Watership Down - Adams Richard George - Страница 37

"After a long time the men finished. They took the bramble things out of the holes and the boy put the bodies on a stick-"

Holly stopped and pressed his nose under Bigwig's flank.

"Well, never mind about that bit," said Hazel in a steady voice. "Tell us how you came away."

"Before that happened," said Holly, "a great hrududu came into the field from the lane. It wasn't the one the men came in. It was very noisy and it was yellow-as yellow as charlock: and in front there was a great silver, shining thing that it held in its huge front paws. I don't know how to describe it to you. It looked like Inle, but it was broad and not so bright. And this thing-how can I tell you-it tore the field to bits. It destroyed the field."

He stopped again.

"Captain," said Silver, "we all know you've seen things bad beyond telling. But surely that's not quite what you mean?"

"Upon my life," said Holly, trembling, "it buried itself in the ground and pushed great masses of earth in front of it until the field was destroyed. The whole place became like a cattle wade in winter and you could no longer tell where any part of the field had been, between the wood and the brook. Earth and roots and grass and bushes it pushed before it and-and other things as well, from underground.

"After a long time I went back through the wood. I'd forgotten any idea of collecting other rabbits, but there were three who joined me all the same-Bluebell here and Pimpernel and young Toadflax. Toadflax was the only member of the Owsla I'd seen and I asked him about the Threarah, but he couldn't talk any kind of sense. I never found out what happened to the Threarah. I hope he died quickly.

"Pimpernel was light-headed-chattering nonsense-and Bluebell and I weren't much better. For some reason all I could think of was Bigwig. I remembed how I'd gone to arrest him-to kill him, really-and I felt I had to find him and tell him I'd been wrong: and this idea was all the sense I had left. The four of us went wandering away and we must have gone almost in a half-circle, because after a long time we came to the brook, below what had been our field. We followed it down into a big wood; and that night, while we were still in the wood, Toadflax died. He was clear-headed for a short time before and I remember something he said. Bluebell had been saying that he knew the men hated us for raiding their crops and gardens, and Toadflax answered, 'That wasn't why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves. Soon after that he went to sleep, and a little later, when we were alarmed by some noise or other, we tried to wake him and realized he was dead.

"We left him lying where he was and went on until we reached the river. I needn't describe it because I know you were all there. It was morning by this time. We thought you might be somewhere near and we began to go along the bank, upstream, looking for you. It wasn't long before we found the place where you must have crossed. There were tracks-a great many-in the sand under a steep bank, and hraka about three days old. The tracks didn't go upstream or downstream, so I knew you must have gone over. I swam across and found more tracks on the other side: so then the others came over, too. The river was high. I suppose you must have had it easier, before all the rain.

"I didn't like the fields on the other side of the river. There was a man with a gun who kept walking everywhere. I took the other two on, across a road, and soon we came to a bad place-all heather and soft black earth. We had a hard time there, but again I came upon hraka about three days old and no sign of holes or rabbits, so I thought there was a chance that they were yours. Bluebell was all right, but Pimpernel was feverish and I was afraid he was going to die, too.

"Then we had a bit of luck-or so we thought at the time. That night we fell in with a hlessi on the edge of the heather-an old, tough rabbit with his nose all scratched and scarred-and he told us that there was a warren not far off and showed us which way to go. We came to woods and fields again, but we were so much exhausted that we couldn't start looking for the warren. We crept into a ditch and I hadn't the heart to tell one of the others to keep awake. I tried to keep awake myself, but I couldn't."

"When was this?" asked Hazel.

"The day before yesterday," said Holly, "early in the morning. When I woke it was still some time before ni-Frith. Everything was quiet and all I could smell was rabbit, but I felt at once that something was wrong. I woke Bluebell and I was just going to wake Pimpernel when I realized that there was a whole bunch of rabbits all round us. They were great, big fellows and they had a very odd smell. It was like-well, like-"

"We know what it was like," said Fiver.

"I thought you probably did. Then one of them said, 'My name's Cowslip. Who are you and what are you doing here? I didn't like the way he spoke, but I couldn't see that they had any reason to wish us harm, so I told him that we'd had a bad time and come a long way and that we were looking for some rabbits from our warren-Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig. As soon as I said those names this rabbit turned to the others and cried, 'I knew it! Tear them to pieces! And they all set on us. One of them got me by the ear and ripped it up before Bluebell could pull him off. We were fighting the lot of them. I was so much taken by surprise that I couldn't do a great deal at first. But the funny thing was that although they were so big and yelling for our blood, they couldn't fight at all: they obviously didn't know the first thing about fighting. Bluebell knocked down a couple twice his size, and although my ear was pouring with blood I was never really in danger. All the same, they were too many for us, and we had to run. Bluebell and I had just got clear of the ditch when we realized that Pimpernel was still there. He was ill, as I told you, and he didn't wake in time. So after all he'd been through, poor Pimpernel was killed by rabbits. What do you think of that?"

"I think it was a damned shame," said Strawberry, before anyone else could speak.

"We were running down the fields, beside a little stream," Holly went on. "Some of these rabbits were still chasing us and suddenly I thought, 'Well, I'll have one of them anyway. I didn't care for the idea of doing nothing more than just run away to save our skins-not after Pimpernel. I saw that this Cowslip was ahead of the others and out on his own, so I let him catch me up and then I suddenly turned and went for him. I had him down and I was just going to rip him up when he squealed out, 'I can tell you where your friends have gone. 'Hurry up, then, I said, with my back legs braced in his stomach. 'They've gone to the hills, he panted. 'The high hills you can see away over there. They went yesterday morning. I pretended not to believe him and acted as though I was going to kill him. But he didn't alter his story, so I scratched him and let him go and away we came. It was clear weather and we could see the hills plainly enough.

"After that we had the worst time of all. If it hadn't been for Bluebell's jokes and chatter we'd have stopped running for certain."

"Hraka one end, jokes the other," said Bluebell. "I used to roll a joke along the ground and we both followed it. That was how we kept going."

"I can't really tell you much about the rest of it," said Holly. "My ear was terribly painful and all the time I kept thinking that Pimpernel's death was my fault. If I hadn't gone to sleep he wouldn't have died. Once we tried to sleep again, but my dreams were more than I could bear. I was out of my mind, really. I had only this one idea-to find Bigwig and tell him that he'd been right to leave the warren.

"At last we reached the hills, just at nightfall of the next day. We were past caring-we came over the flat, open land at owl time. I don't know what I'd been expecting. You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing. But when you get there you find it's not that simple. I suppose I'd had some sort of foolish notion that Bigwig would be waiting to meet us. We found the hills were enormous-bigger than anything we'd ever seen. No woods, no cover, no rabbits: and night setting in. And then everything seemed to go to pieces. I saw Scabious, as plain as grass-and heard him crying, too: and I saw the Threarah and Toadflax and Pimpernel. I tried to talk to them. I was calling Bigwig, but I didn't really expect him to hear because I was sure he wasn't there. I can remember coming out from a hedge into the open and I know I was really hoping that the elil would come and make an end of me. But when I came to my senses, there was Bigwig. My first thought was that I must be dead, but then I began to wonder whether he was real or not. Well, you know the rest. It's a pity I frightened you so much. But if I wasn't the-the Black Rabbit, there's hardly a living creature that can ever have been closer to him than we have."