Tales from Watership Down (18 page)

Hazel went a few yards nearer, peering ahead.

“Yes, I can see it. Surely it can’t be what I think it is.”

“Whatever it is,” said Bigwig, “it’s not moving. I don’t think it’s seen us, do you?”

“No,” replied Hazel. “But I don’t think it’s alive at all.”

“A trap?”

“No, it’s not a trap. Still, whatever it is, we’ve got to go past it to get home.”

They went forward yard by yard, Flyairth following Hazel somewhat hesitantly, till suddenly they both stopped at the same instant.

Beside the track, motionless in the clear moonlight, lay a man. He was on his side and fully clothed, including boots
and a woolen cap. From the scuffled snow, they could see that he had been dragged the short distance from the footpath. His eyes were closed, and his face looked, in some way, distorted.

“Let him alone,” said Bigwig. “I don’t care whether he’s dead or not. Let’s just let him alone.”

Flyairth, who was plainly nervous, remained with Bigwig, while Hazel went a little closer, sniffing. “He’s not dead. I can just feel his breath. But I agree about letting him alone.”

“Look at the snow,” said Bigwig. “D’you see? There were two of them walking together side by side. Then this one fell down—suddenly, I’d say—and the other dragged him to where he is now and then left him and went on, the same way that they’d been going.”

“Hadn’t we better go back?” said Flyairth. “It must be dangerous, surely? Men—even one like this—they’re always dangerous.”

“No, no, it’s all right,” said Bigwig impatiently. “Anyway, we’re here now.”

They turned away and went down into the Honeycomb and through it to the sleeping burrows, where the first rabbit they came upon was Holly.

“Everything all right down at the bottom, Hazel-rah?”

“Yes, fine. This is Flyairth, by the way. She’s joining us. What I need just at the moment is to talk to Vilthuril and Fiver. Can you get hold of them, Holly?”

As soon as Vilthuril and Fiver joined them, Hazel and Bigwig took them back into the Honeycomb, to avoid
meeting anyone else before they were ready. Flyairth came with them.

“This is going to be a surprise for you, Vilthuril,” said Hazel. “Who do you think this is? You’ll never guess, so I’ll tell you. Flyairth, from Thinial.”

Fiver was as much surprised as Vilthuril.

“Why has she come here?” asked Holly. “Does she know about us?”

“No, but she’ll tell you all about it herself later. I’ve told her she can stay, and a few other rabbits she brought with her. What we have to do just now is to get everybody in here ready to go down to the holes at the bottom. Will you tell them?”

The rabbits gathered in the Honeycomb, full of curiosity as Hazel’s news spread.

“Who are the other rabbits with her?” Hyzenthlay asked him.

“I’m not sure yet, but just her own family, I think. Her last litter.”

“Has she told you how she got here? Or how she’s come to be here at all, for the matter of that?”

“It’s too long a story to tell now. You can ask her tomorrow. Is everyone here? Let’s get on down the hill.”

He went across to the mouth of one of the runs, Flyairth and Bigwig following him. As soon as he had got his head outside, however, he stopped dead, listening tensely.

“What is it, Hazel-rah?” asked Bigwig. “What’s the matter?”

“A hrududu,” replied Hazel, “coming straight up here, very fast. See the lights?”

As he, Flyairth and Bigwig peered from the mouth of the hole, the hrududu approached, bouncing and skidding up the track toward them. Flyairth, trembling, turned and would have bolted back among the rabbits below if Bigwig had not restrained her.

“We’re not in danger,” said Bigwig sharply. “Pull yourself together. This is no time to go tharn, with everybody wondering what’s going on. Keep still.”

Flyairth, though she seemed half crazy with terror, did what she was told as the hrududu reached the trees and came to a stop a few yards away.

“It’s because of that man lying in the snow,” said Bigwig. “They’ve come for him. That’s what it is.”

Even before the hrududu had slithered to a halt and begun reversing, two men jumped out and ran over to where the man was lying.

“Get his shoulders, David. I’ll take his legs.”

“But is he alive?”

“Don’t know. Let’s get him into the jeep first.”

Between them, the two men managed to lift their heavy burden into the jeep.

“Not too fast going back, Alan. I want to have a look at him. Anyway, we don’t want to shake him about more than we can help.”

The hrududu set off in the direction from which it had come, and quiet returned. It was a considerable time,
however, before Hazel and Bigwig took the other rabbits out onto the Down and toward its foot. Flyairth was staggering and could hardly keep up: it was only with the encouragement of Hyzenthlay that she was able to reach the concealed holes at the bottom.

Hazel took several of his veterans into the one where he had left Bluebell and Pipkin. Hyzenthlay, with Flyairth, followed him. The burrow was now crammed full, but no one complained or tried to leave.

Hazel lay down in the dark beside Hyzenthlay. After some time, Vilthuril, close by, whispered to him, “Is Flyairth really here?”

“Yes, just on the other side of me. Do you want to tell her about your secret river in Efrafa?”

“No, not now. It would be better, wouldn’t it, if I told her later?”

“Yes, I think you’re right. She’s better left alone for the moment. She’s had enough surprises for one day.”

If the other rabbits had been expecting Hazel to speak to them about the newcomers, they were disappointed. Neither he nor Bigwig said anything more by way of explaining Flyairth’s arrival. Hazel simply went to sleep, and soon everyone else did the same. Flyairth remained restless and nervous for some time, but as the burrow grew warmer from the natural heat of so many bodies, she gradually relaxed and slept as soundly as the rest. In the middle of the night Hazel woke, slipped outside and went into both the other burrows to be sure that all was well. Finding that it
was, he did not go back to his place beside Hyzenthlay but simply went to sleep again where he found himself.

Next day he made no special effort to question Flyairth but, having gone outside in a more or less hopeless attempt to silflay, went back to drowsing underground, like any other rabbit in winter. In the course of the day, several rabbits, both bucks and does, asked him whether he meant to tell them anything about the mysterious circumstances of Flyairth’s arrival among them, but he simply replied that they were free to ask her and that the more rabbits she could talk to and get to know, the better for her and for them: as far as he was concerned, she was no different from any other rabbit. Only to Fiver did he say more.

“What do you make of her?”

“There’s something unusual about her,” replied Fiver. “She’s no ordinary rabbit. She’s got a lot on her mind: a lot that she’s not going to talk about—or not yet, anyway. But whatever it is, she doesn’t mean us any harm. And she’s not crazy, like that poor Silverweed in Cowslip’s warren. I think you’re right to leave her alone to settle in and see what happens. Something unusual
will
happen; I’m sure of that, and so is Vilthuril. But obviously we can’t send her away in all this snow and bitter cold. Let’s see how she gets on with our rabbits. That’ll tell us a good deal, for a start. We don’t need to treat her in any special way; or not yet, anyhow.”

That afternoon Flyairth approached Hazel on her own account.

“Hazel-rah, why weren’t you and Bigwig afraid of the men last night? I was more frightened than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Oh, well, we’re more or less used to them, you see,” replied Hazel. “I was sure they wouldn’t hurt us.”

“But
men
, as close as that? It’s not natural to rabbits. It
must
be dangerous.”

Hazel said nothing more, and after a short time Flyairth asked, “Have all the rabbits come down now?”

“Yes,” replied Hazel. “There’s no one up there now. We shan’t go back until it gets warmer.”

“Of course, I didn’t get a chance to see very much last night. Will you take me back there? Some of the rabbits have been describing the warren to me, and I’d like to see it again.”

“Now?” asked Hazel rather soporifically.

She was downright. “Yes. Well, before it gets dark.”

Hazel, good-natured as ever, agreed to go, and persuaded Bigwig to join them. The three set out, climbed the steep slope and went across to the footpath and the trees. The snow, frozen hard, was still lying, and Flyairth looked closely at the prints left by the men and the hrududu.

“Do men walk along this path very often?” she asked.

“In summer they do, quite a lot.”

Flyairth followed them the few yards to the holes leading down into the Honeycomb. She was full of admiration and looked closely at the run in which Bigwig had fought and beaten General Woundwort.

“These Efrafan rabbits—they’d come to beat you, had they, and take the warren away from you?”

They told her about the dog, and how Hazel had been brought back from the farm.

“That’s wonderful,” she said. “What courage! Weren’t you afraid?”

“We were all of us afraid,” said Hazel. Not wishing to seem to be boasting, he went on, “It was really El-ahrairah who saved us. Dandelion’ll tell you all about it, if you care to ask him. He’s the rabbit for telling stories.”

After they had looked at the sleeping burrows and were about to go back down the hill, she paused at the mouth of Kehaar’s run and again gazed about her.

“You say men come along that path—as close to you as that? And they haven’t done you any harm?”

“There’s no particular reason why they should,” answered Bigwig. “They don’t grow flayrah or anything up here.”

“But they must know you’re here. The Blindness—aren’t you afraid of the Blindness?”

“No. I don’t think the men mind us being here.”

“Men could destroy you all by giving you the Blindness. You know that?”

“They might, I suppose,” replied Hazel, “but we don’t think they will.”

Flyairth said no more on the subject. As they went back down the hill, she returned to the question of how Bigwig had known her name and the name of Thinial. She
evidently felt sure he could tell her more if he wanted to, but although he did not actually rebuff her, she got no more out of him.

Later on, when they were alone together, Hazel asked Bigwig how he had come to know in the first place that she was Flyairth, come from Thinial.

“Well, when Vilthuril was telling us the other night about Thinial and the doe who was Chief Rabbit, I formed a very vivid picture of her in my mind,” replied Bigwig, “and then when we found Flyairth in our burrow, she looked and smelled exactly as I’d imagined.”

“I can’t help wishing you hadn’t come out with it so sharply,” said Hazel. “Now she thinks we’re magic mind readers.”

“Well, so we are,” answered Bigwig, “thanks to Vilthuril. It won’t do any harm to let Flyairth think so. I know she was afraid last night, but all the same, she’s got a very strong mind of her own, that one. She’ll be all over us if we’re not careful.”

The frost continued day after day, and there were more falls of snow. The rabbits were able to endure the cold but grew desperately hungry, until even Bluebell could not make a joke of it. Blackavar led a few of the does on an expedition to the farm, but they were able to pick up very little, chiefly on account of the cats. Most of the rabbits stayed underground, huddled together; even Holly and Bigwig were glad of a share in what little warmth was to be had.

One night, when Hyzenthlay, Vilthuril and Thethuthinnang were pressing together against Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig, Vilthuril said, “Has Flyairth told you how she left Thinial and came to be here?”

“No, she hasn’t,” replied Bigwig. “I was going to ask her, straight out, to tell us, only Hazel thought she’d be better left alone until she felt more settled here.”

“Well, she’s told me,” said Vilthuril, “and she didn’t ask me not to tell anyone else. I think she’d probably be glad if I did tell you, so that
she
didn’t have to. She seemed almost ashamed of herself, somehow; though I couldn’t see that she had anything to be ashamed of, and so I told her.”

“Have you said anything to her yet about your secret river?” asked Hazel.

“No. But I’d rather she did hear it from one of us—the three of us who actually knew about it in Efrafa. At the moment, she can’t imagine how we came to know about her, so naturally she feels—well, uneasy, with us knowing something about her as big as that, and her still in the dark about it.”

“Yes, it’ll be better if you tell her yourself,” said Hazel. “But about her leaving Thinial, how did that happen?”

“Well,” said Vilthuril, “You remember I told you how we learned from the secret river that she was furiously angry when some of the rabbits in Thinial brought the young family of that poor rabbit—what was her name—”

“Milmown,” prompted Hyzenthlay.

“Yes, of course, Milmown. They brought her young
family into Thinial and gave them a burrow. Flyairth tried to make them leave, but their friends were too many for her, and her position as Chief Rabbit was weakened by losing that argument. That was the last thing I ever learned from the river.

“Now she’s told me herself that as the days went by she gradually lost more authority, not so much because of Milmown’s family as because she couldn’t think of anything but the White Blindness. She was obsessed by it and was continually putting forward ideas for preventing its getting into Thinial: ideas which most of her Owsla thought would be nothing but a nuisance; unnecessary things, they thought, which would only inconvenience everyone in the warren when there was no need. If only she’d dropped her obsession with the Blindness, they’d have forgotten about their quarrel with her.

“But she didn’t. And one day when the Owsla had refused to accept an idea she’d proposed, she said something quite fatal. She said that if they wouldn’t accept it she’d leave Thinial and take her family with her. Although they all felt she’d be a great loss, they still wouldn’t accept what she was proposing, and so she had to go.