The Second Wave (The Dorset Squirrels)

by Michael Tod

  The day before her captor’s leather-gloved hand had taken her from the net and thrust her into the empty cage that had last been occupied by the pine marten. It was impregnated with his terrifying scent, but even this was submerged by the rank odours rising from the only other occupants of the cages, a pair of ferrets who snuffled and prowled about or slept noisily somewhere below her.

  Tansy was still shaking with fright and her mind was going round in circles. She must get out to find Marguerite and the Woodstock to save the Ourlanders from the pine marten, but before she could do that she must get out to find…

  The stable door opened and cold air rushed in. A Man’s dark eyes peered through the wire at her as he bent down to look into the cage.

  ‘Come on, my lovely,’ he said, the words meaningless to Tansy. ‘I’ve brought you some special food.’

  In his hand was a paper bag containing a variety of Christmas nuts bought from a stall in Wareham market. He opened the cage door slightly and tossed in a handful, then closed is quickly. Tansy hid her head under her paws until he had gone out of the stable, leaving her once again in the cold darkness.

  The nuts smelt strange and foreign; she felt for them in the sawdust of the cage floor and was puzzled by the waxy feel of the shells. The hazelnuts she knew, and the walnuts, but the strange three-cornered ones were new to her. She gnawed at the end of one until she could taste the oily kernel inside. She ate only a little of it then opened a walnut, the flavour immediately bringing back memories of the celebration of the passing of the Longest Night, and the feasting the squirrels enjoyed when they knew the Sun would soon return with the warmth of spring.

  Her spirits lifted by the man’s gift, she tried every side of the cage for a way out, then crouched in a corner and recited to herself the Kernel for Encouragement:

  When all is darkness

  Squirrels need not fear for long,

  The Sun will come soon.

  She searched again for a way to escape.

  Blood was getting restless. He had finished eating the peahen that he had most recently killed in the church, had played with the feathers, slept for a full day and night and had then awakened with the squirrel-lust on him. He came down the bell-rope, passed the rows of dozing birds on the pew-backs and padded out into a grey winter day. He sprang up on to the gravestone of an earlier, human, inhabitant of the island and peered about, sniffing. The air was clear of squirrel-scent, so he made off towards the leaf-pile in the swamp. All hunters hope to find new quarry where they have successfully killed before.

  Only the tails of his two previous victims were there. He sniffed at these until his mouth watered and his mind was filled with nothing but the urge to taste the blood of a squirrel. He ran up the trunk of an aspen tree and started his search.

  Blood picked up the recent squirrel-signs in Beech Valley. There were newly gnawed cones under the pine trees, fresh scratch-marks on the beech trunks and the tantalising smell was everywhere.

  The pickets, though, had seen him coming and quickly spread the word. The females, the youngsters and the older squirrels had hurried off towards Woodstock Bay, whilst the fit males had watched Blood’s movements from a safe distance. Soon they put their plans into operation. One, Just Poplar, showed himself and tempted Blood to follow as he led him from tree to tree and up the valley, keeping just far enough ahead of the pine marten to be safe, but near enough to keep Blood bounding through the branches at his fastest rate. Just Poplar knew that neither of them could keep up this pace and this knowledge was part of the plan.

  When he tired, he slipped behind a tree-trunk and the role of ‘tempter’ was taken over by one of the ex-zervantz, Maple, previously called Maggot.

  Maple was strong, fit and fresh, and set a merry pace to keep the marten from realising that he had been duped. The plan was progressing well, the chase curving round and back towards the church. Even the last leap had been judge to perfection. Maple sailed over the gap between two trees that he had estimated was too wide for the heavier marten.

  Blood, angry and breathing hard, glared after the departing high-tailed squirrel, gave up the chase, came down the trunk, went into the church and slaughtered a peahen. It was tame stuff, this, the stupid bird putting up little resistance as his teeth bit deeply through the feathers of her neck, the squawk of protest cut off in mid-call.

  He ate his fill amongst the drifting specks of down, then climbed wearily up the rope to the bell-tower to sleep the remainder of the day away. Those squirrels would not catch him out with that trick again, he vowed to himself.

  Ivy did not like the regime that Crag had imposed or the feeble way in which Hickory and Sitka accepted it. They might have instructions to learn the strange customs of the natives, but this metal collecting was a bore. Hickory and Sitka seemed ready enough to carry out the instructions of the Temple Master, but whenever she had the chance, she would slip away from the work party and go off on her own. Sometimes she would go across to the Blue Pool and watch the Reds there, unobserved, from a distance, just to confirm that the one who called herself Marguerite was treated as an equal by the red males; it was clear that Crag had nothing but contempt for Rusty, his mate. Whenever she watched, she could see that Marguerite was not merely treated as an equal but held in high regard.

  Ivy had found a thin flat piece of grey stone near the haywain which, when she scratched it with another stone, bore a mark. One day, after deserting the working party, she went to where she had hidden this slate and drew the only marks that she could remember on it - for one, for two, for three and for four. This was how the Greys had counted before the Grey Death came, and she realised with a start that she was now probably the only Grey who remembered these marks and this way of counting. The idea troubled her. If she died, all the knowledge of numbering would have died with her. She knew so much more about so many other things as well. There ought to be a way to record everything she knew, but how?

  She wiped the slate clean and did a random line – (ASCII code for A.) She was looking at the shapes, her head tilted to one side, sensing some hidden meaning in these, when she heard a sound behind here and turned to face Marguerite.

  Ivy was surprised to see how small this Red appeared against herself now that they were together on the ground. She did not feel in any way threatened.

  ‘Hello,’ she said ‘I’m Ivy.’

  ‘I’m Marguerite the Tagger. I came to observe your party and found you on your own. What are you doing?’

  Ivy’s tail rose. She was flattered to find a senior squirrel interested in her scratching.

  ‘We count thiss way,’ she said, drawing and on the piece of slate again. ‘But I have jusst drawn and it seemss to be telling me something.’

  Marguerite looked hard at the figures. They were similar to the patterns made with twigs and fircones that the first Greys she had met used to make their numbers. Here was a special Grey that she might learn from. Numbers of any kind had always fascinated her.

  ‘Marguerite!’

  She looked up, startled at the savagery in Juniper’s voice. He was crouched on a branch above her, quivering with rage.

  ‘Come up here at once. Now!’

  Marguerite bristled with anger, yet dared not show disrespect to her life-mate in front of this stranger. She could appreciate Juniper’s concern; his first life-mate, Bluebell, had been killed by Greys near that very spot only a year or so earlier.

  She leapt for the tree-trunk as the Grey turned away.

  Ivy left quickly, abandoning the piece of slate. So much for equality, she was thinking.

  Hickory and Sitka were discussing Crag in a hollow on the ground near the Temple Tree.

  ‘Do you think that Crag’s got all his conkers?’ Hickory asked.

  ‘It’s hard to tell,’ Sitka replied. ‘Apart from the Reds we saw over by the pool, and his mate and son, they’re the only ones we’ve met. We were told that the natives have funny habits.’

  ‘I think I preferred the ol
d ways - our parents would just have zapped the lot of them. Start clean, then. None of this Sunless Pit business and sleeping on your own.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of the Sunless Pit, so I’m not taking any chances. I’m going to keep my nose clean and my tail dry. Go along with what the old fellow says, for a while at least. Have you seen Ivy? She keeps sneaking away.’

  Sitka looked around. ‘We’d better be getting back ourselves, or old Tin Can will be after our tails!’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Chip’s days were fuller than ever before. His father kept him and his mother at full stretch, working alongside the funny grey squirrels, who were so polite to both his parents and himself. Crag had found a pile of assorted scrap metal behind an old Man-cave and had organised the full resources of his new team to carry out the task of moving all the smaller pieces up into the hollow trunk of the Temple Tree.

  The Greys were now sleeping there too, every squirrel in a separate corner or bay of the hollows. Crag did the rounds at least once every night to make sure that each squirrel, of whatever colour, was sleeping alone, and not indulging itself with the warmth of a tail for cover.

  Once, when it was particularly cold and Crag had just done his rounds, Young Chip, shivering and fearing a rebuff, had crept silently to where his mother was sleeping and had crawled in beside her. Although she must have known he was there, she said nothing and the two lay there through the bitter night, sharing each other’s warmth and jointly fearing the Sunless Pit until, at the first glimpse of light, Chip crept away to his own corner, past the Greys that he could see were all religiously observing the ‘no tail warmth’ edict.

  At prayers, when Crag came to the ‘sinned in the night’ part, Chip glanced at Rusty, but her head was, like her tail, meekly lowered.

  Whenever he had the chance, Chip questioned the Greys about their lives and their beliefs, but they had little to say except that they were now contrite and sorry for what their kind had done to the Reds, and had instructions to learn and to live by the local customs, which would have evolved to suit the conditions in each locality.

  On one such occasion Crag had come up behind him when Chip had paused in sorting metal and was talking to Hickory.

  ‘Why do you call this country New America?’ he had asked, then had reeled across the scrap-pile as his father had struck him a blow across his head.

  Crag snarled, ‘Don’t delay the work with useless questions. We, and that includes you, have a Temple to furbish. Fear the Sunless Pit!’

  Chip, his head spinning, had gripped a piece from a broken ploughshare with his teeth and started to pull it backwards through the grass under the trees, in the direction of the Temple Tree.

  Crag was thinking about his wonderful Temple. It was far better than the one in the cave on Portland, and the Sun had provided a team of workers to help him fill it with the precious metal. Chip’s mating could safely be left until the next year.

  By then the Temple would be full. The Sun could clearly see that he, Crag, was a worthy squirrel and would direct them to find a worthy female as a suitable mate for his son. Not one of those Blasphemers over at the pool, with their false stories and immoral ways. He must make sure that Chip was worthy himself by then; he was a bit of a slacker at present.

  Wood Anemone the Able and Spindle the Helpful, the ex-zervantz who had left Ourland with Marguerite, had settled well as free squirrels at the Blue Pool. Unlike the other Reds, they had no personal knowledge of how the natives had been treated by the Silver Tide and often spoke between themselves about the Greys.

  They did not know of the incident involving Ivy, Marguerite and Juniper, nor about Marguerite’s anger with her life-mate. Marguerite had been all for going over to the North-east Wood to apologise to Ivy, but had been dissuaded.

  ‘We agreed to leave them until after the winter. Then we will make formal contact,’ Juniper had told her, and since it had been a purely family matter, the Council had not been informed.

  ‘Let’z go and zee what the Grey Wonz iz doing,’ Spindle suggested one afternoon.

  ‘Do yew think uz zhould?’ asked Wood Anemone.

  ‘Well, there’z no taboo on it, and uz’z zurprized that Marguerite juzd zent them off like that lazd autumn. If they’z doing anything odd, uz could report back.’

  Their youngsters were away somewhere having fun of their own as Wood Anemone and Spindle left for the North-east wood. The slight feeling of unease that Spindle felt he put down to his years of being a zervant. Now he was free, he told himself, he could do as he wished, within the Kernel Lore, and there were no Kernels that he knew about not looking at Greys.

  They reached the Temple Tree clearing and watched from behind a tree-trunk as the Greys carried various pieces of metal along the paths that converged there. They were wondering what it all meant when a native voice in an unfamiliar accent addressed them from behind. ‘An inspiring sight, is it not?’

  They jumped and turned to face an unknown Red.

  ‘I am Crag, the Temple Master,’ he said.

  ‘Greetingz, Crag the Temple Mazder,’ said Spindle, wondering what a Temple was. ‘Uz iz Zpindle the Helpful and thiz’z uz life-mate, Wood Anemone the Able. Uz’z puzzled by what the Grey furred zquirrelz iz doing.’

  ‘They prefer to be called Silvers,’ Crag told him. ‘Are you from the Blasphem… - the community at the pool?’

  ‘Uz iz. Uz’z the Guardianz of Beachend, in the Blue Pool Demezne,’ Spindle told him proudly.

  ‘That’s a fine place,’ Crag responded. ‘Did you have a good Harvest?’

  ‘Yez, zuperb,’ Wood Anemone told him. ‘Uz ztored lotz of nutz, enough to see uz all right through the worzt winter – and the zpring!’

  ‘I’m please for you,’ Crag told them. ‘Are you Sun-worthy?

  ‘Zun-worthy?’ Spindle looked at Wood Anemone and then back at Crag. ‘If yew meanz, do uz leave the eighth nut az the zun-tithe – yez, uz iz.

  ‘No, I mean, do you worship the Sun?’

  ‘Zurly the Zun doezn’t need uz to worship it,’ said Spindle. ‘Uz would have thought it wuz above all that! Yew makez it zound like won of the kingz uz uzed to have on Ourland.’

  ‘Oh, no. The Sun needs worship, and metal to be brought to the Temple. And repentance for your sins!’

  ‘What’z zinz?’ Wood Anemone asked.

  ‘Things you do to indulge yourselves – unworthy things,’ Crag told her.

  Wood Anemone’s face showed her lack of understanding, but she and Spindle waited for instructions. Crag’s voice carried that tone of authority that commanded instant obedience and unquestioning acceptance. It was the voice that the Royals had always used. The two ex-zervantz waited in silence for Crag to continue - if he chose to do so.

  Crag noted their tail-down attitude.

  ‘In the name of the Sun, I command you to report the position and amounts of all your community’s food reserves,’ he demanded, and unhesitatingly Spindle the Helpful, one-time zervant to the King of Ourland, gave the information.

  ‘There iz many lotz of hazelnutz in the copze near the Dogleg Field. There iz lotz of chezdnutz…’ he reported as he had done to the Royals on Ourland.

  Crag listened intently.

  When Spindle had finished, he said, ‘In the name of the Sun, I forbid you to tell any squirrel what you have seen today, or I Crag the Temple Master, will ensure that it is the Sunless Pit for you, for your dreylings and for your dreylings’ dreylings – for ever!’

  ‘Iz there really a Zunless Pit?’ Wood Anemone ventured to ask the stern, high-tailed Red.

  ‘Oh, yes – it is an awful place where any Blasphemers, and those who disobey a Temple Master, will exist in darkness forever. Say nothing of our meeting or of what you have seen.’

  Spindle and Wood Anemone left the North-east Wood, their tails low, feeling that they had done something wrong, but they could not speak of it, even to one another.

  Crag watched them go. He was memorising each hi
ding place. ‘Many lots of hazelnuts in the copse near the Dogleg Field, lots of chestnuts…’

  Tansy had finished the nuts that she had been given and was hoping for more. Several times a day she searched for a way of escape, but each attempt was as fruitless as before.

  Afraid of getting muscle-weak from inactivity, she would race around the netting of the cage until breathless, then crouch in the darkness, listening to the grumblings of the ferrets in their indecipherable ‘weasel’ language.

  She often recited the Kernel of Encouragement to herself, confident in her faith that the Sun would indeed come soon. Then she tried to recall other Kernels of Truth that she had been taught.

  Some were routine, just instructions on drey-building, general cleanliness and what food was safe and what was not, but as she remembered each one, with plenty of time to think about it, she realised that most Kernels had much deeper, hidden meanings and that within them they contained a complete philosophy appropriate to the whole squirrel race. There was one that she especially liked, it seemed so apt now:

  ‘Fear’ sniffed at the drey,

  ‘Courage’ awoke and looked out –

  But ‘Nothing’ was there.

  Tansy was saying this for the seventh time that day, savouring its message, when the door opened and the man came in holding the bag of nuts. Instead of staying at the back of the cage, Tansy came forward boldly and, as the lonely man opened the cage door and held out a Christmas walnut, ‘Courage’ hopped on to his sleeve, ran up his arm and, from his shoulder, leapt for the daylight and freedom.