Swinton '98

He’s claiming your birds, Sir.”
“Who?”
“In the next butt.”
“You mean Fuzzman?”
“Well, no. Not Mr. Fuzzman, his loader.”
I looked over at the next butt. Fuzzman’s face was just visible above the little rock fence that marked the front edge of his bunker. He grinned and waved. His loader gazed into the distance like a retriever who’s just soiled the rug. In the excitement of the shoot, I hadn’t noticed anything on either side of me. But Nigel, my loader, never missed anything.
“Nigel, why is he... ?”
“I suppose he’s trying to save the gentleman some embarrassment. Mr. Fuzzman hasn’t hit a bird all afternoon.”

“Do you think he knows he hasn’t hit a bird all afternoon?”
“I couldn’t say, Sir.”
“But they haven’t picked them up yet. How can he... ?”
“Mr. Fuzzman’s loader has picked up two of yours.”
“Oh.”
This put me in an awkward position. I liked Fuzzman. He was an agreeable man. His opinions about things always seemed to be exactly the same as my own. Furthermore, if he was having a bad day, I would have been sympathetic. That could’ve been me over there. Sometimes, if I get off to a bad start, self-doubt creeps into my head. Then I get so I can’t hit a bull in the behind with a boat paddle.
“Why can’t we both claim them?” I asked.
“Then there’d be two birds unaccounted for. The gamekeeper wouldn’t like that.”
The day was, in fact, a day for bad starts. It was a freezing afternoon on the Earl of Swinton’s estate in Northern England with a wind strong enough to take your hat off. It’s said that a red grouse can approach 100 mph with that kind of wind behind it. But in spite of everything, I was on my game. I’m not a great wingshot; it’s just that shooting driven grouse agrees with me. There is no time for self doubt, just enough to swing like hell and pull the trigger. It’s a Zen thing.
“Forget it, Nigel. If we say something, we’re going to look like a couple of ‘girlie men.’”
“Sir?”
“You know, crybabies, tattletales. We should just let it go.”
“That’s probably best, Sir.”
We watched a group of birds race toward the far end of our line of butts. A half-dozen shots reached our ears a second after three grouse tumbled into the heather out front. The remaining three sped on past, hugging the terrain like, well... grouse.
“Nigel?”
“Sir?”
“If I hadn’t hit a bird all afternoon, would you steal a couple from the next butt to save me from being embarrassed?”

“The situation hasn’t come up, Sir.”

We had arrived at Swinton shortly before noon, and the Earl himself had met us at the carriage house. It was 1998, back when the old Earl was still very much alive and Swinton had not yet yielded to the demands of estate taxes and tourism.
“Ho, ho! Absolutely!” the Earl shouted as each of us was introduced.
He was a huge man. I suspect his bloodline had benefited from a thousand years of good nutrition. The great manor house, the seat of his family for centuries, loomed behind him like some BBC movie set. After we all became acquainted, the Earl’s gamekeeper led us into the carriage house where a generous lunch was laid out. Several ladies from the house staff waited on us like doting aunts. The Earl sat at the head of the table, extending far beyond the edges of his chair and laughing uproariously at everything.
“Ho, ho, ho! Absolutely!” he bellowed.
After lunch we filed back outdoors. In an hour’s time the sky had grown dark and the wind had picked up. The temperature was dropping like a shot put. The Earl looked toward the high hills.
“I say, chaps. I should be paying you to go up there this afternoon rather than you paying me. Ho, ho, ho. Absolutely.”
We said our goodbyes and started the drive up to the moors. As we climbed the road narrowed and the well-kept stone walls lining the sides gave way to low columns of rubble and ultimately nothing. It seemed there was little on the high moors worth keeping in or out. Finally we arrived at a barren hilltop. When I stepped out of the vehicle, the wind cut through my clothes like a new pocketknife. I buttoned up my coat to the neck and pulled on the only gloves I had: a pair of paper-thin capeskin shooters.
“Dodgy weather,” Nigel announced.
We started for the butts in single file, loaders and shooters, up and down hills and in and out of gullies. Nigel insisted on carrying my little pair of over/unders. It was part of the job description, and I didn’t protest. As an American, I had enough peripheral gear to justify hiring a pony. I hadn’t noticed at the time, but our eighth gun, Mr. O’Neal, had not hiked out with us. He was an Atlanta lawyer in his late 70s who walked with difficulty and used a cane. Then I looked up and saw, of all things, what appeared to be a dune buggy bouncing across the moor. If it wasn’t a dune buggy, it was a close relative, with wide balloon tires and a little rear engine. Sitting in the passenger seat, proud and erect as a peafowl, was Mr. O’Neal.
“Hey, Mr. O!” Fuzzman called from the next butt. “It looks like you decided to go in style!”
Mr. O’Neal acknowledged Fuzzman and me by tipping his hat. I waved cordially. Hmmmm, I thought, this could add 10 years to the effective life of a grouse shooter.
In the beginning our end of the line got the most shooting. I took two grouse out front and then one over my left shoulder. After several misses, I bagged two more behind our butt going away. Both times I had missed overhead shots with the first barrel. My “flow state,” or oneness with shotgun and target, was flagging. The gun on my right, a young fellow from California, was no slouch and by that time probably had downed the same number of birds I had or perhaps one more. Then for a while the action moved to the other end of the line. The wind began whistling off the muzzles of my shotgun like someone blowing on a jug.
“Warm enough, Sir?” Nigel asked.
“I’ll survive. You?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” he lied.
I could feel the cold creeping in through my thin clothes. I was wearing a waxed-canvas coat, a sweater, moleskin breeks, a cotton shirt and a pair of Wellies. Totally inadequate. The cold was an old familiar misery that reminded me of all the mornings I’d spent freezing my Texas keester off duck hunting back in the States. The coldest I remember being was one 15-degree morning when I waded out to retrieve a duck and stepped off up to my chest in a drainage ditch. Fortunately, I was only a couple of hundred yards from the old farmhouse we called “the lodge.” I set off at a fast walk, not even bothering to look back.
“Are you ready, Sir?” Nigel asked.
“What?”
“The beaters are getting closer,” he said. “It’ll be quite fast now for a few minutes.”
“Oh, yes, I’m ready.”
I brought one of my pair a little closer to my shoulder and squinted at the horizon like a serpent. A minute later I could hear the beaters too, their faint yips and hoots beyond the rise. Birds began diving off the crest of the hill like buzz bombs. They came in clutches of three to a half-dozen before the stiff wind, hugging the landscape, going like wind-powered rockets. When they reached our line, the fire opened up. Grouse began falling in front of and around the butts like ripe fruit. Loaders shouted, coaxed and cajoled, urging on their shooters.
“Now, Sir!”
“And again, Sir!”
“Your bird, Sir!”
“Quickly, Sir!”
The shots rolled and rippled up and down the line like artillery.
“This brace is yours, Sir!” Nigel said suddenly. Two grouse had topped the rise like mortars lobbed from a bunker and were coming straight toward us.
“Now, Sir!” Nigel said.
“Yes, but they’re too far... ”
“Now, now, now!” Nigel shouted in my ear.
By the time I got the gun cheeked, the first grouse had traveled half the distance to our butt. I fired straight on and saw it cartwheel.
“And again!” Nigel commanded. He had dropped all semblance of decorum and was yelling at me like my fourth-grade viola teacher. The second grouse swooped overhead, a mere blur. I pushed the barrels as hard as I could ahead of it and pulled the trigger. Too late.
“In front!” Nigel shouted as he put the loaded shotgun into my left hand.
I dutifully shoved the empty one into his waiting grasp without taking my eyes off of my targets. There were four of them, enough to cause a second of indecision, enough to ensure failure when shooting at something as quick as a red grouse. Still I managed to get my wits together in time to take the last of the group with my second barrel. Nigel and I exchanged guns again. A single bird sped toward us. I mounted the shotgun.
“Not your bird, Sir!” he said as the grouse veered left.
It banked in over the top of the next pit. I watched as Fuzzman shouldered his shotgun and swung overhead. But he had underestimated the bird’s speed. The arc of his swing was too near its end, too far spent. He took an awkward step backward, firing twice. The grouse flew on untouched. Then the beaters topped the rise in front of us.
“No more shooting, Sir,” Nigel said.
The drive was over. The beaters and pickers-up moved in among the butts with their dogs, sleek black Labs anxious for work. The beaters were of all stripes: teenagers, young girls, middle-aged women, older men. They were farm workers, villagers and local gentry, happy for a chance to use their dogs and participate in an afternoon of sport, even if only in a supporting role. This game shooting was a spectacle being threatened by squeamish Londoners, people whose only knowledge of the outdoors came from Hyde Park and the “telly.” With a ban on fox hunting pending, country people knew that shooting was also in the crosshairs.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be high Gun now,” Nigel said, intruding on my thoughts.
“High Gun? Well, no, I never expected... ”
“With that brace of birds that Mr. Fuzzman claimed, I suspect you’d have been on top.”
“No kidding?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Nigel, are you telling me you know how many grouse everyone else on the line has bagged?”
“Yes, more or less.”
I didn’t doubt Nigel. He probably had seen more grouse drives than Lord Walsingham. Loaders are a mysterious bunch, anyway, and with dark powers. One does not question.
“What about Fuzzman? Did he ever... ?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And you’re saying I might be high Gun, that is, counting those two grouse that Fuzzman’s loader... uh, stole?”
“Counting those two, yes.”
“Then perhaps we should reconsider... ”
I stared away at the rolling hills, the ankle-deep vegetation stretching into the distance. Tonight there would be dinner with the wives and sweethearts back at Constable Burton. Much of the talk would be about the afternoon’s shoot. I could see myself being congratulated, slapped on the back, jokingly called Bogardus or Lord Ripon, and me basking in my glory, pretending modesty, mumbling about good luck and drawing the best butt. On the other hand, if I claimed that brace of grouse, it would leave Fuzz-man with a bird count for the afternoon of zero. Furthermore telling on him and his loader, whether he knew about the theft or not, would add enormously to his embarrassment.
OK, Fuzzman, take those two birds with my best wishes. I’ve been there. I’ve seen days when I couldn’t hit the floor with a watermelon. If I can save your pride, I’m happy to do it. One day I may need a similar favor from some other benevolent soul. So I’m putting one in the bank. Karma. I’m not concerned about Nigel, because I know he won’t say a word. Embarrassing one of the paying Guns would be out of the question. So it’s up to me, and I promise to keep my mouth shut for 10 years.
But then all bets are off...

Bob McDill is a retired songwriter and magazine contributor living in Nashville. He will spend this winter duck hunting back in the States and, once again, freezing his Southern keester off.