Free Duncton Wood by William Horwood Page B

direction. So increasingly he began to think the slopes were a possibility – they might be worm-scarce but they were also mole-scarce, which was a major attraction. He had seen enough to think he might make a living there, giving himself breathing space to consider what to do next.
    With these ideas in his mind, he decided to make a trek to the slopes one day and explore them further, perhaps staying away from his home burrow for a day or two. He slipped away one quiet June morning, when everymole was asleep or preoccupied, and took a mainly surface route up toward the slopes. He didn’t know it, but he was never to live in the westside again.
    It took him until late in the morning before he reached his first beech tree, at a point he already knew where he could find some worms. Then he pressed on along what he called the beech-oak borderland until at last he was into new territory. And then on and on eastward, progressing along a contour line for a while, and then up for a bit.
    He saw a lot of life – birds, a couple of voles, several squirrels, a possible fox – but no moles. By the early afternoon he was tired and stopped for food. He had never been so far in one day and knew he would be spending the night in a strange burrow, or perhaps one he must make for himself.
    In search of worms he found an old, disused tunnel and went down it, snout aquiver, but not a whiff or sign of a mole. So he blocked one end of it to make a temporary burrow and, putting his back against it, crouched facing the entrance above and the continuation of the tunnel beyond. Safe, snug and just the place to crunch the worms he had found. He closed his eyes and settled down, heart thumping from the day’s journey. But he was not asleep, and when there was a scratching at the earth block he had made and a warning vibration along the tunnel wall, he was awake and ready, still as a root. Moles feel safe in their own tunnels and make quite a lot of noise, and this one was no exception. Indeed, he was chatting to himself in a busy kind of way, interspersing it with snatches of a familiar worming song:
     
Now we dig and we scratch and we wedge and we pull
Now we wedge and we dig and...
     
    Mmm. This shouldn’t have happened, not in my tunnel. Mind you, its a long time since I was here. Too long. I’m hungry. Worms, that’s what I want.
     
Worms, worms, worms
Lots of lovely worms.
     
    Bracken relaxed when he heard all this, for the mole sounded old and good-humored and unlikely to cause him harm. Still, feeling it is better to be safe than sorry, he took advantage of the noise the mole was making to sneak out quietly onto the surface again to wait and see who would come.
    The muttering and humming continued and an occasional heavy breathing of exertion, as the mole burrowed his way through Bracken’s block, until finally a snout appeared at the entrance, sniffing about the warm evening air.
    “Somemole’s here,” he said loudly. “I can smell it.” At which the snout disappeared back into the tunnel and there fell a deep silence. Bracken held his breath, waited for several minutes, and finally could stand it no longer. “Hello. I’m here,” he said as cheerfully as he could muster, “a youngster from the westside.” Silence.
    “I got lost.” Silence. “I’m very sorry, really I am, but I thought your tunnel was deserted.” Snuffling. Finally the mole spoke out from the dark tunnel.
    “It was deserted. I’ve not had time to come here for months. It’s merest chance” (at this point the snout poked out of the tunnel again) “that I happened along at this particular moment.”
    The mole’s head appeared – the head of the oldest mole Bracken had ever seen. “At least I think it was merest chance. I’m not sure that chance exists any more.”
    The mole emerged completely from the entrance and stood on spindly paws peering in Bracken’s direction. “By which I mean that I’m not any more sure... if you see what I