“Enough, enough,” he shouted. “We will not mark them at all, we shall merely pace around the allotment and make notes as to each location as we come upon it. That is that.”

If Pooley had worn a hat he would have taken it off to his companion and cast it into the air. “Brilliant,” he said, shaking his head in admiration. “How do you do it, John?”

“It’s a gift, I believe.”

Pooley pulled out the Now Official Handbook of Allotment Golf and handed it to Omally. “Let us go,” he said. “The field is yours.”

Now, it is to be remembered that both men had imbibed considerable quantities of potato gin, a drink not noted for its sobering qualities, and that the light was extremely poor. Had it not been for these two facts it is just possible that the job might have been accomplished with some degree of success. As it was, in no time at all, the two men found themselves crossing and recrossing their tracks and scrawling illegible diagrams and unreadable locative descriptions all over the exercise book.

“We have done this one already,” said Pooley, lurching to one side of a glowing symbol. “I’m sure we’ve done this one.”

Omally shook his head, “No, no,” he said, “it is as clear as clear, look, you can see the way we came.” He tapped at the notebook and as he did so the moon crept away behind a large cloud, leaving them in total darkness. “Bugger,” said John, “I cannot seem to find my way.”

“Best call it off then,” said Pooley, “bad light stops play, nothing more to be done, bed is calling.”

“My hearing is acute,” Omally warned. “One move and I strike you down.”

“But, John.”

“But nothing.”

The two men stood a moment awaiting the return of the moon. “What is that?” Omally asked, quite without warning.

“What is what?” Pooley replied sulkily.

Omally gestured invisibly to a point not far distant, where something definitely untoward was occurring. “That there.”

Pooley peered about in the uncertain light and it did not take him long to see it. “Right,” said Jim, “that is definitely me finished. The Pooleys know when their time is up.”

“Keep your gaping gob shut,” whispered Omally hoarsely, as he leapt forward and dragged the quitter to the dust.

Coming from the direction of Soap Distant’s abandoned hut a soft red light was growing. The door of the heavily bolted shed was slowly opening, showing a ghostly red glow.

“Would you look at that?” gasped Dublin’s finest.

“I should prefer not,” said Pooley, climbing to his feet and preparing for the off.

Omally clutched at his companion, catching him by a ragged trouser cuff. “Look,” said he, “now that is a thing.”

From all points of the allotment shadowy forms were moving, figures indistinct and fuzzy about the edges, striding like automata, ever in the direction of the weird red light. “Ye gods,” whispered Jim as one passed near enough to expose his angular profile, “the council spies, dozens of them.”

Omally dragged Pooley once more towards terra. “I would counsel silence,” he whispered, “and the keeping of the now legendary low profile.”

“I feel sick,” moaned Jim.

The gaunt figures strode ever onwards. Silently they moved amongst the many scattered obstructions upon the allotment soil. Never a one turned his head from his goal and each walked with a mechanical precision.

Pooley and Omally watched their progress with wide eyes and slack jaws. “We should follow them,” said John, “see what they’re up to.”

“With the corner up we should.”

“Poltroon. Come on man, let’s sort the thing out.”

Pooley sloped his drunken shoulders. “John,” said he, “are you honestly suggesting that any good whatsoever will come from following this gang of weirdos? I feel rather that we would be walking straight into a trap. This is only my opinion of course, and it is greatly influenced by the state of blind panic I find myself in at present. There is something altogether wrong about every bit of this. Let us leave the allotment now, depart for ever, never to return. What do you say?”

Omally weighed up the situation. Things did seem a little iffy. They were greatly outnumbered and there was definitely something unnatural about the striding men. Perhaps it would be wiser to run now and ask questions later. But there were a lot of questions that needed asking and now might be the best time to ask them, emboldened as they both were, or he at least, by the surfeit of alcohol pumping about the old arteries. “Come on, Jim,” he said, encouragingly. “One quick look at what they’re up to, what harm can it do? After the day we’ve had nothing else can happen to us, can it?”

Pooley thought that it possibly could, and as it turned out Pooley was absolutely correct.

13

Ahead the red light glowed evilly and the spectral figures moved into its aura to become cardboard silhouettes. Pooley and Omally lurched along to the rear of the strange brigade as silently as their inebriate blunderings would allow. None of the queer horde turned a head, although the sounds of their pursuers, as they stumbled amongst corrugated plot dividers and galvanized watering cans, rang loudly across the silent allotments. As the stark figures neared the light they fell into line and strode through the doorway of Soap Distant’s hut like so many clockwork soldiers.

When the last of them had entered, the light grew to a blinding intensity then dimmed away to nothingness. “There,” said Pooley, faltering in his footsteps, “a trick of the light, nothing more, probably landing lights on a Jumbo or some such. Off to our beds now then, eh?”

Omally prodded him in the loins with the rake he had wisely appropriated in the interests of self-preservation. “Onward, Pooley,” he ordered. “We will get to the bottom of this.”

His words, as it happened, could not have been more poorly chosen, but Omally, of course, was not to know that at this time. The two men neared Soap’s hut and peered through the open doorway. There was nothing to be seen but sheer, unutterable, unfathomable darkness.

“Lighter,” Omally commanded. Pooley brought out his aged Zippo and sucked at the wick. Omally snatched at the well-worn smoker’s friend and as the flame bravely illuminated the hut’s interior the two men gave forth with twin whistles of dismay.

The shed was empty: four corrugated walls, a ceiling of slatted asbestos and a concrete floor.

John Omally groaned. Pooley shook his head in wonder. “These council lads certainly leave the great Houdini with egg on his chin!” he said respectfully. “How do you suppose they do it?”

“I utterly refuse to believe this,” said Omally, holding the lighter aloft and stepping boldly through the doorway. “There is no conceivable way they could all have…”

He never actually finished the sentence. Pooley’s lighter was suddenly extinguished and Omally’s words were swallowed up as if sucked into some great and terrible vacuum.

“John?” Pooley found himself alone in the darkness. “John, this is not funny.” His voice echoed hollowly in the sinister hut.

“Oh dear me,” said Jim Pooley.

The moon slowly withdrew itself from its cloudy lair and shone a broad beam of light through the open doorway. The tiny hut was empty. John Omally had simply ceased to exist. Jim snatched up Omally’s discarded rake, prodding ahead of him as he gingerly moved forward. The moon was still shining brightly and now, along the nearby rooftops, the thin red line of dawn was spreading.

“Oh!” The tip of Pooley’s protruding rake had of a sudden become strangely fuzzy and ill-defined. Another step forward and Pooley noted to his utter stupefaction that it had vanished altogether into empty air. He withdrew it hastily and ran his finger along its length; it was intact. Jim looked at the rake and then at the empty shed before him, he scratched at his head and then at his chin, he weighed the thing up and tried to make some sense of it.