PART III EFRAFA

30. A New Journey

An undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.

Company Prospectus of the South Sea Bubble

With the exception of Buckthorn and the addition of Bluebell, the rabbits who set off from the southern end of the beech hanger early the next morning were those who had left Sandleford with Hazel five weeks before. Hazel had said nothing more to persuade them, feeling that it would be better simply to leave things to set in his favour. He knew that they were afraid, for he was afraid himself. Indeed, he guessed that they, like himself, could not be free from the thought of Efrafa and its grim Owsla. But working against this fear was their longing and need to find more does and the knowledge that there were plenty of does in Efrafa. Then there was their sense of mischief. All rabbits love to trespass and steal and when it comes to the point very few will admit that they are afraid to do so; unless (like Buckthorn or Strawberry on this occasion) they know that they are not fit and that their bodies may let them down in the pinch. Again, in speaking about his secret plan, Hazel had aroused their curiosity. He had hoped that, with Fiver behind him, he could lure them with hints and promises: and he had been right. The rabbits trusted him and Fiver, who had got them out of Sandleford before it was too late, crossed the Enborne and the common, taken Bigwig out of the wire, founded the warren on the downs, made an ally of Kehaar and produced two does against all odds. There was no telling what they would do next. But they were evidently up to something; and since Bigwig and Blackberry seemed to be confidently in on it, no one was ready to say that he would rather stay out; especially since Hazel had made it clear that anyone who wished could remain at home and welcome – implying that if he was so poor-spirited as to choose to miss the exploit, they could do without him. Holly, in whom loyalty was second nature, had said no more to queer the pitch. He accompanied them as far as the end of the wood with all the cheerfulness he could muster; only begging Hazel, out of hearing of the rest, not to under-rate the danger. ‘Send news by Kehaar when he reaches you,’ he said, ‘and come back soon.’

Nevertheless, as Silver guided them southwards along higher ground to the west of the farm, almost all, now that they were actually committed to the adventure, felt dread and apprehension. They had heard enough about Efrafa to daunt the stoutest heart. But before reaching it – or where-ever they were going – they had to expect two days on the open down. Foxes, stoats, weasels – any of these might be encountered, and the only recourse would be flight above ground. Their progress was straggling and broken, slower than that which Holly had made with his picked band of three. Rabbits strayed, took alarm, stopped to rest. After a time Hazel divided them into groups, led by Silver, Bigwig and himself. Yet still they moved slowly, like climbers on a rock-face, first some and then others taking their turn to cross the same piece of ground.

But at least the cover was good. June was moving towards July and high summer. Hedgerows and verges were at their rankest and thickest. The rabbits sheltered in dim-green, sun-flecked caves of grass, flowering marjoram and cow-parsley: peered round spotted hairy-stemmed clumps of viper’s bugloss, blooming red and blue above their heads: pushed between towering stalks of yellow mullein. Sometimes they scuttled along open turf, coloured like a tapestry meadow with self-heal, centaury and tormentil. Because of their anxiety about elil and because they were nose-to-ground and unable to see far ahead, the way seemed long.

Had their journey been made in years gone by, they would have found the downs far more open, without standing crops, grazed close by sheep; and they could hardly have hoped to go far unobserved by enemies. But the sheep were long gone and the tractors had ploughed great expanses for wheat and barley. The smell of the green, standing corn was round them all day. The mice were numerous and so were the kestrels. The kestrels were disturbing, but Hazel had been right when he guessed that a healthy, full-grown rabbit was too large a quarry for them. At all events, no one was attacked from above.

Some time before ni-Frith, in the heat of the day, Silver paused in a little patch of thorn. There was no breeze and the air was full of the sweet, chrysanthemum-like smell of the flowering compositae of dry uplands – corn-chamomile, yarrow and tansy. As Hazel and Fiver came up and squatted beside him, he looked out across the open ground ahead.

‘There, Hazel-rah,’ he said, ‘that’s the wood that Holly didn’t like.’

Two or three hundred yards away and directly across their line, a belt of trees ran straight across the down, stretching in each direction as far as they could see. They had come to the line of the Portway – only intermittently a road – which runs from north of Andover, through St Mary Bourne with its bells and streams and watercress beds, through Bradley Wood, on across the downs and so to Tadley and at last to Sil-chester – the Romans’ Calleva Atrebatum. Where it crosses the downs, the line is marked by Caesar’s Belt, a strip of woodland as straight as the road, narrow indeed but more than three miles long. In this hot noon-day the trees of the Belt were looped and netted with darkest shadow. The sun lay outside, the shadows inside the trees. All was still, save for the grasshoppers and the falling finch-song of the yellow-hammer on the thorn. Hazel looked steadily for a long time, listening with raised ears and wrinkling his nose in the unmoving air.

‘I can’t see anything wrong with it,’ he said at last. ‘Can you, Fiver?’

‘No,’ replied Fiver. ‘Holly thought it was a strange kind of wood and so it is, but there don’t seem to be any men there. All the same, someone ought to go and make sure, I suppose. Shall I?’

The third group had come up while Hazel had been gazing at the Belt, and now all the rabbits were either nibbling quietly or resting, with ears laid flat, in the light green sun-and-shade of the thorn thicket.

‘Is Bigwig there?’ asked Hazel.

Throughout the morning Bigwig had seemed unlike himself – silent and preoccupied, with little attention for what was going on around him. If his courage had not been beyond question, it might have been thought that he was feeling nervous. During one long halt Bluebell had overheard him talking with Hazel, Fiver and Blackberry and later had told Pipkin that it sounded for all the world as though Bigwig were being reassured. ‘Fighting, yes, anywhere,’ he had heard him say, ‘but I still reckon that this game is more in someone else’s line than mine.’ ‘No,’ replied Hazel, ‘you’re the only one that can do it: and remember, this isn’t sport, if the farm raid was. Everything depends on it.’ Then, realizing that Bluebell could hear him, he added, ‘Anyway, keep on thinking about it and try to get used to the idea. We must get on now.’ Bigwig had gone moodily down the hedgerow to collect his group.

Now, he came out of a near-by clump of mugwort and flowering thistle and joined Hazel under the thorn.

‘What do you want?’ he asked abruptly.

‘King of cats,’ (pfeffa-rah) answered Hazel, ‘would you like to go and have a look in those trees: and if you find any cats or men or anything like that, just chase them off, would you, and then come and tell us it’s all right?’

When Bigwig had slipped away, Hazel said to Silver, ‘Have you any idea how far the Wide Patrols go out? Are we inside their range yet?’

‘I don’t know, but I’d guess that we are,’ said Silver. ‘As I understand it, the range is up to the patrol. Under a pushing sort of captain, a patrol may go out a long way, I believe.’

‘I see,’ said Hazel. ‘Well, I don’t want to meet a patrol if it can possibly be helped, and if we do, not one of them must get back to Efrafa. That’s one reason why I brought so many of us. But by way of avoiding them, I’m going to try to make use of this wood. Perhaps they don’t fancy it any more than Holly did.’

‘But surely it doesn’t run the way we want to go?’ said Silver.

‘We’re not going to Efrafa, though,’ said Hazel. ‘We’re going to find somewhere to hide, as near to it as we can safely get. Any ideas?’

‘Only that it’s terribly dangerous, Hazel-rah,’ said Silver. ‘You can’t get near Efrafa safely and I don’t know how you can begin to look for somewhere to hide. And then the patrol – if there is one – they’ll be cunning brutes. They might very well spot us and not show themselves at all – simply go and report.’

‘Well, here comes Bigwig back again,’ said Hazel. ‘Is it all right, Bigwig? Good – let’s get them into the wood and go down the length of it a little way. Then we must slip out on the other side and make sure that Kehaar finds us. He’s coming to look for us this afternoon and at all costs we mustn’t miss him.’

Less than half a mile to the west, they came upon a spinney adjoining the southern edge of Caesar’s Belt. To the west again was a shallow, dry downland combe, perhaps four hundred yards across and overgrown with weeds and rough, yellowing summer tussocks. There, well before sunset, Kehaar, flying westwards down the Belt, spotted the rabbits lying up, all among the nettles and goose-grass. He sailed down and alighted near Hazel and Fiver.

‘How’s Holly?’ asked Hazel.

‘ ’E sad,’ said Kehaar. ‘ ’E say you no come back.’ Then he added, ‘Mees Clover, she ready for mudder.’

‘That’s good,’ said Hazel. ‘Is anyone doing anything about it?’

‘Ya, ya, ees all to fight.’

‘Oh well, I suppose it’ll sort itself out.’

‘Vat you do now, Meester ’Azel?’

‘This is where you start helping, Kehaar. We need a place to hide, as near the big warren as we can safely get – somewhere where those other rabbits won’t find us. If you know the country well enough, perhaps you can suggest something.’

‘Meester ’Azel, ’ow close you vant?’

‘Well, no further away than Nuthanger Farm is from the Honeycomb. In fact, that’s really about the limit.’

‘Ees only von t’ing, Meester ’Azel. You go udder side river, den dey not find you.’

‘Over the river? You mean we swim across?’

‘Na, na, rabbit no sveem dis river. Ees peeg, ees deep, go queek. But ees pridge, den udder side plenty place for hide. Ees close to varren, like you say.’

‘And you think that’s the best we can do?’

‘Ees plenty trees und ees river. Udder rabbits no find you.’

‘What do you think?’ said Hazel to Fiver.

‘It sounds better than I’d hoped for,’ said Fiver. ‘I hate to say it, but I think we ought to go straight there as fast as we can, even if it makes everyone exhausted. We’re in danger all the time we’re on the down, but once we get off it we can rest.’

‘Well, I suppose we’d better go on by night, if they’ll do it – we’ve done it before – but they must feed and rest first. Start fu Inlé? There’ll be a moon.’

‘Oh, how I’ve come to loathe those words “start” and “fu Inlé”,’ said Blackberry.

However, the evening feed was peaceful and cool and after a time everyone felt refreshed. As the sun was sinking, Hazel brought them all together, under close cover, to chew pellets and rest. Although he did his best to appear confident and cheerful, he could feel that they were on edge, and after parrying one or two questions about the plan, he began to wonder how he could distract their thoughts and get them to relax until they were ready to set off again. He remembered the time, on the first night of his leadership, when they had been forced to rest in the wood above the Enborne. At least it was good to see that no one was exhausted now: they were as tough a bunch of hlessil as ever raided a garden. Not a blade of grass to choose between them, thought Hazel: Pipkin and Fiver looked as fresh as Silver and Bigwig. Still, a little entertainment would be all to the good and raise their spirits. He was just going to speak up when Acorn saved him the trouble.

‘Will you tell us a story, Dandelion?’ he asked.

‘Yes! yes!’ said several others. ‘Come on! Make it a stunner while you’re at it!’

‘All right,’ said Dandelion. ‘How about “El-ahrairah and the Fox in the Water”?’

‘Let’s have “The Hole in the Sky”,’ said Hawkbit.

‘No, not that,’ said Bigwig suddenly. He had spoken very little all the evening and everyone looked round. ‘If you’re going to tell a story, there’s only one I want,’ he went on. ‘ “El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé.” ’

‘Perhaps not that one,’ said Hazel. Bigwig rounded on him, snarling.

‘If there’s going to be a story, don’t you think I’ve got as good a right as anyone to choose it?’ he asked.

Hazel did not reply and after a pause, during which no one else spoke, Dandelion, with a rather subdued manner, began.