The Second Wave (21 page)

She looked at the other Greys.  The majority were in no state to challenge anything.  A retreat and regroup was called for now.

‘Hickory.  The mosst important tassk iss to be yourss.  Select two other squirrelss who have not been affected by the Redss’ sinful sorcery and watch their every actionss.  I will lead the otherss back to the Temple Tree to recover and then we will find a way to kill the Squarry ass we have been directed.  If there iss any sign of the enemy leaving, send a messenger to me and follow at a disstansse.  Do your undersstand?’

Hickory looked at the other Greys, most of whom were pitifully trying to straighten their whiskers with their claws.  He thought briefly of just hopping off to start a new life away from all this peculiar business of metal collecting, Squarry hunting and that coldness, that terrible lonely coldness.  Then he remembered the Sin-Day.  He was not going to risk falling and blindly spinning down, down, down, forever.

‘Yes,’ he said.  ‘I understand.’

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

If there was a frustrated pine marten anywhere in the world, it was Blood.  After days and days of searching for the squirrels he now knew where they were.

He had found their scent often, but each time, just as he was expecting to surprise them resting, the scent-trail led down to the beach and disappeared.  He could not believe that the whole party had taken to swimming away each day.

There was a spring warmth in the air when he saw them again.  He was prowling behind the island castle near where the last of the peafowl were living when he spotted movements in the treetops.  He froze and watched a column of squirrels pass overhead, then he climbed a tree and followed silently to discover where they were hiding.

Old Oak always took the last position in the line as they made their daily evasive movements, looping in from the coast as the tide covered their scent-trail on the beach, to find a temporary hiding place, only to move on again at low tide.  Twice each day Just Poplar insisted that they did this, and they were all exhausted now, but none more so than Oak.  His joints were stiff and he often thought of asking Clover or one of the ex-princesses for some herbs to help, but he knew that it was his age, not illness, that was slowing him up.  He reflected on how well the two, Voxglove and Cowzlip, although frail as a result of generations of inbreeding, had learned Clover’s caring secrets, leaving her free to develop her role as a Tagger.

Oak was also impressed with the way Clover had grown into
that
role.  Coping with the distress and disruption of their lives caused by the pine marten and her experience of caring for the sick ones had given her a deep insight into squirrel behaviour.  All agreed that the tags she allocated were true and fair, and that her advice to the Leader and to the Council was always sound and impartial.

Old Oak was resting, gathering strength to run and catch up with the others, when he saw a movement in a tree in the direction they had come – only a glimpse of brown fur and a flash of white on the chest.  At first he thought that some squirrel had fallen behind, unseen by him.  Then, with horror, he realised that it was the pine marten  –  coming his way!

Learning of danger

Leap, scramble, climb, hop or run,

Warn all the others.

He paused.  That was the Kernel for this situation.  He must warn the others, but he knew that he didn’t have a leap or a scramble left in him, let alone a climb, hop or a run.  There was only one other action worthy of an ex-Leader.  His life was nearly at an end anyway.  He rustled the branches to attract the marten’s attention and dropped to the ground.

One of the National Trust’s wardens walking under the trees, looked up as he heard the sound of the leaves moving, but was not prepared for what happened then, as a squirrel dropped from the branches above and lay still at his feet.  He crouched to look at it – its tiny chest was palpitating with fear and its eyes were fixed on something above his head.  He looked up again but could see nothing unusual.  When he looked down, the squirrel had gone.

Oak caught up with the others where Just Poplar had called a halt once he had found that Oak was not with them.

‘The pine marten was following us,’ the old squirrel said breathlessly.  ‘But a man with the sign of Acorn, the first squirrel, on his chest frightened him away.  You should have seen the look on that marten’s face – he was terrified of that man!’

Just Poplar, remembering the time before the ‘Acorn’ men came, said, ‘If he
is
afraid of humans, perhaps we should live amongst them. 
They
have never harmed us.’

They all thought about this for a moment.

Clover agreed.  ‘That’s right, they never bothered us at the Blue Pool.  Yes, let’s go and live among the humans.  I’m tired of all this hiding.’

The weary squirrels climbed over the wall of Brownsea Castle and slept in the shelter of the great sequoia tree there, secure in the belief that the marten would not come so close to where the humans were living and working.

When the late winter finally turned to spring, the Ourlanders were there, marvelling at the activity of the busy humans below, who were clearing the rampant growth of decades of neglect, trying to get everything ready for the scheduled reopening of the island to the public in May.

The squirrels had seen the pine marten in the distance several times and on each occasion they had moved nearer to wherever the humans were active that day, and had watched the marten turn away in fear,

Although by now mating should have been under way and dreys prepared for a new batch of dreylings, no squirrel had felt the urge, even when the sun had warmed them.  Their lives were still unsettled, and the constant presence of the marten, though at a distance, was disturbing.  How soon would it be before he overcame his fear of Man and attacked?

Ivy reached the Temple Tree clearing at the head of a posse of tired and demoralised Greys.  They had taken three days for a journey that could be done in a single day by a fit squirrel, but few were fit.  At the end of the first day those who were unaffected bit off the curled whiskers of the others.  This did at least stop them wandering around in circles but none of the whisker-less ones could climb and they progressed on the ground, terrified of being found by foxes or dogs.

The Reds had said that the Temple Master was dead.  We’ll know soon if that is true, Ivy thought, as they came through the last of the trees surrounding the clearing.  They stopped and stared.

Where there had once been a great oak tree there was now a gigantic squirrel – made of metal, each piece joined to the next.  The squirrel-shaped mass stood on its hind legs, towering above them, its tail high and an accusing look in the eyes formed by two metal discs.  Ivy remembered those discs – Crag had been very proud of those.  They had been in the centres of larger round things beneath one of those human travelling boxes and they had shone in the sunshine when Crag and a gang of Greys had levered them off with sticks.  Crag had insisted that they were taken to the highest point in the Temple.  Now they were partly blackened by fire, but, like Crag’s own eyes, they glowered down balefully on the tiny animals below.

‘What has happened to Crag?’ Sitka asked, his voice wavering.

‘Can’t you see?’ snapped Ivy.  ‘The Sun hass made a metal squirrel out of him to remind uss all that we musst never forget to follow hiss exsample and obey hiss appointed successor – Ivy the Sinless.  Now search for another hollow tree which even the whisker-lesss oness can get into for safety.  Trusst your leader.  Hate the Squarry.  Go now and look for hollow treess.

CHAPTER THIRTY

‘That must be the Agglestone,’ Rowan called back over his shoulder.

The other squirrels peered through the heather and bracken in the direction he was pointing.  Half a mile away a great rock was propped up at a steep angle, resting on other rocks. It was several times a human’s height, but there were no humans near at this time of day.  The sun was low in the sky and darkness would not be far away.

With Tansy at last fit to travel and all the other Reds eager and anxious to be out of the confines of the cave, Alder and Marguerite had sent out a scouting party to check on the grey watchers.  They knew where the three had their position, in a scrub oak on the bank opposite the castle mound, and the scouts circled round until they could see that all three Greys were there.  They reported back.

‘We leave before dawn tomorrow,’ Alder had announced.  ‘We must be clear of the castle mound before it gets light enough for the watchers to see us go.  We will head south, though we believe the Agglestone to be to the east.  If we are followed or seen, this will help to fool the Greys.  Later we will take the true course.  I think Marguerite has a Kernel about that.’

‘The unexpected,

Obscure action, confuses

Squirrel’s enemies.’

They had left unseen in the pre-dawn and headed south.

Earlier on the day they first sighted the Agglestone, they had passed through a strange countryside.  Long strips of cropped grass ended in patches where the grass was even shorter.  The squirrels had marvelled at the pigeons’ eggs which humans were unsuccessfully trying to smash with sticks. The eggs didn’t break but eventually rolled into holes in the ground, each marked by a little flag, where the humans would lift them out and try smashing them again.  It was all most perplexing!

Now Alder looked around for a tree in which to spend the night, where they would be safe from fox danger, but there were none near enough for them to reach before it got dark.  The air was still warm from a day of spring sunshine and the rock ahead looked as though it could offer protection, if not much in the way of shelter.

‘Make for the rock,’ he said.  ‘We’ll spend the night there.  Don’t hurry – forage as you go.’

The moon was rising out of the sea when they reached the Agglestone and, as the great silver globe lit the heathland, the tired band of travellers looked up at the dark mass towering above them.  Alder and Rowan prowled around the base to find a way up.

There were a number of places where an agile and unburdened squirrel could climb, but they had the Woodstock with them.

‘What about this?’ asked Juniper, his paw on the twisted spiral of wood.

‘I think we can safely leave it down here,’ Alder replied.  ‘There’s been no sign of Greys since we left the castle mound.  Hide it in that holly bush.’

He indicated a dense mass of holly a squirrel-leap or more from the base of the rock.  The stubby mass had grown only to the height of three squirrels, most of each spring’s new growth having been nibbled off by deer before the prickles had had time to harden.

With Rowan’s help, Juniper pushed the Woodstock in under the bush, trying to avoid the spiky leaves, whilst the other squirrels were climbing up the rock with Marguerite in the rear.  She had stopped on a ledge and was examining some shapes cut in the face of the stone, presumably by humans.  Stark in the moonlight, they were like her numbers but different.  One –
 – she had seen on the ship that had passed them on the sea the previous year, but the others were new to her.  There was a
 and a
and many others.  ‘What could these be for?’ she wondered.  She pointed them out to Juniper and Rowan, but they were more concerned about climbing up and finding a safe place for the night.