The Second Wave (The Dorset Squirrels)

by Michael Tod

  Marguerite gave one last look around the beach to see that no squirrel had been forgotten and followed the others up the rope.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Flapping and splashing in the shallows, the dolphins turned the boat in the rising water and towed it out to where Finisterre, their calf, was waiting, poking his head above the waves as he swam back and forth anxiously watching for the return of his parents.

  As they reach Finisterre, a current caught the boat and moved it southwards, parallel to the shore. The dolphins sensed Marguerite’s concern that it was going in the wrong direction and Malin spoke.

  ‘We use the currents. It would be possible to push the boat all the way to your island, but we can guide it from current to current and get there effortlessly and just as quickly. Trust us.’

  The three dolphins swam alongside. Marguerite wondered if they would leap, as she had seen them do from the beach. No sooner had the thought formed in her head than the three black bodies, gleaming in the moonlight, curved up and out of the water, to the astonishment and joy of the squirrels standing on the rowboat’s seats. The presence of the dolphins seemed to have banished the squirrels’ instinctive fear of water and all were enjoying themselves, giving little through to the hazard to be faced when they reach the island.

  The dolphins cavorted and leapt all around the boat as it drifted along, until finally, when they knew it would not frighten the squirrels, they leapt in unison right over the boat. Drops of salt water rained down from their tails on to the animals below, causing the youngsters to shriek with delight.

  Then, as a current caught the boat and bore it inexorably towards the narrow mouth of Poole Harbour, Marguerite asked, ‘Won’t the humans see us?’

  ‘They are mostly asleep at this time,’ came the reply from Malin, ‘but they are usually so concerned with the own immediate affairs that they notice little else. Did they see you on the beach?’

  ‘No,’ replied Marguerite, ‘but we kept ourselves hidden in the grasses on the sand and watched out for them. Why did some of the humans go into the water? They just swam about and came out again.’

  ‘It’s an ancestral memory that prompts them to do that. Do you recall last year that we told you how dolphins once lived on the land and then went back to the sea again? Well, humans nearly did the same. It is in our History Training.

  ‘Far, far back in time, when humans stopped being creatures of the trees, they lived on the ground in dry places for aeons and then, when these got too dry, they lived on the coasts of the country they now call Africa. They spent most of their time in the shallow water where they were more comfortable walking upright, and it was then that they lost most of their body hairs, keeping only enough on their heads for the Man-cubs to cling to when their parents swam. It was at that time that scent became unimportant to them and they had to learn to be clever with their voices so that they could communicate with each other whilst they were swimming.’

  Marguerite was trying to keep up with the mass of new images passing through her brain. It was tiring, but she was determined to learn all she could from these wonderful and helpful creatures who had befriended her and her companions.

  ‘Do humans remember that time?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t believe so; they don’t teach Long History as we do. But when the sun starts to get warm each year, they follow old urges and make for the Sea. They still love to swim for the pleasure and the feeling of being in the water. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if they had carried on evolving that way until they became totally creatures of the Sea as we dolphins did. They still shed tears, you know!’

  ‘What are tears?’

  ‘Nature gave us sea mammals a special place in our eyes where we can get excess salt out of our systems. Humans still have these, but they only use them when they are distressed. They should use them all the time, knowing how they are treating our Sea!’

  ‘Malin, leave that,’ said Lundy, severely.

  ‘Humans are strange creatures,’ Marguerite agreed, ‘though harmless to squirrels as far as our memory goes. But we don’t trust them fully; so much of what they do seems inexplicable. We have a squirrel saying:

  If you could know all

  Then you could understand all

  Then you’d forgive all.’

  ‘ For ‘Innocents’, you squirrels certainly think a lot!’

  The other squirrels were unaware that any conversation was taking place, as Marguerite had learned that it was only necessary to think her question, and did not have to speak them out loud. Most of the others were dozing on the floorboards by now, though Rusty and Chip were watching the Man-lights at the harbour entrance getting nearer, as the current bore the boat that way.

  ‘What do you call an ‘Innocent’?’ Marguerite asked.

  ‘We call all ‘small brained’ creatures ‘Innocents’, as they just have to survive and breed and do not concern themselves with moral issues. I sometimes envy them.’

  Marguerite felt slightly offended at being called ‘small brained’. But then realised that physically it must be true.

  ‘We meant no offence,’ Malin assured her. ‘It can be a burden to be involved with greater issues than which fish you fancy eating today, or if your mating approach will be reciprocated.

  ‘Most ‘Large-brained’ sea mammals carry this burden. Sometimes we try to communicate with the ‘Great brains’, the whales. Their intelligence is awesome. You should hear them sing their philosophies!’

  Malin was silent as Marguerite tried to understand the concept of ‘singing’ and could only get a pattern of rising and falling voices in her head. She felt her ‘small-brain’ limitations.

  Lundy’s voice flowed in. ‘We cannot understand why humans kill the whales. Perhaps it is some kind of jealousy. The whales know things about the meaning of Life which even we can’t get our minds around!’

  ‘Perhaps they eat them,’ Marguerite ventured, remembering the unicorn in Dandelion’s story of the Flood.

  ‘Oh, no, it can’t be that,’ replied Malin. ‘Humans are ‘Large-brains’ like us. They couldn’t be that short-sighted and stupid.’

  The conversation ceased as the dolphins steered the boat into the centre of the channel between the points of land that formed the entrance to Poole Harbour. As the narrows passed behind them, Lundy said, ‘We will take you to the other end of the island. The humans have made a structure there which will help you all get out of the boat easily. Then we must hurry to get the boat back to its place before dawn.’

  The moon had set and grey light was creeping into the sky as the boat was pushed in against the pier at the western end of the island.

  Marguerite sensed the dolphin’s concern about returning the boat, and urged the sleepy squirrels to scramble out on to the pier. Her head was aching after a night of such intense concentration and she climbed out last, almost falling into the water as the dolphins, in their haste, started to push the boat away.

  She remembered to thank them, urging her tired brain to project her thoughts, ‘Thank you, and farewell.’

  ‘Farewell, your Sun be with you,’ came back three simultaneous replies as the boat moved away out of sight around the point and past Woodstock Bay.

  Marguerite recalled that that was where she had found the first Woodstock on the beach. Who has the New Woodstock? She looked around, then realised with horror that they had left it in the marram grass behind Studland Beach.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Marguerite hurried along the pier after Alder, and drew him to one side.

  ‘We have left the Woodstock in the dunes at Studland,’ she told him. ‘It’s my fault. I was carried away by the dolphins and the boat…I’m sorry, I should have remembered it.’

  ‘You’ve had many things on your mind, Marguerite-Friend. I won’t blame you for it. I should have thought of it myself, but I got caught up in the squirrelation. And then the boat came.’

  He rested his paw briefly on her shoulde
r. ‘We will have to get along without it. But first we must get everyone hidden in case that marten is about. Trust in the Sun.’

  They slept most of the day in some rhododendron bushes where they felt that any enemy approaching on the ground would betray itself by the rustling leaves, and the dense foliage would keep them from being seen from the trees above. The breeze was from the south-east, so their scent would be blown out over the sea. Even so, they were restless and unhappy.

  Tansy was eager to be off, to look for her parents, and was torn between her concern for them and for Tamarisk, whose eye was still painful. She was also worried that there was no squirrel-scent at that end of the island at all. Were all the Ourland squirrels dead?’

  In the late afternoon and evening Alder allowed them to forage, a few at a time, and then insisted that they pass another night in the rhododendrons. Marguerite spent most of her foraging time unsuccessfully searching for another Woodstock, feeling guilty that her forgetfulness had left them without its power when they needed it so much.

  At dawn they moved off together above the old Man-track along the centre of the island, keeping to the trees and listening and watching out for any marten-danger. They saw rabbits and a sika doe with her fawn, and the heronry was raucous with the calls of the young birds, but there was no scent of squirrels or marten. At High Sun they rested in the great pines near the middle of the island where the exiles had first met the Royals nearly two years before.

  Blood was angry and frustrated. There was food all about him; nestling birds, eggs for the taking, young rabbits just waiting to be eaten, peafowl at the snap of his jaws. He wanted squirrel, he needed squirrel, he deserved squirrel – but they were too close to the humans for him to dare to attack there. Thoughts of the time when he was caged flooded over him. He couldn’t risk that again, even for squirrel.

  There were only a few peahens left now, and the cock bird, Mogul. In the spring sunshine Blood watched them on the Man-track below where he lay on a branch high in a tree behind the church. The peacock was behaving differently. He usually dragged that stupid tail of his around behind him, trying to keep it out of the mud, but today had somehow made it stand up behind him and he was strutting about so proudly, showing it off to the hens.

  Not much to be that proud of, Blood thought, seeing it from behind. Then, as the male bird turned and the Sun caught the front of the tail-fan, he was dazzled, and even Blood had to admit that it was special.

  Arc after arc of gleaming iridescent eyes patterned the most beautiful long, bluey-green feathers and caught the Sunlight as the bird strutted back and forth in front of the admiring hens. The blue of his neck and the little bobbly crest flashed and glimmered, but Blood was no longer an admirer. In his frustration he was a despoiler.

  He leapt down from the tree and, caring nothing that men might be near, ran openly across the grass towards the huge birds. The peacock’s tail-fan collapsed in an instant and the birds scattered. Blood followed the peacock. Mogul ran faster and faster, then, realising that he was losing the race, launched himself heavily into the air with a screech of anger, and flew down the track to land on the branch of an oak, seemingly out of reach.

  Blood followed on the ground, climbed the tree-trunk and ran out along the branch. The peacock, still breathless, shrieked, launched himself into air again and headed for the Man-tree with the thin vines reaching out to the next ‘tree’. He landed awkwardly on one of the power lines, trying hard to keep his balance as the wire swung to and fro.

  Blood was not to be outdone. He dropped from the oak, ran to the foot of the Man-tree, wrinkled his nose at the scent of creosote, dug his claws into the barkless wood and climbed. Two thin leafless vines stretched out to the next Man-tree on either side, on one of which sat Mogul, watching the marten with his head on one side, ready to fly off again.

  Blood knew that he would have to move fast. Reaching past a shiny white thing, he grasped the thin vine with a forepaw whilst holding on to the trunk with his feet. There was a flash inside his head brighter than the light on the peacock’s neck, and he was falling, falling, falling through a pit where the sun never shone. Falling, falling, falling. Then a thud and – nothing.

  Mogul screeched in triumph, lost his balance, fell backwards and fluttered to the ground.

  By the time he had walked back to the group of staring hens he had recovered his composure. As they gathered around, he raised his tail as though nothing had happened. Blood was forgotten in the primeval mating display.

  Later, a man with one of Acorn’s badges on his jumper buried the pine marten’s body in a place in the meadow where the peahens had scratched away the turf, and it was in the dry soil above Blood’s grave that the peachicks played and dusted themselves through the long hot summer that followed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  Oak and Just Poplar had been together in the sequoia tree when Blood had first chased the peacock. Oak’s eyes were not strong now, so Just Poplar had described what was happening, his voice mounting in excitement.

  When Blood fell, lifeless, from the power lines, Just Poplar was overcome with relief. At first he could not believe that their enemy was truly Sun-gone. It was not until he saw a human pick up the limp body and carry it away that he really allowed himself to believe what he had seen, and ran off to tell the news to the other Ourlanders foraging in the castle grounds. Oak limped stiffly along behind him.

  ‘The marten is Zun-gone, the marten is Zun-gone!’ Just Poplar called and the other squirrels looked up, then gathered round to hear how it had all happened.

  ‘Him wuz chazing the great bird who flew on to won of the vinez of the new Man-treez, and the marten climbed the trunk. The Zun zent a little lightning flazh to ztrike the marten and protect the great bird. Uz zaw the flazh, but there wuz no thunder. Let uz thank the Zun.’

  The squirrels were unable to believe this. Could it all have happened so quickly? They stood looking at the breathless Poplar, hope wrestling with disbelief.

  You’re quite sure of all this?’ Chestnut asked doubtfully. Oak had reached them and confirmed Just Poplar’s story.

  ‘I saw the human pick up the body. They wouldn’t do that with a live pine marten!’

  Clover the Tagger moved forward, a Kernel forming in her head:

  We thank you, oh Sun,

  For freeing Ourland from the

  Fear of the marten.

  Then wild squirrelation took over. With the sudden removal of the one thing in the whole of Ourland that they feared, their relief exploded. Squirrels raced up and down the trees, leapt across pathways and capered wildly, to the delight of the humans who were streaming ashore from a fleet of boats for the official opening of the island by the National Trust, and for the rededication of the church, on that sunny day in May.

  The humans on the ground, and the squirrels in the trees, swept inland towards the little island church, whose tower, for so long the home of the scourge of Ourland, showed above the treetops.

  Mogul, the peacock, strutted and displayed as if he knew that he alone was responsible for all the celebration.

  It was a far more sombre party of squirrels who were progressing through the island treetops from the west.

  Going slowly for the sake of the injured squirrels and the one-eyed Tamarisk, Marguerite and Tansy were aware that, if the Ourlanders were safe, and had survived the attacks of the marten, there ought to be squirrel-scent in the trees. But they had reached the centre of the island without finding any.

  They moved cautiously on eastwards.

  The jubilant Ourland squirrels watched the humans as they entered the stone building until there was no room for any more. Other humans clustered outside in the sunshine. The males were wearing dark coverings and sweating in the heat, the sun hot on their bare heads, whilst the females were in bright coverings of many colours, and each had a different-shaped cover on her head.

  The squirrels peered down in amazement. They had never seen such a gathering of humans, or s
een them in such a happy mood.

  Oak whispered to Just Poplar, ‘It looks as if the humans are celebrating a Sun-day.’

  It was then the singing started, never before heard by these Ourland squirrels. Waves of human voices, in unison, were rising and falling in rhythmic patterns like the sea on the beach, or the wind in the pinetops. Each squirrel sat and listened in rapture.

  As suddenly as it had begun, the singing stopped and a single human voice was heard, the words meaningless to the squirrels.

  Oak looked around. His fading sight had caught a movement in the trees to the west and for one awful moment he thought the marten was alive and stalking them. Then, realising that this could not be true, he pointed the movement out to Just Poplar, who peered in that direction.

  ‘It’s squirrels!’ he called out, nearly falling from the branch. ‘I can see Marguerite and Tansy and Tamarisk and…’

  His voice choked with emotion. Then the whole band of Ourland squirrels raced through the treetops to greet their friends.

  Such hugging and whisker-brushing, such joy and sadness, so many stories to be exchanged and the death of the pine marten to be rejoiced over that, when the human singing began again behind them, they hardly heard it. Marguerite, sitting with her father, Oak, was hearing how her mother, Fern the Fussy, had died in the Bunker, when she felt herself moved by the rising and falling sounds and wondered if the singing of the great whales sounded like the singing of the humans in the church beyond the trees.