The Farthing Wood Collection 1 (5 page)

‘Some of us have tried, but the otters won’t compromise. They’re the jokers of the animal world. They have no seriousness.’

The foxes were indeed planning to take action. The youngsters had been tested to the limit and were looking for some support from their seniors. Groups of foxes began to debate their grievances and it was these gatherings that Jay had watched from the tree-tops. Lean Vixen backed up the young foxes.

‘I warned the big otter about the consequences if he and his kind continued with their tricks,’ she told a large group of all ages. ‘My mate and I are ready to do whatever’s necessary. It’s time we struck a blow.’

Lean Fox hadn’t been consulted about whether he was in agreement with this. He said nothing therefore, hoping the others wouldn’t realize the vixen was dominant.

The young foxes related their experiences. Time and time again otters had interfered with their hunting techniques, sneaking prey from them and deriding them afterwards.

‘It’s intolerable,’ said one. ‘We can never hold our heads up again if we let them get away with it.’

‘Otters or foxes,’ Lean Vixen growled, ‘one group
has to come out on top.’ She looked around the gathering and her eyes rested on Lean Fox. ‘And it won’t be the otters!’

‘No. No, it won’t be,’ he concurred hastily. ‘Tomorrow night we’ll muster. All of us who care for our way of life – our fox ways – must take part. We’ll chase those slippery pests from the Wood!’

Lean Vixen grinned a foxy grin. These were strong words; rousing words. The young foxes were satisfied. They ran off to carry the message to as many others of their kind in Farthing Wood as could be found.

The next evening the foxes rallied. With Stout Fox and Lean Vixen at their head, they trotted quietly through the depths of the Wood, intent on forestalling the otters close by the stream. Little light filtered through the budding branches but, at the edge of the woodland, the setting sun shone on the glistening water, turning it blood red. The foxes stood silently.

‘It’s an omen,’ whispered a youngster. ‘Blood will be shed.’

Stout Fox murmured grimly, ‘Yes. I fear blood will flow if the otters persist in their ways.’

‘You can count on it,’ Lean Vixen snarled. ‘Before the Wood is in leaf.’

There was something about that evening that seemed to affect the entire population of Farthing Wood. The atmosphere was remarkably quiet. A spring breeze, a cool breeze, blew across the grassland. Nothing stirred. Not a single otter appeared. Were they suspicious? Lean Fox broke the silence.

‘It doesn’t look as if there’s anything to chase after all,’ he said.

‘Give them time,’ said Lean Vixen.

The sun sank below the horizon. Darkness cloaked the foxes and the stream ran black. At last there was movement. Something approached, then turned and set off in another direction.

‘Follow it,’ Lean Vixen yapped. The foxes ran forward. The creature, which was indeed an otter, turned at the sound of running feet. Far from taking fright, it stood its ground. The foxes’ rush slowed, then halted.

‘Rather unfair odds, isn’t it?’ Sleek Otter asked, for it was she.

‘Are you alone?’ Stout Fox growled.

‘You have eyes.’

‘Then where are the others?’ a young fox piped up.

‘How should I know? In the Wood perhaps.’

‘In the Wood?’ Stout Fox barked. ‘Nothing passed us as we came. How can that be?’

‘Hardly likely they’d want to come face to face with a force of foxes,’ Sleek Otter observed, ‘if they
are
in the Wood.’

‘What game is this?’ Lean Vixen snarled.

‘There is more than one way to enter a Wood,’ was the reply and Sleek Otter tittered.

Lean Vixen was infuriated. Had the otters outmanoeuvred them again? While the foxes were standing idle, were they plundering the woodland in their absence?

‘Back to the Wood!’ she roared. ‘They’ve gone behind our backs!’

The foxes, in one mass, turned and galloped towards the trees. Sleek Otter could hardly contain herself. She rolled over in her delight, whistling and giggling. Her cool-headedness had tricked the other animals into retreat. For she knew quite well not one otter, apart from herself, had yet left its holt.

Try as they might, and they searched high and low in twos and threes, the foxes couldn’t find anything to chase. But their activity flushed some other creatures into the open. Amongst these were hedgehogs. The hedgehogs were very frightened, but soon realized the foxes were after different game. Sage Hedgehog unrolled himself and called to the others, ‘We’re safe for the moment. We’re of no interest to them.’

Stout Fox paused to grunt, ‘Not unless you can tell me if you’ve seen otters tonight.’

‘No. None. Why do you seek them?’

‘We’re at loggerheads. Foxes and otters need to
settle their differences and now there’s only one way …’

‘You wish to fight them?’

Stout Fox growled, ‘If necessary. But certainly to frighten them.’

‘Then we hedgehogs shall remain silent,’ said the sage one bravely. ‘Were we to see otters, we couldn’t expose them to danger.’

‘Very well. But we foxes will find them one way or another,’ Stout Fox replied determinedly.

‘We take no sides in your dispute,’ the hedgehog continued. ‘But we wish the otters no harm. Indeed their presence here must be preserved.’

‘Not in Farthing Wood!’ Stout Fox snapped. ‘We have our own ideas about that!’

‘Don’t do anything we shall all regret,’ Sage Hedgehog pleaded. ‘If the otters go, I dread the consequences. You’re more sensible than most. I appeal to you to avert a disaster.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Stout Fox remarked dismissively. He knew all about Sage Hedgehog. ‘You and your crackpot notions! Now listen to me. We foxes mean to keep the otters out of our territory. There’s no two ways about that. And we’ll use any means necessary.’

‘No, no,’ wailed Sage Hedgehog. ‘We shall all be losers. Don’t let the humans in!’

‘Humans? They’ve been coming and going here ever since I can remember,’ Stout Fox said and went on his way.

Sage Hedgehog’s head sank on to his paws. More to himself than to any other creature he murmured sorrowfully, ‘I fear the time will arrive when the humans come, but don’t go.’

There was no discovery and no fighting that night. Sleek Otter made haste to give the news of the foxes’ massing to her kind. The otters saw sense and decided to avoid confrontation. Smooth Otter, however, couldn’t resist a retort.

‘How we’ve impressed them all,’ he quipped glibly. ‘We’ve really ruffled their pride.’

‘Well, we can’t match them in strength,’ Sleek Otter cautioned. ‘You should have seen them. They looked an ugly lot.’

‘Oh, they’ll disband soon enough,’ the big male assured her lightly. ‘What can they do? They know they can’t touch us.’

This was not at all how the foxes saw the situation. They had reached the end of their tether. Stout Vixen, who had stayed behind in the den, greeted her mate’s return with the words, ‘I don’t see any signs of a scrap. Your coat’s as clean as a cat’s.’

‘There was no scrap,’ Stout Fox admitted, ‘because there were no otters.’

‘I told you so,’ said the vixen. ‘You need to use more subtle methods with that bunch.’

‘Perhaps we’ve frightened them off?’

‘No. They’ll slip back to the woodland unnoticed when things have quietened down.’

‘What do you suggest then?’

‘As the otters seem to bother you so much there’s only one course of action. Get rid of them altogether.’

‘You mean – kill them?’ Stout Fox muttered as though he hardly dared pronounce the words.

‘Not all of them. When they see their lives are at stake they’ll get the message soon enough and move out.’

Stout Fox baulked at the idea of wholesale slaughter. ‘Let’s hope they won’t provoke us any further,’ he said without much conviction.

Of course it wasn’t in the nature of the otters to lie low. It was quite out of the question for them to be quiet or still for long. And, in any case, hunger asserted itself. They had to hunt whether they liked it or not. Some of them explored the grassland which surrounded the Wood and found a mouse or two. But this was a poor alternative to the rich fare offered by the Wood itself.

With the confidence born of their belief in their special status, the main bulk of the otters once more penetrated the woodland. They hunted singly and thoroughly. It was not long before they once more found themselves competing with the habitual woodland dwellers.

Smooth Otter, predictably, was the spark that lit the fatal fuse. His vanity made him incapable of heeding any warning signals. He forgot Sleek Otter’s experience and set about stalking Lean Fox with the idea of relieving him of his catch. Lean Fox had set his sights on a young hare that was less watchful than it needed to be. Luckily for the young animal, it was able to make its escape. For, as Lean Fox closed, freezing every time the hare turned to look, Smooth Otter tried to circumvent his ploy. The otter’s final dash, in front of the patient, painstaking fox, alarmed the hare who scooted away as swift as the wind.

Lean Fox, who had spent many long minutes carefully positioning himself, hurled himself on the culprit. He bowled the otter over and a vicious fight began. They were a match for each other.

The noise attracted onlookers. ‘F-fox in a fight!
Otter on the f-floor,’ Nervous Squirrel skittered, leaping from branch to branch.

Sly Stoat hid behind a tree-trunk, peering round every now and then to watch the contest. As a predator, both animals were his rivals, but as a woodlander he was on the side of the fox. Smooth Otter gave a good account of himself. He was strong and supple and quick-footed. Lean Fox found it impossible to get a grip on him. Equally, the otter’s smaller stature didn’t allow him to gain advantage.

‘It’s l-level pegging,’ Nervous Squirrel squeaked to anyone who cared to listen.

‘Keep quiet,’ said Owl. ‘Let them sort it out.’

Smooth Otter, jigging to right and left, and nipping the fox’s tail or leg whenever he got the chance, resorted to taunts. ‘Catch me if you can, Fox. Whoops! Missed me! Where am I now? No, not there. Here! Clumsy fox!’

The bigger animal was panting heavily and beginning to look confused. Then Lean Vixen rushed up and the scales were tilted. The two foxes together were too much for the athletic otter. If he avoided one’s attack, he stepped right into the other’s. He received a succession of deep bites and suddenly wilted. The Wood was quiet. The onlookers held their breath, expecting a kill. The foxes lunged on both sides. Smooth Otter rolled over, bleeding from a dozen gashes.

‘He’s done for,’ Lean Vixen panted. ‘Leave him.’

Lean Fox stepped back and looked at the stricken animal. His sides heaved from his exertions.

‘D-death, death of an otter!’ shrilled Nervous Squirrel.

The cry was taken up by a host of other small animals
and the news spread through the Wood like wild-fire. Other creatures came running; badgers, weasels, rabbits, hedgehogs. Elsewhere the foxes heard the cry and responded. Their blood was up. Four other otters were cornered in the Wood and pulled down by their long-suffering adversaries. Another was caught and savaged as she raced for safety to the stream. Stout Fox took no part in the killing. He restricted himself to running along the Wood’s perimeter and driving others on who were trying to escape. The otters were vanquished. Those who survived abandoned their holts and ran for their lives, believing the foxes would massacre them all if they stayed.

By dawn not a single otter was left in Farthing Wood.

The foxes came together in the centre of the Wood, grimly satisfied with their work. They were not yet aware that the surviving otters had disappeared for good and indeed were at that moment still running across country under cover of darkness.

‘It had to be done’, Lean Vixen spoke for all of her kind. She panted deeply. Many of the foxes still simmered from the heat of battle. They had not escaped unscathed. The otters’ sharp teeth and claws had left their mark. Blood lust still glinted in some eyes. The foxes were ready for more killing if any creature dared to cross them. For the moment none did and, gradually, their fighting ardour cooled.

‘The Wood’s ours again,’ Stout Fox said. ‘But surely we could have achieved that without such extreme savagery?’

The animals returned to their own territories, certain that no otter would ever presume to set foot in them again. They couldn’t have known that their
action would mean that, in the long run, their lives would change for ever.