Willard (Ratman’s Notebooks) Read online

  I have made a house for Socrates. A sort of dolls house, I suppose you’d call it. Anyhow it’s inside the tool shed, and it’s got electric light. It’s wonderful what you can do if you try. I’ve no experience of carpentry or working with electricity, but there it is. It’s not really separate like a doll’s house. You can’t lift it up and take it away. It’s built into a corner of the tool shed, on the bench. It’s even got heating. I bored holes in the bench with a brace and bit and fitted a sort of box below. Inside the box I put a tin with an electric light bulb in it. When you switch on, the bulb heats the tin and warm air flows up through the holes in the bench into the house. I had some difficulty getting switches which would turn on and off easily enough to be worked by a rat. However, by dint of fiddling with them a bit, I have managed to fit switches that Socrates can work. I have had to be very careful. I don’t want any short circuits which might start a fire. Another difficulty was to make Socrates understand about the heater. He learned to work the light switches very quickly, because these gave instant results. But it’s quite a time before the heater begins to take effect. I had to demonstrate it time after time. He tumbled to it in the end, but what a job! The whole electricity supply comes from a plug in the garage. I’m sure the electricity people wouldn’t approve of it, but they shan’t ever see it There’s nothing wrong with it really. The part outside is lead-covered cable and I’ve put it underground.

  There’s Mother calling. I wonder what she wants now. She thinks I should spend all my spare time with her, running little messages, listening to her reminiscences.

  You’d think that by this time I should be able to write a book about rats, but in fact I know very little about them. Of course I know Socrates very well, and from time to time I still see his mother. Apart from that, there are about twenty other rats which I can recognize as individuals. All of these are, I think, males. I can’t be sure, because I still can’t see any difference between males and females. It’s just that none of them has ever had any appearance of carrying young.

  All these rats I have tried to train. With about a dozen I have had some success. The others are failures who keep coming to the shed in the hope of getting a share of the scraps I bring. I would like to get rid of the failures, but I don’t like actually to chase them. The rats obviously trust me and I don’t want to destroy that trust, though eventually I shall have to make some sort of selection.

  The successful rats all have one physical characteristic in common, furry tails. I don’t know if this means that there are normally two different types of rat, one with furry tails and one with scaly tails, or whether the furry tails are just a peculiarity of the Socrates family. Socrates’ mother has the ordinary scaly tail and so, I think, have his brothers and sisters. The trouble is I don’t know which are his brothers and sisters. I’m inclined to think all the scaly-tailed rats who hang round are brothers and sisters, but I’m not sure. This leads me to wonder if all the furry-tailed rats are Socrates’ children. It is certainly Socrates who brings them along. At least I think it is. I don’t see them arrive. From time to time I come in and find a new young rat with Socrates. The new one stays close to Socrates for a day or two. Then it joins the others. Perhaps he just brings along the brightest rat out of each litter. Horrifying thought! This would mean that Socrates would have had a dozen families in the comparatively short time I have known him.

  There is one other thing about the furry-tailed rats which I think is different. I think they have slightly larger heads and perhaps larger eyes, but I’m not sure. I don’t know how you’d set about measuring the size of their heads—and eyes would be impossible to measure.

  The difficulty about getting to know anything about rats is that so much of their life goes on underground. I don’t know if my rats—the rats I know—are part of a large colony or just a family group. If there’s a colony, I don’t know what they live on. So far as food’s concerned, I think most rats must have a pretty poor time. This means that rats have a poor time in general. I mean, when you get down to it, food is the main thing in life. You won’t get far without it.

  Tonight when I went to the shed there was a big scaly-tailed rat there. I knew at once that the other rats were hostile to it. I would have liked to chase it away, but I didn’t. Partly I was afraid. It’s a big rat. I thought if I tried to chase it it might attack me. If it did, I don’t know what the other rats would do. I imagine they would take my side, but I’m not sure. Perhaps their loyalty to their species would be stronger than their loyalty to me. If all the rats in the shed, twenty or so, went for me at once I don’t think I’d have much chance. I saw what they did to the tires, I am certainly not as tough as the covers of a motor tire.

  So I took no action. I carried on as if the strange rat was not there. I put out the food for the furry-tailed rats. This is always a bit of a problem in any case. The regular scaly-tailed rats always get some of it, though I try to ensure that their share is as little as possible. If only the rats would eat the food where I give it to them, this would not be difficult. But they won’t. They insist on taking it away and eating it close to the wall, preferably in a corner. An artificial corner does as well as a real one. I mean, if they can get behind a box or something they are perfectly happy. I can understand this feeling. When I go into a restaurant I don’t like a table in the middle of the floor. I like to be against a wall or in a corner or behind a pillar. In a rat restaurant there would be no tables in the middle of the floor.

  When a new young rat comes along with Socrates, I make a point of giving him something directly out of my hand. He then endeavours to take it away to some secluded spot to eat it. As often as not he is set upon by the older scaly-tailed rats who roll him over on his back and take it from him. So far as I can see, the rat which is attacked is not hurt in any way, but the method of attack is always the same and the young rat submits to it without any apparent attempt to fight back. As the young rat grows up, which doesn’t take long, these attacks gradually cease. It surprises me a little that Socrates never interferes. At first I expected him to come to the help of his young hopefuls, but he never paid the slightest attention.

  This new rat, however, is an adult and under nobody’s protection. It is obviously completely on its own. I wondered what would happen. I waited till Socrates and some of his family were well away from the newcomer. Then I put down some bits of bread and cabbage in front of them. Immediately the big rat came pushing forward. He didn’t exactly dash forward. He moved quickly and at the same time with a sort of deliberation and force as if nothing would put him off his course. Yet he didn’t get the food. The other rats snapped at him and crowded in front of him. By the time he got to where the food had been, it was all gone. It had all gone to the furry-tailed rats. I wondered then if the scaly-tailed rats accepted the fact that the furry-tailed ones get priority. Thinking back, I am inclined to think they do, in spite of robbing the young ones. What it amounts to is that my favour for the furry-tailed is taken by the others as a right the furry-tailed ones have acquired. The furry-tails form an aristocracy, perhaps a priestly caste. The scaly-tails instead of siding with the intruder, who is scaly-tailed like themselves, support the system which is in power.

  After a time all the furry-tails had been fed. The scaly-tails had all got a little, except the newcomer. In spite of his size he had been kept off. What’s more, he seemed to accept this in a sad sort of way. He made no attempt to fight for food. Yet obviously he was very hungry. At last I took pity on him and deliberately gave him the last bit of cabbage stalk. I kept the others away while he ate it.

  After this I started “Lessons” as usual. “Lessons” are only for the furry-tails. The others take no part and don’t attempt to interfere. “Lessons” are simply teaching the rats to understand what I say. Teaching them the names of things is by now pretty easy, but to order them about I need to teach them a lot more than that.

  The big rat got in the way. When I said, “Go into the watering-can,” he w
ent too, without in the least understanding—he just followed the others. And when I said, “Now come back to the bench,” he was in the way. They had to heave him out of the mouth of the watering-can. Then he followed them to the bench. In all this the other scaly-tailed rats took no part. They just watched.

  I didn’t do much more. In fact I’m not sure what I want to teach them. I’ve got a vague sort of idea that I ought to be able to get some advantage from my trained rats. I could train more and more until I had quite an army. Surely I could do something with an army of rats. Of course I could exhibit them. People would probably pay to see performing rats, but I wouldn’t like that. I mean going on the stage and that sort of thing. I don’t like anything public. Surely I could get rats to do things for me, things nobody else could do. But what? I can’t think of a single thing, except the tires on Jones’s car, and it won’t be dark enough for that for another fortnight.

  Last night I pinched a huge leek from Major Koblnson’s garden down the road. It’s wonderful how easy it is to pinch the odd thing from people’s gardens. Who’s going to miss one leek? Of course I did it after dark and then I had to boil it without Mother seeing. I waited till she’d gone to bed.

  Tonight I’d meant to give the rats a lesson in cooperation, but the big rat spoiled it. He’s really becoming a nuisance. I went out immediately after tea and got the leek from where I’d hidden it, above the door of the coal-house in the yard. The moon was shining and it was quite bright. I took the leek up the garden and put it down between the shed and the greenhouse, right out in the open. I knew the rats wouldn’t want to eat it in the open. They’d want to drag it away into shelter of some kind.

  When I felt that the leek was in the absolute centre of the space, equidistant from the shed, the greenhouse, the frames, and the hedge, I went back to the shed for Socrates. I carried him out and put him down beside the leek. All the other rats came with me, the furry-tailed ones close to my feet, the regular scaly-tailed ones a little behind, and the big intruder ranging up and down, not accepted by either group.

  My object was to persuade the furry-tails to co-operate and drag the leek right round the shed and in the door. Inside the shed was the only place where they could be really safe from all marauders. But it was the longest haul.

  At first, as I had expected, the furry-tails gathered round the leek and all began to pull in different directions. “Stop!” I said sharply. “Food to shed.”

  They were puzzled. All the furry-tails understood the words I had used. But they didn’t connect them. I don’t know if the scaly-tails understood anything or not. They were just waiting in the background to see if there would be any of the leek over when the furry-tails had finished with it. After a moment two of the furry-tails set off for the shed without the leek. The others watched me. If I had done nothing more they might all have gone back to the shed, or they might have attacked the leek again and torn it to pieces. “No,” I called. I picked up one end of the leek and began to drag it slowly along the ground. “Take—food—to—shed.” I emphasized each word.

  Socrates of course tumbled to it first. He jumped forward, caught the leek, and, walking backwards, began to tug it along in the direction of the door of the shed. I immediately let go. “Good,” I told Socrates.

  “Good” is a word they all understand. Several of the furry-tails went at once to Socrates’ help. The others joined in. There wasn’t room for all of them actually on the leek, but they gathered round and the leek moved slowly and steadily towards the tool-shed door. The scaly-tails followed at a respectful distance. It was like a funeral, with the leek as the coffin, the furry-tails as the bearers, and the scaly-tails as the general body of mourners.

  Then the decorum of the proceedings was suddenly upset. The big scaly-tailed intruder darted in, seized the trailing end of the leek, and began to tug it in the opposite direction. For a moment the furry-tails were bewildered. I was annoyed, but amused at the same time. The delay was only for a moment. The furry-tails gathered round the intruder and pushed him off, snapping at him, but not so far as I could see actually biting him. The intruder didn’t snap back. He made one or two more attempts to dart in at the leek, but they were not successful.

  Then I noticed a funny noise. At first I didn’t know what it was, a sort of high-speed rattling, not very loud, but very sharp. It came in bursts, like a sort of miniature machine-gun, only the bursts lasted longer and the sound was thinner. It had an instant effect on the rats. They all froze—and then I realized it was Socrates. His teeth were chattering. I couldn’t think what had happened to him. I wondered had he suddenly gone mad or hysterical. At the same time I was slightly frightened, or at least uneasy. If the other rats hadn’t been there I might have stroked him or picked him up. Probably it’s just as well I didn’t. I think it was something in the attitude of the other rats which prevented me. The chattering went on in bursts for two or three minutes. All that time none of the other rats moved.

  When it stopped they all moved very quickly—all except Socrates and the big brown rat. You couldn’t say the others made a ring. There wasn’t a ring, but all the rats except Socrates and the big brown rat had moved out of the way. It was a sort of sudden shuffle and there they were with the deck cleared for action, so to speak. Socrates and the big rat about two and a half feet apart, with the leek, deserted, between them and the other rats.

  Socrates had another spell of teeth chattering.

  The big rat nibbled at the ground as if he had found a grain of food there or something, but I don’t think he had. I think he was just nervous.

  Socrates’ teeth stopped chattering. He took a step or two towards the big rat. His hair was standing on end. He shitted and pissed. The other rat shitted too, but I didn’t notice whether he pissed or not. I thought Socrates was going to go for the other rat straight away, but he didn’t. He arched his back and began to circle round the other one with little short steps as if he were dancing on his toes. He didn’t seem to be looking at the other rat, though of course rats look sideways. Anyhow, he kept his side towards the big one. He went right round him twice and all the time the big rat never moved, except for his little nibbling at something on the ground.

  Next Socrates leaped into the air. He came down on the big rat’s back. His jaws snapped. He seemed to bite the big rat’s ear. There was a moment of flurry. The big rat shook his head and seemed to try to get away. He didn’t fight back. He half rolled over and in a moment they were apart again, both quite still, waiting. I suppose they stayed like that for a minute, maybe a little longer. Then very slowly the big rat moved away, six inches, a foot, two feet, three feet, four feet. There he stopped. “Shoo,” I said, but he went no farther. He was already separated from the other rats, an outcast, a leper.

  For a long time nothing happened. Presently one of the furry-tails began to nibble at the leek. “No!” I called. “Stop! Leek to shed.” Immediately I corrected myself, “Food to shed.” I repeated it several times. “Food to shed. Food to shed.”

  Socrates was the first to recover his wits. He picked up his end of the leek again and began to drag it towards the shed as if nothing had happened. Good old Socrates. Victorious in battle against a far bigger opponent. Like David and Goliath. “Lucky you didn’t get killed,” I said to Goliath. “Yeller, aren’t you!” I felt quite proud of Socrates.

  The other furry-tails began to help again, pulling the leek along. The scaly-tails followed, but did nothing. Once more it was like a funeral, a funeral with one mourner who couldn’t quite keep up. The big rat trailed dismally along about two feet behind the last of the other scaly-tails.

  They got the leek round the corner and in through the door of the shed. As soon as the last of our own rats was in I shut the door. The big rat was left outside. That’ll teach him to come poking his nose in where he’s not wanted.

  The reason I saw all this so clearly was because there was a full moon. It was almost as bright as day.

  Going up to the she
d this evening it was dark and there was a slight drizzle. I couldn’t see a thing. I stumbled over something that felt soft and rather horrid. I had a torch with me. I put it on and shone it on the ground. There was a big, dead rat lying right in the middle of the path. I felt sure at once that it was the big rat Socrates had fought the other night. I turned it over gingerly to try to see what had happened to it, but there was no mark on it except a little dried blood on the ear. Perhaps it was poisoned. I hope not. If there is poison about, my furry-tails might get it. I wouldn’t mind about the scaly-tails. If we could get rid of all of them I should be delighted.

  Jones gets smugger every day. He’s so pleased with himself. It just oozes out of him. I gather the firm has had a good year, and of course he thinks he’s done it all himself. So he has in a way, by sweating it out of the rest of us and keeping us at starvation wages. All the same, he’ll get a queer shock when he finds his tires torn to pieces. It will make him feel unsafe. The tires one night, maybe Jones himself some other night. I don’t mean that’s what’ll happen. I mean that’s what he’ll think. If he doesn’t, I’ll put it into his head.

  The time approaches.

  Mother was late with tea. Tonight of all nights! But it was the second time recently. It always used to be on the table prompt at half past six. It’s no good complaining. She’d just tell me she wasn’t brought up to this sort of thing, meaning that when she was young, fifty years ago, they kept a cook, a parlourmaid, housemaids, kitchenmaid, bootboy, and all the rest of it. Back to that I suppose would be her idea of heaven. Send up someone from hell to do a bit of scrubbing. But apparently in heaven it’s the angels who do the chores, while the few humans who make it just hang about it taking it easy, like the Victorian upper classes.