Flight of the Grey Goose

by Victor Canning

  Slightly overwhelmed, Smiler hesitated for a moment, then he said, ‘Yes, sir, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, laddie,’ said the Laird and he headed for his armchair and the remaining unopened letters and newspapers.

  Smiler, with no idea where the kitchen was, went across the great hall and through the first door he saw. Overwhelmed, and a bit confused, he might be, but he remembered how in his last job in Wiltshire everything had seemed strange and a bit too much at first, yet within a few days he had everything sorted out and was feeling at home.

  As he picked his way down a gloomy flight of stone stairs, hoping it would lead to the bowels of the castle and the kitchen, he said out loud, ‘Samuel M., just take it easy and use your loaf and things will sort themselves out.’ Then he chuckled, and putting on an accent added, ‘Ye canna do more than your best, laddie.’ Then the chuckle died and he groaned, ‘Oh, Holy Crikeys – milking a cow! How am I goin’ to manage that?’

  See the first ‘Smiler’ book, The Runaways.

  Back to Text

  5. The Watcher From The Shore

  It took Smiler some time to find the kitchen. Below the main floor of the castle there was a warren of storerooms, larders, dairy room, gun-and rod-room, old-clothes-and boot-room, and a dozen other rooms which at the moment he had no time to explore beyond opening their doors and convincing himself that they were not the kitchen. The kitchen itself, when he found it, was a pleasant surprise. It was long and low-ceilinged with a wide, curved window cut through the solid rampart wall of the castle to give a view out over the bay. There was a long pinewood table (freshly scrubbed, like the rest of the kitchen, by Laura) and chairs, dressers and cupboards and rows and rows of crockery shelves. All the cooking was done on a large butane gas cooker – for which Laura brought up fresh fuel containers once a month. In addition there was a vast, wood-burning kitchen range and oven which were seldom used. The water came from a pump with a long handle that stood over a low stone sink. Smiler could only guess that the water came from a well down in the bowels of the castle’s foundations or else from the lake. On the cushions of the window-seat was a black and white cat with a litter of kittens in an old wicker basket.

  Smiler ferreted around the place and eventually found all the supplies for a light lunch. He fixed up the Laird’s bread and cheese and beer on a tray and carried it up to him and set it on the corner of the long refectory table near his armchair.

  The Laird said, ‘Where are you going to have your bite, lad?’

  Smiler said, ‘In the kitchen, if you please, sir. It’s nice looking out of the window down there.’

  The Laird nodded. ‘Aye, it is. There is no better place to eat in a house than the kitchen, close to the heart of things. Breakfast and lunch you can take where and when the fancy strikes you, but at night we eat together – in the kitchen when we’re alone, and up here if we are lucky enough to have company which is not often.’

  So Smiler went back to the kitchen and had his lunch on the window-seat with the cat and her kittens. When he had finished he collected the Laird’s tray and then washed up the crockery in the big stone sink. After that he was a bit at a loss to know what he had to do so he spent some more time making himself familiar with the lower rooms of the house.

  While he was doing this he suddenly heard the sound of a bell echoing and reverberating from the floor above.

  He ran up to the main hallway to find the Laird standing at the foot of the grand stairway tugging away at the tufted end of a long rope which ran up through a hole in the ceiling to some invisible bell high in the top regions of the house.

  When the Laird saw Smiler, he stopped ringing and said, ‘When the bell rings, work begins. But if it rings at night, you know the place is on fire or we’re being attacked.’ He winked and went on, ‘Right, first to deal with old Laggy and then we’ll introduce you to Mrs Brown.’

  Surprised, Smiler said, ‘Mrs Brown, sir?’

  ‘The cow, lad. On account of her colour.’

  The Laird then led the way down into the bowels of the castle and through a maze of passages which Smiler had so far not discovered until they came finally to a small door that led out through the very bottom part of the rampart wall to the space set aside for the animal and bird pens. Beyond the pens and built against the wall was a long, low wooden hut with one big glass window in its front and three glass skylights on the roof. On the door was painted –

  SURGERY: 24 HOUR SERVICE

  ‘That,’ said the Laird, ‘was painted on by my humorous minded son – himself a surgeon in the Navy. A man like your father, I imagine – only content when he’s got a good teak planking between himself and the sea. Now then, you get old Laggy and bring him along.’

  Smiler went off to Laggy’s pen and brought him to the surgery. For the next half hour Smiler saw a different Sir Alec Elphinstone. The gander was placed on the bench in the spotless surgery and the Laird gave it an injection of some stuff with a name which Smiler could not remember. When the bird passed out, the Laird began to examine its broken wing. Smiler watched the gentleness and sureness of the man’s hands with fascination. From the moment he began to deal with the bird it was as though the Laird had completely forgotten everything else in the world but the job before him. Although he talked to Smiler explaining what he was doing and now and again asking him to pass things, his eyes never left the prostrate greylag. He located the break in the main wing bone, set it, and then splinted it up with light strips of thin wood which he taped into place. As Smiler helped him by holding and turning the goose, he bound the whole of the left wing against the bird’s body with tape and bandages so that it could not move.

  When the operation was over, the Laird said, ‘Right, Samuel M. – take him back and put him in the pen hutch. When he comes round he’s on soft mash for a few days. In a month the wing will be as good as new. When you’ve done that we’ll visit Mrs Brown.’

  Smiler went off carrying Laggy whose head and neck hung limply over his arm. It was a few minutes before he realized that the Laird had called him Samuel M. The strangeness of it almost made him stop in his tracks. That was what his father alone called him! And the Laird couldn’t possibly have known that. What a funny thing. Then, suddenly, he felt very pleased and very proud about it.

  A short while after this, the thought of being called Samuel M. by the Laird was gone completely from his head because he found himself alone in the small pasture dealing with Mrs Brown.

  Mrs Brown was a small cow with her right horn a little twisted. She had large, gentle eyes, a shiny brown coat and a long swishing tail. The Laird led him across the pasture to the cow and took her by the small rope halter she wore round her head. He led her to a small birch tree and fastened her to a short length of rope that hung from the tree.

  ‘When she knows you – she’ll stand for milking without the roping,’ the Laird explained. He sat down on a three-legged stool which they had brought from the surgery together with a large milk bucket, and gave Smiler his first and only lesson in milking. With the pail under Mrs Brown’s udder, he showed Smiler how to hold a teat in each hand and work with a gentle but firm pulling and squeezing action so that the warm, sweet-smelling milk squirted into the pail. ‘Easy as falling off a log,’ he explained. ‘Just work your way around the bell-pulls and strip her out evenly … until there’s no more to come. You’ll have no trouble with her.’

  He sat Smiler down on the stool and stood by to monitor Smiler’s first attempts and to advise him. Then, after a few minutes, he said, ‘Aye, you’re doing fine, Samuel M. In a few days you’ll have the touch of a master.’ And with that he walked off and left Smiler with Mrs Brown.

  While the Laird had been with him Smiler had felt reasonably unworried. But the moment he was on his own a hot sweat broke out all over him, and his hands became awkward and somehow unwilling to do the motions which the Laird had shown him. In addition, Mrs Brown’s manner seemed to change with being left alone to a
stranger’s manipulations. With the Laird she had been the most biddable cow in the world, standing quietly and chewing the cud contentedly. But a few moments after the Laird had gone her manner changed, and she started to play tricks. As Smiler leaned his head against her flank as the Laird had done, concentrating on the milking process, she suddenly switched her long tail round and hit him a crack on the face with the tufted tip. The blow was so unexpected that Smiler gave a sharp cry and fell backwards off the stool. As he lay in the grass Mrs Brown looked round and stared at him in innocent surprise, as though she was wondering what he was doing.

  Smiler got back on the stool and turned his head this time so that if she did flick him again it would not be on his face. Mrs Brown did flick, three times, and Smiler took the blows stoically and said aloud, ‘You don’t catch me like that again, old girl.’

  As though Mrs Brown understood and wanted to show him what a novice he was, she gave a low moo and, with a short, swift kick of her nearside rear leg, knocked the milk bucket and stool over.

  Smiler lay on his back with milk running around him and could have cried with despair. All that milk gone! But he pulled himself up and got back on the stool and said firmly to himself, ‘Serves you right, Samuel M. You had the bucket on the ground and not held between your legs like the Laird showed you.’

  This time he held the bucket firmly between his legs and began milking again. As though she understood that the kicking trick was out of the question, Mrs Brown tried a tail flick or two. Smiler took the knocks with fortitude. Then Mrs Brown suddenly twisted her head and long neck round, so that her muzzle was close to his face, and snorted a fierce warm burst of sweet cud-breath at him.

  ‘Please, Mrs Brown!’ cried Smiler.

  Mrs Brown gave him another breath snort and then abruptly moved her rear quarters sideways two yards. Smiler was left sitting well away from her with the bucket between his legs and the teats gone from his hands. Sighing he dragged the stool and pail over to Mrs Brown and went back to milking, but by now he was so flummoxed and hot that he could not remember which teats he had been working. In the next fifteen minutes Mrs Brown kept him on the alert with tail switches, breath snorts, movings-away, and short, rear-leg kicks to try and get at the bucket. Smiler managed to deal with them all. Finally, shaken, hot all over, he had the cow stripped and the bucket half full of milk. He carried the bucket well away from Mrs Brown and then untied her from the tree. Mrs Brown gave a couple of bucking kicks with her back legs and trotted off to the far end of the pastures.

  Smiler went wearily back to the castle lower entrance to be met by the Laird coming out carrying a pail of wet mash for Laggy’s pen. He looked down at the short measure of milk in the bucket, then at Smiler, and grinned.

  ‘Kicked the first lot over, did she, lad?’

  ‘Yes, sir – but it was my fault. I didn’t have the bucket between my legs like you showed me.’

  ‘No matter. She’d have tried something else – like all women. Never been a new lad here that she didn’t play up the first time. That idiot of a Willy McAufee she played up for a week. But she’ll stand for you tomorrow. Just from the little bit of watching ye I could see you’ve got good hands. She’ll know it, too, and give you no more trouble – unless the mood’s on her for some mysterious feminine reason. Right, take the milk up to the dairy, and mind how you go on the stairs. They can be tricky too. Aye –’ he grinned broadly ‘– there’s no stone stairway in the place that at some time or other hasn’t claimed the broken neck of a servant or an Elphinstone in the past. And hurry back down. We’re not a quarter done yet.’

  Smiler started up the long stone stairway thinking that after Mrs Brown he felt as though he were completely done. He only hoped the Laird was right and that she would stand for him tomorrow. As for today, he wanted no more trouble.

  But it was a wish not to be granted. Sitting at the top of the stairs, his back to Smiler, was Midas the golden labrador. Coming up behind him Smiler forgot all about the warning cough with the result that, as he came abreast of the dog, Midas turned and snapped at him.

  Smiler jumped to one side to avoid being bitten and the milk pail hit the stone wall, tilted, and half the contents went slipping down the stairs before Smiler could steady the bucket. He groaned aloud as he watched the milky flood cascade over the grey worn stone steps. It was little consolation that Midas, in apology, came up and licked his milky wet hand on the bucket handle.

  But within a fortnight Smiler was thoroughly at home in the castle and on the island. He knew his way around and never forgot to cough if he came up behind Midas. And with Mrs Brown, after four or five days during which she tried her usual tricks on him, he became quite confident. Mrs Brown, deciding that he had served his apprenticeship, now stood quietly for him and there was no need to tie her to the tree. With hands that grew more expert each time Smiler would strip her down. He loved the sound of the warm milk hissing into the bucket and the sweet odour of the beast’s flank as he leaned his head against it.

  Until he got used to them, and could work out his own system and routine for dealing with them, his daily chores took him a long time. But as he learnt his way around he found himself with more time on his hands than he had expected. Because he liked the Laird so much and was grateful to him he found himself doing something which wild horses couldn’t have dragged him to do had he been staying with his Sister Ethel. He actually went around looking for jobs!

  The main job was the state of the castle. He found dusters and brooms, scrubbing brushes and scourers, and soap and polish, and attacked the place, starting first with the great main room and the wide stairway. He polished and scrubbed and dusted and while he worked he often sang one of his father’s songs.

  Once the Laird came and watched him and said, smiling, ‘Samuel M., you’ll soon have the place so tidy and spruce that it’ll no be a fit abode for a couple of bachelors like ourselves.’

  ‘But I like doing it, sir,’ said Smiler.

  ‘You’re sure, lad?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘That’s good then. At first I thought you must be sickening for something.’

  But although Smiler was happy from being able to please the Laird there were other things that made him happy before the first week was over. One was the afternoon when he was trying to get the rust off the suit of armour by the terrace door with some wire wool. As he worked away one of the white fantails came sailing through the doorway and perched on his shoulder. Smiler stopped working, delighted, but afraid to move lest the bird take off. But the fantail gave a few slow coos and settled down and slowly Smiler began to work again. After that the other birds and animals began to take to him. Within no time at all he was walking around the place almost as decorated with birds and animals as the Laird himself – and always, wherever he went, Bacon was with him showing no jealousy of the other animals.

  But the part of the day that he liked best was after he and the Laird had had their supper in the kitchen. They would wash up together and then, since the evenings were light until very late, they would go down to the beach where a small black and white rowing boat was pulled up and the Laird would take him out on the loch.

  He taught Smiler how to row and he taught Smiler how to fly-fish – for the Laird was incapable of getting into a boat without taking a fly rod with him. But this was different fishing from any Joe Ringer or his father had done. The Laird fly-fished while Smiler at the oars kept the boat on a steady drift across the mouth of the small bay. Smiler was fascinated by the man’s skill, watching the smooth bend of the rod and the sweet curl of the line as the Laird cast, then let his team of flies sink a little before he began to work them back to the boat. The Laird never caught more than would meet their own and the animals’ needs for food. There were small red-and-yellow spotted brown trout and then the larger finnoch, or young sea-trout, which were a steely blue with blackish markings. While the Laird fished he talked and answered Smiler’s questions, explaining how the trout and
the finnoch were really the same family, only the finnoch had taken it into their heads to migrate out to the sea estuaries each year and then came back to spawn in the burns that ran into the loch. And after fishing, he often sat Smiler with him at his small fly-tying desk in the study off the main hall. He showed him how to dress the flies on the bare hooks, using feathers, coloured silks, gold and silver tinsel wire, and little hackle feathers from the capes of some of the cocks and hens that lived in the poultry run. He taught him, too, the names of the flies, names that are a litany to any fly-fisherman … Peter Ross, March Brown, Mallard and Claret, Alexandra, Butcher, Grouse and Orange, Woodcock and Green, Watson’s Fancy, Snipe and Purple, Waterhen Bloa … hundreds of them. One – the Parmachene Belle – tied with a strip of white duck or swan wing with a slip of red feather alongside it to make it look like a piece of streaky bacon – was so fashioned because the old loggers in Canada and America had used bacon for fishing but – when bacon ran short – they had made flies to imitate it. Smiler’s first efforts to tie flies were, as the Laird said, ‘Enough to put the fear of the Lord into a finnoch and send him off his food for a week.’ But Smiler, who had good hands, and didn’t like to be beaten, persevered and in the end began to tie a very nice fly.