“Creeps up on you doesn’t it?” Omally asked, grinning wickedly and taking a lesser swig from the bottle Pooley had dropped into his wisely outstretched hands.
Pooley’s nose had turned a most unpleasant shade of red and his eyes were streaming. “That definitely has the edge on Old Snakebelly,” he said when finally he found his voice, “but I feel I have the measure of it now, give me another swig.”
The two men sat awhile in the morning sunlight sharing the bottle and chewing upon Omally’s potato fritters. At length Jim said seriously, “You know, John, we really cannot keep this up much longer, we are dangerously close to the Mission and if that character does not get his Papal paws upon us then someone else is bound to observe the smoke from our fire and report our presence to the police.”
Omally nodded sombrely. “All these things have of course crossed my mind, our imposed isolation here has given us both time for reflection. For myself I am prepared to sit it out and await the Professor’s word, what of you?”
Pooley shrugged helplessly. “What can I say, I am up to my neck in it, I suppose we have little choice.”
Omally passed him the bottle once more and leant back amongst the potato sacks. “We shall not starve,” said he, “although I am afraid there is a limit to the things even I can do with a potato.”
Pooley had risen to his feet, his right hand shielding his eyes from the sunlight, and he appeared to be gazing off into the distance. “Now what do you make of that?” he asked in a puzzled voice.
Omally rose to join him. “Where?” he asked. “What are you looking at?”
Pooley pointed. “It’s like a swirl of smoke, or a little black cloud.”
Omally shielded his eyes and squinted off into the haze. There was a dark shape twisting and turning in the sky, and as he watched it grew larger and blacker.
“It’s locusts,” said Jim, “a bloody plague of locusts.”
“It’s not locusts,” Omally squealed in a terrified voice, “it’s birds, the birds from Archroy’s garden. Run for your life.”
Pooley’s feet were welded to the ground. “I can’t run,” he whimpered, “I fear that the potato gin has gone to my legs.”
“Into the shed then.” Omally grabbed his companion by the shoulders and yanked him backwards, slamming the door shut behind them. He was not a moment too soon as the screeching mass of birds covered the allotment in a whirling feathery cloud, obliterating the sun. The sound was deafening, horny bills scratched and scraped at the corrugated iron of the small hut, a thousand tiny hooked claws tore at it. Pooley’s hands found themselves once more clapped over his ears while Omally beat away at the snapping beaks which forced their way in through the cracks of the door.
“Do something, Jim,” he shouted, his voice swelling above the din. “If they get in here, there won’t be enough of you left to send home in a tobacco tin.”
Pooley took to turning about in circles, flapping his hands wildly and shouting at the top of his voice. It was a technique he had perfected as a lad and it had always served him well, when it came to getting his own way.
The birds, however, seemed unconcerned by Pooley’s behaviour and if anything their assault upon the hut became even more frenzied and violent. There was the sound of splintering wood and Omally saw to his horror that scores of tiny dents were beginning to appear on the corrugated walls. Then suddenly the attacks ceased. Pooley found himself spinning, flapping and shouting in absolute silence. The birds had gone.
“The birds have gone,” said Jim, ceasing his foolish gyrations.
“They have not,” Omally replied, “I fell for a similar trick on my first encounter with them.”
Pooley pressed his eye to a crack in the door. “I can’t see them.”
“They’ll be around, on the roof or around the back.”
“Then should we make a break for it?”
“That I would not advise.”
The two men slumped on the potato sack in the semi-darkness. It was cramped and with the sun beating down upon the roof it was also extremely hot.
“We’ll die in here for certain,” said Pooley, “suffocate we will, like rats in a trap.”
“Don’t start all that again,” said Omally, raising his fist in the darkness.
Long minutes passed; in the distance the Memorial Library clock struck ten. Several yards away from the shed Omally’s bicycle Marchant lay in its twisted wreckage, musing upon man’s inhumanity to bike and bird’s inhumanity to man. Jim struggled out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Have you any more of that potato gin?” he asked. “Only if I am going to die, I should prefer to die as I have lived, drunkenly.”
“Nobody is going to die,” Omally assured him (although to Pooley his voice had a somewhat hollow quality), “but I would appreciate it if you could be persauded to channel your enormous intellect towards some means by which we might facilitate our escape.” He pulled another bottle from the potato sack and handed it to his companion.
“You have a lovely turn of phrase, John,” said Jim, drawing the cork from the bottle and taking a large swig. He passed it back to Omally, who took a sip and returned the bottle. “How does one drive off birds, such a thing is surely not impossible?”
“A shotgun is the thing,” said Pooley, “both barrels, small shot.”
“I fear that we will have a long time to wait for a passing gamekeeper,” said John.
“We might tunnel our way out then, possibly dig down, we might even break into one of Soap’s underground workings.”
Omally tapped the concrete floor with his hobnails. “We can forget that I am thinking.”
“A scarecrow then.”
Omally stroked his chin, “I can’t really imagine a scarecrow putting the fear of God into these lads, but if you will give me a few moments I think I have an idea.”
The Memorial Library clock struck the half hour and within the small hut upon the allotment Jim Pooley stood wearing nothing but his vest and underpants. “Don’t you ever change your socks?” Omally asked, holding his nose.
Jim regarded him bitterly in the half darkness. “Are you sure this is going to work?” he asked.
“Trust me,” said Omally, “the plan is simplicity itself.”
Pooley chewed upon his lip. “It doesn’t look very much like me,” he said, “I am hardly that fat.” His remarks were addressed to the life-sized dummy Omally was fashioning from Pooley’s garments. He had knotted the sleeves and trouser bottoms and stuffed the thing with potatoes.
“We’ve got to give it a little weight,” said John. “How is the head coming?”
“Splendidly, as it happens,” said Jim. “I like to pride myself that given a turnip, which I am disgusted to find that you had secreted from me for your own personal consumption, and a penknife, I am able to model a head of such magnificence as to put the legendary Auguste Rodin to shame.” Pooley passed across his sculptured masterpiece and Omally wedged it firmly between the dummy’s shoulders. “Very nice,” he said.
“Very nice if it fools the birds.”
“It will,” said Omally. “Have some faith in me will you?”
“But what of me?” Pooley complained. “I shall be forced to run through the streets in my underwear.”
“I have thought of all that, leave it to me. Are the bottles ready?”
Pooley held up two bottles of the potato gin. They had been uncorked and gin-dampened strips of cloth torn from Jim’s shirt-tail thrust into the necks, Molotov cocktail-style.
“Better douse our good friend here,” said Omally, “we want this to work to maximum effect.” Pooley took up the last bottle and poured it over the dummy. “Right.” Omally held the dummy with one arm and made the sign of the cross with the other.
“That is very comforting,” said Jim.
“We only get one chance at this, Pooley, don’t mess it up, will you?”
Pooley shook his head. “Not I, but it seems a tragic end to a good suit.”