Chapter 9. Darkest before the Dawn

While Ferdi waited nervously for the Thain’s party to reach them, Aldi paced up and down the obstructing dam, stopping occasionally to stamp a foot or bending to scoop up a handful of earth and rock. Ferdi had the eerie feeling that more of the hillside would come down; there had been several small falls already, and though he couldn’t see them, hearing them was nerve-wracking enough. He also regarded the water with suspicion, expecting the earthen dam to give way from under his feet at any second, sweeping him away. He watched the slow progress of the riders’ lanterns with the feeling that they were crawling over the hills instead of riding ponies.

The engineer, of course, had only thought for the task set before him, and with typical single-mindedness he paid no mind to the lapping waters nor the rumbling of moving earth, save to add them to his calculations. When the Thain’s party reached the edge of the fall and hailed him, he didn’t even notice. Ferdi had to jog over the dam to where he crouched, examining the soil, and when nudged, Aldi said only, ‘What, here already?’

He rose and followed Ferdi to the edge of the dam and then they toiled to where the Thain and his party waited.

 ‘Any sign of them?’ Pippin demanded.

Ferdi shook his head. ‘Difficult to search by lantern-light,’ he said. ‘We saw nothing along the banks or in the streambed on our way here.’

 ‘As soon as it’s dawn we’ll call out all the Tooks in Tuckborough to search,’ Pippin said grimly. Tolly’s brothers nodded at his side. It was obvious that Mardi and Hilly wished to start searching at once, but there was little point in the darkness, with the moon covered by cloud and mist arising to obscure things further.

 ‘And once the level of the water goes down...’ Aldi began. Realising what he’d said, he immediately apologised.

 ‘Never mind,’ Pippin said shortly. He turned the talk at once to practicalities, pushing down the overwhelming sense of loss that hovered at the edge of his senses. ‘How will you accomplish it?’

Aldi patted his breast pocket, hidden beneath coat and cloak. ‘Black powder,’ he said. Before he’d left on an elven-ship, Gandalf had given King Elessar the secret of making black powder, that the magic of fireworks should not be lost from Middle-earth. The King, on consideration, had shared the secret with the Master of Buckland, for he deemed the hobbits, with their peaceful nature, unlikely to abuse the substance. A close-kept secret it remained, its nature and properties understood only by the engineers of the Master and Thain, used mostly for excavation, though there was also the occasional display of fireworks in the Shire. Bless the old wizard, wherever he might be!

  ‘Send off to the Smials?’ Pippin said.

 ‘I have a tube of it right here,’ Aldi said.

 ‘A tube?’ Pippin said in irritation. He swept his hand towards the dark bulk of the dam. ‘Against that?’

 ‘We don’t want a flood to come down upon Tuckborough,’ Aldi said patiently. ‘I studied water, and its properties, from the time I first began as an apprentice. You don’t know how often we have to deal with water in our diggings! In any event, a small, carefully placed charge will burst a hole right where we want it, and safely, too, without hobbits risking being swept away, digging away at the dam... The water will do the rest. The trick will be to make it small enough that the water doesn’t get too excited about helping bring down the dam... water’s tricky stuff, you know, and rivers are downright treacherous.’

All the hobbits nodded gloomily.

Aldi and several of his assistants, including Everard, walked away to pace the perimeter of the dam and talk over their calculations. Aldi wanted to wait until first light before making a final decision; he wanted a good look at the great hill that loomed above them in the darkness, that had shed so much of itself into the valley. After all, it wouldn’t do for him to set a carefully determined charge, only to have more of the hillside come down!

After sending a messenger back to Tuckborough, Ferdi pulled firewood from one of the pack-ponies and soon he had a cheery fire going. ‘Sit yourself down,’ he told Pippin. ‘Won’t do Tookland or the Mistress any good, you catching your death of cold.’

Mardi, ever the healer, pressed food upon the Thain, and then the rest of the party, from the other pack-pony. Very practical creatures, hobbits, and so they could have a warm fire and food for the searchers and those dealing with the dam, and two ponies to carry the bodies back to the Great Smials once they were found... for in truth, though all spoke cheerfully of their hopes, no one honestly expected to find Tolly and Eglantine alive. Even were they lying injured after the landslide, surely the rain and cold temperatures would have finished them off in the night. Eglantine was old, after all, and Tolly strong and stubborn enough to carry her to the Smials on his own back, if something had happened to their ponies... had not something happened to him. The landslide was only an hour or so from Tuckborough, if one walked along the stream, and there’d been no sign of Tolly or Eglantine thus far.

Though they didn’t feel much like it, the hobbits told stories to pass the last hours before dawn. More fires sprang up on the hilltops around them, hobbits summoned to join the search that would begin at dawn. They’d been warned that a wall of water might come down the Tuckborn, and so they settled to wait on the hilltops. Meanwhile, in Tuckborough, Reginard directed crews setting sandbags and barriers against the flooding expected, should Aldi’s plan go awry.

The refugees from the Greentuck Valley had arrived at the Great Smials and been warmed and fed, and once assured that their wives and children were safe, the farmers joined the exodus of searchers. Mistress Eglantine would have been surprised and touched at the stir her disappearance had caused, but she was well-beloved by Tooks and Tooklanders.

At last the sky in the East began to lighten. The night of waiting was nearly over. Pippin was in the midst of a story as Mardi filled his cup a last time. He doubted he’d be able to persuade the Thain to rest and eat, once the light came. Come to think on it, he was twice Pippin’s age and he had no desire to eat or rest, himself—not until he found his younger brother, in any event. The thought of Tolly, lying out there somewhere, injured, was more than the healer could bear. He worried, too, about his youngest brother Hilly, who had followed Tolly around from the time he first began to crawl as a youngling, and who had remained uncharacteristically silent ever since word had come that the Mistress was missing with her escort.

Pippin broke off suddenly as his hand shook and the steaming liquid missed the cup.

Mardi gave an exclamation of dismay. ‘I’m that sorry, Sir!’ ...but Pippin was jumping to his feet, casting half-filled cup to the ground, running over the grassy hillside to the start of the slide.

 ‘Pippin!’ Ferdi shouted, leaping after him. ‘Pippin, don’t—it’s too dangerous!’

The Thain paid him no heed, toiling up and over the treacherous ground, heedless of the little slides of rocks and mud set off by his feet.

Ferdi, following more cautiously, looked beyond Pippin, to see a scrap of white in the jumble of rocks, mud and fallen trees. ‘Mardi!’ he shouted. ‘Mardi! Hilly! It’s them, I think!’

Pippin, when Ferdi reached him, had fallen to his knees in the mud, and then sat himself down, taking Eglantine in his arms. ‘Mum,’ he was sobbing. ‘Ah, Mum, if only we’d known. Warm fire, warm drink, and only a few paces away...’

 ‘You oughtn’t to be moving her,’ Ferdi said quietly as he crouched to examine Tolly. Eglantine still clutched the escort’s arm. The tree had slid with them as the ground moved, but by some miracle it had not crushed either. Indeed, Tolly had ended with only his legs pinned, which Eglantine would have proclaimed a great improvement, had she been wakeful.

Mardi toiled across the unstable ground, Hilly steadying him. ‘Tolly!’ he cried as he reached them, unslinging his healer’s bag from his shoulder.

 ‘He’s alive,’ Ferdi said, looking up. ‘Heart’s strong, though he’s not breathing well.’

Mardi knelt stiffly to begin his examination. ‘Cracked ribs,’ he said at last. ‘Tolly, can you hear me? We’re going to try to pull you out.’ He gave swift instructions to Ferdi and Hilly, and then moved to examine Eglantine. Pippin had wrapped her in his own cloak and was chafing her wrists, entreating her to waken.

 ‘Very cold,’ Mardi said. ‘We’ve got to get a warm drink into her. And your hand, Sir...’ He gestured to the red burn showing on Pippin’s wrist above the glove, from the spilled cup.

 ‘It’s nothing of importance,’ Pippin said dismissively. ‘We’ll get you to the fire, Mum, and get a hot drink...’ He started to lift Eglantine, but was stopped by the tethering effect of her hold on Tolly. ‘Leave hold now, Mum,’ he coaxed, but at last he had to settle to the ground again. ‘She won’t let him go,’ he said. ‘Mum! Wake up! All’s well. We’ll get Tolly out, but you’ve got to leave hold...’

Tolly had given the ghost of a moan as his rescuers tried to ease him from under the tree. Worse yet, the ground shifted under him, and all froze, waiting to see if more of the hillside would come down. Aldi reached them shortly after.

 ‘We’ve got to get this great tree off him,’ Pippin said, looking up. ‘What can you do, Aldi?’

Sadly the engineer shook his head. ‘I’m no forester,’ he began, ‘but I can tell you, as an engineer, the tree itself is holding its weight off him. If you cut it up, to move it, you’ll crush him! And on this bad ground I cannot see a way of hauling it off him.’

 ‘What about digging?’ Mardi asked, an edge in his tone.

Aldebrand shook his head again. ‘Too dangerous,’ he said. ‘D’you want to save him, or kill him trying?’

 ‘We cannot leave him here!’ Pippin said in frustration.

 ‘Of course,’ Aldi said. ‘We cannot...’ He locked gazes with Mardi. ‘It’s unstable enough, and with all our weight on it, it’s worse. I’m going back, to relieve it of my weight at least, and I’d suggest you get him out of there just as soon as you can.’

Hilly grabbed at Mardi’s arm. ‘No,’ he pleaded under his breath.

Mardi took a shuddering breath, swallowed hard, steadied himself with an effort. ‘Hildibold,’ he said tonelessly. ‘Take his shoulders. You, too, Ferdi. Hold tight; keep him just as still as you can. He’s likely to waken and fight us.’ To Pippin he said, ‘Can you get her free? I wouldn’t want her to waken to such a nightmare.’

Pippin had been trying to pry Eglantine’s fingers away from Tolly’s arm. ‘She’s got a death-grip on him,’ he said. ‘And she won’t hear anything I say to her. I suppose we’ll have to carry them out together.’

 'Very well,' Mardi muttered. Without another word, he settled beside his brother to make the necessary preparations.