The lanky hare sang a song to keep their spirits up.
‘Of all the creatures in the land,
The sea or in the air,
Not one of ’em is half so grand,
Or noble as a hare.
A hare can jump, a hare can run,
He don’t live down a hole,
In fact a hare’s a lot more fun,
Than almost any mole.
A hare’s courageous and so brave,
Good-mannered and quite courtly,
Sometimes he’s serious and grave,
But never fat, just portly.
He never puts a footpaw wrong,
His disposition’s sunny,
With ears so elegant and long,
Not stubby like a bunny.
So sing his praises everywhere,
This creature bold, with charm to spare,
The one thing better than a hare,
Is two hares, that’s a pair!’
Clecky helped himself to a piece of toasted cheese. ‘I’d take a bow, but I don’t want to rock the jolly old boat, wot?’
Grath nodded in mock admiration. ‘Yore far too modest for words, matey.’
The hare nodded agreement as he gobbled the cheese down. ‘Hmm, shy an’ retirin’ too, though it’s more a bally virtue than a fault to a chap like me, y’know.’
Grath snatched the last piece of cheese before Clecky could lay paw to it. ‘Well said, matey, yore just the shy retirin’ type we’ve been lookin’ for to keep first watch. Wake me in an hour’s time.’
The little craft with its outriggers sailed through the night towards the fogbank with Clecky’s mutterings echoing faintly across the still waters.
‘Hmph! Good job I’m polite an’ withdrawn too, not like these otter types, brash common wallahs. Still, what can one expect of a creature with funny little ears an’ a tail like a bally plank.’
The night was pitch black and wreathed in thick damp fog when Grath shook Martin to take third watch. ‘Come on, matey, time for yore watch. Here’s a beaker of oat’n’barley water I heated up on the fire. Wake Plogg for his watch when you’ve done yores.’
Martin thanked the otter and moved up into the bow of the longboat. Crouching, he snuggled into his cloak, sipping gratefully at the hot drink as he kept watch. However, it was only the damp bitter cold that kept him awake. All that was visible, even to the keenest eye, was a solid wall of whitish grey fog. How long he crouched there Martin did not know. Strange shapes loomed up out of the mists, only to vaporize and vanish. Martin knew they were all from his imagination; one after another the spectres appeared before his wearying eyes, dragons, great fish, corsair galleys, at one point he actually thought he saw Redwall Abbey. Shaking himself and rubbing his eyes, he tried hard to stay awake and keep a sense of normality in a world of wraithlike apparitions, swirling and roiling like patterns in watery milk. He watched as a towering mountain of ice loomed large directly in front of the longboat. Another trick his mind was playing on him, he thought, blinking furiously . . . Or was it?
Crrrrunch!
Suddenly the Warriormouse was wrenched to his senses by the danger.
‘All paws for’ard!’ Martin yelled.
Freezing icy seawater poured into the longboat; it sizzled and hissed as it drowned Clecky’s small fire. Grath grabbed Viola as she dived towards the bow to join Clecky and the two shrews. There was a tearing, rending noise followed by an agonized scream, which was cut short in a whoosh of water. Grath scrambled back along the cracking planks of the disintegrating longboat to investigate. She was immediately back, yelling, ‘Overboard, everybeast abandon the boat!’
Leaping over the side into the freezing water, they were amazed to find that it was no more than a thin stream. They found themselves standing paw-deep on top of solid ice. Only Grath could explain the phenomenon.
‘Where I come from on the far north coast, we heard tales of this from seals and sea otters. This is a floating mountain of ice, I think they called it an iceberg. From what I can see, our craft ran into a deep crack in the shallow edge of this iceberg. It crushed both the shrewboat outriggers – we jumped overboard as it struck the longboat. Bladeribb the searat didn’t stand a chance.’
Viola shuddered at the thought of the searat’s fate. ‘Crushed to death by an ice mountain. What a dreadful way to die.’
Grath put aside her bow and quiver, nodding grimly. ‘Don’t feel sorrow for that ’un, missie, his passin’ was quick an’ easy. Not like the innocent, creatures he slew for no reason. Right, wot’s the next move, Martin?’
The Warriormouse adjusted the sword belt across his shoulders. ‘We’d best go and see if we can salvage anything from the wreckage. Plogg and Welko, you stay here with Viola, it should be light soon. Grath, Clecky, come with me.’
The hare jumped from the ledge onto the watercovered ice shelf. Immediately he slipped, falling flat on his tail. ‘Tchah! I say, you chaps, this’s all a bit much, no boat, no grub, no fire and now a blinkin’ wet behind, wot!’
Grath slid across the ice, using her tail as a rudder. Reaching the edge, she called out happily, ‘Ahoy, there’s the logboat with the supplies in it! Come an’ lend a paw, mate!’
The shrew craft was floating just a short distance from where they stood, practically undamaged. Having the longest reach of the three, Clecky took Martin’s sword and, while they held him teetering on the edge of the ice floe, he leaned out and jabbed at the logboat, using the sword like a harpoon. There was a soft thunk as the sharp steel tip bit into wood. The hare drew the narrow craft slowly and carefully in, then Grath leaned out and grabbed the stern firmly.
‘Got it! What a stroke of luck. This logboat must have snapped off and shot backwards into the sea instead of being crushed. Here, Martin, hold on to my tail while I pull her up onto the ice.’
With a mighty heave the powerful otter lifted the stern clear of the water and slid the logboat up onto the ice. Martin sharpened a broken spar into a pointed stake, then dug a hole in the ice with his swordpoint. Clecky held the stake steady as Grath drove it tightly into the hole. They made the logboat fast to the stake by its headrope, then climbed aboard to take stock of the supplies.
Gradually the greyish fog changed to soft white with the advent of dawn. The silence was total; even the voices of the small crew sounded muffled and subdued by the heavy, all-pervading mist curtain. Using a canvas sail, the friends had rigged a tent from for’ard to aft on the logboat. Now, relatively snug, they sat watching Clecky. The hare had gathered wood from the wreckage, splitting it to find the driest pieces. Using a flint, he struck a spark against Martin’s sword blade onto a heap of splinters and torn sacking scraps from the supply wrappings.
A faint glow, accompanied by a wisp of smoke, had the hungry hare chortling happily. ‘Ohohoho, I say, pals, never mind the dangers an’ flippin’ perils besettin’ us, who’s for a good hot scoff, wot wot?’
Everybeast in the crew contributed their cooking skills, to make what for cold and famished creatures was an epic feast. Martin and Viola chopped carrots, mushrooms and any vegetables they could find among the packs, Clecky and Grath boiled water in an iron pot, adding herbs, dried watershrimp and hotroot. Plogg and Welko toasted shrewbread and warmed some damson wine.
Soon they were tucking into tasty bowls of soup, followed by hot shrewbread spread with cherry preserve and small beakers of damson wine, warm from the fire.
Welko patted his stomach. ‘Eat up, mates, there’s nought like good vittles to keep yore spirits high!’
‘Aye, make the best of it,’ Plogg responded, a little gloomily, ‘there’s little enough left. Over half our supplies were lost along with that searat in the other logboat. Dunno where the next good meal’s comin’ from.’
Viola leaned across and dabbed some cherry preserve onto the pessimistic shrew’s nose. ‘Thank you for those few cheery words, sir, you little fat misery! Aren’t you glad t’be alive?’
Welko tugged his brother’s ea
r heartily. ‘C’mon, smile, you sulky liddle toad, smile!’
Plogg pulled a long face, at which Martin burst out laughing. ‘If only your father could see you now. I vote, as captain of this craft, that if Plogg doesn’t start smiling and singing straight away, we toss him into the water and let him turn into an ice lump!’
There was a loud cry of agreement. Grath seized the shrew by his belt, winking at Clecky. ‘Good idea. I ain’t sittin’ in the same boat as a shrew with a gob on ’im like a flattened ferret!’
Immediately Plogg grinned from ear to ear and broke into song.
‘Oh, I’m ’appy as the day is long,
I’m cheery, merry, bright,
From early morn I sings me song,
Until last thing at night.
Chop off me paws, slice off me tail,
An’ my pore neck start wringin’,
You’ll never ’ear me cry or wail,
Because I’ll still be singin’!
Ooooo, flugga dugga dugga chugchugchug,
With a smile like a duck upon me mug!’
Plogg’s song was greeted by laughter and cheers, merriment that would have soon ceased had the friends known that keen dark eyes, scores of them, were watching through the mists as heavy damp forms slid wet and silent towards the little logboat lying on the broad watery ice ledge.
33
POWDER-BLUE AND cloudless, the morning hung hot and still over Redwall Abbey. Dewdrops evaporating from leaf and grass left orchard and lawn a soft summer green; trilling birdsong resounded from Mossflower Wood beyond the ancient sandstone walls. Summer was blossoming into long hot days and still-warm evenings.
Hogwife Teasel sat at breakfast between Auma and Tansy. She rapped the table impatiently with her ladle, glancing from one to the other as she remonstrated with them.
‘Sittin’ ’ere a frettin’ ain’t doin’ you a smidge o’ good. I tell you, Auma, those three Dibbuns will show up when they’ve a mind to, and those others will soon find Viola; we can be sure of that. An’ as for you, missie Tansy, great seasons, just lookit yoreself, a mopin’ an’ a floppin’ about like a fish on a bank, what ’elp is that to anybeast?
‘Now you lissen t’me, friends, this Abbey’ll be searched from attic to orchard today an’ those three babes will be found and that’s an end to it! Now I needs somebeast t’lend a paw sortin’ through the fruit an’ veggies from the spring crop. Seein’ as I don’t ’ave Abbot Durral to ’elp me, I’ll need you, Mother Auma,
‘Tansy, take yore liddle friends an’ old Rollo and get searchin’ – lands sakes, we may need those pearls to get our Abbot back! Leave the Dibbun searchin’ to Brother Dormal, Skipper an’ Sister Cicely – they’ve got every Abbeybeast organized for a day-long Dibbun hunt.’
The badger pushed away her half-empty platter and gave a huge sigh. Smiling, she patted Teasel’s workworn paw. ‘Right! Lead me to those fruit and vegetables. Tansy, you heard our good hogwife, back to your search, miss!’
Piknim, Craklyn and Rollo were trying to pry Gerul loose from the breakfast table. The greedy owl was hurriedly stuffing the last of a batch of bilberry scones into his beak and washing them down with cold mint tea.
‘Arr now, don’t be rushin’ me, y’dreadful creatures, or I’ll get indigestions in me ould stummick an’ I won’t be able to think.’
Tansy folded the scones into a serviette and gave them to him. ‘Here, faminebeak, take these with you. Who ever heard of an owl thinking with his stomach?’
Gerul hopped ahead of them to the attics, still protesting. ‘Any sensible owl thinks with his stummick, shows how much you know, miss spike’ead. Me ould mother always used t’say t’me that my head was so full of nonsense that I’d have t’think with me stummick an’ that way if I fell on me head I wouldn’t hurt me brain. So y’see I’ve got to have plenty o’ packin’ round me stummick to protect it in case I need t’do some serious thinkin’.’
When they reached Fermald’s attic, Gerul took the house martin’s empty nest and placed a glittering fragment of crystal in it.
‘Here now, Craklyn, yore young’n’ spry, attach this nest to the fishin’ rod and place it back down on that ledge where y’found it.’
As the squirrelmaid carried out Gerul’s instructions, Rollo realized what the owl’s plan was.
‘Oh, I see. Now we wait for the jackdaw to return and steal the piece of crystal, then we follow it. Good idea!’
Gerul perched on the armchair and unwrapped his scones. ‘Aye, I’m not just feathers an’ a beak, y’know, us owls are supposed t’be very wise. Now, Tansy, you take Piknim an’ Craklyn, stay below on the south walltop an’ watch the nest from there. When y’see the ould jackdaw, you’ll have to move sharp-like t’keep up with ’im, ’cos y’don’t want to lose the bird, do yer? Now hurry along, young misses. Me an’ Rollo will watch from up here.’
About mid-morning Friar Higgle Stump came waddling along the walltop with a laden sack upon his back. He stopped by the three Abbeymaids and nodded to them. ‘Good day t’you, misses, ain’t you joinin’ the search for those missin’ Dibbuns?’
Still staring up at the nest on the high ledge of the Abbey building, Piknim shook her head. ‘Oh, g’day, Friar, no, we’re not searching.’
Higgle set the heavy sack down. ‘Hmm, I see. So what are you doin’, pray tell – watchin’ our Abbey t’see if it grows any taller?’
Without taking her eyes from the nest, Tansy replied, ‘No, we’re just watching that house martin’s nest, Friar.’
Higgle nodded understandingly. ‘Oh, I see. Good hobby, nest-watchin’. Per’aps you’d like to shell these chestnuts, they’re good’n’dry enough for shellin’ right now.’
Craklyn looked at the Friar, taking her eyes from the nest momentarily. ‘Tch! Do we have to?’ she said.
Higgle nodded, smiling affably at the squirrelmaid. ‘Aye, ’fraid y’do, miss, that’s if y’want strawberry flan an’ meadowcream for lunch, no work no food, can’t ’ave idle paws around Redwall an’ chestnuts don’t shell themselves, y’know.’
Automatically the three friends began shelling nuts, still gazing upward at the nest as they talked.
“Tain’t fair, we’re already doing one job, watching the nest.’
‘Hmm, now we’re doing two jobs, watching and shelling.’
‘Maybe if we waggled our tails a bit we could sweep the walltop, then we’d be doing three jobs.’
‘Aye, and who knows, if we started singing a song together that’d keep those down below happy, and that’d be four jobs we’d be doing.’
‘But just think, if Sister Cicely saw us, watching the nest, shelling nuts, sweeping the walltop with our tails and singing, you know what would happen, don’t you?’
‘Yes, she’d think there was something dreadfully wrong with us and she’d put us to bed in sick bay and feed us warm nettle broth.’
‘Groooogh! Let’s just stick to two jobs.’
Rising to its noontide zenith, the high summer sun shone down on the three Abbeymaids sitting on the walltop.
The same sun also shone on three tiny Dibbuns trundling far in the depths of Mossflower. Not surprisingly, they had stayed awake half the night, wrapping themselves in the blanket they intended making into a tent. They had kept up their courage by eating all their supplies three hours before dawn. Now they staggered on, pawsore and weary, completely lost and dispirited. Arven, the leader, was the only one of the trio who had been outside in the woods before. The other two followed him, complaining.
‘Yurr, h’Arven, do ee knows whurr you’m a takin’ us’ns?’
‘Course a knows, we goin’ to de Abbey, it not far now.’
‘Gurr, you’m said that when ee dawn breaked. We’m still wan’erin’ round tho’, oi’m a thinken us’ns be losted.’
Arven took a swipe at a tall nettle with his stick. ‘Losted? Don’ be silly, I don’t get losted. But I orful ’ungry, you’m scoffed all our cake, Diggum greedytummy.’
Gurrb
owl sat down, curling into a ball on the woodland floor. ‘Hoooaw! Oi be turrible sleepery.’
Diggum joined him, covering her snout with her apron. ‘An’ oi too, may’ap ee likkle rest do’s oi gudd.’
Arven sat down by the two molebabes, brandishing his stick. ‘Aaah, you two be’s on’y h’infants. I stay ‘wake an’ keep guards.’
A short time later all three were curled on the ground, snoring uproariously in the windless sunwarmed woodlands. Without knowing, Arven had led them north and in a curve to the west, and now they were not far from the main path leading to Redwall. Somewhere nearby a songthrush trilled melodiously, his music mingling with that of a descending skylark out on the open flatlands, where grasshoppers chirruped endlessly in a dry chorus. But none of this disturbed the deep slumbers of the exhausted Dibbuns. They slept on, snouts twitching and paws quivering occasionally as they dreamt small dreams.
34
GERUL HAD PLACED the crystal so that it could be seen through the nest opening. Late noon sunlight glinted off the fragment, sending out pale green and soft golden facets of twinkling light. Scruvo the jackdaw saw it immediately. Ever on the alert for bright objects, the bird had been ranging far and wide after taking a midday repast of grubs and woodlice from a rotting log he had found in a woodland clearing. Scruvo wheeled in mid-air, his needlesharp eyes watching the iridescence of the crystal shard as he performed a neat loop in his flight west. Soaring gracefully downwards, he spread dark-feathered wings wide and stuck his talons forward, beating the air back as he landed on the ledge. He cocked his head to one side, squinting with one eye at the treasure. Bright, shiny, twinkling. He hopped towards it and gave a harsh cry of delight.
‘Tchak! Keeyaaa!’
He struck the crystal with his beakpoint as if attacking a living thing. It did not move or fight back, so he struck it several more times to assure himself it was harmless. Quite satisfied, the jackdaw did a curious hopskip shuffle, his victory dance, then he plucked the piece of crystal from the nest and flung himself from the ledge. Down he spiralled crazily, like a dark torn scrap of cloth buffeted by breezes, then, levelling out, he winged strongly upward and shot off southeast into Mossflower.