VICTORY?

Through the hot, cloudless days in the back of New South Wales, there is always something beside the sun watching you from the sky. Over the line of the hills, or above the long stretches of plains, a black dot swings round and round; and its circles rise slowly or fall slowly or simply remain at the same height, swinging in endless, indolent curves, while the eyes watch the miles of earth below, and the six - or maybe nine-foot wingspan remains motionless in the air. You know after that there is nothing you can do which will not be observed, that the circling eagle, however small the distance may make it, however aloof its flight may seem, has always fixed upon the earth an attention as fierce as its claws.

When an Air Force station was established in their country in 1941, the eagles were not alarmed by the noisy yellow airplanes. Sometimes a pilot would chase the bird and would find, unexpectedly, no response. The eagle would seem not to notice the little Tiger Moth biplane until the very moment when collision seemed inevitable and then it was gone, simply a flick over and down and the eagle would resume its circle. The delay and quick manoeuvre would be done with. a princely detachment and consciousness of superiority, the eagle in the silence of its wings scorning the roar and fuss of the aircraft and its engine. Two pilots were drinking one day in the local town with one of the farmers over whose land they used to fly. The farmer spoke about one huge eagle. He wanted it dead because it massacred his sheep. « Two of us, you know, could do it, » one of the pilots said. « One could chase him round while the other climbed over and dived at him. That way, we might get him. »

The eagle heard and saw the plane, and flicked over to where, before, safety had always been emptily waiting for it. It flashed , wings still gloriously outstretched, straight into the right-hand end of the upper main plane of the other aircraft. Its right wing got caught in the struts and wires, snapped away and fluttered down to earth. The left wing folded into the body, stretched and folded again as the heavy box of bone, beak and claw, plunged and slewed to the ground. The two pilots landed in the paddock and, leaving the engine running, walked over to the dark mass of feathers. One of them turned off to the side and came back holding the severed wing. It was almost as big as the man himself. The two of them stood in silence. The moment of skill and danger was passed, and the dead body before them proclaimed their victory.

Frowning with the glare of the sun and the misery of their achievement, they both looked down at the piteous, one-winged eagle. Not a mark of blood was on it, the beak glistening and uncrushed, the ribbed feet and talons clenched together. It was not the fact of death that kept them in silence: the watcher would not always keep its station in the air. But what both of them could still see was the one-winged heap of bone and feathers, slewing and jerking uncontrolled to earth.

In the distance, they heard the noise of the farmer's truck approaching and saw it stop at a gate and the farmer wave as he got out to open it. They quickly picked up the bird and its wing, and ran with them to the little hillock covered in rocks at the corner of the paddock. Between two large rocks, they folded both wings across the bird and piled stones above it; and then, each lifting, carried a large flat stone and placed it above the others.

As they ran back towards the airplanes a black dot broke from the hills and swung above them, circling round and round, watching the truck accelerate and then stop as the two airplanes turned, taxied and slid into the air before it could reach them.

Geoffrey Dutton.

The Wedge-Tailed Eagle.