Chapter 3

A while later we were bumping down Thalia track, I pointed out Sandy's farm on the right. "We'll pull in there and say hello to Sandy and let him know that we will be camping on the beach paddock."

As we came to a halt, Sandy poked his head out of the barn, seeing who it was his face broke out in a broad grin, "Tony, nice to see you, who's the nice looking lady you have with you?"

"Helen, meet Sandy, Sandy I'd like you to meet my friend Helen. We're down for the weekend if that's ok with you."

"Nice to meet you Helen, any friend of Tony's is welcome here. Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

"Helen's with the Shire Sandy, we're down here discussing confidential council business," I said, giving him a broad wink.

"Ah, then we can't have anyone finding out about your 'confidential business' then, can we? As far as being ok to camp Tony, you know you're always welcome. By the way, have you got a rifle with you? I've had a bit of a problem with foxes, damned thing have taken some of my newborn lambs; so if you see any, knock 'em off for me."

"Right, I've got the Hornet in the van, might try whistling the buggers up tonight."

"Good thing, well you folks better get your camp set up if you've got a lot of 'confidential business' to attend to." With our farewells taken care of we headed down to the beach.

Setting up in the bottom paddock, Helen enquired about the Hornet, "Can I have a shot out of it Tony, I used to go shooting with my brothers when I was younger, but we only had pea rifles; it'd be nice to fire something with a bit more kick to it."

"Sure, no problem, it's still a .22 rifle, just had a bigger cartridge than the Rimfire. They're a good all round rifle for smaller pests like rabbits and foxes; the big advantage is you can reload them to suit what you're targeting."

Once we had everything set up we took a walk along the beach, "It's lovely and peaceful here Tony, do you come here often?"

"Not as often as I'd like to, but then if you visit a place too often it tends to lose some of it's charm; every couple of months or so keeps it from getting old though."

"Yeah, I know what you mean, when we were kids, we always went to the same place for our holidays, same old same old as they say."

Back at the motor home, I pulled out the barby and fired it up, convenient, no fuss and more importantly, no stale cooking odours inside. While I cooked up the steaks and onions, Helen put together a side salad; all complete, we sat back and enjoyed our repast washed down with a couple of Crown lagers.

Later that evening I pulled out the Hornet and gave it a good cleaning, the scope is a Bushnell 3-9x40 with laser. I explained to Helen how the laser worked, just point it where you want the projectile to hit, if you squeeze the trigger right it should go there. I took some time to show her some of the problems cause by poor trigger control. Setting her up in the prone position I loaded a practice shell into the breach.

"Sight up on that stump about a hundred yards out Helen, when you squeeze the trigger, watch where the dot is; if it's in the same place you aimed for then your control is good. If the dot is off, you either pulled the trigger one way or pushed it the other way, if so try again."

Very soon she was getting the idea, "OK, now for a live round, same thing again, look to see where the dot is after you've made the shot." I slipped a round into the breach, she took aim and fired.

"Good shooting," a chunk flew off the stump she was aiming at. "Right, here's another round," unbeknown to her I slipped the practice round back in.

Click, Helen jerked as she pulled the trigger. "You bastard, you put in a blank." she grinned.

"Did you notice how much you jumped when you pulled the trigger? that's gun shy. You know that the recoil isn't bad yet you still jumped; when the gun goes off it should come as a surprise. When I was in the pistol club, we used to play Russian roulette, one loaded round, the rest dummies, a good way to overcome flinch."

As it became dark, I connected the spotlight and dug out my fox whistle, Helen was intrigued, "How can a bit of tin call up a fox Tony?"

I put it between my lips and gave a shuddering suck and blow, the tremulous scream imitating a rabbit in distress. "Wow, sounds impressive but will it attract a fox?"

"It should do if there's one around. You can get the same effect with a blade of grass but then I can't hold the spot light as well." I plucked a blade of grass and stretched it between my thumbs as if I was praying, then gently blew through them emitting a similar sound to the whistle.