The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [69]
He came to the end of the wood; after a moment of hesitation behind the last tree, he suddenly swooped out of his cover and floated up in the air, like a levitating saint in a religious painting, and took off towards the castle, disappearing round the comer.
For Pete’s sake, the Brigadier thought, he’s not even coming through the wall. He’s coming over it.
‘Stand by, Jeremy!’ he called to the unknown quantity down in the yard nervously clutching the castello’s last defence, ‘He’s coming in from the east. Ten o’clock high!’
‘Which is the east?’ squeaked Jeremy, frantically trying to look in all the directions of the compass simultaneously.
‘To your left, man. To your left. Up in the sky!’
Jeremy swung round to his left and raised the stun-gun.
Suddenly the monk was there, up above the eastern wall, diving down towards the lonely figure by the pump like an ecclesiastic Superman.
The attack on the castello had begun.
Nineteen
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‘He’s coming in from the east. Ten o’clock high!’
People! How on earth could he be expected to know where the east was? thought Jeremy, looking all round for any sort of flying object.
‘Which is the east?’
The answer didn’t help all that much; he’d never been absolutely certain about left and right, either. He made a quick surreptitious scan (Nanny used to get so cross!) for the mole which was his private clue. Yes, there it was, just below the finger where he’d wear a wedding ring if he was a girl, so that must be left.
He swung round that way and raised the gun in shaking hands; and at once saw his target. As he squinted down the barrel at the figure hurtling towards him, all of a sudden he stopped shaking. This was no more difficult than knocking down one of those naff-looking wooden ducks that they had on the firing ranges at the fair.
He waited until he was quite sure he had the monk firmly in the sights and pulled the trigger, keeping it squeezed as if it were a machine gun.
The effect was surprising. It was as if the monk had been hit by a blast from an instant hurricane. He was stopped in his headlong flight in a few yards, fighting to regain the Impetus he had lost, but was immediately swept 243
away up into the sky, tumbling and turning like an autumn leaf caught up in the swirl of an October gale.
As Jeremy let go the trigger, he became aware of a funny sort of noise coming from his right; then he realized it was the little crowd on top of the gate tower, shouting and clapping. Who are they cheering? he thought; and then realized with a buzz of delight which he’d never experienced before that they were cheering him!
Whipping off his toadstool hat, he swept it round in a great big sort of a bow like a – well, you know – one of those chappies with a feather m his hat and a sword and all.
As he rose with his arms outstretched to take his applause in the circus way, he became aware that his audience had stopped cheering and were frantically shouting and waving towards the sky….
Oh, God. Yes, he was coming in again, only this time he wasn’t flying straight; he was swerving and swooping from side to side.
Jeremy dropped his hat, seized the gun in both hands again and tried to aim it, but the wretched fellow never stayed in one place long enough. It was just impossible; and Jeremy began to shake all over again.
But then the miracle happened once more. Of course! It wasn’t a question of a steady aim this time; this was like the snaps hooting film thingies where baddies kept popping up 244
from behind rocks and you had to try and knock off as many as possible with your six-shooter.
Even while he was thinking this, he’d relaxed; with the gun held loosely in his right hand he let off a series of pot shots at the jinking, jerking, diddle-daddling target. With every shot he scored a bull’s-eye; and Nico the monk was blown all atwist and atwizzle further into the sky each time, until he dropped down vertically from something like a thousand feet and disappeared into the woods behind the wall.
If he’d been a success before, he was now an instant