Bigwig nearly choking to death from the trap
Chapter 16: Silverweed
Hazel and the group think Dandelion's story about El-ahrairah would be received well with Cowslip and his group, but he is not amused, and that he thinks El-ahrairah doesn't mean much. Silverweed, who is part of Cowslip's group, starts telling a story about life that makes Fiver very uneasy. Fiver thinks Silverweed's voice smells like "barley rained down and left to rot in the fields." At the end of the poem Fiver becomes hysterical and runs out of the warren. Bigwig and Hazel follow him, and surprise him when they think that he hurt the group's chances of gaining trust with Cowslip.
Chapter 17: The Shining Wire
The next morning, Fiver tells Hazel that he is leaving. Later, Bigwig gets stuck in a copper wire designed to catch animals, and is found by Fiver and Hazel. Fiver gets help, while Hazel tells Bigwig to try and get the peg in the ground out that the wire is attached to. Bigwig is seemingly choked to death before Fiver comes with help. They get the peg out but they thing Bigwig is dead. He suddenly coughs blood and gets up, and says he will kill Cowslip. Fiver says that he has finally pieced everything about the warren together: it was once very large, but most of the rabbits were killed by hunters and other predators. The traps are there to trap more rabbits, which the rabbits in the warren apparently knew about. The rabbits pretend that everything is okay, but Fiver convinces his group that they must leave, saying that Cowslip's warren is a death bed waiting to happen. They bring along Strawberry, who begs them to take him with them.
Chapter 18: Watership Down
The group walks for miles before reaching a place called Watership Down (hence the name of the book). After seeing what happened at Cowslip's warren, the group now completely trusts Fiver's instincts on where to go. They go to a barn at night but are attacked by rats. They then decide to find old rabbit holes to sleep in for the night.
Chapter 19: Fear in the Dark
The next day, the group decides to make better rabbit holes for more safety. As the group works on the project, they hear a terrible scream. They hide because the screams sound like a predator, but it then calls for Bigwig. Coming from a hedgeline, Hazel sees that the screams are coming from Captain Holly, one of the Owsla from the Sandleford warren. They see that he is in terrible shape and looks like he will collapse at any time. He was with Bluebell, one of his friends from the warren as well.
The group finds Captain Holly wounded
Chapter 20: A Honeycomb and a Mouse
The group knows they are in danger because Holly's blood will attract predators. They take him and Bluebell to their new warren to recover. The next day, the group starts working on the warren to make it look like Cowslip's because of its size, which will be named Honeycomb. Hazel brings in a small mouse that he saved from a hawk. The other rabbits don't like the idea of other animals in their warren, but the mouse promises to repay Hazel for saving his life. Later, Captain Holly comes into Honeycomb, and says that he will tell a story that will strike fear into everyone's heart.
Questions/Comments
I thought it was too long before the group realizes that Cowslip and his warren was a bad place. If the group had waited any longer, a member of the group would certainly have been killed. I think that Cowslip always intended to kill one of the rabbits but they left before he could come through with his plan.
The group should definitely name Fiver the leader of the group in my opinion. Hazel does a better job at directing the group on what to do and where to go, but Fiver's instincts and ability to know what the future holds for them is more important in the group's goal to survive. In the wild, animals rely on their instincts to survive, and if the group listens to Fiver, they will succeed with their journey.
It turns out that Fiver was right all along about Sandleford; Captain Holly and Bluebell may be the only survivors from whatever happened there.
I wonder what role the mouse Hazel saved will have? I have the feeling from reading that this mouse will have a major role in one of the most important events in this story. I learned from watching a lot of movies that these type of characters will be part of something, and that I wished that I watched them more closely earlier on.
That's all for now; will post chapters 21-25, tomorrow 4.21.
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