Duncton Rising (38 page)

“And if you had,” observed Whillan, “is there anything you would have done differently?”

Maple frowned, and stomped along the tunnel pondering the point.

“Never come in the first place!” was all he could say.

But divide and rule it really seemed to be. For at about the time that Maple and Whillan were being led up towards Caer Caradoc at last. Privet and Weeth found themselves ending what had seemed a long journey through confusing tunnels.

More than once they had asked the Newborn brother where they were going, but his only reply had been, “To a place of safety.”

“I thought we were to have talks about talks.”

“Where you’re going, mole, you can talk in safety for as long as you like, and without annoying anymole or causing difficulty until the Convocation’s over.”

Soon after this they arrived at a chamber which seemed to be a staging-point. It was wide and echoed with the voices of moles from several directions, and had at least three portals leading off into other tunnels, apart from the one they had come down. By one of them were three hefty Newborn guards of the dimmer sort, who stanced up and looked interested the moment they set eyes on Weeth.

“Ah!” said Weeth in a failing voice, “not good! I do believe that I am to be confined. Oh dear, oh dear. Maple will be annoyed with me.”

At another portal were moles who, in some ways, were more surprising and intimidating than the guards. For one thing they were female, the first Privet had ever seen in Newborn tunnels, except those servile moles she remembered from Blagrove Slide. For another, their faces were chillsome and stony of expression; they looked like moles out of whom all happiness, all feeling, all life, had long since been sucked.

“That is my destination, I think,” said Privet, reaching a paw to Weeth. “We had best wish each other luck.”

“Privet, you sound to me like a mole who half expected something like this to happen.”

Privet said nothing.

“You also seem like a mole who is quietly confident.”

“I have been given pause to think,” she said.

“By Chervil?” asked Weeth perspicaciously. She did not reply.

“So,” he continued, “separated like this, what are we all to do? Tell me that, wise mole of Duncton Wood. And tell it quick, because I feel the heavy grip of the Newborn guards descending.”

“We shall each of us do what you yourself most often advocate, Weeth, though we may not do it quite as well as you. We shall take our opportunities!”

“Ha! There it is again, the Duncton sense of humour! I tell you, Privet, it will be the death of the Newborn sect, a scourge it cannot possibly survive.”

“I hope so,” said Privet with a smile. “I shall pray that it is, as I shall pray for you. Every day for you, Weeth, for you give us heart!”

“Thank you,” said Weeth graciously and as if it was his due, waving one last time at Privet as each was surrounded by their respective guards and led off to “a place of safety”.

“Where’s
she
being taken?” asked the irrepressible Weeth.

“Where all females round Caradoc have to stay,” was the reply – a reassuring one, as it seemed to Weeth, for it meant she would not be summarily “disappeared” and, if there was only one such place, it would be the easier to find.

“Ah, the joys of opportunity!” he said cheerfully to himself as the tunnel grew darker and danker, and here and there they passed guards who looked somewhat permanent.

“A place of confinement is simply an opportunity to escape! A place where a mole is kept? An opportunity to think those thoughts he has been too lazy to think before! A place of gloom and doom? An opportunity to —”

But Weeth was not given a chance to say what such a place might offer as he was told to be quiet and was hurried, protesting, along more dank tunnels until ahead, beyond a group of bored-looking guards in a wide well-lit chamber, he saw a narrow way bordered by boulders. Beyond it, gloomily lit by fissures in its high roof, stretched a chamber in which a large group of moles was confined.

“Ah!” said Weeth, “a cell. Let us, even as we enter in, remember to practise what we preach and look for opportunity.” He glanced quickly around as he was hurried on, to take in what salient features he could of a place through which, he hoped, he might come back in something of a hurry. He was roughly gripped by the paw, and another shoved him firmly at the rump and he found himself struggling and scrabbling through the narrow way until he was clear of it, stancing up, and facing his fellow prisoners.

It was hard to make them out at first in the murky place, but there were a good few; all large, and all staring at him. Weeth grinned, and being a positive mole, advanced towards them; typically, he did not hesitate to choose the largest and ugliest to address first. There is nothing like being bold and resolute in the face of danger.

He stared up at the mole, who regarded him from deep-set eyes in a huge and furrowed head hanging from massive shoulders. Weeth eyed him as cheerfully as he could, taking in his face, his muscular body and his massive, misshapen paws.

“And whatmole are you?” asked Weeth pleasantly.

“Named Rooster,” growled the mole.

Weeth’s eyes widened, his heart-rate increased, his breathing grew more rapid.

“Rooster?” he rasped. “The one from the Moors?
That
Rooster?”

Rooster nodded slowly, staring at the strange, grinning, excitable mole. “And you?” he asked.

“Me?” said Weeth faintly. “Me?”

“You.”

Rooster loomed closer still, like a great rugged rock that threatens to crush a mole. But Weeth had already recovered his composure and his wits.

“I am Weeth, and I want you to know, Rooster, and your friends too, that I have a tingling sensation which tells me that I am the mole you may have been looking for since the Newborns shoved you into this place of temporary confinement.”

A weary smile cracked Rooster’s face. “Go on,” he said.

“Oh! I will, yes, I will,” began Weeth, feeling suddenly that never had the Stone been as obliging to him as this: to put him in so right a place, at so opportune a time.

Chapter Eighteen

Devastated though Fieldfare had been to see Chater set off on a dangerous journey from which there was no promise of a return, she felt that what he did was right, and she must make the best of things, just as she always had. But it was not in Duncton she was left behind this time, but in the middle of a dangerous situation, in which moles looked to her for guidance and support though not for actual leadership –
that
task she willingly left to Spurling, who had the snout for it. But none among their number doubted that it was Fieldfare’s spirit and sense of what was right that would keep them going and help them reach safety, as much as Spurling’s quieter skills of leadership, and commonsense decision-making about matters of rest, the disposition of their little force, and route-finding.

All of them sensed her deep despair and concern at losing Chater to the greater cause of warning Privet and the others of all that Spurling had told them the Newborns intended, but perhaps only Peach understood something more: that this time Fieldfare felt in her heart that she might never see Chater again.

It
is
different from our separations before,” confided Fieldfare, “almost as if the Stone wants to prepare me for the fact that he is gone and I will not see him again. But I feel it was meant to be, and that the Stone gave us this last time of journeying through beautiful places, time to love, to make love, as if it knew I would store them up in my heart against the wintry day when my love would be no more with me. Well, now that day’s come, and I’m sad. Peach, I’m terribly sad, because he’s gone where I can’t help him, or be with him to comfort him. I know he’s strong, and I know he’s doing what he does best, but it’s hard to accept I can’t be with him.”

“Yet you can take comfort from knowing that what you’ve had is more than most moles ever have,” said Peach. “You’ve had true love and true companionship, a mole at your flank whom you respect, and who respects you.”

“You understand, Peach, because you’ve got the same,” said Fieldfare tearfully, “and I’m glad for you, and grateful a mole like you is here to comfort me, just as Chater would have done.”

The two nodded and smiled at their happy memories, and spoke for some time more upon the subject of love and relationships, agreeing that moles who have never had them don’t know what they’re missing, and those that do had better not be too complacent, since life can change quite suddenly, and they had better enjoy what they have to the full while they may.

With this and other generalities of love discussed and agreed, Fieldfare felt much better and was ready to turn her mind to the task in paw, in the hope that her fears for Chater were groundless and Peach’s belief that he would come back sooner than they expected was right. Other moles needed her now, and it was her task to help Spurling get those who had entrusted their lives to their care up to the sanctuary of Uffington Hill.

The nearer they got to Uffington the more they came to rely on Noakes, who was younger and fitter than most of them, and knew the ground and the likely danger-points. For there were cross-unders beneath certain roaring owl ways, and two-foot ways over rivers and streams which they had to take, where Noakes suspected Newborn spies might lurk, watching for movement to report. Moles seeking dominance like nothing less than freedom of movement in those they wish to dominate.

So whilst Spurling and Fieldfare continued to lead the group in spirit it was the chirpy Noakes who did the route-finding, and had the energy and courage to go forward or back to make what reconnaissance was necessary. If, as happened increasingly as they approached his home system of Gurney, he spied Newborns, he had the common sense not to panic, but to creep back and warn the others to go some other way. Meanwhile Peach saw to it that Fieldfare’s abilities in giving comfort and simple healing remedies were put to full use amongst the more feeble of their group, perhaps as much to keep Fieldfare’s mind off Chater as to keep her friends going.

All in all, however, their progress was slow, and the good weather which had prevailed before Fieldfare had come to Fyfield had now gone; winter came, and with it the kind of wet and miserable weather which did not much encourage moles, especially old ones, to wander on in search of a home. They continued to travel by night when they could, stopping over during the day unless they were sure that the way ahead was really safe. It was during these long waits for the cover of darkness that Fieldfare found good use for her knowledge of Duncton Wood and its simple time-proven rituals, for the others asked her to tell them all she knew of the system that to them seemed a dream, or a myth of great days gone by.

Then too she told them the old tales she knew, of the days of Bracken and Rebecca, and Tryfan and beloved Mayweed. The stories of these moles, whose paws at different times had trodden the ways to Uffington, gave comfort to the refugees, and stirred them on so that they saw Uffington more and more as a worthy destination, and one which might give good succour to moles who regarded themselves as pilgrims on a long and difficult trek. Through all of this, as Peach recognized most of all. Fieldfare began to change and take on a new identity – or, more accurately, to shed an old one. She gained confidence in her own worth, she found that moles in general, rather than just the pups and friends she had always liked to look after, had need of her, and not only her physical help. She discovered that special confidence that comes from the discovery that she had things in her mind – wisdom, knowledge, insights, tales – which others wanted to hear.

This state of affairs was somewhat reinforced by the surprising fact that along the way the group was joined by no less than four vagrants – a pair and two single moles – who were refugees from the Newborns like themselves, and were seeking a safe haven. These moles quickly found that though Spurling was the leader, and Peach his mate, it was Fieldfare who increasingly with her warmth, her good nature, her common sense, and her matter-of-fact coping with the many problems that arose, embodied best the spirit of the group, and gave it cohesion and a sense of purposeful mission.

Soon after they had successfully by-passed Gurney, the looming presence of Uffington Hill made itself plain to the south-east. From a distance it was no more than a dark ridge that defined a vale, but closer to, this once most holy of places was seen more clearly for what it was, a steep escarpment of chalk, covered by tough sheep-shorn grass, which rose up to an edge so precipitous and high that a mole had to tilt his head back awkwardly to observe its top. Seeing it at dawn, when the sun rises behind it, not only must a mole bend his head back to fix his gaze properly on its high ridge, but he must squint as well, against the vast brightening sky. But in the evening, when the light comes from the west, Uffington is more easily seen, and the scars that mark the places where the underlying chalk shows through shine out white against the dull winter grass.

The final approach was near to where Noakes had once been caught, and they went most cautiously, slinking in the shadows of the night, keeping low lest the gazes of the roaring owls which are prevalent in those parts should sweep across and show them up as they made their passage over open ground.

Spurling was much concerned about the last part of their trek, the climb up the escarpment itself. Decades before great Tryfan of Duncton had come this way, in the company of a holy mole, and the two had succeeded in making the climb in daytime. But their account, which Fieldfare knew well, spoke of the dangers of rooks and kestrels, which use the rising winds there to prey on creatures like mice and voles that live and burrow among the grass. At night these dangers might be less, though tawny owls could always strike, but such a weak disparate group as they were might easily get separated and lost across the hill, leaving them much exposed if they were overtaken by dawn. Noakes had faced the self-same problem and had chosen to travel in daylight, and blamed his capture on that decision.