Willie! Cherchel cried Centaine and Anna in unison; at the same time it required both of them on the leash to restrain the enormous beast. Cherche! Seek up! And the boar snuffled eagerly at the damp, chocolatebrown earth under the oak trees, dragging the two women behind him. Michael followed them, a spade over his good shoulder, laughing delightedly at the novelty of the hunt, and trotting to keep up with it.
Deeper into the forest they came across a narrow stream, running strongly with discoloured water from the recent rains, and they followed the bank, with snorts and cries of encouragement. Suddenly the pig let out a gleeful squeal and began rooting in the soft earth with his flat wet snout.
He's found one! Centaine shrieked with excitement and she and Anna hauled unavailingly on the leash.
Michel! she panted over her shoulder. When we get him away, you must be very quick with the spade. Are you ready? Ready! From the pocket of her skirt Centaine pulled a wizened nub of a truffle that was mildewed with age. She pared off a sliver with a clasp knife, and held as close to the boar's snout as she could reach. For a few moments the pig ignored her, and then it got the fresher scent of the cut truffle and grunted gluttonously, tried to take her hand in his streaming jaws. Centaine jerked away and backed off with the boar following her.
,Quickly, Michel! she cried, and he went at the earth with the spade. In half a dozen strokes he had exposed the buried fungus and Anna dropped to her knees and freed it from the earth with her bare hands. She lifted it out, crusty with chocolate soil, a dark knobbly lump almost the size of her fist.
Look, what a beauty! At last Centaine allowed the pig to take the sliver of fungus from her fingers, and when he had gulped it, she let him return to the empty hole and snuffle around in the loose earth to satisfy himself that the truffle had disappeared, then Cherche! she shouted at him, and the hunt was on again. Within an hour the small basket was filled with the unappetizing-looking lumpy fungi, and Anna called a halt.
More than this will merely spoil. Now for some pigeons. Let's see if our captain from Africa can shoodThey hurried after the boar, laughing and panting back through the open fields to the chAteau, where Centaine locked the truffles in the pantry and Anna returned the boar to his stall in the cellars and then lifted the shotgun down from its rack on the kitchen wall. She handed the weapon to Michael and watched as he opened the breech and checked the barrels, then snapped them closed and put the gun to his shoulder and tried the balance. Despite the burns that hampered his swing a little, Anna could tell a good workman by the way he handled his tools, and her expression softened with approval.
For Michael's part he was surprised and then delighted to discover that the weapon was a venerable Holland and Holland, only the English gunsmiths could fashion a barrel that would throw a perfectly even pattern of shot no matter how fast the gun was traversed.
He nodded at Anna. Excellent! And she handed him the canvas bag of cartridges.
I will show you a good place. Centaine took his hand to lead him and then saw Anna's expression and dropped it hurriedly. In the afternoon the pigeons come back to the woods, she explained.
They skirted the edge of the forest, Centaine leading and lifting her skirts over the mud puddles so that Michael had an occasional flash of her smooth white calves, and his pulse accelerated beyond the exertion of keeping up with her. On her short, stubby legs, Anna fell far behind and they ignored her calls to Wait, wait for me. At the corner of the forest, in the angle of the T that the pilots used as the landmark for the return to the airfield, there was a sunken lane with high hedges on each side.
The pigeons come in from there, Centaine pointed across the open fields and vineyards, all of them overgrown and neglected. We should wait here The hedgerow afforded excellent cover, and when Anna came up they all three hid themselves and began to search the sky. Heavy low cloud had begun to roll in again from the north, threatening rain, and forming a perfect backdrop against which the tiny specks of a pigeon flock showed clearly to Michael's trained eye.
There, he said, coming straight in. I don't see them. Centaine searched agitatedly. Where - oh yes, now I see them. Although they were quick on the wing, they were flying straight and descending only gently towards the forest.
For a marksman of Michael's calibre, it was simple shooting. He waited until two birds overlapped each other, and took them both with his first shot. They crumpled in midair and as the rest of the flock flared up and scattered, he knocked down a third pigeon in a burst of feathers with his second barrel.
The two women raced out into the open field to bring in the birds.
Three with two shots. Centaine came back and stood close beside him, stroking the soft warm body of the dead pigeon and looking up at Michael.
It was a fluke, said Anna gruffly. Nobody shoots two A pigeons by intention, not if they are flying. The next flock was a larger one, and the birds were bunched. Michael took three of them with his first barrel and a fourth bird with his second, and Centaine turned triumphantly to Anna.
Another fluke, she gloated. What luck the captain is having today. Two more flocks came within range in the next half hour, and Centaine asked seriously, Do you never miss, Mijnheer? Up there, Michael looked into the sky, if you miss, you are dead. So far I have never missed. Centaine shivered. Death, that word again. Death was all around them, on the ridges over there were for the moment the sound of the guns was just a low rumble, death in the sky above them. She looked at Michael and thought, I don't want him to die, never! Never! Then she shook herself, driving away the gloom, and she smiled and said, Teach me to shoot. The request was inspired. It allowed Michael to touch her, even under Anna's jealous gaze. He stood her in front of him, and coached her into the classic stance, with her left foot leading.
This shoulder a little lower. They were both electrically aware of each contact. Just turn your hips this way slightly. He placed his hands upon them and Michael's voice sounded as though he were choking as she pushed back with her buttocks against him, an untutored but devastating pressure.
Centaine's first shot drove her back against his chest, and he clasped her protectively while the pigeons headed untouched for the horizon.
You are looking at the muzzle of the gun, not the bird, Michael explained, still holding her. Look at the bird, and the gun will follow of its own At her next shot a fat pigeon tumbled out of the sky, amid shrieks of excitement from both women, but when Anna ran out to pick it up, the rain that had been holding off until that moment fell upon them in a silver curtain.
The barn! cried Centaine, and led them scampering down the lane. The rain slashed the tree-tops and exploded in miniature shell bursts on their skin so that they gasped at its icy sting. Centaine reached the barn first, and her blouse was sticking to her skin, so that Michael could see the exact shape of her breasts. Strands of her dark hair were plastered against her forehead, and she shook the drops off her skirts and laughed at him, making no attempt to avoid his gaze.
The barn fronted on to the lane. It was built of squared attered yellow stone blocks and the thatched roof was t and worn as an old carpet. it was half-filled with bales of straw that rose in tiers to the roof ,This will set in, Anna groused darkly, staring out at the streaming rain and shaking the rain off herself like a water buffalo emerging from the swamp. We will be stuck here. Come, Anna, let's clean the birds. They found comfortable perches on the straw bales, Centaine and Michael with their shoulders almost touching, they chatted.
and while they plucked the pigeons Tell me about Africa, Centaine demanded. is it really so dark? It's the sunniest land in the world, too much sun, even, Michael told her.
hate the I love the sun, Centaine shook her head cold and the wet. There could never be too much sun for me. He told her about the deserts where it never rained. Not as much in a year as it does here in a single day."I thought there were only black savages in Africa."No, he laughed. There are plenty of white savages too - and black gentlemen, and he told her about the tiny yellow pygmies of the Ituri forests, tall as a man's waist, and the giant Watusi who considered any man under two metres tall to be a pygmy, and those noble warriors of Zulu who called themselves children of heaven.