1

      A Season for Killing

      The first shot ripped the epaulette from the right hand shoulder of my hunting jacket, the second lifted the thermos flask six feet into the air. The third kicked dirt at my right heel, but by then I was moving fast, diving headfirst into the safety of the reeds on the far side of the dike.

      I surfaced in about four feet of stinking water, my feet sinking into the black mud of the bottom. The smell was really quite something – as if the whole world had rotted. I tried hard not to breathe too heavily as I crouched to get my bearings.

      The marsh had come alive, mallard, wild duck and widgeon lifting out of the reeds in alarm, calling angrily to each other, and down by the shore beyond the sand dunes, several thousand flamingoes took off as one, filling the air with the pulsating of their wings. I waited, but there was no further word from my unknown admirer and after a while things quieted down.

      The punctured thermos flask lay about three feet in front of my nose on the edge of the dike, dribbling coffee, but apart from that everything looked beautifully normal. The open picnic basket, the neat white cloth spread on the ground, salad, sandwiches, a rather large cold chicken, the bottle of wine I’d been about to open and Simone’s easel with the water-colour she’d been working on, half finished.

      Most interesting of all, and at that stage of things by far the most desirable item, the old Curtis Brown double-barreled sixteen-bore shotgun. It lay on the rug beside Simone’s tin of water-colour paints, fifteen or twenty feet away, but as I’d only expected a crack at the odd duck or two it was hardly loaded for bear.

      I gazed at it morosely, debating the possibility of a quick dash to retrieve it, carrying straight on into the reeds on the other side of the dike, but he was one jump ahead of me even on that point, although I suppose it was the logical move. I pushed the reeds to one side cautiously and started to ease forward and a bullet drilled a neat hole through the stock of the shotgun.

      The .303 No. 4 Mark I Lee Enfield service rifle was the gun that got most British infantrymen through the Second World War. Recently resurrected by the British Army for use by its snipers in Ulster, it is a devastating weapon in the hands of a crack shot and accurate up to a thousand yards, which explains its popularity with the IRA also. Once heard in action, never forgotten and I’d heard a few in my time.

      Certainly the specimen which was inflicting all the damage at that precise moment was in the hands of an expert. I pulled back into the reeds and waited because quite obviously the next move was his.

      I found cigarettes and matches in the waterproofed breast pocket of my hunting jacket and lit up. It was perfectly still again. Even the flamingoes had returned to the shallows on the far side of the dunes. A flight of Brent geese drifted across the sky above me in a V formation, calling faintly, but the only other sound was the strange eerie whispering of the wind amongst the reeds.

      Somewhere thunder rumbled uneasily at the edge of things which didn’t surprise me for, in spite of the heat, the sky was grey and overcast and rain had threatened for most of the day.

      About forty or fifty yards to my right on the same side of the dike there was a sudden crashing amongst the reeds and then a wild swan lifted into the air calling angrily. So, he was closer than I had imagined. A hell of a sight closer. I raised my head cautiously and became aware of the sound of an engine somewhere in the distance.

      When I turned I could see the Landrover crossing the flooded causeway two hundred yards away, Simone at the wheel. She came up out of the water and drove along the top of the dike.

      There wasn’t much that I could do except put my head on the block like an officer and a gentleman, so I came up out of the reeds fast, grabbed for the shotgun and ran along the dike waving my arms at her, expecting a bullet between the shoulder blades at any moment.

      It was really very interesting. One bullet kicked dirt to the left of me, another to the right. I was aware of Simone’s face, wild-eyed in astonishment, and then as she braked to a halt, a third round drilled a hole through the windscreen to one side of her.

      She stumbled out, white with fear. Another round thumped into the door panel behind her and I grabbed her hand and dragged her down over the edge of the dike into the cover of the reeds. She went in deep and surfaced, gasping for breath, her long dark hair plastered about her face. Another bullet slammed into the body of the Landrover.

      She grabbed at the front of my jacket in blind panic. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

      I took her hand, turned and pushed through the reeds until I was back in my original position. Another shot sliced through the reeds overhead and Simone ducked instinctively, going under again. She surfaced, her face streaked with filth and I took a couple of waterproof cartridges from one of my pockets and loaded the shotgun.

      ‘He’s good, isn’t he?’

      ‘For