Watership Down - Adams Richard George - Страница 54

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Fiver crept up to the man's boots and peered into the hole. It was circular, a cylinder of baked earthenware that disappeared vertically into the ground. He called, "Hazel! Hazel!" Far down in the bole, something moved and he was about to call again. Then the man bent down and hit him between the ears.

Fiver was struggling in a thick cloud of earth, soft and powdery. Someone was saying, "Steady, Fiver, steady!" He sat up. There was soil in his eyes, his ears and nostrils. He could not smell. He shook himself and said, "Who is it?"

"It's Blackberry. I came to see how you were. It's all right; a bit of the roof's fallen, that's all. There've been falls all over the warren today-it's the heat. Anyway, it woke you from a nightmare, if I know anything. You were thrashing about and calling out for Hazel. You poor old chap! What a miserable thing it is to have happened! We must try to bear it as best we can. We've all got to stop running one day, you know. They say Frith knows all the rabbits, every one."

"Is it evening?" asked Fiver.

"Not yet, no. But it's a fair time after ni-Frith. Holly and the others have come back, you know. Strawberry's very ill and they haven't any does with them-not one. Everything's as bad as it could be. Holly's still asleep-he was completely exhausted. He said he'd tell us what happened this evening. When we told him about poor Hazel, he said-Fiver, you're not listening. I expect you'd rather I kept quiet."

"Blackberry," said Fiver, "do you know the place where Hazel was shot?"

"Yes, Bigwig and I went and looked at the ditch before we came away. But you mustn't-"

"Could you go there with me now?"

"Go back there? Oh, no. It's a long way, Fiver, and what would be the good? The risk, and this fearful heat, and you'd only make yourself wretched."

"Hazel isn't dead," said Fiver.

"Yes, the men took him away. Fiver, I saw the blood."

"Yes, but you didn't see Hazel, because he isn't dead. Blackberry, you must do what I ask."

"You're asking too much."

"Then I shall have to go alone. But what I'm asking you to do is to come and save Hazel's life."

When at last Blackberry had reluctantly given in and they had set out down the hill, Fiver went almost as fast as though he were running for cover. Again and again he urged Blackberry to make haste. The fields were empty in the glare. Every creature bigger than a bluebottle was sheltering from the heat. When they reached the outlying sheds beside the lane, Blackberry began to explain how he and Bigwig had gone back to search; but Fiver cut him short.

"We have to go up the slope, I know that: but you must show me the ditch."

The elms were still. There was not the least sound in the leaves. The ditch was thick with cow parsley, hemlock and long trails of green-flowering bryony. Blackberry led the way to the trampled patch of nettles and Fiver sat still among them, sniffing and looking about him in the silence. Blackberry watched him disconsolately. A faint breath of wind stole across the fields and a blackbird began to sing from somewhere beyond the elms. At last Fiver began to move along the bottom of the ditch. The insects buzzed round his ears and suddenly a little cloud of flies flew up, disturbed from a projecting stone. No, not a stone. It was smooth and regular-a circular lip of earthenware. The brown mouth of a drain, stained black at the lower edge by a thin, dried thread of blood: of rabbit's blood.

"The bloody hole!" whispered Fiver. "The bloody hole!"

He peered into the dark opening. It was blocked. Blocked by a rabbit. That was plain to be smelled. A rabbit whose faint pulse could just be heard, magnified in the confined tunnel.

"Hazel?" said Fiver.

Blackberry was beside him at once. "What is it, Fiver?"

"Hazel's in that hole," said Fiver, "and he's alive."

In the Honeycomb, Bigwig and Holly were waiting to begin the second meeting since the loss of Hazel. As the air began to cool, the rabbits woke and first one and then another came down the runs that led from the smaller burrows. All were subdued and doubtful at heart. Like the pain of a bad wound, the effect of a deep shock takes some while to be felt. When a child is told, for the first time in his life, that a person he has known is dead, although he does not disbelieve it, he may well fail to comprehend it and later ask-perhaps more than once-where the dead person is and when he is coming back. When Pipkin had planted in himself, like some somber tree, the knowledge that Hazel would never return, his bewilderment exceeded his grief: and this bewilderment he saw on every side among his companions. Faced with no crisis of action and with nothing to prevent them from continuing their life in the warren as before, the rabbits were nevertheless overcome by the conviction that their luck was gone. Hazel was dead and Holly's expedition had totally failed. What would follow?

Holly, gaunt, his staring pelt full of goose grass and fragments of burdock, was talking with the three hutch rabbits and reassuring them as best he could. No one could say now that Hazel had thrown away his life in a foolhardy prank. The two does were the only gain that anyone had made-the warren's only asset. But they were plainly so ill at ease in their new surroundings that Holly was already contending against his own belief that there was little to be hoped for from them. Does who are upset and on edge tend to be infertile; and how were these does to make themselves at home in strange conditions and a place where everyone was lost so poorly in his thoughts? They would die, perhaps, or wander away. He buckled once more to the task of explaining that he was sure better times lay ahead-and as he did so, felt himself the least convinced of any.

Bigwig had sent Acorn to see whether there was anyone still to come. Acorn returned to say that Strawberry felt too ill and that he could find neither Blackberry nor Fiver.

"Well, leave Fiver," said Bigwig. "Poor fellow, he'll feel better by himself for a time, I dare say."

"He's not in his burrow, though," said Acorn.

"Never mind," said Bigwig. But the thought came to him, "Fiver and Blackberry? Could they have left the warren without telling anyone? If they have, what will happen when the others get to know?" Should he ask Kehaar to go and look for them while there was still light? But if Kehaar found them, what then? They could not be compelled to return. Or if they were, what good would that do, if they wanted to be gone? At that moment Holly began to speak and everyone became quiet.

"We all know we're in a mess," said Holly, "and I suppose before long we shall have to talk about what's best to be done. But I thought that first of all I ought to tell you how it is that we four-Silver, Buckthorn, Strawberry and I-have come back without any does. You don't have to remind me that when we set out, everyone thought it was going to be straightforward. And here we are, one rabbit sick, one wounded and nothing to show for it. You're all wondering why."

"No one's blaming you, Holly," said Bigwig.

"I don't know whether I'm to blame or not," replied Holly. "But you'll tell me that when you've heard the story.

"That morning when we left, it was good weather for hlessil on the move and we all felt there was no hurry. It was cool, I remember, and looked as if it would be some time before the day got really bright and cloudless. There's a farm not far away from the other end of this wood, and although there were no men about so early, I didn't fancy going that way, so we kept up on high ground on the evening side. We were all expecting to come to the edge of the down, but there isn't any steep edge as there is on the north. The upland just goes on and on, open, dry and lonely. There's plenty of cover for rabbits-standing corn, hedges and banks-but no real woodland: just great, open fields of light soil with big white flintstones. I was hoping that we might find ourselves in the sort of country we used to know-meadows and woods-but we didn't. Anyhow, we found a track with a good, thick hedge along one side and we decided to follow that. We took it easy and stopped a good deal, because I was taking care to avoid running into elil. I'm sure it's bad country for stoats as well as foxes, and I hadn't much idea what we were going to do if we met one."

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