It was not a silent darkness. Away out over the flat swamp water came rustles, splashes, quacks and the quick flap of wings being stretched and folded again.
Swans cried out and were answered, and plovers, flying low over the water, called to birds standing on the sandhills that divided the swamp from the bay.
The smell of water weeds and reeds and thrusting roots hung over the swamp and the tall marram grass growing on the bank.
It was just after midnight, the morning of the opening of the duck season. The day before, Dan Lucey, an inspector of the Fisheries and Game Department, had arrived at Werribee in a utility truck. He had gone into the swamp lands during the afternoon and carried out an inspection before preparing for the arrival of the shooters that night.
The swamp lands were divided into two areas, one of which was a sanctuary for native birds.
Shooters were forbidden to enter the sanctuary, and here the water birds were allowed to breed and live in peace.
What was left of the swamp lands was known as the Main Swamp. This section was thrown open to shooters for three months of the year, a period known to sportsmen as ‘The Duck Season’.
The main swamp was divided from the sanctuary by a levee. During the open season, shooters could roam the main swamp as they pleased but beyond the levee they must not go. This wall of earth was a boundary between two countries, one of which was given to war and the other to peace.
It was Dan Lucey’s task, on this opening day, to keep shooters off the sanctuary and to prevent the slaughter of protected birds. During the close season all ducks were protected but when, by official proclamation from the Office of Director of Fisheries and Game, the duck season opened, those birds that were losing the struggle to survive were still forbidden game and men who shot them were open to fines and the confiscation of their guns.
Dan Lucey stood beside his truck watching the headlights of cars coming in to the turn-around beside the swamp where shooting was allowed.
For almost a year he had guarded these ducks against men with guns.
He had patrolled the swamp lands on moonlight nights, listening and watching, sometimes running in a crouch from shadow to shadow towards the report of a forbidden gun.
He had waded waist-deep through tangled places where the nests were, had drawn aside the reeds and seen the eggs warm from birds he had startled. He had watched the wild ducks leading flotillas of quick-paddling ducklings across smooth patches of water and had seen their first heavy, ungainly flight.
‘It’s good to look at ducks flying,’ he had once said. ‘I like to see them coming in to land at sunset.
‘It’s great to hear the whistle of their wings then look up and see them swerve away from the movement of you. Ducks are good, you get to love them.’
Dan Lucey had been born on the Murrumbidgee and here, where the slow river flowed between high clay banks, and gnarled red gums leaned over the water, he had spent his childhood. As a man he was tall with a blackfellow’s grace of movement and a face that was at peace with the bush, but, as a child, barefooted and brown, he had not yet come to terms with his surroundings. He had been restless and questioning and pursued some illusive revelation, some answer, some final discovery that he felt awaited him around each river bend, behind each tree or beyond each rise.
He was a searcher, lifting pieces of dry bark where centipedes shrank back from the light, thrusting his hand into hollow limbs where possums slept or parrots nested and wading through lignum swamps, parting branches and peering or standing silent with his face turned to the sky where the whistle of a driving wing still lingered.
Had there been, in his home, books in which poets sang the truth of things, or great writers wrote inspiringly, he would have sat cross-legged beneath the belah-tree in his back yard, and the book upon his knee would have been as wings to him.
But there were no books, and, in the flight of birds his need of beauty found its answer, in the strength and power of scarred red gum trunks, deep-rooted in the earth, he felt the lift of spirit that comes to the man of books when he reads great literature. The drama and poetry he knew passed through no interpretative pen before enchanting him; it came to him from its source, pure and clear like a bullock bell.
He knew the river birds well. He had gazed on the egg, the splintering shell, the powder-puff young ones, the fat squeakers still unable to fly. He had watched the close-plumaged, grown ducks coming down wind with the long sun of evening upon them. They had come in with swerve and bank and flash of jewel and he had held his breath to the singing within him.
Yet, he had, with other boys, fired shanghai stones at resting birds, but his shots were wide. It was the twang of rubber and the soaring stone that delighted him.
Later, proud with the responsibilities of a new manhood, he had carried his birthday-present gun through the swamps, and had slain ducks as he went. He had tied the necks of bleeding birds to his belt and had come home with tales of marvellous shots he had made.
But he couldn’t kill without a feeling of shame. With a draggled bundle of dead ducks at his belt the flight of those still living was always a withdrawal from him. He was left earthbound and solitary, weighed down by his betrayal.
He had put away his gun, only taking it out to clean it or to feel the satisfaction of squinting down its gleaming barrel before returning it to its brackets on the wall.
When he finally came to the city looking for work he went straight to the Fisheries and Game Department, where he was engaged as an inspector. He was eager and enthusiastic, inspired by a vision.
Now he stood in the darkness thinking of these things, his vision gone.
The drone of engines, like a requiem, moved with the cars that stretched in a broken line from Werribee to Melbourne. The cars thrust out feelers of light towards those ahead of them. They lurched over ruts of swamp lands, and the dust-laden beams shot up and fell again, illuminating tussocks of grass and striking glitters from the chromium of vehicles rocking ahead.
On a circular area flattened in the grass on the bank of the swamp, they came to rest. They crowded together in dark clusters divided by passageways along which those arriving nosed their way with whining gears, searching for a space in which to park. They moved into these places then stopped, their blazing eyes flicked out, their engines became silent.
More came, and more. Men carrying torches or hurricane lanterns jumped back and stood aside while groups moved past. In all those hours of darkness the sound of engines never ceased. A thousand cars came in that night, three thousand shooters stepped from them and moved off into the dark, their gun barrels gleaming in the headlights of the cars still seeking a resting place.
Legs moved in the light of swinging lanterns, passing and repassing each other while their shadows made frantic sweeps over the grass. Silhouetted men swore softly, called to companions, asked questions, proffered information.
‘Where’s Jack? . . . Have you got my gun? . . . I’ve been here before; we’ll go this way. . . . Where’s the best place?’
They stepped high over tussocks, they walked with bent heads, watching the uneven ground, they stooped and pushed their way through brush.
‘Over here. This way. I can hear them quacking.’
Men hurried for positions of vantage. The swamp was ringed with men. They were shoulder to shoulder on spits of land where the ducks swept low for a landing. They stood side by side on the hillocks. They crouched like waiting soldiers in the hollows.
‘We start at six.’
‘We’re into them at six.’
‘We’ll let them have it at six.’
The uneasy birds on the dark water moved towards the centre of the swamp. There was a pale sky in the east.
Shells were thumbed from belts, locks clicked and snapped. Guns were shouldered and lowered, swept round and back, tested and thumbed and gripped.
‘Don’t swing over my area.’
‘I never swing over any man’s area.’
Dan Lucey drove the utility truck along the swamp bank and into the sanctuary. He left the truck near a patch of scrub and walked to the swamp’s edge from where the water lay stretched beneath the dark in a pale light of its own.
He paced the bank, restless, feeling, in all that was around him, the existence of an intense awareness, an emotion of his own creating. The very air was listening, the trees were expectant and still.
He waited while the sky grew lighter and the darkness retreated to the shelter of the banks. Patches of darkness lay netted in grass and hollows where the tea-tree grew, but birds could be faintly seen on the water.
Dan slowly rolled a cigarette.
That teal with the one leg. A cod had probably taken the other one when she was a duckling. Or maybe a trap. Some men set rabbit traps on sandbanks to catch ducks, spread wheat around them. By hell, she was tame! Maybe she won’t leave the water when they start. She’ll be safe in the sanctuary. But the noise will start the lot off. If she’s with a flock she’ll go but she might be in the reeds. No, she’ll take off with the rest. She’ll rise with them. Having one leg won’t affect her flying, anyway. You never know, though.
She may not be able to swerve as quickly. But she’ll go high. They always do. She might get above it.
He looked up at the paling sky, seeing, in his imagination, the sanctuary it seemed to offer streaked with screaming pellets. He turned away.
It was half past five when the first gun was fired. In the stricken moment that followed, men’s voices shouting a protest came from different parts of the swamp. A double report drowned their cries. Rosebuds of flame quivered above clumps of reed. Single reports followed each other rapidly. They made a staccato of sound that merged and grew till it became a thunderous volume of sound that pressed on Dan like a weight.
The air above the swamp, torn apart by the explosive roar, eddied across the still water, leaving a quivering surface and the smell of smoke behind it.
There were no gaps of silence in the sound. It was continuous and violent and controlled. Yet, within it and apart from it, could be heard the thrash of wings, the splash of falling bodies, quick, terrified quacks and the whish of speeding flocks hurtling by like companies of projectiles.
The thin, whispering whistle of shot, torn out of shape by pitted barrels, threaded the din and sent speeding birds into swerves and dives of terror.
Piercing the rumble in stabs of sharper sound, two hollow cracks came at intervals from the far side of the swamp.
Dan raised his head and listened.
Home made cartridges? There they go again! No. Poley chokes on their guns. That American idea for greater range. They’ll get the high ones.
One more . . . Two . . . Three . . . Struth! That finishes the high ones. That pulls them down. No hope up on top now.
He suddenly took off his hat and shook some pellets of shot from the crown.
They must be as thick as rain up there.
When the firing began in the swamp a panic swept across the birds on the waters of the sanctuary. Some swam swiftly to and fro while others took to the air in a flurry of wings. Those leaving infected the undecided ones with fear and in a moment they were all leaving the water, some in silence, others with quick cries of alarm.
Black duck, the first to leave, rose sharply, shooting upwards, their wings drumming. They held their wings low down, flying with short, swift chops, straining for speed. They banked in a sweeping turn at the sanctuary’s edge and came round over the head of the watching man, the whistle of their speed trailing just behind them.
Dan’s head jerked round to follow them.
By the hell, they’re hiking! They’ll circle twice before they beat it.
The flock swung off the sanctuary at the second spiral and the guns reached up for them in a bay of sound that rose above the steady roar of the continuous shooting.
They’re for it. Dan drew a deep breath.
A hail of shot broke the formation and scattered the ducks like leaves in the wind. One bird, a broken wing raised above it like a sail, came down in a tight spin, its uninjured wing thrashing desperately. It struck the levee bank between the sanctuary and the open swamp with a thud. A dozen men rushed towards it yelling, ‘My bird!’
A flock of grey teal, flying in line, followed the black duck up from the water then shot out over the open swamp on their first circle. A blast from a group of shooters broke their line into two groups, the centre birds tumbling from the sky like stones.
Pelicans and swans circled in a slow climb. The pelicans beat their giant wings with slow, deliberate strokes, their heads tucked back, their heavy bills resting on curved necks. With them were cranes, herons and avocets.
Ducks rising from the water, passed through and over this lay of heavy birds, circling on a different level before shooting out over the bay to safety.
Shot, whistling upwards to the high ducks, sometimes struck the heavy birds screening those above them, and they faltered in their slow climb, became agitated, called to each other or plummeted earthwards in silence.
The protected widgeon, slower than the grey teal or black duck, circled the sanctuary in jerky, uneasy flight, swerving unnecessarily when the gunfire from the swamp suddenly sharpened. They chattered as they flew, their voices like the sound of rusty hinges, continuing even when, in sweeps over the open swamp, they fell singly and in twos to the guns of men out to kill every bird that passed.
Dan swore in a sudden anger.
Half these bastards don’t know their birds. They don’t know a widgeon from a black duck. I’ll pick them up. I’ll get them on their way out.
‘You damn fools,’ he shouted.
He watched each flock as it passed and when, against the dawn sky, he saw the wide shovel-bills, the heavy heads, the set-back wings of the widgeon as they banked and turned for the open swamp, he cupped his hand to his mouth and yelled ‘Widgeon!’ across the water to where the first line of shooters were blazing at all that went over.
Some lowered their guns at the yell, others went on shooting.
A pair of grey teal came hurtling across the open swamp, making from the sanctuary. A wave of sound followed them, its peak just beneath them as they moved. They were flying high and fast but a crack shot blasted the rear bird sideways in its flight and it began to drop. Five shots struck its falling body before it reached the water where it floated without movement.
The leader faltered in its flight when its mate was hit. Then it gathered itself and flew on till the sanctuary lay beneath it.
It came in as if to land but rose again and returned for its mate.
Dan gestured hopelessly. He’s a gonner. He’ll cop the lot. He’s finished.
When the shot struck it, it didn’t fold up and fall uncontrolled from the sky. It came down in a swift, steep glide, its body still in the position of normal flight. When it struck the ground it bounced and rolled like a football.
The last birds to leave the water of the sanctuary were eight wood duck. They had been sheltering in some rushes, but fear drove them out and they took off in a ragged group, their wings almost touching. As they gained height a drake moved forward and took the lead. The others fell naturally into the V formation behind him.
He led them down the water of the sanctuary, their necks undulating as they put power into their climb. They circled over the far end of the reserve then came back, their speed increasing with every chop of their wings. They banked above Dan Lucey, their mottled breasts bright in the dawn light, then turned for another round.
When they again reached the limits of the sanctuary, the drake, leading them in a steep climb, banked and lost height in a short, steep dive, then flattened out and brought them back towards where Dan was standing. Dan saw the manoeuvre and was puzzled.
Hell! he came down. Must be a heavy wind on top. No. He’s building up speed. That’s the stuff! Give it all you’ve got! Into it!
The drake, as if seeking a gap of silence through which to pass, kept turning his head from side to side as he flew.
Dan suddenly saw him as a symbol. The things that he stood for and in which he believed made a continued preoccupation with the killing around him intolerable. This bird lived and was free. A strong heart beat within him and blood flowed through his veins. His survival became important to Dan. If he lived, a thousand slaughtered ducks lived on in him, if he died there was nothing but death upon the swamp.
‘Round again, round again,’ Dan muttered aloud as he watched him. ‘Bring them around again, damn you!’
But the drake had made his decision: he led them on towards the open swamp. They passed over Dan’s head at ninety feet or so, their wings whistling.
They’re for it now, he thought. There they go—the suicide squad.
He watched them, standing in a slight crouch, his hands clenched. He must make it. He must. He must. He took a deep breath and stood still.
The ducks crossed the first line of shooters into the open swamp in a perfect V. The crest of a roaring sound-wave leapt up towards them as they went over and the drake led the group in a swerve as it struck them.
Now with the light of the morning full on them, the eight wood duck were a target for every gun. Barrels like black reeds fringed the open water along which they flew, reeds that exploded then jerked down in recoil.
Dan, watching the birds, stood in a crouching attitude as if he were facing enemies.
One gone!
The duck to the left, and just behind the drake, changed from something firm and hard and full of power to a soft and shapeless bundle of feathers that fell without resistance towards the water.
Dan was up there with them now. He swung and lifted to their wings. He made each downward plunge to earth.
The V closed up and the gap was filled. The drake led the remaining six in quick swerves and dives. Every turn and twist he made, each violent, evasive movement was followed by the six ducks behind him.
Their every action was born of his, they had no mind but his.
The whisper of shot drove him to more desperate turns and his followers repeated them. But, in the centre of the swamp, one of the rear ducks suddenly lost height. It fluttered, fell, then flew again. It followed the V at a lower height for a few yards then its wings went limp and it fell loosely to the water.
‘My bird!’ cried splashing men holding guns aloft.
A third bird was plucked from the formation before they reached the last line of shooters beyond which was safety.
The drake, leading his four companions across this last barrier where the shooters were side by side, suddenly banked steeply as shot whistled past them. He flew a moment in indecision then, as another duck fell, he brought the remnant of his flock round and made down the swamp once more.
Dan, watching him through his field glasses, cursed softly.
A shout rose from the shooters as the ducks turned. Again the wave of sound moved beneath the birds.
The drake dropped all evasive tactics now. He was dazed with noise.
He flew straight ahead with the remaining three birds in line behind him.
He led them down in a shallow dive to increase their speed but rose steeply as two of his companions fell together, a puff of feathers left floating behind them.
There was only one duck following him now. With a quick chop of her wings she closed up, moving a little to one side till her head was level with his body. But she began to flag and he drew away from her.
The shot that hit her threw her violently upwards and she turned over on her back before crashing at the feet of the shooters on the levee.
The drake was alone now. He swept out over the sanctuary to a last burst of sound then turned and made out over the bay.
To the man this speeding bird, like some winged vessel, bore in its seed the life wrenched from a thousand slaughtered ducks upon the swamp. He felt the lift of victory, the faith, the elation. As, against bright clouds the drake rose to an upward swing of air, twinkled and was gone, he flung his arms up in an acclaiming gesture, then turned and faced the shooters on the levee.
‘My bird!’ he yelled. ‘My bird, damn you! My bird!’