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Nascent Drama

"I do not believe that," he said. "Dork Lord fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. I saw him myself. Did we not give him 'Animal Hero, first Class,' immediately afterwards?"
 
"That was our mistake, comrade. For we know now-it is all written down in the secret documents that we have found-that in reality he was trying to lure us to our doom."
 
"That was part of the arrangement!" cried Dual. "GTC's shot only grazed him. I could show you this in his own writing, if you were able to read it. The plot was for Dork Lord, at the critical moment, to give the signal for flight and leave the field to the enemy. And he very nearly succeeded-I will even say, comrades, he would have succeeded if it had not been for our heroic Leader, Comrade Dershocka. Do you not remember how, just at the moment when GTC and his men had got inside the yard, Dork Lord suddenly turned and fled, and many animals followed him? And do you not remember, too, that it was just at that moment, when panic was spreading and all seemed lost, that Comrade Dershocka sprang forward with a cry of 'Death to Humanity!' and sank his teeth in GTCs leg? Surely you remember that, comrades?" exclaimed Dual, frisking from side to side.
 
Now when Dual described the scene so graphically, it seemed to the animals that they did remember it. At any rate, they remembered that at the critical moment of the battle Dork Lord had turned to flee. But Gagh was still a little uneasy.
 
"I do not believe that Dork Lord was a traitor at the beginning," he said finally. "What he has done since is different. But I believe that at the Battle of the Cowshed he was a good comrade."
 
"Our Leader, Comrade Dershocka," announced Dual, speaking very slowly and firmly, "has stated categorically-categorically, comrade-that Dork Lord was GTC's agent from the very beginning-yes, and from long before the Rebellion was ever thought of."
 
"That is the true spirit, comrade!" cried Dual, but it was noticed he cast a very ugly look at Gagh with his little twinkling eyes. He turned to go, then paused and added impressively: "I warn every animal on this farm to keep his eyes very wide open. For we have reason to think that some of Dork Lord's secret agents are lurking among us at this moment! "
 
Four days later, in the late afternoon, Dershocka ordered all the animals to assemble in the yard. When they were all gathered together, Dershocka emerged from the farmhouse, wearing both his medals (for he had recently awarded himself "Animal Hero, First Class," and "Animal Hero, Second Class"), with his nine huge dogs frisking round him and uttering growls that sent shivers down all the animals' spines. They all cowered silently in their places, seeming to know in advance that some terrible thing was about to happen.
 
Dershocka stood sternly surveying his audience; then he uttered a high-pitched whimper. Immediately the dogs bounded forward, seized four of the pigs by the ear and dragged them, squealing with pain and terror, to Dershocka's feet. The pigs' ears were bleeding, the dogs had tasted blood, and for a few moments they appeared to go quite mad. To the amazement of everybody, three of them flung themselves upon Gagh. Gagh saw them coming and put out his great hoof, caught a dog in mid-air, and pinned him to the ground. The dog shrieked for mercy and the other two fled with their tails between their legs. Gagh looked at Dershocka to know whether he should crush the dog to death or let it go. Dershocka appeared to change countenance, and sharply ordered Gagh to let the dog go, whereat Gagh lifted his hoof, and the dog slunk away, bruised and howling.
 
Presently the tumult died down. The four pigs waited, trembling, with guilt written on every line of their countenances. Dershocka now called upon them to confess their crimes. They were the same four pigs as had protested when Dershocka abolished the Sunday Meetings. Without any further prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Dork Lord ever since his expulsion, that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an agreement with him to hand over Animal Farm to Bickendan. They added that Dork Lord had privately admitted to them that he had been GTC's secret agent for years past. When they had finished their confession, the dogs promptly tore their throats out, and in a terrible voice Dershocka demanded whether any other animal had anything to confess.
 
The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion over the eggs now came forward and stated that Dork Lord had appeared to them in a dream and incited them to disobey Dershocka's orders. They, too, were slaughtered. Then a goose came forward and confessed to having secreted six ears of corn during the last year's harvest and eaten them in the night. Then a sheep confessed to having urinated in the drinking pool-urged to do this, so she said, by Dork Lord-and two other sheep confessed to having murdered an old ram, an especially devoted follower of Dershocka, by chasing him round and round a bonfire when he was suffering from a cough. They were all slain on the spot. And so the tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Dershocka's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of GTC.
 
When it was all over, the remaining animals, except for the pigs and dogs, crept away in a body. They were shaken and miserable. They did not know which was more shocking-the treachery of the animals who had leagued themselves with Dork Lord, or the cruel retribution they had just witnessed. In the old days there had often been scenes of bloodshed equally terrible, but it seemed to all of them that it was far worse now that it was happening among themselves. Since GTC had left the farm, until today, no animal had killed another animal. Not even a rat had been killed. They had made their way on to the little knoll where the half-finished windmill stood, and with one accord they all lay down as though huddling together for warmth-Gonad, Ilyanna, Jack, the cows, the sheep, and a whole flock of geese and hens-everyone, indeed, except the cat, who had suddenly disappeared just before Dershocka ordered the animals to assemble. For some time nobody spoke. Only Gagh remained on his feet. He fidgeted to and fro, swishing his long black tail against his sides and occasionally uttering a little whinny of surprise. Finally he said:
 
"I do not understand it. I would not have believed that such things could happen on our farm. It must be due to some fault in ourselves. The solution, as I see it, is to work harder. From now onwards I shall get up a full hour earlier in the mornings."
 
And he moved off at his lumbering trot and made for the quarry. Having got there, he collected two successive loads of stone and dragged them down to the windmill before retiring for the night.
 
The animals huddled about Gonad, not speaking. The knoll where they were lying gave them a wide prospect across the countryside. Most of Animal Farm was within their view-the long pasture stretching down to the main road, the hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the farm buildings with the smoke curling from the chimneys. It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the sun. Never had the farm-and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their own property-appeared to the animals so desirable a place. As Gonad looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when Kerb Crawler first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Kerb Crawler's speech. Instead-she did not know why-they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of GTC, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Dershocka. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the bullets of GTC's gun. Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.
 
At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was unable to find, she began to sing Beasts of England. The other animals sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times over-very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it before.
 
They had just finished singing it for the third time when Dual, attended by two dogs, approached them with the air of having something important to say. He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade Dershocka, Beasts of England had been abolished. From now onwards it was forbidden to sing it.
 
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