Danny the Champion of the World Read online

  'And keepers, Dad?'

  'Yes,' he had said. 'But there's thick bushes all around and that helps.'

  The clearing was about a hundred yards ahead of us. We stopped behind a big tree while my father let his eyes travel very slowly all round. He was checking each little shadow and every part of the wood within sight.

  'We're going to have to crawl the next bit,' he whispered, letting go of my hand. 'Keep close behind me all the time, Danny, and do exactly as I do. If you see me lie flat on my face, you do the same. Right?'

  'Right,' I whispered back.

  'Off we go then. This is it!'

  My father got down on his hands and knees and started crawling. I followed. He moved surprisingly fast on all fours and I had quite a job to keep up with him. Every few seconds he would glance back at me to see if I was all right, and each time he did so, I gave him a nod and a smile.

  We crawled on and on, and then at last we were kneeling safely behind a big clump of bushes right on the edge of the clearing. My father was nudging me with his elbow and pointing through the branches at the pheasants.

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

  'You see what I mean?' he whispered.

  It was a fantastic sight, a poacher's dream come true. And how close they were! Some of them were not ten paces from where we knelt. The hens were plump and creamy-brown. They were so fat their breast-feathers almost brushed the ground as they walked. The cocks were slim and elegant, with long tails and brilliant red patches round the eyes, like scarlet spectacles. I glanced at my father. His face was transfixed in ecstasy. The mouth was slightly open and the eyes were sparkling bright as they stared at the pheasants.

  'There's a keeper,' he said softly.

  I froze. At first I didn't even dare to look.

  'Over there,' my father whispered.

  I mustn't move, I told myself. Not even my head.

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

  Slowly, I swivelled my eyeballs in the direction he indicated. Then I saw him.

  'Dad!' I whispered.

  'Don't move now, Danny. Stay well down.'

  'Yes but Dad...'

  '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 big double-barrelled shotgun under his arm. He never moved. He was like a little post standing there.

  'Should we go?' I whispered.

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

  'Should we go, Dad?'

  'Hush,' my father 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 of two hen birds standing 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 looked at the keeper. He hadn't moved.

  I could feel a trickle of cold sweat running down one side of my forehead and across my cheek. I didn't dare lift a hand to wipe it away.

  My father threw a second raisin into the clearing... then a third... and a fourth... and a fifth.

  It takes guts to do that, I thought. Terrific guts. If I'd been alone I would never have stayed there for one second. But my father was in a sort of poacher's trance. For him, this was it. This was the moment of danger, the biggest thrill of all.

  He kept on throwing the raisins into the clearing, swiftly, silently, one at a time. Flick went his wrist, and up went the raisin, high over the bushes, to land among the pheasants.

  Then all at once, I saw the keeper turn away his head to inspect the wood behind him.

  My father saw it too. Quick as a flash, he pulled the bag of raisins out of his pocket and tipped the whole lot into the palm of his right hand.

  'Dad!' I whispered. 'Don't!'

  But with a great sweep of the arm he flung the entire handful way 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 have 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 edge of the clearing.

  'Lie down flat!' my father whispered. 'Stay there! Don't move an inch!'

  I flattened my body against the ground and pressed one side of my face into the brown leaves. The soil below the leaves had a queer pungent smell, like beer. Out of one eye, I saw my father raise his head just a tiny bit to watch the keeper. He kept watching him.

  'Don't you love this?' he whispered to me.

  I didn't dare answer him.

  We lay there for what seemed like a hundred years.

  At last I heard my father whisper, 'Panic's over. Follow me, Danny. But be extra careful, he's still there. And keep down low all the time.'

  He started crawling away quickly on his hands and knees. I went after him. I kept thinking of the keeper who was somewhere behind us. I was very conscious of that keeper, and I was also very conscious of my own backside, and how it was sticking up in the air for all to see. I could understand now why 'poacher's bottom' was a fairly common complaint in this business.

  We went along on our hands and knees for about a hundred yards.

  'Now run!' my father said.

  We got to our feet and ran, and a few minutes later we came out through the hedge into the lovely open safety of the cart-track.

  'It went marvellously!' my father said, breathing heavily. 'Didn't it go absolutely marvellously?' His face was scarlet and glowing with triumph.

  'Did the keeper see us?' I asked.

  'Not on your life!' he said. 'And in a few minutes the sun will be going down and the birds will all be flying up to roost and that keeper will be sloping off home to his supper. Then all we've got to do is go back in again and help ourselves. We'll be picking them up off the ground like pebbles!'

  He sat down on the grassy bank below the hedge. I sat down close to him. He put an arm round my shoulders and gave me a hug. 'You did well, Danny' he said. 'I'm right proud of you.'

  15

  The Keeper

  We sat on the grassy bank below the hedge, waiting for darkness to fall. 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.

  'You could offer me anywhere in the world at this moment,' my father said, 'and I wouldn't go.'

  His whole face was glowing with happiness.

  'We did it, Danny,' he said, laying a hand gently on my knee. 'We pulled it off. Doesn't that make you feel good?'

  'Terrific,' I said. 'But it was a bit scary while it lasted.'

  'Ah, but that's what poaching's all about,' he said. 'It scares the pants off us. That's why we love it. Look, there's a hawk!'

  I looked where he was pointing and saw a kestrel hawk hovering superbly in the darkening sky above the ploughed field across the track.

  'It's his last chance for supper tonight,' my father said. 'He'll be lucky if he sees anything now'

  Except for the swift fluttering of its wings, the hawk remained absolutely motionless in the sky. It seemed to be suspended by some invisible thread, like a toy bird hanging from the ceiling. Then suddenly it folded its wings and plummeted towards the earth at an i