Manoeuvres

There is nothing like the Christmas round in the country. Time to relax, to call on the neighbours, linger in the village shop and especially in the butchers (how is it you meet everybody in the butchers?), and best of all, the round of pre-Christmas parties. Good cheer and the odd glass of mulled wine (some very odd), mates not seen since the same event last year, the chance of a last minute invitation - shooting or supper, either very satisfactory - and maybe the chance of new friend; or perhaps not.

The Musgraves were kind enough to ask me for a couple of nights to stay whilst they had their usual village party. They do this most years and the deal is that I do vegetable peeling duty, and in the afternoon frighten the pigeons a bit, preferably not at the same time. I usually perform to satisfaction on the vegetables but less so on the pigeons - which have yet to fall victim to my dubious skills in this area.  Very flighty, the Musgrave pigeons.

But the Christmas Eve party is something else, and worth a lot of peeling and scraping. Half the county is there, and thats's a lot of shooting acres - and they are all fascinating amusing people, of course. My old mate Geoffrey last year gave me a day he couldn't do, so when he turned up this year with the additional benefit of his two gorgeous daughters, well, a chap has to be polite. In this I made a major strategic error, in that homing in on this triple magnetic attraction in the drawing room, I rather overlooked that there was a battleship laid upstream ready to engage all comers with full firepower.

But as soon as I helloed Geoffrey and grappled both lovely daughters with kisses on each flank, Geoffrey executed the fancy footwork for which he is famous in both shooting and accounting, swung round and said, "Ahaha, B...., I don't think you have met my mother in law, Mrs Double-Barrelled" and exposed me directly to a full broadside from the approaching battleship.

"Mr B...." came the first salvo "My son in law has mentioned your name".

I had the distinct impression that this might be in relevance to dubious accounting procedures or for keeping an unruly house. But no:

"I understand you are a shooting man?"  I noticed that Geoffrey and daughters were somehow in full sail across the room toward the door and exiting rapidly.

"Yes, I do a little, you know"

"Indeed!" said Mrs D-B. Somehow I had the impression that she felt my skills and personality might be best suited to shooting rats in a bucket.

"My late husband, Admiral Double-Barrelled, was very much a shooting man. He was a noted shot. He was stationed at Plymouth for many years, don't you know, and shot in many places."

No doubt, anything that got him out of the house, I thought. She now had all turrets firing.

"He shot on many of the great estates in his time, especially in Scotland. Grouse you know."

I nodded, speechless at this specialist knowledge.

"He had many good friends with very fine shoots, they greatly admired his skill in the field"

And then the torpedo, delivered amidships:

"Of course, he was asked to shoot as a guest. In his day, one was asked as a guest. Not as now, when anybody gets to shoot who can pay. Do you shoot much, Mr B....?"

I sank, gurgling, as she weighed anchor, in search of further unarmed rowing boats.