718 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 6, 1913. 
a tuft of reeds or with one foot up to the knee 
in mud and stdl sinking. The reeds on the sec¬ 
ond marsh were too thick, and Pat only added 
one more bird to the bag. We were struggling 
through the "bloody morass,” as Pat called it, 
when he suddenly lay flat in the mud, telling me 
to do likewise. In an open space about 300 yards 
away were a couple of teal. He wanted me to 
learn the art of wildfowling, so gave me direc¬ 
tions how to stalk them. I then wriggled a wide 
detour through the reeds and got the birds be¬ 
tween us. I was so keen on having the stalk suc¬ 
ceed that I crashed through the reeds and aban¬ 
doned irrigation drains until I was a mess of 
slime and mud to the hips. I now started to 
glide straight for the teal and was about 100 
yards away from them, when, owing to my slid¬ 
ing off a tuft of reeds to apparently unknown 
depths in the slime, I waved my hands to regain 
my balance. My scarecrow motions put the birds 
up, and they flew another ico yards in Pat’s di¬ 
rection. The little fellows were so interested in 
my movements that they never noticed or paid 
any attention to Pat crouching. Knowing nothing 
about the habits of duck, I stood bolt upright and 
made straight for them, thinking they would fly 
in the most natural direction, viz., over Pat’s 
head, which very luckily they did. Then fol¬ 
lowed a pretty sight. Pat thought he was shoot¬ 
ing "driven poultry” in England, and the two teal 
were dead in the air at the same time. 
It was four o'clock now and beginning to 
freeze hard again. We hailed Bedros, our boat¬ 
man, to come as near as he could to the second 
marsh. I shot another snipe just at the water’s 
edge, which tickled me immensely, and lessened 
the misery of the next wade through the sea to 
the boat. It was now too late to shoot snipe on 
the third marsh, so we decided to ride down the 
flocks of widgeon and mallard out in the sea, 
with a chance of picking off a lazy one, until five 
o’clock, when we would take our positions for 
the flight. There was a big flock of widgeon 
about one-quarter of a mile away from us and 
we rowed straight for it. Pat had his 10-gauge 
as well as his 12-gauge gun with him, and we 
rested our hopes on the “cannon,” as I called the 
10-gauge, for a stray kill. Pat slipped a couple 
of 3 1 /8-inch shells in it containing No. A shot 
greased in tallow—regular shrapnel shells they 
were. We were a hundred yards from the birds 
when the first one got up. Bedros was in the 
game and pulled for all he was worth. We cov¬ 
ered ten yards before the last duck followed the 
suit of his fellows. Then followed a deafening 
report and the idle widgeon left the heavens with 
outstretched neck and sloped down to the water 
at a gentle angle. It took us seven minutes and 
seven shots to finally haul the cripple over the 
side of the boat. 
The evening shadows began to fall quickly 
now, and we held a council of war as to our re¬ 
spective positions for the flight. Pat surely 
showed no mercy on me. He sent me to a spot 
by a branch of the second estuary, and 1 had to 
select as comfortable a position as I could there. 
The water under the reeds was half a foot deep 
and would soon work up through them, so that I 
had to sit for the flight in six inches of icy and 
slowly freezing water. Until the first birds be¬ 
gan to fly over us, I tried to forget my misery 
by admiring the magnificent sunset glow and the 
iransparent-like, azure-colored mountains. 
I was surely puzzled at first over the flight. 
I thought that I would be able to see the birds 
coming, having miscalculated on the light. Then 
I expected that they would fly straight from the 
sea. But instead of this, I would hear a whirr 
of wings, and see a black shadow disappear in 
all directions, from the sea, to the sea, sideways, 
etcetera. The distant call of the red-shank, the 
lightning shadows beyond range, and finally a 
murky red flash and a report from Pat’s neigh¬ 
borhood made me forget my freezing amphibious 
condition. Three chances did I get and take at 
the flitting shadows without result, until the 
fourth time, when one of them dropped from 
the skies into the stream by me with a wonder¬ 
ful splash. To my horror, the gentle current of 
the stream was bearing my prize, my first real 
duck, away from me. It was just a few feet be¬ 
yond my grasp, and I determined to get it at all 
costs. I jumped into the stream, went beyond 
the waist in the water—fortunately remembering 
to undo my cartridge belt before doing so—and 
seized the bird by the neck. Maybe it was not 
worth the trouble! It was a great big drake mal¬ 
lard. I went back to my position, had two more 
chances and bagged another duck mallard. My 
suffering was unbearable now, so I went to Pat 
and suggested that we return to the town again. 
He assented readily, himself being a near relative 
to a frozen corpse. He had shot another duck 
mallard. 
The wade through the sea to the boat this 
time was quite pleasant, for the water seemed 
quite warm. We were too cold to talk, and I had 
just enough strength to stroke my drake mallard. 
When we got to Ismidt, a strange sight 
awaited us at the landing. A regiment of soldiers 
was embarking for the front. The searchlight 
of the transport alongside the pier played on the 
embarking troops until it rested on an open s^ot 
in the chaos, where a dozen or so of splendid 
warriors from the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor 
were dancing a weird sort of Indian war-dance, 
brandishing their long bayonets and singing a 
curious sort of chant—the death chant of a good 
many of the poor fellows. We got out of the 
boat and after politely fighting our way through 
the howling, turbulent mess of soldiers, rifle 
stacks and machine guns, and barely missing be¬ 
ing trampled down and bitten by the excited and 
terrified horses, we reached our hotel. 
We were soon in a steaming hot bath, in a 
tub hewn out of the solid trunk of a walnut tree. 
One of my toes was frostbitten, while the others 
were only purple. Pat showed no such signs of 
our agony one hour ago, as he is a real wild- 
fowler. We then entered paradise in the form 
of dry clothes, and brought our circulation back 
with brandy and hot tea. A fine hot meal fol¬ 
lowed m the “casmo” of the place, a sort of 
restaurant, cafe, billiard room and club combined. 
It is amusing. In the villages around Constanti¬ 
nople all tumbled-down, dingy, dirty cafes, down 
tq the mud-floor meeting place of wood-cutters 
and charcoal burners in the backwoods villages, 
are honored with the name of “Casino.” Well, 
the “Casino” was Chock-full of Turkish officers, 
who looked at us suspiciously and often asked 
the waiters what our business was at Ismidt at 
that time It was an impressive sight to see the 
officers grouped around the little tables and talk¬ 
ing low and impassively to each other, all calm 
believers of “Kismet.” A spirit of strong com¬ 
radeship. of resignation to Destiny, and of silent 
bravery seemed to pervade among them. 
When we went back to our hotel we made 
the acquaintance of a young medical officer. It 
was his first campaign and he was just out of the 
Army Medical School. I think all his knowledge 
o.f medicine would have fitted in an empty cart¬ 
ridge. He was so pleased at knowing us, and 
was so anxious to prove he was a regular old 
war-dog and to show off his knowledge of 
French, that we would have soon known the 
whole plan of their next day’s action had not a 
senior officer appeared on the scene and called 
him down severely for his indiscretion and sent 
him'up to lied. 
“PAT” WITH A COUPLE OF WHITE TIPPED WOODCOCK 
