Tom Cain - Dictator

Klerk put such relish into the word ‘contempt’ that Carver could not help but smile.

‘One more reason to beat her, then,’ he said.

For the fourth test of skill, they stopped in front of a grassy path, three paces wide, that ran between two high blackthorn hedges, one of which was somewhat taller than the other.

‘You ever seen a walk-up before?’ Klerk asked Carver.

Carver shook his head. ‘Nope.’

‘Well, the idea is very simple. You walk steadily down the path. The first clay of each pair is fired without warning, then the second one on report. I tell you, man, some of these bastards fly over the hedge, some run along the ground – there’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen, particularly if you go first.’

‘Which I’ll be doing,’ said Carver.

‘Ja, so I see!’ Klerk laughed. ‘In any case, you are allowed to stop walking to reload. But then you must get on the move again. The two people who are not shooting walk behind the one who is. When we get to the end of the walk, we turn round, come back to the start and repeat the whole process.’

Carver liked the look of the walk-up. It was like being on patrol, knowing that a contact was imminent, ready to shoot the instant danger approached. Wherever the clays came from – left or right, high or low – it made no difference. Carver knew from the first pace he took down the walk that he was going to score ten, and he was not disappointed.

‘Ten straight hits,’ said Klerk as they turned to stroll back to the start. ‘I’m impressed. Donald’s the only man ever to have straighted the walk-up before now. And I have to follow you.’

Carver walked directly behind Klerk as he fired his ten shots, scoring six hits. How was he to know the custom that the next person down the walk-up followed the shooter, so as to get a clear sight of what was in store? Except that Carver did not have to be told that: it was obvious. And so was the irritation that possessed Zalika Stratten as she walked behind him, forced to watch his backside, when she could and should have been taking mental notes on her uncle’s shooting. Good: let her be distracted for once.

Carver spotted a very slight twitch in her neck – a sign of tension at last – as she loaded her opening two cartridges. It didn’t seem to affect her, not at first anyway. She hit the first two pairs and reloaded. The fifth clay came straight up the walk, low and fast. She missed. But before Zalika could curse, or Carver silently cheer, the second clay was released, or what was left of it. The clay had broken in the trap and was now just a scattering of fragments.

‘No bird,’ called McGuinness. ‘The pair will be fired again.’

A smile spread across Zalika’s face. She had been reprieved.

But then McGuinness finished his sentence. ‘However, may I remind you, Miss Zalika, that was a pair on report, and the rules of clay pigeon shooting state that the score for the first bird is counted. I am afraid the miss still stands.’

It said a lot for her strength of mind that she did not let the disappointment distract her. She shot the pair again and hit both times, even though the first counted for nothing. The final two pairs were also disposed of. It was a remarkable recovery, and Carver admired the sheer guts Zalika had displayed. But the fact remained that she had dropped a shot. The gap had come down to one. As they walked to the final stand there was still everything to play for.

The stark metallic structure loomed over the shooting ground like a watchtower at a POW camp. But there were no guards standing at its summit, armed with searchlights and machine guns. Instead, two traps were slowly rising up pulleys attached to the outside of the tower, making Carver more uneasy with every second they kept moving.

‘Think of this as a very steep hillside,’ said Klerk. ‘The beaters are about to flush the pheasants off the top of the hill and they’re going to fly right over us, just begging to be shot.’

‘How high are the traps going?’ Carver asked.

‘One hundred and forty feet.’

At that range, the widely scattered shot from Carver’s gun would be far less effective than the tight, heavily choked patterns Zalika would be punching through the air. Just as the competition reached its climax, she would have a major advantage. It was down to him not to make it a decisive one.

‘That’s some pretty serious shooting,’ he said.

Klerk laughed mischievously. ‘Oh ja, this is the bloody black run all right. And we’ve added a little complication, haven’t we, Donald?’

‘Aye, that we have. I’ve loaded the traps with midi clays. They’re ninety millimetres across instead of the standard one-oh-eight.’

Klerk slapped Carver on the back. ‘No worries for you, eh? I’ve seen you shoot. I’m sure you’ll blow them out of the sky. I know Zalika will, that’s for sure.’

‘Maybe,’ Carver replied, doing his best to sound completely unconcerned. ‘But not before you’ve gone first.’

The clays were released in simultaneous pairs this time, but from two separate traps, meaning that they flew towards Klerk at slightly different heights and angles, forcing him to change his aim between shots. He coped well enough, and his score of seven was more than respectable in the circumstances. But he was really just the warm-up act before the main attractions.

Zalika was second up. She walked up to shoot with her usual air of calm self-control. Her breathing was steady. She lined up the cartridges with her standard ritualistic precision.

Everything seemed fine, yet something wasn’t quite right. She hit the first pair, but only by striking the back edges of the two clays.

Now she faced a real test of character. When a good shot makes a very slight mistake there is always the temptation to over-compensate. It’s very easy, having shot the back of a clay, to aim further ahead of its flight and miss the next one entirely to the front. The best and bravest thing to do is nothing at all. You’re still hitting the clays, so why change anything?

Carver could just imagine the battle going on in Zalika’s head. It was visible in her movements, too: the very slight shake in her hands as she slipped the cartridges into the barrels, the fumbling as she rotated them till they faced the right way.

She was tough: she gutsed it out and hit both the next clays. Now there were just six left for her in the entire competition. She was still a shot up. If she could close out the last three pairs she’d win and Carver could do nothing about it. But the tension was rising, no matter how hard she fought to keep it at bay.

After the fourth shot had been fired, Zalika paused just a second too long, staring at the ground, and she took a long, deliberate breath. When she broke open the barrels she was still lost in her thoughts. She made no attempt to catch the used cartridges but let them fall to the ground. When the new cartridges went in, she did not even look at them, still less line up the writing on their bases before snapping the gun shut again.

Carver knew that she was on a knife-edge. ‘Miss one, miss one,’ he whispered soundlessly to himself.

Zalika did not oblige. She hit the fifth clay all right, but the sixth came out broken, prompting McGuinness to call ‘No bird!’ again.

If anything, this seemed to relax Zalika. She looked far less concerned as she once again discarded the used cartridge, replaced it with a new one and then lined up both cartridges to her satisfaction.

She’d got her routine back again. She’d returned to the zone.

The third pair was replayed. This time Zalika missed the first clay but hit the second. She smiled to herself, blessing her good fortune: when she’d made a mistake, it didn’t matter. Carver could see that she’d remembered McGuinness’s words about the rules of clay pigeon shooting stating that the score for the first bird is counted. On that basis, the first bird was a hit, the hit stood, and she was still one up, just four shots left.