Authors: Richard Adams
"So Hufsa went away with Prince Rainbow and El-ahrairah's people were left in peace, apart from indigestion brought on by eating too many carrots. But it was a long time before Rabscuttle could get his tail white again, so my grandfather always said."
23.
Kehaar
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,
No more to use the sky for ever but live with
famine and pain a few days.
He is strong and pain is worse to the strong
incapacity is worse.
No one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
Robinson Jeffers,
Hurt Hawks
Human beings say, "It never rains but it pours." This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits' proverb is better expressed. They say, "One cloud feels lonely": and indeed it is true that the appearance of a single cloud often means that the sky will soon be overcast. However that may be, the very next day provided a dramatic second opportunity to put Hazel's idea into practice.
It was early morning and the rabbits were beginning to silflay, coming up into clear gray silence. The air was still chilly. There was a good deal of dew and no wind. Five or six wild duck flew overhead in a swiftly moving V, intent on some far-off destination. The sound made by their wings came down distinctly, diminishing as they went away southward. The silence returned. With the melting of the last of the twilight there grew a kind of expectancy and tension, as though it were thawing snow about to slide from a sloping roof. Then the whole down and all below it, earth and air, gave way to the sunrise. As a bull, with a slight but irresistible movement, tosses its head from the grasp of a man who is leaning over the stall and idly holding its horn, so the sun entered the world in smooth, gigantic power. Nothing interrupted or obscured its coming. Without a sound, the leaves shone and the grass coruscated along the miles of the escarpment.
Outside the wood, Bigwig and Silver combed their ears, sniffed the air and hopped away, following their own long shadows to the grass of the gallop. As they moved over the short turf--nibbling, sitting up and looking round them--they approached a little hollow, no more than three feet across. Before they reached the edge Bigwig, who was ahead of Silver, checked and crouched, staring. Although he could not see into the hollow, he knew that there was some creature in it--something fairly big. Peering through the blades of grass round his head, he could see the curve of a white back. Whatever the creature was, it was nearly as big as himself. He waited, stock still, for some little time, but it did not move.
"What has a white back, Silver?" whispered Bigwig.
Silver considered. "A cat?"
"No cats here."
"How do you know?"
At that moment they both heard a low, breathy hissing from the hollow. It lasted for a few moments. Then there was silence once more.
Bigwig and Silver had a good opinion of themselves. Apart from Holly, they were the only survivors of the Sandleford Owsla and they knew that their comrades looked up to them. The encounter with the rats in the barn had been no joke and had proved their worth. Bigwig, who was generous and honest, had never for a moment resented Hazel's courage on the night when his own superstitious fear had got the better of him. But the idea of going back to the Honeycomb and reporting that he had glimpsed an unknown creature in the grass and left it alone was more than he could swallow. He turned his head and looked at Silver. Seeing that he was game, he took a final look at the strange white back and then went straight up to the edge of the hollow. Silver followed.
It was no cat. The creature in the hollow was a bird--a big bird, nearly a foot long. Neither of them had ever seen a bird like it before. The white part of its back, which they had glimpsed through the grass, was in fact only the shoulders and neck. The lower back was light gray and so were the wings, which tapered to long, black-tipped primaries folded together over the tail. The head was very dark brown--almost black--in such sharp contrast to the white neck that the bird looked as though it were wearing a kind of hood. The one dark red leg that they could see ended in a webbed foot and three powerful, taloned toes. The beak, hooked slightly downward at the end, was strong and sharp. As they stared, it opened, disclosing a red mouth and throat. The bird hissed savagely and tried to strike, but still it did not move.
"It's hurt," said Bigwig.
"Yes, you can tell that," replied Silver. "But it's not wounded anywhere that I can see. I'll go round--"
"Look out!" said Bigwig. "He'll have you!"
Silver, as he started to move round the hollow, had come closer to the bird's head. He jumped back just in time to avoid a quick, darting blow of the beak.
"That would have broken your foot," said Bigwig.
As they squatted, looking at the bird--for they both sensed intuitively that it would not rise--it suddenly burst into loud, raucous cries--"Yark! Yark! Yark!"--a tremendous sound at close quarters--that split the morning and carried far across the down. Bigwig and Silver turned and ran.
They collected themselves sufficiently to pull up short of the wood and make a more dignified approach to the bank. Hazel came to meet them in the grass. There was no mistaking their wide eyes and dilated nostrils.
"Elil?" asked Hazel.
"Well, I'm blessed if I know, to tell you the truth," replied Bigwig. "There's a great bird out there, like nothing I've ever seen."
"How big? As big as a pheasant?"
"Not quite so big," admitted Bigwig, "but bigger than a wood pigeon: and a lot fiercer."
"Is that what cried?"
"Yes. It startled me, all right. We were actually beside it. But for some reason or other it can't move."
"Dying?"
"I don't think so."
"I'll go and have a look at it," said Hazel.
"It's savage. For goodness' sake be careful."
Bigwig and Silver returned with Hazel. The three of them squatted outside the bird's reach as it looked sharply and desperately from one to the other. Hazel spoke in the hedgerow patois.
"You hurt? You no fly?"
The answer was a harsh gabbling which they all felt immediately to be exotic. Wherever the bird came from, it was somewhere far away. The accent was strange and guttural, the speech distorted. They could catch only a word here and there.
"Come keel--kah! kah!--you come keel--yark!--t'ink me finish--me no finish--'urt you damn plenty--" The dark brown head flickered from side to side. Then, unexpectedly, the bird began to drive its beak into the ground. They noticed for the first time that the grass in front of it was torn and scored with lines. For some moments it stabbed here and there, then gave up, lifted its head and watched them again.
"I believe it's starving," said Hazel. "We'd better feed it. Bigwig, go and get some worms or something, there's a good fellow."
"Er--what did you say, Hazel?"
"Worms."
"Me dig for worms?"
"Didn't the Owsla teach--oh, all right, I'll do it," said Hazel. "You and Silver wait here."
After a few moments, however, Bigwig followed Hazel back to the ditch and began to join him in scratching at the dry ground. Worms are not plentiful on the downs and there had been no rain for days. After a time Bigwig looked up.
"What about beetles? Wood lice? Something like that?"
They found some rotten sticks and carried them back. Hazel pushed one forward cautiously.
"Insects."
The bird split the stick three ways in as many seconds and snapped up the few insects inside. Soon there was a small pile of debris in the hollow as the rabbits brought anything from which it could get food. Bigwig found some horse dung along the track, dug the worms out of it, overcame his disgust and carried them one by one. When Hazel praised him, he muttered something about "the first time any rabbit's done this and don't tell the blackbirds." At last, long after they had all grown weary, the bird stopped feeding and looked at Hazel.
"Finish eat." It paused. "Vat for you do?"
"You hurt?" said Hazel.
The bird looked crafty. "No hurt. Plenty fight. Stay small time, den go."
"You stay there you finish," said Hazel. "Bad place. Come homba, come kestrel."
"Damn de lot. Fight plenty."
"I bet it would, too," said Bigwig, looking with admiration at the two-inch beak and thick neck.
"We no want you finish," said Hazel. "You stay here you finish. We help you maybe."
"Piss off!"
"Come on," said Hazel immediately to the others. "Let it alone." He began to lollop back to the wood. "Let it try keeping the kestrels off for a bit."
"What's the idea, Hazel?" said Silver. "That's a savage brute. You can't make a friend out of that."
"You may be right," said Hazel. "But what's the good of a blue tit or a robin to us? They don't fly any distance. We need a big bird."
"But why do you want a bird so particularly?"
"I'll explain later," said Hazel. "I'd like Blackberry and Fiver to hear as well. But let's go underground now. If you don't want to chew pellets, I do."
During the afternoon Hazel organized more work on the warren. The Honeycomb was as good as finished--though rabbits are not methodical and are never really certain when anything is finished--and the surrounding burrows and runs were taking shape. Quite early in the evening, however, he made his way once more to the hollow. The bird was still there. It looked weaker and less alert, but snapped feebly as Hazel came up.
"Still here?" said Hazel. "You fight hawk?"
"No fight," answered the bird. "No fight, but vatch, vatch, alvays vatch. Ees no good."
"Hungry?"
The bird made no reply.
"Listen," said Hazel. "Rabbits not eat birds. Rabbits eat grass. We help you."
"Vat for 'elp me?"
"Never mind. We make you safe. Big hole. Food too."
The bird considered. "Legs fine. Ving no good. 'E bad."
"Well, walk, then."
"You 'urt me, I 'urt you like damn."
Hazel turned away. The bird spoke again.
"Ees long vay?"
"No, not far."
"Come, den."
It got up with a good deal of difficulty, staggering on its strong blood-red legs. Then it opened its wings high above its body and Hazel jumped back, startled by the great, arching span. But at once it closed them again, grimacing with pain.
"Ving no good. I come."
It followed Hazel docilely enough across the grass, but he was careful to keep out of its reach. Their arrival outside the wood caused something of a sensation, which Hazel cut short with a peremptory sharpness quite unlike his usual manner.
"Come on, get busy," he said to Dandelion and Buckthorn. "This bird's hurt and we're going to shelter it until it's better. Ask Bigwig to show you how to get it some food. It eats worms and insects. Try grasshoppers, spiders--anything. Hawkbit! Acorn! Yes, and you too, Fiver--come out of that rapt trance, or whatever you're in. We need an open, wide hole, broader than it's deep, with a flat floor a little below the level of the entrance: by nightfall."
"We've been digging all the afternoon, Hazel--"