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“Never in the field of …” (or Sandy The Duck, Part Three)

This morning I have tried and failed to summon my best but inadequate Churchillian powers of composition in an effort to do justice to my third instalment of the stirring tale of Sandy The Duck.

Regular readers, together with his 17 million global fans – the biggest ever reaction to a Rust story when added to the social media frenzy that resulted from previous reports upon his progress – will recall how this tiny Indian Runner duckling somehow survived his unfortunate entry to this world when a combination of factors caused him to emerge from his eggs troubled by a wonky neck that left him with little chance of surviving more than a few hours.

Having decided to see what we could do for him by nursing him towards what we had been told and believed would be his inevitable demise we were then amazed and delighted when – less than a day of intensive TLC later back home – he suddenly ‘sat up’ (his neck having righted itself) and, showing remarkable resilience and fortitude, began his unlikely fight for survival.

A week later – having in the meantime become something of a minor celebrity in our corner of north-east London – we drove back to the farm at which he had been hatched and, with trepidation in case he should be rejected and/or picked upon, re-introduced him to his remaining siblings.

I use the word ‘remaining’ in the above context because, of the twelve originally in his batch, by then only five (including Sandy) ducklings were still alive.

Such being the way of the natural world the others had either proved unviable and/or otherwise failed to make it out of their eggs. Further, another of his fellow survivors was (and is) still clinging on despite also having a wonky neck that had not righted itself.

For good or ill, he had therefore since acquired the name Richard III.

It was both a source of reward and poignancy all round that thankfully (as hoped) Sandy The Duck had been immediately accepted by his siblings and taken to his new surroundings like the proverbial … er … duck to water. To be blunt, he had never looked back and within minutes was part of a five-duckling posse careering around the farmyard as if he had never been away.

That was a fortnight ago.

Yesterday, as we prepared to travel to the countryside again, we received a phone call from the farmer.

Overnight a catastrophe had occurred.

When he went out to the duck-coop first thing that morning he had discovered that there had been a fox-attack. Somehow the varmint had managed to get its snout in through the cage. One duckling was nowhere to be seen – plainly somehow grabbed and ripped out of the coop, leaving a sad trail of feathers and blood behind.

Another had had a wing literally ripped off at the shoulder but had somehow escaped the fox’s clutches and survived. The injury was horrendous – the farmer has expected that the duckling would have died within minutes of shock and/or blood loss – but, after tending to it for a while and offering it some food, he was astonished to see him wolfing it down.

This news was troubling in any event but as we drove down yesterday afternoon we prepared ourselves for the worst.

There had been five surviving ducklings. One had been taken by the fox, so that left four.

Maths was never my strong suit, but there seemed logically at best a 3 in 5 chance that Sandy was still alive and intact.

After we arrived at our destination and settled in we called the farmer to fix a time and went over to review the situation.

Dear readers, after we had listening to the tale of what had happened – and how – from the farmer, we waited in dread as he went inside to let the ducklings out into the farmyard.

We immediately spotted Richard III – that was easy given his wonky neck that gave him a hunchback appearance – so that left three … one of whom had lost a wing. He or she was as easy to spot as the last Plantagenent king because of the gaping wound in his/her side which had left all sorts of organs and possibly bones exposed.

It took a couple of minutes, but we agreed there was no doubt about it – the now one-winged duckling was Sandy The Duck.

Thereafter we spent the best part of an hour in the company of him and his mates.

They had all grown immensely since we’d last seen them but the most remarkable thing was Sandy’s performance and attitude.

He was part of the pack, doing everything that the others were doing – feeding, drinking, forgaging, preening, dropping to their haunches together, cuddling up – and generally doing that which comes naturally.

Only with one wing, together with a good deal of one side of his body, missing.

Today yet again I want to salute the little blighter.

He’s just getting on with his life, clearly either unaware of, or ignoring, his latest disability. He gives no sign of thinking or accepting he’s ‘imperfect’ – and who knows, he may die of an infection, or some other trauma-related condition, at any moment – but he’s just getting on with his life.

There’s a lesson for all of the animal world, including our own little piece, in there somewhere.

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About Gerald Ingolby

Formerly a consumer journalist on radio and television, in 2002 Gerald published a thriller novel featuring a campaigning editor who was wrongly accused and jailed for fraud. He now runs a website devoted to consumer news. More Posts