The Second Wave (The Dorset Squirrels) Page 5

  ‘Your turn to say the Morning Prayer,’ said Crag.

  Chip had done so several times before, using the standard wording his father and mother had always done, but today, after the first section,

  Be not too wrathful

  Oh Great Sun, on those squirrels –

  Who sinned in the night,

  He felt moved to use his own words:

  Thank you, oh Great Sun,

  For the beauty of your light

  In this sparkling world.

  Rusty, thrilled by this unexpected prayer, turned admiringly towards her son, only to cringe as Crag reached out a paw and struck Chip across the head. ‘Blasphemer!’ he hissed, and finished the prayer himself.

  Let us serve your needs

  For the whole of this your day

  Weak though we may be.

  Then, glowering at the unhappy youngster, he led his family down to forage on the chill ground. Later they would search for a permanent base to create a New Temple.

  It was High Sun when Crag found what he was seeking. In a clearing in the wood a huge gnarled oak stood, twisted by age. Although it was blackened by the fire from a lightning strike many years before, lingering autumn-brown leaves on a few branches indicated that it was not yet completely dead. A little way up the tree the hollow of the trunk forked to form two chambers above the large one below.

  Crag explored all the hollows, then came down to where Rusty and Chip sat silently waiting on the ground.

  ‘This will be our New Temple,’ he announced. ‘There are suitably austere sleeping places for each of us to have their own, and great chambers to store the metal collection.’

  Chip groaned to himself, his teeth hurting at the very thought of holding rusty things again. He looked appealingly at his mother.

  ‘Is it wise to use a tree that has been struck by lightning? Might it not happen again?’ she asked.

  ‘Lightning never strikes twice in the same place,’ Crag assured her confidently. ‘Now we start the collection. Honour be to the Sun.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Slate, a mature female grey squirrel, looked at the remains of the Oval Drey in the giant Oak at Woburn Park. A winter and summer of neglect had made the drey look unkempt and drab. It was hard to picture it as she had last seen it, bustling with activity. That was before the Grey Death had killed its inhabitants, the Great Lord Silver, as well as most of the other Greys in New America.

  A few survivors were now clustered round, the males discussing what they should do to set up a centre of government again. Slate could see that they were all at least a year younger than she was and were obviously inexperienced.

  ‘I would suggest…’ Slate began, the words hissing past her broken tooth.

  As one, the males glowered at her.

  ‘This is a formal meeting,’ a male-Basalt-said firmly. ‘Females may only speak when requested to report. You should know that.’

  ‘I jusst thought that sinsse so many things had changed…’

  ‘Females shouldn’t think,’ said Basalt, and turned away.

  Slate sat on the branch, angry and frustrated. She had hoped that the one good thing to come out of the Grey Death tragedy might have been an opportunity to right some of the past injustices. Oh well, she thought, there are more ways of opening a nut than waiting for it to grow.

  She listened in silence as the males continued. Basalt was dominating the conversation, talking down any opposition to his ideas.

  ‘The Red Ones lived here long before our kind came from our homeland beyond the sunset. The Grey Death did not affect them, whereas it virtually wiped us out. Perhaps the way they live is the right way; here in New America at least.’

  ‘They are all squimps,’ said Chalk, unconsciously using a Red word that had crept into their language. ‘They’re all soft and gentle.’

  ‘So they may be,’ retorted Basalt, ‘but they are also alive. Those we haven’t killed, that is. I think we should learn their ways.’

  Slate was itching to intervene, but was not going to risk another public rebuff.

  ‘Will we have a Great Lord Silver?’ a male asked. ‘The Reds don’t.’

  ‘Well, we don’t have to do exactly what they do,’ said Basalt. ‘But we do need a leader to be in charge here and to direct other Greys who may have survived and come back to Base for guidance. The Reds would choose one, not fight for the position as we have always done. I propose that I am chosen as Great Lord Silver. All agree? Right. That’s settled, then.’

  The Greys looked at one another in amazement, but Basalt continued quickly, ‘Who knows anything about the customs of the Reds?’

  ‘They have different names from us,’ said Chalk. ‘The males are named after trees and the females after flowers.’

  ‘We’ll start there, then,’ said Basalt. ‘Each squirrel is to choose a new name, but choose trees and flowers from the Old Country.’

  ‘I’ll be Hickory,’ said Chalk.

  ‘Sitka for me,’ said Shale. ‘I never did like my name anyway. Basalt, you should be Redwood, if you want us to do what the Red would.’

  This pun, the ultimate form of Grey humour, was received with groans. Basalt agreed rather than argue with another squirrel who had just chosen Tamarack, a name he had intended to use himself. He’d got away with appointing himself Great Lord Silver and was not going to push his luck further.

  The females had grouped together and were discussing names for themselves. One chose Prairie Rose, another Yucca, and, amid laughter, Tufa turned down a proposal that she be called Skunk Cabbage in favour of Bluegrass.

  ‘What about you?’ Yucca asked Slate.

  ‘If we have to go along with thiss nonssense, I want to be called Ivy,’ she replied.

  ‘Poison Ivy?’

  ‘Suitss me,’ said Ivy. ‘Lotss of true wordss are said ass jokess.’

  They rejoined the males. Redwood was not issuing orders.

  ‘Hickory, I want you and Sitka to take a mixed party down to the Blue Pool in that part of New America that the Reds call Purbeck. It is the last place that I know of where Reds are definitely still living. Make contact with them and learn their ways. Don’t argue, just do what they do. When we know all their habits and customs, we can modify them to suit ourselves.’

  ‘What if they fight us?’ Sitka asked.

  ‘Reds don’t fight, they pray to the Sun. I told you, they are squimps,’ Hickory replied.

  ‘Don’t fight them, don’t argue with them. Apologise for our past behaviour so that they are not suspicious. Learn their ways. That’s an order.’ Redwood scowled at the squirrel before him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Hickory, saluting with his right paw held diagonally across his chest. ‘Trust me. We’ll rest up and leave at first light.’

  ‘You’ll leave now,’ said Redwood firmly. ‘If more Greys come in, I’ll send them to join you. Listen and learn.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Hickory, and saluted again.

  Hickory had called a halt. He had been urging his group on at quite a pace. They had passed the ancient wood that the Reds had so stupidly called the New Forest, and were on the edge of the heathland that was reported to be the last barrier before the Blue Pool. It was there that the red survivors of the Grey’s massacres were believed to be living.

  The nights were getting much colder and they had to huddle together for warmth when they rested. Though it was now only mid-afternoon, he could sense that a chilly night was coming.

  He looked at the other squirrels. They were in fair condition; dishevelled from the journeying, but in good spirits. Even Poison Ivy, notably older than the rest, was looking fit, if a little tired. She had been most useful in instructing him on the route, even though she had never come this far south or west before. She knew some of the Red’s Kernels of Truth, but she could never tell where she had learned them. How did they go? Five sounds, seven sounds, then five again; or was it six?

  Hickory called Ivy over to join him. ‘How far do yo
u think it is to that pool now?’ he asked.

  ‘Over the heather and beyond the treess,’ she answered enigmatically. ‘Send out some scoutss. The resst of uss can wait here. We will be safe in thosse piness.’

  Sitka and three other scouts left and, while they were away, a new group of Greys joined those sitting in the pine trees. Their leader explained that more and more survivors of the Grey Death were arriving at Woburn and many were being sent down to join Hickory’s party in Purbeck.

  ‘Redwood calls us all the Second Wave,’ he said proudly. ‘The Silver Tide was swept away by the Grey Death, but we are not to give up trying. The Second Wave will succeed. Praise to the Great Lord Silver.’

  What would they call a female Great Lord? Ivy was wondering.

  The scouting party returned at nightfall with a report that they had scented Reds, but had not made contact. ‘Yes, there is a pool set in a hollow in the pine trees. Yes, it is blue. Move over, we’re freezing. We’re the ones who’ve been doing all the running round while you just sat about. Who are all you lot?’

  ‘Be quiet and sleep,’ Hickory growled. ‘We leave before dawn. We should be with those Reds by sun-up.’

  Ivy looked forward to meeting them. She had heard that females were treated equally by the natives.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Marguerite the Tagger woke on that frosty morning after the Blue Pool community’s Harvest Celebrations and looked out from her drey. ‘Juniper,’ she called, ‘Oak, Burdock, come and see this’, and her life-mate and their two youngsters emerged, looked around, then started to romp through the sparkling treetops, dislodging showers of ice-crystals which filtered down through the branches, catching the sunlight as they fell.

  The squirrels’ breath made white mist in the cool air as they leapt from tree to tree, their excitement spreading to other dreys until the trees of Steepbank seemed full of happy squirrels, all leaping and sporting in the shimmering treetops.

  Then Marguerite noticed the grey squirrels below them. She counted

  ‘Oh, Sunless Pit,’ she sighed. ‘I thought we had seen the last of you!’

  The Reds excitement died as others followed her gaze. All the older Reds knew of the strife and trouble caused by the grey colonisers, and how squirrels like these had forced the natives to leave the Blue Pool for sanctuary on Ourland. There the surrounding sea had kept the Silver Tide at bay until the Grey Death swept it away.

  One of the grey males hopped forward.

  ‘We come in peace,’ he called up, keeping his tail in the submissive position. ‘We would like to talk.’

  ‘Stay on the ground,’ Marguerite called down, and, with Alder the Leader by her side, she dropped to a lower branch.

  Alder left the talking to the Tagger, who, though female and younger than he, was a squirrel of ‘infinite resource and sagacity’, as he was fond of describing her to others.

  ‘What do you want of us?’ she asked, remembering the territorial demands of the previous colonisers.

  Their leader introduced himself. ‘I am Hickory and this is my second-in-command, Sitka. We are squirrels of the Second Wave and have come to live in peace with you.’

  Marguerite glanced at Alder. This was unexpected!

  The Grey went on, ‘We have instructions from the new leader at Woburn to learn local customs and to live by those. Our leader has recognised that we were wrong in trying to impose our culture in another land.

  ‘On behalf of all squirrels of our kind, I apologise for any sufferings the Silver Tide caused you. We have been punished with the scourge of the Grey Death and we are here to make amends.’

  ‘Fine words,’ Marguerite called down suspiciously. ‘How do we know that you mean them – and that this isn’t a trick?’

  ‘We have composed what you call a kernel:

  When in others’ lands

  Learn all the local customs,

  Do as the Red Ones do.’

  Marguerite flinched at the extra word-sound in the last line. Not a true Kernel she thought, but the meaning is good. She glanced again at Alder for authority to continue. He nodded and moved the stump of his tail in what would have been a flick of confirmation, had his tail not been severed after a clash with animals similar to those below them.

  ‘We have suffered badly from squirrels like you, and are not yet ready to trust your intentions. There is a vacant land to the north-east. You will know it by a great tree that has been struck by lightning. Spend the winter there, do not encroach, and in the spring, if we have come to trust you, we will meet again and teach you our ways.’

  The Greys raised and lowered their tails as a sign of acceptance, then meekly trooped away through the pines to find the Lightning Tree in the North-east Wood. The last to leave was Ivy, who was looking over her shoulder at the red female, but she had turned away.

  ‘Well,’ said Marguerite after they had left, ‘what do we make of that?’

  ‘I think you did the right thing,’ Alder told her. ‘They seemed contrite and well-meaning, but do animals like that really change their natures, just because of – what did they call it? – ‘instructions from the new leader at Woburn? I don’t trust them.’ He reached back and rubbed the stump of his tail ruefully.

  It’s true, Ivy was thinking, that female was treated as an equal. There were no fleas on her, though. Not one to be easily bettered in an argument. She might just be useful one day.

  A few miles away to the east, between the Blue Pool and the shore of Poole Harbour, Tansy was losing some of her confidence. The Mainland now seemed very big and she was lonely. Having grown up in a community where the Council decided all major issues, she was not used to making many decisions on her own and found herself spending hours dithering whenever there was a choice of routes. She would choose one and start along it, only to change her mind, backtrack and take the other way. She wondered now how she had been so confident on Ourland.

  Then, remembering the importance of his mission, she would press doggedly on. She had to find Marguerite and the Woodstock to save her family and friends.

  Supposing she ran into any grey squirrels? But Marguerite’s last message had said that they were all gone. She sniffed at the wind coming from the west. Could that be Grey’s scent? It was faint if it was, but it certainly smelt like it. She trembled but pressed on.

  Tansy was hungry and tired when she came to a Man-drey, outside which chickens picked at grains of wheat and maize on the ground. A goose in the next field honked a warning as she approached, snaking her long neck through the wire at the squirrel and hissing ominously, but Tansy could see that the great bird could not get through the fence to harm her. She joined the chickens, enjoying the unfamiliar mealy taste of the dry yellow seeds, then, suddenly sensing the presence of a human dangerously near, turned to leap away.

  She was too late to avoid the man’s long-handled net.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Crag dragged a rusted bolt to the Temple in the Lightning Tree. He had found the remains of an old wooden haywain and had set Rusty and Chip to gnaw at the partially rotted timbers in order to free the bolts. He carried them, one by one, up inside the Temple and placed them in nooks and crannies of the hollow branches, along with nails, screws and old cartridge cases that he had sniffed out in the undergrowth.

  Coming back down the tree he stopped, peered below and rubbed his eyes. Clustered about the base of the trunk was a group of squirrel-like creatures with silvery-grey fur, looking up at him expectantly.

  ‘Greetings to you, sir,’ one of them called up. ‘Your friends at the Blue Pool sent us over here, but did not tell us that any other squirrel would meet us. I am named Hickory, and this is my second-in-command, Sitka. And your name, sir?’

  ‘You are squirrels?’ Crag asked.

  ‘Why, yes, we thought all of the red kind knew about us by now. Had you not heard?’

  ‘No! Until recently my family lived in isolation and we have only just come to the Mainland. Who are you?’


  Crag came down to the ground and stood in front of the Greys.

  ‘We are silver squirrels from over the sea to the west,’ Hickory told him. ‘Our ancestors were brought to this country, which we call New America, by humans and we have been setting up colonies here. Unfortunately, some silver squirrels got over-zealous and upset you natives.

  Then we suffered from a plague we called the Grey Death. Now our instructions are to work alongside you all and to learn your ways. So here we are!’ He spread his paws wide.

  ‘Did you say that you were sent here by the squirrels over at the pool?’ Crag asked.

  ‘Yes. They said we were to spend the winter here, but did not tell us that you would meet us. They were polite to us, but understandably suspicious. Well, here we are, sir.’ He waited expectantly.

  Crag surveyed the Greys. They looked big and powerful, and had strong teeth.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said, and led them off in the direction of the derelict haywain.

  Tansy crouched in the corner of the dark cage. It was daytime, for she could see the winter light under the door, but it was too dark for her to make much sense of her surroundings.