‘Where’s Jack? . . . Have you got my gun? . . . I’ve been here before; we’ll go this way. . . . Where’s the best place?’
They stepped high over tussocks, they walked with bent heads, watching the uneven ground, they stooped and pushed their way through brush.
‘Over here. This way. I can hear them quacking.’
Men hurried for positions of vantage. The swamp was ringed with men. They were shoulder to shoulder on spits of land where the ducks swept low for a landing. They stood side by side on the hillocks. They crouched like waiting soldiers in the hollows.
‘We start at six.’
‘We’re into them at six.’
‘We’ll let them have it at six.’
The uneasy birds on the dark water moved towards the centre of the swamp. There was a pale sky in the east.
Shells were thumbed from belts, locks clicked and snapped. Guns were shouldered and lowered, swept round and back, tested and thumbed and gripped.
‘Don’t swing over my area.’
‘I never swing over any man’s area.’
Dan Lucey drove the utility truck along the swamp bank and into the sanctuary. He left the truck near a patch of scrub and walked to the swamp’s edge from where the water lay stretched beneath the dark in a pale light of its own.
He paced the bank, restless, feeling, in all that was around him, the existence of an intense awareness, an emotion of his own creating. The very air was listening, the trees were expectant and still.
He waited while the sky grew lighter and the darkness retreated to the shelter of the banks. Patches of darkness lay netted in grass and hollows where the tea-tree grew, but birds could be faintly seen on the water.
Dan slowly rolled a cigarette.
That teal with the one leg. A cod had probably taken the other one when she was a duckling. Or maybe a trap. Some men set rabbit traps on sandbanks to catch ducks, spread wheat around them. By hell, she was tame! Maybe she won’t leave the water when they start. She’ll be safe in the sanctuary. But the noise will start the lot off. If she’s with a flock she’ll go but she might be in the reeds. No, she’ll take off with the rest. She’ll rise with them. Having one leg won’t affect her flying, anyway. You never know, though.
She may not be able to swerve as quickly. But she’ll go high. They always do. She might get above it.
He looked up at the paling sky, seeing, in his imagination, the sanctuary it seemed to offer streaked with screaming pellets. He turned away.
It was half past five when the first gun was fired. In the stricken moment that followed, men’s voices shouting a protest came from different parts of the swamp. A double report drowned their cries. Rosebuds of flame quivered above clumps of reed. Single reports followed each other rapidly. They made a staccato of sound that merged and grew till it became a thunderous volume of sound that pressed on Dan like a weight.
The air above the swamp, torn apart by the explosive roar, eddied across the still water, leaving a quivering surface and the smell of smoke behind it.
There were no gaps of silence in the sound. It was continuous and violent and controlled. Yet, within it and apart from it, could be heard the thrash of wings, the splash of falling bodies, quick, terrified quacks and the whish of speeding flocks hurtling by like companies of projectiles.
The thin, whispering whistle of shot, torn out of shape by pitted barrels, threaded the din and sent speeding birds into swerves and dives of terror.
Piercing the rumble in stabs of sharper sound, two hollow cracks came at intervals from the far side of the swamp.
Dan raised his head and listened.
Home made cartridges? There they go again! No. Poley chokes on their guns. That American idea for greater range. They’ll get the high ones.
One more . . . Two . . . Three . . . Struth! That finishes the high ones. That pulls them down. No hope up on top now.
He suddenly took off his hat and shook some pellets of shot from the crown.
They must be as thick as rain up there.
When the firing began in the swamp a panic swept across the birds on the waters of the sanctuary. Some swam swiftly to and fro while others took to the air in a flurry of wings. Those leaving infected the undecided ones with fear and in a moment they were all leaving the water, some in silence, others with quick cries of alarm.
Black duck, the first to leave, rose sharply, shooting upwards, their wings drumming. They held their wings low down, flying with short, swift chops, straining for speed. They banked in a sweeping turn at the sanctuary’s edge and came round over the head of the watching man, the whistle of their speed trailing just behind them.
Dan’s head jerked round to follow them.
By the hell, they’re hiking! They’ll circle twice before they beat it.
The flock swung off the sanctuary at the second spiral and the guns reached up for them in a bay of sound that rose above the steady roar of the continuous shooting.
They’re for it. Dan drew a deep breath.
A hail of shot broke the formation and scattered the ducks like leaves in the wind. One bird, a broken wing raised above it like a sail, came down in a tight spin, its uninjured wing thrashing desperately. It struck the levee bank between the sanctuary and the open swamp with a thud. A dozen men rushed towards it yelling, ‘My bird!’
A flock of grey teal, flying in line, followed the black duck up from the water then shot out over the open swamp on their first circle. A blast from a group of shooters broke their line into two groups, the centre birds tumbling from the sky like stones.
Pelicans and swans circled in a slow climb. The pelicans beat their giant wings with slow, deliberate strokes, their heads tucked back, their heavy bills resting on curved necks. With them were cranes, herons and avocets.
Ducks rising from the water, passed through and over this lay of heavy birds, circling on a different level before shooting out over the bay to safety.
Shot, whistling upwards to the high ducks, sometimes struck the heavy birds screening those above them, and they faltered in their slow climb, became agitated, called to each other or plummeted earthwards in silence.
The protected widgeon, slower than the grey teal or black duck, circled the sanctuary in jerky, uneasy flight, swerving unnecessarily when the gunfire from the swamp suddenly sharpened. They chattered as they flew, their voices like the sound of rusty hinges, continuing even when, in sweeps over the open swamp, they fell singly and in twos to the guns of men out to kill every bird that passed.
Dan swore in a sudden anger.
Half these bastards don’t know their birds. They don’t know a widgeon from a black duck. I’ll pick them up. I’ll get them on their way out.
‘You damn fools,’ he shouted.
He watched each flock as it passed and when, against the dawn sky, he saw the wide shovel-bills, the heavy heads, the set-back wings of the widgeon as they banked and turned for the open swamp, he cupped his hand to his mouth and yelled ‘Widgeon!’ across the water to where the first line of shooters were blazing at all that went over.
Some lowered their guns at the yell, others went on shooting.
A pair of grey teal came hurtling across the open swamp, making from the sanctuary. A wave of sound followed them, its peak just beneath them as they moved. They were flying high and fast but a crack shot blasted the rear bird sideways in its flight and it began to drop. Five shots struck its falling body before it reached the water where it floated without movement.
The leader faltered in its flight when its mate was hit. Then it gathered itself and flew on till the sanctuary lay beneath it.
It came in as if to land but rose again and returned for its mate.
Dan gestured hopelessly. He’s a gonner. He’ll cop the lot. He’s finished.
When the shot struck it, it didn’t fold up and fall uncontrolled from the sky. It came down in a swift, steep glide, its body still in the position of normal flight. When it struck the ground it bounced and r
olled like a football.
The last birds to leave the water of the sanctuary were eight wood duck. They had been sheltering in some rushes, but fear drove them out and they took off in a ragged group, their wings almost touching. As they gained height a drake moved forward and took the lead. The others fell naturally into the V formation behind him.
He led them down the water of the sanctuary, their necks undulating as they put power into their climb. They circled over the far end of the reserve then came back, their speed increasing with every chop of their wings. They banked above Dan Lucey, their mottled breasts bright in the dawn light, then turned for another round.
When they again reached the limits of the sanctuary, the drake, leading them in a steep climb, banked and lost height in a short, steep dive, then flattened out and brought them back towards where Dan was standing. Dan saw the manoeuvre and was puzzled.
Hell! he came down. Must be a heavy wind on top. No. He’s building up speed. That’s the stuff! Give it all you’ve got! Into it!
The drake, as if seeking a gap of silence through which to pass, kept turning his head from side to side as he flew.
Dan suddenly saw him as a symbol. The things that he stood for and in which he believed made a continued preoccupation with the killing around him intolerable. This bird lived and was free. A strong heart beat within him and blood flowed through his veins. His survival became important to Dan. If he lived, a thousand slaughtered ducks lived on in him, if he died there was nothing but death upon the swamp.
‘Round again, round again,’ Dan muttered aloud as he watched him. ‘Bring them around again, damn you!’
But the drake had made his decision: he led them on towards the open swamp. They passed over Dan’s head at ninety feet or so, their wings whistling.
They’re for it now, he thought. There they go—the suicide squad.
He watched them, standing in a slight crouch, his hands clenched. He must make it. He must. He must. He took a deep breath and stood still.
The ducks crossed the first line of shooters into the open swamp in a perfect V. The crest of a roaring sound-wave leapt up towards them as they went over and the drake led the group in a swerve as it struck them.
Now with the light of the morning full on them, the eight wood duck were a target for every gun. Barrels like black reeds fringed the open water along which they flew, reeds that exploded then jerked down in recoil.
Dan, watching the birds, stood in a crouching attitude as if he were facing enemies.
One gone!
The duck to the left, and just behind the drake, changed from something firm and hard and full of power to a soft and shapeless bundle of feathers that fell without resistance towards the water.
Dan was up there with them now. He swung and lifted to their wings. He made each downward plunge to earth.
The V closed up and the gap was filled. The drake led the remaining six in quick swerves and dives. Every turn and twist he made, each violent, evasive movement was followed by the six ducks behind him.
Their every action was born of his, they had no mind but his.
The whisper of shot drove him to more desperate turns and his followers repeated them. But, in the centre of the swamp, one of the rear ducks suddenly lost height. It fluttered, fell, then flew again. It followed the V at a lower height for a few yards then its wings went limp and it fell loosely to the water.
‘My bird!’ cried splashing men holding guns aloft.
A third bird was plucked from the formation before they reached the last line of shooters beyond which was safety.
The drake, leading his four companions across this last barrier where the shooters were side by side, suddenly banked steeply as shot whistled past them. He flew a moment in indecision then, as another duck fell, he brought the remnant of his flock round and made down the swamp once more.
Dan, watching him through his field glasses, cursed softly.
A shout rose from the shooters as the ducks turned. Again the wave of sound moved beneath the birds.
The drake dropped all evasive tactics now. He was dazed with noise.
He flew straight ahead with the remaining three birds in line behind him.
He led them down in a shallow dive to increase their speed but rose steeply as two of his companions fell together, a puff of feathers left floating behind them.
There was only one duck following him now. With a quick chop of her wings she closed up, moving a little to one side till her head was level with his body. But she began to flag and he drew away from her.
The shot that hit her threw her violently upwards and she turned over on her back before crashing at the feet of the shooters on the levee.
The drake was alone now. He swept out over the sanctuary to a last burst of sound then turned and made out over the bay.
To the man this speeding bird, like some winged vessel, bore in its seed the life wrenched from a thousand slaughtered ducks upon the swamp. He felt the lift of victory, the faith, the elation. As, against bright clouds the drake rose to an upward swing of air, twinkled and was gone, he flung his arms up in an acclaiming gesture, then turned and faced the shooters on the levee.
‘My bird!’ he yelled. ‘My bird, damn you! My bird!’
See the White Feathers Fall
I met him on Badu, an island in Torres Strait. He was an old man with a young smile. Frizzy grey hair sat on his black head like a cap. The dark skin of his face threw into prominence the white bristle of his beard.
He had been born on Badu, he said.
‘No white man then?’ I questioned.
‘No white man then,’ he replied.
‘Tell me a story of the old days,’ I said. ‘I’ll write it down. Tell me about your people before the white man came. What stories did your mother tell you when you were little?’
‘Stories!’ He stood in thought. I sat down beneath a palm-tree and he sat beside me. ‘I know big lot of stories,’ he said. ‘I tell you one.’
I took out my note book and prepared to write down what he said. He watched me, interested, leaning forward a little.
‘Will I start now?’
‘Yes, start now.’
He looked carefully at the page on which I was going to write, and said: ‘Take new page for me, eh?’ I turned over to a new page.
‘Will I start now?’
‘Yes, I’m ready.’
He drew a deep breath. He raised his head and sat erect. He imbued the moment with importance and significance and, in keeping with these qualities, he assumed an attitude of dignity. He didn’t look at me as he spoke, but away beyond me, as if he were looking back into the past. When he paused to allow me to catch up with what he said, he looked anxiously at my hand moving over the paper as if afraid that it might falter, that it might not catch the full flavour of his words.
‘In olden day, long, long time ago,’ he began, ‘there is little island called Tutu. Tutu, Eastern Island and one man he want to make war ’gainst Badu. The other day this was—long, long time ago. And this man in Tutu, his name Kaigus and he number one man, he leader of fight, he leader of Tutu.
‘He say, “I am gonna kill leader of Badu,” and his people they say, “Right.”
‘And all canoes they leave Tutu to come over. And they are many.
‘This the time they fight. Like now. Like near Christmas. Like this.
‘When they been left they land at point over there. Where they been land on Badu, called Mazar, and they are all many and they come to Mazar.
‘They march across Badu and it is to Alligator Passage. It grows dark. It gets then twilight and they go in the dark now. Now the story is in the dark. They like to see where villages are but they no see.
‘They are big mob and they are in the dark.
‘Now leader of Badu, he name Wyeer. Now, Wyeer’s son, he talk with girl in swamp. She his girl and he sit with her in swamp. Not long ago he hear whispers talk their language. Not long ago he hear men march.
‘“Who’s coming?” he say to girl. “Someone here. Crowd come along.”
‘He say, “This not our men.” And he send the girl home and she goes.
‘So he go among them. They think he one of them. He Wyeer’s son and he like to get proof, tell his father.
‘Then he leave them and go to his father. His father asleep. All his fighting gear make his pillow. The pillow is the stone axe and the spear and his father sleeps. And he shake his father and he say, “Father, I meet big crowd. They people from Tutu. Come war. Come killing.”
‘And his father is awake, and his father tell his son: “Hullo! Come and show me. We go together.”
‘His son go with him and when they get there his father say, “Where these people?” and Wyeer’s son he say, “Can’t you see, father? See that figure, black against the grass. See the head dress, white bird feather that is not the night. See the waving of the white.”
‘And his father, he say, “This not white dress feather; this white cloud going through the trees.”
‘And Wyeer’s son, he say, “It is the head dress of the many.”
‘Then Wyeer took his spear and his spear was on the ready, and he say to his son, “I am going to kill their leader,” and he tell his son, “You go home, my son,” and his son went, and he alone.
‘And Kaigus was stand near the koepas-tree. He like to hide himself but he can’t. And Wyeer cry out and throw his long spear, and Kaigus turn and it goes through the river of his back and the blood and the water come out s-s-s-s-s-s and he falls and dies on the ground.
‘And the men of Tutu they see the white feathers fall and they cry out, “Kaigus! Are you still alive, Kaigus? Talk, Kaigus.”
‘But Kaigus no speak no more.
‘And they say together, “Someone throw spear.” And they say, “Our leader gone. I think we belong dead, every one. Badu, good fighting men. Now we belong dead.”
‘And they talk shaking-soft, then loud, then more loud, and they are brave again.
‘They say, “Kaigus dead, but we alive. We men of Tutu.”
The Complete Stories of Alan Marshall Page 20