The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(179)

‘Right, Mr Charlie. I dare say you’d like the sandwich-case, too?’

‘Very well, Jock, since you insist. I suppose I should keep my strength up.’

‘Right, Mr Charlie.’ He started to melt away.

‘Jock!’

‘Yeah?’

‘There should be a few scraps of cold pheasant in the fridge.’

‘They’re still there; I don’t like pheasant, do I?’

‘They will do for the sandwiches, but at all costs remember: pheasant sandwiches are made with brown bread.’

‘Yeah.’

He went on melting away, as I did.

Melting away from Chestnut Lane to Belle Etoile Bay involves getting lost, muddy and wet; not to mention breaking your shins against nameless bits of farm machinery left around on purpose by Jerseymen. When I got to the Bay the sea was making the same sort of hoarse, defeated noise: ‘Oh gaw-blimey,’ it seemed to be moaning, “ ’ow much longer ’ave I gotter go on wiv this meaningless to-ing and fro-ing?’

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ I assured it.

I turned back towards Chestnut Lane: unlike the sea, I could look forward to pocket-flasks and sandwich-cases. That was my error: the gods keep a sharp and jealous eye on chaps who hug themselves in such expectations.

Bursting cheerfully through a hedgerow, I saw a large and tree-like shape in front of me. I thought it was Jock.

‘Jock?’ I said.

The shape took a tree-like pace towards me and hit me very hard on the temple. I fell, more slowly than you could imagine, to the ground, my face smacking the mud as gratefully as though it were a pillow. I was incapable of movement but not really unconscious. A small flashlight was turned on to me; I shut my tortured eyes against it but not before I had noticed a shoe close to my face. It was a good shoe, the sort of heavy, tan walking-shoe that I might have bought from Ducker’s of Oxford in the days when my father paid my bills.

The light went out. I felt a hand feeling my temple in a knowledgeable sort of way; it hurt damnably but there was no crepitation – I dared to hope that I might live. Then two strong hands lifted me to a kneeling position and I opened my eyes. Towering above me was a horrendous creature with a face such as hell itself would have rejected. It was near enough for me to receive its stench, which was abominable. Then its knee came up and struck the point of my jaw with a deafening, blinding smash.

Dimly-experienced things happened to me in my stupor; I was rummaged and buffeted, hoisted and wrenched. Wisely, I decided to remain asleep, and sleep I did until an excruciating pain screamed out of my right ear. I jerked wildly from the pain, which redoubled it, so I fainted, only to awake instantly with an even sharper agony. A great explosion happened close to the ear – and more pain. Awake now, in a sort of way, I mustered enough sense to remain motionless while my frightful assailant rustled away. When I was sure that he had gone I delicately explored my situation. I found that I was standing against a tree. My hands and feet were unencumbered. I tried moving my head – and screamed. Infinitely gently I raised my hands to my ear, asking them to tell my scrambled brain what it was all about. When my hands told me, I fainted again – just as you would have – and awoke instantly with another scream of pain.

My ear, you see, had been nailed to the tree.

I stood very still for what seemed an hour. Then I reached behind me and drew out the Banker’s Special pistol from my hip-pocket. I filled my lungs and opened my mouth to shout for help but a sharp agony came from my jawbone and a horrid grating noise and my tongue discovered that my teeth were all in the wrong places.

I pointed the pistol into the air and squeezed the trigger but I had not the strength to work the double-action. Using both hands I contrived to cock the hammer, then I fired. Then again. Then, with immense difficulty, once more. Jock had often acted as loader for me in the shooting field and he would recognize the three-shots distress-signal.

I waited for an eternity. I dared not spend any more cartridges on signals: I needed them in case the madman came back. I spent the time trying to keep awake – each time I started to fade out my weight came on the ear with excruciating effect – and in trying to remember whether it was Lobengula or Cetewayo who used to nail minor offenders to trees. They had to tear themselves loose, you see, before the hyenas got them.

At last I heard a bellow from Jock, the most welcome bellow of my life. I croaked an answer. The bellow came nearer. When Jock finally loomed up before me I levelled the pistol at his belly. An hour before, I would have trusted him with my life but tonight the world was insane. All I could think of was that I was not going to be hurt any more. He stepped closer. I sniffed hungrily. There was no trace of the loathly stench of the witch.

‘You all right, Mr Charlie?’ he asked.

‘Eye aws ogen,’ I explained.

‘Eh?’

‘Aw ogen,’ I explained crossly, pointing to my chin.

‘Jaw broken. Lumme, so it is.’

‘Ailed oo ee,’ I added, pointing to my ear.

He struck a match and hissed with distress when he saw the plight I was in. The nail, it seems, had been driven in to its very head; my ear had puffed up around it and was full of blood.

‘I don’t reckon I could get a claw-hammer under it, Mr Charlie. Think I’ll have to cut it.’

I didn’t want to know what he was going to do: I just wanted him to do it, so that I could lie down and get to sleep. I made vigorous motions towards the ear and shut my eyes hard.