‘Yeah, but how’re we gonna do that, Jack?’
‘I’m coming to that. First we got to make sure there isn’t another way out of there. We got to block off any other way out. So you get round the other side of that old root and if you find another hole, kick it in so’s he can’t get out. Then we got him trapped, see?’
Billy listened to the scrambling feet clambering about outside. ‘Nothing here,’ came a voice from behind the earth wall at the back of the cave. Under Billy’s arm the fox licked his lips, gathered his tongue in and listened for a moment, then began to pant in short sharp bursts, every so often pausing to listen again. ‘Hey, I think I can hear something. I can, I can. There’s breathing inside there.’ Billy clasped his hand over the fox’s snout to close it and stroked his ears gently to calm him down. ‘There’s something in there, Jack, I heard it, clear as day. I heard it.’
‘If there’s something inside there, then it won’t want to be there for long. Got a little surprise for it, a nice little surprise. Come back here, and give me a hand. A few twigs and dry leaves – ’s all we need.’ And Billy heard them climbing up out of the crater sending little avalanches of earth and stones tumbling down behind them, a few of them finding their way into the mouth of the cave.
When the voices were far enough away Billy crawled forward to take a look. There was just a chance, he thought, they might be able to escape before the hunters came back. He could not think why they had gone off to gather twigs and leaves, but whatever it was he did not want to be trapped in that cave when the hunters came back again. When he was sure it was all clear he pushed the fox out in front of him and prepared to follow him out. But the fox seemed reluctant to go and struggled to turn round. As Billy pushed him again, there was a hideous growl and suddenly the terrier was there in front of them, stocky on its four little legs, its lips curled back over its teeth that snapped out its machine-gun rattle of a bark. The fox did not hesitate, he was back through the hole and at the back of the cave before Billy could hurl the stone he still held in his hand. He missed, but it was enough to persuade the terrier to retreat again while he gathered some more ammunition. And then the hunters were coming back, slithering down the slope and laughing as they came.
‘All talk, that dog of yours, Jack – all mouth, he is.’
‘This’ll do the trick, you’ll see. Just put it down by the hole there. That’s it, a nice pile – only the dry stuff mind you. Don’t want anything wet. Now give us that bit of cord you got holding your trousers up.’
‘But they’ll fall down.’
‘Don’t matter about that. Who’s to see? Come on, give it here. Plenty more of it back at the farm. Can’t get a fire lit without it, can we? And it’s got to be a good fire. Then we put the leaves on it and push it down that hole and whatever’s in there will either be smoked like a kipper or come running out. And when it comes out, which it will, we’ll be waiting for it, won’t we, to blast it to kingdom come.’
Billy heard a match strike and then the twigs begin to crackle. Then he could smell the smoke. The fox wanted to run and began to struggle. But Billy held on tight. He thought of kicking out the back of the cave but knew it was pointless even to begin. There was no time. The game was up and Billy knew it. He was about to call out and surrender when he heard a different voice outside, the quiet voice of an older man that demanded and was used to instant obedience.
‘Put that fire out ’fore you set the whole wood alight, you idiots. Stamp it out I tell you, or I’ll get ugly. And you wouldn’t like me ugly. I don’t even like myself when I’m ugly, so just do as you’re told and put out that fire!’ The voice rose to a sharp command. There was much scuffling outside in the crater. Billy lowered his head to the floor of the cave and could just see their boots stamping out the last of the fire. ‘Very well. That will do. Over here the two of you so you can hear me. I’m not going to say this twice. First, you are trespassing on my land. You know who I am and you know you are trespassing. Second, you are poaching. Why else would you have your guns and that little rat of a dog?’
‘Only came after a rabbit, didn’t we, Jack?’
‘That’s all, Brigadier, honest.’
‘You even lie badly. Is it likely you would go to all that trouble, come all the way up here, to smoke out a rabbit when there’s thousands of them hopping about down in the fields? There’s more rabbits this year than there’s been for years. It’s lucky for you I came when I did, ’cos if you’d have caught what you were after then you’d have been up before the Magistrates Monday morning for poaching. Now this time, and only this time, I’ll overlook the trespassing; but if I find you in my woods again I’ll get ugly, ugly as sin. Now take that horrible little dog and get yourselves out of here before I change my mind. And one more thing before you go; there’s been a swan flying around here the last day or so – seen it myself. Easy things to shoot, swans. If you take a potshot at her, I’ll know who it is, remember? If you see it you leave it alone, understand? They’re protected, a protected species swans are; but you’re not, so get going before my trigger finger gets twitchy.’
Billy’s hunched shoulders relaxed as he heard the hunters running off down the hill, the terrier yapping as they went. But he could see one pair of boots were still in the crater and a stick walking with them, and they were coming towards the hole. There was a sound of sniffing and the light was blocked out by a face peering in at them. ‘Can’t see you,’ said the face, that sported a neat white moustache, ‘but I know you’re in there. Smell a fox a mile away, I can. ’Spect you’re out of that earth over in Innocents Copse – saw you when you were little, six of you there were, weren’t there? Dashed lucky for you I came by. Only came this way to find that swan. Saw it come down in the woods this morning – funny place for a swan to come down, I thought. Then I spotted the smoke. Came just in time, didn’t I? Come September you’ll make fine sport for the hounds. So I’ll be seeing you again, my fine foxy friend. I’ll be the one on the chestnut mare leading the hunt. First over every fence I am: the Master they call me. Be all in pink so you can’t miss me. We’ll meet again, you can be sure of that. And don’t go getting yourself shot in the meantime will you? Always a pity to waste a good fox.’
The boy and the fox waited all day in their earth cave until the daylight at the entrance began to fail. Billy had made up his mind now that it was dangerous to move by day. In future he would travel only under cover of darkness and find somewhere to lie up during the day. He waited until dark had fallen outside before clambering out of the hole. They climbed up through the woods and out once again into open countryside beyond. He could see the city glittering far away below him and knew that if he turned his back on the lights and kept walking he would be going in the direction he wanted. That night they put many miles between themselves and the city for they were able to walk safely enough along the lanes. On the rare occasions a car did disturb them they could see its headlights coming and had plenty of time to climb a gate or jump into a ditch.
Billy kept the fox on a lead again now, a piece of orange twine he had found by the side of the road – he wanted no repeat of their encounter with the little girl the day before. The fox baulked at it more and more as the night went on, and from time to time would sit down obstinately in the middle of the road and refuse to move. It was no use jerking on the string, and Billy knew that. So Billy would sit down beside him on the road and put an arm around him and talk softly in his ear of the place they were going to, how it would be a wild country where there were no people, where they could be together always and where no one would hunt them because no one would even know they were there. ‘And when we get there,’ Billy said, ‘You’ll never have to have a lead on you again – won’t be any need for it, will there? And there’ll be food enough for us both, I promise you. I’ll see to it. Come on now, it’s not far. I know you’re tired, but after all you got four legs and I got two, so you can only be half as tired as I am. On your feet now.’
CHA
PTER TEN
BY DAWN THEY WERE OVER THE HILLS AND dropping down into a broad valley of grey shadows. The river that wound its way along it could be seen only fleetingly, glimpsed through wandering mists. For some time now Billy had been on the lookout for a place they could hide up that day. Lights were coming on in the farmhouses all over the valley and the birds had already finished their dawn chorus when he heard a tractor start up in the farmstead to one side of the road. He spotted its funnel belching black smoke and pulled the fox behind the safety of a hedgerow. The tractor rumbled up the farm track towards them.
Billy watched as the farmer off-loaded the milk churns from the trailer onto the stand by the roadside. As he did so he bumped one of them down too hard and the lid flew off, sloping milk out down the side of the churn. The farmer cursed roundly as he jumped down off the trailer to recover the lid. Until that moment Billy had not even been thinking about food – he had already accepted that they would be going hungry again that day. But this was an opportunity that was too good to miss. He waited until the tractor had disappeared down the farm track, its trailer rattling behind it. Then he was across the road, hauling the fox along with him. He left the fox sitting by the roadside and jumped up onto the stand. He pulled the lid off one of the churns, dipped his cupped hands into the milk and drank until he could drink no more.
An impatient bark below him reminded him that he was not alone. The churn was heavier than he imagined, but he managed to tip it and fill the lid for the fox who lapped it eagerly, licking it clean before looking up at Billy for more. Billy obliged once again, but in his hurry he tipped the churn just too much this time. Suddenly the churn was leaning too far over and his numb fingers could no longer hold it. The crash and the clatter as it hit the ground echoed down the valley and the churn was thundering down the farm track leaving a great white trail of milk behind it. Billy did not have to tell the fox to run, he was gone already under the gate and it was all Billy could do to catch him and retrieve his lead. The fields round about were too open. They would be spotted, so he pulled the fox down into a field ditch and waited.
Billy peered out through the long grass and could just see the farmer and his wife running up the track. She was stamping her foot with fury. ‘I’ve told you times, Albert, times I’ve told you. That stand is too small, I said. Only built for ten churns and you’ve tried to squeeze fourteen on there. Well, what do you expect?’
‘I can’t understand it,’ said the farmer, who had retrieved the rolling churn. ‘Can’t understand it at all.’
‘I’ve told you, and I’ve told you,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘How many times do I have to tell you before you’ll listen?’
‘I know dear, I know. But . . . no, I won’t say it . . . You’ll only be cross if I do.’
‘No I won’t,’ she said. ‘Look at this milk. It’s good money wasted, Albert. Makes me cry to look at it.’
‘Well if you’re sure you won’t be cross, then dear, I was going to say that there’s no point in crying over spilt milk.’ And she laughed despite herself, chasing the farmer back through the lane, splashing through the elongating puddle of milk as she ran. In his ditch Billy laughed too, laughed till he was weak. The fox looked up at him amazed, but that only made Billy laugh longer and louder.
From the ditch Billy could see a four-bay Dutch barn stacked high with hay, some distance from the farmhouse. The barn, he thought, would be as good a place to sleep that day if they could climb up into it. The barn was only three bays full, and there was a hay elevator standing in the fourth bay. Billy did not like heights but it was getting lighter all the time and there was nowhere else to hide up, so he tucked the fox under his arm and began to climb up. The elevator wobbled dangerously, but he clung on and kept climbing until he reached the top, where he crawled away into the middle of the stack and lay down, exhausted. The corrugated roof was so close above his head he could reach up and touch it. The fox stole about the haystack peering nervously over the edge and then backing away. He seemed interested in exploring, but Billy called him back, and he came willingly enough and lay down beside him and joined him in a deep and untroubled sleep. Neither the prickly hay nor the heavy heat of the haystack disturbed them. Billy was almost roused once by what sounded like a sudden gust of strong wind passing overhead, but it came only as an intermission between dreams and did not wake him.
Voices woke them that evening, voices that Billy recognised at once as the farmer and his wife. ‘Got to get it in tonight,’ she said. ‘They speak of rain before morning.’
‘They always speak of rain, dear,’ he said. ‘It’s their job to be gloomy. I’d be happier to leave it till tomorrow and risk it. ’S a bit green that hay, you know. Could do with the sun on it for another day at least I’d say. Don’t like to stack hay too green – seen too many of these barn fires in my time. That’s what happens if you bring it in too green.’ But when she mentioned something about wasted milk and rickety milk stands it was clearly sufficient to change his mind, for the trailer came rocking back and forth all evening, high with its load of hay.
Billy watched anxiously as the hay in the fourth bay began to pile ever higher and higher. It was hot and close under the roof of the barn with little enough air to breathe. He retreated to the darkest corner of the stack and hoped they would not be seen. More help had arrived and there were half a dozen people swarming around the barn as the clouds gathered grey and thick over the trees on the far side of the valley. And all the time the haystack was growing, higher and higher. Any minute now they would reach the top of the stack and Billy and the fox would be spotted. There was nothing for it. He pulled aside a few bales until he had made a trench wide enough and long enough to take the two of them. Then he pulled the bales back over the top leaving only enough of a hole for them to breathe through. Billy peeped out from time to time to keep watch, but once the stack had reached the top in the fourth bay and there were men working on the same level, he dared not even do this, but lay buried in his grave of hay with the fox, sweating till his clothes were wet with it.
Thunder rolled around the skies and ricocheted across the valley and with it came torrential rain drumming with a deafening force on the corrugated roof above them. Within a quarter of an hour all the haymakers had dispersed and Billy thought it safe to push away the covering bales and climb out from his hiding place. He ventured to the edge and found they were alone. Billy sat with his legs dangling out over the edge of the stack and breathed the cooler air outside the barn. As he sat there he saw the first of the lightning crackling in the sky over the darkening valley and he counted the seconds between the thunder and the lightning to see how far away the storm was. One second for one mile, someone had once told him. He counted ten and it was getting closer all the time.
It was the fox who led him to his only food for two days. Absorbed by the storm he had not noticed that the fox had disappeared and when at last he turned round to look for him he saw him stalking low over the hay bales. The hen flew up before the fox sprang and ran away, squawking with terror before taking off into the night. Billy scrambled over the bales on his hands and knees and arrived at the nest of eggs at about the same time as the fox. There were six warm eggs, and Billy shared them out equally, cracking them into his hand so that nothing was wasted. He had never before eaten a raw egg and to begin with he was revolted by the idea, but he watched the fox devour one with relish and followed suit. No egg had ever tasted that good before.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WITH A GOOD SLEEP AND A MEAL INSIDE them at last, they were in high spirits as they climbed down out of the hay barn that night. Billy waited until the worst of the rain had passed and then with a fresh spring in his stride he set off to cross the valley that night. ‘Got to cross the river tonight,’ he told the fox. ‘The further they got to search, the less chance they got of finding us.’ But the fox needed no encouragement. He walked on ahead, the lead always at full stretch, pulling Billy along behind him. There was no moon now
so Billy could see little except the grey sliver of road in front of him. They left the road when it began to twist uphill and away from the river. Once in the fields again Billy let the fox off the lead.
There were no alarms except for a sheep that coughed from behind a hedge. It was a human cough, a perfect imitation of Aunty May’s smoker’s cough, and it was enough to send them scurrying into a flooded ditch. And more than once some great white bird wafted by over their heads; a barn owl Billy imagined it to be at first, but then he remembered the barn owl in his Wilderness flew more silently than this one, whose wings whistled gently as they beat the air. Billy thought it must be a bigger barn owl and thought no more about it.
The fox glanced up at it and knew exactly what it was.
They had not gone far that night when the rain began to fall again, a few sparse heavy drops at first, but as the wind got up it lashed down and they were soaked to the skin within minutes. Billy thought of finding somewhere to shelter, but he was determined to cross the river that night, and anyway, he reasoned, he was already as wet as it was possible to be, so what was the point? No, they would battle on through the rain until they reached the river.
And so indeed they did, some hours later. But by this time Billy was shivering with the cold and his legs were numb from the knees down. He was suffering frequent stomach cramps, and knew he could not go on much further. The rain had turned to hail now as Billy skirted the river bank, looking desperately for a bridge across, or for somewhere to hide up. The fox walked alongside him, nose to the ground to avoid the stinging hailstones. He would stop only to shake the wet from his fur, and then he was trotting on again, turning to wait for Billy to catch him up. His companionship that dreadful night kept Billy from giving up. He was always there to talk to, and then whenever they rested for a while under a tree or under the lee of a hedge he would push his head under Billy’s arm as if to comfort him.