Later in the day he won the rubber. I was one of the forward guns in the last beat, and having placed my gun at safety against a tree was lighting my pipe, when, for the first time during the day, there was a cry of “woodcock forward,” and he flitted past me in his usual silent, ghostly fashion, quite close. I grabbed my gun, covered him, and pressed, then frantically pulled at the trigger. Long before I realised what was the matter, and had slipped up the safety-bolt, the cock had placed a thick tree between us, and my shot hummed harmlessly through Hampshire. I hoped against hope that I had not been detected. But as we gathered round I soon realised that I was lost.
“Did you see that there woodcock, Muster A.?” asked old George.
“Yes,” I replied with assumed carelessness. “I think I saw it: wide of me on the right.”
“Oh!” grunted the old man, “wide o’ you, was it? Where might you be a-standin’, then?”
“Oh, somewhere over there,” said I, waving my hand vaguely, and, trying desperately to create a diversion, added, “That was a high cock to wind up with, B., a regular clinker.”
“But,” persisted old George, “wasn’t you a-standin’ by that there hold hoak?”
“I believe I was, George,” I yawned, “somewhere there.... What did we get this beat?”
The old scoundrel walked off to my “hold hoak,” and picked up a cartridge. I was the only gun using a 16-bore.
“Bain’t this your cartridge?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, George,” I said.... “Shall we make tracks, it’s getting rather chilly.”