I have to admit to being a hunting man, hunting hares with beagles (foot-hounds). But as this is no longer legally permitted, writing about the chase is also frowned upon. So, through frustration my memory turns to more full-blooded days.
My story starts in a sparsely furnished living room in a large Catholic mission in Bangladesh. The monsoon thundered down on the tin roof. It was almost insufferably hot.
Fr X, now sadly passed on, was a great friend of mine and our two organisations did much together working with the poor of which there were countless thousands in the 1970s after the War of Liberation from Pakistan.
Fr X and I shared a great liking for whisky and on this particular evening we had already consumed three-quarters of a bottle.
“Next week I am going pig shooting with the Soviet Military Attache and Col Y of the SAS,” I told him.
“Jxxxx!” exclaimed. Fr X. “Your shooting chum was known throughout Ireland as a killer. He was greatly feared. He carried a razor-sharp knife strapped to his leg and you can imagine what he did with it!”
He took a great gulp of whisky, absorbing it without any effect in his huge frame. “Jxxxx!” he exclaimed once more.
There was a pause and his eyes narrowed. He said slyly: “You might be prepared to put a bullet his way. No one would know it had been deliberate!”
He had cornered me. He knew that I would do almost anything for him. But if he was serious, he had gone too far with an aid worker such as myself.
I gave an incoherent and non-committal reply and after finishing off the bottle set off unsteadily to my quarters.
The following week we gathered in the forest. It was dense and rice fields ran through the trees. We stationed ourselves at strategic points waiting for the pig to be driven out of the cover by the beaters.
It was tremendously exhilarating. We heard the shouts of the beaters and the crashing of the boar as they charged out though the trees. They erupted into the rice fields. We had seconds to shoot - and shoot to kill. A wounded boar can rip out a man’s stomach.
We had great sport, felling several enormous black muscular creatures with fearsome yellow tusks.
It was getting dark and we were about to leave. A loud bang resounded from the edge of the forest and a cry of jubilation as heavy shot kicked up the dust around me. I fell to the ground. No bullet wounds! I picked myself up.
I walked warily over to where the shot appeared to have come from. There was Col Y, standing proudly over the carcass of a great beast. “A wonderful shot,” he exclaimed proudly. “I slipped when it was almost on me. I fired as I fell!”
“You almost shot me too,” I responded angrily. “Oh, did I?” Col Y replied casually. “I am so sorry.” He laughed, bent down and began to eviscerate the carcass.
Back in the mission I was sitting over a bottle with Fr X. “Well, what happened?” He demanded. “No chance to take him out, I’m afraid,” I replied. “But he almost shot me!”
Fr X roared with laughter, his whole body shaking with mirth. “Jxxxx!” he exclaimed. “A Higher Justice awaits him, but you survived! Merciful Heaven!”
“Let’s celebrate,” he said and put another bottle of whisky on the table.
