by Tom Sharpe
He was woken at one o’clock by a noise outside. It was a very slight noise but it awoke in him some instinct, an early-warning system that told him that there were people outside. He got out of bed and went to the window and peered into the darkness below. There was someone at the foot of the left-hand column. Blott went across the room to the other window. There was someone in the Park too. They must have climbed the fence to get in. Blott listened and presently he heard someone moving below. They were climbing up the side of the Lodge. Climbing? In the dark? Interesting.
He crossed to a cupboard and took out the Leica and the flash gun and went back to the window and leant out. The next moment the entire side of the Lodge was a brilliant white. There was a cry and a thud. Blott went to the other window and took another photograph. This time whoever it was who was clinging to the side of the arch shut his eyes and clung on. Blott put the camera down. Something stronger was needed. What would make climbing difficult? Something greasy. He went into his kitchen and came out with a gallon can of cooking oil and climbed the ladder in the corner of the room to the hatch in the roof. Then he crawled to the edge and began pouring the oil down the wall. There was a curse from below, the sound of slithering and another thud followed by a cry. Blott emptied the rest of the can down the back wall and went down the ladder into his room and shone a torch out of the window. There was no one on the side of the arch now. At the foot a number of men in army uniforms stared up at him angrily. They had blackened faces and one of them was lying on the ground.
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ Blott asked.
‘Wait till we get hold of you, you bastard,’ shouted the Major. ‘You’ve broken his leg.’
‘Not me,’ said Blott, ‘I never touched him. He broke it himself. I didn’t ask him to climb up my wall in the middle of the night.’
He was interrupted by a sound from the other side of the Lodge. The sods were coming up there too. He went into the kitchen and fetched two cans of cooking oil and repeated the process. By the time he was finished the sides of the Lodge were streaked with oil and two more climbers had fallen.
Down below there was a muttered conference.
‘We’ll use the grappling irons,’ said the Major.
Blott peered out of the window and shone his torch on them. There was an explosion and a three-pronged hook shot past him on to the roof and stuck in the barbed-wire. It was followed by another. Blott raced into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. A moment later he was on the roof and had cut through one rope. He crawled under the wire and cut another. There was another thud and a yell. Blott peered over.
‘Anyone else coming up?’ he asked. But the army was already in retreat. As they carried their wounded back across the suspension bridge and up the road Blott watched them wistfully. He rather regretted their going. A full-scale battle would have been marvellous publicity. A full-scale battle? Blott went to the cupboard where he kept his armoury. He would have to act quickly. Then he climbed up on the roof and let down the rope ladder. Ten minutes later he was standing on the suspension bridge with the Bren gun.
As the commandos trudged back up the road towards their transport at the Gibbet they were startled to hear the sound of automatic fire behind them. It lasted for several seconds and was repeated again and again. They stood still and listened. It stopped. A few moments later there was a much larger thump and it was followed by a second. Blott had tried out the PIAT and it still worked.
At the Hall Lady Maud sat up in bed and struggled to find the light switch. She was used to the occasional shot in the night but this was something entirely different. A positive bombardment. She reached for the phone and rang the Lodge. There was no reply.
‘Oh my God,’ she moaned, ‘they’ve killed him.’ She got out of bed and dressed hurriedly. The firing had stopped now. She phoned the Lodge again and still there was no reply. She put the phone down and called the Chief Constable.
‘They’ve murdered him,’ she shouted, ‘they’ve attacked the Lodge and killed him!’
‘Killed who?’ asked the Chief Constable.
‘Blott,’ yelled Lady Maud.
‘No?’ said the Chief Constable.
‘I tell you they have. They’ve been using machine-guns and something much bigger.’
‘Oh my goodness gracious me,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Are you sure? I mean couldn’t there be some mistake?’
‘Percival Henry,’ screamed Lady Maud, ‘you know me well enough to know that when I say something I mean it. Remember what happened to Bertie Bullett-Finch.’
The Chief Constable remembered all too well. Midnight assassinations were becoming a commonplace occurrence in South Worfordshire and besides Lady Maud’s tone had the ring of sincere hysteria about it. And Lady Maud, whatever else she might be, was not a woman who got hysterical for nothing.
‘I’ll get every available patrol car there as soon as possible,’ he promised.
‘And an ambulance too!’ screamed Lady Maud.
Within minutes every police car in South Worfordshire was converging on the Gorge. At the Gibbet twelve men of the 41st Marine Commando, two of them with broken legs, were detained for questioning as they were about to leave in their transport. They were driven to Worford Police Station loudly protesting that they had been acting under the orders of the Area Commander and that the police had no legal authority to hold them.
‘We’ll see about that in the morning,’ said the Inspector as they were herded into their cells.
At the Lodge Blott climbed up his rope ladder and hauled it up behind him. He was delighted with his experiment. All the weapons had worked splendidly and, while it was impossible in the darkness to tell what damage they had done to the Lodge, the sound of splintering stonework had suggested that there was plenty of evidence to show that the army had carried out its assault with undue force and quite unwarranted violence. It was only when he was back in his room that he could see how effective the Projectiles Infantry Anti-Tank had been. They had blown two substantial holes in the frieze and the room was littered with bits of stone. Both windows had been blown out by the blast and there were holes in the ceiling. He was just wondering what to do next when he heard footsteps running down the drive. Blott switched off his torch and went to the window. It was Lady Maud.
‘Don’t come any nearer,’ he shouted, to lend verisimilitude to his recent ordeal and to tell her that he was unhurt. ‘Lie down. They may start firing again.’ Lady Maud stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh thank Heavens, you’re all right, Blott,’ she shouted. ‘I thought you’d been killed.’
‘Me? Killed?’ said Blott. ‘It would take more than that to kill me.’
‘Who was it? Did you get a good look at them?’
‘It was the army,’ Blott told her. ‘I’ve got photographs to prove it.’
27
By next morning Blott was famous. The news of the attack came too late to be carried by the early editions but the later ones all bore his name in their headlines. The BBC broadcast news of the atrocity and its legal implications were discussed on the Today programme. At one o’clock there were further developments when it was announced that twelve Marine Commandos were helping the police in their enquiries. During the afternoon questions were asked in the House and the Home Secretary promised a full Inquiry. And all day reporters and cameramen swarmed into the Gorge to interview Blott and Lady Maud and to photograph the damage. It was clearly visible and extensive. Bullet holes pock-marked the entire arch, suggesting that the army’s fire had been quite extraordinarily wild. The heads of several figures in the frieze were missing and the PIATs had torn gaping holes in the wall. Even hardened correspondents used to the tactics adopted against the urban guerrillas in Belfast were astonished by the extent of the damage.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ the BBC correspondent told his audience from the top of a ladder before interviewing Blott at the window. ‘This might be Vietnam or the Lebanon but this is a quiet corner of rural England.
I can only say that I am horrified that this could happen. And now Mr Blott, could you tell us first what you know about this attack?’
Blott looked out of the window into the camera.
‘It must have been about one o’clock in the morning. I was asleep and I heard a noise outside. I got up and went to the window and looked out. There appeared to be men climbing up the wall. Well I didn’t want that so I poured oil down the wall.’
‘You poured oil down the wall to stop them?’
‘Yes,’ said Blott, ‘olive oil. They slipped down and then the firing began.’
‘The firing?’
‘It sounded like machine-gun fire,’ said Blott, ‘so I ran into the kitchen and lay on the floor. Then a minute or two later there was an explosion and things flew around the room and a few seconds afterwards there came another explosion. After that there was nothing.’
‘I see,’ said the interviewer. ‘Now at any time during the attack did you fire back? I understand you have a shotgun.’
Blott shook his head. ‘It all happened too suddenly,’ he said. ‘I was all shook up.’
‘Quite understandably. It must have been a terrifying experience for you. Just one more question. Was the oil you poured down the wall hot?’
‘Hot?’ said Blott. ‘How could it be hot? I poured it out of the can. I hadn’t got time to heat it up.’
‘Well thank you very much,’ said the interviewer and climbed down the ladder. ‘I think we’ll cut that last remark out,’ he told the sound man. ‘It made him sound as if he would have liked to have poured hot oil on them.’
‘I can’t say I blame him after what he’s been through,’ said the sound man. ‘The buggers deserve boiling oil.’
It was an opinion shared by the Chief Constable.
‘What do you mean, a police support role?’ he shouted at the Colonel from the Commando Base who came up to explain that he had been ordered by the Ministry of Defence to send a team of rock-climbers to assist the police. ‘There weren’t any of my men within miles of the place. You send your killers in armed with rockets and machine-guns and blow hell out of …’
‘My men were without any weapons,’ said the Colonel.
The Chief Constable looked at him incredulously. ‘Your men were without weapons? You can stand there and tell me to my face that your men were unarmed when I’ve seen what they did to that building. You’ll be telling me next that they had nothing to do with the incident.’
‘That’s what they say,’ said the Colonel. ‘They all swear blue they had left and were on their way back to their transport when the firing occurred.’
‘I’m not bloody surprised,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘If I had just bombarded somebody’s private house in the middle of the night I’d say I hadn’t been near the place. That doesn’t mean anyone with any sense is going to believe them.’
‘They weren’t carrying weapons when you arrested them.’
‘Probably ditched the damned things,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘And in any case for all I know there were others who got away before my men arrived.’
‘I can assure you—’ the Colonel began.
‘Damn your assurances!’ shouted the Chief Constable. ‘I don’t want assurances. I’ve got the evidence of the attack itself and I have twelve men trained in the use of the weapons needed for that attack who admit that they attempted to force an entry into the Lodge last night. What more do I need? They’ll appear before a magistrate in the morning.’
The Colonel had to admit that the circumstantial evidence …
‘Circumstantial evidence, my foot,’ snarled the Chief Constable, ‘they’re as guilty as hell and you know it.’
‘I still think you ought to look into the business of the civil servant who gave them their instructions,’ said the Colonel despondently as he left. ‘I believe his name is Dundridge.’
‘I have already attended to that,’ the Chief Constable told him. ‘He is in London at the moment but I have sent two officers down to bring him back for questioning.’
But Dundridge had already spent five hours being questioned by Mr Rees and Mr Joynson and finally by the Minister himself.
‘All I did was tell them to climb into the arch and hold Blott till the police could come and evict him legally,’ he explained over and over again. ‘I didn’t know they were going to use guns and things.’
Neither Mr Rees nor the Minister was impressed.
‘Let us just look at your record,’ said the Minister as calmly as he could. ‘You were appointed Controller Motorways Midlands with specific instructions to ensure that the construction of the M101 went through with the minimum of fuss and bother, that local opinion felt that local interests were being looked after and that the environment was being protected. Now can you honestly say that the terms of reference of your appointment have been fulfilled in any single particular?’
‘Well …’said Dundridge.
‘No you can’t,’ snarled the Minister. ‘Since you went to Worford there have been a series of appalling disasters. A Rotarian has been beaten to a pulp in his own house by a demented demolition expert who claims he was incited …’
‘I didn’t know Mr Bullett-Finch was a Rotarian,’ said Dundridge desperately trying to divert the floodwaters of the Minister’s mounting fury.
‘You didn’t know …’ The Minister counted to ten and took a sip of water. ‘Next, an entire village has been wrecked …’
‘Not an entire village,’ said Dundridge. ‘It was only the High Street.’
The Minister stared at him maniacally. ‘Mr Dundridge,’ he said finally, ‘you may be able to make these fine distinctions between Rotarians and human beings and entire villages which consist only of High Streets and the High Streets themselves but I am not prepared to. An entire village was wrecked, a pedestrian was incinerated and twenty persons injured, some of them seriously. And this village, mark you, was over a mile away from the route of the proposed motorway. A Member of Parliament has been devoured by lions …’
‘That had absolutely nothing to do with me,’ Dundridge protested. ‘I didn’t suggest he fill his ruddy garden with lions.’
‘I wonder,’ said the Minister, ‘I wonder. Still, I shall reserve judgement on that question until the full facts have been ascertained. And finally at your instigation the army has been called in to evict an Italian gardener … No, don’t say it … an Italian gardener from his home by bombarding it with machine-guns and anti-tank weapons.’
‘But I didn’t tell them—’
‘Shut up!’ roared the Minister. ‘You’re fired, you’re sacked …’
‘You’re under arrest,’ said the detective who was waiting outside Mr Rees’ office when Dundridge finally staggered out. Dundridge went down in the lift between two police officers.
Mr Rees sat down at his desk with a sigh.
‘I told you that stupid bastard would hang himself,’ he said with quiet satisfaction.
‘What about the motorway?’ asked Mr Joynson.
‘What about it?’
‘Do you think we can continue with it?’
‘God alone knows,’ said Mr Rees, ‘but frankly I doubt it. You seem to forget there’s another by-election due in South Worfordshire.’
It was not a point that had escaped Lady Maud’s attention. While the reporters and cameramen still swarmed about the Lodge, photographing it from all angles and interviewing Blott from the tops of ladders hired for the purpose, she had been applying her mind to the question of a successor to Sir Giles. A meeting of the Save the Gorge Committee was held at General Burnett’s house to discuss the next move.
‘Stout fellow, Blott,’ said the General, ‘for an Eyetie. Remarkable, standing up to a bombardment like that. They used to run like rabbits in the desert.’
‘I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude for his sense of duty and self-sacrifice,’ Colonel Chapman agreed. ‘Frankly I think this latest episode has put the kybosh on the motorway. They’ll ne
ver be able to carry on with it now. I hear there’s a proposal for a sit-in of conservationists from all over the country outside the Lodge to see that there’s no repetition of this disgraceful action.’
‘I must say I was most impressed by Mr Blott’s command of the English language on television the other night,’ said Miss Percival. ‘He handled the interview quite wonderfully. I particularly liked what he had to say about English traditions.’
‘That bit about an Englishman’s home being his castle. Couldn’t agree with him more,’ the General said.
‘I was thinking rather about what he said about England being the home of freedom and the need for Englishmen to stand up for their traditional values.’