‘As you know perfectly well,’ said Jimmy, suddenly spiteful.

He was observing the rivulet of sand. It was now hard to tell which ant-pit was the new one. Jimmy was staring at a largish pit, at the bottom of which was a minute hump - the body of the waiting monster; and a tiny black fragment of twig - the jaws of the monster. ‘All we need now is some ants,’ said Jimmy. ‘And some pigeons,’ said Paul. And, replying to Jimmy’s criticism, he added: ‘Can I help my natural talents? The Lord gives. The Lord takes. In my case, He has given.’

‘Unfairly,’ I said. Paul gave me his charming wry appreciative smile. I smiled back. Without raising his eyes from his book, Willi cleared his throat. It was a comic sound, like bad theatre, and both I and Paul burst out into one of the wild helpless fits of laughing that often took members of the group, singly, in couples, or collectively. We laughed and laughed, and Willi sat reading. But I remember now the hunched enduring set of his shoulders, and the tight painful set of his lips. I did not choose to notice it at the time.

Suddenly there was a wild shrill silken cleaving of wings and a pigeon settled fast on a branch almost above our heads. It lifted its wings to leave again at the sight of us, folded them, turned round on its branch several times, with its head cocked sideways looking down at us. Its black bright open eyes were like the round eyes of the mating insects on the track. We could see the delicate pink of its claws gripping the twig, and the sheen of sun on its wings. Paul lifted the rifle - it was almost perpendicular - shot, and the bird fell among us. Blood spattered over Jimmy’s forearm. He went pale again, wiped it off, but said nothing.

‘This is getting disgusting,’ said Willi.

‘It has been from the start,’ said Paul composedly.

He leaned over, picked the bird off the grass and examined it. It was still alive. It hung limp but its black eyes watched us steadily. A film rolled up over them, then with a small perceptible shake of determination it pushed death away and struggled for a moment in Paul’s hands. ‘What shall I do?’ Paul said, suddenly shrill; then, instantly recovering himself with a joke: ‘Do you expect me to kill the thing in cold blood?’

‘Yes,’ said Jimmy, facing Paul and challenging him. The clumsy blood was in his cheeks again, mottling and blotching them, but he stared Paul out.

‘Very well,’ said Paul, contemptuous, tight-lipped. He held the pigeon tenderly, having no idea how to kill it. And Jimmy waited for Paul to prove himself. Meanwhile the bird sank in a glossy welter of feathers between Paul’s hands, its head sinking on its neck, trembling upright again, sinking sideways, as the pretty eyes filmed over and it struggled again and again to defeat death.

Then, saving Paul the ordeal, it was suddenly dead, and Paul flung it on to the heap of corpses.

‘You are always so damned lucky about everything,’ said Jimmy, in a trembling, angry voice. His full carved mouth, the lips he referred to with pride as ‘decadent, visibly shook.