Tales from Watership Down (22 page)

On this occasion, however, he put himself in a false position, since not only Silver but several of the older rabbits noticed that he had come back with one rabbit fewer than he had taken out.

“Where’s Crowla?” asked Silver, who earlier in the day had done his best to dissuade that young doe from accompanying Sandwort.

“How should I know?” replied Sandwort. “I don’t have to answer for every rabbit who takes a notion to go out of the warren at the same time that I do.”

“But wasn’t she with you?” persisted Silver.

“She may have been, for all I know.”

“Are you saying that you think it’s nothing to do with you what may have happened to Crowla, who went out with you?”

“As far as I’m concerned, any rabbit’s free to come and go as she pleases,” said Sandwort. “I dare say she may come back a bit later.”

However, Crowla did not come back, and after several days her friends were forced to conclude that she was not going to come back at all. Sandwort showed no particular concern and continued to say that whatever might have happened to her was nothing to do with him. It was at this point that Hazel felt obliged to take notice himself. That evening he tackled Sandwort at silflay on the Down.

“Did you invite Crowla to join you on this expedition you made?” he asked.

“No—
sir
,” answered Sandwort, continuing to nibble the grass. “She asked me to let her come.”

“And you agreed that she could?”

“I said she could please herself.”

“But all the same, you saw her among the others when you set out. You knew she was there. When did you first notice that she wasn’t there?”

“I can’t remember. On the way back, I suppose.”

“And you say you didn’t feel that was any business of yours?”

“No, I didn’t. I don’t pick and choose which rabbits want to join me. That’s their business, not mine.”

“Even in a case like this? An inexperienced doe a good deal younger than yourself?”

“A lot of does are younger than myself.”

“Answer me properly,” said Hazel angrily. “Did you or didn’t you think she was any business of yours? Yes or no?”

Sandwort paused. Finally he replied, “No, I didn’t.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” said Hazel. “Nyreem was with you, too, that day, wasn’t she?”

“Oh, I rather think she was.”

“A completely inexperienced young doe just arrived from Efrafa with an injured leg?”

Sandwort made no reply.

“You didn’t feel concerned on her account either?”

“No, not particularly.”

Hazel left him without another word.

Later that evening, he talked the matter over with Fiver and Bigwig. “There’s a nice young doe we’ve lost; one he led to her death. I liked Crowla. She was coming on very well. And he’s quite likely to do it again, as far as I can see.”

“Why don’t I drag him out and beat the daylights out of him?” asked Bigwig.

“No,” said Fiver. “That wouldn’t really get us anywhere. That would only make him more of a rebel among his own friends. You see, strictly speaking, he hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s true enough that he can go out of the warren, go anywhere he likes; so can any rabbit, and if other rabbits choose to go at the same time, it’s not his business to stop them. It’s simply that no right-minded rabbit would act in such a way—particularly when one of his friends has gone missing as a result of going with him.”

“Well, he’s got to be stopped from doing it again,” said Bigwig.

“The only way we could manage that,” said Fiver, “would be to forbid him to leave the warren at all, except to silflay.”

“I’m not prepared to go that far,” said Hazel. “It’s a bit too much like Woundwort. We’ll have to let him alone for the time being. But if anyone else fails to come back from going out with him, we shall have to do something.”

Sandwort’s next objectionable act took place only a day or two later. It was not serious, like the loss of Crowla, but nevertheless it amounted to deliberate insolence. Silver and
Blackavar had been to the foot of the Down on some activity of their own and as they set out to return found that they were being followed by Sandwort and three or four other young rabbits. Silver and Blackavar had come to a half-closed gap between some thick tussocks of grass and were pausing, hesitant whether to push through it or to go round, avoiding the tussocks altogether. At this moment, Sandwort came up to them from behind and said, “Are you going through here?” Neither Silver nor Blackavar gave him any immediate reply. “Well, I am, anyway,” said Sandwort, pushed them aside and went past them into the gap, followed by the other rabbits, one or two of whom did not bother to conceal their amusement.

Small incidents of this kind continued to occur, until it was plain that Sandwort was bringing them about deliberately whenever opportunity offered, usually in the presence of younger rabbits, who would gossip about them in the warren. On the only occasion when one of these led to blows, the older rabbit came off worse, Sandwort being strong and heavy. Another day, Holly overheard one of the youngsters talking about “Sandwort’s Owsla.” This, passed on to Bigwig, made him so angry that he had to be restrained from going to look for Sandwort then and there. “It wasn’t him that said it,” pointed out Hazel. “He’d only have a justified grievance against you and make all he could out of it afterward.”

Before the whole matter of Sandwort’s behavior could come to a head, however, it was eclipsed by an entirely
different kind of crisis. One morning, an hour or two after sunrise, two young rabbits, Crowfoot and Foxglove, both friends of Sandwort’s, came dashing into the warren in a state of panic, asking to speak to Hazel immediately.

“We were in the garden of the big house down the hill,” said Crowfoot, “just the two of us and Sandwort. We were looking for flayrah, when all of a sudden this huge dog came dashing toward us, barking and growling. Sandwort immediately told us to separate, and we ran off in different directions as fast as we could. The dog didn’t pursue us, so after a bit we came back to find Sandwort. And what’s happened is that he’s fallen into a kind of pit and can’t get out.”

“A pit?” said Hazel. “What sort of a pit?”

“It’s a man-made pit,” said Foxglove, “not quite so deep as a man’s tall, and the sides are about the same length. The sides and the bottom are all perfectly smooth—smooth as a wall—not a foothold anywhere, and Sandwort’s lying at the bottom.”

“Injured?”

“We don’t think so. We think he must have been running from the dog as fast as he could, like we were, and not looking where he was going, when he fell into the pit. There’s hardly any water in it, and he’s just lying there. He can’t get out.”

“And the sides are smooth and straight up and down, you say?” asked Hazel. “Well, if he can’t get out by himself, I shouldn’t think we can get him out, but I’ll go and see. Blackberry, you come with me, will you, and Fiver? No one
else is to come. I don’t want a whole crowd attracting the dog back.”

The three rabbits made their way to the foot of the Down, ran across the empty cornfield and the road, and went cautiously through the hedge into the big garden. It took them some time to find the pit of which Crowfoot had spoken. When at length they did, they could see nothing in the least likely to reassure them. The trench, about five feet by three and perhaps four feet in depth, was lined with smooth concrete. It had been dug out to serve the same purpose as a water butt. There were no steps down, but beside it lay a bucket attached to a rope. There were perhaps two or three inches of water in the bottom, and here Sandwort was lying on his side and holding up his head to breathe. He did not see them.

On the edge of the trench they were completely in the open, and as soon as they had taken in the discouraging situation, they went back under the cover of some nearby laurel bushes, where they conferred.

“We’ll never get him out of there,” said Blackberry. “It can’t be done.”

“Not with one of your brilliant schemes?” asked Hazel.

“I’m afraid not. There’s no scheme can get him out of there. If a man were to come for water, I suppose he’d take him out and probably kill him, but that’s not likely, is it? There’s very little water in there.”

“So he’ll stay there and die?”

“I’m afraid he will. And it’ll take some time too.”

The three rabbits returned to the warren in low spirits. Hazel always hated the loss of any rabbit, but to know that Sandwort was beyond help and could only be left to die slowly was depressing in the extreme. The news had quickly run round the warren, and so many rabbits wanted to go and see Sandwort’s plight for themselves that Hazel felt obliged to forbid any of them to go even as far as the Iron Tree at the foot of the Down.

“So he’ll just have to be left to die?” asked Tindra, one of the does who had been close to him. “It’ll take a long time, won’t it?”

“I’m afraid it may,” replied Hazel. “Three days, four days. I’ve never known anything like this before, and I simply can’t tell.”

All that day and the next, the idea of Sandwort lying in the pit was never far from the rabbits’ thoughts. Even those, like Silver and Bigwig, who had had good reason to dislike him would have helped him escape from his dreadful predicament if only they could.

On the afternoon of the third day after the news had been brought to the warren, Tindra and Nyreem deliberately disobeyed Hazel, going furtively along the crest of the Down and then, after they had gone a considerable distance, to the foot. Young and inexperienced as they were, they became lost and wandered one way and another for some time before stumbling more or less by chance through the hedge and into the garden of the big house.

It did not take them very long to come upon the pit.
Sandwort, his eyes closed, was lying unmoving in the water. The flies were walking on his eyelids and ears, but every few seconds a minute release of bubbles showed that he was still breathing. Some sodden hraka lay by his tail.

The two does stared down at him. Although there was clearly nothing to be done, they remained in the open, fascinated and unmoving, for some time, until they were startled by the voices of approaching children. As they ran back into the laurels the children appeared, three or four of them together, pushing through the azaleas on the opposite side of the little glade. One of them, a boy of about eleven, broke into a run and jumped across the pit. On the further side he stopped and turned round to look down.

“I say, there’s a dead rabbit down here.”

A second boy joined him, peering. “It’s not dead.”

“ ’Tis.”

“ ’Tisn’t.”

“ ’Tis.”

“ ’Tisn’t. All right, I’ll show you.”

The second put a hand on either side and lowered himself to the bottom. Stooping, he picked up the rabbit, which remained inert, laid it on the concrete verge and pulled himself up and out.

“I told you it was dead,” said the first boy.

“I still don’t believe it is. Wait, I’ll get a blade of grass.”

“Oh, leave it alone, both of you,” cried an older girl, from beside the azaleas, “getting that nasty mess all over your hands! Leave it alone, Philip. Leave it where it is and
Hemmings’ll take it away if you tell him. Coo-ee!” she called in a high-pitched voice. “We’re com-ing!”

The boys, leaving the body of the rabbit on the concrete, followed her round a laurustinus, over some box bushes and out of sight. Two or three minutes later, Tindra and Nyreem came cautiously out from under the laurels and approached the edge of the pit.

“Sandwort!” said Tindra, sniffing at the body. “Sandwort! He isn’t dead,” she added to Nyreem. “He’s breathing and his blood’s moving. Lick his nostrils; lick his eyelids. That’s right.”

The two does persevered for several minutes. At length Sandwort’s head moved slightly and his eyes opened. He tried to get on his feet but for some time could not do so.

“What happened? Where’s the dog? Where’s Foxglove?”

“Come back under the bushes, if you can,” said Tindra. “The dog’s gone, but you need to rest.”

It was late in the evening when the two does at last reached the ridge of the Down, with Sandwort limping and stumbling beside them. The first rabbit they met was Fiver, who sniffed Sandwort over where he lay and went to tell Hazel.

“He’d better get some sleep,” said Hazel grimly. “Take him to the nearest burrow,” he added to Nyreem. “As for you,” he went on, turning to Tindra, “You’d better stay with me and explain yourself. What were the two of you doing down there after I’d said no one was to go?”

Poor Tindra was so much overcome by the severity of the Chief Rabbit that she was able to come out with only an incoherent stammering of mixed-up excuses that amounted to no excuse at all. Hazel gave her a sound scolding, but this was modified by the indisputable fact (which she was too demoralized to put forward for herself) that if she and Nyreem had not done what they did, Sandwort would now be dead. It was left to Hazel finally to give her credit for that.

As for Sandwort, he was a changed rabbit. He never spoke of what he had undergone and became almost excessively respectful to his seniors. One evening, several weeks after the affair of the pit, Dandelion was acting as host to a hlessi who was staying a few days in the warren. At evening silflay he was pointing out one or two personalities, when the hlessi asked, “And who’s that poor afflicted rabbit who sticks so close to his doe?”

“Where?” replied Dandelion, looking about them. “Oh, that’s a rabbit called Sandwort, who’s had and extraordinarily lucky escape. It happened like this …”

Soon after sunrise on a perfect summer morning, Hazel came out of his burrow, through the Honeycomb and into the fresh air of the Down. Dusk and dawn are the activity times for rabbits, and already a number were grazing in twos and threes on the slope and out along the crest, paying almost no attention even to one another as they foraged through the short grass. It was a peaceful scene, and the rabbits, knowing that they had no danger to fear, were absorbed in the enjoyment of feeding in the early sunshine.