“You hear that?” she asks.

You nod. As does she, thoughtfully. The slow beat falls across us; a pair of clapping, huge made hands, hollow earth and sonorous air booming together. The lieutenant takes the fieldglasses from you and with those cold grey eyes interrogates the lands exposed below, sweeping over them, turning and returning, searching in vain for the source of the ghostly bombardment.

“Over the hills and far away,” she says softly. Finally the noise fades, hauled away on some unseen surface within the wind. She shrugs and returns to her original intent in these inclines, fixes upon an edge of deep forest some way along the hillside and bids us all head in that direction. Soon we are standing before the plantation; a wall of dark green across the swelling slope.

I cannot imagine we will find anything to shoot here; I tried to be as noncommittal as possible, earlier, while the lieutenant was planning this escapade. I had been vague concerning what there was to shoot and where, claiming that I'd required the services of a faithful retainer long departed to show me where to stand and point my gun, though I did hazard that this might not be the right time of year for what she seemed to have in mind. Perhaps she would prefer deer, or boar, or sheep?

Still, coming to a fold in the hills where the forest makes a shallow V, we come upon a pool and a whole flock of little sipping birds; some type of finch, I believe. The lieutenant urges us to be ready, checks that her men are watching us and not our prey, then looses the first discharges while the creatures are still too far away and on the ground. The birds lift and wheel, scattering then bunching as the flock rushes into the sky. The lieutenant whoops and hurdles a fence, reloading on the run. You and I look at each other. Our escorts, too, exchange glances, unsure what to do. The birds circle, flying over us as the lieutenant, now underneath them, fires again. You raise your gun and fire. I do not. A couple of feather puffs in the air and two down spiralling bodies betoken some success.