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  'Keepers too, I suppose.'

  'Yes, but there's thick bushes all around and that helps.'

  We were now advancing in a series of quick crouching spurts, running from tree to tree and stopping and waiting and listening and running on again, and then at last we were kneeling safely behind a big clump of alder right on the edge of the clearing and Claud was grinning and nudging me in the ribs and pointing through the branches at the pheasants.

  The place was absolutely stiff with birds. There must have been two hundred of them at least strutting around among the tree-stumps.

  'You see what I mean?' Claud whispered.

  It was an astonishing sight, a sort of poacher's dream come true. And how close they were! Some of them were not more than ten paces from where we knelt. The hens were plump and creamy-brown and they were so fat their breast-feathers almost brushed the ground as they walked. The cocks were slim and beautiful with long tails and brilliant red patches around the eyes, like scarlet spectacles. I glanced at Claud. His big ox-like face was transfixed in ecstasy. The mouth was slightly open and the eyes had a kind of glazy look about them as they stared at the pheasants.

  I believe that all poachers react in roughly the same way as this on sighting game. They are like women who sight large emeralds in a jeweller's window, the only difference being that the women are less dignified in the methods they employ later on to acquire the loot. Poacher's arse is nothing to the punishment that a female is willing to endure.

  'Ah-ha,' Claud said softly. 'You see the keeper?'

  'Where?'

  'Over the other side, by that big tree. Look carefully.'

  'My God!'

  'It's all right. He can't see us.'

  We crouched close to the ground, watching the keeper. He was a smallish man with a cap on his head and a gun under his arm. He never moved. He was like a little post standing there.

  'Let's go,'1 whispered.

  The keeper's face was shadowed by the peak of his cap, but it seemed to me that he was looking directly at us.

  'I'm not staying here,' I said.

  'Hush,' Claud said.

  Slowly, never taking his eyes from the keeper, he reached into his pocket and brought out a single raisin. He placed it in the palm of his right hand, and then quickly, with a little flick of the wrist, he threw the raisin high into the air. I watched it as it went sailing over the bushes and I saw it land within a yard or so of two henbirds standing together beside an old tree-stump. Both birds turned their heads sharply at the drop of the raisin. Then one of them hopped over and made a quick peck at the ground and that must have been it.

  I glanced up at the keeper. He hadn't moved.

  Claud threw a second raisin into the clearing; then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth.

  At this point, I saw the keeper turn away his head in order to survey the wood behind him.

  Quick as a flash, Claud pulled the paper bag out of his pocket and tipped a huge pile of raisins into the cup of his right hand.

  'Stop,' I said.

  But with a great sweep of the arm he flung the whole handful high over the bushes into the clearing.

  They fell with a soft little patter, like raindrops on dry leaves, and every single pheasant in the place must either have seen them coming or heard them fall. There was a flurry of wings and a rush to find the treasure.

  The keeper's head flicked round as though there were a spring inside his neck. The birds were all pecking away madly at the raisins. The keeper took two quick paces forward and for a moment I thought he was going in to investigate. But then he stopped, and his face came up and his eyes began travelling slowly round the perimeter of the clearing.

  'Follow me,' Claud whispered. 'And keep down.' He started crawling away swiftly on all fours, like some kind of a monkey.

  I went after him. He had his nose close to the ground and his huge tight buttocks were winking at the sky and it was easy to see now how poacher's arse had come to be an occupational disease among the fraternity.

  We went along like this for about a hundred yards.

  'Now run,' Claud said.

  We got to our feet and ran, and a few minutes later we emerged through the hedge into the lovely open safety of the lane.

  'It went marvellous,' Claud said, breathing heavily. 'Didn't it go absolutely marvellous?' The big face was scarlet and glowing with triumph.

  'It was a mess,' I said.

  'What!' he cried.

  'Of course it was. We can't possibly go back now. That keeper knows there was someone there.'

  'He knows nothing,' Claud said. 'In another five minutes it'll be pitch dark inside the wood and he'll be sloping off home to his supper.'

  'I think I'll join him.'

  'You're a great poacher,' Claud said. He sat down on the grassy bank under the hedge and lit a cigarette.

  The sun had set now and the sky was a pale smoke blue, faintly glazed with yellow. In the wood behind us the shadows and the spaces in between the trees were turning from grey to black.

  'How long does a sleeping-pill take to work?' Claud asked.

  'Look out,' I said. 'There's someone coming.'

  The man had appeared suddenly and silently out of the dusk and he was only thirty yards away when I saw him.

  'Another bloody keeper,' Claud said.

  We both looked at the keeper as he came down the lane towards us. He had a shotgun under his arm and there was a black Labrador walking at his heels. He stopped when he was a few paces away and the dog stopped with him and stayed behind him, watching us through the keeper's legs.

  'Good evening,' Claud said, nice and friendly.

  This one was a tall bony man about forty with a swift eye and a hard cheek and hard dangerous hands.

  'I know you,' he said softly, coming closer. 'I know the both of you.'

  Claud didn't answer this.

  'You're from the fillin'-station. Right?'

  His lips were thin and dry, with some sort of a brownish crust over them.

  'You're Cubbage and Hawes and you're from the fillin'-station on the main road. Right?'

  'What are we playing?' Claud said. 'Twenty Questions?'

  The keeper spat out a big gob of spit and I saw it go floating through the air and land with a plop on a patch of dry dust six inches from Claud's feet. It looked like a little baby oyster lying there.

  'Beat it,' the man said. 'Go on. Get out.'

  Claud sat on the bank smoking his cigarette and looking at the gob of spit.

  'Go on,' the man said. 'Get out.'

  When he spoke, the upper lip lifted above the gum and I could see a row of small discoloured teeth, one of them black, the others quince and ochre.

  'This happens to be a public highway,' Claud said. 'Kindly do not molest us.'

  The keeper shifted the gun from his left arm to his right.

  'You're loiterin', 'he said, 'with intent to commit a felony. I could run you in for that.'

  'No you couldn't,' Claud said.

  All this made me rather nervous.

  'I've had my eye on you for some time,' the keeper said, looking at Claud.

  'It's getting late,' I said. 'Shall we stroll on?'

  Claud flipped away his cigarette and got slowly to his feet. 'All right,' he said. 'Let's go.'

  We wandered off down the lane the way we had come, leaving the keeper standing there, and soon the man was out of sight in the half-darkness behind us.

  'That's the head keeper,' Claud said. 'His name is Rabbetts.'

  'Let's get the hell out,' I said.

  'Come in here,' Claud said.

  There was a gate on our left leading into a field and we climbed over it and sat down behind the hedge.

  'Mr Rabbetts is also due for his supper,' Claud said. 'You mustn't worry about him.'

  We sat quietly behind the hedge waiting for the keeper to walk past us on his way home. A few stars were showing and a bright three-quarter moon was coming up over the hills behind us in the east.