Authors: Richard Adams
"I'll come! I'll run any risk."
"What a stroke of luck that you should be in this Mark," said Bigwig. "Before this talk with you tonight, I was at my wits' end, wondering whatever I was going to do."
"I'll go back to the lower burrows now, Thlayli. Some of the other rabbits are bound to wonder why you sent for me. It's not mating time with me, you see. If I go now, we can say you made a mistake and were disappointed. Don't forget to say that."
"I won't. Yes, go now, and have them ready at silflay tomorrow evening, I shan't fail you."
When she had gone, Bigwig felt desperately tired and lonely. He tried to hold in his mind that his friends were not far off and that he would see them again in less than a day. But he knew that all Efrafa lay between himself and Hazel. His thoughts broke up into the dismal fancies of anxiety. He fell into a half-dream, in which Captain Campion turned into a seagull and flew screaming over the river, until he woke in panic: and dozed again, to see Captain Chervil driving Blackavar before him toward a shining wire in the grass. And over all, as big as a horse in a field, aware of all that passed from one end of the world to the other, brooded the gigantic figure of General Woundwort. At last, worn out with his apprehensions, he passed into a deep sleep where even his fear could not follow, and lay without sound or movement in the solitary burrow.
*Thethuthinnang: "Movement of Leaves." The first and last syllables are stressed, as in the phrase "Once in a way."
36.
Approaching Thunder
We was just goin' ter scarper
When along comes Bill 'Arper,
So we never done nuffin' at all
Music Hall Song
Bigwig wavered gradually up from sleep, like a bubble of marsh gas from the bed of a still stream. There was another rabbit beside him in the burrow--a buck. He started up at once and said, "Who is it?"
"Avens," replied the other. "Time for silflay, Thlayli. Larks have gone up. You're a sound sleeper."
"I dare say," said Bigwig. "Well, I'm ready." He was about to lead the way down the run, but Avens' next words brought him to a halt.
"Who's Fiver?" said Avens.
Bigwig grew tense. "What did you say?"
"I said, who's Fiver?"
"How should I know?"
"Well, you were talking in your sleep. You kept saying, 'Ask Fiver, ask Fiver.' I wondered who he was."
"Oh, I see. A rabbit I knew once. He used to foretell the weather and so on."
"Well, he could do it now, then. Can you smell the thunder?"
Bigwig sniffed. Mixed with the scents of grass and cattle came the warm, thick smell of a heavy cloud mass, still far off. He perceived it uneasily. Almost all animals are disturbed by the approach of thunder, which oppresses them with its mounting tension and breaks the natural rhythm by which they live. Bigwig's inclination was to go back to his burrow, but he had little doubt that no mere trifle like a thundery morning would be allowed to interfere with the timetable of an Efrafan Mark.
He was right. Chervil was already at the entrance, squatting opposite Blackavar and his escort. He looked round as his officers came up the run.
"Come on, Thlayli," he said. "Sentries are out already. Does the thunder worry you?"
"It does rather," replied Bigwig.
"It won't break today," said Chervil. "It's a long way off yet. I'd give it until tomorrow evening. Anyway, don't let the Mark see it affects you. Nothing's to be altered unless the General says so."
"Couldn't wake him up," said Avens, with a touch of malice. "There was a doe in your burrow last night, Thlayli, wasn't there?"
"Oh, was there?" said Chervil. "Which one?"
"Hyzenthlay," replied Bigwig.
"Oh, the marli tharn,"* said Chervil. "Funny, I didn't think she was ready."
"She wasn't," said Bigwig. "I made a mistake. But if you remember, you asked me to do what I could to get to know the awkward squad and bring them a bit more under control, so I kept her talking for a time, just the same."
"Get anywhere?"
"Hard to say, really," said Bigwig, "but I'll keep at it."
He spent the time while the Mark went out in deciding upon the best and quickest way to enter the hole and attack Blackavar's escort. He would have to put one of them out of action in no time at all and then go straight for the other, who would be that much less unprepared. If he had to fight him, it would be better to avoid doing it between Blackavar and the mouth of the hole, for Blackavar would be as bewildered as the rest and might bolt back down the run. If he was going to bolt anywhere he must bolt outward. Of course, with any luck, the second guard might make off underground without fighting at all, but one could not count on that. Efrafan Owslafa were not given to running away.
As he went out into the field, he wondered whether he would be spotted by Kehaar. The arrangement had been that Kehaar would find him whenever he might come above ground on the second day.
He need not have worried. Kehaar had been over Efrafa since before dawn. As soon as he saw the Mark come up, he alighted a little way out in the field, halfway between the undergrowth and the sentry line, and began pecking about in the grass. Bigwig nibbled his way slowly toward him and then settled down to feed without a glance in his direction. After a while, he sensed that Kehaar was behind him, a little to one side.
"Meester Pigvig, I t'ink ees not goot ve talk much. Meester 'Azel, 'e say vat you do? Vat you vant?"
"I want two things, Kehaar--both at sunset tonight. First, our rabbits must be down by the big arch. I shall come through that arch with the does. If we're pursued, you and Hazel and the rest must be ready to fight. The boat thing, is it still there?"
"Ya, ya, men no take heem. I tell Meester 'Azel vat you say."
"Good. Now listen, Kehaar, this is the second thing, and it's terribly important. You see those rabbits out beyond us, in the field? They're the sentries. At sunset, you meet me here. Then I shall run back to those trees and go down a hole. As soon as you see me go in, attack the sentries--terrify them, drive them away. If they won't run, hurt them. They
must
be driven off. You'll see me come out again almost at once and then the does--the mothers--will start running with me and we'll go straight down to the arch. But we may very well be attacked on the way. If that happens, can you pile in again?"
"Ya, ya. I fly at dem--dey no stop you."
"Splendid. That's it, then. Hazel and the others--are they all right?"
"Fine--fine. Dey say you damn good fella. Meester Pluebell, 'e say to pring one mudder for everyone else and two for 'im."
Bigwig was trying to think of some appropriate reply to this when he saw Chervil running across the grass toward him. At once, without speaking again to Kehaar, he took a few hops in Chervil's direction and began biting busily at a patch of clover. As Chervil came up, Kehaar flew low above their heads and disappeared over the trees.
Chervil looked after the flying gull and then turned to Bigwig.
"Aren't you afraid of those birds?" he asked.
"Not particularly," answered Bigwig.
"They sometimes attack mice, you know, and rabbit kittens, too," said Chervil. "You were taking a risk, feeding there. Why were you so careless?"
For answer, Bigwig sat up and gave Chervil a playful cuff, hard enough to roll him over.
"That's why," he said.
Chervil got up with a sulky air. "All right, so you're heavier than I am," he said. "But you've got to learn, Thlayli, that there's more than weight to being an Efrafan officer. And it doesn't alter the fact that those birds can be dangerous. Anyway, it's not the season for them and that's odd, for a start. It'll have to be reported."
"Whatever for?"
"Because it's unusual. Everything unusual has to be reported. If we don't report it and someone else does, nice fools we shall look when we have to say we saw it. We couldn't say we didn't--several of the Mark have seen it. In fact, I shall go and report it now. Silflay's nearly over, so if I'm not back in time, you and Avens had better see the Mark underground yourselves."
As soon as Chervil had left him, Bigwig went to look for Hyzenthlay. He found her in the hollow with Thethuthinnang. Most of the Mark did not appear to be unduly affected by the thunder, which was still distant, as Chervil had said. The two does, however, were subdued and nervous. Bigwig told them what he had arranged with Kehaar.
"But will this bird really attack the sentries?" asked Thethuthinnang. "I've never heard of anything like that."
"It will, I promise you. Get the does together as soon as silflay begins this evening. When I come out with Blackavar, the sentries will be running for cover."
"And which way do we run?" asked Thethuthinnang.
Bigwig took them well out into the field, so that they could see the distant arch in the embankment about four hundred yards away.
"We're bound to meet Campion," said Thethuthinnang. "You know that?"
"I believe he had some trouble stopping Blackavar," replied Bigwig. "So I'm sure he won't be good enough for me and the bird. Look, there's Avens bringing in the sentries--we'll have to go. Now, don't worry. Chew your pellets and get some sleep. If you can't sleep, sharpen up your claws: you may need them."
The Mark went underground and Blackavar was taken away by the escort. Bigwig returned to his burrow and tried to put the coming evening out of his mind. After some time he gave up the idea of spending the day alone. He made a round of the lower burrows, joined a game of bob-stones, heard two stories and told one himself, passed hraka in the ditch and then, on an impulse, went to Chervil and obtained his consent to visit another Mark. He wandered across the Crixa, found himself in the middle of the ni-Frith silflay with the Left Flank Mark and went underground with them. Their officers shared a single large burrow and here he met some experienced veterans and listened with interest to their stories of Wide Patrols and other exploits. In the mid-afternoon he came back to the Near Hind relaxed and confident, and slept until one of the sentries woke him for silflay.
He went up the run. Blackavar was already slumped in his alcove. Squatting beside Chervil, Bigwig watched the Mark go out. Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang passed him without a glance. They looked tense but steady. Chervil followed the last rabbit.
Bigwig waited until he was sure that Chervil had had time to get well away from the hole. Then, with a last, quick look to where Blackavar was sitting, he went out himself. The bright sunset dazzled him and he sat up on his hind legs, blinking and combing the fur along one side of his face as his eyes got accustomed to the light. A few moments later he saw Kehaar come flying across the field.
"This is it, then," he said to himself. "Here we go."
At that moment a rabbit spoke from behind him.
"Thlayli, I want a few words with you. Just come back under the bushes, will you?"
Bigwig dropped on his front paws and looked round.
It was General Woundwort.
*
Marli
--a doe.
Tharn
--stupefied, distraught. In this particular context, the nearest translation might be "the maiden all forlorn."
37.
The Thunder Builds Up
You k'n hide de fier, but w'at you gwine do wid de smoke?
Joel Chandler Harris,
Proverbs of Uncle Remus