A check down the other end, where Bracken had been, confirmed that the level had risen even since he had last been there. The dead hare, which lay grotesquely huddled against the channel wall and smelt of death, began to flop and float about in the rising waters, while their channel began to grow wet and treacherous from the increasing outflow from the marsh drainage pipes leading into it.
‘What about those tunnels up into the embankment?’ Bracken said finally to them both.
‘It’s what I said,’ replied Boswell, ‘but Mullion says it’s not possible.’
‘Too steep and slippery, quite apart from the poisonous smell. You can’t even get started,’ said Mullion.
The water crept nearer and they all moved up towards the centre of the channel. The walls seemed higher and more impassable with each second, almost leaning over and crushing down upon them.
‘What about swimming out?’ said Mullion.
‘Never swum in my life,’ said Bracken.
‘You’d learn quick enough,’ said Boswell. ‘Even I can do it. But the water in those channels is too fierce.’
At the far end of the channel a massive white and grey gull dived squawking on the hare, which was now half submerged in water. There was a plash and splash as the gull’s claws swept the water, trying vainly to lift the hare out, and then it was up and away into the dull sky. A black beetle suddenly came crawling by in the sand, heading up the centre of the channel, as if it knew that the water was rising. Mullion took it for his own and crunched it nervously as they all thought what to do.
Bracken went and took another look up into the round tunnel pipes into the embankment and then impatiently scrambled up into one of them. His back paws had almost disappeared before he came sliding out again and fell into a roll on the channel floor.
‘See what I mean?’ said Mullion. He was beginning to sound desperate.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Bracken. ‘You can get a grip if you stretch far enough ahead because I could feel that the tunnel has an edge across it—it’s not all smooth like the marsh one I came down.’ He climbed up again, Mullion nudging him up a little from behind and this time his whole body disappeared and he was gone.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Mullion, increasingly worried by the water at his paws.
‘Finding a way out, I expect,’ said Boswell calmly. Then he added for Mullion’s benefit, ‘It’s not as bad as it seems, you know. We can all swim if necessary—though our chances would be low. But we’re not going to drown in the next five minutes.’
There were shouts from the pipe and Bracken came slithering down backwards out of it, covered in mud. He hung for a moment from its edge, his back paws scrabbling for a hold on the smooth wall, and then fell the short distance to the channel floor.
‘Well, it’s possible,’ he said breathlessly. ‘It doesn’t go anywhere much because there’s no wind current and I can sense that it doesn’t. But at the very least we might—if we’re careful and if you do exactly what I say—avoid the water when it rises. There might even be some food up there—though how it would survive in that roaring-owl stench I don’t know.’
The water began to rise towards their bellies and was now threatening to sweep them off their feet as Bracken quickly outlined his plan. The pipe was in sections, each unfortunately longer than the length of a mole. But where they joined there was a gap in the pipe large enough to sneak a talon or two in and hold a mole secure.
‘The trouble is,’ said Bracken, ‘negotiating your way up to the next hold—that’s how I slipped the first time.’
‘Are we taking him?!’ asked Mullion suddenly, looking at Boswell.
‘Yes,’ said Bracken coldly, in a voice that allowed no argument. His plan was that Mullion should go first, being biggest, and stretch forward to the hold Bracken had managed to reach. Then Boswell should follow, clambering up over Mullion to get a grip—a thought that seemed to annoy Mullion and amuse Boswell, who was the only one among them apparently quite unaffected by the position they faced. Then Mullion was to go to the next hold as Bracken joined Boswell, who would then go on up to Mullion again.
‘That’s the theory. Now let’s get on with it,’ said Bracken urgently, the water now almost lifting Boswell off his feet. ‘And remember you two—one slip and we’ll probably all go sliding down into this lot.’
The pipe was far more slippery with mud and slime than Mullion expected and it took him several attempts even to get up into it, and then only with Bracken pushing, while Boswell in turn hung on to Bracken as the water steadily rose about them.
