The Exploits of Engelbrecht (10 page)

You would never think, to see that mass of thrashing tentacles and semi-ingested dwarf that the fight has been carefully rehearsed. We’ve even fitted the Kraken with an artificial scream that sounds under water at suitable moments, when the struggle seems particularly grim, for instance, when Engelbrecht is butting him in one of his giant eyes.

Backwards and forwards the battle rages. Once Engelbrecht manages to get a lock on the Kraken’s beak; once he succeeds in throwing it right out of the tank but the tireless monster scrambles back into its home ground again, dragging with it not only the plucky dwarf, but also the occupants of half the ringside seats.

It really is an awe-inspiring spectacle and the crowd are in hysterics. The odds when it starts are two to one on Engelbrecht, because it’s never occurred to any of the bookies that he’d drop the bout to a Cephalopod; but by the end of the fourth session the performance of both contestants has been so convincing that they’ve shortened to evens.

But in the fifth round something very unfortunate happens. The Kraken lets out a jet-black cloud of ink, which is direct violation of its contract. We see no more of Engelbrecht until he climbs out of the tank at the end of the round, black in the face, black all over, and fuming. “So help me, I’ll do that ruddy Cephalopod if it’s the last thing I do,” he says. “He fouled me with his beak under cover of that ink cloud.”

We try to restrain him but he won’t listen. He clambers back into that tank and disappears into the black water, just like our old Saxon hero, Beowulf going into the mere after Grendel’s mother.

You can’t see a thing because of the ink and the crowd are beginning to beef for their money back. Crabs Felkin tries to pacify them. “Things,” he says, “dear things, the grapple that’s going on in that tank is so horrible that we’ve had to darken the water lest the sight of it should send you out of your wits. Dreamy Dan, our referee, who is right in there seeing fair play, has just sent a message out to say that he doesn’t think he can stand a moment more of it.”

This, of course, is no way to pacify a surrealist sporting crowd, as Crabs should well know, and there is an ugly demonstration. Some of them try to rush the tank but the Kraken whips out two tentacles and pulls them in, and all is comparatively quiet again.

Time rolls by, and the surface of that awful black water continues to be monstrously agitated by the death struggle going on in its depths. The Kraken’s scream rings out loud and clear and goes on ringing. Lizard Bayliss looks worried. “Do you think,” he says, “that the dwarf’s lost his head and is really doin’ ’im? If he is, we’re up the spout.”

Suddenly there is a fearful crash. A crack appears in the side of the tank. The inky water bursts through and floods the arena. When it subsides we see Engelbrecht sitting on top of the Kraken with his arms folded. He has tied the monster’s tentacles into an inextricable knot; the giant Cephalopod is paralysed.

“That’s torn it,” says Lizard Bayliss.

But we have reckoned without Dreamy Dan, our resourceful surrealist referee. He steps up to the Kraken, and with a mighty effort raises the tip of its smallest tentacle. “The Cephalopod is the winner on a foul,” he announces. “Engelbrecht pinched him in the bag.”

There is a howl of rage from the surrealist bookmakers, but there is no appealing against a referee’s decision.

And so, despite his rash obstinacy, Engelbrecht’s fortunes are retrieved.

Soon afterwards Dreamy Dan disappears and is never seen or heard of again, so we put up a memorial to him in the Liars’ Room at the Surrealist Sportsman’s Club.

Of all the strange and stirring events in the Surrealist Sporting Calendar, none is so perilous, or so productive of casualties, as the historic steeplechase known, colloquially, as the Grand Cosmological. The going is so severe, the fences so stupendous, the water-jumps so extensive—to say nothing of other obstacles too horrible to mention—that only a thoroughbred Nightmare is likely to have any chance of finishing the course.

It is, therefore, with no little alarm and concern that I learn that Engelbrecht, the dwarf surrealist boxer, has not only entered a steed in the chase, but insists on riding it himself.

“Gone out of his tiny mind at last, if you ask me,” says Lizard Bayliss, my friend’s trusty but pessimistic manager. “Must be punch-drunk, after ’is scrap with the Witches’ Pincushion. I can’t stop ’im so I’ll ’ave to start ’im. Come an’ ’ave a decko at the ‘quadruped’.”

We ascend to the Hippogriff Stables on the roof of the Surrealist Sportsman’s Club and find Engelbrecht curry-combing a diminutive monster of the female sex, sound, obviously, in wind and limb, and a thoroughbred if ever I saw one, though, for a variety of reasons I should deem her unrideable, myself. She is tethered and hobbled so elaborately it reminds you of Houdini, and her wings have been docked to the bone.

“What’s her name?” I enquire.

“Need you ask,” snaps Engelbrecht, nimbly dodging a massed attack from the serpents that compose the monster’s name. “Medusa, of course.”

“’E’s ’ad to go to the Pasteur Institute three times already for inoculations of anti-venine serum,” says Lizard Bayliss sadly, waving a hypodermic syringe. “’E’ll be bitten to death long before ’e reaches the first fence.”

I ask where Engelbrecht had got her.

Lizard Bayliss groans. “Chippy de Zoete put him on to her,” he says. “Can you beat that, now? Chippy de Zoete, the most unscrupulous nightmare-coper in the ’ole ruddy ring. Kidded ’im up with some yarn about ’er ’avin’ belonged to an ancient Irish alcoholic paranoiac what ’ad ’ad the finest stable of Nightmares in the ’istory of psychiatry and ’ow she was goin’ cheap on account of ’er mane. Cheap indeed! She’ll cost ’im ’is ruddy life.”

“That be damned for a tale,” said Engelbrecht, who, with his usual adaptability is already affecting what he thinks is a suitably horsey style of talk. “She’s the finest little lepper in the barony is my Nightmare Medusa. And she’s goin’ to bring home the bacon, aren’t you, my pretty? Whoa there, Medusa, steady girl! God-damn it, those ruddy adders have got me again! Quick, Lizard, the hypodermic. Inject me, pal, ’ere I swoon.”

Lizard gives him a shot of anti-venine and he goes on with his curry-combing, as cool as if Medusa was a Shetland pony.

Nobody takes Engelbrecht’s entry seriously and the Surrealist Bookmakers are quoting Medusa a very long price.

“No student of form, however scrupulous,” writes Argus, the Racing Correspondent of the
Fly Paper, “
will be able to dismiss lightly, in a race of this peculiarly hazardous character, the possibility of a victory by a rank outsider, but there are several entries to which not even the most eclectic punter will—assuming, of course, that he is in his right mind—devote an instant’s thought.”… He goes on to list a whole string of steeds finishing up with “The egregious Medusa, ridden
(sic)
by a totally inexperienced jockey, on whom I would not even venture the tail of my shirt, and, as you know, I take a pretty small size.” He adds that he has it on reliable information that the International Man-Hunt Committee, which is the governing body of Surrealist Steeplechasing, will refuse Engelbrecht a licence.

This so incenses the dwarf that he brings an action for criminal libel against the Editor of the
Fly Paper.

The membership of the Surrealist Sportsman’s Club are present in force at the Id’s annual house party at Nightmare Abbey for the race. Engelbrecht is subjected to showers of chaff, which doesn’t improve his temper any.

After dinner, there is the time-honoured ceremony of spotting the winner. The Id’s Grandmother, who has something of a reputation as a tipster, is wheeled in with her Witch Ball, by Lamia Lobb, the housekeeper. After a shot of hashish with a double mescaline as a chaser, she comes out of her coma with a crash and starts to tip.

“I see,” she says in her crackling voice that sounds like a second-hand furniture dealer feeling a lampshade, “I see a chasm, measureless to man and wreathed in mist, through which peer evil shapes with clutching appendages. They are dragging the riders from their steeds…”

“She’s tuned in to the water jump, all right,” says Charlie Wapentake. “Stick to it, Granny! What else do you see?”

“I see an abyss of fire,” cackles the crone, “with riders falling into it nineteen to the dozen…”

Charlie nudges me. “That’s Growlers’ Gulf. Come on now, Granny. Tip us the winner!”

“I see,” continues the Id’s Grandmother, “a river of death over which one lone tiny rider is urging on his winged steed… He looks very small in the far distance… His colours are…”

But at that moment, just before she can give them her nap, the Witch Ball bursts, and the old lady refuses to say another word. There’s a lot of discussion about the significance of the lone tiny rider, but, as Dr. Sadismus points out, Lilliputian hallucinations, in which the subject sees brightly coloured scenes peopled with tiny little figures, are a common effect of mescaline, and most of the fancy remain sceptical. Nevertheless, such is the power of superstition, that several sportsman decide to have something on Engelbrecht, just in case.

As I accompany the dwarf up the winding staircase .to his room in the tower he is muttering to himself: “Curse that old crone! She’ll shorten the odds with her cackle.”

“But surely,” I say, “you’ve backed yourself ante-post?”

He shakes his head. “Too risky. Have to take S.P. Can’t be certain of getting Medusa to the starting gate.”

“Well,” I says consolingly, “I think you’ll still get pretty long odds.”

And indeed, when we arrive at last at the tower it looks as if no odds could ever be long enough. The room, which Engelbrecht is sharing with his manager and his Medusa, is empty save for Lizard Bayliss, who is in a stupor.

“Don’t blame me, kiddo, if she’s bolted,” he says when we revive him. “She was tethered to the night-stool, double-nobbled hind and fore, an’ munchin’ ’er nose-bag of mandrake roots, as quiet as any Christian horse. Lamia Lobb comes up with a tasty dish of efts for me supper, and we chew the fat for a bit. Then I settles down for me night watch, and the next thing I know is you two bendin’ over me. If you ask me I been slipped a Mickey Finn. Either that or them efts was out of season.”

“No doubt of it,” said Engelbrecht, a trifle bitterly, “somebody slipped a dose of poppy in your mandragon.”

Lizard Bayliss says philosophically that perhaps it’s just as well. Now there’s no cause for Engelbrecht to go breaking his neck. But the indomitable dwarf isn’t having any of that. He routs out Charlie Wapentake, whom he thinks he can trust, and they go and wake the Id’s Grandmother, which is a pretty nasty thing to have to do.

The Id’s Grandmother says she can’t, of course, give them any definite info as her Witch Ball’s bust, but from her long experience of the neighbourhood she’s pretty sure that a stray hippogriff is bound to make for Witches Wen where it will be found cropping the Cronesbane, which is especially succulent just there.

It’s a tidy step to Witches Wen, over very rough country, and when we do come up on Medusa, Lizard Bayliss is breathing like a horse with a tube in its throat, and before we can hobble her and slip the nooses, which Engelbrecht has borrowed from the curator of the Reptile House, over the vipers on her mane, she’s airborne. However, it seems that Engelbrecht is the local Witches’ nap. They’ve all put their broomsticks on his mount. So as soon as we explain the situation they nip off after Medusa and tether her to the top of a giant Deadwood Tree. Engelbrecht changes into his jockey’s cap and silks, shins up the tree, and mounts her. He’s not taking any more chances.

The morning of the great race dawns dark and menacing, with the air all roaring with wind. Driving in the Id’s vast barouche, up the dizzily precipitous track to the grandstand, we encounter a black vortex of hats, dislodged from the Church Tower by the tornado, and are nearly swept into the abyss. Nodder Fothergill, who is booked to ride one of the griffins from the Nightmare stable, shudders and huddles deep into his ulster. “It looks,” he stammers between chattering teeth, “as if the going’s going to be a trifle rough.”

Nevertheless, despite the inclement weather, the paddock presents a scene of lively animation. The Surrealist Bookmakers are intoning the odds in their curious flute-like tones, with a dying fall on the penultimate syllable. Pegasus with Bellerephon up is, of course, the favourite, at 333—1. Then comes Mahomet’s Burak, trained and ridden by the prophet himself. Also much fancied among the historical entries are Alexander’s Bucephalus, Attila’s Mongolian pony, Wok, which can run up any obstacle like a rat, and down the other side. Less heavily backed, because of his jockey’s precarious seat, is a Ukrainian Tatar animal ridden by Mazeppa. Our olde English entries, Black Bess with Dick Turpin in the saddle, and Tom Pearce’s Grey Mare, get a big hand from the sporting crowd; the chances of the latter, handicapped as she is by top-weight of jockeys are not very highly thought of.

The entries from the Nightmare Abbey stable, in addition to Nodder Fothergill’s griffin, include the Devil’s Dam, a gigantic black mare, unpopular with the field owing to her trick of snorting out great jets of flame from her nostrils. She is ridden by Wally Warlock, and it’s all he can do to keep her under control; every time she turns her head she scorches the toe of his boots. Bones Barlow and Rollo Chatteridge, the joint masters of the Man-Hunt, are having a bit of trouble with their Centaurs, Cheiron and Pholus. These, usually so well behaved, have made a bolt for the bar and are downing doubles in defiance of their jockeys. They can usually be relied on for a tip, so I stroll over and stand them each another double.

“Please don’t give our Centaurs any more drink,” snap Bones Barlow and Rollo Chatteridge. “They’re half seas over as it is. They’ll never be able to clear the first fence.”

“Nark it,” says Pholus. “We need a few to steady our nerves if we’re going to get round the course in weather like this. Any more out of you and we’ll throw you.”

I stand them another and ask them if they know anything good.

“Well,” whispers Cheiron, “whatever you do, don’t back us because we’re not trying.”

I remark that in view of his flying record Burak requires serious consideration.

Pholus shakes his head. “I wouldn’t put a trouser button on him if I were you. That aerial gallop of his isn’t in the form book, you know. It’s just a fanny spun by the Arab stable boys. Besides, if what we hear is true, the Prophet’s due for another fit. They been and hocussed his sherbet. If I was you I’d keep me shirt tucked in tight.”

“You don’t think Engelbrecht stands a chance on Medusa?” Lizard Bayliss enquires.

Pholus clears his throat and delicately wipes his mouth on his off fore hoof; but at that moment Dreamy Dan, our Surrealist Starter, trots past on his Eohippus, Crony, ringing his handbell for the weigh-in.

There are still no signs of Medusa or her jockey, and the Id and his friends are beginning to pass some very nasty remarks, when I catch sight of a cloud of witches flying low down over the grandstands. They fan out and in the middle of them is Medusa, with Engelbrecht still up.

“Engelbrecht,” says Dreamy Dan, “you can’t ride in this race if you’re going to be piloted by a coven of witches. Either you run alone or I disqualify you.”

“That’s all right, Dreamy,” says Engelbrecht, “they’re only my backers. None of them will be leaving the ground, because they’re all putting their broomsticks on me.”

While they’re weighing in Lizard Bayliss takes the witches round to the Surrealist Tote, where you can place a bet in anything, but literally anything, and they all put their broomsticks on Medusa.

“Oo-er,” says Lizard, when he rejoins me on the grandstand, “I don’t like this one little bit, chum. You know what those witches threaten to do if the dwarf don’t win.”

It takes Dreamy Dan all the tact he can muster to get them lined up for a start, but at this point I think I’d better hand you over to little Charlie Wapentake who is in charge of the running commentary for the S.T.T. (Surrealist Telepathic Transference, guaranteed free from Delusions and Hallucinations).

“—Well, Things, here we are now, all ready for the start of this great race, and this is Charlie Wapentake giving you the commentary. Dreamy Dan, the Surrealist Starter, is lining ’em up. I think they’re going to go. No, Lady Godiva, on Dobbin O’Coventry, is having trouble with her hair. This wind’s very strong, you know. Ah, she’s borrowed a hair-pin from one of the Valkyries. Now then… No, there’s something wrong right out at the end of the line… Yes, Mazeppa’s lodged a complaint against Engelbrecht’s horse, Medusa. He says she’s savaging him with her mane. Dreamy Dan’s moved Engelbrecht further out. They’re off any moment now. No they’re not. There’s a bit of bother in the centre. It’s Squire Mytton on his pig, Fancy. He’s objecting to Lord Raglan’s Cavalry Sabre. And Uncle Tom Cobbleigh says Dick Turpin’s had his watch. Dreamy Dan’s losing patience… Ah, they’re off at last.