“For reasons we don’t fully understand,” Skint went on, “the last survivors generally climbed up the ones below – my guess is they were trying to get to the best air. Sometimes you’ll find evidence that individuals have survived long after the others have died; sometimes, if the season was spring, there is evidence of females giving birth in the final moments of their life. The pups did not last long for talon worms got them and they had no milk to suck.” His voice was bitter and cold, his eyes expressionless.
“Sometimes you find survivors, though they’re usually demented and best put out of their misery. Survived on cannibalism, could have got out eventually but didn’t dare for fear of the moles they thought were still outside the seal-up waiting to kill them. That mole Mayweed... that mole...” He shook his head and for a moment that impassivity changed to a look of disbelief.
“What about him?” asked Spindle, ever curious.
“Survived. Here. In the Slopeside. Strange story.”
“Tell us,” said Tryfan in his most persuasive way. Skint looked at him curiously, as if acknowledging that he was a mole of more authority than some, and settled down to tell him.
“When we first came to the Slopeside, there were persistent rumours among the clearers that there was a mole already living up here: one who avoided contact with others, yet never left the Slopeside tunnels. The first real evidence was when one of the clearers got injured and then confused by foul air and lost. Some days later he reappeared, saying a young mole had appeared out of the darkness, a most strange and talkative mole, who led him to a fresher chamber, brought food to him, waited until he had recovered and finally led him back to tunnels he knew.
“The grike patrols got to hear of it and naturally they could not tolerate a mole running free, even if he chose as his freedom tunnels that other moles were beginning to see as a sentence to death. By then we all knew that a particularly virulent form of scalpskin prevailed in the Slopeside because we had lost several good mates to it.
“Well we laid a trap for him. A mole pretended to be lost. Sure enough the mole we now know as Mayweed showed up and was nabbed. Hello, said we, and what are you doing here?
“The only mole he’d talk to was Willow, bless her. Cried like a pup when he saw her. Reminded him of his mother, you see. She worked out what must have happened. Must have been an autumn mole, and they’re meant to be the lucky ones! He might even have been pupped inside a seal-up, though Word knows how his mother suckled him to weaning, or what she lived on – or what he did. Don’t like to think of it. But some others must have survived because he could talk when we found him, and a polite lot they must have been judging from the expressions he uses, calling everymole “Sir” or “Madam”, and praising them. He must have been told not to leave by the last survivors because he’d be killed by the plague-free moles and he never did, until we found him.
“At first he never stopped talking and drove us mad. But he knew the tunnels and knew the food supplies and he could run rings round the patrols and back again. We think he even knows ways down off the Slopeside but he won’t show us. Never known a better route-finder in my life, and I’ve known a few. It’s like he was born with a snout which always knows the best way to go.”
Skint paused, admiration in his voice. “You’ll never get him out of the Slopeside, that’s for certain, so Word knows what’ll happen to him when we finish up here, which isn’t long off now. For the time being he’s attached himself to us at the North End, and when’s he’s not off on his secret travels he’s here with me or over on Willow’s beat.”
Skint said no more but got up and wandered around the chamber with an appraising eye to work out the best way of clearing it.
From above, through the roof, trailed the pale green roots of living plants, which seemed to have sought out these bodies of seasons past and, grotesquely finding sustenance there, had crept and crawled their way among the bone and sinew, and in places grown downward through skin and fur.
“This looks like a twenty-burrow to me,” said Skint coolly, talking of the corpses as if they were merely things. “An experienced clearer should be able to deal with this lot in four days, but it’ll probably take the two of you longer than that. Still you’ve got to start somewhere.”
“Why not just re-seal the burrow and leave them in peace?” muttered Spindle, his voice hard and a little hysterical, for he felt an angry helplessness as he looked about the burrow.
“Because it’s quicker to clear than make new burrows and tunnels,” said Skint, “especially if you’ve got a mole to do it for you who you don’t mind wasting; and because Henbane the WordSpeaker says so, and because it’s your job for the Word.
“Now before I show you what to do, a few general observations,” he went on. “The roots are the real problem, because if you try and remove a corpse too quickly attached roots may create a roof-fall which will make for work later. So watch them carefully, and bite them through where necessary. Next, always try and work from above when removing a corpse from a pile, otherwise they’ve a habit of shifting about and trapping you. These ones look clean enough – no putrescence, which is the real danger to health. It’s normally the bottom ones which are the problem – life stays on them longest and the air doesn’t get to them. Putrescence and pestilence linger there and can be dangerous. Munro’s brother Larch shifted corpses badly, didn’t he? Got trapped and half suffocated. When they found him he was still alive, but talon worms had got to his flanks and back and once in never out. He was paralysed in three days. Munro himself put him out of his misery. That was February, so be warned.”
Skint fell suddenly silent, concentrating on the base of the pile of corpses. He darted forward and stared into what seemed dark shadow. He snouted and sniffed, whispering, “Yes, I thought so. We’re in luck.” He backed away and stared at the pile of skin and bones above him. He signalled Tryfan and Spindle to come to him and pointed into the shadows near his front paws.
“I was talking about talon worms. Look down there.”
They looked. It was a mole’s skull, yellow-white. There were dried, dark red worms on it, thin and short. And a curious smell as of crushed nettles.
“Talon worms. Dead. Nothing left to feed on. Died where they were, the little buggers. Note the smell and keep your wits about you when you come across it. If you
ever
smell crushed nettles again you move fast, especially if you’re wounded or sore-ridden. They’ll not normally attack a healthy mole, but they smell blood and go for it, and an open ulcer is an open invitation. Not seen any for a while, though, so maybe they’ve cleared out of here. They like fresh, suffering life.”
“What are they exactly?” asked Spindle nervously.
“Red-black, shiny, carnivorous, fast. Luckily they hurt so you know they’re on you. Kill them quick.”
He moved round the pile and took up a dead mole’s paws in his own. “Never drag a corpse by the paws,” he said. “They break off and leave you with a pawful of nothing much. Shoulders and pelvis, preferably shoulders. Don’t be squeamish...” He thrust his right paw between the mole’s shoulder blades and vertebrae and half lifted the entire body up. “There you are, easy. Not too fast and not too slow – a half drag is best. Try and keep them in one piece.” He expertly pulled the corpse across the burrow.
“Two’s better than one getting them out on to the surface. One to heave and one to shove. If they’re rotten never get below – nasties fall on you. One way or another you’ve got to get corpses out on the surface as quick as you can. But don’t linger up there – rooks like a mortuary site, so do owls, and the patrols have been known to kill an idle mole just for the sake of it.” He looked up at the glimmer of light that came from an old exit and briefly across his face went that look of a mole who for too long has been underground and wishes to know once more the feel of sun and wind in his fur for as long as he likes, rather than just hurriedly while he disposes of a corpse and must go below once more. All three were silent, thinking such thoughts together, for Tryfan and Spindle had not been on the surface at all for molemonths on end and longed to wander as they had been used to doing in the days, which seemed so distant now, when they had been free to do so.
“Any other questions?” asked Skint.
They stared dumbly at him.
“Right. Now you can stay together for the time being. You’ve to clear four between you for this session so get on with it. Two days like that then you’ll be working as a team but then you have to clear six a session. Remember you get less worms if you shift too few.
“One last thing. I repeat: don’t go wandering off. Guardmoles are on the surface and in the peripheral tunnels and don’t give clearers many chances.”
With that Skint left them to it and went off to direct other moles’ work, and occasionally they heard his muffled voice from nearby tunnels.
The work was slow, tiring and depressing but they did it well enough together, taking corpse after corpse on to the surface. Occasionally a mole would go by, but none stopped to talk. All had sores on their backs and flanks. An unpleasant-looking mole came and watched them for a time and then was gone: a grike probably. On the surface a large male watched them as they cleared, and shouted at Spindle to “get below, scum” when he paused briefly to enjoy the fresh air. But in a way he was glad to, for the surface was scrubby and unkempt, and littered with dried skin and bones of cleared moles, and there was the dark threat of rook to the west. Perhaps it was hardly surprising that the patrols were irritable....
Night came and with it an exhaustion of body and mind. The initial shock of the work gave way to a numb distaste for it, and the knowledge, certain it seemed, that they could not last long doing it.
They finished that first night three corpses short of their target, and yet were so tired they hardly ate the reduced rations they received in consequence. The second day, the third day... and by the morning of the fifth the burrow was cleared and made good. Then on to another....
It was on the sixth evening, when for the first time neither felt too tired to talk, that there was a commotion near the chamber where they were eating a night meal with Skint. A large mole appeared at the entrance.
He was ragged in appearance but, by the standards of the Slopeside, seemed well fed, for his stomach had a pleasing roundness and his face was cheerful. His paws, too, seemed well made, even if, like some of his flank fur, they were muddy and ungroomed. On one side he had a sore, and the fur near it was sparse and the skin beneath flaky and raw: the signs of incipient scalpskin.
“Eating as usual, you mean bugger!” declared the newcomer, looking at Skint. “These poor idiots your new apprentices?”
Skint barely looked up but Tryfan acknowledged the mole.
“My name’s Tryfan,” he said, “and this is Spindle.”
“Yes, so I hear. Smithills, that’s me. Working the east part of the North End of this forsaken place. Area of putrescence. Nasty. Nearly done. Last job, then I’m going home. Eh, Skint? You too tight even to say hello, Skint?”
“He’s a scrounger,” muttered Skint with a malevolent sideways glance at Smithills, “and he’ll have your worms off you quick as light.”
“Scrounger?” said Smithills furiously. “
Scrounger?
Nothing to scrounge round you, Skint. Never met a meaner mole in my life.” Smithills let out a chuckle and settled himself down, watching Skint pleasurably as if hoping to get a rise from him.
“None of that now!” said Skint sharply. “Not one word of that or you can get right out of our burrow!”
“Well you disprove it then and give me a worm or two.”
“You’re filthy, Smithills. Clean yourself up!”
“You’re so tight with worms it’s a wonder you’re still alive,” retorted Smithills... And so the two moles, whom Tryfan could see were old friends, carried on for a time at each other until Smithills was given a worm, and Skint, in a moment of sudden generosity, announced that the two of them had not done badly for newcomers over the last few days and deserved an extra worm apiece.
“Mayweed!” he called out. “
Mayweed
! Get us some more worms.”
But Mayweed, who never seemed far away, must have
had some ready for he immediately appeared with food and said, “Wonderful moles, deserving of more than sustenance, I, Mayweed, bring it to you feeling privileged and honoured to do so, paltry and pathetic though I am and always will be.”
“I’ll have the big one,” said Smithills with a grin.
“A great and goodly pleasure to
see
you
again, Smithills Sir!” said Mayweed.
“At least one mole here’s welcoming then!” said Smithills, starting on the worm Mayweed offered him.
Skint scowled. Then, rather grudgingly, he said, “Well now you’re here you might as well tell us what news you’ve got, if any.”
“Oh I’ve got news all right,” said Smithills, pausing for effect.
“Yes?” said Skint eventually.
“He’s glad to talk to me now, you see,” Smithills said mischievously to the others, “now he knows there might be something in it for him. Always been like that, has Skint, haven’t you, you old miser? Just as well I’ve got a generous forgiving spirit.”
“You’ve got a generous forgiving stomach more like,” muttered Skint.
In a far shadowy corner Mayweed, who had taken a stance there hoping nomole would turf him out, laughed and said, half to himself, “Oh funny that, witty and droll, the worthy and quick-minded Skint making a comparison between heart and stomach, yes: most excellently done. Very —”
“Shut up, Mayweed!” said Skint impatiently. “I want to hear Smithills’ news.”
“Yes Sir, please Sir, I will Sir, only complimenting you Sir.”
“Give over, Mayweed,” said Smithills in a kindly way. “There’s a good mole.”
“Wonderful!” said Mayweed ambiguously, and shut up.
For a time they all chewed contentedly, enjoying that pleasant silence and settling down that precede a good evening gossip such as all moles love. But still Smithills’ news remained unshared.