Neville the Less

  * * *

  By this time Shoomba, having been crouched for half an hour over the hidden trap and having witnessed (from afar) the electrical immolation of Bill, had all but given up hope of getting home with both his legs still attached; or maybe getting home at all! He’d searched his memory for solutions and found nothing but a cloudy memory of Leg-hole Louie, who’d lost, in a most unusual way, an entire leg to a mine in Vietnam.

  ‘Heard the click of that monster the minute I stepped on ‘er,’ he used to tell the kids. ‘Armin’ itself, see? But before I knew what was happening, that leg pulled itself straight up through me bum-hole and into me body - foot and all. Biggest bloody flash an’ bang known to man come along straight away but . . . there was already nothin’ there to blow up! Self-protective reflex, the doc’s called it. Greatest case of same ever seen! Trouble is, the technique for coaxing a leg back out again ent ever got learned! Still gotta visit a bum-hole specialist once a month to get me toenails clipped!’

  Despite the grimness of that outcome (which was actually, of course, in a sense, a failure to achieve an outcome) Shoomba wished himself in possession of reflexes as powerful as those of Leg-hole Louie. Unhappily though, since both his feet remained firmly attached to the ground, it was apparently not to be the case. So he was without any idea how to save himself.

  Fortunately he was not without ideas on how to comfort himself. The rummy fortification in his camel pack, for example, was sufficient to help him stave off panic. And plots for revenge were pleasant. He had, in fact, moved on quite quickly to a grudging admiration of the cunning of that mad veteran of Afghanistan, who’d clearly suckered them all with his fake catatonia, obviously plotting all the while to pick them off, one by one. Which meant that, even if by some miracle Shoomba did manage to escape this trap, another, perhaps even worse one, would be waiting. He’d be like a frog in a field full of mouse traps, hopping from one disaster to another! No, the best way to screw up the madman’s plan was to stay put and turn his own schemer’s brain to imagining ways he might’ve, on a better day, reversed their positions!

  Oh yes! Given another chance his precautions would be wa-ay more thorough. He would, for example, check the charge on the mobile phone before putting it in his survival pack. Yes, and next time, no more Mister Nice-Guy, showing up out of concern for everyone else’s well-being. Next time it would be game on! If only the Fates allowed him this time to escape being blown up in a shower of vegetable roots!

  It was about there that his thoughts were interrupted by a grunt and a soft thud somewhere out there in the darkness. Was this it? Was the assassin coming for him? He slipped his night goggles back on and gawped to left and right. And what he saw . . . made his heart soar. Because here came precisely the miracle he’d been praying for! A confederate in arms! Dropping over the fence like a Ninja of the Lord! The faithful Hughesy! So relieved was Shoomba that it took all his reserves of restraint to stop himself either whooping for joy or, alternatively, keeling over with gratitude.

  Instead, he wet his lips and let out a long, low hiss. “Psssssst!”

  Hughesy froze. He stretched his neck to study the darkness. He looked back at the fence-top bubble of his wife’s head, which shook in the negative.

  “Psssssst!” Shoomba repeated. “Over here, mate! Philod’ron!” And very gingerly, he shook one of the towel-sized leaves.

  “Dennis?”

  “Yeah! Look! I traw donna bomb!”

  “What? You’re doing what?”

  “Ssshhh! Traw donna bomb! Watch yer step!”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Bin here hours, mate! Where ye bin?”

  “You’ve been here hours? What, since before dark?”

  “He’s killed Bill, Hughesy! Electo-fried him! Out to get the rest of us now! Ye gotta turn off the juice, mate! Or I’m next!”

  “Turn off the juice? What . . . ?”

  “Ssssshhhh! Voice down! C’mere! Come closer!”

  And so, with his own already generous measure of stealth strengthened even further, Hughesy joined Shoomba under the massive leaves and, in the flicker of Shoomba’s torch, saw the brick and the sign: You have armed an explosive device. Do not move.

  “He done in his missus too!” Shoomba whimpered, suddenly and clearly remembering facts that had never existed. “Poison! I seen it! Maybe the boy too! An’ he’s rigged the whole place to blow, to cover it up!” A whole new and utterly exceptional vision was assembling itself in his mind, even as he spoke. “’S all electrical, mate! Gotta be! Lit poor ol’ Bill up like a flare! Ye gotta get me outta here, Hughesy! Throw the main switch. Turn off the power!”

  “God in Heaven!” croaked Hughesy and, believing that Heaven was where he’d shortly be - in innumerable pieces - if he lingered long near the clearly inebriated and equally clearly trapped Shoomba, he whispered, “Wait here!” And he scuttled off, low, fast and quiet as a bandicoot, back to Missus Hughes.

  “Right. Right.” moaned Shoomba, his voice barely audible even to himself. “Okay then. That’s a plan.”