“It’s falling awfully fast, sir!” whined Binky, his breathing heavy with the exhaustion of keeping in Butterworth’s wake. The sergeant didn’t respond or look back, for his eyes were locked grimly on the ship’s hull as they bounded toward the estimated landing location.
Unfortunately, many hares have an inherent difficulty with trajectories, angles, and the estimations thereof. The realization came slowly and powerfully to them that the landing zone wasn’t ahead, but directly at their heads. Like a Farborough maiden’s thighs on festival day, the formation spread wide in both directions, but it seemed it would accomplish little as the huge mass bore down on them.
The trucks revved up either side, their frantic occupants louder than the engines. With wild eyes and shaking hands, the students aimed their guns at the hull in an attempt to slow it. But, for all their effort, the ricocheting of gravity only tore up the grass that would be ruined soon enough on impact.
And amid the maelstrom of running, wheezing spearhares disappearing into the trucks’ dust trails, Sergeant Puddles Butterworth stood stock still and looked up at the ship’s plunging bow with a single tense wrinkle rising on his forehead. Behind him, almost grabbing hold of his commander’s puffy tail, Binky cowered. The hares from alongside were already hightailing it out of the impact zone, but his confidence in Butterworth’s safe shadow never faltered. It just shook profusely, much like every other part of him.
“I say, you chaps should have waited an hour before flying!” the monocled hare shouted kindly into the hull, “But, seeing as you’re on your way down, let’s have another bite to eat. The biscuits are fresh from the oven! Wot wot!” The ‘wot’s filled the air before him with a puff of steam and a smell more pleasant than one hundred mothers’ kitchens. Every creature in the vicinity with clear sinuses couldn’t help but turn, their eyes wide in disbelieve as their throats made an unconscious ‘mmm’ noise. It was flaky and golden, succulent beyond reason, the house-sized biscuit that had appeared below the ship’s bow.
As quickly and sloppily as a greedy child’s knife, the ship’s blunt nose cut into the tea cake. The flaky walls split open with a huge exhale of hot, delicious air and fluffy dough. Then, the horror of the moment returned as the ruined biscuit was shoveled forward and the stern beat itself down upon the earth. The whole mass chugged forward relentlessly, spraying wooden shrapnel out the rear and bouncing hares off its hull, those that weren’t lucky enough to get caught in the soft, doughy padding.
Finally, with a horrendous groan, the whole train came to a halt before the crossbowhares and their injured charges, who looked about the wreckage piteously. The injured from this incident were easily double those from the arrow barrage, but far fewer than there would have been if not for Butterworth’s culinary skills. The sergeant was, now, naught more than a hand sticking from the puffy cushion. A dough-splattered Binky had hold of it and was pulling with all his might. But, the lead hare’s bulk and the stickiness of his prison still resisted.
Then, of one mind and with feet faster than in their retreat, the hares swarmed toward their leader. From every direction, strong hands seized Binky’s sides and pulled along with him. He lifted off the ground for a moment, then was suddenly released with a gooey pop that shot Butterworth’s unconscious body into his lap.
“Sergeant?” he breathed as he tapped Butterworth’s cheek. The bulky hare snorted and turned his head before he settled into a dreadful rhythm of snoring. “He’s bloody well alive!” Binky screamed joyously, and the cry echoed in a ripple through the rabbity masses. It even induced a shout of, “Wooo!” from the trucks that were parked beyond the half-wrecked ship.
As the celebration settled, the whole of the army turned their attention to that wreckage. Those who had been in the stern were dead. The students could see them as bloody heaps among the debris field. Many of them vomited at their first true sight of mutilation, and the rest pointed their guns warily at the intact bow. The crossbowhares also looked up to the railing and raised their weapons. If anyone had survived the crash, they would be there. The spearhares dispersed from Butterworth’s exhausted form and began helping their wounded to stand, or solemnly regarding those who would never stand again.
“Care for their wounded, too!” came the sudden shout. The hares turned with cheers, thinking that Butterworth had woken already. But, it was Binky who stood haughtily and belted out the intense, though slightly whiney, commands. “They’re in no shape to fight us. And, as our dear sergeant would say, we’re gentlehares. Wot wot!” Every fuzzy face split into a unanimous grin, and some of the wounded stepped forward on their own strength as the whole mass of them moved toward the wreckage.
If their Queen could have seen it from her far off realm, she would have joined in with a cheer of, “That’s my underbunny!”
Past the wreckage, the humans saw the horses approaching. Nervously, they eyed each other and hunkered down in the truck beds. Then, one let out a weak shout of, “Your men are wounded!” Instantly, a broken chorus of the phrase erupted from a hundred young mouths as their vehicles turned and rumbled back toward the hares’ rescue efforts.
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