Palmer-Jones 05 - Sea Fever by Ann Cleeves Read Free Book Online

the feet. They’re bloody enormous. Even from here.”
    When Rob called to Louis Rosco to manoeuvre the Jessie Ellen nearer to the bird, there was such an edge of urgency in his voice that he alerted the others, and the peace of the day was shattered. The tone of the engine changed. The people at the stern were shouting to know what had been seen. There was noise, confusion, and excitement.
    “We’ll have to attract the bird closer with the chum,” Rob shouted. He tried to pull the bin of fish oil and offal towards the side, but it was too heavy, and he could not get a grip on it. His feet were slipping on the wet floor.
    “Get off your backsides and help me, someone!” he shouted, frustration turning to anger. “ Can you still see it, George? Don’t bloody lose it.”
    Gerald Matthews tried to lift the bin from behind, and the stinking oil slopped over the side onto their clothes. Rob took no notice and continued shouting instructions to Louis.
    They levered the bin so it was balanced on the deck rail.
    “Wait!” he said. “ We need to put out the chum so the wind blows it towards the bird.”
    Then at last they tipped the contents overboard. The oily film spread over the water, mixed with popcorn and pieces of fish. It moved slowly but eventually covered a far greater area than George would have thought possible. The boat began to chug away from it.
    “Where are we going?” Roger Pym yelled in panic. “ We need that bird.”
    He was nowhere to be seen when Rob needed help with the chum. Now he was right on the deck rail seeking the best possible view of the petrel.
    “We’ll turn back soon,” Rob said, “and circle the area of chum. Louis knows what he’s doing. We’ve used this technique before.”
    “Four Wilson’s petrels!” Gerald Matthews shouted. But now their attention was focused on the new bird and they hardly turned to look, and when Rose Pengelly lifted Matilda high in the air to look at the string of shearwaters, they looked at her angrily because she was distracting them.
    Impassively Louis Rosco turned the Jessie Ellen , and it began slowly to circle the area of chum. Rob had disappeared into the saloon and returned with field guides, photographic guides. He and George pored over them, becoming more impatient and excited, as they could find nothing which fitted the description of the bird they had seen.
    “Are you sure it wasn’t Leach’s or Wilson’s?” Roger Pym said at last. He sounded irritated and petulant.
    “Oh, yes.” George said firmly. “Quite sure.”
    “Matsudeira’s? Tristram’s?”
    “No. There were the feet, you see. Quite startling.”
    Then they began to consider the possibility that it was a bird as yet unrecorded, a species like that recently discovered breeding in a small colony on the Salvage Islands. It would be impossible to have such a record accepted on only a fleeting view, and they peered over the rail at the oily water, tense and silent. The air and the water were filled with birds but no one could make out the red-footed petrel.
    “There it is!” Rob said triumphantly. “Just there. Under the crowd of gulls. Look at that head and that underwing! Pass me the camera. We’ll need photographs. If I had a gun, I’d shoot the bloody thing.”
    Then, obliging, showing off almost, it circled above them, so they could see the brilliant red feet and the light shining through the shafts of the wing feathers. It was possible to detail the wing, to draw the pattern of each feather. They drank in the image of the bird, sketching it, memorising the joy of the moment. George felt drawn to it. It was the climax of sixty years of birdwatching. No other experience would match it. He could not take his eyes off the bird.
    He heard Jane Pym ask hesitantly if she should go to fetch Greg, and for a moment he felt guilty because he had given the boy no thought.
    “I’ll go,” Duncan James said. “ This is very interesting, but I’m afraid it’s rather above