Scruffy - A Diversion (36 page)

“What is it?” he said to the Sergeant. “What is the matter?”

The instant of clarity still lingered long enough for Lovejoy to know that he was trapped, and by his own weakness. He could never make the car, much less the Rock, tinder his own steam. “The hapes,” he moaned. “My trick! Midnight. Got to get there. Can’t drive.”

And here Ramirez showed that he could improvise. “I’ll drive you,” he said, “I’ll take you.”

Lovejoy was now fighting against final mists which were closing in upon him and through which he saw Treugang Ramirez, not as a nasty-looking little man wearing a Prussian hair-piece and thick-lensed spectacles, but as his saviour angel descended from heaven. “Will you,” he muttered. “You’re a pal, Ramirez. I always said you were O.K. Password for tonight! ‘Silly mid-on.’ Get it? Cricket! Keys in m’right-hand pocket. Door sticks when you unlock it. Got to lift it a bit. That’s all.”

Between them the barman and Ramirez managed to get Lovejoy out of the pub and into the car. It was fourteen minutes to twelve. The barman helped Ramirez into the driver’s seat and asked, “Can you make it all right?” Ramirez nodded. “Look after him,” the barman said, “he’s a good bloke, Lovejoy. None better.”

“I’ll look after him,” Ramirez promised.

“You’re a good scout,” said the barman. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Fighting off the fumes of alcohol in his own head Ramirez got the engine going and started off through the sleeping town, past the Moorish Castle and on up the hill. Two-thirds there he was met by headlights going down the hill, and knew from what Lovejoy had spilled in the bar that this must be Major Bailey descending. He didn’t dim his own headlights and in the glare Major Bailey saw only that it was Lovejoy’s vehicle and not who was at the wheel.

As they approached the zone in which the apes were kept and Ramirez saw a flashlight signalling in the middle of the road, he slowed down sufficiently to pull Lovejoy erect beside him. When he arrived at the military road-block and the light momentarily was shone upon them he managed to repeat the password “Silly mid-on” and was waved through. He had already possessed himself of the keys in Lovejoy’s pocket as directed and let himself into the area of the cages and cages within cages.

Inside he found everything as Lovejoy had described it. In one corner of the inner cage sat a full-grown female monkey, a most ugly and ill-favoured specimen whose eyes didn’t seem to match, and who huddled in the corner moaning and making little chittering noises.

In the other corner, wide awake, his honey-coloured eyes glistening with malevolence, sat Scruffy, the ape who had stolen his wig, and the last surviving member of the Gibraltar pack.

Every so often the ill-favoured female would creep forward timidly and present herself to the male, wrong end first. When she did this he would throw dirt at her until she went away. Oh, everything was indeed as Sergeant Lovejoy had revealed.

For the moment the vista opening before his eyes of success unparalleled conquered the quantities of alcohol he had consumed and made Ramirez temporarily sober and able both to think and to act. Here at hand was the opportunity not only to find himself one day standing before the Fuehrer to receive the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, but likewise to have his revenge upon the British swine who had always scorned and derided him even while accepting his drinks, and who had been the chief witness of the humiliating episode of the stolen hairpiece. The plan was already whirling about in his head. Somewhere, somehow, he would come upon the weapon wherewith to exterminate the last two remaining apes and not only that but in the morning Sergeant Lovejoy— Sergeant indeed—would be found in a drunken slumber upon the scene and blamed for it.

It was all so neat and tidy that Ramirez could barely refrain from hugging himself.

The first thing to be done was to get Sergeant Lovejoy out of the car and on to the premises. The second was to secure a weapon.

The former called for a serious effort, during the execution of which Ramirez discovered that he was not as sober as he thought he was, but still he managed. He dragged the now wholly unconscious Lovejoy out from the vehicle, got one of the Sergeant’s arms around his shoulder and, puffing and groaning, worked him through the doors and into the enclosure from which it was his wont to keep a watch upon the apes. During this manoeuvre the female ape presented herself once more, had dirt thrown at her again, and retired. Scruffy sat in his corner watching Ramirez out of his baleful light-brown eyes as though trying to evaluate the newcomer, what was going on, and how the proceedings might be turned to his advantage.

With Lovejoy deposited on a bench conveniently there, Ramirez next set about the problem of the weapon. He knew that if he could lay his hands on a fire-arm, frightened as he was of them, he would not let this opportunity escape him. The question was where and how. There were armed troops in the vicinity he knew, but the mere thought of attempting to steal a rifle or a submachine-gun from one of these was more than he could bear. He then recalled a small shack at the entrance of the cages, identified by Lovejoy as the headquarters of himself and Major Bailey, and it struck him that surely he would find some kind of armament there to be used in case of emergency.

He hurried out and entered the small hut. His first glance showed him there was no rifle there, not even so much as a pistol in a holster hanging up. There was a cot, a table, a primus stove, a tea kettle, a tin of tea and some unwashed cups, a tobacco tin and a few odds and ends. He was about to write this off in disgust when a coloured box upon the shelf caught his eye, a box with a curious legend on the side which spelled out the word “Partyloons”. He inspected the box further and on the cover saw a picture of a boy blowing up a huge rubber balloon and again the inscription “Partyloons’, with the addition “Finest Rubber Party Balloons—blow up to enormous size.” With trembling fingers he lifted the cover of the box and saw an assortment of more than two dozen coloured balloons. Something he had once heard the Sergeant say flashed back into his memory and he now knew that in his shaking hands he held the means to destroy the last two apes on the Rock of Gibraltar.

His mind went back to the time once in the Admiral Nelson when Lovejoy had produced just such an article from his pocket and blown it up in a demonstration of the method he used to control Scruffy or the other apes when they got out of hand. “Reduces ’im to a jelly,” he remembered Lovejoy saying, plus his admonishment that at the most one or two turned the trick. More might overwhelm their nerves and kill them.

Tucking the box of “Partyloons” under his arm he returned to the cages and set about his work of destruction as best he was able, for he was still quite drunk and his exertions had further depleted him. Lovejoy was snoring peacefully on his bench and was sure to remain that way until morning when he would be discovered amongst the debris of shredded balloons with two dead apes.

There remained now only to send up what might be most aptly termed a trial balloon for the purpose of verifying its effect. Treugang selected a red one, approached that part of the cage where Scruffy crouched watching him, placed the open end to his lips and commenced to blow. The effects exceeded his wildest expectations, leaving no doubt in his mind but that it would work.

At the very first swelling of the article from the size of a lemon to that of an orange to that of a grapefruit, a change came over the big monkey. His lips were drawn back from his fangs, his eyes grew large and filled with terror though he continued to stare transfixed and hypnotized; his limbs began to tremble and he took on every aspect of a person on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

As the balloon increased in size with every puff that Ramirez could muster, Scruffy began to moan and shake all over. He covered his eyes with his paws as though unable to look any more, and then removed his hands as though no longer able
not
to look. He beat the ground with his feet and his knuckles, tore at tufts of hair on his breast and head, whimpered and cried pitifully and in general began to come apart.

Until science has conquered the speech of apes and made communication possible, no one will ever know exactly what it was about the balloon swelling to bursting point which reduced the world’s toughest and most malignant ape to a trembling heap of frightened fur. For all anyone ever would be able to tell he might even have accepted the manifestation as something theological. It hypnotized and fascinated him the way a snake captivates a bird. Suspense unquestionably had something to do with it, the awful period of waiting for it to pop, a period extended almost beyond endurance by the excellent material and craftsmanship of the Partyloon Company.

Larger and larger grew the red balloon, now completely concealing the face and the inflating force behind it, to the point where it attracted Amelia from the far side of the cage. What she saw intrigued her enormously, but didn’t frighten her. Whatever the swelling balloon meant to Scruffy, it didn’t mean the same to Amelia.

What drew her fascinated attention was her boyfriend’s dither and disintegration. The erstwhile bully and tyrant had been reduced to a trembling coward. This didn’t in any way diminish her love and admiration for him. It merely put a different aspect on the case. It was no longer dangerous or chancy to approach him. For the first time nothing was being thrown at her. She sat a little distance away regarding Scruffy’s convulsions with grave and thoughtful contemplation in her eyes. But none of this did Treugang Ramirez see, since he was now completely concealed behind a swelling sphere, and himself growing pretty nervous as to what would happen when at last it blew up.

He didn’t have long to wait. Two more deep breaths and puffs exceeded even the most optimistic stresses the Partyloon Company had built into their product. There was a sudden sharp and ringing pop, frightening even to one who had been expecting it. A shred of torn red rubber hung from the lips of Ramirez; and his view now unimpeded, he saw Scruffy in what appeared to be mortal anguish, undone, unstrung, nerve-shattered and crying for mercy. There was no doubt but that one or two more such experiences would, with their accumulative effect, turn the trick.

But now Ramirez was likewise aware of a curious and unexpected by-product of his effort. As every action had a reaction, every gun its recoil, so Ramirez found that the rapid and consecutive gusts of boozy wind he had been exhaling into the balloon combined with the unaccustomed poison of too much alcohol in his system, had left him feeling weak, a little sick and very dizzy in the head.

An insidious fear now inserted itself into the mind of the saboteur. If inflating a fatal number of balloons could have the desired accumulative effect upon Scruffy, what would this same accumulation of effort do to him? And who would last longer, Scruffy or himself? He was feeling most queer, but deemed himself committed now beyond the point of no return. He took a second balloon, a yellow one, and began to blow. He found that he was swaying and so unsteady on his feet that he had to drop to his knees. The effort forced him to close his eyes. Either the yellow balloon was tougher or he was growing weaker, for it seemed to take many more puffs and twice as long before it exploded.

If the first effort had dizzied him, the second one had him reeling and gasping and feeling most faint, yet in his difficulty a picture marched through his mind to buoy him up and lend him strength, that of a little man wearing a small moustache and an out-size military cap pinning an Iron Cross on his chest.

Ramirez reached for a blue balloon and strained. Curtains of blood seemed to be descending over his closed eyes; his heart was pounding, his lungs heaving and there was such a roaring in his ears that he hardly heard the bang when it went off. Blindly he groped for yet another, not even aware of the colour (it turned out to be a white one) and bravely tried to fill it with what he was now convinced were his last breaths and which he therefore dedicated to that side of his family and their Fatherland which had so long obsessed him.

He blew, but more weakly. Each puff became a hell, but he would not desist. This was his moment of gallantry and devotion above the line of duty. The red before his eyes turned to maroon, then purple; the roaring in his ears a cataract of sound to be followed at last and mercifully by silence and darkness, sweet silence, sweet darkness, sweet peace that enshrouded him, as quietly he toppled over dead out but still breathing, to join the unconscious figure of Sergeant John C. Lovejoy.

Their complicated schedules permitted Tim and Felicity to snatch breakfast together every other day. Felicity was usually out of the house first, leaving Tim with a few more minutes to digest the two- or three-day-old newspapers flown in from Britain, but on this particular morning he was uniformed and capped and ready to leave the house at the same time as his wife. She looked at him with astonishment and said, “What, going up early? I suppose you just can’t bear to be away from the lovebirds.”

Tim said, “You are kindly requested not to clown, Second Officer Bailey. Procreation is a serious business, as I understand you are about to discover for yourself. I had a rotten dream last night. I dreamt that Scruffy got out of his cage, murdered the watch and then seizing Amelia in his arms committed suicide off Lovers’ Leap.”

“You should consult Madam Zaza’s Dream Book,” Felicity told him airily. “It probably means we are going to get a lot of money.” She eyed him fondly for a moment. “You’re worried, aren’t you?” she said. “Is there anything serious—I mean outside of what we know?”

Tim shrugged and said, “Stupid of me, I suppose. I passed Lovejoy going up as I came down last night. Nothing unusual in that. But he didn’t dip his lights. He always does. There was such a glare I couldn’t see who was driving.”

Felicity said, “Well Lovejoy obviously if he was going up as usual.”

Tim frowned. “That’s just it. I wasn’t sure. Silly of me. Of course it was Lovejoy, but then why didn’t he dip? When I got to the bottom of the hill I considered turning around and going back up to check. And then I thought of you here and your grandmother’s four-poster—”