Duncton Found (125 page)

“And I!” said Alder.

“Aye, and all of us here!” said Troedfach.

Ghyll was moved by their faith and eagerness and he said, “Then moles of the Marches, I’ll tell you this: your wait has not been in vain. I have seen the Stone Mole with my own eyes.”

There was a clamour of questions, and Ghyll raised his paw and the hubbub slowly quietened. But most remarkably it was not the moles’ eagerness to know that truly quietened them, but something about the way Ghyll stanced, and the look of faith in his eye. A hush fell.

“The Stone Mole is dead,” said Ghyll. “I saw him barbed by the moles of the Word with my own eyes. But the Stone Mole lives, and shall live in everymole’s heart.”

“Tell us your tale, mole,” said Caradoc in a compelling voice, “and tell us it slow. From its beginning to its ending as you would tell it to youngsters on a Midsummer night, for are we not pups who must learn the Stone Mole’s ways? We must know of his coming, and of his ministry among us, and of his end.”

“Then know that the Stone Mole, as moles call him, was born of a mole called Feverfew in Duncton Wood,” responded Ghyll, “and his name was Beechen, and if he died – aye, I said
if
he died – then it was at Beechenhill. But first....”

So it was that the moles of the Marches first learnt of the Stone Mole, and of Beechenhill, and of those teachings that Ghyll had heard Harebell and Sleekit talk about when they returned to Beechenhill.

Quietly he spoke, and with reverence, telling what he knew for fact, what was hearsay and what was his surmise. Through the evening he spoke, and halfway into the night, and he ended by telling them of that terrible night of death and the barbing by the Stone of Beechenhill.

“Before then I was one of those who had come to believe that fighting was the way – and I a mole, as I’ve explained, who had come from a system where non-violence was the code. But years of pressure from the grikes at Beechenhill changed that, and I’m not proud of it.

“Nor was Squeezebelly, I’m sure, as he led the charge on the grikes at the Beechenhill Stone. But is a mole to stance idly by while his own kin and ones he loves are killed? You answer me that, for I never have!

“Yet I know this too: I’ve seen an extreme of violence that I never want to see again. As I crossed moledom from the north-east where Beechenhill lies, counting myself lucky I had escaped and fulfilling Squeezebeily’s hope that those who did would spread word of what they saw, I have felt the violence that still waits to erupt across moledom. There’s anger, there’s vengeance and there’s confusion. Perhaps violence must have its place.

“But if
you
must fight, and I think you will, then moles of the Welsh Marches I beg you to do it swiftly, and to stop it soon. And when you stop it, stop it for good.”

“Aye,” cried out Caradoc, “that’s how a mole should speak!”

And later, when Caradoc got Troedfach and Alder alone, he said, “Let me take Ghyll of Mallerstang to talk to the moles who wait so impatiently behind the lines. He’ll instil respect for the Stone Mole’s way in them.”

“I had thought of it and so had Gareg,” said Troedfach. “But you, Caradoc, what of you and the news he brought?”

“What of me?” said Caradoc sharply.

“He said the Stone Mole was barbed to death,” said Alder. “And you’ve always said....”

Caradoc stared up at Caer Caradoc.

“He’ll come,” he said fiercely, “and I’ll be there to greet him when he does. He’ll come, see?”

It was but a few days after this that the grikes began the assaults along the line that Gareg had so long ago predicted they would do, and the new war they had prepared for finally began.

The period and its events is rich in varied and often conflicting sources, but the two main accounts that cover what historians now regard as the final part of this long period of conflict
*
agree on the basic facts.

*
See Gareg’s
Strategy and Attack
and his more philosophical
On Ending Wars
; and, of course, Haulke’s
Memoirs of the Western Front
.

The first major assault on the Marches came in the south and was led by Clowder – though at the time that was not known by the Welsh moles. He had privily concluded a secret agreement with Ginnell and had left Buckland and the south-east in the paws of a group of eldrenes and travelled westward with a heavy guardmole force.

A few days later a second attack, and one cleverly arranged to seem heavy and likely to be sustained, began on Caer Caradoc, no doubt to turn moles away from positions further north on that old line across the Marches in Gaelri’s territory which led towards Siabod itself, where the biggest attack of all was to be mounted.

Clearly the grikes hoped, with good reason, that the Welsh moles, never well co-ordinated before, would split up their effort by reacting to each threat as it came, all the less effectively because of the need to protect their hard-won Caer Caradoc.

Troedfach and Gareg had been so long prepared for this renewed war that when it came they were calm and efficient, and at first did nothing but put up the normal resistance and slow the attacks down. The swift messenger systems Gareg had established brought news fast, but it was not until some eight days after Clowder’s first attack, and when the moles of Merthyr in the south were beginning to weaken, that Troedfach made his move.

The mood at Troedfach’s headquarters was serious, and moles like Caradoc and Alder found that suddenly there were a lot of new faces around, young moles trained by Gareg whose task was to co-ordinate what was to be one of the biggest and most astonishing campaigns in moledom’s history. Troedfach had talked of Wrekin’s “brilliance” but he might well have talked of his own – or at least of his and Gareg’s together. It was the perfect partnership of the old campaigning mole of experience with a younger more imaginative commander.

But significantly, it was to Caradoc that Troedfach first revealed his plans, feeling that the mole who had sustained them all for so long should be the first to know what they were going to try to achieve.

“Caradoc, stance down here and listen. You want this new phase of the war to end quickly and finally and I think that I know how it will. But it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t tell you what we plan to do....”

“Does Alder know?”

“Aye, he’s given his advice.”

“You military moles are thick as thieves.”

Troedfach smiled.

“Now listen, mole. You know that Caer Caradoc is under attack from the east and we’re defending it? Well, tonight we’re going to start weakening up there – not much, but enough to call the grikes’ bluff and make them commit more moles to the hill from their headquarters thinking they’ll win an easy prize.

“Well, they will, for in three nights’ time, when we’ve ‘retreated’ even more, we’re going to clear out altogether and give them the prize. Aye! And as we do we shall attack their headquarters in force and take it.

“That will only be the beginning. Today orders have already gone out for all the moles along the Marches south of here to retreat in such a way as to encourage the attacking moles there to go after them, and extend their lines. They will be hurrying into the paws of half of Wales, paws very eager to say a brusque hello. These moles will stay along the Marches to make sure that the grikes do not occupy the void we’ve left behind, and to keep those on Caer Caradoc busy. We don’t want any minor raids disturbing things.

“Meanwhile our moles here, or rather on the far side of Caer Caradoc as they then will be, will turn north up towards Gaelri’s patch, where I believe we will find Ginnell or Haulke or both. Gaelri’s moles will move to counterattack from the west as we come from the direction Ginnell will least expect – the east. That will be the critical part and on the speed with which we can achieve success much else will depend.”

“And afterwards?” asked Caradoc, a little dazed, for the prospect of
giving
Caer Caradoc to the grikes did not seem a cheerful one.

“Why, mole, the grikes on Caer Caradoc will be urgently recalled, probably by Ginnell to the north, though possibly they’ll go south to the aid of those moles there, and you’ll have your system back again with not a military mole in sight. More seriously, Caradoc, we will have to decide later if we continue the attack on the grikes beyond the line, perhaps even heading an attack on the Master himself. We shall see. That’s the theory anyway, but I believe it is going to work.”

“What of Siabod, which is where this war began?”

“’Tis secure under Gowre who has had reinforcements and knows what to expect – nothing! We shall see. We have assumed that Ginnell will not get through to Siabod. It’s on our front that the war will be won or lost, not in Siabod.”

Caradoc fixed Troedfach with a gaze.

“Remember ’tis for the Stone you fight: if you and Gareg never forget that, your moles will not either.”

“I know it, Caradoc,” said Troedfach, “and I believe it.”

“Then may the Stone be with thee, Troedfach of Tyn-y-Bedw, and may the moles of the Marches and all of Wales remember your name with gratitude as the mole who brought them peace.”

“As for you, Caradoc,” rejoined Troedfach, “you are advised to retreat from here for a time. It’s possible that this area will be attacked from Caer Caradoc.”

“I’ll not move from sight of Caer Caradoc.”

“No, mole, I didn’t really think you would.”

“Is Alder going with you?”

“No, he’s staying as your bodyguard, old mole.”

“Humph!” said Caradoc.

Of the extraordinary campaign that now ensued moles have been told enough in the past, and the outline is well known. In only two days Troedfach’s large and well disciplined force had taken the grikes’ headquarters south-east of Caer Caradoc and cut off the force that had been lured on to the hill.

Several grike senior commanders were taken, including Haulke himself. It was then that Troedfach learnt that the mole Clowder was in charge of the southern campaign of the grikes, and that his force represented a considerable addition to what the grikes already had deployed along the front.

But though tempted to send more of his own moles south he kept to his plan and moved immediately north with Gareg for the assault on, as he had correctly thought, the force led by Ginnell. These were the critical hours, when Welsh moles in the south retreated before a larger force than they had expected, and the outcome in the north was unknown.

But at the bloody battle that was waged in the north for four days over difficult waterlogged ground at Cefn-Mawr, the main northern force of the grikes was all but wiped out. Less by skill, perhaps, than by the sheer number of moles that had been so brilliantly mustered, and by their ferocity. Nor did Troedfach hesitate to order that all grikes caught be killed and his action there, though often criticised, effectively destroyed the grike strength along the northern Marches.

While in the west, the Siabod moles under Gowre, seeing the grikes forces retreating east to support the failing forces of Ginnell, went in pursuit, and at Corwen caught up with most of them. The Corwen massacre – or plain “Corwen” as moles of those parts know it – was a vile and dishonourable act against a retreating force, though Gowre himself did not order it, and was what Caradoc had warned so often against.

The struggles to the south were more drawn out but effectively ended when Clowder himself retreated as news of the Master’s disappearance and rumours of his death reached him. He hurried north, and began his infamous attempt to win the Mastership, which reached its notorious climax at Whern the following December.

These general facts are well known, and the victory of the moles of the Welsh Marches is usually taken to have been when, one late August day, the grikes now besieged on Caer Caradoc did not retreat, but yielded to two old, brave moles of the Stone: Alder and Caradoc.