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" 'Oo says it's forbidden?"
"The owner, Mr Douglas Highton."
"You must be joking," Ernie said and he raised the gun again. He fired. The duck crumpled in the water.
"Go get 'im," Ernie said to Peter. "Cut 'is 'ands free, Raymond, 'cause then 'ee can be our flippin' gun-dog and fetch the birds after we shoot 'em."
Raymond took out his knife and cut the string binding the small boy's wrists.
"Go on!" Ernie snapped. "Go get 'im!"
The killing of the beautiful duck had disturbed Peter very much. "I refuse," he said.
Ernie hit him across the face hard with his open hand. Peter didn't fall down, but a small trickle of blood began running out of one nostril.
"You dirty little perisher!" Ernie said. "You just try refusin' me one more time and I'm goin' to make you a promise. And the promise is like this. You refuse me just one more time and I'm goin' to knock out every single one of them shiny white front teeth of yours, top and bottom. You understand that?"
Peter said nothing.
"Answer me!" Ernie barked. "Do you understand that?"
"Yes," Peter said quietly. "I understand."
"Get on with it, then!" Ernie shouted.
Peter walked down the bank, into the muddy water, through the reeds, and picked up the duck. He brought it back and Raymond took it from him and tied string around its legs.
"Now we got a retriever dog with us, let's see if we can't get us a few more of them ducks," Ernie said. He strolled along the bank, gun in hand, searching the reeds. Suddenly he stopped. He crouched. He put a finger to his lips and said, "Sshh!"
Raymond went over to join him. Peter stood a few yards away, his trousers covered in mud up to the knees.
"Lookit in there!" Ernie whispered, pointing into a dense patch of bulrushes. "D'you see what I see?"
"Holy cats!" cried Raymond. "What a beauty!"
Peter, peering from a little further away into the rushes, saw at once what they were looking at. It was a swan, a magnificent white swan sitting serenely upon her nest. The nest itself was a huge pile of reeds and rushes that rose up about two feet above the waterline, and upon the top of all this the swan was sitting like a great white lady of the lake. Her head was turned towards the boys on the bank, alert and watchful.
" 'Ow about that?" Ernie said. "That's better'n ducks, ain't it?"
"You think you can get 'er?" Raymond said.
"Of course I can get 'er. I'll drill a 'ole right through 'er noggin!"
Peter felt a wild rage beginning to build up inside him. He walked up to the two bigger boys. "I wouldn't shoot that swan if I were you," he said, trying to keep his voice calm. "Swans are the most protected birds in England."
"And what's that got to do with it?" Ernie asked him, sneering.
"And I'll tell you something else," Peter went on, throwing all caution away. "Nobody shoots a bird sitting on its nest. Absolutely nobody! She may even have cygnets under her! You just can't do it!"
" 'Oo says we can't?" Raymond asked, sneering. "Mister bleedin' snotty-nose Peter Watson, is that the one 'oo says it?"
"The whole country says it," Peter answered. "The law says it and the police say it and everyone says it!"
"I don't say it!" Ernie said, raising his gun.
"Don't!" screamed Peter. "Please don't!"
Crack! The gun went off. The bullet hit the swan right in the middle of her elegant head and the long white neck collapsed on to the side of the nest.
