There was something magical about the time and space commanded by Merlyn, for the Wart seemed to be passing many days and nights among the grey people, during the one spring night when he had left his body asleep under the bearskin.
He grew to be fond of Lyó-lyok, in spite of her being a girl. He was always asking her questions about the geese. She taught him what she knew with gentle kindness, and the more he learned, the more he came to love her brave, noble, quiet and intelligent relations. She told him how every White-front was an individual – not governed by laws or leaders, except when they came about spontaneously. They had no kings like Uther, no laws like the bitter Norman ones. They did not own things in common. Any goose who found something nice to eat considered it his own and would peck any other one who tried to thieve it. At the same time, no goose claimed any exclusive territorial right in any part of the world – except its nest, and that was private property. She told him a great deal about migration.
‘The first goose,’ she said, ‘I suppose, who made the flight from Siberia to Lincolnshire and back again must have brought up a family in Siberia. Then, when the winter came and it was necessary to find food, he must have groped his way over the same route, being the only one who knew it. He will have been followed by his growing family, year after year, their pilot and their admiral. When the time came for him to die, obviously the next best pilots would have been his eldest sons, who would have covered the route more often than the others. Naturally the younger sons and fledgelings would have been uncertain about it, and therefore would have been glad to follow somebody who knew. Perhaps, among the eldest sons, there would have been some who were famous for being muddle-headed, and the family would hardly care to trust to them.
‘This,’ she said, ‘is how an admiral is elected. Perhaps Wink-wink will come to our family in the autumn, and he will say: “Excuse me, but have you by any chance got a reliable pilot in your lot? Poor old grand-dad died at cloud-berry time, and Uncle Onk is inefficient. We were looking for somebody to follow.” Then we will say: “Great-uncle will be delighted if you care to hitch up with us; but mind, we cannot take responsibility if things go wrong.” “Thank you very much,” he will say. “I am sure your great-uncle can be relied on. Do you mind if I mention this matter to the Honks, who are, I happen to know, in the same difficulty?” “Not at all.”
‘And that,’ she explained, ‘is how Great-uncle became an admiral.’
‘It is a good way.’
‘Look at his bars,’ she said respectfully, and they both glanced at the portly patriarch, whose breast was indeed barred with black stripes, like the gold rings on an admiral’s sleeve.
There was a growing excitement among the host. The young geese flirted outrageously, or collected in parties to discuss their pilots. They played games, too, like children excited at the prospect of a party. One of these games was to stand in a circle, while the junior ganders, one after another, walked into the middle of it with their heads stretched out, pretending to hiss. When they were half-way across the circle they would run the last part, flapping their wings. This was to show how brave they were, and what excellent admirals they would make, when they grew up. Also the strange habit of shaking their bills sideways, which was usual before flight, began to grow upon them. The elders and sages, who knew the migration routes, became uneasy also. They kept a wise eye on the cloud formations, summing up the wind, and the strength of it, and what part it was coming from. The admirals, heavy with responsibility, paced their quarter-decks with ponderous tread.
‘Why am I restless?’ he asked. ‘Why do I have this feeling in my blood?’
‘Wait and see,’ she said mysteriously. ‘Tomorrow, perhaps, or the day after …’
When the day came, there was a difference about the salt marsh and the slob. The ant-like man, who had walked out so patiently every sunrise to his long nets, with the tides fixed firmly in his head – because to make a mistake in them was certain death – heard a far bugle in the sky. He saw no thousands on the mud-flats, and there were none in the pastures from which he had come. He was a nice man in his way – for he stood still solemnly, and took off his leather hat. He did this every spring religiously, when the wild geese left him, and every autumn, when he saw the first returning gaggle.
In a steamer it takes two or three days to cross the North Sea – so many hours of slobbering through the viscous water. But for the geese, for the sailors of the air, for the angled wedges tearing clouds to tatters, for the singers of the sky with the gale behind them – seventy miles an hour behind another seventy – for those mysterious geographers – three miles up, they say – with cumulus for their floor instead of water – for them it was a different matter.
The songs they sang were full of it. Some were vulgar, some were sagas, some were light-hearted to a degree. One silly one which amused the Wart was as follows:
We wander the sky with many a Cronk
And land in the pasture fields with a Plonk.
Hank-hank, Hink-hink, Honk-honk.
Then we bend our necks with a curious kink
Like the bend which the plumher puts under the sink.
Honk-honk, Hank-hank, Hink-hink.
And we feed away in a sociable rank
Tearing the grass with a sideways yank.
Hink-hink, Honk-honk, Hank-hank.
But Hink or Honk we relish the Plonk,
And Honk or Hank we relish the Rank,
And Hank or Hink we think it a jink
To Honk or Hank or Hink!
A sentimental one was:
Wild and free, wild and free,
Bring back my gander to me, to me.
And once, while they were passing over a rocky island populated by barnacle geese, who looked like spinsters in black leather gloves, grey toques and jet beads, the entire squadron burst out derisively with:
Branta bernicla sits a-slumming in the slob,
Branta bernicla sits a-slumming in the slob,
Branta bernicla sits a-slumming in the slob,
While we go sauntering along.
Glory, glory, here we go, dear.
Glory, glory, here we go, dear.
Glory, glory, here we go, dear.
To the North Pole sauntering along.
One of the more Scandinavian songs was called ‘The Boon of Life’:
Ky-yow replied: The boon of life is health.
Paddle-foot, Feather-straight, Supple-neck, Button-eye:
These have the world’s wealth.
Aged Ank answered: Honour is our all.
Path-finder, People-feeder, Plan-provider, Sage-commander:
These hear the call.
Lyó-lyok the lightsome said: Love I had liefer.
Douce-down, Tender-tread, Warm-nest and Walk-in-line:
These live for ever.
Aahng was for Appetite. Ah, he said, Eating!
Gander-gobble, Tear-grass, Stubble-stalk, Stuff-crop:
These take some beating.
Wink-wink