e
Castle. It was a busy time for them, he told me, as four big shoots had
been arranged. The first was to take place the next day. There were
plenty of birds, and he thought the Frau Graefin's guests ought to be
satisfied.

I asked him if there was a big party staying at the Castle. No, he told
me, only one gentleman besides the officer billeted there, but a lot of
people were coming over for the shoot the next day, the officers from
Cleves and Goch, the Chief Magistrate from Cleves, and a number of
farmers from round about.

"I expect you will find the soldiers billeted at the Castle useful as
beaters," I enquired with a purpose.

The man assented grudgingly. Gamekeepers are first-class grumblers. But
the soldiers were not many. For his part he could do without them
altogether. They were such terrible poachers to have about the place, he
declared. But what they would do for beaters without them, he didn't
know ... they were very short of beaters ... that was a fact.

"I am staying at Cleves," I said, "and I'm out of a job. I am not long
from hospital, and they've discharged me from the army. I wouldn't mind
earning a few marks as a beater, and I'd like to see the sport. I used
to do a bit of shooting myself down on the Rhine where I come from."

The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "That's none of my
business, getting the beaters together," he replied. "Besides, I shall
have the head gamekeeper after me if I go bringing strangers in...."

I ordered another drink for both of us, and won the man round without
much difficulty. He pouched my five mark note and announced that he
would manage it ... the Frau Graefin was to see some men who had offered
their services as beaters after dinner at the Castle that evening. He
would take me along.

Half an hour later I stood, as one of a group of shaggy and bedraggled
rustics, in a big stone courtyard outside the main entrance to the
Castle. The head gamekeeper mustered us with his eye and, bidding us
follow him, led the way under a vaulted gateway through a massive door
into a small lobby which had apparently been built into the great hall
of the Castle, for it opened right into it.

We found ourselves in a splendid old feudal hall, oak-lined and
oak-raftered, with lines of dusty banners just visible in the twilight
reigning in the upper part of the vast place. The modern generation had
forborne to desecrate the fine old room with electric light, and massive