A convulsion shook him and he scrabbled at the ground, covering himself in a mask of wet earth and blood. Then he was still again.
'Run, Fiver, run to the warren,' cried Hazel. 'Get the others - Blackberry, Silver. Be quick! He'll die.'
Fiver was off up the field like a hare. Hazel, left alone, tried to understand what was needed. What was the peg? How was he to dig it out? He looked down at the foul mess before him. Bigwig was lying across the wire, which came out under his belly and seemed to disappear into the ground. Hazel struggled with his own incomprehension. Bigwig had said, 'Dig.' That at least he understood. He began to scratch into the soft earth beside the body, until after a time his claws scraped against something smooth and firm. As he paused, perplexed, he found Blackberry at his shoulder.
'Bigwig just spoke,' he said to him, 'but I don't think he can now. He said, "Dig out the peg." What does that mean? What have we got to do?'
'Wait a moment,' said Blackberry. 'Let me think, and try not to be impatient.'
Hazel turned his head and looked down the course of the brook. Far away, between the two copses, he could see the cherry tree where two days before he had sat with Blackberry and Fiver in the sunrise. He remembered how Bigwig had chased Hawkbit through the long grass, forgetting the quarrel of the previous night in the joy of their arrival. He could see Hawkbit running towards him now and two or three of the others - Silver, Dandelion and Pipkin. Dandelion, well in front, dashed up to the gap and checked, twitching and staring.
'What is it, Hazel? What's happened? Fiver said -'
'Bigwig's in a wire. Let him alone till Blackberry tells us. Stop the others crowding round.'
Dandelion turned and raced back as Pipkin came up.
'Is Cowslip coming?' said Hazel. 'Perhaps he knows -'
'He wouldn't come,' replied Pipkin. 'He told Fiver to stop talking about it.'
'Told him what?' asked Hazel incredulously. But at that moment Blackberry spoke and Hazel was beside him in a flash.
'This is it,' said Blackberry. 'The wire's on a peg and the peg's in the ground - there, look. We've got to dig it out. Come on - dig beside it.'
Hazel dug once more, his fore-paws throwing up the soft, wet soil and slipping against the hard sides of the peg. Dimly, he was aware of the others waiting near-by. After a time he was forced to stop, panting. Silver took his place, and was followed by Buckthorn. The nasty, smooth, clean, man-smelling peg was laid bare to the length of a rabbit's ear, but still it did not come loose. Bigwig had not moved. He lay across the wire, torn and bloody, with closed eyes. Buckthorn drew his head and paws out of the hole and rubbed the mud off his face.
'The peg's narrower down there,' he said. 'It tapers. I think it could be bitten through, but I can't get my teeth to it.'
'Send Pipkin in,' said Blackberry. 'He's smaller.'
Pipkin plunged into the hole. They could hear the wood splintering under his teeth - a sound like a mouse in a shed wainscot at midnight. He came out with his nose bleeding.
'The splinters prick you and its hard to breathe, but the peg's nearly through.'
'Fiver go in,' said Hazel.
Fiver was not long in the hole. He, too, came out bleeding.
'It's broken in two. It's free.'
Blackberry pressed his nose against Bigwig's head. As he nuzzled him gently the head rolled sideways and back again.
'Bigwig,' said Blackberry in his ear, 'the peg's out.'
There was no response. Bigwig lay still as before. A great fly settled on one of his ears. Blackberry thrust at it angrily and it flew up, buzzing, into the sunshine.
'I think he's gone,' said Blackberry. 'I can't feel his breathing.'
Hazel crouched down by Blackberry and laid his nostrils close to Bigwig's, but a light breeze was blowing and he could not tell whether there was breath or not. The legs were loose, the belly flaccid and limp. He tried to think of what little he had heard of snares. A strong rabbit could b
reak his neck in a snare. Or had the point of a sharp wire pierced the wind-pipe?
'Bigwig,' he whispered, 'we've got you out. you're free.'
Bigwig did not stir. Suddenly it came to Hazel that if Bigwig was dead - and what else could hold him silent in the mud? - then he himself must get the others away before the dreadful loss could drain their courage and break their spirit - as it would if they stayed by the body. Besides, the man would come soon. Perhaps he was already coming, with his gun, to take poor Bigwig away. They must go; and he must do his best to see that all of them - even he himself - put what had happened out of mind, for ever.
'My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today,' he said to Blackberry, quoting a rabbit proverb.