The rainbow never sets

beaters making noises with their sticks and whistles, often shouting, as if they had seen something in the young trees.

I had hardly started to walk, when a rabbit came out of a hole, right in front of me. I shot once, but missed. Then I re-loaded and walked slowly forward. Suddenly a shout came from my left: "There is a hare coming straight at you." I had seen it too late. It came racing past me. I let it go through the line, aimed and shot. The hare catapulted in the air and lay still.

"You've done it! Good shot, master. I'll get it, you just keep walking." I was very proud, my first hare. No sooner had I re-loaded, when another rabbit jumped up in front of me, heading towards its burrow. I shot once, missed. Another shot, this time I remembered to aim about two length in front of it, and I scored another hit.

As we were walking we came past some tall trees that grew along a creek. I heard the beaters beat the tree trunks with their sticks, when unexpectedly, a pheasant flew out. I saw that it was a male, aimed and shot. It came tumbling down, feathers flying.

I was grinning from ear to ear. Not bad, for the first part of the first hunt.

Meanwhile the fog had lifted. The men from either side of me were coming closer, as we were moving nearer the centre of the giant circle. In the distance were a couple of un-threshed rye stacks, and beyond I could see the people from the opposite side moving towards us. Then I heard shots. The man on my right shouted: "A fox, a fox!" I looked closer, and indeed there was something reddish-brown moving smoothly past one stack and hiding behind the other. It was the fox, there was no doubt. Would they be able to out-smart it? After a while, having come closer to one another, I pointed in the direction of the corn stack. One of the beaters got the message. He ran around the stack, beat his stick on the straw, and then we saw the fox running out, to his death. A hunter from the opposite side shot him.

As we all came together at the centre, I saw Günter. I waved to him and held three fingers up.

"I've only got two, two hares," he said. "Congratulations. You did well, but then you would have got more game your way, near the forest."

"Thanks," I said proudly, "I've used only six bullets." "You're a good shot. Remember when you shot the cat in our park with only one bullet in your gun?"

I smiled. I remembered during the last summer we were about to go for a swim, when suddenly a cat appeared from under the shrubs. As cats were absolutely not allowed in our park, because of the birds, I went straight back into the house, got my shotgun, and with one bang, it was dead.

But there was no cat here. The total bag of all the hunters was lined up, hares first, then rabbits, pheasants, and the fox. It looked quite an impressive line up.

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