Later on that evening, there is an emergency meeting of the Pheasant Elders’ Council (PEC). 
“Phil, can we we have a word in your ear?”
“Sure, Peyton, shoot!”
“I do wish you wouldn’t joke like that, Phil. Sends shivers up me spine!”
“Sorry, Peyton, fire away. Hahahaha!”
“You will have your little jokes, Phil. Anyways, we in the PEC have made a decision concerning the older members of our community and it is not open to discussion and here’s what we decided,” he says, pausing for dramatic effect.
“You young ones must go and leave this place. Make a life for yourselves somewhere else; out west, maybe, on the shores of the wild Atlantic way. We’ll be grand here. We’re no use to them any more so they won’t trouble us. Go on, now. Get going. You owe it to your families.”
“But if you are no use to them, Peyton, they won’t feed you any more and you’ll starve,” I reason.
“Don’t you worry about that, Phil! Don’t worry about that one little bit! If there's one thing us older ones know about and that’s planning and saving. We knew this day would come, so over the past few years we’ve been stocking up on food. And with the Crystal Stream we’ll never be short of water or medicine. And if they start annoying us, we'll report them to the RSPCA, so we will; and the Put Down That Gun, Sunshine! Association won’t be too happy with them, either; and The International Take Your Finger Off The Trigger Alliance will be down on them quicker than they can say ‘reload’!”
I know it makes sense.
“Alright. It will take us a few weeks until all the injured get better; I’ll put your suggestion to them and see what they decide; if we decide to go, you must hold onto the 3-D printer; you know, just in case any of you gets arthritis or varicose veins or needs new joints, or whatever. OK? And we'll send for you as soon as we’re settled in. I promise you that. If you agree to those conditions then I don’t see a problem.”
After much discussion everyone agrees because as plans go, it was a good plan. Well, it was the only plan. They were so delighted with their plan they gave each other high feathers all round.
“But none of this is going to happen unless our other plan can be carried out”, I tell Peyton.
 

The Other Plan

“Hello? That you Boris?”
“Of course it's me. Didn’t you dial my number? Who do you think it is? Loofabob Roundshorts or whatever he calls himself these days?”
“Fair question, Boris,” I say, “fair question. Tell me, are we still on for this evening? You know - our little arrangement?”
“Of course we’re on. Boris is a man of his word!”
“Sorry, Boris. I wasn’t suggesting . . . ”
“Oh, don’t worry about it; now cut the small talk and tell me why you’re interrupting a perfectly good evening. I’m reading Watership Down, you know. Very sad, you know, very sad. Poor Hazel.”
This puzzled me a great deal and I will explain why later.
“OK, it’s like this, Boris: we need you to dig a very deep hole; a very deep and very wide hole. In fact, it’s like an underground room.”
“And may I ask why so big?”
“Because, Boris, we want to . . . hide . . . eh . . . someone. Something.”
“Plans?”
“Eh, Boris?”
“Plans! I need plans! And planning permission, of course! You can’t just start digging without a plan, you know! I mean have you ever seen those moles? Although, technically speaking, they’re not really digging are they? Well, they are, in a sense. I mean they’re digging upwards. And as far I know, there’s no law against that, is there? At least if there is I-”
“I’ll bring them over right away, Boris.”


The Special Room

“This is an awfully big room, Phil. What are you putting in it?”
“We’re having some guests, Boris. Just for a while. Until we clear off. I mean until they clear off.”
“Haven’t the mistiest idea what you’re talking about, I'm sure. Now, show me the planning permission.”
I was expecting this, so I hand him a sheet of paper. He begins to read.
“To whom it may concern . . .blah blah blah . . . permission to dig a big, ginormous hole . . . .blah blah blah . . . is given to Mr Boris Badger Esquire. 
Signed: The Person in Charge of Permission to Dig Big Holes.”
Of course, the piece of paper says nothing of the kind. And he’s holding it upside down. Boris looks at me, left eyebrow raised.
“Hmmm . . . hmmm . . . Well, young man, everything seems to be in order. When do you need it?”
The truth is that Boris never learned to read and he spends a lot of his time pretending he can. But he loves audiobooks. That must be how he knows about Hazel.
“Tomorrow night.”
“What! Impossible! Absolutely impossible!”
“Oh, Boris, please don’t say that. It must be done by then or our plan fails. I mean we could all die!”
But Boris is sett in his ways.
“Not a chance, Phil. Not on my own. Do you realise how much digging this will take? I’m not a young man any more, you know. And they’re talking about culling us again. Lost all me family in the last one. They’re blaming us on spreading diseases. The same people who are wiping out all the honey bees and song birds. And they’re blaming us! Have they no shame?”


Phil Needs Help

“So, what are we going to do, Phil?” says Gloria to me, that same evening.
“I don’t know; I just don’t know. He is rather old and it is a lot of work for one badger. It’s an awful pity that-”
“Badger, did you say? Did you say badger?” says Marty.
“Yes. Why?”
“Well, as chance would have it, I happened to be passing by the Castle this evening, just having the old after dinner walk, you know. I find I sleep better and I don’t have any of the nasty night-”. 
“Oh, for goodness sake Marty, get to the point!” hisses Jim.
“Keep your feathers, on Jim. Haha. All in good time, I say, all in good time. Now where was I? Oh yes, there was a sign in the lobby,

‘Annual Badger Convention
Agenda: Give the Cull the Chop
Meeting Today 8pm
in the Wine Cellar
Dress Casual’
it read.”
“Marty, you're a genius! Do you hear me? You're a genius!” I say, handing him a bowl of Spanish, November strawberries.

And so it is that we have our room ready in time for our . . . eh . . . guests. All it costs us is a couple of dozen mangos and a bag of sweet potatoes.

-------------------

The Incident at the Back Gate

It’s midnight. The van rolls up to the back gate. 
“Alright,” says Frank, “here they come. Now, remember the plan.”
The driver gets out of the people carrier and approaches the gates. Marty approaches him.
“Excuse me, me good man; by any chance would you have the time? I have a very important appointment and I don’t want to be late?”
“Eh? Who . . .who’s that?”
“Me! Over here! Under the sign 
‘PLEASE DON’T SHOOT THE PHEASANTS’”.
“I don’t see any-”
Before he can finish, Frank, Jim, Johnny and a few others have slipped a sack over his head. At the same time, I open the trap door and we lead him down the steps into the room that Boris and his friends dug for us, just off the driveway.
On hearing the scuffle, the others get out of the van. Immediately, Peyton hops in on the driver’s side and turns off the headlights. In the complete darkness we place sacks over their heads, too, and soon they are all in the bunker. We put them sitting on chairs and tie their feet. Then we take the sacks off their heads. The underground room is square and is lit with eight large candles fixed to the wall, two on each side. There are several beds with mattresses, sheets and blankets. 
Boris has done a very good job.
“How dare you, you-”.
“A thousand apologies, gentle- oh, goodness. I’m so sorry, we weren’t expecting you Rita! Please forgive us!”, I gasp.
“I was just getting a lift home with these nice gentlemen,” she says and begins to cry. Rita is the head chef in the castle.
“Don’t cry, Rita. We’re not going to harm you. Not a bit of it. In fact, we’re not going to harm any of you. Far from it! We just need to borrow your van for a couple of days.”
The other gentlemen are Nick Browning, Paul Remington,  Wardy and the driver, Lee Enfield. With the exception of Wardy, and perhaps the driver, the others have dispatched thousands of us to various dinner plates all over the thirty-two counties during their hunting lives. 
“Gentlemen,” I begin, “a few words before we take our leave. You see in the corner a fridge. This fridge is filled with sufficient food and drink for a week. However, if you remain quiet, someone will come along later on tonight and unlock the trap door. We are not heartless folk. Your beds are made up. There are copies of Horse and Hound on your bedside lockers and the TV is tuned in to The Hunting Channel.
“You see, we are showing you much more mercy than you have ever shown us.” The gentlemen are very relieved when they hear this. 
“But just before we take our leave, Red is going to collect your mobile phones if you will be so kind as to indicate where you keep them.”
For the first time they notice Rollo Squirrel, or Red as he’s known to his friends. He’s on his hind legs and is busily shelling hazelnuts with his forepaws.
“And what is it with you fine people that your first reaction on seeing a beautiful bird is to shoot it? I mean, what sort of a world would we have if we all went round shooting each other?”, says Frank.
The men are all looking at the floor.
“And, by the way, Rita, we’ll drop you home shortly.”
“Thank you, Phil, very kind of you.”
“And Wardy, I don’t know whether during all these years you mean to miss us when you shoot but thank you anyway. You’re a top man, Wardy; you always gave us a sporting chance. I think the closest you ever came to nailing one of us was three years ago when you grazed Edward Elliot. He’s picking pellets out his bum ever since. When we’re safely settled in our new home in the west, we’ll let you know where we are so that you can come and visit us.”
“Yes, I’d like that very much Phil. Thank you.”
The others glare at him.
“Just one thing, Wardy. You can bring your gun if you wish but we insist you leave your golf clubs at home.”
“Not a problem Phil I assure you.”
“So, off we go then.”
“Wait, Phil,” says Paul Remington, “how are to eat or sleep if we’re tied up here?”
 “Don’t worry. We told Red to give us an hour’s start and then he’ll begin gnawing your leather bindings.”
They look at Red who is now lying on his back with his front paws folded across his tummy, swollen with hazel nuts. He raises his right hand and gives them the thumbs up. 
“But don’t try and get out because you can’t! Someone will be here towards dawn to remove the tons of earth from over the trapdoor and unlock it.” 
That ‘someone’ was Boris but I certainly wasn’t going to tell them that because he’s the very one who is going to put the tons of earth on top of it.
“And now, gentlemen, we will take our leave,” I say.
“All yours, Boris,” I whisper, locking the trapdoor.