The Farthing Wood Collection 1 (13 page)

Stout Vixen lay listlessly in their earth. She regretted her failure to be guided by her mate and to shun any voles as food. She hadn’t cared for his over-protection. But he had been right. The sickness had taken hold of her and wouldn’t go away. Each day she felt a little worse. She tried to eat what little Stout Fox brought her, so that at least she would have the strength to bring her cubs into the world when the time came. But
gradually she came to realize that the cubs might be infected too, even if disease didn’t claim her before they had a chance of life.

Stout Fox was beside himself with worry. There was no creature he could consult who had the secret of the cure. He watched the vixen wilt and sink a little more with every dawn. In desperation he set off through the Wood one evening in quest of Sage Hedgehog. As he went he told himself it was unlikely that the hedgehog could be of real assistance, but even if the old creature should offer one grain of comfort it would be worthwhile.

Sage Hedgehog was even more morose than the fox. The wasted opportunity of the Assembly had depressed him utterly. There was now, it seemed, no hope of alerting the stubborn and feckless Farthing Wood animals to their plight. Then, as he chewed monotonously on a long worm, thinking dire thoughts, Stout Fox appeared to interrupt his reverie.

‘Old prophet hedgehog, I beg you to help,’ the fox blurted out. ‘If you know anything about the otters’ methods in curing sickness, tell me.’

Sage Hedgehog paused in his meal. ‘Your mate is worse?’

‘Day by day.’

‘I am sorry for that. Truly. But I fear you are too late to save her. You’ve brought this misery on yourselves, for there is now no-one who has the secret. The otters kept it to themselves.’

Stout Fox sat on his haunches in despair. ‘Is there nothing I can do?’ he asked.

‘Do you know where the otters went after you foxes drove them from here?’

‘No.’

‘They’re probably widely scattered by this time. But if you could find them – any of them – and persuade them to return, that would be your salvation.’ The old hedgehog suddenly perked up, as though there might just be a glimmer of hope. ‘Indeed,’ he resumed in a stronger voice, ‘you
must
find them. For the otters are the salvation of all of us and the Wood itself.’

Stout Fox was encouraged. He looked more resolute. ‘You’re right! Only they can halt the humans’ progress. I realize that now. I’ll go and search for them and, if I can, I’ll take others to help in the search. I won’t rest until I find them!’ He turned and ran back towards his earth. He would need to find food enough for his vixen to last her until his return.

Stout Vixen received his news without enthusiasm. ‘It’s useless,’ she muttered. ‘You’ll never locate the otters. I shall be dead in a few days. Nothing can prevent that.’

But the big fox wouldn’t be put off. ‘I think you’re wrong. And it would be contemptible not to try. I’ll fetch food for you before I leave. Promise me you’ll try to hold on.’

‘Very well,’ she whispered. ‘You have my word.’

Once he had ensured that the vixen had managed to eat at least some of the titbits he had fetched for her, Stout Fox set off to recruit some helpers. He had no close associates and wondered where to begin. He decided that any swift-footed animal with the keen senses of a hunter would be useful in the search. Lightning Weasel dashed across his path.

‘Stop!’ the fox cried. ‘Wait!’

The weasel turned and looked at the larger animal curiously. ‘Well? What is it?’ Stout Fox trotted over.
‘That’s near enough, if you don’t want me to run,’ Lightning Weasel said sharply. A fox was not a beast he wanted too close to him. ‘I don’t believe the badger’s Oath thing is still in force?’

Stout Fox blinked. ‘Oath? What oath?’ His mind was on other things. Then he remembered. ‘Oh, that. I think not. I want to ask for your help.’

‘Help? From me?’ the weasel queried in astonishment.

‘Yes, I’m going to look for the otters. You see, I need their knowledge to save my mate.’

‘Oh, the sickness. Yes, we heard all about that at the Assembly. But this is a bit rich. You drove the otters away and now you want me to help you bring them back. That’s your problem, I think.’

‘I know it sounds odd. I regret now what we foxes did. We all need them here. Without them what future is there for Farthing Wood?’

‘Too late for regrets, I’m afraid. No, count me out. I’ve no time to waste on a fool’s errand and, besides, you’re no friend to me, so why should I help?’

‘But surely, you know how I feel,’ Stout Fox said dejectedly. ‘Your own mate died of the sickness.’

‘That’s right. And now I have another mate. If yours dies, you’ll soon find another too. That’s Nature, isn’t it?’ Lightning Weasel wasn’t prepared to listen any further and bolted into the undergrowth.

Stout Fox sighed and continued on his errand. He began to realize that there wouldn’t be much help forthcoming except from other foxes. He did approach Sly Stoat but there was no sympathy from that quarter either.

‘
I
don’t want the otters back. They took our food from our mouths. When we laid the trail of disease for
them, I couldn’t have foreseen how I would be repaid in kind. Now you’re reaping the same reward. The otters have avenged themselves on us and there’s no escaping it.’

Stout Fox accepted that he must look for assistance from his own kind. But he was no luckier with other foxes. These animals, the very ones who had combined to drive out the otter population, scoffed at the notion of inviting them back.

You’re mad,’ one said. ‘If we’d wanted them here in the first place, they’d still be around.’

‘Though
we
might not be,’ added another, ‘the way our food was being thieved.’

‘We’re sorry for your mate,’ Lean Vixen told him. ‘She could have exercised more caution. But you really can’t expect us to fight your battles for you.’

‘He’s only asking for a little help in his search,’ Lean Fox reminded her, as usual the more sympathetic listener. ‘I could perhaps go with him for a while.’

‘And leave me to fend alone for our cubs?’ the vixen retorted. ‘Don’t even consider it!’

‘No, no, she’s right,’ Stout Fox murmured, bowing to the inevitable. ‘I shall go alone. I was wrong to try to involve others in my difficulties.’

When he was out of earshot Lean Vixen growled, ‘And woe betide any otters he manages to round up. Because they’ll find a funny sort of welcome awaiting them in Farthing Wood.’

Long-Whiskers awoke at the end of the night. Rain was falling heavily and she felt cold. She heaved herself further under the hedgerow. Her coat was thoroughly damp but the raindrops helped to revive her. As dawn
broke she became aware of the movements of birds. There were nests along that hedgerow and the parent birds, at first light, resumed their quest for food for the nestlings. Long-Whiskers watched them flying to and fro, and she was able to locate the various nests by the twittering of the hungry chicks, and also by the places where the adults entered and left the hedge. Despite her painful wounds, Long-Whiskers felt hungry. She began to raid those nests within reach, one by one. The young birds stood no chance. Their parents cried their distress as they saw the hunter in the hedgerow, knowing they were powerless to intervene.

In the daylight Long-Whiskers licked her chops as she rested again out of sight. She had a full stomach and already she felt stronger.

Under cover of darkness Stout Fox paddled across the stream and skirted the remaining grassland. He knew the otters would have first crossed the grassland to escape the angry foxes’ pursuit. The building works loomed ominously in the distance. All was quiet, but the fox smelt human smells and the unfamiliar odours of their machines and materials hanging on the air. Above all there was the stench of mud. He saw a rabbit skip across the fringe of the muddy area and then disappear underground. He was surprised by just how close the rabbits’ burrows were to the human presence. The grassland had been inhabited by rabbits and hares for as long as any animal in Farthing Wood could remember. Now some of that area had been destroyed and they had had to move their homes into the Wood. Thus they were more vulnerable to marauding foxes, stoats and weasels.

Stout Fox steered clear of the parts changed by the humans. He discovered that this area extended farther than he and probably any other creature had realized. No animal, save the rabbits, had ventured anywhere near it. He thought it his duty to describe to those who would listen what he had seen.

‘But that must come later,’ he told himself. ‘First I have to sniff out the hiding-place of those clever otters.’

The hares and most of the rabbits had indeed migrated into Farthing Wood itself. But, in addition to the added danger of their being within easier reach of their habitual predators, there was pressure for space. A single warren remained in use outside the Wood. It was one of the rabbits from here that Stout Fox had noticed. There were many young – some still suckling – living in the network of tunnels. The rabbits, though fearful of the human din, had almost grown used to the noise and alarms created every day by the builders and their machines. By day they cowered quietly in their burrows. None went above ground until each last sound made by the humans had died away. And even then they waited and waited, finally peeping out to see if it was safe to browse. Usually one of them gave the all-clear signal and then the adults and adolescents would gladly run free and begin to feed.

A period of rain followed Stout Fox’s departure. The area around the warren became increasingly muddy. The burrow entrances and the tunnels seeped with mud and the rabbits were very miserable. They wished they had been able to move home. But the babies couldn’t yet be moved.

The rain didn’t, of course, prevent the humans from proceeding with their affairs. And, to the unfortunate rabbits, it seemed as though the noise and bustle was coming perilously close. They squatted in their slimy tunnels and passages, ears pricked and noses permanently a-quiver. Outside a bulldozer roared and slithered, teetering on one side, then the other, as its angle was dictated by the unstable mud. All at once daylight flooded into the warren. The bulldozer had carved out a huge mass of soil, ripping into one edge of the warren itself. The rabbits fled into the deeper heart of the system. But they were not safe. The bulldozer, having dumped its latest load, reversed and trundled forward again like a juggernaut. Nothing could divert it. Its course was set. The warren was in its path.

As if opening its jaws for another mighty bite, the machine ploughed into the centre of the warren, tearing up the entire labyrinth of runs, nesting burrows with its nursing mothers, babies, and most of the other fugitive rabbits. The load was hoisted high. Rabbits leapt or fell to the ground in terror. Others dangled from the mud, half in and half out of a mangled run. The bulldozer swung round, tipping more animals out as it turned, then depositing the remainder in a pile of soil and sludge where they squirmed like so many worms. They were trapped by the impacted mud and couldn’t wriggle clear.

By this time cries from other workers on the site had alerted the earth-mover’s driver to what had happened. He quickly turned off his engine as he saw the rabbits struggling and thrashing in the morass, while others twitched helplessly on the ground where they had been flung or had fallen. Only a few animals
managed to escape unharmed. A look of consternation passed across the face of the driver who had quite unwittingly caused the destruction of the warren. He jumped from his cab. Other men squelched through the mud to try to free the half-buried animals. When they found the babies, some still beneath their mothers’ bodies, they called out to each other in mutual pity and compassion. The driver looked particularly upset. The men did what they could for the animals who had survived, clumsily trying to clean them up and then setting them free. The few rabbits who were unhurt bounded into the Wood.

There was now a kind of bank of mud and grass remaining where the greedy jaws of the earth-mover hadn’t yet reached. Inside this bank the last remnants of the rabbits from the warren hid in the few vestiges of holes and passages the machine had missed. They waited, passive victims, for the monster to gobble them up. They were exposed; cut off from any further retreat. There was nowhere to run. Yet somehow they seemed to be forgotten. They didn’t hear the roar of the machine that they expected to hear. And they were left, to their amazement, undisturbed. The humans, strangely affected by what had recently happened, left that part of the site alone for the rest of the day and began working elsewhere.

Rain continued to fall. The treacherous mud absorbed more and more water until it was saturated. Puddles formed on its surface. The bank, too, was saturated through and gouts of mud broke away from it and slid down its side. The ground there was very unstable. Cold, wet and frightened, the rabbits inside the bank shivered through the day in a huddle. When
darkness brought a cessation of human activity, one danger was replaced by another. The exposed holes in the bank were an open invitation to any hunter who picked up the rabbits’ scent.