(Vegetables) Chapter Thirty Seven: The Troops On Manoeuvres

Five hours and three minutes after Richard and Felindre had been taken away , there was a rustling from the field outside the barn. A large herd, or possibly even a horde of rabbits formed up in regimented ranks on the gravelled ground that surrounded the barn.

The barn door opened and closed, and the tap tapping of Mrs K’s cane could be heard crunching on the gravel. She rounded the corner of the barn, and faced the rows of rabbits.

Some of the rabbits were carrying things strapped to their backs. Things that looked remarkably like guns, with very large reservoirs for liquid attached.

Mrs K looked at the troops for a long moment, and then she started pacing up and down, staring intently at them. Most of the rabbits stood to attention. One, in the middle of one of the columns, staggered slightly under the weight of the gun strapped to its back, and fell into its neighbour. Its neighbour snapped at it, and it jumped the other way, landing on the trigger of another rabbit’s gun.

The entire phalanx dissolved into chaos as a stream of high pressure liquid came out of the gun, spraying everywhere, and sending the hapless rabbit who was strapped to the gun tumbling backwards along the gravel.

Every single rabbit in the place fled, and for a moment all you could see was the flash of white rabbit tails disappearing into the shadows of the grass and hedges.

Mrs K looked out over the empty gravel and sighed.

“Rabbits. This is what I have to work with. Stupid, bloody, rabbits.”

She stood there, waiting, tapping her cane impatiently as the (slightly damp) rabbit army slowly reassembled in front of her⁹⁹. When all was present and what might have possibly been correct, she swung her cane up onto her shoulder like a general’s shooting stick and addressed her troops.

“My fellow rabbits,” she declaimed. “We must be strong. Though it may seem that our objective is even further away than ever, let me assure you that we have indeed made progress. We are now well supplied with armaments, and the final part of our ammunition is being made at this very moment. But we cannot rest now. We must continue our training, so that when the time is right, Operation Control All the Veg will be achieved. We will deal a smashing blow to the humans, and we will take our rightful place at the top of the food chain!”

The rabbits wrinkled their noses enthusiastically.

Mrs K continued: “So, I command you, and I exhort you, to continue your training. Keep hard at work, practice, practice, practice, until each of you knows your roles by heart and can perform your assigned tasks in your sleep. When we strike, we must strike hard and fast and our victory must be complete! So train, train, and train some more, and await the coming of the glorious Vegolution!”

The rabbits thumped their back legs on the ground as applause.

Mrs K got a look on her face that was very strange. It could even possibly have been a smile.

“Now get to work!” she commanded.

And once again the rabbits scattered, but this time instead of hiding, they went into the field and formed up in groups near the regular grids of shelves and boxes laid out in the field. They then went into a series of manoeuvres which they’d obviously practiced many times before. That didn’t stop things from going wrong in a number of interesting ways.

It seemed, after careful observation, that the rabbits were attempting to spray the liquid from their guns all over all of the shelves and boxes in the field. It was easy enough for them to get the ground level shelves, but the higher ones required more effort, and in many cases, rabbit pyramids, precariously balanced.

These didn’t go very well. Several fights broke out, and a few rabbits were hauled off the field by the rabbit equivalent of army medics.

The training went on for fifty eight minutes in the eerie half-light of the pre-dawn. Then when the sun finally crested the horizon, the rabbits disappeared off again, training obviously completed for the day.

Or for them anyway. That’s when the pigeons showed up and started dive bombing the shelves and the boxes with water balloons (and the occasional dollop of pigeon poo).

Whatever they were planning, whatever Operation Control All the Veg was (though the name didn’t exactly inspire confidence), they certainly were preparing with a dedication that bordered on the fanatic. Pretty impressive for a bunch of rabbits and pigeons, really.

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⁹⁹ And a quiet popping sound came from under one of the hedges.