The Garden of Unearthly Delights (28 page)

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 ate 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 Purgler. 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 Ser-gio-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?
[6]

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.’
[7]

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,
[8]
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 rose with a jerk (Archer, but that’s not particularly
funny), 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 (and we all know why they do
that).

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. Bahdoomp.
Gathering speed. Bah-doomp-bah-doompbah-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 imprinted 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 Glikki Ba himself, The Wolf of Kabul (applause).

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
the Wolf of Kabul 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.

The
stand was clearing fast. Small boys, clad all in grey, with faces now to match,
ran shrieking, this way, that and t’other. The chaps at the pavilion just
looked on, aghast.