The men gave a shout of triumph. They saw, as they imagined, their enemies in flight, and they rushed after them in disorder. 🔊 This was just what Snowball had intended. As soon as they were well inside the yard, the three horses, the three cows, and the rest of the pigs, who had been lying in ambush in the cowshed, suddenly emerged in their rear, cutting them off. 🔊 Snowball now gave the signal for the charge. He himself dashed straight for Jones. Jones saw him coming, raised his gun and fired. 🔊 The pellets scored bloody streaks along Snowball's back, and a sheep dropped dead. Without halting for an instant, Snowball flung his fifteen stone against Jones's legs. 🔊 Jones was hurled into a pile of dung and his gun flew out of his hands. 🔊 But the most terrifying spectacle of all was Boxer, 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 the cat 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 Boxer 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 Boxer 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 Snowball from whose wounds the blood was still dripping. "War is war. 🔊 The only good human being is a dead one."

"I have no wish to take life, not even human life," repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears. 🔊