'What has a white back, Silver?' whispered Bigwig.
Silver considered. 'A cat?'
'No cats here.'
'How do you know?'
At that moment they both heard a low, breathy hissing from the hollow. It lasted for a few moments. Then there was silence once more.
Bigwig and Silver had a good opinion of themselves. Apart from Holly, they were the only survivors of the Sandleford Owsla and they knew that their comrades looked up to them. The encounter with the rats in the barn had been no joke and had proved their worth. Bigwig, who was generous and honest, had never for a moment resented Hazel's courage on the night when his own superstitious fear had got the better of him. But the idea of going back to the Honeycomb and reporting that he had glimpsed an unknown creature in the grass and left it alone was more than he could swallow. He turned his head and looked at Silver. Seeing that he was game, he took a final look at the strange, white back and then went straight up to the edge of the hollow. Silver followed.
It was no cat. The creature in the hollow was a bird - a big bird, nearly a foot long. Neither of them had ever seen a bird like it before. The white part of its back, which they had glimpsed through the grass, was in fact only the shoulders and neck. The lower back was light grey and so were the wings, which tapered to long, black-tipped primaries folded together over the tail. The head was very dark brown - almost black - in such sharp contrast to the white neck that the bird looked as though it were wearing a kind of hood. The one dark-red leg that they could see ended in a webbed foot and three powerful, taloned toes. The beak, hooked slightly downwards at the end, was strong and sharp. As they stared it opened, disclosing a red mouth and throat. The bird hissed savagely and tried to strike, but still it did not move.
'It's hurt,' said Bigwig.
'Yes, you can tell that,' replied Silver. 'But it's not wounded anywhere that I can see. I'll go round -'
'Look out!' said Bigwig. 'He'll have you!'
Silver, as he started to move round the hollow, had come closer to the bird's head. He jumped back just in time to avoid a quick, darting blow of the beak.
'That would have broken your foot,' said Bigwig.
As they squatted, looking at the bird - for they both sensed intuitively that it would not rise - it suddenly burst into loud, raucous cries - 'Yark! Yark! Yark!' - a tremendous sound at close quarters - that split the morning and carried far across the down. Bigwig and Silver turned and ran.
They collected themselves sufficiently to pull up short of the wood and make a more dignified approach to the bank. Hazel came to meet them in the grass. There was no mistaking their wide eyes and dilated nostrils.
'Elil?' asked Hazel.
'Well, I'm blest if I know, to tell you the truth,' replied Bigwig. 'There's a great bird out there, like nothing I've ever seen.'
'How big? As big as a pheasant?'
'Not quite so big,' admitted Bigwig, 'but bigger than a wood-pigeon: and a lot fiercer.'
'Is that what cried?'
'Yes. It startled me all right. We were actually beside it. But for some reason or other it can't move.'
'Dying?'
'I don't think so.'
'I'll go and have a look at it,' said Hazel.
'It's savage. For goodness' sake be careful.'
Bigwig and Silver returned with Hazel. The three of them squatted outside the bird's reach as it looked sharply and desperately from one to the other. Hazel spoke in the hedgerow patois.
'You hurt? You no fly?'
The answer was a harsh gabbling which they all felt immediately to be exotic. Wherever the bird came from, it was somewhere far away. The accent was strange and guttural, the speech distorted. They could catch only a word here and there.
'Come keel - kah! kah! - you come keel - yark! - t'ink me finish - me no finish - 'urt you dam' plenty -' The dark brown head flickered from side to side. Then, unexpectedly, the bird began to drive its beak into the ground. They noticed for the first time that the grass in front of it was torn and scored with lines. For some moments it stabbed here and there; then gave up, lifted its head and watched them again.
'I believe it's starving,' said Hazel. 'We'd better feed it. Bigwig, go and get some worms or something, there's a good fellow.'
'Er - what did you say, Hazel?'
'Worms.'
'Me dig for worms?'
'Didn't the Owsla teach - oh, all right, I'll do it,' said Hazel. 'You and Silver wait here.'
After a few moments, however, Bigwig followed Hazel back to the ditch and began to join him in scratching at the dry ground. Worms are not plentiful on the downs and there had been no rain for days. After a time Bigwig looked up.
'What about beetles? Woodlice? Something like that?'
They found some rotten sticks and carried them back. Hazel pushed one forward cautiously.
'Insects.'
The bird split the stick three ways in as many seconds and snapped up the few insects inside. Soon there was a small pile of debris in the hollow as the rabbits-brought anything from which it could get food. Bigwig found some horse-dung along the track, dug the worms out of it, overcame his disgust and carried them one by one. When Hazel praised him, he muttered something about 'the first time any rabbit's done this and don't tell the blackbirds'. At last, long after they had all grown weary, the bird stopped feeding and looked at Hazel.
'Finish eat.' It paused. 'Vat for you do?'
'You hurt?' said Hazel.
The bird looked crafty. 'No hurt. Plenty fight. Stay small time, den go.'
'You stay there you finish,' said Hazel. 'Bad place. Come homba, come kestrel.'
'Damn de lot. Fight plenty.'
'I bet it would, too,' said Bigwig, looking with admiration at the two-inch beak and thick neck.
'We no want you finish,' said Hazel. 'You stay here you finish. We help you maybe.'
'Piss off!'
'Come on,' said Hazel immediately to the others. 'Let it alone.' He began to lollop back to the wood.' Let it try keeping the kestrels off for a bit.'
'What's the idea, Hazel?' said Silver. 'That's a savage brute. You can't make a friend out of that.'
'You may be right,' said Hazel. 'But what's the good of a blue-tit or a robin to us? They don't fly any distance. We need a big bird.'
'But why do you want a bird so particularly?'
'I'll explain later,' said Hazek 'I'd like Blackberry and Fiver to hear as well. But let's go underground now. If you don't want to chew pellets, I do.'
During the afternoon Hazel organized more work on the warren. The Honeycomb was as good as finished - though rabbits are not methodical and are never really certain when anything is finished - and the surrounding burrows and runs were taking shape. Quite early in the evening, however, he made his way once more to the hollow. The bird was still there. It looked weaker and less alert, but snapped feebly as Hazel came up.
'Still here?' said Hazel. 'You fight hawk?'
'No fight,' answered the bird. 'No fight, but vatch, vatch, alvays vatch. Ees no good.'
'Hungry?'
The bird made no reply.
'Listen,' said Hazel. 'Rabbits not eat birds. Rabbits eat grass. We help you.'
'Vat for 'elp me?'
'Never mind. We make you safe. Big hole. Food too.'
The bird considered. 'Legs fine. Ving no good. 'E bad.'
'Well, walk then.'
'You 'urt me, I 'urt you like dam'.'
Hazel turned away. The bird spoke again.
'Ees long vay?'
'No, not far.'
'Come den.'
It got up with a good deal of difficulty, staggering on its strong, blood-red legs. Then it opened its wings high above its body and Hazel jumped back, startled by the great, arching span. But at once it closed them again, grimacing with pain.
'Ving no good. I come.'
It followed Hazel docilely enough across the grass, but he was careful to keep out of its reach. Their arrival outside the
wood caused something of a sensation, which Hazel cut short with a peremptory sharpness quite unlike his usual manner.
'Come on, get busy,' he said to Dandelion and Buckthorn. 'This bird's hurt and we're going to shelter it until it's better. Ask Bigwig to show you how to get it some food. It eats worms and insects. Try grasshoppers, spiders - anything. Hawkbit! Acorn! Yes, and you too, Fiver - come out of that rapt trance, or whatever you're in. We need an open, wide hole, broader than it's deep, with a flat floor a little below the level of the entrance: by nightfall.'
'We've been digging all the afternoon, Hazel -'
'I know. I'll come and help you,' said Hazel, 'in just a little while. Only get started. The night's coming.'
The astonished rabbits obeyed him, grumbling. Hazel's authority was put to something of a test, but held firm with the support of Bigwig. Although he had no idea what Hazel had in mind, Bigwig was fascinated by the strength and courage of the bird and had already accepted the idea of taking it in, without troubling himself about the reason. He led the digging while Hazel explained to the bird, as well as he could, how they lived, their ways of protecting themselves from their enemies and the kind of shelter they could provide. The amount of food the rabbits produced was not very large, but once inside the wood the bird clearly felt safer and was able to hobble about and do some foraging for itself.
By owl-time Bigwig and his helpers had scratched out a kind of lobby inside the entrance to one of the runs leading down from the wood. They lined the floor with beech twigs and leaves. As darkness began to fall the bird was installed. It was still suspicious, but seemed to be in a good deal of pain. Evidently, since it could not think of any better plan for itself, it was ready to try a rabbit hole to save its life. From outside, they could see its dark head alert in the gloom, the black eyes still watchful. It was not asleep when they themselves finished a late silflay and went underground.
Black-headed gulls are gregarious. They live in colonies where they forage and feed, chatter and fight all day long. Solitude and reticence are unnatural to them. They move southwards in the breeding-season and at such times a wounded one is only too likely to find itself deserted. The gull's savagery and suspicion had been due partly to pain and partly to the unnerving knowledge that it had no companions and could not fly. By the following morning its natural instincts to mix with a flock and to talk were beginning to return. Bigwig made himself its companion. He would not hear of the gull going out to forage. Before ni-Frith the rabbits had managed to produce as much as it could eat - for a time at all events - and were able to sleep through the heat of the day. Bigwig, however, remained with the gull, making no secret of his admiration, talking and listening to it for several hours. At the evening feed he joined Hazel and Holly near the bank where Bluebell had told his story of El-ahrairah.
'How's the bird now?' asked Hazel.
'A good deal better, I think,' replied Bigwig. 'He's very tough, you know. My goodness, what a life he's had! You don't know what you're missing! I could sit and listen to him all day.'
'How was it hurt?'
'A cat jumped on him in a farmyard. He never heard it until the last moment. It tore the muscle of one of his wings, but apparently he gave it something to remember before he made off. Then he got himself up here somehow or other and just collapsed. Think of standing up to a cat! I can see now that I haven't really started yet. Why shouldn't a rabbit stand up to a cat? Let's just suppose that -'
'But what is this bird?' interrupted Holly.
'Well, I can't quite make out,' answered Bigwig. 'But if I understand him properly - and I'm not at all sure that I do - he says that where he comes from there are thousands of his kind - more than we can possibly imagine. Their flocks make the whole air white and in the breeding season their nests are like leaves in a wood - so he says.'
'But where? I've never seen one, even.'
'He says,' said Bigwig, looking very straight at Holly,'he says that a long way from here the earth stops and there isn't any more.'
'Well, obviously it stops somewhere. What is there beyond?'
'Water.'
'A river, you mean?'
'No,' said Bigwig, 'not a river. He says there's a vast place of water, going on and on. You can't see to the other side. There isn't another side. At least there is, because he's been there. Oh, I don't know - I must admit I can't altogether understand it.'
'Was it telling you that it's been outside the world and come back again? That must be untrue.'
'I don't know,' said Bigwig, 'but I'm sure he's not lying. This water, apparently, moves all the time and keeps breaking against the earth: and when he can't hear that, he misses it. That's his name - Kehaar. It's the noise the water makes.'
The others were impressed in spite of themselves.
'Well, why's it here?' asked Hazel.
'He shouldn't be. He ought to have been off to this Big Water place a long time ago, to breed. Apparently a lot of them come away in winter, because it gets so cold and wild. Then they go back in summer. But he's been hurt once already this spring. It was nothing much, but it held him up. He rested and hung around a rookery for a bit. Then he got stronger and left them, and he was coming along when he stopped in the farmyard and met this foul cat.'
'So when it's better it'll go on again?' said Hazel.
'Yes.'
'We've been wasting our time, then.'
'Why, Hazel, what is it you have in mind?'
'Go and get Blackberry and Fiver: we'd better have Silver too. Then I'll explain.'
The quiet of the evening silflay, when the western sun shone straight along the ridge, the grass tussocks threw shadows twice as long as themselves and the cool air smelt of thyme and dog roses, was something which they had all come to enjoy even more than former evenings in the meadows of Sandleford. Although they could not know it, the down was more lonely than it had been for hundreds of years. There were no sheep, and villagers from Kingsclere and Sydmonton no longer had any occasion to walk over the hills, either for business or for pleasure. In the fields of Sandleford the rabbits had seen men almost every day. Here, since their arrival, they had seen one and him on a horse. Looking round the little group that gathered on the grass, Hazel saw that all of them - even Holly - were looking stronger, sleeker and in better shape than when they had first come to the down. Whatever might lie ahead, at least he could feel that he had not failed them so far.
'We're doing well here,' he began, 'or so it seems to me. We're certainly not a bunch of hlessil any more. But all the same, there's something on my mind. I'm surprised, as a matter of fact, that I should be the first one of us to start thinking about it. Unless we can find the answer, then this warren's as good as finished, in spite of all we've done.'
'Why, how can that be, Hazel?' said Bigwig.
'Do you remember Nildro-hain?' asked Hazel.
'She stopped running. Poor Strawberry.'
'I know. And we have no does - not one - and no does means no kittens and in a few years no warren.'
It may seem incredible that the rabbits had given no thought to so vital a matter. But men have made the same mistake more than once - left the whole business out of account, or been content to trust to luck and the fortune of war. Rabbits live close to death and when death comes closer than usual, thinking about survival leaves little room for anything else. But now, in the evening sunshine on the friendly, empty down, with a good burrow at his back and the grass turning to pellets in his belly, Hazel knew that he was lonely for a doe. The others were silent and he could tell that his words had sunk in.
The rabbits grazed or lay basking in the sun. A lark went twittering up into the brighter sunshine above, soared and sang and came slowly down, ending with a sideways, spread-wing glide and a wagtail's run through the grass. The sun dipped lower. At last Blackberry said, 'What's to be done? Set out again?'
'I hope not,' said Hazel. 'It all depends. What I'd like to do is get hold of some does and bring them here.'
'Where from?'
'Another warren.'
'But are there any on these hills? How do we find out? The wind never brings the least smell of rabbits.'
'I'll tell you how,' said Hazel. 'The bird. The bird will go and search for us.'
'Hazel-rah,' cried Blackberry, 'what a marvellous idea! That bird could find out in a day what we couldn't discover for ourselves in a thousand! But are you certain it can be persuaded to do it? Surely as soon as it gets better, it'll simply fly away and leave us?'
'I can't tell,' answered Hazel. 'All we can do is feed it and hope for the best. But Bigwig, since you seem to be getting on with it so well, perhaps you can explain to it how much this means to us. It has only to fly over the downs and let us know what it sees.'
'You leave him to me,' said Bigwig. 'I think I know how to do it.'
Hazel's anxiety and the reason for it were soon known to all the rabbits and there was not one who did not realize what they were up against. There was nothing very startling in what he had said. He was simply the one - as a Chief Rabbit ought to be - through whom a strong feeling, latent throughout the warren, had come to the surface. But his plan to make use of the gull excited everyone and was seen as something that not even Blackberry could have hit upon. Reconnaissance is familiar to all rabbits - indeed it is second nature - but the idea of making use of a bird, and one so strange and savage, convinced them that Hazel, if he could really do it, must be as clever as El-ahrairah himself.
For the next few days a lot of hard work went into feeding Kehaar. Acorn and Pipkin, boasting that they were the best insect-catchers in the warren, brought in great numbers of beetles and grasshoppers. At first the gull's principal hardship was lack of water. He suffered a good deal and was reduced to tearing at the stems of the long grasses for moisture. However, during his third night in the warren it rained for three or four hours and puddles formed on the track. A cluttery spell set in, as it often does in Hampshire when hay-time approaches. High winds from the south laid the grass flat all day, turning it to a dull, damascene silver. The great branches of the beeches moved little but spoke loudly. There were squalls of rain on the wind. The weather made Kehaar restless. He walked about a good deal, watched the flying clouds and snapped up everything the foragers brought. Searching became harder, for in the wet the insects burrowed into the deep grass and had to be scratched out.