Текст книги "Quest for the Faradawn"

Автор книги: Richard Ford

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

CHAPTER XIV

They did not rush to get back to the wood. Instead it was a slow and lingering amble under the stars which seemed to last for ever for they felt that the night was full of magic and had been made especially for them. There was little wind; instead the air was still and the moon shone down out of a night sky that was of such a deep blue that it was almost black. It reflected up from the white fields so that if it had not been for the shadows under the hedges and trees which showed up darkly against the snow and stood like silent watchers of the night, everywhere would have been as bright as day. The sorrow that Beth had felt at leaving home began to evaporate as she lost herself in a world that was as new to her as if she had just been born. She had been out at night before into the fields but somehow she felt as if her eyes must have been closed for it had never seemed like this. Before, she had been on the other side; now she was on this side, their side, the side of the badger and the owl and all the other creatures of the wild. Instead of being an observer, she was now a participant looking at their world from within. For Nab, seeing the wonder and joy in her eyes as she looked around at the night, it was as if he himself was seeing everything anew and her happiness became his. Every so often they would stop and the girl would bend down to stroke Brock and bury her face against his neck the way that he loved. Then she would hold his head and look straight into the badger’s eyes and talk to him in her strange language with a voice that was full of music and gentleness. Afterwards she would stand up and look at Warrigal as he perched on a branch and the owl would stare back at her with his great round eyes for a long time without blinking and then he would emit a very low hoot as if to tell her his pleasure that she was with them. She would smile at him and lift her hand up to his head to stroke it carefully and gently so that the lids closed over his eyes for such a long time that Brock and Nab would think he had fallen asleep. Thus it was that she captured their hearts as she had Nab’s so that soon she was to them almost as Nab and they did not see her as an Urkku, for this is the way of the Eldron.

At other times on the walk back to the wood they would have fun racing one another to a gate or a tree or a hedge and when they got there they would be laughing for joy; Warrigal, of course, always won, and Nab would have come next but with an instinctive sense of good manners he always let the girl beat him. Brock however was not so polite and would do his utmost to beat her, sometimes running under her legs so that they both toppled over on to the snow; she laughing and he uttering little barks and yelps of amusement.

Beth also taught Nab the joys of snowball fighting. He had been walking slightly ahead of her and when suddenly he realized she was not by his side and turned around to find her, an icy cold lump of snow hit him on the chest. Then when she bent down to scoop up another handful he copied her and with some delight hit her squarely on the shoulder only to find he had been hit on the neck again and the cold snow was beginning to creep down inside his garments. From then on they had a running battle until their hands grew cold. Then Nab copied her again as she cupped them around her mouth and breathed very hard on them and found to his surprise that this warmed them. There was so much he would learn from her, he thought, his curiosity at the ways of the Urkku awakened, but first he would have to try to learn to speak her language. He looked at her and smiled and his heart lifted again for joy when she smiled back.

So lost were they all in the happiness of that walk that they did not realize how far they had come until suddenly they were by the gate near the pond and with a thrill of anticipation saw in the distance the tops of the trees of Silver Wood. The thought of home put a new lightness and urgency into their step and they were soon going under the fence into the flat field at the front of the wood. It was at that point that they first began to realize that something was wrong. The wood was too quiet; not a sound was to be heard and not a movement was to be seen, neither the hooting of Wythen nor the scurrying of rabbits around the front of the wood as they played and ate as they always did in the evening. But it was not just the absence of any signs of life that caused the hearts of the animals to start beating faster; the appearance of the wood seemed different as well. Even at this distance they would normally have been able to make out the large looming shapes of the belts of rhododendron and the familiar sight of the Old Beech standing at the centre of the front of the wood, but with a growing sense of panic and horror they could not find them. The nearer they got the more they lost their bearings so that they did not know which part of the wood to make for. They were running now, fast, blindly, and the silver moonlight which had before seemed magical now shone down coldly and cruelly to expose the dreadful sight before them. Now they were at the old fence which surrounded the wood and before them they could clearly see the remains of their home. With the blood pounding in their ears and their stomachs heavy and knotted with the sickness of despair they looked at the tracks left by the tractors in the soft ground as they had pulled the rhododendrons up and left them in a pile on one side, and they saw the stumps of the trees where the saws had cut through them sending them crashing down to the ground where the ones that had not yet been sawn remained lying uselessly amongst the debris which had once been the floor of the wood. Not all the trees had been felled yet; the men had started at the front and were working back so that the trees they had seen in the distance were those which had been in the back part of the wood beyond the little stream. Everywhere the smell of the Urkku lingered on the air; the fumes from the tractors and the cloying smell of cigarettes, and pieces of paper littered the ground, either frozen to the earth or floating on the gusts of wind that blew across from the hills in the distance. And then Nab saw the first of the familiar red tubes which he dreaded; cartridges were strewn everywhere and as the animals picked their way over the great ruts left by the diggers they found dark streaks of blood on the black earth and tufts of hair and fur lying on the floor.

Slowly now, for they were numb with horror, they walked amongst the mess that had been their home. When an area had been cleared of trees the diggers had moved in to grub up the bracken and any remaining shrubs or saplings and in these areas there was no trace left of the wood for them to recognize, just a churned up expanse of muddy earth, but where this had not yet been done they could just about get their bearings and so eventually they came to the Old Beech, lying half sawn up on the earth. The freshly cut flat top of the stump was a very light pink colour and showed up clearly in the moonlight. They stood staring at it for a long while, unable to believe their eyes. Beth stood behind them, realizing that the wood had been their home and understanding their grief at what had happened. She herself had often looked at the wood from afar and thought how beautiful it was, and when she had heard in the village that it was to be cleared she had felt deeply sad for the animals that lived there.

Brock, Nab and Warrigal looked at the entrance to the sett, open now and exposed for all to see and the thought of Tara drove itself through the numbness of their minds until finally Brock slowly dragged himself across the unfamiliar ground at the front of the sett, scarred and cut by the tractor that had pulled at Nab’s rhododendron bush. He was just about to go down the hole when a movement caught his eye amongst the heap of bushes piled up just beyond the sett. The others had also seen it and they looked round as Sam slowly emerged from cover. His head was bent low and his tail was tucked round under his back legs so that as he walked he appeared to be hunched up. His tan coat, which normally shone with life, was now all matted with mud and the front of his shoulder on the right was covered in a dark red cake of dried blood. There was also a graze across his nose which showed up as a red stripe running from the black tip and ending up on his forehead in a deep gash. He limped heavily towards them without even raising his head, stopping when he got to where Brock was standing. Warrigal and Nab went forward but Beth stayed where she was, shocked by the transformation of this night from one of the greatest joy to the misery she now saw before I her.

Sam’s voice was low and unsteady as he spoke and the others edged closer to catch what he was saying.

‘They came soon after you’d gone,’ he said. ‘First with the guns; hundreds of them, killing everything that moved. It was terrible; the cries of the wounded as they tried to escape, and the noise; hundreds of explosions, deafening until I couldn’t think. Everywhere there was terror, panic, blood, the smell of death, the smell of their guns. No one could escape; they were all around the wood; beaters at one end and guns at the other. Rabbits with their legs blown off twitching, bleeding into the snow, pheasants thudding down like rain. The smell of blood.’ He stopped, unable to continue – the nightmare was more than he could recount. Finally, after a silence which no one broke, he went on.

‘Then when the guns had gone they came with the long white tube; round all the holes, earths, setts, warrens. And the silence that hung over everything was broken only by the muffled cries and thumpings underground. Finally they came with the machines and began to tear up the wood. All day, clanking, grinding and banging and shouting. I got out of your bush just before they dragged it away, Nab; it’s over there somewhere amongst that heap.’

There was another silence and then Brock said quietly, ‘Tara?’

Sam looked up for the first time and the misery in his deep brown eyes told Brock the worst. He turned away slowly and walked off into the field. Nab followed him and they both walked until they got to the fence at the far side, when they stopped and began to walk back. There was nothing to say; grief burned in both of them, and the shock of the final loss which death brings held them in a state of trance. As if in a dream they walked unbelievingly up and down the field trying to grasp the fact that she had gone and that they would never see her again. Pictures of her flashed into their minds but when they tried to focus on one and keep it there it began to fade away. Memories flooded back; for Brock the early days, setting up home, having the cubs, life with Bruin, the way she would scold him after one of his escapades, the warmth of the love in her eyes. And then the arrival of Nab, the excitements and anticipation of those first days; the joy in her face when she suckled him, the laying out of the fresh beds of meadowsweet that first night. Nab thought of winter evenings with her in the sett when he was young, snuggled warm into her deep soft fur, and summer evenings when they would sit together outside the sett under the Great Beech and talk while the pigeons cooed and Brock was out foraging. Then, when he was older, the warmth and understanding of pure love which was always there whenever he was worried or had a problem. Now she was gone and it was as if the sun had gone for ever and there would be no more summers. He thought he had got used to coping with sudden and violent death after losing Rufus and Bruin but, he realized now, it was impossible to ever get used to that sickening sense of absolute loss that burns through every part of the body at the death of someone you love. Tears misted his eyes as he tried to focus on the ground while they walked together, he and Brock, up and down the field. They would never see her again; the thought churned itself around in their minds, over and over until it became a mere form of words, and then suddenly the sense of loss would surge back to hit them physically in the stomach and a wave of grief would once again engulf them, forcing burning tears down Nab’s face and sending him once more into sobbing convulsions of despair which hurt his throat and turned his stomach sour.

They walked like that for a long time while the others watched them, miserable and lost, from the mess that had been the wood. Finally when the sense of unreality and the shock of death had given way to anger, the boy and the badger came slowly back to join their friends. Gone now from their eyes was despair and in its place the others could see a towering rage. Hatred emanated from them like heat from a fire; hatred for the obscenity of what had been done to their home and hatred for the revolting death of Tara. Brock was unable to go down and see her for when he put his nose into the entrance the gases flung him back coughing and choking; and this was the final indignity, that she should be down there twisted and broken and alone. He imagined her lying amongst the meadowsweet, strewn around in panic as she fought for breath, with her lips drawn back against her teeth in that hideous half-smile, half-snarl that is the mark of death by poison. At that moment the words of Wychnor came back to him, ‘. and Dréagg planted the seed of cruelty deep within the Urkku so that they were cruel in their ways towards the animals, for Man had been made as an instrument of revenge.’ Nab also thought of these words and they were a help in that at least now they knew the reason for their suffering.

They stood by the stump of the Great Beech for a long time, huddled together in the cold, lost in misery and not knowing what to do. Then they heard a noise in the field and looking up saw an animal moving slowly towards them in the moonlight. It was Perryfoot. As he got closer they could see that he, like Sam, had been wounded. He dragged his back leg behind him leaving a trail of red in the snow and movement appeared to be painful. But they were immensely pleased and relieved to see him, as he was to see them.

‘You’ve been a long time,’ he said, and they smiled ruefully at him and the fact that even at this, their most desperate hour, he could produce some spark of his old self, filled them with new hope. Then he saw Beth standing behind them looking at him with gentleness in her eyes and he recognized her as the little girl before whom he had performed that spring day with Brock and Nab. Warrigal then attempted to explain to both Sam and Perryfoot that the Elflord had told them that she was a part of their mission and would be with them on a long journey they were all to go on.

‘There is much to explain to you,' he said, ‘but we shall tell you later. Suffice it to say that she is not of the Urkku but of the Eldron and that therefore she is a friend.’

Beth did not know what they were saying but guessed that they were talking about her from the way that the dog and the hare, which she thought she recognized from somewhere, were both looking at her as the owl seemed to be talking to them. She went forward and, kneeling down, began to stroke Sam’s head with one hand and Perryfoot’s with the other. At first they were tense and wary but soon, as she continued to stroke them and talk to them gently, they gained confidence in her and relaxed. She looked at their wounds; they really needed a good wash before she would be able to tell how bad they were. She did not know what their plans were nor whether this awful destruction of their homes had changed them but if they were staying she could perhaps find a little stream.

While these thoughts were going through her head she suddenly became aware of a dark shadow swooping down out of the sky and, looking up, saw another brown owl landing on the stump of the tree and starting to speak to them.

The animals were relieved to see Wythen still alive. He explained to them as best he could what had happened since they had left but even he, who was normally so dispassionate and objective, found it hard at times to relate the atrocities he had witnessed and he had to stop frequently and swallow hard before carrying on. He told them how Sam had been shot charging at the Urkku who were putting the long tube down the sett and how even though he was wounded he had got one of them on the ground before the other one knocked him out and left him for dead; that was what had caused the gash on his head.

The owl then recounted how Perryfoot, to try and draw the attention of some of the Urkku with guns away from the wood, had brushed up against their legs and then run slowly out into the field, so that they followed him. He had led them right to the pond, running in a zigzag so that they were unable to get a good shot at him, but then an Urkku had suddenly appeared in front so that he had momentarily stopped. That had been enough and he had been shot in the back leg; he had then crawled away and taken cover in the hedge and the Urkku had been so afraid of missing good sport back at the wood that they had not bothered to look for him.

Wythen told the other animals these two stories because, although in normal times they would have been told by Sam and Perryfoot themselves, he knew that at the present time of grief and sadness they would be too modest, and stories like that must be told and remembered.

He went on sadly. ‘Very few of the other animals have survived. Pictor was gassed after herding his rabbits down their warrens during the shooting; I don’t think any of the rabbits are left. Thirkelow was shot on the wing while trying to urge the other pigeons faster away from the wood, and Sterndale, having failed again to keep his pheasants from flying up, was shot while attacking one of the Urkku; he is still alive though barely and I am staying with him on this, the last night he will see. He sends you all good fortune; I have told him your mission and he will die happy, confident of your success. Digit, Cawdor and Remus are all dead and Bibbington has left the wood. All the other survivors have fled although there is nowhere for them to go. I shall stay while there is a tree left for me to roost in although that will not be for much longer.’

There was a pause as the old owl looked down at the ground and when he looked up his huge round eyes were full of sadness; yet when he spoke again there was no despair in his voice.

‘But now there is hope,’ he said. ‘You have been to the Lord Wychnor and know all there is to know. You have the girl from the Eldron; your mission has started well but there is one thing I would say to you. Let not your anger and hatred at what you have seen this night interfere with your resolve, for if you do it will cloud your judgement. I understand well enough how you must feel; yet channel your hatred into determination for success in what you must do, for that will lead to the ultimate victory. Now I wish to see you go, for you cannot stay here any longer. It is for the far hills that you head; I will stay here watching until you are out of sight.’

The travellers filed past him singly and as each one walked by he looked them deeply in the eyes as if to transmit some part of his enormous wisdom to them, and indeed, as they left his gaze and walked out into the field, they did feel somehow different. They turned to their left when they were out of the wood and walked along the front of their ravaged home. When they reached the corner they stopped and looked back. Wythen was still there, perched on the stump, looking at them with the breeze ruffling his brown feathers and his head upright and proud. Then they turned away and without looking back again struck off across the frozen fields with Wythen watching them until they went behind a hedge in the middle distance and were finally out of sight. He remained perched on the stump for a long while, thinking, but his head now was bowed and he looked old for he had called upon his last reserves of strength and energy to fill them with courage for their journey. Now there was no need and the scenes of carnage he had witnessed and the destruction of his home bore down upon him once more so that his shoulders dropped and his eyes clouded over with sorrow. Finally he gathered himself together and took off from the stump to fly back to the hollow in the bracken where he had left Sterndale dying. As he dropped down by his friend the midnight bells were ringing in Christmas and the sound echoed over the fields and into the desolate wood. Sterndale heard it through the mists of pain which submerged him from the wound in his chest and was thankful that he would not be alive to witness the final destruction of the few surviving animals at the big killing which the bells always foretold.

Wythen looked down into the eyes of the pheasant, which were glazed with suffering and whispered quietly to him. ‘Old friend, you may die with hope in your heart for they have gone and I believe they will succeed. And then all our suffering, and the suffering of those before us will not have been in vain. Do you hear me, old friend? There is hope.’

Sterndale’s eyes then lost their panic and became calm and as he sank beneath the waves of death he held on to the hope in Wythen’s eyes so that he died with a heart that was, finally, at peace. Then the owl left the side of his dead friend and flew up to the Great Oak. There he perched on one of the high branches to look out over what was left of the wood and wait for the end.