Watership Down (49 page)

       
"Well, are you getting on all right with your new friends, Nelthilta?" said Chervil to the first, as she passed him.

       
The doe, a pretty, long-nosed rabbit not more than three months old, stopped and looked at him.

       
"You'll get on yourself one day, Captain, I dare say," she replied. "Like Captain Mallow--he got on, you know. Why don't you send some does on Wide Patrol?"

       
She paused for Chervil to reply, but he made no answer and did not speak to the does who followed Nelthilta out into the field.

       
"What did she mean by that?" asked Bigwig.

       
"Well, there's been trouble, you know," said Chervil. "A bunch of does in the Near Fore started a row at a Council meeting. The General said they must be broken up and we had a couple sent to us. I've been keeping an eye on them. They're no trouble themselves, but Nelthilta's taken up with them and it seems to have made her cheeky and resentful: sort of thing you saw just now. I don't really mind that--it shows they feel the Owsla's on top. If the young does became quiet and polite I should be much more worried: I should wonder what they were up to. All the same, Thlayli, I'd like you to do what you can to get to know those particular does and bring them a bit more into line."

       
"Right," said Bigwig. "By the way, what are the rules about mating?"

       
"Mating?" said Chervil. "Well, if you want a doe, you have one--any doe in the Mark, that is. We're not officers for nothing, are we? The does are under orders and none of the bucks can stop you. That just leaves you and me and Avens; and we shall hardly quarrel. There are plenty of does, after all."

       
"I see," said Bigwig. "Well, I'll silflay now. Unless you've got any other ideas, I'll go and talk to some of the Mark and then go round the sentries and get the lie of the land. What about Blackavar?"

       
"Leave him," said Chervil. "He's none of our business. The Owslafa will keep him here until the Mark come back and after that they'll take him away."

       
Bigwig made his way into the field, conscious of the wary glances of the rabbits he passed. He felt perplexed and apprehensive. How was he to begin his dangerous task? Begin he must, in one way or another, for Kehaar had made it clear that he was not ready to wait. There was nothing for it but to take a chance and trust somebody. But whom? A warren like this must be full of spies. Probably only General Woundwort knew who the spies were. Was there a spy watching him now?

       
"I shall just have to trust my feelings," he thought. "I'll go round the place a bit and see if I can make any friends. But I know one thing--if I
do
succeed in getting any does out of here, I'll take that poor wretched Blackavar with me as well. Frith on a bridge! It makes me angry just to think of him being forced to sit there like that. General Woundwort indeed! A gun's too good for him."

       
Nibbling and pondering, he moved slowly over the open meadow in the evening sun. After a while he found that he was approaching a small hollow, much like the one on Watership Down where he and Silver had found Kehaar. In this hollow there were four does, with their backs to him. He recognized them as the little group who had gone out last. They had evidently finished the hungry, intent stage of feeding and were browsing and talking at leisure, and he could see that one of them had the attention of the other three. Even more than most rabbits, Bigwig loved a story and now he felt attracted by the prospect of hearing something new in this strange warren. He moved quietly up to the edge of the hollow just as the doe began to speak.

       
At once he realized that this was no story. Yet he had heard the like before, somewhere. The rapt air, the rhythmic utterance, the intent listeners--what was it they recalled? Then he remembered the smell of carrots, and Silverweed dominating the crowd in the great burrow. But these verses went to his heart as Silverweed's had not.

Long ago

The yellowhammer sang, high on the thorn.

He sang near a litter that the doe brought out to play,

He sang in the wind and the kittens played below.

Their time slipped by all under the elder bloom.

But the bird flew away and now my heart is dark

And time will never play in the fields again.

Long ago

The orange beetles clung to the rye-grass stems.

The windy grass was waving. A buck and doe

Ran through the meadow. They scratched a hole in the bank,

They did what they pleased all under the hazel leaves.

But the beetles died in the frost and my heart is dark;

And I shall never choose a mate again.

The frost is falling, the frost falls into my body.

My nostrils, my ears are torpid under the frost.

The swift will come in the spring, crying "News! News!

Does, dig new holes and flow with milk for your litters."

I shall not hear. The embryos return

Into my dulled body. Across my sleep

There runs a wire fence to imprison the wind.

I shall never feel the wind blowing again.

       
The doe was silent and her three companions said nothing: but their stillness showed plainly enough that she

had spoken for all of them. A flock of starlings passed overhead, chattering and whistling, and a liquid dropping fell into the grass among the little group, but none moved or startled. Each seemed taken up with the same melancholy thoughts--thoughts which, however sad, were at least far from Efrafa.

       
Bigwig's spirit was as tough as his body and quite without sentimentality, but, like most creatures who have experienced hardship and danger, he could recognize and respect suffering when he saw it. He was accustomed to sizing up other rabbits and deciding what they were good for. It struck him that these does were not far from the end of their powers. A wild animal that feels that it no longer has any reason to live reaches in the end a point when its remaining energies may actually be directed toward dying. It was this state of mind that Bigwig had mistakenly attributed to Fiver in the warren of the snares. Since then his judgment had matured. He felt that despair was not far from these does; and from all that he had heard of Efrafa, both from Holly and from Chervil, he could understand why. He knew that the effects of overcrowding and tension in a warren show themselves first in the does. They become infertile and aggressive. But if aggression cannot mend their troubles, then often they begin to drift toward the only other way out. He wondered what point on this dismal path these particular does had reached.

       
He hopped down into the hollow. The does, disturbed from their thoughts, looked at him resentfully and drew back.

       
"I know you're Nelthilta," said Bigwig to the pretty young doe who had retorted to Chervil in the run. "But what's your name?" he went on, turning to the doe beside her.

       
After a pause, she answered reluctantly, "Thethuthinnang, sir."*

       
"And yours?" said Bigwig, to the doe who had spoken the verses.

       
She turned to him a look of such wretchedness, so full of accusation and suffering, that it was all he could do not to beg her then and there to believe that he was her secret friend and that he hated Efrafa and the authority which he represented. Nelthilta's rejoinder to Chervil in the run had been full of hatred, but this doe's gaze spoke of wrongs beyond her power to express. As Bigwig stared back at her, he suddenly recalled Holly's description of the great yellow hrududu that had torn open the earth above the destroyed warren. "That might have met a look like this," he thought. Then the doe answered, "My name is Hyzenthlay, sir."

       
"Hyzenthlay?" said Bigwig, startled out of his self-possession. "Then it was you who--" He stopped. It might be dangerous to ask whether she remembered speaking to Holly. But whether she did or not, here, evidently, was the rabbit who had told Holly and his companions about the troubles of Efrafa and the discontent of the does. If he remembered Holly's story rightly, she had already made some sort of attempt to leave the warren. "But," he thought, as he met once more her desolate eyes, "what is she good for now?"

       
"May we have permission to go, sir?" asked Nelthilta. "The company of officers absolutely overpowers us, you see: we find a little of it goes an awfully long way."

       
"Oh--yes--certainly--by all means," replied Bigwig in confusion. He remained where he was as the does hopped away, Nelthilta raising her voice to remark, "What a great oaf!" and half looking round in the evident hope that he would take her up.

       
"Oh, well, there's one of them with some spirit left, anyway," he thought, as he made his way out to the sentries.

       
He spent some time talking to the sentries and learning how they were organized. It was a depressingly efficient system. Each sentry could reach his neighbor in a matter of moments; and the appropriate stamping signal--for they had more than one--would bring out the officers and the reserves. If necessary, the Owslafa could be alerted in almost no time at all and so could Captain Campion, or whatever officer might be patrolling the outskirts of the warren. Since only one Mark fed at a time, there could hardly be any confusion about where to go if an alarm were given. One of the sentries, Marjoram, told him about the attempted escape by Blackavar.

       
"He pretended to feed his way out as far as he could," said Marjoram, "and then he made a dash. He actually managed to knock down two sentries who tried to stop him; and I doubt whether anyone on his own has ever done as much as that. He ran like mad, but Campion had got the alarm, you see, and he simply moved round and intercepted him further down the fields. Of course, if he hadn't smashed up the sentries, the Council might have let him off more lightly."

       
"Do you like the warren life?" asked Bigwig.

       
"It's not too bad now I'm in the Owsla," answered Marjoram, "and if I can get to be an officer it'll be better still. I've done two Wide Patrols now--they're the thing for getting yourself noticed. I can track and fight as well as most, but of course they want more than that from an officer. I think our officers are a strong bunch, don't you?"

       
"Yes, I do," said Bigwig with feeling. It struck him that Marjoram evidently did not know that he himself was a newcomer to Efrafa. At any rate, he showed neither jealousy nor resentment. Bigwig was beginning to realize that in this place nobody was told more than was good for him, or got to know much except what was before his nose. Marjoram probably supposed that he, Bigwig, had been promoted out of another Mark.

       
As darkness fell, just before the end of the silflay, Captain Campion came up the field with a patrol of three and Chervil ran out to meet him on the sentry line. Bigwig joined them and listened to the talk. He gathered that Campion had been out as far as the iron road but had found nothing unusual.

       
"Don't you ever go beyond the iron road?" he asked.

       
"Not very often," answered Campion. "It's wet, you know--bad rabbit country. I have been there, but on these

ordinary circuit patrols I'm really looking nearer home. My job is partly to notice anything new that the Council ought to know about, and partly to make sure we pick up anyone who bolts. Like that miserable Blackavar--and he gave me a bite I shan't forget, before I got him down. On a fine evening like this, I generally go down as far as the bank of the iron road and then work along this side of it. Or sometimes I go out in the other direction, as far as the barn. It all depends what's wanted. By the way, I saw the General earlier this evening and I rather think he means to take you on patrol in two or three days' time, as soon as you've settled down and your Mark have come off the dawn and evening silflay."

       
"Why wait for that?" said Bigwig with all the enthusiasm he could assume. "Why not sooner?"

       
"Well, a Mark generally keeps a full Owsla when it's on dawn and evening silflay. The rabbits are more lively at those times, you see, and need more supervision. But a Mark that's on ni-Frith and fu-Inlé silflay can generally spare Owsla for a Wide Patrol. Now I'll leave you here. I've got to take my lot to the Crixa and report to the General."

       
As soon as the Mark had gone underground and Blackavar had been taken away by his escort, Bigwig excused himself to Chervil and Avens and went to his own burrow. Although the rank and file were cramped underground, the sentries had two large, roomy burrows to themselves, while each officer had a private burrow. By himself at last, Bigwig settled down to think over his problem.

       
The difficulties were bewildering. He was fairly certain that with Kehaar's help he himself could escape from Efrafa whenever he wished. But how in the world was he to bring a bunch of does out--supposing that any were ready to try it? If he took it upon himself to call the sentries in during a silflay, Chervil would see in a matter of moments what he had done. The only possibility, then, was to make the break-out during the day: to wait until Chervil was asleep and then order a sentry to leave his post at the mouth of one of the holes. Bigwig considered. He could see no flaw in this idea. Then the thought came to him, "And what about Blackavar?" Blackavar presumably spent the day under guard in some special burrow. Probably hardly anyone knew where--no one knew anything in Efrafa--and certainly no one would tell. So he would have to leave Blackavar: no realistic plan could include him.