Man from the South ee-3

by Roald Dahl

  'You'll shoot me?'

  'I said I'll shoot you if you get up now.'

  A gentle noise came from where Judson lay, a strange sound as if a child were trying not to cry, and in the middle of it, Judson's voice. 'I've got to move; please let me move. This chewing!'

  'If you get up,' said the old man, 'I'll shoot you in the stomach.'

  For another hour or so the crying continued, then quite suddenly it stopped.

  Just before four o'clock, it began to get very cold and the old man shouted, 'Are you cold out there, Judson? Are you cold?'

  'Yes,' came the answer. 'So cold. But I don't mind because the cow's not chewing any more. She's asleep.'

  The old man said, 'What are you going to do with the thief when you catch him?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Will you kill him?'

  A pause. 'I don't know. I'll just grab him.'

  'I'll watch,' said the old man. 'It should be fun.' He was leaning out of the window with his arms resting on the sill. Then he heard the soft noise under the window, looked out and saw the black Mamba, sliding through the grass towards the cow, going fast and holding its head just a little above the ground as it went.

  When the Mamba was five metres away, the old man shouted, 'Here he comes, Judson; here he comes. Go and get him.'

  Judson lifted his head quickly and looked up. As he did so he saw the Mamba and the Mamba saw him. There was a second, or perhaps two, when the snake stopped, pulled its head back and raised the front part of its body in the air. Then the stroke. Just a flash of black and a slight thump as it hit him in the chest. Judson screamed, a long high scream which did not rise or fall, but remained constant until gradually it faded into nothingness and there was silence. Now he was standing up, tearing open his shirt, feeling for the place in his chest, crying quietly and breathing hard with his mouth wide open. And the old man sat quietly at the open window, leaning forward and never taking his eyes away from the scene below.

  Everything happens very quickly when one is bitten by a snake, by a black Mamba, and almost at once the poison began to work. He fell to the ground, where he lay on his back, rolling around on the grass. He no longer made any noise. It was all very quiet, as if a man of great strength were fighting with someone whom one could not see, and it was as if this invisible person were twisting him and not letting him get up, stretching his arms through the fork of his legs and pushing his knees up under his chin.

  Then he began pulling up the grass with his hands and soon after that he lay on his back kicking gently with his legs. But he didn't last very long. He gave a quick shake, twisted his back, then lay on the ground quite still, lying on his stomach with his right knee underneath his chest and his hands stretched out above his head.

  Still the old man sat by the window, and even after it was all over, he stayed where he was and did not move. There was a movement in the shadow under the little tree and the Mamba came forward slowly towards the cow. It came forward a little, stopped, raised its head, waited, and slid forward again right under the stomach of the cow. It raised itself into the air and began to drink. The old man sat watching the Mamba taking the milk of the cow, and once again he saw the gentle movement of its body as it sucked out the liquid.

  While the snake was still drinking, the old man got up and moved away from the window.

  'You can have his share,' he said quietly. 'We don't mind you having his share,' and as he spoke, he glanced back and saw again the black body of the Mamba curving upwards from the ground, joining the underneath of the cow.

  'Yes,' he said again, 'we don't mind you having his share.'

  The Champion of the World

  All day, when not selling petrol, we had been leaning over the table in the office of my petrol station, preparing the raisins. We had a hundred and ninety-six of them to do altogether, and it was nearly evening before we had finished.

  'Don't they look wonderful!' Claud cried, rubbing his hands together hard. 'What time is it, Gordon?'

  'Just after five.'

  Through the window we could see a car arriving at the petrol pumps, with a woman at the wheel and about eight children in the back, eating ice creams.

  'We ought to be going soon,' Claud said. 'The plan won't work if we don't arrive before sunset.' He was getting nervous now.

  We both went outside, and Claud gave the woman her petrol. When she had gone, he remained standing in the middle of the yard, looking anxiously up at the sun. 'All right,' I said. 'Lock up.'

  He went quickly from pump to pump, locking each one.

  'You'd better take off that yellow sweater,' he said. 'You'll be shining like a light out there in the moonlight.'

  'I'll be all right.'

  'You will not,' he said. 'Take it off, Gordon, please. I'll see you in three minutes.'

  He disappeared into his hut behind the petrol station, and I went and changed my yellow sweater for a blue one.

  When we met again outside, Claud was dressed in a pair of black trousers and a dark-green sweater. On his head he wore a brown cloth cap pulled down low over his eyes.

  'What's under there?' I asked, staring at his unusually thick waist.

  He pulled up his sweater and showed me two very thin but very large white cotton bags tied neatly and tightly around his waist. 'To carry the stuff,' he said.

  'I see.'

  'Let's go,' he said.

  'I still think we ought to take the car.'

  'It's too risky. They'll see it parked.'

  'But it's over five kilometres up to that wood.'

  'Yes,' he said. 'And I suppose you realize we can get six months in prison if they catch us.'

  'You never told me that.'

  'Didn't I?'

  'I'm not coming,' I said. 'It's not worth it.'

  'The walk will be good for you, Gordon. Come on.'

  It was a calm, sunny evening, with little clouds hanging motionless in the sky, and the valley was cool and very quiet as the two of us began walking along the grass on the side of the road that ran between the hills towards Oxford.

  'Have you got the raisins?' Claud asked.

  'They're in my pocket.'

  'Good,' he said. 'Wonderful.'

  Ten minutes later, we turned left off the main road into a narrow side road with high bushes on either side, and then it was all uphill.

  'How many keepers are there?' I asked.

  'Three.'

  Claud threw away a half-finished cigarette and lit another. 'Don't tell anyone how we've done it, do you understand? Because if anyone heard, every fool in the district would do the same thing, and there wouldn't be a pheasant left.'

  'I won't say a word.'

  'You ought to be very proud of yourself,' he went on. 'There have been clever men studying this problem for hundreds of years, and not one of them's ever found anything even a quarter as clever as you have. Why didn't you tell me about it before?'

  'You never asked for my opinion,' I said.

  And that was the truth. In fact, until the day before, Claud had never even offered to discuss with me the subject of poaching. Often, on a summer's evening when work was finished, I had seen him disappearing up the road towards the woods; and sometimes as I watched him through the window of the petrol station, I would wonder exactly what he was going to do, what tricks he was going to practise all alone up there under the trees at night. He seldom came back until very late and he never, absolutely never, brought anything with him on his return. But the following afternoon - I couldn't imagine how he did it -there would always be a pheasant or a rabbit hanging up in the hut behind the petrol station.

  This summer he had been particularly active, and during the past couple of months he had been going out four and sometimes five nights a week. But that was not all. It seemed to me that recently his whole attitude to poaching had changed. He was more purposeful about it now, and I suspected that it had become a kind of private war against the famous Mr Victor Hazel himself. Mr Hazel was extremely
rich and his property stretched a long way down each side of the valley. He was a brewer, with no charm at all and few good points. He hated all poor people because he himself had once been poor, and he tried to mix with what he believed were the right kind of people. He hunted and gave shooting-parties and every day he drove a big, black Rolls-Royce past the petrol station on his way to and from his factory. As he drove by, we would sometimes see his great, shining face above the wheel.

  Anyway, the day before, which was Wednesday, Claud had suddenly said to me, 'I'll be going up to Hazel's woods again tonight. Why don't you come along?'

  'Who, me?'

  'Its about the last chance this year for pheasants,' he had said. 'The shooting season begins on Saturday, and the birds will be scattered all over the place after that - if there are any left.'

  'Why the sudden invitation?' I had asked.

  'No special reason, Gordon. No reason at all.'

  'I suppose you keep a gun hidden away up there?'

  'A gun!' he cried, disgusted. 'Nobody ever shoots pheasants, didn't you know that? If you shoot a gun in Hazel's woods, the keepers will hear you.'

  'Then how do you do it?'

  'Ah,' he said. There was a long pause. Then he said, 'Do you think you could keep your mouth closed if I told you?'

  'Certainly.'

  'I've never told this to anyone else in my whole life, Gordon.'

  'I am greatly honoured,' I said. 'You can trust me completely.'

  He turned his head, looking at me with pale eyes. 'I am now going to tell you the three best ways in the world of poaching a pheasant,' he said. 'And, as you're the guest on this little trip, I am going to give you the choice of which one you'd like to use tonight. Now, here's the first big secret.' He paused. 'Pheasants,' he whispered softly, 'are mad about raisins.'

  'Raisins?'

  'Just ordinary raisins. My father discovered that more than forty years ago. He was a great poacher, Gordon. Possibly the best there's ever been in the history of England. My father studied poaching like a scientist. He really did.'

  'I believe you.'

  Claud paused and glanced over his shoulder, as if he wanted to make sure there was no one listening. 'Here's how it's done,' he said. 'First, you take a few raisins and you put them in water overnight to make them nice and big and juicy. Then you get a bit of good stiff horsehair and you cut it into small lengths. Then you push one of these lengths through the middle of each raisin, so that there's a small piece sticking out on either side. Do you understand?'

  'Yes.'

  'So, the pheasant comes along and eats one of these raisins. Right? And you're watching him from behind a tree. So what then?'

  'I imagine it sticks in its throat.'

  'That's obvious, Gordon. But here's the strange thing. Here's what my father discovered. The moment that happens, the bird never moves his feet again! He becomes absolutely rooted to the spot and you can walk calmly out from the place where you're hiding and pick him up in your hands.'

  'I don't believe it.'

  'I swear it,' he said. 'You can fire a gun in his ear and he won't even jump. It's just one of those unexplainable little things, but you have to be very clever to discover it.'

  He paused and there was a look of pride in his eyes as he thought for a moment of his father, the great inventor.

  'So that's method number one,' he said. 'Method number two is even more simple. You take a fishing line. Then you put the raisin on the hook, and you fish for pheasants just as you fish for a fish. You let out the line by about fifty metres, and you lie there on your stomach in the bushes, waiting until a pheasant starts eating. Then you pull him in.'

  'What is method number three?' I asked.

  'Ah,' he said. 'Number three is the best one. It was the last one my father ever invented before he died. First of all, you dig a little hole in the ground. Then you twist a piece of paper into the shape of a hat and you fit this into the hole, with the hollow end upwards, like a cup. Then you put some glue around the edge. After that, you lay some raisins on the ground leading up to it and drop a few raisins into the paper cup. The old pheasant comes along, and when he gets to the hole he puts his head inside to eat the raisins, and the next thing he knows is that he's got a paper hat stuck over his eyes and he can't see anything. Isn't it wonderful what some people think of, Gordon? Don't you agree? No bird in the world will move if you cover its eyes.'

  'Your father was very clever,' I said.

  'Then choose which of the three methods you like best, and we'll use it tonight.'

  'Yes, but let me ask you something first. I've just had an idea.'

  'Keep it,' he said. 'You are talking about a subject you know nothing about.'

  'Do you remember that bottle of sleeping pills the doctor gave me last month when I had a bad back?'

  'What about them?'

  'Is there any reason why they wouldn't work on a pheasant?'

  Claud closed his eyes and shook his head.

  'Wait,' I said.

  'It's not worth discussing,' he said. 'No pheasant in the world is going to swallow those red pills.'

  'You're forgetting the raisins,' I said. 'Now listen to this. We take a raisin. Then we put it in water. Then we make a small cut in one side of it. Then we hollow it out a little. Then we open up one of my red pills and pour all the powder into the raisin. Then we get a needle and thread and very carefully we sew up the cut. Now ...'

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Claud's mouth beginning to open.

  'Now,' I said, 'we have a nice, clean-looking raisin with sleeping powder inside it, and that's enough to make the average man unconscious; it will easily work on birds.'

  I paused for ten seconds to allow him time to understand.

  'And with this method we could really work with huge numbers. We could prepare twenty raisins if we wanted to, and all we'd have to do is throw them on the ground where the birds feed at sunset and then walk away. Half an hour later, we'd come back and the pills would be beginning to work and the pheasants would be up in the branches by then. They'd feel sleepy and soon every pheasant that had eaten one single raisin would fall over unconscious and fall to the ground. They'd be dropping out of the trees like apples, and we could just walk around picking them up!'

  Claud was staring at me.

  'And they'd never catch us either. We'd simply walk through the woods, dropping a few raisins here and there as we went, and even if the keepers were watching us, they wouldn't notice anything.'

  'Gordon,' he said, 'if this thing works, it will revolutionize poaching.'

  'I'm glad to hear it.'

  'How many pills have you got left?' he asked.

  'Forty-nine. There were fifty in the bottle, and I've only used one.'

  'Forty-nine's not enough. We want at least two hundred.'

  'Are you mad?' I cried.

  He walked slowly away and stood by the door with his back to me, looking at the sky. 'Two hundred at least,' he said quietly. 'It's not worth doing it unless we have two hundred.'

  What is it now, I wondered. What's he trying to do?

  'This is almost the last chance we have before the season starts,' he said.

  'I couldn't possibly get any more.'

  'You wouldn't want us to come back empty-handed, would you?'

  'But why so many?'

  Claud looked at me. 'Why not?' he said gently. 'Do you have any objections?'

  My God, I thought suddenly. He wants to wreck Mr Victor Hazel's opening-day shooting-party.

  Mr Hazel's party took place on the first of October every year and it was a very famous event. Gentlemen, some with noble titles and some who were just very rich, came long distances, with their dogs and their wives, and all day long the noise of the shooting rolled across the valley. There were always enough pheasants for everyone; each summer the woods were filled with dozens and dozens of young birds at great expense, but to Mr Victor Hazel it was worth every penny of it. He became, if only for a few hours
, a big man in a little world.

  'You get us two hundred of those pills,' Claud said, 'and then it'll be worth doing.'

  'I can't,' I said. 'Why couldn't we divide one pill among four raisins?'

  'But would a quarter of a pill be strong enough for each bird?'

  'Work it out for yourself. It's all done by body weight. You'd be giving it about twenty times more than is necessary.'

  'Then we'll quarter the amount,' he said, rubbing his hands together. He paused and then thought for a moment. 'We'll have one hundred and ninety-six raisins!'

  'Do you realize what that means?' I said. 'They'll take hours to prepare.'

  'It doesn't matter!' he cried. 'We'll go tomorrow instead. We'll put the raisins in water overnight and then we'll have all morning and afternoon to get them ready.'

  And that was exactly what we did.

  Now, twenty-four hours later, we were on our way. We had been walking steadily for about forty minutes, and we were nearing the point where the path curved round to the right and ran along the top of the hill towards the big woods where the pheasants lived. We were about two kilometres away.

  'I don't suppose these keepers might be carrying guns?' I asked.

  'All keepers carry guns,' Claud said.

  I had been afraid of that.

  'It's mostly for the foxes,' he added.

  'Ah.'

  'Of course, they sometimes shoot at a poacher.'

  'You're joking.'

  'They only do it from behind - when you're running away. They like to shoot you in the legs at about fifty metres.'

  'They can't do that!' I cried. 'It's a criminal offence!'

  'So is poaching,' Claud said.

  We walked on for a while in silence. The sun was low on our right now, and the road was in shadow.

  We had reached the top of the hill and now we could see the woods ahead of us, large and dark, with the sun going down behind the trees.

  'You'd better let me have those raisins,' Claud said.

  I gave him the bag, and he put it gently into his trouser pocket.

  'No talking when we're inside,' he said. 'Just follow me and try not to break any branches.'