A History Maker

FOUR PUDDOCK PLOT

WAT WAKENED sitting on a lavatory pan, sure he had not been unconscious for more than a minute or two. On leaving the cubicle he could not at first remember where he was and why. Through clear walls on every side he saw hills, woods, lochs he had known from childhood. They were lit by familiar evening sunlight but in an order he could not recognize. A central part was missing — the Warrior house. Then he realized he was above it. The Ettrick commander’s apartment was in a tower which from outside he had always thought a solar heating duct. Delighted by his new elevation he let out a bark of laughter which almost hurt his throat. Without hurry he bathed then dressed in a clean suit of loose clothes which fitted perfectly. He walked about glorying in the soft carpet, the spare efficient furniture, the combination of perfect comfort with a view commanding the countryside he loved best. No wonder his father had preferred this place to houses where all apartments were on the same level.

“Privacy and power,” he murmured aloud,

“Power and privacy.”

He would hate leaving here if someone else became general, but who else could they make general? Three days ago he had honestly meant to nominate Joe for the job but then a new army had seemed years away. If Archie Crook Cot was right Ettrick would perhaps be able to fight again in six months. Some recruits would certainly crack under their training — he hoped so, it would show the strength of the rest — but only Wat Dryhope would be fit for the general’s job if he did not waste time daydreaming. Sitting at a keyboard Colonel Dryhope summoned a series of training programmes and started adapting them to the probable needs of middle-aged recruits.

There was a slight cough and he saw Jenny laying a meal on a table.

“Yes, it’s time I ate,” said Wat, “And I appreciate your quality of silence. But next time warn me before you enter. A quiet tinkle will do. When a chain of thoughts is being connected even wee surprises can break it.”

“I will do so in future, Colonel Dryhope, but may I speak?”

“Fire away,” said Wat, sitting at the table and uncovering a dish of roast woodcocks.

“I have served four Ettrick commanders, Colonel Dryhope, and those who worked hardest kenned how to relax. Three relaxed with alcohol but you, I think, are your father’s son?”

“Aye?”

“Messages await your attention, Colonel Dryhope. Some will be invitations,” said Jenny, pointing to a shelf where a stack of papers lay under a wallprinter.

“Sort them for me,” said Wat pouring gravy on small brown bodies, “Put messages about warrior business on my desk. Put messages from public eye channels down the waste chute. Bring the rest here.”

For several minutes Wat sucked delicate meat from small bones and disposed of a salad. He was pouring coffee when Jenny laid a sheaf of pale violet papers beside the cup. Wat said,

“Good man, Jenny. Have my pony saddled and waiting in twenty minutes. I may go out.”

“Would not a horse be a more suitable mount, Colonel Dryhope? The late general’s favourite, Bucephalus, is both elegant and docile.”

“I’m no an elegant horseman,” said Wat pleasantly, “Go away and do what I said, Jenny.”

The prints contained intimate portraits and were mostly from women who adored him for qualities they had noticed through the public eye. A few were from older women he knew well; they pleased him best. He was hurt to find nothing from Nan but she hated warrior business and probably disliked him being a colonel. A note from her daughter Annie begged him to call at once. He did. In a voice full of happiness and tears she said, “O Wattie Wattie. O Wattie Wattie.”

“Hello there.”

“O Wattie I was daft to be feart when ye were mad at me this morning, my aunties and grannies have telt me I was daft, all soldiers have wee mad fits when they’ve been in bad wars, they say, and it doesnae hurt the bairns they get so I can see ye again, Wattie! Tonight if ye like!”

He took a moment to remember what she was raving about then said awkwardly, “That’s good, Annie, but tonight I want to see your mother, if she’ll have me. Do you think Nan will have me?”

He heard a wailing from Craig Douglas which made him glad he had not made a visual connection. He said hastily, “Yes Annie. Fine. Aye. Mhm. Since your grannies don’t mind I’ll mibby see ye in a fortnight, but of course — ” (he tried to cheer her with a joke) “ — your mammy might want to give me to one of your sisters.” She cut him off.

He sighed and looked out. The clear sky was now patterned with clusters of saucerlike cloudlets, the remotest tinted pink by the evening sun. Beneath each was a house, in each house was at least one bedroom where he would be ecstatically welcome. He regretted leaving his work on the training programme but Jenny was right, he would work better if he relaxed first. He stared at a cloudlet beyond the wooded top of Bowerhope Law. Beneath was Bowerhope house, less than two miles away by the shore path. Two friendly sisters there had been kind to him more than once. Their private names were Myoo and Myow and they always bedded together. He called their room at Bowerhope and said, “Myow?”

“Myoo.”

“Colonel Wat Cat is coming, pussies.”

“Mwoopee.”

When he reached the path to Bowerhope shadows were darkening under the trees but there was a soft glow in the sky and on the loch. The path was level and without abrupt turnings. Sophia, refreshed by rest and good feeding at the Warrior house, went at a satisfying pace. Wat, happy in his destination, gave himself to more thought about the training programme.

Men usually became soldiers through a disciplined extension of war games they had played as children, but many of the world’s best fighters, like himself, had come late to the army after work with other things, perhaps because delay had strengthened their determination. He would soon command the first determined army of late starters the world had seen since Cromwell’s in the historical era. Then he remembered George Washington’s troops — Napoleon’s generals — Ulysses S. Grant — Leon Trotsky — Che Guevara. The world would be watching him with these in mind, a wonderful, fearful thought! He prevented excitement by thinking how to work harder and set better examples than the trainee officers lent by neighbouring clans, though these would all be good men. He thought of Archie Crook Cot, a famous physicist, intelligent man, very good speaker. His muscular strength and coordination were better than his bulky body suggested. Like many gurus he relaxed by hunting and fishing and had gained local fame by it. Archie would adapt fast to war games and must already be imagining himself general of Ettrick. Wat smiled and muttered, “No yet Archie. Let’s see you after your first wee war.” He would manage Archie by giving him tough assignments and, if he handled them well, by promoting him. He would ask him, even now, to pick a company of volunteer divers and bring the Ettrick standard back from the North Sea. This would show Colonel Dryhope in command from his first day in office, and delight Ettrick traditionalists, and soothe Crook Cot’s vanity. Wat raised his wristcom to call Archie and saw the dial was lightless except for the word BEAMBLOCKED. He shook and tapped it, wondering why it gave such an impossible reason for malfunction. Beams were directed from satellites by human agencies. In a squabble between two satellites for a habitat zone a mischief maker had once temporarily blocked a rival’s part of network, the nearest thing to lawless fighting humanity had known for over a century, but nobody, however mischievous, used interplanetary energies to play a prank on someone’s wrist communicator.

Suddenly his ear was teased by the repetition of a sound no louder than the lapping of small waves on the shore to his left: an occasional soft tinkle from the wooded slope on his right. Looking there he saw a glowing violet spot travelling against darkness under the branches: obviously (he thought) an oddly coloured public eye many yards away. With another soft tinkle it floated out in front of his face. It was a bubble less than half an inch across with a violet outline and contained a head with abundant black shoulder-length hair and a womanly face, though too small to be recognized. He stared sternly at a point above it and heard a tiny, distinct very girlish English voice which became tough American then huskily Germanic. Throughout these accent shifts it remained mockingly, whorishly female and roused him in a way he detested.

“Please don’t ignore me sir, I am the fairy Tinker Bell who will make all your dreams come true, but you can call me Phyllis Marlowe. I’m a private eye, not a public eye and I’m absolutely and utterly yours, darlink.”

“Fuck off,” said Wat coldly, “I’m giving no interviews to crack-brained voyeurs, public or private.”

The bubble recoiled as if struck and settled on Sophia’s head between the ears. These twitched as the small voice shrilled, “Ooooooo why are you so crooooooel to me?” and made sounds like bitter sobbing. Sophia did not alter her pace. Wat urged her into a jolting trot which was the fastest she could go but the bubble stayed between her ears.

“I’ll tell you a story, dearie,” said a voice amazingly like a Scottish granny’s, “There was once a wee lad who didnae like the lassies of Ettrick and ordinary war games, he liked wild historical wars that were fought without rules and changed the world, wars fought with wild glamorous women and explosions and spaceships which carried him to new worlds. In sentimental moments he also enjoyed gardening, so he decided to be a star seeder.”

“A third of humanity starts that way,” said Wat scornfully.

“This boy was unique, dearie. He was taller than the rest and ashamed of it because he thought women couldnae like him — and he certainly didnae want any poor lassie who did. That’s why he wanted new worlds, worlds where he would not be an outsider because he dominated them. He also had the smeddum to work hard at what he hated, so he must have been terribly unhappy. After three painful years of keyboard work he knew enough astrophysics and biology to get into space, though his mind was not exactly scientific. Two years in satellite greenhouses ended his love of gardening. A talk with an immortal ended his dream of reaching new worlds — he could only do that by forgetting childhood dreams. He came home, became a soldier like his daddy and is now a world-famous hero. That won’t content him.”

“Tell me what I don’t know.”

“Oui, at our next meeting, chéri,” the voice whispered with a French accent, “The meeting where we become love-ers.”

Wat laughed. He seldom noticed comic situations but this seemed one. He looked at the bubble in a friendly way. It now contained a mouth with full lips precisely crimsoned in a 1940s Hollywood fashion which had been revived at least thrice a century since. He said, “As you’re synthesized from the soundtracks of ancient movies I won’t get much joy from that meeting. You’re probably not even a woman. Real women don’t use satellite technology to seduce a man.”

There was a pause in which he let Sophia resume the pace she found easiest. The voice said, “An intelligent deduction, Colonel Dryhope, but I am very much a woman. This sophisticated foreplay ensures we will meet in the body without inhibitions, but it is your soul I want to seduce.”

The voice now sounded like a soft-speaking south-east English woman with a slight exotic flavour of Caribbean or southern U.S.A. Wat had heard it before. He said amiably, “Why do you want that?”

A man’s voice spoke. It took Wat a few seconds to recognize his own.

“Give me a period of excitement when folk thought they were making a better world … Rage, not sorrow is my disease … I hate women for their damnable smug security … I want the bad old days when wars had no rules and bombs fell on houses and men and women died together like REAL equals! Equal in their agony and mutilation! … Privacy and power, power and privacy.”

Wat felt pressure in his heart and eardrums. He breathed carefully to prevent useless rage. He pretended to yawn then said that using satellite technology to invade private lives was the sort of criminal intrusion the world had outgrown over a century ago, was against the Geneva Convention, was infantile bad manners.

“Yeah, but I’m a real wild child and an outlaw, honey,” said the voice Americanly, “I’m a professional hooker who has hooked you.”

“You’re also a media person. You spoke to me in your English voice from a public eye ball this morning, one that jumped out of a blaeberry bush when I came down by Thirlstane. How can you be public and private too?”

“How can you be Colonel Dryhope in Ettrick Warrior house and your aunties’ Wattie at home? Media people also get into more than one set, Colonel Dryhope. The more sets we belong to the more power we hold. I’m in more than a dozen and am now forming the most powerful set in the world. It has two members — you and me.”

“I’ll discuss this chat with Archie Crook Cot,” said Wat grimly, “You may have heard of him. I don’t think he’ll need more than an hour of networking to find the beam you’re using, and where you are, and who you are.”

For a while the lips stayed slightly parted. Their owner was either thinking hard or listening to instructions from someone else, but Wat did not feel outnumbered.

“I would feel very hurt if you told Archie Crook Cot about me, Colonel Dryhope,” said the mouth at last, “Others would suffer too. You are not a man who can be frightened, but your clan might suffer most.”

“I’m no feart of mysterious threats,” said Wat grinning, “Nor feart of people who repeat things I said idly or in a bad temper. Why not replay what I said before the battle when I spoke to save the Ettrick weans? Geneva noticed that.” “That is not the side of you which attracts me,” said the mouth softly, “Do you not know that many women desire to feel themselves helpless in the arms of a powerful man they identify with God?”

“If you’re a masochist in search of a violent brute find another soldier. The breed is not extinct.”

“Ah, but you are so wrong, chéri! The breed is practically extinct. Other soldiers waste their violence in conventional war games then go home to be nursed by their conventional aunts and sweethearts. And I am more than a sensual body — I too am an outsider who cannot bear this world governed by aunts and grannies. It has lasted too long, it is stale, it needs renewal. You feel this too, Wat — that is why you wanted to start a reich of two with Annie Craig Douglas. It would have been too small for you. Renew the world with me! It will be dangerous work but neither of us fear danger. It will also need political intelligence.”

“Rhetoric!” said Wat impatiently, “If you’ve a concrete proposal, Ms. Media, propose it in sensible modern language. The adjective political became meaningless a century and a half ago.”

“If you stay silent about this meeting …” said the mouth slowly, “… I will propose to you tomorrow.”

“When?”

“When you return to the Warrior house. Promise to be silent till then.”

“I promise nothing. I won’t speak of this till we’ve met. Let that content you.”

The bubble swooped to his right ear and whispered, “Have you ever fucked a media bitch or do you only do it to pussies?”

“Neither bitches nor bubbles.”

“If you gossip about this we will never meet in the flesh, chéri. You will also lose the chance to recreate the world in the image of your wildest dreams — and quickly! Bonsoir. I will now vanish with a most melodious twang but remember, I hear every word you say and love most the words you fear to say. Our lovemaking will be different than with others. It will strengthen, not relax you. I will teach you not to be ashamed.”

He turned in time to see the bubble vanish with a melodious twang.

It was now after sunset but a silvery scatter of pebbles showed the path. The digits on his wristcom were glowing again. He dialled Archie Crook Cot and asked if he would organize the retrieval of the standard, taking the veteran General Megget and three Boys’ Brigade captains with him to show it was an Ettrick Warrior business. Archie Crook Cot, sounding pleased, said yes, he had been worrying about the standard. He would also take Jimsy Henderland (an excellent diver) and start early. Wat told him to use the Warrior house sky sledges but contact General Shafto first, then hesitated and said, “Report to me at once when you return.”

He switched off, wondering if he would regret not having given Archie a more technical job right away. Soon after he saw the lights of Bowerhope. He was enthusiastically welcomed but it was not a satisfying visit. Myoo said, “Getting colonelized has weakened you, Wat Dryhope. You don’t seem with us.”

Our dreams review events of the waking day, working them into the pattern of early memories and wishes which is our character. Wat dreamed easily about his squabble with Annie because he expected young girls to be bothersome. His triumphal arrival at the Warrior house and swift promotion to commander also fitted his dreams; he had not expected it but early efforts had prepared him for it. Nothing had prepared him for the conversation on the path to Bowerhope. His dreams turned nasty and woke him long before dawn. He lay perfectly still, unwilling to rouse the friendly bodies he lay between, unable to rest for troublesome thoughts.

He thought first about people in public eye companies. Broadcasters of war games clearly enjoyed getting close to bloodshed without being hurt. A woman of that sort with a taste for tall graceless carnaptious soldiers could easily use public equipment to contrive private meetings with them. But Wat’s movements had been followed, his words recorded and edited for at least five days before a blocking beam had isolated him from the intelligence network. Through a unique device he had been told that here and now between Myoo and Myow he was still being surveyed. No single person could use so much energy for a private purpose without being noticed as a selfish waster and interrupted. Since the media bitch did not fear interruption she must be part of a team making a programme about him. This broke the first rule in the bill of human rights: NOBODY WILL BE USED BY ANOTHER WITHOUT KNOWING AND WILLING IT. But a team breaking this rule must be working in secret, and secret societies (like governments, stock exchanges, banks, national armies, police forces, advertising agencies and other groups who made nothing people needed) had ended with the historical era. The modern intelligence net was open to everyone. It could only be used secretly by people arousing no curiosity, yet the media bitch had deliberately aroused his. What could such people want that they could not get openly? The earliest Christian churches, the Freemasons and Trade Unions had been secret societies. They believed all good people were equal in the eyes of God or natural justice, so unjust governments had banned them. Big governments later created their own secret societies, the F.B.I., C.I.A., K.G.B.D., M.I.5 which lied and tortured, robbed and killed in ways their employers could publicly deny. And people had been robbed and killed by Al Capone’s mob, the Mafia and the I.R.A. which were also secret forms of government. Wat’s head ached with efforts to imagine reasons for secrecy on an earth whose largest government was the family and where each family had what it needed.

After a few seconds he left the bed by creeping carefully to the foot. By the glowing calendar on a screen he saw Myoo and Myow roll into the space he had left and embrace each other without wakening. He softly tapped a message regretting his poor response to their welcome and asking if one of their children would return his pony to Dryhope common. Then he dressed and left by a door onto the veranda.

After a few steps on the shore path under the trees his foot struck something soft. He stopped and peered. There was not much light in the sky but the path was pale enough to show a small black body near the toe of his right sandal and two or three others irregularly placed on the path ahead: booby traps? Stooping down he saw the nearest body thrust a limb backward and lurch an inch forward.

“Have more fun than I did,” he told it and walked on taking care where he placed his feet. A minute later he said, “Whoever hears me may like to know that my last remark was addressed to a puddock. This is the night of the year when puddocks trek to the nearest fresh water for their annual nooky fair; but I doubt if natural history interests you Ms. Bitch. Are you listening? No need to speak; a tiny tinkle will do for yes, silence for no.”

He listened and heard only leaves and water stirred by the pre-dawn breeze. The anger which had come to him on that path four hours earlier returned. In a sing-song voice he said, “I think I’ll tell my friend Archie that someone’s using a vast amount of public energy for a private seduction.”

His wristcom worked as usual while he dialled the first Crook Cot digits, then it buzzed briefly like an angry wasp and the soft English voice said quickly, “What’s a puddock?”

“I’ve forgotten the English word but the French is crapaud,” said Wat, looking at a row of zeroes on the dial where the source of a message was usually indicated, “You sound like a woman who’s just been wakened. There must be at least two of you listening.”

“You are being tracked,” said the voice, yawning slightly, “By a sensor beam linked to my wristcom. It shocked me awake with the first word you spoke.”

“When will we meet?”

“Before you leave the path. Meanwhile I’ll amuse you with a suggestive poem.

The times are racked with birth pangs. Every hour

Brings forth some gasping Truth,

But Truth new born oft looks misshapen,

The terror of the household and its shame —

A Monster coiling in the mother’s lap

That she would starve or strangle,

yet it breathes,

And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts

Comes slowly to its form, staggers erect,

Smooths the rough ridges of its Dragon scales,

Changes to shining locks its snaky hair,

And moves transfigured into angel guise,

Welcomed by all who cursed its hour of birth.

— What do you think of that?”

“Not much. The stale imagery suggests the nineteenth century. Was it written by someone heralding socialism?”

“It was written by an American judge heralding fascism.”

“Isms are the dullest bits of the historical midden. Why resurrect them?”

“Because we are about to give birth to the future and I am an agent of Shigalyovism which is organizing a political renaissance. But since sex comes before politics here is a wee song to cheer ye on your way, dearie.”

He heard a burst of orchestral music and a Scottish male voice from the start of the twentieth century sang —

Keep right on to the end of the road,

Keep right on to the end!

Though the way be long

Let your heart be strong,

Keep right on round the bend!

Though you’re tired, and weary,

Still journey on

Till you come to your happy abode,

Where all you love, you’ve been dreaming of,

Will be there — at the end — of the …”

“You’re scaring the puddocks!” yelled Wat, vainly trying to switch off his wristcom and walk faster at the same time. He could see an orange brightness low down among the trees ahead. The voice went huskily seductive: “You’re a mean old daddy but you’re out of sight Wat honeyprick, come to momma you sweetcocking motherfucker, come into me you big bad world beater, I am the shining cunt at the end of your personal tunnel.”

The orange light came from the glowing dome of a small tent with the shadow of a reclining, beckoning figure inside. He stooped and crawled in through an opening at the edge of the path. She lay on a bank of pillows in the rape-inviting position imposed on Jane Russell by a millionaire who had owned some of 1944 Hollywood. She moaned, “Don’t look at me like that you piece-a-shit!”

Two minutes later he lay gasping beside her after the fastest fuck of his life.

She said, “Do you know me now?”

He stared. Under the cosmetics (smudged now) of her archaic sexual mask he saw a young, very boyish face regard him alertly. He shook his head. She sighed and said, “I thought I was famous but of course you don’t use public eyes.”

He was too near to see her long body, slender waist, big breasts, but he felt them and was so disconcerted by her intense gaze (one blue eye, one brown) that he tried to lose it by again kissing and embracing but, “That’s all for now,” she said sitting upright, “Short brutish sex is the only sort revolutionaries have time for. When the present state withers away nobody will have time for the other sort either. A drink.” Sitting cross-legged on the pillows she lifted a box from under one and took out a bottle of champagne and a glass. She said, “You still prohibit yourself alcohol?”

“Aye.”

“Drink this.”

She handed him a thermos flask which proved to contain scalding black coffee. He poured a cupful into the cap and let it cool, watching her closely and puzzling over what she had said about sex. Was she mad? She astonished him by how easily and quickly she fired the champagne cork out through the low doorway, and caught a fuming jet of liquor in the glass, and sipped it while putting the bottle back in the box and taking out a cigarette case. Nan’s domestic actions had the same deft composure but not this alarming speed. He felt a thrumming in his blood, an expansion of breathing which were his usual reactions to danger. With relief he decided that his bodily chemistry was making him as alert as she. He was careful not to change his expression. He decided to say little and listen hard, yet she sat watching him and smiling at him and sipping champagne in such perfect silence that he was the first to speak.

“What’s your name?”

“Puddock if you like me, Delilah if I’m a ball-breaker. Smoke one of these Hawaii Gold. It will clear your head and ease you into the plot.” She spoke with the left side of her mouth while putting a lighter to a couple of slim brown tubes in the right. When he refused she unhesitatingly chucked one out through the entrance while inhaling the other, then sipped from the glass and in a voice that slid through several accents said, “Achtung Liebling! This is the situation. Many in the public eye are bored frantic by broadcasting the same old war games. The viewing public are also bored — that is why chieftains like your father have been bidding for attention by squandering more and more lives. The warriors too are bored. I won’t remind you how, in a young girl’s arms, you prayed for homes to be bombed and women to be mutilated. I’ll repeat something said by a general of the old school six days ago.”

She touched her wristcom and a moment later Wat heard Shafto say, “People are tired of the old strategies. In a month or three you and me should put our heads together and see if we can work out other new strategies — within the Geneva Conventions of course.”

“Fuck the Global and Interplanetary Council for War Regulation Sitting in Geneva!” said the woman with startling violence, “For ten thousand years of civilization mankind put its most creative energies into warfare, breaking old rules and inventing new ones every century, killing greater and greater multitudes in a crescendo of holocausts which kept pace with the enormous expansion of humanity. The world leaders called it progress of course, though they usually found it wiser to pretend that warfare was a temporary part of it. The wisest knew it was an essential part. Why purse your lips? Do you think me a monster?”

“I think you’re a clown,” said Wat, shrugging,

“That civilized way of living and fighting nearly wrecked the planet.”

“I agree,” she said, refilling her glass, “That the twentieth and twenty-first centuries played games that nearly destroyed everything animal but the cockroaches. Yes, a peaceful century of fighting-by-rule was needed to restore human resources. The eighteenth century was a bit like ours. European rulers feared the chaotic wars of an earlier age so their armies only fought at frontiers. Polite people toured each other’s nations, visited each other’s homes whether their governments were warring or not. Those Europeans thought they were safer than the Imperial Romans, but boom! 1789! The French Revolution! A new age of warfare started which spread competing nations to every part of the globe. The biggest nation of all, the Chinese, tried to keep out of that rat race so the cocky wee Europeans and Yanks pulled it apart. Our rational Utopia is about to go boom and fall apart too and you, Wat Dryhope, are the virus of the plague which is going to destabilize it. Prost, skol and slainte you world-fucker. I’ll soon want more of you.” “You foul-mouthed big blethering nonsense!” said Wat, amused. She smiled unpleasantly and said, “If you used the public eye you would know that what happened in Ettrick yesterday is happening now on the sunny side of the globe. In the Americas and Asias scholars, gurus, gardeners and artists are crowding to their Warrior houses. Armies are doubling and trebling. The world’s great new war hero, Wat Dryhope, came to soldiering late in life, why should every man not do it? Your coffee’s getting cold.”

Wat, thinking hard, sipped it then said, “That’s no sign of instability! It just shows how widespread male boredom is. The commanders will cope by conferring with Geneva and devising new rules for bigger war games. A lot more men will die, of course, but even if three quarters of male humanity slaughter each other it won’t destroy the modern state. The modern state depends on women minding their houses.”

“Have you forgotten that I am a woman? I am also an agent of the Shigalyovite Revolution.” “You are an eloquent, erudite liar, Delilah Puddock,” said Wat, chuckling, “Tell me about Shigalyovism.”

“You are a man I will enjoy humiliating, Wat Dryhope,” said the woman dreamily inhaling her cigarette yet still watching him closely, “Shigalyov was a Russian who loved freedom and plotted against the Czar. He proved by algebra that freedom can only be fully enjoyed in a world where one tenth of the people are given unrestricted powers over the remaining nine tenths.”

“The poor man must have been so obsessed with Czardom that Russian Communism was the only alternative he could imagine,” said Wat, screwing the empty cap back on the flask,

“Will your conspiracy bring back that?”

“O no, Russian Communism was dull and inefficient. We will recreate the system which overpowered it, the competitive exploitation of human resources.”

“Are human resources people?”

“Of course, but when exploiting people it is best to think them a passive substance like oil or earth.”

“You havenae said a word of practical sense,” said Wat, suddenly noticing he was no longer alert. His thoughts, his words also were coming ponderously: “You can only exploit folk … who depend on you for essential things like … food or ways of getting it … Landlords and merchants used to do that by removing food from folk who produced it … You could then deal it out to them in such wee amounts that … that poor folk grew too weak to grab it for themselves, especially when you employed a well-paid police force … Then … then the producers would lick your boots and c … cut each other’s throats hoping you’ll give them enough to let their w … wea … WEANS STAY ALIVE WHY’RE YE NODN AN GIGGLIN?”

Sweating and trembling he fell back on the pillows. She flung cigarette and glass out onto the path (he heard it smash) and knelt upright across his thighs.

“You really do understand political economy,” she said, putting her hands beneath her breasts, lifting them and smiling down on him between. “That’s all past,” he whispered, appalled to feel his penis swell, erect, yearn up to her while the rest of him helplessly shivered. She said, “Time for more, my wee Sssscottish Ressssource.”

Caressing her nipples slowly with her thumbs she crooned, “The bright old day now dawns again, the cry goes through the land, in England there shall be dear bread — in Ireland, sword and brand; and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, so rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, of the fine old English Tory days; hail to the coming time! Spurs on the dinnerplates! Guns before butter! If you had shared my champers and pot you would be enjoying this but the doctored coffee won’t sssspoil my pleasure Ssssamson.”

Grabbing his hair with both hands she eased herself down on him whispering, “George Orwell said the future of humanity would be a jackboot continually stamping on a face. He was wrong. It’s gonna be me continually fucking your brains out.”

Wat obstinately closed his eyes. She opened them with her thumbs. He deliberately emptied his mind of thoughts and lost consciousness after some helpless, shameful intervals of pain and pleasure and wakened still helpless and shivering but on his feet. He was upright because his arm was over the shoulder of a robust presence who also grasped him round the waist. There was a big brown animal nearby. Some pale blobs before him were probably faces.

“Careful, Colonel Dryhope! Take it easy sir!” said Jenny’s voice.

He was on the shore of Saint Mary’s Loch on a cold grey morning with sharp aches in his head and testicles and muscles. Jenny was supporting him. Nearby his father’s horse, Bucephalus, stood on the path under the trees, sniffing among pebbles at broken glass and a crushed cigarette. Women from Bowerhope were in front of him. Myoo laid her hand tenderly on his shoulder and said sadly, “Oh Wattie lad, you look awfy sick.”

“How came your clothes in that fankle?” asked Myow beside her and Wat noticed his clothes felt dirty and ill-fitting. He realized Delilah Puddock must have put them on him while he lay unconscious and before she removed the tent. This provoked two feelings he knew to be insane: gratitude so maudlin that it brought tears to his eyes; a sadistic lust to punish her so urgent that it made his testicles ache worse than ever. He groaned and said, “I’m sick, aye, but don’t ask what happened. I need Kittock.”

“There are many messages for you at the Warrior house Colonel.”

“Send them to Dryhope but first help me onto this bloody big horse.”