Guy Smith - Snakes

But nobody came, there was no sound to be heard anywhere, Stainforth might have been any one of a thousand English villages on a hot summer's night, its inhabitants fast asleep in bed. Except that John Price knew different. He was sweating heavily.

He unfastened the straps, lifted the lid cautiously, made out the silhouettes of two ferret-like bodies, heads upraised enquiringly. Thank Christ they were still alive, it had been stifling in the Mini.

'This is it, Rick and Tick,' He spoke softly, let the lid of the case rest back against the bunker. 'It's up to you now. Go and do your stuff and when you've finished the case will be here for you to come back to.' They don't understand, but you have to talk to animals, gain their confidence. Just let 'em go and roam until they get a sniff of snakes.

The two mongooses just lay there, made no attempt to leave their temporary home. He thought about lifting them out but decided against it. It was their show, they would have to do it their way without his interference. Just leave them to get on with it.

He tip-toed away, retired to the back door, stood just inside with the door ajar, watching intently. But the snake-killers appeared to be in no hurry. They were confused, they might still be there in the morning. It was asking a lot of them.

He went inside, closed the door, and stretched himself out on the settee. He needed to rest.

A burst of gunfire jerked him out of a deep sleep, a volley of shots that were still echoing across the village by the time he made it to the back door. People were shouting, vehicles were on the move. Something had happened.

And when he checked on that old suitcase outside it was empty. The mongooses had done what he had wanted them to do, slunk off into the darkness of a village that was alive with the threat of reptilian death.

It was the second night in succession that Cynthia Eversham had heard the rattlesnake in her dreams, like a bag of witchdoctor's dried bones being shaken frantically, a sinister background noise that got louder. And louder. Until it woke her up, brought her upright in bed, her naked body shiny with sweat, a scream forming on her lips.

This time she screamed because she knew it was not a nightmarish figment of a bereaved and tortured mind. It was real!

She stared about her in the darkness, feared for one terrible moment that the reptile was in the room. No, it was outside somewhere, down below on the drive.

She didn't want to look, never wanted to see a snake again as long as she lived but she had to check; make sure.

Cynthia climbed out of bed, crossed to the window, parted the curtains. She had taken to leaving the exterior light on all night since Peter's death, a 150-watt bulb which illuminated almost the entire driveway. And now there was no doubt in her mind that it was a snake that was making the noise. Reality, no dream, a six-foot length of diamond-covered death flinging itself insanely at the door.

The thing was mad, crazy with anger, obsessed with a desire to force an entry, throwing itself at the polished oak-panelled woodwork, falling back, trying again, a whiplash of fury that had only one thought in its poisoned mind—to kill, to take revenge on those who had slaughtered its mate. It knew, you could tell, knew that this was the place. Cynical vengeance—it would take the life of the mate of he who had slaughtered its own mate.

But it could not get inside the house. Or could it? Cynthia clutched the window sill, her terror mounting. Not through the door, certainly, but perhaps there was a ventilator somewhere through which it could pass by contracting its vile body. Or a window left open. When your husband was three days dead you could not rely on yourself to attend to detail.

She was safe, though. All she had to do was to ensure that the bedroom door was shut, pick up the bedside phone and call the police. They would come with guns, shoot the snake.

Even as she was turning away to check the door something out on the drive caught her eye, had her peering intently. A cat or something, a creature which travelled in furtive darting movements, crouched low. The snake will kill it! She wanted to tap the window, shout, warn it before it was too late. But she could not move, just stood transfixed.

It was no cat, it was too large, had a bushy tail like a fox but it certainly was not Reynard. It was chattering, a sound that reminded her of a flock of birds feeding hungrily on a bird-table in winter.

The rattler had stopped hurling itself at the door, had fallen back and there was no mistaking the fear in its posture. To flee or to stay and fight? The serpent body was tense, head raised, looking about it as though seeking an avenue of escape.

It made a move to flee, covered no more than a yard before the furry streamlined creature was upon it, jaws moving with incredible speed, seizing the rattlesnake by the back of its head. The attacker rose up on its hind legs, its prey still gripped in its teeth, shaking it, biting it. Rattling it; death rattles that were frantic at first like a child's marbles box being shaken, dying away to the odd click. And then silence.

Cynthia watched as the ferocious four-legged animal cast the snake to one side, a limp harmless corpse, sniffed at it as though making sure that there was no life there. Then it bounded away, hurrying as though it had an urgent appointment somewhere, a purposefulness about those jerky movements until the shadows beyond the bright artificial light swallowed it up.

Cynthia Eversham was still standing at the window when the eastern sky began to lighten. She had not phoned the police, she had no intention of doing so now because the rattlesnake was dead and she was in no danger.

Today was going to be a severe test for her, as it was for any woman who had to face the ordeal of a husband's funeral.

At first the mongooses had kept together, travelling side by side, picking up the fresh scent in the disused churchyard. Gone was their domestication, they were back in the land of their ancestors where snakes were an everyday prey to be hunted down and killed, had cast off the mantle of captivity.

They found the Russell's viper first, the faint starlight glinting evilly on its greenish scales as it crossed the open tract of land in front of the church. One of the most feared snakes of India and Burma, it instinctively smelled its hated foe in the vicinity, turned its toadish head, showed its half-inch fangs. Fear, but that would not stop it from fighting, giving a good account of itself. Sometimes a viper overcame and killed a mongoose, this could be one of those occasions.

It saw its pursuer, turned and waited. Come and get me, mongoose. The mongoose stopped, began chattering loudly, danced in the manner which stoats sometimes employ in order to create a gathering of curious birds. First one way, then another, always just out of reach of those terrible venomous fangs, a macabre ballet.

The viper's head darted, followed every move. Just a little closer, mongoose, and you will be dead. Intent, oblivious to all else.

Which was why the Russell's viper was unaware of the approach from behind of the second animal, until the fangs of Tick, the female, sunk deep into the back of its head, dragged it flaying and lashing from the fray, allowing Rick to move in for the death blow.

They left the mangled viper's corpse draped across the church steps, moved on with haste for this was to be a rare night of carnage, the like of which they might never see again. They heard gunfire, made a detour of the Rising Sun even though the night air was heavy with the stench of snake's blood.

And then they split up, each following a different spoor, pointed noses close to the ground where reptile bellies had flattened and soured the dry undergrowth.

Tick came upon the African mamba in a shrubbery, surprised it and struck quickly, hurled the dead greenish body from the branches where it had been curled, heard it slump on to a bed of dead dry leaves, roll once and lie still, not even twitching.