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'