Colin Dann - The Animals of Farthing Wood

First published in Great Britain 1979 by William Heinemann Ltd

This edition published 2006 by Egmont UK Limited

239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA

Text Copyright © 1979 Colin Dann

Illustrations copyright © 1979 Jacqueline Tettmar

Cover illustration copyright © 2006 David Frankland

The moral rights of the author, illustrator and cover illustrator have been asserted

ISBN 978 14052 2552 6

ISBN 1 4052 2552 1

eISBN 978 17803 1298 9

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

For Janet

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page First published in Great Britain 1979 by William Heinemann Ltd This edition published 2006 by Egmont UK Limited 239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA Text Copyright © 1979 Colin Dann Illustrations copyright © 1979 Jacqueline Tettmar Cover illustration copyright © 2006 David Frankland The moral rights of the author, illustrator and cover illustrator have been asserted ISBN 978 14052 2552 6 ISBN 1 4052 2552 1 eISBN 978 17803 1298 9 www.egmont.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Dedication For Janet

Part One Escape from Danger PART ONE Escape from Danger

1 Drought

2 The assembly

3 Toad’s story

4 Preparations

5 Farewell to Farthing Wood

6 The long drink

7 Two narrow escapes

8 First camp

9 Fire!

10 Confrontation

11 The storm

12 Trapped!

13 Pursued

14 The copse

15 The river

16 A new leader

17 Which way?

18 The butcher bird

Part Two Journey to White Deer Park

19 Fox alone

20 The vixen

21 Vixen decides

22 The hunt

23 Fox to the rescue

24 Reunited

25 The celebration

26 The motorway

27 Some comforting words

28 The deathly hush

29 The naturalist

30 The church

31 The final lap

Epilogue In the park

PART ONE

Escape from Danger

1

Drought

For most of the animals of Farthing Wood a new day was beginning. The sun had set, and the hot, moistureless air was at last cooling a little. It was dusk, and for Badger, time for activity.

Leaving his comfortable underground sleeping chamber, lined with dry leaves and grass, he ambled along the connecting tunnel to the exit and paused, snuffling the air warily. Moving his head in all directions, his powerful sense of smell soon told him no danger was present, and he emerged from the hole. Badger’s set was on a sloping piece of ground in a clearing of the wood, and the earth here was now as hard as biscuit. No rain had fallen on Farthing Wood for nearly four weeks.

Badger noticed Tawny Owl perched on a low branch of a beech tree a few yards away, so he trotted over for a few words while he sharpened his claws on the trunk. ‘Still no rain,’ he remarked unnecessarily, as he stretched upward and raked the bark. ‘I think it’s been hotter than ever today.’

Tawny Owl opened one eye and ruffled his feathers a little. ‘They’ve filled in the pond,’ he said bluntly.

Badger stopped scratching and dropped to all fours. His striped face took on a look of alarm. ‘I could hear the bulldozer moving around in the distance, all day long,’ he said ‘But this is serious. Very serious.’ He shook his head. ‘I really don’t know where we’ll go to drink now.’

Tawny Owl did not reply. His head had swivelled, and he was looking intently under the trees behind him. Presently Badger’s snout began snuffling again as he caught the scent of Fox, who was approaching them.

Fox’s brush started to wag in greeting as he spotted his friends. He could guess from Badger’s worried expression that he had heard the news.

‘I’ve just been over there to look,’ he called as he ran up. ‘Not a drop of water left. You wouldn’t know there had ever been a pond.’

‘What can they be doing?’ asked Badger.

‘Levelling the earth, I suppose,’ said Fox. ‘They’ve cut some more of the trees down as well.’

Badger shook his head again. ‘How long before . . .?’ he began.

‘Before they reach us?’ interrupted Tawny Owl. ‘Could be this summer. Human destruction moves swiftly.’

‘What do you think, Fox?’

‘Tawny Owl’s right. In another year all of this could be concrete and brick. In five years they’ve dug up all the grassland, and cut down three-quarters of the wood. There are human dwellings on either side of us. We’ve been driven back and driven back, so that we’re like a bunch of rabbits cowering in the last stalks of corn in the middle of a cornfield, listening to the approach of the harvester, and knowing we’ve very soon got to run.’

‘And now they’ve taken our last proper water-hole,’ groaned Badger. ‘What can we do?’

‘We still have the stream at the foot of the hill,’ said Fox.

‘It must be just a muddy trickle by now,’ retorted Badger. ‘With all the animals in the wood using it, it’ll be dry in a few days.’

Tawny Owl rustled his wings impatiently. ‘Why don’t you go and look?’ he suggested. ‘There are sure to be others there. Perhaps someone will have an idea.’

Without another word he jumped off the branch, flapped into flight and disappeared.

The last faint rays of daylight were gone as Badger and Fox descended the slope into the depths of the wood. Everywhere the ground was baked hard, and even the quivering leaves on the trees sounded brittle and dusty. Only the darkness around them was any comfort: that familiar, noiseless darkness that enfolded the timid animals of Farthing Wood in a cloak of security.

Badger and Fox trotted along, shoulder to shoulder, each wondering what they would find at the stream. Neither animal spoke. Eventually they could see some movement ahead. A number of creatures were jostling together on the banks of the stream, milling about in a rather purposeless, disconcerted manner. There was a family of fieldmice, and about half a dozen rabbits, all of whom scuttled away when they saw Fox approaching.

A number of hedgehogs remained. Some of them stood their ground, but the majority quickly rolled themselves up, projecting their spines in a precautionary way against the two most powerful inhabitants of the wood.