Man from the South [Человек с юга]

Anyway, the day before, which was Wednesday, Claud had suddenly said to me, 'I'll be going up to Hazel's woods again tonight. Why don't you come along?'

'Who, me?'

'Its about the last chance this year for pheasants,' he had said. 'The shooting season begins on Saturday, and the birds will be scattered all over the place after that - if there are any left.'

'Why the sudden invitation?' I had asked.

'No special reason, Gordon. No reason at all.'

'I suppose you keep a gun hidden away up there?'

'A gun!' he cried, disgusted. 'Nobody ever shoots pheasants, didn't you know that? If you shoot a gun in Hazel's woods, the keepers will hear you.'

'Then how do you do it?'

'Ah,' he said. There was a long pause. Then he said, 'Do you think you could keep your mouth closed if I told you?'

'Certainly.'

'I've never told this to anyone else in my whole life, Gordon.'

'I am greatly honoured,' I said. 'You can trust me completely.'

He turned his head, looking at me with pale eyes. 'I am now going to tell you the three best ways in the world of poaching a pheasant,' he said. 'And, as you're the guest on this little trip, I am going to give you the choice of which one you'd like to use tonight. Now, here's the first big secret.' He paused. 'Pheasants,' he whispered softly, 'are mad about raisins.'

'Raisins?'

'Just ordinary raisins. My father discovered that more than forty years ago. He was a great poacher, Gordon. Possibly the best there's ever been in the history of England. My father studied poaching like a scientist. He really did.'

'I believe you.'

Claud paused and glanced over his shoulder, as if he wanted to make sure there was no one listening. 'Here's how it's done,' he said. 'First, you take a few raisins and you put them in water overnight to make them nice and big and juicy. Then you get a bit of good stiff horsehair and you cut it into small lengths. Then you push one of these lengths through the middle of each raisin, so that there's a small piece sticking out on either side. Do you understand?'

'Yes.'

'So, the pheasant comes along and eats one of these raisins. Right? And you're watching him from behind a tree. So what then?'

'I imagine it sticks in its throat.'

'That's obvious, Gordon. But here's the strange thing. Here's what my father discovered. The moment that happens, the bird never moves his feet again! He becomes absolutely rooted to the spot and you can walk calmly out from the place where you're hiding and pick him up in your hands.'

'I don't believe it.'

'I swear it,' he said. 'You can fire a gun in his ear and he won't even jump. It's just one of those unexplainable little things, but you have to be very clever to discover it.'

He paused and there was a look of pride in his eyes as he thought for a moment of his father, the great inventor.

'So that's method number one,' he said. 'Method number two is even more simple. You take a fishing line. Then you put the raisin on the hook, and you fish for pheasants just as you fish for a fish. You let out the line by about fifty metres, and you lie there on your stomach in the bushes, waiting until a pheasant starts eating. Then you pull him in.'

'What is method number three?' I asked.

'Ah,' he said. 'Number three is the best one. It was the last one my father ever invented before he died. First of all, you dig a little hole in the ground. Then you twist a piece of paper into the shape of a hat and you fit this into the hole, with the hollow end upwards, like a cup. Then you put some glue around the edge. After that, you lay some raisins on the ground leading up to it and drop a few raisins into the paper cup. The old pheasant comes along, and when he gets to the hole he puts his head inside to eat the raisins, and the next thing he knows is that he's got a paper hat stuck over his eyes and he can't see anything. Isn't it wonderful what some people think of, Gordon? Don't you agree? No bird in the world will move if you cover its eyes.'

'Your father was very clever,' I said.

'Then choose which of the three methods you like best, and we'll use it tonight.'

'Yes, but let me ask you something first. I've just had an idea.'

'Keep it,' he said. 'You are talking about a subject you know nothing about.'

'Do you remember that bottle of sleeping pills the doctor gave me last month when I had a bad back?'

'What about them?'

'Is there any reason why they wouldn't work on a pheasant?'

Claud closed his eyes and shook his head.

'Wait,' I said.

'It's not worth discussing,' he said. 'No pheasant in the world is going to swallow those red pills.'

'You're forgetting the raisins,' I said. 'Now listen to this. We take a raisin. Then we put it in water. Then we make a small cut in one side of it. Then we hollow it out a little. Then we open up one of my red pills and pour all the powder into the raisin. Then we get a needle and thread and very carefully we sew up the cut. Now ...'

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Claud's mouth beginning to open.

'Now,' I said, 'we have a nice, clean-looking raisin with sleeping powder inside it, and that's enough to make the average man unconscious; it will easily work on birds.'

I paused for ten seconds to allow him time to understand.

'And with this method we could really work with huge numbers. We could prepare twenty raisins if we wanted to, and all we'd have to do is throw them on the ground where the birds feed at sunset and then walk away. Half an hour later, we'd come back and the pills would be beginning to work and the pheasants would be up in the branches by then. They'd feel sleepy and soon every pheasant that had eaten one single raisin would fall over unconscious and fall to the ground. They'd be dropping out of the trees like apples, and we could just walk around picking them up!'

Claud was staring at me.

'And they'd never catch us either. We'd simply walk through the woods, dropping a few raisins here and there as we went, and even if the keepers were watching us, they wouldn't notice anything.'

'Gordon,' he said, 'if this thing works, it will revolutionize poaching.'

'I'm glad to hear it.'

'How many pills have you got left?' he asked.

'Forty-nine. There were fifty in the bottle, and I've only used one.'

'Forty-nine's not enough. We want at least two hundred.'

'Are you mad?' I cried.

He walked slowly away and stood by the door with his back to me, looking at the sky. 'Two hundred at least,' he said quietly. 'It's not worth doing it unless we have two hundred.'

What is it now, I wondered. What's he trying to do?

'This is almost the last chance we have before the season starts,' he said.

'I couldn't possibly get any more.'

'You wouldn't want us to come back empty-handed, would you?'

'But why so many?'

Claud looked at me. 'Why not?' he said gently. 'Do you have any objections?'

My God, I thought suddenly. He wants to wreck Mr Victor Hazel's opening-day shooting-party.

Mr Hazel's party took place on the first of October every year and it was a very famous event. Gentlemen, some with noble titles and some who were just very rich, came long distances, with their dogs and their wives, and all day long the noise of the shooting rolled across the valley. There were always enough pheasants for everyone; each summer the woods were filled with dozens and dozens of young birds at great expense, but to Mr Victor Hazel it was worth every penny of it. He became, if only for a few hours, a big man in a little world.

'You get us two hundred of those pills,' Claud said, 'and then it'll be worth doing.'

'I can't,' I said. 'Why couldn't we divide one pill among four raisins?'

'But would a quarter of a pill be strong enough for each bird?'

'Work it out for yourself. It's all done by body weight. You'd be giving it about twenty times more than is necessary.'