The Flag of Freedom by Seth Hunter Page A

ape had thus far made no complaint at the comparison. Or even to being called an ape when he was, in fact, a monkey or macaque.
    This information, and indeed Nathan’s recent knowledge of swallows and suchlike, had been imparted to him by his only other regular associate on the island, the garrison chaplain Dr Moll who was a keen naturalist and ornithologist and who was wont to accompany him on these walks, when not about his duties.
    He had informed Nathan that the swallows, which had been landing on the Rock for some weeks past, had in all likelihood flown from England, and that contrary to general belief, it was their normal practice to winter in Africa, returning to more northerly shores in the spring.
    Nathan had not previously given much consideration to the travel arrangements of the swallow, nor any other kind of bird, but he had watched them as a child, swooping across the skies over Sussex in pursuit of small insects, and he had noted their sudden disappearance at the end of the summer. He had supposed they hibernated, like bats,possibly in barns or hollow trees, a belief widely shared by most country folk of his acquaintance, although old Abe Eldridge, who had been his main informant in such matters when he was a child, claimed that they spent the winter under water, either in the mud at the bottom of a pond or among the rocks off the Sussex coast. He based this theory on his observations as a shepherd on the Sussex Downs, having seen them diving into the sea many times, he said, and sometimes finding their bodies washed up on the shore during the months of autumn. And as if this were not enough, his view was shared by no less an authority than the Bishop of Chichester, who had suspended the creatures in a fish bowl by way of an experiment to see how long they could hold their breath, and had declared that they went into a kind of comatose state, very like hibernation, that could last some considerable time.
    Dr Moll had ridiculed these suggestions. Far from spending the coldest months of the year at the bottom of the English Channel, or a pond, or even the Bishop’s fish bowl, they headed for the tropics, he claimed, flying across France and Spain and choosing the shortest sea crossings, usually at the Straits of Dover and Gibraltar, until they reached Africa.
    During his stay on the Rock, Dr Moll had watched great flocks of them as they arrived from the north in the early autumn, and then proceeded southward across the Strait, making the return journey in the months of April and May when the skies over England were once more filled with sunshine and insects, or at least insects.
    â€˜But how do you know the birds come from England?’ Nathan had challenged him, early in their acquaintance.
    Well, of course, he didn’t, the chaplain had confessed; it was purely hypothesis, though based on detailed records kept by naturalists in England, France and Spain during the years of peace. They had noted that every year, in early September, great flocks of birds, including swallows, could be seen heading out to sea across the Straits of Dover in the direction of France. And French naturalists had reported the arrival of similar flocks about an hour or so later in the Pas de Calais.
    It was possible, of course, that the English birds dived into the sea and the French birds took their place, but informed opinion considered this unlikely. Nor did they stay in the region of Calais for more than a day or two. Usually they resumed their journey within a matter of hours – and were tracked by dedicated ornithologists across France and Spain to the Reverend Moll’s own perch on the Rock of Gibraltar.
    Unfortunately the chaplain had been unable to find reliable correspondents who could report on their safe arrival in Morocco, and chart their subsequent progress across the desert. But it was his belief that they continued flying south until they came to the more fertile regions of Central Africa where the