Brian Jacques - [Redwall 10] - The Long Patrol

The Long Patrol

Redwall, Book 10

Brian Jacques

V2.0 There were lots of scanning errors. Many doubtless remain.

Book One: The Runaway Recruit

1?

Melting snowdrifts with grassy knolls poking through made a patchwork of the far east lands as winter surrendered

its icy grip of the earth to oncoming spring. Snowdrop, chickweed, and shepherd’s purse nodded gratefully beneath a

bright mid-morning sun, which beamed through small islands of breeze-chased clouds. Carrying half-melted icicles

along, a tinkling, chuckling stream bounded from rocky cliff ledges, meandering around fir and pine groves toward

broad open plains. Already a few hardy wood ants and honeybees were abroad in the copse fringes. Clamoring and

gaggling, a skein of barnacle geese in wavering formation winged their way overhead toward the coastline. All around,

the land was wakening to springtime, and it promised to be a fair season.

It is often said that a madness takes possession of certain hares in spring, and anybeast watching the performance of

one such creature would have had his worst fears confirmed. Ta-mello De Fformelo Tussock, to give this young hare

his full title, was doing battle with imaginary enemies. Armed with stick and slingshot, he flung himself recklessly

from a rock ledge, whirling the stone-loaded sling and thwacking left and right with his stick, yelling, “Eulaliaaaa!

Have at you, villainous vermin, ’tis m’self, Captain Tammo of the Long Patrol! Take that, y’wicked weasel! Hah!

Thought you’d sneak up behind a chap, eh? Well, have some o’ this, you ratten rot, beg pardon, rotten rat!”

Hurling himself down in the snow, he lashed out powerfully with his long back legs. “What ho! That’ll give you a

bellyache to last out the season, m’laddo. Want some more? Hahah! Thought y’didn’t, go on, run f’your lives, you

cowardly crew! It’d take more’n five hundred of you t’bring down Cap’n Tammo, by the left it would!”

Satisfied that he had given a justly deserved thrashing to half a thousand fictitious foebeasts, Tammo sat up in the

snow, eating a few pawfuls to cool himself down.

“Just let ’em come back, I’ll show the blighters, wot! There ain’t a foebeast in the blinkin’ land can defeat me ...

Yaaagh, gerroff!” He felt himself hauled roughly upright by both ears. Lynum and Saithe, Tammo’s elder brother and

sister, had sneaked up and grabbed him.

“Playing soldiers again?” Lynum’s firm grip indicated that there would be no chance of escape.

Tammo’s embarrassment at being caught at his game made him even more indignant. “Unhand me at once,

m’laddo, if you know what’s good for you,” he said, struggling. “I can walk by myself.”

Saithe gave Tammo’s ear an extra tweak as she admonished him: “Colonel wants a word with you, wretch, about

his battle-ax!”

Tammo finally struggled free and reluctantly marched off between the two hulking hares, muttering rebelliously to

himself, “Huh! I can tell you what he’s goin’ t’say, same thing as usual.”

The young hare imitated his father perfectly, bowing his legs, sticking out his stomach, puffing both cheeks up, and

pulling his lips down at the corners as he spoke: “Wot wot, stap me whiskers, if it ain’t the bold Tammo. Now then,

laddie buck, what’ve y’got to say for y’self, eh? Speak up, sah!”

Lynum cuffed Tammo lightly to silence him. “Enough of that. Colonel’d have your tail if he saw you makin’ mock

of him. Step lively now!”

2?

Entering the largest of the conifer groves, they headed for a telltale spiral of smoke that denoted Camp Tussock. It

was a rambling stockade, the outer walls fashioned from tree trunks with a big dwelling house built of rock, timber,

moss, and mud chinking. This was known as the Barracks. Motes, squirrels, hedgehogs, and a few wood mice

wandered in and out of the homely place, living there by kind permission of the Colonel and his wife, Mem Divinia.

Some of them shook their heads and tuttutted at the sight of Tammo being led in to answer for his latest escapade.

Seated close to the fire in his armchair, Colonel Cornspurrey De Fformelo Tussock was a formidable sight. He was

immaculately attired in a buff-colored campaign jacket covered with rows of jangling medals, his heavy-jowled face

shadowed by the peak of a brown-bark forage helmet. The Colonel had one eye permanently closed, while the other

glared through a monocle of polished crystal with a silken cord dangling from it. His wattled throat wobbled

pendulously as he jabbed his pace stick pointedly at the miscreant standing before him.

“Wot wot, stap me whiskers, if it ain’t the bold Tammo. Now then, laddie buck, what’ve y’got to say for y’self,

eh? Speak up, sah!”

Tammo remained silent, staring at the floor as if to find inspiration there. Grunting laboriously, the Colonel leaned

forward, lifting Tammo’s chin with the pace stick until they were eye to eye.

“‘S matter, sah, frogs got y’tongue? C’mon now, speak y’piece, somethin’ about me battle-ax, wot wot?”

Tammo did what was expected of him and came smartly to attention. Chin up, chest out, he gazed fixedly at a

point above his father’s head and barked out in true military fashion: “Colonel, sah! ’Pologies about y’baltle-ax, only

used it to play with. Promise upon me honor, won’t do it again. Sah!”

The old hare’s great head quivered with furious disbelief, and the monocle fell from his eye to dangle upon its

string. He lifted the pace stick, and for a moment it looked as though he were about to strike his son. When the colonel

could find it, his voice rose several octaves to shrill indignation.

“Playin’? You’ve got the brass nerve t’stand there an’ tell me you’ve been usin’ my battle-ax as a toy! Outrage, sir,

outrage! Y’re a pollywoggle and a ripscutt! Hah, that’s it, a scruff-furred, lollop-eared, blather-pawed, doodle-tailed,

jumped-up-never-t’come-down bogwhumper! What are yen?”

Tammo’s mother, Mem Divinia, had been hovering in the background, tending a batch of barleyscones on the

griddle. Wiping floury paws upon an apron corner, she bustled forward, placing herself firmly between husband and

son.

“That’s quite enough o’ that, Corney Fformelo, I’ll not have language like that under my roof. Where d’you think

y’are, in the middle of a battlefield? I won’t have you roaring at my Tammo in such a manner.”

Instead of calming the Colonel’s wrath, his wife’s remarks had the opposite effect. Suffused with blood, his ears

went bright pink and stood up like spearpoints. He flung down the pace stick and stamped so hard upon it that he hurt

his foot-paw.

“Eulalia’n’blood’n’fur’n’vinegar, marm!”

Mem countered by drawing herself up regally as she grabbed Tammo’s head and buried it in the floury folds of her

apron. “Keep y’voice down, sir, no sense in settin’ a bad example to your son an’ makin’ yourself ill over some battle-

ax!”

The Colonel knew better than to ignore his wife. Rubbing ruefully at his footpaw, he retrieved the pace stick. Then,

fixing his monocle straight, he sat upright, struggling to moderate his tone.

“Some battle-ax indeed, m’dear! I’m discussin’ one particular weapon. My battle-ax! This battle-ax! D’y’know,