The Animals of Farthing Wood

by Colin Dann

  Fox rubbed both his eyes in turn with his paw, and then scratched thoughtfully. He found Vixen’s sleepy eyes watching him.

  ‘Let’s go, Fox,’ she urged. ‘I’ve hated these last few days. It’s been so uncomfortable. Have you noticed how little everyone has been speaking?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ said Fox. ‘It must have been the quietest period of the whole journey.’

  ‘It’s the influence of this awful district,’ Vixen said. ‘I’ve never been anywhere like it before. It’s so lifeless. And there’s almost nothing to eat.’

  ‘I’ll have to wake Badger and Owl, at any rate,’ said Fox. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  Tawny Owl, who had also of late been complaining of the shortage of food, had found himself a sleeping-place in the only tree that could be seen for a mile or more around. Badger was snoring contentedly in a fold of the tarpaulin, quite away from the others. Fox woke him first, and related to him Kestrel’s information.

  Badger stretched himself while he carefully sniffed the motionless air in every direction. ‘Hm!’ he grunted. ‘It is remarkably silent. Can’t hear a thing. No humans about. Nothing about, by the sound of it.’

  ‘What do you think then?’ Fox asked him.

  ‘I think we should get out of this ghastly place at the first opportunity,’ he answered. ‘Which is, it seems, now.’

  They trotted over to Tawny Owl’s tree together, and called him. Tawny Owl did not at first reply, and they called again. A muffled sound, something like a hoot, yet more of a sigh, was heard.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Fox,’ said the sleepy owl, peering down at him. ‘And Badger.’

  ‘Will you come down, Owl?’ said Fox. ‘We can’t see you; you’re quite hidden, you know.’

  ‘We’ve something important to put to you,’ added Badger.

  ‘All right,’ replied Tawny Owl wearily and, with his wings fully extended, he dropped down between them.

  Fox told him of Kestrel’s suggestion. ‘I suppose we might as well make use of the quietness,’ he finished.

  ‘Certainly,’ Tawny Owl agreed immediately. ‘No time like the present. And perhaps we’ll be able to get a square meal tonight.’

  The three of them went back to the tarpaulin, and rounded up everyone.

  Adder was especially pleased with the early move. ‘I can go a good time without food,’ he whispered, ‘but this place has really been disappointing. There’s simply nothing to get one’s fangs into.’ With a malicious leer at the voles he added, ‘I was really beginning to think I might have to look elsewhere for my sustenance.’

  ‘Now, Adder,’ Badger remonstrated, ‘why will you make remarks like that? See how you’ve made them quiver. They look quite frightened.’

  ‘Oh, pshaw!’ Adder exclaimed contemptuously. ‘They should be used to my ways by now.’

  ‘We shall never get used to your unkindness,’ said Vole in a hurt tone of voice.

  ‘Come on, now,’ Fox broke in. ‘That’s enough, Adder. Let’s get under way. We can all have a good feed tonight. Lead on, Kestrel.’

  Following Kestrel’s direction, the animals entered the first field – a wide, flat expanse of potato plants. Not a sound could they hear but their own footsteps and breathing. There was no bird-song, no buzzing of insects, and no breeze.

  ‘It’s . . . uncanny,’ said Mole. ‘If we couldn’t see the sun, it would be just like being shut in one of my tunnels. Even then I can hear things above me.’ Unconsciously he found himself whispering, which increased the feeling of eeriness.

  ‘I don’t like it at all,’ Fox admitted to Vixen. ‘Everything’s so unnatural. Look at those plants. They look almost artificial.’ He pointed with his head to the potato plant leaves, which indeed had a strange, waxy look about them.

  ‘Yes, they look sort of shiny, don’t they?’ said Vixen.

  ‘Not at all appetizing in appearance,’ said Hare, who was close behind them. ‘I wonder what they taste like.’

  ‘Don’t do anything silly, Hare,’ said his mate sharply. ‘Leave them alone. They don’t look right at all.’

  ‘I was merely wondering,’ said Hare. ‘No need to worry.’

  ‘Leverets,’ his mate admonished her young ones, ‘on no account must you eat anything in these fields. Not so much as a nibble, d’you understand?’

  The leverets promised their mother obedience.

  The potato field ended, and just a dry strip of dead grass separated it from the next one, which supported sugar-beet.

  Keeping Kestrel in sight, they skirted this field and began to cross another, where a crop of cabbages seemed to be flourishing. The rabbits’ eyes grew big at the sight of the rows and rows of juicy green vegetables, and their empty stomachs ached for them.

  Rabbit called to Fox. ‘Can’t we stop?’ he pleaded. ‘We’re all so hungry. A few plants wouldn’t be missed, after all, and there’s simply no one about.’

  Fox halted, and the rabbits and young hares, despite their mother’s warning, looked at him eagerly.

  ‘It’s that very thing that makes me suspicious,’ Fox said. ‘I don’t like this quietness one bit. There’s some reason for it, which we don’t know. In my opinion we shouldn’t risk stopping.’

  ‘Quite right, Fox. Keep going,’ said Badger, who felt his friend needed support.

  ‘Fox, please,’ Rabbit begged him. ‘We may not get another chance like this. None of us has eaten properly for days.’

  ‘We hares won’t touch anything,’ said Hare’s mate categorically, and her little ones’ faces dropped.

  ‘More fool you,’ said Rabbit with contempt. ‘There’s nothing wrong with those cabbages. They’re perfect. Look how fresh they are! You can still see the raindrops on them!’

  Fox walked up to a large plant and looked all over it carefully, sniffing each leaf. ‘There’s certainly some moisture on them,’ he agreed. ‘The soil underneath is damp too. But it can’t be rain. It’s been dry for a long time.’

  ‘Is it dew?’ Mole piped up. The damp soil made him think of worms.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Fox shook his head. ‘Not at this time of day.’ He sniffed the plant again, more vigorously. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said slowly, ‘but there seems to be a strange smell about them, a sort of mineral smell. Rabbit, you’d know better. Will you have a try?’

  Rabbit went to the cabbage, and his nose quivered excitedly. ‘No. Nothing different,’ he observed, although he had detected the mineral smell. He was determined to persuade Fox to give way.

  ‘I still don’t like it,’ Fox said uneasily. ‘I’m not convinced they’re safe. And this silence is getting me down. Where are all the insects we usually hear? I’ll bet you wouldn’t find a single caterpillar on those plants. They look too perfect.’

  While the animals continued to debate the matter, Mole slipped down from Badger’s back. His keen appetite was beginning to master him again. He had been deprived of his usual quota of earthworms for some days, and he had never been without a gnawing feeling of emptiness. The thought that, at last, in this field, there was a good chance of finding a satisfying number of worms proved too much for him.

  To his credit, he fought the temptation for at least a few seconds, but Mole, above all creatures, found it difficult to deny the promptings of his stomach. He crept stealthily away from the other animals, until they all had their backs to him. Then he scurried behind a large cabbage plant and began to dig furiously.

  ‘I should . . . be able to . . . catch a few . . . and get back again . . . before they miss me,’ he panted as he dug, his whole mind devoted to the thought of plump, pink, wriggling worms. He was soon hidden from sight.

  Fox and the rest of the party had not reached a decision.

  ‘I say don’t be tempted,’ Weasel was saying. ‘The plants may be delicious, but surely it’s better not to risk anything than to be sorry afterwards?’

  ‘It’s all right for you. You don’t eat cabbages,’ Rabbit said angrily, ‘otherwise you wouldn’t be so
indifferent.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Fox began.

  ‘No!’ said Badger. ‘Fox, don’t waver,’ he whispered to him. ‘Let’s get out of this place while the going’s good. It’s broad daylight. Humans could appear at any moment, and we’d be spotted.’

  ‘I don’t like to seem hard on them,’ Fox said doubtfully.

  ‘They’ll soon forget it, and be glad we went on,’ Badger urged. ‘I think we . . .’ He broke off, as the sound of Whistler’s wing made them all look up.

  The heron was racing towards them, accompanied by Kestrel and Tawny Owl.

  ‘Come on! Keep going!’ they called.

  ‘What is it?’ Fox asked, alarmed.

  The birds landed together. ‘This place is a graveyard,’ said Kestrel, and shuddered.

  ‘Poisoned,’ said Tawny Owl. ‘Nothing’s safe.’

  ‘Poisoned?’ gasped Rabbit.

  ‘The whole area,’ Whistler nodded. ‘There’s an orchard just ahead. The ground is littered with bodies of bullfinches, chaffinches, blackbirds . . .’

  ‘Then the moisture . . .’ began Rabbit.

  ‘POISON!’ cried Fox.

  ‘But surely no one has eaten . . .’ faltered Kestrel.

  ‘No,’ said Fox. He gulped at the danger they had escaped. ‘You were in the nick of time.’

  ‘The whole farm has been sprayed with chemicals,’ Tawny Owl explained. ‘All wild life has fled. Some were too late,’ he added.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, everyone, let’s go,’ said Fox.

  It was only then that Badger began to look for Mole, who was at that moment emerging from the hole he had dug behind the cabbage.

  Badger saw the soil on his friend’s fur and feet. ‘Oh, Mole!’ he wailed. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Worms,’ said Adder. ‘Infected worms. Mole, you’ve poisoned yourself.’

  Mole looked at them in consternation. ‘But I haven’t eaten any worms,’ he said. ‘They’re all dead!’

  29

  The naturalist

  Fox soon acquainted the wandering Mole with the reason for the death of all the earthworms, and the narrow margin by which Mole himself had escaped being poisoned made the little animal feel as weak as water.

  ‘Now, Mole, let that be a lesson to you,’ Badger told his erring young friend. ‘No more creeping away with deceitful little plans. You’re jolly lucky to be with us still.’

  Badger was really as relieved as Mole at his escape, and after lecturing him, smiled with pleasure at the animal’s return.

  Now the animals’ horror of the place lent wings to their feet, and with the ghostly feeling all around them of the silence that meant death, they hurried on.

  In the orchard, the pitiful corpses of birds who had committed no greater crime than that of finding it necessary to eat, sent shudders down the spines of the animals from Farthing Wood.

  In another field they saw more lifeless creatures: poisoned fieldmice and beetles, and pretty butterflies which had unavoidably been tainted with the death-dealing spray. Even bees, useful to humans, had ignorantly strayed into this area where only machines and the mathematical minds of men were permitted to hold sway. These innocent makers of honey had perished too.

  ‘I shall feel like a good wash once we’re away from here,’ Vixen said to Fox.

  ‘We all will,’ he answered grimly, as he resolutely led the band onward.

  At last they reached the far border of this soulless farmland – a stout hawthorn hedge which ran as straight as a Roman road along its edge.

  Fox found a gap for them, and they followed Vixen through into a cool green meadow, where cows were grazing and where golden buttercups grew in such profusion it was as if the sun had settled on the grass.

  It was so inviting and refreshing after their recent ordeal that they sank down together in the lush verdure, letting out sighs of contentment. Tawny Owl, Kestrel and Whistler joined in their enjoyment of rest and relief.

  ‘Yes, it’s amazing to what lengths humans will go to preserve their own species,’ Tawny Owl said wisely, with a sense of importance.

  ‘How can poisoning help them?’ Toad asked.

  ‘It helps them because it doesn’t poison them, ‘said Tawny Owl.

  ‘But how can humans avoid coming into contact with it, when it is they who spray it around?’ demanded Weasel.

  ‘None of us could answer that,’ Tawny Owl replied, ‘as we have never been witnesses to the awful practice. What we all do know about, however, is the infinite cunning and cleverness of the human race. This alone is sufficient to tell us that the operation is probably undertaken by some of their lifelike machinery – under their control, of course.’

  ‘But what do they do with all those poisoned cabbages and things?’ Rabbit wanted to know.

  Tawny Owl began to feel that, on this subject he might have bitten off more than he could chew. But, unfortunately, having once given the impression of being knowledgeable, he was obliged to continue displaying his wisdom.

  ‘All those plants we saw,’ he said, ‘are eaten by humans.’

  ‘EATEN!’ shrieked all the rabbits together. ‘THEY'RE POISONOUS!’

  Tawny Owl racked his brains for an explanation. To his chagrin, Whistler stole his thunder by answering first.

  ‘It seems extraordinary, doesn’t it?’ he intoned in his lugubrious voice, ‘but it’s really quite simple. Although at this moment those crops we saw have enough chemicals on them to poison many of us, there is probably not sufficient strength in the poison to kill a human, although he would certainly suffer to a degree. But, of course, the essence of the matter is that the plants are not going to be eaten now. We can only assume that, in their usual efficient way, the humans have rid themselves of any competitors for their food by spraying them with chemicals which will have completely disappeared by the time they are to be eaten. The chemicals are produced to serve humans, not the other way about. Therefore they would be quite sure of their own safety in the matter before they ventured to use them.’

  ‘I wonder,’ mused Fox. ‘Can humans always be right? It must need only a small error for them to put themselves at danger, using such terrifying materials.’

  ‘That we shall never know,’ Tawny Owl declared in his wisest tone, hoping to regain his status.

  But Adder, as usual, seemed to be able to analyse his motive. With a chuckle as dry as a withered leaf, he said sarcastically, ‘Tawny Owl is such a sage.’

  While they lay talking in the lush grass, a man came into the field through a gate and, avoiding the cows, walked slowly along, looking down at the ground all the time as if he had lost something.

  Kestrel noticed him and drew the others’ attention to his presence. Normally, they would all have run at once into hiding, but for some reason the appearance of this particular human did not seem to them to pose a threat to their safety.

  He was dressed in a duffle-coat and was carrying various instruments, some slung round his neck and others hanging by straps from his shoulders. The animals saw him stop suddenly and, excitedly disencumbering himself of the objects he carried, drop to his knees and look closely at the grass.

  The animals looked from one to another in astonishment.

  The man, whose excitement seemed to increase, began to write feverishly in a notebook, pausing every now and then to look at the particular spot on the ground that interested him. When he had finished writing, he put all his apparatus on one side and sat down two or three feet from the spot. Then, notebook in hand again, he endeavoured to sketch what he had been so closely examining.

  The animals continued to watch with more curiosity, and they were particularly struck by the care and gentleness of the man’s actions as he sketched, quite unaware of his audience. He finished his sketch and put away the notebook. Then, taking one of his instruments, he cut into the turf with the utmost delicacy, and removed a small sample of some plant that had obviously been the focus of his attention, and carefully put it into one of his contain
ers. Having written the relevant details on the label, he lifted the container up to the light and began to study his sample from every angle, with a look of profound pleasure.

  A total silence had descended on the watching beasts and birds, and the sound of Toad clearing his throat seemed excessively loud.

  ‘My friends,’ he said in an awestruck tone, ‘that is a Naturalist.’

  The animals’ faces took on an expression of wonder, almost of reverence.

  ‘I have seen such humans before,’ Whistler admitted. ‘I remember two occasions when the quarry was visited by a human, like this one carrying all sorts of boxes and equipment, who had come to look at the waterfowl.’

  ‘Why do they do that?’ asked Squirrel.

  ‘Strange to say, there are some humans who are interested in the welfare of wild creatures,’ the heron explained.

  ‘It’s these very people we have to thank for White Deer Park,’ Toad pointed out eagerly. ‘It is they who are responsible for the creation of those havens for wild life they call Nature Reserves.’

  ‘It’s only when you learn of such kindness and interest in us creatures,’ said Badger, ‘that you recall that the human race is, after all, a brother species.’

  ‘I shall never consider myself even remotely related to a race who can deliberately arrange to poison every living thing in an area, for reasons that arise solely from their own arrogance and greed,’ said the fatalistic Adder.

  ‘Those are strong words, Adder,’ said Fox, ‘but I’m sure we all take your point. In my view, which may be a selfish one, cruelty of a sort where there is some purpose to it, is not as bad as the senseless cruelty practised by those humans who delight in hunting a wild creature to its death, simply for what they call sport.’

  ‘And don’t forget shooting!’ said Hare. ‘That’s sport too!’

  ‘But even then, you see,’ said Fox, ‘it has a purpose, when they afterwards eat what they shoot.’

  ‘It really is extraordinary,’ said Vixen, ‘that one species can produce specimens who differ so much in their behaviour that they could themselves become enemies. I’m thinking of our Naturalist, and the huntsman. One is so friendly to us, he feels he must lend us his protection; the other sees us merely as something to torment for his own enjoyment.’