The Silver Tide (The Dorset Squirrels)

by Michael Tod

  Grasshoppers chirruped in the evening sunshine.

  ‘Which way is it to the Blue Pool?’ Marguerite asked Dandelion.

  ‘Well, if you were to retrace the Leylines we took, you would go north to the Barrow of the Ferns, then turn away a bit to the Water Barrow, then north-east across a big heath to the Drinking Barrow and up to the barrow where we met the Three Lords.’

  ‘Who in the Sunless Pit are the Three Lords?’ asked Tamarisk.

  ‘We got to this particular barrow and I could feel a very strong force from the east, strong enough for several barrows together,’ said Dandelion. ‘We were going to go that way when three Greys appeared. They stopped us and wouldn’t let us pass. The chief one called himself Lord Obsidian and the others were Lord Malachite and Lord Silicon. They said they were going to kill us but we pleaded with them and in the end they agreed to spare us if we turned south-west and didn’t stop until we reached the sea. Mind you, we didn’t really know what the sea was then. We do now, though!’

  ‘Which way is it from the Three Lords Barrow to the Blue Pool?’ asked Marguerite, her mind focused on their mission.

  ‘South-east to the Icen Barrow, then pick up the force towards the mound where ‘lots’ of humans live. The one with the broken Man-drey on. That line passes right across your pool.’

  ‘We leave in the morning,’ Alder announced firmly.

  ‘We’ll find shelter in a rabbit hole for tonight.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When they were all huddled together cosily in the abandoned rabbit warren near the top of the Barrow of the Flowers, Marguerite asked Dandelion to tell them more about the Leylines. Dandelion knew lots of old legends and stories going back as far as the time of Acorn, the first squirrel, and loved to tell them to anyone ready and willing to listen. She only needed the slightest encouragement to launch into a story.

  ‘And thereby hangs a tale,’ she would say. ‘Once upon a time…’

  As the other squirrels jostled for position around Dandelion, Marguerite smiled as she recalled overhearing that ‘squamp’ Tamarisk entertaining a group of yearlings one afternoon a week ago on the Tout below.

  ‘Once upon a branch,’ he had started, mimicking Dandelion’s Wolvesbarrow accent perfectly, ‘sat Acorn, the first squirrel in the world, holding a Council Meeting, all by himself, when he broke the first wind in the world. He looked round to see where it had come from. ‘And thereby hangs a tail,’ he said to himself.’

  There had been a snigger from his audience.

  Marguerite had called to him quietly, but loud enough for the other yearlings to hear, ‘Tamarisk, when you grow out of being the Tactless I hope that I don’t have to tag you the Rude Mimic.’

  There had been silence from the other side of the rock.

  Now, with the whole group listening, Dandelion was in full voice.

  ‘I think that the Leylines must always have been there, but my grandfather told me that he had been told that it was the humans who made them work many, many generations ago. They built the barrows on top of the hills and then smaller ones along the lines that appeared. Sometimes they made cones of soil which have since been flattened by the weather into low mounds; often they stood great stones up on end, sometimes they planted beautiful groups of pine trees on hilltops, but always on the Ley-force lines which are absolutely straight.’

  ‘Always?’ asked Marguerite, fascinated by a subject so new to her.

  ‘Always, absolutely,’ replied Dandelion. ‘Then, to move about the country through the trees, they followed the Leylines from marker to marker. In those days, my grandfather said, the whole country was covered in trees. A squirrel could go from the sea to the sea and never touch ground!’

  ‘Do humans use them now?’ Marguerite asked.

  ‘I don’t think so, they seem always to follow paths if they’re walking, or roadways when they go about in groups in those smelly things. I think they’ve forgotten Leylines. I don’t believe they even use them for sending messages now.’

  ‘Messages?’ Marguerite's ears pricked up.

  ‘That’s another thing my grandfather told me. He was a wonderful squirrel, what he didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. I learned so much from him.

  ‘Tell us about the messages,’ Marguerite said eagerly.

  ‘When humans wanted other people to know something and did not want to walk there and tell them, they would go up to a high barrow and make special thoughts, facing along the Leyline the way that they wanted to send the message. A human at the other end would listen in another special way and know what the first one was thinking. Then if the message was not for them, they would turn and ‘think’ it along the next line until it got to where it had to go. The humans who did this wore long covers, the colour of snow, and they would hold a bunch of mistletoe in their hands when they were ‘thinking’ the messages.’

  ‘Are you serious, or are you pulling our paws?’ asked Tamarisk.

  ‘Only passing on what my grandfather told me,’ Dandelion replied. ‘But the bit about following the lines is true, you saw it today. I can sense them and so can Spindle.

  ‘The next thing my grandfather told me, even I find hard to believe. He may have been pulling my paw, he did sometimes.’ She smiled at the recollection. ‘He told me that at dawn, before the humans used the Leylines for messages, the squirrels did, in exactly the same way. Just face along the line the way you wanted to send a message and think. Of course there had to be a squirrel at the other end to receive it or it was a waste of time. I never knew whether to believe that.

  ‘He also told me about Acorn, the first squirrel in the world, and how he used to …But that’s another story. I’ll tell you that one tomorrow evening.’

  ‘Tell us now,' demanded the squirrels, who loved a story.

  Alder was about to check her but, on glancing at Marguerite, saw the tiny tail-flick indicating that a story might be good for morale. He nodded to Dandelion.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ‘Once upon a time,’ Dandelion started, ‘there was Acorn, the first squirrel in the world.

  ‘He sat in the First Great Oak, feeling lonely. All about him he could see other animals and birds and insects going about in pairs, mating and having youngsters or laying eggs and he thought, I’d like to have a mate like all these other creatures.

  ‘So, that night he said a Needing Kernel to the Sun:

  Oh Great Loving Sun

  What I need most at this time –

  Is another squirrel

  But that didn’t work because there were six sounds in the last line, not five, so he tried again:

  Oh Great Loving Sun

  What I need most at this time –

  Is a mate.

  ‘But that only had three sounds, so he tried again:

  Oh Great Loving Sun

  What I need most at this time –

  Is a loving mate,

  And the Sun, recognising the 5, 7, 5 sound pattern of a truly thought-out Kernel, arranged for Acorn to find a walnut in his drey when he woke up in the morning.

  ‘Aha, he thought, the Sun is testing me; a walnut is not a mate, it’s not even like a squirrel-but it’s like a bird’s egg. What’s it like?’ Dandelion looked at her audience seated round her in the dim barrow-light, listening intently.

  ‘A bird’s egg, they called back, enjoying the participation.

  ‘Now what can I do with a bird’s egg?’ Acorn asked himself.’

  ‘Eat it?’ called a voice from somewhere behind her and a laugh went through the audience.

  ‘If he had done – none of us would be here now.’ Dandelion pointed out. She continued, ‘Maybe I can hatch it myself, Acorn thought, but then, as he sat outside his drey, he saw a woodcock come flying through the trees below him to settle on its nest in the leaves on the ground.

  ‘He climbed down and frightened the long-billed bird away. In the nest were three eggs which looked rather like walnuts, so Acorn carefully placed his special walnut egg
in the nest, then climbed back up the tree and waited. Soon he saw the woodcock come jinking back through the trees to settle on the nest and brood, watching all about it with its eyes that are on the top of its head so that it can see in all directions at the same time.

  ‘Every day after this, when the woodcock flew away to feed in the first swamp in the world, Acorn came down from his tree to listen at the nest. One day he heard the gentle tap, tap, tap of the woodcock chicks breaking out of their eggshells, so he carried his warm walnut up to his drey and sat there watching it. But nothing happened.

  ‘He tried the What Do I Do Next Kernel:

  Oh Great Loving Sun

  You have set me a challenge

  Help me to crack it,

  And, as he said these words, he realised that all he had to do was to open this nut as he would any other.

  ‘Carefully holding the precious brown nut, he split it open ever so gently and inside was – was - a tiny squirrel, all curled up and wet. He put down the empty halves of the shell, and, holding the little red ball between his paws, he blew it dry, and as he did this it grew bigger and bigger, like a dragonfly does when it comes out of the water, until at last it was a perfect female squirrel.

  ‘It was, of course, love at first sight. Acorn named her Primrose, which means the first of the flowers, as she was as pretty as a flower. Since then all true female squirrels are named after flowers, as all true male squirrels are named after trees.

  ‘Acorn taught Primrose all he knew about foraging and drey-building and she taught him how to have fun and the joys of the mating chase. It was a very happy time for them both.

  ‘Then one day, as they were playing in an oak tree, Acorn picked an oak apple, young and brightly coloured green and red, and held it out to Primrose.’

  The squirrels nudged one another and giggled. They had all had that trick played on them, and in their turn had played it on others.

  ‘Primrose took the beautiful thing and, trusting Acorn absolutely, bit into it.

  ‘Not only was the oak apple bitter and nasty, but in the middle was a horrid little white grub, and to this day female squirrels never really trust males, especially when they bring gifts.’

  Dandelion looked round. The older females were nodding in agreement and the males were shaking their heads as if to say ‘That doesn’t apply to me.’

  Marguerite slept little that night. As well as reviewing the first day’s journey, she was wondering what the next day would have in store for them and was thinking through the implications of message sending. How wonderful it would be if she could let her parents and her dear grandmother know that they were all alive and well.

  At first light they set off northwards along the Leyline, heading for the Barrow of the Ferns, guided by Dandelion who stopped frequently to sense the direction of the force. They also needed regular rest periods, as it was hard work dragging and pulling the Woodstock along. The older squirrels took turns to reconnoitre while the others rested, Juniper staying near to whichever pair of squirrels were in charge of the Woodstock, in case of a surprise attack by Greys.

  As it happened, the precautions weren’t needed. The country seemed empty of the enemy and each day’s travel had been relatively uneventful. They had back-tracked on the refugees’ route of the previous year, passing over the Barrow of the Ferns, the Water Barrow and the Drinking Barrow before turning almost due north towards the barrow where the three mysterious Lords had intercepted the fleeing party.

  It was during one of the rest periods that Marguerite had another opportunity to talk to Dandelion about Earth forces.

  The squirrels were, at this time, seated high in a tree looking out over the Army’s tank and gunnery range, watching great brown and black patterned machines manoeuvring on the heath, distant and remote from them. They had seen the red flags marking the range boundaries but, as with so many of Man’s structures and symbols, these meant nothing to the squirrels.

  ‘What do you think makes the Greys’ Stone force work?’ Marguerite asked Dandelion.

  These two females had come to respect each other’s abilities in the time they had spent together and were now firm friends.

  Dandelion looked around. The others were all out of ear-twitch. ‘They must tap one of Earth’s hidden forces we don’t know about. I know a little about the Leylines but my grandfather said that he believed that humans used an Earth force to find the north direction.’

  Marguerite looked puzzles. ‘Why would they need that? One only has to see where the moss on a tree grows to know which way is north, and on a clear night, if you poke your head out of your drey and look at the stars that make the Great Squirrel, you can see that its paws point to the star that is always in the north.’

  ‘Don’t try and understand humans, my grandfather used to say. But they do know more about these things than we do. On our way south from Wolvesbarrow last year, we came to a line of huge metal trees that men must have made, with thin branches reaching from one another. It was a wet day and some kind of force was blowing along these branches. We could hear it snapping and crackling and hissing and our whiskers were tingling and itching. We scampered under those, I can tell you.’

  Marguerite was silent, thinking of the force that made the Woodstock so powerful. Every squirrel knows the power of the Life-Force rising as it rises in the trees each spring. A sensitive squirrel can detect it moving upwards and outwards into every twig and leaf. She tried to picture the force rising in the hazel stem that formed the Woodstock and in the encircling honeysuckle bine, each trying to expand and outgrow the other. What a powerful but silent struggle this would be! The force would be trapped in the very fibres of the hazel, and held here in the form of a Woodstock, waiting to be released by her numbers.

  A group of men were walking up the slope towards the tree, dressed in clothes the colour of ripe pine cones. The squirrels watched them through the leaves and saw them stop and stand in a group below where they sat. Occasionally one of the men would point across the heath and the others would hold black things up in front of their eyes.

  Suddenly, from the straight branch projecting from one of the machines in the distance, they saw a bright flash of light, followed by a loud crash. The squirrels ducked their heads instinctively. There was another flash and a crash from the hillside to their left and they ducked again.

  ‘It looks as if humans have captured the thunder and lightning force,’ said Dandelion.

  ‘I hope the Sun guides them to use it wisely,’ Marguerite replied. ‘It worries me sometimes, that if we tamper with forces we don’t completely understand they may get out of control.’

  In all, two weeks on the march passed before they reached the Three Lords Barrow, which they approached warily.

  There was no sign of the Lords, but they did find, under the furze bushes near the top of the mound, a squirrel skeleton with the remains of a grey tail attached.

  ‘One less,’ said Alder, nosing at the remains disdainfully, and following the route pointed out by Dandelion, they turned south-west across a field and a roadway towards the Icen Barrow on the last-but-one leg to the Blue Pool.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  The squirrels crossed the roadway just before High Sun and passed through a small wood of chestnut and oak trees and were then on to heathland again.

  ‘I can smell water. There must be a pool nearby,’ said Alder. ‘Although I can’t remember seeing it on our way through here last year.’

  The scent was coming to them from somewhere south of the Leyline they were following, so the pool must be that way, hidden by the screen of pines on their right-paw side.

  Tamarisk and Spindle, who were sent to find it, climbed one of the trees and looked down. The water was orangey brown and all around the edges were huge pink and white flowers set amongst dark green circular leaves. A heron was wading in the water near an Eyeland with three graceful trees on it.

  If a heron was there, nothing dangerous was about. They slipped down th
e trunk and reported to the others.

  ‘We’ll break there,’ said Alder. ‘We could all use a rest and a drink.’

  Rowan was woken from sleep by a harsh squawk from his guardian bird. The wary heron had just seen the party of strange squirrels appear on the top of the sand-cliff and, having vented his annoyance, had flown huffily away.

  Something was about, thought Rowan, he must be careful, though he knew he was safer here on his Eyeland than on the mainland. He looked through a screen of twigs, then scratched himself to make sure he really was awake.

  On the sand-cliff opposite stood his dear sister Marguerite, with Juniper, another squirrel without a tail whom he thought he had seen before, and ‘lots’ of others; and, just behind them, he was sure he could see the face that had filled his dreams for a full year now. Could that really be Meadowsweet?

  Now she had come to the edge of the sand-cliff and was looking towards the Eyeland.

  ‘Meadowsweet,’ he called over the water, his voice breaking, ‘is it really you?’

  ‘Rowan, my love!’ she called back, oblivious of the stares of the other squirrels, and they all saw a squirrel leap from the upper branches of a tree on the Eyeland, to drop into the water and swim strongly ashore.

  They all stood gaping as the wet animal scrabbled up the bank and hugged the slender female, their whiskers a-tangle. Then he turned to Marguerite who, realising who he was, had hopped nearer and was subjected to the same damp embrace.