Free The Trouble With Harry by Jack Trevor Story

Rogers was trying to make somebody answer his knocking at the door of ‘The Ship’. For a small boy he was able to kick up a terrific din with the aid of a rusty saucepan lid he had found on the front path.
    He banged and nobody came. He banged again, and again nobody came. He kept this up for five minutes and then put the dead rabbit down by the front door and walked back up the garden path. When he got to the gate he looked back and saw a cat sniffing at the small corpse. Abie threw the saucepan lid with great accuracy and it landed with a clatterright beside the cat. The cat, a large tabby animal belonging to the captain, recognised this saucepan lid as one which had been tied to its tail for the greater part of yesterday and, resigned yet curiously forgiving, it scuttled away, expecting the lid to follow.
    Abie came back and picked up the rabbit. He stood idly stroking its fur and wondering what could have happened to the new captain. As he stood there the quiet sounds of the woods were augmented by a laugh. It was a man’s laugh and it seemed to come from beyond the hollyhocks of ‘The Haven’. He made no immediate move, for common sense told him that no man could possibly be in ‘The Haven’. ‘The Haven’ was where Miss Graveley lived and Miss Gravely spoke only to women and girls and boys under twelve.
    Soon again the laugh was airborne and Abie’s hunter’s sense overcame his common sense and told him that the new captain was indeed visiting his neighbour. With the rabbit hanging by its feet in one hand he walked down the woodland path to Miss Graveley’s bungalow. He walked around the bungalow and when he got to the sitting room windowhe saw Miss Graveley and her guest sitting on either side of a most attractive tea, which included several kinds of cake. Abie stepped into view and held aloft the dead rabbit. His eyes were fixed unswervingly on the cakes.
    When Miss Graveley caught sight of Abie and the rabbit she got up and opened the window fully. ‘Well, little man,’ she said, ‘and do you want to sell a rabbit?’
    ‘It belongs to the new captain,’ Abie said, dipping his head a trifle to keep the cakes in view.
    The captain reached the window in half a stride. ‘What’s that?’
    Abie handed him the rabbit without losing sight of the cakes. ‘You killed it,’ he said absently, ‘with your gun.’
    The captain held the rabbit away from him and squinted at it, as though it were a rare oil painting.
    Miss Graveley watched him with some slight amusement in her eyes. ‘You must have shot it this afternoon. It will make a nice supper for you.’
    The new captain did not reply, for he was almost beyond words. And this was strange, because he had just been recounting to his hostess an abundanceof tall stories relating to near squeezes and narrow scrapes in distant and dangerous lands. But Captain Wiles, who had never done any of these things, but had long cherished an ambition to shoot a rabbit, was sent completely out of his head by this little furry victim. He parted the fur and examined the bullet wound. He felt for the rabbit’s pulse. He looked into its dead eyes. His face turned white and crimson in ten-second cycles. He breathed deeply and ecstatically. He tried to say something to Abie and failed. He tried to say something to Miss Graveley and failed. He was completely incoherent for several minutes, during which time Abie stood outside the window watching the cakes and Miss Graveley stood inside the window watching the captain and smiling indulgently. Mingled with this indulgence was a certain fondness. Such excited behaviour in a man of his years was an endearing quality.
    At last Captain Wiles held the rabbit aloft and found his voice. ‘I’ve killed a rabbit! I’ve killed a blooming rabbit!’ Then he reached through the window and ruffled the little boy’s hair. ‘Where’d you find it, sonny?’
    ‘On the cake,’ said Abie promptly.
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘On the heath,’ said