The Exploits of Engelbrecht (5 page)

It seems to be generally agreed among surrealist sportsmen that the crownin’ event of the season at which attendance is absolutely indispensable for Anything which is Anything, to say nothing of anybody who is anybody, is the famous millennial Man-Hunt Ball. It’s a little as if you were to combine Lord’s and Ascot, the Boat Race, the Finals of the Sudanese Belly Dancing Championships and the Ladies’ Singles at Wimbledon, the Derby and the Peking Cockroach Racing Cup, and mix them up with the Waterloo Ball, the Caledonian Ball, and all the other sportin’ championships, contests, celebrations, occasions and festivities under the sun…

And when I tell you that this was his very first Man-Hunt Ball, you will understand why Engelbrecht, the dwarf surrealist boxer, was in such a state of twitterin’ excitement, so unlike his usual deadpan sangfroid, when I met him and his manager Lizard Bayliss underneath the Station Clock to travel down together to Nightmare Abbey for the old Id’s house-party.

“I don’t know what’s come over you, kiddo,” Lizard was saying. “Keep still, can’t you. Why, you’re as excited as a…”

“...As a young surrealist sportsman before his first Man-Hunt Ball,” piped little Charlie Wapentake who joined us at that moment. “I say, what the dev have you got there?” He pointed to a huge beehive-shaped parcel at which Engelbrecht kept glancin’ coyly.

“That’s his fancy dress, that is,” said Lizard sadly.

Then, after a little more chat and showers of chaff we all moved off to platform N where the underground special for Nightmare Abbey, locally known as The Town Drain, was drawn up waitin’, already packed tight with surrealist sportsmen, and their fair partners with them, these last includin’ a bevy of ravishin’ mechanical contrivances, some of them so fetchin’ in their discreet travellin’ clothes of brown paper and string that Chippy de Zoete whispered in my ear that he hardly knew how to keep his pliers off them.

Indeed, what with one Thing and Another, and the ten-gallon flask of Embalmers Fluid which generous old Lizard would insist on passin’ round, we scarcely noticed the nights fly past or felt the shock when we cannoned into the tremblin’ old buffers at Nightmare Abbey Halt.

Nightmare Abbey was packed out. I found I’d been allotted a poky little oubliette in the tower at the end of the Bachelor’s Wing. When I started beefin’ about it old Lamia Lobb, the Id’s housekeeper, said I was lucky not to be sharin’ a coffin in the crypt like Nodder Fothergill and Chippy de Zoete. She was an ex-witch whom the Id had winged out Witch-Shooting and brought home and tamed. Lizard and Engelbrecht were just underneath me and I could hear their conversation through a hole in their ceiling. “I don’t know how you think you’re going to get them to stay on at all, kiddo, much less to stay on in formation,” Lizard was saying. Engelbrecht didn’t sound quite as perky as usual but I couldn’t catch what he said because it was drowned in a sudden blast of hummin’. I surmised the plucky little chap was trying to cover up his nervousness. Even I, old hand that I am, was feelin’ the strain. My hands were shakin’ so I could scarcely do up the straps of my Surrealist Huntsman’s strait-waistcoat.

The Man-Hunt breakfast is scheduled for an hour before midnight and I always like to be down early for it. It didn’t take me long to slip on my trusty old pillar-box over my strait-waistcoat. Then I scuttled down the corkscrew staircase past Engelbrecht’s door. The hummin’ was louder than ever and Lizard Bayliss was giving tongue with a series of intermittent yells that sounded as if he was being pricked all over.

The Great Hall was beginnin’ to fill up with surrealist sportsmen of all shapes and sizes. I joined Nodder Fothergill and Charlie Wapentake over by the fireplace for an eyeopener of Vampire’s Blood, and we stood there coughin’ and chokin’ and slappin’ each other on the back, discussin’ famous runs of the past and criticizin’ the dresses. You see, as Master of the Man-Hunt, the Id always insists that the Hunt which precedes the Ball shall provide the run of the season. If anything goes wrong Bones Barlow the huntsman and Rollo Chatteridge the Whip get the lashin’ of their lives. It’s up to them to see that the Kill takes place in the Ballroom so that the Ball can begin right away.

Presently there was a tremendous blast on the huge Man-Huntsman’s Horn and we took our places for the ceremonial entry of the Master. I was beginning to think that Engelbrecht had missed the bus. Then I heard the hummin’ again, only louder still, and I saw hurryin’ into the hall, Lizard Bayliss, his face swollen to four times the natural size and covered in blue bag. Behind him was Engelbrecht. He was dressed in nothing but a swarm of bees. They had assumed the formation of a faultlessly cut ridin’ coat and breeches. Next moment the Id was in his place, raisin’ his skull for the first toast and the Man-Hunt breakfast had begun.

Soon there was another blast on the Horn and the two Ghoulies staggered in with a covered-in cage containin’ the Quarry. These Ghoulies are something like the Devon and Somerset stag-hunt’s tufters, but in addition to markin’ down the Quarry they have to bag it and bring it back.

There had been rumours that the Quarry this time was something quite exceptional, and when the Id got on his feet he was beamin’ all over. “Gentlemen of the Man-Hunt,” he roared, “it gives me much pleasure to introduce to you our Quarry who will, I feel sure, mark an occasion in the annals of the Man-Hunt. We’ve hunted all sorts of types in the past. Schoolmasters, Stockbrokers, Bishops, Generals, and now and then, but only when scent was very poor, a Dartmoor Convict or two. But this, gentlemen, is the first time we have ever had for our Quarry”— here he stepped up to the cage and twitched aside the cover: “a carted prime minister.” You should have heard the roar that went up.

Then the Id’s family chaplain, old Father Carfax (unfrocked from all the eastern churches in turn for Wizardry) read the burial service and the pack, huge great coal-black brutes of the true Baskerville breed, big as bulls, bounded into the hall and began sniffin’ at the cage and bayin’ like the devil. The Quarry was sprayed with “My Sin”, just in case his natural scent shouldn’t be strong enough, and dosed with a special fiery concoction of Bones Barlow’s, guaranteed to make him “lep like a hippogriff”. Not, as Charlie Wapentake pointed out, that there was really any need for it in this case, as most prime ministers are in such a state of terror these days that they’ll lep like hippogriffs anyway. Then hounds were whipped off and the Ghoulies staggered away with the cage to Hangman’s Copse, traditional covert for “Releasing the Quarry”, and we all trooped off to the stables, mounted our surrealist steeds and jogged off to the meet.

There’s no hard and fast rule about mounts out man-huntin’ and in addition to the ordinary run of equine beasts—horses, zebras, unicorns, and so on, you get a pretty fair selection of curiosities all accordin’ to what sort of a line—moorland, jungle, desert or big city—their riders think the Quarry is going to take. The Id, with about three hundred yards of Man-Huntsman’s horn slung round him, was sitting a deuced great hippogriff which threatened to become airborne any moment. I couldn’t see Engelbrecht at first. Then, just as I was draining my stirrup cup, Chippy de Zoete tapped me on the knee with his crop. (I was going to see a good deal of Chippy at that hunt because we were both ridin’ centaurs and they liked to stick close together and talk philosophy out of the cornet of their mouths.) “Look up there,” Chippy said, “there’s pluck for you!”

I looked up and saw Engelbrecht, perched way up on the worst Nightmare in the Id’s stables. Even the Id was scared of her. Lizard Bayliss was clinging to the stirrup. “Have you ever ridden before, kiddo?” he was sayin’. “Well promise me you never will again.”

Just then the Id roared “Hounds, Gentlemen, please!” and the field moved off at a trot towards Hangman’s Copse—all that is except the lady president of the RSPCA who couldn’t get her rocking-horse to start and the Fakir of Benares who was having trouble with the girths of his special Bed O’Nails saddle.

The hunt started off much as usual. Rollo and Bones put hounds in to draw the covert from the Warlock Edge end downhill towards Witches’ Wen and the River Alph. The rest of us hung about outside the covert tryin’ to decide which was the least odious of the ways through it in the event of the PM breakin’ at the far side. Not a hound has spoken yet but they were forcin’ their way into that fearful, fiend-infested undergrowth, with growin’ excitement. We heard a yelp followed by a cry of “Baskerville has it.” Then the Id’s voice roaring “Hark! Hark!” and Bones Barlow’s renowned and blood-curdling screech of “Gone Away.” Then babel broke out as hounds convergin’ from every quarter, flung themselves howlin’ on the line.

I must say that PM put on a turn of speed which was quite surprisin’ in a Quarry of such a sedentary occupation. By the light of the phosphorescent slaver from Baskerville’s muzzle I caught a glimpse of little legs in their striped trousers flashin’ like propeller blades. Then he made a terrific spurt and drew away into the darkness.

Chippy and I did our best to go with Engelbrecht and give him a lead, but it wasn’t easy because that damned Nightmare of his was simply all over the place. Hounds ran devilish fast after breakin’ covert. There was a thick fog. Perfect for scent. Not a check for days. We galloped over moorland and meadow, flew banks and fences, crashed through gorse thickets. Then gradually the country changed to town. “Unsportin’ little beast,” said Chippy de Zoete, as our centaurs changed feet on top of an Odeon and plunged down into an allotment, “he’s makin’ a beeline for home.”

As dawn broke we were checked in Parliament Square. The Quarry had gone to ground.

Bones Barlow and Rollo Chatteridge were puttin’ the terriers down a manhole. Engelbrecht, I noticed, was havin’ a spot of bother with his huntin’ kit. Those bees were showin’ a distressin’ tendency to break formation. Suddenly with a yell of “God damn it, there go my breeches!” he dug his heels into his Nightmare and galloped off in pursuit of the nether half of the swarm. “Pity,” said Chippy de Zoete, “I’d hoped he might get the brush.”

By means of some absolutely consummate huntsmanship—and a good deal of dynamite—Bones Barlow succeeded in boltin’ the PM from the cellar of the House of Commons. Rollo Chatteridge with three couples of Baskervilles headed him off from the continental boat train and the Id laid the rest of the pack on the line and hunted him along the Great West Road. He gave us the slip near Northolt and became airborne. We clung on to the scent but we had to hunt him across three continents before we finally turned him back to the Nightmare Country, and “killed” in the ballroom.

The Man-Hunt Ball was at its height. Charlie Wapentake and various members of the house party were gallantly toastin’ Lamia Lobb in her own surgical boot filled with formalin. The fiddlers were strikin’ up the homicidal strains of
D’ye ken Jack Ketch?
and surrealist sportsmen were gallopin’ in the arms of Ghosts, Gorgons, and even a few Girls, when a naked dwarf dismounted from a limping Nightmare and knocked at the gate of Nightmare Abbey. He was accompanied by an object that looked like a man but whose features and limbs were indistinguishable on account of the presence all over them of a swarm of bees…

We led Engelbrecht into the cloakroom and persuaded the bees to change over. This time they assumed the formation of faultless evenin’ dress. The man was revealed as an American president.

“Well, kiddo,” said Lizard Bayliss, checkin’ himself just in time from clappin’ Engelbrecht on the back, “you certainly got your man.”

One school of thought wanted to give Engelbrecht both brushes, masks and all eight pads, but, as Nodder Fothergill, who is hon. sec. of the Man-Hunt and more or less the authority on minor matters of ritual, pointed out, you’ve got to observe some rules even in man-huntin’. However, the Id was so delighted with Engelbrecht’s pluck and persistence that he insisted on makin’ him a fully-fledged member of the Man-Hunt on the spot, and while I stuck on the Death’s Head Buttons, Lizard Bayliss got a bottle of red ink and started dyein’ the bees pink.

Of all the events in the Surrealist Sporting Calendar few attract such a passionately excited following as the Annual Angling Championship, held in the Canal round behind the Gasworks, just where the Town Drain comes in.

Unlike the ordinary humdrum disciple of Izaak Walton, your Surrealist Piscator can always be certain of catching something—generally something damned dangerous, if you ask me—and many’s the deathly struggle I’ve witnessed on the bank as terrified Anglers tried to put back Things that would have been far better never hooked. It was, therefore, with the keenest anticipation, and no little misgiving, that I accepted the invitation of my friend Engelbrecht, the dwarf surrealist boxer, an all-round sportsman if ever there was one, to make up a party to watch him compete for the trophy.

A room had been booked for me at The Fisherman’s Eternal Rest, and when I arrived I found the little bar-parlour thronged with old friends and fiends, all keen amateurs of the gentle art, fortifying their nerves with rounds of double mandragora laced with poppy against the morrow’s encounters with the perils of the deep. Meanwhile, in the Hashish room at the end of the passage, Dr. Sadismus, the surrealist surgeon, then at the height of his fame owing to his daring operation for the removal of a human finger from the bowels of a sewing machine, was organizing, with the assistance of a posse of psychiatrists, a First Aid Post.

The talk was all of the Catch that might be expected. In accordance with his usual general custom, the Id, that munificent patron of Surrealist Sport, had contributed lavishly to stocking the Canal, and some really sensational captures were anticipated. Rumour had it that the Prize was a 600-year-old giant pike from the Fens, the same who in 1448 snatched the Bishop of Ely from his mule as he rode the towpath.

“You stand a fine chance of hooking him, my wee man,” chaffed Chippy de Zoete, patting Engelbrecht on the head. “Dwarfs are his favourite bait.”

Just then Lizard Bayliss, my friend’s devoted but highly strung manager, who had been for a stroll along the canal bank, tottered in and collapsed in a trembling heap. “There’s Things in that there water that never ought to have been thought of,” he told us.

After a restless night disturbed more than once by screams, I hurried down to find the rest of our party with grave faces. News had just been brought that the lock-keeper and his entire family had been dragged under.

The beat Engelbrecht had drawn for the early morning rise was a stretch of jet black water between the Jubilee Gasometer and the Municipal Slaughter House. A dank mist lay over the canal. The vampire bats were out in swarms. The bot-fly waltzed in virid clouds. You could hardly have had a better surrealist fishing day. From their stand on top of the gasometer the Band of the Asylum Workers Union struck up the
March of the Wooden Zombies.
Presently the quavering tones of Dreamy Dan, the surrealist umpire, announced the start of play.

“Crikey,” said Lizard Bayliss, “do you see what I see?”

Floating on the surface of the water was a fleet of five pound notes. Lizard was in the act of bending down to pick one up when a voice behind him said: “I shouldn’t touch that if I were you. It’s surface bait laid on from below to catch the unwary fisherman.”

It was our old friend the Oldest Member who had tottered out of his tomb swathed in a shroud of Donegal tweed to see how we were faring. Under his supervision we assembled Engelbrecht’s tackle, a somewhat eclectic assortment that included a rod as big as a crane and a float with a great chapel bell attached. Then Lizard Bayliss backed the Black Maria containing the bait down to the water’s edge.

There was some heated discussion over the choice of bait. Engelbrecht wanted to fish a Barnet By-Pass, a beautifully made facsimile of a suburban housewife with a lot of brightly coloured feathers in her hat, just the kind of gaudy affair calculated to catch the eye of the tyro. But the O.M. counselled a more sober-looking lure known as a College Chaplain, one of Clarkson’s most skilful pieces of human dry-fly-tying, in cork and composition with bespoke tailoring and a neat little hump to conceal the hook. “Did you ever see anything so lifelike?” he said.

“Too damned lifelike altogether,” said Lizard. “Lumme, did you see that? I believe he winked at me.”

“I hope he did no such thing,” said the O.M. severely. “Fishing with human bait is barred. We had to disqualify de Lautréamont for that in ’53.”

Our preparations were now complete. Engelbrecht took a firm grip on the rod and brought all his dwarf strength to bear. The first cast pulled down the façade of a stationer’s shop in Fore Street. The second hooked a tray of glass eyes. The third was a fizzer. Fathom after fathom of line shot out and away Out of sight into the mist. But when we took roll call afterwards Lizard Bayliss was missing.

Presently there was an earsplitting peal from the chapel bell far out across the black water. Engelbrecht began reeling in. Soon we caught sight of a vast domed shape looming through the mist. It was the float with Lizard Bayliss sitting on top of it. We gaffed him ashore. It was obvious he would never be fit to fish again so we packed him off to the psychiatrist’s.

By now the canal bank was a scene of frightful carnage but precious little piscage. Nodder Fothergill, on our right, had landed something I never expected to see outside the canvases of Hieronymus Bosch and was fighting a losing battle trying to put it back. Bones Barlow had plunged in after a Nereid and had his waders rotted off by acid. Little Charlie Wapentake had fouled the Grendel family
mère et fils.
So critical, indeed, did the Situation become that just before lunch the order was given to Repulse Boarders. We all dropped our rods and rushed to the rescue of whoever needed help most.

The score at lunch time was depressing. Several of our best anglers had either been dragged under, pulled out to sea, or else were raving in the schizophrenic ward. Father Carfax, the Id’s Chaplain, had been lost with all hands during a plucky exorcism ceremony. Some interesting inanimate objects had been caught, including a calculating machine which, as the O.M. observed, would come in handy for telling fishing stories. Salvador Dali had landed a chest of drawers of fifty-seven pounds weight, the contents of which had to be sent to the local police. But no one had had a bite from the man-eating pike and there was a rumour that Chippy de Zoete had been seen slipping some sticks of dynamite into his waistcoat pocket.

After lunch we drew the Fever Hospital Bend, a ticklish stretch where you have to fish off a narrow asphalt track with a fifty foot drop into the Rubbish Dump at your back. I attached a lure known as The Hanged Man and we cast far out into the murk, now thickened by fumes from the chemical works. “They can never resist this one,” said Engelbrecht with typical angler’s optimism. But they could. When the bell tolled and we reeled in we found nothing save a shipwrecked pleasure party clinging to the float. The bait was untouched except for a notice which some under-water character had tied round its neck. It read: “
Insufficiently Verisimilitudinous. Better Luck Next Time.”

We showed it to the Oldest Member who was engrossed in Chetham’s
Vade Mecum. “
That’s the Fisher King,” he said. “A mythological figure who haunts these waters. Reputed to be a cousin of the Id’s. Got a very keen sense of humour. He collected one of those new pens that write underwater from one of our members last year.”

A rattle of musketry on our left denoted that yet another landing party had been repulsed. But still not a bite.

The Oldest Member looked up from Sir Humphrey Davey’s
Salmonia
which he had been perusing. “I’m afraid you’re having very poor sport,” he said. “The catch of the day so far is a Seven League Boot.”

Engelbrecht was down at the reel end of the rod. He rang through on the “phone to ask me to come and take a turn, while he had a chat with the O.M. When he came back his face was set and grim. He was wearing a Frogman’s suit of black india rubber and a clerical collar. “Hook me, pal,” he said, “hook me in the hump.”

“But dwarfie,” I said, “you’re not going in yourself?”

“It’s the only way,” he said.

“But you’re human, aren’t you? You’ll be disqualified.”

“The O.M. says not. He says it’s all right if you bait your own hook. You’ll hold the rod for me, pal?”

“Well,” I said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I hope I do too,” he said.

“Greater love hath no angler than this,” said the voice of the O.M. behind us.

I fixed the hook tight into the artificial hump and paid out enough line to reach all the way. I gave the hook a final tug to make sure it was good and firm. Then 1 cast. The dwarf-baited hook flew out through the thick night air far over the water. It fell with a light splash. I reeled in a few hundred fathoms to keep him riding on top of the water and gave the line a couple of jerks to make it seem as if he was drowning. Then I lit my pipe.

Presently I heard Engelbrecht’s voice on the intercom. “They’re coming for me, pal,” he said. “I can see their eyes all round me. It’s just a question which one gets me first. Soon as you hear me holler you got to strike for all you’re worth.”

Next moment the bell pealed out the Angelus and Engelbrecht’s voice yelled in my ear: “Strike like beggary.” I turned on the donkey engine full steam ahead and struck.

The line ran out at a rate of knots. There was silence for some time. Then Engelbrecht came through again. “You there, pal? He’s hooked good. It’s the giant pike all right.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s swallowed me and I just picked up a Bishop’s mitre with the name Ely on the sweat band. Play him, pal. Play him for all you’re worth. You got to land him before the season ends.”

In the months that followed I played that pike all over the network of our inland waterways, in and out of drains and culverts and subterranean streams known only to spaeleologists. Sometimes when the line was right out I had to take the train to keep up with him. And always the Oldest Member was at my elbow ready to give sage counsel. “Whatever happens we must head him off from the Fens,” he kept telling me. “Black Fen, which is his home water, is known to he bottomless.”

It was the last week of the season and Engelbrecht had just ’phoned through, very faint, to say that his rations had run out. We were streaking along the Manchester Ship Canal with mighty few fathoms in hand. “I’m afraid we’ve lost him,” said the Oldest Member. “You’ll have to order your little pal to abandon fish.” With a sob in my voice I told Engelbrecht to unhook himself. Suddenly we rounded a bend and caught sight of a bunch of Theological Students out for a walk with the Bishop at their head. The pike must have seen them too. He leapt in a great green-yellow arc for the bank. But he was too weak, and before his jaws could close, the Bishop, an old sportsman if ever there was one, had gaffed him in the gills with his umbrella. The ordination candidates formed a chain, clasping each other by the waist.

After a tremendous struggle we got him ashore and wired for Doctor Sadismus, who removed Engelbrecht, little the worse for wear. There was a good deal of controversy in surrealist piscatorial circles, but it was finally decided that the Catch should stand. And you can see the pike stuffed, with the Bishop of Ely’s mitre underneath, in the Fisherman’s Eternal Rest.