'Simple? If you'd had any experience of shooting you wouldn't call it simple.'
'I don't see that it's necessary to have had shooting experience. It seems to me to be merely a matter of keeping a cool head and aiming reasonably straight.'
'Don't be silly,' said Les disgustedly. 'You always think the things other people do are simple.'
'It's the penalty of being versatile,' sighed Larry. 'Generally they turn out to be ridiculously simple when I try them. That's why I can't see what you're making a fuss for, over a perfectly ordinary piece of marksmanship.'
'Ridiculously simple when you try them?' repeated Leslie incredulously. 'I've never seen you carry out one of your suggestions yet.'
'A gross slander,' said Larry, nettled. 'I'm always ready to prove my ideas are right.'
'All right, let's see you pull off a left-and-a-right, then.'
'Certainly. You supply the gun and the victims and I'll show you that it requires no ability whatsoever: it's a question of a mercurial mind that can weigh up the mathematics of the problem.'
'Right. We'll go after snipe down in the marsh tomorrow. You can get your mercurial mind to work on those.'
'It gives me no pleasure to slaughter birds that have every appearance of having been stunted from birth,' said Larry, 'but, since my honour is at stake, I suppose they must be sacrificed.'
'If you get one you'll be lucky,' said Leslie with satisfaction.
'Really, you children do argue about the stupidest things,' said Mother philosophically, wiping the feathers off her glasses.
'I agree with Les,' said Margo unexpectedly; 'Larry's too fond of telling people how to do things, and doing nothing himself. It'll do him good to be taught a lesson. I think it was jolly clever of Les to kill two birds with one stone, or whatever it's called.'
Leslie, under the impression that Margo had misunderstood his feat, started on a new and more detailed recital of the episode.
It had rained all night, so early next morning, when we set off to see Larry perform his feat, the ground was moist and squelchy underfoot, and smelt as rich and fragrant as plum cake. To honour the occasion Larry had placed a large turkey feather in his tweed hat, and he looked like a small, portly, and immensely dignified Robin Hood. He complained vigorously all the way down to the swamp in the valley where the snipe congregated. It was cold, it was extremely slippery, he didn't see why Leslie couldn't take his word for it without this ridiculous farce, his gun was heavy, there probably wouldn't be any game at all, for he couldn't see anything except a mentally defective penguin being out on a day like this. Coldly and relentlessly we urged him down to the swamp, turning a deaf ear to all his arguments and protests.
The swamp was really the level floor of a small valley, some ten acres of flat land which were cultivated during the spring and summer months. In the winter it was allowed to run wild, and it became a forest of bamboos and grass, intersected by the brimming irrigation ditches. These ditches that criss-crossed about the swamp made hunting difficult, for most of them were too wide to jump, and you could not wade them, since they consisted of about six feet of liquid mud and four feet of dirty water. They were spanned, here and there, by narrow plank bridges, most of which were rickety and decayed, but which were the only means of getting about the swamp. Your time during a hunt was divided between looking for game and looking for the next bridge.
We had hardly crossed the first little bridge when three snipe purred up from under our feet and zoomed away, swinging from side to side as they flew. Larry flung the gun to his shoulder and pulled the triggers excitedly. The hammers fell, but there was no sound.
'It would be an idea to load it,' said Leslie with a certain quiet triumph.
'I thought you'd done that,' Larry said bitterly; 'you're acting as the blasted gunbearer, after all. I'd have got that pair if it hadn't been for your inefficiency.'
He loaded the gun and we moved slowly on through the bamboos. Ahead we could hear a pair of magpies cackling fiendishly whenever we moved. Larry muttered threats and curses on them for warning the game. They kept flying ahead of us, cackling loudly, until Larry was thoroughly exasperated. He stopped at the head of a tiny bridge that sagged over a wide expanse of placid water.
'Can't we do something about those birds ?' he inquired heatedly. 'They'll scare everything for miles.'
'Not the snipe,' said Leslie; 'the snipe stick close until you almost walk on them.'
'It seems quite futile to continue,' said Larry. 'We might as well send a brass band ahead of us.'
He tucked the gun under his arm and stamped irritably on to the bridge. It was then that the accident occurred. He was in the middle of the groaning, shuddering plank when two snipe which had been lying concealed in the long grass at the other end of the bridge rocketed out of the grass and shot skywards. Larry, forgetting in his excitement his rather peculiar situation, shipped the gun to his shoulder and, balancing precariously on the swaying bridge, fired both barrels. The gun roared and kicked, the snipe flew away undamaged, and Larry with a yell of fright fell backwards into the irrigation ditch.
'Hold the gun above your head! ... Hold it above your head!' roared Leslie.
'Don't stand up or you'll sink screeched Margo. 'Sit still.'
But Larry, spreadeagled on his back, had only one idea, and that was to get out as quickly as possible. He sat up and then tried to get to his feet, using, to Leslie's anguish, the gun barrels as a support. He raised himself up, the liquid mud shuddered and boiled, the gun sank out of sight, and Larry disappeared up to his waist.
'Look what you've done to the gun,' yelled Leslie furiously; 'you've choked the bloody barrels.'
'What the hell do you expect me to do?' snarled Larry. 'Lie here and be sucked under? Give me a hand, for heaven's sake.'
'Get the gun out,' said Leslie angrily.
I refuse to save the gun if you don't save me,' Larry yelled. 'Damn it, I'm not a seal.. .get me out
'If you give me the end of the gun I can pull you out, you idiot,' shouted Leslie. 'I can't reach you otherwise.'
Larry groped wildely under the surface for the gun, and sank several inches before he retrieved it, clotted with black and evil-smelling mud.
'Dear God! just look at it,' moaned Leslie, wiping the mud off it with his handkerchief, 'just look at it.'
'Will you stop carrying on over that beastly weapon and get me out of here?' asked Larry vitriolically. 'Or do you want me to sink beneath the mud like a sort of sportsmen's Shelley?'
Leslie handed him the ends of the barrels, and we all heaved mightily. It seemed to make no impression whatsoever, except that when we stopped, exhausted, Larry sank a little deeper.
'The idea is to rescue me,' he pointed out, panting, 'not deliver the coup de grace.'
'Oh, stop yapping and try to heave yourself out,' said Leslie.
'What d'you think I've been doing, for heaven's sake? I've ruptured myself in three places as it is.'
At last, after much effort, there came a prolonged belch from the mud and Larry shot to the surface and we hauled him up the bank. He stood there, covered with the black and stinking slush, looking like a chocolate statue that has come in contact with a blast furnace; he appeared to be melting as we approached.
'Are you all right?' asked Margo.
Larry glared at her.
'I'm fine,' he said sarcastically, 'simply fine. Never enjoyed myself more. Apart from a slight touch of pneumonia, a ricked back, and the fact that one of my shoes lies full fathoms five, I'm having a wonderful time.'
As he limped homewards he poured scorn and wrath on our heads, and by the time we reached home he was convinced that the whole thing had been a plot. As he entered the house, leaving a trail like a ploughed field, Mother uttered a gasp of horror.