Sterndale had gathered his pheasants together in the innermost part of the wood where the rhododendrons and undergrowth were so thick that the beaters were unable to get through. They had been there since before dawn and he had been talking to them in his low murmuring cackle, telling them to stay on the ground, keep their heads down and their tails low and above all not to move, no matter how close the beaters came. If they stayed where they were then they would be safe, but if they lost their nerve and flew up they would be as good as dead. Some of the pheasants were last year’s brood and there were a number of veterans of two or even three seasons; these experienced ones knew the routine and were fairly easy to handle. It was the current year’s brood that were always difficult; they had been bom and reared by the Urkku and kept in cages until they were old enough; then they had been let out into the fields and woods around the Urkku dwelling and fed with com twice a day by hand. They had therefore got used to trusting the Urkku and expecting only food and protection from them; they were far more likely to go towards the beaters than away from them and were totally unable to comprehend the fact that if they flew up and were seen they would be shot at and injured or killed. Sterndale had had to have many long and frightening talks with them but it was really only when one of the arrogant young cocks who had consistently accused Sterndale of being old-fashioned and out of touch had come limping back one day with half his chest blown away by the very same Urkku who had some short time previously been throwing down com for him, that they had begun to comprehend. The difficulty was that Sterndale couldn’t explain, because he himself couldn’t understand, why the Urkku went to such enormous trouble to protect them from poison or shooting by any of their natural enemies and then later, when they were fully grown, would organize themselves into groups and purposely try to slaughter as many as they could. In one of his talks with Wythen, the owl had told him that the Urkku were a race of creatures which enjoyed killing and that they protected the pheasants only so that they themselves could have the pleasure of killing them later on, but for a long time Sterndale had been unable to believe that.
The beaters were now coming closer. The cacophony of hoots, whistles and shouts drew slowly nearer and the thrashing of the undergrowth sounded deafening. This was the most difficult part; trying to keep his flock from panicking. He could see some of them now shifting about nervously from foot to foot and in their eyes he recognized the unmistakable glazed look of fear.
‘Don’t move, ’ he cackled as loud as he dared, but his command was lost in the din as the Urkku came nearer until the noise seemed to blot out everything and the undergrowth all around seemed to come alive. Sterndale felt his heart pounding and the blood rushing in his ears as he closed his eyes and with an enormous effort forced himself to blot out the sound and concentrate on rooting his feet to the ground and conquering all the natural instincts which urged him to fly away.
The worst happened. One of the younger cocks, thinking that he saw a chance to defy Sterndale’s leadership and prove himself, took off straight ahead towards the guns. The young hens, who were already terrified, suddenly panicked and, seeing their cock flying off, followed him. Only Sterndale and the other veterans and three or four of the less flighty new hens kept their nerve and stayed where they were. The old pheasant, feeling sick to his stomach, waited an agonizing few seconds and then suddenly the wood erupted into a hideous bedlam of explosions as the Urkku blasted away and the birds plummeted to earth, to land with a series of sickening thuds on the snow. The air was full of the squawks and cries of pain and fear as the injured birds struggled desperately to get away into the undergrowth, leaving vivid trails of crimson over the snow. The cracks of the guns had stopped now and the Urkku were shouting and laughing with joy at the size of their kill. Sterndale and the others, crouching fearfully in the rhododendrons, could hear the loud crashing of the dogs as they ran after the injured or collected the dead to take them back to their masters. Suddenly Sterndale saw a great golden shape bound past a few paces away with a grim look on his face. He stopped and turned and ran back the way he had come. ‘Sam, ’ croaked Sterndale, as quietly as he could, and the dog halted, looked round and then, spotting the pheasant, walked quietly towards him. ‘A slaughter,' growled the dog, ‘a massacre. What went wrong?’
‘Inexperience and panic, Sam, but you had better go back or your human will be leaving you without food tonight or, worse still, he might even get rid of you. You must keep in his favour; we need your information desperately. Look, there’s a young hen, she’s stone dead, pick her up and take her back quickly.’
The dog went off and picked up the dead pheasant. With a last sad look at Sterndale he ran back through the bushes and as he went Sterndale could see the limp head of the pheasant bouncing stupidly against the side of Sam’s mouth. He looked away in anger.
At the front of the wood Brock had watched the proceedings in horror. He could see the Urkku near him very clearly; he had seen the man pull the trigger, had been deafened by the explosions and felt sickened as he heard the sound all around him of falling birds. The last horror was when the man had spotted an injured pheasant, a young cock, dragging its wing along the ground and scurrying to get into the bushes near Sam. The man had laughed gleefully and run after it, to the great delight and amusement of his friends, who had jeered and shouted at him as he waddled clumsily through the snow crying to catch the terrified bird. Eventually he caught it and, after bolding it up in triumph, had wrung its neck.
After this episode they had all proceeded to walk into the wood, still in their line, and Brock had had great difficulty in stopping himself from running out and attacking the man as he moved within paces of the sett. Slowly they had gone through the wood, passing the spot where Sterndale and the others were still hiding, and jumping over the brook to get to the other side. With every shot that came to him over the snow Brock felt a surge of pain and anger as he imagined the horror and hurt that some animal was going through. Time and again, the question ‘Why?’ echoed through his mind.
There were not too many more deaths that day. Three young and inexperienced rabbits, a buck and two does, had escaped Pictor’s control and ventured out to see what was happening; no sooner had they come out of their burrow than a hail of lead cut into them, leaving the two does dead and the buck writhing on the snow with his back legs in tatters. He had pulled himself with his front paws into the cover of the bushes, where Pictor had found him later, still dying, after the Urkku had left. He had suffered horribly for a night and mercifully died the following dawn.
The other losses were five woodpigeons and a hare which had been startled as the Urkku were making their way back through the field. Eventually they had gone, leaving the wood raped and violated after their crude invasion. For days it was impossible for the animals to forget about it; the smells lingered on and the air seemed full of death: one would come across trampled undergrowth or traces of the Urkku such as red cartridge cases still smelling of gunpowder or pieces of paper or the remains of the white sticks they used in their mouths. Sometimes there were the scattered feathers of a bird that had been shot or tufts of brown fur from a rabbit; mute testaments to the sufferings of their owners. The animals were frightened and nervous; they skulked in the shadows and ran to their burrows or flew off at the slightest noise.
