‘Be quiet! I’m coming soon.’
‘I’m hungry too,’ I said, and I really was.
The vixen’s head swung back to me. ‘Then go and find yourself some food!’
‘Er . . . I don’t know how to in a forest.’
She looked at me incredulously. ‘You can’t feed yourself? You can’t find yourself a rabbit, or a mouse, or a squirrel?’
‘I’ve never had to before. I mean, I’ve killed rats and mice, but nothing bigger than that.’
She shook her head in wonder. ‘How have you survived, then? Coddled by the big ones, I suppose – I’ve seen your kind with them. They even use you to hunt us!’
‘Not me! I’m from the city. I’ve never hunted foxes.’
‘Why should I believe you? How do I know you’re not trying to trick me?’ She showed me her pointed teeth in a grin that wasn’t a grin but a threat.
‘I’ll go away if you like, I didn’t want to upset you. But perhaps me and your mate can go and find some food for all of us.’
‘I don’t have a mate any more.’ She spat the words out and I could feel the anger and hurt in them.
‘What happened to him?’ I asked.
‘Caught and killed,’ was all she would say.
‘Find us some food, Mum,’ came the plaintive cry again.
‘Well, perhaps I could help you,’ I suggested.
‘Huh!’ scoffed the vixen, then her voice changed. ‘There may be a way you can be used, though,’ she said thoughtfully.
I stiffened to attention. ‘Anything. I’m starving.’
‘All right, then. You kids stay here and don’t go outside! You hear?’
They heard.
‘Come on, you.’ The fox brushed past me.
‘Where to?’ I asked eagerly, following behind.
‘You’ll see.’
‘What’s your name?’ I called out.
‘Hush up!’ she whispered fiercely, then said, ‘What’s a name?’
‘What you’re called.’
‘I’m called fox. Vixen to be exact. You’re called dog, aren’t you?’
‘No, that’s what I am. Fox is what you are. I’m called Fluke.’
‘That’s daft. Flukes are flatworms!’
‘Yes, but men called me Fluke – it’s an expression.’
She shrugged off my silliness and didn’t speak again till we’d walked for at least a mile and a half. Then she turned to me and said, ‘We’re nearly there now. You have to keep very very quiet from here on – and move very carefully.’
‘Right,’ I whispered, trembling with excitement.
I could see the farm stretched out before us and from the stench I guessed it was mainly a dairy farm.
‘What are we going to do – kill a cow?’ I asked in all seriousness, the excitement draining from me.
‘Don’t be daft!’ the fox hissed. ‘Chickens. They keep chickens here too.’
That’s all right then, I thought. That could be quite interesting.
We crept towards the farm and I copied the fox’s style exactly, running forward silently, stopping, listening, sniffing; then padding forward again, from bush to bush, tree to tree, then stealthily through the long grass. I noticed the wind was coming towards us, bringing lovely rich farmyard smells. We reached a huge open shed and slid easily into it. On our left were the remaining bales of last winter’s barley straw, and on our right bags of fertilizer piled high. When we emerged, I stopped at a water-trough and, resting my paws on its edge, had a good tongue-lapping drink.
‘Come on!’ the vixen whispered impatiently. ‘No time for that. It’ll be dawn soon.’
I padded after her, feeling quite refreshed now, every nerve alive and dancing. The fox and I passed through the collection yard, over the feeding-troughs, by the silage pit, then past a nearly empty but pungent manure hold. I wrinkled my nose – you can have too much of a good thing – and sped after the wily fox. We could hear the cows snoring in their enormous shed, and the smell of barley managed to cover the smell of manure (although not entirely) as we went by a giant barley bin. We were soon through the yard and I could see the dark outline of a house in the moonlight ahead of us.
The fox stopped and sniffed the air. Then she listened. After a while, her body relaxed slightly and she turned to me.
‘There’s one of your sort here, a big ugly brute. We must be careful not to wake him – he sleeps up near the house. Now this is what we’ll do . . .’ She came closer to me and I saw she was quite attractive really in a sharp-looking way. ‘The chickens are over in that direction. A thin but sharp barrier keeps them in and us out. If I can get a good grip with my teeth at the bottom of the barrier, I can pull it up so we can get underneath. I’ve done it before – it’s just a knack. Once we get in, all hell will break loose . . .’ (did she understand the concept of hell or was it only my mind translating her thoughts?) ‘. . . and when it does, we’ll only have a short time to grab a hen each and make a bolt for it.’
I’m sure her eyes must have gleamed craftily in the dark, but I was too excited – or too dumb – to notice.
‘Now,’ the vixen went on, ‘when we run for it, we must go separate ways. That will confuse the big dog and the big thing who keeps him. The two-legged thing . . .’
‘Man,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Man. That’s what he’s called.’
‘Like Fluke?’
‘No. That’s what he is. Man.’
The vixen shrugged. ‘All right. Man has got a long stick that screams. It kills too – I’ve seen it kill – so you must be careful. You had better run back this way through the yard because there’s plenty of cover, and I’ll go the other way across the fields at the back because I’m probably faster. Okay?’
‘Right,’ I said keenly. Rumbo was probably turning over in his grave just then.
On we stalked, silently and breathlessly, and before long we’d reached the chicken-coop and its surrounding wire-mesh fence. It wasn’t a particularly large coop – the farmer probably only kept chickens as a sideline, his profit coming from his cows – but it could have contained thirty to fifty hens. We heard an occasional flutter from inside, but it was obvious they hadn’t detected our presence.
The vixen scuffled around at the base of the wire fencing and tried to get a grip on it with her teeth. She managed to do so and pulled upwards with all her strength. The wiring tore loose from its wooden base, but my companion was unable to keep her grip and it fell back down again, although it remained loose. There had been a ripping sound as the wire mesh tore loose and the noise had alerted the hens inside the hutch. We could hear them moving around inside. Soon they would be jabbering and screeching.
The fox tried again and this time she was more successful. The wiring sprang up and sank back only slightly when she released it.
‘Quickly,’ she whispered and shot through the opening. I tried to follow, but my body was bigger than the fox’s and the wire cut into my back, trapping me halfway through. Meanwhile, the fox had climbed up a short run, lifted the small flap with her nose, and in a flash was inside the hutch. The screams and the thrashing sounds that came from inside paralysed me. The sudden deep barking that came from somewhere near the house made me mobile again. I struggled to get free, knowing the farmer and his ‘screaming stick’ would soon be down there.
The small hatch to the chicken-hutch suddenly flew open and out poured the squawking poultry, feathers and bodies flying through the air like torn pillowcases.
Now I don’t know if you know this, but hens, as do many groups of animals, have their own hierarchy. It’s called the ‘pecking order’, and the hen who has the biggest and meanest peck is the boss, the second meanest pecker is under the first, but boss over the others, and so on all the way down the line. But now it looked as though everyone was equal.
They all ran around like lunatics and the only competition was who could fly the highest.
The fox emerged, a hen as big
as her own body fluttering feebly in her grasp. She ran towards the gap where I was crouched neither in nor out.
‘Move yourself,’ came her muffled command.
‘I’m stuck!’ I yelled back.
‘The dog’s coming, quickly!’ she said, desperately pacing backwards and forwards along the side of the pen. But the dog must have been chained, for although we could hear him barking, he was still nowhere near. Then we heard the roar of the farmer as a window flew open back there at the house.
That moved me. With a terrific wrench backwards I tore myself free of the wire, scratching my back nastily as I did so. The fox, chicken and all, was through in a flash.
‘You go that way!’ she shouted at me, feathers spraying from her mouth.
‘Right!’ I agreed. And then I ran up towards the house, towards the dog, towards the farmer and his gun, while my friend flew off in the opposite direction.
I was halfway there before I stopped and said to myself, Hold on! I looked round just in time to see a fleeting black shape tearing across a field before being swallowed up by the dark line of a hedge.
I turned back as I heard the door of the house crash open and out leapt the farmer wearing vest and trousers and heavy boots. The sight of the long object he held in two hands before him nearly made me faint. The other dog was going mad now trying to get at me and I saw it was a very healthy looking mastiff. I had the feeling his stretched chain would break at any moment.
I groaned and wondered which way to run. The end of the cowshed lay to my left, outhouses to my right. Ahead was the farmer and his monster dog. There was only one way to go, really, and of course the fox had taken it. I turned in my tracks and made for the open fields.
A choking kind of shout came from the farmer as he saw me and I heard him lumber out into the yard. I didn’t have to look to know he was raising the gun to his shoulder. The blast told me it was a shotgun and the whistling over my ears told me the farmer wasn’t a bad shot. My speed increased as my quickening heartbeat acted as a crazy metronome to my legs.
More footsteps, silence, and I waited for the second blast. I swerved as much as I could and crouched low to make myself as small a target as possible. The hens leapt into the air in horror as I passed them, no doubt thinking I had returned for second helpings.
I leapt into the air myself as my tail seemed to explode into shreds. I yelp-yelped in that rapid way dogs do when they’re hurt, but kept going, relieved that I could actually keep going. The barking behind me reached a new frenzy and then I knew the mastiff had been let loose, for the sound took on a new, more excited pitch. The welcoming fields rushed forward to meet me and I scrambled under a fence and was into them, my tail on fire.
‘Gorn, boy!’ came the shout from behind and I knew the monster dog was closing up on me. The field seemed to stretch out before me in the moonlight and grow wider and longer, the hedge on the far side shrinking rather than growing. The mastiff hadn’t caught up with me yet, but his heavy panting had. He’d stopped barking to save his breath and conserve his energy. He really wanted me, that dog.
I inwardly cursed myself for being so stupid and allowing myself to be used as a decoy by the fox. It made me very angry and almost caused me to turn and vent my anger on the pursuing dog. Almost, but not quite – I wasn’t that stupid.
The mastiff seemed to be panting in my left ear now and I realized he was very close. I turned my head quickly to see just how far behind he was and immediately wished I hadn’t – his grinning teeth were level with my left flank!
I swerved just as he took a snap at me and he went sailing on by, rolling over on the grass as he endeavoured to stop himself. The mastiff came racing back and I went racing on again, so he found himself running in the wrong direction once more.
Looming up ahead was the hedge and I was grateful it had stopped playing shrinking tricks on me. I dived into it and prayed I wouldn’t hit a tree trunk; the mastiff plunged in right behind me. Brambles tore at us and startled birds complained of the noise, but we were through in an instant and tearing across the next field. Knowing he would soon catch up, I began my swerving tactics again. Fortunately, the mastiff wasn’t too bright and he fell for my tricks every time. It was exhausting, though, and several times his teeth raked across my flank, but eventually even his energy seemed to be depleting. On one very successful twist he had gone at least five yards beyond me, so I stopped for a breather. The mastiff stopped too and we both faced each other across the grass, our shoulders and chests heaving with the effort.
‘Look,’ I panted, ‘let’s talk about this.’
But he had no inclination to talk at all. He was up and at me, growling as he came. So on I went.
As I ran, I picked up a scent. Foxes are usually pretty smart when it comes to covering their tracks – they’d double back, climb trees, jump into water, or mingle with sheep – but when they’ve got a dead chicken in their mouth, dripping blood and feathers, it’s another story. She’d left a trail as strong as cat’s-eyes in a road.
The mastiff got a whiff of it and momentarily lost interest in me, then we both tore off down that smelly path. Through another hedge we went, and then we were in the wood, dodging round trees and heavy clumps of bushes. Startled night creatures scurried back to their homes as we crashed past, twittering and protesting at our intrusion.
I don’t think the mastiff’s night vision was as good as mine – probably he was a lot older – because his progress wasn’t so fast, and several times I heard him cry out when he bumped into trees. I gained some distance on him and began to feel a little more confident about getting away. Then I bumped into the fox.
The hen had hampered her flight and she must have dropped it at this point and paused to retrieve it. I bore no malice – I was too frightened at what lay behind – and would probably have ignored her had I not gone straight into her crouching body. We rolled over in a struggling heap, fox, chicken and dog, but parted immediately when the mastiff joined us. He bit out at everything within reach and, fortunately for both the vixen and me, we were able to leave him there with a mouthful of chicken, content in his catch as he shook the dead body and tried to rip it apart. The farmer would be well pleased when his guard dog returned with a mouthful of feathers and blood.
We went our separate ways, the vixen and I, she back to her cubs, me to find somewhere quiet to nurse my wounds. It was growing lighter by the minute now and I hurried to get away from the area, not sure of my directions but wanting to travel as far as possible before daybreak. I knew (how did I know?) farmers took great pains to seek out and destroy any killer dogs who plagued their livestock and this particular farmer would certainly regard me as such. My tail stung terribly now, overriding the hurt from my various other wounds, but I didn’t dare stop and examine the damage. I came to a stream and swam across, enjoying the coolness on my wounds, and when I reached the other side, clambered out with reluctance. I gave myself a good shake then sped onwards, determined to get clear of the farmer’s land.
The sun had risen and was gathering strength by the time I stumbled into a resting-place. I ached and I hurt, and all I could do was lie there in a dip in the ground and try to recover my strength. After a while I was able to twist my head and examine my throbbing tail. The wound wasn’t half as bad as I expected; only the very tip had been damaged and much of the hair had gone from it. Victoria would have been pleased, for our tails were now a good match. The sting from the scratches on my back and flanks caused by the wire mesh and the mastiff’s teeth weren’t too bothersome, but irritating nonetheless. I rested my head between my paws and slept.
When I awoke, the sun was high overhead and covering my body with its warmth. My mouth and throat felt dry and my wounds were a dull throb. My stomach grumbled over the lack of food. Rousing myself, I looked around and saw I was resting in the dip of a gentle slope. A valley spread out below and other grassy hills rose up on the other side, their soft summits mounted by beech copses. I wandered down hoping to fi
nd a spring at the bottom of the hill, nibbling at certain grasses as I went. The grass – sheep’s fescue it’s called – wasn’t too tasty, but I knew many downland animals ate it, so at least it would provide nourishment. Again, I wondered how I knew about such things: how I knew the snail I’d just pushed was a Roman snail that used calcium in the chalky downland soil to make its shell; how the bird that sang somewhere to my right was a skylark, how the butterfly that fluttered by was an Adonis blue wakened prematurely by the sudden warm weather. I had obviously taken a keen interest in the countryside in my past life and taken the trouble to learn about nature and her ways. Had I perhaps been a naturalist or a botanist? Or had it been only a hobby to me? Maybe I had been brought up in the countryside and names and habits came naturally to me. I shook my head in frustration: I had to find out who I had been, what I had been; how I had died and why I had become a dog. And I had to discover who the man was, the man in my dreams who seemed so evil, who seemed such a threat to my family. My family – the woman and the little girl – I had to find them, had to let them know I wasn’t dead. Had to tell them I’d become a dog. Wasn’t there someone who could help me?
There was. But I wasn’t to meet him till two nights later.
15
Pay attention now, because this is important. This is the point in my story where I heard a reason for my existence, why I was a dog. This is the part that may help you if you’re prepared to accept it. I won’t mind if you don’t, it’s up to you, but bear in mind what I asked of you at the beginning: keep your mind open.
I wandered on for two more days, finding the road again and relieved to find it. I was determined not to waste any more time, but to find my home and to find some answers.
Road signs were becoming more difficult to read; I had to gaze at them for a long time and concentrate hard. However, I found the right way and continued my journey, pleased to reach a town further on; it was much easier for me to get food when I was among people and shops. A few people took pity on me in my bedraggled state (although others chased me away as though I were something unclean) and gave me scraps. I spent the night with a family who took me in, and I think they had intentions of keeping me as a pet, but the following morning when they let me out to relieve myself, I ran off to the next town. I hated spurning this family’s kindness, but nothing could deter me from my purpose now.