The Silver Tide (The Dorset Squirrels)

by Michael Tod

  ‘Wait,’ called Juniper after him, ‘I’ll do that.’

  A crestfallen Tamarisk came back to the group and Juniper went to fetch their weapon, circling around the skin of the Sun’s-child cautiously before returning, dragging the Woodstock in his teeth and keeping his paws well clear of the twisted section with the incomprehensible ‘numbers.’

  ‘Where are your dreys?’ Marguerite asked Dandelion.

  ‘We don’t have any,’ she replied. ‘When we got here, at first we thought we were safe and built homes in the trees up the valley where the empty Man-dreys are. Then the Greys came and we were forced to leave.’

  ‘What are these empty Man-dreys?’ asked Juniper.

  ‘Where humans used to live, but they are like our old dreys now, falling to pieces.’

  ‘Perhaps other fierce humans came and drove out the humans who lived there,’ said Juniper.

  ‘I don’t think humans are like that,’ said Marguerite, remembering the Red-Haired Girl, the Human Who Picked Things Up and the Visitors at the Blue Pool. ‘I’m sure that it couldn’t have been that.’

  ‘Where do you live, then?’ asked Tamarisk.

  ‘Up there,’ said Stump-Tail, waving his paw at the towering grass-covered mound of Worbarrow Tout which projected into the sea, surrounded by water on three sides.

  ‘In old rabbit holes,’ he added, his tail stump dropping in shame.

  ‘Rabbit holes?’ said Tamarisk, tactless as ever. ‘Rabbit holes?’

  ‘Up there and on the beach are the only places where the Greys never come, so that’s why we live there. We scavenge along the beach. You can get quite fond of seafood,’ said Stump-Tail. ‘Can’t you, Dandelion-Mate?’

  ‘I do still crave a pine kernel,’ she said. ‘You didn’t bring any with you, I suppose?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Juniper. ‘Never a one.’

  ‘When you’ve eaten, would you like to join us in our holes?’ asked Stump-Tail, remembering the rules of hospitality.

  All passing strangers

  Must be accommodated

  At whatever cost.

  ‘It is a long time since I heard that one,’ replied Marguerite, thinking of Marble’s first visit. ‘Yes. We would be honoured, but please, we are old friends, not strangers,’ and she stepped forward and to their amazement brushed whiskers Ourland style with all the refugees.

  ‘Let’s find food together.’

  As each of them moved away to forage on the beach, with Marguerite guiding them away from the remains of the Sun’s-child, a pretty female squirrel approached her shyly.

  ‘I don’t suppose you will remember me. My name is Meadowsweet. Where is your brother, Rowan the Bold?’ He’s not with you?’

  Marguerite turned her head away, then turned back and faced Meadowsweet. ‘It’s rather a sad story,’ she said.

  ‘Can I tell you later?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  A few days of recuperation followed, Marguerite and her party living amicably with Stump-Tail and the other coast-dwelling squirrels, but longing to get their claws into some tree-bark again. They felt safe enough living in the rabbit holes on Worbarrow Tout and all enjoyed the views over the sea, and of the white cliffs behind them, when on fine days they lay on rock-ledges in the sunshine, glad to be out of the dim burrow-light.

  According to the coast-dwellers, humans only came there on two days each week and then they mostly stayed on the beach, very few climbing the steep path to the top of the Tout. The humans were easy for the squirrels to avoid, but it was not a life that any of them could see as a permanent arrangement. Squirrels need trees.

  Marguerite sat in the sunshine thinking. Stump-Tail was obviously the Senior Squirrel, yet he was not now taking the lead in organising and guiding the group, and the lack of leadership was showing in many little ways – minor quarrels, a feeling of lassitude, morbid nostalgia and most of all a feeling that each day was somehow wasted. Yet he had brought his party safely to this place over the last year, so he must have the right qualities. Perhaps, through having no tail, he felt inhibited or insecure when it came to relationships with her party?

  Then there was her own position to consider. Increasingly she wanted to spend time thinking; there was so much in the world that she did not understand and the day-to-day planning disrupted her contemplation. She would love to be a Tagger, she thought.

  A good Leader needed a thinker behind him, one who had experienced real difficulties and had overcome them, someone who was respected as a ‘doer’, as well as a ‘thinker’, someone whose recommended tags would be recognised by all as fair and true, be they good or bad.

  Was she up to this role? She was young for a Tagger and had not even mated yet. But then she seemed to command respect even from much older squirrels. The decision would not be hers anyway; all appointments had to be agreed by the group as a whole. But some squirrels would have to initiate the proceedings. That would have to be arranged.

  Accordingly she suggested to Stump-Tail that they all get together that evening in Council to discuss plans for the future. He readily agreed and, as the day started to cool, the entire party gathered and sat in the sunshine amongst the sea-pinks and tufts of coarse grass on the top of the Tout, a pleasant sea breeze ruffling their fur and tails.

  Marguerite waited for Stump-Tail to commence but he appeared reluctant to make the first move and looked towards her expectantly.

  She glanced round, drew a deep breath and said, ‘We have called this meeting to draw up some plans for the future:

  Squirrels without aims

  Drift through life, vulnerable

  To each passing whim.

  ‘And for a group of squirrels to have no aims leaves us exposed to many kinds of danger. I would like to suggest that we choose who is to be our Leader and confirm him in that position, then discuss and select a Tagger from amongst ourselves. After that we can decide what our group aims should be. I propose that our friend without a tail be Leader of us all.’

  Marguerite turned and apologised for not having remembered his real name. Since they had been there he had always been called Stump-Tail.

  ‘It’s Alder,’ he told her. ‘Alder-with the stump-tail.’

  She recognised that he had said that to cover her embarrassment. It confirmed her belief that he had the sensitivity to be a good Leader, if only he also had the confidence.

  ‘I propose our friend Alder Stump-Tail to be our Leader,’ Marguerite said again.

  There was general agreement, shown by head-noddings and tail-twitchings from the squirrels.

  Alder looked pleased, and, unable to give the tail-flick which says ‘I’m willing to accept,’ bowed his head in an unmistakable gesture of acceptance.

  Marguerite waited for Alder to propose a Tagger. In the silence that followed she realised that none of the coast-dwellers had tags; perhaps they had never had tags, and Taggers, at Wolvesbarrow. She glanced appealingly at Juniper the Swimmer.

  Juniper drew himself up. ‘Not only does a group need a wise and steadfast Leader, it also needs a wise and thoughtful Tagger to advise the Leader, teach the dreylings and act as the conscience of the group by allocating tags to each, fairly and fearlessly. We have amongst us one such squirrel. I propose Marguerite the Bright One as our Tagger.’ He flicked his tail, and the others all followed.

  Dandelion said, ‘We didn’t have Taggers at our old home. We used to have a wise one whom we called the Bard, who acted as adviser to the Leader, but he was killed by a Grey just before we left and we haven’t appointed another, what with one thing and another. I know that we’d be happy to have Marguerite the Bright One as Bard and Tagger.’

  Marguerite raised her tail with the exact amount of speed and angle which indicated ‘I accept, with modesty, and thank you all for the trust you have put in me.’ There was no need to say it in words.

  What she did say was, ‘Squirrels without tags are not complete squirrels. They have nothing to live up to, or master, and others do no
t know what to expect of them. If I may use our Leader, Alder, as an example?’ She looked at him and he nodded. ‘While we call him Stump-Tail that will seem to be the most important thing about him and he will always be aware of it. Yet he led an entire party safely through many hazardous adventures to reach here. With the power you have given me I award him the tag Who Led His Party of Safety and we will call him simply Alder the Leader. Now it is up to him to take command and guide us wisely. I know that he will have the support of us all.’

  As she said this, Alder appeared to grow two inches in height, and his lack of a tail faded into insignificance. He stepped forward, brushed whiskers with Marguerite the Tagger in the way she had taught him, and then confidently took over the meeting.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s discuss what we should be doing, as self-respecting squirrels…’ and the group, now united, discussed the options open to them.

  It was agreed that they could not stay on the Tout. Spring was turning to summer; the flower heads on many of the tufts of sea-pinks were already brown and crisp. Speckled young gulls had left their cliff-face nests and were raucously demanding food from their parents as they sat on the rocks, beaks open to the sky. Yet no squirrel had felt the mating urge and this was a sure Sun-sign that things were not right for them there.

  Inland were Greys who had forced them down from the abandoned Man-drey area to this treeless mound of Worbarrow Tout, where they had survived on seafood and by living in rabbit holes. If they were to hold their tails high again they must live, as squirrels, in trees. But where?

  As far as they knew, the whole inland area was held by the Greys, and Ourland was a long way off and too dangerous for Marguerite and her party to return to, even if they could.

  ‘We must remember that we have the Woodstock,’ she told them, ‘so the Greys won’t have it all their own way. If we learn to use that effectively we could win back and hold an area for ourselves. With the Sun’s help,’ she added.

  ‘It would be a dangerous venture, we could all be killed,’ said Alder.

  ‘That’s true, said Marguerite, ‘and no squirrel should be forced to join such an expedition, but to stay here means a degraded life with no future generations to follow.’

  Into her mind came a Sun-inspired picture of a lake of blue water sparkling in the bright morning light and she could smell the scent of warm pine bark and resin.

  ‘Let’s go back to the Blue Pool,’ she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  The group, now working happily together, was resting on the top of Flowers Barrow, exhausted from the climb up the cliff-face.

  Juniper had practised long and hard with the Woodstock, learning the numbers that had to be written after Marguerite’s X to produce waves of different power and intensity. The beach below was littered with splintered pieces of wood that he had used as targets and the thistles on the bank behind were now trying to grow straight again. Having witnessed what it could do, all the other squirrels were now more confident of the success of their venture.

  They had probed a little way inland along the stream from which they normally drank, and the only sign of Greys was a decomposing body in the stream itself. They each drank their fill, upstream from the body, watching, listening and scenting for the enemy, and then retreated up onto the Tout again. They would leave at first light and climb the Great Cliff to get to open ground where there would be less chance of meeting Greys. From the top, Dandelion, who was known to be the best at reading the Leylines, would guide them to the Blue Pool.

  There had been almost a party atmosphere, a hint of squirrelation, as they had set off at daybreak along the beach to the undercliff, the older ones taking it in turns to drag the Woodstock. But, not being used to moving with a load, they had underestimated the time needed and it was High Sun before they were over the banks of fallen chalk and at the foot of the near-vertical cliff-face ready for the climb.

  Juniper and Tamarisk had reconnoitred the face the previous evening, deciding that, if they could find a path up, it would be safer than using the Man-track that led up from the valley to the Barrow of the Flowers, close to the edge of the cliff. A Grey attack there, with the cliff behind them and no known retreat route, would not be easy to hold off.

  Juniper told Tamarisk:

  In a strange country,

  Be careful. Time spent looking

  Is seldom wasted.

  ‘Not exactly appropriate for us now, but the message is right. That is one of the Kernels the Tagger teaches before you go on climbabout.’

  ‘This is much more exciting than climbabout,’ Tamarisk said to him as they had searched for a path to take them to the top.

  The route they had found zigzagged up the face perilously, in places so narrow that the Woodstock had had to be dragged end-first with a danger that it might roll over the edge if they let go of it for a moment. Teeth and claws were aching from holding and pulling.

  Squirrels ordinarily have no fear of heights up to that of the tallest tree, and they have sharp claws to grip fibrous bark, but climbing a cliff or crumbly white chalk while dragging the Woodstock was an altogether different experience.

  They all found the great height brought on dizziness, and Marguerite advised them to keep their eyes on the path and not to look down. The sun, bright on the white chalk when they started their climb, obligingly hid behind a veil of thin cloud so they no longer had to half close their eyes, but seabirds, wheeling in to inspect the strange procession climbing up their cliff, screeched at them and sometimes nearly brushed the squirrels off the narrow pathway with their wing tips.

  Where the ledge widened slightly near to the top, they paused for breath. Marguerite ignored her own advice and peered over the edge to where the sea lay wrinkled far beneath them, patterned by darker stripes where currents ran. Her head swam and she felt dizzy. ‘Don’t look down,’ she reminded herself. ‘Trust in the Sun.’

  Juniper was some way behind, helping Meadowsweet to pass a narrow place that sloped dangerously and where there were loose particles of chalk on the path.

  ‘Can we rest here?’ she pleaded when they came to a wider place.

  Juniper stopped. The others were ahead but were still in sight, so would not be worrying about them. He was glad of the break too.

  Meadowsweet looked at the older squirrel and said, ‘Would you tell me about Rowan the Bold leading the dreadful Greys away, and saving you all?’

  Juniper smiled to himself. He had overheard Meadowsweet ask each of his party to tell her the same story whenever she could get one apart from the others. Having lost his own life-mate to the Greys he understood her feelings.

  ‘Rowan the Bold was a hero,’ he told her. ‘There we were, up this fir tree which leant out over a clay-pan with ‘lots’ of Greys all around us on the ground. There was no way we could have escaped. Old Burdock, our Tagger, was exhausted, the rest of us were frightened, we had youngsters with us and no squirrel knew what to do. Then your Rowan crept craftily down the trunk so they could not see where he had come from, and shouted insults at the greys.

  ‘The whole horde of them ran off after him over the Great Heath, and he must have led them right into a fire, for they never came back. So we escaped and got away to Ourland.

  ‘It was the bravest thing I have ever seen. I would have been proud to have had him for my son.’

  Meadowsweet looked proud herself, her bushy tail rising.

  ‘Do you have any sons?’ She asked Juniper.

  ‘No,’ he replied, ‘my Bluebell and I were not Sun-blessed that way.’ He looked out over the sea to where the Isle of Portland lay low in the haze on the far horizon. ‘It’s time we caught up with the others.’

  ‘What to you call this place?’ Marguerite asked Alder.

  They were enjoying the cool evening breeze which was blowing over the grass-covered hilltop.

  ‘This is the Barrow of the Flowers,’ he replied.

  ‘I can see the flowers,’ Marguerite said, looking a
round at he early harebells and the stemless thistles. ‘What’s a barrow?’

  ‘It’s a place where the Ley forces start,’ replied Alder.

  Marguerite looked puzzled. ‘Tell me more about these Ley forces.’

  ‘Don’t you know about Leylines?’ he asked. ‘How do you find your way about the country?’

  ‘Until last year we always lived at the Blue Pool and didn’t need to. Will you tell me about them?’

  ‘Not all squirrels can read the lines. I can, just, but Dandelion is very good at it. She grew up near the Barrow of the Wolves way up north of here in a big pine forest. There aren’t any wolves there now but the name lingers on. I think that if you grow up near a barrow then you become extra sensitive. See if you can feel anything here.’

  He turned his head slowly. ‘There’s a line,’ he said, and there’s another. ‘There’s the one we came in on last year.’ He pointed to the north. ‘There are a couple of others further round. Here’s a very strong line. Try this one.’

  Marguerite sat up and turned in the direction indicated. She could see nothing nor sense anything unusual. The others of her party tried sensing in turn. Spindle, normally rather taciturn, called out excitedly, ‘Uz can feel it, uz can feel it. Uz whiskerz iz telling uz the line.’

  ‘How does it feel?’ asked Juniper.

  ‘Uz can’t really describe it, uz juzt knowz it’z there. And there, and there’z won there.’ He pointed to the north and then to the north west.

  Juniper tried, but with his whiskers still not fully regrown, he couldn’t sense anything. Where he sat was a cigarette-end thrown down by a human earlier that day. The acrid scent was filling his nostrils, reminding him of the times when he and Bluebell had scavenged under the tables at the Eating Man-drey. He hopped away and looked out over the vastness of the sea. ‘Bluebell,’ he sighed, ‘where are you now?’