The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends (8 page)

‘Ah,’ said Mr Bell, ‘perhaps. But surely to no great account. This world has never lacked for Scotsmen.’

‘I am sure you are right,’ said I. ‘No doubt there will be millions of his clan around by the end of the nineteenth century.’

‘Millions,’ said Mr Bell, chewing away at his ice-cream cone. ‘Millions and millions of MacTurnips. I'm sure.’

Then he accidentally bit his tongue.

There was a fair old hubbub in that grandstand. A lot of excitement in the air. A lot of ice creams being eaten and big pointy-fingered hand-shaped gloves with ‘I
AKHENATEN’ (although displayed in hieroglyphics) being waved about. A party spirit, you might say. A convivial atmosphere.

Mr Bell finished his ice cream and dabbed at his chin
with his handkerchief. ‘I am not at peace with any of this,’ he said.

‘I do not care much for those chickens,’ I replied. And there were indeed many chickens to be seen in the grandstand. ‘I never cared much for the ordinary sort. I find
these
most upsetting.’

‘They are certainly an enigma,’ said the great detective. ‘And, to my mind, anomalous. This case grows ever in complexity. There is more to every aspect than I should wish.’

‘Let us go and see Beethoven conducting the Ninth,’ said I. ‘We could come back here ten minutes ago, afterwards. So to speak.’

‘One thing at a time,’ said Mr Bell. ‘You'll see the Ninth soon enough.’

But sadly there was no truth in these words.

A chap in red silk robes and a broad-brimmed hat now strode out onto the neatly mown grass of the cricket pitch. He came from the pyramid end and took up a position of square leg. And then he bawled at us through an ivory mouth-trumpet.

‘Peoples of the world,’ he called, in good plain English. ‘Peoples of the world, welcome one and welcome all to this glorious occasion.’

I whispered into the ear of Mr Bell. ‘Am I to understand,’ I whispered, ‘that English is the universal tongue of this period?’

Mr Bell made grumbling sounds. ‘Invented by chickens?’ he muttered.

The chap in the hat continued. ‘We want you all to have a really good time today,’ was what he said. ‘So let us get into the spirit of the thing by beginning with a wave.’

Folk in the grandstand waved to the chap. The chap
waved back at them. ‘That is not precisely what I meant,’ he called out through his mouth-trumpet. ‘People in the far end of the stand there—’ and he pointed ‘—raise your hands, then the people seated to the right of them do so, then those to the right of
them
. Let's have a go. When I say . . . wait for it . . . 
go
!’

And the people at the far end of the stand raised their hands, then those next to them and so on. And when our turn came we raised ours, too, and it was rather fun.

‘It is called an Egyptian Wave,’ shouted the man standing on the nicely mown grass.

We did the Egyptian Wave a number of times. But it eventually became subject to the law of diminishing returns and the chap suggested that we should all introduce ourselves to our neighbours and then went on to entertain us with several popular songs of the day. Which were jolly enough in their way, but somewhat similar in content as each consisted of nothing more than praise for Akhenaten. By the time he led us all in a chorus of ‘For He's a Jolly Good Pharaoh’, I for one felt that perhaps Mr Bell and I should quit the grandstand for a while and seek out the cricket club bar.

Mr Bell clearly felt likewise, for he was shaking and shaking his head. ‘Wrong wrong wrong,’ said he, through tightly gritted teeth. ‘This will all have to be stopped.’

‘But surely it
is
,’ I said. ‘For none of this nonsense will be found in the pages of history.’

‘Good point,’ said Mr Bell. ‘This twisted version of events
is
unknown in our time.’

‘Probably because
you
will put it to rights,’ I said, which pleased Mr Bell, for he was a man who responded favourably to compliments.

There now came to our ears sounds of a fanfare and a great cheer arose from the grandstand crowd.

Colourful folk were marching out onto the cricket pitch – ladies most immodestly dressed, wearing very little at all, in fact, plus jugglers and clowns and elephants, too. This had more the appearance of a circus parade than a coronation. But as there were monkeys also, my enthusiasm for it went undiminished.

The monkeys called out and I called back. Called back in the monkey tongue.

And now came chickens, which I did not care for, each dressed in robes and supporting the flag of some nation or other. Then there came a mighty palanquin draped with many colourful silks and supported upon the shoulders of many Nubian slaves.

Mr Bell raised his binoculars once more to study the figure who lounged atop that palanquin, upon many a comfortable cushion amidst concubines wearing no clothes at all, munching eel pie and mash with liquor.

There was no doubt at all as to who this figure was. And why would there be, for this was to be his coronation. This was Akhenaten, God-Pharaoh of Akhetaten, known to my companion and I alone as Arthur Knapton, erstwhile cockney bootboy, Pearly Emperor and a man of considerable ambition.

Mr Bell cried out, ‘Oh no!’ and pointed with some wildness. I followed the direction of these wild pointings and my eye fell upon their cause.

The God-Pharaoh's palanquin was flanked by bodyguards, as one might reasonably expect. It was the nature of these bodyguards, however, that gave Mr Bell, and indeed myself, considerable cause for concern.

For these bodyguards were not Nubian slaves and nor were they those horrible overgrown chickens.

The bodyguards were something more and something they should not be.

‘Your dear dead mother,’ I said to Mr Bell. ‘Those bodyguards are
Martians
!’

9

r Bell reached for his ray gun.

I cried, ‘No, don't!’ in his ear.

For although my companion prided himself upon his marksmanship, I felt it imprudent to take pot-shots at a pharaoh whilst in the midst of a grandstand full of his followers.

‘You are right,’ said Mr Bell, and he patted my head and told me not to worry.

But worry I did about those horrid Martians.

There are several things known to Mankind which I believe are referred to as ‘Eternal Verities’, such as the fact that a swan can break a man's arm with its wing, that there is no such thing as a seagull, and that you should never annoy a wasp. Or indeed that if you come face to face with a tiger in the jungle, you should turn slowly around, bend over and put your head between your legs. This will scare away the tiger.

All right, gentle reader, you might have your doubts about the last one, but in the world I grew up in, it was considered an ‘Eternal Verity’. Something you just
knew
to be
true
.

Something like the fact that
Martians cannot live upon Earth because Earthly bacteria are fatal to them
.

Everybody knows
that
!

‘We are leaving,’ said Mr Cameron Bell. ‘Come, Darwin, follow me. We shall away from here and formulate a plan for Akhenaten's destruction.’

‘But we have such a good seat,’ I complained. ‘And though I do not care for the looks of those Martians, I would really rather stay and watch the show.’

‘Everything is wrong,’ said Mr Bell. ‘
Everything
. We must return to the time-ship and reset the controls. Perhaps we have fallen into some alternative past by mistake. I will need to think long and hard about these matters.’

‘Mr Freud says that music is a good therapy,’ I said, and then I ceased to speak.

Because suddenly it became rather clear to me that the crowd in our immediate vicinity were no longer viewing the goings-on upon the cricket pitch. Rather they had become intensely interested in the conversation that Mr Bell and I were having.

A conversation which to their ears must have been of considerable interest, it apparently being that between a would-be assassin and a talking ape.

I had on several previous occasions seen a crowd
turn ugly
. I recall well the lynch mob in Wormcast, Arizona, which marched upon myself and my then-employer Colonel Katterfelto in the company of flaming torches. It had all been a misunderstanding, really. I had entered the general store and enquired regarding the availability of bananas. There ensued something of a furore amongst these uneducated townsfolk, who drew the conclusion that Colonel Katterfelto was a black magician and I a witch's familiar.

That situation was not quite so far removed from the one in which I presently found myself.

‘Settle down,
please
,’ cried Mr Cameron Bell in a most
authoritative tone. ‘I am the Great Mage Bellinski and this talking ape is the creation of High Magick.’

I was not altogether certain that Mr Bell had chosen an entirely appropriate bogus explanation. But he went on.

‘This beast is a present for my dear friend Akhenaten. Should anyone harm either him or myself, the great God-Pharaoh will have them boiled alive. Do I make myself understood?’

The ugly crowd showed no immediate signs of beauteous transformation.

‘Sing them a song,’ said Mr Bell.

‘I should do
what
?’ I replied.

‘Sing them a song. It will ease the situation.’

I shrugged my shoulders. Because for the most part I
did
trust my companion's judgement.

‘I would like to sing you a song,’ I called out to the crowd that now glowered upon us. ‘It is a popular music hall ditty and goes by the name of—’

Articulating phrases such as ‘Kill the heretic!’, the crowd closed in about myself and the erstwhile Mage Bellinski.

Now, being the agile and nimble fellow that I am, I hastily swarmed up one of the decorated columns supporting the grandstand roof and from a place of safety on high made forceful representations as to my opinion of the crowd.

The crowd responded by hurling things up at me – shoes, coins, heavy and dangerous objects. These failed singly to strike my person and instead descended to alight upon members of the crowd, evoking cries of pain and distress.

Mr Bell had his ray gun out and I had no objection whatsoever to him using it.

‘Stand back from me!’ he shouted, daring the crowd to approach him further. But he was hopelessly outnumbered and the crowd closed in upon him.

As Mr Bell went down beneath a welter of blows, my only resource was to drop my trousers, produce and fling down dung.

But sadly this did not ease the situation.

Had it not been for the intervention of the chicken militia hens, I fear that those bad folk would have killed poor Mr Bell. I gazed down from on high to see the beastly birds, easily six feet in height, wading forcefully through the crowd, flinging folk to the left and to the right with their muscular wings. It caused me to think of the power of swans’ wings, but only for a moment. Mr Bell was hauled to his feet and hauled from the grandstand. I fled up and over the roof and made good my escape.

The chickens were not kind to Mr Bell. I swung from one high vantage point to another, keeping him ever in sight. At length, he was dragged into what I took to be the police station and his protestations of innocence, mingled with the sounds of blows, were swallowed up to silence.

I sat upon a rooftop and fretted.

I could not bear the thought of further harm coming to my dearest friend, but there appeared to be a terrible inevitability that further harm would indeed come. And probably terminate in that good man's execution.

I would have to rescue Mr Bell.

The street before the police station, itself a monumental edifice of pink and purple marble, was deserted. All of Akhetaten, it appeared, had gone to the cricket ground. I descended with caution to the street and crept about the building, seeking the door with the catflap.

I will make no bones about it being a tradition, or an old
charter, or something, that every police station has a police station cat. It does. You know it's true. It does, it has done, it always will do. And so I sought out the catflap.

It was a most substantial flap and so I had no difficulty entering the building. I slipped along a corridor and soon found myself to the rear of the main entrance hall.