The Willows at Christmas (21 page)

This initial setback did not put off the Rat and the Otter for long. Two nights later they succeeded in penetrating the Village’s lines by boat, and under cover of darkness they were able to examine the Gaol from the outside. They very rapidly concluded that an assault upon it would probably end in their own arrest.

“The door is too well padlocked and the walls too thick for direct assault,” the Rat whispered.

“And that window’s too high and narrow for easy access, even if we could furnish Toad and Mole with tools to loosen the bars,” concluded the Otter.

To make matters worse they failed utterly in their attempts to attract their friends’ attention because the roar of the river’s flow was so great that their surreptitious cries could not be heard, and they dared not risk alerting the stoat who stood guard near the door itself. Even so, they were heard and then seen by some of the other guards, and had to beat a hasty retreat.

In addition to these difficulties, the Rat had quickly established that all their homes, including Mole End, were being spied on by the Wild Wooders for signs of activity.

“So even if we got them out, Otter, what would we do with them? Since it seems that the trial will not take place for a few days yet, we have time to prepare a bolt-hole. I suggest that Toad’s boathouse would be the safest place to hide — it is accessible by water, yet nearly impossible to raid from that direction, and it would be very hard for our enemies to flush us out before we made good our escape, which might be in one of several directions.

“I therefore think we should return to our respective homes and appear to live normal lives by day, whilst working at night to ready the boathouse for our friends’ escape. The weather is so bitter that the Wild Wooders’ vigilance is bound to decline when night falls, so we can make our move then.”

“Meanwhile,” observed the Otter, “the longer the trial is delayed the better, for it will give Badger and Miss Bugle time to travel back from the north.”

So it was that by day the two river animals went about their normal business seemingly without concern for their incarcerated friends. While by night, unseen, they used their river skills to make passage to the boathouse, and put in place such provisions of food and clothing as their friends would need if they were to make a clean getaway.

Meanwhile, the mood in the Village regarding the prisoners changed from initial apathy to curiosity, then to excitement and finally, as the weasels and stoats began to take their guarding duties rather too seriously, to anger. For when they began to demand evidence of identity and purpose of travel, and then made the mistake of imposing a curfew after dark, the Villagers held a meeting at the Public House and an Action Committee was formed to free Mr Toad and Mr Mole.

As a result, two of those gentlemen the Mole had met in the Public House before Christmas, having heard of Ratty and Otter’s sterling work trying to defend the prisoners from their enemies at Toad Hall on Christmas Day, called upon them on behalf of the Committee to solicit their support.

This provided the breakthrough in intelligence that the Rat needed, for when he heard that one of the Committee had actually been incarcerated in the Gaol and knew the layout of the inside of the Court House they quickly arranged to meet him. He told them all he knew and for the first time they saw that there might be a means of freeing their friends.

It was now the third of January, and the tenth night of the prisoners’ incarceration was approaching. That same day the Rat gained new intelligence that made it imperative that their friends were sprung from gaol as soon as possible — the date of their trial had been set.

They learned this in the form of a notice brought from the Village by the Action Committee, which had been posted far and wide.

“We shall have to make our move at once,” declared the Rat when he heard this news. “I beg you to return at once to our friends on the Action Committee and ask them to create a diversion in the Village at ten o’clock tonight to give us the opportunity to get Toad and Mole out unseen!”

“You have a plan then?” asked the Villager.

“In a manner of speaking, we have,” said the Water Rat evasively, “but we had best keep it secret, even from you.

“Well, this is exciting!” said their ally. “A diversion there will be!”

When he had gone, the Otter looked at the Rat and said, “It certainly
is
exciting, since you have even kept your ‘plan’ secret from me!”

The Rat sank despondently into his armchair and said gloomily, “There is no plan, you know that as well as I, but perhaps if we make one last attempt, inspiration might come…”

The Water Rat had long since realized that the only way of rescuing his friends without breaking down the door was by way of the culvert that dropped from their cell straight into the river. It was this seemingly impossible route — which no prisoner had ever used in the Pound’s five-hundred-year history, and survived — that had so taxed Rat’s ingenuity these days past. But after two hours of uninspired debate, they found they had made no further progress.

Morning gave way to afternoon and after a late lunch the Rat said suddenly, “You know, I remember Mole telling me once that when he is stumped by some problem or other he resorts to a glass or two of his famous sloe and blackberry. He feels it is inclined to loosen the mind.”

The Otter needed no second bidding. He went to the Rat’s kitchen cupboard, found an opened bottle of that remarkable brew and poured two glasses. They supped it in silence as the precious minutes continued to slip away After a second glass the Rat felt his head begin to spin and he realized he must drink no more if he was to have a clear mind for the evening.

“Let us try one more time,” said the Rat. “Now, we agree that the culvert offers the only escape?”

The Otter nodded.

“We agree that while you or I can hold our breath underwater long enough to swim from the bank and up into the culvert, it is no good expecting an animal as cowardly and inclined to panic as Toad to emulate the feat in the opposite direction?”

“Nor is it sensible to hope that one as unused to swimming as Mole, however brave he may be — and we know he is — might attempt this escape without help from one of us.”

“Hmmm,” mused the Rat, before adding, “mind you, our good friend Mole has surprised us on many an occasion with his resourcefulness and bravery, so we should not now underestimate his ability to help us and himself in this situation.”

More silence followed till, sighing with resignation and his face filled with a look of reluctant defeat, the Rat quaffed the last of the sloe and blackberry and slowly got to his feet.

“Rat, old chap, if even you cannot think of a way then there surely is none!” said the Otter sombrely.

“I really don’t like to give up when I know that Toad and Mole are relying on us, but you know, Otter, sometimes we simply have to accept that there is no solution, and that … and that … that …
that’s it!”

He turned about the room several times, glass still in his hand, in a state of considerable excitement.

“What’s
it?”
cried the Otter, relieved to see the light of inventive insight in the Rat’s eyes.

“This, old fellow,
this…”
cried the Rat, holding up his glass for the Otter to see before turning it upside down and placing it on top of his head.

When the Otter still seemed not to understand, the normally sensible Water Rat began to walk about the room with the glass balanced precariously on his head while extending his hands and arms in front of him and sweeping them about as if removing unseen cobwebs.

It was suddenly all too plain to the Otter that his most trustworthy of friends had suddenly gone mad, driven to that state by worry for their friends, and the effort of thinking too hard.

“Yes, yes…” cried the Rat, making exaggerated movements of his legs, and narrowing his eyes in a fierce and ferocious way, as if fighting his way through thick undergrowth, “this is it!”

He is not only mad,
thought the Otter,
but very likely will soon become dangerous as well!

“Rat,” essayed the concerned Otter in a gentle way, as one might talk to someone who is likely to turn violent if spoken to too harshly or suddenly “you look rather tired. Perhaps it would be wise if you went to bed for an hour or two and rested so that you awaken refreshed and feeling better.”

“Tired?” cried the Rat in surprise, taking the glass off his head.
“Better?
I never felt less tired than I do now, and never better. But having solved the problem of getting Toad and Mole out of the Village Gaol in principle, I must work out how to carry through the solution in practice. I had rather hoped you might have something to contribute, Otter, but if you’re tired then by all means go to bed and leave me to it!”

He turned his back on the bemused Otter and disappeared into his kitchen, from whence his friend soon heard the sound of running water and the clatter of metal pans. The Otter was just contemplating his options, one of which was flight, when he heard the Rat calling out to him in an otherworldly, muffled kind of voice.

Fearing that the demented Rat might cause himself injury, the good-hearted Otter rushed to his aid. He found his friend amidst a scatter of ancient and long unused cooking equipment. Over his head and quite covering it up, he held a metal tureen of such vast proportions that it could only have been one used in the distant past for cooking stews for a troop of soldiers, or perhaps for a hog’s head, whole.

“Well?” said the Rat. “Do you think it will do?”

“It looks very well on you, old fellow,” said the Otter even more gently than before, his eyes searching for something with which to defend himself.

“Looks well on me!” cried the Rat as he advanced upon the Otter and bumped into the table. “I am not concerned with looks but practicalities!”

He took the tureen off his head and seemed very surprised to find that the Otter had adopted a position of defence, a serrated bread knife in one hand and a cast-iron frying pan in the other. Light dawned upon the Rat’s face and he eyed the Otter quizzically.

“My dear fellow,” said he, starting to chuckle, “I am beginning to think you have not quite followed my drift.”

“Well…” said the Otter uneasily and not yet dropping his guard, “your behaviour seems decidedly odd, to say the least of it, and I really think you should allow me to summon help.”