Written for Discovered on May Day, on the discoveredinalj livejournal community


Their's was a somewhat surreal post.

They were assigned to observe, from a discrete distance, the public loo at Findon.

The village was only one of several bucolic places said to be favoured for smuggled drugs drops. Grassish information was limited on the topic. But the Old Man was hard on the heels of one particular curmudgeon with probable terrorist connections. The villain's operatives had committed a series of rather gruesome London executions to eliminate the competition. The Home Secretary was particularly eager to lower a net over the entire homicidal lot, rather briskly.

Hence the current somewhat surreal post.

Said discrete distance from the Findon village loo having landed them, for want of better cover, in some tall, extremely damp meadow grass, complete with kestrel, circling overhead.

Bodie, liking to share the occasional passionate tumble with a wench in a woodsy setting, had a couple of army drab tarpaulins stashed in the boot of his vehicle.

Doyle's contribution to the enterprise was a steaming thermos of tea only lightly laced with Jamaican rum.

They lay between the tarps, the top layer drawn right up to their ears. There they surveilled the Findon public loo, all the while inhaling the mingled aroma of freshly bloomed violets and freshly dropped sheep dung, listening to the soft rain chuckling gently as it caressed their cover, feeling the warmth of being snugged comfortably close to congenial anatomy.

Ray clenched the field glasses. "What do you imagine you're doing?"

Unabashed, Bodie continued to grope Doyle's nether cheeks a full ten seconds before reluctantly withdrawing his hand. "Checking for hypothermia. Wouldn't want it to creep up on you, silent like."

"Getting bored are we?"

"With you for scintillating converse? Impossible."

Ray smiled. "Why don't you read us some more?"

"Finished the best parts. Besides which, cost me three pounds sixty at Poole's Second Hand. Shouldn't want to get it wet." Over the last several hours, he'd read aloud the stories of the chief Cissbury Ring ghosts from Iron Age through Victorian Era. The modern ghosts' chapter at the end of the volume didn't interest Bodie. Dreary creatures those were, too close to grim reality for his liking.

As a backdrop to the two huddled mates, the Cissbury Rings were an evocative setting.

Verdant downs against bright white chalk paths, the first of the year's wildflowers, wide flung in lavender and yellow. Sixty five acres of ancient hillfort, the realm of the earth mother rising high, layer upon layer, aspiring to the heavens of the sun lord.

Who seemed to have ducked into his cloud palace for a bit of a kip today, Bodie grinned to himself.

Their current occupation seemed not at all incongruous. To his imagination, they were neolithic warriors, guarding the precious flint mines of their tribe against invaders. He hearkened to the call of the sea, the glittering channel a mere few miles distant, and felt his blood stir at the thought of fierce raiders arriving in wooden boats.

Armed conflict at close quarters, himself and his sturdy comrade, wielding catapult stones, knives, bows and arrows in staunch defense of their turf.

Beside him, Ray sighed and stirred, crackling tendons along his back. Bodie took over the glasses, allowing Doyle the freedom to work the kinks out of his body.

The resultant writhing was delectable. Bodie squirmed closer. "Nearly May the First. What rites of Spring do you fancy?"

Doyle yawned. "May Day? Bah. Full moon rarely falls on the First."

"Has to be full, has it?"

"For a bale fire, yeah."

"Proper pagan, aren't you?"

Doyle shrugged, feeling no call to justify himself on the topic.

Bodie nudged him. "So you wait for the full moon, eh?"

"Mmm."

"And then? Come on, it's your turn to talk. Read myself hoarse already. What's for eats at your moonlit celebration?"

Doyle smiled at his partner's affinity for matters of a digestive turn. "Um. Honey oatmeal bickies and baked custards. Plus a jar of last year's fruit preserves. That's to prove your faith in the coming crop, you eat up the last of your winter's hoard."

Bodie offered a small slurp behind Doyle's ear in appreciation. "And for tipple?"

Ray's green eyes glittered with good humour. "Got to go out and gather the ground ivy. Pick them when they're freshly blooming, all those little purple blossoms and ruffled round leaves, you know?"

"Oh, aye, and for why?"

"Clarifying of the new ale, to settle it, see?"

"Good, very good. And of course for company, carrying their gathering baskets, there'd be maidens sweet, wearing nought but floral wreathes and shy smiles?"

"Virgins, highly overrated, them."

"You don't say?"

"Planting moon. That's about fertility, in tit? What you want, old son, is a sure thing for the sake of spawning. Females that've come of age already, ripe and lusty, and ah, full bodied." Doyle held his cupped hands over his lean chest and moaned softly, pulsing his pelvis in a rhythmic series of thrusts, cushioned by the rich loam beneath him.

Bodie groaned and laughed. Without abandoning his lookout, he flung a solid thigh over Ray's leg and humped it wantonly.

"Not waiting for the full moon?" Doyle chuckled.

"Naw. Me, I'm not a proper pagan. Leaves more lascivious latitude, savvy?"

"Just as you say."

"What else for next?"

Doyle slipped from under Bodie's weight, rubbing the tingles out of his calf muscle, whilst pondering traditions. "Plant your veggie seeds. Circle the well nine times to honour the deities of the water. Tie ribbons on the blooming shrubbery, that sort of frolic."

"Hmm. Could decorate the door to the ladies' bog at headquarters."

"The Cow'd have a regal fit over that!"

"Ought to do it just for laughs."

"Or better yet, we could trawl."

"What, you mean in a boat?"

"No, no. Trawling. Old tradition, to nettle the Christian priests, see? On Bealtaine, you take your copy of the Bible and open it at random, read the tract out loud to yer kin and kith. The family elder interprets the passage. Supposed to pertain to the season's fortune, a prediction, see?"

"Ah ha, I get the stunt now. Come running up to Cowley, all respectful and eager."

"Him being the tribal elder, CI5 wise man."

"Exactly. 'Sir, sir,' you'd call out loudly, for all the staff to hear."

"Right, with your King James spread wide."

"Just by chance at the Song of Solomon. Quoth you, most somberly, 'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. My spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. I sit down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Oh my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places! Pillar of silver, bottom of gold, covering of purple, being paved with love.' "

"And then, 'Prithee, Goode Sir Cowley, what meaneth these portents?'"

They collapsed together in an excess of mirth.

Bodie recovered first. "Want to try it on, for real?"

"Naw. No profit to the venture. Better in the mind's eye, that."

"Yar," Bodie agreed.

"What for yourself, then, for Spring? Get naked and plunge into the Mersey?"

"All for a frostbitten fruit basket? What do you take me for?"

"Oh, nuffink, lad. Forget I mentioned it."

"There is one thing, though."

"Eh?"

"Pertaining to Mayday. You know, when a pilot calls a distress signal, and he radios 'Mayday'."

"Yeah?"

"Heard that it's a mangling of the French, 'moi aidez' or some such. Meaning, 'help me'."

"Hmm. A bit precious, that story."

"Well, maybe. But, you know, there were all those English-speaking blokes, World War I flyers in France. Maybe Mayday sounded close enough to the French parley, and it was something they could remember."

"Meh. Maybe so."

A comfortable silence settled on them. They listened to the sweetly whispering rain awhile.

Doyle flopped over onto his belly. "Got to drain the newt."

"Remember to salute the water deities while you're at it."

"Always. Else they might bite me goolies out of spite."

Doyle slid from under the tarp and hiked downhill toward the Findon public loo.

From on high, the hovering kestrel eyed Ray, as if considering whether he might prove an edible morsel.

Watching his backside, Bodie had to agree with the possibility.

Doyle disappeared into the facility.

A minute later, a motor pulled over to park in front. Bodie's pulse rate picked up slightly. His nostrils quivered. He fingered the haft of his Magnum, but left it holstered.

Carrying a canvas covered parcel, a bluff man clad in a pea coat emerged from the car and strode purposefully toward the WC.

Bodie stood abruptly. He sent three short transmissions of static over the handheld to alert Doyle. Then he trotted quickly down the soggy slope.

The bloke with the box slipped into the women's room. Bodie paused for a quick ten count, to see if any outraged females emerged, then followed him.

"Right on time," the thug commented before realizing Bodie wasn't, one, his buyer, or two, a female. Hastily, he made a grab for his concealed weapon.

"None of that," Bodie pounced on him, pinning his body to the wall, likewise his arms to his torso.

"What the hell?" This new voice came from behind Bodie, who froze at the sound of a second enemy. The first thug shrugged him off, and Bodie stepped back, glancing over his shoulder, to see if he had to deal with any fire power there.

Yeah, he did, it seemed. The crud held a semi-automatic. Bodie started to raise his hands, as if surrendering.

"'Ey up," Doyle shouted. The noise drew off the attention and aim of the lout in the doorway. With a swift kick and a follow-through punch, Ray disarmed and levelled the man.

Bodie heard the action, but wasn't watching. The instant the opportunity presented, he took out the first villain with a roundhouse to the mandible and a knee to the groin.

"Too easy," Bodie assessed as they cuffed the miscreants. "Where's the joy of it, I ask you?"

Doyle nodded wry agreement. "Could have used a bit more exercise, meself, after lying about all day in the damp."

Later, at post-ops report, Cowley complained. "Careless of you, 3.7, getting caught between two enemies in that manner. Why did you pursue the first suspect so quickly?"

Bodie didn't reply, "Because of Ray." Instead he merely offered, "Sir, our brief specified a drop, not a meet for a buy."

"And 4.5, why did you wait so long to back-up your partner?"

"In case our brief was wrong, and it was a meet for a buy rather than a drop, sir," Doyle responded, with a wicked spark lighting his eyes.

"You didn't call for help, 3.7?"

"No need, sir," Bodie grinned. "Knew Doyle'd be there, and he was."

Cowley merely nodded at that.

They were scarcely outside the controller's office, when Doyle broke down laughing.

Bodie dragged his convulsively mirthful partner a safe distance before demanding what he was about.

"Thought I might die," Ray snuffled, ruefully shaking his head. "Every time I looked at the Old Man, 'the smell of spikenard' sprang to mind, and I nearly couldn't keep a straight face."

"Damn glad I didn't realize it then, or I'd have lost it, too. Hey, when's the full moon, anyway?"

"Wednesday night."

"Invite me over for oatmeal bickies? I'll bring the ale."

"Okay. But no virgins."

"Course not. Was thinking more in the line of silver pillars."

"Golden bottoms?"

"Clefts of rock. Yeah, that sort of thing."

"Mmm," Ray agreed. And then, "You didn't call for help."

"Knew you'd be there." Bodie draped his arm over Doyle's shoulder. "Was right. Mayday. Bah."

-- THE END --

May 2007