Hey there, and welcome back to Animal Farm: The Novelization. I have something to say about the OC scene from the previous chapter. By that, I mean the scene where Sam is attacked by Napoleon's dogs. That was based on what happened to my Sony girl last year. She was attacked by a neighbor's pit bull on our front porch, and that dog had grabbed her shoulder and neck in its teeth. If it wasn't for our next-door neighbor, she would be dead sooner than her actual death in July.

Uploading Date: October 24, 2021

Enjoy!


Chapter 9: The Wave of Terror

Starting that same day, the animals began to rebuild the windmill. The work went on through a harsh winter, going from windy weather to sleet and snow. The animals carried on the best they could at rebuilding their project, knowing that the outside world was watching and the humans would celebrate if they failed to rebuild the windmill.

The humans - not just the farmers - guessed that the windmill's walls were too thin to endure the stormy winds. Animal Farm believed that it was more Snowball's fault than thin walls, but Napoleon decided to have the windmill walls built thicker just in case. To make these three feet of wall work, more stones were needed.

It was hard collecting stones in the cold weather, with snow covering the quarry. The animals were cold during this winter, very hungry, and losing courage. Only Boxer and Clover pulled them through. While Squealer would make speeches about the importance of serving the farm, more animals paid attention to Boxer's never-failing strength and motto of "I will work harder".

Food rations were low, and the animals were slowly starving...except the pigs and the dogs of the Animal Guard. There wasn't much corn for the herbivores, so a potato each had to make up for it. But the animals found out that a lot of the potato crop had gone bad, having been frozen in the ground, so they had to eat mangels and husks of wheat. Immediately, the neighboring farmers pounced on their misfortune and spread lies about disease and famine claiming animal lives, as well as tall tales of animals turning on each other and eating not only each other but also baby animals.

To hide the truth about their famine from the world, Napoleon had asked Whymper to stop by the farm and inspect the food storage. He had barrels filled with sand and topped with oats to make it look like the barrels were full of oats. An animal even had to testify that these were indeed oats, even when they wanted nothing to do with humans. Whymper was allowed to see these barrels and was fooled, going back to report to his fellow men that everything on Animal Farm was fine.

...

One Sunday morning in early March, the animals were at the end of receiving their orders for the week when Squealer called the hens to speak with him after.

"Comrades," he declared, "you have known for months that our wise and beloved leader, Comrade Napoleon, has decided to trade with the outside world. Not for gain, of course; that would be unworthy of our noble principles. You hens are to have the honor of making the first contribution: four hundred of your eggs a week. I know how proud you are of this privilege."

Far from being proud, however, the hens were horrified.

"Why?!" squawked a little red hen. "Why would we do that?"

"We were just getting our eggs ready for the season!" added a white hen.

The dogs beside Squealer growled, and Squealer himself raised a trotter for silence. "If Comrade Napoleon wishes it, then there must be no questions. Besides, the price for your eggs will buy you enough grain and meal. Just until summer, when times are more plentiful."

But the hens were not convinced in the slightest. Instead, they muttered among themselves over the indignity, how it went completely against Animalism.

"We're not letting those pigs steal our eggs," said a black Minorca hen. "My two sisters and I would rather die than give up our eggs. Who's with us?"

The other hens agreed and started making a plan to defy Napoleon. For the first time on the farm, what seemed like a rebellion towards the pigs was going to begin.

One night, the pigs were just settling down to sleep when they heard a racket going on in the chicken coop. They brought out their lamps and headed out to the coop to investigate the noise, led by Napoleon and Squealer. They were keeping items like milk pails and leftover grain and feed temporarily, but the hens had upset the milk pails and stamped over the grain.

Squealer took notice of a black Minorca hen sitting in her nest and stomped over. "Come on, you miserable creature," he snapped. "Give up the eggs. You have no choice in the matter."

In reply, the hen hovered over her eggs, preparing to fight off the intruder. She puffed up her feathers to make her appear larger than she was, as to how some birds usually fend off predators. Squealer tried shoving her off the nest to get to the eggs and was repaid by a fierce pecking to the nose.

That was when the other hens took action. The black Minorca hen joined them in fluttering up to the rafters out of the reach of the pigs. Once they had roosted, they laid whatever eggs they were ready to lay and watched them drop down onto their attackers' faces. It ended up causing chaos as the pigs darted around the chicken coop with eggs on their faces and sides, with some even quitting their mission to take the eggs and fleeing the coop. It was clear that the hens would rather smash their eggs than give them up for human consumption.

"ENOUGH!" Napoleon roared, so loudly that the farm buildings seemed to shake. "Animal Guard, seize them!"

Loud baying woke up the other animals. They looked out the barn windows and saw Pinscher leading his nine puppies racing across the yard and towards the chicken coop. In a few minutes, they had dragged out the three Minorca hens that had talked about rebelling against Napoleon, dropping them at said Berkshire's feet.

"Hear me, comrades: All hens are criminals!" bellowed Napoleon, glaring around at the other animals as the pigs reached the farmyard. "No hen is to be fed; there will be no more rations for them! Anyone caught feeding them even a single grain of corn will be punished by death!"

He later made sure that his orders were carried out swiftly and ruthlessly. The dogs of the Animal Guard made sure that the hens were not fed at all, snarling at anyone who carried food near the chicken coop. While there was no death for anyone who tried to feed the hens but didn't get that far, they were punished by having their rations reduced.

Finally, after five days of resisting, the hens had to give up their resistance, having lost nine hens to sickness and starvation. Their bodies were buried in a ditch at the edge of the farm, Napoleon saying that traitors did not deserve to be buried on the same sacred ground as Old Major. Mr. Whymper knew nothing of this, and the hens' eggs were to be delivered once a week by a van. And thus, the first rebellion against the pigs died not with a bang but with a whimper.

...

For a while, no one had seen Snowball. He was rumored to have been hiding in either Foxwood or Pinchfield, as Napoleon had learned from being on better terms with both farms. But when spring came, Snowball seemed to have infiltrated Animal Farm.

According to the rumors, he would sneak over to the farm during the night and do some mischief. He would steal corn, dump over the milking buckets, break hens' eggs, trample the seeds of the crops, and gnaw the bark off of the apple trees. The cows claimed that Snowball had milked them in their sleep, and the rats were accused of being in league with him; Napoleon had said through Squealer that rats were untrustworthy and that there was no such resolution to treat them as comrades.

Whenever something went wrong, the blame was easily on Snowball. If a window was broken or a drain was clogged, most of the animals believed that Snowball did it. The key to the shed was rumored to have been flung down the well by Snowball, and the lie continued even after the key was found among the hay in the barn. Anyone who tried pointing this out would be told, as usual, "Four legs good, two legs bad!" by the sheep and had to shut up.

On one sunset, Squealer called all of the animals together into the barn for an emergency meeting. They could tell by the distraught look on his face that he had some shocking news.

"Comrades, we have bad news!" cried Squealer, skipping nervously. "Snowball has sided with Frederick, who now plots to attack us and steal our farm! Snowball is to act on his side and guide him when the attack comes! But it gets worse. We thought that Snowball wanted to rebel simply to satisfy his pride and ambition. But oh, were we wrong, comrades! The real reason is that Snowball was working with Jones all along, his secret agent from the very start! It's all proved in the document that he left behind and which we had just discovered. This all makes sense, comrades. Snowball attempted to get us defeated and destroyed in the Battle of the Cowshed, but luckily for us, he did not succeed."

Most of the animals gasped, wondering how Snowball would dare help the enemy, but a few animals frowned. These animals had seen Snowball fearlessly leading the animals into battle despite being shot; some even fought alongside him. Even the unquestioning Boxer was confused. He lay down, tucked his fore hoofs beneath him, shut his eyes, and with a hard effort managed to formulate his thoughts.

"I do not believe that," Boxer said. "Snowball fought bravely at the Battle of the Cowshed. I saw him myself. We gave him 'Animal Hero, First Class' instantly afterward, didn't we?"

Squealer whirled around to face him. "That was our mistakes, comrade!" he exclaimed. "We shouldn't have done that! We all know now from his documents that he was trying to doom us all!"

"But he was wounded," said Boxer. "We all saw him bleeding."

"Yeah," barked Sam. "We saw Jones shoot Snowball with his gun with our own eyes. I'm pretty sure you saw it too."

"They arranged that together!" cried Squealer. "Jones's shot was only to miss him. I could show you all this in his writing if you were able to read it. Snowball was to give the signal to flee and abandon the field to the enemy. And he would have succeeded if it had not been for our heroic Leader, Comrade Napoleon. Do you not remember how, just when Jones and his men got into the yard, Snowball suddenly turned and fled, and many animals followed him? And do you not remember that when panic was spreading and all seemed lost, Comrade Napoleon sprang forward with a cry of 'Death to Humanity!' and sank his teeth in Jones's leg? Surely, comrades, you must remember that!" exclaimed Squealer, frisking from side to side.

But from where Sam had come from, pets had a long memory and sharp minds. Sam himself could not see how Snowball had intended to abandon the field to the enemy. Snowball even told him personally that he had only seemingly abandoned the field just to lure the humans into a trap. And as for Napoleon, no one had seen him or Squealer at all during the battle.

Fortunately, Boxer seemed to agree to an extent. "I do not believe that Snowball was a traitor at the beginning," he said slowly. "What he has done since then is different. But I believe that at the Battle of the Cowshed, he was a good comrade."

Squealer gave Boxer a very ugly look as he spoke very slowly and firmly as if he were talking down to a child. "Our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, has declared unquestionably - unquestionably, comrade - that Snowball was Jones's agent from the start. Yes, and from long before the Rebellion was ever thought of."

"Ah...that is different," said Boxer. "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."

"That's the spirit, comrade!" cried Squealer. He got down from the platform and made his way out of the barn, calling over his shoulder, "I advise and warn all animals to keep their eyes and ears open and to keep looking behind you. Some of Snowball's secret agents are among us at this very moment!"

...

Four days later at sunset, Napoleon called for a meeting at the farmyard. He had emerged from the farmhouse, wearing both medals of "Animal Hero, First Class" and "Animal Hero, Second Class" (which he had awarded to himself) and accompanied by the Animal Guard. These days, he usually never left the farmhouse and had his word spread through Squealer, who had now started calling him "Our leader, Comrade Napoleon". The dogs of the Animal Guard growled and barked at anyone who dared to come near, and their growls sent a shiver of dread down their spines. Jessie and Bluebell could only frown in sadness at seeing their puppies and the puppies' father acting as cruel as hellhounds.

The animals had just gathered when the dogs pounced at the crowd. The four young porkers who had protested Napoleon's reign were dragged out by the ears, which caused them to bleed and squeal. Blood scent was driving the dogs into a frenzy, and they suddenly flung themselves at Boxer, causing a cry of shock from the animals. Boxer was ready, however, and lashed out with a front hoof, catching a gray-and-white dog in mid-air and slamming it to the ground. The dog yelped for mercy, and his siblings and half-siblings backed away with startled yelps.

"Shall I finish him?" Boxer asked, keeping the dog pinned.

Napoleon's gaze darted from the Clydesdale to the dog before he gave his answer. "No," he declared. "Your strength is unmatched by any on the farm. Release Crabbe this instant."

Boxer lifted his hoof, and the injured dog limped away with a broken leg, whimpering. All of the dogs on the farm - even those who were not part of the Animal Guard - had learned to never mess with Boxer after that.

Satisfied, Napoleon turned his attention back to the four young pigs, his eyes as hard as ice. "Have you anything to say before justice is done?" he growled.

One of the porkers spoke up, his voice trembling with horror. "I-I-I would confess that I am a traitor to Animal Farm," he cried, "and am worthy of any punishment you were to give me. We've been in league with Snowball for a while too, ever since the beginning of the Rebellion. We've been in touch with Snowball since his expulsion, and we helped him destroy the windmill and plotted with him to destroy Animal Farm." The dogs began to growl and stalk forward. "I-I admit that we've committed these crimes, not out of any feeling of conviction." He wept as the dogs began growling. "We, er...we've also been in league with Jones and were promised a lifetime supply of pigswill in return."

The other three porkers groveled before Napoleon and added, "I too! And I! And I!"

"Then death shall be your sentence," said Napoleon.

He gave the command with a grunt, and his dogs promptly tore the porkers' throats out. The other animals recoiled in shock, horror, and disgust as the pigs bled their lives out on the barnyard dirt.

"Comrades, as you have witnessed, there are traitors among us!" Napoleon cried out. "Yes, comrades, in league with Jones and Snowball to destroy Animal Farm! Who else is guilty?! Stand up and confess!"

The three Black Minorca hens that had led the rebellion of the eggs stepped forward. They had said that Snowball had appeared to them and told them to cause chaos, Snowball having been the one to tell the hens to defy Napoleon's orders. Napoleon wasted no time in having the dogs kill them on the spot.

"Does any other animal have anything to confess?" demanded Napoleon. No one spoke up at first, so he repeated in a deadlier tone, "I said, does any other animal have anything to confess?"

A duck came forward, bowing his head. "Y-Yes, Comrade Napoleon. I-I've been ordered by Snowball to steal some food during the famine."

An old ewe stepped forward as well. "Urged by Snowball," she rasped, "I relieved myself in the drinking pool this morning."

This had caused some of the animals to cringe in disgust. "No wonder the water tasted gross," growled Sam, wrinkling his nose.

"We're also guilty," bleated two more sheep as they stood by their ewe friend. "We chased an old ram - one of your devoted followers - around and around a bonfire until he fell into it. Snowball wished it to be so."

Napoleon nodded grimly to the accused. "Animals, your crimes are clear to everyone on this farm. Death is the punishment for traitors."

So the animals were sentenced one by one to death. Napoleon's dogs had pounced on them and torn their throats out, leaving a pile of corpses at Napoleon's feet. The coppery scent of blood stung the air as the sound of a gun firing would split a silent night.

When it was over, all animals except the pigs and most of the dogs crept away. They had become shaken and miserable. They weren't sure what was scarier: some of the animals admitting that they had allied with Snowball or the killings. It was no use denying that there had been bloodshed from past battles, but now it was happening among animals. Ever since they had banished Jones, no animal had killed another animal, which was supposed to be one of the Seven Commandments of Animalism.

They went to the little hill near the half-finished windmill, laying down as if huddling together to stay warm. Clover, Muriel, Benjamin, Elijah, the cows, the sheep, geese and hens, and the three dogs not with Napoleon huddled together. It was soon noticed that the tabby cat was not found among them, though it was later discovered to their horror that she had been killed by Napoleon's dogs earlier around the hens' rebellion. She hadn't been their target, but she was in their way.

"I don't understand," muttered Boxer, shaking his head slowly. He was standing on his own and pondering over the situation. "How could such things happen on Animal Farm? We must be at fault. So I believe that the solution is to work harder. From now on, I will get up an hour earlier than everyone else in the morning instead of a half-hour." He started heading away from them, saying over his shoulder, "I need to start now."

"Let me join you," said Benjamin, following the bigger equine. "Just to get away from this insanity for once."

So the two friends lumbered away to the quarry. There, they collected two loads of stone and dragged them over to the windmill before retiring for the night.

Until twilight would fall, the animals huddled together. The hill that they rested on gave the animals a great view of the countryside. They could see most of Animal Farm: the long pasture that led to the road, the hayfield, the spinney, the pool where the animals drank, the plowing fields where the wheat grew thick and green at its age, and the farm building roofs. Spring was in the air, a clear evening, and the grass and the hedges were gilded by the light of the sun setting. They still remembered that it was their farm, their property, and it was a pleasing place to live.

But no one was feeling happy at the moment. At least, Clover stood up, her eyes filled with tears as she looked down the hillside.

"This is not what we had hoped for when we fought to overthrow the human race," she finally declared wistfully. "What I saw today is not what I had looked forward to since Old Major's last words. This is to be a society of animals free from hunger and slavery: all equal, all working according to his capacity, and the strong protecting the weak."

"But it's come to this," added Sam. "No one can speak freely, with those dogs of Napoleon's always growling at us. No offense, girls." To which Jessie and Bluebell nodded, and Sam continued, "Not to mention watching our friends torn to pieces...like that."

Elijah shivered. "That was beyond called for," he rasped. "What kind of farm is this? When I came here last year, I did not sign up for all this violence."

Clover gave the camel a tired but knowing look. "Elijah, this is still a good farm. This can be a lesson to remember, to prevent the return of the humans. After all," she said, her eyes glittering with hope, "we are better off than we were in Jones's day."

Are we? Sam thought rebelliously, and not for the first time. What he had seen did not look any better than what Jones had put his animals through. He would still help out his friends even under the leadership of Napoleon, but he couldn't help but feel that this was not what everyone on the farm had fought for. As for Jones, he felt no affection for the farmer, but would even he had done what Napoleon had just done?

Finally, feeling no other words to express what she felt, Clover began to slowly sing "Beasts of England". While Sam had not agreed with the whole revolution, he finally joined with the singing. The other animals sitting around Clover followed suit, and they sang it three times over, slowly and mournfully.

They were just finishing singing it for the third time when Squealer, attended by two dogs, approached them with the air of having something important to say. "Singing 'Beasts of England', are we?" he asked with a gleam in his eye. "Our leader, Comrade Napoleon has announced that 'Beasts of England' is to no longer be sung. It is forbidden."

All at once, the animals gasped in shock. "Why?" cried Muriel.

"Because it is no longer needed," Squealer replied stiffly. "'Beasts of England' was the song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now complete. The execution of Snowball's spies this afternoon was the final act. The enemy both from within and without has been defeated. In 'Beasts of England', we expressed our longing for a better society one day. But now that this society has been established, there is no more use for that song. Anyone caught singing it after today will be punished."

As frightened as they were, some of the animals might have protested. Indeed, Sam had a lot of words to tell Squealer about this decision. But a wave of "Four legs good, two legs bad!" from the sheep went on for a long time and put an end to the discussion.

So "Beasts of England" was heard no more. Instead, Minimus the poetic pig wrote a new song for the animals to sing, simply called "Animal Farm". It ran as thus:

"Animal Farm, Animal Farm,
Never through me shall thou come to harm!"

But whatever Sam thought of "Beasts of England", he admitted, at least that carried a better tune than "Animal Farm" ever did.

To be continued...