Chapter 3 MYSELF AS SPORTSMAN

THE NEW YORKER FICTION by Doris LessingJanuary 21, 1956 Nowadays, when I meet types who flush grouse or work salmon (I think these are the correct terms), I can more often than not be heard saving, “All the same, for good, clean sport give me a flock of guinea fowl in open country.” From there, I pass on to casual mention of the higher fauna—deer and lions, and so on—and in no time the most hardened sportsmen are oozing envy of what sounds like a girlhood spent on perpetual safari. I keep the truth to myself. Not that I haven't seen lions. I have encountered them, and other interesting animals, in the London Zoo, where I go to look at them from time to time. And on my home ground, which is Mashonaland, Southern Rhodesia, fauna of every kind used to flourish and, for all I know, flourish yet. I do not care. I never did.

Along with my indifference toward big and little game goes the fact that this whole complex is linked irretrievably with my sibling rivalry (for my brother) and my masculine protest (against practically everything). It all started very, early, when my brother was given a .22 rifle— But perhaps it would be best to go even further back, to his bicycle, which he rode perfectly at the first attempt, whereas I could only look at it and shudder with fear. I decided it was not becoming for a girl to ride a boy's bicycle, and stuck out for one of my own, knowing full well that the state of the family's finances would put off the evil hour indefinitely.

In the light of this discretionable and evasive behavior, it is easy to understand what happened when the .22 rifle appeared, during one of my brother's holidays from school. He picked it up, took aim at a small bird sitting on a twig a hundred yards away, judiciously pressed the trigger, and the bird fell dead. I remember he felt bad because the shot had not gone through the eye. To him, therefore, sport immediately took on its proper colors; underneath him, and unless he could get in a good oblique shot at a bird hovering widdershins a hundred and fifty yards off, with a strong wind between him and it, he would not shoot. As for duikerbok—small antelope, which are not only Plentiful in our parts but very good to eat—he would not kill one unless he had first arranged an exhausting crawl through thick bush, preferably in heavy mud.

When, one day, he handed the rifle to me, I said I did not care for it. Why I did not stick to this simple truth I cannot imagine. I did point out that even people like Hunter Jim and Elephant Bill used shotguns for birds on the wing and deer on the run, and that it would never have entered their heads to use a .22 rifle, but my brother was not moved. I did not expect him to be. After he had gone back to school, I crept to his room and took the .22 from the bed of oiled waste in which he had laid it away for the duration of the term. I spent a week or more gingerly opening and shutting the thing , and putting bullets in and taking them out. When I could do this without flinching, I went out into the bush with it.

There was a lot of bush all around our house—in fact, miles of it in every direction, wild, uninhabited, a perfect paradise for sportsmen. I remember clearly how, that first day, I mooned along, thinking about Guinevere and Anne of Green Gables, until a fine kudu bull (fauna of the most covetable sort, antelope the size of a horse) that had apparently been scrutinizing me from an anthill took to its hoofs and fled. I watched it go. (My brother, needless to say, had already shot half a dozen kudu through the eye under impossible handicaps.) Next appeared a duiker, and I put the gun to my shoulder and fired repeatedly but without result, since the creature had vanished before I could manage to sight it.

That was a discouraging day, and those that followed it were no better. One day, I was sitting on a rock in a clearing when a guinea fowl trotted past, followed soon by about twenty other guinea fowl, in single file. gun and shot at each of them. It was exactly like shooting in a fun fair, with rabbits, or what you like, moving before you on a band. I missed all twenty of the guinea fowl, and thought how much easier it would be if only they were prepared to keep still. From this thought my success was born, and since it was based entirely on the habits of guinea fowl, I shall now describe them—from a sportsman's, not a naturalist's, point of view.

Guinea fowl move in flocks of anywhere from ten to two hundred. They can be heard a long way off, because of a chink, chink, chinking sound they make, like stones rubbing together under water. When disturbed, which they regularly are, since this chinking advertises their presence to every enemy for miles around, they set up a raucous complaint and run extremely fast in all directions. If they stuck to doing this, they would be practically invulnerable, but, no—curiosity is their downfall. More often than not, before they have run any distance they fly up into trees to see what is going on. Their wings are weak, and once in the trees they are reluctant to launch themselves into space.

Having considered these facts and all their implications, I set out one day with the rifle and wandered around until I heard the “chink, chink.” I crept toward it. Then I heaved a large stone at it. There was a scurrying, and presently seventy-four guinea fowl flew up into trees all around me. I knew there were seventy-four because I sat on a log counting them and deciding which looked the youngest and fattest. I then carefully aimed at this one and fired. started perfectly, and settled back and watched a leaf that had been dislodged from a frond three feet above its head float down to my feet. I tried again. How difficult it is to keep a gun barrel still became apparent to me only now that I had all the time in the world to practice it. I walked to a nearby tree and laid the barrel against its trunk for support.

The bird I had chosen was about four yards away. I kept the rifle steady long enough to shoot it in the crop. It fell, and I dispatched it with another shot, in the eye, and went home with it. The family, naturally , assumed it had been shot on the wing, and in the eye at that—the first shot going unnoticed—and a letter with this news was at once sent to my brother. Thereafter, my technique, while remaining substantially the same, developed small refinements. For instance, though a properly trained dog would have been useless to me, we did have a dog perfect for my purposes. the “chink, chink” as soon as he heard it, and by the time I arrived, dozens of guinea fowl were already perched on every tree, watching the dog, who was bouncing and yelling below them, satisfactorily distracting their attention from me while I arranged myself and chose my bird at leisure.

A guinea fowl beset by a yapping dog tends to show uneasiness by turning slowly around and around on its perch, but it turns on its own axis and so presents a more or less stable target. There was one occasion when a bird sitting on a low bush was so fascinated by the dog that I was able to lean over and pluck it off the branch by the legs. Then I wrung its neck. I have never before revealed this deplorable incident to a soul. When I took the fowl home, I explained that the bullet had struck its beak and stunned it, and said carefully that it sounded very like one of my brother's more tortuous feats.

I knew very well that when my brother came home, that would be the end of me. And, in fact, on the evening of his arrival my brother took me into the bush, saying, “Now, let's see you do it.” The dog went yapping off after a flock of guinea fowl. I shot negligently at a bird rising into a tree, shrugged, and said self-critically, “Damned bad shot.” ​​My brother, of course, saw at once that all sport with that flock was at an end, but the dog continued to whine pointedly under various plump birds while my brother and I walked off in search of airborne targets. This happened several times. My mother complained that the larder was empty. Then, luckily, my brother got a duiker that had presented a long shot downhill in bad light. We ate the duiker for a whole week (the main disadvantage of living in a sportsman's paradise is the tedium of the diet) and I was able to say that it was altogether unsporting to kill things while we were in no need of meat. But then there were ten days more of my brother's holidays to get through, and my exposure was clearly imminent. I tried to defer it by saying that I was incapable, for psychological reasons, of shooting anything while watched. I went off into the bush by myself, and my brother secretly followed and caught me in the act of shooting a sitting bird at four or five yards. I told him his behavior was sneaking and caddish, but he was too shocked to listen. He felt the blow to the family honor so profoundly that he said nothing that evening at supper. to break it to my father r in the least traumatic way. That night, my brother went out spot-shooting—hunting with a light. Spot-shooting the way he did it was not unsporting, because he saw to it that the chances were substantially on the other side. Only crude types use the headlights of cars; my brother fixed a weak bicycle lamp to his forehead and went forth into the night like a quixotic Cyclops. The usual practice is to fix the eyes of an animal with the light, then walk as close as possible to the hypnotized creature and shoot it. My brother's method meant that the creature would be interested but not fixed. It would have plenty of opportunity to run away. He returned from that expedition severely depressed. Apparently, he had seen two green eyes fifty yards off. They had not moved. He had shouted, but nothing had happened. He'd switched off his head lamp and fired between the eyes. not moved. He had fired again. It was obviously impossible that he could have missed, but he had fired three times more. Then he had walked up to his target convinced that he would find five corpses piled up there. , two glow-worms on a log. The incident was such a blow to his pride that he forgot to discuss my case with my parents. This was, on the whole, lucky for the household, which, after my brother went back to school , I continued to supply with meat until one happy day when I was able to leave for the city and the delights of civilization. My talents as hunter were useful on one other occasion. It happened that while in the city I became engaged, or attached—the precise word for this relationship evades me—to a young man who was in every way a sportsman. were intricate, and caused me hours of introspection, as a result of which I concluded we were ill-matched. He, however, did not think so, and tried to persuade me that my reluctance to join my fate eternally to his was the result of tender age; I was sixteen at the time. Among other virtues, he had ideas about hunting, shooting, and fishing that can be described only as classic. He had a large number of gold and silver medals for marksmanship, and was, naturally, eager to visit our farm, where he could prove himself. Since leaving Scotland ten years before, never once had he set foot on any shooting ground but a target range. For a while, I made excuses, but at last they ran out, and we went home for a weekend visit. I took him guinea-fowl shooting, since I was famed for this, but, of course, I pressed the rifle into his hand with the self-denial proper to a good hostess. At once, he showed the correctness of his upbringing by saying that no one had ever heard of shooting birds with a rifle. But he tried. He missed a good many guinea fowl running along the ground, which was hardly surprising, seeing the speed they get up. Then he missed a lot more flying up into the trees. He hit none. By that time, he was in a bad temper. and said, “Well, then, you show me how to do it.” The guinea fowl were by now all safely up in the trees. We threw stones at them, and even shook the trees, but they wouldn't budge. I could not shoot. We began walking home along a track through the bush while I prayed that no second flock of birds would announce itself. I planned, if I heard the “chink, chink,” to talk very loudly and drowned it. Suddenly he shouted, “Look! Now's your chance!” Hundreds of feet away, a partridge dodged among the ruts of the road. I doubt whether even my brother could have hit it. A small puff of wind raised the dust. I saw my chance, and, muttering, “Damn this dust,” I fired at random into it. The dust subsided. The partridge lay dead, shot through the head—a running shot, from behind, at a hundred and seventy yards. I ejected the cartridge in an efficient sort of way, and my companion paced the distance twice. I said nothing , of course; one does not boast. He then began complaining that he was not used to the gun, that it was ten years since he had shot at a moving target, and so on. He continued to excuse himself thus at supper. the usual reason—that he was thinking of something else—but at last it came home to me that it was because his sense of decency was being outraged. A good sportsman, I remembered, never puts the blame for his failures on the weather, or luck, or anything but himself. I have never understood why, but then it's a man's world. Next day, my father said darkly that there was nothing like sport to bring out the weak spots in a man's character, and, thus supported, I was able to break off the engagement, or attachment, in the most honorable way. Soon after this, I acquired an inflexible principle—namely, that it is wrong to shoot fauna of any kind—and with that I laid down my gun. ?