'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! Dam' 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 passed 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 farther 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 sound 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.
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 underwater 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, bumped off it, struck it again and then for a moment touched soft ground. He floundered forwards 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 shore. 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 foetid 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 disco
ncerted. 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 look-out? With any luck, they'll start coming through to you. Help them if you can.'
Hazel and Blackavar slipped through the dripping undergrowth. The grass 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 grass at the verge. The track was empty and there was nothing to be heard or smelt. 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 bilge water, 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, hullo, 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 eastwards. But it was fu Inle before Bigwig himself came through the bridge with Silver and Fiver. It was much as ever he could 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 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 under side 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
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 sturdy 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 ashore 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 passing, 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 northwards, over the bridge, which was in any case the way home.
Taking Bigwig with him, he climbed the bank to the grass 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 grass 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 B
igwig. '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 grass 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 grass 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 afterwards 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 reconnoitring 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 over-reach himself in his warm-hearted, rather candid zeal.