Laid out on my father's bench amid the spanners and wrenches and oily rags were six magnificent pheasants, three cocks and three hens.
'There we are, ladies and gentlemen,' said the doctor, his small wrinkled face beaming with delight. 'How's that?'
We were speechless.
'Two for you, Grace, to keep the vicar in a good mood,' Doc Spencer said. 'Two for Enoch for all the fine work he did this morning. And two for William and Danny who deserve them most of all.'
'What about you, Doctor?' my father asked. 'That doesn't leave any for you.'
'My wife has enough to do without plucking pheasants all day long,' he said. 'And anyway, who got them out of the wood in the first place? You and Danny.'
'But how on earth did you get them?' my father asked him. 'When did you nab them?'
'I didn't nab them,' the doctor said. 'I had a hunch.'
'What sort of a hunch?' my father asked.
'It seemed fairly obvious', the doctor said, 'that some of those pheasants must have gobbled up more than one raisin each. Some, if they were quick enough, might have swallowed half a dozen each, or even more. In which case they would have received a very heavy overdose of sleeping pills and wouldn't ever wake up.'
'Ah-ha!' we cried. 'Of course! Of course!'
'So while you were all so busy driving the birds on to old Hazell's Rolls-Royce, I sneaked in here and had a look under the sheet in the bottom of the pram. And there they were!'
'Hamazin'!' said Sergeant Samways. 'Habsolutely hamazin'!'
'Those were the greedy ones,' the doctor said. 'It never pays to eat more than your fair share.'
'Marvellous!' my father said. 'Well done, sir!'
'Oh, you lovely man!' cried Mrs Clipstone, flinging an arm round the tiny doctor and giving him a kiss on the cheek.
'Now come along,' the doctor said to her. 'I'll drive you home. You can leave this crazy perambulator where it is. And Enoch, we'll take your birds with us and drop them off at your house on the way. We can't have the arm of the law cycling through the village with a brace of pheasants slung over the handle-bars.'
'I am very much hobliged to you, Doctor,' Sergeant Sam ways said. 'I really am.'
My father and I loaded four of the pheasants into the doctor's car. Mrs Clipstone got into the front seat with the baby and the doctor sat himself behind the wheel. 'Don't be sad, William,' he said to my father through the window as he drove off. 'It was a famous victory'
Then Sergeant Samways mounted his bicycle and waved us goodbye and pedalled away down the road in the direction of the village. He pedalled slowly, and there was a certain majesty in the way he held himself, with the head high and the back very straight, as though he were riding a fine thoroughbred mare instead of an old black bike.
22
My Father
It was all over now. My father and I stood alone just outside the workshop and suddenly the old place seemed to become very quiet.
'Well, Danny,' my father said, looking at me with those twinkly eyes of his. 'That's that.'
'It was fun, Dad.'
'I know it was,' he said.
'I really loved it,' I said.
'So did I, Danny'
He placed one hand on my shoulder and we began walking slowly towards the caravan.
'Maybe we should lock the pumps and take a holiday for the rest of the day,' he said.