The Painted Tent (24 page)

As often as he could, Smiler got away to watch Fria and Prince. But now, with June half done, there was a lot of work on the farm. In the evenings when he was not with Mr Samkin he worked on his own, so that except for a quick visit during the week it was usually on Saturday or Sunday that he made his real trips to Highford.

One week-end he climbed his ladder when the parent birds were away from the eyrie. He was surprised at the change in the peregrines. Already the signs of feathering showed in their down and they were active, if not entirely steady, on their feet. While he watched, two of them fought together over the clean stripped carcase of a small bird. The other, eyes alert, pecked at the occasional fly or bluebottle that had taken up quarters in the recess to scavenge on the remains of the kills which lay on the ledge. This time, as he watched, the tiercel came to the recess with a small, collared dove. But within a few seconds of landing he must have sensed Smiler's presence or seen some slight movement he had made. He gave a sudden cry and flew off, leaving the young birds to harry and worry around the dead dove, clamouring in frustration.

It was that week-end that Trevor Green – already once the instrument of fate in Fria's life – discovered the peregrine's eyrie. On the Friday evening he asked Sandra Parsons if she would go to a dance with him in a near-by village on the following night. Sandra said that she couldn't because she was going out with somebody else. This was not the truth. She had neglected her work with Mr Samkin recently and Mr Samkin had made it clear that she had better do something about it. She had decided that she would work at her studies each evening over the week-end but she was not going to tell Trevor Green that.

He said, ‘What are you doing then?'

‘That's my business.'

‘Who are you going out with and where?'

‘Wouldn't you like to know.'

‘I can guess. It's that Sammy Miles.'

‘Maybe, and then maybe not.' Although basically she liked Trevor, there was an imp of mischief in her which prompted her always to tease him. One day she probably would marry him, but there was no call to let him think that he already owned her.

Sourly, Trevor Green said, ‘I can't see what you see in him. All those freckles and that snub nose.'

‘Listen to who's talking. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. You're no oil-painting. Anyway, I didn't say I was going with him. As a matter of fact –' it was fiction, and sparked in her by the glum look on Trevor's face and the exciting feeling of the power she had over him – I'm not going out with him, It's a boy I met in Barnstaple. A doctor's son. He's tall and dark and an absolute dream – and that's all I'm going to tell you.'

But Trevor Green did not believe her. He knew Sandra, knew that often she would say the first thing that came into her mind. She was going off with Sammy Miles, he was sure of that. Mooning about in the woods or talking about poetry and books.

He decided to watch the farm at Bullay brook the next evening and make sure for himself. So it was that at half-past seven when Smiler came out from an early supper and set off to pay a visit to Highford, Trevor Green was watching him from the hazel copse just above the stone bridge over the brook.

He began to follow Smiler, working up through the fields at the side of the hill road, and he was certain in his mind that he was off to meet Sandra somewhere in the woods.

Half an hour later Trevor Green, somewhat puzzled, stood hidden in the rhododendron bushes beyond Highford House and saw Smiler climb on to the roof of the ruined building and sit down behind the parapet. He decided that this must be a secret meeting-place which Sandra and Smiler used, so he settled down to wait.

A few minutes later Trevor Green saw the tiercel. Prince came back over the woods from the north, flying high and holding a greenshank which he had taken over the first tidal stretch of the Taw miles downstream.

The tiercel stooped from a thousand feet in a steep dive, whistled down over the far flank of the wood and then flattened out twenty feet above the rough pasture at the far end of the old parkland. The bird streaked across the grassland, swung sideways in a half roll to clear the ruined house and then rose to the top of the tower. Without stopping, the tiercel – which had grown more and more cautious as the young birds grew – slid by the opening of the recess, checked momentarily, and dropped the greenshank on to the recess lip and was gone, winging out of sight down the slope to the river.

From the moment the tiercel had streaked across the parkland, Trevor Green had watched the whole manoeuvre. He was a countryman and, recently, he had heard rumours that some people had said they had seen a pair of peregrines around the district. He was quick-witted enough, too, to wonder if one of them could have been the falcon which he had set free in the barn. He remained where he was, watching the tower and Smiler.

Half an hour later Fria came out of the eyrie, her young fed, and launched herself into the air. She flew up lazily towards the big chestnut in the centre of the parkland. Trevor watched her rise higher and higher on quick wing-beats. When she was far up in the air, the tiercel came down from the heights above her, stooped past her playfully and called. Fria turned over and chased after him and for the next few minutes the peregrines played and wheeled, dived and stooped in the pale violet light of the thickening dusk.

Smiler watched them through his glasses, standing up on the roof in full sight of Trevor Green. And Trevor Green watched them, too. In the one was a surge of joyful delight at the heart-stopping aerobatics of the two birds, and in the other delight, too, but of a dark and revengeful kind. Wounded by Sandra's treatment of him, the farmer's son sought now only the satisfaction of wounding someone else in his turn. He moved away, back into the woods, knowing exactly what he would do. He would shoot both the birds. That would take the smile off Sammy Miles's face.

On the Sunday morning Smiler had an early breakfast and was away to Highford just as the dawn was beginning to break. He was early because he had promised Mr Samkin – who in conversation with him had learned that Smiler had only been to church about four times in his life – that he would go to church with him in the village. Smiler wasn't over keen about it, but since it would please Mr Samkin he felt he had to do it. All those dreary hymns and things, he thought to himself as he walked along, and someone spouting away about saving your soul…

On this Sunday morning, too, Trevor Green was up early and making his way by a different route to Highford. Under his arm he carried his father's twelve-bore double-barrelled, shotgun. The tower was only about thirty yards away from the roof-top. It was a good bet, he felt, that the peregrines had young. He'd shoot the male bird as it came with food, first barrel, and then, second barrel, blast a shot into the recess and finish the rest off. If he knew Sammy Miles, that would break his heart. Anyway, the birds were a pest, taking partridges, pheasants and young chicks. Good riddance to bad rubbish, and if anyone asked him about it he'd just keep a straight face and say he knew nothing.

On this Sunday morning, too, Maxie Martin was more reluctant than ever to return to his vault as the dawn began to break. Four days previously Jimmy Jago had turned up, climbing down ta to the vault just as darkness had set in. He'd arranged for Maxie to be taken aboard a small coaster that plied between Bideford and Ireland. Maxie was to be aboard before first light on the Monday morning – no questions asked. His only risk was reaching Bideford across country during Sunday night. Tonight, thought Maxie. Tonight he would walk out into the darkness and the vault would never see him again…

He lingered just inside an empty window-space of the house and looked across at the tower. The light was coming fast. There was no dawn chorus now to greet the day with song. Daybreak signalled the resumption of food finding for the young. The silhouette of the tiercel stood carved against the paling sky. Maxie watched as the light strengthened and brought the bird's plumage to life. As he did so a movement away to his right caught his eye. It was Trevor Green coming out of the side of the woods with his gun under his arm. Maxie watched him for a second or two, saw the gun, knew him to be a countryman from his clothes, and guessed it was someone out for a rabbit or pigeon for the pot. He turned away into the house and made for his vault.

Trevor Green crossed to the ruined house and climbed up on to the parapet. As he did so the tiercel saw and heard
him.
The bird dropped over the side of the tower and ghosted away down the hill to the river. On slow-flapping wings, a mode of flight that was awkward and cumbersome, disguising from some birds any warning signal that said peregrine, Prince flew down the river under the overhang of tall trees. The peal were in the river now, the young sea-trout which had wintered in the estuary of the Taw and the Torridge. One jumped twelve feet below the tiercel and his keen eyes marked it as it streaked away under water and lodged beneath a boulder. A dipper bobbed on a rock. Prince ignored it. He flew over and under the hanging branches, flapping along like a tired crow. Fifty yards ahead of him a stir of life at the edge of a bank of tall nettles and willow herb that overhung the river caught his eye. A mallard duck edged out into the stream followed by four ducklings. The tiercel changed from awkwardness into a flashing, steely bolt of destruction. With quick wing-beats he dropped almost to water level and closed in on the wild duck family. The duck saw him and screamed in alarm as she beat forward. Her wings and feet slapped at the water as she strove to gain height. The ducklings scattered into the bank growths as the tiercel swept over the duck, dropped a taloned leg and clutched her by the back, the long, pointed daggers of his toes needling deep into her side and reaching her heart. She was dead before he dropped to a gravel spit fifty yards farther on.

He stood on the gravel and began to pluck and plume his kill and then spent half an hour eating leisurely. He bathed, made his morning toilet, dressing and fussing and grooming his plumage, and finally flew off to hunt for his family. Behind him a mink slid through the water and took one of the ducklings. Before the day was out they were all to be dead.

Up at Highford House, Trevor Green was settled on the parapet, his shotgun resting in a small embrasure through which he could cover the top of the tower. He waited patiently for the return of the tiercel. The old man first, he thought, and then Mum and the young ones. He watched the recess opening on the tower, and now and then caught the stir of Fria's head and neck as she brooded the young peregrines who now moved restlessly under her, hunger beginning to coil in them.

Half an hour later Smiler came down the old shrubbery path. He appeared around the side of the tower and began to cross to the ruined house. Trevor Green saw him at once and anger spurted in him, but he lay where he was unmoving and hidden, hoping that Smiler would not come up to the roof. But it soon became clear that that was Smiler's intention. He crossed to the house, scrambled through the window-space and reached up with his hands to begin his climb.

Trevor Green was on the point of showing himself and holding the gun on Smiler to keep him from coming up, when low over the far end of the wood he saw the tiercel coming back. All right, he thought, he'd deal with the peregrines first and then let Sammy Miles make of it what he would. He watched the tiercel slide over the edge of the wood and wing downwards towards the tower-top. In a few seconds the bird would be at the eyrie. Behind him Trevor Green could hear Smiler grunting to himself and the scrape of his boots as he started the stiff climb to the roof. Trevor Green eased his gun into position covering the recess mouth. Whether the bird landed there or swung by in a slow roll to throw in the prey he had brought did not matter. He would get him. Whatever else he might not be, he was a good shot and had won many prizes for clay-pigeon shooting.

Smiler came on to the broad roof parapet twenty yards away from Trevor Green. He pulled himself to his feet and, as he stood gathering his breath, he saw the whole scene. To him it seemed that everything was suddenly clamped into a cold, hostile immobility, freezing all movement in himself and in the world around him.

He saw the tiercel, tree-top high, Trevor Green lying prone sighting along his gun barrel, the sun-touched lip of the recess with Fria's head just showing … everything frozen solid as though the whole world and all life in it would never wake to action again. A wild rage rose in him and then burst from him in an angry shout The noise magically broke the spell of stillness. The tiercel came in leisurely to the tower-top, checked, and raised long curved wing-tips to drop on the lip and present Fria with the dead pigeon he carried. At the same moment, Smiler leapt forward and threw himself on to Trevor Green's back as the farmer's son squeezed the trigger for the first barrel.

The shot blasted into the morning air, echoing against woods and walls. But the gun barrel had been slewed sideways as Smiler landed, and the shot went wide of the tower. The tiercel flew up in panic. Fria came out of the recess, wild with alarm, and flew straight across the roof of the ruined house, seeing below her as she passed the frantic movement of Smiler and Trevor Green as they rolled and fought with one another on the parapet, the gun held between them as Smiler struggled to tear it away. Fria beat up and five hundred feet above her the tiercel hung, wailing and calling, circling and waiting for her. Below him he saw, too, the fighting movement on the roof parapet. The gun roared again and the tiercel saw the two bodies separate and one fall over the inside edge of the parapet, thirty feet to the rubble- and stone-filled foundations of the house.

Circling and wailing together now, the peregrines, hanging high above their tower eyrie, saw a figure on the roof top, gun in hand, climb rapidly down. It bent over the body which had fallen, and then turned and jumped out of the window and raced away to disappear into the woods. This was Trevor Green, scared out of his wits, lost in an emergency, giving way for the moment to the simple primitive desire to put as much distance as he could between himself and a situation which he had no idea how to handle.