Animal Factory

by Philip Caveney

  ‘He’s a flipping baby!’ cried Fred.

  ‘Yes, but he’ll soon grow,’ said Henrietta. She thought for a moment. ‘But listen . . . this can’t be what you were just talking about,’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’ muttered Fred.

  ‘You said you thought something bad was coming. But. . . well, you don’t think there’s anything bad about this little fellow, do you? I mean, look at him!’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ rumbled Marmaduke. ‘We had a young porker up at the sty a year or so back, looked like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but turn your back on him for a moment and he’d . . .’

  ‘Yes, never mind about that,’ said Henrietta briskly. She turned her attention back to Ralph. ‘I’m sure you’ll soon fit in here,’ she said. ‘It’s just a matter of learning the ropes.’

  ‘The . . . ropes?’ murmured Ralph. ‘What are the ropes?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ said Fred grimly. He looked around at the others. Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose that’s it. If nobody else has got any sensible suggestions to make about my dream, we may as well call it a night.’

  At this there were various noises of discontent from the assembled crowd.

  ‘That’s it?’ cried Marmaduke in disgust. ‘You’ve dragged me all the way out here in the middle of the night for some piffle about ravens?’

  Fred gave him a look. ‘Yes, well I thought you might have something intelligent to say about it. Something more intelligent than ‘indigestion,’ anyway.’

  ‘Oooh, excuse me, I’m sure!’ Marmaduke struggled back onto his trotters and glanced in the direction of his wives. ‘Come along, ladies,’ he said, ‘I’m not staying here to be insulted.’ He started haughtily towards the barn doors, his head held high. The effect was marred somewhat by the fact that as he strode out, he emitted a loud gust of wind from his rear end. Behind him, his wives started coughing loudly.

  ‘Stop exaggerating,’ he muttered as he made his way out into the farmyard.

  Now Sally and the rest of the sheep pushed their way forward.

  ‘Fred,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve been thinking about your dream . . .’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Fred hopefully.

  ‘Do you think . . . well . . . could it be that you weren’t really asleep?’

  Fred looked at her hopelessly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he growled.

  ‘I’m just saying, perhaps you really were out on the hillside and you looked up and you saw all those birds and you thought to yourself, ‘I must be dreaming.’ And then you just sort of believed that you were.’

  ‘But that couldn’t happen,’ protested Fred.

  ‘It’s happened to me,’ said Sally.

  ‘Me too,’ said the sheep next to her.

  ‘And me,’ added a third.

  Fred sighed.

  ‘The birds were attacking me,’ he said. ‘I think if that really had happened I’d know about it. There’d be evidence of an attack. Beak marks and so forth.’

  ‘Well, it was just a thought,’ said Sally.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fred. ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Sally. She looked at her friends. ‘Come on ladies, let’s get back to counting those fence posts.’ She looked at Henrietta. ‘We’re counting the posts in our field,’ she explained proudly. ‘We keep getting as far as six or seven and then we forget where we are.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, it’s a funny old world, isn’t it?’

  And with that, she led the rest of her friends out into the night, closely followed by the chickens and Sheba, Benjamin and Jonah, who as he went out, stabbed at the light switch with his snout, plunging the barn back into darkness, except for a broad strip of moonlight coming in through the open doors. Fred and Henrietta stayed where they were for the moment, waiting until the others were out of hearing.

  ‘Well, that was a complete waste of time,’ said Fred at last. He glanced at Henrietta. ‘You’re the only one who made a sensible suggestion.’

  ‘You can’t expect much from the sheep,’ Henrietta told him.

  ‘Which ones were they?’ asked Ralph.

  Fred gave him a despairing look. ‘Don’t you know?’ he cried. ‘You’re supposed to be a sheepdog, for goodness sake. Your main job will be herding them about. How will you do that if you don’t even recognise them?’

  The pup tried to look confident. ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. Were they the big pink ones that were all covered in mud?’

  ‘No!’ snapped Fred. ‘The white ones. The ones with pale stupid faces and woolly coats and droning voices. The ones who can’t count past seven.’

  ‘Oh, those ones,’ said Ralph. He thought for a moment. ‘They seemed nice.’

  Fred fixed him with a stern look. ‘Don’t try and tell me about sheep, sonny,’ he said. ‘Sheep are not nice. They are trouble. They haven’t got the brains they were born with. If one of ‘em decided to walk off a cliff, the rest would follow without hesitation until the whole lot were gone. And no prizes for guessing who’d get the blame if that happened. Never overestimate the intelligence of a sheep, my boy. That’s the first bit of advice I’m going to give you and the most important you’ll ever get. Remember it and you won’t go far wrong.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Ralph. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Oh, don’t mention it.’ Fred glanced at Henrietta. ‘Well, we’d better get back to our places,’ he said. ‘Next time I have a dream, I think I’ll keep it to myself.’

  ‘Umm . . . what will I do?’ asked Ralph.

  Henrietta gave him a last affectionate cuddle. ‘You just crawl back into the straw and snuggle down for the night,’ she advised him. ‘You’re still small and you won’t be expected to do much for quite a while. But one of these days, Farmer Morton will take you out on the hill to herd the sheep and that’s when you’ll have to prove yourself.’

  Ralph nodded and began to creep back towards his sleeping place. Fred and Henrietta started towards the open doors of the barn and Ralph called softly after them.

  ‘You’re . . . sure about my mother?’ he asked them. ‘There’s no chance I might be seeing her again?’

  There was a silence and then Henrietta said. ‘Go back to sleep little one.’

  Then she and Fred stepped out into the moonlight and Ralph snuggled himself down, deep into the straw. Within minutes, he was fast asleep.

  Chapter Four

  Learning The Ropes

  Ralph quickly settled into the routine on Morton’s farm but although he had hoped to be put to work straight away, in this he was disappointed. Every morning he would see Farmer Morton step out of his house and whistle to Fred that it was time to go herding and he would hope that he would be invited to join them. But he never was.

  It was interesting to see the change in Fred at such times. As soon as Mr Morton whistled he would come racing out of his kennel as though he had shed ten years in his sleep, tail wagging as he raced excitedly backwards and forwards.

  ‘How are you this morning, Fred?’ Mr Morton would ask him.

  ‘Oh, I’m raring to go!’ Fred would assure him. ‘Let’s get out there!’

  ‘Sure you’re feeling up to it?’

  ‘Yes, yes, try and hold me back!’

  And off they would go, looking like two youngsters off to seek adventure.

  ‘You realise it’s all an act?’ Henrietta said one day, as she and Ralph stood side-by-side watching the two of them set off. ‘Poor Fred is in agony every step of the way, but of course he won’t let Farmer Morton see that.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Ralph.

  ‘It is the way of things,’ she said. ‘We creatures of the farm spend our lives pleasing the Tall Ones. Sometimes, when you see what we get in return, I wonder why we bother.’

  ‘But Farmer Morton and his wife seem very nice,’ said Ralph.

  ‘Yes, compared to some Tall Ones you might meet, I suppose they are. And yet, all of them are capable of mistr
eating their animals . . . and sometimes even the Mortons do things that make me wonder about them.’

  ‘Do you think Farmer Morton will ever let me herd the sheep?’ asked Ralph.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, your chance will come soon enough, little one,’ she said. She glanced at him shrewdly. ‘Actually, not so little these days,’ she observed. ‘I’d say you’ve almost doubled in size since you got here. I’m sure you won’t have to wait for very much longer.’

  But the weeks rolled by and day after day Ralph had to watch as Mr Morton and Fred set off to round up the sheep and still he was not invited to join them. He would sit there, wagging his tail, showing that he was ready and willing to do his bit, but every morning he was ignored. He began to think that perhaps Farmer Morton had brought him to the farm for something else entirely.

  And then one morning, which seemed just like any other, Mr Morton was just starting towards the farm gates when he paused and looked down at Fred.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘do you think it’s time we gave the new boy a chance?’

  Ralph looked at Fred and he could see what a difficult decision this was for him. There must have been a part of him that wanted to go on doing this job forever and another part that realised that he simply couldn’t. Ralph had grown so much since he had come to the farm and Fred could not keep putting this off. He looked at Ralph and for a moment the younger dog thought he was going to say no, but he sighed and looked up at Mr Morton and said, ‘Why not?’

  To say that Ralph was delighted by this news would have been putting it mildly. He went half crazy, running around Farmer Morton and Fred, barking excitedly, wanting everyone in the farmyard to know that he was finally getting his chance to shine. He looked towards the henhouse but annoyingly Henrietta was nowhere to be seen. He would have liked her to witness his moment of triumph.

  ‘Settle down,’ muttered Fred, quietly. ‘If the sheep see you carrying on like that, they’ll panic and run in all directions and you might not be given another chance for ages.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Ralph and he did just as Fred had asked and dropped back alongside him. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Just stay beside me and do whatever I tell you,’ said Fred sternly. He nodded towards Farmer Morton, who was striding on ahead. ‘When we get up there he’ll start making all kinds of odd noises at you. You won’t have a clue what he’s on about, but don’t worry, I’ll translate.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ralph, and the two dogs trotted off to catch up with the farmer.

  ‘Just remember what I told you before,’ said Fred as they went. ‘Sheep are stupid. Never expect them to do the thing they ought to do because most likely they won’t. And whatever you do, don’t let them go near Fenstone Crag.’

  ‘What’s Fenstone Crag?’ Ralph asked him.

  ‘You’ll know it when you see it,’ said Fred.

  In no time at all they were in the sheepfold and Ralph was chasing after the big, ugly creatures with white, staring faces and the harshest voices he’d ever heard.

  ‘Wheeeeere we going?’ they started crying as the dogs approached. ‘Wheeeeere we going?’

  ‘Listen to ‘em,’ said Fred in disgust. ‘We take them up to the same pasture every day and bring them back here every evening and they still don’t know what’s happening. It makes you want to puke.’

  ‘They look kind of scary,’ said Ralph, feeling nervous now that his moment had finally come. ‘They . . . won’t attack me or anything, will they?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ said Fred. ‘One of them might occasionally try to give you a swipe, but mostly they’re harmless. Oh, hey up, he’s started!’

  Ralph looked up to see that Mr Morton was pointing at him with the wooden stick he was carrying, and he was uttering some odd, high-pitched noises.

  ‘He wants you to go to your left,’ whispered Fred.

  ‘No problem! Er . . . which way is that, exactly?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ Fred lunged forward and buried his teeth in one of Ralph’s ears, making him yelp in surprise. ‘That’s your left ear,’ he said, ‘the other side is your right. Left and right, got that? Or do you want me to nip the other one?’

  ‘No, that’s OK,’ said Ralph hastily. He began to run to the left, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his ear and telling himself that if that was how Fred was going to answer his questions, he’d do well not to ask too many of them.

  He gave quite a good account of himself that first day. He quickly discovered that Fred had been right about the sheep. They were, quite frankly, the most stupid creatures he’d ever come across. You simply couldn’t leave anything to chance. He could position a sheep right in front of an open gate, thinking that it couldn’t possibly mistake his intentions and nine times out of ten, the sheep would go left, or right or simply turn around and head back the way it had come, bleating ‘Wheeeeere we going?’ the whole time. It was maddening, but it soon became clear why the position of sheepdog was so important. Fred got Ralph through that first day by carefully giving him instructions and at the end of it all, when the sheep were safely up in the high meadow, Mr Morton patted his head and told him that he had done really well. Ralph was pleased and enjoyed the praise but was uncomfortably aware of Fred watching him with a knowing look on his face.

  Ralph went out with them again the next morning, and every morning after that. He learned quickly and it wasn’t long before he was rushing to obey Mr Morton’s whistles and getting there just that little bit quicker than Fred. In times to come, he would regret being so pushy. He would find himself wishing that he had held back and given Fred more of a chance to shine, but he was young and selfish and wanted so much to prove his worth.

  As for Fenstone Crag, he soon learned what that was. On his third day out he noticed a place on the hillside where the rocks ended suddenly and tumbled straight down to more rocks, far below. It was not hard to imagine how dangerous such a spot could be when you were dealing with creatures as stupid as sheep. Then, perhaps the fourth or fifth time he went out there, he looked in the direction of the crags and saw that one of the sheep had somehow wandered to the very edge of the rocks. Ralph began to move towards it, but Fred said, ‘Hold on lad, better leave this one to me.’ Ralph stopped obediently in his tracks, but Farmer Morton said, ‘No, wait on, Fred, let’s give the young ‘un a chance.’

  It was a strange moment. Fred turned and looked up at Mr Morton and something in the old dog’s face seemed to be pleading with the farmer.

  ‘He’s only been out here a few times,’ said Fred. ‘I don’t know if he’s ready.’

  ‘Nor do I, old chap, but he’ll have to have a go sometime and yon scrawny old sheep wouldn’t be that much of a loss.’ He gestured at Ralph with his stick and started making the whistling noises and Ralph found that he didn’t need Fred to explain to him what the farmer wanted. He moved in a wide, slow circle around to the right of the sheep and crept slowly along the edge of the rocks, staying crouched down low, hugging the ground because he didn’t want to panic his quarry. Meanwhile, the sheep was just standing there saying ‘Wheeeere should I go? Wheeeeere should I go?’ Ralph moved as slowly as possible, knowing that if he panicked all would be lost. When he got really near to the sheep he moved as close to the edge as he dared and inched himself forward, studying the sheep intently. There was a long silence when Ralph knew that the sheep was about to make a move and he pictured the white, woolly body plummeting in silence to the rocks below . . . but happily, the sheep went the other way, trotting back to join his brothers and sisters and Ralph let out a long sigh of relief.

  When he ran back to join his companions Farmer Morton praised him and patted his head, but Fred just looked at him in silence and Ralph thought that he had never seen a sadder expression than the one he saw on Fred’s face that day.

  That night, Mr Morton whistled Ralph into the kitchen and pointed at a big straw basket set up beside the stove. As Ralph watched, Mr Morton’s wife, Agnes, placed a folded blanket in
to it and told Ralph that from now on he could sleep there. Agnes was a heavyset but softly-spoken woman, with a ruddy face and grey, shoulder-length hair. She had always been very kind to Ralph. As he settled himself onto the blanket he felt a brief stab of guilt, thinking of Fred sleeping out in the yard, but the warmth of the stove was wonderful and he pushed the thought to the back of his mind. That night, however, he woke with a strange unsettled feeling.

  He sat up and looked around. Everyone had gone to bed and the house was silent. He got up from his basket, trotted across the tiled floor and jumped up onto the sofa so that he could look out of the window. A full moon illuminated the yard and he could see that, although it was only late September, it was already cold out there. He saw Fred’s kennel. He imagined the old dog curled up in there, trying to sleep, the cold creeping into his aging bones and it occurred to Ralph that one day it would be him out there and some other, younger dog taking his place in the basket. But, he told himself, he was young and that was so very far away, it was not something to dwell on just now.

  He turned away from the window, jumped down from the sofa and returned to his basket and the warmth of the stove. But comfortable as he was, he didn’t get much sleep that night.

  Chapter Five

  Black Dog

  It was Ralph who smelled the stranger first. He had been working at the farm for quite some time now and the weather had changed considerably. The leaves had gone from the trees, the darkness seemed to come much earlier than before and there was a cold snap in the air that made Fred’s legs ache something terrible. He told Ralph about it, every chance he got.

  The three of them – Ralph, Farmer Morton and Fred – were up on the hillside herding the sheep when the wind brought the scent of a stranger to Ralph. He told Farmer Morton about it straight away because he knew that he liked to be kept informed about such things. He was still having trouble with foxes preying on any chickens who wandered away from their comrades. Farmer Morton had told Ralph that other farmers had advised him to put down things called snares which could trap and kill the foxes, while others had gone so far as to suggest he put out poison for them. But he said he didn’t like to do such things, that he would rather catch them ‘clean’ and shoot them with the big gun he sometimes carried with him.