The Silver Tide (The Dorset Squirrels)

by Michael Tod

  ‘Rowan!’

  ‘Meadowsweet, Marguerite! I thought I would never see either of you again.

  ‘We thought you were caught by the fire…’

  The excited squirrels chattered on, all talking at once, until Alder interrupted, saying, ‘I greet you, Rowan, who I recall is tagged the Bold.’

  Rowan, remembering his manners, responded, ‘And I greet you.?’

  ‘Alder the Leader, father of Meadowsweet, whom you have soaked to the skin.’ He smiled at the handsome young squirrel as he said this, and Rowan grinned back.

  ‘…Alder the Leader, father of Meadowsweet, whom I have soaked to the skin and wish to have for my life-mate.’

  ‘You are well tagged, Rowan the Bold. If my Meadowsweet agrees, I would have no objection to such a mating.’

  The group foraged under the trees, drinking the sweet water and exchanging news. Rowan told how he has given up hope of finding the others alive after the fire and had crossed the Great Heath to this pool with his Eyeland, where he had learned to swim, so that he could live safely, surrounded by water, spending his time in celibacy and contemplation. Marguerite was intrigued to know that, despite all this time which he has been able to give to contemplation, he had not found out what came after eight, and she looked forward to explaining numbers to him later.

  In their turn, they told him all that had happened to their parties in the past year, but how much Rowan took in, no squirrel could tell, for he did not take him eyes off Meadowsweet until the evening light faded.

  They all climbed a tree near the shore of Rowan’s Pool to sleep, having declined his offer to teach them to swim so that they could visit his magical Eyeland, but after it was dark, Marguerite was sure that she heard two soft splashes in the warm night. In the early dawn she saw Rowan and Meadowsweet licking each other dry on the shore below, but said nothing.

  The party, now including Rowan, a little sorry to leave his Eyeland, moved off an hour later following the Leyline to the Icen Barrow where they disturbed a pair of deer lying up in a hollow under the vanilla-scented gorse that covered the mound. On the flattened grass in the sweetly smelling resting place of the deer, they held a Tagging Meeting, as Marguerite now felt able confidently to allocate meaningful tags to them all.

  Dandelion was confirmed as the Ley Reader, Tamarisk’s tag of the Tactless became the Forthright which he believed meant the same thing, but was pleased nevertheless. Spindle was tagged the Helpful because he always seemed to anticipate what other squirrels required and provided it, even before they realised their need themselves. Wood Anemone earned the tag of the Able because she could turn her paw to any task, no matter how great or small, and performed it without complaint. Both these squirrels were holding their tails high now.

  Meadowsweet was tagged Rowan’s Love as she seemed to have no life or interest beyond her love for him.

  Juniper, to his great pleasure, was up-tagged the Steadfast.

  Excitement was building when they left the Icen Barrow. They were nearing the Blue Pool area and although they did not expect to meet Greys in any numbers on the heathland, each knew that very soon they could be fighting against superior numbers of squirrels who would have the advantages of position, recent local knowledge, and, if they understood the term that Marble had once used to them, possession. Each was looking about nervously.

  Dandelion reported with consternation that the Leyline from there to the great ruined Man-drey, which crossed the Blue Pool, was distorted and was behaving in an unusual way. ‘It’s trying to curve away to the north and is breaking up, she told them. ‘Leylines don’t do that. They are always perfectly straight. I don’t know which way to go. We could miss your pool altogether.’

  The heat-haze over the heath hid any distant landmarks, even clumps of tree nearby were shimmering and insubstantial, so Alder called a halt and the senior squirrels got together to reformulate plans.

  ‘We don’t want to take on the Greys in unfamiliar countryside,’ Alder stated. ‘We must be in an area we know if we are going to surprise them. Remember, there are lots more of them than there are of us.’

  ‘Even more than when we left, they will have had a whole breeding year since then,’ juniper added.

  ‘I know this area,’ said Rowan. ‘I came through here on my way back from climbabout. At the end of the heath is a field, then a roadway, then a field shaped like a dog’s leg, then it’s the edge of the Beachend Guardianship. We need to go this way.’

  ‘Now for the Greys,’ said Juniper.

  ‘Right,’ said Tamarisk.

  Rowan was correct. That evening they reached the roadway, crossed the Dogleg field and gathered together in the corner of the wood at the extreme western tip of the old Beachend Guardianship, whispering excitedly and watching for any sign of Greys.

  ‘We should wait until morning before we go in.’ Marguerite advised Alder. ‘When we hear the big gates open it will be safer, as the Greys are less likely to attack us if Visitors are about.’

  Alder acknowledged her local experience and ordered a withdrawal back across the Dogleg Field to spend a watchful night in a hedgerow tree.

  ‘My whiskers ache,’ Marguerite heard Tamarisk say in the morning.

  ‘So do mine,’ said Dandelion, ‘I thought it was from the strain of following the Leylines.’

  The squirrels reported that they all had an unusual dull ache around the base of their whiskers, but none could suggest an explanation.

  The sun was hidden by an early mist as they started off again, Marguerite hopping eagerly in front. Near the corner of the wood Alder called to her and she stopped. He told the others to position themselves some yards out in the field.

  ‘You stay here in charge, Juniper,’ Alder instructed him. ‘When we hear that gate, I’ll go with Marguerite to discover where they Greys are. Keep the Woodstock here. If you see any Greys, use it. Don’t take any chances. You’re responsible for the safety of this group. Keep the others behind you, mount the Woodstock on this mound - that way you can cover all the ground from here to the wood-edge - but don’t power it at us by mistake when we come back!’

  Having ensured that the Woodstock was on firm, raised ground, they waited for the sound of the gate, then, her heart thumping with excitement, Marguerite led Alder into the familiar woodland surrounding the Blue Pool.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  The mist had thinned out and drifted away and the sun was shining above them as the pair entered the trees, the shadows in the wood seeming unusually deep and sharp. Marguerite scented the air. This was her home! That was the water-scent, this was the home-pine smell, different in some subtle way from that of pines in all other places through which she had travelled.

  All around was the leaf-litter smell and on the paths the scents left by the Visitors from the day before stirred memories of happier days.

  They climbed a tree, and then she and Alder moved cautiously through the Beachend treetops towards Humanside, watchful for any grey shapes in the trees, in the bushes, or on the ground below. None was to be seen and there did not even seem to be any scent of Greys. Nevertheless she led the way cautiously, startled at one point by a noisy rustling of leaves from he ground, but it was only a male blackbird searching for food. At last, they looked down onto the pool she loved.

  It was no longer blue!

  There seemed to be tiny vibrations disturbing the water, hardly noticeable in themselves, yet enough to spoil any reflections, even on a day as bright as this one. The Blue Pool was just a dull grey colour.

  Marguerite and Alder circled past the Man-dreys, seeing the Red-Haired Girl and the Human Who Picked Things Up talking on the steps, but with no sign of any scavenging Greys around the tables. Then on through Deepend to Steepbank where together they climbed up the old Council Tree. There were strange dreys there, but most were in a state of disrepair.

  ‘I think the Greys have left,’ Marguerite whispered to Alder.

  ‘Do you really?’ he asked, hopef
ully.

  ‘The Sun has been good to us. But…’ She looked up through the pine needles, then down at the water. It should have been blue but it still wasn’t. Something was seriously wrong. And her whiskers were aching intolerably.

  Juniper was restless as he crouched behind the Woodstock waiting for hordes of savage Greys to come charging out of the wood to overwhelm him. Hot as it was, he struggled to stay alert, ready to defend his charges, should the enemy appear. As long as the Woodstock worked as well on the greys as it had on The Nipper, they should be all right, he thought. The rest of the party dozed in the sun-warm grass behind him.

  His eyelids kept closing in the drowsy heat and he forced himself to stay awake. He had been left in charge. He imagined Marguerite’s contempt if she found him asleep at his post. What terrible tag would she give him then: Juniper the Dozy, or Juniper Who Risked the Lives of his Friends by Sleeping? He stretched and walked around in a circle. ‘Sun, it’s hot!’ A movement at the wood-edge caught his eye and he scurried back to position himself behind the Woodstock.

  As he watched a grey squirrel hopped out from under the trees and scented the air. Juniper rotated the weapon so that it was aimed directly at the Grey and then reached forward to scratch a number as he had done a houndread times in practice on the Tout. His elbow locked. He could not move it forward. This was another squirrel he was about to kill in cold blood! That would make him no better than the Greys who had killed Bluebell at the poolside. He remembered Alder’s instructions and went to reach forward again. Marguerite would be livid if she knew he had disobeyed the Leader’s clear orders. She might even be watching, but still he could not bring himself to scratch the number on the grey twist of the Woodstock after the X.

  The Grey hopped nearer, watching Juniper on he mound. He paused, stood to his full height and called out, keeping his tail low, ‘I come as a friend.’

  Juniper looked at him for a moment, then said, ‘Come forward slowly – very slowly. I only have to touch this and you’re Sun-gone for sure. Are there any more of you in the wood?’

  ‘No. There is only me left now. All the other Silvers are gone. Grey Death has taken them. Every last one, but me,’ he added sadly, spreading his forelimbs as he said it,

  Juniper saw then that the Grey had a paw missing.

  The other squirrels had woken on hearing the voices and were gathering in a group behind Juniper and the Woodstock.

  ‘A Grey, a Grey,’ shouted Tamarisk. ‘Get him with the Woodstock, Juniper, get him.’

  ‘No. Stay where you are and watch the wood-edge, I don’t know if we can trust him. It may be a trick.’

  When Alder and Marguerite returned, soon after High Sun, to report the mysterious absence of any other squirrels, they were amazed to find the party grouped around a single Grey, with the Woodstock lying discarded on the mound. Marguerite looked sharply at Juniper, then at the grey.

  She recognised him. ‘Marble?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Bright Marguerite. It’s me, Marble. Known to most as Three Paws,’ he added wryly. ‘The one who taught you the meaning of power when we first met. You were a dreyling them.’

  ‘Where are the other Greys?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘I was telling your friends how all the silver squirrels but me caught the Grey Death. Only your Sun knows how I avoided it. Even the biggest Power Square ever built couldn’t protect them.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Sure now that Marble was alone, they had all moved out of the heat into the cool of the wood and gathered round to hear his story. Marguerite had quietly told Juniper to stay at the back of the group with the Woodstock near him, ‘just in case.’

  Marble began. ‘At first, there were only a few sick squirrels. A new batch of colonists had just arrived from Woburn, travelling fast, and they had only taken about two moons to come all the way. They were what we call a ‘randee’ lot. No respect for the old moral standards, just mated with any squirrel they fancied at the time. But that’s beside the point.

  ‘They were allocated territories in New Maine – you used to call that precinct Steepbank – and settled in well, but they would often go over to New Connecticut and mingle with the Silvers there. You remember Gabbro? He used to tell me what was going on. Such parties! As I said, they were a randee lot.

  ‘Then a week or so later some of the local Silvers took poorly, nothing you could put your claw on, so to speak, they just looked a mite peaky and then within a few days they were, what do you so quaintly call it, Sun-gone?’

  ‘What do you call it?’ Marguerite asked.

  ‘Zapped.’ Replied Marble. ‘But call it what you like, they were gone. My friend Gabbro was one of the first to go. He loved those Randees.

  ‘Then it started happening all over. There were squirrels falling out of trees like chestnuts in a gale. None ever recovered. The odd thing about it was that the Grey Death did not seem to get the very elderly, or the dreylings until they reach mating age. The old ones and the youngsters are usually the first to catch any sickness that’s about. This seemed different. We called it ‘Grey Death’ because it made the silver fade out of our fur and just leave it dull. I went over to New Connecticut to help out but there was nothing much I could do.

  ‘Then the Three Lords came through and gave orders that a giant Power Square was to be built on the dried-out Clay-Pan. They said it would protect us from the Grey Death. All Silvers, sick or well, were to collect and lay out stones. Each side was to have this many.’

  (here Marble made this symbol with a stick and six fir cones).

  (64 rows of 64 = 4096 total.)

  ‘It took three weeks just to collect them. Many squirrels were so ill that they didn’t survive this work, and collapsed and died while searching and carrying. I seemed to be the fittest, but with a paw missing I couldn’t carry, so I was laying out the stones line after line. Sun, was I tired!’

  He paused to judge the effect his story was having on the Reds. They were spellbound. Feeling some of his old pleasure when holding an audience, he continued, ‘I had to leave out certain key and corner stones or I would have been overcome by the Power myself. A block of four larger keystones in the very centre, and the four corner stones, had to be added last. That was dangerous work. Finally I rolled in the keystones, positioned those and then had to run for my life down between two of the rows as the Power started to build up.

  ‘At the same time four other squirrels had been selected to place the corner stones. The Lords had not told them that it was to be their body-power that would be used to start the force and not one of the four got clear.’

  ‘But you did, obviously,’ said Tamarisk.

  ‘Yes, I was fit even if I was tired. I got away over the bank just in time. The Three Lords didn’t. They wanted to stay and see it work. They were so proud of what they had had us make that they just sat on the top of the bank staring down. I watched them fall one by one. Then I ran away.’ He paused.

  ‘So no Greys survived but you?’ Alder asked.

  ‘I am the only Silver left now,’ replied Marble, ‘so it was all to no avail and the Power Square will run for ever.’

  ‘Was it the square-thing that saved you?’ asked Tamarisk.

  ‘No. Grey Death had just passed me by, I think,’ Marble replied.

  ‘Is it the Power Square that makes everything feel odd round here?’ asked Juniper. ‘My whiskers have been aching all day.’

  ‘Mine too,’ said Dandelion. ‘And it was probably the Power Square affecting the Leyline and the colour of the pool.’

  ‘We must destroy it,’ said Marguerite.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Marble.

  ‘Nothing is impossible,’ responded Marguerite and her voice continued:

  If you think you can

  Or if you think you cannot,

  Either way it’s true.

  ‘Tomorrow we destroy that square,’ said Alder decisively.

  ‘We must ask the Sun for help,’ said Dandelion unexpected
ly.

  ‘We will,’ replied Marguerite. ‘But also remember one of Old Burdock’s favourite Kernels.’

  Your prayers alone

  Will not do. The Sun will help

  Those who help themselves.

  The lone Grey joined them as they prayed, closing his eyes and keeping his tail low.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Marble had shown a marked reluctance to leave them as darkness fell. They were still discussing ways of destroying the Power Square until finally Alder told him that they were retreating for the night and if he was going to help, he could meet them here at the wood-edge just after dawn.

  With some hesitation, Marble left them and the Reds recrossed the Dogleg Field, taking the Woodstock with them.

  Marguerite and Dandelion were together, talking, as Juniper and Tamarisk dragged it along through the grass behind them.

  ‘Do you really think that all the Greys are dead?’ Dandelion asked.

  ‘You sound like Chestnut, who used to be one of the Guardians of Deepend.’ Marguerite said. ‘He was tagged the Doubter. But yet, I think Marble is telling the truth. Did you notice that he joined our prayers? It’s strange to have come all this way fearing the Greys, only to find a different enemy.’