CHAPTER 9
“Was it Babe?”
“Go home, Pig!” said Farmer Hogget in a voice that was so quiet and cold that Babe hardly recognized it. Bewildered, he trotted off obediently, while behind him the farmer picked up the dead ewe and carried it to the Land Rover. Then with Fly’s help he began the task of rescuing those sheep that were caught or stuck, and of making sure that no others were badly hurt. This done, he left Fly to guard the flock, and drove home.
Back at the farm, Babe felt simply very very sad. The sky was still cloudless, the air still crisp, but this was a very different pig from the one that had cantered carefree up the hill not half an hour ago. In those thirty minutes he had seen naked fear and cruelty and death, and now to cap it all, the boss was angry with him, had sent him home in some sort of disgrace. What had he done wrong? He had only done his duty, as a good sheep-pig should. He sat in the doorway of the stables and watched as the Land Rover drove into the yard, poor Ma’s head lolling loosely over the back. He saw the boss get out and go into the house, and then, a few minutes later, come out again, carrying something in the crook of one arm, a long thing, a kind of black shiny tube, and walk toward him.
“Come, Pig,” said Farmer Hogget in that same cold voice, and strode past him into the stables, while at the same moment, inside the farmhouse, the telephone began to ring, and then stopped as Mrs. Hogget picked it up.
Obediently Babe followed the farmer into the dark interior. It was not so dark however that he could not see clearly that the boss was pointing the black shiny tube at him, and he sat down again and waited, supposing that perhaps it was some machine for giving out food and that some quite unexpected surprise would come out of its two small round mouths, held now quite close to his face.
At that instant Mrs. Hogget’s voice sounded across the yard, calling her husband’s name from the open kitchen window. He frowned, lowered the shiny tube, and poked his head around the stable door.
“Oh there you are!” called Mrs. Hogget. “What do you think, that was the police that was, they’m ringing every farmer in the district to warn ’em, there’s sheep-worrying dogs about, they killed six sheep t’other side of the valley only last night, they bin seen they have, two of ’em ’tis, a big black un and a little brown un, they say to shoot ’em on sight if you do see ’em, you better get back up the hill and make sure ours is all right, d’you want me to fetch your gun?”
“No,” said Farmer Hogget. “It’s all right,” he said.
He waited till his wife had shut the window and disappeared, and then he walked out into the sunlight with Babe following.
“Sit, Pig,” he said, but now his voice was warm and friendly again.
He looked closely at the trusting face turned up to his, and saw, sticking to the side of Babe’s mouth, some hairs, some black hairs, and a few brown ones too.
He shook his head in wonder, and that slow grin spread over his face.
“I reckon you gave them summat to worry about,” he said, and he opened the gun and took out the cartridges.
Meanwhile Fly, standing guard up in the far field, was terribly agitated. She knew of course that some dogs will attack sheep, sometimes even the very dogs trained to look after them, but surely not her sheep-pig? Surely Babe could not have done such a thing? Yet there he had been at the center of that scene of chaos, bloodstained and standing over a dead ewe! What would the boss do to him, what perhaps had he already done? Yet she could not leave these fools to find out.
At least though, she suddenly realized, they could tell her what had happened, if the shock hadn’t driven what little sense they had out of their stupid heads. Never before in her long life had Fly sunk to engaging a sheep in conversation. They were there to be ordered about, like soldiers, and, like soldiers, never to answer back. She approached the nearest one, with distaste, and it promptly backed away from her.
“Stand still, fool!” she barked. “And tell me who chased you. Who killed that old one?”
“Wolf,” said the sheep automatically.
Fly growled with annoyance. Was that the only word the halfwits knew? She put the question differently.
“Was it the pig that chased you? Was it Babe?” she said.
“Ba-a-a-a-abe!” bleated the sheep eagerly.
“What does that mean, bonehead?” barked Fly. “Was it or wasn’t it?”
“Wolf,” said the sheep.
Somehow Fly controlled her anger at the creature’s stupidity. I must know what happened, she thought. Babe’s always talking about being polite to these woolly idiots. I’ll have to try it. I must know. She took a deep breath.
“Please…” she said. The sheep, which had begun to graze, raised its head sharply and stared at her with an expression of total amazement.
“Say that agai-ai-ai-ain,” it said, and a number of others, overhearing, moved toward the collie.
“Please,” said Fly, swallowing hard, “could you be kind enough to tell me…”
“Hark!” interrupted the first sheep. “Hark! Ha-a-a-a-ark!” whereupon the whole flock ran and gathered round. They stood in silence, every eye fixed wonderingly on her, every mouth hanging open. Nincompoops! thought Fly. Just when I wanted to ask one quietly the whole fatheaded lot come round. But I must know. I must know the truth about my Babe, however terrible it is.
“Please,” she said once more in a voice choked with the effort of being humble, “could you be kind enough to tell me what happened this morning? Did Babe…?” but she got no further, for at the mention of the pig’s name the whole flock burst out into a great cry of “Ba-a-a-a-abe!”
Listening, for the first time ever, to what the sheep were actually saying, Fly could hear individual voices competing to make themselves heard, in what was nothing less than a hymn of praise. “Babe ca-a-a-a-ame!” “He sa-a-a-a-aved us!” “He drove the wolves awa-a-a-a-ay!” “He made them pa-a-a-a-ay!” “Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hoora-a-a-ay!”
What a sense of relief flooded over her as she heard and understood the words of the sheep! It had been sheep-worriers, after all! And her boy had come to the rescue! He was not the villain, he was the hero!
Hogget and Babe heard the racket as they climbed the hill, and the farmer sent the pig ahead, fearing that perhaps the worriers had returned.
Under cover of the noise Babe arrived on the scene unnoticed by Fly, just in time to hear her reply.
“Oh thank you!” she cried to the flock. “Thank you all so much for telling me! How kind of you!”
“Gosh, Mum,” said a voice behind her. “What’s come over you?”