The Professionals Circuit Archive - A Nice Day to Be on the Canal	 
A Nice Day to Be on the Canal

 

by Slantedlight 

 
 Of all the stupid things his partner had ever suggested, this had to rank
as one of the worst. *Lets go to Wales, Ray*. Great. *Up north, Ray, it's
beautiful. Mountains and barmaids and views to die for*. Hah. Miserable
weather, miserable people and a pile of miserable bloody rocks. *We can go
climbing. Be great, you'll see*. 

 Doyle pulled another clip from his pocket, slid it home, and peered
around the corner of the crumbling wall. A flash of red, a shot fired
somewhere to the right -- *Bodie*! There was no answering shot, but
neither was there the dull thud of a body hitting the ground, hard as it
was to tell amongst the clatter and scrape of loose slate that littered
the mountainside.

 He edged around the wall, turning full-circle, straining to hear either
his partner's soft footfall or the determined tread of the young
terrorists. Nothing. Instinct led him away from the dilapidated group of
buildings. About as close to a pub as they were going to get, this trip...

 *There*! A slim figure came into view, half-hunched behind a shell of
ancient machinery, and without doubt Doyle knew that Bodie was on the
other side. He stepped softly and quickly backwards, working his way into
a better line of fire. That only left the second man, who had to be
somewhere above and to the left. 

 Gunfire erupted, and Doyle threw himself sideways behind a pile of loose
rocks, felt bullets slamming into the ground, and rolled. He scrambled
upright, not bothering to fire as his targets vanished, and...

 One minute there was rock beneath his feet, the world as usual even if he
was being shot at, and the next that support was gone. For a brief second
it was like being in a lift - *ground floor please* - then his brain
caught up with the moment, and Doyle knew that he wasn't anywhere so safe
and civilised, and he was falling.

 The world rushed back through the soles of his feet, tilted and tipped
him, and he came down hard on his back, breath forced out until his lungs
ached with it. Then he was sliding headfirst, scree and slate slicing into
him. He threw his arms out, trying to dig in, to catch himself - but
abruptly there was nothing solid to grasp at and the ground dropped away
again. His shoulder struck rock with a resounding crack, and he planed
sideways, bouncing and sliding until at last the world shuddered to a
standstill.

 There was a kind of silence, but for the distant chink and clatter of
stone against stone below, and then the only things left were the sparking
agony that was his shoulder, and a cloud of dust that he knew he shouldn't
cough against... but he did, and the world finally faded out in a rush of
pain and darkness.

 ******

It was the sound of stone on stone above that woke him next. He twitched,
wanting to reach for his Walther, but it was somewhere far below on the
mountain. He turned his head away from the deep grey of the sky, met
instead the deep grey of rock and slate. And eventually, at long last, the
toe of a brown brogue, a long corduroy-clad leg, and a tailored, if
somewhat less than immaculate, jacket came into view; Bodie descending
cautiously in a small avalanche of dust and stone.

 Stupid prat. 

 Now it would be alright. 

 When next he opened his eyes Bodie's face hovered above him, jaw held
taut even when his mouth quirked briefly at the corner. "Oh, there you
are. Skiving off are we?"

 Doyle waited until his partner had settled beside him, blocking the
overly-bright clouds. He drew breath to speak and found himself coughing
again. Nausea spread through him and he turned away, grimacing. He didn't
*want* to be sick.

 "Alright... alright, sunshine." A hand stroked his forehead. "What've you
done this time? Put your shoulder out?"

 "Just a bit..." Doyle managed. "What bloody kept you?"

 "Eeny and Meeny."

 "Ah." The young Welsh nationalists with the shiny guns and the bizarre
connections to Omnipol. "They figure out they're outnumbered yet?"

 "They *were* outnumbered until you took a header down the bank. How the
hell you managed that..."

 Doyle squinted up at the "bank" he'd become so intimate with, the
seven-foot drop at its end. "Was gettin' a bit bored. Told you Wales was a
lousy idea."

 "Well if you hadn't been trying to smarm your way around Cowley," Bodie
began, and then seemed to give up. "There are easier ways to get down a
mountain, you know."

 "Yeah..." he winced, "Must remember that." 

 Hands ran the length of him, checking for broken bones he supposed. Every
inch stung as if he were covered in splinters of glass, but the hands felt
good. Until they reached his ankle.

 His cry surprised even him, the mountains seemed to echo with it, and
Bodie slapped a palm across his mouth. Damn. Eeny and Meeny were *not* out
of the game then. And he'd broken his foot. 

 Doyle shook his head free and clenched his teeth against the nausea once
more, trying to sit up. He felt instead a heavy weight on his chest,
holding him down. "What the 'ell are you doing?"

 "Be easier if you're lying down."

 He squinted up at Bodie, wondering how the sky could be so dark and yet
so bright at the same time, a vague foreboding seeping through his skin.
"What will?"

 "Me putting your shoulder back."

 Oh, for Christ's sake. 

 "You are not."

 "Ray, be reasonable..."

 "*Ray be reasonable*? That's what got us into this in the first place, me
bloody giving in to you!"

 "What got us into this, *mate*, was you running your mouth off to the
Cow!"

 "Oh, and this is a nice way of getting a bit of your own back is it?"

 "Doyle!" the harsh whisper drew even his pain-filled attention back to
reality. "Me getting my own back would be leaving you here to *rot* with a
dislocated shoulder and a broken ankle. Now *will you* shut the hell up?"

 Fuck. He closed his eyes again, feeling but not wanting to see Bodie
positioning himself. They'd been taught how to do it, of course, how to
turn the arm just so, how to brace themselves if there was no one else
around, even how to do it for themselves if they were alone. Had Bodie
reduced an arm before? He knew he never had, had hoped from the moment
they'd been shown that he never would. Didn't seem right, somehow, to be
twisting the inside parts of your body around like that on purpose. He
found it strange that he could even remember what it was called. 

 "Ray?"

 He opened his eyes again. Bodie had taken hold of his arm, was frowning
down.

 "Trust me."

 His heart danced a jitterbug in his throat, anticipating pain,
anticipating sharp, excruciating pain, but this was Bodie who could do
anything to him, and he let himself sink into Bodie's gaze and then the
world went black for the second time that day.

 ******

"Oi." A tapping at his face. "Oi Doyle, wakey-wakey, eh?"

 Doyle twitched himself away, scrunching his face at first against the
annoying fingers, and then against the mound of bruise that was his body. 

 "Gerroff me," he finally managed, raising his arms to protect himself.
His left one ached, and his right was smeared with blood, and all of a
sudden he remembered. He opened his eyes and sat up, stared down at his
foot strapped securely in white. "Wha's going on?"

 "Put your arm back. Thought I'd get on with your ankle while I was at
it." He looked grim. "Reckon we should probably make a move soon."

 "How long was I out?"

 "'Bout forty minutes." He gestured at the glowering clouds. "I think it
might be time for us to head off, mate. You up to it?"

 Not bothering to grace that with a reply, Doyle levered himself around,
slung his good arm across Bodie's shoulders, and let himself be pulled to
his feet. Foot. He looked down at it in disgust.

 "Badly broken then?"

 "Nah. Bit of a twist. Pretty bad, but I couldn't feel any bones gone.
You'll be running rings around Macklin in no time."

 Doyle surveyed the vast tracts of wilderness around them, conveyed doubt
with a look. "Presuming we get back to anything approaching civilisation,
that is. Back up to the car, is it?"

 "Um... no."

 "No?"

 "Remember I mentioned Eeny and Meeny?"

 "They found the car."

 "Kept 'em amused while I was patching you up. Plus the explosion
should've been big enough to alert the locals, even from up here."

 "They blew up the car? My car?" He twisted around to see a spreading
plume of black smoke far above them.

 "Well, not strictly speaking your car. Strictly speaking, Her Majesty's
car. I'm pretty sure she's got more."

 "*My* car." Doyle muttered, shaking his head, "Bastards..." 

 "Come on." Bodie started them moving further down the slope. "While
they're still celebrating their righteous victory over CI5. Not a good
idea to get caught with only one gun between us."

 Doyle groaned, only partly from the pain in his foot. "Cowley's going to
kill us."

 "Well, if you hadn't asked him to send us up here..."

 "I *asked him* which would be the more relaxing holiday psychologically
speaking, climbing in bloody Wales or a week floating serenely through the
canals around Warwickshire!"

 "Yeah, and what brilliant idea did that conjure then? Lift your foot
sunshine, you might as well keep that dry at least... my good vest that
used to be..." Bodie half-swung him through an icily-running stream,
before putting on what Doyle knew was his best Scottish accent, "Aye an'
I've got a little errand you can run for me while you're up there..." It
still sounded part German.

 "You took your vest off? Up there with those two running around?"

 "It took 'em half an hour to realise we were gone. And then they had all
that nice fire to play with."

 "How the hell did those two get their hands on a dozen pounds of Semtex?"
Doyle wondered again, and patted at Bodie's chest to get him to stop. They
were finally nearing the bottom of the slope. Somewhere there was a road,
and somewhere there were the brightly lit streets of ... well, some
miserable village probably, but he could dream of a warm bed and hot
toddies. Of course all he could see in the dim light was yet another
abandoned stone building, this one guarded by a pair of straggly pine
trees. 

 "You got clearance on your RT yet?"

 "Might have except I..."

 "...left it in the car..."

 "Well I can't be perfect all the time. Be too depressing for everyone
else."

 "That why you let those bastards get the drop on you up there?"

 "That why you fell off a bloody mountain and near cracked your skull
open?"

 Doyle took a breath. He felt suddenly very tired, the kind of weary tired
that should only come when the adrenalin is all used up. His shoulder
ached, his foot was playing merry hell, and they still had miles to walk.
He didn't have time to be tired like that yet, but for a moment, just a
moment, he let himself slump against Bodie, and Bodie's arms tightened
around him. Bodie's heart beat beside his own. 

 In the distance he could hear helicopters, growing slowly louder and
closer, and as they stood a fine rain began to fall. Then Bodie's lips
were warm against his forehead, and the air when they left was not quite
as cold.

 "Next time," Bodie said, giving him one last rough caress before they
hobbled onwards, "Next time we go to Grimsby."

 -- THE END --

 *March 2006*

   Archive Home