The Fox Cub Bold Page 2

  Food was plentiful and his diet was a varied one. On one occasion he killed a cock partridge as it rose from the ground in front of him. From that moment on he acquired a taste for game. In his nightly hunting forays his continual searchings took him to every corner of the district, but he was not often successful. Then one evening he came to a place where the scent of game seemed to hang in the air. It was a wooded area entirely fenced off from the surrounding countryside, but the fence was old, warped and damaged and no obstacle to a determined young fox.

  Inside the boundary there was evidence of the scent of Man. Where the ground was soft and damp the unmistakable marks of his trail were plain to see, but Bold had no concern for it. He was on the track of something of far more interest. His mouth watered freely in anticipation of the delicious meal that awaited him. Cautiously, noiselessly, he stole through the undergrowth. He knew his quarry was not far away.

  Under a thick cover of bramble a hen pheasant was disturbed from her rest. Bold pounced and, with a quick snap of his powerful young jaws, all was over. That night he feasted handsomely.

  There was a large beech tree standing on a hump of ground, the roots of which were partially exposed. Underneath the roots an invitingly secluded hole attracted Bold’s notice. He sniffed carefully all around and inside it. The smell of badger was very strong, but no sound could be heard and Bold decided the occupants were away from home. He had no fear of badger. An old male animal – a close companion of his father’s – had figured largely in his early life in the Reserve. Bold went inside the hole and along the tunnel for a few paces before curling up to sleep.

  Towards morning he awoke instantly at the approach of the owner of the set. Bold prepared to leave his makeshift den – it had served his purpose well. At the entrance to the tunnel a sow badger was standing uncertainly, sniffing the air around her home with caution. An encounter with a fox was not one to be undertaken without hesitation.

  But Bold was disposed to be friendly. ‘Please don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘I certainly mean no harm.’

  ‘Are you alone?’ the badger asked nervously.

  ‘Quite alone,’ Bold replied.

  ‘Foxes and badgers tend to keep apart in this wood,’ she went on. ‘That must be why I’ve never seen you before.’

  ‘No. I’m a stranger hereabouts,’ Bold told her. ‘I only found the spot by chance.’

  ‘Then I can guess your reason for coming here.’

  ‘I was led here by my nose.’ Bold explained jocularly.

  ‘Yes, a lot of foxes come for the same reason,’ remarked the badger. ‘Most of them don’t stay long, however.’

  ‘Competition?’ asked the cub.

  ‘You could say that,’ she answered, ‘though it’s not the sort of competition you’re thinking of.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen the footprints?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But I paid no attention to them,’ he bragged.

  ‘You’d be foolish not to,’ she said. ‘They’re your real competition.’

  ‘Humans?’

  ‘Of course. Why do you think the wood is so rich in game birds?’

  ‘It didn’t occur to me.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ said the badger. ‘They’re released here by men for their use.’

  ‘Use? I don’t understand,’ said Bold. ‘Do they eat them?’

  ‘I believe so. At any rate, they hunt them.’

  ‘Hm.’ Bold pondered. ‘No wonder foxes don’t often choose to stay. But you – you’ve made your home here!’

  ‘I’m comparatively safe,’ she said. ‘I’m not so inclined to drool over pheasant and they – the humans I mean – seem to know that.’

  ‘I see. But there don’t seem to be any men about at present, so perhaps I’ll risk staying on.’

  ‘They haven’t started hunting yet. But, let me warn you, you would be running a risk. There is one human who is always around here keeping an eye open for anything that might be after his precious birds.’

  ‘Oh – one! I’m sure I’m capable of dealing with him,’ Bold said easily.

  ‘Yes, well – maybe. But summer’s on the wane and that’s a sign that they’ll soon be coming in force. They flush the birds out of these coverts and shoot them in the open. And when that happens, woe betide any other creature who may be around. We’re all game then.’

  ‘I’ll worry about that when it happens,’ Bold said lightly. ‘Thank you for your advice – and your warm den.’

  The badger brushed past him. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But just remember – it is my set.’

  ‘As you say,’ he acknowledged, and went on his way.

  Bold paid some heed to the she-badger’s warning by leaving the enclosure during the daylight hours to continue his explorations. But when night fell again, he returned. Ears cocked for the faintest sound of human tread, the cub set out to track down his second victim.

  Now that the scent of fox – a new fox – had spread through the wood, the nervous game birds were not so easily caught napping. But there was one creature who had been injured previously by a stoat and was unable to fly. Bold made short work of him. And, in the succeeding nights, Bold’s desire to test his hunting skills was more than satisfied.

  As time went on he became expert in the pursuit of pheasant and, although he was not always successful in catching his favourite prey, his appetite was only increased by failure. So a pattern was established in his life which, for a week or two, did not change.

  Each evening he left the wider area of farmland and entered the enclosed wood. He never came face to face with the gamekeeper, but both were very much aware of the other’s existence. When danger threatened, Bold always managed to elude his enemy.

  From time to time the young fox came across the sow badger or one of her family. They showed surprise that he continued to thrive in their wood but he swept their astonishment aside contemptuously. He became prouder than ever of his skill and began to believe he really did have exceptional abilities.

  One night, when his usual luck deserted him, Bold decided to investigate a fresh corner of the wood. In this quarter, in addition to the mouth-watering smell of pheasant, Bold detected a new, ranker odour. He soon discovered its source. Hanging from a line attached to the enclosing fence an assortment of rotting carcasses swayed slightly in the night air. The grisly collection was comprised mostly of birds such as crows and rooks, but the decomposing bodies of a weasel and a stoat were also included. Bold realized at once he was looking at the handiwork of his enemy the gamekeeper.

  He stood, horrified but fascinated by the sight. To his keen nose, the smell was overpowering. The bodies had obviously been hanging there a long time to warn off would-be attackers of the precious game birds. No fox, or the remains of a fox, was among the grotesque collection. Bold was exultant. The man held no sway over his kind. These were small fry – weaker creatures unable to look out for themselves. But a fox such as he was a different matter. No human was capable of meddling in his affairs.

  Shortly afterwards he caught his prey. He did not carry it under cover to devour in safety. He took it to the gamekeeper’s ‘gibbet’ and slowly, brazenly, he consumed it, underneath those quivering trophies. Only a handful of feathers and bones were left behind as evidence of his defiance.

  —— 4 ——

  The True Wild Life

  The next night Bold entered the wood with extreme caution. For, unimpressed by the gibbet, he was still realistic enough to expect the gamekeeper to react in some way to his gesture of contempt. As he crept along, not far from the badgers’ home, a sharp cry of pain rent the air, followed by grunts and snorts of a most distressing kind. Bold hastened towards the sound and, along one of his regular paths, he found the sow badger caught fast in a horrible metal trap. The more she struggled, the more its vice-like grip seemed to increase. A strong, noose-like wire bore down upon her back, making her gasp for breath and almost threatening to cripple her.

>   Bold sniffed gingerly at the snare, preparing to leap away on the instant if it threatened him too. The poor she-badger, panting painfully, looked at him with dull, hopeless eyes. The cub was convinced this trap had been sprung for him, and that the luckless badger had blundered into it instead. Quite unknowingly, she had saved him from almost certain death. He stood heavily in her debt. He looked more closely at the man-made device.

  ‘I’m going to try to help you,’ he told the badger coolly. ‘Keep quite still.’

  The trapped animal had already ceased to struggle. The pain was too severe. She heard Bold’s words in amazement. What could he mean? Why didn’t he run away while he was still safe? The strongest of all instincts for any wild creature on its own was self-preservation. She had been caught, not he. She continued to cower where she was, unable to answer him.

  Bold had discovered that the strong wire that was pinning her body so cruelly to the ground was the only obstacle to her freedom. Once inside, it was impossible for the ensnared beast to free itself, for the wire could not be reached over its own back. But, from outside the trap, the wire could be sprung or snapped. Bold’s only tool was the strength of his jaws.

  ‘I’ll bite this wire,’ he muttered to the badger, but half to himself. He tried to get a grip on it, but it pressed too deep into her flesh and it was impossible for him to get his teeth round it without wounding her. A harsh gasp of pain escaped her lips at his first attempt. He tried again at another point. Again she winced in agony, closing her eyes. Frustrated, Bold withdrew temporarily.

  He sniffed the air, while his ears constantly strained for a sound of the trap-setter. All seemed quiet. He moved forward again with increased determination. Now he noticed that at one end of the wire there was a short piece that did not pass over the sow badger’s back. He fastened his side teeth on it and bit hard. Absolutely nothing happened.

  ‘This may take a long time,’ he said. ‘But we have the entire night ahead of us.’

  The sow badger lay fatalistically at the gamekeeper’s mercy. She listened, in a quite uncomprehending manner, to the rasping of Bold’s fangs on the wire. What was he doing it for, when in all probability the result would only be injury to himself as well? The night hours slowly crept by.

  As Bold made one of his several pauses to rest his aching jaws, he thought he heard a steady tramp . . . tramp in the distance. He froze, his every nerve and muscle quivering with tension. Yes, there was no doubt of it. Something was approaching, and that regular tread could only be the sound of human footsteps. The gamekeeper was coming to assess his handiwork!

  Bold attacked the wire with renewed ferocity and desperation, knowing that at any moment he would have to flee. Then, quite suddenly, the weakened wire snapped with a fierce backward lash that nearly blinded him. Almost at the same moment, the badger pulled herself clear and, instinctively, ran straight for her set. Bold raced after her.

  In the deeper darkness of the lair they lay panting side by side. Bold’s eye streamed with water and, in one corner, a thin trickle of blood ran where the point of the severed wire had pierced. The badger’s back, too, had been cut and throbbed insistently.

  ‘Why? Why?’ she kept muttering.

  Bold did not answer, but rubbed his bad eye with the back of one paw as if it would heal it.

  Overcome by their experiences, they fell into an uneasy sleep.

  The sow badger awoke first. Her back still smarted, but the realization that she was still alive flooded over her joyously. It was as though she had cheated death. But – no! She hadn’t cheated it. She remembered her companion. She smelt the blood on his face and began to lick at his fur, gently and with gratitude. Bold awoke and shook his head in an attempt to free himself of the pain.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked him.

  He looked at her for a moment. ‘That trap was laid for me,’ he replied.

  The badger still couldn’t fathom his meaning. ‘Surely, then,’ she faltered, ‘that was your escape?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I escaped death – because of you.’

  ‘Then why should I live?’ she persisted in bewilderment.

  Now it was Bold’s turn to have no understanding. ‘But why should you die,’ he emphasized, ‘because of my good fortune?’

  ‘That’s Life,’ she answered in a matter-of-fact way.

  ‘No. That’s Death,’ he corrected her. ‘And too great a sacrifice.’

  ‘My carelessness led me into the trap,’ said the badger. ‘I had only myself to blame.’

  ‘I owed it to you to help you to escape as long as I ran free,’ Bold tried to explain. But he could see that she still didn’t understand. Was this, then, the True Wild Life after all? This natural indifference to another’s suffering, even to another’s fate, when the cause of it had been oneself? In his upbringing, the law instilled by his father and enshrined in the oath, had been to help one’s friends in trouble, and to expect the same from them. But even there, in the Nature Reserve, he seemed to remember that the law only applied to a particular group of creatures – those animals and birds who had banded together long ago to travel across country to the safety of the Park.

  The badger interrupted his thoughts. ‘I shall be forever grateful to you,’ she was saying, ‘and I’m now very much in your debt.’ She paused. ‘If I follow your example – and it seems I must – I offer you my help, and that of my clan, if ever you need it.’

  ‘I am glad I freed you,’ said Bold simply. ‘And I –’

  ‘And you’ve wounded yourself in doing so, I fear to say,’ she broke in.

  ‘It will heal,’ he said.

  ‘Does my licking help?’ she asked him.

  ‘It does soothe,’ he answered.

  She resumed her task.

  ‘Tomorrow I move on,’ the cub said decisively. ‘This episode has taught me I shouldn’t linger here.’

  ‘You are wise,’ she answered.

  ‘But first,’ said Bold with bravado, ‘I shall have one more meal of pheasant.’

  ‘And I,’ responded the badger, ‘shall help you catch it.’

  —— 5 ——

  Humans Can Be Dangerous

  Bold’s last taste of game in the wood passed off without further interruption by the keeper. He and the sow badger made their farewells and the cub parted from her, urging her to be more cautious than before.

  His eye still pained him and it tended to water, so that his vision was a little impaired. But, in spite of the injury, he had escaped the clutches of Man – indeed had bested him – and continued to lead what seemed to him to be a charmed life. However, Bold was to discover that he had tarried a little too long in the area.

  He found a thicket of gorse which was ideal to lie up in during the day. It was within the farmland, but in open country, and it became his regular refuge. He marked it carefully in several places to proclaim his ownership. One morning, soon afterwards, he woke to the sound of gunfire.

  He jumped up and, keeping under cover, looked out across the terrain. A line of men, all with firearms, stood at intervals of some metres along the crest of a slight ridge. Birds were wheeling in the sky, flying in panic from the death that stalked them below. Reports of gunfire were repeated regularly and a good number of the birds suddenly crumpled up in flight and crashed headlong to the ground. Fresh stocks of partridge, beaten from the open country, and pheasants, roused from the nearby copses where they had been released when young, came flying overhead in wave after wave. The men, raising their weapons, dealt destruction on all sides. The shooting season was in full swing.

  Bold remembered the sow badger’s remarks about no living thing being safe when guns were around. The awful crack! crack! of the hideous machines terrified the young fox. Should he run or stay under cover? Suddenly a pheasant plummeted to earth with a muffled thump right under his nose and then he saw a large dog coming for it. His mind was made up.

  Avoiding the path of the retriever, he dashed away from the gorse patch at f
ull stretch and away, as he thought, from the gunfire. As he ran his bad eye watered abominably and it was this that caused him to make a fatal mistake. He seemed to be running in a mist and he was almost on the second line of guns before he saw them. One of the sportsmen, who was in the act of reloading, gave a shout to his companions as Bold came up. A fox was fair game when their minds were on slaughter and, as Bold veered sharply in mortal fear, he saw one man raise his weapon and take aim at him. The fox increased his speed, heard a sharp crack! behind and, the next instant, felt a fierce sear of pain in his right thigh. Bold fell.

  The sportsman cried out triumphantly. Before anything more could happen, a new covey of partridges came overhead and, mercifully, engaged the men’s attention. Bold pulled himself up. He could put no weight on his wounded leg which felt quite numb until he tried to stand. Then a fresh surge of pain shot through him. Instinctively, he resorted to his three good legs and so, half dragging the injured one along the ground because he couldn’t lift it, he limped slowly and wonkily across the field. Every moment he expected the impact of the second gunshot which would finish him off. But it didn’t come. Luckily for him, the game in the air was better sport.

  It seemed an age – an eternity – before he had dragged himself to a sort of safety, collapsing into a drainage ditch. His leg bled freely and was throbbing unmercifully. A trickle of water in the ditch bottom cooled him a little and he drank some of it. Though he didn’t know it, the lead shot from the gun had passed right through his thigh which was very fortunate but, in doing so, had ripped the muscle drastically. He dared not stay still for long and so he began to limp along the ditch where at least he was out of sight.

  The ditch ran right through one of the spinneys, but Bold pulled himself out of it when he reached the comparative obscurity of the overhanging trees. Now he had to find proper cover – and quickly. He made straight for a thick clump of bramble, hauling himself through the tearing briars to its very heart. He felt weak and dizzy and had scarcely enough strength left to lick the blood from his fur.