Free The Runaways by Victor Canning Page B

flick. But the heron – hungry like Yarra, hungry as all wild birds and beasts are during the lean months of winter – meant to have his meal. He had fished all morning without success. Now, riding in the back eddy, not three feet below him was a good-sized grayling, moving up and down on the alert for food, but so far not rising high enough for the heron to risk a thrust of his beak.
    Yarra worked her way forward five yards more and knew that she needed another two yards before she could risk her forward spring and leap. Some instinct in the old heron, who still held Yarra in the corner of his eye as he watched the grayling, told him exactly when he could risk himself no more. Flat to the ground Yarra inched herself forward. She was bunching her muscles for her leap when the grayling below the heron came surfacewards like a slim airship rising. The heron’s beak rapiered downwards and took the fish. With the movement Yarra sprang and the heron rose, great grey-pearl wings spreading wide, his long legs tucking up behind him. He planed away and flipped the grayling round in his beak to hold it sideways across the body. Behind him there was a splash. He drifted down river and climbed leisurely into the wind.
    Yarra’s slashing right forepaw had missed the heron by a foot. Unable to stop her forward progress entirely the front part of her long body came down in the water. For a moment, until her strong haunches could hold and then haul her back, her forepaws and head and shoulders went under.
    She pulled herself back on to the bank and shook her head to free her eyes of water. More bad-tempered than ever, she sat on her haunches and licked at her shoulders and neck mantle, grumbling angrily to herself. It was at this moment that she heard down river the sound of men’s voices and the bang and rattle of sticks against the trees.
    Yarra, disturbed by the noise, headed away up river at a lope. At the edge of the wood she turned uphill, making for the high ground and the wide stretches of pasture, downland and young plantations which she had visited on previous days.
    Behind her moved the hunt. It had been well organized by the Cheetah Warden. Making up the hunt were local farmers, gamekeepers and other volunteers. There were also several policemen on foot with walkie-talkie sets to keep in touch with four patrol cars. These cars were set out along the main roads that, with Warminster as its apex, formed a triangle marked at the extremities of its base by Longbridge Deverill (a mile on from Crockerton) to the south and Heytesbury to the south-east. In the middle of the base road joining Longbridge Deverill and Heytesbury was the village of Sutton Veny.
    A long line of beaters had been formed early that morning on the southern outskirts of Warminster. Now, spread wide across the valley, the line was moving up river. Beyond Crockerton the line had swept round, formed up along the right bank of the river and was beating its way uphill through a wide stretch of trees and plantations known as Southleigh Woods. At this very moment the Cheetah Warden was standing on the river bank where the hare had leaped into the river, bending over the spoor marks Yarra had left in a soft patch of mud.
    It was two o’clock in the afternoon when Smiler found his way to Danebury Kennels. At the far end of Heytesbury a small road ran off to the left, up a narrow valley that sloped down into the main valley of the River Wylye. Danebury House was a mile up this road, approached by a short drive. It was a large red-bricked house with an untidy lawn in front of it and stable and kennel blocks at the rear. A narrow strip of vegetable garden ran up the hill at the back of the house. On the far side of the house was a thick standing of beech and birch trees.
    Smiler rang the front door bell and waited. Nothing happened. A cold wind was sweeping up the hillside and he was glad of his pullover and anorak. He rang the door bell again. A few