Flight of the Grey Goose Read online

  Smiler found the bathroom and his clothes. The bath itself was ancient and rust-marked and big enough for a porpoise to swim in comfortably. Over the bath was a shower head and Smiler took a cold shower. The water was so cold that it made him gasp, but afterwards the whole of his body glowed and he felt a different person.

  Back in his room, dressing, he smiled to himself at the thought of Laura’s curiosity. She was as bad as his Sister Ethel. Looking out of the window he realized that his room was in one of the round towers. It had a view down over the castle wall to the beach and the small jetty. As he stood there, he saw Laura with the Laird at her side go down to the small boat. Bacon he saw was trotting happily at the Laird’s heels.

  For a moment or two the Laird and Laura chatted as she stood in the boat preparing to start the outboard motor. Smiler would have been interested if he could have heard the Laird speaking.

  He said to the girl, ‘Thank you, Laura, my lass. Give my regards to your mother and father – and I’ll see you next week some time.’

  ‘I’ll be up, Laird.’

  ‘Oh, and Laura –’ the Laird put his foot on the bow of the boat ready to ease it off – ‘there’s just one wee favour you can do me. Until you come up again it would be a kindness to me and mostly perhaps to him, if you said nothing about the boy being up here. Would you do that?’

  Laura smiled and nodded. ‘Of course, Laird. You think he’s in trouble?’

  The Laird chuckled. ‘There’s not a boy alive in the world who isn’t in trouble of some kind. It’s the nature of the animal.’ He pushed the bows out and stood and watched as Laura started the motor. The boat swung in a half circle and headed out of the bay and Laura gave a wave of a hand as she went.

  From his, window Smiler watched her go. To his delight he saw two fantails swoop down from the castle roof and circle round the boat until it reached the craggy point at the end of the bay. Then they came flying back and settled on the ground at the Laird’s feet where Bacon took no notice of them at all.

  It was some time before Smiler could find his way down from the tower to the main hallway of Elphinstone castle. The top part of the building was a maze of narrow, twisting stairways and stone-slabbed passages with here and there a lance-pointed window to light the way. Finally he came out on to a top landing, floored with great oak planks and lit by a big four-paned mullion window. On the walls were time-darkened oil paintings of men and women. Most of the women wore great sweeping dresses, their powdered hair piled high, and some of them had children leaning against their knees and greyhounds lying at their feet. The men – who mostly looked like the Laird – were young, and old and a few of them wore tam o’shanters and kilts and carried bucklers and claymores. The bright sunlight through the window showed a fine layer of dust on the oak planks and the balustrades of the great wooden stairway that ran down to the main hall. The hall had a large refectory table running down the middle around which fifty people could have sat, and there were more oil paintings on the walls. Near the main door, which led out on to the terrace, was an ancient suit of armour, its chain-mail and breast plates finely stippled with patches of rust. The whole place, Smiler told himself, would have made Sister Ethel’s fingers itch to begin spring cleaning.

  A big open stone fireplace took up part of one wall of the great hall. A couple of peat slabs smouldered in it on top of a pile of grey-white ash which had accumulated over the months. Sitting by the fire in a shabby wing-backed green velvet chair was the Laird. He was reading a newspaper. At the side of his chair on the dusty floor was a pile of other newspapers and letters which Laura had brought up to him. Lying in front of the fire as though he owned the place was Bacon. He looked up and thumped his tail in greeting as he saw Smiler. As Smiler went across to the Laird a white fantail flew through the open terrace door and perched on top of the suit of armour.

  The Laird looked up, peering over the top of a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles he wore for reading.

  ‘There you are, laddie. You managed to find your way down.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Well done. Many’s the time in the past that we’ve had to send out search parties for guests lost somewhere between here and their bedrooms.’ He grinned. ‘A few we never found. They’re maybe still wandering around somewhere in the corridors.’

  As Smiler chuckled, the Laird nodded to a chair on the other side of the fireplace and went on, ‘Sit ye down. I want to have a chat with you. A straight man-to-man talk.’

  Smiler sat on the chair and said, a little nervously, ‘ Yes, sir. What about, sir?’

  ‘About you, of course, Samuel Miles.’ He laid the newspaper on his lap. The bantam hen on his shoulder was sleeping cuddled against the side of the white beard. The jay on the other shoulder flew off with a flash of white and blue and disappeared through the terrace door. ‘This,’ said the Laird tapping the newspaper, ‘is The Times of London, two days old, brought up by Mistress Laura with my mail and the other back numbers of newspapers. Up here we have neither radio nor television. News comes slow but sure and I always read The Times diligently. Now, over my breakfast this morning, I came across a very interesting little piece in here –’ he tapped the paper again ‘–very interesting. You’d do me a favour by reading it and then I’d appreciate your comments about its subject.’ He handed the newspaper over to Smiler who saw that a half-column had been ringed around with red pencil. ‘Take your time,’ said the Laird and he fished at his side for an unopened letter.

  Smiler sat and read the report in the paper. As he had begun to suspect while the Laird had talked, it was about him and his exploits in Wiltshire. It told how he had been sent to approved school for stealing an old lady’s handbag with twenty pounds in it at Bristol; how he had run away from the school and changed his name, dyeing his fair hair brown and hiding his freckles with dark sun-tan lotion, and had got a job as a kennel boy with two elderly Irish gentlewomen on the edge of Salisbury Plain. The article told how Smiler had lodged with a scrap-dealer and poacher called Joe Ringer and how the last thing that had been heard of Samuel Miles was that a truck driver had given him a lift northwards, and how he had disappeared one evening into the woods taking with him a stray dog, called Bacon, a small white mongrel, with a brown left ear, which walked with a limp.

  Smiler finished reading the report and lowered the paper to his knees to find the Laird’s bright blue eyes steadily on him.

  The Laird said, ‘You’re that Samuel Miles, laddie?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Would you care to answer a few questions? Maybe one or two could be a mite personal’

  ‘You can ask me anything you like, sir.’

  ‘Frankly answered. That’s what I like. Right.’ The Laird reached out a foot and rubbed the recumbent Bacon on the shoulder. ‘How did our friend Bacon, here, come to change so quickly from a brown-eared limping white mongrel?’

  ‘That must have been Mr Bob, sir.’

  ‘Mr Bob?’

  ‘The truck driver. He was a nice man. He must have told the police wrong … on purpose perhaps, sir.’

  ‘On purpose of course, then. And how did you get to Scotland?’

  ‘The Professor – he’s another man I met – put me on a railway truck full of fertilizer sacks. I got off at Fort William. He was a nice man, too.’

  The Laird reached into his pocket and pulled out a pipe, a tobacco pouch and two piebald mice. He began to fill the pipe, eyeing Smiler, and the mice clambered back into his pocket. He said, ‘You’ve the knack of falling on your feet, it seems, and the knack of looking after yourself. Have ye the knack too of dipping your hand into other people’s purses?’ His voice was severe as he said this.

  Smiler said quickly, ‘Of course not, sir. I used to nick a few small things from shops once. But not any more. And I never took the old lady’s handbag. Never!’

  The Laird lit his pipe and puffed a great cloud of smoke into the air. Then he said, ‘Show me the boy who hasn’t nicked a
few small things in his time and I’ll look for the beginning of angel’s wings on his back. Now tell me about the old lady.’

  ‘Well, sir, it was like this …’

  Smiler told the story while the Laird puffed at his pipe, listening and nodding now and then. One afternoon in Bristol an old lady had been jostled off the pavement by a boy and her handbag stolen. A policeman seeing the act had gone after the thief. Rounding a corner he had seen a boy running down the pavement. The policeman had caught him and had found that he was holding the handbag with the money in it. The boy was one Samuel Miles. His father was away at sea and he was living with a married sister. Samuel Miles had been in some small bits of bother with the police before. But Samuel Miles’s story now was that he had been standing just round the corner when a boy he knew had come rushing past him and had tossed him the handbag, shouting ‘Hide it!’ The boy was one Johnny Pickering, and no friend of Samuel Miles. In fact they disliked one another. Samuel Miles said that he was caught running away because he was running after Pickering to make him take the handbag back. Both boys were the same height and both had fair hair. Samuel Miles had said that Pickering must have seen the following policeman and, once round the corner, tossed the handbag to him and escaped. But in the juvenile court the parents of Johnny Pickering had sworn that their son had been at home all the afternoon and that Samuel Miles was lying to save himself.

  Smiler finished, ‘But I wasn’t fibbing, sir. Pickering did it. They sent me to approved school and I escaped. I been running ever since in a way – because I know nobody can sort out the Pickerings but my Dad. When he comes back, he’ll soon put it all right. And, until he does, I’m keeping away from that approved school. His boat – the Kentucky Master – docks in Greenock the beginning of October. I got to keep out of the way until then.’ Smiler stood up. ‘You don’t have to tell the police, do you, sir?’

  The Laird took the pipe from his mouth and pointed to Smiler’s chair. ‘Put your bottom down on that again, laddie, and listen to me.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Smiler sat down.

  ‘Now then, let’s get a few things straight. First I believe you didn’t steal the bag. Second, are you sure your father can sort this thing out?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. He’ll know how to deal with that Pickering lot.’

  ‘Aye, I can imagine that. But October’s a fair stretch away yet. What will you do until then?’

  ‘I’m going to find a job. I’m not afraid of work.’

  ‘So I gather. And you’ve a touch with animals, too, it seems. You must tell me about this cheetah business some time, but that can wait for some evening over supper. Mistress Laura tells me your father’s a ship’s cook. What kind of cook are you?’

  ‘Well, I’m not too bad, sir. Joe Ringer taught me a lot. Sir …?’ Smiler stood up, and then went on, ‘Was you thinking, maybe, of offering me a job here?’

  The Laird shook his head. ‘No, lad, I wasn’t thinking about it.’ Then, seeing the glum look on Smiler’s face, he said, ‘I stopped thinking about it five minutes ago. You’ve got a job here –’

  ‘Gosh! Holy Crikeys, sir – that’s smashing!’

  The Laird waved his pipe. ‘Sit down and stop dancing like a monkey. You’ve got a job here, where I can keep an eye on ye. You’ve got Willy McAufee’s job, the daft unreliable loon who went off to Fort William a week ago. You’ll get your board and lodgings. Cook as needed. Odd jobs as needed. Help look after the animals. Housework as needed – and by Saint Andrew, himself, it is needed. And anything else that is needed. By the time you’ve finished your day you won’t want to do anything but fall into bed and sleep. And in return you get two pounds a week. And meanwhile I’ll seriously consider the question of whether I should report your whereabouts to the police.’ His blue eyes twinkled suddenly. ‘At a conservative estimate I should think it will take me all of now until October to come to a decision. We Elphinstones were always long-winded ones for making up our minds. Now let’s take a walk around the place and I’ll show you your duties.’

  The Laird stood up and went to the terrace door. For a moment Smiler stared after him, hardly able to believe his luck. The Laird wasn’t going to tell the police and he’d got a job! Just the kind of job he knew he would like. He jumped up from his chair and hurried after the Laird. Bacon rolled over to his feet and followed Smiler out into the sunshine of the grey-stoned terrace with the bright water-glitter of the loch stretching into the distance like a moving mirror.

  For the next two hours the Laird took Smiler on a conducted tour of the island. At the far end of the beach a large area had been penned in with wire netting from the bed of the loch up to a height of four feet above water. It was here that the wild fowl lived. There were two great black-headed gulls that were recovering from the effects of oil pollution, a family of four young merganser ducks that had been abandoned by their parents which had either been shot or fallen prey to some marauding fox or wild cat, a pochard duck that had lost the sight of one eye from an attack by a hooded crow, and a dozen or so other water fowl, some of which were perfectly healthy. The Laird explained that there was no netting over the top of the extensive pen so that the birds were free to fly away when they were recovered or felt like it. The trouble was that a lot of the birds preferred to stay where they were. Some flew away during the day to feed up and down the loch and its shores and came back to roost at night. Some even raised their families within the pen. On little islands in the enclosure and along the reedy banks there were small rush-thatched houses for sleeping and breeding quarters. At the back of these were a few completely wired-in runs where new arrivals were kept. In one of these was the greylag gander which Smiler had brought.

  ‘Later today,’ said the Laird, ‘we’ll take him into surgery and see what we can do. The poor lad is as thin as a rake.’

  In one of the other special pens was a miserable looking heron which had broken its right leg and this was now splinted up.

  ‘When I first started,’ said the Laird, ‘I used to treat broken legs with plaster. But the fool beasts thought it was something good to eat and would peck it all away till the point came when they would take a tumble on their heads and looked surprised. Now I know better. Always use a light wood splint.’

  On the far side of the castle, built up against the tall stone retaining wall, was a large aviary, and a set of wired runs for animals. In one of the runs was a young otter which had lost the foot from its left hind leg. In another was a large mountain hare with a wide bandage round its neck where it had been mauled before escaping from a fox. All these pens and runs Smiler was told it would be his duty to keep clean and the occupants fed and watered. But the more Smiler went round with the Laird the more he realized that there were far, far more healthy animals about than injured ones. A young roe deer moved freely among the scrub of the sharp pine-crowded rise at the back of the castle. Red squirrels scampered without fear among the branches and pigeons and doves hovered over their heads as they walked. Some settled now and then on the Laird, waiting for him to put his hand into his pocket and bring out corn for them to eat. Halfway up the slope in a small clearing there was a pile of beaten sand at the entrance to a badger’s sett.

  ‘That’s where Bill and Jennie live,’ said the Laird. ‘I’ve had them five years and each autumn we ferry the year’s young across to the lochside and turn them free. Otherwise we’d have a population explosion. You know, sometimes the little devils swim back. Did you know a badger can swim?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Smiler.

  ‘Well then, learn this, laddie – whatever anyone else may say to the contrary there isn’t a four-legged creature in the world that can’t swim when it wants to. Now come with me and I’ll show you one of the best swimmers in the world.’

  They climbed through the rising wood until they were above the level of the topmost turrets of the castle and then plunged down a steep slope until they were standing on a sheer crag top that faced southwards across the loch. Fifty feet belo
w them was the clear water. The water was about twenty feet deep and Smiler could see every rock on the bottom.

  The Laird lay down and pushed his head out over the fall and made Smiler do the same. He pointed out a large submerged rock a little way out from the foot of the crag.

  ‘See behind it, laddie – that long grey shape. Looks like a sunk branch. But watch and you’ll just spot the little movement, the waggle of its noble tail. That’s a salmon. A big chap, about twenty pounds. Came in from the sea months ago, and he’s waiting there for the autumn floods. When he feels the loch rise he’ll be away and up the burn he was born in to find a mate and spawn. And good luck to him if he ever makes the sea again, for to be born and to beget and then to die is the usual lot of the salmon. Though a few make the spawning journey more than once. Usually the hen fish. One night I’ll tell you all about the bonnie fish. See, away to his left there, two smaller shadows? They’re sea-trout. I’ll show you how to catch them.’

  Smiler, who was fascinated by fish and fishing, and had learnt something about both from old Joe Ringer, could have rested there longer watching the fish. But the Laird, whose ample years had not impaired his activity nor dimmed his love of talk, stood up and turned back to the castle.

  As they entered the pine trees, a large, slow-moving golden labrador came slowly up the path to meet them.

  ‘That’s Midas,’ explained the Laird. ‘ His eyes and his nose are as sound as they ever were but he’s a wee bit deaf. So, if you walk up behind him unawares he takes it as kindness if you give a loud cough to warn him. If you don’t, he’s apt to turn and give your leg a nip – unless his nose has warned him in time that you’re a friend. He and Bacon have already met.’

  They went back to the castle, and at the door of the great hall the Laird said, ‘As for the house, you can explore it for yourself and if you get lost I’ll send Midas to sniff ye out. In the closet off the kitchen – that’s way down in the bowels of the place – you’ll find all the hard-weather clothes, gum boots and stout shoon you need. There’s an accumulation of generations of Elphinstone gear there. Enough to fit an army. But, for the moment, let’s concentrate on lunch. Bread and cheese and a bottle of beer for me. For yourself there’s all the milk you can drink. Which reminds me, I didna show ye the cow. That’s another job for you – the milking of her. I’ll give you a lesson later today. Now, off with ye, and see what you can find in the kitchen. You’ve the eyes, ears and nose God gave you – they should lead you to all we want. Away with you now.’