The farm animals of Sven's Family Farm in northern Minnesota were in a state of joyful excitement that day. Percival Pigeon was returning from his six-month stint in the Volunteer Flying Pigeon Corps and all the animals were turning out to welcome him home.

Well not all of the animals. There were two anti-patriotic animals in particular who did not endorse PIUFAM (the Presidential Initiative to Use Farm Animals in the Military)--specifically Terrence Rattigan a mangy old rat known for his schemes and reactionary political views, and his underling, a one-eyed tabby with no scruples named Monocle-- but more of them shortly.

For the moment balloons were being inflated and tables of delectables laid out by the poultry members of the Ladies League of Non-Denominational Chickens.

The Targhee wooly sheep who comprised the farm-philharmonic, were tuning up their trumpets,clarinets and piccolos while nearby the drum-core made up of a collie, a red New England rooster named 'Otto' and a rhythm-challenged barn-swallow were tapping out accompaniment to John Phillipe Sousa's "Semper Fidelis".

In short everything was being readied for the one o'clock ETA of Private First Class Volunteer Percival Pigeon.

Meanwhile, behind the manure-pile, the favourite meeting place of Terrence Rattigan and Monocle, there was a meeting taking place.

Terrence was pacing, as usual, sucking on an old cigar stub, something he frequently found in the farm-hand Luke Trassies's cabin, and making arm gestures to dramatize his points. Monocle, listening attentively, was perched atop the pile, the smell not bothering him because of his nasal polyps that blocked his olfactories, something he intended to have fixed one day when he had saved enough money from the meager pittance that the miserly rat gave him for his role as underling.

"The way I perceive the situation is as follows" said Rattigan, grinning up at the tabby with a look of a far-seeing radical shining from his red-rimmed ratty eyes.

"If we allow this patriotic bird, this 'my country right or wrong' pigeon to return here and stir up the popular sentiment, who knows where it could lead?

'Mass support for PIUFAM ?'

'Perhaps forced-enlistment in the army?'

Rattigan's eyes began to blaze and spark with passion as his invective built to it's peak.

'No, no no! We cannot allow the mere possibility of such events to realize themselves! No my friends, (Terrence here gestured to the legions of supporters who existed only in his monomaniacal mind)...no we cannot allow this danger to develop! We must stop this pigeon from returning and do it now!"

And with that Monocle, ever-watchful for his cue to endorse the lunatic paroxysms of his leader, stood up and shouted 'down with Percival !' and 'stop the pigeon!' to the delight of Rattigan who smiled , his tobacco-stained incisors showing evilly from beneath his twitching whiskers.

Indeed,Rattigan's plan was a simple one. Having had access to some secret classified material from a few of his nefarious contacts within the Flying Pigeon Corps--contacts who were willing to sell secrets for the right amount of pigeon seed deposited in their bank accounts, Rattigan was able to ascertain a fact which, he hoped, would allow him to send Private Percival flying, not toward the Sven's Farm but back in the direction from which he had come--Fort Feathers in Little Rock Arkansas.

The secret was nothing more than the fact that the Pigeon Corps were given orders by way of Morse Code. This code was was flashed by way of mirrors from the ground to pigeons flying overhead, in order to instruct them in their latest orders.

Knowing this fact, Rattigan thought it a simple matter to use a mirror, as well as his natural fluency in Morse Code, (something every rat is born knowing at birth, and which science is at a loss to explain) to convince Percival,to fail to show for the Welcome Home celebrations, and in that way to cast doubt in the minds of those true blue farm animals, who put so much faith in the the flying pigeon patriot.

Alas! Every rat has his day but this was not to be one of Terrence Rattigan's.

Unbeknownst to him, Colonel Hawks, commander of the Pigeon Corps, had just the day before, in an effort to tighten security, changed the language from Morse to "Wabun" code (a code where each symbol represents a Japanese 'kana').

Rats are not familiar with Wabun, whereas all pigeons are born with a knowledge of it at birth (again, scientists are at a loss to explain this), so when Private Percival saw the familiar flashes from a mirror below, but in the Morse not the Wabun code, he merely straigtened his cap and tie and flew onward to the Svens' farm and the warm, welcoming celebration of his wonderful, supportive, and ever so patriotic animal friends.

Rattigan had to lay down with a cold compress on his head and try and figure out where he went wrong.

Monocle, not being stupid, went to the party and drank himself under the table--after dancing the Tarantella on it into the wee-hours of the night.

Cats, as you may know, can never resist a free drink.