Behind him his dog, an old black Labrador, picked its way, whining in a little undertone to itself when the way was very dirty.
A great blast came, halting him in mid-stride; he staggered and stepped back to keep his balance. The dog’s paw came under his heel and there was a yelp, but he heard nothing of it for the roaring of the wind. He leaned against it, and it bore him up with a living resilience, suddenly slackening, so that he stumbled again. The false step jerked a grunt out of him.
Thrusting his chin down into the scarf under his high-buttoned collar and shifting the weight of his gun, the man pushed on. All his mind was taken up with his fight; every long, firm step was a victory in little. The hardness of his way and the unceasing clamour at his ears had taken away every other thought. He was hardly aware of the places where the driven wet had pierced through, above his knees, down one side of his neck, and on his shoulder where the strap of his cartridge bag crossed over. Earlier on he had been irked by the weight of the bag and by the drag of the gun in the crook of his arm, but now he did not heed them at all; the wind was the single, embracing enemy.
At last the sea-wall turned right-handed, running along the south face of the saltings. At the corner he stooped and slid on all fours down the steep side into the lee. At once it seemed to him that some enormous machine had stopped; in the quiet air he breathed freely, and sighed as he squatted in the mud. The Labrador shook itself and thrust its muzzle into his relaxed hand. Absently the man felt for its ears, but the dog was insistent; the custom must be fulfilled. When he had changed the hang of the strap on his aching shoulder the man searched under his macintosh among the scarves and pullovers for an inner pocket; he found half a biscuit and his pipe. The flare of the match in his cupped hands showed his face momentarily, in flashes, as he sucked the flame down; it showed disembodied in the darkness, high cheekbones and jutting nose thrown into distorted prominence. The foul pipe bubbled, but the acrid tobacco was instantly satisfying; he drew and inhaled deeply for a few moments.
‘Well, that’s the first leg,’ he said to the dog as he got up. He went on under the lee of the sea-wall, walking heavily in the deep, uneven mud. Further on there was a place where he had to leave the wall to strike across the marsh for a stretch of open fresh water: there was only one path that led to the mere. At this time of the year the marsh was impassable except by this track, for the land-water had deepened the mud so that a man could sink out of sight in it almost before he knew he was in danger.
Anxiously he counted the time that he had taken walking along the southern wall; if he missed the path he would not get across the marsh for the dawn flighting. He crossed an old, broken sea-wall that joined the other, and he knew that he was near the path. When he climbed to the top of the wall to look for the three posts that would give him his bearings he felt an abatement in the wind: it blew less furiously, but it was colder now – certainly freezing. A flurry of sleet stung his cheek. The wind was veering to the north-north-east. He found the posts and the track; he was glad, for it was easy to miss in the dark, when all that could be seen looked strange, even monstrous.
The dog went before him now, finding out the tortuous way: sometimes a single bending plank led through the deep reed-beds, loud in the wind: treading on the planks stirred the marsh smell. Once there was a rush of wings, and desolate voices fled away piping in the darkness. They were redshanks or some kind of tukes – inedible, and his half-raised gun sank.
Now the wind was at his back; it was blowing itself out in great gusts. A thin film of ice was skimming the top of the puddles, and a more querulous note sang through the reeds. He looked over his shoulder, scanning the eastern sky for the first cold light: there seemed to be a lessening in the darkness, nothing more. He pushed on faster: the way was a little easier now.
Presently large dim shapes came up out of the blind murk before him; they were the trees surrounding the mere. He stopped to take his bearings again, and then he went on cautiously. The ground rose a little; there were brambles and patches of alder, laced through and through with rabbit tracks. Ahead a buck-rabbit thrummed the earth, and three white scuts bobbed away. Very carefully the man came through the undergrowth among the trees: a flick of his thumb and finger brought his dog in to heel. There might well be duck down on the water. Choosing his steps and crouching low in the bushes and then in the reeds, the man slipped down the bank, down the sheltered way, and crept secretly into the butt of cut reeds at the pond’s edge.
After a little listening pause he stood slowly up, holding his breath and staring with wide-opened eyes through the shoulder-high reeds. Still a little bent, he peered intently over the water. There were no duck; only a little grebe swam and dived unwitting on the mere. He slowly relaxed, and sat down on the rough, unsteady plank stool in the butt.
He stretched and shook himself, for he was still desperately tired from getting up at two o’clock in the morning, and his eyes prickled. He looked to his gun, wiped a clot of mud from its barrels, and propped it carefully in the corner of the butt by his cartridge bag; he was warm now in the shelter of the reeds, and he settled himself comfortably to wait for the dawn flight of the wild duck.
Now that he was in the butt, time seemed to begin again: for the whole of the way out across the marsh it had stopped. He had been trying to race the dawn – quite another thing. By and by he pulled out a packet of bread and cheese, with an apple against thirst, for the marsh water was sulphurous and brackish. He ate bite for bite with the dog, but absently, with his senses on the stretch.
By imperceptible degrees the sky lightened, so that when he looked again he could see halfway across the water. The lake had formerly been a decoy: the hoops for the duck-pipes still showed in the overgrown channels, and a cottage, half-sunk and unroofed, marked where the wild-fowlers had kept their gear.
He was unready, for all his vigilance, when the first duck passed over: one hand was scrabbling in his pouch, the other holding his pipe. With his unlighted pipe in his mouth and his gun in his hands, he listened again: the sound was high above, a sound hard to convey. There was a creaking in it, and a whistling. His ears followed the sound, and the dog stared up into the dim quarter-light. The noise circled round the mere twice, coming lower. Mallard they were, by the sound, and they were coming down. The butt stood on a spit of land with the length of the pond lying out on each side, so that the duck would come in across. He stood with his back to the wind, jiggling his forehand nervously and biting hard on the stem of his pipe. Down, and up again: he caught a glimpse of them, five mallard. They came round lower, the flight-note changed and they braced hard against the wind to land. Up went the gun and his fingers poised delicately round the triggers. The sound of wings rushed closer: he saw the duck, picked the right-hand bird, steadied, and fired, swinging his second barrel into them as they crossed so quickly that the two tongues of flame stabbed the darkness almost at the same moment. There was a splash in front of him, then a threshing in the water. His hands, working of themselves, broke the gun and thrust new cartridges into the smoking breech. He stared up, waiting for the duck to circle overhead, but they swung wide out of range, and he heard them go. The Labrador stood rigid, ears pointing: Fetch, he said, and the dog flung itself into the water. It was back in a minute with the mallard held gently at the shoulder. Stooping, he let the dog put it into his hand, and as he straightened a disturbed sheldrake passed over, gruntling as it flew. It circled the mere twice and came down with a long splash: he had caught a glimpse of the breadth of its wings and had heard its small noise, for the wind was dying now, and he was nearly sure that it was a sheldrake. The bird swam close to the butt, safe in its uneatable rankness, so close that he could see the nob on its beak: he was glad to see it, for it would bring the other duck down.
He lit his pipe, crouching in the bottom of the butt, with his head on one side for the sound of wings. Presently they came, a flight of mallard, and above them, close behind, half a dozen sharp-winged widgeon. The mallard came straight down, sweeping right across in front of the butt with their wings held against the wind and their bodies almost upright; they tore up the water, each making a distinct tearing sound, and settled at the far end of the decoy. At once they changed from things
