The shower lasted till just before dawn, magnifying the mud and making the grass so slippery that Ernest fell down twice more—once racing to move the phonograph needle, which had stuck and was repeating the same three seconds of tank rumbling over and over, and the second time helping Cess repair yet another puncture. “But think of the war story you’ll have to tell your grandchildren!” Cess said as he wiped the mud off.
“I doubt whether I’ll ever have grandchildren,” Ernest said, spitting out mud. “I am beginning to doubt whether I’ll even survive this night.”
“Nonsense, the sun’ll be up any moment, and we’re nearly done here.” Cess leaned down so he could see the tread marks, which Ernest had to admit looked very realistic. “Make two more tracks, and I’ll finish off this last tank. We’ll be home in time for breakfast.”
And in time for me to finish the articles and run them over to Sudbury by nine, Ernest thought, aligning the tracker with the other tread marks and pushing down hard on it. Which would be good. He didn’t like the idea of those other articles sitting there for another week, even in a locked drawer. Now that he could partially see where he was going and didn’t need to stop and check his path with the torch every few feet, it should only take him twenty minutes to do the treads and load the lorry, and another three-quarters of an hour back home. They should be there by seven at the latest, which would give him more than enough time.
But he’d only gone a few yards before Cess loomed out of the fog and tapped him on the shoulder. “The fog’s beginning to lift,” he said. “We’d best get out of here. I’ll finish off the tanks and you start on stowing the equipment.”
Cess was right; the fog was beginning to thin. Ernest could make out the vague shapes of trees, ghostly in the gray dawn, and across the field a fence and three black-and-white cows placidly chewing grass—luckily, on the far side of it.
Ernest folded up the tarp, untied the umbrella, carried them and the pump to the lorry, and came back for the cutter. He picked it up, decided there was no way he could carry it all the way across the field, set it down, pulled the cord to start it, and pushed it back, making one last track from just in front of the tank’s left tread to the edge of the field, and lugged it, limping, from there to the lorry. By the time he’d hoisted it up into the back, the fog was beginning to break up, tearing apart into long streamers which drifted like veils across the pasture, revealing the long line of tread marks leading to the copse and the rear end of one imperfectly hidden tank peeking out from the leaves, with the other behind it. Even though Ernest knew how it had been done, it looked real, and he wasn’t fifteen thousand feet up. From that height, the deception would be perfect. Unless, of course, there was a phonograph standing in the middle of the pasture.
He started back for it, able to actually see where he was going for several yards at a time, but as he reached the tank, the fog closed in again, thicker than ever, cutting off everything—even the tank next to him. He shut the phonograph and fastened the clasps, then folded up the table. “Cess!” he called in what he thought was his general direction. “How are you coming along?” and the fog abruptly parted, like theater curtains sweeping open, and he could see the copse of trees and the entire pasture.
And the bull. It stood halfway across the pasture, a huge shaggy brown creature with beady little eyes and enormous horns. It was looking at the tank.
“Hey! You there!” a voice called from the fence. “What do you think you’re doing in my pasture?” And Ernest turned instinctively to look at the farmer standing there.
So did the bull.
“Get those bloody tanks out of my pasture!” the farmer shouted, angrily jabbing the air with his finger.
The bull watched him, fascinated, for a moment, then swung his head back around. To look directly at Ernest.
It has always been my great regret that we had to break our record, and that, unlike a certain famous theatre with its naked ladies, we could not claim: “We never closed.”