Toad Triumphant (11 page)

“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!”

The Mole at last found the painter and, leaving off the cashiering of the Rat till later so that he could attend to the immediate crisis, he struggled for some little while to ease the rocking, bucking boats nearer to the wire that he might pass the painter over and around it and secure it fast. He managed the passing over and around, but the securing proved beyond his competence, and the Mole had no choice but to cling on to the rope and sit as low in the bows as he could manage, his back to the clinker boards, and all of him aching and weakening more as the seconds went by.

“Ratty,” he cried feebly from the nether regions of the boat, whose continued rocking and sideways slipping caused various packages and provisions to fall on top of him, “will you ever come back? I shall find it very hard to forgive you.
Ratty!”

The Mole’s desperation grew as beneath him, butting and scraping their teeth as they mouthed at the underside of the boat, less than an inch from where he lay monsters of the deep began their dread work of sniffing him out, and demolishing the frail craft to get at him.

“Ratty!” wailed the Mole. “What shall I do?”

For as the monstrous sounds grew more ominous, and he seemed to hear the watery cracking and splintering of wood, it occurred to the Mole that it might be better if he released the painter and allowed the current to take the boats off down-river, safe from present dangers. On the other hand — and this was the Mole’s dilemma —when the Rat reappeared, if he did (and here the Mole did not permit himself to dwell upon the possibility that the monsters had made a first course of his friend before making him the main meal), the Rat would not be pleased to discover his precious boats wrecked downstream and all their gear lost.

It was at such moments that the Mole rediscovered that courage and resource for which he was renowned along the River Bank. Quiet and unassuming the Mole might normally be, and very slow to ire, but only let the fates conspire to corner him, or to threaten one of his friends, and the Furies of his soul were unleashed.

“Ratty my friend, if they have taken you I am too late. But if not there may yet be something I can do!”

With that the Mole heaved at the painter to pull the boats back up towards the wire and give himself more leg room, grasped the cutlass and stood up, as formidable and as ready for slaughter as any Viking who ever stood upon the prow of his ship as it drove hard onto an alien shore.