by Gene Kemp
With bread and cakes and sweets galore, more than you ever saw,
Grow more grub today!
Grow more, grow more,
Hallelujah!
‘If you would like further details of my scheme, including how we send extra food to other lands, I have written a leaflet, beautifully illustrated by another friend, Blossom.’
Here it was Blossom’s turn to blush.
‘Including my invention of a new type of superheated greenhouse, and a streamlined factory for producing an entirely new kind of sweet, invented by myself, which does NOT make teeth decay. I have called it Pig’s Delight, and I hope that children, especially, will like it.
‘Give your animals, give us, a chance to share in the benefits of extra food. Improve our food and we’ll improve yours even more, with better eggs, milk, everything.
‘And now I come to my final point. I am sure that meat is bad for you. I know you love your roast dinner but’ – here Tamworth’s voice trembled – ‘roast pork will kill you as it will surely kill me. Let us give you cheese, butter, milk, eggs, but not meat. And if you ask, as well you may, well, what does a pig give if not bacon, sausages and pork? Then I ask in reply, do you eat your dog, your cat, your budgerigar, your pony? Make us pigs pets like them. We shall not disappoint you. We are clean, intelligent companions. Make us your pets, not your dinners! May you choose wisely. I shall abide by your choice.’
‘Hurrah for Tamworth!’ Thomas shouted.
‘It’s all right for you, you don’t like meat. I do,’ Blossom said.
‘It won’t make a happorth of difference anyway,’ Daddy said. ‘But it was a good speech, even though he’ll never get very far with it. He needs to work out his ideas more fully.’
‘I think I could have written a better song than he did,’ Mr Rab muttered jealously to himself.
In bed, Thomas hugged Num and said, ‘Don’t sing the bedtime song yet. I want to hear the van bring Tamworth home.’
‘Thomas,’ Mr Rab said. ‘You know my special worried feeling I get …’
‘Humph!’ Hedgecock snorted. ‘Rubbish.’
‘Well, I’ve got it about Tamworth,’ went on Mr Rab. ‘There’s danger about somewhere.’
Just then, they all heard the van drive safely past, and so they fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Blossom, thomas, hedgecock and mr Rab were playing Ludo in the shed. They had just reached the point where Thomas was shouting with rage because Blossom had thrown three sixes in a row when there came a clatter of hoofs and a loud banging on the door. Ludo forgotten, they rushed to open. There stood Barry McKenzie Goat.
‘Come. Come quick. Mrs Baggs has captured Tamworth and locked him in the concrete hut. You know, the one beside the barns. And she’s sent for the slaughterers. She says she’s going to … to …’
‘To what?’ they cried.
‘Make him into bacon and she’ll eat him. Every bit. Come on.’
They started to run as fast as they could towards the farm.
‘What does Mr Baggs say? Surely he won’t let them kill Tamworth,’ Blossom panted.
‘He’s got ’flu and he’s in bed. He doesn’t know anything about it.’
They ran on, red and breathless, till they reached Pig House. Blossom could not bear to look at the damson tree. Suppose Tamworth never sat there again – but that was too awful to contemplate.
‘How long have we got?’
‘Mr Peasepoint, the slaughterer, lives about ten miles away. He’s a busy man and he may not be able to come at once,’ Barry McKenzie answered.
‘Is anybody guarding Tamworth?’ Thomas asked.
‘Christopher Robin Baggs and Lurcher Dench are on the roof armed with pitchforks.’
‘Oh no. How awful.’
Blossom shuddered and then took a deep breath.
‘We must decide on the best course of action. Barry, you fetch Joe and Fanny Cow. Thomas, you see if you can creep in to see Mr Baggs and tell him what’s going on. I’ll ring up the newspapers and television studios. Surely they won’t let Tamworth be killed.’
‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Hedgecock grunted. ‘I’m going to get a clothes-line to tie up those two boys.’
‘Good idea. Where shall we meet again, Blossom?’ Thomas asked.
‘Behind the haystack, near the shed.’
Blossom ran to the nearest telephone kiosk and dialled 999.
‘Which service do you require, fire, police or ambulance?’ a voice asked.
‘All of them! Send the lot to Baggs’s Farm, Rubble Lane, where a murder is about to be committed. Hurry, please, hurry.’
She banged down the receiver and ran home calling ‘Mummy’ as she entered the house, but it was empty. She seized the directory and looked up the numbers of all the newspapers she knew.
‘This is going to take some time,’ she murmured to herself as she put on her determined look and started dialling. ‘I hope Mr Peasepoint gets a puncture in his tyres.
Meanwhile Thomas had crept quietly up to the side door of the farmhouse, which he knew was seldom used. It led to the hall and stairs. Everywhere was silent. Christopher Robin was guarding Tamworth and Mrs Baggs was probably in the kitchen. He stole slowly up the stairs. One creaked, and, outside, Rover started to bark. Thomas paused, his heart beating so loudly he was sure someone would hear it, but no one came and he reached the landing where eight identical brown doors, all shut, confronted him. He opened one cautiously and peeped into the bathroom. He had to try all the other seven before he found the room where Mr Baggs lay on a brass-knobbed bedstead with his eyes closed and his red face streaked with perspiration. He groaned at intervals and Thomas shook his arm.
‘Mr Baggs. You’ve got to get up. We need you. You’ve got to save Tamworth. Please wake up.’
But Mr Baggs only moaned and muttered, ‘Mangle worzels with the taties. Mangle worzels with the taties.’
Thomas shook him again.
‘Mr Baggs! Mr Baggs! Please wake up.’
Mr Baggs shivered so much that the eiderdown fell off the bed.
‘I’m the queen of the May, Mother,’ he sang with the sweat running off his forehead.
Thomas wiped his face with a cloth from the bedside chair and replaced the eiderdown. It was clear that Mr Baggs was going to be no help at all. Then he heard Mrs Baggs coming up the stairs. He shot under the bed, trying not to breathe as she stumped round the room. He could see her fat ankles bulging over her black-laced shoes, so he shut his eyes and prayed for her to go away. When he opened them, the feet had disappeared. He tiptoed down the stairs and out of the house. Then he ran like the wind to where the little band of rescuers was waiting.
*
On the shed’s flat roof Lurcher and Christopher Robin were enjoying themselves hugely. They had always been afraid of Tamworth before, because he could always get at them in his field, but now he was captured and they were taking their revenge. Through a small aperture, not nearly large enough to allow Tamworth to escape, they were poking pitchforks, jabbing viciously at where they thought the pig to be.
‘Yah! Fatty! Fatty Pig! Old Ginger Snout! Bristly chops! Ginger Belly! We’ll have you. Take that! And that!’
They thrust and pushed and jabbed.
Tamworth sat unmoving and with immense dignity in the farthest, darkest corner. He had stuck an old piece of corrugated iron as a shield in front of himself, and was reciting a long Latin poem.
‘Fatty! Are you listening, Fatty? We’ll have you fried for breakfast, Fatty. Thought you were a clever pig, didn’t you? Well, you’re just a stupid old fool pig, aren’t you? You didn’t think we’d catch you, did you, Fatty?’
Tamworth spoke quietly to himself. ‘There are other words they could use. I can think of great, large, immense, enormous, tremendous, vast, huge, Mammoth-like, Gargantuan, Herculean, well-built, portly, ample, abundant, bulky, massive, gigantic, magnificent, leviathan, giant, mighty, corpulent, stout, plump, brawny, whacking, whopping, colossus, hippopotamu
s, Brobdingnagian pig, to mention a few. Then one could round off with fine, big pig.’
‘Shut up, Fatty. Silly ole Fatty. Who didn’t know Mrs Baggs had got a net, eh? Silly old Fatty. Caught you in it nicely, didn’t she, Fatty? Yah – yah – there – take – that – and – that!’
‘It was not, I admit, one of my happiest moments when I was caught in the net, but a philosopher such as myself remains calm in all circumstances, however unpleasant. At least I did not squeal. I could not have forgiven myself if I had squealed.’
‘You’ll squeal soon enough when they pig-stick you,’ Lurcher yelled, dancing with delight on the roof.
Suddenly he found he was dancing in the air and descending rapidly to the ground, where Joe appeared from behind the shed just in time to place one hoof, quite gently, in the middle of his back. Thomas had butted him straight off the roof. At the same time Christopher Robin Baggs, too, found himself propelled off the roof by the hands of Blossom, fierce and fighting for once with all her weight behind her. The pitchforks, Blossom’s main worry, flew harmlessly through the air. She and Thomas had climbed up on to the roof behind the two boys, who were so busy shouting they’d heard nothing.
Fanny Cow waited lovingly for Christopher Robin to stand upright so that she could give him a little nudge with her horns and knock him down again, where she stood over him, chewing her cud ruminatingly. He wept, but Lurcher was made of sterner stuff and he shouted loudly:
‘Mrs Baggs! Help! Come quick, Mrs Baggs!’
‘Tie them up with the clothes-line,’ Hedgecock commanded and they lashed the two boys together.
‘I’ve brought some elastoplast in case Tamworth was hurt,’ Blossom said.
‘Put it on their mouths,’ Mr Rab squeaked, quite entering into the spirit of the operation.
They did as he suggested and the boys lay silent and helpless.
But Mrs Baggs had heard the cry for help and was now running towards them. When she saw the boys, she shrieked:
‘I’ll have the law on you for this.’
She doubled back to the house and dialled the police station.
‘Send some men to Baggs’s Farm, Rubble Lane, at once.’
The policeman at the other end scratched his head.
‘We’ve already sent one lot on its way out there. Ah, well, the more the merrier.’
Mrs Baggs rushed outside again, followed by two dairy maids. Barry McKenzie and Fanny moved forward, chased them into a corner and stood over them, horns lowered.
‘Get Tamworth out of there, while we hold the women back,’ Barry called.
Blossom fumbled with the door.
‘I can’t open it. It’s padlocked. What shall we do?’
Then there was a noble and fearful sight. Joe turned round, backed up to the door, looking over his shoulder to judge the distance and then kicked back with his mighty hoofs. The door shook, came off its hinges and fell in splinters. Pieces of wood flew over Tamworth, who sat calmly behind his corrugated-iron shield reciting this line over and over again:
‘To be, or not to be, that is the question.’
‘Ah, my good and faithful friends. I knew you would not desert me in my hour of need.’
He shook bits of shattered wood off himself and emerged from his prison. Mrs Baggs tried to wrap her apron over Barry’s horns but he tossed it back over her head.
‘I’ll help too,’ squawked Ethelberta, flying up and scurrying round in circles. ‘I wish I’d known all about this earlier. I’ve always wanted to fly on to Mrs Baggs’s head. What fun. Wheeee. Cluck-cluck.’
Then, suddenly, the air was filled with the hee-hawing blare of an ambulance, followed by two police cars and a fire-engine. The whole countryside re-echoed as brakes screeched and vehicles skidded to a halt wherever they could in the farmyard. Once again Mrs Baggs’s herbaceous borders were flattened. Several uniformed men jumped out and advanced upon the scene.
‘Is this Baggs’s Farm?’ the first policeman asked.
‘Yes,’ everyone shouted, including Mrs Baggs, who had managed to get the apron off her head.
‘What’s all the trouble, then?’ he said, taking out his notebook.
Everyone rushed forward and started to speak at once, except Christopher Robin and Lurcher who were tied together on the ground, but, at that moment, the loud hee-hawing of a police car again rent the air as another contingent of constables drove into the farmyard and dismounted.
‘Is this Baggs’s Farm?’ one of them asked.
‘Yes,’ everyone shouted.
‘What’s the trouble, then?’ he asked, taking out his notebook, and he advanced towards the first policeman until they almost stood face to face.
Two ambulance men emerged with a stretcher, looked round for a casualty, saw the two tied-up bodies, put them on the stretcher and disappeared with them into the ambulance.
Several firemen in search of a fire had erected ladders against the side of the house and were ascending them.
Two vans now drove up, just managing to get into the farmyard. One had ‘Wessex Television’ on the side while the other bore the legend ‘Daily Moan’. More men jumped out and joined the ever-increasing throng.
‘Where’s the TV Pig?’ one man shouted.
Television cameras whirred, only to be drowned by the drone of a helicopter overhead. The BBC had arrived in style, but, unfortunately, there was no room left in the farmyard for a helicopter and they had to land in a nearby field.
The police were trying to establish some kind of order. They had persuaded Barry and Fanny Cow to allow Mrs Baggs and her dairy maids out of their corner and now a circle formed round the silent form of Tamworth.
Blossom had seized P.C. Cubbins, a friend and ally for most of her life, and was shaking his sleeve furiously.
‘She’s going to kill Tamworth. You’ve got to stop her.’
‘It’s my farm and my pig. Get these trespassers out of ’ere. All of ’em,’ Mrs Baggs shouted, digging P.C. Spriggs with her elbow.
‘She can’t slaughter him, can she?’ Blossom implored, her brown eyes wide.
‘I don’t know, Blossom, dear,’ P.C. Cubbins replied. ‘You see, I must do my duty.’
He and P.C. Spriggs glared at one another, their chests almost meeting. It was clear which side each one favoured.
‘Mrs Baggs is entitled to do what she likes with her own property, namely one pig,’ Spriggs said emphatically.
Thomas glared at him, for they were old enemies.
‘She’s a wicked, mean woman. And Tamworth doesn’t belong to her, he belongs to Farmer Baggs. You’ve got to see him first.’
‘You’ve got a lot to say, young Thomas,’ P.C. Spriggs declared. ‘I should think a lot of people are interfering in the Baggses’ own business. And I should very much like to know who brought all this crowd here.’
He stared hard and long at Blossom, who went bright red and hid her face against P.C. Cubbins’s sleeve.
‘Let me ’ave that pig!’ Mrs Baggs shouted.
The pig in question had a strange look on his face. He seemed to have entered into a dream, to be looking out far beyond all the farmyard turmoil.
Yet one more van squeezed into the lane and out stepped a very well-dressed gentleman with a kindly, smiling face. He pushed through the throng and came up to the main group.
‘I’m Mr Peasepoint,’ he beamed. ‘You must be Mrs Baggs. Delighted, delighted to meet you. Dear me, what a lot of people here. I’m afraid I shall have to ask them to leave before I can carry out my good work.’
Tamworth stood erect, his face altered and strange. The crowd moved back, as he spoke.
‘It seems I am to die. So be it. I die for a Cause, and so I shall die proudly. I shall not squeal. Dear friends, I bid you farewell, Joe and Fanny and Barry. Don’t cry, Mr Rab. Good-bye, Hedgecock. God bless you, dearest Blossom and my esteemed friend and ally Thomas. Remember the Cause, boy, remember the Cause.’
There was a long silence. Tears rained down Bl
ossom’s cheeks, but Thomas’s eyes were blazing blue, his cheeks scarlet. He leapt, a wonderful jump, right on to Tamworth’s back, where he stood shaking with fury.
‘No! No! No! No! No! I won’t let them kill you, Tamworth. You shan’t die!’
He called up to the house, hands cupped round his mouth:
‘Mr Baggs! Mr Baggs! Oh, do wake up, you stupid man!’
At the window above, conveniently opened by the firemen, who were still looking for the blaze, appeared the bleary visage of Farmer Baggs. He saw the crowd below, and a bewildered look spread over his face.
‘Whatever’s goin’ on ’ere?’ he said.
‘That horrible, mean wife of yours is going to kill Tamworth,’ Thomas shouted.
Mr Baggs paused, saw Mr Peasepoint and he seemed to understand. The watchers below waited expectantly.
‘Oh no ’er ain’t. ’Er’s been a-bullying of me and Tamworth for years, but ’er ain’t a-killing of nobody, neither me nor ’im. And now will you all go and git off my land. There ain’t no peace anywhere and I want to git back to bed for me ’ead’s fair a-killing of me. Maud, woman, come up yere and git me a nice, cool drop of cider. That’s what ’e should be a-doing, instead of filling me farm up with foolish people with nuthin’ better to do.’
The window slammed shut.
Thomas collapsed on Tamworth’s back and wound his arms round the stout neck. The crowd made a path for them as they turned towards Pig House with Blossom and the others following behind.
An ancient man rode up on a matching bicycle. He was the reporter from the local paper, and even as he rode in the crowd was dispersing.
‘Am I late again?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ an irritable fireman replied as he coiled up his unused hose.
‘I never do get to a happening, when it’s happening,’ the old man sighed as he remounted his machine and pedalled slowly away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was the last day of the summer holidays and the children had taken along sandwiches, crisps, peanuts, lemonade and chocolate to have a picnic with Tamworth. They’d prepared a special bag for him containing an assortment of apples, cabbages, carrots and turnips. Blossom danced along, eyes a-sparkle, but Thomas trailed behind moodily, kicking stones as he went.
