008 Dianne coordinates Copley's rescue

"Just look at the mess those stupid Gogs have got themselves into," gloated Jerusalem as he circled over the frozen fen. Below him was Copley Gog, stranded and helpless on the ice. Meanwhile, over on the river bank, the rest of the hills stared vacantly out over the icy landscape. "What a bunch of puddings," sneered Jerusalem under his fetid breath.

Now, there was no love lost between the crows and Copley, so Jerusalem seized his chance to have some fun. Time and again he swooped low and fast over the ice, aiming his big black beak at Copley's grassy flanks. Each time he banked at the very last minute and each time Copley flinched nervously. And because of the near-frictionless ice, at each flinch Copley turned ever so slightly until eventually he was spinning like a top.

"Help," he screamed in the general direction of his relatives, but they could only watch helplessly. "Leave my son alone, you smelly old crow," wailed Ma Gog. "And you can stop laughing," she snapped at Wandlebury who was tittering quietly at Copley's distress. Hoping to calm his wife down, Wormwood gave Ma a reassuringly jostle, but Ma just pushed him away and would have launched herself off onto the ice in pursuit of Copley if old Uncle Bartlow had not blocked her way with his substantial bulk.

Meanwhile, Dianne was trying to work out how to retrieve Copley and at the same time get all the Gogs safely across the frozen fen. "Let's see," she muttered, squinting at the Professor's palmtop, "if the average Gog has a span of . . . and if the thickness of the ice is . . . and each Gog weighs . . .." Dianne's calculations ground to a halt. This was complicated and all this noise was not helping her concentration.

"Be quiet and listen to me," Dianne finally demanded. If the ice wasn't strong enough to support them all, she reasoned, the worst that would happen to creatures as a big as hills would be that they might get wet feet. But Dianne knew the Gogs well enough by now to realise that it would be a bad idea to even hint at such a possibility, and so she kept her worries to herself as she explained her plan.

It took a while for Dianne to persuade the hills to link contour lines and step gently onto the ice one at a time. Eventually, however, the chain of hills was long enough to reach Copley. But then Ma, overcome with emotion, let go of Wormwood and made a sudden dash for her son. Zooming past him, Ma hit Copley with a glancing blow and the two Gogs ricocheted off each other like out-of-control dodgem cars. Luckily, a few yards further on a wooden fence protruded out of the ice and the Gogs' dizzy progression was rapidly halted with little more damage than a few minor bruises and a slight queasiness caused by all the spinning.

Dianne quickly reorganised the line of hills and in no time at all the first one had reached the far side of the frozen fen. One by one they scrambled to safety and Dianne was beginning to think that her gamble had paid off. But then disaster struck. Just four Gogs were left on the ice when, with a sudden sharp crack, the ice around them fractured into a thousand glittering shards, leaving the hills balanced precariously on the one remaining piece of solid ice. Try as they might, the four marooned Gogs could not keep the shining disc level and within seconds the whole shebang started to upend. "The seesaw," cried Wandlebury, one of the four unfortunates, "we're tipping the seesaw." Never, or at least not since the days of the dinosaurs, had hills moved as fast as these four did now. In two shakes of a crow's feather, they had all jumped off the ice, sprinted through the water, and leapt onto the safety of the dry bank. And even then, they kept on running, disappearing fast into the darkening night.

The Gogs run for dry land

Will the Gogs be reunited, and how will they get their feet dry?

Find out in the next episode.

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