Gunner Kelly

“Wiesehofer,” said Benedikt. “Thomas Wiesehofer.”

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The man filled in the card number painfully. But his curiosity rekindled as he did so. “On holiday then?”

“On holiday.” Benedikt nodded at the garage man and pretended to search for the right words and not find any. “On holiday. . .ach so!” It galled him when he prided himself on being able to pass almost for English ... or British, as Mother always insisted, who had been half-Scottish herself.

He studied the water-splash out of the driver’s window, just a metre beyond his front wheels. The stream rippled across the tarmac in a patch of sunlight where the road crossed it, but it didn’t look very deep. All the country hereabouts was open and empty, and he had dropped down from the high ridge in the low gear which the garage man had advised; but now he was on the miniature flood-plain of a little valley, and at this point, where the road crossed the stream, trees and bushes grew luxuriantly, making a secret place of it.

He looked up from the sun-dappled water, and caught a glimpse of the little girl watching him from her hiding place between the telephone box and the summer tangle of leaves. Of course, she would have been told not to speak to strange men in cars, so he couldn’t rationally fault her behaviour. But he liked children, and was used to them, and prided himself on being good with them and was accustomed to their trust, so that— however irrationally—he recoiled from the role of strange-man-in-a-car and was disturbed by her fear.

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Yet there was more to it than that, his momentary irrationality told him: the very young were innocent, and gullible and inexperienced with it, but they sometimes knew more than the very wise, picking up vibrations of danger with senses which atrophied as their experience of life increased; and now he was about to enter her secret little English valley—

But that was absurd fantasy! He broke contact with her and shifted the gear-lever into drive. It wasn’t her valley, and it was only secret for the lack of a proper signpost—the busy main road almost within earshot, and it was only the foreignness of this small-scale countryside which he was foolishly letting himself be upset by, as he might be upset by some unpalatable local dish or custom to which he was unused, but which was unpalatable only because it was different from what he was accustomed to.

He felt the solid force of the water resist the forward thrust of the wheels, and then the Mercedes pulled free of the stream and surged ahead effortlessly into the dark tunnel formed by the overhanging trees. Then the road curved, to follow the line of the valley, and he could see open country ahead again, with one last glimpse of the child in his rear-view mirror as she broke cover to watch him go, and then took refuge inside the telephone box.

Beyond the ford the road meandered along the slope of the ridge, undulating with its gentle curves. Large single trees, which looked as though they had been planted for effect, rather than groves and plantations, obscured his view of the wider landscape. He became aware that he was in a different sort of countryside before he understood why it was different. Then he saw that there were no dummy1

hedges, only a low iron railing on each side of the narrow road: it was as though he was passing through a private parkland—

Chase—of course, that was what all this land was: Duntisbury Chase—which he had looked up in Mother’s massive double-volumed Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, ever to be relied on, and not least to be trusted as a sure reminder of their first and best owner, who had passed them on to him so long ago.

Chase—

3. A tract of unenclosed land reserved for breeding and hunting wild animals ME. . . ‘ME’ meaning ‘Middle English’, of the medieval variety, when, presumably, those Germanic tribes who had spoken ‘Old English’—‘OE’—had settled their conquests well enough to start breeding and hunting for enjoyment—

4. That which is hunted ME . . .

And 5. Those who hunt (1811) . . .

That certainly covered everything he needed now (the Shorter could always be relied on): here he was, Benedikt Schneider, alias Thomas Wiesehofer, in the chase, after the chase, and one of the chase, 3., 4., and 5., with all options catered for between the iron railings this fine English summer’s midday—

But ... no further along the chase at the moment, for the road was blocked ahead, with a tractor trying to manoeuvre a trailer loaded with hay bales almost broadside across it.

As Benedikt halted the car a heavily-built farm labourer appeared from behind the trailer, eyed the gap between the side of the vehicle and the gatepost critically, and shook his head in despair.

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The tractor juddered forward slowly.

“Whoa!” roared the labourer to the youth at the wheel of the tractor. “You’ll ‘ave the bloody post an’ all! You just back up an‘

straighten ’er now, an‘ come out proper, like I told you.”

The youth looked from side to side uneasily—as well he might, thought Benedikt sympathetically, for both the road and the entrance to the field were narrow.

“Just take ‘er easy now—like I told you,” shouted the labourer.

Then he seemed to see Benedikt for the first time. “Right ’and down—that’s it!” He climbed the iron fence clumsily and came towards the car. “Sorry, mister. Won’t be long, though.”

“Please—it is no matter.” Benedikt peered at him, conscious again of his thick spectacles, and smiled as he adjusted his voice to the noise of the tractor’s engine. “I am in no hurry.”

“Ah . . .” The labourer nodded, studying the trailer’s painful progress. “Get on with it then, Bobby! We ain’t got all day.”

Benedikt wasn’t so sure that at the youth’s present rate of manoeuvre all day might not be what they would