The Ring of Bright Water Trilogy

  Besides a litter of tools and mechanical equipment, the shed at that moment contained the two deerhounds, Dirk and Hazel. They were awaiting transfer to their new home in Perthshire (for despite my determination to restore the otters to partial liberty I was at Camusfeàrna essentially to close it down as a house which required staff) and for this occasion they had been shut in. The key to the shed, like all other keys, had disappeared, and so we had, as part of our preparations, jammed the door shut with a diagonal piece of angle iron, bolstered at its ground end by two heavy stones.

  Edal was obviously fascinated by this situation. Over months and years she had become accustomed to the smell of the deer-hounds, and here they were shut up in a way that was a challenge to her ingenuity. She started to work on the piece of angle iron; she pulled at it with her hands, and finding that it would not yield she rolled over on to her back and tried to yank it downward. Discovering that this did not pay off, she walked round the construction several times and then deliberately set to work on the stones that jammed it in position. By this time I was becoming alarmed, because I could not visualize with anything but dismay what might happen if she set the deerhounds free. I walked away towards the sea, and, mercifully, she followed as I called.

  Between her and the tide stood the massive form of Polar Star on her wheeled cradle, and this also demanded a lengthy and detailed appraisal – axles, wheels, everything that could be investigated to the full by an otter bent on factual knowledge. When we left Polar Star for the exposed sands of the ebb tide she came with me, but in a physical sense she ignored me; she was about her own business, and she did not acknowledge that this included me. In the shallows of the sand-ribs where the sea was no more than perhaps three feet deep she chased dabs and caught one; she was plainly happy, and I no longer felt afraid of her; nor, I think, did she in any way mistrust me.

  But to take both otters out (they could never, as I have explained, be allowed to meet) brought us back to a situation that had its origin in 1959, when Terry Nutkins had been engaged as assistant otter keeper to Jimmy Watt. Obviously I could not exercise both animals and at the same time do my own work of writing. Andrew remained insistent upon complete contact; granted this absolute aim on his part and his parents’ permission to try, there was no logical alternative for either of us.

  It was, in brief, that if Andrew could achieve his goal of a trusting relationship with both animals he should not regard his present position as merely that of a temporary assistant in the closing down of Camusfeàrna, but should accompany the otters to Woburn and remain in charge of them there, responsible directly to myself. This project, which he regarded with an enthusiasm second only to the unfortunately impracticable notion of remaining with the otters at Camusfeàrna for ever, took a great weight from my mind. It meant that they might be tended by someone in whom I had already learned to place much confidence, someone who knew them, understood them and was fond of them, someone who might handle them in ill health when a stranger might be helpless. It meant, too, that the human contact re-established after so desperately long an interval need not be broken – and to this I attached great importance, for I believed that the present splendid condition of both animals was due at least in part to a psychological rejuvenescence.

  Andrew himself was already taking a much deeper interest in the future of the otters than he himself realized. During my convalescence with Richard and Joan Frere I had begun a scale model of the complex new otter premises at Woburn, and when I had finally arrived at Camusfeàrna I had brought this with me and worked on it daily. Literally hundreds of man hours had by now gone into the model, in an effort to combine four almost irreconcilable principles – the Chinese decorative motif, so that the appearance of the Dairy Lake should not suffer; the well-being and comfort of the animals in the space at disposal; the convenience of their keeper, so that every part should be accessible for cleaning without the necessity to crawl on all-fours; and, finally, the ability of the public to view, so that the large capital outlay for this ambitious scheme should not be lost to that inveterate optimist Michael Alexander.

  All these problems had by now been resolved as nearly as they might be, but from a welter of different proposals put forward both by Michael’s side and my own we had not yet reached agreement on how to divide the lake in such a way as to keep Edal and Teko safely apart. Diagrams and drawings, samples of material, involved mathematical calculations and costings littered my table, but the whole subject was still in dispute by mid-September.

  15

  Peace Before Nightfall

  Andrew put to me again the question whose reply was causing me continued conflict – ‘When do I start taking Teko out?’ The issue could no more be postponed than my own self-demanded question about Edal, and I realized that this time I must make a firm decision, however difficult it might be. I could no longer make excuses on the grounds of the hazards inherent in the presence of other livestock; the five poodles had gone at last; the huge white Roman gander had followed a few days later, sitting grotesquely but majestically on the passenger’s seat of the Land Rover in a sack tied at his neck; and finally we had at last succeeded in catching – not without many scratches, a querulous and highly vocal cat, elusive as a will o’ the wisp, that haunted the premises long after the rest of the menagerie was remembered only by the mighty havoc it had wrought on the house and surroundings.

  This was a Monday, and there were genuine reasons for postponing the experiment for several days. On the other hand Andrew, though not dreading the day with the same cold fear as I, was plainly mustering all his nervous energy for an ordeal of suspense. I decided to fix the day as Saturday, and then to spring the request upon him at five minutes’ notice on Thursday, so that he should have no time to lose his confidence during a possibly sleepless night on Friday.

  Meanwhile I rehearsed him carefully in the behaviour best calculated to produce a calm attitude in Teko’s mind. Throughout the world of animals and birds, and of human infants, it had long been apparent to me that repetitive, sing-song sounds represent an attitude of amiability and thus of reassurance; conversely, a single note, especially if harsh in tone, invariably means alarm or challenge. This I am convinced, is the unconscious motive underlying human ‘baby talk’, which tends to a distortion of words, rendering them rhythmic, lending them a cadence, a rise and fall, that has its counterpart throughout much of the animal kingdom. As a single instance one may contrast the contented chattering of jackdaws with the harsh, drawn-out alarm note announcing the presence of danger.

  For these reasons, and not only because the otters had become conditioned to it before ever they came to me, I had always been accustomed to speak to them in a sing-song baby language, an iambic rhythm, to which they had responded with calm and affection. (When, in the autumn of 1966, 1 had been on the point of sending them to a zoo, it had been an acute embarrassment to me to make a lengthy tape recording of these humanly ridiculous sounds for the benefit of their future keepers – who would, in all likelihood, never have used them. Fortunately, since the otters did not go to the zoo, the compact little spool of potential ridicule remained safely in my possession.)

  Andrew had none of the inhibitions that might be expected towards chanting my silly words and phrases, even though I advised him to do this continuously throughout his walks with Teko; in this as in all other matters he displayed a wisdom and sanity far beyond his years, qualities that might well have saved Camusfeàrna had he arrived upon the scene long before he did, for he seemed born for the life.

  On Thursday morning, as he finished the washing up, I remarked that it was a fine, sunny day, and asked whether he would like to take Teko out at once. He looked only slightly startled, and replied at once, ‘Certainly I’d like to.’

  He did not like being equipped with the pot of pepper, but I insisted. Now that it had come to the moment he was to all appearances completely confident, and it was I who had to exert all my reserves of self control to conceal my agitati
on.

  The window situation at Camusfeàrna – what in educational documents perused with R. F. Mackenzie, Headmaster of Brae-head School, I have so often seen with wonderment referred to as ‘fenestration’ – is as inadequate for all round observation as educational authorities tend to find it for health reasons in every building genuinely suitable as a base for an exploratory outdoor life. Camusfeàrna was built with its back to the prevailing southwesterly winds, a lesson learnt from its predecessor some seventy yards across the field, whose occupants were driven to escape from a tempest-driven sea by a single tiny window on the sheltered, landward, side of the house. I had added only two windows to the original cottage of Camusfeàrna as I had found it, portholes from HMS Vanguard when she was broken up at a Clydeside shipyard. Both were upstairs; one looked north-east directly over Teko’s enclosure, the other south-west to Camusfeàrna bay and the long reach of sea beyond it to the far islands of Eigg and Muick. Thus there was no single window from which I could follow the progress of the first experimental contact between a possibly dangerous animal and a courageous boy. I would have to begin by sticking my head out of the north-easterly porthole, set far back in the thickness of the house wall, and then move from room to room as the two progressed, as I hoped they would, towards the sea.

  Andrew showed no sign of nervousness as, carrying a plate of Teko’s favourite delicacy, tinned pilchards, he went to Teko’s closed gate and called to him in a fair imitation of my own chanting language. With my head through the porthole and my shoulders jammed into the alcove that gave access to it, I watched as Teko lingered in his house and made no response. Andrew was wearing my clothes so that he should smell of security (a dubious policy, this, and one that might have led to the animal treating the human as an impostor to be punished) and at length Teko caught the scent and emerged. He appeared confused to find that it was not I who awaited him; he refused the pilchards and returned to his house. His gate to the outside world was still closed, and knowing for an absolute certainty that sooner or later Andrew was going to open it I was conscious of a steadily mounting nervous tension. After a minute or so Teko came back to the gate, and while Andrew was opening it Teko grabbed the edge with his hands and emerged with force; he was talking, but in a language I understood imperfectly, a muted variation upon his ‘wow-wow-wow’ that could mean moderate anger, satisfaction in possession of interesting food (and presumably defence of it), or what I can only describe as aggressive affection. Then he rolled on his back, which in all the mustellines can be either a gesture of defence preceding violence or one of submission to dominance in a hierarchy; I simply did not know which of the two this was, and I began literally to sweat. Then I saw Andrew bend down and put a finger in one of Teko’s paws, as one does to a baby whose grasp is still unsure; I saw the little monkey fingers close upon it, and suddenly I knew that all was well, that even if a complete and intimate accord might be postponed for a little the basis for it was already there.

  As Andrew walked away toward the sea with Teko at his heel, a sea lying light and bare, milky below a pale sky, the dark rocks and seaweed shining in the low glint of an autumn sun, time once again shut up like an old, well-oiled telescope, and I was watching Jimmy or Terry setting out with one or other otter for their routine morning walk so many years before. Life, in the sense that I understood life, had returned to the house and its occupants.

  I moved from room to room, trying to keep the two in sight as – after an exploration of unfamiliar objects less minute and conscientious than Edal’s – Teko accompanied Andrew over the dunes and down to the estuary of the little river. At length I lost sight of them, and went out on to the dunes, so that I could follow and if necessary direct their progress along the beach. After an hour they were back within a hundred yards of the house, and to spare Andrew the weary business of re-confining an animal that had so amply demonstrated his intransigent attitude on this point, I went into his house and acted as a vocal bait to which Teko responded immediately.

  The suspense was over, and I felt certain now that Teko would not harm Andrew; though, judging by the aloof way the animal had ignored the human except in the role of some sort of official guide to the terrain, I thought it might be a long time before they established any closer contact between each other. I thought Teko’s affections were fixed on me, but I flattered myself. It was only four days later, at the end of their third walk, that the almost unbelievable happened. It was a grey day, with gusts of wet wind blowing in off the sea, and almost continuous small rain. Andrew and Teko had been away for some two hours or more when from my writing desk I noticed them across the field, Andrew calling unavailingly to Teko, who was pottering about the first steep slope of the jeep track and occasionally disappearing into the bushes at its side, where a little hidden stream flowed down deep between sheer sides. It was raining harder now, and I went to fetch an anorak before going out to lure Teko home. When I had put it on I looked out of the window to see Andrew and Teko rolling and romping together on the soaking grass of the field, and Teko’s voice of greeting and pleasure came to me even through the closed window. Flat on his back Andrew lay in the drenched grass while Teko clambered over his chest and nuzzled his face and ears with ecstatic squeaks of delight; I saw Andrew blow into his fur as I did myself, and Teko nuzzling under his jacket; I saw Andrew’s expression of deep delight, and I was full of wonder. The two were like long-lost, intimate friends who have suddenly rediscovered each other; and I wondered how much and by what means Andrew’s desire for this rapport had communicated itself to the animal. How very small is our knowledge.

  The relationship never looked back, though it was a further week before Andrew was able to rehouse Teko unaided. The following day he was determined to try it himself, but after the pair had lapped the house in patient procession more than thirty times, sometimes the one leading and sometimes the other, all in the pouring rain, I felt it only humane to come to the rescue.

  It was only a few days after this that I myself achieved a full restoration of my old relationship with Edal. It was one of those rare autumn days when there was no breath of wind, and the sun shone upon the gold and russet and red of turning leaf on the steep hillside above the house. The tide was far, far out, and the still, cerulean sea broke only with a tiny white lather of foam upon the sculptured sands; the hues were so delicate, so finely contrasted, as to give the whole scene an air almost of fragility, as if at any moment it might burst like a soap bubble and leave the onlooker in a colourless vacuum.

  I took Edal out to the island beaches and the white coral sands; she herself was in some way elated by the sunshine and the stillness, and she scampered about with a greater display of speed and enthusiasm than I had yet seen. When we had crossed the island bar and came to the bay called Traigh a Ghuirabain, I saw that the tide was lower than I ever remembered seeing it; the great stems and rubbery brown leaves of umbrella weed stood naked and glistening on the beach of sand and scattered stone, and further out still they showed ranked above the flat water like the canopied fronds of some primeval forest. I found some big clams exposed near to the shrunken tide’s edge, and I began to wade out in search of more. The water was so clear that even when it was above my knees I could see every minute detail of the bottom; the multi-coloured fan shells and mussels; the mother-of-pearl top-shells; the chalk-white hieroglyphics, like some forgotten alphabet, left by the serpulid tube-worms upon shell and stone alike; the fine tracery in crimson and white of little fern-like weeds. I was absorbed in looking at these things beneath the surface, and had momentarily forgotten Edal, who, when I had last seen her, had been porpoising at high speed some hundred yards away. Now I felt a sudden nudge at my leg from behind, and turned to find her touching me, ‘corkscrewing’; revolving at enormous speed, that is to say, like a chicken-spit gone demented. I remembered suddenly how she had been used to do this when she was small; an expression, it seemed, of immense delight in her surroundings, something more than a feeling of well-being; a
lmost, it seemed, one of ecstasy. I remembered another thing long forgotten, how I would take her by the tail and swoosh her round in circles by it until a human would have become giddy, and how she would respond with a vacuous expression of happiness and contentment. Now, if ever, was the moment to restore these little rituals of rapport; I took her by the tail and began to swing her round by it faster and faster, and she let herself go limp as I did so, her face wearing that same long forgotten look of fulfilment. When I let her go she went shooting away in the clear water, and as I watched her I wondered which had restored most to the other. To me the sky and the sea and the mountains looked brighter, more real, the shallow sea’s floor more brilliant than before, for an enduring mist of guilt had been lifted from them all. I was content now to let the future resolve itself, for I knew that I could no longer break the trust of animal friendship.

  As we went home Edal paused upon a mound of heather and grass and began to roll and polish herself upon its surface. I sat down a few yards away from her, determined not to destroy this recovered confidence by intrusion, and lit a cigarette. During the past few years I suppose I had experienced these sights and sounds before – Ben Sgriol with its first cap of lace-like snow against a pale blue autumn sky, the distant roaring of stags upon the slopes of the Skye shore, the rowan berries scarlet, and the river running ice-cold into the calm Camusfeàrna bay, fringed everywhere by the fallen leaves of autumn; but they had meant little to me – the impact had been sensory only, for I had been no longer part of them, and in an ecological sense I had already become an outsider. Now I reached out towards this once familiar world, as out of nothing Andrew and Teko had reached out to each other, and I felt at one with all that my senses could perceive. High above me, wheeling in taut arcs, two buzzards mewed like kittens, and a single wild goose flew northwards over the Sound – a Pinkfoot, calling continuously, lost, as I had been lost for so long.