The Second Wave (The Dorset Squirrels)

by Michael Tod

  She couldn’t stay; she was the only one who really understood the power of the Woodstock, and that would be needed there to destroy the marten. No – she couldn’t stay!

  Rowan, whose injuries from the fight were relatively slight, was having similar thoughts about the Greys. He was discussing them with Meadowsweet, his beloved life-mate.

  ‘Some squirrels ought to stay and teach these Greys all the Kernels,’ he was saying. ‘If they are going to be the new Guardians, some of us must teach them the proper way to do it. Would you stay with me if I offer?’

  ‘Rowan, my love, where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. Young Bluebell too.’

  ‘If we are going to keep our kind alive on the Mainland, we will need more than one family to stay. Should I ask the ex-zervantz?’

  Spindle and Wood Anemone, although realising that they might never see Ourland again, readily agreed to stay on with their two youngsters, if the Council approved. Wood Anemone especially was glad that she would not have to make a sea journey again.

  The matter was discussed and settled at a Council Meeting held on the rock after High Sun. Hickory and two others of the ‘whiskered’ Greys had been invited to attend as part of their re-training. They appeared to welcome the offer of help from Rowan.

  The body of Juniper was buried near the holly bush, as the next best thing to a tree. The Reds, with the Greys behind them, gathered round to say the Farewell Kernel to a valiant fighter and a squirrel who had learned his wisdom through severe hardship.

  Sun, take this squirrel

  Into the peace if your earth

  To nourish a tree.

  The bodies of the dead Greys were buried on the side of the holly bush and, with Hickory’s permission, the Farewell Kernel was said for them as well.

  Then, whilst the sun was still quite high, Rowan and his party led the low-tailed Greys away across the heath in the direction of the Blue Pool, planning to reach the safety of a tree before darkness overtook them. They moved slowly, the injured Greys hobbling as best they could and the few whiskered ones among them guiding the others.

  An emotional farewell had taken place in the unspoken knowledge that it was unlikely that they would ever meet again, and the remaining Reds climbed to the top of the Agglestone to flick the ‘farewell’ signals with their tails until the departing squirrels were out of sight over the ridge.

  Marguerite half expected Tansy to ask if they could move on, with the Woodstock, at once, but Tansy was more concerned with Tamarisk. She was at his side all the time helping him move about. The sight in his left eye had faded and was now lost completely. It was obvious to Alder and Marguerite that at least the rest of the day and a night of recuperation would be needed before they would be able to travel.

  While they rested, Marguerite turned her attention to the Man-carvings on the rock, but there seemed to be no pattern to them.

  The intensity of her concentration kept thoughts of the loss of Juniper and the departure of her brother and his family from her mind. She was no nearer understanding the meaning of the shapes cut in the rock when she realised that it was too dark to see them. She had not eaten, but was too weary to care, so she climbed up and joined the others high on the rock.

  ‘I think we can do without keeping a watch tonight,’ said Alder, hardly able to stop his tail-stump from dragging, as he crawled painfully to the shallow scoop in the rock where most of the others were already asleep.

  Marguerite agreed. No squirrel could have stayed awake in any case. They were all too exhausted and would have to accept whatever risks the night might bring.

  The moon was high in the sky and the stars sparkling and twinkling above her when Marguerite woke feeling refreshed. She looked for the pattern of the Great Squirrel and followed the line of its paws to find the ‘Star that is always In the North’. That was the direction in which Ourland lay, she was thinking, and she climbed to the top of the rock to see if she could see it in the moonlight.

  Her attention was drawn to the Man-light across the sea. It glowed, then died, glowed briefly again, died again, then glowed steadily. Then the signal was repeated. Was it trying to tell her something? She stared out across the sea, concentrating hard.

  Her whiskers were tingling in a way she had only experienced once before, when she had found that she could communicate with dolphins without actually speaking. She moved her head from side to side until the tingles were equal. Into her mind came gentle voices, like the soughing of the wind in distant pines, and she focused on these until the voices came clear.

  ‘Can you hear us? Is that the small creature we were able to help last year? We sense that you have been part of a great triumph. Trust and fairness have beaten evil and bigotry. If it is you, we join you in hope.’

  Marguerite concentrated her thoughts and stared into the night towards the flashing light.

  ‘We are three now. We, Malin and Lundy have been Sun-blessed and have a youngster. We call him Finisterre. Your voice is faint. Are you far inland?’

  ‘I am on a great rock in the middle of a heath, a day or so’s travel from the sea.’

  ‘You are leaving the Mainland.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes, I am needed on the island in the great pool.’

  ‘Your destiny is there.’

  This too was a statement, and Marguerite recalled Lundy telling her that dolphins could sometimes ‘look forward’. She had been right in deciding not to return to the Blue Pool.

  ‘The day after tomorrow we will come to the sandy bay. If you need help, speak to us again then. Farewell.’

  The voices faded and an owl called tremulously from across the heath. Marguerite felt a curious mixture of loneliness and hope.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  The squirrels had got to the sea.

  Marguerite had told Alder of her contact with the dolphins and he had decided to have a meeting on the rock to discuss the next course of action. The most direct route to Ourland was north across the heath, but then they would have to find some way to cross the water themselves. If, however, they headed eastwards, they would reach the sea in the direction from which Marguerite had heard the dolphin’s voices, and they had promised help. But in that direction were many man-dreys, with the possibility of meeting dogs. Finally it was decided to head north of east until they reached what appeared, at that distance, to be a tree-covered knoll with a deserted part of the coast beyond it. They hoped that the dolphins would find them there.

  It had been hard work for the depleted party, several of whom were injured, to drag the Woodstock across the heath and it had taken them all day.

  They had slept in pine trees on the knoll on which there was a large Man-drey, but with no scent of the dreaded dogs, and from the pines they watched humans coming and going in their travelling boxes, their actions as incomprehensible as always. For spring, the foraging there had been good, and even better when the humans had noticed the squirrels and had put a variety of foods for them behind the Man-drey.

  In the early morning Marguerite had asked Alder to summon a special Council Meeting for a tagging ceremony. This had been held in the highest of the pinetops, a warm breeze blowing in from the sea and rustling the needles gently.

  ‘It is sad when a Tagger has to allocate down-tags,’ Marguerite had said, her face stern, then, as the squirrels had looked at one another in dismay, she had smiled and added, ‘but a joy when up-tags are to be given.’

  There had been an audible murmur of relief.

  ‘Firstly, I propose to up-tag Tamarisk the Forthright. After his brave action turned the tide in the Battle of the Rock, he has earned the tag Great Leap. He will now be known as Tamarisk Great Leap. All in favour?’

  There had been nods of approval and tail-flicking all around. Tamarisk’s one good eye had glowed with pride.

  ‘Tansy the Wistful,’ Marguerite had continued, ‘has shown great courage and fortitude in coming to us to seek assistance for our comrades on Ourland. My
proposal for her is Tansy Stout Heart.’

  There had been more approving nods and tail-flicks.

  ‘Finally, Rusty and Chipling, our friends from Portland, who until now have had no tags. For Rusty I proposed Rusty the Kind, and for Chipling, as he wants us all to call him, the tag Who Seeks Love.’

  Chipling had looked a bit disappointed, but had to agree that, with Tansy now preoccupied with Tamarisk, it was a true tag and he had vowed to himself that he would earn a better one soon.

  The plentiful food and the pleasure of the tagging ceremony had put the squirrels in high spirits as they crossed the roadway when it was clear of traffic and struggled through the and dunes, dragging the Woodstock with them.

  They paused at the top of the last dune, the marram grass high above their heads, and listened to it rustling as the salt-laden breeze, blowing in from the sea, bent the tops of the grass landwards. Apart from some seagulls pecking amongst the wisps of seaweed at the high-tide mark, the beach was deserted in the morning sunshine. The squirrels crouched in the shelter of a clump of the coarse grass and waited. Several of them, tired from the struggle over the dunes, slept fitfully, sand blowing into their ears and nostrils.

  As the sun got higher, some humans walked up the beach from the south and took off their coverings, replacing them with smaller pieces before sitting on the sand. A few, mostly young ones, ran into the water, shrieked and ran back up the beach.

  Near High Sun, when the heat of spring warmed the squirrels comfortably, they watched several of the humans venture into the water and swim around aimlessly before coming out and

  Sitting or lying on the sand again.

  There were no swimmers when Marguerite felt her whiskers tingle with the dolphin vibrations. She stood up and looked out to sea. Two large dolphins and one small one curved up out of the water and slid back down into it with hardly a splash.

  One of the humans had also seen the dolphins and, calling to the others, ran down to the water’s edge, pointing and gesticulating. The humans stood up and looked the way the man was pointing. The dolphins appeared to ignore them.

  All the squirrels were alert now, standing and staring out to sea. The three black backs curved through the waves.

  ‘Are you there?’ a voice in Marguerite’s head asked, and she knew it was Malin ‘speaking.’

  ‘Yes, except for my life-mate, Juniper, who nourishes a holly bush, and some who have chosen to remain, we are here.’

  ‘Stay in the sand grasses until it is dark, then we will bring a boat to take you to your island in the Great Harbour.’

  ‘Do dolphins have boats?’ Marguerite asked.

  ‘Not of our own,’ came back the reply. ‘We’ll use a boat of the humans.’

  ‘Will they let you?’

  ‘They won’t know it is us. If they miss it, they’ll think it is other humans; they are always taking one another's things. We will bite through the rope and when we have finished with it, we will push it ashore at high tide where they can find it. Without hands like theirs we can’t re-tie, but we will leave the boat where it will be safe.

  ‘Is it ‘right’ to do that?’ asked Marguerite, remembering the Kernel:

  If not in your care

  You must ask the Guardian

  Before you use things.

  ‘In principle, no. But humans no longer hear when we ‘speak’ to them. And considering what they are doing, we have no qualms about using a boat now and then,’ replied Malin, with an unexpected tinge of bitterness in his ‘voice’. ‘The way they treat the Sea!’

  ‘How is that?’ asked Marguerite, thinking of the humans she could see, clustered at the water’s edge.

  ‘They pollute it, that’s how,’ came back the reply.

  As Marguerite watched, the three glistening bodies curved up out of the blue of the water again. She marvelled at how that simple action, which a minute before indicated peace and contentment, now expressed anger and resentment.

  ‘This beach, the one they call Studland, is one of the few that are really clean now. But at many places along the coast they pour their dung into our Sea.’

  Malin continued, sadness replacing anger in his voice, ‘Only a few days ago we swam up the Channel past the man-dwellings in that place the humans call the English Riviera. They are very proud of that place and their dwellings are all along the coast and up the hillsides.’

  Lundy’s thoughts washed over Malin’s. ‘The squirrels are not concerned with this. They have problems of their own that we are here to help with.’

  Malin ignored her. It was obvious from the strength of his thoughts that this was a major concern of his.

  ‘We took a short cut between Thatcher Rock and the Mainland near there, and human dung was streaming out of the end of a tube on the seabed, tainting the water for miles.’

  ‘I thought humans buried their dung like cats do,’ said Marguerite, remembering the flood story.

  ‘They may have once, but now they just pour it into the Sea. I wonder how they would like it is thousands of dolphins sprayed their dung into the air over the land!’

  Marguerite thought of the squirrel saying:

  People puzzle us

  With their strange actions – but then

  They’re only human.

  A moment of appreciative thought carried across the waves, followed by, ‘I wish it was as simple as that, but there are disturbing metallic tastes in the Sea now, especially around the estuary of the Great River and up the coast to the north of it. It made young Finisterre quick sick when we took him up there. Sometimes it is hard to find clean water near the coast at all!’

  Marguerite did not know how to reply, there was so much sadness and concern in the dolphin’s thought-voice.

  Then she heard Lundy again. ‘I am sorry to bother you with our problems. Malin gets washed away sometimes; pollution is a real peril to us and we feel so helpless, unable to do anything about it.

  ‘We will leave now and come back when the moon sails the sky. We will have a boat for you then. Listen for us.’

  Out in the bay the three black shapes curved out of the water and vanished again below the surface. The humans waited for a while then drifted up the beach and settled down on their towels to enjoy the sun and the breeze on the bodies.

  It was now uncomfortably hot on the dunes and, though shaded a little by the marram grass, the squirrels lay panting in the heat. They could hear the waves on the beach and the cries of seagulls and excited young humans at play, but were not disturbed.

  As the sun dropped in the sky, the humans re-covered themselves, gathered up their things and wandered away along the shore. When they were out of sight, Dandelion, remembering her days on the beach at Worbarrow the year before, led the squirrels down to the shoreline and showed them which seaweeds were edible, and they raced the seagulls to find scraps of food left by the humans.

  The sea had been going away from them, but started to return as darkness fell. The squirrels sitting in groups on the sand felt vulnerable, but completely confident that the dolphins would return, bringing with them a ‘boat’. Though the yearlings had no real idea what such a thing was.

  Chip, at his mother’s side, was watching Tansy washing and cleaning Tamarisk’s blind eye with her tongue. Tansy Stout Heart was still kind to him, but her main concern was with Great Leap, though Tamarisk was more subdued that he had ever been, and gave more thought to his words before he spoke.

  Rusty, after knowing for a lifetime that a Squarry Edict was ‘until death’ could not really believe that she was free and safe amongst these, wonderful, warm-hearted squirrels, and kept glancing towards the heath, fearing the return of the Greys to impose the Edict.

  Alder was restless. He had never been in a ‘boat’, and he was apprehensive. He had grown to trust Marguerite's judgement and had no qualms about the integrity of 'her' dolphins. But he was about to commit his whole party to some new experience out of his control and at the end of it they would be landing on an is
land strange to him. Then they might have to tackle a pine marten, the ancestral enemy of all squirrels!

  This whole venture was absurd, though he seemed to have no choice but to go along with it. He would have to trust in the Sun and not show his fear.

  When the cones are down,

  Even if you doubt yourself,

  Hide all your concerns.

  Dandelion wondered if she should tell a story to pass the time, and was about to call the youngsters together to hear one when the edge of a huge yellow moon rose above the horizon, casting weird shadows on the dunes and the beach. The squirrels, with the fear of attack by Greys behind them and the island with the pine marten still somewhere in the future, seemed strangely moved to be in the open, under this odd light. Before long some of the yearlings were scurrying up and down the beach, turning sharply in flurries of fine sand and leaping over pieces of flotsam.

  Squirrelation took over, all caution thrown to the night wind, and the beach became alive with leaping, running and scampering squirrels of all ages, until Marguerite, who had briefly forgotten the loss of Juniper, called, ‘The dolphins are coming.’

  The excitement changed to anticipation as the outline of an unmanned rowboat appeared and was driven on to the sand by a push from one of the dolphins swimming behind it.

  The squirrels clustered around the severed mooring rope hanging from the bow, nudging each other, until Marguerite, who had clearly taken charge, said, ‘Up the rope, one by one,’ and the squirrels climbed as swiftly as they could, and disappeared over the gunwale.