46. Bigwig Stands his Ground

Hard pounding this, gentlemen. Let’s see who will pound longest.

The Duke of Wellington (at Waterloo)

Groundsel scrambled up the steep slope of the shaft and rejoined Woundwort in the pit at the top.

‘There’s nothing left to dig, sir,’ he said. ‘The bottom will fall in if anyone goes down there now.’

‘Can you make out what’s below?’ asked Woundwort. ‘Is it a run or a burrow we shall be into?’

‘I’m fairly sure it’s a burrow, sir,’ answered Groundsel. ‘In fact, it feels to me as though there’s an unusually big space underneath.’

‘How many rabbits are in it, do you think?’

‘I couldn’t hear any at all. But they may be keeping quiet and waiting to attack us when we break in.’

‘They haven’t done much attacking up to now,’ said Woundwort. ‘A poor lot, I’d say – skulking underground, and some of them running away in the night. I don’t fancy we’ll have much trouble.’

‘Unless, sir –’ said Groundsel.

Woundwort looked at him and waited.

‘Unless the – the animal attacks us, sir,’ said Groundsel. ‘Whatever it is. It’s not like Ragwort to imagine anything. He’s very stolid. I’m only trying to think ahead,’ he added, as Woundwort still said nothing.

‘Well,’ said Woundwort at last, ‘if there is an animal, it’ll find out that I’m an animal too.’ He came out on the bank, where Campion and Vervain were waiting with a number of the other rabbits.

‘We’ve done all the hard work now,’ he said. ‘We’ll be able to take our does home as soon as we’ve finished down below. The way we’ll go about it is this. I’m going to break the bottom of the hole in and go straight down into the burrow underneath. I want only three others to follow, otherwise there’ll be complete confusion and we shall all be fighting each other. Vervain, you come behind me and bring two more. If there’s any trouble we’ll deal with it. Groundsel, you follow. But you’re to stay in the shaft, understand? Don’t jump down until I tell you. When we know where we are and what we’re doing, you can bring a few more in.’

There was not a rabbit in the Owsla but had confidence in Woundwort. As they heard him preparing to go first into the depths of the enemy warren as calmly as though he were looking for dandelions, his officers’ spirits rose. It seemed to them quite likely that the place would be given up without any fighting at all. When the General had led the final assault at Nutley Copse he had killed three rabbits underground and no more had dared to oppose him, although there had been some hard tussles in the outer runs the day before.

‘Very well,’ said Woundwort. ‘Now, I don’t want anyone straying away. Campion, you see to that. As soon as we get one of the blocked runs opened from inside you can fill the place up. Keep them together here till I let you know and then send them in fast.’

‘Best of luck, sir,’ said Campion.

Woundwort jumped into the pit, flattened his ears and went down the shaft. He had already decided that he was not going to stop to listen. There was no point, since he meant to break in at once whether there was anything to be heard or not. It was more important that he should not seem to hesitate or cause Vervain to do so; and that the enemy, if they were there, should have the shortest possible time in which to hear him coming. Below, there would be either a run or a burrow. Either he would have to fight immediately or else there would first be a chance to look round and sense where he was. It did not matter. What mattered was finding rabbits and killing them.

He came to the bottom of the shaft. As Groundsel had said, it was plainly thin – brittle as ice on a puddle – chalk, pebbles and light soil. Woundwort scored it across with his fore-claws. Slightly damp, it held a moment and then fell inwards, crumbling. As it fell, Woundwort followed it.

He fell about the length of his own body – far enough to tell him that he was in a burrow. As he landed he kicked out with his hind legs and then dashed forward, partly to be out of Vervain’s way as he followed and partly to reach the wall and face about before he could be attacked from behind. He found himself against a pile of soft earth – evidently the end of a blocked run leading out of the burrow – and turned. A moment later Vervain was beside him. The third rabbit, whoever he was, seemed to be in difficulties. They could both hear him scrabbling in the fallen soil.

‘Over here,’ said Woundwort sharply.

The rabbit, a powerful, heavy veteran by the name of Thunder, joined them, stumbling.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Woundwort.

‘Nothing, sir,’ answered Thunder, ‘only there’s a dead rabbit on the floor and it startled me for a moment.’

‘A dead rabbit?’ said Woundwort. ‘Are you sure he’s dead? Where is he?’

‘Over there, sir, by the shaft.’

Woundwort crossed the burrow quickly. On the far side of the rubble that had fallen in from the shaft was lying the inert body of a buck. He sniffed at it and then pressed it with his nose.

‘He’s not been dead long,’ he said. ‘He’s nearly cold but not stiff. What do you make of it, Vervain? Rabbits don’t die underground.’

‘It’s a very small buck, sir,’ answered Vervain. ‘ ’Didn’t fancy the idea of fighting us, perhaps, and the others killed him when he said so.’

‘No, that won’t do. There’s not a scratch on him. Well, leave him, anyway. We’ve got to get on, and a rabbit this size isn’t going to make any difference, dead or alive.’

He began to move along the wall, sniffing as he went. He passed the mouths of two blocked runs, came to an opening between thick tree-roots, and stopped. The place was evidently very big – bigger than the Council burrow at Efrafa. Since they were not being attacked, he could turn the space to his own advantage by getting some more rabbits in at once. He went back quickly to the foot of the shaft. By standing on his hind legs he could just rest his fore-paws on the ragged lip of the hole.

‘Groundsel?’ he said.

‘Yes, sir?’ answered Groundsel from above.

‘Come on,’ said Woundwort, ‘and bring four others with you. Jump to this side’ – he moved slightly –’ there’s a dead rabbit on the floor – one of theirs.’

He was still expecting to be attacked at any moment, but the place remained silent. He continued to listen, sniffing the close air, while the five rabbits dropped one by one into the burrow. Then he took Groundsel over to the two blocked runs along the eastern wall.

‘Get these open as quick as you can,’ he said, ‘and send two rabbits to find out what’s behind the tree roots beyond. If they’re attacked you’re to go and join in at once.’

‘You know, there’s something strange about the wall at the other end, sir,’ said Vervain, as Groundsel began setting his rabbits to work.’ Most of it’s hard earth that’s never been dug. But in one or two places there are piles of much softer stuff. I’d say that runs leading through the wall have been filled up very recently – probably since yesterday evening.’

Woundwort and Vervain went carefully along the south wall of the Honeycomb, scratching and listening.

‘I believe you’re right,’ said Woundwort. ‘Have you heard any movement from the other side?’

‘Yes, sir, just about here,’ said Vervain.

‘We’ll get this pile of soft earth down,’ said Woundwort. ‘Put two rabbits on it. If I’m right and Thlayli’s on the other side, they’ll run into trouble before long. That’s what we want – to force him to attack them.’

As Thunder and Thistle began to dig, Woundwort crouched silently behind them, waiting.

Even before he heard the roof of the Honeycomb fall in, Bigwig knew that it could be only a matter of time before the Efrafans found the soft places in the south wall and set to work to break through one of them. That would not take long. Then he would have to fight – probably with Woundwort himself: and if Woundwort closed with him and used his weight he would have little chance. Somehow, he must manage to hurt him at the outset, before he expected it. But how?

He put the problem to Holly.

‘The trouble is this warren wasn’t dug to be defended,’ said Holly. ‘That was what the Slack Run was for, back at home, so the Threarah once told me. It was made so that if we ever had to, we could get down beneath an enemy and come up where he wasn’t expecting us.’

‘That’s it!’ cried Bigwig. ‘That’s the idea! Look, I’m going to dig myself into the floor of the run just behind this blocked opening. Then you cover me with earth. It won’t be noticed – there’s so much digging and mess in the place already. I know it’s a risk, but it’ll be better than just trying to stand up in front of a rabbit like Woundwort.’

‘But suppose they break through the wall somewhere else?’ said Holly.

‘You must try to make them do it here,’ replied Bigwig. ‘When you hear them on the other side, make a noise – do a bit of scratching or something – just above where I am. Anything to get them interested. Come on, help me to dig. And Silver, get everyone back out of the Honeycomb now and close this wall completely.’

‘Bigwig,’ said Pipkin, ‘I can’t wake Fiver. He’s still lying out there in the middle of the floor. What’s to be done?’

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do now,’ replied Bigwig. ‘It’s a great pity, but we’ll have to leave him.’

‘Oh, Bigwig,’ cried Pipkin, ‘let me stay out there with him! You’ll never miss me, and I can go on trying –’

‘Hlao-roo,’ said Holly as kindly as he could, ‘if we lose no one but Fiver before this business is ended, then the Lord Frith himself will be fighting for us. No, I’m sorry, old chap, not another word. We need you, we need everyone. Silver, see that he goes back with the others.’

When Woundwort dropped through the roof of the Honeycomb, Bigwig was already lying under a thin covering of soil on the other side of the south wall, not far from Clover’s burrow.

Thunder sunk his teeth into a piece of broken root and pulled it out. There was an instant fall of earth and a gap opened where he had been digging. The soil no longer reached to the roof. It was only a broad pile of soft earth, half-filling the run. Woundwort, still waiting silently, could smell and hear a considerable number of rabbits on the far side. He hoped that now they might come into the open burrow and try to attack him. But they made no move.

When it came to fighting, Woundwort was not given to careful calculation. Men, and larger animals such as wolves, usually have an idea of their own numbers and those of the enemy and this affects their readiness to fight and how they go about it. Woundwort had never had any need to think like this. What he had learned from all his experience of fighting was that nearly always there are those who want to fight and those who do not but feel they cannot avoid it. More than once he had fought alone and imposed his will on crowds of other rabbits. He held down a great warren with the help of a handful of devoted officers. It did not occur to him now – and if it had, he would not have thought it mattered – that most of his rabbits were still outside; that those who were with him were fewer than those on the other side of the wall and that until Groundsel had got the runs open they could not get out even if they wanted to. This sort of thing does not count among fighting rabbits. Ferocity and aggression are everything. What Woundwort knew was that those beyond the wall were afraid of him and that on this account he had the advantage.

‘Groundsel,’ he said, ‘as soon as you’ve got those runs open, tell Campion to send everyone down here. The rest of you, follow me. We’ll have this business finished by the time the others get in to join us.’

Woundwort waited only for Groundsel to bring back the two rabbits who had been sent to search among the tree roots at the north end of the burrow. Then, with Vervain behind him, he climbed the pile of fallen earth and thrust his way into the narrow run. In the dark he could hear and smell the rustling and crowding of rabbits – both bucks and does – ahead of him. There were two bucks directly in his path but they fell back as he ploughed through the loose soil. He plunged forward and felt the ground suddenly turn beneath him. The next moment a rabbit started up from the earth at his feet and sank his teeth in the pit of his near foreleg, just where it joined the body.

Woundwort had won almost every fight of his life by using his weight. Other rabbits could not stop him and once they went down they seldom got up. He tried to push now, but his back legs could get no purchase in the pile of loose, yielding soil behind him. He reared up, and as he did so realized that the enemy beneath him was crouching in a scooped-out trench the size of his own body. He struck out and felt his claws score deeply along the back and haunch. Then the other rabbit, still keeping his grip under Woundwort’s shoulder, thrust upwards with his hind legs braced against the floor of the trench. Woundwort, with both forefeet off the ground, was thrown over on his back on the earth pile. He lashed out, but the enemy had already loosed his hold and was beyond his reach.

Woundwort stood up. He could feel the blood running down the inside of his near foreleg. The muscle was wounded. He could not put his full weight on it. But his own claws, too, were bloody and this blood was not his.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ asked Vervain, behind him.

‘Of course I’m all right, you fool,’ said Woundwort. ‘Follow me close.’

The other rabbit spoke from in front of him.

‘You told me once to start by impressing you, General. I hope I have.’

‘I told you once that I would kill you myself,’ replied Woundwort. ‘There is no white bird here, Thlayli.’ He advanced for the second time.

Bigwig’s taunt had been deliberate. He hoped that Woundwort would fly at him and so give him a chance to bite him again. But as he waited, pressed to the ground, he realized that Woundwort was too clever to be drawn. Always quick to size up any new situation, he was coming forward slowly, keeping close to the ground himself. He meant to use his claws. Afraid, listening to Woundwort’s approach, Bigwig could hear the uneven movement of his forepaws, almost within striking distance. Instinctively he drew back and as he did so the thought came with the sound. ‘The near forepaw’s dragging. He can’t use it properly.’ Leaving his right flank exposed, he struck out on his near side.

His claws found Woundwort’s leg, ripping sideways; but before he could draw back, Woundwort’s whole weight came down on him and the next moment his teeth had met in his right ear. Bigwig squealed, pressed down and thrashing from side to side. Woundwort, feeling his enemy’s fear and helplessness, loosed his hold of the ear and rose above him, ready to bite and tear him across the back of the neck. For an instant he stood above the helpless Bigwig, his shoulders filling the run. Then his injured foreleg gave way and he lurched sideways against the wall. Bigwig cuffed him twice across the face and felt the third blow pass through his whiskers as he sprang back. The sound of his heavy breathing came plainly from the top of the earth pile. Bigwig, the blood oozing from his back and ear, stood his ground and waited. Suddenly he realized that he could see the dark shape of General Woundwort faintly outlined, where he crouched above him. The first traces of daylight were glimmering through the broken roof of the Honeycomb behind.