If only the war poet Siegfried Sassoon could rise from the grave, he would be enjoying the little drama playing out in the churchyard just metres from where his body lies. Next to an avenue of clipped yews, a weasel is on the run.
Does it run, or does it pour? This tiniest of mammal predators, more of a stretched mouse than a mustelid, is a slinky, straight-backed, mid-brown streak that flows over and under. We find ourselves murmuring “there it is”, “and there”, “now there”, as it slips repeatedly under the tussocky grass and into the open again. And no wonder it chooses evasion and concealment, for this is a hunter hunted, easy prey for every cat, fox, sparrowhawk and kestrel with a good eye.
I cannot watch a weasel without dwelling on its transient existence. Probability says this animal will be dead by this time next year, necessity says it must eat a third of its own body weight every day to survive. And if this is a female, then she may still have young to feed. Life is one long and unforgiving binge.
Today the weasel is relying on serendipity, racing from tombstone to tombstone, doubling back, sloping off. Maybe following a rodent trail, maybe covering all ground in hope or expectation.
For just a few seconds – no more – it vanishes into a rougher patch of ground, and then it pops back up on its hind legs. A wood mouse is gripped between its jaws, light belly facing outwards, and limp. A bite to the back of the neck, no doubt, the weasel’s preferred execution modus operandi on animals that can be more than its own weight.
For a long second the weasel sits on its haunches looking in our direction. And then it swivels and leaps away with its dead burden in a series of laboured bounds. We watch it until a dog with its walker enters the churchyard and the weasel disappears altogether. The walker smiles at us, and we smile back. A good morning and nothing to see in the quiet churchyard where a dead poet sleeps.
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