Stray

by A. N. Wilson

  ‘“If you take my advice.”’ The young kittens imitated my voice and then dissolved into merriment, but one or two saw the force of my suggestion, and scampered after me. In the next room, I froze on my feet with fear because I could smell the smell which only comes from human mouths – that peculiar smoke which emanates from the paper chimneys, an acrid, choking smell.

  ‘Get back,’ I hissed to the two or three kittens who were following me. ‘Stand still. There’s a man in here.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can smell the smoke.’

  For no reason at all, I assumed that the human liberators would not be the smoke-breathing sort of being. I realize now that is a completely false piece of logic, but at the time smoke meant to me only one thing: a human enemy – Bob and his friend in the car – cruel oafs!

  ‘I can’t see a man,’ said one of the young kittens.

  ‘Nor I,’ said his friend. ‘It isn’t a man who is smoke breathing. It’s the rats in that cage. Look!’

  You know he was right! For all my policy of not lingering in my desire to get out of that hell hole of a laboratory as fast as my legs would carry me, I stood transfixed by the sight which the young ginger tom indicated with his paw. For there, in a long cage on a table ledge against the wall, were about twenty rats jostling with one another to suck cigarette smoke from a tube.

  ‘’Ere, rat, give us a suck.’

  ‘’E’s always pushing, that rat is, rat.’

  ‘I don’t push rat no more than you does, rat.’

  ‘Oooh! oooh! ooooooh!’ squeaked the satisfied rats who had their mouths round the tube. They were white rats with red eyes. About six tubes were fed from some sort of tank through a hole in the wall of their cage. Some machine or other was puffing smoke through these tubes, and far from being disgusted, the rats were loving it.

  The rats called this puffing ‘having a drag’.

  ‘Oooh, rat, nice to have a drag, rat.’

  ‘Loooovely. I loves me drag.’

  Others in the queue were alternating between a desperate longing for a puff on the tube, and a desire to show the others that they did not really mind whether they puffed the tube or not.

  ‘I just queue up for the company, rat. Tell the truth, I don’t care whether I haves a drag or not, rat.’

  ‘If that’s true, rat, why push ahead, rat?’

  ‘Push, rat? Me rat? No, but fair’s fair. If we’re all entitled to a drag, rat, I’ll have my fair share. But no, it makes no difference to me whether I drag or not.’

  ‘You only had a drag five minutes ago, rat.’

  ‘Hurry up, rat in front there. I wants a drag.’

  They had no interest in anything except this smoke, which came in regular little puffs down the tube. Then, it stopped. Clearly, the tubes were programmed, so that they puffed smoke for half an hour, and then stopped doing so. After only a very few minutes, the rats’ whole demeanour changed. They began to quarrel in earnest, even to fight and scratch one another. At the same time, they staggered to and fro, coughing and belching and only half able to breathe.

  The sight both fascinated and disgusted me, but after a little while, I was overcome with that feeling of weak hatred for the human race which had so often afflicted me since coming to the laboratory. I have never thought of myself as a great defender of the rat, either as a species or as an individual. But there is a world of difference between a rat leading its own ratty life (repulsive as that may be) and the sight of these creatures, who had stopped being rats, and had not become anything else, mere creatures of desire, and an artificial desire at that, manipulated and set up by men in white coats.

  ‘Let’s go, Pufftail,’ said one of the cheeky young kittens, and for once I felt no desire to cuff him or put him in his place. We all felt the same – shocked, and angry and dizzy with it all. Outside the rat laboratory, there was a stone staircase, I had not realized that we were upstairs before. But as we ran down it, we saw that men in blue uniforms were coming through the doors at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘They smashed all the glass, sir,’ said one of the men in blue.

  ‘Not just that, Sergeant. Look at that.’ And with a stubby finger, the senior man in blue was pointing at me. ‘They must have opened the door into the lab. What beats me is how they picked those locks. Now they’ll have cats and rats and monkeys all over the place.’

  ‘They surely wouldn’t be so irresponsible as to let out all the animals,’ said the man whose name was Sergeant. ‘I mean, they’ll have diseases and such. Don’t touch that one there, sir. I advise you not to touch it.’

  Yes, ‘it’. And they were still speaking of me!

  ‘But this is anarchy,’ another of the men in blue was saying. ‘We’ve got the building surrounded with men and dogs who should pick up any of the maniacs who started all this nonsense. Cor! Did you see that plate glass door? Just smashed!’

  ‘They’re mad!’

  ‘They think they are on the side of the animals, and they claim that they’re stopping animals from being tortured, but they are just maniacs. That’s all they are.’

  ‘What about the strays they’re letting loose, sir?’ asked Sergeant.

  Sir said, ‘If we can’t stop them with the dogs we shall have to shoot them. They’ll all have to be put down anyway. Criminal’s the word I’d use. When you think of all the good that a place like this has done to the human race. I mean, without science, quite frankly, where would we be? Back in the Middle Ages, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  I still do not understand what happened. That is, the whole episode of my time in the laboratory is incomprehensible to me. Obviously, by torturing us in our cages, the white-coats were pretending that they were finding out some very important secrets. Whether they believed this themselves, or whether it was just a trick they were playing on the stupider people, such as Sergeant and Sir, I will never know. But then there was this other group of people, the man with beard fluff, and the lank woman who wept, who were the enemies of the white-coats and the blue-uniforms. And they, it seemed, had come to rescue us. But out of pity, love of animals, or simply out of hatred for the white-coats? What were they planning to do when they put the cats in the basket or let the pigeons out of their cages? We shall never know, because the blue-uniforms arrived to stop them.

  ‘We’ll never get out now,’ said one of the kittens to me quietly. ‘Did you hear that Sergeant person? Dogs, and if we get past the dogs they’ll shoot us.’

  ‘We’ve got to get out,’ I said.

  ‘That’s just talk,’ said the ginger tom. ‘I’d rather sit in the cage all day than be torn to pieces by a dog. Besides, I was almost getting used to it.’

  ‘That is precisely why we must escape,’ I said. ‘Did you see those rats upstairs? Did you not see what the white-coats had done to them? They had done something much worse than deliver them to the Great Stillness. They had allowed them their breath but made them use that breath only for puffing smoke. They had allowed them their movement and vigour. But every ounce of energy which those silly creatures had left was devoted to filling their lungs with that horrible smell. They had allowed them existence, but they had created a mockery of it by changing the very essence of that existence. They had stopped the rats being themselves. Now a cat who says he is happy to be in a cage and is getting used to having soap rubbed in his eyes is little by little ceasing to be a cat. Don’t you see it would be better a thousand times to run out there and risk meeting a dog, than to creep upstairs again into your cage? Don’t you know that it has always been our destiny to battle with dogs, and to fight against destiny? And though to be oneself brings sorrow and grief, and though it leads to the Great Stillness itself, there is still no other path that a self-respecting cat can follow.’

  Thus I spoke – or words to that effect. Evidently I won my point, for all three kittens with me recognized that we had no choice. We had to make a dash for it. The trouble was that we had absolutely no sense of the terrain.
We had been brought here in bags. We had been imprisoned in cages. Our glimpse – beyond the door, was of sunlight falling onto a drive, some lawn, a wall. But what was beyond?

  ‘Each for his own,’ I said. ‘And remember – no dog can climb a wall.’

  ‘Pufftail,’ said the ginger tom who had up to this point been preaching doctrines of cowardice. ‘Thank you. You have saved me.’

  ‘Only your own will and the swiftness of your feet can save you now,’ I said.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he said. And of course I did.

  He sprinted out ahead of us across the grass, and almost at once the uniformed men let loose two enormous dogs the size of wolves: the breed called by men Alsatians. The two great monsters bore down upon the young ginger cat, but just before they reached him, they paused, much as we would pause before going into the kill when hunting a vole or a mouse.

  I ran into the yard, too, and so did the other pair of kittens.

  ‘I’ve got them interested!’ shouted ginger to us. ‘Run now, while you can!’

  ‘But...’ I called.

  ‘No buts,’ he called back. ‘You were right! Thank you, Pufftail! For I was about to lose my soul, and now I have found it again.’

  At this stage, the dogs – who of course did not understand our speech and only heard what they thought were squeaks and miaows, let out that frightening roar which they make, ‘Raw! raw! raw! raw!’ and they fell on our young friend.

  I ran, faster than I have ever run in my life, and with a magnificent bound, I managed to scale the top of the wall. So did two of my companions. But they got a third, as well as the ginger. Neither cat could struggle for long. Looking back across the scrub of grass, I saw the dogs gnawing still little bundles of cat fur. There was blood on their mouths.

  So this was the glory, and this was the soul, unto which I had called him! But he was right, of course, and I had been right, and it was better to sleep at the hands of a dog than to live at the hands of a cruel man.

  Beyond the wall, there were men with cameras, and a little huddle of people, but oddly enough they were all looking towards the gates. They ignored us. They snapped the cameras when the uniform men dragged the man with beard fluff and his friends into the backs of vans. But we were ignored, and we all ran as fast as we could down a pavement, through some railings, over what seemed like a park, and into some bushes for shelter.

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I believe that we are free once more. And we must all go our own way.’

  chapter sixteen

  I ran and ran and ran. There had been times when I ran before, as on the fateful night when I made my farewell to Sister Caroline Mary. Then I had run heedlessly. Now I did so warily, conscious, as I have been ever since, that every step you take in this world might be a step towards slavery or unhappiness. But even this knowledge, which has by now become second nature to me, could not stop floods of joy bathing over me as I ran through the fields and ditches, leaving the nightmare laboratory and the sound of human voices far behind me.

  I was free! The wind was in my fur. The great sky was above my head. And for the first time in months, the world was all before me. The sensation of escape was in itself exciting enough: of knowing that I had left the dogs and the guns behind me. But this positive sense of freedom was even better. For weeks, I had been a prisoner in a laboratory, penned into a tiny cage, with nowhere to stretch my limbs. Before that, I had passed what now seemed an eternity, penned up in that garage as a member of Tom-Cat’s Commune, and only allowed out ‘on the prowl’ in my capacity as a food collector for the other cats. Before that, there had been my spell in the sick bay with the Sisters, and before that, the dreadful domestic life of Jim and June. It was long since I had tasted true freedom. Therefore, though I ran warily, I ran hard, anxious to put as far as possible between myself and my tormentors, and certain that from now onwards, I would let nothing and no one trick me into captivity. Never again. The next time, I would rather choose the Great Stillness, and that is still my resolution.

  At one point in my run, I badly miscalculated, and came to a barbed-wire fence. I saw that in my haste I had run through a field of sheep, almost without noticing them! And now, beyond the barbed-wire, I saw chickens, barns and houses. I heard a dog barking. And then I saw it: a great black and white brute, standing in the muddy yard. He was, I should guess, about a hundred yards away from me. But he had seen me all right, and was letting out his crude Ra-ra-ra to inform everyone else, should they be interested, that I was on the scene. The sheep did not seem to care much. But the dog’s shouts alerted the notice of a greasy red woman, with her head tied in a cloth, who came out of the house and stared around the yard with unobservant stupidity.

  ‘What be you a-barking at?’ she asked. ‘There baint no dog among the sheep, be there?’

  ‘Ra-ra-ra!’ which I imagine, if dogs were capable of polite speech as we are, would have been rendered, ‘Madam, there is a cat among the sheep and I would dearly love to chase it!’

  ‘Oi can’t see nothin’,’ said the greasy woman. And then she did see me. ‘Well, bless me, what be that in the sheep field. Wal’er! Wal’er!’

  ‘Ar?’

  A male came out of the house. His legs were tied up with string, and he had an old cloth cap on his head.

  ‘What be that animal with the sheep?’

  ‘What animal?’ asked Walter scornfully. ‘I don’t see no animal.’

  ‘Ra-ra-raaa!’ By now the dog had run to the edge of the field and was only forty or fifty yards away from me. He yapped and howled through the barbed wire, and then ran to the gate which he pawed and sniffed, anxious to be let into the field to chase me. I was by now feeling pretty tired from my run, and could have done without this particular form of afternoon sport.

  ‘That grey thing!’ persisted Greasy. ‘Looks almost like a badger to me.’

  ‘Oi remember years ago how a badger did get one of my grandfather’s sheep. But years ago, mind. Oi still don’t see no badger.’

  I did not stay for the rest of this fascinating conversation, but I could not help overhearing the following snatches.

  ‘Ain’t you got eyes, Wallerollerton? You’d see better if you wore them glarrrsiz and drank less of that whisky. There be an animal in that field, else whattud Patch be a barrrkinat? And it’s moi belief it’s a woild cat.’

  ‘Now a woild cat could kill a lamb,’ said old Walter Hollerton slowly.

  ‘Oh moind owta moi way, Wallerollerton and oi’ll let Patch into the field. He’ll be able to sort out what from what even if you baint.’

  And this the redoubtable lady proceeded to do. I wasn’t looking, but I could hear the gate being swung to, and I knew that a young dog with months of training behind him was being set upon an extremely tired cat. I had a couple of hundred yards start on him, but I was aware that at any moment, my legs would simply give way to exhaustion. The barking behind my ears was getting louder and closer. A quick, and very scared glance over my shoulder told me that the dog was fast on my heels. It was touch and go whether or not he would catch up with me by the time I reached the next fence. And if he did catch me up, I did not greatly look forward to our encounter. But I made it. Just. And by the stile in the corner of that field, there was a sturdy oak, with low spreading branches and thick foliage. Even in my frail, tired condition, it was the work of a moment to jump up into the tree and hide in the branches. My whole body shook with exhaustion. My heart was palpitating, my legs were shaking, my very eyeballs were throbbing, when a couple of seconds later, the dog reached the bottom of the oak, and looked up at me hungrily. Had Walter Hollerton followed the dog with his gun, they might both have had sport of me that day. But the lazy old man had not so much as toddled out of his farmyard, and it was left to Patch to stand at the roots of the tree and bark. I could now see that he was a clever dog, with sharp intelligent eyes and – now that I was safe from his jaws, even I could see that he had rather a pleasant face. He shouted and barked a bit more, but he
knew the game was up and that I had won. He was soon scampering off across the field, through the first hedge and into the sheep field. Later that day, doubtless, he had work to do.

  It is the thing about dogs which causes me most dread, this capacity of theirs for work. Yes, of course I fear their teeth and their anger and their rough love of sport at our expense. But most of all I dread that within them which is perfectly happy to be subservient to human kind. Why? What primeval curse have they inherited, what first terrible canine blunder took place, that they should be such cheerful slaves of a race lower than themselves? If the dog could drive the sheep, then, like enough, he could run the whole farm, and make the Hollertons do his bidding, instead of the other way about! But he did not do so. He served them, and served them with that pathetic happiness on his face which one so often distinguishes in dogs. The puzzle took hold of me as I sat there in the comforting branches of the oak, but it mingled in my brain with other thoughts. Recent memories of the laboratory and of that day’s adventures pressed in at first, and then began to fade. I was a much younger, and more energetic cat, and a happier cat, as I settled deeper into sleep. My brother was with me once more. We were hunting in the back garden of Granny Harris’s house. And I could see the Major, and hear him saying ‘Take to the road, take to the road...’

  When I woke up, the dawn was just rising and the tree in whose thick branches I had found so comfortable a bed, was all a twitter with the song of birds. One of the many odd things about the lifestyle of human kind is the absolute deadness of everything they eat. Whereas for us, the natural thing is to eat things when they are more or less still alive – and at least, still warm. The human race – when it does eat flesh – disguises it by hanging and cooking and covering with gravy, so that half the joy of eating is removed. Most of the time, of course, they only eat flesh in bits, surrounded by such extraordinary ideas as sliced potatoes, beans in red sauce, pastry, or boiled vegetables. You can tell how much excitement there is in eating this sort of stuff if you look at their faces as they shovel it all in with knives and forks. You, young kitten, can imagine what it was like waking up to a dawn chorus of birds. But to explain that music to a human being you would have to ask him to imagine what it was like to wake up to a beautiful choir, and then to realize that the music emanated from a group of singing fried eggs or harmonious lamb chops. That is, the music was immediately and inextricably mixed up with my knowledge that it was coming from the throats of my breakfast. Stretching myself in the branches of the tree, and surveying the land below, I saw that there were no dogs or foxes or men in sight. At first I was lazy and greedy, and tried to catch a green woodpecker which happened to be nesting near my leafy hammock. This abortive lurch caused every bird in the tree to fly into the air squawking with horror, so I slithered down the trunk and lay low for ten minutes. Birds are wonderfully forgetful creatures and, like the rest of us, they get hungry. It was not long before I saw a plover straying from the middle of the field incautiously near my ‘hide’. Its capture was the work of moments, and I was so hungry that I did not trouble to tease it and frighten it to death in the manner which gave my brother so much pleasure.