Working Wonders (37 page)

Sven rolled his eyes but held his tongue.

‘From this point onwards …’ The sergeant unrolled the map. ‘Anywhere higher than this point is the fighting field. I think the goal is fairly obvious.’

They looked at the castle, looming above them in the chilly morning light.

‘These are the rules, ladies and gentlemen. Shoot your opponents before they shoot you, and storm the castle. Do not go below this point. Tactics are up to you.’

‘
Tactics
?’ Sven mouthed to Marcus, who looked equally nervous.

‘If you are shot by the enemy – their paint is yellow, incidentally, yours is red – you are out and must sit on the sidelines. If you are shot by a member of your own side, you are also out and must sit on the sidelines. We
will
spot you. If you continue to play once hit, your entire team will forfeit this game. Do you understand?’

‘
Yes
,’ said Sven.

‘Yes,’ said Arthur, too wrapped up in himself for sarcasm.

The sergeant looked them up and down. ‘And don’t shoot them in people’s faces.’ He sounded disappointed to have to give any safety information. ‘They can be dangerous.’

‘They’re
guns
!’ said Sven.

‘Well, get kitted up. I’ll show you how to shoot these things, then we’ll get started.’

Gwyneth walked over to Arthur as they were putting on their masks and strapping on the canisters. If there was any chance at all …

‘Arthur …’

‘Not now, Gwyneth.’

She looked at him fearfully. ‘But I want to explain.’ She did. To tell him how his holding back … her insecurity … what might have been great had all gone so wrong.

‘
Not now.
’

And Arthur clamped his mask over his face and lifted up his gun.

At ten a.m. precisely, a starter pistol sounded. It echoed off the hills, startling a crowd of birds, who rose dramatically into the sky with a great squawking. The team members looked at each other. They each wore red insignia on their arms so they wouldn’t shoot their own side if at all possible. They had had a quick huddle before they started. Sven had pointed out a pile of rocks right at the top of the headland, and their plan was to get up there before the other team could reach it, dig in and hopefully pick off Ross’s little gang as they came up.

They hadn’t really reckoned, however, on how hard it is to run up a steep hill, particularly if you’re an extremely overweight man pulling a dog, and that plan had to be abandoned before they’d made it fifty yards.

‘What about … if we still do it that way, but slowly?’ panted Marcus.

Gwyneth was looking all around, anxiously. ‘They’ll pounce on us,’ she said.

‘What about crawling through the undergrowth like those slinky action men?’

‘It’ll take us nine hours to get up there,’ said Arthur. He looked around, too. The hillside was woefully exposed – there were no trees or shelter anywhere. The best they could do was try to scamper from one small rock formation to another. Arthur craned to see if anyone was coming over the horizon. Part of him hardly cared.

Their patchy rhythm wasn’t helped by Sandwiches settling down to take a long and relaxed dump in the middle of the open hillside.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Gwyneth. ‘Do we all have to stand around and watch?’

‘Yeah, how would you like it?’ said Sven. ‘And, normally, he likes the
Daily Telegraph
.’

‘I meant, can’t we hide?’ said Gwyneth. ‘And I hope you’re going to pick that up?’

‘What do you think the
Daily Telegraph
is for? And no, I’m not going to pick it up here, thank you. If you might like to examine the ground for a moment, anything five foot deep in sheep crap can take a little bit of ex Pedigree Chum.’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Arthur. ‘Let’s keep moving. I’m sure he’ll catch us up once he’s … finished his business.’

‘I’m not leaving him out here unprotected,’ said Sven, stubbornly.

‘Very good, soldier,’ said Marcus, rolling his eyes.

They had reached the rocks, and the party let out a sigh of relief. There had still been no sign of Ross’s troops, who must be further down the hill; and they arranged themselves so they could see in every direction below. For five minutes they watched; ten, fifteen.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Arthur.

‘They can’t be
that
much slower than us,’ said Marcus. ‘We got … held up.’

‘It’s too quiet,’ said Sven. ‘Ooh, I’ve always wanted to say that.’

Arthur turned and looked up at the castle. He stared fiercely at it.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said finally. ‘Look carefully, but I think I just saw something move.’

Gwyneth focused on the pointed direction. At first she thought he was just imagining things, the wind moving in the rushes. Her heart was thumping. She forced herself to concentrate, and suddenly she did see it – someone was pushing through the undergrowth, coming up round the castle’s other side.

‘I see it!’ she yelped, quietly.

‘Dirty buggers,’ said Sven. ‘I hope they crawled through Sandwiches’s poo.’

‘Dammit, they’ve avoided us completely,’ said Arthur. ‘We should have thought of that way. And they’re a hell of a lot closer to the castle than we are.’

‘Can we run up behind them and mow them down like dogs – I mean, like badgers,’ coughed Marcus.

‘Okay, everyone. We’re going to make for my right, there. If they’re together, we should be able to get immediately behind them.’

‘Won’t they see us running?’

‘No – we’re below them, heading the other way, and they’ve got their noses in the dirt.’

‘What if they’ve got someone covering their rears?’ asked Marcus.

‘Good question. We’re completely fucked.’

‘Okay.’

‘Right … on my shout.’

It wasn’t a bad plan, as plans go. They made a huge right angle under the crest of the hill and crawled back up the other side, behind the other team. Now they had to run as quietly as possible, with even Sandwiches taking care not to let his claws bounce off rock, and crept up to the rear of the enemy’s slowly snaking line, leaving Sven at the back to keep watch.

The person at the rear of Ross’s line, Naimh, took a routine look round just as they were coming upon her, and screamed so hard it echoed round the mountains.

Arthur picked up his gun to fire it, but before he could do so, there was an almighty WHUMP and a ball of red exploded onto her newly exposed chest.

Naimh lurched backwards in shock, clutching her heart as if she’d been shot by a bullet. Arthur and Sven stared in amazement, Arthur shocked out of his torpor.

‘Ah – good recoil,’ said Marcus, blowing calmly on the nozzle of his gun.

But …

‘GET DOWN!’ screamed Sven, and they hit the floor as the other three men came cascading round the corner of the castle.

‘Those bloody bastards SHOT me!’ screamed Naimh, as if this was the most ridiculous thing one could imagine in the middle of a paintball game.

‘Wipe it off,’ said Ross immediately.

‘You’re not allowed to wipe it off!’ shouted Marcus. ‘Oh bugger – I’ve just given away my position, haven’t I?’

‘Get ’em!’ shouted Naimh hysterically. Ross, Dave, and another of Ross’s colleagues, big Al, surveyed the ground in front of them, and Arthur couldn’t believe the camouflage was actually working long enough for him to squeeze the trigger and see an enormous red splodge whistle past Dave’s ear and splash-land on the castle wall.

‘Bugger it!’ said Dave. ‘Quick!’

And the three men disappeared round the wall again to safety, leaving Naimh crying uncontrollably and stamping her feet on the grass.

‘It’s not FAIR! Stupid GAME!’

Until finally, she stomped off in the direction she’d started in.

Immediately everyone jumped up and threw themselves at the opposite wall. The base of the castle was larger than it looked from further down the hill, and lush green grass covered what had clearly once been a moat. They headed carefully around, anti-clockwise, Sven bringing up the rear again walking backwards, Arthur carefully peering round corners and between stones. They didn’t know which side of the octagonal structure the entrance was on – it wasn’t the side they’d come up. Now they just had to hope they stumbled on it before the other team made it round the other side …

Looking out across the wide landscape, Arthur suddenly felt a pull. It was beautiful up there, clear and wild. He imagined what it would be like if he was
really
attacking this castle, then he remembered that, of course, he was. The fact that the rest of his life was rapidly turning to shit seemed, briefly, less important.

Round the following bend, he spotted out of the corner of his eye what he had been looking for – a dark break in the stone that must be the entrance.

‘Okay, there it is,’ he whispered down the line.

‘What are we going to do?’ said Marcus. ‘Are they there?’

‘No – but they can’t be far away,’ said Arthur. ‘We’re going to have to go NOW, before they get round the outside way.’

Marcus passed the news back, and they all nodded solemnly.

‘Okay, on my count, we’re going to run for the door and then stand with our backs against it to defend … oh shit, I think I just saw a flash of yellow – GOOOO!’

They dashed out from behind the cover of the wall and plunged around to the front, Sandwiches barking madly, just as the yellow armbands were trying to prime their weapons on the opposite side. The first sludge hit the wall behind them.

‘DOWN! DOWN!’ screamed Arthur. ‘And FIRE!’

The red balls went whistling through the sky with a surprising velocity.

‘And again!’

Ross’s team, cursing and outnumbered, had retreated to the cover of some nearby trees, and were digging themselves in and watching the others closely.

‘Arthur,’ said Marcus, who had turned round to open the door. ‘Small problem.’

Arthur made sure Sven and Gwyneth were in guarding positions, checked none of the team in the trees was creeping forward or trying to flank, then tried to give his undivided attention to Marcus.

The door was, in fact, a portcullis, truly and firmly down. You could tell just by looking at it there was no point in trying to budge it – this was ancient and solid metal and would neither give nor be lifted. Down on the right-hand side were three levers: one red, one blue and one green.

On the red lever it said, ‘I open this door’. The blue lever said, ‘I do not open this door.’ The green lever said, ‘The blue lever does not open this door’.

‘Great!’ said Arthur, the adrenalin in his body working properly now. ‘Pull the red lever. That’s nice of them.’

‘Hang on!’ said Marcus. His voice was shaky with excitement. Underneath the levers, there was a now familiar yellow folder. Inside it said, ‘One of these statements is true. One is false. One is either true or false. You have one chance at pulling a lever.’

‘Oh crap!’ said Arthur. ‘We don’t have much time. They’re not going to stay in that bloody wood all day.’

‘Quiet,’ said Marcus, drawing himself up to his full five foot six. ‘This, I believe, is a logical problem.’ He beamed. ‘My moment has come.’

All was silence except for Sandwiches, who was capering about, barking madly.

‘That’s not bloody fair, having an extra bloody dog,’ could be heard emanating from the undergrowth.

‘Cowards!’ shouted Sven.

‘Sh,’ whispered Arthur. ‘Otherwise someone is going to say, “Come over here and say that,” and this whole thing is going to turn into a paint bath.’

‘Come over here and say that!’ came the growling voice from the undergrowth. Arthur shook his head at Sven frantically.

‘It’s the green lever,’ said Marcus, straightening up and announcing solemnly.

‘What about the red lever that says it’s the lever?’ Arthur was sceptical and reckoned on a double bluff.

‘One’s true and one’s false, right?’ said Marcus. ‘So the red lever can’t be true because then they’d all be true. And the blue lever can’t be true because then they’d all be false.’

‘My arm hurts,’ said Gwyneth, who was holding her gun high, trained on the undergrowth, ‘and now my head hurts, too.’

‘Trust me,’ said Marcus.

Arthur smiled at him. ‘You’re the only one that could have worked that out.’

‘Neh,’ said Marcus.

‘Yeah, I could have done it,’ said Sven. ‘Probably.’

‘Hang on,’ said Gwyneth. ‘What if it’s the wrong one and he gets electrocuted or something?’

‘Good point,’ said Arthur. Then he swallowed, thought about it for a second and finally said, ‘Would you like me to pull the lever?’

‘Nope,’ said Marcus. ‘Logic never lies. Has no moral imperative. It’s right. Don’t worry.’

And he stepped forward proudly, brought his hand calmly onto the lever and pulled it down.

Simultaneously there was a huge creaking noise as the giant portcullis began to lift, and an ominous, horrifying splattering noise.

‘Marcus!’ Gwyneth’s voice arced slowly over the air, as Marcus, his hand the last thing to leave the wall, was thrown back several feet by the paintball bullet. Sven immediately started pumping his gun into the trees, but it was too late; the damage was done.