Diggs and Oakheart Witherspyk were not seeing eye-to-eye on the business of guard duties. Moreover, an officious shrew named Divvery had decided that the Guosim were not going to take orders from anybeast who was not of their tribe. Diggs had selected all the able-bodied creatures he could find, regardless of who they were. The tubby young hare split his command into two shifts, one for daytime, the other for night. It was a good and fair system: Moles, Abbeybeasts, Guosim and Witherspyks found themselves standing together on the ramparts. Those not on guard were employed at making weapons. Bows, arrows, slings and spears were being constructed down in Cellarmole Gurjee’s cellars. The whole scheme worked fine for a day. Then things started to go awry. Friar Soogum forgot to send lunch up to the walltops, so Divvery took the shrews off to the kitchens. Instead of taking their food back up to the walltops, they went into the orchard to eat. Oakheart was not too pleased at being left lunchless on sentry duty.
