Four Ducks on a Pond Page 4

  Yes, that tells you what happened. No sooner had Fionna and Margie gone, leaving a very empty feeling of sadness behind them, than the shocking news spread like magic through the district. Foot and mouth disease had struck the Isle of Mull. Cattle only two miles away were infected. Eight vets were already on their way to supervise the slaughter of contacts. Yes, SLAUGHTER. I’ve written it huge because that’s what it was. HUGE.

  And these memories have so upset me that I’ll have to stop writing about them until tomorrow.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There was a bath of disinfectant at the front gate. There was a bath of disinfectant at the side gate. There was a bath of disinfectant at the back gate. And anyone entering our grounds had to wash his shoes in that disinfectant before entering the gates. Rushes soaked in disinfectant were spread on the drive, to clean the wheels of any approaching cars, and every day a vet called to look at the goats and the bullocks. These vets wore gumboots and mackintoshes and sou’westers so that they could be sprayed with disinfectant before and after their visits. This must have been very trying, for the weather was warm and it was necessary for them to walk many miles every day on their tours of inspection, because their cars could not get by road to anything like all the suspect crofts and farms.

  Arnish butting Flora

  Let me say here and now that nobody could have carried out a hateful, indeed repugnant, job more tactfully and with greater thoughtfulness than did those vets. Every cloven-hooved beast in a given area had to be destroyed. That was the law and it had to be carried out, no matter what private opinions there might have been about this wholesale slaughter. But the distress this edict wrought can scarcely be described.

  Often and often the family had grumbled at the stray flocks of sheep which had a way of finding our land more tasty than the vast areas they were supposed to graze, and consequently it was very difficult to keep them from climbing into our fields, knocking down the stones from the top of the walls and doing no end of minor damage. Now it was known that these very sheep would have to be destroyed, the family would gladly knock down the walls themselves to admit the poor victims, if by doing so, they could have given them sanctuary. But of course that couldn’t be.

  No time was wasted in carrying out the slaughter policy. A huge pit was dug in the waste land behind our house, and on a bright Saturday in May the macabre procession of cattle moved along the road to the pit. There was a shot, a flick of a tail, and the animal fell into the pit, to be followed by the next animal. Finally, the calves were led to the pit, and those too small to walk were carried.

  Afterwards a lorry laden with quicklime was driven up to the pit, and a crowd of men got busy with spades, first shovelling in the quicklime, then covering up the huge grave. And that was that. I don’t know where the sheep were buried, lambs and all, and I never enquired.

  I’ve told you as briefly as possible, because I don’t want to disgust you or tear at your heartstrings. But I expect when you hear about outbreaks of foot and mouth on the wireless, you think all the important news is over, so you just switch off and never give it another thought. Unless it is in your area and the animals that have been part of the landscape are suddenly there no more, and the people you know, who have reared and loved those animals, are faced with this terrible loss; then you realise what that brief announcement means, and you pause to think and pity and wish you could help.

  By great good fortune, the area to be cleared for the present outbreak ended at the side road over by the church. That meant there was some waste ground between us and the infected land. At any moment an animal on our side of the road might become infected, and that would mean our own bullocks and goats would have to go to a horrid pit somewhere.

  I think Puddy’s worryings must have been beyond imagining, for she worried so much anyhow! She tethered Arnish and Flora so that they could not leave our grounds; she reinforced the fence, so that there was no chance of the bullocks escaping, and she would not take Corrie out on the road for fear of carrying home germs. Corrie became quite incredibly fat – but that is to digress.

  When Carla was taken for walks, she was dipped in the tub of disinfectant on her return home, and from that time to this, Carla hates walks, remembering always that horrid ducking.

  In order to help, I gave up my courtship of a particularly attractive young cat at Kintra (one of the villages in the infected area) and confined my activities to wiping out a few more rabbits and a great many mice. But a little incident will show you how thoughtless one can be – even I, who pride myself in trying to please.

  Just after the foot and mouth outbreak, when the vets had first arrived and everyone was feeling rather confused, I set off for Kintra, and because of a contretemps with a couple of rivals, I stayed there rather longer than I had expected. A couple of days in fact. Returning home one afternoon and feeling, I may say, rather the worse for wear, I found Puddy at the front gate, talking to two of the vets.

  ‘We have absolutely no contacts with anything outside our own land,’ I could hear her saying. ‘I never even take the pony out. So you can’t think that the goats are likely to be infected. Nothing from here goes anywhere else.’

  Imagine how I felt as I approached the gate! It was too late to slip away and hide, for already I had been seen. I could feel Puddy looking at me in dismay and anxiety, and I knew the vets were looking at me too. She went on talking to distract their attention. I climbed under the gate, and very carefully and deliberately walked in a circle round the disinfected straw. It was the best I could do, to undo the wrong I had done, though I hated the smell of the disinfectant, and knew that I would hate still more licking it off my paws. It might even kill me, but if I had brought germs to my dear friends, I deserved to die.

  I was so ashamed that I scarcely went near the house for days, except for meals. I lived in daily dread that one of our animals would break out with the disease. I told Corrie something of my fears, but not everything, for I did not want to distress her kindly heart too deeply. She was already much upset, for all round us the still, quiet countryside seemed to impress on us, in its strange silence, the catastrophe that had befallen our land.

  Then one day, with my anxiety almost at breaking point, Puddy came out and untethered the goats. ‘We’re out of quarantine. We’re safe,’ she told them delightedly, and Arnish rose up on her hind legs and dived down on Flora, just for the sheer joy of being released from captivity. Whether she knew the reason for that tether, I have no idea, but I overheard her saying to Flora that this was the result of having Tories in power. It was a shocking statement, but I had long ago found that politically-minded people don’t care at all what outrageous and untrue statements they make about one another, so it’s no use getting upset about it. However, I resolved that I would avoid politics, and so avoid having to tell a pack of lies to my friends.

  It would be a while before the people whose animals had been destroyed would be allowed to restock, so the air of sadness hung over the district for some time. Those few who, like us, had escaped, talked in hushed voices of their good fortune, and of their sympathy for the ones who suffered.

  The disinfectant tubs were removed from the gates (the straw had blown away from the drive long ago) – and the urgent notices warning people about infected property were removed. Corrie was taken out on the road and sweated so much with the little scrap of exercise that Puddy had a fit of worrying about her, fearing she might get pneumonia. Carla continued to slink away, avoiding walks. Peter and Iain chewed the cud and appeared not to know anything had ever been amiss, and Arnish redoubled her propaganda about the New Era.

  Inside the house, Kitten cooked and cleaned, and Grandpop mended things – the car, the roof, the electric-lighting plant, anything that was broken at all. And as he mended, he hummed his little hums, particularly one about counting your blessings, which he had heard sung during Community Hymn Singing on the wireless, and which reminded him of his happy student days in Edinburgh – days which he
never ceased to recall and which made him sometimes feel very nostalgic. John finished his packing and his fencing and his instructions to Puddy about what she was to do while he was away. Then one day he and all his baggage were heaped into Florrie, and Puddy drove him off, and returned much later, alone.

  So he left in the car, not the bus, which showed that his departure was important. As the car left the drive, Corrie neighed and I meowed, but I’m afraid he never heard us.

  There is something wrong with Florrie’s silencer, and a little meow and a low whinny could never penetrate through the din of the engine. All the same, we did our best, and some day, if he reads these words, he’ll know we are thinking of him and loving him yet.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Puddy is not the sort to sit down under depression and mope. On the day that horrid pit was dug, she moved a broody hen into a box and she went off in Florrie to a farm right out of earshot of the sound of the humane killer, and she brought back twelve duck eggs, which she set under the broody hen. After that, she was in a constant state of worry about the rats eating the eggs, and you’d never believe the number of contraptions she erected round that box to keep it rat-proof.

  Ducks

  Then one day Archie-the-Carrier arrived with his lorry, and on the lorry he had a beautiful rat-proof coop and run that Puddy had ordered from the mainland. Very carefully she transferred the hen and the eggs into their new home, and after that she didn’t worry about rats any more.

  Archie-the-Carrier paid us lots of visits, as he brought the sacks of grain, the manure, the fencing stobs, wire netting and indeed every manner of thing that could not be bought in the village store. Archie was always very cheerful and in windy weather he kept his hat tied on with string. Whenever the family thanked him for bringing things he said, ‘You’re welcome,’ which I think is one of the nicest ways of telling people that you are happy to serve them.

  The oats were showing very green now, and Puddy was working busily in the garden, a very unrewarding task, for the rabbits somehow always managed to find a way in, and they made havoc with the things she tried to grow. She now chose flowers that they didn’t like eating, such as gladioli and lupins, but unfortunately she couldn’t do the same with vegetables. The fruit trees she had planted last year were in blossom but I feared the wind would blacken the leaves before the fruit began to form. I was wrong here, for two of the trees produced quite good red apples which Kitten picked before the wind could blow them off. Before John left, he planted four poplar trees as an experiment. There is a high hawthorn hedge round the west and north sides of the garden, but it does not give enough protection from the wind, and if these poplars are a success Puddy means to plant more, just inside the hawthorns. On the east side there is fencing, and laburnum and lilac trees. The laburnum flowered beautifully but the lilac never seems to flower. On the south there is a privet hedge, which divides the garden from part of the paddock. Corrie once came through this hedge to have a look at the garden, so now it is reinforced with a low wall.

  Mostly the garden grows weeds, and when I say weeds, I don’t mean the odd dandelion. Puddy’s weeds are champions, the burrs being perhaps the biggest and the best, with leaves the size of a tennis racquet, and they tower over Puddy, who says the roots are twice the length of her height.

  The cuckoo had arrived, and we were never allowed to forget it for long. The skylarks, who build their nests on the ground – the wild field where Corrie now lives was a favourite spot – flung their glorious song as they flew higher and higher, vanishing like a speck into the sky, and I believe that even if the family didn’t love birds, I would never touch a skylark, even though many’s the time I’ve almost trodden on their nests. Perhaps I must be a musical cat, for I always notice the song of birds. And you should hear the blackbirds, who like to perch on the chimney stacks and give a recital to warm the cockles of your heart. But if you know what the cockles of your heart are, you are cleverer than I am.

  Kitten was wonderful with birds. She would stand at the back door, throwing crumbs and whistling, and in no time she would have birds of all sorts hopping round her, quite unafraid. Then the goats would come clicking along to join the party, and off would fly the birds, to Kitten’s annoyance, and the goats’ pleasure. This was very tiresome of the goats, for normally they will not touch any tit-bit that falls on the ground.

  Johnnie-the-Postman was always very much looked forward to, as I’ve told you already, but now, with only half the family at home, the arrival of the mail was more important than ever. Fionna’s letter came once a week, on Monday unless for some reason it had missed the collection, and when this happened it came on Tuesday. Fionna’s letters were brief, rather messy and absolutely full of drawings, mostly of horses. During the autumn term, she gave the score of the hockey matches which her boarding house played against other houses; in spring she gave the score of the lacrosse matches and in the summer the cricket and tennis matches. And she wrote about Gilly and Jelly and Horsey and Sago, but they were nothing to do with food, as you might suppose. They were the names of her friends, and for a time I wondered what their godfathers and godmothers must have been thinking about, giving the children such names. Then I realised that they were probably pet-names, like Puddy and Kitten, so perhaps their godfathers and godmothers weren’t so thoughtless after all.

  Margie’s letters came every few days, written very big so that they looked very long until you read them. Margie was absolutely well now and wished she could leave London and live in Mull for ever. John’s letters were long when they came, which wasn’t often. They were always very cheerful, and Puddy said that even when he was snowed up in the trenches in Italy during the war, his letters had been cheerful. So as he was living in Stirling Castle, I suppose he could feel very cheery indeed. Secretly I was most impressed by his address – Stirling Castle. I made a point of reading about it in the history books in the cottage, and exciting reading it made too. The names it conjured up – the Black Douglas, Robert the Bruce and Mary, Queen of Scots. After a while I became a fervent Scottish Nationalist until I remembered the dire effects being political had on people, and not wanting to become narrow-minded like Arnish, I read the Elizabethan voyages of discovery and my sense of balance was restored.

  Just four weeks after Puddy had put the eggs under the broody hen, she came into the house very flushed and excited, saying that she could hear cheeping under the hen and could just see one egg half open and a feathery duckling inside. I made an excuse to go out of doors, for I wanted to see the miracle myself. However, the hen looked so angry when she saw me approach, and she fluffed her feathers so indignantly, that I pretended I was simply walking past and stalked off into the garden. Don’t think I was afraid of that hen – not me! Besides, the wire netting that kept the rats out of the run also kept the hen inside. But I had heard that hens at this time are in an odd mental condition, and may kill the chicks if danger threatens. That hen should know by now that I’m not Danger; all the same, it wouldn’t do to run risks, and I just don’t know what Puddy would do if she lost her ducklings now, just as they were hatching.

  The next morning, Puddy was down early, and I left the electric-lighting plant house, where I had spent the night, as soon as I heard her open the kitchen door. Carla greeted me with more exuberance than seemed to me necessary, and when I had righted myself from the somersault I had unwittingly turned, I followed Puddy to the coop, and there, sure enough, was the broody hen and eight tiny ducklings with golden bills and huge web feet! Carla and I sat quietly together, for Carla can be quiet if she likes, while Puddy removed the four eggs that had not hatched, together with the empty egg-shells. Then she put some clean straw gently under the hen, and added a dish of water alongside the food she had already placed in the run. The ducklings scuttled quickly under their foster-mother but soon they were out again, splashing in the water. It’s a curious fact that while a new-born duckling enjoys a swim, it will die of chill if caught in the rain. I wondered if Puddy
knew this, and soon found that she did, for whenever there was a drop of rain, she covered that coop with a tarpaulin. And this she did till the ducklings, who grew at an astonishing rate, were quite able to withstand all manner of weather.

  That poor hen must have wondered a lot about the curious shape her chicks had become. I often saw her look at the other baby chicks, who were now running around in the hen-run, and when she could, she pecked at them through the bars. I put this down to jealousy. She must have resented those chicks looking so much prettier, as she thought, than her own brood. Personally, I found the ducklings enchanting, with their khaki feathers and yellow chests. Later on, two of them developed bright bills and more vivid feathers, and those, Puddy said, were the drakes and would be the first for the pot. Which I considered was most unfeeling of her.

  I heard Puddy say to Grandpop and Kitten that the hatching of those eggs quite made up for the dreadful slaughter of the animals, and I could understand what she meant. In the balance of things, eight little ducks don’t add up to much compared with hundreds of head of cattle, yet the very fact that an apparently dead thing like an egg can turn into a living thing like a duckling is a startling and wonderful manifestation, if you think of it at all. That’s why I called it a miracle when I first referred to it. People wouldn’t want to have seas dividing and rivers running backwards if they’d stop to think seriously about eggs.

  This brings me to a personal matter, which in fact my dissertation on eggs is leading up to. I had become the father of five lively kittens, three girls and two boys. Their mother was a wild cat with whom I had become friendly, and she had a nice home for them in a rabbit-hole under a whin bush in Corrie’s wild field. Don’t think that when I say the mother was a wild cat I mean one of the big snarling brutes still to be found in remote parts of Scotland. The wild cats in Mull are descendants of domestic cats, probably some of those left behind at the time of the dispersal of the Highlanders.