Captain's Day (21 page)

Tollemache’s record for throwing clubs was nine in one round, and his record distance fifty seven yards with a six iron at the tenth, according to his playing partner Simon Pemberton, a chartered surveyor, who had paced out the exact yardage. And he had once brought down a black-headed gull in full flight with a sand wedge, prompting the wittier of his playing partners to comment that it was his first birdie of the day. It wasn't his last, because at the tenth, after ripping up his card and looking for some alternative sport to fill in the time while his partners continued their round, he had thrown another of his clubs at a hovering skylark and bagged it at the third attempt.

It was the first time Tollemache had ever actually aimed at something, all previous club-throwing owing its genesis to anger rather than any desire to hit a target. Encouraged by this early success he took the decision to always aim at something in future, preferably something for the pot, a wood pigeon perhaps, or one of the many rabbits that abounded and bounded on the course, as he was a lover of game and his wife was a dab hand at cooking it. In the event however he was always so angry when he threw a club that he forgot all about his pledge, and the pot remained empty and Mrs Tollemache’s culinary skills with game never called upon.

Graham Burton was no less adept nor constant in his club-throwing activities, but although he was not averse to throwing a single club now and again his favoured method of club-throwing was to throw all his clubs at once, usually, but not always, while they were still in his golf bag. On one occasion, on the near-completion of a particularly bad round, he had thrown bag, clubs, golf trolley and all into the large pond by the seventeenth green, before stalking off the course vowing that he would never be seen on the golf course again, and that if somebody did happen to see him on the golf course again they should shoot him. In fact he was seen on it again only five minutes later after he'd realised his car keys were in his golf bag and he'd had to wade into the middle of the pond to recover them, the ensuing embarrassment only serving to strengthen his resolve never to return.

However despite his promise it was far from the last time Burton threw his clubs into the pond. No one knew for sure, because records weren’t kept until 1992, but since then it had happened eight times. Sometimes the clubs stayed there for upwards of a month, on other occasions for only a couple of days, depending upon how long it took him to realise how much he was missing his golf.

At a touching ceremony in 1998 the pond was officially named Burton's Pond. Burton himself had been due to attend the ceremony and accept a commemorative scroll but in the event had failed to make it as the day before the presentation was due to take place he had thrown his clubs into the pond and given up golf again.

Whenever Burton threw clubs singly, which he tended to do more towards the beginning of a round rather than the end, which was usually the case when he threw the whole bagful, he did not have the range of Tollemache but made up for it by variety, one of his favourite methods being to bend the offending club over his knee before hurling it into the distance like some large metal boomerang, the difference being that it never came back, except on the occasion it hit Sylvester Cuddington on the knee and Cuddington threw it back at him.

In the Captain’s Day competition that day neither Tollemache nor Burton had hit good tee shots at the first but neither of their shots had been bad enough to warrant the throwing of a club. However Roy Tinson, the third member of the group, hit a truly awful shot, a shot so bad that had Tollemache or Burton made it their club would most certainly have been flung. However Tinson had never thrown a club in his life so had put his driver back in his bag unflung. Burton and Tollemache marvelled at his temperament.

“
Perhaps if you were to get your right leg over that branch there Miriam, that knobbly one, and sort of pass it under the branch to the left of it?” suggested Mrs Salinas.

“
The nerve of that
man
!” said the deeply upset Mrs Rattray. “He obviously wasn't aware that you are the Lady Captain-Elect, Miriam.”

Irwin was a large man and Mrs Quayle a small woman so it had been a relatively easy matter for him to pick her up and deposit her in the branches of the tree. It was proving to be a far from easy matter getting her down again. She had already been up there for ten minutes and despite lots of advice and encouragement from Mrs Rattray and Mrs Salinas she was no nearer to getting down than she had been since the moment Irwin had put her up there, and now had several flesh abrasions caused by her thrashing about in the branches in a vain effort to free herself to add to her discomfort.

Both Galloway and Hanson had objected most strongly to Irwin's treatment of Mrs Quayle; Galloway because his ball had come to rest no more than eight feet from the hole and he fancied his chances in the Nearest the Pin competition and Mrs Rattray and Mrs Salinas steadfastly refused to measure the balls so long as Mrs Quayle remained in the tree; Hanson because he would rather Irwin had carried out his threat and shoved his putter up Mrs Quayle's behind so that somebody else would know what it felt like.

Far from happy to relinquish his position as leader in the Nearest the Pin competition Galloway had then suggested to Irwin that he might take Mrs Quayle down from the tree, get the ladies to measure his ball, then put her back up it again. However Irwin, still peeved that he himself would not be the leader, would have none of it, and in the end all three men had putted out without their balls being measured and had continued on to the fourteenth, Galloway somewhat grumpily.

Mrs Salinas now thought she might have the answer to Mrs Quayle’s problem. “If you could sort of twist yourself to the right a little, I think....”

“
I am twisted enough, thank you Elspeth,” said Mrs Quayle, with feeling. “Not to mention bitter.”

“
As would we all be Miriam, as would we all be,” said Mrs Salinas, then spat out, “That
man
!”

“
There’s nothing for it, you will have to get help ladies,” said Mrs Quayle. “I can’t stay up here for the duration.”

“
When my cat Montgomery got stuck up a tree the fire brigade got him down,” said Mrs Rattray, then added doubtfully, “Although I’m not at all sure if they'd turn out for a lady stuck up a tree.”

“
Oh I'm sure they would,” said Mrs Salinas. “Especially if we told them she was the Lady Captain-Elect.”

“
I’ll phone them,” said Mrs Rattray, taking out her mobile phone. “Is it still nine-nine-nine you ring?”

“
Oh that's a pretty mobile,” said Mrs Rattray. “Such a lovely colour.”

“
Do you like it? I got it from Marks and Spencer's.”

“
Debenhams do a nice one in cerise,” said Mrs Quayle, from her perch in the tree.

If Mrs Quayle was no nearer to getting down from the tree than when Irwin had put her up there Constable Fearon was even farther away from laying hands on vice-captain Robin Garland than he had been when he'd left Mr Captain at the first tee.

Golf courses cover many acres of land and the problem for Fearon was that he had no idea on which of the many Sunnymere acres Garland was playing his golf at the moment. He had established from Jason that it was the fifth fairway from which he had earlier made good his escape, and that the time of the escape was approximately ten-o-clock. He had no idea how long it took to play a round of golf, only that it seemed to take an eternity from what he’d seen of it on television, nor had Constable James, and nor had Jason, whose only interest in golf was harvesting golf balls for re-sale. Therefore pinpointing Garland's position was proving to be more difficult than he had imagined. Aware that he had to start somewhere Fearon had estimated that each hole took half-an-hour to play, and as Garland had been playing the fifth when Jason escaped and an hour had passed since then, that he should now be playing the seventh. Having established this the three of them set off for the eighth green, the plan being to get ahead of Garland and lie in wait for him.

The first snag they encountered was that none of them knew in which direction the eighth green lay. The problem was exacerbated when Fearon decided to ask one of the golfers for directions and he happened to pick on Venables, a man whose hatred of the police was even greater than Fearon’s hatred of golfers, and Venables had sent the party in precisely the opposite direction to that required for safe passage to the eighth green. On arriving at the twelfth, the best part of a mile from where they had set off, and finding it not to be the eighth, James complained that his legs were aching as he wasn't used to walking, and they’d had to rest for ten minutes while he recovered. While they were taking this unscheduled pit stop Jason suggested it might be best if they made their way back to the first tee, then walked each hole just as though they were golfers playing the course, and that this would eventually result in them catching up with Garland as unlike golfers they wouldn’t have to keep stopping and looking for balls. Despite having come out top of his class at Police Training College Fearon had been unable to come up with a better idea and they had set off for the first tee.

“
Chuck Key.”

“
Chuck Sillyname.”

“
Chuck Up.”

At the fourteenth Fidler lost the last of the six Pinnacles he had earlier bought from the pro's shop. Abandoning the search he made his way out of the heavy rough, in which he had been looking for the ball with Dawson and Elwes, picked up his golf bag and set off back down the fairway.

“
Where are you going?” asked Dawson, puzzled.

Fidler turned to him. “Well I've run out of balls, haven't I.”

“
So you're ripping up then?” said Elwes.

“
No, I am not ripping up. I am going to the pro's shop to buy some more balls.”

“
But we're miles away,” protested Dawson. “You'll be forever.”

“
Then you'll just have to wait for me, won't you.”

“
If you’re not back in five minutes we’ll continue without you,” said Elwes. “You’re only allowed five minutes to look for a lost ball, it’s in the rules.”

“
I’m not looking for a lost ball, I’m going shopping for some more; and I’m quite sure there’s nothing in the rules that says I can’t do that!” said Fidler, adamantly. “And as I’m marking your card you have no alternative but to wait for me until I return,” he added, with a smile.

“
Play one of your Top Flight fours,” said Elwes, in desperation. “You must have some.” He reached in the ball pocket of his bag. “I’ll mark it for you with my felt tip pen to distinguish it from mine.” He cast a glance of warning at Dawson, should he upset Fidler any more than he was already upset by suggesting it wouldn’t be necessary to mark the ball as Elwes’s ball would be on the fairway, as he had previously. However it was too late for conciliatory tactics.

“
You can stick your felt tip pen up your arse,” said Fidler, and with that strolled off back down the fairway, leaving Dawson and Elwes looking decidedly miffed.

11.00 a.m.

M Hawker (9)

P Simpson (11)

P Hill (12)

If the playing of 'I Don't Give a Toss' and the arrival of Constables Fearon and James had been influential in spoiling Mr Captain's day to some degree the arrival of Martin Hawker, Peter Simpson and Phyllis Hill at the first tee had the potential to completely ruin it.

Until six months ago Phyllis Hill had been Philip Hill, at which point in his life he had undertaken a sex-change operation. (Armitage, with a possible penis transplant in mind, had enquired as to the size of the unwanted genitalia, but Philip had told him that Phyllis would be holding on to it, figuratively speaking, for sentimental reasons.)

Up until the time of the operation Philip had been a transvestite and when playing golf had dressed as do most lady golfers, in pastel shades and tweedy things, and well-cut trousers, rather than a skirt. Thus attired he could quite easily have been taken for one of the lady members at Sunnymere, not because he looked particularly feminine but because quite a few of the more heftily built lady members could easily be taken for transvestites.

The officials of the club didn't much care for the idea of Philip Hill dressing as a woman but there was very little they could do about it, though it was not for want of trying. The club secretary had scoured the Rules of Golf, and whilst he had found many rules that were complete news to him none of them related to the rights or otherwise of transvestites on the course. And in the politically correct times prevalent in Great Britain in the early years of the third millennium it was of course unthinkable that Philip Hill should be barred from playing his chosen sport just because he chose to dress like a woman. It didn’t however stop most of the members from thinking he should. In fact the majority of them would have willingly shot and buried him in the golf course’s deepest bunker if they’d thought for one moment they would get away with it.

However the problems posed by having a transvestite on the course were as nothing once Philip had gone through the operation that transformed him into, if not a whole woman, then minus a set of male genitalia a whole woman. For it was then that Philip Hill, now Phyllis Hill, sought to play in the ladies’ competitions rather than the men's. Not surprisingly the Sunnymere ladies’ section would not even contemplate the proposition. As far as they were concerned Phyllis Hill was still very much a man. That he was a man now minus a penis and testicles, in addition to being the proud owner, thanks to hormone treatment, of a pair of small but blossoming breasts, didn’t even enter into the argument. The way the ladies saw it was that although Philip Hill may very well no longer have male genitalia he certainly still did have the same muscular six feet two inch frame he’d had before, as well as the two strong arms of the plasterer’s mate he had been (and still was) for the last fifteen years, and therefore had an unfair advantage when it came to propelling a golf ball round the course, and especially so off the ladies’ tees.