During this respite Royan was able to regain her breath, and to look
around her. Through a break in the branches that gave the drive its
name, she could see down into the valley.
There was an open meadow at the foot of the hills, the expanse of smooth
green grass broken up by patches of dirty grey snow from the previous
week's fall. Down this meadow the keeper had set a line of numbered
pegs. At the beginning of the day's sport the guns had drawn lots to
decide the peg number from which each of them would shoot.
Now each man stood "at his allotted peg, with his loader holding his
second gun ready behind him, ready to pass it over when the first gun
was empty. They were all looking up expectantly to the high ground from
which the pheasant would appear.
"Which is Sir Nicholas?" Royan called to her mother, and Georgina
pointed to the far end of the line of guns.
"The tall one," she said, and at that moment the keeper's voice on the
radio ordered, "Gently on the left.
Start tapping again." Obediently the beaters tapped their sticks. There
was no shouting or hallooing in this delicate and strictly controlled
operation.
"Forward slowly. Halt to the flush of birds."
A step at a time the line moved ahead, and in the brambles and bracken
in front of her Royan could hear the stealthy scuffle of a number of
pheasants moving forward, reluctant to take to the air until they were
forced to do so.
There was another ditch in their path, this one choked with an almost
impenetrable, thicket of brambles. Some of the larger dogs, like the
Labradors, balked at entering such a thorny barrier. Georgina whistled
sharply and Magic's ears went up. He was soaked and his coat was a
matted mess of mud and buffs and thorns. His pink tongue lolled from the
corner of his grinning mouth and the sodden stump of his tail was
wagging merrily. At that moment he was the happiest dog in England. He
was doing the work that he had been bred for.
"Come on, Magic," Georgina ordered. "Get in there.
Get them out."
Magic dived into the thickest and thorniest patch, and disappeared
completely from view. There was a minute of snuffling and rooting around
in the depths of the ditch, and then a fierce cackle and flurry of
wings.
A pair of birds exploded out of the bushes. The hen led the way. She was
a drab, nondescript creature the size of a domestic fowl, but the cock
bird that followed her closely was magnificent. His head was capped with
iridescent green and his cheeks and wattles were scarlet. His tail,
barred in cinnamon and black, was almost as long again as his body and
the rest of his plumage was a riot of gorgeous colour.
As he climbed he sparkled against the lowering grey sky like a priceless
jewel thrown from an emperor's hand.
Royan gasped with the beauty of the sight.
"Just look at them go!'Georgina's voice was thick with excitement. "What
a pair of crackerjacks. The best pair today. My bet is that not one of
the guns will touch a feather on either of them."
Up, and then on up, the two birds climbed, the hen drawing the cock
after her, until suddenly the wind boiling over the hills like
overheated milk caught them both and flung them away, out over the
valley.
The line of beaters enjoyed the moment. They had worked hard for it.
Their voices were tiny and faint on the wind as they urged the birds on.
They loved to see a pheasant so high and fast that it could beat the
guns.
"Forward!" they exulted. "over! and this time the line came
involuntarily to a halt as they followed the flight of the pair that
were twisting away on the wind.
In the valley bottom the faces of the guns were turned upwards, pale
specks against the green background. Their trepidation was almost
palpable as they watched the pheasant reach their maximum speed, so that
they could no longer beat their wings, but locked them into a back-swept
profile as they began to drop down into the valley.
This was the most difficult shot that any gun would face. A high pair of
pheasant with a half gale quartering from behind, dropping into the shot
at their terminal rate of flight, set to pass over the line at the
extreme effective range of a twelve-bore shotgun. For the men below it
was a calculation of speed "and lead in all three dimensions of space.
The best of shots might hope to take one of them, but who would dare to
think of both?
"A pound on it!" Georgina called. "A pound that they both get through."
But none of the beaters who heard her accepted the wager.
The wind was pushing the birds gently sideways. They started off aimed
at the centre of the line, but they were drifting towards the far end.
As the angle changed, Royan could see the men at the pegs below her
brace themselves in turn as the birds appeared to be heading straight
for them, and then relax as the wind moved them on. Their relief was
evident as, one after the other, each of them was absolved from the
challenge of having to make such an impossible shot with all eyes
fastened upon him.
In the end only the tall figure at the extreme end of the line stood in
their flight path.
"Your bird, sir," one of the other guns called mockingly, and Royan
found that instinctively she was holding her breath with anticipation.
Nicholas Quenton-Harper seemed unaware of the approach of the pair of
pheasant. He stood completely relaxed, his tall frame slouching
slightly, his shotgun tucked under his right arm with the muzzles
pointing at the ground.
At the moment that the leading hen bird reached a point in the sky sixty
degrees ut ahead of him he moved for the first time. With casual grace
he swung the shotgun up in a sweeping arc. At the instant that the butt
touched I I his cheek and shoulder he fired, but the gun never stopped
moving and went on to describe the rest of the arc.
The distance delayed the sound of the shot reaching I Royan. She saw the
barrels kick with the recoil, and a pale spurt of blue smoke from the
muzzle. Then Nicholas lowered the gun as the hen suddenly threw back her
head and closed her wings. There was no burst of feathers from her body,
for she had been hit cleanly in the head and killed instantly. As she
began the long plummet to earth Royan heard the thud of the shot.
By then the cock was high over Nicholas's head. This time as he mounted
the gun in that casual sweeping gesture he arched his back to point
upwards, his long frame bending from the waist like a drawn bow. Once
again at the apex of the swing the weapon kicked in his grasp.
"He has missed!" Royan thought with a mixture of satisfaction and
disappointment, as the cock sailed on seemingly unscathed. Part of her
wanted the beautiful bird to escape, while part of her wanted the man to
succeed.
Gradually the profile of the high cock altered as the wings folded back
and it rolled over in flight. Royan had no way of knowing that his heart
had been struck through, until seconds later he died in mid-air and the
locked wings lost their rigid set.
As the cock tumbled to earth, a spontaneous chorus of heers ran down
the line of beaters, faint but enthusiastic on the icy north wind. Even