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I glanced at my father. He was standing very still and very calm, waiting for the shouting to finish. The colour was back in his cheeks now and I could see the tiny twinkling wrinkles of a smile around the corners of his eyes.
Doc Spencer stood beside him and he also was very calm. He was looking at Mr Hazell rather as one would look at a slug on a leaf of lettuce in the salad.
I myself did not feel quite so calm.
'But they are not your pheasants,' my father said at last. 'They're mine.'
'Don't lie to me, man!' yelled Mr Hazell. 'I'm the only person round here who has pheasants!'
'They are on my land,' my father said quietly. 'They flew on to my land, and so long as they stay on my land they belong to me. Don't you know the rules, you bloated old blue-faced baboon?'
Doc Spencer started to giggle. Mr Hazell's skin turned from scarlet to purple. His eyes and his cheeks were bulging so much with rage it looked as though someone was blowing up his face with a pump. He glared at my father. Then he glared at the dopey pheasants swarming all over the filling-station. 'What's the matter with 'em?' he shouted. 'What've you done to 'em?'
At this point, pedalling grandly towards us on his black bicycle, came the arm of the law in the shape of Sergeant Enoch Samways, resplendent in his blue uniform and shiny silver buttons. It was always a mystery to me how Sergeant Samways could sniff out trouble wherever it was. Let there be a few boys fighting on the pavement or two motorists arguing over a dented bumper and you could bet your life the village policeman would be there within minutes.
We all saw him coming now, and a little hush fell upon the entire company. I imagine the same sort of thing happens when a king or a president enters a roomful of chattering people. They all stop talking and stand very still as a mark of respect for a powerful and important person.
Sergeant Samways dismounted from his bicycle and threaded his way carefully through the mass of pheasants squatting on the ground. The face behind the big black moustache showed no surprise, no anger, no emotion of any kind. It was calm and neutral, as the face of the law should always be.
For a full half-minute he allowed his eyes to travel slowly round the filling-station, gazing at the mass of pheasants squatting all over the place. The rest of us, including even Mr Hazell, waited in silence for judgement to be pronounced.
'Well, well, well,' said Sergeant Samways at last, puffing out his chest and addressing nobody in particular. 'What, may I hask, is 'appenin' around 'ere?' Sergeant Samways had a funny habit of sometimes putting the letter h in front of words that shouldn't have an h there at all. And as though to balance things out, he would take away the h from all the words that should have begun with that letter.
'I'll tell you what's happening round here!' shouted Mr Hazell, advancing upon the policeman. 'These are my pheasants, and this rogue', pointing at my father, 'has enticed them out of my woods on to his filthy little filling-station!'
'Hen-ticed?' said Sergeant Samways, looking first at Mr Hazell, then at us. 'Hen-ticed them, did you say?'
'Of course he enticed them!'
'Well now,' said the sergeant, propping his bicycle carefully against one of our pumps. 'This is a very hinterestin' haccusation, very hinterestin' indeed, because I ain't never 'eard of nobody hen-ticin' a pheasant across six miles of fields and open countryside. 'Ow do you think this hen-ticin' was performed, Mr 'Azell, if I may hask?'
'Don't ask me how he did it because I don't know!' shouted Mr Hazell. 'But he's done it all right! The proof is all around you! All my finest birds are sitting here in this dirty little filling-station when they ought to be up in my own wood getting ready for the shoot!' The words poured out of Mr Hazell's mouth like hot lava from an erupting volcano.
'Am I correct,' said Sergeant Samways, 'am I habsolutely haccurate in thinkin' that today is the day of your great shootin' party, Mr 'Azell?'
'That's the whole point!' cried Mr Hazell, stabbing his forefinger into the sergeant's chest as though he were punching a typewriter or an adding machine. 'And if I don't get these birds back on my land quick sharp, some very important people are going to be extremely angry this morning. And one of my guests, I'll have you know, Sergeant, is none other than your own boss, the Chief Constable of the County! So you had better do something about it fast, hadn't you, unless you want to lose those sergeant's stripes of yours?'
Sergeant Samways did not like people poking their fingers in his chest, least of all Mr Hazell, and he showed it by twitching his upper lip so violently that his moustache came alive and jumped about like some small bristly animal.
'Now just one minute,' he said to Mr Hazell. 'Just one minute, please. Am I to understand that you are haccusin' this gentleman 'ere of committin' this hact?'
'Of course I am!' cried Mr Hazell. 'I know he did it!'
'And do you 'ave any hevidence to support this haccusation?'
'The evidence is all around you!' shouted Mr Hazell. 'Are you blind or something?'
Now my father stepped forward. He took one small pace to the front and fixed Mr Hazell with his marvellous bright twinkly eyes. 'Surely you know how these pheasants came here?' he said softly.
'Surely I do not know how they came here!' snapped Mr Hazell.
'Then I shall tell you,' my father said, 'because it is quite simple, really. They all knew they were going to be shot today if they stayed in your wood, so they flew in here to wait until the shooting was over.'
'Rubbish!' yelled Mr Hazell.
'It's not rubbish at all,' my father said. 'They are extremely intelligent birds, pheasants. Isn't that so, Doctor?'
'They have tremendous br
