The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. Part 6.
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Commander Keith Emerson also helped British soldiers escape from Dunkirk. At an officers’ club in Brook Street, London, he told his story.
At four o’clock one morning, the telephone woke him, and someone asked him to take a boat across the Channel to Dunkirk. The slow but strong boat pulled four big Thames river boats along behind it. With these boats, the commander crossed the Channel many times to save the soldiers on the beaches.
‘Did you hear that strange story about a wild goose?’ one of the commander’s friends asked. ‘They were telling the story up and down the beaches, and some of the returning men were talking about it. They said, “It came between Dunkirk and La Panne. If you see it, you’ll be safe.”‘
‘Hmm,’ said the commander, ‘a wild goose, you say? I saw a white goose and it was lucky for us, too. I’ll tell you about it.
‘We were on our way back from Dunkirk. It was our third journey back. At about six o’clock we saw a small sailing boat. There seemed to be a man or a body in it – and this white goose was standing on one of the sides. I decided to have a look. When we got nearer, I saw a man lying in the bottom of the boat – a man with a beard. The poor man was dead – shot many times.
‘When we were next to the boat, one of my men tried to put his hand on the side. But the goose hit him with her wings. He couldn’t get near.
Suddenly one of the men with me shouted and pointed to something in the water. It was a mine! It was lucky for us that we went to look at that boat. That’s why I’m not dead now!
‘When all our boats were past the mine, our men shot at it. There was a very loud BANG! We looked for the sailing boat, but it wasn’t there. It went down when the mine went off. I’m afraid that the man went with his boat. The goose was in the air. She was flying round in circles above the place where the boat went down. She flew round three times, like someone saying goodbye. Then she flew away to the west. It was very strange and a little sad,’ said the commander, as he finished his story.
After Philip went to France, Fritha stayed at the lighthouse on the Great Marsh. She looked after the birds that could not fly away. She was waiting for something. But she did not know what she was waiting for. During the first days after Philip left, she watched at the sea wall for his boat. But the days passed and Philip did not return. She spent some days looking in the rooms of the lighthouse. In one room she found Philip’s paintings. There were pictures of that wild and empty country around the lighthouse, and of the beautiful birds that came there.
And there was a painting of Fritha. She was still a child in the picture. It was her first day at the lighthouse, and she was standing at the lighthouse door. She held the snow goose in her arms.
‘It’s strange,’ Fritha thought. ‘This is the only painting of the snow goose. The only picture of the lost, wild bird that brought Philip and me together.’
It was a beautiful picture. Fritha could feel the love that went into the painting of it.
Long before the snow goose circled the lighthouse with a last goodbye, Fritha knew. Philip was not coming back.
She was standing by the lighthouse one evening when she heard the bird’s call. She ran to the sea wall and looked up into the red eastern sky. She saw the snow goose and looked down the river towards the sea. But she already knew that there was no hope. There was no little sailing boat. The snow goose was alone.
Then Fritha knew that she loved Philip. Tears filled her eyes and poured down her face. As she watched the snow goose, she could hear Philip’s voice. It seemed to call to her, ‘Fritha, Fritha, my love. Goodbye, my love.’
‘I love you, Philip,’ Fritha said to herself.
Fritha waited for the snow goose to land in the enclosure. The other birds sent up welcoming calls to her. She came down very low, but she flew up again into the sky. She circled the lighthouse once and then climbed higher into the sky.
Fritha watched the snow goose. She did not see it as a bird. She saw it as Philip’s last goodbye before he disappeared for ever.
She put out her arms, high into the sky, and cried: ‘Goodbye, Philip! Goodbye!’
She stopped crying. Then she watched in silence for a long time after the snow goose disappeared. At last she went into the lighthouse and found Philip’s picture of her and the snow goose. She held it to her chest and walked home slowly along the old sea wall.
Each night, for many weeks after that, Fritha went to the lighthouse. She fed the birds that could not fly. Then, early one morning, a German aeroplane flew over the lighthouse. The pilot made a mistake. He thought that he had to bomb the lighthouse. The plane flew high into the sky and then down towards the lighthouse. It dropped its bombs. After a minute there was nothing there. The lighthouse, and everything in it, was destroyed.
Fritha came in the evening to feed the birds. She was walking along the path and stopped suddenly. Where was the lighthouse? Where was the enclosure? The sea covered the place where the lighthouse had stood the day before.
– THE END –
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