A Rough Shoot by Geoffrey Household Page A

to the field on the night the plane was expected. I was just, he repeated, to leave it to him.
    I did so, with some misgivings on the Polish Cavalry’s conception of intelligence work. Colonel Hiart, with his extreme caution, seemed a more desirable model. We agreed that Sandorski would telephone me at my home if the beacons were put up, and that I would join him within an hour at the haystacks above Blossom’s farmhouse–a rendezvous which both of use felt certain we could reach in darkness without being observed. Just in case they had a man to spare for watching my door, I said I would go out at the back and walk across the hills to the shoot.
    On the Wednesday, soon after I returned to the office from lunch, I had a telephone call from someone who sounded like a harassed and indecisive farmer and asked me if I would be in at five as he wished to consult me about new types of porous flooring for poultry runs. He seemed to be in a great hurry and rang off without giving his name. When nobody turned up at five, it occurred to me that the caller intended to find out whether I should be safely in my office at dusk. It was a very useful warning that something might happen. I prepared the way for plenty of free time by telling my clerk that I felt rotten and thought I might be starting a go of flu.
    I went home in a curious mood of high hopes and misgivings. It’s no good to deny it. A family man, however contented, does like a bit of excitement if he’s ever been used to any.
    About seven my telephone rang and I jumped to it. Cecily, who always answers the telephone (since nine tenths of the calls are for her), gave me a startled smile. She had convinced herself, I think, that the building materials racket was over.
    “All set to go,” said Sandorski’s voice. “How are the ants? Here’s a horn for their car!”
    And he blew a colossal raspberry that must have nearly wrecked the diaphragm of my telephone.
    “Have you a pistol?” he asked.
    I replied that I hadn’t. As a matter of fact I had. I didn’t want to part with an old wartime friend, though to retain it was downright illegal. But I did not want to put myself into temptation. I had enough trouble as it was.
    I warned Cecily that if anyone called or telephoned she was to say I had gone to bed with a touch of flu and was asleep.
    “Darling, don’t forget there are three of us who depend on you,” she said.
    I told her I never thought of anything else.
    I slipped out of the back door, crossed the meadows and waded the stream. As the crow flies the distance to Blossom’s farm wasn’t more than three miles, but the crow didn’t make Dorset footpaths, and I had to step out smartly to reach the haystacks in an hour.
    It was a blustery evening with a few fierce showers and comparative calm between. The weather report was of strong winds over the North Sea, rising at times to gale force. With us it was a good enough night for a clandestine landing, but I didn’t think it would appear so at the point of departure.
    After crossing a steep little green range, I sploshed down a muddy cart track and hit the lower road south of Blossom’s house. I hoped that the statistician was there in the rain, taking a census of laborers returning from the village pub. Then I turned off into a dry valley which led up to the back of the shoot. My feet on the turf made no sound. It was very dark, and a solid object could only be distinguished thirty yards away. I knew that I couldn’t be observed or followed.
    I arrived at the stacks silently and on the hour. I couldn’t see Sandorski, and he gave me the worst fright of the evening when he spoke from the level of my feet. He was lying on an old tarpaulin, which I had already touched to be sure that tarpaulin it was, and absolutely invisible.
    He told me that the beacons had been set up at dusk, just as I had prophesied; they were, he thought, of transpontor type, and each had been easily carried by two men. All this he had seen