Flight of the Grey Goose

by Victor Canning

  Smiler’s interest, apart from polishing the silver every day, which he did in order to keep it bright, was in Laggy. Watching the gander on the bay he would sometimes see the bird half-raise himself in the water and flap both of his wings. But he never did it with any great effort. It was almost, Smiler thought, as though the gander wasn’t ready yet to trust the mended left wing for flying.

  On the Friday morning Laura arrived just before lunch. The boat was heavily laden with supplies which Smiler helped her to carry up to the castle.

  While they were having lunch together in the kitchen Laura said, ‘Of course you’ve thought up a birthday present for the Laird?’ One look at Smiler’s face told her that he hadn’t. She raised her eyebrows in despair. ‘You men! You’re all the same. My father, now, never remembers for my mother until the last minute and then he dashes into Mallaig or Fort William and pays a lot of money for something she doesn’t want.’

  On the spur of the moment Smiler said, ‘Well, I did think I’d make up a special fly and tie it for him.’

  Laura tossed her hair back and said sharply, ‘And that’s something you’ve just thought of, Sammy, and you know it. Anyway, if it’s a fly that can catch a fish in these conditions, he should have it now or I can see him going without his birthday fish for the first time for years. You’d better put your thinking cap on and decide on something for him.’

  A little cross with her and himself, Smiler stood up and said, ‘You don’t have to worry. I’ll think of something.’

  He went off to do his early afternoon jobs, cleaning out pens, cutting more stakes for the wild-fowl enclosure, and milking Mrs Brown. All the time he worked, he was wondering what he could give the Laird. What on earth could he give him? There weren’t any shops around. He could have tied him a special fly if Laura hadn’t been so scoffing about that. Often these days when the darkness drew in he would light the oil lamp in the Laird’s study and sit at the bench tying a fly. He had become reasonably expert with the simpler ones. But salmon flies, he knew, were big, complicated affairs and very difficult to tie. One evening, working at the desk, he had remembered what the Laird had told him about the Parmachene Belle being fashioned after streaky bacon. Bacon was his dog. He had thought that if his dog, in a way, had a fly called after him, it would be nice if he had a fly called after himself. A Smiler fly. So he had set to and invented a Smiler fly, chuckling to himself as he had worked at it because he had used only colours that had something to do with himself. He had made the tail from a few wisps of fibre from a cock pheasant’s tail – because the feather was sort of freckled like himself. The body had been easy. He just wound on yellow silk for his own fair hair. For the little throat hackle under the body of the fly he had used a tiny scrap of jay’s feather because it was blue like his eyes. For the wings he had used two small slips from grey goose quill feathers – because it was through Laggy that he had come to the castle. But although he had used the fly once or twice he had never caught anything on it. Most likely, he felt, because the hook was a bit big for trout or finnoch to fancy in such hot weather and low water conditions. Anyway, he couldn’t tie a special fly for the Laird now. Laura had made that impossible. There were times, he told himself, when he could give that girl a good thump! Would have done had she been a boy.

  The thought of the present worried him all the afternoon. In the end he decided that the best he could do was to make a birthday card for the Laird. He was a fair hand at drawing and printing. He would get some stuff from the study tonight and take it up to his room when he went to bed and work on it quietly.

  When he got back to the castle later that afternoon it was to be met by Laura whose face was red and hot-looking. She said, ‘That kitchen’s roasting with the range on. I’ll do the rest of the baking for the party when it’s cooler tonight. Let’s go down to the Hen and have a swim.’

  So Smiler rowed them down to the Hen, beached the boat, and they had a swim. Then they got back into the boat and Laura lazed in the stern while Smiler sat up forward. There was no need for either of them to row because the loch current set in a gentle drift westwards back to Elphinstone castle. Smiler, who didn’t like sitting and doing nothing, picked up the fly rod which now – like the Laird – he always carried in the boat. It was an old split cane rod, which the Laird had handed to him for his own special use, saying, ‘It’s called a “Knockabout”, Samuel M. But if I ever see you knock it about I’ll put you on bread and water f or a week.’

  With Laura half asleep in the stern, Smiler flicked his line and cast out ahead as they drifted. Then, as the Laird had taught him, he began to work his flies back just fast enough to beat the drift of the boat. He was using two flies, one on the tail of the nylon cast which sank quite deep and another, a dropper, much higher up the cast. Smiler liked to work the rod and line so that the dropper just came tripping and bobbing along the water surface. Mostly, he had noticed, he got trout and finnoch to the dropper more than to the tail fly.

  From behind him as he began to fish, Laura said sleepily, ‘You dafty, you’ll never get a fish on a day like this. The trout have more sense than to come up and risk sunburn. They’re all tucked away, cool and easy, in the shade at the bottom.’

  Smiler said nothing. All right, he might not get a fish – in fact was pretty certain that he wouldn’t – but he just liked the ritual of fishing. He liked the sweet action of casting and seeing the two flies drop gently to the surface.

  And, anyway, you never knew. If he was daft enough to be fishing, then there might be a fish daft enough to come to his fly. How often had he heard the Laird himself say, ‘Laddie, if there’s one thing for certain about fishing it is that there is nothing certain about it.’ So sucks to Laura, thought Smiler.

  The boat drifted down towards the castle. Behind Smiler, Laura went to sleep. As they neared the little bay, Smiler saw Laggy swimming near the shallows and he wondered when the gander would fly again. It had been so long since Laggy had flown that Smiler wondered if the bird had forgotten how to do it. What a stupid idea, he told himself. One day Laggy would take off.

  Normally, when they were abreast of the bay, Smiler would have taken the oars and pulled in to the jetty, but today it was so much cooler on the water that he let the boat drift on into the shadow cast by the tall cliff face of the island. Looking at the rocks some twenty yards away on his right he could see how much the loch had dropped in the last weeks. He reckoned it was a good four feet already. The big boulder at the foot of the cliff which was Dobby’s favourite place for eating fish was now high and dry.

  As Smiler’s eyes came back from Dobby’s boulder, his right arm moved automatically sending the line and cast out ahead of him. The flies dropped gently to the smooth surface and he watched the slight ripple die as the tail fly sank. Gently he began to work the line in and lifted the tip of the rod to bring the dropper tripping on the surface. The fly had dapped along no more than a couple of feet when Smiler saw something which he had never seen before in his life.

  A great head and a curving length of smooth, dark, steely back broke water like a porpoise surfacing. The whole action was so lazy and slow that it seemed to go on for ages; seemed in fact to Smiler that it wasn’t happening, that he was imagining it, that it was all a warm, lazy daydream.

  A few seconds later, though, he knew that it was no dream. The head and tailing fish sank out of sight. Almost immediately there was a hard tug as the dropper fly was taken, and line began to scream off Smiler’s reel.

  Smiler sat and held the curving rod and wondered what on earth he was supposed to do. His heart began to pound wildly with excitement. Then, when Smiler felt that all the line must be off the reel, the wild, first run of the fish stopped. The line went slack and the rod straightened.

  It was at this moment that the boat rocked a little and Laura, her voice calm, spoke from behind him. ‘You’re into a fish, Sammy. Wind in the slack quickly and get in touch with him – if he’s still there.’

  Hardly kn
owing that he was obeying her, Smiler began to wind line back as fast as he could. He got about ten yards in when he felt the pressure of the fish on the line and the rod bent again.

  Behind him Laura said quietly, ‘Easy now. Keep your head. Make him do the work. If he wants to run let him, but the moment he stops – get in touch again. And don’t worry about him taking all your line. I’ll see to that, or my name’s not the same as my father’s.’

  Deep down in the water, twenty yards from the boat, the fish tugged hard and then began to run again. This time Smiler, coming more to grips with the situation, let him have the line but held the rod tip up so that the fish had to work against its gentle but insistent power. Once, thinking to steady the fast run, Smiler put his hand down to try and brake the revolving face of the reel, but the spinning handle smacked his fingers sharply, drawing blood from them. From behind him Laura, now on the centre-thwart and unshipping the oars, yelled, ‘Don’t do that, you loon. He’ll break you!’

  The fish took thirty yards of line and bored deep. Suddenly, the strain went off rod and line. This time Smiler, beginning to be steadier now, reeled in until he made contact. But the moment he did he put no great pressure on the fish. He just held the rod so he could feel the fish at the other end and the fish could feel him, and he said aloud, ‘Holy Crikeys! What am I going to do?’

  Laura, the oars out now and gently paddling, looked over her shoulder and said, ‘You’re going to do what I tell ye, Sammy, and if you do you’ll have the finest birthday present the Laird could wish for. But if ye don’t then ye’ll have lost the first salmon you ever got into. What’s the breaking strain of your cast?’

  Now, from his father and Joe Ringer in the past, and from the Laird since he had been at the castle, Smiler knew all about the breaking strains of nylon – and he knew exactly what his was.

  He said dismally, ‘ It’s only five pounds.’

  Very calmly Laura said, ‘That’s aye fine for a big trout. But yon’s a handsome fish. You’ve got to treat him like a baby, nice and easy. And don’t think it’s going to be a quick business – because it isn’t. And sooner or later, when he jumps, and jump he will, lower your rod point fast or he may break you and –’

  But Smiler didn’t hear any more. The line began to sing from the reel again. The rod point bowed and there was no thought or feeling in Smiler except the deep, agonizing excitement that came from the almost magical contact between himself and the fighting fish.

  From behind him Laura, no stranger to this situation, helped him. As the fish ran she rowed hard on the same course and called to Smiler that, whenever he could, he was to take up line, but without using any force that would put too much strain on the thin nylon cast.

  So began for Smiler one of the most exhausting, demanding, and exciting thirty minutes of his life. The fish ran, and Smiler gave it line, and Laura rowed after it and they gained line back. The fish ran again and took them well out into the loch, away from the island. Then it lay still, deep down, and Smiler just kept in touch with it, realizing now that each time the fish ran it was tiring itself a bit more. And so far, except for the paralysing moment when the fish had head-and-tailed to take the fly, Smiler had seen no sign of it.

  The sulking fish moved unexpectedly and, this time, headed straight back for the boat. The line went slack across the water. Laura, pulling the boat around and away from the line of the run which would have taken it under the keel, shouted instructions at Smiler. He swung the rod out clear from the bows of the boat and reeled in fast. To his relief, in a few seconds he felt the fish again. But no sooner did he feel it than the fish was off, away at an angle back towards the island, and this time it jumped.

  Twenty yards from the boat the salmon came out of the water with a sudden explosion of surface spray. It soared upwards in a great flashing curve of silver flank and gleaming yellowy-white underbelly. For a moment or two it hung in the air as though fixed and carved in its power leap for all time.

  ‘Rod tip!’ shouted Laura.

  But Smiler scarcely heard her. He just stared at the leaping fish, transfixed by the beauty and exciting splendour of the sight – and he forgot to lower his rod tip.

  The great fish crashed back into the loch, spray spouting high in the air, a rain of water glinting in the sun, and then was gone from sight. The rod in Smiler’s hand straightened and the line running from its tip went still and slack.

  Behind him Laura shouted, ‘You loon – you’ve lost him!’

  And Smiler was sure he had lost the fish. He began to reel in, yard after yard, and there was no sensation of contact at all on the line. A terrible wave of disappointment swamped him. ‘You fool, you fool, Samuel M.,’ he lectured himself. ‘You’ve lost the Laird’s birthday present and the first salmon you’ve ever hooked!’ He turned towards Laura and, long-faced, gave a despondent shrug of his shoulders. He was about to say something to her when the loose line coming back through the rings of the rod suddenly jerked, tautened, and twanged into life. The next moment line was running out faster than it had ever done before.

  It was from this moment that Smiler really became a fisherman. He was trembling with excitement, and he had a lot to learn, but there was a resolute, fighting part of him now which kept saying, ‘Keep your head, Samuel M. Keep your head.’

  And as far as he could he did keep his head. When the fish ran, he let him go. Then, as Laura rowed after the fish, Smiler took in line and made gentle but firm contact with the salmon. Now and again he could feel the fish give savage tugs with its head to try and free itself from the fly. A few minutes later it jumped again. But this time Smiler was ready for it. He lowered the rod tip and, as he recovered line, felt the fish still on.

  For ages it seemed to Smiler, the fish took them up and down the loch. They went beyond the end of the castle island and then back almost as far as the Hen, and then back until they were off the small bay – and, with each passing minute, Smiler wondered how long he would be able to hold out. His arms and hands ached and under the hot sun he was running with sweat – and it didn’t help that every time he made some small mistake Laura shouted a correction to him from her place at the oars and he wished she would shut up. But he had to admit to himself that she knew how to handle the boat, following the fish fast, swinging hard aside when the fish ran for them, and holding it gently in position when the fish halted and sulked far down in the deep water.

  It was during one of these lulls in the battle that the fish slowly came up from the depths and rolled briefly on the surface, its belly flashing.

  Laura said, ‘Aye, Sammy, that’s the sign. The beast’s tiring. Keep your head now and we’ve got him.’

  Eyes on the skirl of foam-flecked water where the fish had gone out of sight, Smiler said despairingly, ‘ But how are we going to get him? There’s only a small trout net in the boat. That’s useless.’

  ‘You’ll no need a net, Sammy. We’ll take him into the bay and beach him. Just you do what I tell you.’

  So, under Laura’s instructions, the operation began. She started to edge the boat beach wards while Smiler gave or took line as the fish followed or moved away. But, minute after minute, the fish was worked slowly towards the beach, and every little while the salmon came to the surface and rolled, showing gleaming flanks and pale belly, and then dived away into a fast but much shorter run.

  Suddenly behind him Smiler heard the bows of the boat grate on the gravel of the beach.

  Laura said, ‘Keep your eyes on him. Keep the pressure easy, and step out.’

  Holding the bending rod high, his eyes out on the water where the fish was, Smiler stepped overboard and almost up to his waist. He waded ashore and, from the corner of his eye, saw Laura jump out and pull the light boat up on the beach clear of the water.

  The next moment she was racing past him down the beach and shouting, ‘Now bring him in below you and leave it to me. Don’t force him. Just baby him. He’ll come now.’

  Gently Smiler began to put
strain on the fish. Not much, but enough to show the tired salmon who was master. Slowly the fish obeyed and Smiler won line.

  From the beach below him, Laura called, ‘ Watch him. When he sees me waiting he’ll make a last run.’

  And, sure enough, as Smiler shortened line and slowly swung the great fish into the shallow water at the beach edge, the salmon saw Laura. The fish turned and ran and Smiler, in command and clear-headed now, let him go. But the run was short and he worked the fish back until it was held in six inches of water over the gravel slope of the beach. The fish rolled once or twice, struggled briefly, and then was still from exhaustion.

  Laura went into the water and slowly around the fish so that it was between her and the shore. She bent down with an easy, confident movement and caught the wrist of the fish’s great tail in one strong hand and – each action flowing sweetly into the next – she lifted the salmon high and walked up on to the beach.

  Before Smiler could move she dropped the arching, struggling fish to the ground, picked up a large stone, and gave it two quick, expert taps on the head and killed it.

  Smiler ran up and stopped, staring down at the fish. It was enormous. It lay there quivering gently, its spotted, steely, silver flanks and belly just touched with the coming rusty red of its spawning colours, long curving underjaw showing it to be a cock fish and – deep set in the scissors of its jaws – the tightly bedded fly which it had taken.

  Suddenly a great surge of elation swept over Smiler and he did two things which, in his calmer moments, he would never have dreamt of doing. He tossed the rod to the ground in a way which would have got him bread and water for a week and then began to dance around the fish, shouting, ‘We’ve done it! We’ve done it!’ And then, the second thing, he suddenly grabbed Laura and danced her around with him, hugging her to him and kissing her, and his excitement was so great that it was not until a long time afterwards that he remembered that she had hugged and kissed him back.