Ian was going to leave his car in Stoke and walk from there. His movements could be watched from the firs or the stream as far as the badger fortress but no farther. Once he had rounded that tangle of thorn and bramble he could hack his way into it. Rather belatedly I remembered that he was over fifty, and advised him to leave all violent action to me if there had to be any.
He replied that he was a hard-working farmer and far fitter than he had been at the end of the war; he guaranteed to carry me any time a hundred yards farther than I could carry him. No, his chief objection to the whole plan was that he had to walk across somebody else’s land carrying a gun and couldn’t think of any convincing excuse if he met the owner.
I ate my chicken and drank half the bottle. A little after seven there was a sharp, freshening shower. I was glad that Ian, farmer or not, was safely tucked into the badger fortress where hardly a drop would penetrate. The evening turned out to be one of gold and gray, innocently English and less glaring than the previous night, which stuck in my mind as black and crimson.
At half past eight I set out and took the field path down from the north, for I was not going to trust myself to the Stoke road. Ian was in position. His field of fire was deadly, but he had made himself a bit too comfortable. The dark hole under dead brambles was obvious as I came along the tiger’s expected line of approach. I bent down a branch and tied it inconspicuously so that the leaves drooped across the mouth of the tunnel.
Then I went round the end of the badger fortress and, presumably, into full view of my executioner if he had already returned to the firs or to the bridge. The nearest patch of cover on that side gave him a range of a hundred and forty yards. I felt at first a little naked, in spite of being certain that he wouldn’t draw attention to himself by carrying a rifle; that if he did have one I should long ago have been found dead in the cottage garden.
I climbed into the alder and sat still. The sun set, and the world became pearl gray. It was such a familiar world. How many times I had watched my gentle, nervous little mammals under exactly similar conditions! I heard badger cubs yelping underground that it was time to go out. They stopped that very suddenly. A sharp nip from mother had probably impressed upon them that there were two smelly boots down the back door and that long and careful exploration was needed before going out of the front.
Partridges called from the tussocky grass behind me. A little owl landed on the hawthorn opposite with what was probably a shrew in his talons. That was the only sign of any violence at all in the hunting dusk. Cows had been let into the field across the stream since the afternoon, and slowly shifted their groupings as they tore at and chewed —most peaceful of sounds —a last bite of the rich grass along the water.
There was no moon, and under the overcast sky the fight faded early. I no longer fussed about the range of a hundred and forty yards; what began to matter was how much we two enemies could see at ten. The stream and its boggy edges protected my front. Out to my right there was featureless meadow upon which anything which moved could be spotted. Behind me was rough grass on a slight but uneven slope, terraced and pitted by the paths of sheep and cattle through the winter mud. I felt confident that my trained ears would hear anyone who tried to move over this; and anyway it was partly covered by Ian. To my left and overshadowing me was the black bulk of the badger fortress, which smothered all possibility of seeing and listening. The darker it got, the more certain I became that my assassin could not miss the opportunity I had arranged for him, and that the trap would work. From moment to moment I expected to hear Ian’s challenge and shot.
The tiger was leaving it late. I wondered again how much he knew of naturalists. In the unlikely event of a badger leaving the sett on my side I would only have seen his streak of white. There was no conceivable point in staying up in the alder unless I intended to take flashlight photographs. And I was not carrying a camera.
For distraction I gave the badgers some of my attention. One had possibly crossed the stream and was keeping his usual obstinate course, for a cow blew hard and moved away. That aroused a question in my mind, but thereafter the movements of the cattle were perfectly natural. I could hear the tearing gradually die away as one by one they lay down. Two or three followed the course of the stream and I could just see the black bulks across the water. Out of sight, immediately below the fortress, another squelched through the boggy ground, then passed across my front and vanished.
After that there was absolute silence. I heard Ian cautiously change position. I knew what the faint crackle was, but the tiger could not possibly know — if, that is, he were anywhere near and not enjoying his after-dinner coffee miles away or waiting for me at the Warren. I decided that I had finished with that cottage. It was a good base for attack if the enemy had given me plenty of time to observe him and his ways, but it was hopeless for defense.
I began to feel drowsy and changed position. It did not matter how much noise I made except from the point of view of putting on a convincing act. The muscles beneath my thighs were sore and painful from resting across a narrow branch, so I drew up my feet and squatted knee to chin. From a distance I must have looked like a bulky, shapeless bird roosting dangerously close to the ground.
It was that movement which saved me. Out of the tail end of my eye I saw the silhouette of the lower end of the badger fortress harden, detach itself and charge. There might have been just time to shoot, but shooting had never been in my mind. From my coiled-spring squat I sailed into the air out of the alder and came down feet foremost on to the great dome of thorn and bramble like Brer Rabbit hitting the briar patch. I sank up to my chest, for the moment not noticing at all the little furies of thorns. I thought I was a better target than ever, but I cannot have been. The longer stems of hawthorn opposite my face must have masked me, though I could see clearly through them.
Ian yelled and struggled to get out of his tunnel. The big, dim figure under the alder jumped back, evidently startled that there was another person present. In half a dozen strides he had merged himself again with the darkness at the lower end of the badger fortress, where he seemed to hesitate. Then I heard him splosh across the stream. I just had time and enough sense to whisper to Ian, who was three-quarters out of his hole, that he should talk loudly about frightening the badgers and ask me what the hell I thought I was doing.
It took me a painful ten minutes to extricate myself with the aid of the clippers. I couldn’t go up, and I could only sink down by degrees. When at last I was standing on earth, striped all over by superficial scratches, I had to get out feet first by way of Ian’s hole.
Why the tiger should have mistrusted the obvious and expected line of approach I did not then know, but I was on the right fines when I wondered how much he had seen of naturalists and their ways. How he had come up was clear. He had very slowly and cautiously moved among the cows, never startling them but gradually shifting them down to the water. That, as Ian pointed out, was not so easy. It was another slight indication that Isaac Purvis’s gentleman really did own or farm land.