Watership Down (Watership Down 1)

'I'm pretty certain we did pass close to a weasel,' said Silver. 'I could smell it. But you know how it is with elil - if they're not actually hunting they often take no notice of you. We left very little scent, and buried our hraka as though we were cats.'

'Well, before ni-Frith,' went on Holly, 'the track brought us to a long, thin wood running right across the way we were going. These downland woods are queer, aren't they? This was no thicker than the one above us now, but it stretched as far as we could see either way, in a dead straight line. I don't like straight lines: men make them. And sure enough, we found a road beside this wood. It was a very lonely, empty road, but all the same, I didn't want to hang about there, so we went straight through the wood and out the other side. Kehaar spotted us in the fields beyond and told us to alter our direction. I asked him how we were getting on and he said we were about half-way, so I thought we might as well start looking for somewhere to lie up for the night. I didn't fancy the open and in the end we made scrapes in the bottom of a kind of little pit we found. Then we had a good feed and passed the night very well.

'I don't think we need tell you everything about the journey. It came on to rain just after the morning feed and there was a nasty, cold wind with it, so we stayed where we were until after ni-Frith. It brightened up then and we went on. The going wasn't very nice because of the wet, but by early evening I reckoned we ought to be near the place. I was looking round when a hare came through the grass and I asked him whether he knew of a big warren close by.

' "Efrafa?" he asked. "Are you going to Efrafa?"*

' "If that's what it's called," I answered.

' "Do you know it?"

' "No," I said, "we don't. We want to know where it is."

' "Well," he said, "my advice to you is to run, and quickly."

'I was just wondering what to make of that, when suddenly three big rabbits come over the bank, just the way I did that night when I came to arrest you, Bigwig: and one of them said, "Can I see your marks?"

' "Marks?" I said. "What marks? I don't understand."

' "You're not from Efrafa?"

' "No," I said, "we're going there. We're strangers."

' "Will you come with me?" No "Have you come far?" or "Are you wet through?" or anything like that.

'So then these three rabbits took us off down the bank and that was how we came to Efrafa, as they call it. And I'd better try and tell you something about it, so that you'll know what a dirty little bunch of snivelling hedge-scrapers we are here.

'Efrafa is a big warren - a good deal bigger than the one we came from - the Threarah's, I mean. And the one fear of every rabbit in it is that men are going to find them and infect them with the white blindness. The whole warren is organized to conceal its existence. The holes are all hidden and the Owsla have every rabbit in the place under orders. You can't call your life your own: and in return you have safety - if it's worth having at the price you pay.

'As well as the Owsla, they have what they call a Council, and each of the Council rabbits has some special thing he looks after. One looks after feeding: another's responsible for the ways in which they keep hidden: another looks after breeding, and so on. As far as the ordi

nary rabbits are concerned, only a certain number can be above ground at one time. Every rabbit is marked when he's a kitten: they bite them, deep, under the chin or in a haunch or fore-paw. Then they can be told by the scar for the rest of their lives. You mustn't be found above ground unless it's the right time of day for your Mark.'

'Who's to stop you?' growled Bigwig.

'That's the really frightening part. The Owsla - well, you can't imagine it unless you've been there. The Chief is a rabbit named Woundwort: General Woundwort, they call him. I'll tell you more about him in a minute. Then under him there are captains - each one in charge of a Mark - and each captain has his own officers and sentries. There's a Mark captain with his band on duty at every time of the day and night. If a man happens to come anywhere near, which isn't often, the sentries give warning long before he comes close enough to see anything. They give warning of elil too. They prevent anyone dropping hraka except in special places in the ditches, where it's buried. And if they see any rabbit above ground whom they don't recognize as having the right to be there, they ask to see his mark. Frith knows what happens if he can't explain himself - but I can guess pretty well. Rabbits in Efrafa quite often go days at a time without the sight of Frith. If their Mark's on night silflay then they feed by night, wet or fine, warm or cold. They're all used to talking, playing and mating in the burrows underground. If a Mark can't silflay at their appointed time for some reason or other - say there was a man working somewhere near - that's just too bad. They miss their turn till next day.'

'But surely it alters them very much, living like that?' asked Dandelion.

'Very much indeed,' replied Holly. 'Most of them can't do anything but what they're told. They've never been out of Efrafa and never smelt an enemy. The one aim of every rabbit in Efrafa is to get into the Owsla, because of the privileges: and the one aim of everyone in the Owsla is to get into the Council. The Council have the best of everything. But the Owsla have to keep very strong and tough. They take it in turn to do what they call Wide Patrol. They go out over the country - all round the place - living in the open for days at a time. It's partly to find out anything they can, and partly to train them and make them tough and cunning. Any hlessil they find they pick up and bring back to Efrafa. If they won't come, they kill them. They reckon hlessil a danger, because they may attract the attention of men. The Wide Patrols report back to General Woundwort and the Council decide what to do about anything new that they think may be dangerous.'

'They missed you on the way in, then?' said Bluebell.

'Oh no, they didn't I We learned later that some time after we'd been brought in by this rabbit - Captain Campion - a runner arrived from a Wide Patrol to say that they'd picked up the track of three or four rabbits coming towards Efrafa from the north; and were there any orders? He was sent back to say that we were safely under control.

'Anyway, this Captain Campion took us down to a hole in the ditch. The mouth of the hole was a bit of old earthenware pipe and if a man had pulled it out, the opening would have fallen in and showed no trace of the run inside. And there he handed us over to another Captain - because he had to go back above ground for the rest of his spell of duty, you see. We were taken to a big burrow and told to make ourselves at home.

'There were other rabbits in the burrow and it was by listening to them and asking questions that I learnt most of what I've been telling you. We got talking to some of the does and I made friends with one called Hyzenthlay.* I told her about our problem here and why we'd come, and then she told us about Efrafa. When she'd finished I said, "It sounds terrible. Has it always been like this?" She said no, her mother had told her that in years gone by the warren had been elsewhere and much smaller: but when General Woundwort came, he had made them move to Efrafa and then he'd worked out this whole system of concealment and perfected it until rabbits in Efrafa were as safe as stars in the sky. "Most rabbits here die of old age, unless the Owsla kill them off," she said. "But the trouble is, there are more rabbits now than the warren can hold. Any fresh digging that's allowed has to be done under Owsla supervision and they do it terribly slowly and carefully. It all has to be hidden, you see. We're overcrowded and a lot of rabbits don't get above ground as much as they need to. And for some reason there are not enough bucks and too many does. A lot of us have found we can't produce litters, because of the overcrowding, but no one is ever allowed to leave. Only a few days ago, several of us does went to the Council and asked whether we could form an expedition to start a new warren somewhere else. We said we'd go far, far away - as far away as they liked. But they wouldn't hear of it - not on any account. Things can't go on like this - the system's breaking down. But it doesn't do to be heard talking about it."

'Well, I thought, this sounds hopeful. Surely they won't object to our proposals? We only want to take a few does and no bucks. They've got more does than there's room for and we want to take them farther away than anyone here can ever have been.

'A little later another Captain came and said we were to come with him to the Council meeting.

'The Council meet in a kind of big burrow. It's long and rather narrow - not as good as this Honeycomb of ours, because they've got no tree-roots to make a wide roof. We had to wait outside while they were talking about all sorts of other things. We were just one piece of daily Council business: "Strangers apprehended." There was another rabbit waiting and he was under special guard - Owslafa, they call them: the Council police. I've never been near anyone so frightened in my life - I thought he'd go mad with fear. I asked one of these Owslafa what was the matter and he said that this rabbit, Blackavar, had been caught trying to run away from the warren. Well, they took him inside and first of all we heard the poor fellow trying to explain himself, and then he was crying and begging for mercy: and when he came out they'd ripped both his ears to shreds, worse than this one of mine. We were all sniffing at him, absolutely horror-stricken; but one of the Owslafa said, "You needn't make such a fuss. He's lucky to be alive." So while we were chewing on that, someone came out and said the Council were ready for us.

'As soon as we got in, we were put up in front of this General Woundwort: and he really is a grim customer. I don't think even you'd match up to him, Bigwig. He's almost as big as a hare and there's something about his mere presence that frightens you, as if blood and fighting and killing were all just part of the day's work to him. I thought he'd begin by asking us some questions about who we were and what we wanted, but he didn't do anything like that. He said, "I'm going to explain the rules of the warren and the conditions on which you'll live here. You must listen carefully, because the rules are to be kept and any breaking of them will be punished." So then I spoke up at once and said that there was a misunderstanding. We were an embassy, I said, come from another warren to ask for Efrafa's goodwill and help. And I went on to explain that all we wanted was their agreement to our persuading a few does to come back with us. When I'd finished, General Woundwort said that it was out of the question: there was nothing to discuss. I replied that we'd like to stay with them for a day or two and try to persuade them to change their mind.

' "Oh yes," he said, "you'll stay. But there'll be no further occasion for you to take up the Council's time - for the next few days at any rate."