Captain's Day

by Terry Ravenscroft

  Faced with this sudden spanner in the works, Mr Captain was at a loss as to what stance to adopt. However after a few seconds’ thought he decided that as it was only three out of a total of a hundred and fifty golfers taking part in the Captain’s Day competition who wouldn’t be partaking of his hospitality that he would opt for a cavalier approach. “I see,” he pouted. “Well of course that is your decision to make. But it is a pretty misguided, not to say petty, decision, if I may say so.”

  “You may, but that's the way we feel about it,” said Chapman.

  “Well it's no skin off my nose; it certainly doesn't matter to me that you refuse to have a drink with me. All the more for the others taking part, say I.” With that Mr Captain turned smartly on his heel and started to make his way back to the beer tent.

  “There won't be any others,” Chapman called after him.

  Mr Captain stopped in his tracks. He turned to face Chapman. “What? What do you mean?”

  “I’m afraid all the members feel the same way about it as we do,” said Bagley. “None of them will be having a drink with you.”

  From being in the position when having three of the members refuse to accept his hospitality in the beer tent would be no skin off his nose a whole noseful of skin now suddenly shed itself from Mr Captain's proboscis. He was completely crushed. “N….none of them?”

  “You made your bed,” said Chapman, before turning and heading for the tenth tee. Arbuthnott and Bagley fell in behind him.

  Mr Captain watched them go, completely at a loss. If what they had said was true it would be disastrous. Apart from it completely spoiling his day what on earth would the Lord Mayor think if he found out the members of the club held him in such low esteem that they even refused to have a drink with him, and a free one at that? He saw his chances of becoming a town councillor and a future Lord Mayor dwindling rapidly. Something would have to be done about it, and pretty quickly too if his day wasn't to be spoiled.

  *

  “How much do you want?” asked the man on the other end of the telephone.

  Tobin told him. Then changed his mind and doubled the amount, just to make sure. Muck or nettles he thought, then smiled to himself at the allusion.

  “And where do you want it delivered to?”

  Tobin told him.

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “I’ve never been surer,” said Tobin.

  *

  “Father,” said Millicent, positively.

  “Father?” echoed Mr Captain, then added, doubtfully, “Your father?”

  “Well of course. I'm sure he'd be only too happy to help.”

  On discovering from the Arbuthnott threesome that the entire field was going to refuse to have a drink with him Mr Captain had returned to the beer tent to counsel Millicent. Two heads were better than one and it was clear that some pretty quick thinking would have to be done if he were to overcome the latest crisis to be dropped in his lap. However by offering her father as a solution to the problem it was clear to Mr Captain that Millicent wasn't yet thinking along lines that might prove fruitful. “It is golfers we are short of, Millicent,” he said in reply to his wife's suggestion. “Golfers seen to be having a drink with me during the Mayoral visit. How on earth can your father help? He's never played golf in his life.”

  “He doesn't have to have played golf. All he has to do is stand here with you in the beer tent and have a drink; I'm sure he knows how to do that.”

  Mr Captain wasn't. As far as he could remember Millicent's father didn’t drink, her mother having seen to that. He pointed this out. “I thought you father was a teetotaller?”

  “What? Well he is,” said Millicent, a little cross. Her husband could be so pedantic sometimes. “There are soft drinks, aren't there? He can have a soft drink. I'll get him to bring along a couple of his friends, they can pretend to be golfers too. There, there’s your threesome.”

  It seemed like a possible way round the problem but Mr Captain was still a little dubious. “He'll be all right, will he, your father?”

  “What do you mean, all right?”

  “Well, since your mother....I mean he hasn't long been a widower has he.”

  “Mother passed away almost three months ago, Henry. And it isn't as though we're asking father to scale Mount Everest, is it? All we're asking him to do is have a drink with you. So do I go for him or don’t I?”

  Mr Captain still wasn’t comfortable with the idea but had no better solution to the problem. “I suppose it will be all right,” he said, but in the hope that he would come up with something better before the Lord Mayor arrived.

  10.10 a.m.

  C Healey (14)

  J Bramwell (17)

  T Plumstone (19)

  New member Jeremy Bramwell's topped tee shot at the first wasn't the most distinguished opening shot of the day, but then neither was it the worst. (That dubious honour went to Peter Keaney, whose ball sliced off the toe of his driver and hit one of the tee markers before ricocheting back behind him, over the road and through the open clubhouse door, whereupon the greens chairman Maurice Maidment, a man known for his opportunism as well as for his parsimony, immediately claimed it as a 'find' and popped it in his blazer pocket whilst no one was looking.)

  “A Sally Gunnell,” observed Terry Plumstone, following the flight, or lack of it, of Bramwell’s ball, which had attained an altitude of no more than two feet at its highest point as it bounded down the fairway like a miniature Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb.

  “What?” said Bramwell.

  “You’ve just hit a Sally Gunnell.”

  “A Sally Gunnell?”

  “Ugly but a good runner,” explained Plumstone.

  “Ugly?” said Bramwell, surprised. “Sally Gunnell? I find the lady quite becoming.”

  Healey gaped. “You’re talking about the runner? The ex-Olympic hurdler? Did a stint as a BBC commentator? Absolute crap at it?”

  “But of course.”

  “Are you sure you're all right, Jeremy?” Plumstone enquired, in mock concern. “I could send for a doctor.”

  “Probably the heat’s got to him, Terry,” said Healey.

  Bramwell shook his head, quite bemused. “I really don’t understand you two. What on earth is wrong with Sally Gunnell? She’s one of the most attractive women I’ve ever set eyes on.”

  “I’ll send for that doctor then,” said Plumstone.

  Healey now began to suspect where Bramwell might be coming from. After all, the Olympic gold medallist was possessed of a slim, toned figure and a healthy tan, and if you were to disregard her face and her appalling estuary accent it might be possible to believe that someone could find her attractive, especially if it were someone who placed more store on a woman’s figure than her looks and diction. “Well if you put a bag over her head and gagged her you might just be able to say she was attractive,” he conceded to Bramwell.

  “No, it isn't just her shapely body,” said Bramwell. “I find her quite pretty.”

  Healey just couldn’t believe it. “Quite pretty? Sally Gunnell? She’s got a face like a bag of spanners.”

  “On the contrary, I've always thought her most fetching.”

  Shaking his head in disbelief and saying to himself that it takes all sorts, Healey let the matter lie and took his place on the tee. He was about to drive off when the sound of a car pulling up behind the tee disturbed his concentration. He turned in time to see, alighting from the car, what was without any doubt the ugliest woman he had ever seen in his life. She now waved and called to Bramwell. “Jeremy!”

  “What is it, darling?” said Bramwell, a little concerned, going over to her.

  She took an asthma spray from her handbag and held it up. “You forgot this.”

  “I'd forget my head if it was loose,” smiled Bramwell. He indicated Plumstone and Healey. “This is Terry Plumstone and Chris Healey, by the way. Terry and Chris, my wife Daphne.”

  *

  “The first ones should be alon
g quite soon,” said Mrs Quayle, glancing at her watch.

  “About ten-thirty if Mr Captain is to be believed,” said Mrs Rattray.

  “Then let the measuring of the Nearest the Pin competition commence!” announced Mrs Salinas.

  The three ladies had taken up position behind the green about five yards back from the putting surface.

  It had occurred to Mrs Quayle that the spot the three ladies had chosen, immediately behind the flagstick and clearly visible from the tee some hundred and fifty yards away, might be distracting to a golfer taking his tee shot; however it was also the spot which afforded the ladies the nicest view of the surrounding countryside, and also had the added benefit of the shade of the only tree, so in the matter of selecting a spot from which to operate, and choosing a spot which wouldn’t distract the golfers, it was no contest.

  Mrs Rattray and Mrs Salinas hadn't even considered the golfers.

  Whilst they were waiting for their first customers to arrive Mrs Quayle was leafing through a copy of The Lady, Mrs Rattray was reading Woman’s Own, whilst Mrs Salinas was making a daisy chain.

  “This is a bit like yours, Miriam,” said Mrs Rattray, showing Mrs Quayle a page in her magazine. “Your new conservatory.”

  Mrs Quayle pulled a face. “Don't mention conservatories to me. They said it would take three days to install. Three weeks it took them. I told them it only took God a week to make the entire world.”

  “And he took Sunday off,” said Mrs Salinas.

  “The men who put my conservatory in didn't,” said Mrs Quayle. “Hammering and banging away while Bernard and I were trying to read the Sunday papers. It was the first time Bernard has failed to complete the Times crossword in years for all the din. He was quite put out. And then we had to pay them extra for working during the weekend even though it was their own fault they’d got behind with the job! It was all that tea drinking.”

  “They were just the same when I was having my lounge extension,” sympathised Mrs Salinas. “I spent half the day brewing up for them. I didn’t have to warm the teapot, it never got cold. And one of them insisted on Earl Grey. Earl Grey indeed!”

  “Of course they didn't have conservatories in those days,” said Mrs Rattray.

  “In what days?” said Mrs Quayle.

  “When God made the world. It might have taken him longer than a week to create the world if they'd had conservatories in biblical times and he'd had to provide everyone with a conservatory.”

  “It would if he'd employed the ones who installed my conservatory to erect them,” said Mrs Quayle.

  “And they drank tea at the same rate my lot did,” agreed Mrs Salinas.

  *

  Norris, Oates and Pemberton were walking up the second fairway.

  “Ron Mediate.”

  “Chip Beck.”

  “Duffy Waldorf.”

  *

  Forty minutes had passed since Armitage had eaten the space cake and as yet it had had little or no effect on him. Certainly he didn't feel anything like as relaxed as when he’d taken the previous space cake, nor had his golf improved as his snooker had.

  Although he would have much preferred to be burning up the course he wasn't particularly worried about the situation as his brother had warned him that you didn't always get the exact same reaction upon taking a space cake, and for a variety of reasons, the main one being that space cake manufacture wasn’t as advanced as, say, Jaffa cake production. Apparently a governing factor was how well the cannabis had been incorporated into the mixture, as each individual space cake would vary in strength if it hadn’t been thoroughly mixed in. In arriving at a dosage consistent with one's expectations his brother had therefore advised a suck-it-and-see policy, or rather an eat-it-and-see policy, and if having eaten one space cake you observed that it wasn't enough to bring about the desired effect the remedy was simply to eat another one.

  Recalling his brother's advice Armitage reached into his golf bag, took out another space cake, and made short work of it.

  *

  In the absence of Millicent, who had left the beer tent to go for her father, and Mr Captain, who had left to return to the first tee to welcome and see off the next group, the Lady Captain took the opportunity to help herself to another generous measure from the gin bottle.

  10.20 a.m.

  A Adams (5)

  B Adams (5)

  C Adams (5)

  The Adams brothers were far and away Sunnymere’s most successful golfers when it came to the winning of prizes. Between them the siblings won almost a quarter of all the club competitions they entered. They could quite easily have won more, but to have been more successful than they already were might have drawn more attention to them, attention they could do without; for in order to achieve their success they cheated.

  A man taking part in a round of golf is largely observed only by his playing partners, and very often not even by them. Because of this it is comparatively easy to cheat at golf, which is why the game is looked upon by those who play it as being as much a test of character as it is a test of one’s skill at the game. The methods of cheating are many and diverse; pretending to find your lost ball by surreptitiously dropping another ball in the area where the lost ball had been seen to land; improving the lie of your ball in the rough by astute use of the foot; placing your ball nearer the hole when replacing it on the putting surface after having marked it; and many more,

  However by far the easiest way to cheat at golf is for the golfer to claim he has taken fewer strokes on a hole than he has actually taken; a sharp pencil turning many a six into a more respectable and less damaging five when a chip and a putt has failed to do the job. Claiming a false number of strokes taken was the only form of cheating employed by the Adams brothers, all other methods of deception, the brothers having tried and tested them, being judged as too reckless and open to discovery.

  The main appeal to the Adams brothers of their chosen form of cheating was that there was no possibility whatsoever of them ever being found out, and the reason they could never be found out was because they always played together. That the Adams brothers were identical triplets helped enormously in their deceptions. This was enhanced by their always dressing identically, leastwise when they were on the golf course. And gilded by their carrying identical golf bags containing identical clubs. Quite literally, whenever they were playing golf, it was impossible to tell them apart.

  If a golfer were to consistently claim a lower score than he had actually taken it would eventually be noticed by someone; a close watch on that individual would be made by his playing partners and the guilty golfer would eventually be found out and brought to book. This strategy couldn’t apply to the Adams triplets as they always played together. But even if their progress on the golf course could have been monitored it wouldn't have made the slightest difference, for the simple fact that although the brothers might for example take a total of eighteen shots between them on a particular hole anyone observing would have no way of knowing for certain how many of the eighteen strokes each individual Adams brother had taken. Given that they had each hit a tee shot and each had holed out on the green, which would account for six of the eighteen strokes, any of the brothers could have recorded a score of anything from two to fourteen, and there was no way of determining the true figure for a particular Adams. As long as the brothers took care that the total number of strokes taken on any one hole equalled the number of strokes taken on that hole by each of them they had nothing to worry about.

  Once the Adams triplets realised this they had never looked back, and took their turn to win competitions at their pleasure, and their pleasure was often. The subterfuge didn't always work of course, as they could never be certain what would qualify that day as a winning score - golf being golf it is always possible for someone to have a dream round and come in with a genuine but almost impossibly low score - but more often than not when an Adams brother decided he wanted to win a competition he would win it. The club offici
als knew that a winning Adams card was as suspicious as a milk bill but there was not a thing they could do about it.

  As they all boasted a handicap of five, although ten would have been nearer the mark if their cheating were to be discounted, they took the honour at the first tee in alphabetical order, so Alec teed off first, followed by Brian, then Charles.

  On the occasion of Captain’s Day it had been decided amongst the brothers that Alec would win the competition, Brian already having won the President’s Putter and Charles the Club Championship. Alec’s opening drive was a poor one, a slice into the rough on the right. His pitching wedge second got him out of the rough but only a matter of a few yards down the fairway. He hooked his three iron third shot into the left hand pot bunker guarding the green. His first attempt at a recovery shot hit the lip of the bunker and rolled back into the sand. His second attempt got him out of the sand but he thinned the ball slightly and it cleared the putting surface, coming to rest in the pretty on the opposite side of the green. His sixth shot, a chip back onto the green, left his ball twelve feet from the pin. He just missed the putt and tapped in for an eight.

  “Good four,” said Brian.

  “Cheers,” said Alec.

  *

  Armitage was beginning to doubt the wisdom of eating a second space cake and was now wishing he'd given the first one a little longer to start working, as it was becoming increasingly clear that whilst one space cake may or may not have been enough two space cakes were one space cake too many. The first untoward thing happened when he had taken hold of the flagstick at the seventh green and turned his head towards Stock to ask him if he wanted it removed or tended. Even though his brain was becoming more scrambled by the second Armitage knew it was beyond dispute that he had moved his head in Stock's direction – this was borne out by the fact that he was now looking directly at him - yet his head still seemed to be where it had been before he moved it. He now turned his head back to see if it would cure the problem. It didn't, because although he was now facing in the direction in which he had originally been facing, his head felt as if it were still looking at Stock. It was as though he had two heads.