Through a gap in a straggly hedge I spied a man waiting with a gundog at his feet. A little way along the hedge was another man, another dog. There were five men altogether, wearing green-brown clothes, regularly spaced out down the width of a clay field bristling with stubble.
From time to time, their black labradors broke into little forward dashes until peeping whistles ordered them back to heel. A tractor lumbered along past the field and stopped. Someone dismounted carrying a red, crazy-golf type, flag.
An order must have been given, for the men advanced in a line towards a spinney on the far side of the field, walking with slow, measured, paces. A gangly, stooping, youth on the end of the row cast glances to the side to make sure he kept his place.
I had moved out of sight into a dip in the ground beside the spinney when the shooting began. The sharp crack, crack, crack shots splintered the air.
Partridges began to stream out of the trees and shrubs, skimming low over my head. Pheasants broke cover too, voicing clucks of outrage.
Coming up into the next field beyond the trees I was in time to see a bird fall out of the sky, its tumbling body cartwheeling forwards, its wings splayed out in the air.
One of the dogs raced out to retrieve the carcass, first rushing round and round trying to find its quarry. Partridges continued to pour from the spinney. On the distant field boundary men waved their red flags furiously, perhaps to drive the fleeing birds away from the road behind them.
An animal ran towards me. It was a sprinting hare. I managed to looked into its slit eyes, and saw it plough into the long grass, heard its legs swish-swishing, then lost sight of it.
A century ago, at the time of the first world war, the guns fell silent, at least on this side of the Channel, as the greatgrandfathers of these men traded shotguns for rifles – I pondered whether the ancestors of these beaters, shooters and keepers, had found some familiarity in this setting.
Twitter: @DerekNiemann
