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 water-line, where the current met the woodwork. It was too far to jump to the shore and both banks were steep. He turned and looked upwards. 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, grey 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?
Poor Hazel looked about him. Silver was licking Bigwig's wounded shoulder. Blackberry was fidgeting on and off the thwart, strung-up, able to feel only too clearly all that Hazel felt himself. As he still hesitated, Kehaar let out a squawk.
'Yark! Dam' rabbits no goot. Vat I do, I show you.'
He tumbled clumsily off the raised bow. There was no gap between the punt and the dark mouth of the culvert. Sitting low in the water like a mallard, he floated into the tunnel and vanished. Peering after him, Hazel could at first see nothing. Then he made out Kehaar's shape black against the light at the far end. It floated into daylight, turned sideways and passed out of the restricted view.
'What does that prove?' said Blackberry, his teeth chattering. 'He may have flown off the surface or put his great webbed feet down. It's not he that's soaked through and shivering and twice as heavy with wet fur.'
Kehaar reappeared on the parapet above.
'You go now,' he said shortly.
Still the wretched Hazel hung back. His leg had begun to hurt again. The sight of Bigwig - Bigwig of all rabbits - at the end of his tether, half-unconscious, playing no part in this desperate exploit, lowered his courage still more. He knew that he had not got it in him to jump into the water. The horrible situation was beyond him. He stumbled on the slippery planking and as he sat up found Fiver beside him.
'I'll go, Hazel,' said Fiver quietly. 'I think it'll be all right.'
He put his front paws on the edge of the bow. Then, on the instant, all the rabbits froze motionless. One of the does stamped on the puddled floor of the punt. From above came the sounds of approaching footsteps and men's voices, and the smell of a burning white stick.
Kehaar flew away. Not a rabbit moved. The footsteps grew nearer, the voices louder. They were on the bridge above, no farther away than the height of a hedge. Every one of the rabbits was seized by the instinct to run, to go underground. Hazel saw Hyzenthlay looking at him and returned her stare, willing her with all his might to keep still. The voices, the smell of men's sweat, of leather, of white sticks, the pain in his leg, the damp, chuckling tunnel at his very ear - he had known them all before. How could the men not see him? They must see him. He was lying at their feet. He was wounded. They were coming to pick him up.
Then the sound and smells were receding into the distance, the thudding of the footsteps diminished. The men had crossed the bridge without looking over the parapet. They were gone.
Hazel came to. 'That settles it,' he said. 'Everyone's got to swim. Come on, Bluebell, you say you're a water-rabbit. Follow me.' He got on the thwart and went along it to the side.
But it was Pipkin that he found next to him.
'Quick, Hazel-rah,' said Pipkin, twitching and trembling. 'I'll come too. Only be quick.'
Hazel shut his eyes and fell over the side into the water.
As in the Enborne, there was an instant shock of cold. But more than this, and at once, he felt the pull of the current. He was being drawn away by a force like a high wind, yet smooth and silent. He was drifting helplessly down a suffocating, cold run, with no hold for his feet. Full of fear, he paddled and struggled, got his head up and took a breath, scrabbled his claws against rough bricks underwater and lost them again as he was dragged on. Then the current slackened, the run vanished, the dark became light and there were leaves and sky above him once more. Still struggling, he fetched up against something hard, bumped off it, struck it again and then for a moment touched soft ground. He floundered forwards and found that he was dragging himself through liquid mud. He was out on a clammy bank. He lay panting for several moments and then wiped his face and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Pipkin, plastered with mud, crawling to the bank a few feet away.