Tales From Watership Down

by Richard Adams

  She saw with surprise that the moon had almost set. She must have slept without knowing it; and nothing bad had happened. This was encouraging, and spontaneously she began to feel herself in a more cheerful frame of mind. El-ahrairah, she thought, would not leave a loyal rabbit helpless.

  After a while, she had the notion that they were being watched. Even as she realized this, the long grass parted and there, before her eyes, was a rat.

  For long moments in the fading moonlight they sized each other up. It was not a very large rat, though quite big enough. Also, it was plainly foraging. She could see on its bared teeth fragments of some sort of flesh. It blinked once or twice, twitched its whiskers and moved nearer. It was still undecided.

  Hyzenthlay spoke in hedgerow vernacular. "This young doe mine. I mother. You come to kill, I fight till you dead." Instinctively she stood up, to bring home to the rat her superior size and height. At this, Nyreem woke and began to whimper.

  Hyzenthlay placed herself between Nyreem and the rat. As she did so, a feathered mass, clawed and smelling of blood, fell upon them from above, without a sound. Instantly, before she even had time to be afraid, it was gone and the rat with it, horribly pierced in its talons.

  "What's happened? Oh, what was it?" cried Nyreem, pressing close against her.

  "An owl," replied Hyzenthlay. "It's gone away now. There's nothing to be afraid of, dear. I'm here. You go back to sleep."

  She herself fell asleep again, this time thinking with a kind of sullen indifference that everything had happened which could happen and anyway she was past caring.

  When she woke it was a little after sunrise, and a blackbird was singing in the beech tree as though there were no such thing as fear in the world. Nyreem, too, woke, and she asked her whether the leg felt any better. The swelling had certainly gone down a good deal, and she was able to limp a few steps. Hyzenthlay told her to lie down again and go on resting. She herself went and had a look round, then bit off a burnet and some sorrel leaves, which they ate together, lying in the sunshine as it grew gradually warmer.

  Hyzenthlay asked Nyreem why she had joined the rabbits leaving Efrafa. The little doe replied that she had wanted to be like Quiens, an older rabbit whom she greatly admired. "That's how I hurt my leg," she said. "Quiens jumped right down a steep bank and I followed her, but it was too much for me. I thought at first I'd broken my leg. I know it was a silly thing to do, but they were very kind about it. I do hope they all got safely to your warren last night."

  As the sun climbed slowly toward ni-Frith, Hyzenthlay wondered whether to press Nyreem to do her best to go on. She certainly did not want them to spend another night in the open. It was a difficult decision, but it was one that would have to be made. Finally she thought that the thing to do would be to wait until the evening and then encourage Nyreem to do the best she could. Head in the grass, she settled down patiently to watch the insect world amid the sun and dew. She could perceive no purpose whatever in their clamberings among the grass blades. She herself lay so still that the blackbird, looking for something to eat, alighted beside her and pecked here and there for a while before fluttering on.

  It was a very long day. The only movement was that of the thin grass shadows and of the clouds passing above. Both were so smooth and regular that they did nothing to break the monotony. During the late afternoon the heat slowly lessened, and she dozed once more, becoming alert only when a pair of goldfinches alighted close by, stripped the seeds from the taller grasses and bobbed restlessly away.

  A few moments later she started up in alarm, raising her ears to listen tensely and looking one way and another with staring eyes. Some animal was coming through the grass, an animal fully as big as herself, if not bigger. It was downwind of her, and she could smell nothing; but she could see the disturbed grass moving in a steady progression toward her. Instinctively she crouched down, her back legs drawn up under her, ready to leap.

  The next thing she knew, the long grass parted and Bigwig appeared.

  "Bigwig!" cried Hyzenthlay, overcome with relief and feeling sure on the instant that all her problems were as good as solved. "Bigwig! Why ever are you here?"

  "Oh, well, I--er--I was just--er--having a bit of a stroll, you know," replied Bigwig in some embarrassment. "I--er--thought you might be somewhere about, sort of. How are you?" he said, turning to Nyreem. "Leg better now? Your Efrafan friends are all waiting for you and hoping you'll be back with them this evening. Just see what you can do with it, because I think it's time we were going."

  "Oh, I'm sure I'll be quite all right now, sir," answered Nyreem. "If we don't go too fast, I'm sure I'll manage very well, no danger."

  "Good!" said Bigwig. "Come on, then. I'll keep on one side of you and--er"--he choked slightly--"Hyzenthlayrah will keep on the other. You'll do fine."

  They set off slowly, Nyreem hobbling as best she could, determined not to complain. As near as she could guess, this must be none other than Thlayli, the renowned captain of the Watership Owsla, who had defeated the terrible General Woundwort in underground combat. She stole a sideways glance. Yes, it must be he. He was scarred all over, and on his head was the tuft of fur which had given him his name. Had he actually come out to look for her? Or, more likely, for Hyzenthlay, who was talking across her and telling Thlayli about the rat and the owl. Apparently they regarded looking after her as all in a day's work and simply part of their duty as officers. They regarded themselves as responsible for any Watership rabbit, however insignificant. So this was what it meant to be a Watership rabbit? Then and there, she resolved never to do anything that might forfeit her place in the warren.

  They arrived home a little before nightfall, to find Hazel and Silver pretending to be concluding a late silflay but in actuality watching out for them. Nyreem, almost too overawed to thank them, rejoined her Efrafan companions and told them about her adventure. Even Quiens seemed favorably impressed, and Nyreem could not help feeling that she had made quite a good start in the new warren.

  17

  Sandwort

  For they are impudent children and stiffhearted.

  EZEKIEL 2:4

  After two or three days, Nyreem's injured leg had completely recovered and she had settled into the warren as smoothly as any of the new arrivals from Efrafa; that is, until the time when she became an admirer of Sandwort's.

  Sandwort, a strongly built and self-willed young buck, was no more than a few months old when he began to attract criticism from several of the older rabbits.

  "You'd better keep an eye on that young Sandwort of yours," remarked Silver one day to his mother, a quiet, gentle doe named Melsa, a descendant of Clover, one of the rabbits from Nuthanger Farm. "He was plain insolent to me this morning; I had to cuff him over the head."

  "I can't do anything with him," replied Melsa. "He's got no respect for me, or for any other rabbit, come to that. The trouble is he's very big and strong for his age, and he's influenced quite a few of the younger rabbits to admire him and see him as a sort of leader."

  "Well, you'd better tell him to think a bit less of himself," said Silver, "if he doesn't want to get on the wrong side of Hazel-rah and Bigwig; or of me either, for that matter." He liked Melsa and on that account was content to leave it there, for the moment, anyway.

  It was Sandwort, however, who soon showed himself of no mind to leave it there. Before long, others among the veteran rabbits were complaining of his behavior. He had disregarded Holly, who had told him to get back out of sight in the long grass when men were coming up the Down. He had refused point-blank to obey Speedwell, a quiet and easygoing rabbit if ever there was one, when told one evening to take his scuffling companions out of the Honeycomb and find somewhere else to tussle and brawl. "We've got as much right to be here as you," he said; and Speedwell, faced by a small crowd of Sandwort's hangers-on, had felt it best to say no more and himself to leave the Honeycomb.

  In short, it soon became plain that Sandwort did not regard himself as subordi
nate to any rabbit in the warren. In such a free-and-easy society this was not particularly obtrusive until he began persuading other young rabbits, both male and female, to accompany him on expeditions beyond the warren and refusing to say where they were going or where they had been.

  "I don't have to tell you or any other rabbit where I've been," he replied one evening to Silver, who had met and questioned him returning with two or three others from what had evidently been a long and exhausting excursion. "I can go where I please and it's no one else's business."

  On this occasion, however, he put himself in a false position, since not only Silver but several of the older rabbits noticed that he had come back with one rabbit fewer than he had taken out.

  "Where's Crowla?" asked Silver, who earlier in the day had done his best to dissuade that young doe from accompanying Sandwort.

  "How should I know?" replied Sandwort. "I don't have to answer for every rabbit who takes a notion to go out of the warren at the same time that I do."

  "But wasn't she with you?" persisted Silver.

  "She may have been, for all I know."

  "Are you saying that you think it's nothing to do with you what may have happened to Crowla, who went out with you?"

  "As far as I'm concerned, any rabbit's free to come and go as she pleases," said Sandwort. "I dare say she may come back a bit later."

  However, Crowla did not come back, and after several days her friends were forced to conclude that she was not going to come back at all. Sandwort showed no particular concern and continued to say that whatever might have happened to her was nothing to do with him. It was at this point that Hazel felt obliged to take notice himself. That evening he tackled Sandwort at silflay on the Down.

  "Did you invite Crowla to join you on this expedition you made?" he asked.

  "No--sir," answered Sandwort, continuing to nibble the grass. "She asked me to let her come."

  "And you agreed that she could?"

  "I said she could please herself."

  "But all the same, you saw her among the others when you set out. You knew she was there. When did you first notice that she wasn't there?"

  "I can't remember. On the way back, I suppose."

  "And you say you didn't feel that was any business of yours?"

  "No, I didn't. I don't pick and choose which rabbits want to join me. That's their business, not mine."

  "Even in a case like this? An inexperienced doe a good deal younger than yourself?"

  "A lot of does are younger than myself."

  "Answer me properly," said Hazel angrily. "Did you or didn't you think she was any business of yours? Yes or no?"

  Sandwort paused. Finally he replied, "No, I didn't."

  "That's all I wanted to know," said Hazel. "Nyreem was with you, too, that day, wasn't she?"

  "Oh, I rather think she was."

  "A completely inexperienced young doe just arrived from Efrafa with an injured leg?"

  Sandwort made no reply.

  "You didn't feel concerned on her account either?"

  "No, not particularly."

  Hazel left him without another word.

  Later that evening, he talked the matter over with Fiver and Bigwig. "There's a nice young doe we've lost; one he led to her death. I liked Crowla. She was coming on very well. And he's quite likely to do it again, as far as I can see."

  "Why don't I drag him out and beat the daylights out of him?" asked Bigwig.

  "No," said Fiver. "That wouldn't really get us anywhere. That would only make him more of a rebel among his own friends. You see, strictly speaking, he hasn't done anything wrong. It's true enough that he can go out of the warren, go anywhere he likes; so can any rabbit, and if other rabbits choose to go at the same time, it's not his business to stop them. It's simply that no right-minded rabbit would act in such a way--particularly when one of his friends has gone missing as a result of going with him."

  "Well, he's got to be stopped from doing it again," said Bigwig.

  "The only way we could manage that," said Fiver, "would be to forbid him to leave the warren at all, except to silflay."

  "I'm not prepared to go that far," said Hazel. "It's a bit too much like Woundwort. We'll have to let him alone for the time being. But if anyone else fails to come back from going out with him, we shall have to do something."

  Sandwort's next objectionable act took place only a day or two later. It was not serious, like the loss of Crowla, but nevertheless it amounted to deliberate insolence. Silver and Blackavar had been to the foot of the Down on some activity of their own and as they set out to return found that they were being followed by Sandwort and three or four other young rabbits. Silver and Blackavar had come to a half-closed gap between some thick tussocks of grass and were pausing, hesitant whether to push through it or to go round, avoiding the tussocks altogether. At this moment, Sandwort came up to them from behind and said, "Are you going through here?" Neither Silver nor Blackavar gave him any immediate reply. "Well, I am, anyway," said Sandwort, pushed them aside and went past them into the gap, followed by the other rabbits, one or two of whom did not bother to conceal their amusement.

  Small incidents of this kind continued to occur, until it was plain that Sandwort was bringing them about deliberately whenever opportunity offered, usually in the presence of younger rabbits, who would gossip about them in the warren. On the only occasion when one of these led to blows, the older rabbit came off worse, Sandwort being strong and heavy. Another day, Holly overheard one of the youngsters talking about "Sandwort's Owsla." This, passed on to Bigwig, made him so angry that he had to be restrained from going to look for Sandwort then and there. "It wasn't him that said it," pointed out Hazel. "He'd only have a justified grievance against you and make all he could out of it afterward."

  Before the whole matter of Sandwort's behavior could come to a head, however, it was eclipsed by an entirely different kind of crisis. One morning, an hour or two after sunrise, two young rabbits, Crowfoot and Foxglove, both friends of Sandwort's, came dashing into the warren in a state of panic, asking to speak to Hazel immediately.

  "We were in the garden of the big house down the hill," said Crowfoot, "just the two of us and Sandwort. We were looking for flayrah, when all of a sudden this huge dog came dashing toward us, barking and growling. Sandwort immediately told us to separate, and we ran off in different directions as fast as we could. The dog didn't pursue us, so after a bit we came back to find Sandwort. And what's happened is that he's fallen into a kind of pit and can't get out."

  "A pit?" said Hazel. "What sort of a pit?"

  "It's a man-made pit," said Foxglove, "not quite so deep as a man's tall, and the sides are about the same length. The sides and the bottom are all perfectly smooth--smooth as a wall--not a foothold anywhere, and Sandwort's lying at the bottom."

  "Injured?"

  "We don't think so. We think he must have been running from the dog as fast as he could, like we were, and not looking where he was going, when he fell into the pit. There's hardly any water in it, and he's just lying there. He can't get out."

  "And the sides are smooth and straight up and down, you say?" asked Hazel. "Well, if he can't get out by himself, I shouldn't think we can get him out, but I'll go and see. Blackberry, you come with me, will you, and Fiver? No one else is to come. I don't want a whole crowd attracting the dog back."

  The three rabbits made their way to the foot of the Down, ran across the empty cornfield and the road, and went cautiously through the hedge into the big garden. It took them some time to find the pit of which Crowfoot had spoken. When at length they did, they could see nothing in the least likely to reassure them. The trench, about five feet by three and perhaps four feet in depth, was lined with smooth concrete. It had been dug out to serve the same purpose as a water butt. There were no steps down, but beside it lay a bucket attached to a rope. There were perhaps two or three inches of water in the bottom, and here Sandwort was lying on his side and holding up his head
to breathe. He did not see them.

  On the edge of the trench they were completely in the open, and as soon as they had taken in the discouraging situation, they went back under the cover of some nearby laurel bushes, where they conferred.

  "We'll never get him out of there," said Blackberry. "It can't be done."

  "Not with one of your brilliant schemes?" asked Hazel.

  "I'm afraid not. There's no scheme can get him out of there. If a man were to come for water, I suppose he'd take him out and probably kill him, but that's not likely, is it? There's very little water in there."

  "So he'll stay there and die?"

  "I'm afraid he will. And it'll take some time too."

  The three rabbits returned to the warren in low spirits. Hazel always hated the loss of any rabbit, but to know that Sandwort was beyond help and could only be left to die slowly was depressing in the extreme. The news had quickly run round the warren, and so many rabbits wanted to go and see Sandwort's plight for themselves that Hazel felt obliged to forbid any of them to go even as far as the Iron Tree at the foot of the Down.

  "So he'll just have to be left to die?" asked Tindra, one of the does who had been close to him. "It'll take a long time, won't it?"

  "I'm afraid it may," replied Hazel. "Three days, four days. I've never known anything like this before, and I simply can't tell."

  All that day and the next, the idea of Sandwort lying in the pit was never far from the rabbits' thoughts. Even those, like Silver and Bigwig, who had had good reason to dislike him would have helped him escape from his dreadful predicament if only they could.

  On the afternoon of the third day after the news had been brought to the warren, Tindra and Nyreem deliberately disobeyed Hazel, going furtively along the crest of the Down and then, after they had gone a considerable distance, to the foot. Young and inexperienced as they were, they became lost and wandered one way and another for some time before stumbling more or less by chance through the hedge and into the garden of the big house.

  It did not take them very long to come upon the pit. Sandwort, his eyes closed, was lying unmoving in the water. The flies were walking on his eyelids and ears, but every few seconds a minute release of bubbles showed that he was still breathing. Some sodden hraka lay by his tail.