Now the rim of the sun shows over the distant sierra, and one begins to see one’s environment and to realise what Las Nuevas is like. Of Mother Earth as one normally conceives it not a particle is in sight, beyond such low reeds and miles of samphire-tops as break the watery surface, and a vista of this extends to the horizon.
Behind our positions stretched a lucio of open water. Upon this, a mile away, stood an army of flamingoes, whose croaks and gabblings filled the still air. During a quiescent interval I examined these with binoculars. Thereupon I discovered that the whole lucio around them and stretching away, say a league in length, was carpeted with legions of duck, which had not been noticed with the naked eye. The discovery explained also a resonant reverberation that, at recurring intervals, I had noticed all the morning, and which I had attributed to the gallant Cervera’s squadron at quick-firing gun-practice away in Cádiz Bay. Now I saw the cause; it was due to the duck-hawks and birds-of-prey! Twice within ten minutes a swooping marsh-harrier aroused that host on wing—or, say, half-a-mile of them—to fly in terror; but only to settle a few hundred yards farther away. The harrier’s hope was clearly to find a wounded bird among the crowd—the massed multitude none dared to tackle.
It is nine o’clock, the pile of dead has mounted up, but the “flight” is slackening. Already I see our mounted keepers (who have hitherto stood grouped on an islet two miles away) separate and ride forth to set the ducks once more in motion. At this precise moment one remembers two things—both that wretched breakfast at 3 A.M., and the luxuries that lie at hand, almost awash among the reeds. Ducks pass by unscathed for a full half-hour, while such quiet reigns in “No. 1” that tawny water-shrews climb confidingly up the reeds of my screen.
Meanwhile the efforts of our drivers were becoming apparent in a renewal of flighting ducks; but we would here emphasise the fact that these second and artificially-produced flights are never so effective from a fowler’s point of view as the earlier, natural movements of the game. For the ducks thus disturbed come, as the Spanish keepers put it, obligados and not of their own free-will. Hence they all pass high—many far above gunshot—and not even the attraction that our fleet of “decoys” (for we have now stuck up the whole of the morning’s spoils to deceive their fellows) will induce more than a limited proportion, and those only the smaller bands, to descend from their aërial altitude.
The “movement” of these masses nevertheless affords another of those spectacular displays that we must at least try to describe. For though none of their sky-high armies will pass within gunshot—or ten gunshots—yet one cannot but be struck with amazement when the whole vault of heaven above presents a quivering vision of wings—shaded, seamed, streaked, and spotted from zenith to horizon. Then the multiplied pulsation of wings is distinctly perceptible—a singular sensation. One remembers it when, perhaps an hour later, you become conscious of its recurrence. But now the heavens are clear! Not a single flight crosses the sky—not one, that is, within sight. But up above, beyond the limits of human vision, there pass unseen hosts, and theirs is that pulsation you feel.
The passage of these sky-scrapers is actuated by no puny manœuvre of ours. They are travellers on through-routes. Perhaps the last land (or water) they touched was Dutch or Danish; and they will next alight (within an hour) in Africa. Already at their altitude they can see, spread out, as it were, at their feet, the marshes and meres of Morocco.
Although nominally describing that first day in Las Nuevas (and, so far as facts go, adhering rigidly thereto), yet we are endeavouring to concentrate in fewest words the actual lessons of many subsequent years of practical experience. Thus the pick-up on that day (though it may have numbered a couple of hundred ducks) we refrain from recording in this attempt to convey the concrete while avoiding detail.
Back again, splash, splosh, through mud and mire, two hours’ ride to our camp-fire—a picturesque scene with our marsh-bred friends gathered round, their tawny faces lurid in the firelight as flames shoot upwards and pine-cones crack like pistol-shots; and over the embers hang a score of teal each impaled on a supple bough. Away beyond there loom like spectres our horses tethered when silvery moonlight glances through scattered pines. Things would have been pleasant indeed had the rain but stopped occasionally. True we had our tents; but our men slept in the open, each rolled in his cloak, beneath some sheltering bush.