Palmer-Jones 05 - Sea Fever (5 page)

“Yes,” George said. “ That might be kind.”

“How did you know where to find me?” Greg asked. “Were you booked onto the pelagic anyway?”

“No,” George said. “A letter from Rob Earl confirming your place on the trip was sent to your parents’ home. Your mother opened it.”

Greg swung round suddenly. George hardly recognised him.

“The cow!” he said. “ The lying old cow. She promised she’d never open my letters again.”

But when he got to the saloon, all trace of anger had vanished, and he was the life and soul of the party again.

All night the
Jessie Ellen
moved steadily south-west against an increasing westerly wind. No one slept well. The bunks were hard flat shelves built into the bulkhead, and there were no real mattresses. The cabins were near to the engine, and below deck it was dark, noisy, and very hot. They were crowded and uncomfortable.

George woke when it was still quite dark and Molly was still asleep. The cabin door was open, and Rob was calling him.

“I’m going on deck,” Rob said softly. “Are you coming?”

“What’s the time?”

“Early. It’s not properly dawn yet, but I want everything ready before they all get up.”

On deck there was still a fresh wind which blew gusts of spray.

“Where exactly are we?” George asked.

Rob Earl was in the stern of the boat squatting over a bucket of herring, chopping it roughly on a board. He looked up.

“I hope you’re not asking me to give away the secrets of the Wilson’s Triangle,” he said with mock horror. “Every birdwatching club in Britain would start chartering boats to take them. Then how would my company make any profit?”

“I’m hardly likely to set up in competition.”

“We’ve followed the long-liners,” Rob said. “They’re fishing boats from Spain and northern France which use lines, not trawls. The men gut the fish on the spot, and that attracts the birds. The
Jessie Ellen
has sophisticated radar, so we can follow the other boats. We must be about sixty miles southwest of the Bishop Rock.”

The sky was beginning to lighten. George could make out the details of the
Jessie Ellen
and the shapes of the European long-liners in the distance.

Rob turned back to the herring and began to throw it into a wide-meshed canvas bag which already contained pieces of polystyrene float.

“What are you doing?”

“This is the rubby dubby bag,” Rob said. “ It’s brilliant for attracting great shearwater. The bag’s dragged along behind the boat and brings the birds in.”

He fastened the bag to a fine rope and let it out behind the boat.

By now it was quite light. Louis Rosco came from the saloon, nodded briefly to them, and went into the wheel-house. Fat Freddy brought them mugs of tea. George could see the fishing boats quite clearly. One of the deckhands on the nearest raised his hand and waved to them. George had the light-headed, empty feeling that comes in the early morning after too little sleep.

I’m like an addict needing a fix, he thought. I won’t feel whole and normal until I see a new bird.

Rob said he would go below to wake the others, and soon after, Greg Franks walked unsteadily onto deck. He sat down, his back firmly against the wall of the saloon, the telescope on a tripod between his knees. As he set up the telescope, his hands were shaking, and his face had no colour at all.

“What’s the matter?” Rob asked, not really concerned, teasing, knowing the answer already.

“Seasick,” said Franks, as if the effort of speech itself provoked nausea.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable lying down?” George asked.

“I’m not moving anywhere,” Greg said, still tight-lipped, “until I’ve had Wilson’s petrel.”

And he sat there on the port side grim and silent, his eyes and his attention focused on the sea.

The others drifted onto deck and huddled against the gusting west wind in big coats and jerseys. Most were quiet and pale, suffering from too little sleep and seasickness. Only Roger Pym was loud and healthy, complaining because Jane had been ill in the night and kept him up, and irritating them by his demands for breakfast. They crowded at the stern of the boat watching the rubby dubby bag bouncing over the waves scattering shreds of herring behind it.

As the first rays of the sun broke through the thin cloud, a group of petrels began to follow the boat, attracted by the fish. They were storm petrels, common in Britain, but reassuring. Anything now seemed possible.

“Wilson’s petrel!”

The sound burst from Greg Franks and was so loud and joyful that no one realised at first who had shouted. Molly had been concerned because he seemed so ill. She still felt that they were responsible for him and should deliver him back to his mother safe and intact. Now his recovery seemed miraculous. He was standing at the deck rail pointing out the bird to the others, his face flushed with excitement. To Molly the bird seemed indistinguishable from the storm petrels which were still following the boat, but the others were convinced by the identification. Look at the size! they said. Look at the length of the leg! The bird circled the boat, then pattered behind it with the storm petrels before flying away.

With the arrival of the bird there was an immediate release of tension. This was what they had paid a fortune for and travelled to Cornwall to see. Only Rob Earl and Roger Pym had seen Wilson’s petrel before; the others felt the aquisitive euphoria of a new bird. They gathered around Greg.

“What a brilliant piece of identification!” George said. “ How could you tell at that distance that the bird was a Wilson’s?”

“Well,” Greg said, “once I’d got my eye in, it wasn’t that difficult.”

The others joined in the congratulations, but Molly, standing as always apart and observant, thought they were disappointed it was Greg who had found the bird. They would have preferred it to be someone else.

“I’m going to lie down now,” Greg said. “I still don’t feel well.”

“Where will you be?” Rob asked. “In case we need to call you. In your cabin?”

“No, it’s too stuffy below. I’ll just crash out on deck. Don’t call me unless it’s a tick.”

“We won’t know whether or not it’s a tick,” Roger Pym said quickly. “ We haven’t seen your list.”

“It won’t be a tick,” Greg said grandly, “unless it’s a first for Britain.”

He walked slowly towards the bow and curled up out of sight in the sun.

Those who were feeling strong enough had a celebratory breakfast in the saloon. They ate piles of scrambled eggs, drank milky coffee, and listened to Rob Earl and Roger Pym argue the finer points of Wilson’s petrel field identification. Someone opened a bottle of whisky.

Then everyone wandered back onto deck. George was enjoying himself more than he had done for years. The sun was high above the horizon and warmer. The cloud had disappeared and the wind had dropped. There was a smell of salt and fish, wet rope, and diesel. The
Jessie Ellen
was moving in a large circle around the long-liners. They saw more petrels and two great shearwaters skimming and turning over the waves. In all his years of seawatching he had known nothing like it. He was relaxed and exhilarated. The sunlight had tightened the skin on his face, so he felt younger. The deck where he sat was comfortably warm. The others were sitting at the stern watching the rubby dubby bag, but he wanted to be alone and sat where Greg Franks had been, his back against the saloon, his legs straight ahead of him. Rob had once described seawatching as a cross between meditation and therapy. George thought about it and laughed. It had been right to come.

He focused his binoculars at random farther away from the boat towards the horizon and saw a bird which he knew immediately he had never seen before. It was a petrel, dark-rumped. At first he thought it might be Leach’s, but the tail was the wrong shape. As it turned and wheeled against the reflected sunlight, there was a flash of white on the wings.

He did not want to make a fool of himself. The light and the lack of sleep might be deceiving. It was hard to use a telescope on the moving boat, but he set it up and looked at the bird again through it. He forced himself to concentrate. Perhaps Rob Earl sensed his sudden tension, because he stood up and moved along the deck rail towards George.

“What have you got?” he asked softly.

“I haven’t a clue,” George said. “ Really. A dark-rumped petrel. Not Leach’s. Not big enough. There’s a white flash on the wing. And huge feet. Enormous red-webbed feet.”

Rob set up his own telescope and looked with a passionate concentration, then swore under his breath.

“It’s a long way off now,” he said. “ But you’re right about the feet. They’re bloody enormous. Even from here.”

When Rob called to Louis Rosco to manoeuvre the
Jessie Ellen
nearer to the bird, there was such an edge of urgency in his voice that he alerted the others, and the peace of the day was shattered. The tone of the engine changed. The people at the stern were shouting to know what had been seen. There was noise, confusion, and excitement.

“We’ll have to attract the bird closer with the chum,” Rob shouted. He tried to pull the bin of fish oil and offal towards the side, but it was too heavy, and he could not get a grip on it. His feet were slipping on the wet floor.

“Get off your backsides and help me, someone!” he shouted, frustration turning to anger. “ Can you still see it, George? Don’t bloody lose it.”

Gerald Matthews tried to lift the bin from behind, and the stinking oil slopped over the side onto their clothes. Rob took no notice and continued shouting instructions to Louis.

They levered the bin so it was balanced on the deck rail.

“Wait!” he said. “ We need to put out the chum so the wind blows it towards the bird.”

Then at last they tipped the contents overboard. The oily film spread over the water, mixed with popcorn and pieces of fish. It moved slowly but eventually covered a far greater area than George would have thought possible. The boat began to chug away from it.

“Where are we going?” Roger Pym yelled in panic. “ We need that bird.”

He was nowhere to be seen when Rob needed help with the chum. Now he was right on the deck rail seeking the best possible view of the petrel.

“We’ll turn back soon,” Rob said, “and circle the area of chum. Louis knows what he’s doing. We’ve used this technique before.”

“Four Wilson’s petrels!” Gerald Matthews shouted. But now their attention was focused on the new bird and they hardly turned to look, and when Rose Pengelly lifted Matilda high in the air to look at the string of shearwaters, they looked at her angrily because she was distracting them.

Impassively Louis Rosco turned the
Jessie Ellen
, and it began slowly to circle the area of chum. Rob had disappeared into the saloon and returned with field guides, photographic guides. He and George pored over them, becoming more impatient and excited, as they could find nothing which fitted the description of the bird they had seen.

“Are you sure it wasn’t Leach’s or Wilson’s?” Roger Pym said at last. He sounded irritated and petulant.

“Oh, yes.” George said firmly. “Quite sure.”

“Matsudeira’s? Tristram’s?”

“No. There were the feet, you see. Quite startling.”

Then they began to consider the possibility that it was a bird as yet unrecorded, a species like that recently discovered breeding in a small colony on the Salvage Islands. It would be impossible to have such a record accepted on only a fleeting view, and they peered over the rail at the oily water, tense and silent. The air and the water were filled with birds but no one could make out the red-footed petrel.

“There it is!” Rob said triumphantly. “Just there. Under the crowd of gulls. Look at that head and that underwing! Pass me the camera. We’ll need photographs. If I had a gun, I’d shoot the bloody thing.”

Then, obliging, showing off almost, it circled above them, so they could see the brilliant red feet and the light shining through the shafts of the wing feathers. It was possible to detail the wing, to draw the pattern of each feather. They drank in the image of the bird, sketching it, memorising the joy of the moment. George felt drawn to it. It was the climax of sixty years of birdwatching. No other experience would match it. He could not take his eyes off the bird.

He heard Jane Pym ask hesitantly if she should go to fetch Greg, and for a moment he felt guilty because he had given the boy no thought.

“I’ll go,” Duncan James said. “ This is very interesting, but I’m afraid it’s rather above me.”

George wondered that anyone could be so unmoved by the beauty of the bird, by the excitement of discovery, and heard the man move clumsily away.

The bird flew back to feed on the chum, and the boat continued to circle it. As the
Jessie Ellen
moved slowly through the water, they saw the petrel in different lights from different angles. Rob took photograph after photograph.

“It’s quite different from anything else I’ve ever seen,” George said. “Really, I don’t think there can be any mistake.”

At last they were able to relax. They felt they knew the bird and would always remember it. It was almost as if they owned it. Rob put down the camera, lay back on the deck, and stretched.

“Where’s Greg?” he asked. “ If he doesn’t get here soon, he’ll miss it.” Without moving from his place in the sun, he turned his head and shouted. “Duncan! Where’s Greg?”

The older man walked back along the deck towards them. He seemed helpless, rather ashamed, like a child who has failed to perform a simple task.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t find him. You’ll have to help.”

“What do you mean, you can’t find him?” Rob was beyond himself after the new bird, superior, derisive.

“He’s not on deck where he went to sleep,” Duncan said, “and he’s not in his bunk. I don’t know where else to look.”

“He’ll be here somewhere,” Rob said at his most irritatingly flippant. “On the last trip I did, Keith Vinicombe fell asleep in a lifeboat, and we thought we’d lost him overboard.”

He stretched again.

Molly and George helped Duncan James to look for Greg. At first it was a chore, and they thought it would soon be over. They searched the boat from end to end, growing more bewildered and disturbed as they failed to find any sign of Greg Franks. It was as if he had never existed. His clothes, his bag, his binoculars, and the telescope had all disappeared. As he was rooting fruitlessly through a storage space in the bulkhead, George remembered suddenly a nightmare which had recurred when his first son was a baby. He dreamed he had taken the boy in his pram into a strange and busy town, then left him on a street corner and forgotten about him. Later, when he returned in panic to look for the pram, all sign of it and the baby had gone, and he ran helplessly round the streets in a futile search. The search for Greg Franks had the same nightmare quality. Finally they called the others to help them, and they chased round the boat in a frenzy, calling Greg’s name, angry because they felt he must be playing some elaborate practical joke.