Duncton Wood

by William Horwood

  ‘Just to see if there are any plants growing here,’ he called back, not stopping.

  ‘But there are, there are,’ she said, ‘didn’t you see them?’ He rushed on, deeper and deeper into the Old Wood, over the charred surface, ignoring the great hulks of dead trees that stuck up into the grey, billowing sky, snout ever onward. She had never seen him move in such a straight line for so long. Not Comfrey, who tended to snout at everything he saw and ended up going in the opposite direction to the one in which he had set out and finding a different plant from the one he had been looking for.

  But finally he stopped, breathless and trying to act naturally. ‘Well, just a few ferns, and some thistles. Not much, I’m afraid. I thought we might see more… Still, we m-might as well press on a bit further.’

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Rebecca, who was quite lost.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Comfrey unconvincingly. ‘You take the lead, Rebecca, and I’ll follow for a change’ She turned one way, but he said, ‘N-n-no. Go that way.’

  She did. The ground rose very slightly. She pressed on and then she ran straight into them. Not one, not two, not ten, but dozens of wood anemones, their green leaves perfect, their white and purple flowers half open and bespattered with shining raindroplets.

  ‘Oh, Comfrey!’ she said. ‘They’re growing just as they always did. Anemones! Did I ever tell you…?’

  He nodded. Yes, she had. In Curlew’s burrow she had told him. And her love for these flowers had inspired him with a love for all flowers and herbs. Yes, he knew she loved them, and how much.

  ‘You knew they were here, didn’t you, Comfrey?’ she said, smiling gently at him.

  ‘No, I d-d-didn’t,’ he said, turning away because he hated to tell lies, even white ones. Then he added: ‘But I thought they’d come back. You know, after the f-fire.’

  Rebecca looked at them, wandering among them and letting their intricate pointed leaves brush against her, springing back again on long delicate stalks as she went by. The flowers were still young, tight heads hanging down with the weakness of youth and many with their petals still to open. They had come back!

  ‘Where is this place?’ she asked, looking around at the wide circle of anemones with the stretching of burnt tree trunks and shrubs at its edge.

  ‘It’s Barrow Vale,’ said Comfrey.

  ‘Oh!’ she said.

  ‘Rebecca,’ whispered Comfrey, looking at the anemones with her, ‘you know that B-Bracken will come back, don’t you? He will, you know.’

  Rebecca closed her eyes as a great wave of feeling, powerful and tearful, took her over.

  ‘Oh, Comfrey,’ she said, ‘Comfrey!’ He had bullied and fooled her into coming, to show her these flowers to remind her that just as they had survived the fire, so, somehow, Bracken would survive and come back. But what made her weep was that Comfrey had thought to do it, loving her enough to think of a way to make her see again something of the joy in Duncton Wood that once, so long ago, she had so often celebrated and to make her see that she would not always have to stand alone. But what made her weep even more was the thought that if Bracken did return, then surely he, too, would love her enough to sit down sometimes, as Comfrey must have done, to think of ways to cherish her. ‘Oh, Comfrey!’ she said again, going to him and nuzzling him close. As she did so, a wonderful look of strength came into Comfrey’s normally nervous face, for he had never, ever in his whole life, felt quite so proud.

  ‘Rebecca, you’re the best mole there is,’ he said, without the trace of a stutter.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Bracken woke late one morning, long after dawn, with a head as heavy as a clod of wet clay. He lay drowsily uncomfortable for a long time, waiting for the aches behind his eyes and snout to clear away and the real world of the chalky burrow to take over from the troubled place of half-remembered dreams into which he thought he had awoken.

  So it was some time, and gradually, before the awareness that something was wrong in Uffington fully came to him. The silence in Boswell’s burrow was the first clue, a general feeling of abandonment the second.

  He was up and into Boswell’s burrow in a second, but he knew in his heart before he got there that his friend had gone. He hurried into the communal tunnel outside, thinking that there might be a scribemole about, but it was empty of life or even a hint of it. At first Bracken was curious rather than alarmed, but his curiosity soon gave way to something more urgent as he went down the first tunnel to the bigger one it joined, where there had, until now, always been some sound of scribemole about. Not a thing stirred. Only the far-off wind that whistled and moaned in the higher-level tunnels of Uffington and which could sometimes be heard down in the Holy Burrows.

  Bracken headed for the chamber that Boswell had originally taken him to, and from which tunnels led to the libraries (into which he had been) and the Holy Burrows (into which he had not). As he passed through the chalky tunnel, he had the absurd feeling that he would never again see another mole alive and all he could have for companionship was the echoing sound of his own pawsteps.

  This illusion was quickly shattered, though not in a way that gave him much cheer. Ahead he heard a sound. He stopped, snouted about and ran forward, and two scribemoles, thin and bent, crossed the tunnel ahead of him, emerging from a small tunnel on one side and disappearing into one on the other, no more than a few molefeet from where he watched. They ignored him utterly, going past with snouts bowed and in a hushed and reverential way as if they had an appointment with Skeat himself.

  He called after them—‘Have you seen Boswell?’—but his voice sounded loud and almost blasphemous with the disturbance it made, and although one mole paused and looked back at him, neither said anything and both went on.

  He wondered whether to follow them but decided to go on to the chamber where, surely, he would find somemole.

  When he got there, he found that a scribemole had been posted, rather like a henchmole, between the two major tunnels—the one leading to the libraries and the other to the Holy Burrows.

  ‘Ah, hello!’ said Bracken. ‘It’s Boswell I’m looking for. Have you seen him?’

  The scribemole appeared to be half asleep, his snout low as the others’ had been and his eyes closed. Once again Bracken’s words hung embarrassingly loud in the air until, when they died away, Bracken noticed that the scribemole was muttering or chanting to himself. Slowly he came out of what seemed a trance and looked with some surprise at Bracken.

  ‘Are you Bracken of Duncton?’ he asked, adding, before Bracken had a chance to reply, ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Has nomole told you to go out on to the surface or to stay in the guest burrow?’

  ‘Nomole has told me anything,’ said Bracken a little ill-temperedly.

  ‘It is best that you do one or the other. Just for today and tonight. Just until tomorrow. You’ll find plenty of food in the high tunnels since all scribemoles must fast today. Though you know it would be appropriate if you did the same.’

  Bracken was annoyed by the mole’s offhand manner and air of slight condescension and might well have been tempted to push past him to the libraries, or explore into the Holy Burrows, had not the possibility that he might embarrass Boswell in some way occurred to him.

  ‘Look, mate,’ he said, adopting the tough familiarity of a Marshender, ‘stop burrowing about the bush and tell me where Boswell is.’

  The mole shook his head and said, ‘That is not possible. If the Holy Mole has not told you what today is, then I certainly may not do so. Trust in the Stone and go back to your burrow and meditate in peace.’

  ‘Stuff this,’ thought Bracken to himself, now thoroughly annoyed and resisting the impulse to attack the scribemole. He turned back the way he had come, nodding his head as if in agreement with the scribemole and thinking that rather than have a confrontation he would simply find some other way past the chamber. The thought turned into action as soon as
he got back to the tunnel down which the two scribemoles who had ignored him had gone. He paused there, crouched down, and for the first time since he had come to Uffington felt his way into the tunnels about him. It was exciting, like being back in the ancient tunnels of Duncton, where everything was unknown and all lay before him for him alone to find out. Bracken liked nothing more than a challenge in which he had to use his wits and talent for exploration.

  As far as he could tell, everything happened to the west of the chamber where he had been stopped. There lay the libraries and the burrows, and beyond, according to what Boswell had told him, lay the tunnel leading to those mysterious ‘Silent’ Burrows. He hesitated for only a moment before heading off into the side tunnel, the way the other two moles had gone, believing that if he could find out their destination, he could solve the mystery of where Boswell was, and what was so special about the day.

  For the next two hours Bracken enjoyed the thrill of exploration and orientation once again, creeping along the ancient, dusty tunnels that seemed much less used than the others he had been in in Uffington and coming to an exaggerated sharp stop at the slightest real or imagined noise. He heard moles several times, and chanting more than once, but he avoided direct contact, and the one or two moles who went by near him never saw him, for he hid in the many corners and shadows created by the old flints that protruded from the walls or the complex intersections of tunnel crossing points. Soon the original object of his search—to find Boswell—was lost in the sheer enjoyment of outwitting the scribemoles about him.

  But his game and his anonymity were brought to a sudden halt when, turning a corner, he found, as he suspected that he eventually would, that he had by this roundabout route made his way into the main library. Quire was there, ferreting around among the books as usual, and on seeing him Bracken was suddenly weary of his game and the isolation it caused him. He greeted Quire with a reverence he genuinely felt and explained that he was in search of Boswell.

  ‘Why should I know where he is, might I ask?’ said Quire, peering at Bracken. ‘Wait a minute—I know you. You’re the Duncton mole, aren’t you? The one who’s seen the seventh Stillstone. Where is Boswell?’

  Patiently, Bracken explained what had happened and how puzzled he was by the secrecy among the moles in the tunnels that day.

  Quire smiled and shrugged. ‘Yes, they do make rather a meal of it. There’s no mystery. Today is the day when the secret Song is sung. You know, Merton’s task and all that. Now that may be a mystery, but the fact of its being sung is known to all moles. That’s what all the fuss about chosen moles was about, you see. They like to enter their names in the book before the Song is sung, all twenty-four of them. You’ll probably find, Bracken of Duncton, that Boswell has been chosen. Hence the secret. We’ll soon know, since the Holy Mole will return the book tomorrow with the new names neatly scribed. Of course, you’re not meant to read them but, well, the book’s kept on the shelves and it’s an open secret. As a matter of fact, there is an exceptional number of new chosen moles this time because so many of the last lot died of the plague. That’s why you’ll find there’s not that many about. After the devastation of the plague it’s a miracle that there’s enough moles to sing the song.’

  ‘Where do they sing the song?’ asked Bracken.

  ‘Never been there myself, of course, not being chosen, but it’s somewhere up near the Silent Burrows. In a special chamber. Said to be the oldest in Uffington, though, strictly speaking, it’s not in Uffington but up where the Silent Burrows are. About two miles yonder . . .’ He waved a paw towards the west.

  ‘Could I get there?’ asked Bracken.

  ‘Whatever for?’ said Quire. ‘I never can understand why you youngsters are always rushing off to see and hear things somewhere else when there’s plenty to see and hear where you happen to be crouching at the moment. You’ll be asking me next what I thought about all those moleyears I was in the Silent Burrows. You wouldn’t be the first.’

  Bracken couldn’t help laughing. It was true. Quire wasn’t as daft as he seemed. Then Quire laughed, too, though his laughter rapidly degenerated into a wheezing and coughing through which he finally said, ‘I thought about nothing, don’t you see? Mind you, that’s easier said than done for most.’ There were times when Bracken thought himself completely stupid, when his brain seemed to register things so slowly that he found it embarrassing to contemplate the process as it happened. It happened now, as everything about him, all the secrecy and rushings about, fell into place. They were going to sing the same secret song that Hulver had once told him about when he told the story of Merton, and Merton’s task. Linden had been the scribe who wrote about Merton, the selfsame scribe, presumably, who made the first entries into the Book of Chosen Moles. Why didn’t somemole say, and then he wouldn’t have got worried about Boswell. In fact, come to think of it, he felt proud of Boswell. Him, a chosen mole! A feeling of awe came over him… there was something special about a day when they sang a song that had been passed on in secret through generations and which was sung once in twelve moleyears, and which would only be sung to all moles, and then by them, when the Blowing Stone sounded seven times.

  ‘Quire, have you ever heard the Blowing Stone sound?’

  ‘Many times, many times. A mole may often hear it in a storm sounding the odd note. As a matter of fact, I once heard it sound three times in succession and it was that which made me decide to go to the Silent Burrows. It seemed significant at the time. I never regretted it.’

  ‘What did it sound like?’

  ‘Oh, dear! More questions? You can ask things until your snout turns blue, but you’ll only ever really find the answers yourself. Now, why don’t you stop asking questions and go up on to the surface and get some fresh air? Make your way up to the surface near the Silent Burrows and crouch among the grass and trees up there. It’s a good place to be.’

  ‘How will I find it?’

  ‘More questions? Go and try. And if you see Boswell anywhere tomorrow when it’s over, tell him he hasn’t finished here yet. I thought he said he was going to do some filing for me,’ and Quire turned away from Bracken and started poking about among the books. As Bracken set off out of the library to find a way to the surface, his spirit was very calm and peaceful. He might not be able to sing a song or take part in the special rituals the scribemoles seemed involved in, but in his own Duncton way he could perhaps go and crouch on the surface and offer some invocation to the Stone on this special day, and think of Boswell, who perhaps needed a little extra strength in the next few hours.

  Up through the tunnels he went, back the way he had first come with Boswell, with a smile of affection for Quire on his face and moving with an air of reverence and peace which, though he did not know it, was exactly the same as that in which the two scribemoles had originally passed him by in the tunnel. The spirit of Uffington, ancient and reverent, had finally caught up with Bracken.

  * * *

  The weather was cold, wet, and messy, as grey sweeps of rain came across the vales below Uffington and swirled up the hill into the long, coarse grass into which Bracken emerged from the tunnels below. Not normally conditions in which a mole much likes to wander about, but Bracken did not mind, for there was a certain wild freshness about the air that suited his mood.

  He headed westwards, as Quire had suggested, and with his usual talent for finding the right route, soon came upon a run of long grass that gave him good protection and headed the right way. He did not know what he was looking for but, as often in the past, he knew he would find it when he got there. It was hard to say at what time of day he set off, because the sky was so overcast that the sun might as well not have existed.

  But there was the feeling of late afternoon to the air when he finally began to think he ought to arrive somewhere, and the sky was beginning to gloom over even more. To the right of the line of grass in which he made his way was a ploughed field of thin soil, more grey than brown and with many flakes of mot
tled blue flint and hard off-white chalk, and not a single sign of plant growth yet. To the left was a rutted, grassy track, potholed and puddly, where the soil and chalk had formed a light-grey clay. If Bracken had been able to fly up into the air, he would have seen what he knew by instinct, that the chalk downlands stretched far away all around him, except to the right, beyond the ploughed field, where the chalk escarpment fell many hundreds of molefeet downwards.

  Then he heard a familiar and welcoming sound, the rushing of wind through bare beech-tree branches and twigs somewhere ahead. Its sound was subtle and variable, so that at first he had to pause in his passage through the long, whipping grass to catch it. But it soon got stronger and more persistent and he had the illusion for a moment that he was moving up the slopes of Duncton Hill towards the beeches that surrounded the Stone.

  The air was clearing of rain as the wind increased and he found that he was, indeed, moving uphill and that ahead the light was darker and more confused as the great, tall shapes of the beech trees he had heard came into view. They were thinner than the Duncton trees, giving the illusion that they were taller, and stood in such a neat, tight group that from a distance their branches seemed to form one great crown, as if there were only one tree there.

  They were to the right of his path, fenced off all by themselves in the middle of the ploughed field he had been skirting, so that he had to pick his way across the wet earth, flints and chalk fragments to reach them. The trees whipped and whistled high above him, and as he entered among them he saw that they formed a single oval stretching away from him, and there was such a pool of quietness in the centre where the wind was still that it was like entering into a peaceful burrow.

  Inside the oval, nearest to where he had entered it, stood a sight more magnificent than any he had ever seen on the surface before. Four great sarsen stones stood in a gnarled, dark line with a gap in the middle between them beyond which there were more stones sunk into the ground. Among them were deep shadows and a wet, dark stillness and they formed an entrance to a great mound or barrow that stretched to the far edge of the oval of beeches. There was an air of great solidity and silence about the whole place, as if the very weather itself stopped and knocked before it entered. The sky above formed a great oval of light, though for the time being it was gloomy and lowering grey.