Duncton Wood

by William Horwood

  Now, subtly, their relationship changed and deepened. It was as if Rose felt there was no more she could tell Rebecca— her beloved Rebecca—and now she must trust to the Stone that Rebecca could find her own way. There were long hours of silence between them; times when the best words were silent. A time when Rose showed Rebecca that she trusted her and in doing so helped Rebecca learn to trust in life again. A time when Rebecca began to see, and fear, that she might soon have to take over Rose’s task of healing. Oh! She knew so little! A time when Rose’s sleep grew longer and more troubled with pain, and her talk began to wander and her sense of peace to deepen, so that the very burrow seemed to hush and grow more still: its shadows darkening, its aromas and scents more delicate and distant, and Rebecca now rarely leaving Rose alone as she slept in her nest.

  The Pasture moles seemed to sense that Rose’s work was nearly done, for they shushed the youngsters in the tunnels outside and the Pasture moles spoke in low voices, and brought food to save Rebecca from having to get it.

  Some of what Rose whispered to herself aloud in those last days Rebecca understood; other parts she remembered, and somehow made sense of in later years when she had greater wisdom; and some made no sense at all.

  She was old Rose now, her breathing shorter and shallower, her snout hardly moving, the bliss of having Rebecca near her in the dark, moving gently in her burrow, soothing her pains, laughing still with that Violet, naughty minx, and Cairn and Bracken of the Ancient System; ‘My love my sweet thing,’ she said to him, ‘do you remember Bracken? Up in the dark tunnel where I lost so much strength giving it to Bracken so he could learn to love?’ So many moles had come her way one by one so much fear so many unnecessary things. Rebecca knew everything already poor child she didn’t know no good telling her sweet child her Bracken she would love…

  ‘Rebecca! Rebecca!’ she whispered in the burrow where the scent was sweet.

  ‘Yes, my love,’ said Rebecca. Her fur on mine, nuzzling me my love my words her love in me Rebecca Rebecca shivering a shiver where’s your Bracken who I saw, where…

  ‘What is it, Rose?’

  …where’s Bracken do you know… ‘Where’s … Bracken?’

  ‘I told you, Rose, he’s gone, he’s gone, but I know he’s safe. I can feel it like the beech trees, like I knew before when…’

  ‘I went to him on the hill and you helped me you did…’

  ‘Yes, Rose, sleep, Rose, sleep, my dearest Rose.’

  I stayed by the Stone afterwards looking darkness in the night great trees beech trees sway and roots and… ‘I knew it was you and Bracken around us you and Bracken Rebecca you and Bracken would be around us all…’

  ‘Yes, Rose.’

  You wept at last and I knew it would come like you did to the hill your wet tears had to come on your face on my fur at last.

  ‘Now, no need my dear no need.’

  And her old voice died away, leaving only the sound of Rebecca’s tears, muffled by sweet Rose’s fur.

  ‘Where’s Rose gone?’ Violet asked the guardmole, who hesitated because he didn’t know.

  ‘She’s gone to the St-Stone,’ said Comfrey, angry with himself for always stuttering on the word that mattered most.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Violet.

  ‘I just d-do,’ said Comfrey, who did know, because Rose had told him once that all the plants come from the Stone and plants were no different from moles, and he had asked, ‘Where do they go when they wither and die in the winter?’ and she said, ‘They go to the Stone, which is everywhere,’ so they must do, and that’s where Rose had gone. But it was no good telling Violet that, because the words wouldn’t come out right.

  But he could tell Rebecca, because she knew and he could find her up by the entrance on the surface in the sun where she went afterwards and was now. He would run, he was running, running into tears, and he couldn’t help it. Oh, where was Rose, he sobbed.

  Rebecca would know.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It took Bracken, Boswell and Mullion until the middle of April to make their way to the Nuneham system—a time in which Mullion frequently threatened to leave them because, ‘Bracken obviously does not know the way and all this Stone stuff is a load of nonsense,’ as he put it.

  Bracken himself did not say much. He could feel the Stone’s pull but was not confident enough about it to be willing to argue with Mullion, if he did not want to follow him. Boswell had more faith than either of them, and it was his moderation, and occasional calling of Mullion’s bluff— for the Pasture mole really did not want to go it alone—that kept them together.

  They faced many difficulties and dangers: the country they had to cross was mainly wet and low-lying and often slow to travel, while since it was the mating season they had to avoid penetrating too deeply into any of the systems they came near. But gradually Bracken found that the pull of the Stone got stronger and stronger until there came a day when they asked a mole they met if he knew where Nuneham was and he answered, with a look that showed he thought they were stupid, ‘Aye, this is it. It was Nuneham you said, warn’t it?’ Bracken immediately asked where the Stone was and how hostile Nuneham moles were likely to be.

  ‘Oh, well, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Nuneham bain’t what it was, you know. The river’s moved in the last few generations and flooded the place out so much that there isn’t a system worth speaking of any more. Just a few old-timers like me who keep their snouts out of trouble… You’ll find the Stone yonder.’ He waved a talon westwards down the tunnel where they had met and scurried off in the opposite direction.

  ‘Here!’ shouted Mullion after him. ‘Wait a minute!’ He ran off after the mole and Bracken and Boswell heard him ask, ‘You got any idea if there’s a mole here who’s a fighter, come from the north?’

  ‘You’re not the first as has asked that, I can tell you! Well, there is and there isn’t. I never met en myself. Plenty comes to find en and most go away disappointed. Some claim they found en, but won’t never say where or when.’

  ‘Where do you think we could find him?’ asked Mullion.

  ‘Beyond the Stone, that’s where most things be,’ said the mole. ‘There was several moles like you come on through here not so long back, couple of weeks it war. Big like you they was. They found en and they didn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mullion.

  ‘Well, now, there was four of em and I met three of em after, up by Stone as it happens, and they said they looked about and they reckoned en didn’t exist. But one of em oo warn’t with them anymore, he was waiting a bit longer to see and not going back with the others.’

  ‘Where to?’ asked Mullion excitedly.

  ‘Ask the worms, don’t ask me. I don’t go gallivantin’ about the countryside like you youngsters do.’ With that he really did leave, and Mullion came back to the others.

  ‘Hear that? Sounds like the four Pasture moles I mentioned have been here before us. I wonder who stayed behind.’

  They found the Nuneham Stone with no difficulty—all the tunnels seemed to lead to it. It was wide and bulbous in shape, much less tall than the Duncton Stone, and stood on a bluff of deep green pasture grass overlooking a low and meandering river that lay below, beyond several fields of lush green pasture. Patches of blue creeping speedwell, a few early dandelions and the darker leaves of young bugle shoots grew among the grass by the Stone, whose general appearance disappointed Bracken. He had expected something much more impressive.

  ‘Each Stone is different,’ explained Boswell, ‘and they can all teach you something. Try to spend some time in silence by any Stone you come to before examining it too closely—that way you may get to know it faster.’

  Bracken complied—he trusted Boswell’s advice on anything to do with the Stone—and since it was late afternoon, and the surface felt safe, he was willing to crouch for a while in the open. From beyond the Stone he could hear the sound of chaffinch, yellowhammer and blackbird busy in s
ome hedge he could not see, and to the mixed sound of their warbles, notes and songs, he let himself listen to the Nuneham Stone. It seemed a friendly, peaceful place.

  Mullion, however, could not crouch still and had no desire to. He wanted to go searching for the fighting mole, and also to see if he was right and that the Pasture moles had indeed been there.

  It was only when evening started drawing in, bringing with it the risk of predators, that Bracken and Boswell returned to the tunnels and pressed on beyond the Stone, calling out for Mullion, who had disappeared.

  The tunnels were like those in the pastures by Duncton Wood, sparse, long and straight, with relatively few burrows or side runs, but the impression they gave was very different. For one thing, the soil was richer and darker, and having an element of sand or gravel in it from some distant past when the river had deposited its alluvium this high up the valley side, it tended to soften and slide in places, giving the tunnels a discarded air. There was an untidy litter on some of the tunnel floors while what burrow entrances there were were untidy and unkempt.

  Once or twice they heard and saw moles nearby, but there was no feeling of hostility or even curiosity about them, and they, too, seemed to be coming and going rather than stopping still.

  ‘There aren’t even any pup cries up here,’ observed Bracken to Boswell. ‘In fact, I haven’t seen or smelt a female yet.’

  Boswell was content to follow Bracken, whose instincts in route-finding he trusted absolutely, and so they wandered from tunnel to tunnel, generally slightly uphill, occasionally calling out for Mullion, though they knew that they could always meet him back at the Stone again.

  Being April, the nights were still cold and as nightfall began outside, a chill settled down into the tunnel. They had some food and then decided to press on uphill to any outer limit the tunnels might have, and there to sleep.

  But then, as they advanced, Bracken began to grow restless, feeling that he was going somewhere definite, though where, he had no idea. He scurried on forward, only occasionally stopping to look around and check that Boswell was behind him and to let him catch up.

  ‘Have you noticed that the tunnel is suddenly getting tidier and neater?’ asked Boswell, limping forward to where Bracken was waiting for him on one of these slopes. ‘Somemole’s cleared the litter and shored up some of these crumbling walls,’ he added.

  And as he spoke, there was a heavy tread in the tunnel ahead of them which stopped some way beyond in the darkness.

  ‘What mole is there?’ asked a strong, deep voice from the depths behind. It was neither friendly nor hostile.

  They pressed forward until they came to a big central chamber in which several routes met, on the far side of which crouched a very powerful-looking mole. He was slim compared with a Duncton mole and his fur was light. He was enormously muscular and strong—the kind of mole whose size only tells when a normal mole goes near him, and whichever way he stands he seems to feel dwarfed.

  His face fur was thick and dark-silvery, his eyes full of self-confidence. Bracken noticed that his back paws were unusually large and that he crouched full square on the ground, giving the impression that he was ready to spring into action at any moment.

  ‘What moles are you?’ he repeated.

  But before Bracken could reply, his manner, until now quite neutral, suddenly changed. His big snout came forward towards Bracken and sniffed at him, his front paws pushed powerfully into the chamber floor as his eyes narrowed and his tail started to twitch angrily. There was a deep growling from his throat as, very slowly, he drew himself up to his full height.

  Bracken stopped quite still, his mind racing after reasons for this sudden hostility. Not finding any but being unwilling to argue, he backed away towards the entrance through which they had come, pushing Boswell protectively behind him. Better to have it out verbally from a position in which it was possible to retreat.

  ‘I said what moles are you and where are you from?’ repeated the mole, more angry by the second.

  ‘I am Bracken of…’

  ‘Duncton Wood?’ roared the mole inquisitorially. ‘From Duncton Wood are you?’

  He came powerfully towards Bracken, his size seeming to double with each forward step he took. And before Bracken could even say a word or raise his talons to defend himself, the mole was on to him and had thrust a paw just behind his shoulder and with one massive heave pulled him round into the centre of the chamber. For a moment the mole looked back at Boswell, snouted at him and then turned away dismissively, back to Bracken again.

  ‘I would know your smell anywhere,’ he thundered, bringing down a massive talon blow in such a way that it did not seriously injure Bracken but cut across his shoulder and hurled him backwards several steps. His power and speed were extraordinary and Bracken was still desperately trying to think what was happening when the mole brought his left paw swinging round and tore a talon’s cut along his flank. As Bracken staggered back, gasping and frightened, a line of blood appearing on his fur, he watched as behind the great mole Boswell hobbled forward bravely to strike uselessly at the mole with one paw. With a terrible backward kick the other mole sent his back paw shattering into Boswell’s face and he fell back against the wall behind and slumped across the entrance they had come in by.

  Despite his shock and cuts, this sight of Boswell, whom he knew had never harmed anymole in his life, being knocked unconscious, brought to Bracken the kind of rage he had felt overtake him when he had first confronted Mullion in the channel beyond the marsh.

  He raised his talons, stepped back to give himself more room, and then lunged forward towards the mole’s eyes and snout with all his power. He missed wildly, however. When he got there, the great mole moved easily out of his path, leaving his talons stabbing at the air, while the mole laughed cruelly at him. And then grew serious.

  ‘What’s it feel like, Duncton mole? What’s it feel like?’ he roared.

  Bracken charged again, but this time the great mole simply leaned up and backwards and Bracken could not even reach his face with his talons. He tried bringing them down on the mole’s shoulders but he simply stepped sideways, letting Bracken fall vulnerably forward, carried by the force of his own futile blow.

  By now Bracken was gasping for breath, and frightened, as he looked desperately around the burrow for his adversary. The mole was now behind him, talons loose and raised, mocking him in his inability even to hit him.

  Then he said, ‘Is this what you’re trying to do?’ and lunged a blow forward that caught Bracken powerfully below his shoulder and made him sound a deep grunt of pain, the sound of a mole who knows that a few more such blows will mean death.

  ‘Or this?’ said the mole, suddenly swinging round and kicking him so hard that for a moment it seemed that the chamber was collapsing about him as he fell back against the wall where Boswell still lay, now groaning and beginning to stir.

  Bracken tried to move but couldn’t. A thousand painful weights seemed to be dragging each limb down. The great mole started towards him, talons out, and a look in his eyes such as Bracken had only once seen in anymole’s, and that was Mandrake’s as he came towards him in the Chamber of Dark Sound.

  He tried to pull himself up, but even his head would not move as he wanted it to, seeming to slur to one side with a mouth that hung open and gasping with pain. The mole came nearer, the talons of one paw rising. He was saying something but there was such pain in Bracken’s head that he could not hear—only see the mouthings of accusation, and recognise the word, ‘Duncton, Duncton,’ and then, as talons rose over him, he knew with terrible certainty that he and Boswell were going to die. His head turned uselessly to look at Boswell, by the entrance, still lying where he had been thrown by the mole’s kick. Bracken tried to speak, tried to say ‘Why?’—tried to push his body back into the wall, through the wall, out of the chamber to escape the talons, the fear like a root round his throat.

  But then the talons stopped, the mole’s head turned aw
ay to look at the entrance near where Boswell lay and then at something beyond it. The mole’s motion slowed to stillness and a look of surprise came on his face and his body started to turn aggressively towards the entrance when, through it, there came a snout, then a face, and then the front half of a mole; an old mole, a frail mole, a mole whose coat was wrinkled with age and whose movement was hardly movement at all.

  Sound returned to Bracken’s ears.

  ‘So there’s another one of you!’ roared the big mole.

  The old mole half smiled, he turned towards where Bracken and Boswell lay and was suddenly there between them and the big mole, crouching down and facing him.

  ‘Then three of you can die,’ shouted the big mole, moving suddenly forward again. How does a mole remember something impossible but which he has seen happen? He remembers it as a dream.

  So it was a dream to Bracken as the great mole lunged towards them and the wrinkled old mole moved forward and away, perhaps lunging gently with one paw, and the great mole was suddenly falling backwards, wheeling round and back against the far wall of the chamber. Then the old mole was in the middle of the chamber, crouched quiet again, and the attacker coming forward with a massive lunge of both paws.

  In Bracken’s dream the old mole stepped, or rather seemed to float, to one side and with the softest of flicks of one of his back paws sent the great mole shuddering into the side wall of the chamber. A dream, but a dream with sounds. For Bracken could hear the pained gasping of the great mole and the scrabbling of his paws as he tried to right himself and staggered round for a third attempt. But even as he drew himself up, the old mole, whose smile never seemed to leave his face and whose eyes stayed clear and calm, stepped forward slowly as if time had stood still especially for him, and gave the big mole the gentlest of blows with his left paw, which made him fall back into unconsciousness, as if he had been struck by some massive storm-torn oak branch.