I glanced over at Big Jim McConville and thought he looked like a coiled spring (albeit a really big coiled spring). We were both crouched in a brushy ditch with water above our ankles (this level changed later). Jim had a M3500 Stoeger shotgun clamped in his big mitts, and he was working his goose call profusely: E-yonk! E-Yonk! Yonk, yonk, yonk!
His plaintive calls must have sounded good to the gang of Canada geese about 400 yards out, because they turned slightly and came in our direction.
“They turned! Get down!” somebody to my left hissed.
It seemed a given that we all should do that, but we obeyed.
Now the geese were close, and you could hear the soft chatter in the flock. The tension of the eight or so gunners in our waterlogged blind was palpable, and you could almost hear it crackle like static electricity up and down the ditch. Hold, hold, I told myself; wait for the call from the guide to stand and shoot.