by Colin Dann
Try as they might, and they searched high and low in twos and threes, the foxes couldn’t find anything to chase. But their activity flushed some other creatures into the open. Amongst these were hedgehogs. The hedgehogs were very frightened, but soon realized the foxes were after different game. Sage Hedgehog unrolled himself and called to the others, ‘We’re safe for the moment. We’re of no interest to them.’
Stout Fox paused to grunt, ‘Not unless you can tell me if you’ve seen otters tonight.’
‘No. None. Why do you seek them?’
‘We’re at loggerheads. Foxes and otters need to settle their differences and now there’s only one way …’
‘You wish to fight them?’
Stout Fox growled, ‘If necessary. But certainly to frighten them.’
‘Then we hedgehogs shall remain silent,’ said the sage one bravely. ‘Were we to see otters, we couldn’t expose them to danger.’
‘Very well. But we foxes will find them one way or another,’ Stout Fox replied determinedly.
‘We take no sides in your dispute,’ the hedgehog continued. ‘But we wish the otters no harm. Indeed their presence here must be preserved.’
‘Not in Farthing Wood!’ Stout Fox snapped. ‘We have our own ideas about that!’
‘Don’t do anything we shall all regret,’ Sage Hedgehog pleaded. ‘If the otters go, I dread the consequences. You’re more sensible than most. I appeal to you to avert a disaster.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Stout Fox remarked dismissively. He knew all about Sage Hedgehog. ‘You and your crackpot notions! Now listen to me. We foxes mean to keep the otters out of our territory. There’s no two ways about that. And we’ll use any means necessary.’
‘No, no,’ wailed Sage Hedgehog. ‘We shall all be losers. Don’t let the humans in!’
‘Humans? They’ve been coming and going here ever since I can remember,’ Stout Fox said and went on his way.
Sage Hedgehog’s head sank on to his paws. More to himself than to any other creature he murmured sorrowfully, ‘I fear the time will arrive when the humans come, but don’t go.’
There was no discovery and no fighting that night. Sleek Otter made haste to give the news of the foxes’ massing to her kind. The otters saw sense and decided to avoid confrontation. Smooth Otter, however, couldn’t resist a retort.
‘How we’ve impressed them all,’ he quipped glibly. ‘We’ve really ruffled their pride.’
‘Well, we can’t match them in strength,’ Sleek Otter cautioned. ‘You should have seen them. They looked an ugly lot.’
‘Oh, they’ll disband soon enough,’ the big male assured her lightly. ‘What can they do? They know they can’t touch us.’
This was not at all how the foxes saw the situation. They had reached the end of their tether. Stout Vixen, who had stayed behind in the den, greeted her mate’s return with the words, ‘I don’t see any signs of a scrap. Your coat’s as clean as a cat’s.’
‘There was no scrap,’ Stout Fox admitted, ‘because there were no otters.’
‘I told you so,’ said the vixen. ‘You need to use more subtle methods with that bunch.’
‘Perhaps we’ve frightened them off?’
‘No. They’ll slip back to the woodland unnoticed when things have quietened down.’
‘What do you suggest then?’
‘As the otters seem to bother you so much there’s only one course of action. Get rid of them altogether.’
‘You mean – kill them?’ Stout Fox muttered as though he hardly dared pronounce the words.
‘Not all of them. When they see their lives are at stake they’ll get the message soon enough and move out.’
Stout Fox baulked at the idea of wholesale slaughter. ‘Let’s hope they won’t provoke us any further,’ he said without much conviction.
Of course it wasn’t in the nature of the otters to lie low. It was quite out of the question for them to be quiet or still for long. And, in any case, hunger asserted itself. They had to hunt whether they liked it or not. Some of them explored the grassland which surrounded the Wood and found a mouse or two. But this was a poor alternative to the rich fare offered by the Wood itself.
With the confidence born of their belief in their special status, the main bulk of the otters once more penetrated the woodland. They hunted singly and thoroughly. It was not long before they once more found themselves competing with the habitual woodland dwellers.
Smooth Otter, predictably, was the spark that lit the fatal fuse. His vanity made him incapable of heeding any warning signals. He forgot Sleek Otter’s experience and set about stalking Lean Fox with the idea of relieving him of his catch. Lean Fox had set his sights on a young hare that was less watchful than it needed to be. Luckily for the young animal, it was able to make its escape. For, as Lean Fox closed, freezing every time the hare turned to look, Smooth Otter tried to circumvent his ploy. The otter’s final dash, in front of the patient, painstaking fox, alarmed the hare who scooted away as swift as the wind.
Lean Fox, who had spent many long minutes carefully positioning himself, hurled himself on the culprit. He bowled the otter over and a vicious fight began. They were a match for each other.
The noise attracted onlookers. ‘F-fox in a fight! Otter on the f-floor,’ Nervous Squirrel skittered, leaping from branch to branch.
Sly Stoat hid behind a tree-trunk, peering round every now and then to watch the contest. As a predator, both animals were his rivals, but as a woodlander he was on the side of the fox. Smooth Otter gave a good account of himself. He was strong and supple and quick-footed. Lean Fox found it impossible to get a grip on him. Equally, the otter’s smaller stature didn’t allow him to gain advantage.
‘It’s l-level pegging,’ Nervous Squirrel squeaked to anyone who cared to listen.
‘Keep quiet,’ said Owl. ‘Let them sort it out.’
Smooth Otter, jigging to right and left, and nipping the fox’s tail or leg whenever he got the chance, resorted to taunts. ‘Catch me if you can, Fox. Whoops! Missed me! Where am I now? No, not there. Here! Clumsy fox!’
The bigger animal was panting heavily and beginning to look confused. Then Lean Vixen rushed up and the scales were tilted. The two foxes together were too much for the athletic otter. If he avoided one’s attack, he stepped right into the other’s. He received a succession of deep bites and suddenly wilted. The Wood was quiet. The onlookers held their breath, expecting a kill. The foxes lunged on both sides. Smooth Otter rolled over, bleeding from a dozen gashes.
‘He’s done for,’ Lean Vixen panted. ‘Leave him.’
Lean Fox stepped back and looked at the stricken animal. His sides heaved from his exertions.
‘D-death, death of an otter!’ shrilled Nervous Squirrel.
The cry was taken up by a host of other small animals and the news spread through the Wood like wild-fire. Other creatures came running; badgers, weasels, rabbits, hedgehogs. Elsewhere the foxes heard the cry and responded. Their blood was up. Four other otters were cornered in the Wood and pulled down by their long-suffering adversaries. Another was caught and savaged as she raced for safety to the stream. Stout Fox took no part in the killing. He restricted himself to running along the Wood’s perimeter and driving others on who were trying to escape. The otters were vanquished. Those who survived abandoned their holts and ran for their lives, believing the foxes would massacre them all if they stayed.
By dawn not a single otter was left in Farthing Wood.
The foxes came together in the centre of the Wood, grimly satisfied with their work. They were not yet aware that the surviving otters had disappeared for good and indeed were at that moment still running across country under cover of darkness.
‘It had to be done’, Lean Vixen spoke for all of her kind. She panted deeply. Many of the foxes still simmered from the heat of battle. They had not escaped unscathed. The otters’ sharp teeth and claws had left their mark. Blood lust still glinted in some eyes. The foxes were
ready for more killing if any creature dared to cross them. For the moment none did and, gradually, their fighting ardour cooled.
‘The Wood’s ours again,’ Stout Fox said. ‘But surely we could have achieved that without such extreme savagery?’
The animals returned to their own territories, certain that no otter would ever presume to set foot in them again. They couldn’t have known that their action would mean that, in the long run, their lives would change for ever.
The stoats and weasels were astir soon after the foxes’ attack. Sly Stoat found Smooth Otter’s carcass and sniffed at it inquisitively.
‘Your arrogance put paid to you,’ he murmured to the dead animal. ‘You wouldn’t be told. What’s your so-called superiority worth now?’ He laughed a stoat laugh. ‘A feast for the worms, that’s all.’ He trotted away, his movements brisker than for a long while.
Quick Weasel had attracted a mate and was oblivious of anything that happened around her. The male weasel was dark and quicker even than she: lightning-fast. He circled her and chased her and they ran through the flower carpet, tumbling and sparring like two kittens. In places the ground was tainted with blood. Where the weasels rolled it flecked their glossy coats with dark spots. They groomed themselves and continued their courtship, forgetful and careless of others’ dramas. Life and its continuation was all that mattered to them.
In the badgers’ ancient set Kindly Badger spoke to his son. ‘The foxes reacted as I feared,’ he said. ‘The otters were too clever for them and they resented it.’ He pressed down some fresh bedding and lay on it. ‘We had no part in it and yet.…’
‘Yet what, Father?’
‘And yet we are part of it,’ Kindly Badger seemed to contradict himself. ‘We’re part of Farthing Wood, just as they are. We can’t remain unaffected.’
‘Didn’t you always believe animals can get along together if they … if they …’ Young Badger groped for the words.
‘If they respect each other? Yes,’ Kindly Badger mumbled. He was feeling drowsy. ‘But it doesn’t always work out that way. You can’t respect a creature who is’ – he yawned widely – ‘taking the food from your mouth.’
Farthing Wood warmed itself in the spring sunshine. The night creatures had gone to their rest. Nervous Squirrel called to his family, ‘S-strangers in the Wood! Take care!’ as he always did when humans approached. The squirrels leapt through the tree-tops, pausing to squint down at the two people who were bending over the remains of Smooth Otter.
‘Four,’ one man said to his companion. ‘What’s been happening here?’ His distress was unmistakable. The other human shook her head and the two trudged on, systematically searching the Wood bottom.
‘Slaughter!’ Jay screeched at them but the startled bird was ignored.
By the stream-side the naturalists loitered, vainly waiting for a reassuring appearance of a bobbing head and whiskers in the water or a frisky somersault amongst the reeds. They stared long and hard, never talking and barely shifting their limbs. There was no comfort here. The stream was barren except for a skulking moorhen or two. They walked along its banks, then the woman grabbed the man’s arm and pointed at the muddy ground. Fresh tracks, otter tracks, made by several animals led away from the stream and away from Farthing Wood itself. They followed them where they could, but the tracks were soon lost amongst rank grass. Even so the naturalists were left in no doubt that some serious misfortune had overtaken the protected animals. It was now their prime objective to discover their fate.
Seven animals, including Sleek Otter, had fled the foxes’ wrath. At first they had run in a blind panic. Then, with distance behind them, they eased up and listened for sounds of pursuit.
‘It’s quiet,’ Sleek Otter whispered.
‘Shall we go back?’ another female suggested, gazing forlornly across the grassland.
‘To certain death,’ Slow Otter told her bluntly. ‘The big dog otter, the smooth one, brought havoc among us. He courted danger and thought himself invincible. But he put the foxes in a frenzy.’
‘Where shall we go then?’
‘Why ask me? My world, like yours, was small. I know nothing else.’
‘We should head for a waterway,’ said Sleek Otter. ‘Our stream wasn’t isolated. It must empty into another.’
‘But where?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We should search for other otters,’ another animal urged.
‘There are no other otters,’ she was told. ‘We’re the last for miles and miles. We grew up knowing that. How can you have forgotten?’
‘I hadn’t forgotten. But – but – what else can we do?’
‘Go on until we find somewhere bearable,’ said Sleek Otter, ‘or … or … die in the attempt.’
They ran on, close-knit, not daring to stray. The grassland gave way to empty fields, then roads, the smell of smoke, moving lights and frightening sounds.
‘We’re lost,’ shrilled a youngster.
‘Of course we’re lost,’ said Slow Otter. ‘From now on, we’ll always be lost.’
It became apparent eventually to the inhabitants of Farthing Wood that the otters had vanished. There were few regrets but some misgivings.
‘What will it mean?’ Wily Stoat asked her mate.
‘Only that there’s more food for everyone,’ Sly Stoat answered cynically.
‘But they were always full of such tales.’
‘Tales of their own importance, yes. Well, we can get along without them. All in all they were a tiresome bunch.’
The wise hedgehog was troubled by more dreams. Once again the vision of the white deer disturbed his daytime sleep, now with more urgency. The deer had advanced and seemed larger and more distinct. Sage Hedgehog knew then that it fell to him to impress on the other animals that some menace hovered over Farthing Wood; that in some way they must make changes to avert an awful fate.
The other hedgehogs heard him out. ‘There are no changes we can make that would make a jot of difference to Farthing Wood one way or the other,’ commented one. ‘We cause no disturbance. We take what we need and don’t interfere with the lives of other creatures.’
Sage Hedgehog said, ‘None of us can escape the doom that threatens us, from the smallest to the largest. Unless.…’
‘Unless what?’ an elderly hedgehog asked. ‘Unless we sprout wings and fly away? Your riddles are of little help.’
‘Unless,’ Sage Hedgehog murmured, ‘we somehow pull together to – to –’ he screwed up his eyes as he struggled to find words to interpret what seemed to him a message from some mystical source – ‘to save ourselves,’ he finished in a burst with a long sigh of relief.
‘It’s the larger animals who can affect what changes take place here, and only they,’ another hedgehog said. ‘The foxes are the most powerful animals as they’ve already demonstrated. Take your tale to them. I doubt if they’ll listen, but if they don’t, your breath is wasted on any other creature.’
‘I shall speak to the foxes,’ Sage Hedgehog confirmed. ‘I shall speak to everyone.’
As before, few of the Wood’s inhabitants were inclined to listen. Sage Hedgehog persisted. It was his role to warn others and not to be defeated by apathy or scorn.
‘You were wrong to make war with the otters,’ he told the foxes. ‘You will rue the day you drove them out.’
‘On the contrary,’ Lean Vixen corrected him. ‘It’s the best thing we ever did. Look how we’ve benefited.’ She and her mate had filled out considerably, and their coats had a healthy sheen. ‘We’ve taken on a new lease of life.’
‘A lease that will end abruptly in disease and panic,’ Sage Hedgehog predicted.
‘You dotty old ball of spikes,’ Lean Vixen scoffed, half angrily and half in amusement. ‘You come to us with this nonsense and expect us to take you seriously?’
‘A threat to the Wood is surely serious?’ Lean Fox cautioned.
‘What threat? There’s no evidence –’
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sp; ‘There have been more humans in the Wood of late,’ Lean Fox interrupted.
‘Oh, we pay them too much attention,’ the vixen dismissed his remark. ‘We always have. But why? They never do anything. They walk, they look … what sort of threat is that?’
‘Human interest can always be a threat,’ Lean Fox muttered sullenly. ‘I’d prefer to be ignored.’
Sage Hedgehog said, ‘If the human eye is on us, we’d do well to look out for each other.’
Meanwhile the otters, torn between their fear of the unknown and their horror of returning to their homes, made makeshift dens under a hedgerow and ate vegetation, snails and slugs to avoid starvation.
Sleek Otter determined to look for water. She knew that without it their lives were worth nothing.
At sunset one dry evening, four days after their flight, Sleek Otter set out. She slipped away while the others made their weary and fruitless search for nourishment. She had eaten almost nothing since abandoning her holt. She knew that the best way to find food was to find water. The memory of her cubs’ deaths after eating unsuitable prey remained with her.
The air was balmy and still. She loped across a field. On the far side a road loomed – for the moment quiet. Sleek Otter sprinted across without pausing. Her heart beat fast. She sniffed the aroma of human food and human bodies hanging thickly in a cottage garden. Her nostrils twitched. Her whiskers brushed a wall as she ran along its length, then she slipped through a gate into the garden and trotted noiselessly to a garden pond. Her eyes widened. The scent of water lured her like a magnet. Noises from the house – a televised voice, the laughter of a viewer – made her hesitate. Then silence resumed.
Sleek Otter dived joyfully into the pond. It was tiny and clogged with weed, but the feel of water over her back and head was exhilarating. A terrified frog leapt for safety on to a water-plant. In a flash Sleek Otter seized it and her teeth crunched on her first real prey for days. The frog tasted delicious. The otter’s eyes closed in sheer enjoyment, but her hunger was merely irritated by this mouthful and seemed greater than ever.
