ain-power,' Doc Spencer said. 'They know exactly what's going on.'
'It would undoubtedly be a great honour', my father said, 'to be shot by the Chief Constable of the County, and an even greater one to be eaten afterwards by Lord Thistlethwaite, but I do not think a pheasant would see it that way.'
'You are scoundrels, both of you!' shouted Mr Hazell. 'You are rapscallions of the worst kind!'
'Now then, now then,' said Sergeant Sam ways. 'Hinsults ain't goin' to get us nowhere. They only haggravate things. Therefore, gentlemen, I 'ave a suggestion to put before you. I suggest that we all of us make a big heffort to drive these birds back over the road on to Mr 'Azell's land. 'Ow does that strike you, Mr 'Azell?'
'It'll be a step in the right direction,' Mr Hazell said. 'Get on with it, then.'
' 'Ow about you, Willum?' the sergeant said to my father. 'Are you agreeable to this haction?'
'I think it's a splendid idea,' my father said, giving Sergeant Samways one of his funny looks. 'I'll be very glad to help. So will Danny'
What's he up to now, I wondered, because whenever my father gave somebody one of his funny looks, it meant something funny was going to happen. And Sergeant Samways, I noticed, also had quite a sparkle in his usually stern eye. 'Come on, my lads!' he cried. 'Let's push these lazy birds over the road!' And with that he began striding around the filling-station, waving his arms at the pheasants and shouting 'Shoo! Shoo! Off you go! Beat it! Get out of 'ere!'
My father and I joined him in this rather absurd exercise, and for the second time that morning clouds of pheasants rose up into the air, clapping their enormous wings. It was then I realized that in order to fly across the road, the birds would first have to fly over Mr Hazell's mighty Rolls-Royce which lay right in their path with its door still open. Most of the pheasants were too dopey to manage this, so down they came again smack on top of the great silver car. They were all over the roof and the bonnet, sliding and slithering and trying to keep a grip on that beautifully polished surface. I could hear their sharp claws scraping into the paintwork as they struggled to hang on, and already they were depositing their dirty droppings all over the roof.
'Get them off!' screamed Mr Hazell. 'Get them away!'
'Don't you worry, Mr 'Azell, sir,' Sergeant Samways cried out. 'We'll fix 'em for you. Come on, boys! Heasy does it! Shoo 'em right over the road!'
'Not on my car, you idiot!' Mr Hazell bellowed, jumping up and down. 'Send them the other way!'
'We will, sir, we will!' answered Sergeant Samways.
In less than a minute, the Rolls was literally festooned with pheasants, all scratching and scrabbling and making their disgusting runny messes over the shiny silver paint. What is more, I saw at least a dozen of them fly right inside the car through the open door by the driver's seat. Whether or not Sergeant Samways had cunningly steered them in there himself, I didn't know, but it happened so quickly that Mr Hazell never even noticed.
'Get those birds off my car!' Mr Hazell bellowed. 'Can't you see they're ruining the paintwork, you madman!'
'Paintwork?' Sergeant Samways said. 'What paintwork?' He had stopped chasing the pheasants now and he stood there looking at Mr Hazell and shaking his head sadly from side to side. 'We've done our very best to hencourage these birds over the road,' he said, 'but they're too hignorant to hunderstand.'
'My car, man!' shouted Mr Hazell. 'Get them away from my car!'
'Ah,' the sergeant said. 'Your car. Yes, I see what you mean, sir. Beastly dirty birds, pheasants are. But why don't you just 'op in quick and drive 'er away fast? They'll 'ave to get off then, won't they?'
Mr Hazell, who seemed only too glad of an excuse to escape from this madhouse, made a dash for the open door of the Rolls and leaped into the driver's seat. The moment he was in, Sergeant Samways slammed the door, and suddenly there was the most infernal uproar inside the car as a dozen or more enormous pheasants started squawking and flapping all over the seats and round Mr HazelPs head. 'Drive on, Mr 'Azell, sir!' shouted Sergeant Samways through the window in his most commanding policeman's voice. ' 'Urry up, 'urry up, 'urry up! Get goin' quick! There's no time to lose! Hignore them pheasants, Mr 'Azell, and haccelerate that hengine!'
Mr Hazell didn't have much choice. He had to make a run for it now. He started the engine and the great Rolls shot off down the road with clouds of pheasants rising up from it in all directions.
Then an extraordinary thing happened. The pheasants that had flown up off the car stayed up in the air. They didn't come flapping drunkenly down as we had expected them to. They stayed up and they kept on flying. Over the top of the filling-station they flew, and over the caravan, and over the field at the back where our little outdoor lavatory stood, and over the next field, and over the crest of the hill until they disappeared from sight.
'Great Scott!' Doc Spencer cried. 'Just look at that! They've recovered! The sleeping pills have worn off at last!'
Now all the other pheasants around the place were beginning to come awake. They were standing up tall on their legs and ruffling their feathers and turning their heads quickly from side to side. One or two of them started running about, then all the others started running; and when Sergeant Samways flapped his arms at them, the whole lot took off into the air and flew over the filling-station and were gone.
Suddenly, there was not a pheasant left. And it was very interesting to see that none of them had flown across the road, or even down the road in the direction of Hazell's Wood and the great shooting party. Every one of them had flown in exactly the opposite direction!
21
Doc Spencer's Surprise
Out on the main road, a line of about twenty cars and lorries was parked bumper to bumper, and the people were standing about in groups, laughing and talking about the astonishing sight they had just witnessed.
'Come along, now!' Sergeant Samways called, striding towards them. 'Get goin'! Get movin'! We can't 'ave this! You're blockin' the 'ighway!'
Nobody ever disobeyed Sergeant Samways, and soon the people were drifting back to their cars and getting in. In a few minutes, they too were all gone. Only the four of us were left now-Doc Spencer, Sergeant Samways, my father and me.
'Well, Willum,' Sergeant Samways said, coming back from the road to join us beside the pumps. 'Them pheasants was the most hastonishin' sight I ever seed in my hentire life!'