Harry Cavendish Read Online Free PDF

transportation to Bartislard.
    ‘Cormack,’ he said. ‘Meet Stanton Bosch.’
     
    ‘Pleased to be meeting you,’ said Stanton Bosch and extended a sinewy arm. He was an old man, his face wrinkled like a prune, but his arms and torso were unexpectedly muscled and brown, as though he had worked all of his life outdoors at hard manual labour and his body had reacted thus far magnificently, toning and conditioning him like a carthorse, but the state of his face suggested that it would express its disgust soon enough by felling him with a coronary. He sported a bandana and denim dungarees that were torn in parts and patched in others.
    ‘Welcome to Foul Ball,’ he said.
    ‘Lovely planet you have here,’ said Cormack, more to be polite than because he believed it. The insects were getting to him - vast squads of midges, buzzing in clouds over his head.
    ‘Well, it ain’t so lovely for us who got to live on it and that’s the truth,’ said Stanton Bosch. ‘But you make the most of your time here. The Captain been explaining to me your purpose and I is always be the first to wish all the Candidates the best of luck. So good luck to you too, skinny man.’
    ‘Stanton Bosch here has agreed to take us all to Bartislard in his floating tuk-tuks,’ said Proton.
    ‘Tis what the tourists does like the best,’ said Stanton Bosch. ‘Me and me brothers will look after you.’
    His brothers were introduced as Hilton, Cheney, Dexter, Beenie and Tram, and they were lined up to shake hands. They were all of a piece, wizened and muscled like the old man himself.
    ‘There’s a couple over there that are planning to hang-glide into town,’ said Cormack to Stanton Bosch after the introductions, pointing at the couple from the Outer Hebrides.
    ‘Holy crap, I hope not!’ he said. ‘I hopes you’re joking! But surely these tourists does know how to horrify your soul!’
    Cormack and the cow were led to the first floating tuk-tuk, Stanton Bosch’s own, which was tied with the others a little way from the landing strip, bobbing in the water near a broken pier. It sat low in the river, and was decorated with all kinds of flowery paintings and transparencies depicting what might have been the local wildlife – things that looked like Tasmanian devils, and primitive tigers, lizards with fiery forked tongues, and a great brown bear with cruciform tusks. The tuk-tuk was lit with blue neon strips that had been tied imperfectly round the bow and stern, and large on the prow, stencilled by an uncultured hand, was its name – the Antibiotic.
    ‘Just me little joke,’ said Stanton Bosch. ‘On account of the water-borne diseases that emanate from the Leech.’
    He helped them aboard, lifting the cow chivalrously to her place near the wheel, and offered them careful advice: ‘Now you all be watchful, me lovelies. This planet is beautiful, surely she is beautiful, but that beauty hides a wiciousness. We don’t want no accidents, do we? We all must be wery, wery careful.
    Especially on your first day. I had an accident meself, me first day here…’ he added quietly and went to start the outboard.
    ‘There’s something strange about this place,’ said Cormack to the cow.
    ‘You does be so good to me, Cormack. You mind if I does sit towards the edge, only it’s hard on me udders in the middle, innit.’
    The cow pushed over Cormack to the side of the boat.
    ‘Don’t you be putting your hoof in the water now, me dear!’ said the old man. ‘Not on your first day!
    Did that with me hand on me first day. And you, sir! Not too close to the outboard! Does burn when it’s hot and the blades does cut wery brutal and we don’t want no accidents on the first day, do we now?
    Not on the first day…’
    The tuk-tuk was started with an effort, and Stanton Bosch steered a straight course down the centre of the Leech. Cormack estimated it might be a mile wide, deep and brown, like it was churning sediment and ripe with mud.
    There was