‘You’re not the first as has asked that, I can tell you! Well, there is and there isn’t. I never met en myself. Plenty comes to find en and most go away disappointed. Some claim they found en, but won’t never say where or when.’
‘Where do you think we could find him?’ asked Mullion.
‘Beyond the Stone, that’s where most things be,’ said the mole. ‘There was several moles like you come on through here not so long back, couple of weeks it war. Big like you they was. They found en and they didn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mullion.
‘Well, now, there was four of em and I met three of em after, up by Stone as it happens, and they said they looked about and they reckoned en didn’t exist. But one of em oo warn’t with them anymore, he was waiting a bit longer to see and not going back with the others.’
‘Where to?’ asked Mullion excitedly.
‘Ask the worms, don’t ask me. I don’t go gallivantin’ about the countryside like you youngsters do.’ With that he really did leave, and Mullion came back to the others.
‘Hear that? Sounds like the four Pasture moles I mentioned have been here before us. I wonder who stayed behind.’
They found the Nuneham Stone with no difficulty—all the tunnels seemed to lead to it. It was wide and bulbous in shape, much less tall than the Duncton Stone, and stood on a bluff of deep green pasture grass overlooking a low and meandering river that lay below, beyond several fields of lush green pasture. Patches of blue creeping speedwell, a few early dandelions and the darker leaves of young bugle shoots grew among the grass by the Stone, whose general appearance disappointed Bracken. He had expected something much more impressive.
‘Each Stone is different,’ explained Boswell, ‘and they can all teach you something. Try to spend some time in silence by any Stone you come to before examining it too closely—that way you may get to know it faster.’
Bracken complied—he trusted Boswell’s advice on anything to do with the Stone—and since it was late afternoon, and the surface felt safe, he was willing to crouch for a while in the open. From beyond the Stone he could hear the sound of chaffinch, yellowhammer and blackbird busy in some hedge he could not see, and to the mixed sound of their warbles, notes and songs, he let himself listen to the Nuneham Stone. It seemed a friendly, peaceful place.
Mullion, however, could not crouch still and had no desire to. He wanted to go searching for the fighting mole, and also to see if he was right and that the Pasture moles had indeed been there.
It was only when evening started drawing in, bringing with it the risk of predators, that Bracken and Boswell returned to the tunnels and pressed on beyond the Stone, calling out for Mullion, who had disappeared.
The tunnels were like those in the pastures by Duncton Wood, sparse, long and straight, with relatively few burrows or side runs, but the impression they gave was very different. For one thing, the soil was richer and darker, and having an element of sand or gravel in it from some distant past when the river had deposited its alluvium this high up the valley side, it tended to soften and slide in places, giving the tunnels a discarded air. There was an untidy litter on some of the tunnel floors while what burrow entrances there were were untidy and unkempt.
Once or twice they heard and saw moles nearby, but there was no feeling of hostility or even curiosity about them, and they, too, seemed to be coming and going rather than stopping still.
‘There aren’t even any pup cries up here,’ observed Bracken to Boswell. ‘In fact, I haven’t seen or smelt a female yet.’
Boswell was content to follow Bracken, whose instincts in route-finding he trusted absolutely, and so they wandered from tunnel to tunnel, generally slightly uphill, occasionally calling out for Mullion, though they knew that they could always meet him back at the Stone again.
Being April, the nights were still cold and as nightfall began outside, a chill settled down into the tunnel. They had some food and then decided to press on uphill to any outer limit the tunnels might have, and there to sleep.
But then, as they advanced, Bracken began to grow restless, feeling that he was going somewhere definite, though where, he had no idea. He scurried on forward, only occasionally stopping to look around and check that Boswell was behind him and to let him catch up.
‘Have you noticed that the tunnel is suddenly getting tidier and neater?’ asked Boswell, limping forward to where Bracken was waiting for him on one of these slopes. ‘Somemole’s cleared the litter and shored up some of these crumbling walls,’ he added.
And as he spoke, there was a heavy tread in the tunnel ahead of them which stopped some way beyond in the darkness.
‘What mole is there?’ asked a strong, deep voice from the depths behind. It was neither friendly nor hostile.
They pressed forward until they came to a big central chamber in which several routes met, on the far side of which crouched a very powerful-looking mole. He was slim compared with a Duncton mole and his fur was light. He was enormously muscular and strong—the kind of mole whose size only tells when a normal mole goes near him, and whichever way he stands he seems to feel dwarfed.
His face fur was thick and dark-silvery, his eyes full of self-confidence. Bracken noticed that his back paws were unusually large and that he crouched full square on the ground, giving the impression that he was ready to spring into action at any moment.
‘What moles are you?’ he repeated.
But before Bracken could reply, his manner, until now quite neutral, suddenly changed. His big snout came forward towards Bracken and sniffed at him, his front paws pushed powerfully into the chamber floor as his eyes narrowed and his tail started to twitch angrily. There was a deep growling from his throat as, very slowly, he drew himself up to his full height.
Bracken stopped quite still, his mind racing after reasons for this sudden hostility. Not finding any but being unwilling to argue, he backed away towards the entrance through which they had come, pushing Boswell protectively behind him. Better to have it out verbally from a position in which it was possible to retreat.
‘I said what moles are you and where are you from?’ repeated the mole, more angry by the second.
‘I am Bracken of…’
‘Duncton Wood?’ roared the mole inquisitorially. ‘From Duncton Wood are you?’
He came powerfully towards Bracken, his size seeming to double with each forward step he took. And before Bracken could even say a word or raise his talons to defend himself, the mole was on to him and had thrust a paw just behind his shoulder and with one massive heave pulled him round into the centre of the chamber. For a moment the mole looked back at Boswell, snouted at him and then turned away dismissively, back to Bracken again.
‘I would know your smell anywhere,’ he thundered, bringing down a massive talon blow in such a way that it did not seriously injure Bracken but cut across his shoulder and hurled him backwards several steps. His power and speed were extraordinary and Bracken was still desperately trying to think what was happening when the mole brought his left paw swinging round and tore a talon’s cut along his flank. As Bracken staggered back, gasping and frightened, a line of blood appearing on his fur, he watched as behind the great mole Boswell hobbled forward bravely to strike uselessly at the mole with one paw. With a terrible backward kick the other mole sent his back paw shattering into Boswell’s face and he fell back against the wall behind and slumped across the entrance they had come in by.
Despite his shock and cuts, this sight of Boswell, whom he knew had never harmed anymole in his life, being knocked unconscious, brought to Bracken the kind of rage he had felt overtake him when he had first confronted Mullion in the channel beyond the marsh.