Flight of the Grey Goose

by Victor Canning

  Because he had extra work to do Smiler finished later that day. He had his supper in the kitchen and then he took the boat out with Bacon in it and Dobby swimming alongside. He fished outside the bay, but caught nothing. There was no wind and the loch was dead flat. After a while he let the boat drift down the cliffside of the island and leaned over and watched the big salmon move away from its lie as he passed. Dobby disappeared underwater just off his eating rock and stayed down for a very long time. By now Smiler was used to this and did not worry about the otter. When he reached the end of the island he unshipped the oars and rowed right round it, coming into the bay from the other side. As he pulled into the jetty Dobby surfaced some way out and came flopping up the jetty steps, his pelt dripping with water. Smiler watched as the otter gave himself a quick shake, ridding himself of water so that his coat was sleek and shining and dry again.

  In the gloaming Smiler went back into the castle and lit his bedtime candle. Dark shadows in the hall and on the stairway danced away before his candle as he went up to the top landing. From the oil paintings the long line of Elphinstone ancestors looked down at him, their faces and eyes seeming to come alive in the wavering candlelight. Smiler found it all very eerie. Suppose the castle was haunted and the Laird, out of kindness, had never told him? A shiver ran down his spine. Then, because he was a sensible boy, he told himself not to be silly. But he was glad to have Bacon at his heels and pleased too when they came across Midas in one of the corridors. Midas, as though feeling lonely himself, rose ponderously to his feet and joined them.

  Smiler slept that night with Bacon on the foot of his bed and Midas curled on the carpet near its head. He lay in bed with the window wide open. Now and again, before he dropped off to sleep, he saw the black flickering of a bat’s silhouette waver across the pale night sky and caught the sound from the castle wood of the pair of long-eared owls that lived there calling to one another.

  However, after a couple of days on his own Smiler became quite used to his solitary state. On the third day Laura arrrived early in the morning, just for an hour, to tell him that she would come again that weekend and stay some days with him. She couldn’t come before because – they were into September now – the whole farm was busy harvesting and her mother couldn’t spare her.

  The following day was one of the hottest that Smiler could remember since he had been on the loch. The animals were listless and scarcely moved from the shade and showed little interest in their food, and Mrs Brown gave only half the milk she usually did. Smiler himself felt that all the marrow had gone from his bones. He worked stripped to the waist and the sweat ran off him. His body now was as brown as a ripe hazel nut and his muscles were hard and firm.

  He was too hot and tired to cook himself any supper. He had a glass of milk and some biscuits and then went out in the boat, hoping to find it cooler on the water. Bacon and Dobby went with him. Laggy, still showing no desire to fly, paddled as far as the bay mouth and then turned back. Stripped off to the bathing trunks which Laura had left for him, Smiler let the boat drift, too tired even to bother with fishing.

  Close to the foot of the cliff, off Dobby’s eating rock, Smiler threw the stone anchor overboard and let the boat swing on the length of the mooring rope. Bacon curled up on the stern seat and Dobby slid over the side to do some fishing.

  Smiler sprawled himself belly down across the centre thwart, his head over the boat side and watched the antics of Dobby in the amber clear water below him. Although Dobby had lost a foot he was still a very strong swimmer. After a time Smiler lost sight of the otter and decided to take a swim himself. He stood on the thwart and dived into the water, the rocking of the boat behind him upsetting Bacon from the stern seat.

  Smiler went down in a long, clean dive and then swam underwater towards the rock face. He held his breath for a long time, relishing the coolness of the water on his body. He came up close to Dobby’s rock and hauled himself on to it. The top was covered with fish bones and tiny dried fish scales that glistened like pearls in the sunlight. After a time Dobby appeared, fishless, and climbed out on to the rock with Smiler. Finally Smiler lay back and went into a daydream, wondering where his father was at this moment. It would soon now be October. The Kentucky Master would be on her way home, steaming through the Atlantic … And soon he, Smiler, would have to make his way to Greenock and get all the approved school mess cleared up … And after that? Could he really ever become a vet? He’d learnt a lot from the Laird and had begun to read one of his books about veterinary surgery. But how could he do it? It all seemed a bit of a dream. October. Greenock. When he left here would he ever see the Laird again? Or Laura? Gosh, he hoped he would. Especially Laura.

  At this moment Smiler heard Dobby stir. He sat up to see the otter sliding into the water. Feeling hot again Smiler dived into the water after the animal. As he went down, eyes open, close to the rock face of the cliff, he saw Dobby below and ahead of of him. The otter swung back in a circle and flashed by him, the long, sleek form rolling and twisting, and headed for the underwater rock face. As Dobby neared the rock face and Smiler began to rise from want of breath, he saw a most extraordinary thing. Instead of Dobby turning away from the rock face and swimming along it, the otter suddenly seemed to go right through the rock and disappear.

  Smiler came to the surface, puffing and blowing to get his breath. He frowned, puzzled at what he had seen. How could an otter swim through rock? He waited to see if Dobby would surface. But after a few minutes there was no sign of the otter.

  After treading water for a while, Smiler porpoise-dived and swam down the submerged rock face as close as he could get. The water under the cliff was, although clear, in deep shadow. Smiler swam to the spot where Dobby had disappeared and reached out for the dark rock face. But his hands touched nothing. What he had thought was rock was dark shadow. His breath going, he let himself rise slowly to the surface, his hands outstretched into the shadow. As his head came out of water he felt his still submerged hands touch rock. Smiler held on to the rock and slowly his feet came up behind him. He quickly puzzled out the situation. In the face of the rock was a tall, narrow entry which was bridged at its top. The top, to which Smiler was clinging, was only about six inches underwater. With the loch at its normal level it would have been four or five feet under. Curious and intrigued, Smiler took a deep breath and dived down again. He went right to the bottom of the loch and found one side of the entrance. He began to work his way to the surface again holding on to the smooth side of the tall narrow archway.

  Smiler went right to the top of the archway again. Holding it he popped his head out for fresh breath. He went down once more and traced up the other side of the entrance with his hands while his eyes tried to probe the darkness ahead of him. He was half-way up when something bright flickered far in the darkness. Suddenly, from out of the deep gloom, Dobby shot past Smiler, holding a finnoch in his jaws, the fish’s white belly gleaming.

  A few seconds later Smiler was sitting on the eating rock where Dobby was crouched over his kill, chewing at the still body of the finnoch.

  Smiler’s face was very thoughtful. In his methodical, sensible way he began to figure things out.

  Although he knew that otters could stay underwater for a long time, there was a limit. They just had to come up for breath. But sometimes Dobby would be under for ages. Although Smiler used to keep his eyes watchfully on the glass-smooth, calm water around the cliff he had never seen as much as half a whisker of Dobby’s muzzle appear above the surface. Sometimes the animal was down so long that Smiler had given him up and rowed back to the castle. What he was thinking now was that the entrance could be to an underwater cave. The water level was only about six inches above the top of the archway. It couldn’t be any higher inside the cave obviously. It might well be that, if he was brave enough to explore, he would find that above the level of the water in the cave there would be an air space. It could be quite a big space supplied with air from the cracks and crevices of
the cliff in some way. And it was in there that Dobby sometimes went for fish and, when he had made a catch, he probably surfaced in the cave, climbed out, and had a leisurely meal … While all the time, Samuel M., he told himself, you’ve been a-sittin’ outside in the boat fussing about him.

  Well, so it might be, thought Smiler. But one thing was for sure – he wasn’t going to risk swimming underwater into a dark hole like that and end up getting stuck or running out of breath. Still, even as he decided he wasn’t going to do it, his curiosity began to rise in him. The thing was a mystery and it was there right under his nose and it wasn’t possible for him to ignore the challenge.

  All the way back in the boat, and while he was getting ready for bed, Smiler kept thinking about the possibility of finding a secret underwater cave. Say there was a place inside where you could come to the surface and find all the air you wanted and rocks or a shelf to sit on? Just one clean dive in from the boat and, before half your breath was gone, up you would pop into another world. It was a pity that everything under the rock face was in such dark shadow. With a bit more light he might have risked it.

  With a bit more light! He suddenly sat up in bed and smacked himself on the top of the head. You fool, Samuel M., he scolded himself. You fool! You could have all the light you wanted if you went at the right time! In the late evening the setting sun threw all the south side of the castle island cliffs in deep shadow – but at midday, when the sun was due south, it would be shining straight at the cliff, straight at the mouth of the underwater archway. He would be able to see a long way without even going through the archway if he didn’t want to.

  He lay back in bed knowing that when the sun was right the next day he would be around at the cliff face in the boat. Blimey! – a secret underwater cave! It might have stalactites hanging from the roof, if that was the word for the ones that hung and didn’t rise from the floor. Or, less pleasant, there might be a skeleton in there of some old clansman from years and years ago, or of a boy like himself, caught exploring … He pushed the thought from him. Anyway, even if it was only just a cave with nothing in it, it would be fun to show it to Laura. He would scare her first by just diving clean off the boat and through the entrance without saying anything … It took Smiler a long time to go to sleep that night.

  The next morning as he worked around the castle he kept looking up at the sun and judging its position. Two or three times he went into the great hall to check the time on the big grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs.

  All morning the sun seemed to dawdle up the cloudless sky like a heat-weary laggard, but eventually the clock showed ten minutes to twelve. Smiler ran down to the jetty where the rowing boat was moored and pulled out of the bay and round to the cliff face. He dropped the stone anchor some way up from the entrance and then, paying out the rope, let the boat drift down until he judged it was just level with the underwater archway.

  Impatiently he jumped into the sunlit water under the cliff, took a deep breath, and porpoise-dived down, swimming strongly. In the blazing light of the sun the whole appearance of the place underwater had changed. Smiler could see the rough, narrow-arched entrance clearly. He swam down as deep as he could and grabbed the side of the entrance and looked through. The water was green and blue shot and adrift with little motes of light. He saw at once that the archway was only about two feet thick. Beyond it he could see an underwater strip of sandy loch floor sloping gently upwards.

  Smiler went up, took another deep breath, and dived down again. This time he swam to the inner edge of the archway and looked up. Some way above him he could see the surface ripple of the water, making weird patterns from the light reflected from the sandy bottom – but he saw something else, too. Floating on the surface, proving to him that it was the surface and not some trick of light, was a short length of old tree branch that had got sucked through the archway somehow.

  Although he had plenty of breath left to get back to the outer water and surface, Smiler gave himself a kick upwards towards the floating branch.

  His head broke water and the first thing he was aware of was the echoing sound of water lapping against rocks where he had disturbed it.

  Smiler looked around. He was in a large cave the sides of which rose up nearly twenty feet, converging to make a rough, dome-shaped roof. The wall of the cave on the righthand side of the entrance rose in a sheer, rugged sweep of rock. On the left hand side the water washed gently over a smooth, flat layer of rock. The water was only about a foot deep. Beyond this, clear of the water, was a bank of loose stones and broken rocks that sloped up to a small platform. The cave was lit by a shimmering, green light that came through the underwater entrance. But light came in, too, from another source. High up, almost in the domed roof and to one side of it, a thin, horizontal shaft of sunlight angled downwards to illuminate the small platform. Smiler guessed that this must come from some narrow slit in the rock face of the outside cliff.

  Smiler swam to the bank of stones and boulders and climbed up on to the narrow platform of dry rock. The first things he saw were the dried-up bodies of two half-eaten trout with a scattering of bones and fish scales around them. This was clearly Dobby’s eating place when he came fishing in the cave.

  Standing on the platform, water dripping from him, Smiler took a good look around. On the far cave wall he could clearly see the high-water mark of the loch. He reckoned that when the loch was at its fullest, the water-would be a foot deep over the platform on which he stood. At the back of the platform, where the cave wall ran up in craggy steps and ridges, was a stretch of loose soil and sand and a line of old drift wood and leaves which had been left there as the water receded. He looked up to the crack through which the roof light came. It was too far up for him to climb and explore. Then, as his eyes travelled down the rough face of the rock, he saw that about two feet above his head was a hole in the rock. For a moment Smiler almost ignored it, but then something about it brought his attention back to it sharply.

  It did not look like a natural hole. It was about a foot high and a foot wide and its sides were sharply and regularly cut. Smiler realized that the hole had been chiselled and cut out of the rock face.

  Finding footholds, Smiler hoisted himself up to the level of the hole and looked in. It was dark inside and he could see nothing. Smiler got his right arm free and groped inside the hole, feeling around with his hand. The hole ran back into the rock about two feet and Smiler’s fingers touched nothing but the bare, dusty sides until his hand reached the end of the hole. There, instead of feeling the rough rock, his hand rested on something hard and dry which moved under his fingers. From the feel of it he knew that it was not a loose stone.

  Panting with the effort of holding on to the rock face as he probed, Smiler got a grip on the object and pulled it towards him. Smiler got a firmer grip on the object, and then climbed down the few feet to the rock platform.

  He sat down and rested the object between his legs. He stared at it, wondering what on earth it was. It was brown and roughly shaped like an outsized and pretty battered football. The whole thing was bound up tightly with a criss-crossing of thin leather thongs. The knots holding them had dried up so firmly that they defied Smiler’s attempts to undo them.

  Smiler sat there like an inquisitive ape which had been presented with something it had never seen before. He raised the object, which was fairly heavy, and shook it. There was the faintest rattle from within. He smelt it and it had a faint smell of old leather. The only thing which Smiler didn’t do, which an ape might have, was to take a bite at it to see what it tasted like. He did, however, try to work one of the knots free with his teeth, but the knot-turns were set hard and unmovable.

  Well, Samuel M., he thought, whatever is inside you’re going to need a knife to get at it. For a horrible moment he wondered if there were a skull inside and what he could hear rattling were the loose teeth. The thought made him feel suddenly lonely and a bit scared in the cave. For all he knew any moment now, just bec
ause he was here and disturbing things, the roof might come crashing down – Holy Crikeys!

  Almost before he knew he was doing it, Smiler was on his feet. He grabbed the brown football thing to his chest and took a fast header off the platform. He cleared the little shelf below, went deep down, and streaked through the underwater exit with panicky, froglike jerks of his legs.

  Ten minutes later Smiler was back in the castle sitting at the kitchen table with the sharpest knife he could find. He sawed away at the binding thongs and realized now that they were thin strips of hide. And the brown, stiff wrapping, he guessed, was probably some kind of deer skin. Here and there on it were a few patches of browny-red hair. When all the thongs were cut, Smiler began to unwrap the stiff, hard, hide covering. Inside this was another covering of faded red cloth. This came away easily and out on to the table tumbled a heap of all shapes and sizes of small parcels, all wrapped in torn off pieces of stained and rotten linen sheet.

  When Smiler unwrapped the first and biggest of these, he knew exactly what he had found in the cave. He just sat and stared at it wide-eyed and whispered to himself, ‘Holy Jumping Jumpers!’

  Lying on the well-scrubbed table top was the great eight-pointed diamond star brooch of the Lady Elphinstone whose portrait hung at the top of the grand staircase. And, as Smiler unwrapped the other parcels, more and more of the Elphinstone treasure came to light. There was far more of it than just the jewels, rings and necklace that Lady Elphinstone was wearing in the painting. The kitchen table was a-glitter and a-sparkle with the fire of jewels, pearls, and gold and silver.

  Smiler just sat and gawped at it all. Although he was overcome by the richness of the treasure, the thought that slowly obsessed his mind – and gave him a very odd sort of feeling – was that the last person who had looked at this fabulous sight was Sir Alec Elphinstone in 1745. He was the first one since then who had ever seen it! Holy Crikeys!