The Garden of Unearthly Delights

  ‘But I’ve no pads, sir,’ said Maxwell, who knew as much about cricket as he did about architecture, and didn’t fancy losing an eye for sport.

  ‘Get someone to lend you a pair, tell them Mr Pederast gave you permission.’

  ‘But sir, I—’

  ‘Cut along,’ said Mr Pederast. ‘Or I’ll take you up to my study and you know what that means.’

  ‘I think I could hazard a guess,’ said Maxwell.

  ‘Off on your way then.’

  Maxwell weighed up the pros and cons. He could easily just chin Mr Pederast and don the mortar board and gown. But then he did cut a far more convincing figure as a cricketer. If he went over to the pavilion he could probably talk his way out of actually playing and he might be able to learn a few things also.

  ‘Come on, Brown,’ said Maxwell. ‘The honour of the school’s to play for.’

  William hurried after Maxwell. Beyond the earshot of Mr Pederast, he asked, ‘Maxwell, why did you call that man sir? What’s a cricket match? What are pads? What does a reserve do? Who is Flashman? Why did you refer to me as Brown? What’s a fag? What’s a boot hole? What—’

  ‘William,’ said Maxwell, ‘shut up.’

  They passed through a gap in the hedge and strode out towards the pavilion. And here young William caught his first sight of the game in play and the players, er, playing.

  He made a kind of strangled gasping sound and fell to his hands and knees.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Maxwell asked.

  ‘It is the Pantheon, prostrate yourself.’

  ‘Certainly not. William, get up at once.’

  ‘The Pantheon.’ William began to babble away in words Maxwell took to be Latin.

  ‘Get up, before somebody sees you.’

  ‘Get down before they see you.’

  Maxwell rolled his eyes and sat down beside William. ‘What are you going on about?’ he asked.

  ‘The Pantheon. The gods beneath.’

  ‘The animals?’ Maxwell, having put two and two together and come up with a number substantially in excess of the approved four, had by now convinced himself that the clothed animals were those of the trained and performing circus variety and that this was some kind of entertainment. He did worry about Jennings having his skull cleaved open, of course, but accidents will happen. Ask Aspinell. ‘Gods?’ asked Maxwell. ‘Are you serious?’

  William pointed a trembly finger towards the bowler. ‘Papa Legba,’ he whispered. ‘The tiger is Ju Ju Hand. The panther, Ouanga. There is Jephthah and Papa Nebo and Dr Poo-Pah-Doo. The bull is Unkosibomvu.’ And so on and so forth, until he had named all of the visiting side.

  ‘And the gods played cricket?’ whispered Maxwell to himself. ‘I wonder if that’s a lost Jimi Hendrix track.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. William, I never had you down for a superstitious lad. Surely that doesn’t conform to your scientific outlook on the world.’

  ‘Up until now I considered myself an atheist.’

  ‘Yes, but gods? That’s pushing things a tad.’

  Papa Legba, if such was he, bowled a serious googly, but the new batsman managed to catch it before the off stump and push it out past the silly mid on for a leg by.

  Ju Ju Hand leapt up to take the catch, but fumbled his Ju Ju hands and the ball caught him squarely between the eyes, felling him to the ground.

  ‘Beware the thunderbolt,’ cried William, assuming the foetal position.

  Maxwell looked on, as the team-mates of Ju Ju Hand gathered about the fallen fumbler, who was presently stretchered away from the field of play.

  ‘I don’t think they’re gods,’ said Maxwell. ‘I don’t know what they are, but I don’t think they’re gods.’

  ‘You don’t think so, really?’

  ‘Nope.’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘Not gods.’

  William climbed to his feet. ‘Please forgive me for that unseemly lapse. We get a lot of religious dogma drummed into our heads.’

  ‘So what’s new?’ Maxwell helped the lad to his feet. ‘Let’s get over to the pavilion. There might be some tea and cucumber sandwiches.’

  As they approached the pavilion, Maxwell counselled William to hold his peace. ‘Just shut up and leave all the talking to me,’ he said.

  The pavilion was everything a cricket pavilion should be. All painted white, little clock tower jobbie with weather-vane. Steps up. Veranda, Lloyd loom chairs. Posts to lean against. That certain smell that only cricket pavilions have, the one which is impossible to describe.

  Maxwell swaggered up the steps, wearing a foolish grin.

  ‘You there,’ called a chap in whites, who was lounging against one of the posts-to-lean-against and cradling a glass of what seemed to be Pimms in a languid hand. ‘Who are you there then?’

  ‘Are you talking to me there?’ Maxwell asked.

  ‘Yes, you there, you.’

  ‘Flashman,’ said Maxwell. ‘Harry Flashman, and this is my fag, Brown.’

  William tugged upon his forelock.

  ‘I don’t think I know any Flashman.’

  ‘I don’t think I know you,’ said Maxwell. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Archer. Lord Edgar Archer. I’m the side’s captain.’

  ‘Archer? Do you have a brother in service as a knight?’

  ‘My elder brother Jeffrey. Do you know him?’

  ‘Like a brother,’ said Maxwell. ‘He recently loaned me his horse, Black Bess.’

  ‘Damn me for a bullygarve,’ quoth Archer minor. ‘He won’t even let me take her for a canter round the paddock.’

  ‘Brotherly love, eh?’ said Maxwell.

  ‘We never did,’ said Archer minor, reddening at the cheeks. ‘He never told you that, did he?’

  ‘We’re very close,’ said Maxwell, making a knowing face.

  ‘Swipe me. Well, I mean, care for a tot of something?’

  ‘A drink would be nice, and a sandwich. Come on, Brown.’

  ‘Hold on there a moment.’ Archer made a grave face. ‘Something’s not right here.’

  ‘What?’ asked Maxwell, making a fist behind his back.

  ‘Can’t have fags in the long room.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Maxwell. ‘Wait here, Brown. I’ll bring you something out.

  William shook his head, shrugged and sat down on the pavilion steps. Maxwell followed Archer inside.

  ‘Welly-well-well,’ said Lord Archer, pouring Maxwell a drink. ‘Fancy you, er, knowing the brother.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ Maxwell accepted his drink and took a swig. ‘Have you been at the University long?’

  ‘Nearly three years. Another two and I’ll be ready to mount up and join the golden knights.’

  ‘Once you’ve learned all the subtle nuances of knight-speak though. Must know your plumpit from your bullygarve.’

  ‘Too true. But what are you doing here?’

  ‘In the pavilion, do you mean? Mr Pederast sent me over to stand in as a reserve, since poor Jennings took a spill. I don’t normally play, but, you know how it is.’

  Archer nodded as if he did. But he didn’t.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Maxwell, ‘chum to chum, as it were. I’ve only been here for a week or so and I don’t know the form. How would one go about getting to see the Sultan?’

  ‘Walk in, clip him about the ear, sit yourself down and make your demands known.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Maxwell, and to make a change from scratching his head, this time he pulled upon the lobe of his left ear. ‘That Sounds a rather cavalier attitude to take. Shouldn’t one make an appointment? Go through certain channels?’

  ‘What? To see the silly Sultan?’

  ‘Silly Sultan?’

  ‘Daft old geezer. Deaf as a dumblat.’

  ‘Dumblat?’

  ‘Keevle, swimpit, purgler.’

  ‘Purgler,’ said Maxwell. ‘Right, yes.’

  ‘Shout,’ said Archer. ‘Tell him exactly what you want. Say, Just trim the sides, you old Purgle
r. None off the top!’

  ‘None off the top?’ Maxwell reverted to head scratching. ‘None off the top? I am rightly confused. Am I not correct in thinking that the Sultan Sergio Rameer controls this entire University?’

  ‘Controls the University?’ Archer spat Pimm's over Maxwell and fell about in a fit of hysterical laughter. ‘Sergio Rameer, control the University? That’s a good’n. I must tell the chaps. Someone’s been pulling your chain, old fellow, 'cos you’re a new-bug.’

  ‘Let me get this straight.’ Maxwell flicked Pimm’s from his shoulders. ‘The Sultan Sergio Rameer does not control the University?’

  ‘No, sorry, sorry.’ Archer fought to keep his hilarity in check. ‘You’ve not started on Latin yet?’

  ‘No,’ Maxwell shook his head, spraying droplets of Pimm’s, hither and thus.

  ‘So you don’t know what Sultan means?’

  ‘Apparently not. Please enlighten me.’

  ‘It’s Latin, old fellow. Solum tonsor. Solum Tonsor. Sol-ton, Sultan.’

  ‘I’m no better off for this explanation.’

  Archer sighed. ‘Solum means the bottom, the bottom of anything, beneath. Tonsor means barber. So the Solum Tonsor, The Soltan, means barber below everything. The barber here, at the bottom of the world. The Sultan is the University barber.’

  ‘What?’ went Maxwell. ‘What? What? What?’

  ‘And as for Sergio Rameer. Your pronunciation is all to fault. It’s not Sergio Rameer. It’s Sir John Rimmer. Sir John Rimmer.’

  20

  ‘Sir John Rimmer?’ Maxwell took a step back. His brain took a giant leap. Sir John Rimmer? He of the Hidden Tower? He who’d done the dirty on Maxwell and somehow bucketed him forward a hundred years to land up in the mess he had landed up in. So to speak.

  That Sir John Rimmer?

  Well, it was unlikely to be another.

  And Sultan really meant barber?

  ‘One thing,’ Maxwell stood swaying, waving a finger in the air. ‘One thing. If Sir John Rimmer is the Sultan.’

  ‘Solum tonsor,’ said Archer.

  ‘Solum tonsor, yes. If Sir John Rimmer is Solum tonsor, who controls this university?’

  ‘The principal of course.’

  ‘And the principal’s name is?’

  ‘Count Waldeck,’ said Archer. ‘Count Otto Waldeck.’

  As if at the name, a cheer went up outside. Archer loped over to the door. ‘Damn and buggery!’ he swore. ‘Fudger run out, that leaves you as last man in.’

  ‘Last man in?’ Maxwell’s brain had turned to soup. His thoughts waded about, knee deep in Brown Windsor. How could they be here? One hundred years after the great transition. Sir John Rimmer as a barber and Count Waldeck, whom Maxwell was certain he had shot dead, as principal?

  ‘It’s ludicrous,’ said Maxwell. ‘It just can’t be.’

  ‘Fraid it is. Damn Fudger, out for a duck.’

  ‘Duck?’ Maxwell slumped into a Lloyd loom chair. ‘I’m losing this. I can’t make any sense out of this at all.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ Archer was at Maxwell’s legs. ‘Let me help you.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Maxwell didn’t really care.

  ‘Getting you padded up. You’re our last hope, Flashman. Have to beat the visitors.’

  ‘Visitors?’ Maxwell shook his head this way and that.

  ‘Visiting side,’ said Archer. ‘Bloody animals, they are.’ He thrust a cricket bat into Maxwell’s hand. ‘Honour of the school, Flashman, all down to you now.’

  ‘Honour?’ mumbled Maxwell. ‘Honour?’

  ‘Slay ‘em,’ said Archer. ‘Slay ‘em.’

  Somewhere, deep down in the Brown Windsor soup of Maxwell’s brain a certain molecular transformation occurred. Whether it was the old ribonucleic acid, or one of those cellular lads, affecting a metamorphosis, was difficult to say. But the Brown Windsor began to bubble, change from muddy brown to bloody red —to Campbell’s Cream of Tomato — and then began to boil.

  The steam filled Maxwell’s head with what he had come to know, but not to love, as the dreaded RED MIST itself.

  ‘Slay ‘em,’ said Archer, squeezing Maxwell’s fist about the handle of the cricket bat. ‘Slay ‘em. We only need six runs to win.’

  ‘Yeah! Slay ‘em!’ Maxwell jerked upright, and lurched to the door of the pavilion. As he stepped out into the light of the inner sun, a great cheer went up from the boys in grey who crammed the stand and the loungers in white who leaned upon posts.

  Red eyed and breathing deeply through his nose, Maxwell strode across the veranda and down the steps.

  Had cameras been rolling, there would have been a close-up on his eyes. Another on the hand as it gripped the bat, carried like an axe across the shoulder. One, from beneath the steps, viewing a long shot of the playing field, suddenly filled by the heel of a substantial boot. Then cut to the elephant bowler, dabbing his wrinkled black brow with an oversized red gingham handkerchief. Then cut to William looking worried. Archer wringing his hands. Faces of the lads in the stand. Faces of the visiting side.

  Back to the red eyes of Maxwell.

  Then one of those high crane shots, tracking down to follow the mighty wielder of the bat as he marched across the pitch.

  Cinematography?

  Piece of cake.

  Over the velvet field marched Maxwell, bat across his shoulder, fire behind his eyes. The wicket-keeper, a black panther who possibly answered to the name of Ouanga, archdemon to the voodoo pantheon of Gris Gris Chang Ba in the third bed-sitting-room of Hell, viewed Maxwell’s approach with a black-lipped sneer and a grin of sharkist teeth.

  ‘Come eat red leather, white boy,’ he chuckled in a manner which might have put the wind up some.

  Not Maxwell. He glared the panther bloody knives and positioned himself in the crease. With slow deliberation he did that tapping-at-the-turf thing cricketers do with the edge of the bat, prior to taking up the stance. It’s a bit like that blowing-on-the-fingertips-and-turning-the-racket-round thing tennis players do. No-one knows why they do it. Tradition possibly, or an old charter, or something. But do it they do, none the less.

  Maxwell dug in his heels, wiggled his bum and raised his willow ball-basher as you would a baseball bat.

  Tension in the crowd. Just six runs to take the match. The bowler turned away, rubbing the cricket ball up and down his crutch the way that cricketers do.

  A low rumbling growl escaped from between Maxwell’s clenched teeth.

  Fearing it a bottom burp, the wicket-keeper shifted back a pace.

  As further tension creaked amongst the crowd, the bowler slowly turned and the umpire chewed upon a brand of gum containing civet, ambergris and musk, which has no relevance here.

  Tension.

  The bowler drew in a mighty breath, his chest barrelling out, his proud tusks, polished yellow scythes, dancing with light from the underworld sun.

  Further tension.

  As Leviathan himself, the bowler took the slow run up. Great ground-shaking foot falls. Like amplified heartbeats, echoing Bah-doomp Bah-doomp. Bah-doomp. Gathering speed. Bah-doomp-bah-doomp-bah-doomp. All eyes upon the bowler as he prepared to bowl the ball.

  And tension. Solid tension. Ear-popping. Nose-bleeding. Sphincter-tightening. Gut-twisting. Trouser-wetting. TENSION!

  Six runs to take the match.

  To win the day.

  For glory.

  For honour.

  The huge arm swings. The ball let free. Maxwell, red-eyed, knuckle-white. Soar ball. Red ball. Red eyes. Red ball. Breath held.

  Bat swing. Blur of willow.

  CRACK!

  Crack! Yes, can it be? The willow on the leather? Crack. The ball bent out of shape, soaring, soaring. UP. Over the pitch. Up into the inner sky. High. Over the pavilion roof and on and on and on — A six— ‘HOWZAT!’

  ‘You’re out!’

  A gasp. A cry. A lad faints in the stand. The ball at Maxwell’s feet. A red graze of its leather imprint
ed on his right leg pad. Disaster. Calamity.

  ‘LBW, you’re out.’ The umpire raised the finger of doom.

  ‘Not out!’ Maxwell turned upon the umpire. ‘That was never out. My leg was nowhere near the stumps. You cannot be serious.’

  ‘Out, sir,’ said the umpire.

  ‘Rubbish! I’m not having that.’

  ‘You’re out, white boy,’ smirked the wicket-keeper. ‘You better keep your legs crossed in the shower.’

  ‘Shut your face,’ warned Maxwell. ‘That was never LBW.’ He swung about to glare at the stand. ‘Was that out? I ask you.’

  Heads shook doubtfully. Shoulders shrugged. Three more lads fainted. William said to Archer, ‘Was that good or bad?’

  ‘Off,’ said the umpire.

  ‘No.’

  The animal team was leaping about, tossing their caps into the air, punching the sky. As there was little chance of carrying the elephant shoulder-high from the field of their triumph, they clamoured about him, cheering, congratulating.

  ‘It was not out,’ Maxwell stamped his feet, turned once more upon the umpire and kicked the stumps from the ground.

  ‘You’re definitely out now, white boy,’ purred Ouanga.

  Maxwell stared at the creature, red eye to his yellow.

  Then he swung his bat.

  No man but one had ever swung a bat with such a force as Maxwell now swung his. And that man was, as those who know such things will know, the now legendary wielder of Clicki Ba himself, The Wolf of Kabul’s faithful man servant, Chung.

  The bat struck Ouanga a murderous blow. The panther went down amidst a hailstorm of fractured teeth. Maxwell leapt forwards to finish the job, but Ouanga was out for the count.

  A drawing in of breath.

  And a terrible hush.

  Boggle-eyed, the umpire backed away. Maxwell turned to face the winning team who gaped at him in horror. And then, with roar and howl and snort, they rushed forward in attack.

  Though Chung might have taken them on, and probably triumphed to boot, Maxwell shouted a curse, kept tight hold of his bat and ran like a hare for the stand.