Free The Last English Poachers by Bob and Brian Tovey Page A

always able to find his way home. I follow close behind him and we come out of the trees and back into the field of maize, close to a small pond.
There’s something about this night – something eerie. It’s unnaturally quiet. Normally the nocturnal noises would be all around us: the hoot of an owl, the bark of a fox, the
churr of a badger, the night-time call of a sedge warbler, the clicking and buzzing of insects. But tonight there’s nothing in the maize field. And I don’t like it.
    We move forward, slowly. Bob’s cautious as well, although he says nothing. I can feel his apprehension, the way his eyes are watchful. There may be a gamekeeper lying in wait, or several
gamekeepers, who’ll attack us and beat us to the ground. So we proceed carefully, stealthily, surrounded by the silent maize field. Suddenly there’s the sound again – growling,
guttural. It’s a most unusual sound, not like anything I’ve ever heard before. The pond has thorn trees round it and we take cover there. Bob crouches and signals for me to do the same.
I whisper to him, almost inaudibly.
    ‘Fox?’
    ‘That ain’t no fox.’
    Bob starts to squeak the animal in, if it is an animal, making a sound like a dying rabbit. We wait. Something’s moving towards us through the uncut maize. Bob squeaks it closer. And
closer. We only have the little single-shot .410, with a two-inch cartridge, which is alright for the pheasants but not for anything bigger. When it’s almost upon us, he shines his torch into
its eyes – eyes that are big and round, shining back. But it’s not a fox; it’s a black panther, as big as an Alsatian dog! It frightens the wits out of us and we take out to run,
through the maize and out into a ploughed field. We’re both wearing hob-nailers and the ploughed earth’s thick on the bottoms of the boots, making it hard to move fast.
    After some distance of running, I look over my shoulder, but the panther ain’t following us. We slow down, breathing heavily; the postbags full of pheasants weighing like lead from our
shoulders. Bob speaks through his fast, steamy breath.
    ‘It must’ve got just as big a fright as us.’
    ‘I expect so.’
    ‘Fancy coming through a field of maize, thinking you’re going to find an injured rabbit.’
    ‘And instead . . .’
    ‘Instead you find two poachers who jump up shouting and waving their arms.’
    We both laugh and look round to get our bearings. We’ve run away from the bikes instead of towards them and now we must make our way back. But we don’t believe the panther will come
near us again.
    We have to get back to the bikes by a roundabout way, as running from the panther has taken us off course. Bob’s in front and I’m behind him. Suddenly he’s not there any more
and I wonder what’s happened to him. Then I see some bubbles on the ground and water churning and gurgling. He’s gone down in a trap dug by the keepers, water up to his chin. The
postbags have filled up and they’re dragging him down further. He can’t get the straps from around his neck. I throw off my own postbags and go to help him, firstly by shoving over a
broken tree branch for him to hold on to. Then I take out my knife and cut the straps to his postbags, so they sink down into the water and Bob’s able to haul himself out, with my help.
We’ve lost half our pheasants, but at least he ain’t drowned. It’s cold and we need to get back to the bikes quickly and be away, which we do.
    Now, I’ve always held a dislike for cats, big or small, feral or tame. They’re a useless animal. They kill just for the sake of it – skylark chicks, when they’re coming
out of the long grass, feathered, before they can fly properly and are lying out in the short grass getting the sun on them. That’s when the cats will have them. I soon put paid to that by
shooting them with Bob’s gun and chucking them in a ditch where a fox will find them and eat them. A lot of townie people who’ve