Last year’s partridge day on the Wiltshire Downs consisted of a large breakfast and a slow drive back to Chelsea enlivened only by the frantic dance of windscreen wipers. But here we are again, fifteen months later. Here again, led fearlessly by the Generous Host whose rain dance seems to have worked this time. It is a crispingly clear sunny January late afternoon, not a cloud in the sky, a reddening glow on the western horizon, a certainty of frost tonight. The GH has procured a late pheasant day to replace last year’s washed out partridge day.
And what a day it has been. The wily January pheasants have finally learnt that if you see a well spaced line of tweedy chaps it is not a good idea to head directly for them. They rocket steeply upwards away from the beaters and dogs, curving and swerving, escaping sideways and backwards and to stratospheric heights, knowing that if they can just win through the next two minutes they will get to enjoy spring and all the joys thereof.
Not a lot of birds are left, but oh, what amazing birds survive, what worthy opponents they have become. The tweedy chaps may, by virtue of gunpowder and lead, think they have the upper hand, but the birds are educated now. They are quicker, higher, and faster than the earthbound shootists far below, and they know the subtle arts of undermining confidence. A gun who misses a high curling bird will never get on them again; he’ll shoot below and in front and above; each time he’ll curse and pull the trigger further below or in front or above. The pheasants snigger, gliding at full power and watching the sweating grumbling line below. In this they are in unconscious league with the beaters and pickers- up, who watch disbelievingly, tutting, groaning, knowing how much better they could do this. Occasionally a fusillade of eight shots will ring out, a bird does not make it, and five different guns make a mental note to add that to their personal bag. It is strange indeed how in January the individual totals always add up at least twice the actual bag on the game cart.
The shooters swing and groan and stretch: “I was right on that one, saw him shake, he’ll be dead behind that wood.” The picker-up smothers a giggle and in pretence of looking, goes behind the hedge for a quick fag. And the pheasant glides to an elegant landing in the aforesaid wood, serenely strutting away among the rusty bracken and wizened blackberries.
Finally, the keeper blows the horn, two pheasants flap elegantly and slowly over the line, the mad spaniels are unleashed, the sun sinks below the languid curves of the chalk horizon. The guns look hopefully towards those birds that must have come down a long way back. The pickers-up try to look as though they are looking. The Generous Host tells a last funny story. The guns guffaw and then fall silent. The spaniels run around in great circles pointlessly swishing the stubble. The labradors gaze reflectively over the field of dreams.
That eerie winter silence falls upon the land. The light fades, the frost creeps out of the wood and down the hill. A distant pheasant lets out a cackle of triumph as it sweeps up to roost. The guns are sheathed. A beady fox grins from the hedge as the little army departs.
It is the end of the day; and for most present, the end of the season. The log fire in the King’s Arms beckons, the beer in the cellar is at peak perfection, stories are been mentally polished. The half empty game cart trundles away.
Night descends upon the downs.
No comments:
Post a Comment