Watership Down - Adams Richard George - Страница 52

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As he went down the side of the barn, he could hear Hazel out in the open, near the doe Haystack. Neither of the hutch rabbits had moved from where he and Bigwig had left them. The dog had returned to its kennel; but although it was not to be seen, he felt that it was awake and watchful. He came cautiously out of the shadow and approached Hazel.

"I'm just having a chat with Haystack here," said Hazel. "I've been explaining that we've got a little way to go. Do you think you could hop across to Laurel and get him to join us?"

He spoke almost gaily, but Dandelion could see his dilated eyes and the slight trembling of his front paws. He himself was now sensing something peculiar-a kind of luminosity-in the air. There seemed to be a curious vibration somewhere in the distance. He looked round for the cats and saw that, as he feared, both were crouching in front of the farmhouse a little way off. Their reluctance to come closer could be attributed to Bigwig: but they would not go away. Looking across the yard at them, Dandelion felt a sudden clutch of horror.

"Hazel!" he whispered. "The cats! Dear Frith, why are their eyes glittering green like that? Look!"

Hazel sat up quickly and as he did so Dandelion leaped back in real terror, for Hazel's eyes were shining a deep, glowing red in the dark. At that moment the humming vibration grew louder, quenching the rushing of the night breeze in the elms. Then all four rabbits sat as though transfixed by the sudden, blinding light that poured over them like a cloudburst. Their very instinct was numbed in this terrible glare. The dog barked and then became silent once more. Dandelion tried to move, but could not. The awful brightness seemed to cut into his brain.

The car, which had driven up the lane and over the brow under the elms, came on a few more yards and stopped.

"Lucy's rabbits is out, look!"

"Ah! Best get 'un in quick. Leave loights on!"

The sound of men's voices, from somewhere beyond the fierce light, brought Hazel to his senses. He could not see, but nothing, he realized, had happened to his hearing or his nose. He shut his eyes and at once knew where he was.

"Dandelion! Haystack! Shut your eyes and run," he said. A moment later he smelled the lichen and cool moisture of one of the staddle stones. He was under the barn. Dandelion was near him and a little further away was Haystack. Outside, the men's boots scraped and grated over the stones.

"That's it! Get round be'ind 'un."

" 'E won't go far!"

"Pick 'n up, then!"

Hazel moved across to Haystack. "I'm afraid we'll have to leave Laurel," he said. "Just follow me."

Keeping under the raised floor of the barn, they all three scuttled back toward the elm trees. The men's voices were left behind. Coming out into the grass near the lane, they found the darkness behind the headlights full of the fumes of exhaust-a hostile, choking smell that added to their confusion. Haystack sat down once more and could not be persuaded to move.

"Shouldn't we leave her, Hazel-rah?" asked Dandelion. "After all, the men won't hurt her-they've caught Laurel and taken him back to the hutch."

"If it was a buck, I'd say yes," said Hazel. "But we need this doe. That's what we came for."

At this moment they caught the smell of burning white sticks and heard the men returning up the farmyard. There was a metallic bumping as they rummaged in the car. The sound seemed to rouse Haystack. She looked round at Dandelion.

"I don't want to go back to the hutch," she said.

"You're sure?" asked Dandelion.

"Yes. I'll go with you."

Dandelion immediately turned for the hedgerow. It was only when he had crossed it and reached the ditch beyond that he realized that he was on the opposite side of the lane from that on which they had first approached. He was in a strange ditch. However, there seemed to be nothing to worry about-the ditch led down the slope and that was the way home. He moved slowly along it, waiting for Hazel to join them.

Hazel had crossed the lane a few moments after Dandelion and Haystack. Behind him, he heard the men moving away from the hrududu. As he topped the bank, the beam of a torch shone up the lane and picked out his red eyes and white tail disappearing into the hedge.

"There's ol' woild rabbit, look!"

"Ah! Reckon rest of ours ain't s' far off. Got up there with 'un, see? Best go'n 'ave a look."

In the ditch, Hazel overtook Haystack and Dandelion under a clump of brambles.

"Get on quickly if you can," he said to Haystack. "The men are just behind."

"We can't get on, Hazel," said Dandelion, "without leaving the ditch. It's blocked."

Hazel sniffed ahead. Immediately beyond the brambles, the ditch was closed by a pile of earth, weeds and rubbish. They would have to come into the open. Already the men were over the bank and the torchlight was flickering up and down the hedgerow and through the brambles above their very heads. Then, only a few yards away, footfalls vibrated along the edge of the ditch. Hazel turned to Dandelion.

"Listen," he said, "I'm going to run across the corner of the field, from this ditch to the other one, so that they see me. They'll try to shine that light on me for sure. While they're doing that, you and Haystack climb the bank, get into the lane and run down to the swede shed. You can hide there and I'll join you. Ready?"

There was no time to argue. A moment later Hazel broke almost under the men's feet and ran across the field.

"There 'e goes!"

"Keep torch on 'un, then. Noice and steady!"

Dandelion and Haystack scrambled over the bank and dropped into the lane. Hazel, with the torch beam behind him, had almost reached the other ditch when he felt a sharp blow on one of his hind legs and a hot, stinging pain along his side. The report of the cartridge sounded an instant later. As he somersaulted into a clump of nettles in the ditch bottom, he remembered vividly the scent of beanflowers at sunset. He had not known that the men had a gun.

Hazel crawled through the nettles, dragging his injured leg. In a few moments the men would shine their torch on him and pick him up. He stumbled along the inner wall of the ditch, feeling the blood flowing over his foot. Suddenly he was aware of a draft against one side of his nose, a smell of damp, rotten matter and a hollow, echoing sound at his very ear. He was beside the mouth of a land drain which emptied into the ditch-a smooth, cold tunnel, narrower than a rabbit hole, but wide enough. With flattened ears and belly pressed to the wet floor he crawled up it, pushing a little pile of thin mud in front of him, and lay still as he felt the thud of boots coming nearer.

"I don' roightly know, John, whether you 'it 'e er not."

"Ah, I 'it 'un all roight. That's blood down there, see?"

"Ah, well, but that don't signify. 'E might be a long ways off by now. I reckon you've lost 'e."

"I reckon 'e's in them nettles."

" 'Ave a look, then."

"No, 'e ain't."

"Well, us can't go beggarin' up and down 'ere 'alf bloody night. We got to catch them as got out th'utch. Didn't ought 'ave fired be roights, John. Froightened they off, see? You c'n 'ave a look for 'im tomorrow, if 'e's 'ere."

The silence returned, but still Hazel lay motionless in the whispering chill of the tunnel. A cold lassitude came over him and he passed into a dreaming, inert stupor, full of cramp and pain. After a time, a thread of blood began to trickle over the lip of the drain into the trampled, deserted ditch.

Bigwig, crouched close to Blackberry in the straw of the cattle shed, leaped to flight at the sound of the shot two hundred yards up the lane. He checked himself and turned to the others.

"Don't run!" he said quickly. "Where do you want to run to, anyway? No holes here."

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