The Blue Field Read Online Free PDF

Meanwhile Mr Chorlton, who had recently taken up the study of the social insects, was amusing himself by stirring up with his stick a small ants’ nest at the edge of the lawn. As he did so he talked, partly to himself and partly to the world at large, as was his way.
    â€˜The biblical Fascists,’ he was saying, ‘who advised us to go to the ant for an example of good behaviour can hardly have realized what a dangerous example social insects set us. Man, when he looks into an anthill, sees the mirror of himself and exclaims with wonder how “civilized” the little creatures are. Why, they establish food stores and have asystem of rationing! They cultivate crops of fungi and keep domestic animals! They are so extremely civilized that they establish slavery and indulge in organized war. Theirs, in fact, is almost exactly the same sort of civilization which recently took us six years to wipe off the face of the earth. It’s rather comforting to know that the termites have actually gone a little farther than man along the road to complete regimentation. They are the only inhabitants of this planet who have succeeded in socializing their males.’
    He twirled his stick deeper into the nest and leaned forward to watch the busy commotion.
    â€˜If one aberrant ant does anything different from the other ants,’ he said, ‘the unsocial insect is immediately slain. There would be no room for William Hart in an ant community.’
    My eyes went back to the flax field on the hill and I wondered whether Mr Chorlton was right, that it would lead to a big row. Old William Hart had been in trouble with the War Agricultural Executive Committee ever since it was formed. He possessed more than his fair share of the obstinacy, the rebelliousness, the wildness and the wayward fancy for which crack-brained Brensham is so well known. Because he objected to being told what to do with his own land he had defied the Committee for more than five years. The trouble had started in 1940, about a field which bore the odd name of Little Twittocks. This field was overgrown with teasels, burdocks and small hawthorn bushes, and the WAEC ordered William to clear and cultivate it. This he refused to do, giving the extraordinary reason that it harboured foxes. The argument went on for eighteen months. The Committee, which consisted of successful farmers, was possibly over-enthusiastic and not very tactful, and having tried persuasion without avail they resorted to threats. When threats also failed they sent a bulldozer,which quickly routed up the hawthorn bushes and pushed them into a pile at the corner of the field. The bulldozer was followed by a tractor, which ploughed Little Twittocks, foxes’ earths and all, for the first time in its history. The Committee then sent William a bill for the job, which he refused to pay until he was sued in court. A short armistice followed, and the Committee, having exercised its authority, would have been wise to let well alone. Perhaps, indeed, it wished to do so; but the bureaucratic machine, once set in motion, is beyond the power of ordinary men to stop, like Clotho it spins out the fates of men with ruthless impartiality, and William was caught in the toils of the terrible thread from which there is no escape this side of the grave. Therefore he received in due course a cultivation order imperiously demanding that he should plant Little Twittocks with potatoes under pain of extreme penalties. The obstinate old man took no notice whatsoever, and proceeded to plant it with sunflowers, of all things, the seeds of which he proposed to feed to his chickens. It turned out be a cold and dabbly summer, with little sunshine, and the crop failed; the Committee sent their tractor once again and ploughed it in, which saved William the trouble of doing so himself, and once again he refused to pay the bill until he was taken to court. When planting-time came round he received another order, to