Highland Fling (8 page)

‘Brenda and I will come, of course,’ said Lady Prague briskly, ‘so we shall be five extra beside the guns. Will you ring the bell, Mowbray?’ The general did so. She added, with a disapproving look at Albert: ‘Don’t you shoot?’

‘Excellently,’ he replied in a threatening voice. ‘With the water-pistol.’

‘Perhaps you had no chance of learning when you were young; probably you have a good
natural
eye.’

The admiral looked annoyed and there was an awkward silence.

‘Well, then,’ said General Murgatroyd, ‘that’s all settled. Those who are coming out in the morning must be in the hall, suitably dressed, by ten. We shan’t wait. I advise you to bring shooting-sticks.’

‘What are they?’ asked Albert, but his question was drowned by the overture from
William Tell
which suddenly burst upon the room.

The next day Jane came downstairs punctually at ten o’clock. Albert and Sally had apparently both found themselves unable to get up so early and had sent messages to say that they would
join the guns for lunch. One of the footmen was just taking a glass of champagne to Albert’s room. Jane wished that she had known this sooner; she had found it a great effort to wake up that morning herself, and was still very sleepy. She half contemplated going back to bed until luncheon time, but catching at that moment the eye of the admiral, and feeling by no means certain that it was his glass one, she lacked the moral courage to do so.

In the hall scenes of horrible confusion were going forward; a perfect regiment of men tramped to and fro carrying things and bumping into each other. They all seemed furiously angry. Above the din could be heard the general’s voice:

‘What the – d’you think you’re doing? Get out of that! Come here, blast you!’

Lady Prague, looking like a sort of boy scout, was struggling with a strap when she caught sight of Jane.

‘My dear girl,’ she said taking one end of it from between her teeth, ‘you can’t come out in that mackintosh. Whoever heard of black on the hill? Why, it’s no good at all. That scarlet cap will have to go too, I’m afraid. It’s easy to see you haven’t been up here before. We must alter all this.’ She dived into a cupboard, and after some rummaging produced a filthy old Burberry and forced Jane to put it on. Evidently made for some portly man it hung in great folds on Jane and came nearly to her ankles.

‘I don’t think I’ll take a mackintosh at all,’ she said, rather peevishly, ‘and I hardly ever wear a hat in any case, so I’ll leave that behind, too.’

‘As you like, my dear, of course. I think you’ll be perished with cold and it will probably rain; it looks to me quite threatening. Have your own way, but don’t blame me if – Hullo! we seem to be off at last.’

Jane climbed rather miserably into a sort of bus and sat next to Lady Prague. She was disappointed that Albert had not
come, having taken particular pains with her appearance that morning on his account.

The moor was about five miles away, and during the whole drive nobody spoke a word except General Murgatroyd, who continually admonished his dog, a broken-looking retriever of the name of Mons.

‘Lie down, will you? No, get off that coat!’ (Kick, kick, kick; howl, howl, howl.) ‘Stop that noise, blast you!’ (Kick, howl.)

Jane pitied the poor animal which seemed unable to do right in the eyes of its master.

When they arrived at their destination (a sort of sheep-track on the moor) they were met by two more guns who had come over from a neighbouring house to make up the numbers; and by a rabble of half-clothed and villainous-looking peasants armed for the most part with sticks. They reminded Jane of a film she had once seen called ‘The Fourteenth of July’.

Their leader, an enormous man with red hair and wild eyes, came forward and addressed General Murgatroyd in a respectful, but independent manner. When they had held a short parley he withdrew, and communicated the result of it to his followers, after which they all straggled away.

Jane supposed that they were the local unemployed, soliciting alms, and felt that the general must have treated them with some tact; once aroused, she thought, they might prove ugly customers.

Presently the whole party began to walk across the moor. Jane noticed that each of the men had an attendant who carried guns and a bag of cartridges. She wondered what their mission could be: perhaps to stand by and put the wounded birds out of their pain.

After an exhausting walk of about half an hour, during which Jane fell down several times (and the general said it would be easy walking, old humbug!), they arrived at a row of little roofless buildings, rather like native huts. The first one they
came to was immediately, and silently, appropriated by Lord and Lady Prague, followed by their attendant.

Jane supposed that they were allocated in order of rank and wondered which would fall to her lot.

‘Better come with me, Miss Dacre,’ said General Murgatroyd. It was the first time he had spoken except to swear at his dog, which he did continually, breaking the monotony by thrashing the poor brute, whose shrieks could be heard for miles across the heather.

When they reached his hut (or butt) he shouted in a voice of thunder:

‘Get in, will you, and lie down.’

Jane, though rather taken aback, was about to comply when a kick from its master sent poor Mons flying into the butt, and she realized that the words had been addressed to that unfortunate and not to herself.

General Murgatroyd gave Jane his cartridge bag to sit on and paid no further attention to her. He and his attendant (the correct word for whom appeared to be
loader
) stood gazing over the top of the butt into space.

Seated on the floor, Jane could see nothing outside except a small piece of sky; she wondered why she had been made to leave her black mackintosh behind.

‘I can neither see nor be seen. I expect it was that old woman’s jealous spite. I don’t believe she’s a woman at all. She’s just a very battered boy scout in disguise, and not much disguise, either.’

She began to suffer acutely from cold and cramp, and was filled with impotent rage. Eons of time passed over her. She pulled a stone out of the wall and scratched her name on another stone, then Albert’s name, then a heart with an arrow through it (but she soon rubbed that off again). She knew the shape of the general’s plus-fours and the pattern of his stockings by heart, and could have drawn an accurate picture of
the inside of the butt blindfold, when suddenly there was an explosion in her ears so tremendous that for an instant she thought she must have been killed. It was followed by several more in quick succession, and a perfect fusillade began, up and down the line. This lasted for about twenty minutes, and Jane rather enjoyed it – ‘As good as an Edgar Wallace play.’

At last it died away again, and General Murgatroyd said, ‘Well, the drive’s over. You can get up now, if you like.’ Jane endeavoured to stand, but her legs would hardly carry her. After rubbing them for a bit she was just able to stagger out of the butt. She saw all around her the same band of peasants that had met them when they left the bus earlier that morning. Most of them were carrying dead grouse and picking up others.

‘How kind!’ she thought. ‘The general has taken pity on the poor creatures and given them permission to gather the birds for their evening meal. He must really be nicer than he looks.’

Thinking of the evening meal made Jane realize that she was extremely hungry. ‘Luncheon time soon, I expect.’ She glanced at her watch. Only eleven o’clock! It must have stopped. Still ticking, though. Perhaps the hands had got stuck. She asked Admiral Wenceslaus the time.

‘Nearly eleven, by Jove! We shall have to show a leg if we’re to get in two more drives before lunch.’

Jane could hardly restrain her tears on hearing this. She sat hopelessly on a rock, while the rest of the party wandered about the heather looking for dead grouse.

When one of them found a bird he would whistle up his dog and point to the little corpse saying, ‘Seek hard,’ and making peculiar noises in his throat. The dog would occasionally pick it up and give it into his master’s hand, but more often would sniff away in another direction, in which case its master seized it by the scruff of the neck, rubbed its nose into the bird and gave it a good walloping.

Jane began to realize the full significance of the expression ‘a dog’s life’.

Lady Prague, who also strode about searching for grouse, presently came up to where Jane was sitting upon her rock, and asked why she didn’t help.

‘Because even if I did find a bird no bribe would induce me to touch it,’ said Jane rather rudely, looking at Lady Prague’s bloodstained hands.

In time the birds were all collected and hung upon the back of a small pony, and the party began to walk towards the butts from which the next drive was to take place. These were dimly visible on the side of the opposite mountain, and appeared to be a great distance away.

Jane walked by herself in a miserable silence, carefully watching her feet. In spite of this she fell down continually. The others were all talking and laughing over incidents of the drive. Jane admired them for keeping up their spirits in such circumstances. Their jokes were incomprehensible to her.

‘I saw you take that bird of mine, old boy, but I wiped your eye twice, you know. Ha! Ha!’

‘That dog o’ yours has a good nose for other people’s birds. Ha! Ha!’

‘D’you remember poor old Monty at that very drive last year? All he shot was a beater and a bumble-bee.’

‘Ah, yes! Poor Monty, poor Monty. Ha, ha, ha!’

The walk seemed endless. They came to a river which everyone seemed able to cross quite easily by jumping from stone to stone except Jane, who lost her balance in the middle and was obliged to wade. The water was ice-cold and came to her waist, but was not at first unpleasant, her feet were hot and sore, and both her ankles were swollen. Presently, however, the damp stockings began to rub her heels and every step became agony.

When they finally reached the butts Jane felt that she was in
somewhat of a quandary. With whom ought she to sit this time? She hardly liked to inflict herself on General Murgatroyd again. Lord Prague and Captain Chadlington had their wives with them, and the admiral and Mr Buggins were so very far ahead that she knew she would never have time to catch them up. She looked round rather helplessly, and saw standing near her one of the strangers who had come over for the day. As he was young and had a kind face, she ventured to ask if she might sit with him during the next drive. He seemed quite pleased and, making her a comfortable seat with his coat and cartridge bag, actually addressed her as if she were a human being. Jane felt really grateful: no one had so far spoken a word to her, except Lady Prague and General Murgatroyd, and they only from a too evident sense of duty.

The young man, whose name was Lord Alfred Sprott, asked if there was a cheery crowd at Dalloch Castle. Jane, more loyally than truthfully, said, ‘Yes, a very cheery crowd.’ She hoped that it was cheery where he was staying, too? He replied that it was top-hole, only a little stalking lodge, of course, but very cosy and jolly, quite a picnic. He told her some of the jolly jokes they had there. Jane, in her bemused condition, found him most entertaining; she laughed quite hysterically, and was sorry when the birds began to fly over them, putting an end to conversation.

In spite, however, of this spiritual sunshine Jane soon began to feel colder and more miserable even than before, and greatly looked forward to the next walk which might warm her up and dry her clothes.

This was not to be. While the birds were being picked up after that drive, she learnt, to her dismay, that the next one would take place from the same butts.

The wait between these two drives was interminable. Lord Alfred Sprott seemed to have come to the end of his witticisms and sat on his shooting-stick in a gloomy silence. Jane ventured
one or two remarks, but they were not well received. She gathered that Lord Alfred had been shooting badly, and this had affected his spirits. She became more and more unhappy and shook all over with cold.

‘I expect I shall be very ill after this,’ she thought. ‘I shall probably die, after lingering for some weeks; then perhaps they will be sorry.’ And tears of self-pity and boredom welled up in her eyes.

When the drive was over, they all began to walk towards the hut where luncheon was prepared. They were now obliged to keep in a straight line with each other, in order to put up game for the men, who carried their guns and let them off from time to time.

‘Keep up please, Miss Dacre. Keep in line, please, or you’ll be shot, you know.’

Jane thought that it seemed almost uncivilized to threaten an acquaintance that she must keep up or be shot, but she said nothing and struggled, fairly successfully, not to be left behind. As the result of this further misery one tiny bird was added to the bag.

Nothing in this world lasts for ever. The longest morning Jane could remember was at an end and the party had assembled in a little hut for luncheon. A good fire burnt in one corner and a smell of food and peat smoke created a friendly atmosphere. Jane felt happier, especially when she saw that Sally and Albert were seated on the floor in front of the fire.

Albert looked particularly alluring in an orange crêpe de Chine shirt open at the neck, and a pair of orange-and-brown tartan trousers, tight to the knees and very baggy round the ankles. Under one arm he carried an old-fashioned telescope of black leather heavily mounted in brass, with which, he said, when asked why he had brought it, to view the quarry. He and Lord Alfred greeted each other with unconcealed disgust; they had been at Eton and Oxford together.

Luncheon was rather a silent meal. There was not nearly enough food to go round, and everyone was busy trying to take a little more than his or her share and then to eat it quickly for fear the others should notice. (The admiral choked rather badly from trying to save time by drinking with his mouth full. Lady Prague and General Murgatroyd thumped him on the back and made him look at the ceiling, after which he recovered.) Most of the baskets in which the food was packed seemed to contain a vast quantity of apples which nobody ate at all. Some very promising-looking packages were full of
Petit-Beurre
biscuits or dry bread, and the scarcity of food was rendered all the more tantalizing by the fact that what there was of it was quite
excellent. The thermos flask which should have contained coffee proved to be empty.