The Siege of White Deer Park Page 11

  It had eaten well at the beginning. The fawn and its mother provided plenty of meat. Eventually every scrap of the carcasses was gone, leaving only skeletons. The Cat even crunched some of the bones. It had managed to lap at the dew and take rainwater from the plentiful showers, so that thirst had been no problem for it. As time passed, hunger returned, but it knew it would not have long to wait, and it was content. It had found itself an underground home which served its need for secrecy and stealth perfectly. It waited with patience for its great cunning to work its effect.

  Then one dusk the Beast knew that the time was right. It waited for the true darkness that came late at that period of the year. Then it crept forth from its den and embarked on a small orgy of slaughter, prompted by its long fast. It killed rabbits and hares and any small creatures it could find on the ground. Voles and frogs were snapped up at a gulp. Then it climbed into the trees and caught birds on their nests and squirrels in their dreys. Those creatures that were not eaten at once were carried back to the den for future use. But it did not approach the deer herd. It was too clever for that.

  Leveret missed being taken by a whisker. The instinctive leap that took him to safety exposed his mate and she was taken instead. Leveret ran at full tilt through the grass. His electrifying pace could outdistance almost any creature. He did not stop to see if he was pursued. So he did not see the Cat. He kept right on running until he ran into Badger, nearly bowling him over.

  ‘Leveret!’ Badger gasped, badly winded. ‘What’s the alarm?’

  The hare explained at once about the attack. Neither of them could be sure whether it was the Cat at work again, but they both jumped to conclusions.

  ‘And we thought it had gone,’ Badger murmured. ‘It’s been playing with us.’

  ‘Well, it’s not playing now,’ Leveret said harshly.

  Their suspicions were justified. Knowledge soon spread of the killings. There seemed to be a new savagery about these, as if the Cat had a lust to kill for the sake of it, to demonstrate its mastery over the rest of them.

  No animal, no bird had seen it. But all of the Park soon knew the stranger was still around. There was only one clue that impressed itself on the more intelligent of the population. The slaughter had been confined to one corner of the Reserve. And that was the corner where the animals from Farthing Wood had established their homes.

  ‘Can it be deliberate?’ they asked each other.

  ‘Is it hiding nearby?’

  Squirrel was terrified and planned to move his home. Leveret discovered the loss of his mate and no longer cared if the hunter should return. Fox and Vixen racked their brains as to the whereabouts of the Beast. After such killings, how could it just vanish again? Tawny Owl perched in his tree and hoped no one would come near him. He had the awful feeling that in some way he was to blame for this: that the Cat meant to prove something to him. He was to be punished for his previous presumption, not personally perhaps, but through the deaths of his friends.

  The animal friends waited for the next strike with a fear that had become all-consuming. They scarcely dared to go about their necessary activities. The collection of food was now a hurried, furtive business – something to be done as quickly as possible before scurrying back to cower at home. Only the birds, Adder and Toad felt comparatively secure. Adder had not been seen for a while, but the others worried daily about the safety of their companions. Tawny Owl, in particular, was in a state of unending misery. He could not bring himself to talk to anyone. He had started to think that, if he did, that animal would be the next one singled out for the Cat’s attention.

  Friendly wanted to make one last attempt to go on the offensive. His mate, Russet, was terrified for her growing cubs, who had now reached the stage of wanting to explore farther than around their parent’s earth. Other vixens, Charmer and Whisper, were in the same situation. Friendly thought they could not continue to live their lives under threat. He suggested to his father that the only way to break the dreadful monotony was to sniff out the blood trail once more, and follow it to the Cat’s hideout.

  ‘There would be no fighting,’ he assured his father. ‘It would just need one of us to go close enough to see.’

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ said Fox. ‘But it’s far too dangerous. Probably the Beast is waiting for just such a foolhardy creature as you to come along. What would another death achieve?’

  ‘There will be deaths anyway,’ said Friendly. ‘Why skulk here where the hunter can pounce as it chooses? I’m willing to take the risk. I ask for no supporters.’

  Fox admired his courage, not for the first time. ‘Wait a while yet, Friendly,’ he pleaded. ‘I have a feeling the Cat might make a slip, and it only needs one.’

  ‘What if it decides not to honour this wonderful pledge Owl talks about?’ Friendly growled. ‘There would be nothing any of us could do about it.’

  ‘Then why do you wish to track it?’ Fox asked at once.

  Friendly had tripped himself up and knew it. He looked glum. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll do as you say. But I hope it won’t result in suffering for my cubs.’

  Since the gathering by the stream, Adder had had something else on his mind besides the Cat – something very private. It was a she-viper that occupied his mind, a female adder with a bold disposition and a coolness of temperament that matched his own. Whilst he wondered why she was in his thoughts, he constantly asked himself whether he was in hers. There was no doubt that, if Adder had been more familiar with such things, he would have realized that he wanted her company.

  Of course, he would never have deliberately sought her out. But it was strange how he found himself, without intention, returning to the places where he had seen her before. She was not in any of them. It was hardly likely she would have been, he told himself. Why should she stay around there? So it must have been coincidence that prompted their next meeting.

  Adder had caught and eaten two wood mice amongst the grasses. He was no longer hungry now, but his hunting instincts had not subsided and he was still very much alert. He caught the soft rustling of a creature moving through the stems close to the ground. He prepared himself to ambush another mouse. But, as the mouse came into view, with its nose quivering incessantly, another snake shot from hiding and seized it. Adder watched with feigned indifference as the plump little morsel went down another throat. The she-viper, in the ecstatic throes of a series of swallows, had not yet noticed him. However, when the last muscular ripple had passed along her body, she became aware of his presence.

  ‘The solitude lover,’ she remarked, as if to herself. ‘I’d better not stay here too long and risk complaint.’

  ‘It’s not necessary for you to move just yet,’ Adder answered quickly. (He thought this sounded like someone else talking.) ‘Er – have you caught many mice?’

  ‘Very many,’ she quipped. ‘One gets through quite a lot in a season.’

  ‘You know I didn’t mean that,’ he lisped with a mild sense of irritation. ‘Are you always so clever?’

  ‘Only when I have the opportunity,’ she told him coolly. Her face was as expressionless as ever. ‘Are you still looking for the Cat?’ she asked next.

  ‘I? I’m not looking,’ Adder declared, as if the idea of his putting himself out was quite absurd.

  ‘But I thought the plan was for every creature to keep its eyes open?’

  ‘Oh, my eyes are open,’ he responded, ‘but I’m not – er – looking . . .’ (How silly that sounded.)

  The she-viper refrained from comment but she stared at him. So Adder stared back. At last she said: ‘You’re looking fatter than when I saw you before.’

  ‘Frogs, insects and mice,’ he explained succinctly.

  ‘I thought the adder that came here from a distant place wasn’t supposed to eat mammals?’ she went on.

  ‘I didn’t know you knew who I was,’ he answered.

  ‘The shortness of your tail gives you away.’

  ‘I see. Well,
if you’re referring to that ridiculous Oath I was made to swear before I was allowed to travel here with the others, it only forbade certain mice and voles from my diet. Those being, of course, the ones from my old home.’

  ‘How do you tell them apart?’

  ‘Oh, they’re all dead now. They live lives of extraordinary brevity. Of course I left them alone while they did live. But they’ve produced so many generations since we arrived here that I can’t tell the difference any more.’

  ‘So what do you do?’

  ‘Eat whenever I feel like it,’ he declared. ‘As far as I’m concerned that Oath doesn’t stretch into infinity.’

  ‘Very wise of you,’ the she-viper remarked. ‘The whole thing is difficult to understand – how you consort with mammals at all.’

  Adder was in a quandary. He never liked to admit he owed obligations to any creature. Yet there still remained a select few for whom, and with whom, he felt bound. Fox and Vixen, Badger, Toad and – yes, he supposed Tawny Owl and Weasel. All of them were bound irrevocably and for ever. But he was not going to tell the she-viper.

  ‘I don’t seek them out,’ he said truthfully. ‘But, you see, there is an old association.’ That was as far as he would go.

  The she-viper’s next words startled him with their implication. ‘How would you feel about a new association?’

  How was he to take this? Was she suggesting . . .?

  ‘I’m not entirely sure . . .’ he began guardedly.

  ‘Oh yes, Adder. You’re quite sure,’ she drawled with a certain amount of ironic humour. ‘You’re the lover of solitude.’

  Now that he was being branded with this description, Adder was not completely happy to own it. There had been moments, he recalled, when he . . . When he what? he asked himself. He did not know if he could bring himself to admit that he had hoped for company at times. And then again, whose company? Oh, he was in a rare old muddle.

  ‘I do like solitude,’ he hissed uncertainly. ‘But I suppose how much I like it is governed by how much of it I get.’ (What did that convey? he wondered. Had he given something away?)

  ‘And that depends on how much of it you seek,’ she returned. She was determined to put him on the spot and was relishing every moment.

  ‘Well, yes, that would appear to be the case,’ Adder said. (Wherever would all of this end? He was almost beginning to feel uncomfortable.)

  ‘You can call me Sinuous,’ she offered.

  ‘Can I? Is that how you’re known?’

  ‘It’s how I’d like to be known by you.’

  Adder wanted to get away. He was not competent to deal with situations of this kind. But he could not put his body into motion.

  ‘It’s very warm,’ said Sinuous. ‘If you’ve eaten enough it would be a good time to bask.’

  The invitation was obvious. Adder felt he was powerless to resist. He made no answer. Sinuous took this as a sign of agreement and began to slither away through the grass stalks. Adder followed her mechanically.

  The she-viper led him to a small depression in the ground where the grass had been flattened by a larger animal. It felt dry and hot. Adder wondered fleetingly what creature had been lying there before.

  ‘I like this spot,’ commented Sinuous. ‘It’s well hidden.’

  ‘It seems that another has found it favourable too,’ Adder remarked.

  ‘Yes, I saw him once or twice before I started using it,’ she answered.

  ‘Saw him? Whom?’

  ‘The Cat.’

  ‘The Cat! Does he still come here?’ Adder hissed urgently.

  ‘Oh no. He’s disappeared, hasn’t he?’ Sinuous sounded uninterested. She was coiling herself up.

  Adder was irritated. ‘You’re very secretive,’ he told her. ‘If we’d known this earlier, it might have saved –’

  ‘It wouldn’t have saved anything,’ she interrupted. ‘I know the terms of the Beast’s so-called pledge and, since then, I’ve naturally kept a look-out here. But, of course, I don’t expect to see anything now.’

  ‘I see,’ said Adder. ‘No, it’s not likely to return to any of its old haunts. It must know this whole Reserve better than any of us. Yet I still don’t understand how it can remain in the Park and stay concealed.’

  ‘Supposing it is not in the Park but under it?’ Sinuous suggested nonchalantly. ‘Perhaps that’s the answer.’ She seemed to want to finish with the subject and enjoy her sunbath. But the remark had the very opposite effect on Adder.

  ‘Underground,’ he hissed. ‘Yesss.’ All thought of repose left him. ‘That’s where it must be.’

  Sinuous paid no attention. Adder could only think of those of his old companions who made their homes underground, and who might be able to make use of this theory. Fox and Vixen, Badger and Weasel sprang immediately to mind. It was a pity Mole, that champion tunneller, was no longer with them. But then Adder recalled something about one of Mole’s kin who had come into the picture recently. The relationship escaped him.

  ‘My basking will have to be postponed,’ he informed Sinuous. ‘This idea can’t be kept to ourselves.’

  ‘Ah – the old association,’ Sinuous murmured. ‘Well, you must go to your warm-blooded friends.’

  ‘I must. But – er – well, I shall remember this place,’ said Adder. He was unable to make more of a commitment than that. He slid away.

  ‘Only the place?’ Sinuous asked him. But Adder’s hearing was not good.

  He went first of all to Badger.

  It was broad daylight and the old animal’s snoring seemed to reverberate through his network of tunnels as Adder entered the set. The snake was glad of this, for the pitch darkness engulfed him almost at once, but he was able to guide himself to Badger’s sleeping chamber by the sound. Badger was not easily woken. He slept deeply and Adder’s lisping voice was not the most resonant.

  The snake became more and more aggravated as his efforts to rouse the sleeper continued to fail. He considered whether he should risk a nip at the thickest part of Badger’s coat, where his dangerous fangs would be very unlikely to penetrate the skin. Luckily such a gamble did not prove necessary. Badger stirred.

  ‘At last!’ Adder hissed. ‘I’ve been here for an eternity.’

  Badger quickly roused himself. ‘Adder? Whatever are you –’

  ‘No time for that,’ the snake answered shortly. ‘I need your advice. Listen.’ He explained the theory of the she-viper without mentioning her.

  ‘Oh no. That’s not likely. I’ve already rejected the idea,’ Badger informed him. ‘There’s no set or earth around here big enough to take that huge beast.’

  ‘Who said anything about around here?’ Adder queried impatiently. ‘In the length and breadth of the Reserve there might be many holes it could hide itself in.’

  ‘No,’ Badger insisted. ‘I would know about it. And if I didn’t, it would be known by the foxes or the rabbits or the weasels or – or – the moles. Besides which, Adder, we know the Cat is in our neck of the woods.’

  ‘Just because it hunted around here doesn’t mean it hides around here,’ Adder argued. ‘Not all the time.’

  ‘Well, Squirrel is convinced of it. He’s taken his family and set up home in another quarter.’

  ‘Squirrel is not the most knowledgeable of the community,’ Adder drawled. ‘I feel it would be worthwhile for all the foxes and animals like yourself, and maybe the rabbits, to be consulted. They may know of a likely den.’

  ‘I’ll ask Mole when I see him,’ Badger said. ‘He’s the greatest digger of us all.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Badger,’ Adder rasped. ‘Your memory is playing you tricks again.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Badger contradicted him. ‘You’re mistaken. I often talk to him.’

  Adder thought it was futile to continue this line of conversation, so he told Badger he was going to pay a visit on Fox and then leave everything to him. The cold and dark of Badger’s set made him wish he had not left the warm sunny spot where Sinuou
s was now lying.

  ‘Wait,’ said Badger. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No need,’ the snake told him. Then he added unkindly, ‘You’d better stay here in case Mole decides to make one of his miraculous returns.’

  Fox responded in the same way to the underground theory. But he agreed to talk to all his relatives to see if they might know of a large hideout under the Park.

  ‘It’s more than possible,’ Adder pointed out. ‘You didn’t know of the existence of the lair by the stream until I told you of it.’

  ‘You’re right, Adder,’ Fox said. ‘But where did you learn of it? You never did say definitely. Perhaps from the same source as this latest idea?’

  Adder never had any difficulty in retaining his equanimity. His natural expression was one of immobility. His ceaslessly flickering tongue was the only sign of movement from his face.

  ‘The source isn’t important,’ he replied enigmatically.

  Fox knew he would not be permitted to pry any further. So he said, ‘Have you spoken to Mossy?’

  Adder searched his memory. ‘Mossy?’ he muttered.

  Fox reminded him.

  ‘A descendant of Mole? Well, it’s likely that Badger will see him first then. Who knows – perhaps this Mossy will be in the company of his forefather!’

  ‘I’m glad Badger’s not around to hear that,’ said Fox. ‘Poor old creature, he’s never been able to accept the loss of Mole. This game he plays is the only way he can come to terms with it.’

  ‘I wish you’d explain, Fox. Badger was rambling on about Mole when I spoke to him just now. I think he must have been still half-asleep.’

  ‘On no, it’s quite deliberate. I thought you knew about it. The rest of us take part.’ He told Adder about Mossy’s role.

  ‘Now I comprehend,’ said the snake. ‘But I certainly don’t approve. I’m surprised at you all, making such fools of yourselves.’