Toad Triumphant (20 page)

The River roared so loud at times, and the banks on either side loomed so high, that the brightest part of the day seemed dark, and they often had to communicate with shouts and gestures. The further they went the more gorge-like the route became, and in places they had to drag the boat through the water with ropes about their chests, for punting or rowing was not always possible.

“A few more days, Mole, and we’ll have to think of turning back,” said the Rat.

But peering up the course of the roaring River, through the overhanging trees, they occasionally caught glimpses of huge skies and distant hills and mountains, and these intrigued the Mole.

“I just want to get beyond that rise of ground, even if we must leave the boat and walk the last part,” he explained. “If only we can catch a glimpse of that mysterious place beyond all this, and also prove there’s no great Pike here that travellers should worry about! Perhaps one day in the future my brave Nephew will come this way and take up the journey where we must soon leave it —”

A rush of wind, an extra roar of water.

“I can’t hear you, Mole, old fellow; the River’s roar is too loud,” shouted the Rat. “Let’s go on a bit, for it’s too cold here to hang about.”

“What I said can wait,” the Mole shouted back; “so let’s get on!”

On the third day after this, or perhaps the fourth or fifth — for time in that strange enshadowed place seemed to pass according to its own strange rules — the River widened into a run of deep, peat-stained pools. The banks were steep now, and very high, and the ground beyond so treacherous with the tangle of wet roots and moss, loose rocks and great impenetrable ferns that the only way forward was by water.

They had to stop sometimes to rest and eat, but all they could do was tie their painter to an overhanging root and dig their oars hard into what mud and grit there was to keep the boat steady. But the constant unremitting roar of water made them uneasy and they fancied the trees had eyes and the wet vegetation about them hid the faces of enemies who spied on them and wished them ill.

In one such place they succeeded in clambering up the rocky banks and exploring a little, but when they returned to their craft they found the wet ground bore the unmistakable footprints of other creatures.

“Humph!” declared the Rat, gripping the cutlass he now habitually carried and staring into the shadows to make sure they were not about to be ambushed. “These are big fellows who have been here.”

“Not just mere weasels and stoats, that’s certain,” said the Mole, “but they do not seem to have interfered with our boat or the gear in it. They could have caused us a good deal of inconvenience if they had.”

The Water Rat glowered, annoyed with himself for taking such a risk, for he knew what a parlous position they would have been in had the person or persons who had spied on them — and might be spying still — untied their craft and let it drift out into the dangerous waters. The regulars at the Tavern far downstream would have had rather more than hats and boots to gossip about.

Chastened by this experience and resolved not to leave the boat unattended again, they set off once more.

“We must be careful, Mole, for this is no place to capsize or tumble in. The currents are swift and it would be too dangerous to try to turn back to rescue someone. Are you quite sure you’re game to carry on?”

The water ran wide and deep now, and far ahead they saw a waterfall, above and beyond which was that alluring mountainous prospect they had seen earlier, and the drift of huge birds circling black against the sky.

“As far as the waterfall,” said the Mole; “that’s our destination, for we can take the boat no further. If we can climb up to the plateau above, well and good, but if not I shall be well satisfied. And we’ll have proved there’s no such thing as the Lathbury Pike!”

They decided to try to rest well that last night of their outward journey satisfied with what they had done, though disappointed they had not done more; and tired, very tired, for the last days had been almost too much, and so noisy an animal could hardly think straight …

The Mole woke with a start in the night to the sound of his dreams and nightmares of a Pike and its brood, rapine and dangerous; and the whoosh! whoosh! whoosh! of its tail in the dark.

“What’s that, Ratty?” said he fearfully.

“Nothing, Mole, nothing. Just the roar of the River torrents in the night.”

Morning came at last, and with it the blessed relief of sunshine. The pools of the River ahead sparkled as the Rat rowed well and cheerfully for they had been heartened to see a craft moored up near the waterfall — an old punt of rude but sturdy design — which suggested somebody must be about.

“Not far now, Ratty,” said the Mole, for the air was growing damp with the mist from the waterfall.

“Go back!
You two!
Go back this instant!”

The warning seemed to come from the shadows surrounding the great deep pool, and as the Rat stopped sculling and held the boat steady they searched to see who called.

“Turn and go back, for the Pike breeds here! Go back! No one wants you here. Go!”

Then the Mole saw him, standing on a rock steadying himself with a stave: a badger huge and dark, shaking a fist at them. And he wore sturdy boots of the kind that might very well have left the marks they had seen upon the bank.

“Ratty, he’s over there, just
there,
can’t you see?”

Perhaps in the moment the Rat turned to look he loosened his grip on one of the oars, or perhaps the thumping jolt of the underwater obstruction that seemed to catch the boat at that same instant was so powerful he could never have held her steady anyway.

But even as the badger gave another warning shout, the water on their right side heaved darkly and something golden—dark and huge surged and turned, and they saw eyes as evil and yellow as bile, with scales as ruddy red as the setting sun, and the boat rocked and heaved uncontrollably till it was suddenly turned over by the power of the beast that sought to take them.

“Ratty, help!”

“Mole, I can’t —!”

All then was raging water, and surf, and the boil of river depths filled with the race of bubbles, and the tangle of gear and rope, and loose oars, and a creature that seemed more huge and terrible than anything they had ever known.

“Ratty!” cried the Mole, reaching out to his friend with one hand while clinging on with the other to his cudgel. “Ratty —!”

But it was no good, for poor Ratty, always the strongest swimmer, Ratty the friend who always found a solution to their problems — Ratty was torn by the beast from the Mole’s weakening grasp in a boiling, raging, swirling whoosh of water and cruel teeth, and then gone from sight at the murderous beat of a massive tail.

Somehow or other the Mole clambered then to the shore, his club still in his hand, dazed and shaking with cold and fear. The place was dark and shadowed by great and ancient trees, the rocks covered in ferns and wet moss, and for a moment the Mole turned instinctively to try to climb up to dry land and out of harm’s way.

Then he heard a cry, turned back towards the torrent and saw a heave of water, the slow rise of that great tail, and in the Pike’s fearful mouth the colour of a jacket he knew too well.

Mole of Mole End of the River Bank, the one whom Nephew believed to be the greatest Mole who ever lived, knew no fear then. That Mole was suddenly courage personified.

Back into the water he stormed, wading, swimming, pulling himself to where the Rat and the Pike struggled, flailing with his cudgel at the great vile thing, and continuing even after it finally let go the Rat’s spent form and turned upon him.

“Ratty, I’ll never —!”

But then the Mole knew no more.

He felt a sharp tearing at the lower half of his body a searing pain, and knew the terror of descending into the enfolding darkness of deep ice-cold water, and the fading of the light, and air, and life far far above his head and beyond his reach.

All was darkness and silence.

The Mole woke to the bliss of a warm, lavender-scented bed in which he seemed to float in endless comfort, drifting from day to night, from night to day.

“Sir! Please, sir, can you hear me now? Try to wake up —”

A voice, which though deep was young, though gruff was kind and much concerned.

“I’m Mole,” he whispered, very happily for to say his name was to say he was alive, “of Mole End —” and he drifted back to a healing sleep that had seemed to start long long before, in a place far far away.

Only slowly as the days passed by did wakefulness begin to come more often, and he accepted with gratitude the kind help of the young badger in whose home he was recovering. He accepted the water he was helped to drink, and the herbal teas as well; and finally the wholesome soups and nutty bread whose crumbs fell onto his chin and into his bed from where his helper removed them.

Only slowly, and most reluctantly did he begin to remember what had happened, and to accept the fact that poor Ratty, his dearest closest friend was surely —The badger who tended him in those long days of recovery seemed sometimes to age and to stand over him, huge and dark, very fierce, just as the Badger himself had been when the Mole first met him. Then he seemed to grow young again, and to help the Mole out of bed that he might be washed, and the mattress turned, and the sheets shaken and then changed, the scent of lavender giving way to the subtle scents of eglantine and balm.

“Ratty —” murmured the Mole, “my friend Ra——”

“Go to sleep, sir. Go back to sleep, for it may be that your friend —”

The gravely ill Mole drifted back to sleep, reaching towards the shred of hope that he found in those few words, “It may be that your friend —”

Another day. The sun slanting across the room, doors opening, voices, and argument.

“I
will
see him, I
must
go to him!”

“It’d be better if you —” growled a deep rough voice.

“But it’s Mole, don’t you see, my friend M”

“You’re not so well yourself; now come along and go to him later.”

“I will see him now I
must!”

The door burst open and as the Mole tried to open his eyes against the fierce light of day he heard his name spoken by one whose voice he had thought never to hear again.

“Mole, old fellow, dear Mole, s—”

“Ratty,” whispered the Mole, “you’re all right, you’re not —”

He felt his hand taken up and held, and he opened his eyes to see his dearest friend staring down at him, shaking his head with wonder and tears in his eyes.

“No, Moly I’m
not,
and it is only thanks to you and your great courage that it is so.”

“But, Ratty, you’re all —”

The Rat’s face was a good deal thinner than it had been when the Mole last saw him, and it was cut and torn with scratches and bruises, and his left hand was bound in a bandage that would have been a good deal neater and more orderly if the Mole himself had applied it.

“What
happened
to you, Ratty? How did —?”

Behind the Rat a great shadow loomed, and the Mole saw clearly for the first time the elder of the two badgers who had been looking after him. Then, at the end of the bed the younger, slighter one of the two.