by Anna Fargher
Curling its black head through the roof of brambles, the falcon screeched in delight, its black eyes widening at the sight of prey below.
‘It’s coming for us!’ the smaller rabbit gasped in horror, watching it tear away the thin, tangled branches above them with its strong yellow talons. ‘What do we do?’
Pip looked up and shuddered, seeing how quickly the falcon was digging through the thorns.
‘We need to find a way out of here!’ she squeaked, scrambling under the thicket with GI Joe. But a wall of thorns surrounded them on all sides. ‘GI, you could never fit through!’ she said desperately, staring at the small gaps between the thorns and feeling despair tighten her chest. ‘Maybe I can squeeze through and distract it for long enough for you to fly out?’
‘The brambles are too thick above us as well,’ he said, looking up into the tangle of spiky branches rapidly being pulled away by the falcon. ‘I can’t get the speed I need to push through them and fly away. Besides, the cover in the woodland is no better than we have here.’
‘Then we’re trapped.’
‘We must run!’ the bigger rabbit cried, its eyes flitting from side to side in terror. It hopped with its friend to the edge of the thorns. ‘It’s going to kill us!’
‘Stop!’ Pip said. ‘It wants us to run! If GI can’t fly out of here, neither can it! Without these brambles we are out in the open, and then we stand no chance against it. We must wait for it to tire and give up.’
‘But it’s coming!’ the smaller rabbit whimpered as shredded brambles rained from above.
A strange sound rumbled, growing louder as it approached through the nearby trees. Hearing it, the falcon turned its head and cawed, its feathers ruffling furiously all over its body. With a bloodthirsty screech, a flash of brown speckled feathers launched headlong into the falcon, tumbling it to the earth on its back.
‘It’s Léon!’ Pip cried, watching the eagle pin the falcon to the ground with his sharp, golden talons.
‘You get him!’ GI Joe cooed, aggressively plumping his chest feathers.
The falcon flapped its wings, trying to detach Léon’s vicious grip upon its white speckled chest. But the eagle was stronger, and closed his claws tightly together. Cawing with pain, the falcon lurched its hooked beak upwards and snapped at the eagle’s throat. Swerving his upper body out of harm’s way, Léon’s golden eyes narrowed. With a fearful cry, he leaped forward. Gasping in horror, Pip turned away. Stumbling backwards, she immediately yelped in alarm as the brambles in front of her were lifted away.
‘Henri!’ Pip cried, delighted to see the stag’s handsome face meet hers, peering under a crown of thorns heaved from the ground by his antlers.
‘Get out of there!’ he bellowed.
‘Run!’ the bigger rabbit cried to its friend, watching blood drip from the eagle’s beak in terror. ‘Hurry! Before it sees us!’
‘Wait! It’s OK!’ Pip said. ‘He won’t hurt you, he’s our friend!’
It was too late. The rabbits bolted from the brambles, racing in a desperate zigzag between the stag’s legs. Watching their little white fluffy tails flee into the shadowy woodland beyond, Pip hoped they would get home safely, just as a loud explosion rocked the earth. Cowering in alarm, Pip and her friends watched the rabbits disappear in a terrible blast of dirt, bursting upwards from the ground.
‘Those poor rabbits!’ she cried, wide-eyed with fear. ‘What was that?’
‘Landmines – small bombs buried in the ground,’ Léon said, his wings hunching around his head in surprise. ‘There could be humans nearby.’
Suddenly a large, bright beam of light flashed into the gloom, shining through the trees like a furious eye staring into the night.
‘Take cover!’ GI Joe squawked.
‘Henri!’ Pip cried, diving behind the thorns with the eagle and the pigeon. But the stag hesitated, struggling to see a place big enough for him to hide. Behind him, the cold glow of the light crept over his tail. ‘Watch out!’
Leaping behind the bramble bush, Henri cowered on his stomach as a nearby tree splintered with a deep bullet hole.
‘Was war das?’ an angry man’s voice said from the direction of the house standing in the gloom beyond.
‘Es ist nichts, Herr,’ another man said. ‘Ein Reh.’
With that, the beam of light disappeared.
‘German snipers,’ GI Joe whispered. ‘The mines must be a warning signal. When they explode, they know the enemy is close.’
‘The house has to be a lookout,’ Léon said. ‘The upper floors will give them the advantage. They’ll easily see movement on the ground from there.’
‘Look!’ Henri motioned his antlers behind them to the wheat field they had crossed before. ‘Men are coming. Over there – they’re moving slowly but they’re heading this way.’
The others quickly turned and searched the gloom, their ears pricked up. Sure enough, the shadowy figures of men holding rifles at their waists were walking through the tall wheat stems. Distant peals of laughter travelled on the breeze until a voice hushed and abruptly silenced them.
‘Did you hear that?’ Pip gasped. ‘One of them just said, “Yes, Captain Smith.”’
‘I heard it too,’ GI Joe said, his feathers ruffling anxiously around his neck. Léon and Henri nodded.
‘That house,’ Pip said urgently. ‘It must be the Axis stronghold he and his men were sent to destroy. They are heading straight into a trap!’
‘And so are we,’ GI Joe cooed. ‘We can fly over the minefield but Henri has to cross it.’
‘I can walk around it,’ the stag said. ‘I have the cover of the trees.’
‘It’s too risky. They’ll have hidden mines there. Snipers use them to direct men into their line of fire.’
‘Then we have to clear a path for Henri and Peter,’ Pip said urgently. ‘How do they work? There must be a way we can stop them.’
‘They are triggered by weight,’ Leon said. ‘When they are stepped on, they explode.’
‘What if we dropped rocks on them?’
‘That could work, mon amie!’
‘I’m small – I could find the mines and you and GI Joe could drop the stones from above and set them off. The Nazis will never know what’s happening. Let’s go! We don’t have much time.’
‘Liddle lady, my claws are too small to pick up large rocks,’ GI Joe cooed, regretfully looking down at his pink talons. ‘Small ones won’t explode the mines.’
‘Then Léon and I will do it. You and Henri find the rocks.’
‘OK, let’s get to work!’ the eagle said, limping to her.
‘No. Wait for me at the edge of the trees. I’ll find the mines on the ground first. Henri, you collect the rocks and leave them in an easy place for us to pick up.’ She turned to the eagle, standing tall with GI Joe behind the brambles. She had once been so afraid of him but now when she looked into his golden eyes, she felt stronger knowing he was with her. ‘When I get back we’ll fly over and drop them on the mines.’
‘You’re the craziest liddle lady I’ve ever met!’ GI Joe cooed proudly. ‘It’s a damn shame you weren’t born a pigeon – you’d make a fine messenger!’
‘It’s true,’ Leon said, nodding his speckled head. ‘You are an extraordinary member of Noah’s Ark, mon amie.’
‘I’m only trying to do what’s right.’ Pip smiled self-consciously.
‘And you are doing a fine job,’ Henri said, affectionately nudging her with his nose. ‘Here,’ he said, kicking a rock with his hoof. ‘We will find others. I just wish there was more I could do to help you this time.’
‘We’ll be all right,’ Pip said. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
Heart pounding against her ribs, she leaped over the ground to the shadowy outline of the house, just visible beyond the trees. Leaving the cover of the woodland behind her, Pip’s fur tingled warily in the open air, listening to tall trees creaking in the gloom. The grey stone house seemed abandoned, standing in a small clearin
g ahead, surrounded on all sides by the wood. A dense layer of ivy covered its walls, creeping up its stonework beyond the lower level before spreading into the shattered glass of the three upper sash windows. Searching through the blades of grass, she saw them: unnatural metal discs bulging out of the earth.
Swiftly scampering across the clearing, stopping each time she came to a mine and darting around it, Pip found four buried along the wooded borders of the grass to the left and right of the house. Hurrying back to GI Joe, Léon and Henri, she found them watching her from the cover of the trees.
‘You were right, GI,’ she said, breathlessly coming to a stop at the stag’s hooves. ‘The only mines I saw are near the trees to each side of the house. There are none in front of or behind it.’
‘How many are there?’ GI Joe cooed.
‘Two on each side, so we’ll need four rocks.’
‘It’s possible there’ll be more hidden in the undergrowth, Henri,’ Léon said gravely. ‘Be sure only to run where the mines have exploded.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Henri said, pointing his antlers to a nearby pile of stones they had made while Pip was away. ‘Hurry, both of you. The men cannot be far and sunrise will not wait for us to arrive in the Fleur Forest.’
‘I can carry two at a time,’ Léon said with a nod, dipping his upper body low to the ground. ‘Come, Pip, climb on to my back.’
‘We’ll keep you in sight,’ GI Joe cooed, watching her clamber up the eagle’s wing to sit behind his neck.
‘We’ll see you soon,’ Pip said with a determined smile, trying to ignore the nerves fluttering in her stomach. ‘Let’s go.’
Léon bent his knees and jumped, smoothly lifting them into the air with his broad wings. Pip’s mouth fell open in awe as he swiftly arced upwards, silently grazing the tips of the treetops. Diving back down to earth and hovering above the pile of rocks, he snapped one in each talon before powerfully climbing into the sky once more.
‘Fly to the edge of the clearing on the far side of the house,’ Pip said, scanning the earth below. The eagle glided over the house to the right. ‘Here they are,’ she said, patting him gently on the back of the head with her paw. ‘Look, down there.’
‘Oui, I see them,’ the eagle called, arching his head and spying the mines hidden in the grass far below. Shivering his wings, he hovered as if taking aim over unsuspecting prey. ‘Un . . .’ he whispered, ‘deux . . . trois!’
Tumbling through the air, the rock smashed its target, bursting the ground open in a furious tower of burning earth.
‘There’s another!’ Pip cried to the eagle as he swiftly flew out of harm’s way along the wooded border.
Fluttering his wings and dropping the other rock, Léon immediately swooped upwards in an arc over the trees and Pip squeaked with delight, seeing the second mine explode without hurting a soul.
‘Wo sind sie?’ A voice shouted furiously from the house, and the beam of light returned, sweeping back and forth in the gloom.
‘Ich weiss nicht, Herr!’ another man said.
‘It’s working!’ Pip grinned. ‘They don’t understand what’s happening!’
‘C’est formidable!’ Léon said, racing back to Henri, standing deep in the thicket, with GI Joe peering out into the clearing from his antlers. Diving down to the pile of stones, the eagle grasped two more rocks in his talons and soared back into the sky.
‘Go to the other side of the grass this time,’ Pip said. ‘They’ll never expect it!’
‘Bien sûr!’ the eagle confirmed, turning and flying over the house to the opposite side of the clearing.
‘There!’ she said, spying the pair of mines hidden in the grass along the border of the trees. ‘Do you see them?’
‘Oui!’
The eagle hovered as he did before, aiming the stone above the metal disc glinting unnaturally in the moonlit grass. Dropping it, he swiftly flew to the next mine and let go of the other rock. But as he curved upwards to fly out of harm’s way, only one explosion blasted from the ground. Instantly the beam of light swerved in its direction.
‘Damn,’ Léon cursed. ‘I missed it.’
‘Hurry,’ Pip said firmly. ‘We need to try again.’
‘Finden Sie!’ The angry voice shouted.
‘Ja, Herr!’
At that moment, the light climbed from the ground and searched the trees above. The fur on the back of Pip’s neck stood on end as she saw herself and Léon glow under the cold, white stare of the beam.
‘Ein Adler!’ the voice cried.
A splutter of gunfire thundered into the night. Swooping as fast as he could, Léon drew his wings close into his body and dived towards the trees below.
‘We can’t give up now,’ Pip said desperately. ‘We have just one more mine to blow.’
‘We won’t, mon amie,’ the eagle said, weaving in and out of the trees.
Now approaching Henri and GI Joe from behind, the stag flinched in alarm, only hearing Léon a moment before he landed on the pile of stones.
‘That was a close one!’ the pigeon cooed from Henri’s antlers. ‘You’ve gotta be damn careful when you go back out there. They’re scanning the sky for you.’
‘My friends,’ the stag said gravely, ‘please take care.’
‘As soon as you see the last mine explode,’ Pip said urgently as the eagle landed on the rocks and clasped two more in his talons, ‘run along the border of the wood and the clearing where the mines have blown. We’ll meet you on the other side.’
With that, Pip and the eagle burst into the air, turning back the way they came, weaving through the cover of the tree canopy. Shadowy outlines of men were now outside the house, following the searchlight sweeping over the wood with rifles poised at their shoulders.
‘Hurry, Léon,’ Pip whispered, shuddering at the sight of the soldiers. ‘Do it now while the light is still shining on the opposite side of the wood!’
The eagle sped forward and flew into the open air.
‘There it is,’ she said, pointing her paw to the final mine hidden in the grass below.
‘Oui, I see it,’ Léon said, immediately hovering.
‘Drop the stone!’ she cried, fearfully watching the beam of light creep towards them over the clearing, but the eagle hesitated, fluttering his wings harder, precisely aiming at his target.
‘Now, Léon!’ Pip said, seeing one of the men on the ground point at them. The others turned their rifles at once. ‘Drop it now!’
Narrowing his golden eyes with concentration, the eagle opened his talons and released his grip on both of the stones, sending them tumbling to earth one after another. As a burning tower of earth blasted into the air, and the eagle soared upwards out of danger, a terrible storm of gunfire thundered through the night and the eagle’s wings stopped beating.
‘Léon!’ Pip yelped, plunging through the sky. ‘Léon!’
The grass below zoomed closer with every second and she scrunched up her eyes, dreading the pain when they hit the ground.
‘I’m all right,’ Léon said with surprise, catching their fall with his wings a moment later. ‘I’m sorry, mon amie. That noise was so loud, it startled me. I thought I was hit.’
Pip shuddered, still too afraid to speak. Flying low through the clearing to the woodland beyond the house, Léon climbed again and perched on a tree branch.
‘Look!’ he said, nodding his speckled head behind them.
Pip turned and gasped. The gunfire was not from the enemy after all, but Peter and his men shooting their rifles from the cover of tree trunks in front and to both sides of the house, where the landmines had now been cleared.
‘Here they come,’ Léon said triumphantly, watching Henri gallop safely away from the soldiers along the border of the wood, with GI Joe flying swiftly alongside him.
‘Time to get ourselves outta here,’ the pigeon said, swooping to the tree branch beside Pip and Léon.
‘Come,’ the stag bellowed from below, puffing heavily in a
nd out of his nose. ‘The Fleur Forest is not much further, I can smell it.’
As the eagle spread his wings and leaped from the tree, Pip turned, hearing the sound of cheering from the clearing behind. As she soared onwards on Léon’s back, her last sight was of Peter, smiling broadly and slapping the back of one of his men.
‘Goodbye, Peter,’ she said quietly. ‘Good luck.’
Watching him until he disappeared into the darkness, she looked into the sky ahead, brightening with the first violet hues of sunrise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE FLEUR FOREST
An orchestra of cicadas had already started their morning melodies when Pip glimpsed the bluest water she had ever seen. Gently rippling behind a veil of leaves rustling in a soft breeze, it was as if two skies lay one on top of the other. Rich, green trees lined the water’s banks and its surface gleamed with pulses of dancing sunlight. Watching the tiny fish swimming in and out of the plants gently swaying in the shallows, Pip thought of Hans and wondered if the lake in Bavaria where he grew up was as beautiful as this one.
‘What is this place?’ she asked, clambering down Henri’s neck as he stopped to dip his great head of antlers and drink. Léon and GI Joe swooped beside her on the sand and bowed their heads to the water’s edge.
‘We are at the southernmost point of the Grand Lakes of the Fleur Forest,’ the stag said, looking up for a moment between sips. ‘You must be thirsty, try some.’
The cold water tasted sweet and refreshing and Pip greedily slurped it until she could have no more. Their thirsts quenched, Henri grazed the grass along the banks of the lake and Léon hunted the dragonflies darting over the surface of the water, while Pip joined GI Joe to scour the undergrowth for nuts, berries and seeds. Growing weary with full bellies, they returned to the thicket of the surrounding forest. Scraping the earth flat with his front hooves, Henri settled on the ground with his legs tucked under him and Pip curled up on top of his head. Above them, GI Joe and Léon swooped to a low-hanging tree branch and rolled their wings with fatigue.