The six months passed, and Uncle Dick raked the green, sowed it with fescue bent and rolled it. He was confident that the birds would leave it alone, because the seeds had been treated with something to make them taste horrible, and he was confident that there wouldn’t be any worm casts either, because he had dosed the ground with the same poison that they used at the West Surrey.
Mr Royston Chittock came out of the house and said, ‘How long before I can use it, then, my good man?’
Uncle Dick was irritated by the patronising cheeriness that Chittock sometimes liked to affect, but he replied truthfully, ‘Six months, sir. And in the meantime you’ve got to get yourself a little mower with a very fine adjustment, and get those blades sharpened absolutely perfect. Your Suffolk Punch is a damn fine machine, but it’s too big and clumsy for a green. If you’re interested, sir, I expect young Robert would come and mow for you.’
‘Six months?’ repeated Chittock. ‘Another six months? Really, I had no idea it would all take so long.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to say that it does, sir, and there’s no point in hurrying. I did tell you it would take a year. You wouldn’t take a bird out of the oven afore it’s done, and you shouldn’t use a green ’til it’s good and ready.’
In the six months that passed, Royston Chittock worked hard at his golf and managed to win the Stableford competition and the Major Whitworth Men’s Memorial Medal. There were some murmurings in the clubhouse, and he received a joint letter from the men’s captain and the secretary requesting that he submit new cards, since he had consistently been playing far better than his handicap suggested. The letter congratulated him politely upon the extraordinary progress that he had obviously made with his game.
At last the time expired and Mr Royston Chittock had a beautiful green ready to use, a perfect miniature of the second at the West Surrey. Uncle Dick, supervised by Lizzie from her perch in the hawthorn tree, had given it the final mow, cut the first hole and installed a new white cup. Mr Chittock was thrilled.
His delight did not extend to rewarding Uncle Dick with a large tip, however. Instead he disputed the final account, and paid for four hours’ less work than the greenkeeper had actually done, saying, ‘Come, come, my good man, I’m not a fool. I’ve kept a record of when you’ve been here and for how long, and one can’t help noticing that your propensity for stopping and drinking tea has recently become greatly exaggerated.’
Uncle Dick looked at him long and cold and pocketed the brown envelope, saying, ‘Well then, Mr Chittock, sir, if you intend to cheat me after all I’ve done for you, and in my spare time too, don’t ask me for any help if things go wrong.’
‘Cheat you? Really, this is an outrage! Cheat you? How dare you accuse me of such a thing?’
‘I speak as I see,’ replied Uncle Dick, and he departed with his head high and Lizzie wobbling on his shoulder. That evening he telephoned Mr Joshuah Entincknapp.
They met up in the Merry Harriers, a pub that for years had advertised itself with cheerful irony as purveying ‘warm beer and lousy food’. From its ceiling there was suspended an impressive collection of chamber pots, but perhaps its most appealing feature was a very large and amiable long-haired Alsatian dog named Beulah, whose hobby was collecting stones. This hound had several heaps of them in the garden, and had quite worn down the tips of its canine teeth.
Over a pint or two of mild and a game of darts, Uncle Dick and the one-eyed moleman discussed how to get even with that bloody Mr Royston Chittock.
A week later Royston Chittock rose joyfully at eight in order to go out and do some early-morning putting. Tomorrow he would practise those frightening three-footers that had ended the career of Peter Alliss, but today he was going to do some long curving putts. It would be beautiful.
Upon looking out of the window his eyes practically bulged out of his head. He felt as if he would faint and sat down on the bed for a few moments. Then he went back to the window. It was all too true, and it was just as he feared. There was a large molehill on his new green.
He ran outside, clutched his hands to his temples, and went to fetch his spade and barrow. He scraped up the molehill and emptied the spoil on to his rose bed. That morning he putted with a heavy heart, and very badly, glancing frequently at the crumbs of spoil that disfigured his perfect green.
The next morning there were two molehills, and the morning after that there were three. On the fourth day there were four molehills, and on the sixth there were six. On the seventh day the moles rested, but on the following Monday there was one. Swallowing his pride, he telephoned Uncle Dick in the evening.
‘It can’t be moles,’ said Dick, ‘moles can’t get through all that gravel, and anyway, they go after the worms, and there aren’t any worms in that green on account of the poisoning I gave ’em.’
‘It is moles,’ insisted Mr Chittock. ‘Really, there are seven molehills.’
‘Can’t be moles, sir,’ said Uncle Dick, ‘maybe it’s marmots,’ and he put the phone down. He stood by the telephone in the hallway, and a smile began to spread across his face, which soon turned into a happy grin. That evening he was laughing so much and so randomly that at dinner time he accidentally sprayed Robert and his mother with tea. He had to go out into the garden to calm down, but was still wiping the tears from his eyes at bedtime. Robert’s mother said, ‘There’s nothing more annoying than not knowing what the joke is,’ and Uncle Dick said, ‘I’ll tell you, love, I’ll tell you, I promise. Jus’ wait ’til I can speak, won’t you?’
Royston Chittock telephoned Mr Joshuah Entincknapp. ‘It can’t be moles, sir. Moles couldn’t cope with all that gravel, and anyway, it’s worms they’re after, and there ain’t worms in that green on account of all the poison.’
‘But it is moles,’ protested Mr Chittock.
‘Can’t be, sir.’
Mr Chittock was confounded. ‘Well, could I hire Sergeant Corker for a week, just in case?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘My dear fellow, why not?’
‘Because you hired him last time for three weeks and you paid for eighteen days. So he isn’t available to the likes of you, sir, and in any case he’s busy.’
‘Busy?’
‘He’s clearing the moles out at Feathercombe, sir, and that’s a big place. And after that he’s doing the manor house. One thing I can suggest, sir: do you have a shotgun licence?’
‘A shotgun licence? No. Why?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t dig into that green to put in traps, sir, because you don’t want to disturb that surface more than you have to after all the hard work that’s gone into it, but one thing you can do, sir, is stand on that green with a shotgun, and when you see that earth heaving, you blast it one. Never fails, sir. I wish you good day, sir.’
Mr Entincknapp put the phone down, and began to chuckle. He chuckled so much all through the evening that Mrs Entincknapp thought that he must be losing his wits. All he could say was, ‘Tell you later, love, tell you later.’ He was still chortling and spluttering at night when she was trying to get to sleep, so she made him go and sleep on the settee in the living room. In the morning, at dawn, he went to the golf course, and he and Uncle Dick filled another sack with tilth from the molehills at the bottom of the dip in the seventeenth fairway. On the way to Mr Chittock’s house they laughed so much that Uncle Dick had to pull into the side near the pound in order to recover.