March On, March On

[Sweder]

Time to test the limbs this morning.
What a contrast! Whereas on Sunday the heavens were burdened with lead-lined cloud and the air filled with icy barbs and biting winds, now a rising sun kissed my face out of a clear blue sky. I ran carefully, checking all points south as I plodded through the boggy slopes of Landsport Bottom and Wicker Man Hill. General soreness aside there was a niggling tightness in my right calf, but this seemed to ease, caressed by the flow of warm blood through pasty legs revealed to the world in shorts for this first time this year.

The dawgs came along, minus one; Willow (Spaniel) is still not fully recovered from whatever ailed her last week and was left whimpering at the kitchen door, a pair of the largest, saddest eyes you’ve ever seen watching us leave. Just over two and a half miles in, hauling onto Blackcap’s brow, I noticed Tess, the ten-year-old whippet, make a sharp dash into a gorse bush. There followed a great commotion and a chilling, high-pitched scream cut off by the sound of a dry twig snapping under a heavy boot. A furry creature somersaulted out of the bushes, dead before it hit the cold hard ground.

I’m not one to enjoy the hunt, albeit in this case a natural pheonomenon. Tess is a thoroughbred, a working whippet, no Crufts-bound show-dog this one. She’s a killing machine, bred for rapacious speed and ruthless efficiency. Her modus operandi has always been stealth, lightening speed (I’ve seen nothing quicker over the first ten yards) and instant, merciless despatch. Taking the prey by the neck she jerks her head, sending the unfortunate animal spinning over her shoulder, snapping the neck in an instant. I stared at the victim, a buck, almost as large as Tess herself. The assassin looked pleased with her work, trotting around her catch, sniffing and prodding with her nose to confirm a clean kill. She took up the rabbit in her mouth as gentle as you like, trotting off in the direction of home.

I set sail myself, Gypsy, thankfully a hapless hunter at the best of times, lolloping close to heel, seemingly embarrassed by the whole episode. Tess cruised ten yards back, the lapine corpse limp in her panting jaws, her eyes fixed on mine as I looked back. There was no doubting the extra spring in her step, the pride with which she displayed her prize. I’ve given up admonishing her for these occasional atrocities; it is, after all, like Aesop’s fable about the Scorpion and the Frog. Despite being helped across the river by the frog the scorpion fatally stings her. Horrified the Frog cries out ‘Why?’ To which the scorpion replies: ‘You knew what I was when you offered me help. I'm a Scorpion; it's in my nature’.

In some ways I have to admire Tess. Rather like that other Ash, the duplicitous android in Alien, admired the xenomorph butchering the crew of the Nostromo:
I admire its purity.
A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

In human terms Tess is in the twilight of her active life, her hunting powers supposedly on the wane. But what she may be losing in reaction times she is replacing with experience, guile and excellent hearing.

A mile further on Tess had lagged some thirty metres behind, her burden taking its toll. I could see the task was beyond her, watching in morbid fascination as she fussed over the corpse, looking from it to me and beyond to the long trail home. After a few seconds she made her choice. Reluctantly, like a mother leaving a child, she lay her quarry gently across the worn farm track, trotting on alone, casting forlorn glances back to her abandoned ‘baby’.

Home in 50 minutes for a darned good stretch.
I’d like to get one more of these in before Sunday.
Without the drama.