MOLE WARFARE

I have a love-hate relationship with moles. On the one hand, their monomaniacal tunnelling in search of worms makes them natural aerators of the soil (good). On the other, a reasonably active mole can destroy a well-manicured lawn in the course of one evening (bad).

On balance, the bad outweighs the good, so out they must go. People have a number of ruses for getting rid of them, ranging from putting bacon down the tunnel, to gas, to tin cans with holes in them on poles (they apparently don't like the whistling of the wind). My badminton partner poured petrol down one hole, and let the vapours expand throughout the network under his lawn, before lighting it. But that was not very effective, since moles range quite a long way from their home base, and his mole was probably sitting in the flower bed, laughing his head off. Besides, who wants to have a summer picnic in a garden that looks like the Kuwaiti oil fields post the Iraq invasion?

No, the only sure way to get rid of the pesky critters is traps. You buy a strong-springed trap that looks a bit like a pair of scissors, open it up and put a small piece of metal between the jaws to keep them open. You then find a recently made molehill with a through tunnel, not an end tunnel (think Oxford Circus rather than Cockfosters), dig out the soil, place the trap lengthwise in the hole, and cover it with a bucket to shut out the light. When Mr. Moley comes moseying along the tunnel later that night, he investigates with his snout. That knocks out the bit of metal, and the trap snaps shut, breaking his back instantly. Very effective.

Having decided on your choice of weapon, you now need a plan. When we moved into this house in 2002, a mole terrorised the front lawn, since his base was directly under the house itself. It took me the whole winter to get rid of the wretched thing. But having secured my home defences, I was able to go onto the offensive, gradually clearing the back lawn, the paddock and the area between the house and the wood. The moles are now confined to the wood itself and the area under the fruit trees.

If this all sounds very military, then that is because it is; indeed, it reminds me very much of the First World War. Neither of us can win a decisive victory. Instead, there are titanic struggles for tiny pieces of ground, fought at insanely high cost in terms of lives (well, at least for the Mole Army). There are night attacks, bomb craters, flooded trenches, churned over ground. There is even a salient (see Ypres, 14/3/10), namely the compost heap that sticks out from the fruit trees towards the back lawn. As at Ypres, this has seen some of the fiercest fighting, since the moles apparently like to breed underneath it. I am tempted to adopt General Plumer's plan for straightening the salient, which involved blowing up the Messines Ridge; substitute "compost heap" for "ridge" and "carting off to the dump" for "blowing up". That would have the added advantage of sucking in any baby mole reserves, and allowing a big push towards the sea. But I have to sort out the logistics before I try such an offensive (i.e. borrow a trailer).

Perhaps because of the snow and the heavy rain, this year's campaigning season has been relatively short; all quiet on the south eastern front. In a surprise ambush in April, I caught a mole coming up through the paddock into the salient. 1-0 to me. Then nothing. Until last week. From his command post under the compost heap, the new commander launched a series of raids in all directions. Turning up my buckets in the morning, I would find the traps sprung and the bucket completely stuffed with soil, but no dead mole; a sort of "fuck you" message. This was beginning to get on my nerves; the orchard was looking more and more like the Somme. So I had a tactical re-think. I gave up some ground near the compost heap, swept round to his rear, and laid a couple of traps in well-used tunnels leading to the wood. Echoes of Cannae, perhaps? Whatever; yesterday, I got him. A worthy adversary; but ultimately doomed.

So, I am managing to keep the moles under control. My only worry is the possible intervention of human rights activists. Because in this war, I definitely do not take prisoners.

Walter Blotscher