He set himself to the task of making the folding boat go straight. He decided to do as he and John had done the night before, to row close along the shore and not turn out towards the island until he could come to it from the end furthest from the nest … if it was a nest. Now that he was actually on his way to photograph it, he began to think that he might after all have made a mistake. No. He was sure of it. Bother these ripples. Rowing with quick short strokes, now harder with one oar, now harder with the other, he did his best with that most unruly boat.
He was half way along the shore. It would be too late to turn back now, even if he got a warning signal. There were no more friendly reed patches in which to hide until he came to the island. If now the egg-collector or one of his men should see him in the boat, the secret would be out, the egg-collector would know that this was the loch and, sooner or later, he would take the eggs and shoot the birds, in which case it would have been better if Dick had never discovered them. Oh, bother those ripples, and bother this twisting boat! And now those ducks! Three, four, five ducks splashed up off the water and flew along the shore. In the quiet of the early morning Dick heard them scattering the water as they rose, looked round and saw their flight. Would they give warning to the Divers? The worst of trying to come near wild birds was that there was no way of letting them know you were not an enemy but a friend who did not mean them any harm.
He rowed on and on. Over his right shoulder he caught a glimpse of the island. There was one of the birds, in the water, and, yes, that dark blob must be the other, on the shore. They must have seen him. Dick rowed as quietly as he could. Suddenly he heard the strong beat of wings on water. Splash! Splash! Splash! A Great Northern Diver was getting up into the air. That was bad enough. Worse was to come.
“Heuch! Heuch! Heuch!”
That angry, frightened guttural cry could be heard for miles around.
Dick nearly caught a crab. He gripped his oars and waited. Far away, across the loch, he saw Nancy’s red cap moving. He lost sight of it. He rowed on, watching desperately for a signal that would tell him that the egg-collector had heard. None came. But it might come at any moment. And the birds had already been disturbed. There was only one thing to do and that was to get into hiding as quickly as he could from birds and men alike. Dick spun the boat round and headed for the island. Quietly and fast he rowed out from the shore, came to the far end of the island, and worked the boat into the reeds. He sat still, breathing fast, and looked about him. Nothing but reed tops, except over the stern of the boat. If nobody had seen him coming across and he could work her in another yard or two, nobody would be able to see her. The Great Northern Diver, after that one dangerous cry, had not called again. Dick felt over the side with an oar and found soft bottom and shallow water, not more than a foot deep. He took off his shoes, tied the laces together and hung them round his neck. He stepped over the side, took the end of the painter and waded ashore, pulling the boat after him. He made a loop in the end of the painter and laid it round a small boulder, shifted a stone so that it lay on the rope, saw that the boat was completely hidden in the reeds and set out to crawl along the island to his hide.
His head was a whirl of question-marks. Had that raucous screech brought the egg-collector rushing up from his boat to look over into the valley? Every moment he expected to hear it repeated. Was the hide as good as it had seemed in last night’s dusk? Could he reach it without being seen? Had he frightened the birds away? Would they come back?
Not Roger, nor Titty, could have kept lower on the ground than the Ship’s Naturalist as he indianed his way along, trying all the time not to be visible to birds or to anybody else who might be looking. Quick. Quick. There, ahead of him, were the rocks that made the back and walls of his hide. There, as he had left it, was the heather-covered netting spread over them and hanging like a curtain across the opening between the two rocks nearest to the nest. He crawled in and waited listening for distant shouts. He heard none. And after that first call of anger and warning, the birds had been silent. Lying like that, he could see nothing. Very slowly he pulled up first one leg and then the other. Kneeling, he looked out through the netting. There was not a bird to be seen. Both had gone. But he saw, close to the water, a flattened trodden nesting-place, a circle of broken bits of reed, and a worn track leading from it to the water’s edge. And there, in the middle of that round mat of broken reeds, were two greenish enormous eggs. A moment later the birds swam into view, a yard or two offshore. Very quietly, Dick took the big binoculars from their case. He could see dark blotches on the eggs, which were not really green but a sort of brownish olive. And the birds? There could be no doubt about them now or ever again. Great Northern Divers at their nest. In the British Isles, no one had ever seen that sight before. It was as if he were an astronomer looking for the first time at a new planet.
His first instinct was to take a photograph at once. But the sun was in his eyes, glinting off the water, shining straight into the camera from behind the birds. He remembered in time. It would be waste of an exposure and he had film in his camera for only five. He had taken up the camera. Now, as he put it down again, it clinked on a stone. The birds heard it, turned and began to swim away. They were out of sight from within that narrow hide. For three dreadful minutes he thought he had, after all, frightened them into deserting the nest. Then he saw one of them again, low in the water, only the head and neck showing. Dick watched, hardly breathing. The back of the bird showed. It was swimming as usual. Suddenly, much nearer and close in front of him, he saw the other bird swimming straight for the nest. “It swam itself aground.” (Dick’s own words, as he tried afterwards to describe what he had seen.) It swam itself aground and then, using its wings to help it, floundered across the few feet of dry land between the water and the nesting-place. “You couldn’t really call it a nest.”
It settled on the eggs, facing suspiciously towards the hide. Presently it stirred again, shuffled round, settled once more, shielding the eggs with its wings on either side. It polished its bill on its breast and then, tilting its neck slightly back and its head slightly forward, was as still as if it had been shot and stuffed and were already in Mr Jemmerling’s collection. It sat there, with its back to Dick, looking out over the loch as if any danger that might threaten it would come over the water. Dick was sure that so long as he made no noise the Diver would not guess that he was there.
There was nothing to be done now but to wait, hour after hour, till the sun climbed overhead and he could point the camera through a mesh in the netting without sunlight pouring into the lens. Hour after hour. He knew he would have to wait a very long time, but the long wait, that would have been torment to any of the others, was no torment to the Ship’s Naturalist. The worst of his difficulties were over. He was in his hide. The boat was hidden. Neither he nor it could be seen by enemies, no matter where they were. The birds were at peace. He had only to wait to take the photographs and by that time the others would have led the egg-collector and the Gaels away into the hills and he would be able to get ashore with the film in his camera that would prove beyond all possible doubt that the birds were nesting and what birds they were.
Cautiously, he made himself as comfortable as he could. Hour after hour went by and Dick would not have liked to miss a minute of them, crouched there within a few yards of one of the great birds he had always longed to see. He hardly noticed the passing of the time and felt, as some people feel at a circus, that it was a pity it could not last for ever.
He took out his notebook and wrote down a description of the nest and the eggs and that funny floundering four-legged walk of the bird as it came up out of the water. “Its wings work as two of the four legs.” With Captain Flint’s big binoculars he could almost count the feathers of the sitting bird, even see the slits of its nostrils. Its head had looked black at a distance, but he could see now that it had a faint shimmer of green at the back and almost a purplish shimmer on its cheeks, while the lower part of its neck
looked in the sun as if it were shot with green and purple together. “Of course, even starlings look black till you get near enough to see,” thought Dick.
Sometimes its mate swam into view far out on the loch and Dick focused the binoculars on it, watched it diving and tried to be ready for it when it came up to the surface. Several times he saw it come up with a fish. Perhaps three hours after Dick had reached the hide, he saw that the bird in the water was much nearer than it had been. It dived and came up nearer still. There was a sudden stir on the shore. Almost before Dick knew what was happening, the bird that had been sitting was flopping towards the water and launching itself with a splash. The other bird was scrambling out to take its place. Dick reached for his camera and was glad he had been too late, for the light was still behind the birds and he had been photographer long enough to know that he must have it behind the camera. The bird that had been fishing settled itself facing out over the loch and Dick was sure that it had no suspicion that it was being watched from only a few yards away. He had done a lot of bird-watching, but never such bird-watching as this and with such birds to watch.
Hour followed hour. He forgot Gaels and egg-collector and the Pterodactyl and the Sea Bear and everything else but the narrow picture before him, seen through the curtain of netting. Dick and the birds were alone. The rest of the world had melted away into nothing. Dick would not have remembered to eat his sandwiches if he had not been reminded that he was hungry by wondering what weight of fish the Diver he was watching managed to eat in a day. He did not eat all the sandwiches he had been given because when he had eaten half of them, taking them out with extreme care, a bit of sandwich dropped on the paper and that tiny noise made the bird on the nest turn its head. Dick took no more risks and was glad he had thought of borrowing a flask for fear there might be the usual pop if he had a lemonade bottle to open.
The end of his waiting caught him by surprise. He could hardly believe that he had been there so long when at last he noticed that the bird was sitting on its own shadow, and that the sunlight no longer blazed through the netting but fell from overhead. The Ship’s Naturalist became all photographer. There must be no mistakes. He had film for five photographs and could not afford to waste a single one. He grew hot in the face as he remembered how often he had taken a second photograph on the same bit of film by forgetting to wind on till the next number showed in the little red window at the back of his camera. Whatever happened, he must not do that today. Then there was the question of focus. Ten to twelve feet, he thought, but wished he could measure the distance and make sure. He remembered that with a smaller aperture to the lens the focus would be deeper so that a mistake of several feet one way or the other would not matter quite so much. That meant a longer exposure. He could afford that, because the bird sat so still, but it would mean holding the camera steady for a longer time. There was nothing in his hide on which he could rest the camera. Inch by inch he changed his position until he was sitting on the ground with one knee up, close to his face. The camera would be steady enough on that knee, though it would not be too easy to see through the finder. He tried and saw a blur across the picture. Netting, of course. He had to come closer to the netting and make sure that the lens of the camera looked out through the middle of a mesh. The bird quickly turned its head. Dick froze until it turned away again. Cramp gripped the calf of his bent leg. He rubbed it silently, digging a finger into the muscle. He tried again. The bird was going to be very small in the picture. That could not be helped. The first thing he would buy when he was grown up would be a camera with a telephoto lens. Meanwhile, he must do the best he could. He set the aperture at f.11, the speed at a twenty-fifth of a second. Sunlight. Clear sky. That ought to be enough. Everything was ready.
He took a last look through the finder. He pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. In remembering so much, he had forgotten to set the spring of the shutter. This was dreadful. He knew that his fingers were trembling. No hurry. No hurry, he told himself, forced himself to wait, set the shutter, made sure once more that the camera was in the right position, and pressed the trigger.
There was a sharp click. The photograph was taken, but what was happening? The bird had heard that click. For one moment Dick thought it was going to leave the nest and give him no second chance. But no. It had turned its head sharply. Then, slowly, it did what, if he had been able, the photographer would have asked it to do. It was shifting on the nest. Full of suspicion but not yet frightened, it shifted round, while still sitting on the eggs, till it was looking straight at Dick’s curtain of netting. Dick did not stir a finger. The bird’s head slowly dropped. Dick, knowing that he could not be seen, reset his shutter, turned on the film for the next exposure and waited once more with the camera resting on his knee, his finger ready at the trigger.
Click.
The bird stirred again.
“Don’t move! Please don’t move!” Not a sound came from Dick’s lips, but he felt almost as if he were shouting at the bird. And, though it lifted its head and stiffened and stared at the rocks and the netting curtain that hid the photographer, it was as if the bird had heard him and understood. Slowly its stiffness eased. Everything was as it had been. The bird was still on its nest. The photographer was still in his hide. Two photographs had been taken.
Dick waited a very long time before he dared wind on the film and re-set the shutter of the camera. With those two photographs safe, he could afford to wait, and what he dreamed of now was a photograph that should show both birds. And just now that second bird was away fishing and not even in sight. At last it swam into view a long way out.
The bird on the nest shuffled round until once more it was facing the water. “Wants to go fishing,” thought Dick, and wondered how soon it would be the other bird’s turn to sit on the nest. It was too much to hope that, now that the sun was right, he would have another chance of photographing them changing places. The bird in the water was coming nearer, but not with any great haste. Suddenly the sitting bird grew impatient. Half lifting itself on the tips of its wings, it left the eggs and flopped away into the water. Dick pressed the trigger.
Click.
If only that shutter did not make such a row. But, though Dick heard it, the bird did not, as the click came at the very moment that it splashed off the land into the water. It swam out towards its mate. Three photographs and no bad mistake so far. Hurriedly, Dick took his chance, wound on the film, reset the shutter and took the fourth photograph, this time of the eggs alone.
Only one exposure left. Again he wound on the film. Was he or was he not going to get a picture of both birds together? The light seemed very strong and, with four photographs taken already, he made up his mind to risk being a little out of focus or under-exposed, and to try to get a picture of a bird scrambling out of the water. He set the aperture at its widest and the speed at one hundredth of a second.
Something very odd was happening out there. The bird that had left the nest had not begun fishing. It was as if the two birds had something to talk about. They were slowly swimming together. “She’s telling him that it’s jolly well his turn,” thought Dick. “Or else he’s telling her.” It certainly looked as if one bird were bringing the other back to the nest. With sudden horror, Dick wondered if the birds were telling each other that there was something wrong about that heathery patch that had sprouted on the rocks during the night. At last one stopped, dipped its head and rested, wiping its beak on its feathers, while the other swam straight for the shore, ran itself aground and floundered up to the nest. Dick took his photograph. The bird either did not hear the click or had made up its mind that there was no need to notice it. It shifted the eggs a little with its beak, and settled on them, just as the bird out on the loch went under water for its first dive. (Afterwards, Dick was not sure which of the birds had come to the nest. It might have been the same bird come back again, or it might have been the bird that had been fishing.)
Dick wound on the film, closed the camera an
d put it in its case. The thing was done. In there, ready to be developed, were the first five photographs ever taken of a Great Northern Diver nesting in the British Isles. Now, for the first time for hours, Dick remembered that there were human beings about as well as birds. He pulled out his watch and could hardly believe he had been there all that time. He wished he could have stayed in the hide till dark, but Captain Flint had told him to be as quick as he could, and John and Nancy and the red herrings would not be able to keep the egg-collector and everybody else away from the loch for ever. He must keep to the programme, get away without frightening the birds, take the boat back to the reeds at the foot of the lake, and get his camera with the photographs in it safely back to the Sea Bear.
He packed camera and binoculars and flask into his knapsack but did not try to sling his knapsack on his shoulders while he was in the hide. Pulling it with him, he wriggled slowly backwards, deciding to leave the netting where it was. It would not be needed again and to move it now would scare the birds for certain. Clear of the boulders he looked anxiously up at the ridges on either side of the valley. He saw no one. Hidden from the birds, he wriggled his arms into the straps of his knapsack, and crouching low, hurried to the boat. He unfastened the painter, stepped in and, after one more glance round, pushed out from among the reeds, settled to the oars and rowed as hard as he could, quick short strokes as before, but not so carefully. What mattered now was speed. The birds were bound to see him, but the sooner he was gone the sooner they would forget that they had a visitor.