The Painted Tent

by Victor Canning

  At that moment the door opened inwards. Bob Old stood on the threshold. Fria dived towards him, swerved slowly to one side, and flew out into the open as Smiler gave a far-too-late, warning shout.

  Outside a strong west wind, damp with the promise of rain to come, swept across the brook valley. For the first time Fria felt the living, pulsing power of moving air cushioned under her wings and was tossed up out of control like a vagrant sheet of newspaper. She met the force with panic and wild wing-beats, and her beating wings took her up almost vertically across the face of the barn wall.

  Just under the roof of the barn, and protected by a little gable roof of its own, was the loft doorway. Projecting from the top of the doorway was a stout wooden rafter with a pulley wheel attached to its end. Unused now, this projecting pulley beam had formerly served for hauling sacks of corn from carts below for storage in the loft.

  As she beat frantically upwards Fria saw the overhang of the small gable roof and the long length of the pulley beam. From instinct rather than design she flew into the shelter of the little roof, raised her wings and settled with a desperate, scrambling movement of legs and talons on the beam. Once there she squared around slowly to face the force of the blustery wind.

  Down below Smiler and Bob stared up at her.

  Bob said, ‘How did she get free?’

  Angrily Smiler said, ‘Some stupid devil got in the barn last night and opened some of the cages.’

  Bob considered this, and then said, ‘That don’t surprise me. There’s one or two around here don’t altogether take to us. Circus folk, gypsies, didikys they know we are – and because they don’t understand our ways they take a delight in being awkward.’

  ‘But what are we going to do about Fria, Mr Bob?’

  ‘Go up and open that loft door and just leave her. Come food time, put some out for her in the loft. When she’s hungry enough she’ll go in and then we can put the ladder up from here and close the doors on her. No trouble then.’

  ‘But say she flies off or gets blown off? She doesn’t know how to look after herself. She’ll just die.’

  ‘Ay, she might, Sammy. But then again, she might not. Animals may not think like humans, but they’ve got their own kind of common-sense. She’ll settle for herself what she wants to do – and my guess is that she’ll come into the loft for food when she’s hungry.’

  But Fria did not come into the loft, though Smiler did everything he could to get her back. That first day he opened the loft doors and put food and water on the broad sill of the hatch opening. When Fria saw him at the opening she shuffled along the pulley beam well out of reach, took a firm grip on the weather-worn wood and sleeked down her feathers to ease the wind resistance against her. Time and again, as Smiler worked, he came back to see her, but she scarcely moved her position on the beam all day.

  That night the food and drink were left on the ledge and the loft doors open. A new and more secure hiding-place was found for the barn key. When Smiler made his night visit the food was untouched and the dark shape of Fria on her beam was silhouetted against the night sky.

  For two days Fria did not move from her beam except to shuffle back under the protection of the small pent roof when it rained hard. She sat and watched the strangeness of the new world before her, like a medieval carving. There was nothing wrong with her physically except that her body, her flight muscles and her talents were unused and untrained. Her eyes, which could take in the whole horizon without moving, except the little segment of the loft in her rear, were the wonder eyes of a falcon, nature’s great gift to her kind. Her wide-ranging eyes had eight times the power of man’s and a depth of focus that could show her the quick beat of a rook’s wing miles away, the fall of a late leaf half-a-mile up the far valley side, and the movement of a foraging, long-tailed field-mouse through the winter grasses down by the brook.

  Fria sat on her beam and watched this new world. She watched the movement of the cattle in the pasture, the quick flight of pigeons coming high over the valley woods, the movement of people and traffic now and then at the brook bridge, the rolling, changing shapes of the rain-clouds sweeping in from the distant sea, and the coming and going of Smiler and Bob and Bill and the Duchess about the farm. But there were two things she watched in those first days with special interest. At noon one day, when a scattering of sparrows were squabbling on the yard cobbles over a few handfuls of grain that had been spilled, a sparrow hawk came round the corner of the barn in a swift, low-flying, piratical swoop. As the sparrows rose in alarm, the hawk burst into their midst, did a half wing-roll and took one of the sparrows in its talons and flew on with it. Something about the hawk and the manoeuvre wakened some ancestral memory in Fria. Three times a day for the first two days Fria saw this manoeuvre and each time a sparrow was taken. And another bird wakened a response in her. Now and again a kestrel came quartering up the valley and hung over the pasture by the brook. Fria eyed it the first time, watched the wing-tip tremor of its poised hover and saw, as plainly as the kestrel could see, the movement of a winter foraging vole in the brook-side grasses. When the kestrel plummeted with upraised wings and made its kill, Fria shuffled restlessly on her beam. She lowered her head, trod impatiently with her feet and uttered a faint call, a thin wail – wickoo, wickoo – that was barely audible. Again and again Fria watched sparrow hawk and kestrel in their hunting and always an excitement stirred in her which sent a swift, tremble through her wings or made her lower her head and wail gently.

  And during those days Smiler watched and worried about Fria. But on the morning of the fourth day he felt happier. Sometime, either during the night or at first light, Fria had moved down from her beam to the loft edge. One of the mice Smiler had taken in a barn trap was gone. Late that afternoon when he checked he saw that she had been down again and had taken a piece of meat from the food laid out for her. He saw, too, that the small bowl of drinking water he had set out was tipped over and he guessed that Fria had tried to take a bath in it.

  From then on Fria began to eat regularly and Smiler would find her castings lying on the ground below the beam. When she was used to feeding, Smiler began to move the food farther and farther back from the loft opening because he wanted to train Fria to go well back into the loft to eat, so that one day he and Bob would have a chance to set up the ladder and shut the doors on her before she could get back to her beam. But Fria was not to be tempted. When the food was set farther back into the loft she refused to eat for two days and Smiler put it back on the ledge of the loft opening.

  He did this with a definite plan in mind. He explained it to the Duchess. ‘ You see, I don’t really want to catch her just to shut her up in her cage again. What good’s that going to do her?’

  ‘Well, she can’t sit up on that pole for ever, Sammy.’

  ‘But that’s it, ma’am. She won’t. If I feed her regular –’

  ‘Regularly.’

  ‘… regularly, and she begins to get strong and … well, sort of more contented … Well, then maybe she’ll fly. You know, take off on a little flight. But she’ll always come back for her food, because she can’t hunt for herself. Not, anyway, until she’s a real good flyer. When she’s like that – well, isn’t there a chance she might start to hunt?’

  ‘Well, I suppose there is. But not a strong one, surely?’

  ‘Maybe not, but there is a chance and it’s worth trying, ma’am. Gosh, I know if it was me and I could have the chance I’d take it. What kind of life is it just sitting in a cage?’

  The Duchess eyed him silently for a moment, pursing her plump lips, and then she said quietly, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Sammy. Even though I’m an old circus hand and I’m used to animals in cages and being trained, I’ve got to admit that the older I get the less I like it. So from now on the responsibility is yours. You can have Fria. She’s your property and you can decide what is best for her.’

  ‘Really, you mean that?’

  ‘I do.’

  Smiler
jumped up. ‘Oh, thank you, ma’am. Thank you.’ He moved to her, put his arms around her without thinking, and gave her a hug.

  The Duchess chuckled. ‘Well, thank you, Sammy. It’s a long time since any man did that to me. But remember, whatever you decide may be best for Fria, she may have ideas of her own. She’s a woman. And women have minds of their own.’

  That night when Smiler made his late-night barn visit, he looked up at the dim shadow of Fria sitting on her beam and, since there was no one around to hear him, he said aloud, ‘All right, you old bird up there, you start doing something for yourself – and I’ll help you all I can.’

  It was from that day that Smiler started to keep a diary. It was a secret diary which he began for a variety of reasons. He wanted to keep a record of all that might happen to Fria. He felt, too, that it would be a good exercise in improving his English.

  His first entry read:

  February 2nd. (I think). Started this diary at Bullaybrook Farm, N. Devon. Fria belongs to me. Though of course she really belongs to herself but I am going to help and also get some books from the travelling County Library about peregrine falcons which in a way will be like helping in my vet studies. Windy night, some rain. The Duchess is O.K. So is Dad. So is Laura. And in a way so is Sandra. Bob says he can guess who did the barn job, but he won’t tell me.

  4. Two Under Instruction

  During the next few days Fria was content to stay on her beam except for the times when she flew down to the loft ledge to eat or drink. Jimmy Jago came back to the farm for a couple of days and when Smiler showed him the falcon, he said, ‘Well, as long as she stays there she’s safe from any farmer’s gun. If I were you, too, Sammy, I wouldn’t say anything about her to anyone. Somebody around here doesn’t like us, lad. They might take a crack at her.’

  ‘What I’m hoping,’ said Smiler, ‘ is that she’ll pluck up courage and learn to fly properly and look after herself.’

  Jimmy cocked an eye at him. ‘And then what? Find a mate and raise a brood? That’s what she should do but there’s no chance of that. The falcons are dying out. There might be the odd pair out on the cliffs around Baggy Point but the breed is going and human beings are responsible. She might be happier free – but she’d be much safer in a cage.’

  ‘If you had the chance, Mr Jago, and could catch her – would you put her back in a cage?’

  Jimmy chuckled. ‘ Good question. And the answer is – no. How often have you seen me go into the barn?’

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘That’s because I don’t like to see anything caged up. The Duchess and I never quarrel about anything but that – things shut up in cages. No, I’m with you – give her a chance and, if she takes it, good luck to her.’

  From the County Library van, Smiler got some books on birds and read all about the peregrine falcons and, his interest roused, he got other books and began to understand something of the way the wild creatures of his country had to fight for their existence against the sometimes deliberate and sometimes careless ways that men put their lives in jeopardy. And, because he was determined to be a vet one day, through his reading he made himself understand the careless ways in which death came to many birds because of the poisonous chemicals used in pesticides which were eaten on dressed seeds or contaminated insects by the small birds, and passed on to the predators like the hawks, owls and peregrine falcons when they ate their prey. The poisons from chemicals like Dieldrin, Aldrin, Heptachlor and DDT built up through the whole food chain of insects, rodents, small birds, wood pigeons and the fish in the seas and finally killed the preying birds at the end of the chain. Although he sometimes talked about this with Mr Samkin, and asked his advice about books, he never mentioned Fria to him or to Sandra. Not that he distrusted them but he knew now how a careless remark could spread and he wanted Fria left alone to take her chance of freedom if she chose to do so. So far she showed no sign of doing this.

  Every morning when he went out to the barn Fria would be sitting on her beam, either far out to enjoy the winter sun or drawn back under the small pent roof if the weather was bad. She ate and drank regularly now, and often, clinging to her beam, would raise and beat her wings as though she longed to let go and launch herself but could not find the courage. But some differences Smiler did notice in Fria. She ate more and her plumage was coming back into a better condition. She was so used to him, too, that when he came to the loft entrance she would move only the minimum distance along her beam to be out of his reach. Sometimes Smiler would stand and watch her for quite a long time, and he would talk to her in a soothing voice, but as the days went by there were times when he got angry with her and scolded her for not taking off and trying her wings. As an experiment he withheld her drinking and bath water for two days, hoping she would fly down to the brook, but Fria stayed where she was. Smiler, unable to be cruel, restored her water.

  Yet, in the end, it was water which made Fria leave her beam. For many days she had watched the world around the farm and was familiar with it and with the passage of human beings and the creatures of the ground and the air. So far few other animals had marked her presence on the beam. The starlings and sparrows and the odd jackdaw had seen her and recognized the menace which was written in her shape and stance. They kept away from the front of the barn now. If the cohorts of rooks that had taken to wild aerobatics over the valley wood as the time for repairing old nests crept on had seen her they might have been bold enough to come down in ragged company and mob her into moving. So far she had escaped their sight. Fria saw and knew them all.

  Most of all, though, she watched, particularly if the morning were sunny and there was a touch of added warmth in the air, the movement of the water in the brook. At the end of the first farm field the brook bank had been carried away by flood and the stream spread back in a wide half-moon over a gravelly shallow only a couple of inches deep. A restlessness which had been slowly growing in her was always more marked when she watched the sunlight rippling over the shallows, for although the air is the peregrines’ first love and true element they all have a love, too, of water, of bathing and cleanliness. Smiler had provided her with a bath but Fria, although she used it now and then, did not like it. Her feet slipped on the smooth metal of the tray and she found it difficult to bob and dip her head under and send the water rolling over her mantle in the way which instinct demanded of her.

  One windless, sunny morning in mid-February, Fria sat surveying the brook and the shallows. Suddenly, when no one was watching, she launched herself from the beam, gave a few slow beats of her scimitar-pointed wings and glided the two hundred yards down to the brook. She settled a little clumsily between two patches of cotton grass at the edge of the pool, raised her head to the sky, and then walked into the shallow water. With the gravel firm under her feet and nothing to block off her wide area of vision, she took a bath. The first she had ever known in freedom.

  She dipped and bobbed her head under, letting the water roll back over her neck and down her wings. She loosened her breast feathers and plucked and preened at them under water. For five minutes she made her toilet and through every second, although she seemed relaxed, she was aware of all the movement around her. Then she walked out of the shallows, shook herself, gave a half-hearted preen of her breast, slid her beak down a couple of the primaries of her right wing and jumped free of the ground and began to fly back to the barn. There was neither wind nor obstacle for her to negotiate. Her wing muscles had grown a little stronger and less stiff with the limited liberty from her cage so that she flew up at a long angle easily and unhurriedly. A wood pigeon coming high and fast down the valley saw her and dropped like a plummet into a clump of ash trees by the brook bridge. The hens in the run at the back of the farm kitchen saw her and they froze into a crouch and waited for her to pass. Fria saw them all and more. She saw Bob on a tractor far down the valley, the flick of a jay’s wing in the hedge that bordered the hill-road beyond the farm, and the lithe movement of a black mink q
uartering along the rabbit-holed hedge below the rooks’ wood. But they meant nothing to her in terms of food or preying. She swung up to her beam, misjudged it a little, high shooting it, then corrected her flight and dropped awkwardly on to her accustomed perch. She sat there for the next fifteen minutes preening and combing her plumage. Fria had made her first voluntary move away from captivity.

  That night another – and very different – move was being made for someone to escape captivity. The River Taw that flowed into the sea at Barnstaple began life in a lonely area of boggy marshland, seamed with a hundred small rivulets and streams, forty miles southwards on the high slopes of Dartmoor. A man who knew the river could – except for now and again making a quick road or rail crossing – pick his way easily from the source down to the first mud banks of its tidal reaches without, particularly at night, much fear of being observed or questioned. Jimmy Jago was such a man, and there were many others, river keepers, fishermen, country people and poachers.

  This night Jimmy was high up in the moor, almost to the top of Taw Head, a wild expanse of mires and marshes where small streams and water gullies had cut deep into the heather-peat soil, a place where a man had to move carefully if he wanted to avoid going up to his waist in the boggy, treacherous ground. Though it was dark, with only starlight to guide him, Jimmy knew his way around from the reconnaissance he had made in the last months. To his left the great bulk of Hanging-stone Hill lifted a long shoulder against the sky and then sloped gently southwards to the scarp of Whitehorse Hill. This was the very heart of the moor. Within a radius of two or three miles of this place rose many rivers, some to flow south to the English Channel and some north to the Atlantic … the Taw, the Okement, the Tavy, the Dart, the Teign and others.