These Demented Lands Read Online Free

I ask?’ I looked across at the dark oak coffin on trestles.
    â€˜Scrawny creature. A parrot steak.’
    â€˜Dad,’ nodded the First Spoken.
    I nodded back.
    â€˜We promised him he’d be buried at sea . . .’
    â€˜And when he went from us a week on Tuesday we go and find you have to book
years
in advance for a burial at sea with the navy.’
    â€˜And him on the convoys all those years, is that not right, Alexander?’
    â€˜And of course
all kinds
of rules and red tape about doing your own bloody burial at sea . . .’
    â€˜Money makes no difference.’
    â€˜â€œNae pockets on a shroud, boys.”’
    â€˜That’s what he always told us, “Nae pockets on a shroud,” so we’re burying him at sea ourselves, on the other side of the island; we have to cross to The Inaccessible Point, and cause it’s inaccessible we have to take him in on foot.’
    â€˜And we’ll need a boat to take him right out to sea when we get there . . .’
    â€˜Cast him off on the last voyage; right far out so the wood coffin doesnt float him back in . . .’
    I says, ‘Have you heard of a man called the Argonaut?’
    â€˜Him in the kayak? We couldn’t trust Father to a one like yon.’
    Just then a sound came from the coffin, I swung round towards it. It was coming from the insides of the coffin, it was the purrr, purrr, purrr of a cellnet phone.
    â€˜It’s Dad’s.’
    â€˜He asked to be buried with it . . .’
    â€˜He was very attached to it . . . never out of his right hand . . .’
    â€˜It’s still in it . . .’ the First Spoken muttered.
    Most Baldy turned away from me to the First Spoken and went, ‘That’ll be old McKercher after his fee,’ he looked at me and says, ‘Our accountant.’
    The phone stopped ringing and after a silence the First Spoken produced a packet of Chesterfields that he offered round. I shook head and goes, ‘I’ve recently quit, thanks.’ Most Baldy took and they lit up offof the fire. Some spits of rain started to come down.
    â€˜Contrary to speculation,
these
are what James Bond smoked,’ goes the First Spoken.
    The Second Spoken: Most Baldy, says, ‘I am not James Bond nor was meant to be,’ he stood and crossed over towards the coffin where a large sheet of polythene was folded; he picked it up and shook it out so’s it made a big crackling noise. We were all looking over at the coffin: on its varnished side, bolted on, was a white metal plate with the black letters reflecting in the campfire’s unsteady light:
DAD 007
    â€˜What’s that number thing fixed to the side?’ I goes.
    â€˜It’s the personalised number plate from his Jaguar, there’s the other on the opposite side.’
    The Most Baldy draped the polythene over the coffin to protect it from the rain.
    â€˜Right, lets dig this chicken
up
!’ goes the First Spoken. He took a stick and began shoving the red-hot cinders aside to get at the little oven he’d made in the soil under. Sudden, both men turned and looked out, towards the darkness of the Sound, then I heard it too, turned and saw the new light and the flashing red one too, moving: a cone of light pointing down and sweeping a sparkly circle over the waters.
    â€˜Nam the Dam, what’s he doing?’ the First Spoken moaned.
    â€˜The little ferry got sunk by the car ferry; there’s a man missing.’
    â€˜It sunk? What
again
!’ went the Most Baldy.
    â€˜That Nam the Dam shouldn’t be out there, this is official.’
    â€˜He’s an old yank from Vietnam with his own Westland Wessex. He lifts a lot of posts and wire when they’re fencing high on the mountainsides. He does mountain and sea rescue in his spare time, it’s bloody disgrace; you’re a damn sight safer stuck on a