By Martin Pearson

“Well, this is a dashed nuisance,” thought Reggie Upton, as he felt himself being dragged, by the leg, into some unseen creature’s lair.

The tentacle wrapped around the hapless limb was hard and suckered. This was too bad. Reggie reflected that he had only worn the worsted-wool suit twice before, and between being pulled over rough ground and the detrimental effect the tentacle was doubtless having on his trouser leg, the whole bally outfit was probably ruined beyond repair.

It was a shame that such a pleasant evening was being spoiled in this way. Norbert Gannicox had been a surprisingly good host, despite the fact that he was a non-drinker (rarely a good sign, in Reggie’s estimation). He had been wandering back to The Squid and Teapot in a fine, if somewhat inebriated, state of mind, having spent a few blissful hours regaling Norbert with his army reminiscences. Being a practical type of chap, Reggie had happily warmed to Norbert’s suggestion that, while there, he should take the opportunity to sample the produce of the distillery. It was shortly afterwards that disaster had struck.  All it had taken was a stumble, and that tentacled beast had got the better of him. Well, the Afghan tribesmen hadn’t managed to see him off, and neither had the Boer guerrillas, so he would be damned if he would allow some glorified land-locked cuttlefish to succeed where they had failed. The only problem was that, for once in his life, he had no idea what to do. He was being drawn inexorably towards the dark fissure which the blasted animal regarded as its home, with no obvious means of escape.

Suddenly, things began to look more hopeful. Drury, the skeletal hound, unexpectedly bounded from the shadows, barking loudly enough to wake the dead (although, in all honesty, on Hopeless that was no great feat).

“Give it a nasty bite, there’s a good chap,” encouraged Reggie, remembering how Drury had saved Philomena Bucket from danger just a few weeks before.

Much to the dismay of both, before Drury could apply his teeth to the tentacle, another similarly suckered arm slithered from the gloom of the lair and swatted the dog off with ease. Reggie winced in sympathy as he heard the clatter of bones noisily hitting the ground, some yards away.

“Are you alright, old fellow? Come on, get back on your feet.”

It was a voice that Reggie did not recognise. Was he talking to him? Old fellow, indeed! He was in the prime of life. Dashed impudence.

A strange figure emerged through the gloom. It was that of a tall, powerfully built man, his features illuminated by the candle-lantern that he held aloft. He carried something on his back; it looked like a large bucket. Drury, who had obviously been the object of the man’s concern, rattled up behind him.

Immediately Reggie felt the vice-like grip on his leg relax, and the tentacle receded back into the hole in the ground, with an angry hiss.

“What on Earth are you doing out at this time of night?” Rhys Cranham demanded. “It’s no place for folks to be wandering, especially a gentleman like yourself.”

Reggie rose painfully to his feet, examining his trouser leg for damage. Satisfied that the trousers would live to fight another day, he faced his rescuer.

“Reggie Upton,” he said. “I am most awfully grateful, young man. I think you have just saved my life, not to mention my suit. But how the devil did you…?”

“It’s the smell,” grinned Rhys. “I’m the Night-Soil Man and, to put it bluntly, I stink! There’s not much on the island that can stand to be around me.”

His voice trailed off and he looked at Reggie with some suspicion.

“Including people,” he added. “So why are you not affected by the smell?”

“A smell?” queried Reggie, “I had no idea, old chap. The old hooter’s not worked for years. Anosmia, I think it’s called.”

Rhys had heard the word before. When Philomena first came to the island she had a similar affliction, until a dunking in the sea had cleared her nasal passages.

“You can’t smell anything?” said Rhys, incredulously.

“Not a whiff, old boy,” replied Reggie. “It happened when I was a young subaltern in India. Due to brain damage, apparently.”

“You were wounded in battle?”

“Good heavens, no,” Reggie chuckled. “I was as drunk as a lord, and fell over in the officer’s mess after a rather good, but ill-advised, beano. I banged the back of my head on the corner of a step and was out cold for ages. When I came to, I couldn’t smell a thing. Been like that now for forty years.” 

“And you’re happy to talk to me?” said Rhys,

“My dear chap, of course I am. Let me shake you by the hand.”

“No… no, don’t touch me,” said Rhys, quickly pulling away from him. “The stench will stick around you, if you do.”

“Well, I am much obliged,” said Reggie. “I’d better toddle off back to The Squid, but if there is anything I can ever do…”

It was late the following morning when Reggie, feeling slightly the worse for wear, wandered into the bar, hoping that the metaphorical hair of the dog might chase away his hangover.

“You were out late last night,” commented Philomena. “I was beginning to worry.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” said Reggie, “but it was a close run thing. Saved from sudden death by someone who said he was a Night-Soil chap, or somesuch.”

“You met Rhys?” Philomena was suddenly interested.

“Is that his name? Yes, nice fellow, though a bit remote. He seemed surprised that I could bear to be around him.”

Reggie then related to Philomena the events of the night before, and the fact of his inability to detect smells.

 “That’s a pity for you,” commiserated Philomena, “but at least you were able to talk to Rhys face-to-face. No one else can get that close to him.”

 “Poor fellow,” said Reggie, “I assume that he’s not exactly fighting off friends or sweethearts, in that case,”

Philomena shook her head and stifled a sob. Then she poured her heart out, telling of her shattered hopes and the wedding that never was.

Reggie pondered her words, smoothing his moustache as he always did when in deep thought.

“Well, it won’t change your plight, but I’m more than happy to go and chat to him at any time, if you think he can stand the company of an old soldier.”

“Thank you. I am sure that he would love the company of an old soldier,” said Philomena, truthfully.

That night Reggie met Rhys, just as the Night-Soil Man was beginning his rounds.

“Just ask if there’s anything I can bring you from The Squid,” he said. “You know, food, beer, etcetera, etcetera.”   

“No, I’m catered for, thanks,” said Rhys. “Philomena is always leaving bottles of ale and starry-grabby pie on my doorstep.”

“Ah, the Lovely Miss Bucket!” said Reggie, with a grin.

Rhys said nothing. Much as he appreciated having this new-found friend, he would have preferred that the Lovely Miss Bucket was the one with anosmia.  

By Martin Pearson

“From henceforth,” declared Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton, “I wish to be known simply as Reggie Upton. The double-barrel business is totally inappropriate on this island; besides, the Hawkesbury branch of the family were bounders to a man. I’ll be happy to be shot of the lot of them.”

If it suited the old soldier to slough off his former appellation, no one was going to argue with him. The fact of his full name had never been an issue to others on Hopeless; most had only ever known him as ‘Reggie’.

“I’m off now for a spot of flâneuring,” he announced.

“Well, be careful” warned Philomena Bucket. “You know what happened the last time you went flannelling.”

Reggie brandished his silver-topped cane.

“Fear not, dear lady. I am always well prepared. Anyway, I thought that Drury might like to come with me.”

Flâneuring, you will recall (or possibly indulge in, upon occasion) is the pastime of sauntering aimlessly, and taking in the ambience of a place. On his previous excursion Reggie had been accosted by young Roscoe Chevin, who villainously demanded his watch and cane. Reggie had responded by demonstrating that the cane was, in reality, a sword stick. With a deft swish of his blade he severed Roscoe’s belt, causing the youth’s trousers to fall down, at the same time greatly amusing a group of orphanage girls, who happened to be passing.

Drury did not need telling twice. He clattered to his feet, shook himself noisily, and followed Reggie through the large oak door of The Squid and Teapot, and out into the vibrant, pulsating street-life of Hopeless, Maine. At least, it might have been vibrant and pulsating but, as usual, there was no one around. When the weather was inclement, or threatened to be less than clement, people tended to stay in. Today it was unusually clement, save for the swirling mist, but nobody thought it wise to venture abroad, on the basis that one can never be too careful in matters of climatic clemency. And so it was that Reggie and Drury wandered about in amiable silence, Drury sniffing the air, and Reggie showing off yet another bespoke suit (purchased from Huntsman & Co. of Saville Row, est. 1849), which he had plucked from his seemingly bottomless travelling trunk.

After half-an-hour or so of uneventful strolling, the pair found themselves by the rocks at the water’s edge. Reggie, ever mindful of his appearance, made certain not to get seawater anywhere near his expensive leather shoes. Drury had no such qualms and leapt into the shallows, hoping for the opportunity to terrorise an unsuspecting cephalopod or two. Instead he was surprised to find what appeared to be a five-legged creature with a strange, plaid-patterned body, floating on the surface of the water. It looked very dead and gave no resistance when Drury, who was an inquisitive hound, proceeded to pull its corpse ashore, where he proudly presented it to Reggie.

“Well I’m jiggered!” exclaimed Reggie. “Dashed if you haven’t found a set of bagpipes. I wonder if they still work?”

Despite his curiosity, he was not inclined to blow into any of the tubes to find out, but instead encouraged Drury to bear the dripping bagpipes back to The Squid and Teapot in his bony mouth, for later inspection.

“I’ve no idea what it is,” said Seth Washwell, studying the thing on the table, “but I reckon it’s dead.”

“Not dead, old chap,” said Reggie, clapping him on the shoulder. “It is a musical instrument, and just a little bit water-logged. It needs somewhere warm to dry out.”

“I’ve never seen an instrument that looked like that,” mused Seth.

“I was wondering,” said Reggie, tentatively, “if there might be a little corner of the foundry in which it could recover, as it were. It wouldn’t take up much room.”

Seth rubbed his jaw ruminatively.

“Can’t see why not,” he said, after a few moments. “I’ll even carry it there for you. It would be a pity to get your nice suit mucked-up.”

The bagpipes took more than a week to dry out. Even then they did not play immediately. It was only after some subtle prodding with a wire coat-hanger, and the removal of several yards of seaweed, that they were capable of emitting a noise, of sorts. Reggie beamed with pleasure.

“Are you really sure it’s an instrument?” asked Seth dubiously. “When you blew into it, it sounded as though it was in pain.”  

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Reggie, “this will be the beginning of a whole new pastime for me. Why, I imagine I’ll be playing these bagpipes properly in no time at all. When is the next musical event on the island happening?”

Seth confessed that he had no idea, but made a mental note to avoid it at all costs, if the agonised groans that the pipes had made earlier were anything to go by.

True to his word, Reggie practiced on the pipes every day. He would take himself to a quiet spot and give it his best shot. His best shot, however, fell far short of anything resembling a melody. And so it was, after a month of fruitless effort, he lay the bagpipes down, half-hidden beneath a settle in the snug of The Squid and Teapot, and admitted defeat. No one else had any interest in the instrument, and there they would be still, had it not been for Drury.

The osseous hound had never been convinced that the bagpipes were not alive. It occurred to him that all they required to be happy, and not make that dreadful sound, was to have a little fun now and then, and who better to provide fun than Drury himself?

For the next few days the bony old dog could be seen running around the island with the bagpipes firmly gripped between his jaws. To his great surprise they did not appear to respond to his attentions, and, in true Drury-style, he lost interest, abandoning them outside the Night-Soil Man’s front door. He was sure that Rhys would know what to do.

Rhys Cranham had never seen a set of bagpipes before. In common with most other folks, he imagined that they were a dead creature of some description or, at least, the remnants of one. He had seen some odd things on Hopeless, and the insect-like shape of the bagpipes was no weirder than many other sights he had witnessed.

Gingerly, he lifted the limp instrument with a long pole, and carried it to the sinkhole at the edge of his property. Rhys gazed down into its bottomless depths, and wondered, as he had always wondered, what the meaning was of the swirling green mist, hundreds of feet below.

“Goodbye then, whatever you were,” he said to the bagpipes, and pitched them unceremoniously into the sinkhole.

It was the night of the full moon, almost a week later. Rhys was on his rounds, servicing the privies on the far side of the island. There was no one to see the strange, spidery creature that heaved its bloated, tartan body out of the dark hole at the end of the garden. After a plaintive howl, which sounded uncannily like the first few bars of ‘Flowers of the Forest’, it stretched its thin, disparately-sized legs, and scuttled awkwardly away into the misty shadows. 

“I say, Old Boy. I wonder if you might possibly be in a position to give a chap a helping hand with his luggage?”

The voice was as rich and fruity as a particularly rich and fruity fruitcake.

Septimus Washwell, neither old nor, indeed, a boy, turned to see who had spoken. Newcomers to the island were invariably soaked to the skin, woefully bedraggled and often barely alive. The figure on the beach this morning, however, was a dapper-looking gentleman, immaculately dressed in a crisp, white shirt, a Harris Tweed three-piece suit, shiny shoes and a bowler hat, which he wore at a jaunty angle. He sported a bristling handlebar moustache and leaned casually upon a silver-topped cane. The whole ensemble was completed with a regimental tie, flamboyant pocket square and, strung between his waistcoat pockets, a gold watch-chain, from which, presumably, dangled a gold watch.

“Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton,” he said, proffering his well-manicured free hand, “late of the King’s Own Royal Regiment.”

“Septimus Washwell,” said Septimus, accepting the handshake and quietly hoping that his own clammy palm was relatively clean.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said the brigadier, affably, “but I must admit, I am a little disorientated. I have absolutely no idea where the devil I am, or even how I arrived here. Dashed rum, what?”

Septimus, who was partial to a dash of rum occasionally, wondered what that particular spirit had to do with the brigadier’s present predicament.

“You are on the island of Hopeless, Maine,” he offered, helpfully, hoping that this might mean something to the newcomer.

“Never heard of it,” replied the brigadier. “The last thing I remember was standing on the dock in Southampton, waiting for the RMS Titanic. I was supposed to be going to New York. I don’t suppose you’ve seen hide or hair of her?”

“Uuuh… no,” said Septimus, truthfully, then added, “is that your luggage?”

He pointed to the large, leather travelling trunk, squatting on the rocks a few yards away. It bore no signs of water damage. In fact, he could have been forgiven for thinking it to be brand-new.

“It certainly is,” confirmed the brigadier, “which brings me to my original request – could you please give me a hand in moving it?  Unfortunately, I tend to over-pack when I travel these days, so it’s fairly heavy. I assume that there is a hotel close by?”

“There’s The Squid and Teapot,” replied Septimus, uncertainly. “I can help you take it there, if you want… although it’s probably a bit more basic than what you’re used to.”

“My dear chap,” said the brigadier with a chuckle, “in my career I have billeted in some of the roughest and most dangerous spots in India, Abyssinia and South Africa, not to mention Aldershot. I am sure that in comparison your hostelry will be absolutely splendid.”

“I hope so, brigadier,” said Septimus.

“Reggie, Old Boy. My friends call me Reggie.”

“Very well brig… Reggie. Let’s get you to The Squid,” said Septimus.

“The weird thing,” said Septimus to his fiancé, Mirielle, that evening, “is that he seemed completely unfazed by finding himself here. He was standing on the docks one minute, and here on Hopeless the next.”

Mirielle gave a typically Gallic shrug.

“Mon Dieu, what do you expect? He is English. They are all mad.”

Septimus took exception to this, but decided not to pursue it. He knew that his ancestors had hailed from England, and he was fairly sure that they hadn’t been mad. Well, not all of them.

“And what was that about the Titanic?” went on Mirielle. “It sank years ago. The man is as mad as an otter, I tell you.”

“Hatter,” corrected Septimus.

“Ah, ta gueule. Otter, ‘atter, what difference does it make?” ranted Mirielle. “If they’re English, they’re all mad.”

Philomena Bucket, who was Irish, had no such views concerning the English. As far as she was concerned people were people, some good and some not so good, and she and the brigadier were getting along famously. It took only minutes before they were on first name terms.

“You’ll need to be a bit careful if you venture out after dark, Reggie,” she advised. “There are some strange creatures lurking on this island.”

“My dear Philomena, I have seen things in my travels in Asia and Africa that are beyond belief. I long ago arrived at the conclusion that there is some pretty rum stuff prowling this Earth, and that there is no point in shying away from them. What is it that the psalms say?

‘Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday’.”

“Oh, I didn’t take you to be a religious man, Reggie” said Philomena, somewhat taken aback.

“Oh, Good Lord, no. Heaven forbid,” replied Reggie, without the slightest hint of irony. “It was one of those passages one was made to learn at school, along with bits of poetry and the like. They tend to stick in the mind.”

Philomena nodded sagely, although this had never been an issue, as far as she was concerned.

“Well, you’ll need to get used to all sorts here,” she said. “We’ve even got a couple of resident ghosts haunting The Squid. Religious ones, too,” she added, thinking of Father Stamage and Lady Margaret D’Avening.

“I’ll be fascinated,” said Reggie, enthusiastically. “D’you know, I’m warming to this island of yours already.”

“Lady Margaret might give you a bit of a shock,” warned Philomena. “She carries her head under her arm and haunts the privy.”

“By Jove, I can’t wait to meet her!”

“You might have to wait a while yet,” said Philomena. “She went into a bit of a sulk the other week and we haven’t seen her since.”

Brigadier Reginald Fitzhugh Hawkesbury-Upton settled surprisingly well into life on the island, easily making friends with all who came into the inn. A few days following his conversation with Philomena, he found himself in the convivial company of Seth Washwell, Norbert Gannicox, not to mention several tankards of ‘Old Colonel’. When midnight struck, Bartholomew Middlestreet called his customary “Time, ladies and gentlemen, please,” and Reggie decided to avail himself of the facilities offered by the indoor flushing privy, before bed.

It was at that moment that Lady Margaret decided to abandon boycotting the privy, and drifted silently through the wall, directly behind where Reggie was standing relieving himself. Although somewhat inebriated, he was aware that the temperature of the room had dropped considerably. Bearing in mind Philomena’s warning, he calmly adjusted his dress and turned, fully prepared to face the apparition with bravery and nonchalance.

Lady Margaret held her head aloft and looked hard at the stranger standing before her.

“Uncle Henry!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

To be continued…  

(And yes, that is Dr Porridge in the illustration, but he does look vaguely military)