The War of the Ring (38 page)

How many would he kill before they got him? Would any song ever mention it? How Samwise fell in the High Pass - made a wall of bodies for his master's body. No, no song, for the Ring would be captured and all songs cease for ever [in] an age of Darkness ... The Ring. With a sudden thought and impulse he put it on! [Added: His hand hangs weighed down and useless.] At first he noticed nothing - except that he seemed to see much clearer. Things seemed hard and black and heavy, and the voices loud. The orc-bands had sighted one another and were shouting. But he seemed to hear both sides as if they were speaking close- to him. And he understood them. Why, they were speaking plain language. Maybe they were, or maybe the Ring which had power over all Sauron's servants and was grown in power as the place of its forging was approached brought the thought of their minds in plain speech direct to Sam.

'Hola! Gazmog,' said the foremost of the orcs coming out of the tunnel.

'Ho you Zaglun. So you've come at last. Have you heard them? Did you see it?'

'See what? We've just come through the tunnel of She-lob. o What should we see or hear?'

'Shouting and crying out here and lights. Some mischief afoot. But we're on guard in the tower and not supposed to leave. We waited but you didn't come. Hurry now for we must get back. There's only Naglur-Danlo and old Nuzu up here and he's in a taking.'

Then suddenly the orcs from the tower saw Frodo and while Sam still hesitated they swept past him with a howl and rushed forward. (Sting must be sheathed.) One thing the Ring did not confer was courage - rather the reverse, at any rate on Sam. He did not now [?rush] in - or make a hill of bodies round his master. There were about three dozen of them in all, and they were talking fast and excitedly. Sam hesitated. If he drew Sting they'd see that. They wouldn't ....: Orcs never did - but 36!

They [?read They'd] see where he was.

No - above won't do, he must see Orcs from a greater distance and follow them. The cleft must be no great distance, 100 yards? from Frodo's body and that 20 - 30 yards from tunnel. Cut out Gollum.

Sam sees orcs coming down from tower as he turns back [for the] last time. They seem from afar to spot the little shape of Frodo and give a yell. It is answered by a yell - other orcs are coming out of the tunnel! Then put in the part about his thoughts of song as he runs back. Puts on ring and cannot wield sword.(41) Changes it to left hand [broken staff (Sam's broke on Gollum)].(42) By that time orcs have picked up Frodo and are off to tunnel. Sam follows. Ring confers language knowledge - not courage.

Sam follows and hears conversation as they go through tunnel. Orcs discuss Frodo. Special vigilance ordered. What is it? Leader [B......] Zaglun says (43) orders are for messages [or messengers] to go to Morgul and direct to Lugburz. They

[?groan]. Talk of Shelob and the worm (= Gollum).

Big things are on. Only preliminary strokes. News. Osgiliath taken and ford. Army has also left North Gate. [?Other crossing] away up north somewhere and into the north part of the Horseboys' land - no opposition there. We'll be at the Mouths of Anduin in a week and at the Gulf of Lune before the summer's out - and then nowhere to escape. How we'll make

'em sweat! We haven't begun yet. Big stuff's coming.

Big stick if you don't hurry.

Prisoner is to be stripped naked. Teeth and nails? No. Is he half elf and man - [?there's] a fair blend of folly and mischief.

Quick end better. Quick!

They round a corner. Sam sees red light in an arch. Underground door to tower. Horrified to see that tunnel deceived him: they're further ahead than he thought. He runs forward but the iron door closes with a clang. He is outside in the darkness.

Now go back to Gandalf.

[Added: Make most of goblin conversation await the rescue chapter?]

In the next stage of development my father returned to the words

'At last with a great effort he stood up and turned away and seeing nothing but a grey mist stumbled forward towards the pass now straight ahead' (p. 211), and now continued thus (cf. TT pp. 342-3): He had not far to go. The tunnel was some fifty yards behind; the cleft a couple of hundred yards or less. There was a path visible in the dusk running now quickly up, with the cliff on one side, and on the other a low wall of rock rising steadily to another cliff. Soon there were broad shallow steps. Now the orc-tower was right above him, frowning black, and in it the red eye glowed. Now he was passing up the steps and the cleft was before him.

'I have made up my mind,' he kept saying to himself. But he had not. What he did, though he had long to think it out, was altogether against the grain. To stick by his master was his true nature. 'Have I got it wrong,' he muttered. 'Was there something else to do?' As the sheer sides of the cleft closed about him and before he reached the summit, before he looked upon the descending path beyond, he turned, torn intolerably within. He looked back. He could still see like a small blot in the gathering gloom the mouth of the tunnel; and he thought he could see or guess where Frodo lay, almost he fancied there was a light or a glimmer of it down there. Through tears he saw that lonely, stony high place where all his life had fallen into ruin.

What was the 'light, or a glimmer of it' (meaning, I suppose, 'a light, or the glimmer of a light') that Sam saw? It survives in TT (p. 343):

'He fancied there was a glimmer on the ground down there, or perhaps it was some trick of his tears'. Can the original meaning have been that there was a faint shining from the Phial of Galadriel, very probably at this stage (see pp. 210-11) still left clasped in Frodo's hand?

From '"No I can't do it," he said' (p. 211) my father repeated the original text almost exactly, but excising the return of Gollum. When he came to Sam's putting on the Ring he wrote: 'The Ring. With a sudden impulse he drew it out and put it on. The weight of it weighed down his hand. For a moment he noticed no change, and then he seemed to see clearer.' But at this point he stopped, marked what he had written with an X, and wrote: 'No! hear[d] clearer, crack of stone, cry of bird, voices, Shelob bubbling wretchedly deep in the rocks.

Voices in the dungeons of the tower. But all was not dark but hazy, and himself like a black solid rock and the Ring like hot gold. Difficult to believe in his invisibility.' The account of Sam's understanding of what the Orcs said here takes this form: 'Did the Ring give power of tongues or did it give him comprehension of all that had been under its power [written above: Sauron's servants], so that he heard direct?

Certainly the voices seemed close in his ears and it was very difficult to judge their distance.' With a reference to the Ring's increasing power in that region and its not conferring courage on its wearer this draft ends, followed by an outline of the salient points in what Sam heard: Why such a long delay of Orcs to come? Terrified of Shelob. They know another spy is about. Leader says orders are for messengers to go to Morgul and direct to Baraddur Lugburz. Orcs [?groan]. Talk of Shelob and the Spider's worm [who] has been here before. News of war.

In further drafting the coming of the Orc-bands is described thus: Then suddenly he heard cries and voices. He stood still.

Orc-voices: he had heard them in Moria and Lorien and on the Great River and would never forget them. Wheeling about he saw small red lights, torches perhaps, issuing from the tunnel away below. And only a few yards below him, out of the very cliff as it seemed, through some gap or gate near the tower's foot he had not noticed as he passed debating on the road, there were more lights. Orc-bands. They were come at last to hunt.

The red eye had not been wholly blind.

And a noise of feet and shouts came also through the cleft.

Orcs were coming up to the pass out of Mordor too.

This conception of three Orc-bands converging survived into the fair copy manuscript, where however it was removed at once, or soon, for there is no further reference to it; here 'orcs were coming up to the pass out of the land beyond', while 'only a few yards off' lights and

'black orc-shapes' were coming through 'some gap or gate at the tower's foot'. In the event (TT p. 343) the Orcs of the tower appeared from the far side of the Cleft.

The draft continues:

Fear overwhelmed him. How could he escape? So now his chapter would be ended. It had not had above a page longer than Frodo's. How could he save the Ring? The Ring. He was not aware of any thought or decision: he simply found himself drawing out the chain and taking the Ring in his hand. The orcs coming towards him grew louder. Then he put it on.(44) The achievement of the conversation between the leaders of the two Orc-bands in the tunnel took a good deal of work, extending into the fair copy, and to detail all the rearrangements, shifts of speakers, and so on would require a great deal of space. But there is one draft that deserves quotation in full, for very little of it survived. Here the two Orcs, and especially he of Minas Morghul, are greatly concerned with the precise timing of the various communications that had passed.

In the darkness [of the tunnel] he seemed now more at home; but he could not overcome his weariness. He could see the light of torches a little way ahead, but he could not gain on them.

Goblins go fast in tunnels, especially those which they have themselves made, and all the many passages in this region of the mountains were their work, even the main tunnel and the great deep pit where Shelob housed. In the Dark Years they had been made, until Shelob came and made her lair there, and to escape her they had bored new passages, too narrow for her [as she slowly grew >] growth, that crossed and recrossed the straight way.(45)

Sam heard the clamour of their many voices flat and hard in the dead air, and somewhere he heard two voices louder than the rest. The leaders of the two parties seemed to be wrangling as they went.

'Can't you stop your rabble's racket?' said one. 'I don't care what happens to them, but I don't want Shelob down on me and my lads.'

'Yours are making more than half the noise,' said the other.

'But let the lads play. No need to worry about Shelob for a bit.

She's sat on a pin or something, and none of us will weep.

Didn't you see the signs then? A claw cut off, filthy gore all the way to that cursed crack (if we've stopped it once we've stopped it a hundred times). Let the lads play. We've struck a bit of luck at last: we've got something He wants.'

'Yes, we, Shagrat.(46) We, mark you. But why we're going to your miserable tower I don't know. We found the spy, my lot were there first. He should be ours. He should be taken back to Dushgoi.'(47)

'Now, now, still at it. I've said before all there is to be said, but if you must have more arguments, they're here: I've got ten more swords than you, and thirty more just up yonder at call.

See? Anyway orders are orders, and I've mine.'

'And I've mine.'

'Yes, and I know them, for I was told 'em by Lugburz, see?

Yagfil (48) from Dushgoi will patrol until he meets your guard, or as far as Ungol top: be will report to you before returning to report to Dushgoi. Your report was nothing. Very useful. You can take it back to Dushgoi as soon as you like.'

'I will, but I don't like [to] just yet. I found the spy, and I must know more before I go. The Lords of Dushgoi have some secret of quick messages and they will get the news to Lugburz quicker than anyone you can send direct.'

'I know all that, and I'm not stopping you taking news to them. I know all the messages. They trust me in Lugburz, He knows a good orc when he sees one. This is what happened: message from Dushgoi to Lugburz: Watchers uneasy. Fear elvish agent passed up the Stair. Guard pass. Message from Lugburz to Ungol: Dushgoi uneasy. Redouble vigilance. Make contact. Send report by Dushgoi and direct. And there you are.'

'No, I'm not there, not yet. I'm going to take a report back, my own report, Master Shagrat, and I want to know this first.

When did you get this message? We set out as soon as possible after the forces left, and we see no sign of you till we're right through the Tunnel - a filthy place and inside your area. Then we see you just starting. Now I guess you got that message early today, this morning probably, and you've been drinking since to give you the guts to look at the hole. That's what you think of orders that don't suit you.'

'I've no need to account for myself to you Dushgoi horseboys, Master Yagul. But if you're so curious to know: the message from Dushgoi was sent out late: things seem a bit slack with the Lord away. Lugburz did not get it till last night, mark you, nor me till this afternoon. By which time messages were hardly needed. I'd had my lads out some time. There were very odd things happening. Lights in the tunnel, lights outside, shouting and whatnot. But Shelob was about. My lads saw her, and her worm.'