Read Online Little Foxes by Michael Morpurgo - Free Book Online Page B

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