"Dey hiding at pridge," he said, "all under pushes. I come down, dat peeg fella "e make for fight me."
"Did he?" said Bigwig. "The brute"s got courage, I"ll give him that."
"Dey t"ink you got to cross river dere or else go all along pank. Dey not know heem poat. You near poat now."
Fiver came running through the undergrowth.
"We"ve been able to get some of them on the boat, Bigwig," he said, "but most of them won"t trust me. They just keep asking where you you are." are."
Bigwig ran behind him and came out on the green path by the bank. All the surface of the river was winking and plopping in the rain. The level did not appear to have risen much as yet. The boat was just as he remembered it--one end against the bank, the other a little way out in the stream. On the raised part at the near end Hazel was crouching, his ears drooping on either side of his head and his flattened fur completely black with rain. He was holding the taut rope in his teeth. Acorn, Hyzenthlay and two more were crouching near him on the wood, but the rest were huddled here and there along the bank. Blackberry was trying unsuccessfully to persuade them to get out on the boat.
"Hazel"s afraid to leave the rope," he said to Bigwig. "Apparently he"s bitten it very thin already. All these does will say is that you"re their officer."
Bigwig turned to Thethuthinnang.
"This is the magic trick now," he said. "Get them over there, where Hyzenthlay"s sitting, do you see? All of them --quickly."
Before she could reply, another doe gave a squeal of fear. A little way downstream, Campion and his patrol had emerged from the bushes and were coming up the path. From the opposite direction Vervain, Chervil and Groundsel were approaching. The doe turned and darted for the undergrowth immediately behind her. Just as she reached it, Woundwort himself appeared in her way, reared up and dealt her a great, raking blow across the face. The doe turned once more and ran blindly across the path and onto the boat.
Bigwig realized that since the moment when Kehaar had attacked him in the field, Woundwort had not only retained control over his officers but had actually made a plan and put it into effect. The storm and the difficult going had upset the fugitives and disorganized them. Woundwort, on the other hand, had taken his rabbits into the ditch and then made use of it to get them down to the water meadow, unexposed to further attack from Kehaar. Once there, he must have gone straight for the plank bridge--which he evidently knew about--and set an ambush under cover. But as soon as he had grasped that for some reason the runaways were not making for the bridge after all, he had instantly sent Campion to make his way round through the undergrowth, regain the bank downstream and cut them off; and Campion had done this without error or delay. Now Woundwort meant to fight them, here on the bank. He knew that Kehaar could not be everywhere and that the bushes and undergrowth provided enough cover, at a pinch, to dodge him. It was true that the other side had twice his numbers, but most of them were afraid of him and none was a trained Efrafan officer. Now that he had them pinned against the river, he would split them up and kill as many as possible. The rest could run away and come to grief as they might.
Bigwig began to understand why Woundwort"s officers followed him and fought for him as they did.
"He"s not like a rabbit at all," he thought. "Flight"s the last thing he ever thinks of. If I"d known three nights ago what I know now, I don"t believe I"d ever have gone into Efrafa. I suppose he hasn"t realized about the boat, too? It wouldn"t surprise me." He dashed across the gra.s.s and jumped on the planking beside Hazel.
The appearance of Woundwort had achieved what Blackberry and Fiver could not. Every one of the does ran from the bank to the boat. Blackberry and Fiver ran with them. Woundwort, following them close, reached the edge of the bank and came face to face with Bigwig. As he stood his ground, Bigwig could hear Blackberry just behind him, speaking urgently to Hazel.
"Dandelion"s not here," said Blackberry. "He"s the only one."
Hazel spoke for the first time. "We shall have to leave him," he answered. "It"s a shame, but these fellows will be at us in a moment and we can"t stop them."
Bigwig spoke without taking his eyes from Woundwort. "Just a few more moments, Hazel," he said. "I"ll keep them off. We can"t leave Dandelion."
Woundwort sneered up at him. "I trusted you, Thlayli," he said. "You can trust me now. You"ll either go into the river or be torn to pieces here--the whole lot of you. There"s nowhere left to run."
Bigwig had caught sight of Dandelion looking out of the undergrowth opposite. He was plainly at a loss.
"Groundsel! Vervain!" said Woundwort. "Come over here beside me. When I give the word, we"ll go straight into them. As for that bird, it"s not dangerous--"
"There it is!" cried Bigwig. Woundwort looked up quickly and leaped back. Dandelion shot out of the bushes, crossed the path in a flash and was on the boat beside Hazel. In the same moment the rope parted and immediately the little punt began to move along the bank in the steady current. When it had gone a few yards, the stern swung slowly outward until it was broadside on to the stream. In this position it drifted to the middle of the river and into the southward bend.
Looking back, the last thing Bigwig saw was the face of General Woundwort staring out of the gap in the willow herb where the boat had lain. It reminded him of the kestrel on Watership Down which had pounced into the mouth of the hole and missed the mouse.
PART IV
Hazel-rah
39.The Bridges
Boatman dance, boatman sing, Boatman do most anything, Dance, boatman, dance.
Dance all night till the broad daylight, Go home with the girls in the morning.
Hey, ho, boatman row, Sailing down the river on the Ohio.
American Folk Song On almost any other river, Blackberry"s plan would not have worked. The punt would not have left the bank or, if it had, would have run aground or been fouled by weeds or some other obstruction. But here, on the Test, there were no submerged branches and no gravel spits or beds of weed above the surface at all. From bank to bank the current, regular and unvaried, flowed as fast as a man strolling. The punt slipped downstream smoothly, without any alteration of the speed which it had gained within a few yards of leaving the bank.
Most of the rabbits had very little idea of what was happening. The Efrafan does had never seen a river and it would certainly have been beyond Pipkin or Hawkbit to explain to them that they were on a boat. They--and nearly all the others--had simply trusted Hazel and done as they were told. But all--bucks and does alike--realized that Woundwort and his followers had vanished. Wearied by all they had gone through, the sodden rabbits crouched without talking, incapable of any feeling but a dull relief and without even the energy to wonder what was going to happen next.
That they should feel any relief--dull or otherwise--was remarkable in the circ.u.mstances and showed both how little they understood their situation and how much fear Woundwort could inspire, for their escape from him seemed to be their only good fortune. The rain was still falling. Already so wet that they no longer felt it, they were nevertheless shivering with cold and weighted with their drenched fur. The punt was holding over half an inch of rainwater. There was one small, slatted floorboard and this was floating. Some of the rabbits, in the first confusion of boarding the punt, had found themselves in this water, but now all had got clear of it--most either to bows or stern, though Thethuthinnang and Speedwell were hunched on the narrow thwart, amidships. In addition to their discomfort, they were exposed and helpless. Finally, there was no way of controlling the punt and they did not know where they were going. But these last were troubles beyond the understanding of everyone but Hazel, Fiver and Blackberry.
Bigwig had collapsed beside Hazel and lay on his side, exhausted. The feverish courage which had brought him from Efrafa to the river had gone and his wounded shoulder had begun to hurt badly. In spite of the rain and the throbbing pulse down his foreleg, he felt ready to sleep where he was, stretched upon the planking. He opened his eyes and looked up at Hazel.
"I couldn"t do it again, Hazel-rah," he said.
"You haven"t got to," replied Hazel.
"It was touch and go, you know," said Bigwig. "A chance in a thousand."
"Our children"s children will hear a good story," answered Hazel, quoting a rabbit proverb. "How did you get that wound? It"s a nasty one."
"I fought a member of the Council police," said Bigwig.
"A what?" The term "Owslafa" was unknown to Hazel.
"A dirty little beast like Hufsa," said Bigwig.
"Did you beat him?"
"Oh, yes--or I shouldn"t be here. I should think he"ll stop running. I say, Hazel-rah, we"ve got the does. What"s going to happen now?"
"I don"t know," said Hazel. "We need one of these clever rabbits to tell us. And Kehaar--where"s he gone? He"s supposed to know about this thing we"re sitting on."
Dandelion, crouching beside Hazel, got up at the mention of "clever rabbits," made his way across the puddled floor and returned with Blackberry and Fiver.
"We"re all wondering what to do next," said Hazel.
"Well," said Blackberry, "I suppose we shall drift into the bank before long and then we can get out and find cover. There"s no harm, though, in going a good long way from those friends of Bigwig"s."
"There is," said Hazel. "We"re stuck here in full view and we can"t run. If a man sees us we"re in trouble."
"Men don"t like rain," said Blackberry. "Neither do I, if it comes to that, but it makes us safer just now."
At this moment Hyzenthlay, sitting just behind him, started and looked up.
"Excuse me, sir, for interrupting you," she said, as though speaking to an officer in Efrafa, "but the bird--the white bird--it"s coming toward us."
Kehaar came flying up the river through the rain and alighted on the narrow side of the punt. The does nearest to him backed away nervously.
"Meester "Azel," he said, "pridge come. You see "im pridge?"
It had not occurred to any of the rabbits that they were floating beside the path up which they had come earlier that evening before the storm broke. They were on the opposite side of the hedge of plants along the bank and the whole river looked different. But now they saw, not far ahead, the bridge which they had crossed when they first came to the Test four nights before. This they recognized at once, for it looked the same as it had from the bank.
"Maybe you go under "im, maybe not," said Kehaar. "But you sit dere, ees trouble."
The bridge stretched from bank to bank between two low abutments. It was not arched. Its underside, made of iron girders, was perfectly straight--parallel with the surface and about eight niches above it. Just in time Hazel saw what Kehaar meant. If the punt did pa.s.s under the bridge without sticking, it would do so by no more than a claw"s breadth. Any creature above the level of the sides would be struck and perhaps knocked into the river. He scuttered through the warm bilgewater to the other end and pushed his way up among the wet, crowded rabbits.
"Get down in the bottom! Get down in the bottom!" he said. "Silver, Hawkbit--all of you. Never mind the water. You, and you--what"s your name? Oh, Blackavar, is it?--get everyone into the bottom. Be quick."
Like Bigwig, he found that the Efrafan rabbits obeyed him at once. He saw Kehaar fly up from his perch and disappear over the wooden rails. The concrete abutments projected from each bank, so that the narrowed river ran slightly faster under the bridge. The punt had been drifting broadside on, but now one end swung forward, so that Hazel lost his bearings and found that he was no longer looking at the bridge but at the bank. As he hesitated, the bridge seemed to come at him in a dark ma.s.s, like snow sliding from a bough. He pressed himself into the bilge. There was a squeal and a rabbit tumbled on top of him. Then a heavy blow vibrated along the length of the punt and its smooth movement was checked. This was followed by a hollow sound of sc.r.a.ping. It grew dark and a roof appeared, very low above him. For a moment Hazel had the vague idea that he was underground. Then the roof vanished, the punt was gliding on and he heard Kehaar calling. They were below the bridge and still drifting downstream.
The rabbit who had fallen on him was Acorn. He had been struck by the bridge and the blow had sent him flying. However, though dazed and bruised, he seemed to have escaped injury.
"I wasn"t quick enough, Hazel-rah," he said. "I"d better go to Efrafa for a bit."
"You"d be wasted," said Hazel. "But I"m afraid there"s someone at the other end who hasn"t been so lucky."
One of the does had held back from the bilgewater, and the upstream girder under the bridge had caught her across the back. It was plain that she was injured, but how badly Hazel could not tell. He saw Hyzenthlay beside her and it seemed to him that since there was nothing he could do to help, it would probably be best to let them alone. He looked round at his bedraggled, shivering comrades and then at Kehaar, spruce and brisk on the stem.
"We ought to get back on the bank, Kehaar," he said. "How can we do it? Rabbits weren"t meant for this, you know."
"You not stop poat. But again is nudder pridge more. "E stop "im."
There was nothing to be done but wait. They drifted on and came to a second bend, where the river curved westward. The current did not slacken and the punt came round the bend almost in the middle of the stream, revolving as it did so. The rabbits had been frightened by what had happened to Acorn and to the doe, and remained squatting miserably, half in and half out of the bilge. Hazel crept back to the raised bow and looked ahead.
The river broadened and the current slackened. He realized that they had begun to drift more slowly. The nearer bank was high and the trees stood close and thick, but on the further bank the ground was low and open. Gra.s.sy, it stretched away, smooth as the mown gallops on Watership Down. Hazel hoped that they might somehow drop out of the current and reach that side, but the punt moved quietly on, down the very center of the broad pool. The open bank slipped by and now the trees towered on both sides. Downstream, the pool was closed by the second bridge, of which Kehaar had spoken.
It was old, built of darkened bricks. Ivy trailed over it and the valerian and creeping mauve toadflax. Well out from either bank stood four low arches--scarcely more than culverts, each filled by the stream to within a foot of the apex. Through them, thin segments of daylight showed from the downstream side. The piers did not project, but against each lay a little acc.u.mulation of flotsam, from which driftweed and sticks continually broke away to be carried through the bridge.
It was plain that the punt would drift against the bridge and be held there. As it approached, Hazel dropped back into the bilgewater. But this time there was no need. Broadside on, the punt struck gently against two of the piers and stopped, pinned squarely across the mouth of one of the central culverts. It could go no further.
They had floated not quite half a mile in just over fifteen minutes.
Hazel put his forepaws on the low side and looked gingerly over upstream. Immediately below, a shallow ripple spread all along the waterline, where the current met the woodwork. It was too far to jump to the sh.o.r.e and both banks were steep. He turned and looked upward. The brickwork was sheer, with a projecting course half way between him and the parapet. There was no scrambling up that.
"What"s to be done, Blackberry?" he asked, making his way to the bolt fixed on the bow, with its ragged remnant of painter. "You got us on this thing. How do we get off?"
"I don"t know, Hazel-rah," replied Blackberry. "Of all the ways we could finish up, I never thought of this. It looks as though we"ll have to swim."
"Swim?" said Silver. "I don"t fancy it, Hazel-rah. I know it"s no distance, but look at those banks. The current would take us down before we could get out: and that means into one of these holes under the bridge."
Hazel tried to look through the arch. There was very little to be seen. The dark tunnel was not long--perhaps not much longer than the punt itself. The water looked smooth. There seemed to be no obstructions and there was room for the head of a swimming animal between the surface of the water and the apex of the arch. But the segment was so narrow that it was impossible to see exactly what lay on the other side of the bridge. The light was failing. Water, green leaves, moving reflections of leaves, the splashing of the raindrops and some curious thing that appeared to be standing in the water and to be made of vertical gray lines--these were all that could be made out. The rain echoed dismally up the culvert. The hard, ringing noise from under the soffit, so much unlike any sound to be heard in an earth tunnel, was disturbing. Hazel returned to Blackberry and Silver.
"This is as bad a fix as we"ve been in," he said. "We can"t stay here, but I can"t see any way out."
Kehaar appeared on the parapet above them, flapped the rain out of his wings and dropped down to the punt.
"Ees finish poat," he said. "Not vait more."
"But how can we get to the bank, Kehaar?" said Hazel.
The gull was surprised. "Dog sveem, rat sveem. You no sveem?"
"Yes, we can swim as long as it"s not very far. But the banks are too steep for us, Kehaar. We wouldn"t be able to stop the current taking us down one of these tunnels and we don"t know what"s at the other end."
"Ees goot--you get out fine."
Hazel felt at a loss. What exactly was he to understand from this? Kehaar was not a rabbit. Whatever the Big Water was like, it must be worse than this and Kehaar was used to it. He never said much in any case and what he did say was always restricted to the simplest, since he spoke no Lapine. He was doing them a good turn because they had saved his life but, as Hazel knew, he could not help despising them for timid, helpless, stay-at-home creatures who could not fly. He was often impatient. Did he mean that he had looked at the river and considered it as if he were a rabbit? That there was slack water immediately below the bridge, with a low, shelving bank where they could get out easily? That seemed too much to hope for. Or did he simply mean that they had better hurry up and take a chance on being able to do what he himself could do without difficulty? This seemed more likely. Suppose one of them did jump out of the boat and go down with the current--what would that tell the others, if he did not come back?
Poor Hazel looked about him. Silver was licking Bigwig"s wounded shoulder. Blackberry was fidgeting on and off the thwart, strung up, able to feel only too clearly all that Hazel felt himself. As he still hesitated, Kehaar let out a squawk.
"Yark! d.a.m.n rabbits no goot. Vat I do, I show you."
He tumbled clumsily off the raised bow. There was no gap between the punt and the dark mouth of the culvert. Sitting low in the water like a mallard, he floated into the tunnel and vanished. Peering after him, Hazel could at first see nothing. Then he made out Kehaar"s shape black against the light at the far end. It floated into daylight, turned sideways and pa.s.sed out of the restricted view.
"What does that prove?" said Blackberry, his teeth chattering. "He may have flown off the surface or put his great webbed feet down. It"s not he that"s soaked through and shivering and twice as heavy with wet fur."
Kehaar reappeared on the parapet above.
"You go now," he said shortly.
Still the wretched Hazel hung back. His leg had begun to hurt again. The sight of Bigwig--Bigwig of all rabbits--at the end of his tether, half unconscious, playing no part in this desperate exploit, lowered his courage still more. He knew that he had not got it in him to jump into the water. The horrible situation was beyond him. He stumbled on the slippery planking and, as he sat up, found Fiver beside him.
"I"ll go, Hazel," said Fiver quietly. "I think it"ll be all right."
He put his front paws on the edge of the bow. Then, on the instant, all the rabbits froze motionless. One of the does stamped on the puddled floor of the punt. From above came the sounds of approaching footsteps and men"s voices, and the smell of a burning white stick.
Kehaar flew away. Not a rabbit moved. The footsteps grew nearer, the voices louder. They were on the bridge above, no further away than the height of a hedge. Every one of the rabbits was seized by the instinct to run, to go underground. Hazel saw Hyzenthlay looking at him and returned her stare, willing her with all his might to keep still. The voices, the smell of men"s sweat, of leather, of white sticks, the pain in his leg, the damp, chuckling tunnel at his very ear--he had known them all before. How could the men not see him? They must see him. He was lying at their feet. He was wounded. They were coming to pick him up.
Then the sounds and smells were receding into the distance, the thudding of the footsteps diminished. The men had crossed the bridge without looking over the parapet. They were gone.
Hazel came to. "That settles it," he said. "Everyone"s got to swim. Come on, Bluebell, you say you"re a water rabbit. Follow me." He got on the thwart and went along it to the side.
But it was Pipkin that he found next to him.
"Quick, Hazel-rah," said Pipkin, twitching and trembling. "I"ll come, too. Only be quick."
Hazel shut his eyes and fell over the side into the water.