by Anna Dale
Athene awoke several hours later and sneezed. The air smelled damp and when she touched the soil around her, it felt moist as well. When she mentioned this to Rusty later on, the fox seemed to think that there must have been a shower of rain up above and sure enough, when Humdudgeon lowered the first of his buckets into the river, he commented that the water level seemed to have risen considerably.
‘You don’t think that the river could rise so high it’d come through the hole in the floor?’ said Athene, shuddering at the thought.
Humdudgeon smiled and shook his head. ‘It would take a veritable torrent to do that,’ he said.
‘This is England,’ Athene reminded him. ‘It could happen.’
‘Perhaps you should pray that it does,’ said Humdudgeon. Water slopped from a bucket as he lifted it into the cart. ‘If we had a flood down here it might shock that stubborn old Low Gloam Chief into breaking the Confining Spell.’
Athene’s eyes opened wide. ‘Humdudgeon, you’re an absolute genius,’ she said.
Chapter Seventeen
A Dam and a Blast
They scheduled the next meeting of the escape committee for after suppertime. An overexcited Athene was keen to call the group together right there and then, but Humdudgeon persuaded her to wait. He pointed out that it was quite usual for everyone to take strolls after supper, but if a Gloam or animal suddenly took off when they were meant to be working, it might make the Low Gloam wonder what they were up to. Between supper-time and the beginning of the Curfew had seemed a good time for a powwow. They could not be any more specific than that because they had only got one wristwatch between them and that belonged to Athene and its hands had not budged at all since her prolonged dip in the River Axe. It was wearying for Athene to have to retreat inside her den and endure several more hours of solitude while she waited for her friends to finish their jobs and turn up at the Water Hole. After what seemed like a week she heard Humdudgeon call her name and in seconds he had scraped away the earth which concealed the entrance to Athene’s new home. She wriggled out immediately and they greeted each other warmly.
‘I’ve brought my set of tools,’ Humdudgeon said, ‘and I managed to perform that Multiplying Spell that you were telling me about.’ He unbuttoned his jacket and revealed an impressively long length of rope, which he had wound around his body so that no one would see him carrying it. ‘Huffkin’s bringing more,’ he said, ‘and there’s another lot stashed somewhere safe.’
‘You did a spell without permission?’ Athene said. ‘That was risky. No one saw you do it, did they?’
‘Well, of course not,’ Humdudgeon answered with a sneer. ‘As if I’d be that stupid!’
Huffkin arrived in the chamber a short while after Humdudgeon. She looked rather dusty and tired and cross. ‘Our hole keeps being ransacked,’ she told Athene. ‘I’ve lost count of the times I’ve tidied things up. Those beastly Low Gloam! Oh, bother. I’ve clean forgotten the rope Humdudgeon asked me to bring.’
‘Those Low Gloam won’t give up the search for you,’ said Rusty the fox, padding gracefully over to Athene and taking a seat beside her. The fox placed her front paws together and curled her tail around them tidily, rather like a domestic cat. ‘Lodestar is in the most fearful temper. She’s issued an order that everyone should look for you. The Low Gloam are doing their bit, of course, but the rest of us are only pretending to look. They think it’s a marvellous joke that someone’s managed to outwit the Low Gloam Chief!’
‘There’s a rumour going round that you’re a powerful magician and you’ve made yourself invisible,’ MacTavish said, glancing in Athene’s direction for the briefest of moments. He had volunteered to stand guard at the entrance to the chamber and he was taking his duty very seriously. His short black ears were permanently pricked and every few seconds he sniffed the air to check that no unwelcome visitors were approaching.
‘Good evening, friends,’ he said, when Shoveller and Fleet arrived together.
‘Sorry we’re late,’ said Fleet. ‘We came upon a wall full of succulent earthworms. Excuse our bad manners. We shouldn’t have gobbled them all ourselves. Next time we’ll be sure to share them with you.’
Athene smiled but said nothing.
‘Are we all here?’ asked Huffkin, turning a bucket upside down and perching on it.
‘What about Zach and Tippitilda?’ Athene said.
‘I didn’t think that it was safe to ask Tippitilda,’ admitted Humdudgeon. ‘She’s a Low Gloam, don’t forget.’
Athene was indignant. ‘But Tippitilda helped save me from drowning and she promised to keep my hiding place a secret!’
‘That’s because she likes you,’ said Humdudgeon, patting Athene’s knee. ‘She’s prepared to be a bit disloyal to her tribe if it means that you’ll be safe, but I hardly think she’d be willing to give her blessing to our escape plan. She’d blow the whistle on us, I’m certain of it.’
Athene grumbled about this decision, because she had come to trust Tippitilda. However, she was forced to concede that it would be foolish to take any risks at such an early stage.
‘So, what is this plan of yours?’ asked Shoveller. He lumbered over to the little group who were seated in a circle behind the cart, plonked himself down and began to inspect his hairy belly for fleas.
‘It’s a top idea,’ Athene said. ‘Humdudgeon thought of it.’
‘I may have had the first inklings, but you were the one that seized upon them, my dear,’ said Humdudgeon and they grinned at each other. Having praised each other’s ingenuity, they finally got round to explaining the essence of their plan.
‘We’re going to flood the tunnels!’ said Athene, revelling in the astonishment on everybody’s faces.
‘And how do you intend to do that?’ asked Fleet.
‘We’re going to build a dam,’ said Humdudgeon. ‘We thought we’d block the path of the river so that it gushes up through that hole over there. The Low Gloam’s kingdom will disappear under water.’
Shoveller rolled over into a standing position. ‘Never mind how you’re going to do it,’ he bellowed, squaring up to Humdudgeon and giving him a threatening poke with one of his claws, ‘why would you ruddy well want to? Are you totally crackbrained, the pair of you? We’ll all be drowned!’
‘It doesn’t sound like the best idea you’ve ever had,’ said Huffkin, gazing confusedly at her fellow Gloam. ‘I don’t really see how escaping comes into it.’
‘Ah, that’s the clever part!’ Humdudgeon said, backing away from the badger who looked as if he might fly at him at any moment. ‘Lodestar will think that we’ll all be drowned so she’ll break the secret spell to save our lives.’
‘Once the spell’s been broken we’ll be able to go Above,’ said Athene.
Shoveller grunted. ‘How?’ he said.
‘We can climb up the shaft,’ Athene told him. ‘We’ve got loads of rope.’
Obligingly, Humdudgeon revealed the sturdy length of cord that he had concealed under his jacket.
‘And what about us?’ said Rusty glumly. ‘Paws aren’t any use for climbing!’
‘We were hoping that you’d dig us some tunnels,’ said Athene, resting her hand on the fox’s neck. ‘You, MacTavish, Fleet and Shoveller. We’ll need plenty of escape routes to give everyone a good chance of getting out.’
‘Hmph,’ said Shoveller, sitting back down. ‘It could work, I suppose.’ He gave Humdudgeon a reluctant nod. ‘All right, I’ll go along with it. Count me in,’ he said.
‘Let’s have a show of hands,’ said Humdudgeon. There was disgruntled murmuring. ‘Or paws,’ he said and muttered a hasty apology. ‘Who votes that we should give our plan a try?’
Apart from MacTavish who raised his paw immediately and Shoveller who had already made up his mind, the others took several minutes to decide. Their desperate longing to escape was countered by their fear that Lodestar, stubborn harridan that she was, would not agree to break the spell. It was only when Shoveller de
livered a rousing speech, urging them to show what they were made of and give their support to the only escape plan that anyone had had the imagination to think up that the tide of opinion began to turn.
‘But if Lodestar digs her heels in, and everybody drowns – it will be our fault,’ wailed Huffkin, dropping the hand that she had begun to raise.
‘I’d rather die trying,’ declared Shoveller, ‘than be stuck in this cheerless place for the rest of my life, dreaming of the great open spaces and the sweet-smelling grass and all my dear old mates and knowing that I could have got back above ground if only I’d been brave enough.’
This last announcement of Shoveller’s seemed to win them over. One by one, they indicated that, despite the obvious dangers, they would back the plan.
‘It’s unanimous!’ Humdudgeon declared, staring around delightedly at all the raised hands and paws. ‘Well, my dears. We’ve let our meeting overrun. We’ll never make it back to the Squattings before the Curfew begins. Looks like we’ll have to sleep here.’ He started to unwind the rope which he had wrapped around his waist. ‘I might as well make a start on that dam, before I get some shut-eye,’ he said. ‘Anyone want to give me a hand?’
Several of them volunteered their services, but Shoveller did not seem too keen to help.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said the badger, ‘I think I’ll sneak a look around and find some good places to start those escape routes.’ He trotted out of the chamber when his big black nose had told him that the way was clear, and his friend Fleet the fox padded after him.
For the next few days, each of the seven conspirators toiled away without complaint. The Low Gloam sentries did not know that anyone was breaking the Curfew because the little group hid themselves away and did not return to the Squattings until after they had done a night’s work in their usual jobs. If they left the Squattings before the Honks sounded it was possible to stay out for the whole day without the alarm being raised because the guards never bothered to check that every hole in the Squattings was occupied. It was tough carrying out their normal duties at night and working towards their escape in between naps during the day, but the thought of the marvellous reward at the end of all their hard graft kept their spirits high.
Shoveller was put in charge of tunnelling. Given the size of his workforce and the number of animals who would need to be evacuated, he came to the decision that two tunnels would be enough. Their codenames were ‘Sweet’ and ‘Heavenly’ which, according to Shoveller, were the two words which best summed up what fresh air smelt like. Knowing that the entrances to Sweet and Heavenly would need to be in places that were rarely stumbled upon, he chose their locations with great care. Sweet was started in a tunnel that culminated in a dead end and Heavenly was begun in another abandoned tunnel in which there had been several cave-ins. Fleet and Rusty were assigned to dig Heavenly, and Shoveller took on the challenge of Sweet. He selected MacTavish as his burrowing partner, realising that the over-eager terrier needed someone who would keep an eye on him (from time to time the dog’s enthusiasm got the better of him and he started to dig in the wrong direction).
In the first day or so, they made good progress, but as time went on and they drew closer to the surface, the Confining Spell seemed to get stronger as if it had a mind of its own and sensed what they were aiming to do. It was not long before their forepaws felt weak and heavy as if great weights had been attached to them and the volume of earth that they managed to shift grew less and less.
‘Don’t be disheartened, workmates! It means that we’ve almost reached the topsoil,’ the badger told his team.
The actual building of the dam was undertaken by Humdudgeon with Athene and Huffkin on hand to help out as best as they could (neither was experienced at using tools). The first thing that Humdudgeon did was to nail a number of ropes to the roof of the cave. By the time that he had finished, the latticework of ropes resembled a cat’s cradle pattern. Next he made himself a bosun’s chair, which was a seat made from a plank of wood, suspended from several ropes. It could bear his weight and that of his bag of tools and he was able to move up and down on it to reach new overhangs of rock. He made a similar chair for Athene and Huffkin to use and during the night Athene would sit there by herself, chipping away at the rock with a chisel and a hammer. On her own, she was unable to achieve very much, but when all three of them worked together, the dam’s height increased, albeit it very gradually. Just before a chunk of rock became parted from the wall, they would secure it with a net of ropes and, using a pulley which Humdudgeon had rigged up, they would transport it over to the right hand archway and lower it into the water.
Athene learned, early on, that it was pointless to break off small rock fragments. Instead of sinking to the bottom of the river and staying put, they were sucked along by the current. To build a sturdy dam, Athene, Huffkin and Humdudgeon had to concentrate on removing large chunks of rock or long, dense stalactites which would lodge themselves on the riverbed and not be dragged downstream. The job seemed endless.
Athene divided her time between working in the cave and sleeping in the hole that Shoveller had dug for her. As a fugitive, it was vital that she should stay out of sight which meant that she could not visit Zach at regular intervals, as she had promised him she would. This troubled Athene a good deal and she was both elated and relieved when Huffkin agreed to call on Athene’s brother in her stead. It was through these daily visits from Huffkin that Zach first learned about the planned escape attempt.
‘He’s chuffed to bits,’ said Huffkin to Athene as they shared a supper of ant egg broth, ‘and he promises to keep it a secret – even from Tippitilda. He crossed his heart and everything.’
Another of Athene’s duties which Huffkin was obliged to undertake was the writing of the Low Gloam’s history book. Her handwriting was not as neat as Athene’s had been, but it was deemed to be of an acceptable standard and as soon as she had finished renovating the mosaics, Huffkin was summoned to Lodestar’s residence and told that she had been chosen to fill the position of scribe. In the space of a very short time, Huffkin got to know Dimpsy quite well. Ever since the day that Athene had got caught with the Book of Spells and managed to avoid being slung into the Coop, Lodestar had been in the foulest sort of mood imaginable. Unfortunately for Dimpsy, the Chief unloaded all her pent-up fury on her only servant. Bearing the brunt of Lodestar’s displeasure took its toll on Dimpsy and she began to spend less time on her chores and a larger part of her day in the study, pouring out her troubles to Huffkin, who was naturally very sympathetic.
‘Dimpsy looked so tired tonight,’ Huffkin would say to Athene while they worked side by side in the cave, and, ‘Lodestar works her to the bone, you know,’ and ‘I found Dimpsy in tears today. Lodestar keeps finding fault with every single thing she does.’
All of the conspirators laboured very hard, but eventually it reached the point when the diggers had done everything they could. They had got as close to the surface as the spell would allow and each pair had hidden the entrance to their tunnel by scraping a heap of dirt into the opening of their hole and flattening it to make it seem as if it was a part of the wall. Having done their job, Shoveller and his team were frustrated by the painfully slow progress of the dam builders.
To keep them busy, Humdudgeon assigned the diggers another task. He asked them all to spread the word about the escape attempt to those who could be relied upon to be discreet. Humdudgeon was keen for most of the animals and Gloam who weren’t in the Low tribe to be forewarned about the flood because it meant that there would be far less panic when it all kicked off.
‘How many nights have we been below ground?’ asked Athene not long after suppertime as she and Huffkin sat together on the bosun’s chair and tapped away at a lump of rock.
Huffkin tried to recall the number of scratches that Humdudgeon had made on the wall of their hole in the Squattings. ‘Nine,’ she answered.
‘That means my parents go home the day after tomorrow
,’ Athene said. ‘How long do you think it will take for the dam to be finished?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Huffkin, swinging her legs idly. ‘A week … hmm … or maybe two.’
‘By the time that we get out of here they’ll be long gone,’ Athene said. She sighed gloomily, and gave her chisel a bash. The hammer that she was using was too light to make much impact. It was the sort of hammer that Athene’s mother sometimes used in the kitchen when she wanted to break up slabs of homemade toffee. Her mother’s toffee was quite hard on the teeth, but it wasn’t as solid as rock.
‘It’s going to take for ever with these rubbish tools,’ she said. ‘What we really need is dynamite.’
‘What’s dynamite?’ asked Huffkin.
‘It comes in sticks,’ said Athene. ‘When you light one it blows up. It’s a dangerous explosive, first invented by a Swedish guy, I think. I’ve only ever seen it used in cartoons on the telly, but I reckon it would dam our river in seconds.’
Huffkin stopped hammering. She laid her tools on the plank beside her.
‘What’s up?’ asked Athene, taken aback by her friend’s behaviour.
Huffkin said nothing. She appeared to be thinking very hard.
‘Where are you off to?’ Athene said when Huffkin reached for the nearest rope and started to climb up. Without a word of explanation as to where she was going, Huffkin got to the top of the rope, swung like an orangutan across the ceiling and disappeared up another rope which led to the chamber above.
About an hour later, Huffkin returned with a package in her hand.
‘You’ve been gone ages,’ complained Athene. ‘Humdudgeon was awfully cross about you shooting off like that. He was worried about you being out after the Curfew. You must’ve cut it very fine. What’s this?’ Athene said, holding up the small, square parcel which Huffkin had just dropped into her lap.
