As in the Enborne, there was an instant shock of cold. But more than this, and at once, he felt the pull of the current. He was being drawn away by a force like a high wind, yet smooth and silent. He was drifting helplessly down a suffocating, cold run, with no hold for his feet. Full of fear, he paddled and struggled, got his head up and took a breath, scrabbled his claws against rough bricks under water and lost them again as he was dragged on. Then the current slackened, the run vanished, the dark became light and there were leaves and sky above him once more. Still struggling, he fetched up against something hard, b.u.mped off it, struck it again and then for a moment touched soft ground. He floundered forward and found that he was dragging himself through liquid mud. He was out on a clammy bank. He lay panting for several moments and then wiped his face and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Pipkin, plastered with mud, crawling to the bank a few feet away.
Full of elation and confidence, all his terrors forgotten, Hazel crawled over to Pipkin and together they slipped into the undergrowth. He said nothing and Pipkin did not seem to expect him to speak. From the shelter of a clump of purple loosestrife they looked back at the river.
The water came out from the bridge into a second pool. All round, on both banks, trees and undergrowth grew close. There was a kind of swamp here and it was hard to tell where water ended and woodland began. Plants grew in clumps both in and out of the muddy shallows. The bottom was covered with fine silt and mud that was half water and in this the two rabbits had made furrows as they dragged themselves to sh.o.r.e. Running diagonally across the pool, from the brickwork of the bridge near the opposite bank to a point a little below them on their own side, was a grating of thin, vertical iron rods. In the cutting season the river weed, drifting in tangled mats from the fishing reaches above, was held against this grating and raked out of the pool by men in waders, who piled it to be used as compost. The left bank was a great rubbish heap of rotting weed among the trees. It was a green, rank-smelling place, humid and enclosed.
"Good old Kehaar!" said Hazel, gazing with satisfaction round the fetid solitude. "I should have trusted him."
As he spoke, a third rabbit came swimming out from under the bridge. The sight of him, struggling in the current like a fly in a spider"s web, filled them both with fear. To watch another in danger can be almost as bad as sharing it. The rabbit fetched up against the grating, drifted a little way along it, found the bottom and crawled out of the turbid water. It was Blackavar. He lay on his side and seemed unaware of Hazel and Pipkin when they came up to him. After a little while, however, he began to cough, vomited some water and sat up.
"Are you all right?" asked Hazel.
"More or less," said Blackavar. "But have we got to do much more tonight, sir? I"m very tired."
"No, you can rest here," said Hazel. "But why did you risk it on your own? We might already have gone under, for all you knew."
"I thought you gave an order," replied Blackavar.
"I see," said Hazel. "Well, at that rate you"re going to find us a sloppy lot, I"m afraid. Was there anyone else who looked like coming when you jumped in?"
"I think they"re a bit nervous," answered Blackavar. "You can"t blame them."
"No, but the trouble is that anything can happen," said Hazel, fretting. "They may all go tharn, sitting there. The men may come back. If only we could tell them it"s all right--"
"I think we can, sir," said Blackavar. "Unless I"m wrong, it"s only a matter of slipping up the bank there and down the other side. Shall I go?"
Hazel was disconcerted. From what he had gathered, this was a disgraced prisoner from Efrafa--not even a member of the Owsla, apparently--and he had just said that he felt exhausted. He was going to take some living up to.
"We"ll both go," he said. "Hlao-roo, can you stay here and keep a lookout? With any luck, they"ll start coming through to you. Help them if you can."
Hazel and Blackavar slipped through the dripping undergrowth. The gra.s.s track which crossed the bridge ran above them, at the top of a steep bank. They climbed the bank and looked out cautiously from the long gra.s.s at the verge. The track was empty and there was nothing to be heard or smelled. They crossed it and reached the end of the bridge on the upstream side. Here the bank dropped almost sheer to the river, some six feet below. Blackavar scrambled down without hesitation, but Hazel followed more slowly. Just above the bridge, between it and a thorn bush upstream, was a ledge of turf which overhung the water. Out in the river, a few feet away, the punt lay against the weedy piers.
"Silver!" said Hazel. "Fiver! Come on, get them into the water. It"s all right below the bridge. Get the does in first, if you can. There"s no time to lose. The men may come back."
It was no easy matter to rouse the torpid, bewildered does and make them understand what they had to do. Silver went from one to another. Dandelion, as soon as he saw Hazel on the bank, went at once to the bow and plunged in. Speedwell followed, but as Fiver was about to go Silver stopped him.
"If all our bucks go, Hazel," he said, "the does will be left alone and I don"t think they"ll manage it."
"They"ll obey Thlayli, sir," said Blackavar, before Hazel could reply. "I think he"s the one to get them started."
Bigwig was still lying in the bilgewater, in the place he had taken up when they came to the first bridge. He seemed to be asleep, but when Silver nuzzled him he raised his head and looked about in a dazed manner.
"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Silver," he said. "I"m afraid this shoulder of mine"s going to be a bother. I feel awfully cold, too. Where"s Hazel?"
Silver explained. Bigwig got up with difficulty and they saw that he was still bleeding. He limped to the thwart and climbed on it.
"Hyzenthlay," he said, "your friends can"t be any wetter, so we"ll get them to jump in now. One by one, don"t you think? Then there"ll be no risk of them scratching or hurting each other as they swim."
In spite of what Blackavar had said, it was a long time before everyone had left the boat. There were in fact ten does altogether--though none of the rabbits knew the number--and although one or two responded to Bigwig"s patient urging, several were so much exhausted that they remained huddled where they were, or looked stupidly at the water until others were brought to take their place. From time to time Bigwig would ask one of the bucks to give a lead and in this way Acorn, Hawkbit and Bluebell all scrambled over the side. The injured doe, Thrayonlosa, was clearly in a bad way and Blackberry and Thethuthinnang swam through together, one in front of her and one behind.
As darkness closed in, the rain stopped. Hazel and Blackavar went back to the bank of the pool below the bridge. The sky cleared and the oppression lifted as the thunder moved away eastward. But it was fu Inle before Bigwig himself came through the bridge with Silver and Fiver. It was as much as ever he could do to keep afloat, and when he reached the grating he rolled over in the water, belly uppermost, like a dying fish. He drifted into the shallows and, with Silver"s help, pulled himself out. Hazel and several of the others were waiting for him, but he cut them short with a flash of his old bullying manner. "Come on, get out of the way," he said. "I"m going to sleep now, Hazel, and Frith help you if you say I"m not."
"That"s how we we go on, you see," said Hazel to the staring Blackavar. "You"ll get used to it after a bit, Now, let"s look for somewhere dry that no one else has found and then perhaps we can sleep, too." go on, you see," said Hazel to the staring Blackavar. "You"ll get used to it after a bit, Now, let"s look for somewhere dry that no one else has found and then perhaps we can sleep, too."
Every dry spot among the undergrowth seemed to be crowded with exhausted, sleeping rabbits. After searching for a time they found a fallen tree trunk, from the underside of which the bark had pulled away. They crept beneath the twigs and leaves, settled themselves in the smooth, curved trough--which soon took on some of the warmth of their bodies--and slept at once.
40.The Way Back
Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, Here"s a wolf at your door, His teeth grinning white.
And his tongue wagging sore!
"Nay," said Dame Hickory, "Ye False Faerie!"
But a wolf t"was indeed, and famished was he.
Walter de la Mare, Dame Hickory Dame Hickory The first thing that Hazel learned the next morning was that Thrayonlosa had died during the night. Thethuthinnang was distressed, for it was she who had picked Thrayonlosa as one of the more st.u.r.dy and sensible does in the Mark and persuaded her to join in the escape. After they had come through the bridge together, she had helped her ash.o.r.e and fallen asleep beside her in the undergrowth, hoping that she might have recovered by the next day. But she had woken to find Thrayonlosa gone and, searching, had found her in a clump of reeds downstream. Evidently the poor creature had felt that she was going to die and, in the manner of animals, had slipped away.
The news depressed Hazel. He knew that they had been lucky to get so many does out of Efrafa and to escape from Woundwort without having to stand and fight. The plan had been a good one, but the storm and the frightening efficiency of the Efrafans had nearly defeated it. For all the courage of Bigwig and of Silver, they would have failed without Kehaar. Now Kehaar was going to leave them, Bigwig was wounded, and his own leg was none too good. With the does to look after, they would not be able to travel in the open as fast or as easily as they had on the way down from Watership. He would have liked to stay where they were for a few days, so that Bigwig could recover his strength and the does find their feet and get used to life outside a warren. But the place, he realized, was hopelessly inhospitable. Although there was good cover, it was too wet for rabbits. Besides, it was evidently close to a road busier than any they had known. Soon after daylight they began to hear and smell hrududil pa.s.sing, not so far away as the breadth of a small field. There was continual disturbance and the does in particular were startled and uneasy. Thrayonlosa"s death made matters worse. Worried by the noise and vibration and unable to feed, the does kept wandering downstream to look at the body and whisper together about the strange and dangerous surroundings.
He consulted Blackberry, who pointed out that probably it would not be long before men found the boat; then very likely several would be close by for some time. This decided Hazel that they had better set out at once and try to reach somewhere where they could rest more easily. He could hear and smell that the swamp extended a long way downstream. With the road lying to the south, the only way seemed to be northward, over the bridge, which was in any case the way home.
Taking Bigwig with him, he climbed the bank to the gra.s.s track. The first thing they saw was Kehaar, picking slugs out of a clump of hemlock near the bridge. They came up to him without speaking and began to nibble the short gra.s.s nearby.
After a little while Kehaar said, "Now you getting mudders, Meester "Azel. All go fine, eh?"
"Yes. We"d never have done it without you, Kehaar. I hear you turned up just in time to save Bigwig last night."
"Dis bad rabbit, pig fella, "e go fight me. Plenty clever, too."
"Yes. He got a shock for once, though."
"Ya, ya. Meester "Azel, soon is men come. Vat you do now?"
"We"re going back to our warren, Kehaar, if we can get there."
"Ees finish here now for me. I go to Peeg Vater."
"Shall we see you again, Kehaar?"
"You go back hills? Stay dere?"
"Yes, we mean to get there. It"s going to be hard going with so many rabbits, and there"ll be Efrafan patrols to dodge, I expect."
"You get dere, later on ees vinter, plenty cold, plenty storm on Peeg Vater. Plenty bird come in. Den I come back, see you vere you live."
"Don"t forget, then, Kehaar, will you?" said Bigwig. "We shall be looking out for you. Come down suddenly, like you did last night."
"Ya, ya, frighten all mudders und liddle rabbits, all liddle Pigvigs run avay."
Kehaar arched his wings and rose into the air. He flew over the parapet of the bridge and upstream. Then he turned in a circle to the left, came back over the gra.s.s track and flew straight down it, skimming just over the rabbits" heads. He gave one of his raucous cries and was gone to the southward. They gazed after him as he disappeared above the trees.
"Oh, fly away, great bird so white," said Bigwig. "You know, he made me feel I could fly, too. That Big Water! I wish I could see it."
As they continued to look in the direction where Kehaar had gone, Hazel noticed for the first time a cottage at the far end of the track, where the gra.s.s sloped up to join the road. A man, taking care to keep still, was leaning over the hedge and watching them intently. Hazel stamped and bolted into the undergrowth of the swamp, with Bigwig hard on his heels.
"You know what he"s thinking about?" said Bigwig. "He"s thinking about the vegetables in his garden."
"I know," replied Hazel. "And we shan"t be able to keep this lot away from them once they get the idea into their heads. The quicker we push on the better."
Shortly afterward the rabbits set out across the park to the north. Bigwig soon found that he was not up to a long journey. His wound was painful and the shoulder muscle would not stand hard use. Hazel was still lame and the does, though willing and obedient, showed that they knew little about the life of hlessil. It was a trying time.
In the days that followed--days of clear sky and fine weather--Blackavar proved his worth again and again, until Hazel came to rely on him as much as on any of his veterans. There was a great deal more to him than anyone could have guessed. When Bigwig had determined not to come out of Efrafa without Blackavar, he had been moved entirely by pity for a miserable, helpless victim of Woundwort"s ruthlessness. It turned out, however, that Blackavar, when not crushed by humiliation and ill-treatment, was a good cut above the ordinary. His story was an unusual one. His mother had not been born an Efrafan. She had been one of the rabbits taken prisoner when Woundwort attacked the warren at Nutley Copse. She had mated with an Efrafan captain and had had no other mate. He had been killed on Wide Patrol. Blackavar, proud of his father, had grown up with the resolve to become an officer in the Owsla. But together with this--and paradoxically--there had come to him from his mother a certain resentment against Efrafa and a feeling that they should have no more of him than he cared to give them. Captain Mallow, to whose Mark--the Right Fore--he had been sent on trial, had praised his courage and endurance but had not failed to notice the proud detachment of his nature. When the Right Flank needed a junior officer to help Captain Chervil, it was Avens and not Blackavar who had been selected by the Council. Blackavar, who knew his own worth, felt convinced that his mother"s blood had prejudiced the Council against him. While still full of his wrongs he had met Hyzenthlay and made himself a secret friend and adviser of the discontented does in the Right Fore. He had begun by urging them to try to get the Council"s consent to their leaving Efrafa. If they had succeeded they would have asked for him to be allowed to go with them. But when the does" deputation to the Council failed, Blackavar turned to the idea of escape. At first he had meant to take the does with him, but his nerve, strained to the limit, as Bigwig"s had been, by the dangers and uncertainties of conspiracy, had given way and in the end he had simply made a dash on his own, to be caught by Campion. Under the punishment inflicted by the Council his mercurial spirit had fallen low and he had become the apathetic wretch the sight of whom had so much shocked Bigwig. Yet at the whispered message in the hraka pit this spirit had flickered up again where another"s might well have failed to do so, and he had been ready to set all on the hazard and have another shot. Now, free among these easy-going strangers, he saw himself as a trained Efrafan using his skill to help them in their need. Although he did all that he was told, he did not hesitate to make suggestions as well, particularly when it came to reconnoitering and looking for signs of danger. Hazel, who was ready to accept advice from anybody when he thought it was good, listened to most of what he said and was content to leave it to Bigwig--for whom, naturally, Blackavar entertained a tremendous respect--to see that he did not overreach himself in his warm-hearted, rather candid zeal.
After two or three days of slow, careful journeying, with many halts in cover, they found themselves, late one afternoon, once more in sight of Caesar"s Belt, but further west than before, close to a little copse at the top of some rising ground. Everyone was tired and when they had fed--"evening silflay every day, just as you promised," said Hyzenthlay to Bigwig--Bluebell and Speedwell suggested that it might be worthwhile to dig some sc.r.a.pes in the light soil under the trees and live there for a day or two. Hazel felt willing enough, but Fiver needed persuasion.
"I know we can do with a rest, but somehow I don"t altogether like it, Hazel-rah," he said. "I suppose I"ve got to try to think why?"
"Not on my account," answered Hazel. "But I doubt you"ll shift the others this time. One or two of these does are "ready for mudder," as Kehaar would say, and that"s the real reason why Bluebell and the rest are prepared to be at the trouble of digging sc.r.a.pes. Surely it"ll be all right at that rate, won"t it? You know what they say--"Rabbit underground, rabbit safe and sound." "
"Well, you may be right," said Fiver. "That Vilthuril"s a beautiful doe. I"d like a chance to get to know her better. After all, it"s not natural to rabbits, is it?--on and on day after day."
Later, however, when Blackavar returned with Dandelion from a patrol they had undertaken on their own initiative, he came out more strongly against the idea.
"This is no place to stop, Hazel-rah," he said. "No Wide Patrol would bivouac here. It"s fox country. We ought to try to get further before dark."
Bigwig"s shoulder had been hurting him a good deal during the afternoon and he felt low and surly. It seemed to him that Blackavar was being clever at other people"s expense. If he got his way they would have to go on, tired as they were, until they came to somewhere which was suitable by Efrafan standards. There they would be as safe--no more and no less--than they would have been if they had stayed at this copse; but Blackavar would be the clever fellow who had saved them from a fox that had never existed outside his own fancy. His Efrafan scoutcraft act was getting to be a bore. It was time someone called his bluff.
"There are likely to be foxes anywhere about the downs," said Bigwig sharply. "Why is this fox country more than anywhere else?"
Tact was a quality which Blackavar valued about as much as Bigwig did; and now he made the worst possible reply.
"I can"t exactly tell you why," he said. "I"ve formed a strong impression, but it"s hard to explain quite what it"s based on."
"Oh, an impression, eh?" sneered Bigwig. "Did you see any hraka? Pick up any scent? Or was it just a message from little green mice singing under a toadstool?"
Blackavar felt hurt. Bigwig was the last rabbit he wanted to quarrel with.
"Ye think I"m a fool, then," he answered, his Efrafan accent becoming more marked. "No, there was neether hraka ner scent, but I still think that this is a place where a fox comes. On these patrols we used to do, ye know, we--"
"Did you you see or smell anything?" said Bigwig to Dandelion. see or smell anything?" said Bigwig to Dandelion.
"Er--well, I"m not really quite sure," said Dandelion. "I mean, Blackavar seems to know an awful lot about patrolling and he asked me whether I didn"t feel a sort of--"
"Well, we can go on like this all night," said Bigwig. "Blackavar, do you know that earlier this summer, before we had the benefit of your experience, we went for days across every kind of country--fields, heather, woods, downs--and never lost one rabbit?"
"It"s the idea of sc.r.a.pes, that"s all," said Blackavar apologetically, "New sc.r.a.pes get noticed; and digging can be heard a surprisingly long way, ye know."
"Let him alone," said Hazel, before Bigwig could speak again. "You didn"t get him out of Efrafa to bully him. Look, Blackavar, I suppose I"ve got to decide this. I think you"re probably right and there is a certain amount of risk. But we"re at risk all the time until we get back to our warren and everyone"s so tired that I think we might just as well stop here for a day or two. We shall be all the better for it."
Enough sc.r.a.pes were finished by soon after sunset and next day, sure enough, all the rabbits felt a great deal better for a night underground. As Hazel had foreseen, there was some mating and a scuffle or two, but no one was hurt. By the evening a kind of holiday spirit prevailed. Hazel"s leg was stronger and Bigwig felt fitter than at any time since he went into Efrafa. The does, hara.s.sed and bony two days before, were beginning to look quite sleek.
On the second morning, silflay did not begin until some time after dawn. A light wind was blowing straight into the north bank of the copse, where the sc.r.a.pes had been dug, and Bluebell, when he came up, swore he could smell rabbits on it.
"It"s old Holly pressing his chin glands for us, Hazel-rah," he said. "A rabbit"s sneeze on the morning breeze sets homesick hearts aglow--"
"Sitting with his rump in a chicory clump and longing for a nice plump doe," replied Hazel.
"That won"t do, Hazel-rah," said Bluebell. "He"s got two does up there."
"Only hutch does," replied Hazel. "I dare say they"re fairly tough and fast by now, but all the same they"ll never be quite like our own kind. Clover, for instance--she"d never go far from the hole on silflay, because she knew she couldn"t run as fast as we can. But these Efrafan does, you see--they"ve been kept in by sentries all their lives. Yet now there aren"t any, they wander about quite happily. Look at those two, right away under the bank there. They feel they can--Oh, great Frith!"
As he spoke a tawny shape, dog-like, sprang out of the overhanging nut bushes as silently as light from behind a cloud. It landed between the two does, grabbed one by the neck and dragged her up the bank in a flash. The wind veered and the reek of fox came over the gra.s.s. With stamping and flashing of tails every rabbit on the slope dashed for cover.
Hazel and Bluebell found themselves crouched with Blackavar. The Efrafan was matter-of-fact and detached.
"Poor little beast," he said. "You see, their instincts are weakened by life in the Mark. Fancy feeding under bushes on the windward side of a wood! Never mind, Hazel-rah, these things happen. But look, I tell you what. Unless there are two hombil, which would be very bad luck, we"ve got till ni-Frith at least to get away. That homba won"t be hunting any more for some time. I suggest we all move on as soon as we can."
With a word of agreement, Hazel went out to call the rabbits together. They made a scattered but swift run to the northeast, along the edge of a field of ripening wheat. No one spoke of the doe. They had covered more than three quarters of a mile before Bigwig and Hazel halted to rest and to make sure that no one had fallen behind. Blackavar came up with Hyzenthlay, Bigwig said, "You told us how it would be, didn"t you? And I was the one who wouldn"t listen."
"Told you?" said Blackavar. "I don"t understand."
"That there was likely to be a fox."
"I don"t remember, I"m afraid. But I don"t see that any of us could possibly have known. Anyway, what"s a doe more or less?"
Bigwig looked at him in astonishment, but Blackavar, apparently unconcerned either to stress what he had said or to break off the talk, simply began to nibble the gra.s.s. Bigwig, puzzled moved away and himself began to feed a little distance off, with Hyzenthlay and Hazel.
"What"s he getting at?" he asked after a while. "You were all there when he warned us, two nights ago, that there was likely to be a fox. I treated him badly."
"In Efrafa," said Hyzenthlay, "if a rabbit gave advice and the advice wasn"t accepted, he immediately forgot it and so did everyone else. Blackavar thought what Hazel decided; and whether it turned out later to be right or wrong was all the same. His own advice had never been given."
"I can believe that," said Bigwig. "Efrafa! Ants led by a dog! But we"re not in Efrafa now. Has he really forgotten that he warned us?"
"Probably he really has. But whether or not, you"d never get him to admit that he warned you or to listen while you told him he"d been right. He could no more do that than pa.s.s hraka underground."
"But you"re an Efrafan. Do you think like that, too?"
"I"m a doe," said Hyzenthlay.
During the early afternoon they began to approach the Belt and Bigwig was the first to recognize the place where Dandelion had told the story of the Black Rabbit of Inle.