have my work cut out finding them. They do go down so deep, you know.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Toad. ‘Anyway, when I had eaten my fill, my first problem was to get out of that garden. The great difficulty lay in getting round the wall. There was no wooden fence with convenient gaps in it – just a stone wall all round the garden. However, I was determined not to be disheartened, and there was one thing in my favour. The wall had bits of pebble and flint stuck into it – for decoration perhaps, I don’t know – and I knew I could use these projecting pieces to climb up.
‘It took so long, however, that I was sure daylight would break before I had reached the top, particularly as I fell off about four times, and had to start again. But I knew I had to get up that wall, even to have a chance of setting out for Farthing Wood.
‘Well, I got to the top eventually, and walked along to the end of the wall. By that time it was just starting to get light, and I knew I would have to jump for it. I looked all round for a plant or something to break my fall, but there was nothing; only concrete all around. Of course, I couldn’t possibly risk jumping on to that, so I had to lower my legs over the edge, and climb down the pebbles again. Fortunately, it didn’t take as long as going up, and I was just thinking I could probably jump the last few inches when that horrible cat came out of the house. I pressed myself close to the wall and froze.’
Toad broke off, and contemplated his enthralled audience. The room was completely, utterly silent, so that you could have heard a pine needle drop. The young squirrels had wrapped themselves cosily in their mothers’ thick tails, and the fieldmice and voles were now all bunched together in a large, furry mass, which was animated only by a score or so of quivering pink noses. Every animal gave Toad his rapt attention. Only Adder appeared to be taking no further interest in the proceedings. He had allowed his head to drop forward, but whether he was asleep or not would have been difficult to say.
‘Would you believe me,’ Toad went on quietly, ‘if I told you I stayed in that spot all day, trying to look like another pebble? I couldn’t risk climbing down any further because there was nowhere to hide, and if the cat had seen me it would have been the end of me.
‘Fortunately, the day was reasonably cool, and as soon as it was safely dark, I let myself drop the rest of the way to the ground, and then crawled and hopped as far as I could away from the house. There were only one or two other houses nearby, and once I’d got past them I began to feel much freer. My sense of direction told me what course
to take, and I kept on down to the end of the road. This was sealed off by a sort of ditch, and behind that a fence. I knew I was on the right route, and those two things didn’t present much of a barrier to me. I hadn’t gone far on the other side when I realized I must be in some sort of private park, because the fence stretched as far as I could see in both directions.
‘Now I don’t know exactly why it was, but the more I looked at that fence, the safer I felt. I suppose it was because I knew I was on the right side of it.
‘It was very quiet and peaceful in there, and a lovely bright moon was shining as I made my way along, flicking up a few insects on the way. I decided to make my bed under some trees, so I scooped out a little hole in the earth, and pulled some dry leaves round me. I slept quite well during the day because, apart from the birds, no one seemed to be about.
‘When it was dusk I emerged again, and continued forward. After a while, the trees gave way to some open land, and ahead of me I could sense water. You can’t imagine how excited I became at that, after all those weeks without a dip. It was another bright, moonlit night, and eventually I could see a pool ahead, where the moon was reflected perfectly. As I approached I thought I could hear one or two croaks coming from the water. I realized I had not been mistaken, when the whole party of the pool’s inhabitants started croaking in unison, making a tremendous racket. It was a call I couldn’t place, unlike any I had heard before. They were obviously frogs – but what sort of frogs?
‘As I didn’t know if they were likely to be friendly, I approached the water’s edge cautiously, and just watched them for a while. There seemed to be quite a number of them splashing about in the centre of the pool, and some were just floating, with their heads out of the water. These were the ones making the noise. They were blowing out their cheeks like two bubbles in their efforts to croak the loudest.
‘After I had been there for a little while, they stopped croaking, and seemed to decide amongst themselves that it was time to leave the water. They began to make for the shore, some swimming in my direction. I stood my ground. As they clambered out, one of them called, “We’ve got a visitor. A toad.”