Watership Down Page 9

  When Hazel woke he perceived at once that it was morning-some time after sunrise, by the smell of it. The scent of apple blossom was plain enough. Then he picked up the fainter smells of buttercups and horses. Mingled with these came another. Although it made him uneasy, he could not tell for some moments what it was. A dangerous smell, an unpleasant smell, a totally unnatural smell-quite close outside: a smoke smell-something was burning. Then he remembered how Bigwig, after his reconnaissance on the previous day, had spoken of the little white sticks in the grass. That was it. A man had been walking over the ground outside. That must have been what had awakened him.

  Hazel lay in the warm, dark burrow with a delightful sense of security. He could smell the man. The man could not smell him. All the man could smell was the nasty smoke he was making. He fell to thinking of the Shape in the well pit, and then dropped into a drowsy half-dream, in which El-ahrairah said that it was all a trick of his to disguise himself as Poison Tree and put the stones in the wall, to engage Strawberry's attention while he himself was getting acquainted with Nildro-hain.

  Pipkin stirred and turned in his sleep, murmuring, "Sayn lay narn, Marli?" ("Is groundsel nice, Mother?") and Hazel, touched to think that he must be dreaming of old days, rolled over on his side to give him room to settle again. At that moment, however, he heard a rabbit approaching down some run close by. Whoever it was, he was calling-and stamping as well, Hazel noticed-in an unnatural way. The sound, as Blackberry had said, was not unlike birdsong. As he came closer, Hazel could distinguish the word.

  "Flayrah! Flayrah!"

  The voice was Strawberry's. Pipkin and Blackberry were waking, more at the stamping than the voice, which was thin and novel, not striking through their sleep to any deep instinct. Hazel slipped out of the burrow into the run and at once came upon Strawberry busily thumping a hind leg on the hard earth floor.

  "My mother used to say, 'If you were a horse the ceiling would fall down," said Hazel. "Why do you stamp underground?"

  "To wake everyone," answered Strawberry. "The rain went on nearly all night, you know. We generally sleep right through the early morning if it's rough weather. But it's turned fine now."

  "Why actually wake everybody, though?"

  "Well, the man's gone by and Cowslip and I thought the flayrah ought not to lie about for long. If we don't go and get it the rats and rooks come and I don't like fighting rats. I expect it's all in the day's work to an adventurous lot like you."

  "I don't understand,"

  "Well, come along with me. I'm just going back along this run for Nildro-hain. We haven't got a litter at present, you see, so she'll come out with the rest of us."

  Other rabbits were making their way along the run and Strawberry spoke to several of them, more than once remarking that he would enjoy taking their new friends across the field. Hazel began to realize that he liked Strawberry. On the previous day he had been too tired and bewildered to size him up. But now that he had had a good sleep, he could see that Strawberry was really a harmless, decent sort of fellow. He was touchingly devoted to the beautiful Nildro-hain; and he evidently had moods of gaiety and a great capacity for enjoyment. As they came up into the May morning he hopped over the ditch and skipped into the long grass as blithe as a squirrel. He seemed quite to have lost the preoccupied air that had troubled Hazel the night before. Hazel himself paused in the mouth of the hole, as he always had behind the bramble curtain at home, and looked out across the valley.

  The sun, risen behind the copse, threw long shadows from the trees southwestward across the field. The wet grass glittered and nearby a nut tree sparkled iridescent, winking and gleaming as its branches moved in the light wind. The brook was swollen and Hazel's ears could distinguish the deeper, smoother sound, changed since the day before. Between the copse and the brook, the slope was covered with pale lilac lady's-smocks, each standing separately in the grass, a frail stalk of bloom above a spread of cressy leaves. The breeze dropped and the little valley lay completely still, held in long beams of light and enclosed on either side by the lines of the woods. Upon this clear stillness, like feathers on the surface of a pool, fell the calling of a cuckoo.

  "It's quite safe, Hazel," said Cowslip behind him in the hole. "I know you're used to taking a good look round when you silflay, but here we generally go straight out."

  Hazel did not mean to alter his ways or take instructions from Cowslip. However, no one had pushed him and there was no point in bickering over trifles. He hopped across the ditch to the further bank and looked round him again. Several rabbits were already running down the field toward a distant hedge dappled white with great patches of maybloom. He saw Bigwig and Silver and went to join them, flicking the wet off his front paws step by step, like a cat.

  "I hope your friends have been looking after you as well as these fellows have looked after us, Hazel," said

  Bigwig. "Silver and I really feel at home again. If you ask me, I reckon we've all made a big change for the better. Even if Fiver's wrong and nothing terrible has happened back at the old warren, I'd still say we're better off here. Are you coming along to feed?"

  "What is this business about going to feed, do you know?" asked Hazel.

  "Haven't they told you? Apparently there's flayrah to be had down the fields. Most of them go every day."

  (Rabbits usually eat grass, as everyone knows. But more appetizing food-e.g., lettuce or carrots, for which they will make an expedition or rob a garden-is flayrah.)

  "Flayrah? But isn't it rather late in the morning to raid a garden?" said Hazel, glancing at the distant roofs of the farm behind the trees.

  "No, no," said one of the warren rabbits, who had overheard him. "The flayrah's left in the field, usually near the place where the brook rises. We either eat it there or bring it back-or both. But we'll have to bring some back today. The rain was so bad last night that no one went out and we ate almost everything in the warren."

  The brook ran through the hedgerow, and there was a cattle wade in the gap. After the rain the edges were a swamp, with water standing in every hoofprint. The rabbits gave them a wide berth and came through by another gap further up, close to the gnarled trunk of an old crab-apple tree. Beyond, surrounding a thicket of rushes, stood an enclosure of posts and rails half as high as a man. Inside it, the kingcups bloomed and the brook whelmed up from its source.

  On the pasture nearby Hazel could see scattered, russet-and-orange-colored fragments, some with feathery light green foliage showing up against the darker grass. They gave off a pungent, horsy smell, as if freshly cut. It attracted him. He began to salivate and stopped to pass hraka. Cowslip, coming up nearby, turned toward him with his unnatural smile. But now Hazel, in his eagerness, paid no attention. Powerfully drawn, he ran out of the hedgerow toward the scattered ground. He came to one of the fragments, sniffed it and tasted it. It was carrot.

  Hazel had eaten various roots in his life, but only once before had he tasted carrot, when a cart horse had spilled a nose bag near the home warren. These were old carrots, some half eaten already by mice or fly. But to the rabbits they were redolent with luxury, a feast to drive all other feelings out of mind. Hazel sat nibbling and biting, the rich, full taste of the cultivated roots filling him with a wave of pleasure. He hopped about the grass, gnawing one piece after another, eating the green tops along with the slices. No one interrupted him. There seemed to be plenty for all. From time to time, instinctively, he looked up and sniffed the wind, but his caution was half-hearted. "If elil come, let them," he thought. "I'll fight the lot. I couldn't run, anyway. What a country! What a warren! No wonder they're all as big as hares and smell like princes!" "Hello, Pipkin! Fill yourself up to the ears! No more shivering on the banks of streams for you, old chap!"

  "He won't know how to shiver in a week or two," said Hawkbit, with his mouth full. "I feel so much better for this! I'd follow you anywhere, Hazel. I wasn't myself in the heather that night. It's bad when you know you can't get underground. I ho
pe you understand."

  "It's all forgotten," answered Hazel. "I'd better ask Cowslip what we're supposed to do about taking some of this stuff back to the warren."

  He found Cowslip near the spring. He had evidently finished feeding and was washing his face with his front paws.

  "Are there roots here every day?" asked Hazel. «Where-» He checked himself just in time. "I'm learning," he thought.

  "Not always roots," replied Cowslip. "These are last year's, as you'll have noticed. I suppose the remains are being cleared out. It may be anything-roots, greenstuff, old apples: it all depends. Sometimes there's nothing at all, especially in good summer weather. But in hard weather, in winter, there's nearly always something. Big roots, usually, or kale, or sometimes corn. We eat that too, you know."

  "Food's no problem, then. The whole place ought to be full of rabbits. I suppose-"

  "If you really have finished," interrupted Cowslip, "-and there's no hurry; do take your time-you could try carrying. It's easy with these roots-easier than anything except lettuce. You simply bite onto one, take it back to the warren and put it in the great burrow. I generally take two at a time, but then I've had a lot of practice. Rabbits don't usually carry food, I know, but you'll learn. It's useful to have a store. The does need some for their young when they're getting bigger; and it's particularly convenient for all of us in bad weather. Come back with me and I'll help if you find the carrying difficult at first."

  It took Hazel some trouble to leam to grip half a carrot in his mouth and carry it, like a dog, across the field and back to the warren. He had to put it down several times. But Cowslip was encouraging and he was determined to keep up his position as the resourceful leader of the newcomers. At his suggestion they both waited at the mouth of one of the larger holes to see how his companions were shaping. They all seemed to be making an effort and doing their best, although the smaller rabbits-especially Pipkin-clearly found the task an awkward one.

  "Cheer up, Pipkin," said Hazel. "Think how much you'll enjoy eating it tonight. Anyway, I'm sure Fiver must find it as hard as you: he's just as small."

  "I don't know where he is," said Pipkin. "Have you seen him?"

  Now that Hazel thought about it, he had not. He became a little anxious and, as he returned across the field with Cowslip, did his best to explain something of Fiver's peculiar temperament. "I do hope he's all right," he said. "I think perhaps I'll go and look for him when we've carried this next lot. Have you any idea where he might be?"

  He waited for Cowslip to reply, but he was disappointed. After a few moments Cowslip said, "Look, do you see those jackdaws hanging round the carrots? They've been a nuisance for several days now. I must get someone to try to keep them off until we've finished carrying. But they're really too big for a rabbit to tackle. Now, sparrows-"

  "What's that got to do with Fiver?" asked Hazel sharply.

  "In fact," said Cowslip, breaking into a run, "I'll go myself."

  But he did not engage the jackdaws and Hazel saw him pick up another carrot and start back with it. Annoyed, he joined Buckthorn and Dandelion and the three of them returned together. As they came up to the warren bank he suddenly caught sight of Fiver. He was sitting half concealed under the low spread of a yew tree on the edge of the copse, some way from the holes of the warren. Putting down his carrot, Hazel ran across, scrambled up the bank and joined him on the bare ground under the low, close boughs. Fiver said nothing and continued to stare over the field.

  "Aren't you coming to learn to carry, Fiver?" asked Hazel at length. "It's not too difficult once you get the hang of it."

  "I'll have nothing to do with it," answered Fiver in a low voice. "Dogs-you're like dogs carrying sticks."

  "Fiver! Are you trying to make me angry? I'm not going to get angry because you call me stupid names. But you're letting the others do all the work."

  "I'm the one who ought to get angry," said Fiver. "But I'm no good at it, that's the trouble. Why should they listen to me? Half of them think I'm mad. You're to blame, Hazel, because you know I'm not and still you won't listen."

  "So you don't like this warren any better even now? Well, I think you're wrong. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Why shouldn't you make a mistake, like everybody else? Hawkbit was wrong in the heather and you're wrong now."

  "Those are rabbits down there, trotting along like a lot of squirrels with nuts. How can that be right?"

  "Well, I'd say they've copied a good idea from the squirrels and that makes them better rabbits."

  "Do you suppose the man, whoever he is, puts the roots out there because he has a kind heart? What's he up to?"

  "He's just throwing away rubbish. How many rabbits have had a good meal off men's rubbish heaps? Shot lettuces, old turnips? You know we all do, when we can. It's not poisoned, Fiver, I can tell you that. And if he wanted to shoot rabbits he's had plenty of chances this morning. But he hasn't done it."

  Fiver seemed to grow even smaller as he flattened himself on the hard earth. "I'm a fool to try to argue," he said miserably. "Hazel-dear old Hazel-it's simply that I know there's something unnatural and evil twisted all round this place. I don't know what it is, so no wonder I can't talk about it. I keep getting near it, though. You know how you poke your nose against wire netting and push it up against an apple tree, but you still can't bite the bark because of the wire. I'm close to this-whatever it is-but I can't grip it. If I sit here alone I may reach it yet."

  "Fiver, why not do as I say? Have a meal on those roots and then go underground and sleep. You'll feel all the better for it."

  "I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place," said Fiver. "As for going underground, I'd rather go back over the heather. The roof of that hall is made of bones."

  "No, no-tree roots. But, after all, you were underground all night."

  "I wasn't," said Fiver.

  "What? Where were you, then?"

  "Here."

  "All night?"

  "Yes. A yew tree gives good shelter, you know."

  Hazel was now seriously worried. If Fiver's horrors had kept him above ground all night in the rain, oblivious of cold and prowling elil, then clearly it was not going to be easy to talk him out of them. He was silent for some time. At last he said, "What a shame! I still think you'd do better to come and join us. But I'll let you alone now and come and see how you're feeling later. Don't go eating the yew tree, either."

  Fiver made no reply and Hazel went back to the field.

  The day was certainly not one to encourage foreboding. By ni-Frith it was so hot that the lower part of the field was humid. The air was heavy with thick, herbal smells, as though it were already late June; the water mint and marjoram, not yet flowering, gave off scent from their leaves and here and there an early meadowsweet stood in bloom. The chiffchaff was busy all morning, high in a silver birch near the abandoned holes across the dip; and from deep in the copse, somewhere by the disused well, came the beautiful song of the blackcap. By early afternoon there was a stillness of heat, and a herd of cows from the higher fields slowly grazed their way down into the shade. Only a few of the rabbits remained above ground. Almost all were asleep in the burrows. But still Fiver sat alone under the yew tree.

  In the early evening Hazel sought out Bigwig and together they ventured into the copse behind the warren. At first they moved cautiously, but before long they grew confident at finding no trace of any creature larger than a mouse.

  "There's nothing to smell," said Bigwig, "and no tracks. I think Cowslip's told us no more than the truth. There really aren't any elil here. Different from that wood where we crossed the river. I don't mind telling you, Hazel, I was scared stiff that night, but I wasn't going to show it."

  "So was I," answered Hazel. "But I agree with you about this place. It seems completely clear. If we-"

  "This is odd, though," interrupted Bigwig. He was in a clump of brambles, in the middle of which was a rabbit hole that led up from one of the warren passages below. The
ground was soft and damp, with old leaves thick in the mold. Where Bigwig had stopped there were signs of commotion. The rotten leaves had been thrown up in showers. Some were hanging on the brambles and a few flat, wet clots were lying well out in open ground beyond the clump. In the center the earth had been laid bare and was scored with long scratches and furrows, and there was a narrow, regular hole, about the same size as one of the carrots they had carried that morning. The two rabbits sniffed and stared, but could make nothing of it.

  "The funny thing is there's no smell," said Bigwig.

  "No-only rabbit, and that's everywhere, of course. And man-that's everywhere, too. But that smell might very well have nothing to do with it. All it tells us is that a man walked through the wood and threw a white stick down. It wasn't a man that tore up this ground."

  "Well, these mad rabbits probably dance in the moonlight or something."

  "I wouldn't be surprised," said Hazel. "It would be just like them. Let's ask Cowslip."

  "That's the only silly thing you've said so far. Tell me, since we came here has Cowslip answered any question you've asked him?"

  "Well, no-not many."

  "Try asking him where he dances in the moonlight. Say 'Cowslip, where- »

  "Oh, you've noticed that, too, have you? He won't answer 'Where' anything. Neither will Strawberry. I think they may be nervous of us. Pipkin was right when he said they weren't fighters. So they're keeping up a mystery to stay even with us. It's best just to put up with it. We don't want to upset them and it's bound to smooth itself out in time."

  "There's more rain coming tonight," said Bigwig. "Soon, too, I think. Let's go underground and see if we can get them to talk a bit more freely."

  "I think that's something we can only wait for. But I agree about going underground now. And for goodness' sake let's get Fiver to come with us. He troubles me. Do you know he was out all night in the rain?"

  As they went back through the copse Hazel recounted his talk with Fiver that morning. They found him under the yew tree and after a rather stormy scene, during which Bigwig grew rough and impatient, he was bullied rather than persuaded into going down with them into the great burrow.