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writings of a writing man

Mole catcher

In which Harry Cat earns his Carnation milk and Jones-the-Cat gets some, too.

"John, your cat's digging holes all over my top field."

"Oh dear. Never a moment's peace." I looked closely into Billy's face. He loved to pull my leg and, before dealing with the latest in a line of cat crises I thought it best to judge his mood. It was OK. Billy was having me on. Again.

I decided to play along. "Which one?"

"The grey one."

I knew it. Harry again. Jones-the-Cat was far too busy dozing in the hay barn to be digging holes. No mischief there. But Harry Cat's another kettle of stolen fish altogether.

"I swear, that cat'll be the death of me," I said, as solemn as I could manage.

"Dunno about you, John, but he's doing a good job of killing out there. Come on over and have a look."

I sighed, put my book down, changed reading glasses for seeing glasses and followed along. Down the lane, through Billy's yard and out between the barns to the big gate.

Sure enough. Billy's prime dairy field had its grassy smoothness spoiled by a lot of heaps of fresh-dug soil. There were also a few holes, and one Harry, concentrating fiercely, scrabbling away at a new site.

I was on the point of drawing a deep breath and screeching something loud and rude in my cat's direction when Billy put his hand on my arm and said "No, wait a sec. Just watch what he's up to."

So, we waited. The cat kept on scrabbling. The hole grew deeper, concealing more and more of errant cat. All went quiet. Then there was a distinct squeak and a black furry object flew out of the hole into the air, followed by a cat leaping after it. There was a brief tussle and then Harry stood, panting a little but proudly carrying his deceased prey.

The little beast had taken to hunting moles!

"Harry!" I yelled, not willing to be ignored for another moment. "What do you think you're up to now?"

Harry turned round, hmmphed, then smiled, carefully so as not to loose his catch, and trotted down towards us. A large, very dead mole was deposited at my feet and a desperately proud cat sat back waiting to be praised. Well, it's hard not to, isn't it, when a cat's doing what he's paid for.

Billy roared with laughter. I knelt down and petted little Harry, telling him what a good boy he was. The mole participated not at all.

"I have never, ever seen anything like that before. I reckon he's had a good half-dozen of the blighters this morning alone."

Billy was pleased as punch. He'd been complaining about the mole invasion only a couple of days before and planning a gas attack to clear them out.

Now, before you say "Oh, the poor moles!" just stop and consider the facts for a moment. Mole hills in a dairy pasture are bad news to a farmer. It's not unknown for a cow to place a careless hoof in a soft mole hill and fall over. A fallen-over cow, even if it's not injured, can lead to all sorts of problems. And problems with dairy cows are almost always expensive. On that scale of values a mole in the wrong place is a villain. A cute villain, but a villain nonetheless.

"Oh, Billy, do keep it quiet. I'll never hear the last of it if folks learn about this one."

"You gotta be joking. The blokes down the pub'll think this story's worth a pint or two."

Oh well. It'd be a long time before I lived this one down. Crazy Englishman living alone in a Welsh valley with a mole-catching cat. Next time I called in at the pub I was going to get a jolly good ribbing. I could just hear them. "What do you feed that cat on, John, dog biscuits?" "You sure that's a cat, John? Any good with sheep, is he?" "When are you going to put him in for field trials?"

But, you've got to laugh. And we did, Billy and me and Harry, all in the sun on a quiet Welsh afternoon, and all sharing the same joke.

Billy went off to get a spade to fill in the holes and bang the mole-hills flat.

Harry and I trudged back up the lane, bearing a large mole and big smiles.

Harry disappeared around the back of the wood shed with his kill and I sat down again, picked up my book, changed my glasses, and settled back to read.

Somewhere deep in the hay barn Jones-the-Cat stirred, mumbled, stretched, and wandered over to join us. Time for elevenses. An extra large helping of Carnation milk for Harry was called for this morning. And Jones-the-Cat needed some to compensate him for his own exceptional labours. He may not have earned it quite as dramatically but world-class dozing deserves a reward, too.

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