Watership Down (44 page)

       
"But he didn't have to! We should have got away without that."

       
"Confounded fool!" said Hazel. "I don't know when I've been so angry."

       
The fox had quickened its pace and was now some distance away from them. It appeared to be overtaking Bigwig. The sun had set and in the failing light they could just make him out as he entered the undergrowth. He disappeared and the fox followed. For several moments all was quiet. Then, horribly clear across the darkening, empty combe, there came the agonizing squeal of a stricken rabbit.

       
"O Frith and Inlé!" cried Blackberry, stamping. Pipkin turned to bolt. Hazel did not move.

       
"Shall we go, Hazel?" asked Silver. "We can't help him now."

       
As he spoke, Bigwig suddenly broke out of the trees, running very fast. Almost before they could grasp that he was alive, he had recrossed the entire upper slope of the combe in a single dash and bolted in among them.

       
"Come on," said Bigwig, "let's get out of here!"

       
"But what--what--Are you wounded?" asked Bluebell in bewilderment.

       
"No," said Bigwig, "never better! Let's go!"

       
"You can wait until I'm ready," said Hazel in a cold, angry tone. "You've done your best to kill yourself and acted like a complete fool. Now hold your tongue and sit down!" He turned and, although it was rapidly becoming too dark to see any distance, made as though he were still looking out across the combe. Behind him, the rabbits fidgeted nervously. Several had begun to feel a dreamlike sense of unreality. The long day above ground, the close, overgrown combe, the frightening story in which they had been absorbed, the sudden appearance of the fox, the shock of Bigwig's inexplicable adventure--all these, following one upon another, had flooded their spirits and left them dull and bemused.

       
"Get them out, Hazel," whispered Fiver, "before they all go tharn."

       
Hazel turned at once. "Well, no fox," he said cheerfully. "It's gone and we'll go, too. For goodness' sake keep close together, because if anyone gets lost in the dark we may not find him again. And remember, if we come upon any strange rabbits, you're to attack them at once and ask questions afterward."

       
They skirted the side of the wood that lay along the southern edge of the combe and then, in ones and twos, slipped across the empty road beyond. Little by little their spirits cleared. They found themselves in open farmland--indeed, they could both smell and hear the farm, not far away on the evening side--and the going was easy: smooth, wide pasture fields, sloping gently downhill and divided not by hedges but by broad, low banks, each as wide as a lane and overgrown with elder, dogwood and spindle. It was true rabbit country, reassuring after the Belt and the tangled, goose-grassed combe; and when they had covered a good distance over the turf--halting continually to listen and sniff and running, now one and now another, from each piece of cover to the next--Hazel felt safe in giving them a rest. As soon as he had sent out Speedwell and Hawkbit as sentries, he led Bigwig to one side.

       
"I'm angry with you," he said. "You're the one rabbit we're not going to be able to do without and you have to go and run a silly risk like that. It wasn't necessary and it wasn't even clever. What were you up to?"

       
"I'm afraid I just lost my head, Hazel," replied Bigwig. "I've been strung up all day, thinking about this business at Efrafa--got me really on edge. When I feel like that I have to do something--you know, fight or run a risk. I thought if I could make that fox look a fool I wouldn't feel so worried about the other thing. What's more, it worked--I feel a lot better now."

       
"Playing El-ahrairah," said Hazel. "You duffer, you might have thrown your life away for nothing--we all thought you had. Don't try it again, there's a good chap. You know everything's going to depend on you. But tell me, whatever happened in the trees? Why did you cry like that, if you were all right?"

       
"I didn't," said Bigwig. "It was very queer, what happened, and bad, too, I'm afraid. I was going to lose the homba in the trees, you see, and then come back. Well, I went into the undergrowth, and I'd just stopped limping and was starting to run really fast when suddenly I found myself face to face with a bunch of rabbits--strangers. They were coming toward me, as if they were going out into the open combe. Of course, I didn't have time to get a good look at them, but they seemed to be big fellows. 'Look out--run!' I said as I dashed up to them, but all they did was try to stop me. One of them said, 'You stay here!' or something like that, and then he got right in my way. So I knocked him down--I had to--and raced off, and the next thing I heard was this dreadful squealing. Of course, I went even faster then and I got clear of the trees and came back to you."

       
"So the homba got this other rabbit?"

       
"It must have. After all, I led it right onto them, even though I didn't mean to. But I never saw what actually happened."

       
"What became of the others?"

       
"I've no idea. They must have run, I suppose."

       
"I see," said Hazel thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps it's all for the best. But look here, Bigwig, no more fancy tricks until the proper time--there's too much at stake. You'd better stay near Silver and me--we'll keep you in good heart."

       
At that moment Silver came up to them.

       
"Hazel," he said, "I've just realized where we are and it's a lot too close to Efrafa. I think we ought to make off as soon as we can."

       
"I want to go right round Efrafa--wide," said Hazel. "Do you think you can find the way to that iron road Holly told us about?"

       
"I think so," replied Silver. "But we can't make too big a circle or they'll be completely exhausted. I can't say I know the way, but I can tell the direction all right."

       
"Well, we'll just have to take the risk," said Hazel. "If only we can get there by early morning, they can rest at the other end."

       
They met with no more adventures that night, moving quietly along the edges of the fields under the dim light of a quarter-moon. The half-darkness was full of sounds and movement. Once Acorn put up a plover, which flew round them, calling shrilly, until at length they crossed a bank and left it behind. Soon after, somewhere near them, they heard the unceasing bubbling of a nightjar--a peaceful sound, without menace, which died gradually away as they pushed on. And once they heard a corncrake calling as it crept among the long grass of a path verge. (It makes a sound like a human fingernail drawn down the teeth of a comb.) But elil they met none and although they were continually on the watch for signs of an Efrafan patrol, they saw nothing but mice, and a few hedgehogs hunting for slugs along the ditches.

       
At last, as the first lark rose toward the light that was still far up in the sky, Silver, his pale fur sodden dark with dew, came limping back to where Hazel was encouraging Bluebell and Pipkin.

       
"You can pluck up your spirits, Bluebell," he said. "I think we're close to the iron road."

       
"I wouldn't care about my spirits," said Bluebell, "if my legs weren't so tired. Slugs are lucky not to have legs. I think I'll be a slug."

       
"Well, I'm a hedgehog," said Hazel, "so you'd better get on!"

       
"You're not," replied Bluebell. "You haven't enough fleas. Now, slugs don't have fleas, either. How comforting to be a slug, among the dandelions so snug--"

       
"And feel the blackbird's sudden tug," said Hazel. "All right, Silver, we're coming. But where
is
the iron road? Holly said a steep, overgrown bank. I can't make out anything like that."

       
"No, that's away up by Efrafa. Down here it runs in a sort of combe of its own. Can't you smell it?"

       
Hazel sniffed. In the cool damp, he picked up at once the unnatural smells of metal, coal smoke and oil. They went forward and in a very short time found themselves looking down from among the bushes and undergrowth on the edge of the railway cutting. All was quiet, but as they paused at the top of the bank, a tussling pack of six or seven sparrows flew down to the line and began to peck about between the sleepers. Somehow, the sight was reassuring.

       
"Are we to cross, Hazel-rah?" asked Blackberry.

       
"Yes," said Hazel, "at once. Put it between us and Efrafa: then we'll feed."

       
They went rather hesitantly down into the cutting, half expecting the fiery, thundering angel of Frith to appear out of the twilight; but the silence remained unbroken. Soon they were all feeding in the meadow beyond, too tired to pay attention to concealment or to anything but the ease of resting their legs and nibbling the grass.

       
From above the larches Kehaar sailed down among them, alighted and folded his long, pale gray wings.

       
"Meester 'Azel, vat you do? You no stay 'ere?"

       
"They're tired out, Kehaar. They've got to have a rest."

       
"Ees not to rest 'ere. Ees rabbits come."

       
"Yes, but not just yet. We can--"

       
"Ya, ya, ees coming for find you! Ees close!"

       
"Oh, curse these confounded patrols!" cried Hazel. "Come on, all of you, get down the field into that wood! Yes, you, too, Speedwell, unless you want to have your ears chewed off in Efrafa. Come on, movel"

       
They tottered over the pasture to the woodland beyond and lay completely exhausted on flat, bare ground under fir trees. Hazel and Fiver consulted Kehaar again.

       
"It's no good expecting them to go any further, Kehaar," said Hazel. "They've been going all night, you know. We'll have to sleep here today. Did you actually see a patrol?"

       
"Ya, ya, come all along by udder side iron road. Yoost in time you go."

       
"Well, then, you saved us. But look, Kehaar, could you go and see where they are now? If they're gone, I'm going to tell our lot to go to sleep--not that they need telling: look at them!"

       
Kehaar returned with the news that the Efrafan patrol had turned back without crossing the iron road. Then he offered to keep watch himself until the evening and Hazel, greatly relieved, at once told the rabbits to sleep. One or two had already fallen asleep, lying on their sides on the open ground. Hazel wondered whether he ought to wake them and tell them to get under thicker cover, but as he was thinking about it he fell asleep himself.

       
The day came on hot and still. Among the trees the wood pigeons called drowsily and from time to time a late cuckoo stammered. In the fields, nothing moved except the constantly swishing tails of the cows gathered flank to flank in the shade.

33.
   
The Great River

Never in his life had he seen a river before--this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal. ... All was a-shake and a-shiver--glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble.

Kenneth Grahame,
The Wind in the Willows

When Hazel woke, he started up at once, for the air around him was full of the sharp cries of some creature hunting. He looked quickly round, but could see no signs of alarm. It was evening. Several of the rabbits were already awake and feeding on the edge of the wood. He realized that the cries, urgent and startling though they were, were too small and shrill for any kind of elil. They came from above his head. A bat flittered through the trees and out again without touching a twig. It was followed by another. Hazel could sense that there were many all about, taking flies and moths on the wing and uttering their minute cries as they flew. A human ear would hardly have heard them, but to the rabbits the air was full of their calls. Outside the wood, the field was still bright with evening sunshine, but among the firs the light was dusky and here the bats were coming and going thickly. Mixed with the resinous scent of the firs there came another smell, strong and fragrant, yet sharp--the perfume of flowers, but of some kind unknown to Hazel. He followed it to its source at the edge of the wood. It came from several thick patches of soapwort growing along the edge of the pasture. Some of the plants were not yet in bloom, their buds curled in pink, pointed spirals held in the pale green calices, but most were already star-flowering and giving off their strong scent. The bats were hunting among the flies and moths attracted to the soapwort.

       
Hazel passed hraka and began to feed in the field. He was disturbed to find that his hind leg was troubling him. He had thought that it was healed, but the forced journey over the downs had evidently proved too much for the muscle torn by the shotgun pellets. He wondered whether it was far to the river of which Kehaar had spoken. If it was, he was in for trouble.