Flight of the Grey Goose Read online

  There was a touch on his shoulder from behind. He turned to find the girl holding a sweet bag to him. He dipped in a hand, took one, and gave her a nod of his head in thanks. It was a peppermint and he sat sucking it happily. She was a nice girl, and he liked her. Crikeys, too, she was strong. She’d gripped his fingers as though she were going to break them off. A farmer’s daughter, that was why. Probably helped her father about the place. Hard work. Work – that was what he had to find. He wondered if later he should ask her about a job with her father. But soon after he had finished the peppermint he forgot about work. Suddenly his stomach had turned a little queasy and he wondered if the movement of the boat was making him feel funny … seasick, maybe. Indignantly he told himself, ‘Don’t be daft, Samuel M. How can you be seasick with your father a seaman, and this not the sea even?’ But there was no doubt about it that he was feeling a little odd.

  To take his mind off it, he kept his eyes fixed firmly ahead. They had now turned into that part of the loch which Smiler had not been able to see from the beach. As they moved up this arm of the loch, Laura kept the boat closer to the south shore to get more protection from the wind. Smiler could see a long way ahead a big island in the centre of the loch and a little way beyond it three smaller islands. From the big island the others all seemed to go down in size so that the last one was no more than a large stump of rock sticking out of the water.

  Approaching the biggest island Smiler saw that it was faced with small cliffs on top of which grew stands of pine and other trees. Over these he could just glimpse the light of the sun touching grey slate roofs of what looked like towers of some kind. As they moved farther away from the south shore and out towards the island Smiler lost sight of the roofs. A handful of terns came hovering over them, some of them diving into the water to take small fish. Seeing them, Bacon stood up and barked. The noise made the greylag struggle a little in Smiler’s arm, but he held the bird firmly and tried not to take any notice of the funny feeling in his head and stomach. Even if he were a little seasick he wasn’t going to show it in front of a girl.

  Behind him Laura, her face wet with water, her grey jersey spangled with it, put over the tiller and ran the boat closer to the craggy shore of the island. She motored the length of the island and then rounded its far end to give Smiler a view that he would never forget.

  They swept round a small cliff and before them was a wide bay biting into the island, finishing in a semi-circular sweep of sand and pebble beach. From the beach the ground ran back in a flat meadowland of grass, then rose steeply through a scrub of juniper and yellow blooming bushes of whin to a small wood of silver birch and rowan trees behind which rose the bulwark of a tall wall made out of great stone slabs. Above the wall, like an illustration from some fairy tale, stood a castle. Smiler’s eyes widened at the sight. It had round towers at each corner and a larger central one and they were all capped with conical, grey-slated roofs. Some of the windows were no more than slits in the walls, others were large and three-pointed, like church windows, and the higher ones had stone balconies. From one of the towers a flag was flying, a flag with a blue ground and a white saltire cross, the flag of St Andrew. From one corner of the castle a long flight of steps zigzagged its way down and finished in a small stone jetty that reached out into the waters of the bay.

  Behind Smiler, Laura cut the motor. As the boat headed silently to the jetty steps she said, ‘ There’s the flag flying. The Laird always flies it for me when I come up. And there’s himself, too, waiting on the jetty. Now don’t you move until I’m alongside and she’s fastened properly. We don’t want to lose poor old Laggy now we’ve got him.’

  Smiler hardly heard what she said. Turning into the bay the force of the wind and waves had been cut and they moved across calm water. He stared at the castle as though he were seeing something in a dream, some place of legend. And oddly, he felt that he might be dreaming for his head seemed as though it had floated a little way free of his shoulders and his body felt as though at any moment it would float up and try to rejoin his head. ‘Samuel M.,’ he told himself stoutly, ‘take a grip. You’re still, maybe, a bit churned up with that chill you got in the drainpipe, or maybe it is seasickness. But whatever it is, you aren’t going to show it in front of strangers. Particularly not if it is seasickness. What would your old man think?’

  As he lectured himself, the boat drifted into the jetty. Laura held on to the rail of the bottom step, steadied the craft, and then jumped out with the stern painter and made it fast. Then she ran nimbly to the bows and grabbed the bow rope and made that fast. As she did so Smiler stared wide-eyed at the man who waited to greet them on the jetty steps.

  Now, he told himself, he knew he was dreaming, knew that it wasn’t just light-headedness or seasickness, but that he must be in some crazy world of fairies and magic.

  The man at the top of the steps was old and he was very tall and had long spindly arms and legs. He had a crop of loose white hair and a crop of even looser white beard. Above a kilt with a silver mounted sporran he wore a small, tight, green tweed jacket. On his legs were pinky grey woollen stockings with tartan tabs at the side. Down the right stocking a skean-dhu had been thrust, its handle just showing and glinting in the sunlight. Under his jacket he wore a tight black-woollen sweater with a rolled collar close up under his beard. But the really astonishing thing about him was that he was covered with animals.

  Smiler couldn’t believe his eyes! On his right shoulder was a jackdaw. On his left shoulder sat a small brown owl. From one of his jacket pockets poked the head of a red squirrel and two white and brown piebald mice sat in the open gape of the other pocket. A small yellowy-brown bird, which looked to Smiler like a yellow-hammer but wasn’t, sat on top of the silver mount of the sporran. And while Smiler watched, mouth open, there was a clap of lazy wings from the air above and a white fantail dove made a landing on the same shoulder with the jackdaw.

  Laura glanced at Smiler and grinned at his surprise. Then she said, ‘ We’ll have to put a lead on your dog until he learns manners. Stay there till I explain things to the Laird.’

  She turned and ran up the steps to the man who gave her a shout of welcome, ‘Laura, my bonnie lass!’ and clapped his arms around her so that all the birds on him went up in the air in a flurry of wings and the mice and squirrel disappeared into his pockets.

  Laura said something to him which Smiler couldn’t hear. Then she turned and came down and reached out for the greylag, saying, ‘Come and meet the Laird. You got a lead for the dog?’

  Smiler nodded, fished in his pocket for Bacon’s twine lead, and slipped it through his collar. He and Bacon stepped ashore and followed Laura up the steps.

  The Laird watched him come, blue eyes twinkling under white eyebrows in the sun-and-weather-beaten face.

  When Smiler reached the top step the Laird said – and for such a thin and spindly man his voice was surprisingly robust – ‘Well now, what has the girl brought this time? Always some lame duck – and very pleased I am to see old Laggy. We’ve wanted him for a long time. And – bless my sporran – a boy and a dog. A combination as old as time. And what do they call you, laddie?’

  Overawed, and still feeling very seasick, Smiler said nervously, ‘Please, sir … my name’s Samuel Miles and … and this is my dog. He’s called Bacon. Bacon because –’

  But Smiler never got round to explaining why Bacon was called Bacon. At that moment everything about him began to spin as though on a merry-go-round. The Laird, Laura, the birds and animals, and then the tall pines, the steps and the high towers of the castle, swooped round and round in a mad, giddy whirl until, with a little sigh of protest, Smiler closed his eyes against it all and collapsed gently at the Laird’s feet and knew no more.

  4. The Laird Defers a Decision

  When Smiler woke the next morning it was to find himself in a strange bed in a strange room. It was a big fourposter bed with a red velvet canopy from the edges of which hung little gold tassels.
The wooden posts at each corner of the bed had been carved with birds, beasts and flowers, with here and there the gnomish faces of merry little men and women peeping out from behind a flower or a bird. Smiler was lost in the bed. It was wide enough to hold four people with ease, and took up most of the space in the room, which was not a big one. In the wall across from the foot of the bed was a tall window, pointed at the top. The sun came streaming into the room to show up a badly worn carpet and two or three pieces of heavy oak furniture. Away to the right of the bed was a narrow wooden door, its hinges and fastenings made out of wrought iron.

  Smiler lay there trying to sort out where he was and what had happened. Slowly the events of the previous day came back to him. He knew that he must have been still suffering from the chill he had caught and the sickness which had been with him during the railway truck ride. He was a bit fed up with himself for passing out at the feet of the Laird the moment he had met him. That was a pretty bad start, he thought. And in front of Laura Mackay, too. Samuel M., he told himself aloud, they’ll think you’re a real sissy.

  He pulled himself up in the bed and it was then that he discovered that he was wearing pyjamas. They had red and white stripes and were miles too big for him. Somebody had folded the sleeve cuffs back to make them more comfortable, but underneath the bed clothes he could feel that his feet were trapped and tangled in the long length of the trousers. As he was struggling to get some freedom for his feet, the door opened and the Laird came in.

  He was dressed exactly as he had been the previous day, but the wild population which inhabited his clothes and body had changed. There was a jay sitting on his right shoulder and a brown bantam hen on the other. The head of a black and white kitten peeped from one pocket. The flap of the other pocket was closed but Smiler could see the outside bulge and move as something stirred about within.

  The Laird came up to the bed, gave him a beaming smile and said, ‘Well now, how’s the invalid this morning?’

  Smiler said, ‘I’m all right, thank you, sir. But I’m not really an invalid.’

  ‘Of course not, laddie. Just a touch of the over-doing-its. We gave you a glass of hot milk with a drop of malt in it and you curled up in bed like a dormouse in a nest.’

  ‘Malt, sir?’ If there was one thing Smiler hated it was the cod-liver oil and malt which his Sister Ethel – who was old fashioned in her remedies – sometimes forced on him.

  ‘Ay, malt, laddie. Whisky – the first medicine any true Scot turns to.’

  Smiler’s eyes widened. ‘You mean I had whisky, sir?’

  ‘Aye. Just a dram to drive out the shakes.’

  ‘Gosh …!’ said Smiler. ‘That’s what my father drinks sometimes.’

  ‘Then he’s a wise man. Now what do you feel like doing? A few more hours there or get up?’.

  ‘I’d like to get up … Oh, what about Bacon? I mean, sir, I hope he’s been behavin’ himself.’

  ‘No trouble. All animals have natural good manners. Leave ’em alone for a bit and they soon work things out for themselves. He’s settling down nicely. Right then, you stay there until Laura’s brought your breakfast and then you can get up. After that we’ll go into a thing or two. The present is a fine and glorious thing but one must always keep a weather-eye on the future.’ For a moment he gave Smiler a quizzical look, his face growing serious, and then he suddenly winked and turned towards the door.

  Smiler, who never had any trouble deciding very quickly whether he liked people or not, knew that he liked this tall, gaunt man. He said, ‘Please, sir, what’s in that other pocket? Not the kitten one.’

  The Laird turned at the door. ‘Ye’ve a quick eye. That’s Meggie.’ He put his hand into the pocket and pulled out a long length of grass snake, the animal’s sleek body twisting and coiling around his hand and wrist, the blunt head weaving so that Smiler could see its white markings.

  ‘Blimey!’ said Smiler, delighted. ‘She’s super, isn’t she?’

  ‘Aye, laddie, she’s beautiful. I can see you know more than a little about animals.’

  ‘I like them, sir. You can always get on with ’em – if you takes your time and don’t rush ’em.’

  ‘No truer thing was ever said.’ The Laird put the grass snake back in his pocket, gave Smiler another wink and then was gone.

  Smiler lay there, feeling his old self again, and thinking what a nice man the Laird was. Any man had to be nice that animals trusted like that. When he’d been in Wiltshire, before going on the run again, he had learnt that, and he’d learnt about animals too1 They were all nice, really. It was just that you had to learn to handle them properly.

  A little later Laura came in with his breakfast tray. Smiler did full justice to the meal. He had coffee, and porridge with cream and brown sugar on it. Then came three boiled eggs with freshly baked bread and salty, tangy butter. After that he had the same bread spread with strawberry jam – but it was a different kind of strawberry jam from any Smiler had had before. Laura, sitting on the end of the bed and watching him eat, explained that it was made from the wild strawberries that grew in the meadow and banksides below the castle.

  She was dressed as Smiler had seen her yesterday and she chatted to him as though she had known him for years. She was, Smiler soon realized, a real old chatterbox. All you had to do was to ask a question and she was away. Smiler soon knew a lot about her and about the Laird and the castle.

  He learned that the Laird’s real name was Sir Alec Elphinstone. He owned the loch and this castle, and acres and acres of the wild mountainsides around the loch. But none of the land brought him much money. A great deal of the land was let out to tenant farmers and the rents were very low. He also let the salmon and sea-trout fishing at the lower end of the loch, but, the part from where she had picked up Smiler, and right up to the far end beyond the castle, was never let because the whole of that area was kept as a wild life sanctuary. The Laird had been a surgeon in Edinburgh but had retired ten years ago when his wife had died. He had one son who was a Captain in the Royal Navy. On the island he kept all sorts of animals which had been injured and which he treated until they were well enough to go off and look after themselves.

  ‘But the trouble is,’ said Laura, ‘lots of them don’t go off. They get to like it here and just stay on. I come up once every week or so to bring him his post and supplies and usually stay a night and tidy things up. And it needs it. He’s the most scattersome man I ever saw. I bring the animals up to him. The people around bring them into the farm. He doesn’t like people up here. Not that he doesn’t like folks. He’s aye one for a ceilidh now and then –’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A ceilidh. That’s a party. Singing and dancing and – for some of them – a drop too much of the whisky. Like some of my brothers I could name.’

  And name them she did. She was the last child of five – all the rest boys. One of them worked on the farm with her father, one was a deckhand on a fishing trawler, and the other two were married, one a schoolteacher in Inverness and the other a sergeant in the Glasgow police force. (Smiler hoped that this brother would never come to hear about him!) She, herself, helped her mother in the house and also did some farm work. It was she who had baked the fresh bread that Smiler was eating. She always made a batch of loaves for the Laird when she came up.

  Exhausting for the moment the subjects of the Laird, the castle and her family, she drew a quick breath, pushed the long brown hair back out of her eyes, and said, ‘And now what about you, Samuel Miles from England? What are you doing in Scotland? If it’s no a rude question?’

  For a moment Smiler was stumped. Then he said casually, ‘Oh, I’m kind of travelling. Seeing things until … well, until it’s time to meet my father.’

  ‘What, all on your own? Just with a dog?’

  ‘Why not? I can look after myself. I’m going to get a job, too. Maybe on a farm.’

  Laura laughed. ‘A lot of good you’d be if you go fainting all over the place.’


  ‘I didn’t faint I just … well, I’d just overdone it a bit. The Laird said so.’

  ‘Aye. He’d say anything that suited him. I’ll warn you – he’s got his eye on you. But maybe if it’s a job you’re after you won’t mind.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You bide your time and see. But he lost Willy McAufee last week. Took off for a job in some factory in Fort William.’ She stood up. ‘Well, I can’t sit here and listen to you chat all day. I’ve a few things more to do then I’m off back to the farm. The bathroom’s just down the stairs outside and you’ll find all your clothes there.’ She took the tray and gave him a cool, half-smiling look. ‘And just when and where are you meeting this father of yours?’

  Smiler, after a moment’s hesitation, said, “He’s a cook on a cargo ship. I’m going to meet him at Greenock … fairly soon.’

  ‘And you’ve no mother or other family?’

  Smiler, who was getting her measure, said with a grin, ‘I thought you had more things to do than listen to me chat.’

  Laura grinned too. ‘In other words, mind me own business. And why not, too? If there’s one kind of body I can’t bide it’s the chattery, nosy-parker sort.’ She went to the door with the tray and called over her shoulder as she went out, ‘Bye. I’ll be up next week some time so I may see you – if you haven’t taken off for Greenock.’