Toad Triumphant

by William Horwood

  “‘Ow ‘appy I am!” said she, retaining her grasp of the hapless Toad, and squeezing tighter still. “‘Ow content! Already I adore you!”

  “Countess — madame — cousin,” gasped Toad, who felt himself beginning to faint in her arms, “I am — I am pleased — I feel — I — help!”

  His half-cousin’s continued embrace, no doubt normal enough among her artistic friends in Paris, was too much for Toad to sustain any longer. Feeling himself to be submerging in a sea of silk, face powder and perfume, and feeling it all to be so feminine, so unexpected, so delightful, and so plainly the harbinger of the matrimony the Mole had hinted he should pursue, he swooned quite away.

  · V ·

  Summer Journey

  The delay at the start of their expedition was not what the Rat and the Mole would have wished for, but once they had made their escape from Toad Hall and they had put Toad’s troubles behind them, a sense of adventure and expectation soon came over them.

  The afternoon was warm and sunny and as the Rat settled down to some steady sculling, the Mole and he were able to talk, and to contemplate. At one time it had been thought that the Otter might have accompanied them on this first stage, and seen them set fair. But he felt keenly the parental ties that came with needing to watch over his son Portly who, though older and more sensible than he once had been, still needed firm handling, and occasional direction.

  Then, too, the Mole was unwilling to leave Nephew alone too long — the youngster who had come to stay with him some time before was certainly sensible enough, no doubting that, but he was very sociable and might miss his uncle’s company and so the Otter had offered to keep an eye on him.

  But if the Otter’s duties kept him at the River Bank, he still had an important part to play in the venture the two friends had undertaken. He and the Water Rat had long since fashioned their own special mode of signalling, which they used during periods of flooding and danger when all who lived in, on or near the River were on special alert. Their method was crude but effective — a twig of blackthorn floating downstream signalled coming danger, or beech to say that help was needed, and three sprigs of some common river plant such as water avens, or yellow flag, to indicate return.

  In recent years the two had had little reason to use such devices. Life along the River Bank had been gentle and serene, and such crises as Toad created rarely involved the River. In consequence, the need for their signalling had reduced itself to the occasional cheerful warning from the Otter (up-river) to the Rat (down-river) that he intended to come down for tea or supper. Which gave time for the Rat to brew up before the Otter arrived; or if something more potent was needed then he had time to polish his pewter beer mugs and open up some fresh tobacco.

  However, once the Mole had made his bold suggestion that they should fulfil their ambition and head upstream, the matter of signals and warnings had become a serious one. No one knew what lay in store, and though the Rat might have been happy to venture off alone upon the River, so conversant was he with its varied moods and sudden demands, the Mole was a different matter. He liked boats well enough, but had neither the skill nor the interest that the Rat displayed.

  This being so, and the Badger being much exercised by the point, the Rat and the Otter had honed up their signalling, and the Otter had taken on the responsibility, with Portly to help, of watching the River for any signs that the Rat might send during their absence.

  “I’m quite sure nothing will go wrong,” said the Mole, rather alarmed by such precautions. “The worst I can think of is that the boat might capsize as it did once before, when I was learning how to scull, but I am a good bit more experienced in such matters now.”

  “That may very well be true,” replied the Rat, “but we are venturing to unknown stretches of the River and it pays to be cautious. Otter knows as I do that the River is not always benign, she has her moods and fickle moments and must always be treated with respect — and then, again, we do not know what creatures live along the upper reaches.”

  “Much like us, I should imagine,” said the Mole; “unless you think —?”

  He had sudden and unwelcome visions of creatures large, malevolent and strange, and began to wonder if the voyage was such a good idea after all.

  “I do not mean to alarm you, old fellow, nor to suggest that there are monsters upstream awaiting us upon the banks, or underwater perhaps, that might cause us trouble,” said the Rat. “Though I suppose all of us have heard the dread and ancient story of the Lathbury Pike —”

  “Yes,” a greed the Mole with a nervous nod. He had indeed heard that legend and did not like to be reminded of it. The pike that had the run of those treacherous and hopefully mythical waters was said to be malevolence itself. The Mole frowned, his doubts doubling.

  “No,” continued the Rat, quite unaware of how nervous this kind of talk made the Mole, “I am merely thinking that you should not presume that all animals live in such harmony as we enjoy down here along the River Bank. Elsewhere strangers are not always welcome.”

  “I shall certainly take my cudgel.”

  “And I the trusty cutlass that was employed with such devastating effect during our victorious struggle against the weasels and stoats to recover the old Hall for Toad,” added the Rat approvingly. “We may not need them, but we shall feel better for having them nearby …”

  … And there it now was, that weaponry, right there in the bows, just as they had planned it should be. They began to feel they were really on their way at last, and their talk was of the value of such precautions, and what clever animals they had been to think so carefully of all they would need.

  “We need not go too far tonight,” the Mole said; ‘lust far enough to feel we are well on our way and beyond the daily cares of the River Bank.”

  Such friends as they were had no need to debate such a point too long — when the right moment came they would set up camp for their first night.

  Silence fell upon them, but for the plashing of the oars and the lap lap lap of water at the far bank’s edge. The Mole could only rejoice that his longed-for plan was now finally underway and recall how nearly it had come to grief, and why it seemed so important that it had not.

  It was the compelling vision of Beyond that had summoned him, and of Beyond he thought now and all it might mean to them. Yet buried deeper still in the Mole’s kind heart was the sense that he had done little with his quiet life and wanted, before he grew too old, to do “something” — to be remembered along the River Bank as having found vision and courage enough to journey forth at least once on an adventure which might prove an inspiration to others.

  He himself was too modest, too unassuming an animal to think that he could ever reach Beyond itself, but perhaps if he got some way there he might in later years tell the story to his Nephew, and he — whom the Mole believed would one day be a much more able and adventurous spirit than himself — might find courage to go on further still.

  “It is in the striving that we make progress, Mole, the striving —” the Badger had observed in the course of the nocturnal conversation that had meant so much to Mole, and had led to the resurrection of the expedition.

  Such had been the source of the Mole’s impulses and dreams, and he had been much gratified that the Badger had not doubted him for one moment when he had said that he had an impulse that such a journey must be made. Times were changing, life does not stand still, and some future direction might be found in the course of their expedition. One or other of them must venture forth, the Mole had said, for if they did not —

  “If we do not,” the Mole had asked himself so many times since, “what then?”

  He had found no answer then, nor did he now, as he sat so companionably with the Rat, as the gloaming began to settle in, and the boats creaked to the rhythm of the oars. The journey upstream had taken on a good deal more for the Mole than it yet had for his friend the Rat, more perhaps than the Mole himself knew or had been able to tell the Badger.r />
  But here they now were — and if he had never quite told the Rat of all this in so many words, and how he believed that something beyond words might come from their adventure, it did not matter. Ratty was here now, not in some mystical and impractical future, and if there was one animal in all the world the Mole knew he could rely on in a fix, or when all others might have given up hope that they might come out of things alive, it was his friend the Rat.

  Short-tempered he might be, irascible often, inclined to order a fellow about when he was tired but — well, there was none so dependable as he.

  “What do you say that we stop somewhere about here, Mole?” said the Rat suddenly interrupting the Mole’s thoughts.

  “Why of course, Ratty; whatever you say” said the Mole compliantly.

  “No, Mole, whatever you say for you are the leader of this expedition and you must decide!”

  “Ah, well!” said the Mole, sitting up a little straighter and looking busily along the bank ahead, for a site for the first encampment.

  “It will take us a little time to get our gear out and our tent rigged up,” said the Rat.

  “Well then, we shouldn’t delay too long before we stop,” declared the Mole. “So perhaps here would do!”

  “A capital decision, Mole, if I may say so! Now ready yourself to leap ashore and hold us fast while I position the boats along the bank. I’ll get the tent sorted out if you’ll prepare some food.”

  And so it was the two friends began their adventure —with boats well stocked and well secured, their tasks agreed, their bedding all ready and comfortable, and, finally good food in their bellies, and the stars to watch them as they let their fire burn low.

  “Dear me!” yawned the Mole. “I am sleepy.”

  “Me too,” said the Rat. “Time to turn in, old fellow.”

  “It is,” said the Mole, not moving. “It is really happening, this expedition of ours, isn’t it, Ratty!”

  Above them the stars winked and shone, and somewhere upstream an owl called after its young, and downstream a family of voles escaped the surface to the safety of their nest.

  “It certainly is happening, and it was your inspiration that made it so — yours alone. There’s some who talk and some who do: you’re a doer, Mole, you really are.”

  “Am I?” said the Mole, more sleepy still. “I certainly hope I am, and that I always will be.”

  In those first days of their journey the Mole and the Rat kept up a gentle pace, and used the time to settle down to the routines of travel, of when to move and when to stop; and, in the Mole’s case, to harden his hands and arms to the exercise of sculling, for the Rat could not be expected to do it all the time.

  That first night was the latest they went to sleep. Soon the rhythms of nature overtook them, and they rose with the dawn and bedded down with the dusk — whilst always making sure that when the sun was warm and their luncheon was over, they had a nap in the afternoon as well.

  They talked and laughed as they went, and fell silent and moody if they felt so inclined, each respecting the other’s needs, always putting their friendship and mutual respect before those minor irritations that any journey and close proximity brings forth.

  True, the Rat was morose for half a day and sharp for the rest of it following not one but two near-capsizes caused by the Mole’s poor steering. While the Mole, so rarely irritable, allowed himself to suggest that the Rat must be … idiotic if he could not watch over the morning porridge for two minutes without letting it burn!

  But such arguments and moods as these incidents provoked were as nothing against the many pleasures and discoveries along the way. Of these the greatest was that of the Mole’s country cuisine — his stickleback fish pie was judged superlative by the Rat, and his water-cress soup garnished with butter flavoured with the roots of ramson simply unsurpassed — “and unsurpassable in my humble view!” the Rat declared.

  There was a different excitement when they approached the Town and their route took them past His Lordship’s House — that same great place upon whose hothouse Toad had tumbled from the sky and within whose best guest bedroom he had successfully malingered in the lap of luxury for several days.

  In view of the sorry memory Toad must have left behind him, they did not quite have the courage to go up His Lordship’s drive and introduce themselves, tempting though it somehow seemed; but in any case, the baying of His Lordship’s hounds was quite sufficient to deter them from venturing too far from their boats.

  They did not voyage much further up the mainstream of the River after this. For one thing the banks ahead became built up with jetties and factories which gave off unpleasant fumes, and bridges over which noisy traffic passed. For another, the Rat’s information was that the best route onward was not via the Town. The River on the other side of the Town, so it was said, was not really the River at all.

  “It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that cannot be so,” explained the Rat to the surprised Mole, “but you see in its upper reaches a river’s true source is not easy to determine. Think what a headache the Egyptian Nile’s source has presented to intrepid explorers. What seems a major tributary soon peters out, while that which looks at first no more than a stream, and may not even bear the River’s name, may in fact become something vast and extensive indeed, and lead back to the source itself.”

  “I see,” said the Mole uncertainly.

  “I did not mention it at the time, for I was not certain till now that it was likely to be so, but I have good reason to think that that ‘tributary’ blocked up with reeds and barbed wire which we passed just before His Lordship’s House —”

  The Mole furrowed his brow and tried to remember what the Rat described.

  “Otter’s information confirms this, and ancient maps that I have seen suggest that it is so. Therefore I think that tributary is the way we should go.”

  “But the River seems so big here,” said the Mole, not entirely convinced by the Rat’s reasoning.

  “It may be that the reason the River looks larger and deeper here is because it has been changed and widened by the Townsfolk, and made more useful to them. But after the Town it doesn’t amount to much at all.”

  “I certainly do not want to journey on among these buildings,” said the Mole, “or beneath bridges that make me feel uneasy and if that other way will keep us in the countryside, among the sights and sounds we know best, then I shall be happier.”

  “I cannot say for certain, for no animal I know has ever ventured anywhere else but towards the Town just as we have done, but I rather think we should turn back and try our luck the other way.”

  With the current behind them, it was not long before they found themselves back at the mouth of the tributary. Seeing it again, the Mole was not surprised he had passed it by with barely a glance the first time, for its entrance was blocked by a tangle of old weeds and broken sedge and rushes. Rusty barbed wire was stretched across from bank to bank, overgrown with vegetation, except in the centre of the stream, where the detritus of winter floods — old branches and twigs, old paper and pieces of cloth and a great deal more — had collected.

  As they approached this obstruction they saw a painted notice, now nearly illegible, which was strung up on the wire and read: DANGER: KEEP OUT. By order of the High Judge.

  “It is a shame, Ratty,” declared the Mole, not entirely unhappily for the way beyond the wire looked dark and dangerous, “but plainly we can go no further. To do so would be against the law!”

  But the Rat was not listening. He was using a paddle to steer and hold the boats against the heavy, silent flow of water that issued forth from the tributary they had found.

  “Hold tight to the wire, Mole,” he sang out, “for I want to take a closer look!”

  He did so, first by peering down into the dark deep waters, and then, before the Mole realized what he was about, by stripping down preparatory to diving in.

  “Ratty, I really wouldn’t do that if I were you!�
�� cried the Mole a little desperately for if the Rat was not aboard he would be in sole charge of their vessels, and this was a responsibility he did not yet feel experienced enough to undertake.

  But his appeal was all in vain, for the allure of the River and its watery currents was too much for the Rat to ignore: and anyway he was warm with sculling. With a cheery smile at the Mole he suddenly dived overboard, and quite disappeared from view, with only a stream of bubbles caught by the racing flow of the River to show he had been there at all.

  “Ratty?” said the Mole somewhat desperately for the flow beneath was strong, and seemed to be getting stronger, the boat rocking from side to side as he clung on to the wire.

  The wire seemed to have a life of its own as well, for no sooner did the Mole put the full weight of his grip on it than it creaked and shifted, bent and gave, and the boat seemed to wish to slide away from under him. With a great effort, and using such power as his legs had — which did not seem much — he pulled the boat nearer and himself upright.

  “Ratty! Come back!” he called.

  No Ratty came.

  Now the wire seemed to twist in his hands, and its barbs to seek out the vulnerable parts of his wrists and arms and prick at him, and stab as well.

  “Ratty!” called the Mole again, now more desperate and more annoyed.

  But still no Ratty came.

  The boat, tugged this way and that by the second boat caught in the strong current, sought to shift from under the Mole again. Recognizing the danger and that his strength was failing, the Mole realized he must risk everything. He let go of the wire with one hand so that he could search for the painter which lay coiled up in the bows behind him and just out of reach, and clung on to the malevolent wire with the other.

  “Ratty!” he found strength to cry out in the middle of this undertaking. “As your leader I order you to come back and resume your duties!”