Man from the South [Человек с юга]

The keeper came softly along the road with the dog walking beside him, and we watched them through the bushes as they went by.

'He won't be coming back tonight,' Claud said.

'How do you know that?'

'A keeper never waits for you in a wood if he knows where you live. He goes to your house, hides and watches for you to come back.'

'That's worse.'

'No, it isn't. Not if you put what you've poached somewhere else before you go home. He can't do anything then.'

'What about the other one - the one in the feeding grounds?'

'He's gone, too.'

'You can't be sure of that.'

'I've been watching these men for months, Gordon. Honestly, I know all their habits. There's no danger.'

A few minutes later, I followed Claud back into the wood. It was dark in there now, and very silent, and we moved cautiously forward.

'Here's where we threw the raisins,' Claud said.

I looked through the bushes. The area was illuminated by the moonlight.

'You're quite sure the keeper's gone?'

'I know he's gone.'

I could just see Claud's face under his cap, the pale lips, and the large eyes with excitement dancing in each of them.

'Are they asleep?' I asked.

'Yes. In the branches.'

'Where?'

'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 torches shaped like a pen. 'You may need it.'

We stood there for a long time, waiting for something to happen.

'I've just had a thought,' I said. 'If a bird can keep its balance on a branch when it's asleep, then surely there's no reason why the pills should make it fall down.'

Claud looked at me quickly.

'It's not dead,' I said. 'It's still only sleeping.'

'It's drugged,' Claud said.

'But that's just a deeper sort of sleep.'

There was a silence.

'We should have tried it first with chickens,' Claud said. 'My father would have done that.'

'Your father was clever,' I said.

At that moment there came a soft thump from the woods.

'Hey!' I said.

'Sh-h-h!'

We stood listening.

Thump! 'There's another!'

It was a heavy sound, as if a small 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?' I asked.

'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 another minute.

'Here's one!' he called out.

When I got to him, he was holding a wonderful bird in both hands. We looked at it closely with our torches.

'It's unconscious,' Claud said. 'It's still alive. I can feel its heart.'

Thump! 'There's another,' he cried.

Thump! Thump! 'Two more!'

Thump!

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

Thump! Thump!

All around us, pheasants were starting to rain down out of the trees. We began to rush around madly in the dark, sweeping the ground with our lights.

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. They were warm, the feathers wonderfully soft in my hands.

'Where shall I put them?' I called out. I was holding them by the legs.

'Lay them here, Gordon! Just pile them there where it's light.'

Claud was standing 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 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 threw down 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 threw them with the others. Then six more. Then six more after that. And still they kept falling.

Claud was madly happy. He was rushing about under the trees. I could see the beam of his light waving around in the dark, and each time he found a bird, he gave a little cry of pleasure.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

'Mr Victor Hazel ought to hear this!'

'Don't shout,' I said. 'There might be keepers.'

For three or four minutes, the pheasants kept on falling. Then suddenly they stopped.

'Keep searching!' Claud shouted. 'There are a lot more on the ground.'

'Don't you think we ought to stop?'

'No,' he said.

We went on searching. We looked under every tree within a hundred metres of the feeding grounds - north, south, east and west - and I think we found most of them. At the collecting point there was a very big pile of pheasants.

'It's wonderful,' Claud said. 'It's wonderful.' He was staring at them in a kind of dream.

'We'd better just take half a dozen each and get out quickly,' 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 and laying it down gently to one side. The moon was directly above now and everything was illuminated.

'I'm not standing around here like this,' I said. I walked back a few steps and hid myself in the shadows, waiting for him to finish.

'A hundred and seventeen, a hundred and eighteen, a hundred and nineteen, a hundred and twenty!' he cried. 'One hundred and twenty birds! It's an all-time record!'

I did not doubt it for a moment.

'The most my father ever got in one night was fifteen.'

'You're the champion of the world,' I said. 'Are you ready now?'

'One minute,' he answered, and he pulled up his sweater and began to unwind the two big white cotton bags from around his waist. 'Here's yours,' he said, handing one of them to me. 'Fill it up quickly.'

'You don't think that keeper is watching us right now, do you, from behind a tree?'

'There's no chance of that,' Claud said. 'He's down at the petrol station, as I told you, waiting for us both to come home.'

We started loading the pheasants into the bags.

'There'll be a taxi waiting for us in the road,' Claud said.

'What?'

'I always go back in a taxi, Gordon. Didn't you know that? A taxi is impersonal. No one knows who's inside a taxi except the taxi driver. My father taught me that.'

'Which driver?'

'Charlie Kinch. He's glad to help.'

We finished loading the pheasants, and I tried to carry my bag on my shoulder. The bag had about sixty birds in it and it was heavy. Very heavy.

'I can't carry this,' I said. 'We'll have to leave some of them behind.'

'Drag it,' Claud said. 'Just pull it behind you.'

We started off through the black woods, pulling the pheasants behind us.

'We'll never get them all the way back to the village like this,' I said.

'Charlie's never disappointed me yet,' Claud said.

We came to the edge of the woods and looked through the bushes into the road. The taxi was there, not five metres away. Claud said, 'Charlie boy,' very softly, and the old man behind the wheel put his head out into the moonlight and gave us a smile. We slid through the bushes, dragging the bags after us.

'Hello!' Charlie said. 'What's this?'

'Potatoes,' Claud told him. 'Open the door.'

Two minutes later we were safely inside the taxi, driving slowly down the hill towards the village.

It was all over now. Claud was very happy, full of pride and excitement, and he kept leaning forward and tapping Charlie on the shoulder and saying, 'What do you think, Charlie? What do you think about this?' and Charlie kept glancing back at the large full bags lying on the floor between us and saying, 'How did you do it?'