Skin and Other Stories Read online

  Claud looked at me quick.

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

  'It's doped,' Claud said.

  'But that's just a deeper sort of sleep. Why should we expect it to fall down just because it's in a deeper sleep?'

  There was a gloomy silence.

  'We should've tried it with chickens,' Claud said. 'My dad would've done that.'

  'Your dad was a genius,' I said.

  At that moment there came a soft thump from the wood behind us.

  'Hey!'

  'Sshh!'

  We stood listening.

  Thump.

  'There's another!'

  It was a deep muffled sound as though a 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?'

  '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 a minute.

  'Here's one!' he called.

  When I got to him he was holding a magnificent cock-bird in both hands. We examined it closely with our flashlights.

  'It's doped to the gills,' Claud said. 'It's still alive, I can feel its heart, but it's doped to the bloody gills.'

  Thump!

  'There's another!'

  Thump! Thump!

  'Two more!'

  Thump!

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  'Jesus Christ!'

  Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

  Thump! Thump!

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

  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 - two cocks and a hen. They were limp and warm, the feathers wonderfully soft in the hand.

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

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

  Claud was standing on the edge of the clearing 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 around him 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 dumped 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 dumped them with the others. Then six more. Then six more after that.

  And still they kept falling.

  Claud was in a whirl of ecstasy now, dashing about like a mad ghost under the trees. I could see the beam of his flashlight waving around in the dark and each time he found a bird he gave a little yelp of triumph.

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  'That bugger Hazel ought to hear this!' he called out.

  'Don't shout,' I said. 'It frightens me.'

  'What's that?'

  'Don't shout. There might be keepers.'

  'Screw the keepers!' he cried. 'They're all eating!'

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

  'Keep searching!' Claud shouted. 'There's plenty more on the ground!'

  'Don't you think we ought to get out while the going's good?'

  'No,' he said.

  We went on searching. Between us we looked under every tree within a hundred yards of the clearing, north, south, east, and west, and I think we found most of them in the end. At the collecting-point there was a pile of pheasants as big as a bonfire.

  'It's a miracle,' Claud was saying. 'It's a bloody miracle.' He was staring at them in a kind of trance.

  'We'd better just take half a dozen each and get out quick,' 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 in turn and laying it carefully to one side. The moon was directly overhead now and the whole clearing was brilliantly illuminated.

  'I'm not standing around here like this,' I said. I walked back a few paces 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 didn't doubt it for a moment.

  'The most my dad ever got in one night was fifteen and he was drunk for a week afterwards!'

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

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

  The light of the moon was so strong I could read the small print along the base of the sack. J. W. CRUMP, it said. KESTON FLOUR MILLS, LONDON SW17.

  'You don't think that bastard with the brown teeth is watching us this very moment from behind a tree?'

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

  We started loading the pheasants into the sacks. They were soft and floppy-necked and the skin underneath the feathers was still warm.

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

  'What?'

  'I always go back in a taxi, Gordon, didn't you know that?'

  I told him I didn't.

  'A taxi is anonymous,' Claud said. 'Nobody knows who's inside a taxi except the driver. My dad taught me that.'

  'Which driver?'

  'Charlie Kinch. He's only too glad to oblige.'

  We finished loading the pheasants, and I tried to hump my bulging sack on to my shoulder. My sack had about sixty birds inside it, and it must have weighed a hundredweight and a half, at least. '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 pitch-black woods, pulling the pheasants behind us. 'We'll never make it all the way back to the village like this,' I said.

  'Charlie's never let me down yet,' Claud said.

  We came to the margin of the wood and peered through the hedge into the lane. Claud said, 'Charlie boy,' very softly and the old man behind the wheel of the taxi not five yards away poked his head out into the moonlight and gave us a sly toothless grin. We slid through the hedge, dragging the sacks after us along the ground.

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

  'It's cabbages,' Claud told him. 'Open the door.'

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

  It was all over now bar the shouting. Claud was triumphant, bursting with pride and excitement, and he kept leaning forward and tapping Charlie Kinch on the shoulder and saying, 'How about it, Charlie? How about this for a haul?' and Charlie kept glancing back popeyed at the huge bulging sacks lying on the floor between us and saying, 'Jesus Christ, man, how did you do it?'

  'There's six brace of them for you, Charlie,' Claud said. And Charlie said, 'I reckon pheasants is going to be a bit