by Linda Moller
‘Pigs won’t go far,’ said Old Bob. ‘Hunger’ll get ‘em. Then they’re bound to go back to where their food is.’
‘Yes,’ added Johnny. ‘You can lose a dog or a sheep, or a hen, but you can’t lose twelve pigs. Not twelve pigs!’
‘Of course not,’ said Bessie, the pretty barmaid. ‘Pigs are too big, and er … pink. There’s no way twelve pigs could hide together without bits of them sticking out and being seen. No. Taggerty will find them before the day’s out.’
‘No, he won’t,’ called a loud voice from the door, and Tom Price, the cattle-truck driver, marched in. ‘I’ve been at Taggerty’s. I was supposed to take those pigs to market today but what did I find? Not a pig in sight and Taggerty lying in his bed with a face as white as a ghost.’
‘Why, what’s happened to him?’ asked Bessie.
‘Well …’ Tom paused to make sure everyone was listening. ‘Well, yesterday, near suppertime, it seems, Taggerty had the pigyard gate open. He was pushing in a bin of swill when the pigs suddenly took off and bolted through the gate. Well, Taggerty was in the way and he got knocked off his feet. He fell over … backwards … and hit his head, good and hard, on the concrete. He didn’t get up. He just lay there, just lay there till Mrs T found him. And now he’s in bed with concussion. They had the doctor, you know.’
‘But what would frighten twelve pigs?’ asked Bessie.
‘Who knows? Mrs T, well, she talked about the devil entering the pigs, like in the Bible. A bit over-excited, I think she was.’
‘More likely, they took fright at the smell of the swill,’ said the postman, with a wink. ‘Perhaps there was a rabbit in it, dead a month, or one of Taggerty’s old socks. You know he never wastes anything.’
‘We shouldn’t joke about him really,’ said Mary Mott, giggling.
‘Well, anyway, what with these police warnings, “PIGS ON THE ROAD” and all, we’ll soon have news of them,’ said Tom Price. ‘No point in us all going on a pig hunt.’
The ‘PIGS ON THE ROAD’ sign was read by car drivers with surprise. They all went more slowly round the bends. Some who came from towns thought it would be rather jolly to meet pigs on the road and looked ahead hopefully. But they were to be disappointed. The pigs had long since turned off those roads and by now were far away.
CHAPTER 7
The Second Night
FERN STOOD ON WATCH at the empty doorway of the barn. It was raining. The puddle by the door got wider and deeper. The hours passed miserably. The rain dripped off her back and the puddle grew wider and wider, until there was no avoiding it.
Inside the barn the pigs were too hungry and frightened to sleep much. It was quite a relief when night fell and they could get up and go on again.
Heavy clouds blotted out the moon and they walked as though blind. They tripped and stumbled, and blinked the water from their eyes. If only they knew where they were going, they thought, or if only they could see where they were going. If only they could stop and eat. If only they hadn’t come at all. And they were here, in all this, just because of what a cat had said … Perhaps the cat had invented the whole story.
‘Runtling,’ Meadow and Breeze said, catching up with him. ‘How do you know that cat wasn’t making it all up, what she said?’
‘If you were a half-starved cat and you were hot on the trail of some rats that would feed you for several days, would you turn back just to tell a pig a story? The cat turned back to warn me because she hates the Taggertys. No, it was not a story.’
The pigs went on in silence ‘till round the darkness of a clump of trees, a little way off, the blurred lights of a farmhouse came into view.
Runtling stopped. ‘Keep away from that,’ he warned. ‘There’ll be a dog. And it might not be chained up.’
Farm dogs – Taggerty’s dog for example – they thought they owned the place, and sprang out and barked ridiculously at everyone passing by. If this happened late at night, the farmer would come out and look. Anyone prowling round at this time would be up to no good.
They had walked a long way round to avoid that farmhouse, but at least the rain had almost stopped. By the light of a watery moon it was easier going, even on this rutted track. But they were plodding along more slowly than ever and tripping over small things.
We can’t go much further without food, thought Runtling. He himself had begun to feel so weak that he didn’t know whether his legs were carrying him, or if he was pulling them along after him.
From both sides of the rutted path rose the wet-earth smell of plough. Further on, though, came something else. It grew stronger. It was the powerful smell of brussels sprouts! Taggerty had sometimes chucked a sackful of overgrown stalky sprouts into the pigyard. There was always a scramble for them.
Young hedges bordered the sprouts field. The pigs nosed along the hedges looking for a gap to push through. Hidden in the tangle of weeds at the bottom of the hedge were curious things, a milk-bottle with dead leaves in it, one glove, a glass jar half-full of thick dark stuff, a small woollen hat – flat and muddy, and a dead rabbit. But they were too hungry to be curious about the rabbit.
‘No crashing through the hedge just anywhere!’ warned Runtling. ‘We’ll crawl through it, one at a time and in one and the same place. Then it’ll look as though some boys had done it. So wait, Fern, and I’ll find a place.’
On the field side of the hedge was a border of long grass, nettles and docks where tractors turned to make their next pass down the field.
‘Runtling, perhaps we oughtn’t to charge about the field trampling sprouts right and left. It’ll be seen at once in the morning. If we stay on the grass borders and eat the sprouts alongside those it may not be seen for a day or two until someone comes into the field. By then we’d be far, far away,’ suggested Fern.
‘Let’s do that,’ said Runtling. ‘Oh Fern, you’re so sensible.’
The sprouts had been planted in rows. They were young and tender, unlike Taggerty’s. After half an hour the first row was almost gone. Hawthorn and Bramble were starting on the second row. Mist had found another dead rabbit and Meadow had found two.
That made four dead rabbits in the field. Four, Runtling noted. And the others said the rabbits seemed to be quite whole, not bitten or torn or anything. A niggling little fear crept into his mind. The rabbits ate sprouts and they died, and there wasn’t a mark on them. We ate sprouts and …?
CHAPTER 8
The Poison Field
‘MEADOW! MIST!’ Runtling called anxiously. ‘Show me the dead rabbits will you?’
Each rabbit lay near the bottom of the hedge. Round them the weeds and grass were flattened as though there had been a struggle.
‘What do you make of that? Do you think it could have been a fox after them?’
‘No, Runtling,’ said Mist. ‘I know what foxes do with their kill. Sow told us. She said they bury it quickly somewhere. Then another day when they’re hungry, they come back and dig it up to eat. I don’t know how they remember where it’s hidden. But they do, foxes do.’
‘Well … well … a large bird then?’ suggested Runtling.
‘A falcon? No, couldn’t be. A falcon drops out of the sky straight down onto the rabbit, grips it in its talons and sweeps off. Off to some high secret place to eat it.’ Mist shuddered at the thought.
‘Some cats can catch rabbits, then they take them home to show off with,’ laughed Meadow. ‘But it can’t be a cat because the rabbits are still here. And it isn’t a stoat because they kill and eat on the spot, and there’s no smell of blood or bones about, is there?’
‘How do you know all this?’ Runtling asked, suddenly envious. ‘You’ve spent all your lives in a pigsty too, so how can you know?’
‘Sow used to tell us. Of course, she’d never actually seen any of it happen, but she’d heard about it from Old Sow. It’s all in the Old Stories, and they’re true, every one of them. I suppose you’d left home when Sow began to tell the Old Stories! Oh, well, it’s a m
ystery, isn’t it, how those rabbits died.’ Mist and Meadow went back to the sprouts.
Runtling was left alone staring out across the field, that niggling little fear still there. What else could kill rabbits and leave no mark?
He was trying to remember something. He didn’t have too many memories. So little had happened in that small sty, except for the rat. Ah, it must be hard for him now without the crumbs in the trough. They’d put rat poison down in the yard, and in the barn, and round the buildings. Rat had found four rats, dead, in the barn, and his sister, dead too, in the yard, and there wasn’t a mark on any of them. ‘It’s how poison kills.’ That’s what the rat had said.
A sudden alarming thought occurred to Runtling. That must be how the rabbits had died. The field was poisoned! But surely the poison wouldn’t be strong enough for large animals like pigs, when it was meant for small animals like rabbits?
The fear retreated a little, but it didn’t vanish. It said: How are you feeling now, Runtling? Are you sure you’re feeling all right? Quite sure?
Runtling stood and considered himself, bit by bit. First he concentrated on his feet, then his legs. How were they? They seemed to be as usual. On his body he spent longer. His tail still felt the same as usual, he thought. So did the middle of him, so did his head.
So far you’re all right, Runtling, he thought to himself, but think about this. A pig is much bigger than a rabbit, so it might take much longer for the poison to begin working inside you. And that much longer before you start feeling odd … then very odd … then horrible … then dead. And, what about the others?
Hurriedly Runtling crossed the field to the other pigs. Mist, Meadow, Leaf and Fern, and several others he could see, were lying down.
‘Are you all right?’ He tried to speak in an ordinary voice.
‘Mmm … sleepy, just sleepy … over-eaten …’ Fern murmured.
But the Piglings, Bramble and Hawthorn were still eating the sprouts.
‘Stop eating!’ he shrieked. ‘Get out of here! Everyone get out of here. Now! Quick!’
Back on the track he began to explain. But he kept his worst fears to himself. ‘It could be that the poison was spread low down, near the ground where the rabbits eat, so we probably missed most of it. Anyway, the poison was for rabbits so it would be too weak for pigs. I’m all right, you can see, and no-one feels odd, do they?’
But the fear had followed him and, even as he spoke those comforting words, he thought: For all we know poison might strike suddenly. You’re fine one moment and dead the next.
The rutted lane led to a pasture where cows were sleeping, and beyond that to fields and more fields. It was difficult finding their way in the dark, having to go through, under, over, round the field boundaries and gates. Up and down banks, always climbing higher, and now across a rocky stream ‘where you can hardly see where to put your feet,’ as Breeze remarked.
‘I bet we haven’t a clue where we are either, except it’s somewhere different. It’s not Taggerty land anyhow. It’s much rougher and bumpier,’ grumbled Hawthorn.
But at last they had climbed above the fields and their troublesome boundaries. On the short grass here they walked freely and laughed when startled sheep ran away in a panic. The poison scare was half forgotten. No-one felt the least bit ill. Only Runtling still looked a little grim.
It was still two hours before dawn when Hawthorn saw the road. ‘Look down there,’ he shouted. ‘A wonderfully, totally empty road. Not a single farmhouse. We’ll go fast on that. Let’s go, Runtling. It’s not too far down.’
It was an old road on one side of a valley. It ran through empty countryside until it disappeared into the far distance. As they trotted along, the pigs stared in wonder at the far side of the valley where the road rose up steeply into a long ridge of hills, quiet and steely in the moonlight.
‘Is this the world?’ they whispered.
Sometimes dark woodlands blotted out a hillside. On the top of one hill sat a curious black crown of trees, a round crown, not straggly like the other woods. It didn’t look natural.
Nor was it. It was man-made long ago to entice foxes to live there. In this wood – this covert – the fox would find shelter, a bit of food, and somewhere to lie hidden, preferably in a roomy old hole in the ground between tree roots – its earth. The covert was there to make sure a fox or two could always be found nearby. Not for love of foxes, but for love of hunting foxes.
To the pigs it seemed an ideal place to spend the dangerous daylight hours, thick and dark and isolated. No road, nothing else near it.
Bramble looked hopefully at the covert. ‘It’ll be light soon. And the Piglings are tired. I don’t know how much longer they can keep up.’
‘Yes, Runtling. We must have walked twice as far tonight – because of the sprouts. Let’s go there,’ Breeze argued.
Runtling winced at the mention of sprouts, but he turned off the road to make for the covert.
It was further away than they had thought, and from the road they hadn’t seen a ditch too broad for jumping, a bristling barbed-wire fence, and beyond it the long dew-drenched fields at the foot of the hill.
So it was already light when, muddy, scratched and torn, they began to plod up the steep hillside. The Piglings had dropped further and further behind. Bramble stayed with them to coax them on.
The rest were nearly at the top when a cry came from the Piglings: ‘Wait! we can’t go on! We can’t go any further.’
Runtling turned to Fern. ‘You take over the lead, will you? I’m going down to them.’
He found all three of them sprawled out on the rough grass. ‘Having a nice rest, you three? I can see the headlines now, “Seen, lying on a hillside, three pink pigs shining brightly in the morning light!” All right! Sleep on a bit. I’ll keep watch for you.’
Bramble looked grateful, and Runtling moved off a little way towards one of the hummocks dotted around the slopes. These were ant-hills, built up higher and higher by generations of white ants. Standing on one of these he would have a good view of the road and the valley they’d just left.
But the valley and road had entirely disappeared. Below, where the valley had been, lay a great bank of white cloud, through which peaked the upper slopes of hills rimmed with light. Lost in wonder and amazement at this sight, Runtling forgot why he was there.
A whole cloud has fallen into the valley, thought Runtling. It must be a cloud, but it looks woolly and thick. So thick you could walk on it.
He imagined running down the hill and jumping onto the cloud. It was soft and springy, and he laughed and rolled and plunged about in the mist and cool of it. Then he lay floating on his back, swaying gently under a great sky where higher clouds drifted. Then he thought he would run along the cloud to the very end of it and look over the edge. To get up he had only to roll over and tread lightly.
‘Runtling!’ someone was calling, ‘Runtling!’ and he found he was back on the hummock again. The Piglings were awake and Fern was calling out, ‘Runtling. What’s delaying you? You can be seen out there in the open. Come on into the covert!’
The three pigs followed slowly behind Runtling, up the hill. The rest were already in the covert. Hawthorn and Fern were waiting for them just below it. They too were staring at that cloud and the land spreading on and on beyond it.
Fern said, puzzled, ‘It’s strange. I can’t see where the world ends. Can you?’
A little wind ruffled the leaves in the wood above them and wafted down a scent, a scent that spoke strongly of food …
As the pigs were making their way into the covert, a boy carrying a sack entered the sprouts field. Henoticed that the first two rows of sprouts had gone and that there was a lot of trampling round the borders of the field. He wondered. If it had been animals, now, they would have been all over the field. Maybe it was someone after their sprouts. Dad would be mad, hopping mad. But breakfast was waiting, and first he must get the rabbits.
He bent down to the snare and
carefully released the loop of thin copper wire round the rabbit’s neck. The rabbit had made frantic efforts to get free of the capturing wire but this had only pulled the loop tighter and tighter round its neck until it was dead. He put the dead rabbit in the sack and reset the snare ready for the night, then checked the other snares. Only four rabbits caught. Not as many as usual. Perhaps they’d been afraid to enter the field because of whoever had been there. Dad would be hopping mad.
CHAPTER 9
The Hunt
ALL THROUGH THE WOOD came the sound of the pigs’ heavy bodies crashing excitedly about in the undergrowth, the sound of twigs snapping, of crunching and gobbling. They forgot about the secrecy and silence of an escape. They forgot about Taggerty. They thought only about the enticing smells that rose up from the woodland floor, the same sort of food smells that had tantalised them on those long hungry journeys of the last two nights.
All this was very unwelcome to two large crows who had adopted the wood. They awoke in a fright and scolded the pigs from the safety of the treetops, flapping and cawing dementedly.
The pigs ignored them. They had just discovered the joys of rootling – digging about with their snouts in the leaf-mould and the soft black earth of the woodland floor. Down there they found food, food they’d never tasted before – pale tender roots, long tap roots and the sweet sticky bulbs of bluebells, hundreds of them. And there were beetles to be snapped up, grubs, wood lice and slithery writhing worms. Any hard woody roots lying in their way, were torn up and tossed away.
The rootling continued. When a sudden extraordinary sound rent the air, the pigs took little notice. But Meadow, the lookout pig, heard it. He was rootling on the very edge of the covert and had a view of the valley below. The unearthly sound startled him.
