George Dubya Goes Ballistic
July 4th 2006

Gladys stamped into the kitchen , kicking off her gumboots and slamming the screen door. “Those thieving, blimmin’ rats have been at my eggs again!” she stormed. “If this goes on they’ll be stealing the chooks next. This can’t go on.”

Uncle Harry bent over the farming page and said nothing.

The recent cold weather had brought a swarm of rats into the hen house. Harry hated rats but he also resented the way the chooks claimed Gladys’s attention. She spent more time fussing over her white leghorns than Harry thought was healthy.

“Harry?” Gladys’s voice had an insistent edge. Harry sighed.
“All right, Glad. I’ll put some baits out.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Harry Clout! What if my chooks eat those baits? No, it’s shooting or traps for those vermin.”
“Sounds like a job for young Sam.”

The following day Harry was working in the toolshed when he was hit in the back of the neck with a jet of cold water. Startled, he spun round and slowly raised his hands above his head. Confronting him was a pocket-sized commando brandishing a pump-action water pistol. A BB gun was slung over one shoulder, a home-made bow and a quiver of toi-toi arrows over the other. His face was smeared with green paint, but it couldn’t conceal the broad grin or mop of unruly blond hair that flopped across his eyes.

“Sam, you little blighter! That’s a poor way to announce yourself.”
Sam was delighted. “That’s one-nil to me, Uncle Harry. Anyway, it’s the holidays. Mum told you I was coming for the week.”

Sam was Harry’s great-nephew; ten years old and skinny as a waif. Sam loved mucking around on the farm. His passion, however, as his get-up suggested, was hunting. Harry was very fond of him.

“We’ve got a special mission, Sam,” Harry lowered his head conspiratorially.
“Cool!!!” Sam’s eyes shone.
“Not cool, Sam. Nasty. Rats.”
“Tough customers, Uncle Harry?”
“Yep, and lots of them, Sam.”
“Then it’s a good thing I brought my secret weapon.”

Sam hitched a small pack off his back and hauled out a half-grown cat.

“Uncle Harry, meet George Dubya.”

George Dubya swung in mid-air, his paws swatting at Sam’s wrist. He was as scrawny and under-sized as Sam, a motley of black and brown with a long streak of ginger down his spine.

“I brought him to get some lessons from Tiger, Uncle Harry.”
“Well, we’d better introduce him to the old master.”
Harry picked up Sam’s pack and steered him towards the back door. “How come you called him George Dubya?”
“Oh, that was mum’s idea. I wanted to call him Osama.”

Tiger, Harry’s huge and ancient tom, was curled up in front of the fire. His fur was grey with age and patchy around his shoulders and neck where he bore the scars of many fights. Tiger ruled Hardtop Farm with an iron claw and a single gleaming eye – he’d lost the other to fireworks in his youth.

Sam dropped George Dubya on the carpet and stood back. The young cat reached a tentative paw towards Tiger’s tail. Tiger lay unmoving. George Dubya batted Tiger’s tail then wriggled his hind quarters and pounced. He never got far. With one flick of an enormous paw Tiger batted the small cat into the wood box. George Dubya crawled out, dazed, and tottered onto the hearth rug. Tiger cuffed him gently then licked his ear. With the pecking order established the two cats settled down to sleep.

After dinner Harry prepared for the rat hunt. Gladys was washing dishes. “For such a scrawny boy that young Sam certainly can eat.”
“Where is he?” Harry looked around.

At that moment Sam appeared. “Look what I’ve made,” he crowed. In his hand he carried a spear, fashioned from a long piece of dowling with a four inch nail stuck in the end. “Those rats won’t know what hit them.” He whooped with anticipation.

Harry found his .22 and they set out across the frozen yard. Tiger stalked behind, with George Dubya scampering at his tail.

In the henhouse the chooks huddled on their wooden perches, muttering in their sleep. The large shed stank of chicken droppings and sawdust. Harry shone his torch into the rafters where, for a moment, the beam of light was reflected in dozens of pairs of gleaming eyes. Then the rafters themselves seemed to spring to life as dozens of rats scurried away from the light.

“They’ll have made nests in the sarking,” Uncle Harry whispered to Sam. “We’ll get up there and root them out. Follow me.”

Harry crept past the sleeping chooks into the feed room. A flash of grey fur shot past as Tiger leapt into the loft, followed by the ginger streak of George Dubya.

Harry and Sam watched in the spotlight as Tiger stalked along a rafter then reached up high into a gap in the roof. Three or four large grey rats tumbled out. Tiger caught one in his teeth and flung it through the air. It hit a roof joist with a crack that broke its neck, its body tumbling through the rafters to the sawdust floor below.

“You take care,” Harry whispered to Sam. “Stay on these planks so you don’t end up down there like that rat.”

Harry crawled forward on his stomach, following the beam of his spotlight. The air was thick with dust. A rat dropped in front of him and he shot it with the .22.

He was lining up another when Sam yelped behind him. He spun the light around to see Sam on his knees, the spear raised high above his head. With a wild cry Sam flung the spear. It whistled past Harry’s nose and embedded itself in a rafter.

“For goodness sake, Sam! You could have taken my head off!”
“I got him! I got him, Uncle Harry!” Sam was bouncing excitedly on the narrow plank.

Harry shone the torchlight onto the spear. A large rat was caught, dead through the neck, fastened to the rafter by the point of the still-quivering spear.

“Geez, Sam. That’s impressive. Now lie down before you fall down.”

Up ahead the rats kept dropping as Tiger worked his away along the rafters. Harry shot two or three more and Sam winged one with his BB gun.

Suddenly there was a flurry in the far corner and a yowl of anger from Tiger. Harry shone his torch into the dust and saw Tiger wrestling with the biggest rat he’d ever seen. As he watched the rat bit Tiger on the neck. Tiger howled with pain and fled into the darkness.

With a scrabbling of claws a small fury with a ginger stripe shot past Harry and hurled itself at the monster rat.

George Dubya was launched into battle.

Harry and Sam watched in disbelief as the tiny cat clung to the enormous rat. They wrestled along the narrow rafter, tumbling in the dust until, with a yowl they dropped into the henhouse, landing in the middle of the sleeping chooks.

The hens erupted in an explosion of feathers and squawks. They flew panic-stricken into the rafters and feed troughs. They upset water buckets and wedged themselves into nesting boxes.

Through the chaos Harry kept the beam of his torch fixed on the momentous battle until the rat, rolling to his feet, shot out the door and into the night with George Dubya clinging desperately to his back.

With the hens awake there wasn’t much more Harry and Sam could do. They headed back to the house, Tiger in front sporting a bloody scratch on his shoulder.

“Should we search for George Dubya, Uncle Harry?” Sam’s voice was worried.
“He’ll give up when he’s had enough,” said Harry.

There was a sudden scream from the house. Rushing into the kitchen they saw Gladys staring, horrified, at the floor. There, under the table, was George Dubya, covered in blood and dirt, his fur torn and one ear practically chewed off. Beside him lay the long grey tail of the giant rat, torn off at its root.

“Oh, look at the poor little cat!” exclaimed Aunty Gladys, “he must have a terribly sore ear.”

“Never mind his ear,” chuckled Uncle Harry, “that rat must have a terribly sore backside.”