by Colin Dann
Slow Otter exploded. ‘What?’ he screeched. This was too much. While the other females hastily left the yard with their catches, he scrambled up the tank, determined not to wait any longer. The female at the top overbalanced and fell with a deep splash into the water. The trout thrashed about in terror, making the contents of the tank resemble a whirlpool. Slow Otter found it almost impossible to target a particular fish in this melee. He raked the surface blindly with his claws and managed to seize one moderately sized trout. He had to be content with this.
Meanwhile the female otter had broken surface and was struggling to free herself. The water level was well below the rim of the vat and she couldn’t find the purchase to drag herself out. Moreover the swirling water continually dragged her back so that she had to battle to overcome its force as well. She was in very real danger.
‘Help! Help me!’ she pleaded in a scared voice.
‘Serves you right,’ Slow Otter grunted. ‘You’ll have plenty of opportunity to find the biggest fish now.’ And he jumped to the ground feeling rather pleased with his retort. He picked up his one fish and left the yard without experiencing a trace of guilt.
However, he ate alone and avoided his companions afterwards by swimming out to the middle of the lake. There was an islet there where a few ducks were sleeping. The birds awoke and quacked nervously, waddling to the water’s edge and paddling away. Later in the night Sleek Otter became aware of the absence of the unfortunate female.
‘Where is your sister?’ she asked one of her companions. ‘You usually stay close together.’
‘I don’t know. I fear something bad has happened.’ She called her sister from the safety of the reeds.
‘Perhaps we should go and look for her?’ suggested the long-whiskered female.
‘I’ll go,’ Lame Otter volunteered. ‘Let me do something for you for a change.’
‘No,’ the missing bitch’s sister replied. ‘I’ll go. She and I are from the same litter. I can’t rest unless I find her. The slow one was with her. He hasn’t returned either.’
‘He’s on the island,’ Lame Otter said. ‘I saw him swimming.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’m more afraid than ever.’ The female slipped through the reeds.
‘Be careful of the humans. They awake as the light returns,’ Lame Otter cautioned her, as they watched her hurry away.
Later that day the drowned otter was discovered in the tank. While searching for her, her unfortunate sister had been caught by the farm dog and killed before its owner could intervene. The man at the trout farm knew a bit about wildlife and was aware that no otters had lived in his neck of the woods in living memory. Once again the local conservation bodies were alerted. A search of the area immediately around the trout farm was hastily scheduled. The otters were losing their lives at an alarming rate. If there were any still alive, it was crucial to save them before any further accidents should occur. As for the trout, they had their tanks fitted with wire netting to protect them during the night …
Sleek Otter and her two companions had waited in vain for the reappearance of the missing females. They had heard the dog’s barks while they cowered amongst the reeds. They had not run, for where else could they go? But as daylight broadened, their fears grew. Slow Otter remained at a distance, sensing that he had been the cause of some misfortune.
‘The slow one hasn’t shown himself,’ Lame Otter said unnecessarily as the three huddled in the vegetation. ‘Why is he keeping away?’
They all suspected he was avoiding them deliberately. ‘We shall see him tonight when he’s hungry,’ said Long-Whiskers. ‘Then he’ll have some explanation.’
The daylight hours crawled by. The otters dreaded to hear the sounds of the dog. At last dusk arrived again and they began to breathe a little more easily. But they didn’t move until well into the night hours.
Sleek Otter and Long-Whiskers left the lame male behind and timidly made their way, a few paces at a time, to the yard. They found that the first tank – where the female had been drowned – had been emptied and cleaned. This in itself was a shock. They hesitated. There was no sign of Slow Otter.
‘What shall we do now?’ Long-Whiskers squeaked.
‘There are other fish here,’ Smooth Otter replied, trying to sound more confident than she actually was.
When they had checked the remaining tanks only to find the trout safely wired off, they knew there was now no choice for them but to move. ‘The humans must have taken our two friends,’ Sleek Otter remarked sadly.
This was a heavy blow. They were such a little band of animals that each new loss seemed to presage their own extinction. ‘I think we should go home,’ Long-Whiskers murmured. ‘We don’t seem able to survive out here.’
‘Neither in Farthing Wood,’ Sleek Otter whispered. She turned to her companion. ‘We’ll see what the lame one thinks,’ she said. She didn’t mention Slow Otter, although they both wondered where he was.
Lame Otter welcomed them back, but he could see at once that something was wrong.
‘What did you find?’ he asked.
Sleek Otter described what they had seen.
‘No food then?’
‘No. But I’m not hungry anyway.’
‘Nor I,’ Long-Whiskers agreed. ‘You see, there are more important things on our minds now than filling our stomachs.’
‘She thinks we should go home,’ Sleek Otter explained.
‘But we don’t have a home, do we?’ Lame Otter pointed out. ‘In Farthing Wood we are at the mercy of the foxes. Unless we prefer to starve to death.’
‘I share your sentiments,’ Sleek Otter agreed. She looked at Long-Whiskers. ‘You must return if you wish,’ she told her. ‘But you’ll be on your own.’
Long-Whiskers sighed. ‘Then I’ll stay with you,’ she answered fatalistically.
‘Good. And now we must leave here,’ said Sleek Otter. ‘It seems our fate forbids us to settle anywhere permanently.’
‘Do we wait for the other male?’ Lame Otter asked half-heartedly.
‘I think the slow one prefers his own company,’ was Sleek Otter’s opinion.
No more was said on the subject. The three animals set off. Lame Otter was glad. He hoped not to encounter Slow Otter again.
The next day the search for the otters around the trout farm began. By then the three refugees had travelled a considerable distance and were hiding in a hollow log on a railway embankment. They had eaten nothing on the way.
Slow Otter had trailed them, always keeping sufficiently far behind so that his presence wasn’t noticed. He followed the three instinctively, unwilling to make one of their party, yet rejecting the alternative of complete isolation.
Meanwhile in Farthing Wood more of the animals had sickened. It was the smaller hunters – the stoats and weasels – who were suffering. The pick of prey always went to the foxes, particularly now there were no otters to compete with them. There was no shortage of food for the smaller predators, but they weren’t able to be selective. Some of the voles from the colony affected by disease had survived and managed to breed. They and their offspring were still carriers of a parasite, which meant that those who ate them felt the consequences. And these voles had spread throughout the Wood. Their appearance was different. They looked less plump, less bright-eyed, and were not so nimble in their movements. These signs were evident, yet not always recognized by hungry weasels or stoats.
Quick Weasel was the most noticeable casualty. Her usual darting runs and mercurial movements had deserted her. She appeared strangely lethargic. Her mate, by comparison, seemed lightning-fast.
‘Qu-quick Weasel’s become Slow W-Weasel,’ cried Nervous Squirrel from a tree-stump. ‘Her mate c-catches her food for her.’
Lightning Weasel overheard. ‘As long as I don’t catch anything from her,’ he muttered through gritted teeth.
Sly Stoat saw his own mate sicken. He knew all about unsavoury voles, s
ince he had been party to the poisoning of the otter cubs. He felt this was a kind of retribution.
‘I told you to steer clear of voles,’ he reminded Wily Stoat sharply. ‘Couldn’t you have listened?’
‘I did listen,’ she replied faintly as she lay groaning in their den. ‘But when you make a quick kill you don’t always have time – oh! oh!’ – to see what you’ve caught before you – oh! – eat it.’
‘Well, eat these mice I’ve brought you. Perhaps you’ll feel better.’
‘I-I couldn’t. I couldn’t eat at all. Oh, I feel so, so poorly. I don’t think I’ll ever eat again.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Sly Stoat beseeched her. ‘That sounds like –’
‘I know,’ she cut in before he could spell it out. ‘I know what it sounds like. I really think … I’ve done for myself.’
‘It’s the legacy of the otters,’ Sly Stoat whispered to himself. ‘It’s revenge for what we did to them. I must see the old hedgehog. Perhaps he has some advice.’
Sage Hedgehog could often be found near Farthing Pond. There were sedges there whose leaves attracted snails and slugs, his favourite food. Sly Stoat heard the hedgehog smacking his lips over a glutinous morsel before he actually spied him. Sage Hedgehog saw him first.
‘Troubled times,’ he said. ‘You’re in trouble, I’ve no doubt.’
‘How did you –?’ Sly Stoat began, then hastily added, ‘Of course, you can see my agitation. My mate, the wily stoat, is sick. Her wiles were not enough to save her from the otters’ revenge. What can I do?’
‘Otters’ revenge?’ the old hedgehog repeated. He knew nothing about the trail of voles. ‘No, the otters are gone. It is not revenge. It is fate. The fate of Farthing Wood and everything in it is sealed. It will not be long before the humans know this.’
Sly Stoat was puzzled and irritated. What sort of advice was this? ‘I don’t understand your rigmarole,’ he muttered. ‘All I want is for my mate to be well again.’
‘A vain hope, I fear,’ Sage Hedgehog replied, ‘when the Wood itself is doomed.’
The sly stoat had achieved nothing and was baffled and angry. ‘Why, you silly, flea-ridden old thorncoat,’ he snarled and made a rush towards him.
Sage Hedgehog instantly turned himself into a pincushion and Sly Stoat, more frustrated than ever, had to abandon him.
In the makeshift shelter of their log the three otters shuddered as new, frightening sounds assaulted their ears. The thunder and clatter of passing trains rocked the ground beneath them. It was a noise so terrifying that it made them desperate to escape from that place immediately – even in the daylight. Slow Otter, who hadn’t, of course, the benefit of a proper hiding-place, had run at once when the first train approached. He had made the mistake of trying to cross the track and had blundered directly into a live rail. His body was still draped over it when the train passed. There was very little of him to be seen afterwards.
In one of the lulls between trains, Sleek Otter led her companions out of the log. She drew a sharp intake of breath. ‘Look,’ she gasped. ‘We mustn’t go across there. Some poor creature has been caught and killed by the monster.’
‘Where shall we go? Oh, where can we go?’ cried Long-Whiskers who was at her wits’ end.
Sleek Otter tried to keep calm. ‘Away from this dangerous place at least,’ she answered. She looked all round for some feature that promised a vestige of safety. There were buildings and other forbidding shapes at every point. She realized they had strayed too far into the alien world of humans.
‘We must be quick,’ Lame Otter urged. ‘We’re vulnerable in the daylight.’
‘What do you suggest then?’ Sleek Otter snapped, overcome by tension.
‘I don’t know. But we have to find shelter.’
‘I know that, I know that,’ she hissed. ‘All right, let’s try this way.’ In a nearby overgrown garden, rank plants offered a hiding-place. She set off at a run, leaving the other two to follow at their own pace. Lame Otter was soon trailing behind the females.
‘I shall be the next to be separated,’ he muttered to himself as he thought of Slow Otter. As he limped along, a crow which had seen the dead meat on the railway track, flew close beside him, carrying part of the severed head of the unfortunate animal. Lame Otter heard the beat of wings and looked up. Slow Otter’s disfigured face seemed to stare at him from the bird’s coal-black beak. The crow rose higher in the air. Lame Otter squealed in horror as he recognized his old companion. He seemed to feel the full force of the hostile environment pressing in on him. The otters’ attempts at survival were futile. Slow Otter had been right. It was only a matter of time before all of them succumbed to the only destiny that awaited them here – extinction. With a terrible regularity, the little party’s numbers were being whittled away. Whatever they planned, wherever they went, mattered little. Their defeat, ultimately, in this uneven struggle was inevitable.
‘I’m the last dog otter,’ the lame male told himself. ‘When I die the long history of Farthing Wood otters will be finished’. Mechanically he continued in the wake of the two bitches. But he knew suddenly, beyond any doubt, what he must do. He must choose one of the two remaining females and return with her to the banks of the stream where they were born. For, whatever happened then, the future of the Farthing Wood otter colony wouldn’t have been needlessly sacrificed before it had been given a final chance of rebirth.
Reports in the local press about strange sightings of otters and their apparent disappearance from their native habitat were not, of course, overlooked by some bodies of people who welcomed the news. While the conservationists were striving to locate and rescue the animals who had fled and endangered themselves further, these other kinds of humans were venturing into Farthing Wood to take stock for themselves.
Almost as if he had been expecting it, Sage Hedgehog saw a group of men pacing the banks of the stream, intent on acquiring the evidence they needed. Safe under a fallen branch on the edge of the Wood, the old creature watched their movements with foreboding. These men were not dressed in the way that humans who entered Farthing Wood were usually dressed. To Sage Hedgehog this implied a different human type altogether.
Later, in the gathering dusk, the men penetrated the Wood itself and passed within a metre of the hedgehog’s obscuring branch. He observed them and their furtive glances for as long as they were within sight. Then, as soon as he deemed it safe to move, he scuttled in their footsteps, seeking any fellow woodlanders who would have the sense to stop and listen to him. Luckily he came across Kindly Badger who was busy digging up wild garlic root with his powerful claws.
‘I count myself fortunate to have found you first,’ Sage Hedgehog began in his usual verbose way, ‘because, of all the animals, you are the least likely to discount my intentions.’
‘Well now,’ Kindly Badger said, chomping on a bulb, ‘what’s worrying you on this occasion?’
‘Did you see them?’
‘Them? Who?’
‘The humans. They must have come this way only moments since.’
‘Probably while I was still in my set,’ the badger remarked calmly. ‘The youngster thought he detected their smell.’
‘They were here,’ Sage Hedgehog assured him. ‘I watched them for a long while.’
‘That in itself is nothing out of the ordinary, is it?’ Kindly Badger asked mildly. ‘We’ve been used to humans walking –’
‘No,’ Sage Hedgehog interrupted sharply. ‘Not this sort of human.’ He was tired of the same old response.
‘What do you mean? How were these different?’
‘These humans have the greedy eyes and stony faces of the selfish. My friend, no good will come of their curiosity. These are not tree-gazers like the ones you refer to.’
Kindly Badger was disturbed. ‘What does their presence indicate then, do you think?’
‘It indicates harm,’ the old hedgehog predicted. ‘Harm to us and to the Wood.’
‘Will
you speak to others about this?’ the badger asked. ‘It does seem, perhaps, that this time we should take note.’
‘I shall talk to the foxes,’ the determined hedgehog replied. ‘I have some hopes that the stout one at least may listen this time. He can help us. I shall tell him the foxes must track the otters and bring them back before it’s too late!’
However some of the foxes hastily backtracked, making detours, when they saw Sage Hedgehog approaching. It was spring and they were too preoccupied with their own needs and duties to wish to bother with him. But the old creature valiantly persisted in calling for their attention. He still hoped by some means to involve them. Stout Fox failed to avoid him and was obliged to stand and listen to his latest message.
‘What you say all sounds very plausible, I’m sure,’ he told the hedgehog afterwards, impressed by his urgency. ‘But I think it must be a long time since you had a mate carrying your young. At times like this there’s very little opportunity for the father to think about anything else. I can’t deal with your demands just now.’ And he carried on his way. He was not yet a father, but he was soon to be so, and in the meantime Stout Vixen needed nourishing and was relying on him to provide for her.
Sage Hedgehog was fatalistic about the animals’ reactions. ‘They will listen to me,’ he told himself. ‘In time they will. They must. I shall continue to give warnings and try to persuade them to heed them. One day they will understand. I know my role and I shall pursue it.’
Away from the Wood, Lame Otter limped into the thick growth of grass and weeds where the two bitch otters were lying restlessly. He told them what he had seen of the dead male, and let the realization sink in of the otters’ mortal vulnerability in this vicious new world. The females were silent and sombre. Lame Otter wondered who would choose to join him on his return journey. He knew it was only in that way that his partner would be decided. He was perfectly aware that, as a prospective mate, neither would choose him in normal circumstances. He waited a while. Then he spoke.
