Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

I points the rifle at it, Mr Brogan. ‘Call the damn thing off!’ I cry. The duck takes not the blindest bit of notice of the firearm (sensing as it was temporarily jammed up with mud, perhaps). It approaches (at high speed) and delivers my shin a savage nip. I turn the rifle around and try to beat it away with the butt.

‘Call the damn thing off!’ I cries again. ‘Or so help me, God, I’ll shoot the wretch!’

I glance over towards Miss Brooks and see as how she is swaying, gently, on her feet. She’s looking very queer, Mr Brogan! Her eyes is all a-flutter, her arms and shoulders commence to convulse, and then she topples over, backwards, into a dead faint.

(I say a dead faint, but t’was more of a fit than a faint, in point of fact.)

‘Damn you, Miss Brooks!’ yells I. ‘Get thee up, now, woman, get thee up!’

(She shows no sign of obliging me, Mr Brogan.)

Of course the duck now thinks I am to be blamed for its mistress’s sudden collapse and continues its attacks on me with a redoubled ferocity. When I approach the body and kneel over it (to tend to it in some manner), the damn thing delivers me a violent nip on my right thigh, then another, hard upon it, on my right buttock!

It is at this precise moment (midst all the fray) as I discover something most untoward, Mr Brogan: the strap of Miss Brooks’s swimming costume (a copious, dark blue garment of questionable age and construction) has worked its way loose from one shoulder (fine shoulders she has, Mr Brogan — I won’t bother denying it!) and has fallen down, almost to her waist, revealing a single, pristine breast (this is not yet the untoward part), and lying on that breast (the breast is small as a poached egg, purple from the cold, but a breast, nonetheless), giving suck on the tender, pale flesh thereof, is a leech — fat, black and not less than two and a half inches long, one inch across (around six centimetres by two in the metric — but don’t quote me on that).

Hell’s bells! I shy back for a second, horror-struck (being no great fan of leeches), and then, struggling to keep my wits about me (and my gorge from rising), I reach forward a tentative hand to try to pluck the leech from its delicate mount. It takes several attempts (the thing is stuck on quite firm).

With the fourth try I have some success — detaching the tail section (if such it were), then gradually peeling the rest of the body away (careful not to leave any mark or tear on the pale flesh beneath). Once the vile parasite has been removed, I toss it over my shoulder (grunting, in disgust), and blow me if I don’t see my puce-faced assassin taking a quick break from his savage campaign to dart off and gobble the damn thing up!

By this stage the worst of Miss Brooks’s fit seems over with. Eager to preserve what remains of her modesty, I commence to start readjusting her costume. As I do so, however, two unrelated events takes place in what I can only call a ‘startling conjunction’.

The first is that the duck delivers me a hefty nip on the other buttock (the left). The second is that I am addressed by a voice from directly behind me which says, ‘Hello? Mr Tooth? Can I possibly be of any assistance here?’

I am naturally jolted by both eventualities (the nip and the voice, Mr Brogan), so much so, that I lurch forward, unexpectedly, and (being obliged to reach out my hand for support) am forced to rest my weight for a second on Miss Brooks’s still naked and rapidly purpling orb!

As soon as it is done, it is undone (you can be sure of that!), and then I turn, in shock, to apprehend no less a person than PC Roger Topping (out on call after receiving a tip-off about a missing dog — which turns out to have been naught but a patch of rust-coloured bracken).

‘Ah, Constable Topping,’ says I, ‘how timely! Miss Brooks seems to have been subject to some kind of an attack — I mean a fit…’ I quickly corrects myself, and then moves back a-way to let him fully apprehend her where she lies.

Well, the look on PC Topping’s face was quite something to behold, Mr Brogan! Not the kind of look — I can assure you — that is generally to be seen on the face of a professional officer of Her Majesty’s Constabulary! (If I didn’t know better, I might as almost think the giant nit-wit had a distinct preference for the shabby little baggage!) In two seconds flat he’s down on his knees beside Miss Brooks, cupping her wan face in his two giant mitts.

‘Tilly!’ he cries. ‘Tilly! Are you all right?’

‘She was standing there, right as rain, one minute,’ says I, ‘and the next she’s gone for a Burton!’

Constable Topping now observes (with an expression of blatant disquiet — nay consternation) that one half of Miss Brooks’s bosom is currently on display, and that there is a large, suspicious-looking hand-print spanning its neat circumference.

‘Have you been administering CPR, Mr Tooth?’ he asks, darting me an accusing look (before promptly rearranging the garment). ‘Don’t you know she’s epileptic?’

‘T’weren’t CPR,’ says I, ‘I wouldn’t know as where to start with all that… She had a leech stuck on her brisket, as it happens — a giant one, Constable Topping, two inches at least — and I felt as I was obliged to pull the damn thing off.’

‘A leech? he echoes, checking her airwaves for any impediments. ‘A freshwater leech? And of such improbably huge proportions? Where did it get to, then? What happened to it?’

‘I tossed it aside,’ says I, ‘then that dratted duck went an’ hoovered it up.’

‘She’s freezing cold,’ he murmurs, barely acknowledging my testimony (nor congratulating me for my prompt action, neither). ‘Fetch me her towel, Mr Tooth.’ He begins taking off his jacket so as to wrap her up in it.

‘I hope as you don’t think there was anything untoward,’ says I.

‘She’s freezing cold!’ he yells. ‘I said fetch me her towel, you bloody idiot!’

(I was not over-impressed by the ‘bloody idiot’ part, Mr Brogan, but I nevertheless obliged the gormless clod and went off to retrieve the thing.)

‘I’m glad as you’re here, Constable Topping,’ says I, on my return, ‘because Miss Brooks has been caught trespassing in my Private Fishing Lake — worse still, she has been apprehended in the act of submerging a dead badger in it!’

‘Damn you and your Private Fishing Lake, Mr Tooth!’ says Constable Topping, snatching the towel from me, then scooping up Miss Brooks in his arms (like she’s naught but a piece of thistledown) and promptly carrying her off with him.

I watch his swift departure with a sense of some astonishment, Mr Brogan. Damn you and your Private Fishing Lake?!

The duck tarries behind a few moments longer, holding me, once again, in its fierce, blue-eyed gaze (blow me if that duck isn’t a double for my old grandmother — Flora Tooth! A legendary local Tartar, she were!).

‘Don’t know as what you’re staring at,’ says I, kicking out at the beast with my boot. It side-steps my assault, delivers me a final, hoarse hiss, then waddles off in hot pursuit.

I’ll tell you this for nothing, Mr Brogan: there is something seriously amiss with that piece of poultry, and make no mistake about it! It’s a reprobate, Mr Brogan, a scoundrel! A villain!

I’ve since been told that Muscovies are the only breed of duck not to be furnished with a quack, and I thank the Lord for it! If it quacked even half as bad as it looked, I can’t as begin to conceive of the foul disturbance it might produce!

Damn that bird, Mr Brogan! And damn Miss Brooks, an’ all! And damn the moronic constable, into the bargain!

I’ve since wrote the man a stiff letter about the submerging of the badger. I said as I’d be contacting my lawyer over the issue (and here I am — a man of my word — doing exactly that). Do you think there is a legal case to be answered here at all?