The Second Wave (The Dorset Squirrels)

by Michael Tod

  This was the time when he had to wake the others, and he was about to do so when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement. He turned but could see nothing out of the ordinary. There were little grey wisps of vapour rising from the ground – it must have been one of those he had seen. Then, just as he was about to turn away, he saw another movement in the same place – a stealthy movement. Something was out there, coloured grey, and creeping towards them along the sandy path they had used on the previous evening. It seemed that the Greys had found their scent-trail and followed it! Still unsure, and not wanting to cause unnecessary alarm, he went down and quietly woke Juniper and Rowan.

  Alder whispered to them, telling of what he thought he had seen, and the three of them went to the highest part of the rock. No movement could be seen in the heath scrub and Alder was about to apologise for a false alarm when Rowan saw the heather-tops shaking. Soon it became apparent that there was movement all around the rock.

  Alder decided the others should be woken and Juniper quickly went to do this, whispering their fears to each group of squirrels. Rusty’s teeth started to chatter and she had to clamp her jaws together. Chip crouched close beside her.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, Rusty-Ma,’ he whispered. ‘These squirrels will protect us if it is the Greys.’

  The Agglestone would form a good defensive site, Alder was thinking, should it prove necessary. The rock behind them was steep, overhanging in places, and the Woodstock could be used to cover the sloping front face. He looked round for it, then, with horror, remembered that it was on the ground, hidden in the holly bush.

  ‘Dear Sun,’ he said, quietly, ‘don’t let it be Greys.’

  Then he heard Ivy’s voice. His prayer had come too late.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Hickory had been bored sitting day after day watching the castle mound for signs of the Reds leaving. Each day he saw parties going down to the humans’ village and returning later and, although unable to count very well, he knew that it was not all of them, and he never caught a glimpse of Rusty the Squarry.

  In idle moments he thought of just moving on westwards and leaving that crazy Ivy behind. He regularly sent his fellow watchers back to report, and from them he knew that Crag was dead or, as the more simple of them believed, had been changed into a giant metal squirrel. Ivy was behind all that, he was sure. But if he did go westwards, he would be on his own and might never meet other squirrels for the rest of his life. Then there was the business of the Sunless Pit… No, he would stay for a time and see what happened.

  Jackdaws were carrying sticks into the cave. He looked again. It was true. They would not be doing that if the Reds were still there. He felt sick. They must all have slipped away in the night.

  Hickory shook his fellow watchers and cursed them for not being alert and the three set off down the hillside, crossed the stream by a fallen tree and went cautiously up to the foot of the wall below the cave. Had the jackdaws not been flying in and out, he would have suspected a trap and feared the whisker-curling power that the Reds had. But, convinced that they had gone, he climbed up to find the cave empty of squirrels.

  He sent one of the watchers to tell Ivy that the Reds had at last moved on, and with the other Grey close behind him, followed a fading scent-trail southwards.

  Ivy, at the head of a posse of Greys, had caught up with him four days later, following the marks, symbols and scents he had left to guide her. Now they were looking across the heath at a huge stone outlined against the dawn sky.

  Earlier, Hickory had seen the Reds dragging the twisted stick along and had guessed that it was the source of the whisker-curling power they commanded. He had suggested that they stop at a distance from the rock and find where this stick was.

  ‘Go down and challenge them, sinful one,’ Ivy had instructed him. ‘Then we can tell if the power workss outsside a cave.’

  This is a different Ivy, Hickory thought. She’s got much more confident of herself while I’ve been watching the cave. Now she’s expecting me to sacrifice my whiskers for her!

  ‘It is obvious that the power works only on sinful squirrels,’ he replied. ‘As you are free of sin, you can go safely and see if they have the power stick with them.’

  Ivy looked disconcerted for a moment, then, realising that her whole basis of authority had been openly challenged, replied, ‘Cowardly one, if you are afraid to show yoursself, then I musst do thiss tassk mysself.’

  She gave him a scornful look, signalled to the other Greys to hold their positions and hopped down the path, her heart beating fast, knowing that she had gambled everything on this one act. She stopped and studied the sloping stone face in the growing light. She could see many red squirrels, but could not see the twisted stick that Hickory had described to her. Neither could she see any place on the rock where it might be hidden.

  Risking all, Ivy stood to her full height and called up.

  ‘Send down Russty, the Squarry, and we will leave you in peasse, Blassphemerss though you be.'’ Alder said nothing, but signalled to the senior squirrels to take up defensive positions, the males at the lower edge of the sloping face of the rock and the females where they could repel any Greys who might try to clamber up the rock to their rear. The yearlings, toughened now by the hazards of the journey, were to form a reserve in the middle and be ready to fill any gaps in the defence.

  ‘Send down Russty, the Squarry,’ Ivy commanded again.

  ‘She stays with us,’ Alder replied.

  ‘Squirrels in trouble,

  Always stand by each other

  None suffers alone.’

  ‘Then you will all die together,’ Ivy replied. ‘The Temple Masster hass taught uss hat nothing musst stop uss fulfilling the Squarry Edict.’

  ‘The Temple Master is dead,’ Alder called down.

  ‘That may be so,’ Ivy replied, ‘but hiss Edict standss. Now, send down the Squarry!’

  Alder felt a body press against his as he stood, looking over the edge of the rock, wondering what to do next. It was Rusty.

  ‘I’ll go down,’ she told him. ‘My life is not worth all of yours,’

  Rusty felt a paw on her shoulder and looked around. Marguerite had anticipated her intentions and had joined her where she crouched next to Alder. She told Rusty,

  ‘Evil will triumph

  If good squirrels don’t resist –

  Even do nothing.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Alder. ‘We stand or fall together. Now, both of you, back to your positions.’

  Marguerite went up to the highest point. From here she could see all around. By leaning out over the edge she could see Greys on the ground, studying the rock for ways to climb.

  She counted them, then turned to look in the other direction and tried to count the squirrels there. These had now come out of the heather and were milling around on the bare sand where the vegetation had been worn away by the hard feet of human Visitors, as though they knew the Woodstock could not be used on them. Some more Greys could be hidden from her sight beneath the overhang of the stone’s lower edge. The Reds were well outnumbered and they had left the Woodstock down in the holly bush. She blamed herself for not insisting that they had carried it up the night before; she had been too interested in those shapes cut in the rock. Those would not save them, but the Woodstock might have.

  Looking behind you

  There is…

  ‘Too late for that now.

  They did have the advantage of height, though. If it came to a fight, it could go either way. Trust in the Sun!

  ‘Death to the Squarry. Death and the Sunless Pit for all thosse who protect her,’ called Ivy.

  ‘Death and the Sunless Pit,’ chanted the other greys, and the attack commenced.

  The Reds held strong positions at the edges of the rock and were able to bite and scratch at grey paws and faces as the attackers tried to come over the rock-edge. But with their extra numbers and greater size and strength, the Greys wer
e soon driving the Reds back up the slope. Juniper, at the lowest point, though slashing and biting in all directions, was unable to hold back the pressure from below.

  On the upper edge the females were having more success. Every time a Grey climber reached the top of the rock two red females would bits its paws and the Grey would drop backwards, yowling with pain and twisting in the air to land upright; it would then have to retire and lick the wounds on its crippled forepaws, unable to take any further active part in the fight. Another would take its place, however, and there was never a moment’s respite for the defenders.

  Marguerite was praying as she fought, facing the Sun.

  Please help us, great Sun

  To defend our beliefs – so

  Evil may not win.

  Across the heath near Wych Farm a geologist pressed the button that exploded one of his test charges buried in the ground, the echoes from the rock formation far below confirming the existence, and indicating the extent, of a vast reservoir of oil. Oil formed by vegetation which has grown in the Sunshine of a primitive earth, long before squirrels or indeed any other mammal had evolved.

  He checked his instruments and moved across to connect the batteries to the second charge.

  As Marguerite said the last line of the Kernel, the great ironstone rock, glowing red in the light of the early sunshine, trembled under their feet, and the squirrels, red and grey, clung on apprehensively.

  ‘The Sun is with us, called Marguerite and the Greys retreated down the rock, dropped to the ground and clustered together round the base.’

  ‘The Sun is with uss,’ Ivy shouted, the words hissing past her broken tooth. ‘It iss shaking the rock to disslodge the Blassphemerss. Follow me, the Sun iss with USS!’

  The Greys rallied and their attack recommenced.

  The Reds were now hesitant in defence, but Marguerite called loudly from the top of the rock, ‘The Sun is with US. It shook the rock to discourage the attackers!’

  Beneath their feet the great slab of stone trembled again, and each side, believing that the sign was favourable to them, fought more resolutely.

  As the sun rose higher, the greater numbers and strength of the Greys were telling and they were pressing the Reds back towards the top of the rock. Juniper disappeared under a ball of grey bodies which rolled backwards and fell to the ground, limbs flailing in all directions.

  The red defence faltered, the Greys pressed home their advantage. The whole of the lower half of the sloping rock was a seething mass of grey pressing upwards against a thin line of Reds. Alder turned to signal for the reserve of yearlings to engage the enemy, only to find that they were already in action, fighting in pairs. Somehow they had broken off flakes of rock and one of each pair was leaning over the edge hammering at the Greys whilst the other held on to its back feet.

  In the thickest part of the action Tamarisk was fighting side by side with Rowan.

  ‘I wish we had the Woodstock up here,’ he said, between slashes at a grey male who was trying to outflank him. ‘That’d knock a few off the rock!’

  Rowan leapt back to avoid a savage bite from another Grey, and replied, ‘Could we get it? It’s worth a try, we’re losing here. Nothing ventured…’

  ‘Follow me,’ called Tamarisk, and, with Rowan at his side, ran between the startled females, judged the distance, realising as he did so that he had never made such a jump before, and leapt from the rock to land in the holly bush.

  As Rowan jumped a grey head appeared over the edge of the rock in front of him and a grey paw reached up and caught his leg as he flew over. The Red and the Grey fell, fighting, to the ground below.

  Tamarisk, in the holly, wriggled his way down through the spiky leaves which pricked his skin painfully. A needle-sharp spine pierced his left eye and, though he felt the stab of pain, he fumbled around amongst the stems in the shadow of the dark green leaves until he felt the smooth twisted shape of the Woodstock.

  The Greys on that side of the rock, intent on trying to avoid the teeth and claws of the defending females, ignored the ‘deserter’ who had appeared to abandon his companions and was probably fleeing for his life somewhere behind them. They could hunt him down later.

  Tamarisk, half blinded by the blood pouring from his left eye, pushed the Woodstock some way out of the bush and directed it at the Greys at the back of the rock. He was about to scratch a when he saw a flash of red fur amongst the mass of grey. He held back, wondering what to do.

  Rowan’s head came up from out of the melee. He called to Tamarisk, ‘Use the Woodstock-now!’ and the head went down again.

  Tamarisk brushed away the blood from his face, aimed it at the writhing mass and scratched a just as the great rock shook for the third time. Then he directed the power of the Woodstock onto those Greys clinging to the sunlit side. They felt agonising pains around their mouths and nostrils and, with their heads spinning and their claws no longer able to hold on to the crevices, they fell backwards, to land in moaning heaps on the ground. Here they lay, pawing at their faces and trying to straighten the tight curls now seemingly burned into their previously straight whiskers.

  Engrossed in their own distress, the Greys ignored Tamarisk as he attempted to drag the Woodstock round to the other side of the great stone.

  A grinning Rowan was suddenly beside him, helping. ‘I turned my back, got my head down and hid my whiskers.’ He said breathlessly, in answer to Tamarisk’s unspoken query.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here. My eyesight’s funny – I can’t judge distance.’

  Rowan sighted the Woodstock and scratched a bold . The Grey reserve on the ground, watching the fight above and ready to clamber up to join in if called on, didn’t notice the two Reds with the peculiar stick until too late. The spiralling force struck them and they fell back, pawing at their faces. The Reds above, now assisted by the females, who no longer had to defend the rear, pushed down the rock, driving more Greys into the range of the Woodstock.

  Soon only a few, including Hickory, were still able to fight. There was no sign of Ivy. Alder called a halt and the two sides each withdrew a squirrel length and paused, facing each other, panting for breath, but with the Reds' tails conspicuously high.

  Marguerite came forward and, having got a nod of assent from Alder and unable to see Ivy, addressed Hickory.

  ‘The Temple Master is dead. The Temple itself has been destroyed by the Lightning Force and now, with the help of the Sun, your party is defeated and your compatriots will have to suffer a whiskerless life for at least a moon. Will you accept that this squirrel, Rusty, is no longer to be what the Temple Master called a Squarry?’

  Hickory lowered his tail as a sign of submission, but said nothing.

  ‘Where is the female you call Ivy?’ Marguerite asked.

  Hickory shrugged his shoulders, but another grey called up, ‘She is here, Red One.’

  ‘Ivy’s body was dragged out from under the rock, Juniper’s teeth through her throat.

  Rowan went across to Juniper and put his paw on the bloodstained chest of the old squirrel, then did the same to Ivy.

  ‘They are both Sun-gone,’ he announced.

  ‘Deal with your injured,’ Marguerite said to Hickory. ‘We will talk more later.’

  She climbed to the top of the rock to be alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  Marguerite looked down on the Greys at the base of the rock. The few without injuries or curled whiskers were helping the others. She felt sorry for them and in a way responsible. They had come to her asking to be taught native ways and because she had sent them away, they had fallen under the influence of the fanatical Temple Master. Because of this, her life-mate, Juniper the Steadfast, was Sun-gone along with several Greys, and many more squirrels were hurt. The Reds had been forced to leave the Blue Pool and were now in the middle of a heath with no trees near to give Juniper a proper burial and they still had to get to Ourland and tackle the pine marten.

  Turning her head, she could see
Ourland over the water beyond the heath. If only she could see if the pine marten was still there, but it was much too far away.

  To her right was the sweep of a sandy beach and over the sea beyond that she could just see white cliffs. Further to her right were the rock columns where the dolphins had come to her rescue the year before. She thought of them, Malin and Lundy, and wondered if they were, even now, out in that vast expanse of sea.

  She looked down at the Greys again. They had come to the Blue Pool to learn native customs. She knew from the intensity of her Sun-scene that her destiny had to be on Ourland, but she asked herself briefly if she should not go back with the Greys and teach them the Kernels of Truth and how to live at peace with nature and one’s surroundings. It also seemed important that the cold creed taught them by the Portlanders should be permanently replaced with one of Love under a friendly Sun.

  She felt drawn to the idea of staying. She wanted time to work out the meanings of the humans’ carvings on the rock. Her life-mate was Sun-gone, her youngsters were strong and healthy and could get along without her. But…a Tagger’s first duty was to her community… and she did so want to know what had happened on Ourland since she had left. She sensed that Old Burdock had gone to a worthy rest, but hoped that Oak and Fern, her parents, had not been taken by the pine marten.