forth like a drunken hippo, just missing an approaching Bentley.
‘Shockingly, any findings have already been proved, and these experiments are just repeats. Enlightened countries like France now use computers, but the bloody MoD keep on testing.’
‘For Christ’s sake, shut up, Dora,’ hissed Paris, as Rover and trailer mounted the verge to let through a large lorry.
‘Only about ten miles to go.’ Dora examined the map with the torch she had borrowed from Etta. ‘The laboratory flanks the golf course and the goats are turned out in a little field. The Animal Rights people have been climbing over the fence throughout the week so the goats won’t be scared when we smuggle them out tonight.
‘Nuala, my contact, is so lovely, really slim and pretty with rhubarb-pink hair. She and her boyfriend have moved house to be nearer the laboratory so they can step up the campaign to stop the tests. The results were no use when the Brits were called in to help after some Russian submarine disaster. All the trapped sailors died anyway. Nuala’s got homes for eight of the goats, and I’ve offered another one.
‘How d’you know this friend of yours, Etta, will accept a goat?’
‘She’s got such a kind heart, she’d rescue an elephant. You’re driving beautifully. No wonder you passed first time.’
Dora’s blonde curls and round pink face were concealed by a black balaclava. She loved adventures. Paris only just stopped her slapping a ‘www.thegoats.com This company sponsors torture’ sticker on the windscreen of the Rover.
He ought to be back at school with a wet towel round his head, washing down uppers with black coffee and mugging up Homer. Paris had to get an ‘A’ in memory of his late classics master, Theo Graham, whom he had loved so much, who’d instilled in him a love of the ancient world and left him all his money. Places at Cambridge, Oxford and RADA were dependent on ‘A’ level grades.
‘You’ll walk it,’ said Dora.
‘Not if I end up in prison for goat-napping.’
‘Here’s the golf course,’ crowed Dora. ‘I’ve got a collar and lead for our goat. I’ll have a disc printed as soon as we get her back to Willowwood.’
The volunteers, all slim, all dressed in black, their features hidden by balaclavas, welcomed them in lowered voices. Nuala, Dora’s friend, introduced them to the leader, Brunhilda, who had a very firm handshake and thanked them for coming.
The moon had set, the car doors of the last departing golfer had slammed, the last light was off in the clubhouse. A dog barked. A van, filled with straw and food to entice the goats, had been parked under the trees on the fairway.
‘We’re aiming to rescue kids of about six months, who may not have been tested on yet,’ said Nuala, as she drove Paris and Dora over the golf course towards the field. ‘But we’ve all fallen in love with one older goat, a real character, much naughtier than the others. She keeps trying to eat our clothes and refuses to share apples with any of the other goats. I think she’d be the right sort to cheer up and protect your poor, nervous mare.’
‘We’ve got a collar and lead,’ whispered Dora. ‘She’ll have a lovely home. Etta, the mare’s owner, is bats about goats.’
Arcturus, brightest star of the constellation of Bootes the Shepherd, shone down on them. Hercules brandished his sword and cudgel, egging them on. Dora, trying to still her chattering teeth, slid her hand into Paris’s, as under the trees on the fairway, eyes growing accustomed to the darkness, they watched Brunhilda run forward to get to work with her wire cutters.
As half a dozen black-clad figures crept stealthily through the hole she’d made, a flock of goats like silver ghosts ran bleating excitedly towards them.
‘Aren’t they adorable?’ whispered Dora, wriggling through the hole, forgetting to be frightened.
‘This is Chisolm,’ whispered Nuala, ‘leading the stampede.’
Pure white Chisolm gleamed in the starlight like a unicorn. White-bearded, high as Paris’s waist, she accepted a Granny Smith and tried to eat Paris’s black sweatshirt as he buckled on her new blue collar and attached a lead.
‘Isn’t she good,’ sighed Dora, giving her a piece of melon as they led her towards the hole in the fence.
‘We’ll come and get you next time,’ she called back to the thirty-odd goats who’d been unlucky.
‘Not bloody likely.’ Paris jumped as an icy hand clawed his face, but it was only the wet leaves of an overhanging ash tree.