'A what?' The term 'Owslafa' was unknown to Hazel.
'A dirty little beast like Hufsa,' said Bigwig.
'Did you beat him?'
'Oh yes - or I shouldn't be here. I should think he'll stop running. I say, Hazel, we've got the does. What's going to happen now?'
'I don't know,' said Hazel. 'We need one of these clever rabbits to tell us. And Kehaar - where's he gone? He's supposed to know about this thing we're sitting on.'
Dandelion, crouching beside Hazel, got up at the mention of 'clever rabbits', made his way across the puddled floor and returned with Blackberry and Fiver.
'We're all wondering what to do next,' said Hazel.
'Well,' said Blackberry, 'I suppose we shall drift into the bank before long and then we can get out and find cover. There's no harm, though, in going a good long way from those friends of Bigwig's.'
'There is,' said Hazel. 'We're stuck here in full view and we can't run. If a man sees us we're in trouble.'
'Men don't like rain,' said Blackberry. 'Neither do I, if it comes to that, but it makes us safer just now.'
At this moment Hyzenthlay, sitting just behind him, started and looked up.
'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 towards 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 under-side, made of iron girders, was perfectly straight - parallel with the surface and about eight inches 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 bilge-water 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 bilge-water 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 stern.
'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 westwards. 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 farther 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 centre 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 - scarce
ly 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 bilge-water. 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.