*
On the eleventh green Armitage settled over his putt, if the verb settled can be ascribed to someone whose current state of mind was about as stable as a ping pong ball going over Niagara Falls. Thankfully the double vision which had plagued him for the last couple of holes had completely disappeared. When it had been restored to normal Armitage had breathed a huge sigh of relief. Taking an apprehensive sharp intake of breath would have been more appropriate, for the brief spell of normal vision had quickly been replaced by what can only be described as phallus vision. And accompanying the phallus vision came the suspicion that what Grover had said to him earlier, that he had dicks on the brain, might somehow be true. In fact he knew it to be true, he had seen evidence of it with his own eyes.
He now saw evidence of it again as the head of his Ping putter struck the ball, and, as the ball set off for the hole some twelve feet away, proceeded to elongate itself into a six inch long, golf ball-wide, penis. As Armitage watched its journey to the hole, mouth agape, eyes stuck out like chapel hat pegs, the penis sprouted a couple of golf ball-sized testicles. Then, as the hole got nearer the penis got bigger, until at the moment it entered the hole it was the same diameter, and a perfect fit, the shaft of the penis disappearing up to the hilt, leaving the testicles above ground.
“Oh well holed,” said Stock, as the penis disappeared. He approached the hole, flagstick in hand. “Stay there, I'll throw it back to you.”
With that Stock retrieved the penis and tossed it back to Armitage. By now it was fully eighteen inches long. Armitage instinctively dropped his putter and held out his hands wide enough to enable him to catch something of this size. However by the time it arrived it was a normal-sized golf ball again. Passing through his outstretched hands it hit him on the chest and dropped harmlessly to the ground.
*
“Han Ging Li.”
“Lou Sinpediment.”
“Caz Hywel Water.”
*
When Fidler had started to make his way from the course after running out of balls he had every intention, as he had intimated to Dawson and Elwes, of going to the pro's shop to buy some more. However on the way there it struck him what a pointless exercise it would be. After all he had only five more holes to play and even if he happened by some miracle to get a hole in one at each of them his play had been so poor on the previous thirteen holes that he would still have no chance of winning. Apart from that he had things to do, the lawn needed mowing for one and his VAT return needed to be filled in for another. Of course Dawson and Elwes would be waiting for him to return, and if he were to go home they would be waiting until the cows came home, which was something to be considered. However, on reflection, far from this being an obstacle to his going home he saw it as all the more reason for him to do so in view of the spiteful trick they'd played on him. So he went home.
*
In the beer tent Mr Harkness, Mr Oldknow and Mr Wormald were already well into their third double whisky with pint of bitter chaser and things were livening up. The Lady Captain, who was matching them with double gins but eschewing the pints of bitter in favour of more double gins, had just succeeded in bringing the gentlemen’s conversation on the subject of crown green bowls round to the subject of sex, a quantum leap by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing to a woman who has taken a shine to someone.
“Taller men make the best lovers,” she said, looking fondly at Harkness, then added, modestly, “Or so I have been told.”
“Really?” said Harkness, genuinely surprised.
“So I’m led to believe.” The Lady Captain looked him up and down appreciatively. “You're quite a tall man, aren't you Mr Harkness.”
“Quite tall, yes.”
“I'm not, but I'm prepared to stand on a box,” said Oldknow.
“Me too,” said Wormald.
“Of course that isn't to say that shorter men can't be excellent lovers too,” said the Lady Captain to Oldknow and Wormald, aware that Harkness might not feel the same way about her as she felt about him, and hedging her bets.
At almost sixty years of age the Lady Captain was still a very attractive woman so Oldknow and Wormald wasted no time in encouraging her further.
“It's not the size of the gun....” said Oldknow.
“....It's the force of the bullet,” said Wormald.
“Quite,” said the Lady Captain. She re-crossed her legs, making sure the three old men seated opposite her got a good view of a generous expanse of creamy white thigh and hopefully a glimpse of her pink silk French knickers. “Of course my husband Bobby was a tall man. He was an excellent lover.”
“I wouldn't expect a man who said a pint of bitter always went down better when it was accompanied by a chaser to be anything else,” said Oldknow, sagely.
“Me neither,” said Wormald.
“But of course he's sadly passed on, and....” the Lady Captain said sadly, leaving the rest of the sentence unspoken.
Oldknow filled it in as “I'm going short.”
Wormald, a coarser man, filled it in as “I'm gasping for the leg over.”
Harkness, a less worldly man and more of a gentleman than his companions, didn't fill it in at all. His late wife had kept him just as short of sex as she had of alcohol and it had been so long since he’d had it he had almost forgotten it existed. Certainly any play for his affections would have to be couched in more obvious terms than “But of course he's sadly passed on, and....”
The Lady Captain now sensed that her words, while bringing more than a twinkle to the eye of Oldknow, and nothing short of a lascivious grin and the beginnings of an erection from Wormald, had had no effect at all on Harkness. She decided to adopt a less oblique approach. She got up, walked over to him, sat on his knee, put her arms round his neck, and said, “How about a fuck?”
*
Mr Captain had just about recovered from the upset of Phyllis Hill when the fire engine drove onto the course.
It wasn't the first time Mr Captain had seen a fire engine on the course; a few years previously during a period of drought the local fire service had been good enough to pump thousands of gallons of water over the greens and fairways in an effort to stop them burning up. However there was no drought at the moment, and even if there had been and the course had been drier than the Sahara Desert nobody would have sent for the fire service to pump water over it today, not on Captain's Day.
In fact Tobin, who observed the appearance of the fire engine through the pro’s shop window, would himself have sent for the fire service to pump water over the course if he'd thought of it. However he wasn't too disappointed at not thinking of it as he'd thought of something much, much better.
Mr Captain quickly headed for the fire engine, waving his arms about in an effort to make it stop. It would have stopped anyway, as the driver of the fire engine, Leading Fireman Jeffers, needed directions. After pulling up and waiting for Mr Captain to walk round to his side of the cab the fire officer wound down the window and said, “Excuse me, which is the way to the thirteenth green?”
Not for the first time that day, nor the last, Mr Captain couldn't believe his ears. “What?”
“The thirteenth green. Apparently you have a woman stuck up a tree.”
“A woman?”
“The Lady Captain-Erect, I believe. Nine nine nine call. Usually it’s cats stuck up trees, a woman will make a nice change, give me the chance to practice my fireman's lift. That's difficult on cats.”
Mr Captain was apoplectic. “You can't go onto the golf course with a fire engine just to get a woman down from a tree!”
Blakey, the other fireman in the cab, leaned over. “Just how long do you think our ladder is, mate?”
“What?”
“Well we can't reach her from here, can we? So stop messing about and tell us where the thirteenth green is, we’ve got a job to do.”
In view of the imminent arrival of the Mayor Mr Captain considered refusing point blank to tell the firemen the whereabouts of t
he thirteenth green in the hope they would turn round and go away, then dismissed the idea, realising that if he didn’t tell them someone else was sure to. He glanced at his watch. Almost ten past eleven. The thirteenth green was quite some distance away. By the time the fire engine had made its way there and rescued the Lady Captain-Elect the Mayor could very well have made his visit and departed for his next appointment. In addition he was mindful that public services didn't seem to have much sense of direction when it came to golf courses, if the policemen who had recently arrived back at the first tee twenty minutes after leaving it were anything to go by, and that there was an excellent chance the fire engine would be out on the golf course and out of sight for quite some time, so all things considered he decided to be helpful. “It's over there,” he said, pointing in the approximate direction of the thirteenth green. “No hurry.”
*
On regaining consciousness Millicent wondered what on earth she was doing lying stretched out on the ground behind the beer tent with a couple of cans of lager, thoughtfully placed there by Oldknow, supporting her head as a sort of alcoholic pillow. She searched her mind for some clue. The last thing she could remember was being in the beer tent when she had introduced her father and his two friends to the Lady Captain and had asked what they would like to drink. She suddenly sat bolt upright as she recalled what had happened next. That revolting song had been played! And at such a deafening volume that the whole golf course must have heard it! She glanced at her watch. Good Lord, it must have been over twenty minutes ago. She leapt to her feet. Daddy Rhythm would have to be dealt with forthwith! He would have to go! She would bring her record player and allow that to provide the music for the dance that evening, or employ her next-door neighbour's seven-year-old to provide it on his toy trumpet, anything rather than risk that detestable Daddy Rhythm degenerate playing his horrible music again.
She rolled up her sleeves and set off for the clubhouse, so intent on dealing with the Daddy Rhythm situation that she failed to notice the sounds of merriment emanating from within the beer tent. If she had heard Wormald's cry of “Get 'em off!” she might have made dealing with the awful Daddy Rhythm her second priority. But unfortunately she didn't.
11.10 a.m.
S Summers (13)
J Fredericks (14)
A Jacobson (17)
“Well you can't join us and that's all there is to it,” said Jerold Fredericks.
Phyllis appealed to Summers for support. “How do you feel about it, Sid?”
Most of the male members at Sunnymere treated the Phyllis Hill situation as a bit of a giggle and had no objection to playing with her. Fredrickson however was not one of them.”It doesn't matter a monkey’s doo-dah how Sid feels about it,” he said, before Summers could reply, “I'm not playing golf with a man who's had his tackle cut off and dresses up like a woman, and that's all about it.”
Very often people who have been made aware they aren't wanted, as Phyllis had just so comprehensively been by Fredericks, choose not pursue the matter further and quietly let the matter drop. However Phyllis loved her golf almost as much as she loved being a woman, so stuck manfully, or perhaps womanfully, to her guns, and stood up to Fredericks. “I have a perfect right,” she said, pushing out her artificial chest.
“No you haven't,” said Fredericks.
“Or a perfect left,” added Summers, with a grin.
“What?” said Fredericks.
“Her breasts. They're neither of them perfect, they're falsies.”
Fredericks eyed his playing partner reproachfully. “This is nothing to joke about, Sid.”
“I was only saying,” said Summers, a little shamefaced.
Fredericks admonished him. “Well don't.” He turned his attention to Phyllis. “So kindly clear off and let us get on with our game.”
Phyllis wasn’t about to give up so easily. She had noticed Mr Captain hovering nearby and now, employing the feminine wiles she seemed to have gained when she acquired her vagina and blonde wig she said, “I think we should let Mr Captain decide whether or not I can play with you,” then added, artfully, “It is his Captain's Day, after all.” With that she turned to Mr Captain, gave him the benefit of a sweet smile, and said, “Do you think I should be allowed play with Sid and Jerold, Mr Captain?”
At that moment there was only one thing in the whole world that Mr Captain would have liked more than for Phyllis to join Sid and Jerold, and for the three of them to get themselves up the fairway and out of view of the Mayor as rapidly as possible, and that was for Phyllis to be struck by a bolt of lightning and reduced to a pile of smouldering cinders, but as that happy happening didn't seem likely he had no alternative but to side with Phyllis. “Yes Philip, I do think you should be allowed to play with Jerold and Sid,” he said, then added, with a meaningful look at Fredericks, “In fact I insist upon it. And that is my final decision.”
“There you are,” said Phyllis, with the little pout she had been practising, “Mr Captain says you have to let me play with you.”
Fredericks however was made of just as stern a stuff as Phyllis. “Mr Captain,” he said firmly, “can take a hike. And you Phyllis can go with him.”
Phyllis was nothing if not stubborn, especially when it came to defending her rights as a woman and a golfer. She regarded Fredericks coolly for a moment, then said, “I intend, as you will soon discover Jerold, to do precisely the opposite of taking a hike. Because if I'm not going to be allowed to play then nobody else will be allowed to play,” and with that she lay down on the ground between the tee markers, all six feet two inches of her, effectively stopping anyone from driving off the tee
*
“Juan Under.”
“Al Bertrosstoo
“Sick Zover.”
*
Playing the seventeenth Arbuthnott, still having the game of his life, was three over par gross, and heading for a finishing score of something like a net fifty six, a remarkable achievement by any standards. Even if he were to have a disaster of Jean Van der Velde proportions at the eighteenth he would still come in with something like a net sixty, an excellent score round the reasonably difficult Sunnymere course with its four large ponds, all of which came into play at numerous holes, and better by three strokes than the score Alec Adams intended to put in.
Naturally Arbuthnott was as pleased as punch with his round and even though he had promised himself that he wouldn't boast about his performance any more, for fear of Chapman accusing him of crowing again, he couldn't resist just a small crow as his approach shot hit the green in the regulation two strokes and came to rest in the two putt zone. “Well,” he said, slotting his six iron back into his bag, “a four at the last and I reckon the trophy will be mine. If it isn’t already.”
Chapman, whose chances of winning had disappeared about seven holes back along with whatever good grace he had left, was onto Arbuthnott like a shot. “I thought you were going to give over crowing? But no, there you go again. You just can’t help yourself can you.”
“What do you mean, again?” Arbuthnott protested. “I haven't crowed once since the eighth green. I deliberately haven't crowed.”
“You don't have to, you've been strutting about like a cockerel for the last half hour.”
“Anyway I wasn't crowing. I was just making the point that if I two putt this green and get a four at the last the trophy will be mine.”
“If you two putt this green and get a four at the last.”
Unfortunately, having permitted himself a little crow, Arbuthnott had developed the taste for it again. “There's no way I’ll three putt this green the way I'm putting, Gerry,” he crowed. “And even if I took a five or a six at the last, which I won’t, I would still win the Captain’s Day trophy by a country mile.”
“Crow, crow crow,” said Chapman. “Crow crow, bloody crow.”
Arbuthnott gave a shrug of his shoulders. “Be like that if it makes you feel any better. But I’m just stating a fact. Nothing can stop
me now.” Never would the expression ‘famous last words’ prove to be more appropriate.
*
The regular job of helicopter pilot Brian Green was to take groups of up to four people on pleasure flights round the Derbyshire Dales. It was work that paid handsomely, but after well over a thousand such flights was a job which bored him to death. Boring it might have been but he was finding that flying his helicopter round and round the restricted range of the eighteen holes of Sunnymere golf course to be infinitely worse.
Whilst searching his mind for something to relieve the monotony of his task he had recalled that it had been quite amusing when his helicopter had suddenly appeared as if from nowhere and frightened the golfers putting out on the third green. Unable to come up with anything that offered a better prospect of light relief he decided to try a similar manoeuvre again. When he did, as Thompson, Livermore and Purseglove were putting out, the reaction of the golfers was even more amusing than it had been the first time he’d done it. Thompson had shrieked and dropped to his knees, shielding himself as if from some monster in a horror movie, Livermore had stood stock still, absolutely mortified, and peed in his trousers, whilst Purseglove, in an effort to get out of the way, had tripped over his own feet, fallen headlong into a bunker and ended up with a mouthful of sand. In the cockpit Green had roared with laughter. Martin Morton, the man videoing the proceedings, had also found the incident quite amusing and had joined in the laughter. However, being a golfer himself, he at least had the decency to stop filming.
*
Having herself fainted not too long ago Millicent thought the same fate had befallen Phyllis on approaching the first tee and seeing her lying there, but on her arrival she could clearly see otherwise. A distressed Mr Captain quickly filled her in with the details as to why, then went on, “This could spoil my day, Millicent. No one will be able to tee off while that thing insists on lying there.”
“Well you have my every sympathy darling, which goes without saying, but I really don’t see what I can do about it,” said Millicent. “Apart from that I have problems of my own. I have that wretched Daddy Rhythm person to sort out.”
Captain's Day Page 17