The decaying French soldier’s uniform had been laundered and pressed.  Chopper liked it a whole lot better now.  He didn’t know it was a French uniform, nor did he know that it was peacetime.  All he knew was that he was in enemy territory, all alone, fighting for his life. 

Not that they gave him much of a chance.  An island they owned was the battlefield.  They called the shots.  They had made sure the odds were on their side.

All Chopper, the village halfwit, knew for certain was that he had to do his part.  And that he was scared. 

He had disappeared into a dense growth of pine trees at a dead run, only to emerge in a cathedral-like stand of old oaks.  There the dogs had bayed and the voices had come closer and closer, until Chopper had to hide.  He climbed, first up, then across, like a squirrel.

The men had been excited with their hunt, their faces flushed and their breath fast, making fog.  The crisp brown oak leaves underfoot crackled, as they had tracked down Chopper.  Yet again they failed. 

They could not achieve their ultimate goal, to hunt and kill a man.  Chopper had slipped through their net.

 The men left in the boat and became honorable members of society and good caring family men once again.  Some, calloused enough, began to forget the hunt. 

Until one of them got felled by a tree. 

Until one of them found an axe embedded in his door.

Until they heard a rasping voice singing a child’s nursery rhyme in the dense London fog.