Outside in the grounds of the house, the chauffeur, Kelvin Bright by name, was ‘exercising’ the dogs. One of his favourite games was The Hunt. It was easy to play, he’d been breeding rabbits in one of the outhouses especially for this diversion. He would take one or more of the rabbits and let the dogs have a sniff of them, then let them go a short way into the woods,
“Go get ‘em me beauties!” The terrified creatures scampered off and often ran the bulky dogs ragged before escaping, but Kelvin always had another one to hand, one that he let go on the lawn for them to tear to pieces.
He stood legs apart with a shotgun under his arm, the dogs at his side whined and tugged at their chains eager to get on with the game,
“Easy boys, not long now, me beauties.” He always referred to the insane mutts as his beauties, except when in mid-hunt, then they became his Terminators.
Pretty soon the hunt was on, the dogs let loose they raced across the lawns towards the forest, snapping at each other in their eagerness to be first to the kill. Kelvin produced a torch from his waxed jacket pocket and ran quickly behind them. This time it was over in a few moments, in an attempt to avoid the leading dog the rabbit doubled back straight into the path of another. In a second, two of the dogs bit into it at the same time and neither of them would let go, Kelvin watched as they threw their heads from side to side in an effort to shake each other off, the rabbit was ripped to pieces and Kelvin had to step back quickly to avoid being sprayed with its blood. He was disappointed that it was over so quickly.