Wednesday
I recently discovered a news item that, while horrific, brought back fond memories of reading Brian Jacques’s Redwall books to my children. The memory involves the shrew characters.
The Redwall series could be described as a blend of Wind in the Willows and Lord of the Rings. In it, various animals—most notably mice (Martin the Warrior) but also (as in Kenneth Grahame’s novel) badgers, moles and otters. The villains are invariably (again as in Wind in the Willows), weasels and stoats, as well as foxes and rats. The good guys seek to defend Redwall Abbey from invasion and venture out to rescue captured comrades, all the while employing pre-gunpowder military technology.
But I want to talk about shrews, who are also in alliance with the good guys. They are headed by one Log-a-Log and they show up en masse, dozens upon dozens. Invariably, like actual shrews, they are fearless and go plunging into battle. They also suffer mass casualties. It’s not uncommon, say when they are aboard a boat, to see a score of them swept into the water.
When I was reading the books to Justin, Darien and especially Toby, we sometimes would talk about the “expendable shrews.” To show it means business and to add to the suspense, an adventure book like this needs to have some of the good characters die. But it can’t have major figures suffer death since, after all, it’s not Game of Thrones. To the shrews, therefore, goes the honor of perishing for the greater good.
In Russia’s invasion, it’s former convicts who are playing the role of the shrews. A recent Reuters article reports that convicts, insubordinate soldiers, and drunk recruits get pressed into Russian penal units known as “Storm-Z” squads and are routinely sent to the most exposed parts of the front line. “They’re just meat,” said one soldier, who disobeyed a commander by treating wounded Storm-Z fighters rather than just leaving them. Another fighter described similar conditions:
On the frontline, where we’ve been, we did not get deliveries of ammunition. We did not get water or food. The injured were not taken away: still now the dead are rotting…
At least, in the later Redwall books, there are instances of individual shrews getting rescued. In fact, there are fewer of them and they are more individuated.
In other words, after getting to know his animal characters, Jacques could not bring himself to see any of them as expendable. We should wish the same for Putin.
Further note: Having found similarities between Jacques and Tolkien, here’s the latter’s description of expendable Orcs. As it so happens, the Ukrainians draw upon Lord of the Rings, characterizing the Russian invaders as orcs. The scene is from the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers:
Then at last an answer came: a storm of arrows met them, and a hail of stones. They wavered, broke, and fled back; and then charged again, broke and charged again; and each time, like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point. Again trumpets rang, and a press of roaring men leaped forth. They held their great shields above them like a roof, while in their midst they bore two trunks of mighty trees. Behind them orc-archers crowded, sending a hail of darts against the bowmen on the walls. They gained the gates. The trees, swung by strong arms, smote the timbers with a rending boom. If any man fell, crushed by a stone hurtling from above, two others sprang to take his place. Again and again the great rams swung and crashed.
Unfortunately, like the defenders of Helm’s Gate, Ukraine will lose a battle of attrition. Russia has more lives to waste. The Ents save the Riders of Rohan and members of the fellowship but who will come to the support of the Ukrainians?