Appollinaire (The Other Side of Nowhere)

By Robert William Saul Harvey

Appollinaire, (Pol), Bizet is a disgruntled, solitary seventeen-year-old boy, who thinks his parents in particular, and the whole world in general, are against him. No matter what he tries to do, it’s never good enough. The way he sees it, his only friend in the whole wide world is his dog, Tinker, a five-year-old black whippet cross breed with a white flash on its chest and a wicked sense of humor.
When he is accosted by a gang of boys, whilst he is out walking with his dog, Pol, being skinny, five feet eight in his stocking feet, and more of a pacifist than a fighter, does the first thing that comes to mind, he instinctively legs it. After dodging through a gap in a hedge, into a field of knee-high grass, and to the amazement of the pursuing boys, Pol promptly disappears...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert William Saul Harvey
• Release date: Nov 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370508488

Robert William Saul Harvey

Robert was born in 1949 in the small Scottish hamlet of Douglas West, Douglas in Lanarkshire, but moved to England when his father, a miner, had to move south for a job.Having left school at the age of fifteen, without any qualifications whatsoever, he started work in a small engineering firm. He soon got fed up coming home covered in dirty grease and having a spotty face so, after six months, decided that engineering was not for him. With nothing to lose, he ran away to sea, so to speak. He joined the Merchant Navy and happily spent three and a half years travelling the world and getting paid for it!Meeting his future wife at the age of nineteen convinced Robert to leave the sea and settle down. There were not many jobs around for a nineteen-year-old and he ended up doing bar/cellar work until deciding to get married at the age of twenty. That was when he joined the Royal Air Force, in which he spent nine years as a Clerk Secretarial, attaining the rank of Corporal before leaving in 1979.After applying for various jobs, Robert finally got one with the National Coal Board in a colliery Stores Department. Ok, this would do him for a while, whilst he looked around for something better. Thirty years later, as a Supply and Contracts Manager, he retired from the Coal Industry at the age of fifty-nine and now has an allotment where he plays at growing vegetables (very nice they are too), and spends his spare time dabbling on his laptop; bliss.Now, with seven books on Smashwords, an eighth under construction, and number nine in the pipeline, who knows where it will stop?Second in the series, Beryl's Pup is now also available.

Book preview

Prologue

Blink. Blink.

Two suns, one bright, yellow-red, high in a cloudless sky, the other, duller, smaller, more distant, and much redder, hovered low down, towards the eastern horizon.

Both suns beat down mercilessly on the flat, arid landscape.

A heat haze rose steadily from the hot, rock strewn, red sandstone, causing the distant horizon to ripple and waver uncontrollably from side to side.

Blink.

Nothing moved in this desolate place, nothing, that is, apart from the small, six-legged, lizard-like creature hurriedly scampering across the hot sand as it headed towards the shade of a large rock outcrop, where it hoped to rest for a moment and catch its breath before resuming its perilous journey in search of food and, hopefully, a little water.

The lizard-like creature lived a solitary life, only meeting with others of its kind for the act of procreation.

Little more than three inches in length, with a flexible tail as long as its body, and a short, pug-like head sporting two sets of two razor sharp horns, side by side, above each slit of a forward-looking eye, four horns in total.

Two eyes, one each side of a flattened nose, allowed the creature look ahead whilst two more eyes, placed behind the creature’s small, mouse-like ears allowed it to see anything which might try to creep up on it from behind.

The lizard’s long, snakelike tongue darted hither and thither, tasting the ground, and the air, as the young reptile desperately seeked out its next meal.

It would eat anything, animal or vegetable, as long as the item was small enough for it to handle, especially if said animal was already dead.

Unknown to the lizard, something, posing a danger to its well-being, watched it from on high.

The unseen form of a bird-like creature, perched upon a tall, jagged rock, surveying the surrounding area. Having very keen eyesight—a single, central eye—allowed it to spot the slightest movement, the smallest creature, in fact, anything larger than a small pebble, within a one-mile radius.

Blink.

Suddenly,

Something spooked the lizard.

It stopped mid-stride.

Frozen mid-action.

Unmoving, the small reptile listened, its four eyes independently scanning the surrounding area.

Blink. Blink.

Although it could see nothing untoward, a primal sixth sense caused the lizard’s skin to ripple and flex. The short, almost transparent hairs on the back of its neck stood up on end, and it automatically changed its skin color to try to blend in with the surrounding landscape.

Visibly trembling, the creature slowly cowered down in an attempt to make its body as small as possible.

A wave of fear ran down its spine.

Almost lying on the ground, it waited, made rigid, too afraid to move.

The two forward-looking eyes, turning independently of each other, continued to scan the area ahead, and the sky above, as the lizard sought to detect the smallest of movements whilst its two rearward-looking eyes tried, unsuccessfully, to focus on the distant rocky outcrop from which the reptile had recently emerged, the rock where it had spent the previous night hiding from any marauding predator that may have been sniffing around searching for its next meal.

The lizard’s small brain posed the question, ‘Where are you?’ as it fearfully searched the clear cloudless sky.

The frightened creature saw nothing.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

High above,

The ferocious, bird-like beast, watching the lizard, lazily took off from its perch and hovered overhead, much too high for the lizard to see.

The lizard’s vision was limited to little more than twenty yards at most and was of little use in wide-open spaces, such as this arid desert.

The previous evening, the lizard had been happy as it greedily chomped on the remains of a large spider-like beast with twelve very hairy legs and a massive, eye-filled head.

The spider’s head had been almost half the size of its main body.

This had been the first decent meal the lizard had eaten for three days.

The mangled spider’s body filled the reptile’s belly at the time, but such a meal was soon digested.

Now,

The lizard was hungry, thirsty, and needed to find something more nutritious to eat.

However,

For the moment, fear overcame hunger.

To the lizard, time seemed to stand still, and a deep foreboding gripped its mind.

The frightened reptile remained motionless.

It struggled to comprehend what might cause this feeling of trepidation.

Some deep-rooted sixth sense told it; it, the hunter, had suddenly become the hunted.

The lizard’s heartbeat increased and its muscles tensed, as it made ready for flight.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

The lizard’s two small, mouse like ears twitched as they strained to detect the faintest of sounds. The wrong noise would immediately send it scuttling across the arid, parched ground towards the safety of a nearby pile of rocks, under which it might be able to hide. The creature had already made an unconscious mental note of the rocks’ location.

It estimated the rocks to be not too far away. No more than a matter of half-dozen or so yards, as the lizard runs, although it was a massive distance for a small creature to cover quickly, more so when its life was at stake.

The reptile’s whole body continued to quiver with fear.

A cold sweat might have broken out all over, had it been able to sweat.

As it was, the chill horror gripping the creature’s body made the need to cool down irrelevant.

More significant was the need to survive.

The reptile’s brain suddenly registered a large dark shadow blotting out the burning light of one of the two suns overhead.

Breathing in shallow, hurried gasps, the lizard’s heart pounded wildly in its chest, much faster than normal, and the poor creature feared its days, minutes, seconds even, was limited.

Blink.

Panic!

Blink.

Blind instinct took over from reason.

Without waiting an instant longer, the lizard’s coiled muscles released their pent-up energy, and the creature fled, making a beeline for the distant rocky outcrop.

As the lizard ran for its life, a low, rapid ‘whooshing’ sound filled its ears, in time with the beating of his heart, to match the flow of emerald green blood surging through its veins.

Boom, boom, boom, went its heart.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, went the noise in its ears.

Suddenly, another sound drowned out the noise of the lizard’s pulsing blood and beating heart.

"‘Caaawww!’"

The primeval scream of the huge flying beast, two-hundred-and-fifty times the size of the hapless lizard, a true ‘Beast-from-Hell’, with a body similar in appearance to one of an ostrich-sized eagle, but with the head of a bat, and a saber toothed, two-foot long beak, split the silence.

The bird’s two muscular legs, each sporting four claws with long, evil talons, poised, ready to grab the doomed reptile, as the bird swooped down from its high perch.

Instinct!

Immediately, the lizard upped a gear and increased its speed.

It frantically dived for the cover of the small rocky outcrop, which was now a matter of inches in front of it.

The terrified creature headed straight for a crack in the rocks, which it hoped would be wide enough for it to wriggle inside, to safety.

The terrified lizard almost reached the safety of the inviting crevice between two irregular rocks, but it was a fraction of a second too late.

The flying beast hit the ground no more than half an inch in front of the lizard-creature, and with such force, its claws rebounded off the soft sandstone ground, almost catching the poor lizard a glancing blow on either side of its head, which would surely have blinded it.

The force of the downdraft from the bird’s wings hurled the lizard backwards, knocked the breath from its lungs.

The reptile squeaked in fear, gasped for air as it inhaled a cloud of dry, red dust; dust, stirred up by its tumbling body, and the bird-like creature’s beating wings. It rolled away into a softer, sandy patch.

The razor-sharp claws of the lizard’s attacker scraped along the bone-dry sand.

The small creature, choking, instinctively twisted its body, and frantically rolled away to the left, to avoid being speared by the bird-creature’s sharp, hooked beak.

Microseconds separated the small reptile from the claws of the attacking beast and certain death.

The lizard gagged uncontrollably as it continued to tumble away to one side.

When it realized how it had narrowly missed grabbing its quarry, the angry Beast-from-Hell instantly turned its head to the right, and stabbed out with its curved beak.

The tip of the beast’s beak missed the lizard’s body by the smallest of margins and raked the ground where the animal had been lying a fraction of a second beforehand.

As the flying beast passed overhead, the claws of its left leg instinctively grabbed at the lizard-creature’s still rolling body.

Missed.

Almost.

The lizard screamed when it felt a sharp tug on its tail.

"‘Eeek!’"

A vision of gushing blood, a large gash, and trailing entrails filled the frightened animal’s mind.

The thought of being ripped to bits and eaten by the gruesome nightmarish Flying Beast-from-Hell spurred the lizard on.

The small reptile continued to repeatedly roll over and covered its head with its forelegs, crying out, squealing in pain, and fear.

"‘Nooowowow!’" the lizard screeched, in lizard-language, and tugged its tail from the bird’s ineffectual grasp.

The hapless reptile briefly glimpsed of a rapidly approaching precarious cliff-edge and the chasm beyond.

Oops.

It did not want to go there.

But,

It was approaching the cliff too rapidly!

The lizard frantically clawed at the loose earth in a futile attempt to stop from rolling off the edge of the cliff.

Long sharp claws on all six of the reptile’s legs dug unsuccessfully into the soft sandy soil; merely scraped along the loose ground, leaving a network of uneven shaky furrows in the lizard’s wake.

Streaks of blood from the lizard’s claws stained the disturbed sand.

With difficulty, driven by fear, the reptile wriggled in panic, and turned its body slightly, so it was now rolling down the steep slope towards the cliff top instead of skidding.

Something big and black filled the lizard’s sight.

It lifted its forward-looking eyes skywards, beheld the Beast-from-Hell, which had begun another steep dive, heading straight down towards the reptile’s tumbling body.

The bird’s narrow hooked beak, and its two evil-looking saber teeth, were ready to spear its prey, whilst its razor claws, spread apart, poised to grab hold of the poor lizard should the beak miss its target.

Once the bird-creature had the lizard in its claws, it would carry it off to who-knows-where, presumably somewhere the beast could devour the lizard at leisure, and in safety.

"‘Nooowowow!’" repeated the terrified lizard as it continued to slide uncontrollably towards the sheer drop.

Seconds later, before the bird could reach it, the small reptile tumbled over the edge of the cliff, its legs clawing helplessly at space.

The flying beast was almost upon the lizard-creature.

Its roaring cry filled the terrified animal’s mousy ears, but, again, the bird had misjudged both the distance, and the speed at which the lizard had dropped over the edge of the precipice.

"‘Caaawww!’" cried the frustrated bird, certain it had been about to catch its quarry, and infuriated at having missed it.

Sharp grasping talons missed the lizard-creature’s head by only a whisker as it tumbled backwards into space.

The flying beast swooped upwards, soared high, and screamed in anger.

"‘Caaawww!’"

The lizard-creature plummeted downwards into the ravine, over five hundred feet below, its claws still grasping futilely at thin air to slow its rate of descent, and watched in horror as the top of the cliff, the sky, and the flying beast, all receded at an alarming rate.

And,

Everything changed.

Time slowed down, almost to a stop.

The cliff gradually blotted out the light from both the yellow and the red suns and wrapped the hapless lizard in a deep dark shadow.

Blink.

Lazily floating downwards, as if in a dream, the reptile watched with trepidation as the remaining seconds of its life passed by in slow motion.

The Beast-from-Hell gracefully flew around in a wide circle whilst it rapidly assessed its chances of catching the lizard before it hit the razor-sharp rocks lying just below the surface of the roaring river. Rocks upon which the unfortunate reptile’s body would be ripped to pieces.

Hunger is a powerful persuader.

Against its better judgment, the bird chanced it, and swooped down towards the still falling lizard.

Even in slow motion, the speed of the bird’s dive would have put a peregrine falcon to shame.

To the lizard’s dismay, the size of the beast’s body rapidly grew larger, the nearer it came.

Blink.

The terrified reptile, its eyes transfixed in horror, watched, waited until the very last moment, before frantically wriggling its body, enabling it to turn slightly, enough, to one side.

Not a moment too soon.

The lizard’s timing was spot on, but the bird’s timing was far from perfect; it never made it!

This time, the bird had completely misjudged both its speed, and the distance involved.

It had been too intent on catching up with the falling lizard-creature, had not considered the agile creature’s ability to turn over in midair, as would a falling cat, plus it had misjudged its own need to leave adequate room to enable it to pull away from its steep dive before hitting the river below.

An instant before impact, the flying beast realized it had miscalculated.

"‘Awwwgh!’" screamed the doomed bird.

The bird’s body hit the river and a sharp, searing pain shot through its brain.

Its backbone instantly snapped in three places, felt as if something had pushed it up into the beast’s head.

The pain was excruciating, but mercifully, for the bird, it lasted for less than a second.

Death was instant.

Swiftly, the swirling icy waters folded over the broken bird, and hungrily covered its entire body.

The tumultuous, angry current rapidly dragged the dead bird away from the razor-sharp volcanic rock, which had pierced its skull, cleanly splitting the wretched creature’s brain in two, and dashed the body against numerous other jagged rocks.

In less than a minute, the beast was nothing more than a host of small, disjointed pieces of broken bones, flesh, and feathers. The river washed every piece along in a furious deluge of bloodstained water.

The small reptile hit the water a fraction of a second before, and slightly to the right of the flying beast and, as luck would have it, was fortunate enough to miss being impaled on any of the deadly rocks hidden beneath the surface of the enraged river.

Taking in water, as it tumbled over and over in the foaming river which unceremoniously carried the defenseless flailing body further downstream, the lizard coughed and spluttered, gasping for air each time its head broke the surface.

Miraculously, the river guided the struggling lizard safely around, and away from, any of the jagged, razor-sharp rocks.

The grateful lizard was eventually deposited into a small shallow inlet on a bend in the river.

It quickly scurried up a small bank and disappeared into a clump of tall yellow grass…

Chapter 1

Ten minutes to eleven and Tinker needed no further encouragement; the shrill whistle Pol hurled his way being signal enough to get the dog out of his bed like a shot.

He quickly scampered towards the kitchen, in case the nasty Joan-creature tried to stop him.

Pol had already slipped his fleece on as he walked downstairs.

He quickly hooked the extending lead onto Tinker’s collar before the dog slipped past in his eagerness to reach the back door.

Within seconds, they were out of the house, heading down the garden path.

After closing the garden gate behind them, Pol and Tinker turned left and set out along the narrow road, headed towards the humpback bridge over the canal, on the other side of the intersection with the main road.

Tinker walked ahead of Pol, eagerly tugging at the lead. He knew where they were going and needed no encouragement from Pol.

Once they reached the towpath, away from any traffic, Pol intended to let the dog off his lead so he could run free.

Pol wore an old faded pair of thick blue denim jeans and tucked the bottoms into a pair of well-worn light-brown Rigger boots, inside which he wore thick, gray walking socks. A red, blue, and white checked shirt, with long sleeves, beneath a dark blue sweatshirt, and a recently washed thick black fleece hoodie-jacket to keep out the unseasonably chill wind, blowing down from the north, completed his attire.

Tinker sported only the hair on his body. Much more efficient than clothes, better at keeping the weather out than any cheap fabricated fleece.

The damp, chill wind caused Pol to shiver, and he dug his free hand a little deeper into his pocket.

Bugger, he moaned. Anyone would think it’s the middle of winter, not the middle of bloody summer. What do you say, Tinker?

He frowned at the gray clouds overhead, thinking, ‘July’s supposed to be the middle of summer, red hot wall to wall sunshine. Poo! Not this year, it ain’t. So far, it’s hardly stopped bloody raining. And, it’s bloody cold! Nobody should have to wear a sodding sweatshirt and a fleece in the middle of July. It should be sun cream, tee shirts, and shorts with open-toed sandals. And all those shapely young ladies ought to wear short skirts with low-cut tops and no bras at this time of year. There’s been none of that so far. Bloody stupid weather.’

Apparently, according to the lovely weather-girl on the TV, the shitty weather was all to do with where the jet stream went.

Stupid bloody system. Who invented the sodding jet stream, anyway?

Tinker said nothing.

Dogs do not really care what the weather is like.

Rain, wind, or snow, he did not mind at all.

Hot weather was Tinker’s problem. Being mainly black, he absorbed the heat. All he wanted to do in such weather was to curl up in a cool, shady place and sleep.

But,

Hey-ho, if you do not like the British weather; wait a minute. It will soon change.

Pol flicked another hasty glance towards the sky and grimaced.

‘Rain’s definitely on its way. Best to get a move on.’

He did not want to get caught out in the rain if he could help it.

‘Bloody cold enough as it is, without getting soaked to the skin into the bargain.’

Clucking loudly, a signal for his best pal to shift his backside, Pol increased his pace. Tinker obediently trotted along in front, as far ahead as the lead would let him…

Chapter 2

Tinker. Ten years old. A so-called Whippet-Collie cross, but crossed with what, Pol did not know. Black all over, apart from the white blaze on his chest, and another white spot on the tip of his tail, Tinker, more like a Whippet than a Collie, could run like one, although he was as clever as any Collie. He was faithful and never enjoyed parting from his master, whom he thought of as ‘the Pol-creature’.

Pol’s father had brought the pup home because Pol had always been afraid of dogs as a youngster. He thought owning and looking after a dog might help to banish his fear.

The pair had bonded straight away, and they were now inseparable.

Whenever he used the extending dog-lead, Pol let the brake off to allow Tinker some freedom to sniff around fence-posts, lampposts without the dog almost ripping his arm out of its socket, should the dog halt to inspect a new smell, or relieve himself at someone’s front gate.

The quarter mile long road, along which they were walking, lined on each side with identical semi-detached houses, each with a short front garden separating it from the road and the accompanying footpaths. Some frontages had hedges, wire, or wooden fences, and a few had low brick walls.

All but one garden had a wooden front gate, the one without had a posh custom-made wrought-iron gate, clandestinely made in the workshops of the local colliery using a few stolen materials.

Lawns, some well tended, some not so well looked after, flowerbeds, and a few trees were the norm, apart from the large garden on the corner where the avenue met with the main road that ran through the village.

This excuse for a garden