Duncton Quest

by William Horwood

  “Here, Sir, here! Come to the sound of my voice... Here, Sir!” said Mayweed, and Tryfan did so in the blackness, reaching forward in the water so that his paw went up into air even as his back paws found muddy ground again. He reached out carefully, felt about and his paw touched the soft, wet face-fur of Mayweed.

  “How do you do it, Mayweed?” said Tryfan.

  “I was born in blackness and I survived in it,” said Mayweed, his voice low and without the normal false sing-song. “I do it by sound and vibration. I do it because I learnt to do it.”

  His voice was suddenly strong and certain, as if in this blackness, where he could not be seen, he could be himself: a strong mole, a mole who had conquered fear and learned to survive alone.

  There was something so direct and clear in Mayweed’s answer to his question that Tryfan found himself saying, “I’m nervous down here, Mayweed. Very nervous.”

  “I know you are, Tryfan,” said Mayweed using his name without qualification, honorific or adjective for the first time ever, and then more softly, and with a touching reassurance, “I know.” And Tryfan knew that he did, because he had been nervous once, nervous to the point of dying of fear, nervous for molemonths, perhaps years on end, in tunnels black, tunnels filled with plague-dead moles. Abandoned as a pup to what must have seemed eternal darkness and forever obeying his mother’s last command: “Don’t go out or they’ll kill you. Stay here, stay...” And Mayweed had survived, and was here, and in the blackness where none could see his scarred thin body he was himself and truly strong, as he was in spirit.

  “I know,” he said again and Tryfan knew that Mayweed understood his fear.

  “Come on now, Tryfan,” said Mayweed. “We have not so far to go.”

  They advanced up the tunnel, Mayweed going ahead, and Tryfan almost did not want the light to come as it did, for he could see the old Mayweed returning, the unctuous body, the turning laugh, and the strong and certain mole, the mole whose voice had been reassuring and confident down there in the blackness, was being replaced before his very eyes by the one who advanced into the light, turned and said, “Very good, Sir, we’re through, Sir, we have done very, very well, haven’t we, Sir?”

  “Mayweed —” began Tryfan hoping to bring back the Mayweed he had briefly “seen” in the tunnel, but with the slightest shake of his head Mayweed refused to acknowledge Tryfan’s attempt to reach through the facade he presented to other moles.

  For a moment Tryfan paused, and watched the hunched, thin mole that seemed to be Mayweed, but which was not Mayweed, and he whispered a prayer to the Stone that if ever the time came that Mayweed could be helped to be... himself... to be that mole that had courage to get others through the darkness Tryfan would like the chance to take it.

  “Please, good, kind Sir, come now. The last groups of moles are waiting and, as you rightly suggested, we’ll take the remaining moles through together because time is so very terribly, awfully short, Sir.”

  “It’s Mayweed! He said he’d come. For us, for me!”

  It was Starling, the only mole in the cluster of nervously waiting moles who seemed to have any energy left, and near her Lorren watched her every move.

  “Well, well, well, young molethings!” said Mayweed. “And whatmole did not forget you?”

  “You didn’t!” said Starling.

  “You look very confident, young Madam,” said Mayweed.

  “I am, she’s not,” said Starling, pointing dismissively at Lorren. “But I can’t go because I’ve lost Bailey. He must be somewhere, silly Bailey!”

  Which he was, right at the back, past many moles, having found Rushe, the mole he had learned to call his mother, and decided that, after all, he preferred her reassuring presence. Starling was all right but there were times you wanted somemole big at your side.

  Having found Bailey, Mayweed offered him the chance of coming forward again to be with Starling.

  “Not going with her,” said Bailey, and crouched firmly next to Rushe.

  “Then you’ll go last, young and excellent Sir!” said Mayweed.

  “I don’t mind, but don’t tell Starling you found me then she’ll be scared.”

  “Not nice, not generous and not right at all,” said Mayweed scoldingly. “I most certainly will tell Starling, young Sir, and that you told me not to! I’ll tell Spindle, too, because I think he’ll want to know where you are.”

  “Okay,” said Bailey with the world-weariness of a youngster who knows that moledom is full of adults who will not do his will, and whose way he must accept.

  Mayweed and Rushe exchanged nods and smiles, glad of the youngsters to relieve the tension, and with Ragwort and other watchers taking up the rear, and Tryfan, Marram and Alder in the middle, Mayweed reached the front, Smithills with him, and set off for the final time.

  “Dear Sirs, splendid Madams,” called out Mayweed, as they reached the real beginning of the noisome tunnel, “we will go now, and go fast. Follow the mole in front, do not talk because I need silence to find the way, and be prepared to swim a little when you reach the centre of the tunnel.”

  “But I can’t —” began a timid mole.

  “But you can, good Sir, mature Sir, strong-looking mole, and those in front and behind will help you... nothing to it! Ha! Easy as getting muddy, easier! Close, quick, nomole left behind? We leave!” Then, before they had time for discussion or for discovering more doubts, they were gone for the final time into the depths as, up on the surface, the afternoon darkened and more storm clouds blew over the heights of Duncton Wood.

  The only noise, apart from the squelch of pawsteps in the murk, was the chatter of Starling and Lorren whom Mayweed had made the mistake of telling to be completely obedient during the trip underground.

  “Well I will be!” said Starling brightly.

  “You’re not usually,” said Lorren, “and I don’t expect you will be now. I think —”

  “Shut up,” said some unidentified mole from out of the dark. A mole of few but sensible words.

  “Shut up yourself,” returned Lorren.

  Then a grim silence fell on the moles as they went down deeper and deeper into the dreadful tunnel and the going got darker and muddier. The distant roar of water had deepened, and here and there, the further they went, Tryfan noticed that what had been merely dripping water before had been replaced by ominous oozings of mud. Then they were into darkness, and the sound, dreadful and frightening, of sucking and slumping in the tunnel around them, and moles whispering nervously and asking how much further it was.

  Instinctively Mayweed went more slowly, whispering orders behind him that everymole must tread warily and avoid touching the wall to their left if they could.

  Despite this, the only serious hold-up was at the central pool, as Mayweed had predicted, and he and Smithills having crossed it easily, they had to talk over the moles one by one until Tryfan himself was through.

  “Lead them on, Tryfan,” said Mayweed urgently in the dark, for around them the tunnel seemed to move and quake, and the ground beneath to be sinking.

  “Come on then,” said Tryfan, but though Lorren was willing to go on she did not want to when Starling insisted on staying with Mayweed.

  “You must go!” said Starling peremptorily, ordering her on. “I’m just going to wait for Bailey who can be very silly at times and Rushe may be wanting to be rid of him.”

  Mayweed sighed, made sure where she was and told her to hold on to him, and then called to the next mole to cross the water, the tunnel trembling now, and even his cheerful voice beginning to show signs of tension.

  “Come on, young Sir, please hurry now....”

  Meanwhile, Tryfan led the others on and at last the tunnel head lightened, and began to rise a little as they reached the harder gravelly bottom that heralded safety on the far side.

  “Hurry now,” Tryfan called, “hurry!” and he stood to one side as he helped Lorren and the others past him, towards the moles up there waiting to welcome the ne
wcomers, and bring them cheer and comfort. How slowly they came, tired and mud-covered, their fur a wetness of yellow-brown silt, their talons lost in clinging ooze... with little Lorren looking back fearfully to see if her sister, Starling, was safe, and Bailey too.

  “She’ll be here soon enough,” said a female, as Tryfan signalled her to hurry the first batch of them away, for the tunnel was changing now, and the ground unpleasant, and overhead the roof was sinking, wetting, lines of clear water running along it.

  Tryfan went back down into the tunnel, his paws reaching out and pulling the youngsters and others through more quickly, but many were tired, and there were so many more yet to come, and they were pausing and talking and telling each other they were safe....

  Tryfan called out down into the darkness, “Mayweed, hurry now, hurry...!”

  But his words were lost in a sudden rumble and rush. A strange bellowing of movement in the air, and the smash of water or of mud and a cry from inside the tunnel of Mayweed’s voice, almost echoing Tryfan’s... “Hurry now Starling, run now, run! And you others....”

  But that was all Tryfan heard, for then the roaring became louder and as Tryfan stared back into the gloom, and a couple more figures came desperately out of it, he saw behind them, surging and huge, dreadful walls of mud and water, yellow and terrible. Bearing massively down, coming faster and faster with what seemed an ululation of cries, overtaking them, turning them over, driving them towards him, higher and higher up the tunnel... and he too was taken by the wall of mud, turned over, choking, reaching desperately for something, anything to hold on to, turning, turning, and no idea where the floor was or the ceiling, and mud at his mouth, forcing its way into his snout, his orientation quite gone and desperate for air as his lungs pained and then tightened and he wanted to breathe, he must breathe, and the mud was in his mouth and....

  Somemole grabbed him and pulled him clear, and he found himself gasping and retching and staring down into a sea of mud where the tunnel had been.

  “Are they...?” he began, taking up stance and looking around. But nomole answered, not even the one who had grasped him, for they too were mud-covered and wet and behind him and around him he saw the horror of shock and drowned death. The mud before him bubbled, and shook, and stirred with dying moles.

  Then before others could stop him, and with a shout of “No!” he dived into the mud-water and dived again and again until suddenly, and with a struggle and heave, he pulled a spluttering, gasping Mayweed clear.

  “Sir, Sir, I had Starling... she’s there, Sir, please Sir...” and as willing paws pulled Mayweed clear Tryfan dived again down into the mud-water, seeking for a body with outstretched paws until, giving up, he turned for the surface even as a weak, desperate scrabble of talons touched his leg.

  Down he went a third time, and grasped hold of a limp form which, dragged out, was a female: Starling.

  “Take her, Mayweed, take her...” and as he did so, pulling the half-drowned body of Starling clear, Tryfan turned and went under once more, though only half so this time, floundering here and there until, exhausted, he returned to high ground. Others tried too, but no more moles were found, dead or alive.

  The tragedy was worse than it had first seemed. For not only had most of the moles in the tunnel been lost, but the surge forward of mud and water had taken many of those who already thought they were safe, sheltering in the burrows so carefully prepared for them. In one of the burrows all the moles were drowned where they crouched. In another a third had been sucked out and pulled back down into the tunnel. While all of those who had been between the burrows and the tunnel as Tryfan had been, had survived. It was most strange, most terrible, and the tunnels were filled with the sobbing of moles, from shock and from loss.

  When a count was taken more than half of all those escaping had been lost: more than half! And all the moles could do was comfort each other, and do as the few leaders surviving told them, which was to groom themselves clear of the cold mud and try to get warm.

  Tryfan and Spindle and Mayweed were safe, and so was Smithills, who had personally saved several moles, and Marram and Alder. Comfrey was alive but in shock, for so many of his friends had been drowned.

  Several, including Tryfan, watched over the terrible mud, but no life came from it, only the occasional rolling flank of a drowned mole, and then another. But they were left where they were, for what was the point of bringing them out, only to lie them down with the many other dead in that place?

  Lorren found her sister Starling, and the two huddled together crying terribly for Bailey, who, with their mother, must surely be lost, and staying close to Mayweed as if they would die if he left them. Ragwort, of course, was lost as well, and others who had been in the deepest part of the tunnel. But grief brings its own terrible fatigues, and with night came fitful sleep, with Starling and Lorren flank by flank with Mayweed, his paws around them as he stared with lost eyes over the chamber.

  “You’re looking after us now,” said Starling, waking suddenly, “aren’t you Mayweed?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, “yes I shall. Now settle down, young Madam, please....”

  Perhaps nothing else but their need for him could have kept poor Mayweed sane that night. His eyes were haunted with guilt and loss, for had it not been he who had first found the tunnel?

  “They would have suffered a worse fate than that!” said Tryfan bitterly.

  “But they’d still be alive, Sir,” said Mayweed.

  “Perhaps.”

  That long night Mayweed never slept. He kept his paws on his young wards, comforting them, and long afterwards Spindle, who was there, chronicled that sometime at dawn the look of a lost pup, which had always been with Mayweed, left his eyes forever. In its place came the look of an adult, angry perhaps, and forlorn, yet it had a will and purpose and would see life through. And as Starling fretted and stirred, Mayweed whispered hour after hour, “Mayweed won’t ever leave you, young Madam, not he.”

  So the surviving moles slept, the restless sleep of the troubled and lost, who have only death behind them and danger ahead.

  Morning came, and with it grim awakening. Tryfan wandered among the stricken moles with Spindle at his side, both disconsolate. Tryfan for all the moles who had suffered losses, Spindle for the fear that Bailey, his only pup, was lost to him forever, and not even Starling’s urgent clinging to the belief that Bailey must have survived could take the anguish from his thin face.

  Only Comfrey seemed to have recovered, as if, in his old age, he could bear his losses in a different and silent way.

  “We b-better have an elder meeting here, T-Tryfan,” he said slowly, “where all may hear us.”

  Smithills came, and others grouped around.

  But there seemed little to say. Barely one among them had not lost a friend or relative in the fighting or drowning, and their numbers seemed small. There was hope that some might have survived the drowning and been pushed by the water underground to the other side, but it was faint indeed. They knew that even had moles survived, the grikes would get them.

  As for Skint and Tundry and... “Well, where are they, Tryfan? They weren’t in that last party coming over.”

  But even then Tryfan could not tell the full truth lest, in one way or another, it got back to the grikes.

  “They are safe enough, and some of your mates as well,” he said rather weakly, for he felt he had nothing to say that could cheer them. Anger suddenly mounted among the survivors.

  “It would have been better to stay....”

  “Aye, and I’d have a brother still,” said another.

  “Only your word that the grikes are that bad. Can’t be worse than death....”

  Tryfan and the other elders stared at them uncertainly, tired from the weeks past, shocked by the events of the day before.

  “Aye it’s your fault Tryfan! Without you....”

  “You’ll have to say something more forceful to us all,” whispered Spindle to Tryfan. “They d
on’t want a bunch of elders looking miserable, they want to be led... so lead them. Tell them you’re taking them eastwards for safety, and that you trust in the Stone to protect those remaining in Duncton Wood. Tell them.”

  A hush fell. It was as if all there sensed that a moment of change had come. They looked at Tryfan and, troubled, he looked at them. The chill call of coot came down into the chamber, then the shrilking of geese, and a flapping woosh as they took off across the nearby river.

  Tryfan sensed that they must move on, and take up the challenge the Stone had given them.

  He raised a paw and said softly, “What I have to say I will say on the surface within sight of our great system.”

  “Once-great, you mean!” said an angry mole.

  “And will be again!” cried out Tryfan. “Aye, and will be again.”

  Then by the sheer force of his presence he led them up on to the surface, in the wide and exposed area near the river, beyond which, dimly, they could see the slow rising of the trees up Duncton Hill. The weather had cleared since the day before though the sky was still cloudy. But the air was good and here and there pockets of sun rode across the ground and lightened the trees of the wood, then the tall swaying sedges of the river, and then themselves.

  Tryfan turned instinctively eastwards, for that was where they were bound. There he might lose them in groups in other systems and there they would stay, biding their time until one distant day the Stone followers would return, with the coming of the Stone Mole, and those of Duncton Wood might find their way home.