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.'
'Further away from the gun,' replied Blackberry, white-eyed.
'Wait!' said Bigwig, listening. 'They're running down the lane. Can't you hear them?'
'I can hear only two rabbits,' answered Blackberry, after a pause, 'and one of them sounds exhausted.'
They looked at each other and waited. Then Bigwig got up again.
'Stay here, all of you,' he said. 'I'll go and bring them in.'
Out on the verge he found Dandelion urging Haystack, who was lamed and spent.
'Come in here quickly,' said Bigwig. 'For Frith's sake, where's Hazel?'
'The men have shot him,' replied Dandelion.
They reached the other five rabbits in the straw. Dandelion did not wait for their questions.
'They've shot Hazel,' he said. 'They'd caught that Laurel and put him back in the hutch. Then they came after us. The three of us were at the end of a blocked ditch. Hazel went out of his own accord, to distract their attention while we got away. But we didn't know they had a gun.'
'Are you sure they killed him?' said Speedwell.
'I didn't actually see him hit, but they were very close to him.'
'We'd better wait,' said Bigwig.
They waited a long time. At last Dandelion and Bigwig went cautiously back up the lane. They found the bottom of the ditch trampled by boots and streaked with blood, and returned to tell the others.
The journey back, with the three limping hutch rabbits, lasted more than two weary hours. All were dejected and wretched. When at last they reached the foot of the down Bigwig told Blackberry, Speedwell and Hawkbit to leave them and go on to the warren. They approached the wood just at first light and a rabbit ran to meet them through the wet grass. It was Fiver. Blackberry stopped and waited beside him while the other two went on in silence.
'Fiver,' he said, 'there's bad news. Hazel-'
'I know,' replied Fiver. 'I know now.'
'How do you know?' asked Blackberry, startled.
'As you came through the grass just now,' said Fiver, very low, 'there was a fourth rabbit behind you, limping and covered with blood. I ran to see who it was, and then there were only three of you, side by side.'
He paused and looked across the down, as though still seeking the bleeding rabbit who had vanished in the half-light. Then, as Blackberry said nothing more, he asked, 'Do you know what happened?'
When Blackberry had told his news, Fiver returned to the warren and went underground to his empty burrow. A little later Bigwig brought the hutch rabbits up the hill and at once called everyone to meet in the Honeycomb. Fiver did not appear.
It was a dismal welcome for the strangers. Not even Bluebell could find a cheerful word. Dandelion was inconsolable to think that he might have stopped Hazel breaking from the ditch. The meeting came to an end in a dreary silence and a half-hearted silflay.
Later that morning Holly came limping into the warren. Of his three companions, only Silver was alert and unharmed. Buckthorn was wounded in the face and Strawberry was shivering and evidently ill from exhaustion. There were no other rabbits with them.
26. Fiver Beyond
On his dreadful journey, after the shaman has wandered through dark forests and over great ranges of mountains,… he reaches an opening in the ground. The most difficult stage of the adventure now begins. The depths of the underworld open before him.
Fiver lay on the earth floor of the burrow. Outside, the downs were still in the intense, bright heat of noon.
