Tales From Watership Down

by Richard Adams

  Soon he became delirious, and lay all day without noticing the passage of time. Sometimes he slept, but even in his sleep he was aware of the pain. He fancied Rabscuttle was with him and begged him for help. But Rabscuttle slowly faded and became a hunched juniper bush on the down where El-ahrairah thought he was lying. Then he thought he was Hazel, telling Hyzenthlay to take good care of the warren while he was gone with Campion on a special Wide Patrol. But all these figments either dissolved or else blended with one another, to be glimpsed as elil seen in the tail of his eye. All day he was turning his head this way and that to try to see them clearly. And meanwhile, some rabbit was whispering jokes in his ear, only he could never quite catch what they were about. He was worn out with pain and fear. He heard a rabbit begging for Rabscuttle to come, and after a while realized that it was himself.

  He nibbled at the grass where he was lying, but he could not taste it. "It's special grass, master," said Rabscuttle, out of sight behind him. "Special grass to make you better. Go to sleep."

  Next morning he saw, quite plainly, a green fox approaching along the path. Again he tried to stand, but just as the fox disappeared his legs gave way, and he fell on his back and lay there, staring stupidly up at the sky.

  Then he began to tremble with fear. In the blue curve of the sky he saw a great rent, a cleft which, he perceived, was an open, gaping wound. The two irregular edges were jagged as though it had been made with something blunt, something which had first cut and then ripped and torn. Here and there shreds of flesh, still attached to the edges, stuck out across the wound, obscuring whatever was behind. All that he could see in the suppurating depth of the wound was blood and pus, a glistening, viscous, uneven surface like a marsh. The edges were messy too, fringed all along with blood and yellow matter on which flies were walking. As he stared in horror, the dead body of a rabbit fell out of the wound, but disappeared as it fell.

  To El-ahrairah's distraught eyes, the whole gash seemed to be slowly moving, two parted lips descending to close over him and draw him in. Squealing, he fell from the edge of the path, rolling down the slope several times before he lost consciousness.

  When he came to himself he was clear in his head and his wounds were less painful. He felt, now, that he could probably get back home, so that his doe, Nur-Rama, and the faithful Rabscuttle could look after him until he was himself again. He went a short distance rather slowly and then lay down in the sun to do his best to clean himself up.

  It was while he was thus resting on the hillside that he became aware of Lord Frith speaking to him in his heart.

  "El-ahrairah, you should not undertake any more dangerous adventures; at least for the time being. You don't need to impress your people with more great struggles and journeys. You've done enough. They already love and admire you as much as is good for them or for you. Be lazy and enjoy the summer like an honest rabbit. You have already shown yourself equal to anything likely to come your way."

  "My lord," replied El-ahrairah, "I have never questioned your ways, dark and mysterious though they often are. But how ... how can you suffer to exist in your creation that terrible horror, that wound, that horror past bearing?"

  "I don't, El-ahrairah. Look up at the sky. It's not there, is it?"

  El-ahrairah looked fearfully up. The Hole in the Sky was no longer to be seen.

  "Yet to allow it even for a moment, my lord--"

  "It was never there, El-ahrairah."

  "Never there? But I saw it with my own eyes."

  "What you saw, El-ahrairah, came out of your own delirious mind. It wasn't real at all. I had no power to stop it."

  "And that old Themmeron, in Parda-rail--"

  "He could perceive that you had never seen the Hole in the Sky. Never speak of it again. Rabbits who have seen it, like yourself, don't want to talk about it, and those who haven't only think you're strange."

  El-ahrairah took the experience to heart and felt himself the wiser. He never again saw the Hole in the Sky, and he never spoke glibly about it, especially to rabbits who he could perceive had undergone suffering something like his own.

  6

  The Rabbit's Ghost Story

  There ain't from a man to a sheep in these parts uses

  Wailin' Well, nor haven't done all the years I've lived here.

  M. R. JAMES, "Wailing Well"

  Of the five Efrafans who surrendered to Fiver in the ravaged Honeycomb on the morning of Woundwort's defeat, four came in a short time to be liked well enough by Hazel and his friends.

  Groundsel, indeed, who possessed a skill in patrolling even greater than Blackavar's, was, despite his passionate devotion to the General's memory, a valuable addition to the warren, while young Thistle, freed from Efrafan discipline, soon developed a most attractive warmth and gaiety.

  The exception was Coltsfoot. Nobody knew what to make of Coltsfoot. A dour, silent rabbit, civil enough to Hazel and Bigwig but inclined to be distinctly brusque in his dealings with others, he had little enough to say even to his fellow Efrafans. On silflay he was nearly always to be seen grazing yards away from anybody else; and certainly no one would have dreamed of asking him to tell a story.

  Hazel, when Bigwig complained to him one day about "that pestilential fellow with a face as long as a rook's beak," counseled letting him alone, since that seemed to be what he wanted, and waiting to see how he would go on as he came to feel more at home.

  Bluebell, asked to refrain from jokes at Coltsfoot's expense, remarked that he was always mistaking his silent, mournful stare for that of a cow which had got shrunk in the rain.

  The first part of the winter following that momentous summer turned out deceptively mild. November was full of sunny days, bringing out the tiny, white flowers of chickweed and shepherd's purse and even, here and there below the Down, breaking the smooth, black knobs of ash buds and disclosing the tiny, dark-red styles along the nut-bush branches.

  Kehaar flew in one day, amid great rejoicing, and brought with him a friend, on Lekkri, whose speech (as Silver remarked) set a new record for total incomprehensibility. Kehaar, of course, knew nothing of all that had happened since the morning after the great breakout from Efrafa. He heard the tale from Dandelion one windy, cloud-blown afternoon of flying beech leaves and rippling grass, and at the end remarked to the uncomprehending narrator that the Nuthanger cat was "verser mean dan plenty cormorants"--a view which Lekkri corroborated with a rasping croak that made a young rabbit nearby jump a foot in the air and bolt for his hole.

  Often, on fine mornings, the two gulls could be seen from the north slope of the Down, shining white in the thin sunshine as they foraged together over the plowed field below, already green with next year's wheat.

  One afternoon toward the end of the month, Blackavar had taken Scabious and young Threar (the son of Fiver) on a training raid to the garden of Ladle Hill House, about a mile away to the west. ("A soft touch," as he called it.) Hazel had felt some anxiety about the youngsters going so far, but had left the decision (which resembled Edward III's "Que l'enfant gagne ses eperons" at Crecy) to Bigwig, as captain of Owsla. They were not back by twilight, and Hazel, after watching with Bigwig in the November nightfall until it was almost completely dark, came down into the Honeycomb in some anxiety.

  "Don't worry, Hazel-rah," said Bigwig cheerfully. "Likely as not Blackavar's keeping them out all night for the experience."

  "But he told you he wouldn't," answered Hazel. "Don't you remember he said--"

  Just then there was a scuffling from up Kehaar's run, and after a few moments the three adventurers appeared, muddy and tired, but otherwise, to all appearances, none the worse.

  Everyone felt relieved and pleased. Scabious, however, who seemed very much subdued, merely lay down on the floor where he was.

  "What kept you?" asked Hazel rather sharply.

  Blackavar said nothing. He had the air of a leader who is reluctant to speak ill of his subordinates.

  "It was my fault, Hazel-rah," said Sc
abious, rather jerkily. "I had a--a nasty turn on the Down, coming back. I don't know what to make of it, I'm sure. Blackavar says--"

  "Stupid young fellow, he's been listening to too many stories," said Blackavar. "Now look, Scabious, you're home and safe. Why not leave it there?"

  "What was it?" persisted Hazel, in a more kindly tone.

  "Oh, he thinks he saw the General's ghost out on the Down," said Blackavar impatiently. "I've told him--"

  "I did," said Scabious. "Blackavar told me to go and look ahead, round some bushes, and I was out there by myself when I saw him. All black round the ears ... a huge, great ... just the way they tell you--"

  "And I've told you that was a hare," interrupted Blackavar with some annoyance. "Frith on a cow, I saw it myself! Do you think I don't know what a hare looks like?... Couldn't get him to move until I kicked him," he added to Bigwig in an undertone. "Talk about tharn--"

  "It was a ghost," said Scabious, but with less conviction. "Perhaps it was a ghost hare--"

  "I don't know about ghost hares," said Bluebell, "but I tell you, the other night I nearly met a ghost flea. It must have been a ghost, because I woke up bitten like a burnet, and I searched and searched and couldn't find it anywhere. Just think, all white and shining, this fearful phantom flea--"

  Hazel had gone over to Scabious and was gently nuzzling his shoulder.

  "Look," he said, "that wasn't a ghost--understand? I've never in my life known a rabbit that's seen a ghost."

  "You have," said a voice from the other side of the Honeycomb. Everyone looked round in surprise. It was Coltsfoot who had spoken. He was sitting by himself in a recess between two beech roots: together with his customary silence, the position seemed to set him apart and, as it were, to confer upon him a kind of remoteness and authority, so that even Hazel, bent as he was upon reassuring young Scabious, said no more, waiting to hear what would follow.

  "You mean you've seen a ghost?" asked Dandelion, quick to smell a story. But Coltsfoot, so it seemed, needed no further stimulation, now that he had found his tongue. Like the Ancient Mariner, he knew those who must hear him; and he had a less reluctant audience, for under his dark compulsion the whole Honeycomb fell silent and listened as he went on.

  "I don't know whether you all know that I'm not an Efrafan born. I was born at Nutley Copse, the warren the General destroyed. I was in the Owsla there, and I would have fought as hard as the rest, but I happened to be a long way out on silflay when the attack came, and the Efrafans took me prisoner at once. I was put in the Neck Mark, as you can see, and then last summer I was one of those picked for the attack on Watership Down.

  "But none of that has to do with what I said to your Chief Rabbit just now." He fell silent.

  "Well, what has?" asked Dandelion.

  "There was a place across the fields, not very far from Nutley Copse," went on Coltsfoot. "A kind of little, shallow dingle all overgrown with brambles and thorn trees--so we were told--and full of old scrapes and rabbit holes. They were all empty and cold; and no Nutley Copse rabbit would go near that place, not if there were hrair weasels after him.

  "All we knew--and the story had been handed down for Frith knows how long--was that something very bad had happened to rabbits there, long ago--something to do with men, or boys--and that the place was haunted and evil. The Owsla believed it, every one of them, so of course the rest of the warren believed it too. As far as we knew, no rabbit had flashed his tail there in living memory, and long before that. Only some said that squealing had been heard late in the evening dusk and on foggy mornings. I can't say, though, that I ever thought about it much. I just did what everyone else did--kept away.

  "Now, during my first year, when I was an outskirter at Nutley Copse, I had a very thin time, and so did two or three of my friends. And the long and short of it was that one day we decided we were going to move out and find a better home. There were two other young bucks with me, my friend Stitchwort and a rather timid rabbit named Fescue. And there was a doe too--Mian, I think she was called. We set out about ni-Frith one cold day in April."

  Coltsfoot paused, chewed his pellets for a time, as though considering his words, and then continued.

  "Everything went wrong with that expedition. Before evening it turned bitterly cold and the rain came down in sheets. We ran into a foraging cat and were lucky to get away. We were completely inexperienced. We had no idea where we meant to go, and before long we lost all sense of direction. We couldn't see the sun, you understand, and when night fell there were no stars either. And then next morning a stoat found us--a big dog stoat.

  "I don't know what they do to you--I've never met one since, El-ahrairah be praised--but we all three just sat there helplessly while it killed Mian; she never made a sound. We got away somehow, but Fescue was in an awful state, crying and carrying on, poor little chap. And in the end, some time after ni-Frith on the second day, we decided to go back to the home warren.

  "It was easier said than done. I believe now that we wandered in circles for a long time. But anyway, by evening we were as lost as ever and just plodding on in a kind of hopeless way, when all of a sudden I came down a slope and through a bramble bush, and there was a rabbit--a stranger--quite close by. He was at silflay, browsing over the grass, and I could see his hole--several holes, in fact--beyond him, on the other side of the little dell we were in.

  "I felt terribly relieved and glad, and I was just going over to speak to him, when all of a sudden something made me stop. And it was as I stopped and looked at him that it came over me where it was that we must have stumbled into.

  "The wind--what wind there was-was blowing from him toward us, and as he browsed he stopped and passed hraka. I wasn't very far away, and he gave off no smell whatever--nothing--not the faintest trace. We'd come blundering through the brambles straight in front of him, and he hadn't even looked up or given any sign of having noticed us. And then I saw something which frightens me even now--I can never get it out of my mind. A fly--a big bluebottle--flew down right on his eye. He didn't blink or even shake his head. He went on feeding, and the fly ... it ... it disappeared; it vanished. A moment later he'd hopped his own length forward, and I saw it on the grass where his head had been.

  "Fescue was beside me, and I heard him give a little, quick moan. And it was when I heard that that I realized there was no other sound in that dell where we were. It was a fine evening with a light breeze, but there wasn't a blackbird singing, not a leaf rustling--nothing. The earth round all the rabbit holes was cold and hard--not a scratch or mark anywhere. I knew then what I was seeing, and all my senses clouded over--sight, smell ... I felt a sort of surge of faintness pour up through my body. The whole world seemed to topple away and leave me alone in that dreadful place of silence, where there were no smells. We were Nowhere. I caught a glimpse of Stitchwort beside me, and he looked like a rabbit choking in a snare.

  "It was then that we saw the boy. He was crawling on his stomach through the bushes a little to one side of us--downwind of the rabbit on the grass. He was a big boy, and all I can say is that men may have looked like that once, but from what little I've seen of them, they don't anymore. There was a kind of dirty, faraway wildness about him, like the place itself. His clothes were foul and torn. He had old boots too big for him and a stupid, cruel face with bad teeth and great warts on one cheek. And he, too, made no sound and had no smell.

  "In one hand he was holding a forked stick with a sort of loop hanging from it, and as I watched he put a stone into it and pulled it back nearly to his eye. Then he let go, and the stone flew out and hit the rabbit on the right hind leg. I heard the bone break, and the rabbit leaped up and screamed. Yes, I heard that, all right--I still hear it, and dream about it too. Can you imagine what a breathless, a lungless scream might be like? It seemed to be in the air rather than to come from the rabbit kicking on the grass. It was as though the whole place had screamed.

  "The boy stood up, cackling, and now the hollow seemed to be
full of rabbits we couldn't see, all running for those cold, empty holes.

  "You could see he was enjoying what he'd done--not just that he'd shot himself a rabbit but that it was hurt and screaming. He went over to it, but he didn't kill it. He stood looking down at it and watching it kick. The grass was bloody, but his boots left no mark, either on the grass or on the mud.

  "What was going to happen next I don't know. Thank Frith I'll never know. I believe my heart would have stopped--I should have died. But suddenly, like a noise coming from a long way outside when you're underground, I heard men's voices approaching and smelled a white stick burning. And I was glad--yes, I was glad as a goldfinch on the tall grass--to hear those voices and smell that white stick. A moment later they came pushing through the flowering blackthorn, scattering the white petals all over the ground. There were two of them, big, flesh-smelling men, and they saw the boy--yes, they saw him and called out to him.

  "How can I explain to you the difference between those men and the rest of that place? It was only when they came shoving in, rasping on the thorns, that I understood that the rabbit and the boy and--everything there--they were like acorns falling from an oak tree. I saw a hrududu once roll down a slope by itself. Its man had left it on a slope, and I suppose he'd done something wrong--it just went slowly rolling down into the brook below, and there it stopped.

  "That's what they were like. They were doing what they had to do--they had no choice--they'd done it all before--they'd done it again and again--there was no light in their eyes--they weren't creatures that could see or feel--"

  Coltsfoot stopped, choking. In dead silence Fiver left his place and lay down beside him, between the tree roots, speaking in a very low voice which no one else could hear. After a long pause, Coltsfoot sat up, shook his ears and went on.