The Throwback

Chapter twenty-one

It would also be true to say that the Excise men had no idea what to expect. They had been warned by Mr Mirkin's experience but as they stole across the dam all seemed quiet and peaceful under the brilliant moon. Having crossed the dam they took the path towards the back entrance of the Hall. Around them sheep and bullocks grazed and all was silence and shadow. The only light visible came from Perkin's Lookout where Mr Dodd sat watching their approach but, refracted through the stained glass of the little folly, it had an attractive and rather charming quality about it.

What happened next hadn't. They were still a hundred yards from the Hall when the barrage broke around them, and barrage it was. And bombardment. A thousand loudspeakers bombarded them acoustically with the roar of shells, rapid machine-gun fire, screams of agony, bombs, fresh screams, larger shells, and a high-pitched whistle of such appalling frequency that several sheep went immediately insane. Like eight men suddenly awoken Rip Van Winkle-like in the middle of the Somme bombardment or at Alamein, the Excise men tried desperately to take cover only to find that lying down was even more awful than standing up from the sound point of view. Worse still, it prevented them from getting out of the way of maddened sheep and demented bullocks startled out of their senses into panic by the terrible din.

Even in the house where Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode had been warned that it might be more advisable to sleep with their heads under pillows rather than on top, the sounds of battle were devastating. Dr Magrew who had been on the Somme woke with the conviction that he was back there while Mr Bullstrode, convinced that he was in dire peril from Excise men gone berserk and who being determined not to suffer Mr Mirkin's fate had taken it into their heads to bombard the Hall before entering its remains without a warrant, hurled himself under his bed and smashed the chamber pot. Gashed and bleeding he lay there with his fingers in his ears to try and keep the fearful crash of guns out. Only Lockhart and Jessica and Mr Dodd enjoyed what was happening. Provided with earplugs, specially designed ear mufflers and sound-deadening helmets they were in a privileged position.

The Excise men, lacking any such aids, weren't. Nor were the Flawse hounds. Like the sheep they went crazy. It was the high-frequency whistle that got them and in the yard they slobbered and foamed and fought to get out of the gate. Mr Dodd let them. It had been in his mind that they might prove useful yet and he had tied a length of string to the bolt. Now he pulled it and the raving pack swarmed out to join the stampede of demented bullocks, insane sheep and frantic Excise men who cascaded in a horrid panic-stricken rout back towards the dam. Only Mr Mirkin stood his ground and this involuntarily. Mr Wyman, to fend off a berserk sheep, had taken his crutches. They had done him little good. The sheep had broken the crutches and quite uncharacteristically for a normally docile and ruminant creature had bitten them in half and charged on chewing the bits. Mr Wyman charged with it only to be bitten by a Flawse hound. Several Excise men suffered similar fates and all the time the artillery bombardment continued, the rifle fire increased, the high-frequency whistle blew fit to bust and Mr Mirkin clutching his head in agony took an unwise step forward, fell and lay on an extremely large loudspeaker which was resonating at an extremely low frequency. Before he knew what was happening Mr Mirkin was transformed from Senior Collector of Taxes (Supertax Division; sub-department, Evasion of) of the Inland Revenue into a sort of semi-human tuning fork, one end of which felt as if it had been sucked into a jet engine at full power while the middle lying on top of the low-frequency loudspeaker began to rumble, stir, reverberate and bounce quite horribly. Mr Mirkin's plastered legs simply vibrated involuntarily and at a frequency that was not at all to the advantage of what lay between their upper ends. Around him the fell was clear. Sheep, bullocks, hounds and Excise men, all deaf to everything but the pain in their ears, had fled the field and had scampered back across the dam or in the case of two Excise men actually dived into the reservoir where they tried to keep their noses above the water while keeping their ears under. As they finally disappeared from view Lockhart turned the amplifiers off and the bombardment ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Not that Mr Mirkin or the fleeing Excise men either knew or cared. They were in a soundless world in any case and by the time they reached their cars on the road and were able to voice their shattered feelings they were unable to get them heard. Only sight, smell, touch and fright remained and they stared back in wonderment at Flawse Hall. It was still incredibly standing and apparently unscathed by the bombardment. Nor were there any craters to be seen and the smoke that should have obscured their view was quite extraordinarily absent. But at least the pain had gone too and the Excise men were about to climb back into their cars and leave the scene of this frightful experience when a figure appeared climbing the road from the bottom of the valley. It was Lockhart; across his shoulder like a sack with wooden legs hung Mr Mirkin.

'You've left this thing behind,' he said, and dumped the ex-Senior Collector of Taxes across the bonnet of the leading car. The Excise men saw his lips move but heard nothing. Had they heard they would have agreed that Mr Mirkin was a thing. He was certainly not a human being. Gibbering soundlessly and foaming at various orifices he had passed beyond the bounds of sanity and would clearly never be the same again. They managed to get him into the boot of one of the cars (his vibrating legs prevented his occupying a seat in the car itself) and drove off into the silent night.

Behind them Lockhart walked happily back to the Hall. His experiment in surrogate and purely sonic warfare had worked splendidly, so splendidly in fact that as he approached the house he saw that most of the windows were broken. He would have them repaired next day and in the meantime there was something to celebrate. He went into the peel tower and lit the fire in the great hearth. As it blazed up he told Mr Dodd to fetch the whisky and went himself into the house to invite Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew to join him and Jessica in drinking a toast. He had some difficulty making his invitation plain to them but their sleep had been so completely interrupted that they dressed and followed him to the banqueting hall. Mr Dodd was already there with the whisky and his pipes and standing in a little group beneath the battle-flags and the swords they raised their glasses.

'What are we going to drink to this time?' asked Jessica and it was Mr Dodd who supplied the answer,

'To the Devil himself,' he said.

'The Devil?' said Jessica. 'Why the Devil?'

'Why aye, hinnie,' said Mr Dodd,' 'tis clear you dinna ken your Robbie Burns. Do ye not ken his poem "The De'il's Awa Wi' The Excise Man"?'

'In that case, to the De'il,' said Lockhart and they drank.

And they danced by the light of the fire while Mr Dodd played on his pipes and sang

"There's threesome reels, and foursome reels,

There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man; But the one best dance e'er cam to our Ian',

Was – the De'il's awa wi' the Excise Man.'

They danced and drank and drank and danced and then, exhausted, sat round the long table while Jessica made them ham and eggs. When they had finished Lockhart stood up and told Mr Dodd to fetch the man.

'It wouldna be kind to let him miss this great occasion,' he said. Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew, too drunk to disagree, nodded. 'He would have appreciated seeing those scoundrels run,' said Lockhart, 'it would have appealed to his sense of humour.' As dawn broke over Flawse Fell Mr Dodd flung open the gates of the peel tower and old Mr Flawse, seated in a wheelchair and manifestly self-propelled, rolled into the room and took his accustomed place at the end of the table. Mr Dodd shut the doors and handed Lockhart the remote control. He twiddled with the switches and once again the room rang with the voice of old Mr Flawse. Lockhart had been editing the tapes and compiling fresh speeches and it was these that the old man now uttered.

'Let us dispute, my friends, as once we did before the man with the sickle got the better of me. I take it you've both brought your reasons with you just as I've brought mine.'

Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode found the question difficult to answer. They were both very drunk and in any case recent events had moved so fast that they had tended to forget that old Mr Flawse, if stuffed, still seemed to have a mind of his own. They sat and stared speechlessly at this animated memento mori. Lockhart assuming that they were still partially deaf turned the volume up and Mr Flawse's voice filled the room.

'I care not what argument you use, Magrew,' he yelled, Til not have it that ye can change a nation's or a man's character by meddling with his environment and social circumstance. We are what we are by virtue of the precedence of birth and long-established custom, that great conglomerate of our ancestral heritage congenital and practical. The two are intertwined. What judges once pronounced we now apply; 'tis common law; and what by chemistry committed shapes our cells becomes the common man. An Englishman is yet an Englishman though centuries apart. Do you not agree, Mr Bullstrode, sir?' Mr Bullstrode nodded. He was powerless to speak. 'And yet,' continued Mr Flawse at ten watts per channel, 'and yet we have the paradox that what's called English differs century by century as well. A strange yet constant inconsistency this is that leaves the men the same and yet divides their conduct and opinions from themselves. In Cromwell's day it was religious controversy led in the field; a century and Chatham's day the conquest of an Empire and the loss of America but faith had fled the field before a clockwork model of the universe and Frenchmen dideroting on encyclopediae. Ye ken what Sully said? That Englishmen take their pleasures sadly after the fashion of their country. A century later Voltaire, that idol persifleur of France, would have it that we by and large have a most serious and gloomy temperament. So where's the influence of all ideas between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century on

Englishmen? Not that I mind what Frenchmen say of us; their observations have ill-accorded with mine own; or of my reading come to that. 'Tis Merrie England all the time to me and what have the French to equal Sterne or Smollett or yet a Surtees? I've still to see a Frenchman Jorrocks ride to hounds. With them it's wit and badinage that's aye the joke. With us 'tis ever action and that war between our words and what we be which they across the Channel have named hypocrisy. And what we be is all mixed up with alien blood and refugees from tyranny like a bag pudding boiled within this pot we call the British Isles. 'Twas ever thus; 'twill ever be; a ragamuffin race of scoundrels born of pirates on the run. What say you to that, Magrew, you who have some acquaintanceship with Hume?'

But Dr Magrew, like Mr Bullstrode, had nothing to say. He was silent before this effigy of the past which uttered words in parody of its own complex self. He gaped and as he gaped the old man's voice rose louder still. It was filled with fury now and Lockhart, wrestling with the remote control, found nothing would abate his voice.

'It was some damned scoundrel versifying American,' bawled Mr Flawse, 'would have it that he'd go with a whimper not a bang. 'Twere better for the creature had he been with Whymper on the Matterhorn and learnt the meaning of a fall. Well, I'll not do the same. Damn whimpering, sir, and being the world's whining beggar, cap in hand. I've not a forelock left to touch and wouldna raise a finger to it had I one, to wheedle pennies from a foreign swine be he an Arab Sheik or the Emperor of Japan. I'm true-born English to the core and so I will remain. So keep your whimpering for womenfolk and let me have my bang.'

And as if in answer to this request there was a dull explosion in his innards and smoke poured out of his ears. Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew looked on appalled while Lockhart, trying the switches, shouted to Mr Dodd.

'The fire extinguisher,' he yelled, "for God's sake get the fire extinguisher!'

But it was no good. Mr Flawse was living up to his promise not to whimper. Flailing round him with his arms and shouting incomprehensible imprecations from his clapper mouth he streaked in his wheelchair across the banqueting hall, gathered a rug over his feet on the way, bounced off an armoured figure and finally, with that practicality he had always admired in his ancestors, shot into the open hearth and burst into flames. By the time Mr Dodd arrived with fire extinguisher he was beyond extinction and had flared up the chimney in a shower of sparks and flames.

'The man was born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. Amen,' said Mr Dodd.

And so in the great hearth old Mr Flawse, the last of his line, finally fizzled out before the eyes of his two closest friends, Jessica, Mr Dodd, and the man he had always called the bastard.

'Almost a Viking's funeral,' said Dr Magrew as the charred remains flaked to ashes and the last transistor melted. It had been made in Japan, he noted, which tended to contradict the old man's final boast that he was English to the core. He was about to point this interesting anatomical and philosophical observation out to Mr Bullstrode when he was interrupted by a cry from behind him. Lockhart was standing on the oak table among the guttering candles and tears were running down his cheeks. 'The De'il has pity in him yet,' thought the doctor but Mr Dodd, recognizing the symptoms, picked up his pipes and squeezed the bag under his arm as Lockhart began his dirge. 'The last of them all is gan fra' the Hall

And the Flawse is fled fra' the fell But those that are left can aye recall

The tales he used to tell.

Twa deaths he died, twa lives he led,

Twa men he might have been; The ane spake words he had but read

The ither he didna mean.

And so he struggled his whole life through

And niver in strife he ceased. And he allus sought what was good and true

Though hissel' to be half a beast.

'Twas all the truth he iver knew

Since Science and God had fled, And you couldna shake his firm held view

That the best of men are dead.

But their words remain to ease our pain

And he'd have us now rejoice That though he's gan we can hear again

The sound of his living voice.'

While Mr Dodd squeezed on with his tune, Lockhart jumped down from the table and left the pele tower. Behind him Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew looked at one another in wonderment and for once even Jessica, startled into womanly concern by Lockhart's tears, lost her sentimental streak and stood dry-eyed. She was about to follow Lockhart out when Mr Dodd stopped her.

'Let him be by hissel', hinnie,' he said. 'He gan to dree his weird awhile.'

Mr Dodd was only partly right. Lockhart was not dreeing but what came next was certainly weird. As the sun rose over Tombstone Law a thousand loudspeakers planted across the fell boomed forth again. This time the sound was not that of shell and shot but the gigantic voice of Edwin Tyndale Flawse. He was singing the 'The Ballad of Prick 'Em Dry'.