He thunders along just as he did back in Flanders… Here comes his grand feat!… Squadrons in open order! Chaaarge! What an earthquake! Four paws! You should hear them! Sixteen! Thirty-two! Christ Almighty, I’m shaking and panting… it’s all so awesome… my mane’s glistening, my ass too! With fiery spirit, and furiously!… One hundred thousand sparks!… A bat out of hell! A whirlwind! I’m flying off! Take heart! I don’t even feel my colonel any more his lard ass, his breastplate, nothing! I send it all flying! Glasses, dishes along for the ride! All my implements! The hot H2O, the tub spills over! All the dykes burst, flood the loft! The four squadrons are squish-squashing around! Bangboomcrash! I skid, sprawl flat out. He’s digging in his spurs as he barrels along, my wild savage! Hopping back on the rebound! Ah! He’s fiery, horrifying! He’d gallop me to death! I rear up, wrestle back! Everything sweeps me along! The cohort carries us away! And six! And nine! Thirteen squadrons! Blindly we go tumbling… collapsing… a complete fiasco on the staircase… my colonel’s ballooned into a huge hulk… his mouth booming… his cry echoing… I clamp the bit in my teeth… I want to eat up the distance… I’m all horse body and soul! I fly into the line of fire! That’s a fact! The cyclone whips me along… Trumpets shitter-shatter the windows… The great headlong sweep of the fourteen brigades! Into the big black abyss at break-bit speed! The Fourteenth Heavy Cavalry… and the Fifteenth! Des Entrayes bears down on my neck, buries his boot in me, cuts into my sides. His spurs are huge sons of bitches! Just like him! He’s putting me through the wringer! My storm of strength! I want to keel over in the heat of vengeance! Hell for leather! Jeeezus Kee-rist! “I’m coming! My angel!” I yell out to her! “Dirty bitch, here I am!” I think about what she’s in for! Oh! That little ass of hers! The fourteen thousand ramrods of revenge! But we’re still moving in place suspended in mid-air! We haven’t gained an inch! I’ll be damned! And the three of them over there pawing each other… going “myum-myum”!… I can hear them… their tongues… their rapaciousness… Plus they’re back smashing the equipment… They’re keyed up all the way… splintering, screwing up… All our chances’re slipping through our fingers… we’ll never get there in time! I’m dripping with sweat, bathed in lather… we haven’t covered twenty or a hundred yards… The plain swells sway under our hooves… melts away, rises back up when we charge… it’s always the same… a battle that comes in waves… a cosmogonic challenge… the landscape is haunted… I’m initiated into the magic spells! Sosthène didn’t miss a thing!… I’m going to wipe the floor with him like with everybody else! Ah! I take off, break away from the platoon!… I’ve gained three lengths at least!… I’m brushing against Sosthène, that’s a fact! I sniff him next to his snout… crashbangboom! All fouled up! Tangled up in my reins! One hoof! Both feet! Everything! I’m tied up in knots! Thrashing around!… With a kick that could knock through the scenery I break free!… I zip out into the hallway!… The whole horde’s on my tail, in tow! The entire squadron, all eight brigades swerve into the walls!… Greased lightning! A whirlwind! “Chaaarge!” I’m on my last leg! And still des Entrayes keeps on bellowing… The horrible beast is stabbing right through me! Christ! I bellow louder than ever, me, his little old horsey! High-nettled and how! His rotten spurs hack savagely at my balls! More than I can bear! I plough into the platoon beside us! I knock down a wall… Now they catch me by all four hooves, bind and hang me up… they shackle my paws… What sort of slimeballs are they? I wonder… Bing! Bang! Bam! I bust through all my bonds!… And back off I go at a gallop… bolting, bolting along!… I took three-four strides… I’m drenched, all in a lather… galloping like crazy… in a whirlwind… I gained five-six-seven yards at least… almost at the other end of the workshop, touching the door, the anvil! Now it’s payback time! The echoing trumpets shatter the air all around… let them break you, send you reeling wriggling against the walls!… This is all-out war! I’m going to trash the entire hellhole! I want to reach my rotten creeps! They’ve ducked behind the carboys!… The cannon blasts, the shells whoosh past, knocking us off course! That gives you some idea of the awful intensity! My des Entrayes has kept right on howling! Digs his feet way down, standing in his stirrups! He wants us to outdo ourselves, pour on ten times the juice! I’m ready to dump the clumsy dolt! I’m at the end of my rope! The wild maniac clutches me… he’s read my mind! His two iron boots! With one buck of my awesome rump I’m off, careering, a miracle of flight! I glide above the explosions! Ah! There’s still some life in me yet, goddamn it to hell! I pull back good and hard! He wobbles… grabs hold of my mane! He’s tough as nails, a bloodsucker! I charge again, I’m going to chuck him! Take heart! The brute breaks his fall!… And then breaks me, hurtles me headlong!… Hell’s bells into the hurricane!… Crashbangboombam! We send all the dishes to the floor… the stools… the whole works go flying!… Lucky thing, thank God, I’m not wearing undershorts!… I’m a war horse, no joke… a bare ass… bare flesh and sinews!… And powerfully ridden! Look at me charge! Along with the Seventeenth Heavy boot to boot… thirty-five hundred cavalrymen!… Plus mass formations! Hearts lather, whipping along in the gust!… Look at us bolting, ploughing forward! Ba! Da! Da! Boom! We all sweep ahead! At breakneck speed! The ground thundering! Everybody yelling! Des Entrayes in his gold crêpe saddle! Just like him! Te Deum! Everything between heaven and earth is roaring and wheezing! A vast panting panorama! Fourteen divisions! I can see the standards!… Whipping in the wind! Ah! Sosthène’s ugly mug is under the table! Ah! Peek-a-boo, I see you! a flash glimpse! I’m a maniac on lightning hooves! I’ll drive him out into the broad daylight! I’ll make him bare his little scheme! The horde sweeps me along! You can go hang! The thundering cavalcade roars! A hundred thousand churning legs sweep us along! And on top of it all, the wicked cannon fire! It’s too much! The ground goes soft, wavy, slips out from under… and now rises comes crashing down… all along the horizon the sight turns your stomach… hills made of molasses… melting away when you reach them… hills that hold up nothing… under the weight of the charge they buckle, cave in… It makes me puke! The whole sight’s disgusting… The long walls pucker, crease, crack… the entire workshop’s breaking apart, crumbling to pieces, it’s all going to capsize with us along! Oh! Des Entrayes, we’re plunging into the abyss! It’s right there! A big black gaping hole! Sucking the whirlwind inside!… We’re soaring through empty air! Propelled by our damned momentum! The sixteen squadrons with the whole horde on our asses!… Des Entrayes, Colonel sir, listen to that God-awful roar! The stampede of madmen! I churn the black air with my feet! It all slips out from under! Charging into the abyss… the entrails of the black pit! Des Entrayes! Ah! When I hit bottom I want to laugh… I paw the ground, wriggle, burst out laughing… Just like me! Horse or no horse! Entrails! Des Entrayes! What a rich, gleeful word! Oh man, Jesus Christ, that’s one funny name! Des Entrayes! One man, two names! I’m hysterical! I swerve this way and that, backtrack! I laugh horse-style rearing on my hind legs! I paw the ground, whinny through my fiery nostrils! But whoah now, the other guy pops back up in the saddle! He thrashes me, savages my sides! He won’t have me laughing! In mid-gallop I collapse in pain! Ah! The torturer! The horde, the twenty-five squadrons caracole over my head and ribs… I’m worked over, mangled, a gaping wound!… “Take heart!” they all cry out in chorus… the Colonel clears off! His grip slips from my pummel! He goes sailing into the abyss, that’s a fact! I bucked my ass with monster force and threw him! It was inevitable! That word, railing, derailing reason! Entrails! Des Entrayes! That name, Christ Almighty! They’ll kill me with loony laughter! My nostrils on fire!… Ah! The abyss is swallowing us because we’ve been laughing too hard! The entire charge, the brigade all in a heap, plus the pack of bozos! And victory’s within our grasp! Wham! Phew! I can’t breathe! I’m being doused! An icy stream!… Ah! I snort, fight back, break through! Three people grab hold of me! A dozen! Twenty-five! I’m crawling with people… They wrestle me to the ground… it’s a tub! What a treacher
ous attack! Death by drowning! Bushwhacked! The Greenwich business all over again! The whole bag of tricks from those shitheads! The firemen are back! Doing their number on me! Blinding me with their awful sprays… Flattening me full thrust… maniacs settling a score… who else can it be but O’Collogham… He’s the brains who cooked up the whole thing with the other crook… took advantage of my headache… my injury-sapped body… they made me breathe their gas!… In their devil’s workshop in the loft… Ah! They’re bucking me back up now… they’re scared… they missed their target! Their idea was for me to drop dead!… They’re still at it, Christ Almighty! The proof is they’re dousing me again! I’m going to rip your guts open with my four hooves! My lightning blow! They’re giving me the business, calling me “kid”… now that really sucks! Smart asses! they’re pinning my chest to the floor… “You shouldn’t have done that, Ferdinand!”… That’s the line they’re feeding me… a lecture! They’re plastered over my face!… They don’t want me to look them in the eyes! Sure, naturally! Naturally! I react… writhe and untwist! They hammer away at me with fist and foot… I feel every blow… my spell’s been broken… I’m not a horse any more… this bag of bones is all mine… just lying here, a sorry shambles… I’m howling I hurt so bad… They grab me by the ankles… send me into pirouettes, push down against my body on purpose… I’m so limp they fly into a rage… Now they hold me at each end and start swinging me like a hammock… “He should’ve slipped on his mask… he wouldn’t be sick…” Their same old put-down… “It’s this stupid shithead’s own fault!…” I couldn’t come back with a word… they just went and tossed me against the wall like a deadweight… the little girl watched their goings-on. Sosthène had his say: “His bullshit’ll be the death of him this time!” He kept harping on the idea that I was pig-headed. “Up and at ’em, my fighters!” I boom, and bop up on my feet… with a buck of my butt. Now that’s anger! Sheer rage brought me back to life… I’m going to slaughter those slimeballs! I let them know about it… Don’t they look just awful! Eyes popping, wincing, they’re wailing… yeah, right, it’s their turn to be scared! “Listen up, tough guys!” I yell at them, “I’m going to take back my sweetheart, my idol! Give me back my fairy child, you bastards!” They’re shaking in their boots!… “Ah! Diabolical schemes, that’s the last time you’ll take advantage of my condition!”
My mind was made up, I was gung-ho, the works! Sick to death of my dizzy spells! My scaresparrows!… There was going to be a big change around here… I was going to teach that pack of swindlers a lesson! Plus that hare-brained kid! “Just wait and see, Tibet and gang! It won’t be any ‘Fourth Sphere’ of soft creamy vibrations! Watch out, you weasels!” There, I let them have it this time, they’re quaking at the knees… they can see I’m stewing… they stammer, don’t know what to expect next… Ah! They’ve got their tails between their legs!… Not really the best spot to be in!… They snap into action start showering me with attention… Ah! Careful now, cannibals! I’m a be-gentle-this-is-my-wedding-night kind of guy! I want soft caresses, kid gloves… They’re sly bastards!… “I’m not Claben!” I warn them… “When I’m a hundred per cent again, I’ll bounce you down all twelve stairs!… Jackals at my boot heels! Monsters! swine!…” They slave away… I think they’re under my thumb, I treat them like crap… They’ve still got a long way to go!… I want them to massage me around my heart… That’s where the pain is worse and worse… when I think about her I get so damned jealous! Over such a dirty little tramp! “So where’d she get to? Hey, can anybody tell me?” Vanished again? I can’t see hide nor hair of her… I raise my head a real strain… Vanished… “Where’d you stick her?…” I’ll wipe the floor with them!… I’ll break every bone in their bodies… with a crowbar like over at Ben Tackett’s… they’re all in cahoots!… So I’ll be teaching them a good lesson! I’ll set their dirty mugs right down on the anvil! And I’ll do a little engineering on them myself! Hammer out a few masks! I make them a big promise! In my own way! Tra-la-la boom! And Bang! And Bang! The girl along with them! Stuck-up bitch! My foxy fairy! I want to beat the impishness right out of her! And that’s spoken right from the heart! My bout with des Entrayes brought me back to reality, my prize prancer! I blew my cork! That’s the main thing! Strength and blood! I’ve got to get better! “Massage me, you weasels, but easy does it!” They’ve got to pay for their infamies! I want to see their tears! In addition to returning my idol! I won’t budge an inch on that score!… I’m going to put my expertise into play!… “Listen up, scumbags!” I warn them. “I’m a fair kind of guy… I’m going to wallop you back once for every punch you threw!…” I can already see a hammer hovering… up above in mid-air…
“Darling! Darling!…” somebody’s calling me… Why, it’s my darling!… My angel! My angel! My sweetheart! The air I breathe!… I want a look at her! I want a breath of air!… I open my eyes wide, such a strain… What a dazzling sight! I answer: “Virginia!… Virginia!…” Everything’s blotted from my mind! It’s her! Her hand! Her little hand!… I blink… What a glow! Her dear face… little blond ringlets… Ah! A gauzy shimmer… she leans down… how kind she is!… Her little hand brushes across my forehead…
Ah! I feel a whole lot better… I’m a new man… In a snap the other two catch on that she’s casting a spell over me, brought me back from the dead… they can see the effect she’s having on me… her bewitching kindness… that’s the feeling… all my reproaches fly right out the window… I adore her, that’s all there is. Her presence, my life!… I keep sitting, stay real still… back against the wall… recovering my wits… How mindful she is of everything… she doesn’t want me to move… it’s an honest-to-goodness miracle it’s real simple… Just setting my eyes on her was enough… to cure me… I’m frozen to the spot in bliss… Even so I keep track of my two jokers… They’ve also started to act real courteous… They want to carry me upstairs, up to the landing, up to my bedroom… I accept help, no more… give my arm to my darling girl… That’s how I remember it… and yet I felt uneasy… I was fumbling through my mind… thinking hard… calm and cool again… I hadn’t touched any booze… not a drop… I’d flipped out in one flash… just like back at the Tweet-Tweet Club… “Jeez, enough already! Stop thinking about it, hell!” Ah! She’s so ravishing, magical!… I can see her again, my little marvel! Just her… She still blinds me! I’m knocked out, trembling and moaning over how beautiful she is… I’m one happy doggie… She laughs, smiles, lets me bliss out… If she went away my life would be over… I’d die presto…
London Bridge Page 39