‘That’s worse.’
‘No, it isn’t, not if you dump the loot somewhere else before you go home. He can’t touch you then.’
‘What about the other one, the one in the clearing?’
‘He’s gone too.’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘I’ve been studying these bastards for months, Gordon, honest I have. I know all their habits. There’s no danger.’
Reluctantly I followed him back into the wood. It was pitch dark in there now and very silent, and as we moved cautiously forward the noise of our footsteps seemed to go echoing around the walls of the forest as though we were walking in a cathedral.
‘Here’s where we threw the raisins,’ Claud said.
I peered through the bushes.
The clearing lay dim and milky in the moonlight.
‘You’re quite sure the keeper’s gone?’
‘I know he’s gone.’
I could just see Claud’s face under the peak of his cap, the pale lips, the soft pale cheeks, and the large eyes with a little spark of excitement dancing slowly in each.
‘Are they roosting?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘All around. They don’t go far.’
‘What do we do next?’
‘We stay here and wait. I brought you a light,’ he added, and he handed me one of those small pocket flashlights shaped like a fountain-pen. ‘You may need it.’
I was beginning to feel better. ‘Shall we see if we can spot some of them sitting in the trees?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘I should like to see how they look when they’re roosting.’
‘This isn’t a nature-study,’ Claud said. ‘Please be quiet.’
We stood there for a long time waiting for something to happen.
‘I’ve just had a nasty thought,’ I said. ‘If a bird can keep its balance on a branch when it’s asleep, then surely there isn’t any reason why the pills should make it fall down.’
Claud looked at me quick.
‘After all,’ I said, ‘it’s not dead. It’s still only sleeping.’
‘It’s doped,’ Claud said.
‘But that’s just a deeper sort of sleep. Why should we expect it to fall down just because it’s in a deeper sleep?’
There was a gloomy silence.
‘We should’ve tried it with chickens,’ Claud said. ‘My dad would’ve done that.’
‘Your dad was a genius,’ I said.
At that moment there came a soft thump from the wood behind us.
‘Hey!’
‘Ssshh!’
We stood listening.
Thump.
‘There’s another!’
It was a deep muffled sound as though a bag of sand had been dropped from about shoulder height.
Thump!
‘They’re pheasants!’ I cried.
‘Wait!’
‘I’m sure they’re pheasants!’
Thump! Thump!
‘You’re right!’
We ran back into the wood.
‘Where were they?’
‘Over here! Two of them were over here!’
‘I thought they were this way.’
‘Keep looking!’ Claud shouted. ‘They can’t be far.’
We searched for about a minute.
‘Here’s one!’ he called.
When I got to him he was holding a magnificent cockbird in both hands. We examined it closely with our flashlights.
‘It’s doped to the gills,’ Claud said. ‘It’s still alive, I can feel its heart, but it’s doped to the bloody gills.’
Thump!
‘There’s another!’
Thump! Thump!
‘Two more!’
Thump!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
‘Jesus Christ!’
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
Thump! Thump!
All around us the pheasants were starting to rain down out of the trees. We began rushing around madly in the dark, sweeping the ground with our flashlights.
Thump! Thump! Thump! This lot fell almost on top of me. I was right under the tree as they came down and I found all three of them immediately – two cocks and a hen. They were limp and warm, the feathers wonderfully soft in the hand.
‘Where shall I put them?’ I called out. I was holding them by the legs.
‘Lay them here, Gordon! Just pile them up here where it’s light!’
Claud was standing on the edge of the clearing with the moonlight streaming down all over him and a great bunch of pheasants in each hand. His face was bright, his eyes big and bright and wonderful, and he was staring around him like a child who has just discovered that the whole world is made of chocolate.
Thump!
Thump! Thump!
‘I don’t like it,’ I said. ‘It’s too many.’
‘It’s beautiful!’ he cried and he dumped the birds he was carrying and ran off to look for more.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
Thump!
It was easy to find them now. There were one or two lying under every tree. I quickly collected six more, three in each hand, and ran back and dumped them with the others. Then six more. Then six more after that.
And still they kept falling.
Claud was in a whirl of ecstasy now, dashing about like a mad ghost under the trees. I could see the beam of his flashlight waving around in the dark and each time he found a bird he gave a little yelp of triumph.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
‘That bugger Hazel ought to hear this!’ he called out.
‘Don’t shout,’ I said. ‘It frightens me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Don’t shout. There might be keepers.’
‘Screw the keepers!’ he cried. ‘They’re all eating!’
For three or four minutes, the pheasants kept on falling. Then suddenly they stopped.
‘Keep searching!’ Claud shouted. ‘There’s plenty more on the ground!’
‘Don’t you think we ought to get out while the going’s good?’
‘No,’ he said.
We went on searching. Between us we looked under every tree within a hundred yards of the clearing, north, south, east and west, and I think we found most of them in the end. At the collecting-point there was a pile of pheasants as big as a bonfire.
‘It’s a miracle,’ Claud was saying. ‘It’s a bloody miracle.’ He was staring at them in a kind of trance.
‘We’d better just take half a dozen each and get out quick,’ I said.
‘I would like to count them, Gordon.’
‘There’s no time for that.’
‘I must count them.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
‘One …
‘Two …
‘Three …
‘Four …’
He began counting them very carefully, picking up each bird in turn and laying it carefully to one side. The moon was directly overhead now and the whole clearing was brilliantly illuminated.
‘I’m not standing around here like this,’ I said. I walked back a few paces and hid myself in the shadows, waiting for him to finish.
‘A hundred and seventeen … a hundred and eighteen … a