563296589345

As they were walking to the fifth beat they came to a great peepul tree in which, high up, one could
hear imperial pigeons cooing. It was a sound like the far-off lowing of cows. One bird fluttered out
and perched alone on the topmost bough, a small greyish shape.
‘Try a sitting shot,’ Flory said to Elizabeth. ‘Get your sight on him and pull off without waiting.
Don’t shut your left eye.’
Elizabeth raised her gun, which had begun trembling as usual. The beaters halted in a group to
watch, and some of them could not refrain from clicking their tongues; they thought it queer and rather
shocking to see a woman handle a gun. With a violent effort of will Elizabeth kept her gun still for a
second, and pulled the trigger. She did not hear the shot; one never does when it has gone home. The
bird seemed to jump upwards from the bough, then down it came, tumbling over and over, and stuck
in a fork ten yards up. One of the beaters laid down his dah and glanced appraisingly at the tree; then
he walked to a great creeper, thick as a man’s thigh and twisted like a stick of barley sugar, that hung
far out from a bough. He ran up the creeper as easily as though it had been a ladder, walked upright
along the broad bough, and brought the pigeon to the ground. He put it limp and warm into Elizabeth’s
hand.
She could hardly give it up, the feel of it so ravished her. She could have kissed it, hugged it to her
breast. All the men, Flory and Ko S’la and the beaters, smiled at one another to see her fondling the
dead bird. Reluctandy, she gave it to Ko S’la to put in the bag. She was conscious of an extraordinary
desire to fling her arms round Flory’s neck and kiss him; and in some way it was the killing of the
pigeon that made her feel this.
After the fifth beat the hunter explained to Flory that they must cross a clearing that was used for
growing pineapples, and would beat another patch of jungle beyond. They came out into sunlight,
dazzling after the jungle gloom. The clearing was an oblong of an acre or two hacked out of the jungle
like a patch mown in long grass, with the pineapples, prickly cactus-like plants, growing in rows,
almost smothered by weeds. A low hedge of morns divided the field in the middle. They had nearly
crossed the field when there was a sharp cock-a-doodle-doo from beyond the hedge.
‘Oh, listen!’ said Elizabeth, stopping. ‘Was that a jungle cock?’
‘Yes. They come out to feed about this time.’
‘Couldn’t we go and shoot him?’
‘We’ll have a try if you like. They’re cunning beggars. Look, we’ll stalk up the hedge until we get
opposite where he is. We’ll have to go without making a sound.’
He sent Ko S’la and the beaters on, and the two of them skirted the field and crept along the hedge.
They had to bend double to keep themselves out of sight. Elizabeth was in front. The hot sweat
trickled down her face, tickling her upper lip, and her heart was knocking violently. She felt Flory
touch her heel from behind. Both of them stood upright and looked over the hedge together.
Ten yards away a little cock the size of a bantam, was pecking vigorously at the ground. He was
beautiful, with his long silky neck-feathers, bunched comb and arching, laurel-green tail. There were
six hens with him, smaller brown birds, with diamond-shaped feathers like snake-scales on their
backs. AU this Elizabeth and Flory saw in the space of a second, then with a squawk and a whirr the
birds were up and flying like bullets for the jungle. Instantly, automatically as it seemed, Elizabeth