Foul Ball

  Logistics were on Proton’s mind. He had a small map of Bartislard that he had pilfered from the Tropico, and he sat down with a pencil, drawing arrows on it everywhere.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Cormack.

  ‘This is going to be crucial, Cormack,’ he said. ‘The Negus’ entrance to Bartislard – an historic event with you at its centre. How this plays off is critical to our eventual success.’

  ‘Do you want me to ride on a donkey?’

  ‘A what? No riding on anything, Cormack. Are you thinking of the cow? Keep your mind off the cow, now. She’s perfectly safe.’

  She was, in fact, on a cart, not far off the main pace, sucking at a huge handful of straw that had been shoved through her muzzle to keep her quiet, quite content for now.

  ‘No, this thing is going to be momentous, mate. They’re going to be talking about this for centuries, millennia to come. I need a red crayon.’

  Proton found one in a pocket and started drawing a series of vivid red arrows out from the centre of the map, like spokes radiating from a wheel hub, seemingly in opposition to the pale pencil shadings Cormack had supposed represented the main column of his army.

  ‘Is the march on Bartislard purely ceremonial, Proton, or are you expecting resistance?’ he said.

  ‘Resistance to what? No, no, no. Not at all. But we must plan for all eventualities.’

  ***

  Chapter Fifty Nine

  Stanton Bosch was planning for all eventualities too. He was holed up in what might have been a garret, if the A-frames in Bartislard had such a thing, in a rather insalubrious part of town, with Traction, the old butler. They had the kitbag that Traction had brought from the Opikarp opened on the floor.

  ‘There ain't enough in here to resist a Girl Guide platoon, never mind a legendary army fired with religion. What kind of a fishy fellow is this Opikarp?’

  ‘Well, he’s confined to a tank so I think it was hard for him to procure the necessary armaments on the sly and there was the question of a baggage allowance.’

  ‘Still, we must makes do. We must makes do. Me and the other Boschs would be a handful for anyone, even if we was armed with rubber bands.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Traction.

  ‘Where’s the funds? Where’s the dosh?’

  ‘You know, he’s had a spot of bother with the authorities in connection with the Emperor’s assassination. I don’t think he has the access to the resources he once had.’

  ‘He’s leaving me in the lurch. That was always his way. Hark at me, young man. Never trust a fish. Especially if you is a fisherman.’

  ‘Probably good advice.’

  ‘Still, we’lls make do. We wills make do.’

  Stanton Bosch started moving the armaments from the kitbag and piled them on the floor.

  ‘Now, then. I hears theys on the march already. We have very little time. I have one of my agents down - muzzled, she is, in a cart. And the mock Negus is ineffective – frightened to answer the phone since you called him. So it’s up to me, you and the other Boschs. This ain't going to be pretty, young boy. Nasty foul work afoot. I hopes you is prepared.’

  ***

  Chapter Sixty

  They could see Bartislard ahead now - the strange Alpine roofs like enormous callipers laying out the forest below, and the giant SplatterHorn, its narrowed shadow darkening the U-shaped valley along its length. Cormack could hardly believe they had climbed to its summit - it looked so formidable from here, the snowcap blinding in the early sunlight.

  Proton was trying to formulate the right mix of military and ceremonial.

  ‘I want you at the front. That is only appropriate,’ he said to Cormack. ‘But realistically, we need to protect you.’

  ‘I thought you said there would be no resistance. I thought I was the Negus. I thought I was inevitable.’

  ‘A stray bullet can kill you, Cormack. Same as anybody else,’ said Proton and left it at that.

  He settled on a diamond formation, with Cormack in the middle, but the road had narrowed and it proved impractical, so he split the front-runners into squads with Cormack in the third. He would gauge the reaction to the first two and then decide exactly in what manner the Negus was to come upon Bartislard.

  The first squad set off at a quick march. Proton had made them fix their tunics and their leggings so that they looked as military as possible, and they were to carry the muskets in front of them, as though they were running with bayonets, in order to generate maximum excitement.

  ‘Perhaps they could fire a shot or something,’ Bernard suggested to Proton. ‘Indicate they are an army. Bartislard is such a strange place. They might just blend in if you're not careful.’

  They watched from a way down the path as the squad ran at a jog towards the town centre. It turned to negotiate a bend and disappeared from sight, lost somewhere in the narrow cobbled streets. They waited anxiously for a few minutes, but there was no sound of gunfire, or of cheering for that matter, and Proton decided to send the second squad, which disappeared just as completely, just as quickly, so there was nothing for it except to send Cormack at the head of the army proper.

  They arranged him at the front of the column, lifted to shoulder height in a small bath chair procured from one of the carts, tied between two bamboo poles. Proton, who was to provide covering fire if necessary, was at his left and Bernard, who had wanted a good view of the whole coming-upon thing, was at his right.

  Cormack insisted the cow be brought forward and she was demuzzled and arranged on an open cart, like Cleopatra at her feast in the fresco by Tiepolo.

  They set off slowly, but it was not long before they encountered the first of the citizens.

  ‘Little boys!’ cried Proton. ‘Run and tell your parents! The Negus has come to Bartislard!’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Negus! Cormack, sit up straight!’

  But the boys were not impressed, and shouldered past the front ranks to get across the street to play with their marbles.

  Proton had the column swing down where the first squad had disappeared, and they found themselves in a small market district, where vendors sold fruits and vegetables and spices and savouries from trays and racks.

  ‘This is quite charming,’ said Cormack, from his perch. ‘I don’t remember anything like this from our first visit.’

  ‘Yes, funny how you can visit a place for a second time and it can feel quite different to the way you remember it,’ said Bernard, who was walking beneath him. ‘Many years since I was in Bartislard. I should have visited more often.’

  The soldiers stopped to buy provisions, and Proton complained bitterly that military discipline should not have broken down so readily in the face of such meagre temptation, but the men were hungry from the day’s march and their women and children behind in the carts would be grateful for what they could afford. They folded their purchases in their handkerchiefs and put them in their pockets.

  ‘Disappointing that we’re not welcomed or recognized,’ said Bernard. ‘Shows that the influence of the Shamanic Throat has waned somewhat over the years. Only to be expected, I suppose. I don’t fully understand young people.’

  They made two uninterrupted tours of the city centre, which they passed round largely unimpeded. Even the tourists were uninterested in what they presumed was a dismal local parade laid on for their entertainment.

  Proton had had enough. They decided to make for the Tropico.

  ‘Well, it was not totally disastrous,’ said Bernard as he, Cormack, and Proton settled in the lobby - the army was waiting outside. ‘There was some interest, all the same.’

  ‘There was interest in the cow, Bernard. Because she was disporting herself in the most disgusting manner and she has no legs.’

  ‘I fear you want results too fast, Captain. This thing will take time to get off the ground. Give it a chance to generate its own momentum. You are doing everything correctly. The rest will follow.’

  ??
?How are we doing with the uniSwarm connection?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is business as usual on Foul Ball. All circuits are down. Bartislard remains as remote from the outside Universe as Shambalah.’

  ‘Bugger it!’

  The army was told to stand down and, as the manager of the Tropico didn’t want them blocking the streets in front of his hotel, Proton told them to go back beyond the city walls, and camp for the night with the wagons and the women and the children. There was much grumbling of the ‘I wonder why we even bothered to come’ variety. Cormack, Bernard and Proton were given leave to stay in the Tropico. The cow was not welcome and, in any case, was feeling drained and dirty and wanted to be alone.

  She was moved on her stretcher to pass the night in the woods, amongst the kush-kush grass, away from the camp.

  ***

  Chapter Sixty One

  Cormack opened his wardrobe that evening to look for a coat hanger for his robe and instead found Stanton Bosch.

  ‘Hello, Stanton Bosch,’ he said. ‘What on Earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Shush, skinny man,’ he said. ‘Why you don’t answer your phone?’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s working properly.’

  ‘Now lookee here,’ said the Bosch. ‘Run and tell the cow, everything is prepared. I have a young boy named Traction giving me a hand.’

  ‘Traction?’

  ‘Aye, Traction. Run and tell the cow the Opikarp sent him and all is prepared.’

  ‘Are you still working for the Pantheistic Syllogists, Stanton Bosch?’

  ‘Shush, skinny man. Don’t speak that name so loud.’

  At that moment, Proton entered the room.

  ‘Cormack, do you have a toothbrush I could borrow…?’ he began but then his eyes caught sight of something unexpected inside Cormack’s wardrobe.

  ‘Wait…’ he said. ‘Is that Stanton Bosch inside your wardrobe, Cormack?’

  Stanton Bosch leapt from his hiding place and hurled himself at Proton, who was taken unawares because he was only in a bathrobe. The thought of hand-to-hand combat, which had admittedly loomed large in his mind earlier in the day when he had been at the head of the army, had been quite forgotten now that he was changed to bathe.

  ‘What the…? Stanton Bosch, man!’ bawled Proton, but the Bosch had got him tight around the flannel belt and was pulling at it from both ends so that it was round him like a garrotting wire. Proton looked down in confusion and tried pulling at his hands, but they were scaly and greasy and he couldn’t get a grip, so he puffed out his belly and broke the grasp that way.

  Stanton Bosch came at him again, getting him in a headlock, and Proton could feel the hard bone around his elbow crunching against his ear. This time the Bosch’s grease worked against him, because Proton was able to twist his head and slide it out, and once he was free, he charged across the room and grabbed at a chair and turned to Stanton Bosch, who was himself looking for appropriate weaponry, and started smashing it on him.

  The Bosch took the blows without raising an arm in defence and then, when Proton was exhausted, bent to the floor to pick up a broken piece of chair leg that had dropped by his feet, and started thrusting it with snarls at Proton’s chest. He had Proton on the back foot and he pushed him along until he was cornered. Then he raised the splintered chair leg like an Aztec Chief, with Proton, his sacrifice.

  The door flew open with a smack, and six bio-suited individuals stormed in, laser guns at the ready.

  It was the remainder of the Praetorian Guard, descended from the SplatterHorn, two weeks ago.

  ‘Put the chair leg down, Stanton Bosch,’ said the largest, ‘or we shoot.’

  Stanton Bosch gave them a crafty look, and plunged the chair leg down on Proton’s chest.

  The Guards let loose a volley of shots, striking the Bosch all over his bony body, but he was still able to finish the motion with some force, and Proton had a large piece of splintered wood rammed into his chest.

  Proton looked at Stanton Bosch and looked at the chair leg sticking out of him.

  ‘Why won’t you bloody die, you God awful Bosch?’ he screamed, but Stanton Bosch only stared at him a while with his mad sky-blue eyes, and then turned and ran for the open window, jumping through it, and dropping thirty feet onto the street below.

  ***

  Chapter Sixty Two

  Proton’s wounds, once they had got the chair leg from him, turned out to be largely superficial. There were lots of splinters that needed to be carefully removed, and a fair amount of shallow scratches and cuts that looked much better when they were cleaned with alcohol, but the real damage was to his pride.

  ‘What the hell was Stanton Bosch doing here?’ he asked one of the Guards, Corporal Meson. ‘And why was he attacking me?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Meson. ‘After we lost you and Pranzi and the Candidate in the volcano, we came back to Bartislard and we’ve been staying at the Tropico. We were out on a hike in the forest this morning and when we got back, the manager said you’d checked in. We couldn’t believe it. We’d thought you were dead. We came to investigate.’

  ‘Captain,’ said another Guard. ‘We found this on the Candidate.’ It was Cormack’s relay stick phone. They’d been searching him in a corner of the room whilst they dealt with Proton.

  ‘Cormack!’ shouted Proton. ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘It’s some kind of communication device, Captain,’ said the Guard.

  ‘Oh, my Lord! Cormack, what have you been working behind my back? Cormack, mate, I thought we had a plan! I thought we were working together! What the hell was Stanton Bosch doing in your wardrobe?’

  Cormack decided that any explanation he gave would probably be insufficient, so he stayed silent, and Proton reluctantly gave the order to have him handcuffed and tied to the bedstead until they worked out what to do with him.

  ‘We need to get off this planet as quickly as possible,’ said Proton.

  ‘That is no problem now, Captain,’ said Meson, and when he saw that Proton did not take his meaning, he asked, ‘Where have you been these past two weeks? How long did it take you to escape from the volcano?’

  ‘We escaped from the volcano almost immediately, Corporal,’ said Proton. ‘No thanks to you.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard that the Emperor is dead?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Assassinated by a middle-aged Cramptonian. She blew him up with a polo mallet.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘The timing is propitious.’

  ‘It is beyond propitious. It is divine. You’re back with me, Guards?’

  ‘Of course, Captain! But where is Pranzi?’

  Proton swallowed hard.

  ‘She didn’t make it,’ he gulped. ‘She never made it out of the volcano…’

  ‘Oh no…’

  ‘We salute her memory and we press on without her,’ he added briskly.

  Then he turned to Cormack, chained to the bedstead.

  ‘Cormack, my boy,’ he said. ‘What the hell are you trying to do to me? You’re on my side, right?’

  But Cormack didn’t get a chance to reply because at that moment a small boy, wearing leggings and a leather tunic and carrying an ancient musket, rushed into the room.

  ‘Captain!’ he gasped. ‘The army is under attack. Out in the woods!’

  ***

  Chapter Sixty Three

  The cow was positioned imperiously on a déballage of velvet cushions she had stolen from a cart and carefully arranged with her teeth and tongue, and was able to take in all the action from her commanding vantage point.

  The Boschs, there were a dozen, had rushed the main encampment soon after noon, when the men were making preparations for lunch, and had met with little resistance. They had cut a wave through the camp and had laid waste to the tents and killed many of the men in the most violent and horrific fashion, flailing at them with their cudgels, and spearing them with their swords in front of their wives and children. I
n fact, they had had little use for the more sophisticated weapons that the Opikarp had sent them, preferring hand to hand combat and the feel of the steel in their victims’ flesh.

  The cow watched the carnage with a detached air, twirling the inevitable blade of kush-kush grass along her sopping lips, as yet another bemused volunteer, risen from his soup, was run through with a Bosch sword. It was, as Proton had insisted, not much of an army, neither ceremonial, nor military, but primarily dilettante, and its rout was achieving nothing much strategically. She thought perhaps she had better call them off, but was loathed to give the order when she was so comfortable on her cushions. She might have to get up to do it, which would be annoying, and in any case once the blood frenzy was upon the Boschs, she supposed that they couldn’t be stopped just so.

  She would wait for the word that Proton had been killed before doing anything further. It was just too fabulous to wallow like this, she thought, and she curled herself into a tight little ball, and shut her eyes, and soon she was fast asleep as the Boschs whirled and hurled around her.

  ***

  Chapter Sixty Four

  Proton had decided to leave the army to fight on its own. They were, after all, he resolved, an army – albeit an army of useless slackers – and must be judged capable of defending themselves against a dozen bloodthirsty, if remarkably sinewy, old men. His focus must be on the fate of the disappointing Negus, especially now that it had proved itself traitorous, and his flight from Foul Ball.

  The journey from the Tropico to the landing strip was, in his mind and perhaps otherwise, fraught with all kinds of terrible dangers and Proton was consumed by fear - enough to make the horrific first trip down the Leech, when they had seen the silvered hang-gliders, seem to him now a mere Sunday School picnic. They commandeered a tuk-tuk from the landing bay, east of the town, and set off down the Leech with a chug.

  Soon they were imagining they heard Stanton Bosch himself, at first in the jungle, cooing like a pigeon, and then whizzing along the banks, and then in a phantom tuk-tuk, which was making a throbbing sound like an asthmatic panda. Once they saw the glow of blue neon ahead in a gloomy bend of the river and Proton placed a scout on the bank to check from the shore. But they were mistaken, because when they had reconnoitred and assessed the danger and had slowly edged their tuk-tuk round the curve, they could see only a row of bluebells close to the shoreline making fanciful reflections on the water below.