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Nascent Drama

Dork Lord now gave the signal for the charge. He himself dashed straight for Grandtheftcow. GTC saw him coming, raised his gun and fired. The pellets scored bloody streaks along Dork Lord's back, and English Rose dropped dead. Without halting for an instant, Dork Lord flung his fifteen stone against GTC's legs.
 
GTC was hurled into a pile of dung and his gun flew out of his hands. But the most terrifying spectacle of all was Gagh, 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 Love Child 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.
 
All the men were gone except one. Back in the yard Gagh was pawing with his hoof at the stable-lad who lay face down in the mud, trying to turn him over. The boy did not stir.
 
"He is dead," said Gagh sorrowfully. "I had no intention of doing that. I forgot that I was wearing iron shoes. Who will believe that I did not do this on purpose?"
 
"No sentimentality, comrade!" cried Dork Lord from whose wounds the blood was still dripping. "War is war. The only good human being is a dead one."
 
Cacophony in fact was missing. For a moment there was great alarm; it was feared that the men might have harmed her in some way, or even carried her off with them. In the end, however, she was found hiding in her stall with her head buried among the hay in the manger.
 
She had taken to flight as soon as the gun went off. And when the others came back from looking for her, it was to find that the stable-lad, who in fact was only stunned, had already recovered and made off.
 
The animals had now reassembled in the wildest excitement, each recounting his own exploits in the battle at the top of his voice. An impromptu celebration of the victory was held immediately. The flag was run up and Beasts of England was sung a number of times, then English Rose was given a solemn funeral, a hawthorn bush being planted on her grave. At the graveside Dork Lord made a little speech, emphasising the need for all animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm if need be.
 
The animals decided unanimously to create a military decoration, "Animal Hero, First Class," which was conferred there and then on Dork Lord and Gagh. It consisted of a brass medal (they were really some old horse-brasses which had been found in the harness-room), to be worn on Sundays and holidays. There was also "Animal Hero, Second Class," which was conferred posthumously on English Rose.
 
There was much discussion as to what the battle should be called. In the end, it was named the Battle of the Cowshed, since that was where the ambush had been sprung. Grandtheftcow's gun had been found lying in the mud, and it was known that there was a supply of cartridges in the farmhouse. It was decided to set the gun up at the foot of the Flagstaff, like a piece of artillery, and to fire it twice a year-once on October the twelfth, the anniversary of the Battle of the Cowshed, and once on Midsummer Day, the anniversary of the Rebellion.
 
She was late for work every morning and excused herself by saying that she had overslept, and she complained of mysterious pains, although her appetite was excellent.
 
On every kind of pretext she would run away from work and go to the drinking pool, where she would stand foolishly gazing at her own reflection in the water.
 
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