Watership Down - Adams Richard George - Страница 44
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"I don't know," said Bigwig, "but I'm sure he's not lying. This water, apparently, moves all the time and keeps breaking against the earth: and when he can't hear that, he misses it. That's his name-Kehaar. It's the noise the water makes."
The others were impressed in spite of themselves.
"Well, why's it here?" asked Hazel.
"He shouldn't be. He ought to have been off to this Big Water place a long time ago, to breed. Apparently a lot of them come away in winter, because it gets so cold and wild. Then they go back in summer. But he's been hurt once already this spring. It was nothing much, but it held him up. He rested and hung around a rookery for a bit. Then he got stronger and left them, and he was coming along when he stopped in the farmyard and met this foul cat."
"So when it's better it'll go on again?" said Hazel.
"Yes."
"We've been wasting our time, then."
"Why, Hazel, what is it you have in mind?"
"Go and get Blackberry and Fiver: we'd better have Silver, too. Then I'll explain."
The quiet of the evening silflay, when the western sun shone straight along the ridge, the grass tussocks threw shadows twice as long as themselves and the cool air smelled of thyme and dog roses, was something which they had all come to enjoy even more than former evenings in the meadows of Sandleford. Although they could not know it, the down was more lonely than it had been for hundreds of years. There were no sheep, and villagers from Kingsclere and Sydmonton no longer had any occasion to walk over the hills, either for business or for pleasure. In the fields of Sandleford the rabbits had seen men almost every day. Here, since their arrival, they had seen one, and him on a horse. Looking round the little group that gathered on the grass, Hazel saw that all of them-even Holly-were looking stronger, sleeker and in better shape than when they had first come to the down. Whatever might lie ahead, at least he could feel that he had not failed them so far.
"We're doing well here," he began, "or so it seems to me. We're certainly not a bunch of hlessil any more. But all the same, there's something on my mind. I'm surprised, as a matter of fact, that I should be the first one of us to start thinking about it. Unless we can find the answer, then this warren's as good as finished, in spite of all we've done."
"Why, how can that be, Hazel?" said Bigwig.
"Do you remember Nildro-hain?" asked Hazel.
"She stopped running. Poor Strawberry."
"I know. And we have no does-not one-and no does means no kittens and in a few years no warren."
It may seem incredible that the rabbits had given no thought to so vital a matter. But men have made the same mistake more than once-left the whole business out of account, or been content to trust to luck and the fortune of war. Rabbits live close to death and when death comes closer than usual, thinking about survival leaves little room for anything else. But now, in the evening sunshine on the friendly, empty down, with a good burrow at his back and the grass turning to pellets in his belly, Hazel knew that he was lonely for a doe. The others were silent and he could tell that his words had sunk in.
The rabbits grazed or lay basking in the sun. A lark went twittering up into the brighter sunshine above, soared and sang and came slowly down, ending with a sideways, spread-wing glide and a wagtail's run through the grass. The sun dipped lower. At last Blackberry said, "What's to be done? Set out again?"
"I hope not," said Hazel. "It all depends. What I'd like to do is get hold of some does and bring them here."
"Where from?"
"Another warren."
"But are there any on these hills? How do we find out? The wind never brings the least smell of rabbits."
"I'll tell you how," said Hazel "The bird. The bird will go and search for us."
"Hazel-rah," cried Blackberry, "what a marvelous idea! That bird could find out in a day what we couldn't discover for ourselves in a thousand! But are you certain it can be persuaded to do it? Surely as soon as it gets better if it'll simply fly away and leave us?"
"I can't tell," answered Hazel. "All we can do is feed it and hope for the best. But, Bigwig, since you seem to be getting on with it so well, perhaps you can explain to it how much this means to us. It has only to fly over the downs and let us know what it sees."
"You leave him to me," said Bigwig. "I think I know how to do it."
Hazel's anxiety and the reason for it were soon known to all the rabbits and there was not one who did not realize what they were up against. There was nothing very startling in what he had said. He was simply the one-as a Chief Rabbit ought to be-through whom a strong feeling, latent throughout the warren, had come to the surface. But his plan to make use of the gull excited everyone and was seen as something that not even Blackberry could have hit upon. Reconnaissance is familiar to all rabbits-indeed, it is second nature-but the idea of making use of a bird, and one so strange and savage, convinced them that Hazel, if he could really do it, must be as clever as El-ahrairah himself.
For the next few days a lot of hard work went into feeding Kehaar. Acorn and Pipkin, boasting that they were the best insect-catchers in the warren, brought in great numbers of beetles and grasshoppers. At first the gull's principal hardship was lack of water. He suffered a good deal and was reduced to tearing at the stems of the long grasses for moisture. However, during his third night in the warren it rained for three or four hours and puddles formed on the track. A cluttery spell set in, as it often does in Hampshire when haytime approaches. High winds from the south laid the grass flat all day, turning it to a dull, damascene silver. The great branches of the beeches moved little, but spoke loudly. There were squalls of rain on the wind. The weather made Kehaar restless. He walked about a good deal, watched the flying clouds and snapped up everything the foragers brought. Searching became harder, for in the wet the insects burrowed into the deep grass and had to be scratched out.
One afternoon Hazel, who now shared a burrow with Fiver as in the old days, was woken by Bigwig to be told that Kehaar had something to say to him. He made his way to Kehaar's lobby without coming above ground. The first thing he noticed was that the gull's head was molting and turning white, though a dark brown patch remained behind each eye. Hazel greeted Him and was surprised to be answered in a few words of halting, broken Lapine. Evidently Kehaar had prepared a short speech.
"Meester 'Azel, ees rabbits vork 'ard," said Kehaar. "I no finish now. Soon I go fine."
"That's good news," said Hazel. "I'm glad."
Kehaar relapsed into hedgerow vernacular.
"Meester Pigvig, 'e plenty good fella."
"Yes, he is."
" 'E say you no getting mudders. Ees finish mudders. Plenty trouble for you."
"Yes, that's true. We don't know what to do. No mothers anywhere."
"Listen. I get peeg, fine plan. I go fine now. Ving, 'e better. Vind finish, den I fly. Fly for you. Find plenty mudders, tell you vere dey are, ya?"
"Why, what a splendid idea, Kehaar! How clever of you to think of it! You very fine bird."
"Ees finish mudders for me dis year. Ees too late. All mudders sitting on nest now. Eggs come."
"I'm sorry."
"Nudder time I get mudder. Now I fly for you."
"We'll do everything we possibly can to help you."
The next day the wind dropped and Kehaar made one or two short flights. However, it was not until three days later that he felt able to set out on his search. It was a perfect June morning. He was snapping up numbers of the little white-shelled downland snails from the wet grass and cracking them in his great beak, when he suddenly turned to Bigwig and said,
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