By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, October 28, 1939.
“Though the heavens fall,” declared Jimmie Frise, “we ought to get one day’s good duck shooting.”
“We should fiddle,” I muttered, “while Rome burns.1“
“No good purpose,” stated Jim, “will be served if everybody in the Empire goes gloomy. The secret of morale is a high heart.”
“Mister,” I warned, “we are fighting a totalitarian state. Every atom of energy, men, women, boys, girls, the weak, the strong, all the energy of the enemy is being directed against us.”
“So we should waste our energy,” retorted Jimmie, “by sulking at our desks. By sitting and brooding.”
“We can cut out all idle waste.” I submitted. “Waste of gas and oil in going some idle place. Waste of powder and shot shooting at ducks. Waste of time that we might better employ in some war work.”
“Name it,” suggested Jim. “Name some war work we can do this week-end. Will we knit socks? Will we go and walk the streets, tapping young men on the chests saying, ‘How about it, young man?’ Your know as well as I do that more men are ready to enlist than they can accommodate right now. You know that war work is going on in a thousand places, high and low, that factories are being geared, that women are organizing into knitting clubs. War work has to grow, like something strong, like an oak tree, like a lion, slowly, atom by atom, stage by stage. There is no greater waste, no more dangerous waste, than the frenzied and excited effort of undirected enthusiasm – the desire to be doing something for the sake of doing.”
“I feel,” I stated unhappily, “that we ought to be doing something. I’ve had a feeling for weeks that we are letting priceless time slip by.”
“Look,” said Jim. “War is like an industry. Let us say the war is like a new factory opening up in a town. Does the manager of the factory, on the day it opens, blow a whistle and call all the townsfolk in and say to them, ‘Get busy, start work, let everybody sail in now with all he’s got?’ Does he say that? No, sir. When that new factory opens up, first comes a skeleton staff to set up the machinery and to assemble the raw materials. Then a small crew of workers is taken on to start the machinery and test out the materials. It takes weeks, months, for a factory to get going at full production. It’s the same with a war. That is, in a peaceful country that hasn’t been gearing for war all along.”
“Ah, but we’re fighting a country that has been gearing up all along,” I reminded him.
“All the more reason,” claimed Jim, “that we should organize with the utmost caution, the utmost clarity of mind and purpose. Suppose we did jump in like madmen and start enlisting men by the hundreds of thousands, and ordering all the factories to begin one hundred per cent. production of clothing and arms and equipment, where would we be in six months?”
“We’d probably have a good big army,” I stated. “And plenty of material.”
“And,” said Jim, “according to all past experience, such as Russia in the last war, and countless other examples that are on file in the offices of every intelligent ruler on earth, we would have a big, ill-equipped army, the factories of the nations would be packed with hastily made goods, and the country would be broke.”
Building a Hide
“Still, we ought to be doing something,” I sighed.
“Let’s go duck shooting,” repeated Jim.
“It seems wicked,” I protested.
“If it did nothing else,” stated Jim, “it would revive our spirits. What is the chief difference between the Germans and the British? We are both energetic. We are both capable of a tremendous patriotism. We both love leisure and a good time. The Germans love to sit in beer gardens and sing songs and talk philosophy. But the British like to play games. Why should we turn German now, and sit around, gassing and brooding and talking dummy politics? Why not stay British, and go and play games and shoot ducks and be natural? We’ll win this war because we are British, not because we have turned German.”
“One of the first maxims of warfare,” I informed Jimmie, “is to study your enemy, his nature, his character, his weaknesses of temperament and disposition.”
“Correct,” agreed Jim. “Why aren’t the Germans flying over Britain dropping leaflets?2 Because they know that all the British people are too busy playing football or hunting foxes or digging badgers or poaching salmon, in between drilling and working in factories, to bother picking up leaflets. Whereas, it is good policy for the British to drop leaflets to give the Germans something to gas about while sitting in the beer gardens after hours.”
“I would prefer,” I insisted, “to spend the week-end out at the rifle ranges, practising rifle shooting to amusing myself shooting at ducks.”
“Okay, then,” said Jim. “I was merely making the suggestion.””
“Now that I come to think of it,” I proffered, “rifle shooting is pretty old-fashioned. Modern warfare, with its flying machines and its fast tanks and so forth, calls for a different sort of shooting than aiming with a rifle at a perfectly still bull’s-eye.”
“Army rifles,” agreed Jim, “were designed for one soldier to use, lying down, shooting at another soldier lying down.”
“Wing shooting,” I continued, “bring with a shotgun at flying ducks, for example, is the most modern training a man could undertake. In fact, all soldiers ought to be trained at shooting at either wild ducks or partridge, or at clay pigeons, so as to teach them the art of timing, of swing, of leading a moving target. In modern war, all targets are moving.”
“You’re quite right,” said Jim expectantly.
“What a wonderful training,” I cried, “if all our boys were taught to shoot ducks on the wing! What chance would airplanes and fast tanks have against men schooled to wing shooting!”
So we went duck shooting last week-end, as you can surmise. We went to our old familiar haunts, arriving at the farmhouse which is our lodging on duck hunts, and it being a very soft, still, fine evening, and no ducks flying at all, we spent the first night building a hide. The trouble with most duck shooting excursions is that you are too eager. You dash out into the marsh the minute you arrive, and place yourself in some hastily constructed hide, a few bulrushes, a few wisps of grass, and no self-respecting duck would come within a mile of you. What a duck hunter needs is a real blind, a hide built of cedar boughs, rushes, grass, so skilfully woven and pieced together that it looks like a natural little island in the bog, and the body of the hunter is wholly concealed.
Their Favorite Point
A good hide should also be comfortable. It should have a good footing or floor, a good seat for the sportsman to sit on, well down out of sight; and it should be so woven that it is a shield against the cold, windy weather that is the best for ducks.
“And,” I said to Jimmie as we worked at our splendid new hide, “here is another point that should make duck hunting part of the training of the modern soldier. It teaches the art of concealment, of camouflage. Duck hunters knew all about camouflage a hundred years ago, while the armies of the world were still marching into battle over open fields in bright scarlet and blue uniforms.”
So we felt our consciences easy as we toiled in the fading sunlight of a soft and lovely day, far too nice for the ducks. We laid planks for a footing. We drove boughs of cedar and balsam deep into the mud of the boggy point which was one of our favorite shooting spots. We wove rushes and grass in amongst the boughs, and Jimmie, being an artist, fastened tufts of marsh grass in the camouflage most artistically, so that our beautiful new hide was a wonder to behold.
“The probs,” said Jim, “are cold and north-west breezes for tomorrow. I can feel the change of weather coming, can’t you?”
“I bet the wind will spring up in the night,” I replied, “and tomorrow will be a classic duck shooter’s day.”
Back at the farmhouse, we spent the traditional duck shooters’ evening, sitting around the kitchen stove with the farmer and his wife talking about everything but duck shooting, Jimmie and I explaining all about the war and how it came about and how it will end. And we went upstairs to bed in the slope ceilinged room at 9.30, so as to be up before the break of day to set out our decoys by our beautiful new duck blind.
And it was before the break of day we were waked by the farmer and went down in our rubber boots and oilskins to a lamplit breakfast of country bacon, fried potatoes and pie, and so out under frosty stars to find the night waning with a sting in it, and a light breeze blowing fog wraiths, and a smell of ducks in the air.
Into the punt we crept, stumbling amid the decoys, and across the bay we rowed to the shadowy outline of our favorite point and our lovely new hide.
Furtive sounds came to our ears, as other hunters took their stands in the darkness. We knew the moment well. For a half hour, these faint sounds would come, faint knocks and thuds, as decoys are tossed out, as oars are shipped, as punts are rammed into the reeds. Then would follow a little time of deathly and breathless stillness until the first faint pallor of day began to creep. Then would come the whistling wings, the swift, rushing flight, the wheeling of half-seen objects in the air, and then the bang-bang of the, guns, faint, far and near.
It is a lovely hour, better even than the firing into the set-winged ducks, the startled, leaping ducks.
As we neared our precious blind, I thought I saw ducks already scattered about the point.
“Psst,” I said to Jimmie, who was sitting in the stern.
He was leaning forward peering into the murk.
“It’s decoys,” he hissed. “Somebody must be in our hide.”
“Aw, no,” I groaned.
Getting a Surprise
I took a few powerful strokes, but we were, indeed, too late. As the prow of the punt rammed the weeds, out of the hide, our precious, artistic, hand-made hide, rose two shadowy figures.
“Buzz off,” said a low voice at us.
“You’re in our blind,” said Jim.
“So what?” said one of the large looming figures.
“We built it less than 10 hours ago,” I said, low and harsh.
“So what?” repeated the stranger. “We’re in it, so what?”
“You will kindly get out of it,” said Jim firmly.
“Since when,” asked the low voice, “have points of land on wild lakes in the public domain become private property?”
“We built the hide,” I retorted. That lays claim to the point for us.”
“Under what law?” inquired the stranger levelly. “Come on, buzz off. The birds will be flying in a minute.”
“Under the law of sportsmanship,” I declared. “We’ve been shooting on this point for 15 years.”
“Then under the law of sportsmanship,” inquired the stranger politely, “don’t you think it’s about time you let somebody else have a chance?”
“Listen,” said Jim, resolutely, “we came here and built that hide last night. Now you guys get out of it. Come on. Get the heck out of our hide.”
“If you guys don’t get out of here,” said a second voice, a loud, strong, businesslike voice, “we’ll chase you out of here. Come on, stop bothering us.”
When dawn. comes, it comes fast. We could now make out more clearly the shapes of the two interlopers. And they were rather large, young, powerful looking individuals, they held their guns in the crook of their arms and they seemed to be swelling up slightly with a slow anger.
“We ask you, once more,” grated Jim menacingly, “will you get out of our hide?”
“The answer is,” said the tallest, “no.”
Jim sat down angrily and pushed back with his paddle. With angry oars, I jabbed the chilly water and started to back away from the point. At a distance of 20 yards, I relaxed my furious rowing and said to Jim:
“Now what do we do?”
“I tell you what we’ll do,” declared Jim, grimly. “We’ll stay right here and row round and round, so that not a darn duck will come near these birds. And if they want to know what we’re doing, we’ll tell them we are looking for a place to build a hide.”
“Why Didn’t You Say So?”
“Okay,” I agreed grimly. So, in the lightening dawn, I proceeded to row noisily around in the neighborhood of the point.
In about three minutes, a voice hailed us.
“If you birds don’t get out of there,” he called, “we are liable to mistake you for ducks. Accidents will happen to guys that row around in punts after the ducks start flying.”
“Now that’s too much,” shouted Jim, rising to his feet in the stern. “Row in there. I’m going to demand to see the licenses of these birds. I’m going to take down the numbers of their license buttons3 and, by golly, I’m going to tell the game warden that they threatened us.”
I rowed in.
“I’ve got witnesses,” declared Jim hotly. “There’s plenty of others in this bog heard you threaten us. I’m going to report you, and I want to see your license buttons.”
“Okay, buddy,” replied the voices. “Come right in. The sooner we get rid of you, the sooner we may see a duck.”
We rammed the punt right in alongside. It was light enough now for us to see their faces. They were handsome kids. Big, ruddy country looking boys. The nearest one opened his canvas coat and showed us the red hunting license button on the lapel.
But underneath the coat, the unmistakable drab gleam of khaki showed, and the trim, snug collar of a military uniform.
“Hello,” said Jim, lamely, “soldiers?”
“So what?” said the same amiable voice.
“Are you both soldiers?” demanded Jim. The other boy peeled back his hunting coat collar and grinned up at us.
“Well, ah, aw, well,” said Jim, speaking for both of us. “How do you get duck shooting when you’re soldiers?”
“We got the week-end leave,” said the one standing, “to get maybe the last duck shooting we’re going to get in a long time.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” cried Jim heartily. “What the Sam Hill, why, doggone it, why, what the…”
“You’re mighty welcome to our hide, boys,” I said, seeing Jimmie had run out of things to say.
“Look,” said the one sitting, “we didn’t want to pinch anybody’s blind. But we haven’t much time, and we just grabbed the first point we came to. They’re all free, after all. We didn’t realize what a swell blind this is, until now… the light…”
But I had shoved the punt free and was already handling the oars.
“Listen, boys,” said Jim, “it’s a pleasure to build a blind for you. It’s a pleasure. Any time you can get off, just let know…”
So we rowed away, and we rowed all around the bay and out past the big islands, and around points, past a lot of other blinds where indignant gunners demanded what the heck we were trying to do, and we scared up all the ducks we could see, and we chased them so that they would fly over the blind on the point, the best little duck blind we had ever built in our lives.
Editor’s Notes:
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