Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “Go in peace,” said Tryfan interrupting him. “Go now...” for grikes were advancing across the pipe once more, and watchers were coming forward. The mole Thrift went, looking back but once as he was lost among his own kind, looking at Tryfan with wonder and strange comfort.

  Then Tryfan turned back to his own, and joined them without a further word of what had happened.

  Afternoon came and Tryfan left Smithills at the front line of the fighting to relieve Alder, while he himself went upslope with two watchers appointed to guard him, to return to the main system to see how the moles waiting there were faring. Yet as he went he found his paws dragging, and he felt the need to go out on to the surface, and snout back downslope towards the now distant roaring owl way and beyond it to the fields in whose shadows the New Moles lay hidden.

  “Smithills said not to let you go on the surface again alone, Sir,” said one of the watchers.

  Tryfan smiled. “Smithills would,” he said, “but I’ll only be a moment or two.” The watchers did not argue, sensing their leader needed privacy. So, in the sunshine of a May afternoon, when the future of Duncton, and perhaps of moledom, itself lay in his paws, Tryfan paused and stared.

  He thought of Comfrey and Maundy, of Alder and Smithills at whose flanks he had fought, of Mayweed whom he cared for and who must be down at the Marsh

  End now, and of Spindle whom he loved, and who would find him before the day was out. He knew that many of the valiant moles fighting against the grikes that day would not live to see Duncton Wood free again. Many among the guardmoles would not survive either.

  At such a time a leader may feel alone, and so then did Tryfan, and he could only pray that the Stone would watch over these moles, as it watched over all of moledom, and its followers would heed its calling.

  “Tryfan, Sir!” called out one of the watchers worriedly, “Please, Sir! You must come now!”

  Tryfan waved a paw at them in acknowledgement and then, with one last look down the slope towards where the watchers fought, he turned to the upslope tunnel and back to the task of saving the moles of the system he most loved.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The grikes finally took the cross-under and broke through to Alder’s second line of defence late the following night, after a protracted and clever assault at three points – the main cross-under, the sluice and the lesser dyke that Tryfan and Smithills had themselves played an important part in defending the previous day.

  But long before then and without any major mishap or panic, the different groups of moles awaiting evacuation had been led down towards the Marsh End. They had entered tunnels deserted since the early days of Bracken’s leadership, when the plagues had come and the old quarters had been deserted.

  Now moles returned, and Barrow Vale, once the heart of the system, echoed again to the sound of youngsters playing, and adults admonishing gently, and talking. But the voices were low, the adult moles subdued, and the tunnels dusty and in places blocked with vegetation and roof falls. Yet here they waited as night came, looking at each other questioningly as messengers went up to the elders’ burrow near the Stone, and news of the battle filtered back down to them.

  Youngsters slept, adults watched, night deepened on the surface, and darkness came to the tunnels. Several trusted moles, Maundy leading them, went here and there, comforting, encouraging and reassuring the youngsters and their friends, and their parents too; for all feared they would lose loved ones in the battle.

  Sometime before midnight, when the wind had grown stronger and the tunnels were filled with the strange draughts and air currents that beset decayed tunnels and which disturb moles’ liking for harmony and order, even the most deeply sleeping of the youngsters were woken by the sudden crash of thunder that cracked across the wood, and the flashes of lightning that sporadically lit up the tunnel entrances, and cast into brief, lurid light the huddles of restless, waiting moles that silently lined the tunnels.

  Then heavy rain fell, and after it more thunder and lightening, then the pounding of yet more rain as here and there the tunnels began to drip and moles had to move themselves to avoid the leaking of water from the surface.

  It was late in the night, when the rain had settled to a persistent downpour, that a single mole hurried along the surface of the wood from beyond the Marsh End. He knew his way, moving rapidly by clever and cunning routes that gave him protection against owl, which were known to strike creatures unwary enough to think the rain might give them cover.

  Down briefly into Barrow Vale itself he dropped, past the wondering snouts of the evacuees who pulled a little away from him when they saw what he was, for his looks were strange, his stare intense, his smile off-putting to a mole who did not know it.

  “Excuse me, thank you, very kind, wonderfully thoughtful of you, yes, yes, yes, no, you are not in my humble way.. said Mayweed as he squeezed by the crush of waiting moles and then hurried on, only pausing sometimes to listen to the rain with a worried frown.

  Meanwhile, from the line of defensive surface burrows on the Eastside, where the campaign to keep back the grikes was now being hard fought in darkness and rain, messenger after messenger was bringing news to Alder, who had taken a central position a little upslope. The news from the various points where battles were being fought and incursions made was that the retreat, though orderly, had not slowed. What was more, Duncton casualties were rising, and Alder was beginning to have to pull in reserves from outlying points where they had been used as watchers in case the grikes tried to get into the system by outflanking the main defence lines.

  Tryfan had given strict instructions that the moment those reserves had to be called in he must be informed, for then the evacuation would have to start. They could not risk an incursion of grikes into the system itself, for all the fighters were at the front, and death and confusion and a disorderly evacuation would result. Worse, the tunnel of departure might be discovered, and the point of the surprise and mystery of the “disappearance” of the Duncton moles would be lost.

  The grikes now not only controlled the cow cross-under, but had begun a systematic advance on the flanks of the defensive burrows. There was no sign at all yet that they were sending parties further afield, but Alder was taking no chances and as dawn approached, and the rain that had come over Duncton Wood with the storm had eased into drizzle, the order went out for further retreat.

  This still left a group of Duncton moles hidden in deep tunnels right in the midst of the advancing grikes and these, led by Ramsey, would make one final confusing assault to slow the advance before they retreated by tunnels too deep for the grikes quickly to find them. But the end was coming, and Alder, now tired, and with two superficial wounds to his face and a deeper talon-thrust to his shoulder which was giving him pain, sent out the freshest of his messenger moles to warn Tryfan that the time of final retreat was coming.

  “Tell Tryfan we will await his command to leave, though if I hear nothing before the sun rises over the way itself I will take the initiative and conduct a retreat then,” Alder told the messenger and, as he left, he turned wearily back to the defence burrow, to check and recheck the reports coming in. He wished in any case to stay a little longer where they now were to give Ramsey the cover he might need to get back with the rest of them, though the deep tunnels ought to provide a hiding place if all else failed. His last instructions to Ramsey had been that he should leave by mid-morning at the latest.

  At the Stone itself dawn light was late coming because the cloud cover was so thick, and when it did it showed a surface that was bedraggled and dripping wet with trees lifeless after the storm and rain.

  In the elder burrow there, Tryfan had been waiting with a few others for news of the fighting, and had nearly gone down to see for himself once more when Mayweed arrived after his trek from the Marsh End.

  “Begging your pardon and not wishing to worry anymole here,” he said, interrupting their deliberations, “but I think, Sirs one and all, I think, consid
er and believe that you better get a move on. The river tunnel’s beginning to flood with the rain. Yes, Sir, sorry, Sir,” said Mayweed.

  It had, of course, rained before in the past weeks and Mayweed had had a chance to see what the effects were. The worry was not so much that it would flood right through – it seemed never to do that – but that the ground would become dangerously muddy and the passage of so many moles would not only be slowed, and nomole could guess what the effect of the vibrations of their pawsteps and scrabbling alongside already sodden walls might be.

  Even as Mayweed was recovering from his rapid ascent to the elder burrow, and the others were absorbing his news, and being briefed at last by Tryfan and Skint about the tunnel escape route, Alder’s messenger from the Eastside arrived: the retreat had not slowed, the system’s flanks were beginning to be exposed, the time had come to leave.

  Rapidly Tryfan gave out his final orders. Comfrey, Maundy, Skint and Mayweed were to go straight back to Barrow Vale, where they would lead the evacuees down through the Marsh End – Comfrey and Maundy’s presence being judged essential to inspire trust and confidence. The Marsh End was much feared as being a place of dankness, disease, and haunting, the ground beyond it was regarded as impassable. But if Comfrey was there then moles would follow him.

  “And what of Spindle?” asked Comfrey.

  “He will come when the time is right,” Tryfan reassured him... which meant then at that moment, for the cleric appeared frowning at the chamber’s entrance, peered at them all, and said, “Do I presume we are leaving now?”

  “We are,” said Tryfan.

  “Well,” sighed Spindle, “a cleric’s work is never done! But I have done the best I could, and if Henbane’s moles find the library Mayweed and myself have hidden, the Stone is not as friendly as I thought it was!”

  He looked tired, which was not surprising since he had chosen to spend much of the past two dangerous days making final records of what he had seen, as if to remember for a future generation a time which would come to be seen as a crisis of change, though the leaders like Tryfan and Skint and Alder were too busy to take stock of it.

  “I think I will come along with you, if you don’t mind,” he said, on learning that Tryfan was going down to see the retreat. “I might as well see the end of it all and anyway, I have a snout for where the main action is, and I have a feeling...” but he stopped, his thin face on one side, his pale talons fretting at each other.

  “You come with me then,” said Tryfan, more pleased than he knew, for he liked to have Spindle near, as if in his friend’s seeming weakness he felt his own strength.

  Tryfan, with Spindle, would therefore join the others later, probably during the passage through the tunnel, but not before he had made sure that the retreat from the Eastside was complete, and the moles who were to occupy the Marsh End labyrinth had made good their escape to it, or at least were in a position to do so.

  For Comfrey of all moles, and for Maundy too, it was a terrible moment, for it was likely that they might never see the Duncton Stone again. But the policy had been agreed, and the plans made, and there were many among the moles of Duncton who would not leave if they did not see their most beloved elder leaving as well.

  Comfrey had himself told them that Duncton Wood must now be left in the care of younger paws, and it was for moles like himself to set an example of courage and patience in retreat, and to pass on, as best they might, the stories and traditions of Duncton to moles who, one day, might find the strength and the opportunity to return.

  So then, for one last time together, the elders went out to the Stone clearing, and there in the rain they said their last prayers, and old Comfrey went finally to the Stone he loved and touched it, making a blessing on the moles whom it protected.

  He said finally, “And if others c-c-come, let them hear thy Silence, Stone, and know thy love. Let this be but a dark passage on the way to the time when peace comes once more to Duncton, and moles may be free here, to live without fear, to think what they might, and to heal each other with the love that comes from the sound of thy gr-gr-great Silence.”

  The others watched as Comfrey turned to Maundy, and reached out to touch her paw as he continued, “We two are old and have seen m-many things, and now, for the first time, when the end of our two lives is near, we are to t-t-travel on. Well, ’tis thy will, Stone, and we trust it.”

  “We do,” whispered Maundy, coming nearer so that her grey and wrinkled flank touched Comfrey’s. So they crouched, and the others with them, with the Stone rising high above them to where the great beech branches still dripped sporadically with rain, and the high wood was a chamber of dull morning light.

  “Come on, my dear,” said Maundy softly, “we must leave now.” Then, as if performing a rite of farewell for Comfrey, who seemed too moved by the moment to do such a thing himself, Maundy went to each in turn and touched them, and whispered their name, and wished that each one of them might one day return home safeguarded.

  Then the two old moles led the others away, leaving Tryfan and Spindle alone by the Stone.

  “Well!” said Tryfan. “Time to go... and I feel nervous, very.”

  “I know you do,” said Spindle with a smile. “Why do you think I’m here with you? You’ve found it hard being a leader, haven’t you?”

  Tryfan nodded.

  “It is hard. Moles do not want to see doubt or weakness though I feel them often. And the fighting, Spindle, there must be a better way than that. The last messenger told me that our casualties have gone up. There are females down in the Marsh End who will never see their mates again, and youngsters who will not hear their father’s voice but as a memory. What am I to say to them? And there will be others who will die, and many who will never return to the home they loved. And all because I lead them! Who is to say that they would not be better off staying here? How can we be sure that Henbane would not show some mercy to them?”

  “She never has by all reports.”

  Tryfan sighed. “Well, one day there will be a better way. One day...”

  “And when will that be, Tryfan?” wondered Spindle.

  “When the Stone Mole comes. That will be the day. May the Stone preserve me to see it!”

  “And I!” said Spindle.

  “Now,” said Tryfan, “now we’ll go one last time to see Alder, and ensure the final retreat is orderly.” They took a surface route out of the Stone clearing, and Tryfan’s step was suddenly light, as if all the decisions had been made and there was nothing left now but to see them through to the end.

  “Come on, Spindle!” he said, moving more quickly as they reached the edge of the wood and the Eastside slope dropped before them.

  Neither mole looked back to the Stone clearing they had just left, as the Stone itself began to be lost among the trees behind; nor did they see the sudden shaft of light that came down out of the clouds and caught its wet sides, and glistened and shone where they had been.

  They found Alder still holding on to the central burrow of the last main defence line on the south-eastern slopes, but only just. The tunnels were filled now with weary moles, many too tired and injured to look up as Tryfan and Spindle passed by.

  What was worse, only a few minutes before Tryfan’s arrival, two watchers, one injured, had been isolated on the surface and caught by guardmoles, and even now voices could be heard raised and angry as the grikes discussed what to do with them.

  Tired though they were, there was not a mole in the tunnels who would not have gone out to attempt to rescue them, but that, as Alder had firmly made clear, was what the guardmoles wanted and he was not allowing it.

  Tryfan could easily see why. The ground beyond the surface burrow was undulating and several guardmoles had taken stance there; while further on, past a barbed wire fence, the ground fell to hidden ground and Stone knows what guardmole lay in wait there.

  “They’re trying to get us out by keeping the two prisoners in our sight,” said Alder, “but whatev
er we may feel, I will not allow anymole to go.” He glared balefully around the tunnels. Like the others he looked tired, and his fur was matted with mud, sweat and blood. The blood of his wounds had coagulated, yet some still seeped through down his face; but others were far worse off than he.

  “Can’t they be reached by tunnels?” asked Tryfan, watching in horror from the vantage of the surface burrow as the two watchers were paraded near the fence and talons were raised brutally against them. But he already knew the answer to that: there were no tunnels to that point.

  “What news of Ramsey and his group?” asked Tryfan urgently. He knew they lay concealed further down the slope, quite surrounded by mole but for the tunnels back to where Alder and the others had refuge.

  “None,” said Alder, “but the deep tunnel to his position is still clear and we think it has not been found. I do not know if Ramsey has made an attack or not, but it seems likely. He has not returned, but we must retreat, Tryfan, if we are not to be overrun and taken. I —”

  At that moment the raised voices of the guardmoles stopped, there was a sudden cry of protest followed by a sickening and dreadful scream, and the Duncton moles heard the sound of one of their injured colleagues being snouted on the barbs of the wire fence.

  Anger, impotence, rage... the surface burrow was dark with hatred of the grikes.

  “We must do something, Alder,” said several moles at once, “we must....”

  As they spoke the taunting voice of a guardmole came to them: “One up and another to go!” it cried. “Unless you lot want to give yourselves up. Well? You’ve not got long to make up your minds...” They saw the hapless uninjured watcher struggling as three guardmoles grabbed him and held him ready by the wire to hang him on a barb adjacent to the one where, so terribly, the body of his friend still shook with the rigor of pain that a snouting means, blood gushing from his snout, spilling from his mouth and bubbling as his last screams were lost in a drowning too terrible to imagine.