Crispin raised a hand to silence her. ‘I’ll help you.’ He leaned his rifle against the pergola and took hold of the saw, after a few strokes freed it from its groove and made a clean start.

‘Thank you.’ As he worked the woman stood beside him, looking down with a friendly smile as the cartridge bandoliers began to flap rhythmically to the motion of his arm and chest.

Crispin stopped, reluctant to shed the bandoliers of machine-gun bullets, the badge of his authority. He glanced in the direction of the picket ship, and the woman, taking her cue, said, ‘You’re the captain? I’ve seen you on the bridge.’

‘Well…’ Crispin had never heard himself described as the vessel’s captain, but the title seemed to carry a certain status. He nodded modestly. ‘Crispin,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘Captain Crispin. Glad to help you.’

‘I’m Catherine York.’ Holding her white hair to her neck with one hand, the woman smiled again. She pointed to the rusting hulk. ‘It’s a fine ship.’

Crispin worked away at the saw, wondering whether she was missing the point. When he carried the frame over to the pyre and laid it at the base of the feathers he replaced his bandoliers with calculated effect. The woman appeared not to notice, but a moment later, when she glanced up at the sky, he raised his rifle and went up to her.

‘Did you see one? Don’t worry, I’ll get it.’ He tried to follow her eyes as they swept across the sky after some invisible object that seemed to vanish beyond the cliff, but she turned away and began to adjust the feathers mechanically. Crispin gestured at the fields around them, feeling his pulse beat again at the prospect and fear of battle. ‘I shot all these..

‘What? I’m sorry, what did you say?’ The woman looked around. She appeared to have lost interest in Crispin and was vaguely waiting for him to leave.

‘Do you want more wood?’ Crispin asked. ‘I can get some.’

‘I have enough.’ She touched the feathers on the trestle, then thanked Crispin and walked off into the house, closing the hall door on its rusty hinges.

Crispin made his way across the lawn and through the meadow. The birds lay around him as before, but the memory, however fleeting, of the woman’s sympathetic smile made him ignore them. He set off in the launch, pushing away the floating birds with brusque motions of the gaff. The picket ship sat at its moorings, the soggy raft of grey corpses around it. For once the rusting hulk depressed Crispin.

As he climbed the gangway he saw Quimby’s small figure on the bridge, wild eyes roving about at the sky. Crispin had expressly forbidden the dwarf to be near the steering helm, though there was little likelihood of the picket ship going anywhere. Irritably he shouted at Quimby to get off the ship.

The dwarf leaped down the threadbare network of ratlines to the deck. He scurried over to Crispin.

‘Crisp!’ he shouted in his hoarse whisper. ‘They saw one! Coming in from the coast! Hassell told me to warn you.’

Crispin stopped. Heart pounding, he scanned the sky out of the sides of his eyes, at the same time keeping a close watch on the dwarf. ‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’ The dwarf wriggled one shoulder, as if trying to dislodge a stray memory. ‘Or was it this morning? Anyway, it’s coming. Are you ready, Crisp?’

Crispin walked past, one hand firmly on the breech of his rifle. ‘I’m always ready,’ he rejoined. ‘What about you?’ He jerked a finger at the house. ‘You should have been with the woman. Catherine York. I had to help her. She said she didn’t want to see you again.’

‘What?’ The dwarf scurried about, hands dancing along the rusty rail.

He gave up with an elaborate shrug. ‘Ah, she’s a strange one. Lost her man, you know, Crisp. And her baby.’

Crispin paused at the foot of the bridge companionway. ‘Is that right? How did it happen?’

‘A dove killed the man, pulled him to pieces on the roof, then took the baby. A tame bird, mark you.’ He nodded when Crispin looked at him sceptically. ‘That’s it. He was another strange one, that York. Kept this big dove on a chain.’

Crispin climbed on to the bridge and stared across the river at the house. After musing to himself for five minutes he kicked Quimby off the ship, and then spent half an hour checking the gunnery installation. The reported sighting of one of the birds he discounted — no doubt a few strays were still flitting about, searching for their flocks — but the vulnerability of the woman across the river reminded him to take every precaution. Near the house she would be relatively safe, but in the open, during her walks along the beach, she would be an all too easy prey.

It was this undefined feeling of responsibility towards Catherine York that prompted him, later that afternoon, to take the launch out again. A quarter of a mile down-river he moored the craft by a large open meadow, directly below the flight path of the birds as they had flown in to attack the picket ship. Here, on the cool green turf, the dying birds had fallen most thickly. A recent fall of rain concealed the odour of the immense gulls and fulmars lying across each other like angels. In the past Crispin had always moved with pride among this white harvest he had reaped from the sky, but now he hurried down the winding aisles between the birds, a wicker basket under his arm, intent only on his errand.

When he reached the higher ground in the centre of the meadow he placed the basket on the carcass of a dead falcon and began to pluck the feathers from the wings and breasts of the birds lying about him. Despite the rain, the plumage was almost dry. Crispin worked steadily for half an hour, tearing out the feathers with his hands, then carried the basketfuls of plumes down to the launch. As he scurried about the meadow his bent head and shoulders were barely visible above the corpses of the birds.

By the time he set off in the launch the small craft was loaded from bow to stern with the bright plumes. Crispin stood in the steering well, peering over his cargo as he drove up-river. He moored the boat on the beach below the woman’s house. A thin trail of smoke rose from the fire, and he could hear Mrs York chopping more kindling.

Crispin walked through the shallow water around the boat, selecting the choicest of the plumes and arranging them around the basket — a falcon’s brilliant tail feathers, the mother-of-pearl plumes of a fulmar, the brown breast feathers of an eider. Shouldering the basket, he set off towards the house.

Catherine York was moving the trestle closer to the fire, straightening the plumes as the smoke drifted past them. More feathers had been added to the pyre built on to the frame of the pergola. The outer ones had been woven together to form a firm rim.

Crispin put the basket down in front of her, then stood back. ‘Mrs York, I brought these. I thought you might use them.’

The woman glanced obliquely at the sky, then shook her head as if puzzled. Crispin suddenly wondered if she recognized him. ‘What are they?’

‘Feathers. For over there.’ Crispin pointed at the pyre. ‘They’re the best I could find.’

Catherine York knelt down, her skirt hiding the scuffed sandals. She touched the coloured plumes as if recalling their original owners. ‘They are beautiful. Thank you, captain.’ She stood up. ‘I’d like to keep them, but I need only this kind.’

Crispin followed her hand as she pointed to the white feathers on the trestle. With a curse, he slapped the breech of the rifle.

‘Doves! They’re all doves! I should have noticed!’ He picked up the basket. ‘I’ll get you some.’

‘Crispin…’ Catherine York took his arm. Her troubled eyes wandered about his face, as if hoping to find some kindly way of warning him off. ‘I have enough, thank you. It’s nearly finished now.’

Crispin hesitated, waiting for himself to say something to this beautiful white-haired woman whose hands and robe were covered with the soft down of the doves. Then he picked up the basket and made his way back to the launch.