Willard (Ratman’s Notebooks) Read online

  I ran back to the stile which leads from the garden to the field. I stood on the top step. I could see the pool, but I wasn’t close enough to make out what was happening. I got off the stile and tip-toed a bit closer.

  The water was flowing very gently into the pool. All the rats except one were on top of the island. This one was just below the others on the floor of the pool. He was reaching up for the piece of bacon rind I had noticed before, hanging over the edge. He got it and almost at the same moment felt a trickle of water against his tail. He twitched his tail in and hopped up a little on to the lower stones of the island. He wasn’t a bit perturbed. He was able to reach more food from his new position. He started to eat a bit of crust, holding it up in the air between his hands. They were all eating away, unconscious of the rising water. They’d never had a feast like it. Still no sign of Father Rat. I wondered what had happened to him. I didn’t like to think of him escaping. The rat who’d got his tail wet moved a little higher up the shore of the island.

  All the rats went on eating. Slowly the water rose. Two inches deep. If they tried they could still walk through it and jump up on to the edge of the pool, I wondered would they, if they noticed, but they didn’t notice. Three inches, four . . . The rat on the shore hopped up a little farther before the advancing tide. Five inches, six inches . . .

  The water was at least nine inches deep before Ma Rat noticed anything. Even then she didn’t get excited. She raised her head, looked round, sniffed, twitched her whiskers. “It’s too late now, Ma. It’s no good swimming for it. The edges of the pool are smooth concrete. You can scrabble away, but you won’t be able to get a foothold and scramble out. Besides, if any of you look like succeeding, I can knock you back with my stick. I’ve brought a stick out with me specially for the purpose.” I didn’t say this out loud. I thought it.

  Ma Rat went to the edge of the island and peered down. It’s steep there, a sort of miniature cliff edge. No. More like a quay wall. Ma Rat watched the water lapping against the quay wall. She was puzzled. She didn’t know she was living at the sea-side. She started on a tour of the coast. On the way she met her gormless son still peacefully taking his supper among the rocks on the lower part of the shore. She made an angry snap at him with her teeth. She thought he should have noticed something. I don’t know if she actually nipped him or not, but he let out a little squeal of dismay. This upset the whole family. They all started scurrying backwards and forwards, peering at the water from every side of the island in turn. They seemed to think there must be one side where there wasn’t any water.

  I came nearer. I didn’t mind the rats seeing me now. I contemplated the scene. How smoothly the water rose, creeping up the edge of the pool, hardly a ripple anywhere, slow, gray, inevitable.

  At first the rats didn’t seem to notice me. They rushed to and fro uttering their little squeals of excitement. I don’t think they realized yet what was happening to them. Ma didn’t squeal. She knew what was happening. At least she realized the water was rising, that the island was going to be submerged. That was the moment I was waiting for. Would they try to swim for it? Or would they wait till the water was actually lapping over them and swim then?

  Ma stared out over the water. Trying to make up her mind, I suppose. Should she plunge in and swim for the bank, or should she just wait? I thought all rats could swim. But maybe they don’t all know they can. Maybe Ma never had to swim before. I wonder what the water looked like to her. I don’t know how well rats can see. Perhaps they can’t see very far. Perhaps the edge of the pool seemed a long way away.

  Suddenly she caught sight of me. I don’t know how I knew that she’d seen me, but I did. She peered up at me. I stood there on a little mound of the rockery, a huge god-like figure, unmoving, terrible . . .

  The young rats were really scared at last. They were all milling round the island in a panic, screaming, calling on their mother to save them. I’d never heard a rat scream before. Ten of them doing it at once made an appalling row. Ma herself didn’t utter a sound. I didn’t see her simply as a rat any more. I saw her as a mother worrying about her children.

  She stared at me very fixedly. She’d made up her mind what to do. She got into a position . . . I don’t know what to call it. Rats don’t exactly kneel. It was a position of supplication. She clasped her hands together. She prayed to me. “Please save my children. It doesn’t matter about me. Let me drown if you like, but please spare my children.”

  At first I did nothing. I contemplated her quite stonily. They were all crowded together. There wasn’t much island left. Soon they’d start pushing each other off.

  Something happened to me. My stoniness melted. I was filled with compassion. For a moment I didn’t know what to do. Too late to run and lower the sluice-gate. By the time I got the flow stopped the water would be over their heads. I noticed a heavy plank lying at the side of the pool. I had used it as a ramp for the wheelbarrow when I was clearing the rubbish out of the pool. Now I picked it up and edged it across the water till the far end rested on the stones of the island. It made a bridge from the island to the mainland. Ma Rat didn’t waste an instant. She hopped on and came scurrying across with the whole family streaming after her. None of this “After you, Clarence.” Leadership. That’s how she brings up her family. As she passed me she gave a kind of little bow. I don’t know what else to call it. She led her family over to the juniper bush. She put her head between her front paws and bowed down to me. It was a sort of prayer of gratitude. She was acknowledging that I had saved her family.

  I’m puzzled. Does she know it was I who planned the destruction of herself and her family? I don’t suppose so. Probably she thinks I just happened along in time to save them. But I’m not sure. At any rate I feel there is now a definite relationship established between me and Ma Rat. I believe she regards me as a kind of god.

  I went back to the house. “Well?” Mother asked. “How did you get on?”

  “I got the job done.”

  “All of them?”

  “All except the old father. I haven’t seen him for some time. Maybe he’s had an accident, or perhaps he’s got another wife somewhere else.”

  “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Mother said. She likes to be reminded of the wickedness of the world, even if it’s only the rat world. “Did none of them try to swim to the edge and climb out?”

  “Only one. I knocked it back with a stick. It went on swimming round and round for quite a long time. It’s funny. Some of them gave up quite soon and others went on swimming and swimming till I thought they were never going to drown.”

  “But they all did in the end?”

  “Yes. I think the longest must have been about twenty minutes.”

  It’s funny the pleasure it gave me telling these lies to Mother. They were so absolutely deliberate. I relished them.

  But Mother’s a dangerous person to lie to. You need to be very careful. “Did the bodies sink or float?” she enquired.

  I didn’t hesitate a moment. “Oh, they sank. That’s how I knew they were drowned.”

  “I didn’t know whether they’d sink or not. I suppose the bodies are all lying on the bottom of the pool.”

  “They are at present.”

  “I expect they’ll rise to the top in about ten days or so when the gas forms inside them.”

  “Oh, I’ll drain the pond again and clear them away before that happens.”

  She didn’t say anything more, but suddenly I knew that tomorrow, when I was safely away at business, she’d be up at the pool to contemplate the corpses—and nothing would she see.

  I waited for a little and then got up quietly and went out of the room. I went back up to the pool. The island was completely covered now, but the water wasn’t rising any more. It was getting away by the overflow which took it to the stream in the glen at the far side of our house.

  I went into the field and lowered the sluice-gate so that the water stopped flowing into the channel that led to t
he pool. Then I went back to the garden and opened the stop-cock below the pool so that all the water drained out. After that I walked about for a bit to put in time. It was dark when I got back to the house.

  “Where have you been all this time?” Mother demanded immediately.

  “Oh, I thought I’d better finish the job when I was at it. I drained the pool again and cleared out the bodies.”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “Oh, I disposed of them. You didn’t want to see them, did you?”

  “No, of course not.” But she was lying just as much as I was.

  Mother keeps asking me what I’ve been doing. I tell her I’ve been working in the garden. It’s true in a way, though she mightn’t call it work. At the moment she doesn’t feel like coming out on a tour of inspection. The path at the back is too steep. If she does manage it some day, I don’t know what I’m going to tell her. She’s going to have difficulty finding evidence of my work.

  What I’m doing, or trying to do, is to make Ma Rat understand things I say to her. So far my success has been nil. She’s not stupid by any means. I’ve taught her one or two things. I’ve got a big box, lined with sheet metal, where I keep food for her. At first she was frightened of it, in case it might be some kind of trap, I suppose. There’s a door in one side of it which she can open and close herself. It was easy enough to teach her how to open it, but for a long time she wouldn’t close it. I had to get it into her head that if she didn’t close it the food would be stolen. At first I would close it for her. Then I would leave it open the odd time. If it had been left open there’d be no food next time. I had to hold her hands to show her how to shut it. She didn’t like it much at first, but now she trusts me completely—and of course I’m not afraid of her any more. The trouble about speech is that she doesn’t realize it is speech. She knows that I make various vocal noises, just as I know that she makes vocal noises. But I can’t make sense out of any of her utterances. I don’t think there’s sense in them. She signifies fear by screaming—they all do—pleasure perhaps by little grunts, though I’m not sure of this. But it’s not intended to convey any message. It hasn’t occurred to them to use sound as a means of communication. Therefore it doesn’t occur to her that the sounds I make have any particular significance, unless they’re specially loud. If I shout she stops whatever she is doing and looks at me. So I suppose she is learning that I use sound as a means of attracting attention.

  The family I saved from drowning has all disappeared. The new family has been born—I know that by the shape of her, though I haven’t seen any of them yet. I don’t even see her husband. This friendship is a personal thing between her and me.

  I think perhaps I am going to succeed. About a month ago I made two boxes. They’re both more or less the same, though not identical. They’re very rough. I’m not a carpenter by any standards. The boxes have lids with bits of an old strap acting as hinges. The lids aren’t fastened in any way. Every night I’ve been putting the food I bring into one or other of these boxes. Every night I point to one box and say, “Food.” For the last three nights she’s gone straight to the box with the food in it.

  I’ll go on doing this for another week without any change. After that I’ll start pointing to each of the boxes in turn. As I point to one I shall say, “Food.” When I point to the other I shall say, “Empty.”

  I don’t know how long I’ve been at the new system now, probably nearly two months. At last I think I may be getting somewhere. At first I couldn’t tell if she was paying any attention to what I said or not. Once she went to the right box three nights running. The following four nights she went to the wrong one. What makes me think she has begun to listen is that for the past week or so I’ve noticed her watching my face, waiting for me to speak, before she goes to either box. Of course she might be lip-reading. That would be a strange thing, but perhaps not unlikely. I make a great difference in the way I pronounce the two words. I say, “Emmmm teeee,” in a harsh unattractive voice. But when I say “Food,” it’s in a soft caressing tone, “Foooooood.”

  Certainly it’s working, but where do I go from here? Incidentally, Ma’s at her third family since I first got to know her.

  Very strange. Ma appears to have had a family of one, or else something’s happened to the others. Stranger still, she brought this one along this evening and introduced him. It was more than an introduction. You would almost have thought she was giving him to me.

  There is something about him that is odd. I can’t help feeling that he is human. He is not frightened of me at all. When Ma brought him along he looked at me, shyly perhaps, but with no sign of fear. He looked at me as a friendly and intelligent boy might look at a new tutor, who he has been told is very kind. Of course I don’t really know that he is a male. I am convinced he is—on absolutely no evidence. I have no idea how you tell the difference between male and female rats.

  I have called him Socrates. I thought of Samuel, by a peculiar sort of association of ideas, but Socrates is better. He looks so wise.

  Socrates, I would say, is less than half-grown, that is to say he is less than half the size of Ma. I don’t know what age that would make him, but judging by the time since the last family departed, I don’t think he can be more than six weeks old. He is handsome. The fur on his back is dark brown and glossy. His paws and chest and all his underpart are white. He is very clean. His eyes seem a little larger than those of the other rats I have seen and seem to have a sort of gleam of intelligence. This may be my imagination. I’m not sure if eyes are capable of expression. His ears move all the time. When he is looking at me and listening to me his whole expression is alert and bright. At present his tail is pinkish and much thinner than his mother’s. I don’t find it repulsive looking. Perhaps it will get fat and scaly when he grows up.

  He knows his name already. It only took him about fifteen minutes to learn it and funnily enough Ma learned her name at the same time. I just call her Ma.

  Socrates has already learned to pick out the full and the empty box. This all in one evening. I mean it’s only this evening that I saw him for the first time. But I changed my method a little. Instead of saying, “Fooood . . . Emmm-teee,” I changed to “Fooood” and “No fooood” I intend to go on to lots of other things in the same way—“Water” and “No water” and so on.

  Ma didn’t appear tonight. Only Socrates. Ma is about due for another family. She seems to have one about every six weeks. What happens to them all I can’t imagine.

  Socrates learns extraordinarily quickly. First thing tonight I tried him to see if he remembered “food” and “no food.” It was quite clear that he did. I tried him several times, changing the food from one box to another without letting him see. Every time he went to the box I told him the food was in. Next I tried to teach him the word “box.” I touched one box after the other and said, “Boxes.” I think he understands, but it’s impossible to know. If he were a child, he would repeat the words after me, but I can’t expect that. All I’m trying to do is to make him understand what I say, not to make him talk back at me. I ought to be able to think out some system.

  I suppose I’m stupid, but I can’t really think out any system. I just keep talking all the time I’m with him. I’m sure some of it sticks in his brain, but I don’t know how much. I say, “I, me, man,” and point at myself. I say, “You, rat,” and point at him.

  I got a trowel from the tool shed and dug a small hole near the pool in the rockery. I said, “I dig hole. Me dig hole. Man dig hole. I, me, man dig hole.” That was while I was digging. When I had finished I pointed to the hole and said several times, “Hole, hole. Man made hole.”

  Socrates looked at me and he looked at the hole. He seemed to understand. Suddenly I had an inspiration. “Rat-hole,” I said. Sure enough, he scampered away to the hole under the juniper bush. “Man-hole,” I called after him, and he came scurrying back to the hole I had made. Well, that proved that he did understand and that he learns
extraordinarily quickly, but of course I’ve taught him one word wrongly. I’ll have to try to teach him what a man-hole really is.

  Socrates’ tail isn’t pink any more. It’s covered with fine hairs, like a sort of brown fuzz.

  Tonight I set off with Socrates in my pocket to find a man-hole. There are really quite a lot of man-holes, but they all seem to be in the middle of roads. Eventually I got one in what I thought was a quiet place and put Socrates down on it so that he could sniff round and see what it was. The next thing I knew there was a screaming of brakes and here was a car coming straight at us. I dived down, grabbed Socrates, and shoved him under my jacket. But I hadn’t time to jump for the side of the road before the car skidded past sideways making a dreadful noise. I got an awful fright and felt very cross.

  But what do you think happened? The car stopped, facing into the ditch, sideways on to the road, but no harm done. The chap jumped out almost before it had stopped and came tearing over to me, as if there wasn’t a moment to lose. I thought he was going to apologize for nearly running me down. But not a bit of him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said.