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    The Last Laugh
    The Last Laugh
    The Last Laugh
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    The Last Laugh

    By TONY NASH

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    About this ebook

    The United Kingdom is free of rabies, but the danger is ever-present.
    Billy Harsley is eleven and hyperactive. School bores him and he longs to have adventures like Huck Finn. He has run away for the third time and is sleeping rough on the marshes near Great Yarmouth, while the police search for him in the town.
    A German coaster has just tied up in the port, ready to unload, but there are problems on the ship, mechanical and animal.
    Both the Captain's dogs, unknown to him, have been infected with rabies. As he goes to feed them there is an explosion and the little mongrel, Mukki, escapes while his attention is diverted.
    Before long both boy and dog are on the same marsh. Add in a meeting with the marsh 'ghost' and the mixture begins to brew. It is soon a question of who will have the last laugh...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTONY NASH
    Release dateMar 29, 2014
    ISBN9781631737374
    The Last Laugh
    Author

    TONY NASH

    Tony Nash is the author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels. He began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

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      Book preview

      The Last Laugh - TONY NASH

      The Last Laugh

      Tony Nash

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © Tony Nash 2013

      ISBN 9781631737374

      A Hand Full of Dust

      The Tony Dyce Thrillers:

      Murder by Proxy

      Murder on the Back Burner

      Murder on the Chess Board

      Murder on the High ‘C’

      Murder on Tiptoes

      The Harry Page Thillers:

      Tripled Exposure

      Unseemly Exposure

      The John Hunter Thrillers:

      Carve Up

      Single to Infinity

      The Most Unkindest Cut

      The Devil Deals Death – (A Black Magic Thriller)

      The Makepeace Manifesto

      Panic

      A Handful Of Dust

      A Handful Of Salt

      This is a work of pure fiction, and any similarity between any character in it and any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional. Where actual places, buildings and locations are named, they are used fictionally.

      "He who laughs last, laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs………" (Anon.)

      CHAPTER ONE

      The scarecrow on its pole looked out over the field towards a large straw stack in the middle distance. Whoever made the figure had given it a repulsive, grinning face and evil eyes. A small child’s blue anorak covered its straw shoulders and a tatty pair of discarded lovat moleskin trousers had been stuffed with straw for the legs. On its head was a vintage bowler hat with a large hole in the top, through which a score or so of straws poked up into the weather. The field, one of just over eighty acres, planted with clover and almost ready for its second cut of the year, was a magnet for woodpigeons. They ignored the scarecrow completely, and a flock of over a hundred had landed and was having its morning feed just yards away from it. A vague path ran through the tall grass along the edge of the field, and by its side where it met the road was a decaying, small wooden sign with the direction, ‘To the Beach’.

      A police car passed slowly on a normal patrol, the male driver and female passenger more interested in their desultory chat and their awakening sexual attraction to each other than scanning the fields on either side.

      Lying in the straw at the bottom of the stack, Billy Harsley lay fast asleep, still dressed in the clothes he wore when he left home: a dark grey pair of long trousers, a brown jacket, a dark blue shirt and a lighter blue, long-sleeved pullover. Each garment had a strip of light grey ribbon carrying his name sewn inside it. By his side lay a full plastic shopping bag, holding his vintage transistor radio, some apples, sandwiches, cakes and biscuits, and bottles and cans of drink.

      A scrawny ancient male rat appeared out of a crack between the straw bales and eyed the small sleeping creature. It eased forward, unsure of the different and strange smells coming from the new intrusion into its well-known world. Among the other smells there were some it had not encountered before around its home on the marsh, but which could possibly indicate something edible. It emitted a low squeak, and the youngster stirred, having a bad dream, where he saw a ragged figure stabbing viciously, over and over again, at something on the ground, using a long knife, its blade running in blood. Billy’s face twisted in torment, and his body rolled over. The rat, suddenly scared, fled back into its hideaway.

      The scrabbling sounds woke him. He opened his eyes quickly, still afraid.

      Seeing nothing to alarm him, he sighed with relief. He shivered, yawned, stretched and rubbed his stomach, then opened his bag and took out an apple and a can of Cola. He pulled the ring off the tin and began to drink and eat.

      As the sun came from behind a small, puffy white cloud its rays struck the face of the scarecrow and made its grin look even more evil.

      CHAPTER TWO

      While Billy consumed his meal, the crew of the ‘Eisenstern’, an eight hundred ton cargo ship which had fought the six-knot ebbing tide until it tied up by the quayside in Great Yarmouth harbour, were working hard. To a man they were worn out after fighting the sea and going without sleep for more than twenty-four hours, but pleased to be safe in harbour. The old freighter, built to less than exacting requirements in 1953, and maintained to the lowest acceptable standards by a company whose only interest was the bottom line, was well past its sell-by date. The crew did what they could to keep her running, but were fighting a steadily losing battle. They had had to put back in to Bergen for engine repairs when half a day out, and sixty miles off their destination the engine had stopped again as the wind increased to near gale force. They’d made up and put out a drogue anchor, but the freighter wallowed almost side on to the seven-foot waves for almost three hours before they got the engine going again. The ship’s outdated and badly worn winches and cranes were being used to unload her cargo of timber from Norway, and some crewmembers were working on a large piece of machinery near the fo’cstle. The German skipper, Heini Schlitter, a good-looking, blond six footer, with sky-blue eyes, in his late thirties, wearing a white roll-neck pullover, dark blue trousers and a marine cap at a jaunty angle, was walking along the corridor on the lower deck with two bowls of dog food in his beefy hands.

      His left ear itched, and he juggled the dishes, stopping for a moment, in order to rub the lobe, thinking about the itch and frowning slightly, with the seagoing man’s superstitious fear. Walking on, past the several doors in the corridor, he finally reached his destination – a door formed of steel bars, with a large padlock securing it.

      Inside the cabin-sized kennel lived the two ship’s dogs, Mukki and Moos, the former a small mongrel, with a character so appealing that his expression appeared almost human, the latter a quiet, steady Doberman. Unusual when food was in the offing, Moos lay supine at the back of the kennel. Mukki stood just inside the door, howling.

      Heini shouted, ‘Mukki! Hör auf!’ and the dog stopped, its head cocked to one side and eyes wide.

      Suddenly the captain heard very loud mechanical knocking, and shouted, ‘Mensch! Musst Ihr so viel Lärm machen?’

      He turned back to the dogs and spoke in a much quieter voice, ‘Na, Jungs –Frühstück.’ He set the two bowls down on the floor of the corridor, took a large bunch of keys from his trouser pocket, unlocked the padlock, opened the door, picked up the dishes and carried them into the kennel, setting them down on the floor inside and closing the door behind him firmly, but not locking it.

      Mukki did two excited laps of the kennel then ran up to greet him, and Heini stroked the mongrel’s head. The captain noticed that the dog was moving rather stiffly in its hindquarters and shaking from time to time. He wondered if something was wrong with the animal, but then decided, ‘Du wirst alt, oder?’ Mukki was fifteen years old and Heini had had him as a six-week-old pup. He knew that most small dogs lived no longer than fifteen years, and had steeled himself in preparation for what he knew must happen before too long. He loved both his dogs, but Mukki held the top spot in his affection. Moos was only four years old, and a much steadier companion, whose affection for his master was obvious, but more subdued.

      The little mongrel began to eat as if he had seen no food for days. The big Doberman still lay motionless on the floor, and Heini crossed to him and fondled his head.

      ‘Na, Moos, frisst du nicht? Du hast ja normalerweise so einen guten Appetit. Komm!’

      He helped the dog to its feet and across to the other dish of food. Mukki was still eating voraciously. Moos sniffed at the dish.

      ‘Ja – das ist richtig. Du bist mein braver Hund.’ He turned and stroked the smaller dog’s head, ‘Ach, Mukki, du auch, natürlich.’

      A noise like an explosion, followed by a loud hiss was followed by great clouds of steam billowing into the corridor and kennel.

      Mukki started running round and round in the kennel, frightened.

      Heini wrenched open the door and stepped into the corridor, leaving the door open. He shouted, ‘Zum Teufel! Was ist passiert?’

      Mukki, momentarily out of his sight, ran out of the open door of the kennel behind him and away along the corridor, disappearing round the corner at the end.

      Unable to see what was wrong through the clouds of steam, Heini decided he had to investigate. He turned quickly, closed and locked the door of the kennel, then realised he could not see Mukki. He peered harder through the steam, reacting when he realised that the little dog was gone. He whistled and shouted, ‘Mukki! Mukki! Hierher! Mukki!’

      He was torn between the two demands on his attention, but realised that the other problem needed his attention more and swore, ‘Ach, Scheisse!’ before running towards the source of the steam.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Trying not to fall over,

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