The animals feared autumn; not because of its natural sadness or because it heralded the beginning of winter but because it was the season in which, after a period of delicious peace during the summer, the Urkku amply compensated for the rest with a time of killing and slaughter which was the most terrible of the year. Nab was now allowed to watch the Urkku from the shelter of his bush, although Brock was always with him to make sure he did nothing foolish. Although Nab had been told, when he had seen animals that had been shot, that their death was the doing of the Urkku he had become confused this summer because he could not reconcile the image he had built up of them as a race of savage killers with the reality of the two he had actually seen. However, as he watched with mounting horror and shame the activities of members of his own race as they spread terror and pain throughout the wood, his confusion gave way to a seething anger. With every crack of a shot which echoed through the wood his whole body ached as he imagined the pain that was being inflicted, and Brock was always having to restrain him from rushing out of the bush to attack the Urkku.
That autumn the killing seemed to be particularly bad; more Urkku seemed to Come and they came more often. The wood seemed to be constantly full of the lingering smells of gunpowder and cigarette smoke and wherever Nab went he found reminders of them. The undergrowth was crushed, branches were broken, toadstools had been kicked over and tufts of bloody fur and feathers lay amongst the withering brown leaves. The wood seemed defiled and, unable to escape the oppressive weight of their almost constant presence, Nab’s moods wavered from a brooding silent depression to a seething rage.
The animals crept furtively through the bushes, moving quickly and quietly so that the whole wood seemed to have died. The rabbits, led by Pictor, had suffered particularly severely this autumn as the result of a new method of killing which meant that they were now no longer safe even at night. Nab had been out in the wood the first time it was used and watched it in operation. He had been crouching down behind the old rotten stump of a silver birch picking a toadstool and examining it for worms when he had suddenly become aware of the most terrible noise, grinding and clanking, coming from the direction of the pond. Looking up he had seen an enormous Urkku machine lumbering and lurching its way ponderously over the field towards the wood. The clouds were covering the moon that night and it was dark but Nab could make out the shape of the machine; it seemed like an ordinary tractor with a large trailer behind such as he had seen in the fields on hundreds of previous occasions, but somehow, at night, it seemed terrifying, like an enormous beast. When it arrived in the middle of the field at the front of the wood it shuddered to a halt and suddenly Nab was blinded by a bright shaft of light that shone straight in his eyes; he could see nothing and do nothing; he shook his head and screwed up his eyes in panic but when he opened them again he found that the light had gone from directly in front of his eyes and was moving away to his left in a great white beam that came from the trailer and searched across the field. As the light moved on, it found three rabbits who had been eating just to the front of the wood; they stopped exactly as they were when the light had caught them, paralysed with fear and unable to see just as he had been. Two shots split through the night and two of the three toppled over onto their sides, their legs kicking in the air. The third one was galvanized into action by the shots and began to scurry away but, instead of turning to its side and so getting out of the light, it ran down the path of light which shone from the trailer. Nab heard the guttural sounds of an Urkku as it whooped with delight at the prospect of some sport and the machine started to clank and grind on in pursuit of the rabbit, which was now hopping pathetically from side to side in its prison of light. The laughter and shouts of the Urkku as they tried to make it run faster filled Nab’s ears and head and his stomach felt sick. He watched as the rabbit eventually became so tired and confused that it stopped and, turning round, ran back up the shaft of light towards the tractor in a last panicking attempt to escape from its torment. Nab’s ears rang from the shot and the rabbit looked as if it had run into an invisible wall as it was suddenly flung over into a backward somersault and landed kicking on the grass. The boy watched as the tractor stopped and two Urkku jumped down and ran to pick up the dead rabbits. They threw them into the back of the trailer and then the machine went back the way it had come to disappear finally as it went behind the hill at the back of the pond.
The mellow autumn golds eventually turned into the cold grey shades of winter and the winds came to blow off the few remaining leaves from the trees; only the oak leaves clung stubbornly to their branches, the last to come and the last to leave. Nab was out with Rufus in the late afternoon not many moons after the incident with the rabbits. The fox had been showing Nab the spot where he’d seen some chickweed growing at the back of the wood by the little stream and the boy had gathered a handful to take back for his meal with a few hazel nuts from his store. The fox’s head bobbed up and down beside him as they made their way back to the front of the wood.
‘You’ll be able to pick at that chickweed all winter; I’ve never seen it there before,’ said Rufus.
‘Yes. I had to go down to the big stream before. It will be a big help,’ the boy replied. He didn’t often go out with the fox who always foraged for food on his own, but Rufus often came to the rhododendron bush to tell the boy about places which none of the other animals had been to or else to recount legends of the Fox from the time Before-Man, when foxes lived, not as they did now in isolated individual holes but in a vast underground colony which stretched as far as the mind could think about and were ruled by the Winnat – three foxes whose bodies were covered in beaten copper wrought for them by the Elvensmiths in return for an alliance with the Elflords.
They walked in silence for a while until suddenly Nab felt a sharp tap on his leg as the fox knocked him with the side of his head. As he stopped Rufus motioned to him to get down. The boy dropped quietly to the ground and followed on all fours as Rufus silently led the way to some cover behind the base of an oak.
‘Look,’ whispered the fox.
Nab looked out over the bleak winter fields but could see nothing at first. Then he saw, just coming into sight on his left, two Urkku walking along the front of the wood, both with their guns tucked under their arms. They were talking very quietly and looking intently all around. Nab looked at the fox, who motioned him to lie down flat; he himself was crouched as if to spring, with his whole body quivering, his sharp ears erect and the black tip of his nose twisted to one side as it strained to pick up every scent on the air. The Urkku stopped and looked around them; for one long agonizing spell they seemed to be staring straight at the oak tree and then their gaze moved on. Suddenly, to Nab’s horror, he saw one of them motion with his head to the other in the direction of the part of the wood where he and Rufus were. They took the guns from under their arms and held them with one hand under the barrel and the other by the trigger, ready to raise to their shoulders and shoot, then they began to advance slowly in to the wood. Nab looked at the fox in panic.
‘Listen,’ said Rufus. ‘They don’t know we’re here but if they carry on as they are doing they are bound to find us. If they come too close I’ll run off towards the front of the wood so that they can see me. That should take their attention away. You must stay here and not move until you feel it’s safe. Then go straight for your bush and stay there. Above all, stay where you are until they’ve gone; I’ll try and get them to follow me.’
