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‘But what about you?’ Nab whispered.
‘I'll be all right. They rarely manage to kill us with their death sticks. We’re too quick for them. Now, keep quiet.’
They lay side by side on the earth behind the oak. Nab could feel the damp coming through his layers of bark and his knees were sore. As the Urkku came closer and he became more frightened, his hands reached out to feel the rough bark of the oak and he gained comfort from the power and strength of the tree. He looked at Rufus. The fox’s eyes were staring at the Urkku with a black intensity and his quivering body seemed about to explode with energy. They were now barely twenty paces away and Nab’s heart was pounding so strongly that he felt certain they must have heard his frightened rasps of breath. Rufus looked at him and put his paw on the boy’s arm; then he burst out from behind the tree and glided noiselessly away through the tufts of grass and around the fallen logs that littered the floor, his great bushy tail flowing away behind him.
Nab watched as one of the Urkku caught sight of a flash of brown and shouted to the other, pointing excitedly at the undergrowth. They both raised their guns and the boy’s heart stopped as two shots echoed through the wood; desperately he looked for the fox and then to his relief he saw him by the stile at the edge of the field ru
‘Look, Jeff; I told you. It’s a kid.’
Nab heard the Urkku behind him and felt pressure on his shoulder as a hand gripped him and tried to raise burn up from Rufus’s body. He had forgotten the fox’s last words to him, that he was not to move until it was safe, and he realized with a shock of remorse that Rufus had been killed trying to protect him but now, through his own fault, it had been in vain.
The boy tried to jump up but found that he couldn’t; the Urkku had too firm a hold of him.
‘Steady, kid. Who are you? Chris, look at it! It’s dressed in bark; and look at its hair. I don’t think it can speak. What’s your name, kid? See if the fox is dead, Chris.’
Nab watched in horror as the other Urkku put his boot under Rufus’s body and kicked it over; the head pointed straight up for a second or two and then toppled over the other way. Then the Urkku pulled out a knife and hacked at the tail; when it had come off he kicked the fox over so that it landed nose down in the ditch, its once magnificent body spreadeagled and twisted crazily so that its back legs faced one way and its front legs the other. Suddenly all the sadness and grief that Nab felt turned into a searing anger and hatred and he tore free of the Urkku’s hand and flew at him, biting and scratching at the man’s face. The force and energy with which the boy charged were enough to knock him over and they rolled on to a tussock of grass as the gun went flying. Nab felt his nails sink into the man’s cheek and as he drew his hand down he felt blood.
‘Get him off! For God’s sake get him off.’
The other Urkku grabbed the boy tightly around the waist and pulled him away; he struggled ferociously but the Urkku was too strong and he was unable to break free. The man on the ground slowly got up, cupping a hand over his cheek where three large gashes oozed blood.
‘Come here, you little brat. I’ll teach you,’ and, while the other held Nab, he struck him across the face repeatedly with the back of his hand.
‘Take it easy Jeff; it’s only a kid.’
‘I don’t care – look at my face.’
‘You’ll be all right, it’s only a scratch. Well, we can’t leave him here. Best take him back home where Ma can decide what to do.’
Nab redoubled his efforts to get free as he realized with sudden panic that the Urkku intended to take him away from the wood. His mind swirled as hundreds of thoughts raced through it; images of the Urkku homes he had built up from conversations with Bibbington and Cawdor and Rufus; plans of escape; dreadful worries about where he would sleep tonight and what the Urkku were going to do with him; thoughts of Brock and Warrigal and Perryfoot and Tara coupled with terrible fears that he might never see them again. Then through all his panic would flash, clear and still, a picture of Rufus as he lay on the damp bracken dying, and the tears once again began to flood from him.
He felt himself being half dragged, half carried through the wood towards the stile and he was pulled roughly over it into the field. He was still struggling and biting and scratching but the numbness in his face and jaw and his desperate fight with the Urkku had taken their toll of his body and he could no longer muster the energy to do more than wave his arms around in a pathetic token gesture of aggression. He saw Silver Wood recede as he was taken across the field; the winter evening was now drawing in and the wood looked black, deep and impenetrable. Nab was somehow amazed that through all the terrible events of that afternoon it had remained exactly the same, nothing had changed; his rhododendron bush was still there and so were all the great trees. It had simply watched impassively as the horrors had unfolded before it and he felt vaguely resentful at its inability to help him.
They passed the pond as great black clouds began to appear in the grey sky bringing little spots of rain in the wind which stung his face and mingled comfortingly with his tears, as if all Nature were crying with him. As they reached the rise at the top of the little hill past the pond the Urkku stopped for a rest. Nab looked back at the wood standing aloof in the distance. It was his home, he had never slept anywhere else and now he was being taken away, perhaps never to see it again. His heart was heavy and his stomach felt as if a thousand butterflies were fluttering inside him; suddenly he felt the arms round his stomach tighten and he was pulled off again down the far side of the slope. Desperately he tried to fix a picture of the wood m his mind and his eyes clung to the treetops as they got smaller, until eventuallу they disappeared out of sight behind the top of the hill.
CHAPTER IX
The single spots of rain that Nab had felt before now turned into a downpour; great sheets of water seemed to be falling from the sky and the Urkku were ru