Ifield rolled his eyes. “We’re in the middle of a golf course.”
“There isn’t a toilet?”
“Well of course there isn’t.”
“What do you do when you want a piss then?”
“Golfers do piss, do they?” said Fearon, with a sneer. “When they’re not walking about looking like Rupert Bear?”
Harris ignored the slight. “You have to go behind a tree or a wall,”
James looked around for a tree or a wall but there weren't any nearby. There was a pond though. Fearon noticed it. “Piss in the pond,” he said. “Kill some pond life.”
Constable James went over to the pond’s edge and without ceremony started to urinate in it.
James was a man who preferred to direct his spray of urine around playfully rather than let it all land in the same spot, and on this occasion he was able to enjoy this extra-curricular pursuit more than usual as normally there were just toilet disinfectant blocks and cigarette ends or whatever else people had thrown in the urinal, to aim at. The pond however offered much more variety as a target for his projectile of pee, and after giving a frog on a lily pad a thorough dowsing he narrowly missed bringing down a dragonfly in mid-flight. Making a second attempt to ground the dragonfly only resulted in him peeing on his boots and the bottoms of his trousers, so he quickly abandoned the idea and chose as his next target a small fish at the edge of the clump of reeds that Garland happened to be lying in. Unfortunately for Garland the stickleback at which James now directed his waterfall was immediately over the vice-captain’s head and it wasn't long before a generous amount of the constable’s urine went down the reed that Garland had in his mouth. Garland’s reaction was spontaneous and immediate. Spluttering and choking on James’ warm pee, coughing his lungs up, he suddenly erupted from the pond looking for all the world like the Monster of the Lost Lagoon, except that when the monster emerged from the lost lagoon its underpants hadn't filled with water and weren’t falling round its knees.
“Of course,” said Ifield to Harris, “when Tarzan stuck a reed in his mouth and hid in the pond he didn't have a copper pissing on him.”
Garland didn't hang about once his watery hiding place had been revealed. Visions of sharing a prison cell with a cellmate who was hung like a donkey and had a penchant for bottoms made him leap out of the pond even faster than Southfield had just leapt out of Jessica's bed, and pausing only to haul up his waterlogged y-fronts he hared off down the fairway faster than Usain Bolt with his behind on fire.
*
From where his ball had come to rest Arbuthnott didn’t have a view of the green, but it didn't really matter; he had played the eighteenth hole at Sunnymere hundreds of times so knew exactly the whereabouts of the green. A four iron over the corner of the dogleg would get him there today, he judged, taking the slight breeze against into account. He took out the chosen club, struck the ball as sweetly as he had ever struck a ball in his life, and the ball sped arrow-like at its target.
Just as Arbuthnott had known exactly where the green was he was now equally certain his ball would end up slap bang in the middle of it. What he didn't know, but was very soon to find out, was that also slap bang in the middle of the green was the huge pile of steaming manure.
*
The memory of the vision that greeted Mr Captain and Millicent as they led the Lord Mayor into the beer tent - a living tableau of Mr Harkness, the Lady Captain on her knees fellating him, whilst at the same time masturbating Mr Oldknow and Mr Wormald who were standing either side of her, a sight which looked for all the world like some obscene animated coat of arms, a woman genuflecting with three men rampant - would haunt them to their dying day. In fact Millicent could have died there and then and if it had been left to her would have chosen to. Mr Captain's scream of horror came a split second before Millicent's scream of horror, but as if to make up for being the last to react Millicent’s scream was louder and more piercing.
“What is it, what on earth’s the matter?” said a concerned Lord Mayor, and then saw what was the matter. “Good Lord!” A moment or two later, managing to tear his eyes away from the sight set out before him, as he quite liked watching people perform sex acts and usually had to pay for the privilege, he turned to Mr Captain for an explanation. “What the devil is going on here, Fridlington?”
Much to Mr Captain's relief, for he was completely at a loss as to what to do or say, Millicent, a sharper knife than her husband, came to the rescue. “Gipsies,” she said firmly, taking the Mayor and his lady by the arms and attempting to shepherd them away.
“Gipsies?
“Yes, they're a blasted nuisance. One only has to put up a tent and the next thing you know they've moved in. Exactly the same thing happened on Lady Captain's Day.” She tugged on the Mayor’s arm. “We’d best be off before they start trying to sell us some lucky white heather or pegs or something.”
Resisting Millicent’s efforts to move him on the Mayor turned to Mr Captain, puzzled. “But didn’t you say you particularly wanted me to meet those people in the beer tent, Fridlington?”
Mr Captain had by now recovered enough to make some sort of answer. “Er….that's right,” he said. “To demonstrate to you exactly what a huge problem these damned gipsies can be in the town. So that in your capacity of Lord Mayor you might be able to get the council to do something about it.”
“So, now you have seen the extent of the problem Mr Mayor, can we please leave?” said Millicent, strengthening her grip on the Mayor’s arm and re-doubling her efforts to lead him away from the terrible scene.
The Mayor was not about to depart that easily however. “I thought we were going to have a drink?” he said, not caring one way or the other if he had a drink, but wanting very much to see a bit more of the live sex show, which far from grinding to a halt on the arrival of the Mayoral party had continued unabashed and had now increased in its intensity as all three old gentlemen neared their climax.
Millicent was a match for him. “There won't be any drink left; the gipsies will have drunk it all by now if I know anything about gipsies.”
“And Millicent knows her gipsies,” added Mr Captain. “So all in all I think the best thing we can do is repair to the eighteenth green without further delay.” He glanced at his watch. “If I'm not mistaken the first threesome will be arriving anytime now, so we'll be just in time to greet them if we hurry.”
*
Many of the holes at Sunnymere have tree-lined fairways, the trees serving not only to define the whole of the hole but also to provide it with a setting that is easy on the eye. Armitage would happily have settled for being on a fairway that had no trees at all, but whichever way he ran and no matter how many times he altered his course, he kept running into tree-lined fairways that were anything but easy on the eye, as through his eyes the fairways were lined not by trees but by tree-sized penises.
On the fairways themselves the dozen or so much smaller talking penises pulling golf trolleys which he had passed by and who had stopped, transfixed, to watch his progress, had said things to him like: “What's the matter, Trevor, what are you running away from?” and “Who’s chasing you?” Armitage didn't stop to enlighten them, not even breaking stride in his eagerness to depart the phallus-infested hell in which he had found himself.
*
“Well bless my soul!” said Bagley, when he, Arbuthnott and Chapman had reached the eighteenth green, “It's a pile of horseshit!”
They had first seen the pile of manure when they had rounded the corner of the dogleg and the green came into view. At that distance, some hundred and fifty yards away, it was by no means clear what it was, although the smell, aided by the prevailing light breeze, might have given them a clue. Bagley had suggested it might be a new hazard, some sort of hillock, which had been secretly introduced overnight to make the closing hole more difficult, and that it might not be on the green at all, as it appeared to be, but either behind or in front of it. Once they had arrived at the gree
n however and realised what the mound was composed of Chapman said that if it was indeed a hazard then it was a hazard he had no intention of ever venturing onto or into in order to join his ball if ever it should land in it. “What club could I use for my recovery shot?” he asked, not unreasonably, “A shit iron?”
Having checked the un-manured portion of the green, the greenside bunkers and behind the green, and discovering his ball to be in none of those locations, Arbuthnot said, “My ball must be in the manure because it’s not on the green. What do you think I should do?”
“Send for a shit iron,” said Chapman, enjoying himself now. “Tobin’s bound to have one, he’s got everything else.”
“I don’t think there’s a rule that covers a heap of manure on the green,” said Bagley, then added helpfully, “Unless of course you were to treat it as a loose impediment.”
This suggestion pleased Chapman no end. “Well I’m not sure about it being an impediment but something must have been pretty loose to shit that lot,” he chortled.
Bagley was more sympathetic to Arbuthnott’s dilemma. “Perhaps you’d better declare it a lost ball and go back and play another one,” he suggested.
“Like hell I will,” said Arbuthnott, vehemently. “That would be a two stroke penalty. And even if I did there's no guarantee the same thing wouldn't happen again. Anyway it isn't lost, it's in that pile of manure.”
“What are you going to do then?” said Bagley. “You’re going to have to do something.”
“Well we'll just have to find it, won't we. We’ve got five minutes.”
“We?” said Chapman.
“Surely you’re going to help me look for my ball?”
“You are joking, aren’t you? It’s in a pile of horseshit.”
Arbuthnott could scarcely credit it, even of Chapman. “You don't mean to say you're going to leave it to me and Baggers to search for it on our own? When I'm within a gnat's whiskers of winning?”
“Er….” said Bagley, shaking his head.
Arbuthnott was aghast. “Not you too Baggers, surely?”
“Sorry Arby, you'll have to leave me out of this one, I'm allergic to manure.”
“Since when?”
“Since he realised your ball was in a bloody great steaming heap of it,” grinned Chapman.
Arbuthnott turned on Chapman. “It's nothing to gloat about, Gerry. This could cost me the competition.”
“I thought you said you couldn't lose it?”
“Ah,” said Arbuthnott. “I get it now. That's why you're refusing to help me, isn’t it. Because I crowed a little about winning.”
“I'm not helping you because I refuse point blank to scratch about in a pile of horseshit looking for your ball,” said Chapman. “Your crowing didn’t affect my decision in the slightest, it just made it easier to make.”
“Well I don't refuse to scratch about in horseshit looking for my ball!” fumed Arbuthnott, and promptly stepped onto the pile of manure and started searching.
*
Fredericks had noticed the arrival of the manure, and as Phyllis wasn't showing any signs of vacating the first tee, and for want of something better to do, he had wandered over to the eighteenth green to take a closer look at it. Joining him in the inspection of the new feature were his playing partner Summers, the next threesome of John Huddlestone, Freddie Mickleover and Tony Sturgess, plus Derbyshire Dales Times staff Ed Eagles and Ben Booth (who had by now obtained an excellent crotch shot of Phyllis which he was going to email to the Daily Sport just as soon as he could get to his computer). Derbyshire Dales Radio reporter Dirk Kirk had in the meantime also arrived on the scene.
“Get a photograph of that,” Eagles urgently instructed Booth, as soon as Arbuthnott had started scrambling around in the pile of manure like some demented dung beetle. “I don't know what's going on here but what with that sex change blonde picketing the first tee and this bloke playing around in a heap of horseshit I can sense a major story brewing here.”
*
As Armitage raced along the phallus-lined purple fairway – purple at the moment that is, having previously been red, orange, black, ultramarine and all of these colours at the same time during the five minutes or so of his flight from the golf course – he never wanted to see or even think about another penis again as long as he lived. Death would be preferable to a life in which he had to see another dick. Or if the Grim Reaper wouldn't take pity on him and do him the favour of taking his life some other way of escape from the phalluses would do; if he couldn’t outrun them perhaps some haven in which he could hide from them? Please? He was soon to have his wish, both wishes in fact, because as he ran down the eighteenth fairway towards the green, behind which ten more human being-sized penises were standing, such a haven presented itself. However it was to prove to be anything but a safe haven.
*
If nothing that had happened previously had failed to spoil Mr Captain's day completely then what he had just witnessed in the beer tent in the company of the Lord Mayor certainly had. The only consolation was that the Mayor didn't seem to have been too put out by it, so with a bit of luck his chances of becoming a councillor hadn't been damaged beyond repair. On his way to the eighteenth green he determined to demonstrate to the Mayor just what an important position the role of captain of a golf club was, and in particular how efficiently he was fulfilling that role. When he arrived there, only to see Arbuthnott standing wild-eyed atop a huge pile of manure, feverishly scooping up large handfuls of it and sifting it through his fingers as if he was prospecting for gold, he wasn't at all sure if it represented an opportunity to display his skills of captaincy by dealing with the situation or an invitation to simply throw in the towel and take up brass rubbing.
Before he could make up his mind which of these options to take, the Mayor, displaying the powers of observation that had made him a power in local government, spoke up. “Isn't that a pile of manure?”
“Yes,” said Mr Captain. He made no attempt to explain the appearance of the manure on the green, in the forlorn hope that the Mayor was simply making an observation and not posing an embarrassing question.
The Mayor immediately dashed his hopes. “What's it doing there?”
“Fertilizer,” said Millicent, coming to the rescue once again. “Summer dressing.” She indicated Arbuthnott, who was still feverishly sifting handfuls of the manure. “That's the head greenkeeper.” At that moment Armitage came hurtling into the picture from the side of the eighteenth fairway and dived head first into the pile of manure, disappearing up to his waist with a loud squelch. “And his assistant,” Millicent continued. “As you can see, as eager to get stuck into his work as ever; that’s the sort of dedicated staff we have here at Sunnymere.”
*
“There's that man !” shrieked Mrs Rattray, suddenly spotting Irwin.
Mrs Quayle looked in the direction in which Mrs Rattray was pointing and saw that her companion was correct; it was indeed the man who had put her in the tree.
The fire engine, driven by Jeffers, with Mrs Quayle, Mrs Rattray and Mrs Salinas seated alongside him in the cab and Blakey standing on the running board, was making its way down the edge of the sixteenth fairway. Fifty yards distant on the green Irwin was facing a difficult downhill putt to save his par. His life, as well as his putt, was soon to go downhill, and difficulties of a much greater magnitude were to engage his attention as Mrs Quayle, the glint of revenge in her eye, now suddenly grabbed hold of the steering wheel and wrenched it round so that the fire engine was pointing directly at Irwin.
“There was that man,” she cried. “There was that man! Or soon will be!”
Realising Mrs Quayle's intentions, and having no wish to be cited as an accomplice on a charge of manslaughter, Jeffers took a firmer grip on the steering wheel and attempted to wrench it back. Mrs Quayle fought back spiritedly but Jeffers’ superior strength told and he had just about managed to get the fire engine back on course when Mrs Salinas, as anxious as
Mrs Quayle that Irwin should be punished for his sins, came to the assistance of her friend and commenced to beat Jeffers about the head with her handbag. When Jeffers let go of the wheel to protect himself Mrs Quayle was able to re-aim the fire engine squarely at Irwin once more, whilst Mrs Rattray, conscious of the fact that all Jeffers need do to prevent Mrs Quayle running down Irwin was to take his foot off the gas, dropped to the floor, grabbed hold of his foot and held it hard on the accelerator.
*
His worst fears realised, and trouser-less to boot, on fleeing from Jessica’s bedroom Southfield had almost fallen down the staircase in his rush to put distance between himself and her husband. Having gained the back garden he made his escape through the wicket gate which led directly onto the golf course, Fidler following him in hot and close pursuit.
Southfield was running in a blind panic, not heading anywhere in particular but simply trying to get away, so it was completely by accident that he now found himself on the eighteenth fairway heading towards the green.
*
The same couldn't be said for Garland, who was also running down the eighteenth fairway towards the green with Constable Fearon in hot pursuit – Constable James having had to stop for a rest - as he knew exactly where he was heading. The eighteenth green was close to the exit to the course, which in turn was close to the car park, where his car was, and his car was both the sanctuary and the means of escape from the bastard of a policeman who was chasing him.
It hadn't yet occurred to him that he would be unable to get into his car, as he kept his keys in his trousers pocket and his trousers were in his golf bag, which was back at the sixteenth green in a bunker, but then the minds of people who are being chased by a policeman are usually fully engaged in ensuring that the policeman doesn’t catch up with them. However when the car park came into view, and his car with it, and he automatically reached for the keys in his trousers pocket, he realised that he hadn’t got any trousers, much less a trousers pocket, and was forced to make a hurried change in his plans.
*
Captain's Day Page 19