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 of the wind to earth-bound, quacking ducks, awkward and lumpish in the water. The widgeon, more wary, went round high and fast: they seemed to suspect something, but the duck on the water reassured them, and they dropped down, slipping sideways down through the air on stiff, decurved wings, on the one slant and then on the other, like aeroplanes that have come in too high.
They came straight at the butt, as if to skim over it and land the other side. As he brought his gun up for the difficult shot they saw him and lifted: he fired at once. The first barrel jerked the bird a yard higher and clipped feathers from its wing; the second missed altogether. With a loud and rushing noise, the mallard got up. He stared impassively after the flying widgeon, not allowing himself any emotion, for he was a choleric man, and if he let himself start to kick and swear he might carry on and spoil his whole morning with rage, as he had done before.
Automatically he re-loaded, sniffing the sharp, sweet powder smell: the mallard wheeled back over the pond. He took a chance shot at the lowest and winged it. It came down in a long slope into the brushwood on the other side of the decoy. The dog went after it, but could not reach it, for the bird was in a tall, dense thicket of brambles. The dog came back after a long time and stood bowing in deprecation: the air was quite still now, and the mallard could be heard moving over on the other side. He cast a look round the low bowl of the sky, now almost white, and saw no birds: he walked quickly round the mere, for he hated to leave a wounded bird for any length of time. The brambles ripped through to his flesh, but he got the duck and gripped it by the neck. A strong pull, and the bird jerked convulsively and died.
He looked up: three widgeon were coming over, high and fast, with their pointed wings sounding clear. He flung himself on his back in the rushes. They were right over his head as he raised his gun: the movement was plain, in spite of the rushes, and they lifted high. It was too long a shot, but he fired his choke barrel at the middle bird, making great allowance ahead. The bird seemed to fold, to collapse in the air: it fell like a plummet and hit the ground a yard from his feet so hard that he felt it strike. He stared at the duck with an unconscious grin of pleasure; for it was a wonderfully long shot. He picked it up and smoothed its beautiful ruffled breast with his finger. With a sudden, unforeseen leap, the widgeon came back to life; it almost sprang from his loose hands. He killed it and went back to the butt.
It was a bird worthy of a good shot; a fine drake it was, nearly as big as the mallard in the corner. He smoothed its yellow crest: its