Is it Safe?

Pluto was dreaming his favourite dream.  He was stroking the coxless four in the final of the Wyfolds.  Hampshire, Mollison and Nicholls are pulling him along and they are a length behind with 200 to go.  "Push," shouts Pluto and they storm through and win.  As they cruise to the landing stage, very rich ladies in posh frocks and big hats race each other to the boat, ignore the other three and smother him with kisses...

Whispering slowly invades his subconscious.

Pluto starts to awaken,

A scuffling noise.  A louder bang.  Rough, urgent hands haul him from his bed.

"What the hell...." shouts Pluto, but a hand covers his mouth with an evil smelling rag.  His head goes dizzy, and thankfully the nightmare closes in on him and he passes back into his subconscious heaven.

*****

He awakens in a cold, damp, dank, disused room.  He is tied to a chair: hands to its arms, legs to its feet.  He can't move.  He has a godawful headache.  He is in his favourite Noddy jim-jams and is feeling very cold.

A tall man and a little one enter the room.  The tall one puts a case on a table, goes to a washbasin and washes his hands.  The short one stands, ominously behind him.

"Is it safe?" says the tall one gently.

"You talking to me?" says Pluto.

The tall one wipes his hands on a cloth.

"Is it safe?"

"Is what safe?" says Pluto, more than a little disturbed.

"Is it safe?" says the tall one, in a more exasperated tone.  On hearing no answer, he reaches into the case, and pulls out a dentists drill, plugs it into the mains, fires it up and says:

"Is it safe?"

Getting the picture, Pluto sputters out, "yes, it's very safe, it's as safe as houses, it's safer than safer than safe..."

The tall one walks up to Pluto and positions the drill inches from his face.  This time he asks him, as if for confirmation:

"Is it safe?"

"No, it's not safe, it's really unsafe, it very, very dangerously unsafe, I think some people should do something about it," says Pluto in utter desperation.

Too late.  The drill enters his mouth and his screams echo through the deserted warehouse.

*****

"Finally got the cut down fin," said a strangely cheery Henry in the tea hut as they were about to join Robin and Tony in the Springfield Sculls.

"What?" said Huggy, amazed, "Pluto has finally cut it down?  He's had that fin for 3 months.  Oh well, never mind, maybe the boat will turn now.  Can't wait to try it out."

"How about now?  It will only take a minute to change them," said Henry.

An hour later, Tony finally managed to replace the old Titanic fin for the new slimline shark fin on the Empacher. 

"I hope its safe and we don't tip in," Huggy said as they placed the boat into the water.

"Oh, I'm fairly sure it is," said Henry, darkly.

*****

And at long last, the boat turned.  Not quite as eagerly as the 'Roger Mobbs', but sufficient to get round the Medway's bends around Maidstone.  In a piece from the Malta to Chavsda, we easily cruised round the Marina bend, and only required 5 really hard pulls round the Sewage Works bend instead of the 20 we used to endure before.  Henry almost oversteered us into the inside bank at the Blue Bridge bend.

The boat was perhaps marginally less stable than before (not that we really noticed) so all in all, an excellent trade off. 

As we washed down the boat, two cars entered the rowing club compound.  A black Oldsmobile and a clapped out Polo.  The short man got out of the Polo, walked to the Oldsmobile, waved to Henry (who was studiously avoiding them), and drove off with the tall man without saying a word.

Robin went up to the Polo, reached in and pulled out a tin of sardines.

"What the hell does this mean?" wondered a very puzzled Robin.

"Its an old Maidstone gangland message," said the all knowing Tony, "it says Pluto Nichols sleeps with the fishes."