'Excuse me, sir, for interrupting you,' she said, as though speaking to an officer in Efrafa, 'but the bird-the white bird-it's coming toward us.'
Kehaar came flying up the river through the rain and alighted on the narrow side of the punt. The does nearest to him backed away nervously.
'Meester 'Azel,' he said, 'pridge come. You see 'im pridge?'
It had not occurred to any of the rabbits that they were floating beside the path up which they had come earlier that evening before the storm broke. They were on the opposite side of the hedge of plants along the bank and the whole river looked different. But now they saw, not far ahead, the bridge which they had crossed when they first came to the Test four nights before. This they recognized at once, for it looked the same as it had from the bank.
'Maybe you go under 'im, maybe not,' said Kehaar. 'But you sit dere, ees trouble.'
The bridge stretched from bank to bank between two low abutments. It was not arched. Its underside, made of iron girders, was perfectly straight-parallel with the surface and about eight niches above it. Just in time Hazel saw what Kehaar meant. If the punt did pass under the bridge without sticking, it would do so by no more than a claw's breadth. Any creature above the level of the sides would be struck and perhaps knocked into the river. He scuttered through the warm bilgewater to the other end and pushed his way up among the wet, crowded rabbits.
'Get down in the bottom! Get down in the bottom!' he said. 'Silver, Hawkbit-all of you. Never mind the water. You, and you-what's your name? Oh, Blackavar, is it? — get everyone into the bottom. Be quick.'
Like Bigwig, he found that the Efrafan rabbits obeyed him at once. He saw Kehaar fly up from his perch and disappear over the wooden rails. The concrete abutments projected from each bank, so that the narrowed river ran slightly faster under the bridge. The punt had been drifting broadside on, but now one end swung forward, so that Hazel lost his bearings and found that he was no longer looking at the bridge but at the bank. As he hesitated, the bridge seemed to come at him in a dark mass, like snow sliding from a bough. He pressed himself into the bilge. There was a squeal and a rabbit tumbled on top of him. Then a heavy blow vibrated along the length of the punt and its smooth movement was checked. This was followed by a hollow sound of scraping. It grew dark and a roof appeared, very low above him. For a moment Hazel had the vague idea that he was underground. Then the roof vanished, the punt was gliding on and he heard Kehaar calling. They were below the bridge and still drifting downstream.
The rabbit who had fallen on him was Acorn. He had been struck by the bridge and the blow had sent him flying. However, though dazed and bruised, he seemed to have escaped injury.
'I wasn't quick enough, Hazel-rah,' he said. 'I'd better go to Efrafa for a bit.'
'You'd be wasted,' said Hazel. 'But I'm afraid there's someone at the other end who hasn't been so lucky.'
One of the does had held back from the bilgewater, and the upstream girder under the bridge had caught her across the back. It was plain that she was injured, but how badly Hazel could not tell. He saw Hyzenthlay beside her and it seemed to him that since there was nothing he could do to help, it would probably be best to let them alone. He looked round at his bedraggled, shivering comrades and then at Kehaar, spruce and brisk on the stem.
'We ought to get back on the bank, Kehaar,' he said. 'How can we do it? Rabbits weren't meant for this, you know.'
'You not stop poat. But again is nudder pridge more. 'E stop 'im.'
There was nothing to be done but wait. They drifted on and came to a second bend, where the river curved westward. The current did not slacken and the punt came round the bend almost in the middle of the stream, revolving as it did so. The rabbits had been frightened by what had happened to Acorn and to the doe, and remained squatting miserably, half in and half out of the bilge. Hazel crept back to the raised bow and looked ahead.
The river broadened and the current slackened. He realized that they had begun to drift more slowly. The nearer bank was high and the trees stood close and thick, but on the further bank the ground was low and open. Grassy, it stretched away, smooth as the mown gallops on Watership Down. Hazel hoped that they might somehow drop out of the current and reach that side, but the punt moved quietly on, down the very center of the broad pool. The open bank slipped by and now the trees towered on both sides. Downstream, the pool was closed by the second bridge, of which Kehaar had spoken.
It was old, built of darkened bricks. Ivy trailed over it and the valerian and creeping mauve toadflax. Well out from either bank stood four low arches-scarcely more than culverts, each filled by the stream to within a foot of the apex. Through them, thin segments of daylight showed from the downstream side. The piers did not project, but against each lay a little accumulation of flotsam, from which driftweed and sticks continually broke away to be carried through the bridge.
It was plain that the punt would drift against the bridge and be held there. As it approached, Hazel dropped back into the bilgewater. But this time there was no need. Broadside on, the punt struck gently against two of the piers and stopped, pinned squarely across the mouth of one of the central culverts. It could go no further.
They had floated not quite half a mile in just over fifteen minutes.
Hazel put his forepaws on the low side and looked gingerly over upstream. Immediately below, a shallow ripple spread all along the waterline, where the current met the woodwork. It was too far to jump to the shore and both banks were steep. He turned and looked upward. The brickwork was sheer, with a projecting course half way between him and the parapet. There was no scrambling up that.
'What's to be done, Blackberry?' he asked, making his way to the bolt fixed on the bow, with its ragged remnant of painter. 'You got us on this thing. How do we get off?'
'I don't know, Hazel-rah,' replied Blackberry. 'Of all the ways we could finish up, I never thought of this. It looks as though we'll have to swim.'
'Swim?' said Silver. 'I don't fancy it, Hazel-rah. I know it's no distance, but look at those banks. The current would take us down before we could get out: and that means into one of these holes under the bridge.'
Hazel tried to look through the arch. There was very little to be seen. The dark tunnel was not long-perhaps not much longer than the punt itself. The water looked smooth. There seemed to be no obstructions and there was room for the head of a swimming animal between the surface of the water and the apex of the arch. But the segment was so narrow that it was impossible to see exactly what lay on the other side of the bridge. The light was failing. Water, green leaves, moving reflections of leaves, the splashing of the raindrops and some curious thing that appeared to be standing in the water and to be made of vertical gray lines-these were all that could be made out. The rain echoed dismally up the culvert. The hard, ringing noise from under the soffit, so much unlike any sound to be heard in an earth tunnel, was disturbing. Hazel returned to Blackberry and Silver.
'This is as bad a fix as we've been in,' he said. 'We can't stay here, but I can't see any way out.'
Kehaar appeared on the parapet above them, flapped the rain out of his wings and dropped down to the punt.
'Ees finish poat,' he said. 'Not vait more.'
'But how can we get to the bank, Kehaar?' said Hazel.
The gull was surprised. 'Dog sveem, rat sveem. You no sveem?'
'Yes, we can swim as long as it's not very far. But the banks are too steep for us, Kehaar. We wouldn't be able to stop the current taking us down one of these tunnels and we don't know what's at the other end.'
'Ees goot-you get out fine.'
Hazel felt at a loss. What exactly was he to understand from this? Kehaar was not a rabbit. Whatever the Big Water was like, it must be worse than this and Kehaar was used to it. He never said much in any case and what he did say was always restricted to the simplest, since he spoke no Lapine. He was doing them a good turn because they had saved his life but, as Hazel knew, he could not help despising them for timid, helpless, stay-at- home creatures who could not fly. He was often impatient. Did he mean that he had looked at the river and considered it as if he were a rabbit? That there was slack water immediately below the bridge, with a low, shelving bank where they could get out easily? That seemed too much to hope for. Or did he simply mean that they had better hurry up and take a chance on being able to do what he himself could do without difficulty? This seemed more likely. Suppose one of them did jump out of the boat and go down with the current-what would that tell the others, if he did not come back?
