The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1

by J. G. Ballard

  Crispin came to a halt in front of her, for a moment wondering why he was visiting her at all. The few bales of feathers heaped on the pyre and drying on the trestle table seemed no challenge to his authority over the birds - the walk across the meadow had more than reminded him of that. Yet he was aware that something, perhaps their shared experience of the birds, bonded him and the young woman. The empty killing sky, the freighted fields silent in the sun, and the pyre beside them imposed a sense of a common past.

  Laying the last of the feathers on the trestle, the woman said, 'They'll dry soon. The sun is warm today. Can you help me?'

  Crispin moved forward uncertainly. 'How do you mean? Of course.'

  The woman pointed to a section of the rose pergola that was still standing. A rusty saw was embedded in a small groove the woman had managed to cut in one of the uprights. 'Can you cut that down for me?'

  Crispin followed her over to the pergola, unslinging his rifle. He pointed to the remains of a pine fence that had collapsed to one side of the old kitchen garden. 'You want wood? That'll burn better.'

  'No - I need this frame. It's got to be strong.' She hesitated as Crispin continued to fiddle with his rifle, her voice more defensive. 'Can you do it? The little dwarf couldn't come today. He usually helps me.'

  Crispin raised a hand to silence her. 'I'll help you.' He leaned his rifle against the pergola and took hold of the saw, after a few strokes freed it from its groove and made a clean start.

  'Thank you.' As he worked the woman stood beside him, looking down with a friendly smile as the cartridge bandoliers began to flap rhythmically to the motion of his arm and chest.

  Crispin stopped, reluctant to shed the bandoliers of machine-gun bullets, the badge of his authority. He glanced in the direction of the picket ship, and the woman, taking her cue, said, 'You're the captain? I've seen you on the bridge.'

  'Well...' Crispin had never heard himself described as the vessel's captain, but the title seemed to carry a certain status. He nodded modestly. 'Crispin,' he said by way of introduction. 'Captain Crispin. Glad to help you.'

  'I'm Catherine York.' Holding her white hair to her neck with one hand, the woman smiled again. She pointed to the rusting hulk. 'It's a fine ship.'

  Crispin worked away at the saw, wondering whether she was missing the point. When he carried the frame over to the pyre and laid it at the base of the feathers he replaced his bandoliers with calculated effect. The woman appeared not to notice, but a moment later, when she glanced up at the sky, he raised his rifle and went up to her.

  'Did you see one? Don't worry, I'll get it.' He tried to follow her eyes as they swept across the sky after some invisible object that seemed to vanish beyond the cliff, but she turned away and began to adjust the feathers mechanically. Crispin gestured at the fields around them, feeling his pulse beat again at the prospect and fear of battle. 'I shot all these..

  'What? I'm sorry, what did you say?' The woman looked around. She appeared to have lost interest in Crispin and was vaguely waiting for him to leave.

  'Do you want more wood?' Crispin asked. 'I can get some.'

  'I have enough.' She touched the feathers on the trestle, then thanked Crispin and walked off into the house, closing the hall door on its rusty hinges.

  Crispin made his way across the lawn and through the meadow. The birds lay around him as before, but the memory, however fleeting, of the woman's sympathetic smile made him ignore them. He set off in the launch, pushing away the floating birds with brusque motions of the gaff. The picket ship sat at its moorings, the soggy raft of grey corpses around it. For once the rusting hulk depressed Crispin.

  As he climbed the gangway he saw Quimby's small figure on the bridge, wild eyes roving about at the sky. Crispin had expressly forbidden the dwarf to be near the steering helm, though there was little likelihood of the picket ship going anywhere. Irritably he shouted at Quimby to get off the ship.

  The dwarf leaped down the threadbare network of ratlines to the deck. He scurried over to Crispin.

  'Crisp!' he shouted in his hoarse whisper. 'They saw one! Coming in from the coast! Hassell told me to warn you.'

  Crispin stopped. Heart pounding, he scanned the sky out of the sides of his eyes, at the same time keeping a close watch on the dwarf. 'When?'

  'Yesterday.' The dwarf wriggled one shoulder, as if trying to dislodge a stray memory. 'Or was it this morning? Anyway, it's coming. Are you ready, Crisp?'

  Crispin walked past, one hand firmly on the breech of his rifle. 'I'm always ready,' he rejoined. 'What about you?' He jerked a finger at the house. 'You should have been with the woman. Catherine York. I had to help her. She said she didn't want to see you again.'

  'What?' The dwarf scurried about, hands dancing along the rusty rail.

  He gave up with an elaborate shrug. 'Ah, she's a strange one. Lost her man, you know, Crisp. And her baby.'

  Crispin paused at the foot of the bridge companionway. 'Is that right? How did it happen?'

  'A dove killed the man, pulled him to pieces on the roof, then took the baby. A tame bird, mark you.' He nodded when Crispin looked at him sceptically. 'That's it. He was another strange one, that York. Kept this big dove on a chain.'

  Crispin climbed on to the bridge and stared across the river at the house. After musing to himself for five minutes he kicked Quimby off the ship, and then spent half an hour checking the gunnery installation. The reported sighting of one of the birds he discounted - no doubt a few strays were still flitting about, searching for their flocks - but the vulnerability of the woman across the river reminded him to take every precaution. Near the house she would be relatively safe, but in the open, during her walks along the beach, she would be an all too easy prey.

  It was this undefined feeling of responsibility towards Catherine York that prompted him, later that afternoon, to take the launch out again. A quarter of a mile down-river he moored the craft by a large open meadow, directly below the flight path of the birds as they had flown in to attack the picket ship. Here, on the cool green turf, the dying birds had fallen most thickly. A recent fall of rain concealed the odour of the immense gulls and fulmars lying across each other like angels. In the past Crispin had always moved with pride among this white harvest he had reaped from the sky, but now he hurried down the winding aisles between the birds, a wicker basket under his arm, intent only on his errand.

  When he reached the higher ground in the centre of the meadow he placed the basket on the carcass of a dead falcon and began to pluck the feathers from the wings and breasts of the birds lying about him. Despite the rain, the plumage was almost dry. Crispin worked steadily for half an hour, tearing out the feathers with his hands, then carried the basketfuls of plumes down to the launch. As he scurried about the meadow his bent head and shoulders were barely visible above the corpses of the birds.

  By the time he set off in the launch the small craft was loaded from bow to stern with the bright plumes. Crispin stood in the steering well, peering over his cargo as he drove up-river. He moored the boat on the beach below the woman's house. A thin trail of smoke rose from the fire, and he could hear Mrs York chopping more kindling.

  Crispin walked through the shallow water around the boat, selecting the choicest of the plumes and arranging them around the basket - a falcon's brilliant tail feathers, the mother-of-pearl plumes of a fulmar, the brown breast feathers of an eider. Shouldering the basket, he set off towards the house.

  Catherine York was moving the trestle closer to the fire, straightening the plumes as the smoke drifted past them. More feathers had been added to the pyre built on to the frame of the pergola. The outer ones had been woven together to form a firm rim.

  Crispin put the basket down in front of her, then stood back. 'Mrs York, I brought these. I thought you might use them.'

  The woman glanced obliquely at the sky, then shook her head as if puzzled. Crispin suddenly wondered if she recognized him. 'What are they?'

  'Feathers. For ove
r there.' Crispin pointed at the pyre. 'They're the best I could find.'

  Catherine York knelt down, her skirt hiding the scuffed sandals. She touched the coloured plumes as if recalling their original owners. 'They are beautiful. Thank you, captain.' She stood up. 'I'd like to keep them, but I need only this kind.'

  Crispin followed her hand as she pointed to the white feathers on the trestle. With a curse, he slapped the breech of the rifle.

  'Doves! They're all doves! I should have noticed!' He picked up the basket. 'I'll get you some.'

  'Crispin...' Catherine York took his arm. Her troubled eyes wandered about his face, as if hoping to find some kindly way of warning him off. 'I have enough, thank you. It's nearly finished now.'

  Crispin hesitated, waiting for himself to say something to this beautiful white-haired woman whose hands and robe were covered with the soft down of the doves. Then he picked up the basket and made his way back to the launch.

  As he sailed across the river to the ship he moved up and down the launch, casting the cargo of feathers on to the water. Behind him, the soft plumes formed a wake.

  That night, as Crispin lay in his rusty bunk in the captain's cabin, his dreams of the giant birds who filled the moonlit skies of his sleep were broken by the faint ripple of the air in the rigging overhead, the muffled hoot of an aerial voice calling to itself. Waking, Crispin lay still with his head against the metal stanchion, listening to the faint whoop and swerve around the mast.

  Crispin leaped from the bunk. He seized his rifle and raced barefoot up the companionway to the bridge. As he stepped on to the deck, sliding the barrel of the rifle into the air, he caught a last glimpse against the moonlit night of a huge white bird flying away across the river.

  Crispin rushed to the rail, trying to steady the rifle enough to get in a shot at the bird. He gave up as it passed beyond his range, its outline masked by the cliff. Once warned, the bird would never return to the ship. A stray, no doubt it was hoping to nest among the masts and rigging.

  Shortly before dawn, after a ceaseless watch from the rail, Crispin set off across the river in the launch. Over-excited, he was convinced he had seen it circling above the house. Perhaps it had seen Catherine York asleep through one of the shattered windows. The muffled echo of the engine beat across the water, broken by the floating forms of the dead birds. Crispin crouched forward with the rifle and drove the launch on to the beach. He ran through the darkened meadow, where the corpses lay like silver shadows. He darted into the cobbled yard and knelt by the kitchen door, trying to catch the sounds of the sleeping woman in the room above.

  For an hour, as the dawn lifted over the cliff, Crispin prowled around the house. There were no signs of the bird, but at last he came across the mound of feathers mounted on the pergola frame. Peering into the soft grey bowl, he realized that he had caught the dove in the very act of building a nest.

  Careful not to waken the woman sleeping above him beyond the cracked panes, he destroyed the nest. With his rifle butt he stove in the sides, then knocked a hole through the woven bottom. Then, happy that he had saved Catherine York from the nightmare of walking from her house the next morning and seeing the bird waiting to attack her from its perch on this stolen nest, Crispin set off through the gathering light and returned to the ship.

  For the next two days, despite his vigil on the bridge, Crispin saw no more of the dove. Catherine York remained within the house, unaware of her escape. At night, Crispin would patrol her house. The changing weather, and the first taste of the winter to come, had unsettled the landscape, and during the day Crispin spent more time upon the bridge, uneager to look out on the marshes that surrounded the ship.

  On the night of the storm, Crispin saw the bird again. All afternoon the dark clouds had come in from the sea along the river basin, and by evening the cliff beyond the house was hidden by the rain. Crispin was in the bridge-house, listening to the bulkheads groaning as the ship was driven farther into the mud by the wind.

  Lightning flickered across the river, lighting the thousands of corpses in the meadows. Crispin leaned on the helm, gazing at the gaunt reflection of himself in the darkened glass, when a huge white face, beaked like his own, swam into his image. As he stared at this apparition, a pair of immense white wings seemed to unfurl themselves from his shoulders. Then this lost dove, illuminated in a flicker of lightning, rose into the gusting wind around the mast, its wings weaving themselves among the steel cables.

  It was still hovering there, trying to find shelter from the rain, when Crispin stepped on to the deck and shot it through the heart.

  At first light Crispin left the bridge-house and climbed on to the roof. The dead bird hung, its wings outstretched, in a clutter of steel coils beside the lookout's nest. Its mournful face gaped down at Crispin, its expression barely changed since it loomed out of his own reflection at the height of the storm. Now, as the flat wind faded across the water, Crispin watched the house below the cliff. Against the dark vegetation of the meadows and marshes the bird hung like a white cross, and he waited for Catherine York to come to a window, afraid that a sudden gust might topple the dove to the deck.

  When Quimby arrived in his coracle two hours later, eager to see the bird, Crispin sent him up the mast to secure the dove to the cross-tree. Dancing about beneath the bird, the dwarf seemed mesmerized by Crispin, doing whatever the latter told him.

  'Fire a shot at her, Crisp!' he exhorted Crispin, who stood disconsolately by the rail. 'Over the house, that'll bring her out!'

  'Do you think so?' Crispin raised the rifle, ejecting the cartridge whose bullet had destroyed the bird. He watched the bright shell tumble down into the feathery water below. 'I don't know... it might frighten her. I'll go over there.'

  'That's the way, Crisp...' The dwarf scuttled about. 'Bring her back here - I'll tidy it up for you.'

  'Maybe I will.'

  As he berthed the launch on the beach Crispin looked back at the picket ship, reassuring himself that the dead dove was clearly visible in the distance. In the morning sunlight the plumage shone like snow against the rusting masts.

  When he neared the house he saw Catherine York standing in the doorway, her wind-blown hair hiding her face, watching him approach with stern eyes.

  He was ten yards from her when she stepped into the house and half closed the door. Crispin began to run, and she leaned out and shouted angrily: 'Go away! Go back to the ship and those dead birds you love so much!'

  'Miss Catherine...' Crispin stammered to a halt by the door. 'I saved you... Mrs York!'

  'Saved? Save the birds, captain!'

  Crispin tried to speak, but she slammed the door. He walked back through the meadow and punted across the river to the picket ship, unaware of Quimby's insane moon eyes staring down at him from the rail.

  'Crisp... What's the matter?' For once the dwarf was gentle. 'What happened?'

  Crispin shook his head. He gazed up at the dead bird, struggling to find some solution to the woman's last retort. 'Quimby,' he said in a quiet voice to the dwarf, 'Quimby, she thinks she's a bird.'

  During the next week this conviction grew in Crispin's bewildered mind, as did his obsession with the dead bird. Looming over him like an immense murdered angel, the dove's eyes seemed to follow him about the ship, reminding him of when it had first appeared, almost from within his own face, in the mirror-glass of the bridgehouse.

  It was this sense of identity with the bird that was to spur Crispin to his final stratagem.

  Climbing the mast, he secured himself to the lookout's nest, and with a hacksaw cut away the steel cables tangled around the dove's body. In the gathering wind the great white form of the bird swayed and dipped, its fallen wings almost knocking Crispin from his perch. At intervals the rain beat across them, but the drops helped to wash away the blood on the bird's breast and the chips of rust from the hacksaw. At last Crispin lowered the bird to the deck, then lashed it to the hatch cover behind the funnel.

  Exha
usted, he slept until the next day. At dawn, armed with a machete, he began to eviscerate the bird.

  Three days later, Crispin stood on the cliff above the house, the picket ship far below him across the river. The hollow carcass of the dove which he wore over his head and shoulders seemed little heavier than a pillow. In the brief spell of warm sunlight he lifted the outstretched wings, feeling their buoyancy and the cutting flow of air through the feathers. A few stronger gusts moved across the crest of the ridge, almost lifting him into the wind, and he stepped closer to the small oak which hid him from the house below.

  Against the trunk rested his rifle and bandoliers. Crispin lowered the wings and gazed up at the sky, making certain for the last time that no stray hawk or peregrine was about. The effectiveness of the disguise had exceeded all his hopes. Kneeling on the ground, the wings furled at his sides and the hollowed head of the bird lowered over his face, he felt he completely resembled the dove.

  Below him the ground sloped towards the house. From the deck of the picket ship the cliff face had seemed almost vertical, but in fact the ground shelved downwards at a steady but gentle gradient. With luck he might even manage to be airborne for a few steps. However, for most of the way to the house he intended simply to run downhill.

  As he waited for Catherine York to appear he freed his right arm from the metal clamp he had fastened to the wing bone of the bird. He reached out to set the safety catch on his rifle. By divesting himself of the weapon and his bandoliers, and assuming the disguise of the bird, he had, as he understood, accepted the insane logic of the woman's mind. Yet the symbolic flight he was about to perform would free not only Catherine York, but himself as well, from the spell of the birds.