Battle One:
Early in October, when the corn was cut and stacked and some of it
was already threshed, a flight of pigeons came whirling through the air
and alighted in the yard of Animal Farm in the wildest excitement.
Jones and all his men, with half a dozen others from Foxwood and
Pinchfield, had entered the five-barred gate and were coming up the
cart-track that led to the farm. They were all carrying sticks, except
Jones, who was marching ahead with a gun in his hands. Obviously they
were going to attempt the recapture of the farm.
This had long
been expected, and all preparations had been made. Snowball, who had
studied an old book of Julius Caesar’s campaigns which he had found in
the farmhouse, was in charge of the defensive operations. He gave his
orders quickly, and in a couple of minutes every animal was at his
post.
As the human beings approached the farm buildings,
Snowball launched his first attack. All the pigeons, to the number of
thirty-five, flew to and fro over the men’s heads and muted upon them
from mid-air; and while the men were dealing with this, the geese, who
had been hiding behind the hedge, rushed out and pecked viciously at
the calves of their legs. However, this was only a light skirmishing
manoeuvre, intended to create a little disorder, and the men easily
drove the geese off with their sticks. Snowball now launched his second
line of attack. Muriel, Benjamin, and all the sheep, with Snowball at
the head of them, rushed forward and prodded and butted the men from
every side, while Benjamin turned around and lashed at them with his
small hoofs. But once again the men, with their sticks and their
hobnailed boots, were too strong for them; and suddenly, at a squeal
from Snowball, which was the signal for retreat, all the animals turned
and fled through the gateway into the yard.
The men gave a
shout of triumph. They saw, as they imagined, their enemies in flight,
and they rushed after them in disorder. This was just what Snowball had
intended. As soon as they were well inside the yard, the three horses,
the three cows, and the rest of the pigs, who had been lying in ambush
in the cowshed, suddenly emerged in their rear, cutting them off.
Snowball now gave the signal for the charge. He himself dashed straight
for Jones. Jones saw him coming, raised his gun and fired. The pellets
scored bloody streaks along Snowball’s back, and a sheep dropped dead.
Without halting for an instant, Snowball flung his fifteen stone
against Jones’s legs. Jones was hurled into a pile of dung and his gun
flew out of his hands. But the most terrifying spectacle of all was
Boxer, rearing up on his hind legs and striking out with his great
iron-shod hoofs like a stallion. His very first blow took a stable-lad
from Foxwood on the skull and stretched him lifeless in the mud. At the
sight, several men dropped their sticks and tried to run. Panic
overtook them, and the next moment all the animals together were
chasing them round and round the yard. They were gored, kicked, bitten,
trampled on. There was not an animal on the farm that did not take
vengeance on them after his own fashion. Even the cat suddenly leapt
off a roof onto a cowman’s shoulders and sank her claws in his neck, at
which he yelled horribly. At a moment when the opening was clear, the
men were glad enough to rush out of the yard and make a bolt for the
main road. And so within five minutes of their invasion they were in
ignominious retreat by the same way as they had come, with a flock of
geese hissing after them and pecking at their calves all the way.
Battle Two: 
The very next morning the attack
came. The animals were at breakfast when the look-outs came racing in
with the news that Frederick and his followers had already come through
the five-barred gate. Boldly enough the animals sallied forth to meet
them, but this time they did not have the easy victory that they had
had in the Battle of the Cowshed. There were fifteen men, with half a
dozen guns between them, and they opened fire as soon as they got
within fifty yards. The animals could not face the terrible explosions
and the stinging pellets, and in spite of the efforts of Napoleon and
Boxer to rally them, they were soon driven back. A number of them were
already wounded. They took refuge in the farm buildings and peeped
cautiously out from chinks and knot-holes. The whole of the big
pasture, including the windmill, was in the hands of the enemy. For the
moment even Napoleon seemed at a loss. He paced up and down without a
word, his tail rigid and twitching. Wistful glances were sent in the
direction of Foxwood. If Pilkington and his men would help them, the
day might yet be won. But at this moment the four pigeons, who had been
sent out on the day before, returned, one of them bearing a scrap of
paper from Pilkington. On it was pencilled the words: “Serves you
right.”
Meanwhile Frederick and his men had halted about the
windmill. The animals watched them, and a murmur of dismay went round.
Two of the men had produced a crowbar and a sledge hammer. They were
going to knock the windmill down.
“Impossible!” cried
Napoleon. “We have built the walls far too thick for that. They could
not knock it down in a week. Courage, comrades!”
But Benjamin
was watching the movements of the men intently. The two with the hammer
and the crowbar were drilling a hole near the base of the windmill.
Slowly, and with an air almost of amusement, Benjamin nodded his long
muzzle.
“I thought so,” he said. “Do you not see what they are
doing? In another moment they are going to pack blasting powder into
that hole.”
Terrified, the animals waited. It was impossible
now to venture out of the shelter of the buildings. After a few minutes
the men were seen to be running in all directions. Then there was a
deafening roar. The pigeons swirled into the air, and all the animals,
except Napoleon, flung themselves flat on their bellies and hid their
faces. When they got up again, a huge cloud of black smoke was hanging
where the windmill had been. Slowly the breeze drifted it away. The
windmill had ceased to exist!
At this sight the animals’
courage returned to them. The fear and despair they had felt a moment
earlier were drowned in their rage against this vile, contemptible act.
A mighty cry for vengeance went up, and without waiting for further
orders they charged forth in a body and made straight for the enemy.
This time they did not heed the cruel pellets that swept over them like
hail. It was a savage, bitter battle. The men fir
ed
again and again,
and, when the animals got to close quarters, lashed out with their
sticks and their heavy boots. A cow, three sheep, and two geese were
killed, and nearly everyone was wounded. Even Napoleon, who was
directing operations from the rear, had the tip of his tail chipped by
a pellet. But the men did not go unscathed either. Three of them had
their heads broken by blows from Boxer’s hoofs; another was gored in
the belly by a cow’s horn; another had his trousers nearly torn off by
Jessie and Bluebell. And when the nine dogs of Napoleon’s own
bodyguard, whom he had instructed to make a detour under cover of the
hedge, suddenly appeared on the men’s flank, baying ferociously, panic
overtook them. They saw that they were in danger of being surrounded.
Frederick shouted to his men to get out while the going was good, and
the next moment the cowardly enemy was running for dear life. The
animals chased them right down to the bottom of the field, and got in
some last kicks at them as they forced their way through the thorn
hedge.
