'I remember shoving you along,' said Bigwig. 'It was jolly cold.'
'What puzzles me,' said Blackberry, 'is why this boat-thing doesn't go along. Everything in this river goes along, and fast too - see there.' He looked out at a piece of stick floating down on the even, two-mile-an-hour current. 'So what's stopping this thing from going?'
Kehaar had a 'short way with landlubbers' manner which he sometimes used to those of the rabbits that he did not particularly like. Blackberry was not one of his favourites : he preferred straightforward characters such as Bigwig, Buckthorn and Silver.
'Ees rope. You like bite heem, den you go damn' queek, all de vay.'
'Yes, I see,' said Fiver. 'The rope goes round that metal thing where Hazel's sitting: and the other end's fixed on the bank here. It's like the stalk of a big leaf. You could gnaw it through and the leaf-the boat - would drop off the bank.'
'Well, anyway, let's go back now,' said Hazel, rather dejectedly. 'I'm afraid we don't seem to be any nearer to finding what we're looking for, Kehaar. Can you possibly wait until tomorrow? I had the idea that we might all move to somewhere a bit drier before tonight - higher up in the wood, away from the river.'
'Oh, what a pity!' said Bluebell. 'Do you know, I'd quite decided to become a water-rabbit.'
'A what?' asked Bigwig.
'A water-rabbit,' repeated Bluebell. 'Well, there are water-rats and water-beetles and Pipkin says that last night he saw a water-hawk. So why not a water-rabbit? I shall float merrily along -'
'Great golden Frith on a hill!' cried Blackberry suddenly. 'Great jumping Rabscuttle! That's it! That's it! Bluebell, you shall be a water-rabbit!' He began leaping and skipping aboug on the bank and cuffing Fiver with his front paws. 'Don't you see, Fiver? Don't you see? We bite the rope and off we go: and General Woundwort doesn't know!'
Fiver paused. 'Yes, I do see,' he replied at length. 'You mean on the boat. I must say, Blackberry, you're a clever fellow. I remember now that after we'd crossed that other river, you said that that floating trick might come in handy again some time.'
'Here, wait a moment,' said Hazel. 'We're just simple rabbits, Bigwig and I. Do you mind explaining?'
Then and there, while the black gnats settled on their ears, by the plank bridge and the pouring waterfall, Blackberry and Fiver explained.
'Could you just go and try the rope, Hazel-rah?' added Blackberry, when he had finished. 'It may be too thick.'
They went back to the punt.
'No, it's not,' said Hazel, 'and it's stretched tight, of course, which makes it much easier to gnaw. I can gnaw that all right.'
'Ya, ees goot,' said Kehaar. 'You go fine. But you do heem queek, ya? Maybe somet'ing change. Man come, take poat - you know?'
'There's nothing more to wait for,' said Hazel. 'Go on, Bigwig, straight away: and may El-ahrairah go with you. And remember, you're the leader now. Send word by Kehaar what you want us to do; we shall all be here, ready to back you up.'
Afterwards, they all remembered how Bigwig had taken his orders. No one could say that he did not practise what he preached. He hesitated a few moments and then looked squarely at Hazel.
'It's sudden,' he said. 'I wasn't expecting it tonight. But that's all to the good - I hated waiting. 'See you later.'
He touched his nose to Hazel's, turned and hopped away into the undergrowth. A few minutes later, guided by Kehaar, he was running up the open pasture north of the river, straight for the brick arch in the overgrown railway embankment and the fields that lay beyond.
34. General Woundwort
Like an obelisk towards which the principal streets of a town converge, the strong will of a proud spirit stands prominent and commanding in the middle of the art of war.
Clausewitz On War
Dusk was falling on Efrafa. In the failing light, General Woundwort was watching the Near Hind Mark at silflay along the edge of the great pasture field that lay between the warren and the iron road. Most of the rabbits were feeding near the Mark holes, which were close beside the field, concealed among the trees and undergrowth bordering a lonely bridle-path. A few, however, had ventured out into the field, to browse and play in the last of the sun. Further out still were the sentries of the Owsla, on the alert for the approach of men or elil and also for any rabbit who might stray too far to be able to get underground quickly if there should be an alarm.
Captain Chervil, one of the two officers of the Mark, had just returned from a round of his sentries and was talking to some of the does near the centre of the Mark ground, when he saw the General approaching. He looked quickly about to see whether anything was at fault. Since all seemed to be well, he began nibbling at a patch of sweet vernal with the best air of indifference that he could manage.
General Woundwort was a singular rabbit. Some three years before, he had been born - the strongest of a litter of five - in a burrow outside a cottage garden near Cole Henley. His father, a happy-go-lucky and reckless buck, had thought nothing of living close to human beings, except that he would be able to forage in their garden in the early morning. He had paid dearly for his rashness. After two or three weeks of spoiled lettuces and nibbled cabbage-plants, the cottager had lain in wait and shot him as he came through the potato-patch at dawn. The same morning, the man set to work to dig out the doe and her growing litter. Woundwort's mother escaped, racing across the kale-field towards the downs, her kittens doing their best to follow her. None but Woundwort succeeded. His mother, bleeding from a shot-gun pellet, made her way along the hedges in broad daylight, with Woundwort limping beside her.
It was not long before a weasel picked up the scent of the blood and followed it. The little rabbit cowered in the grass while his mother was killed before his eyes. He made no attempt to run, but the weasel, its hunger satisfied, left him alone and made off through the bushes. Several hours later a kind old schoolmaster from Overton, walking through the fields, came upon Woundwort nuzzling the cold, still body and crying. He carried him home to his own kitchen and saved his life, feeding him with milk from a nasal dropper until he was old enough to eat bran and greenstuff. But Woundwort grew up very wild and, like Cowper's hare, would bite when he could. In a month he was big and strong and had become savage. He nearly killed the schoolmaster's cat, which had found him at liberty in the kitchen and tried to torment him. One night, a week later, he tore the wire from the front of his hutch and escaped to the open country.
Most rabbits in his situation, lacking almost all experience of wild life, would have fallen victim at once to the elil: but not Woundwort. After a few days' wandering, he came upon a small warren and, snarling and clawing, forced them to accept him. Soon he had become Chief Rabbit, havin
g killed both the previous Chief and a rival named Fiorin. In combat he was terrifying, fighting entirely to kill, indifferent to any wounds he received himself and closing with his adversaries until his weight overbore and exhausted them. Those who had no heart to oppose him were not long in feeling that here was a leader indeed.