Short Story: Tommy Bowler's Night Out

Short Story: Tommy Bowler's Night Out

TOMMY BOWLER’S NIGHT OUT

A LATTER-DAY CAUTIONARY TALE

By

ADRIAN FORD

‘Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,

Each man, and mother’s son, take heed:

Whene’er to drink you are inclined,

Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,

Think! Ye may buy the joys o’er dear,

Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.’

Robert Burns

‘Tam o’ Shanter’

(Last stanza)

During winter’s dark nights, sat in a semi-circle in front of a blazing log fire in the bar of the Pine Ridge Inn, Thrupton, I am often asked to re-tell the story about Tommy Bowler. Every time I oblige willingly because I like the tale, and over the years I have honed my delivery and feel I can really do justice to it, and the late Tommy Bowler himself, without altering or, worse, fabricating anything to enhance the narrative. It is a true story, but very few believe it actually happened...........

*

Tommy Bowler was a journalist, a hack on the local rag, ‘The Southern Star’. He was also known (and good enough) to freelance for the London red-tops and has had a by-line on the Daily Telegraph, no less. He knew everybody and everybody knew him. He was a one-off, a singular person; some said, eccentric, wishing not to be rude. However, he was personable and likeable and did not have a bad thing to say about anybody. He was ‘good company’ despite his excesses.

Many years ago, one of his run-of-the-mill jobs was covering the weekly local markets such as Thrupton’s, which he was happy to do because it allowed him to spend a lot of time with his mates...and the ladies. He was notorious for his philandering and even had a good thing going with the landlady at the Pine Ridge. This latter liaison was important because Annie had a loose box behind the inn, where Tommy could leave his horse whilst he was ‘at work’, that is, in the pub. He knew he would be having a skinful and so he left his car at home and always rode to work on market days. Annie was only too pleased to accommodate his eccentricities, especially in the loose box.

One Thursday in January, with the weather worsening through the afternoon the stall-holders began to pack up and people started to drift home, or towards the inn long before sunset. In the Pine Ridge, Tommy was to be found, as usual, standing by the side of the inglenook fireplace, pint glass in one hand, his other round the shoulders of Jeannie Churchtown, talking and laughing with his two best friends, Johnny Southill and Dusty Miller. Empty pots were soon refilled, sandwiches appeared and were devoured as the banter continued long into the evening.

‘It’s time you were getting home to Cathy, Tommy,’ said Dusty after their eighth pint had gone down. ‘She’ll be fretting about your being drunk in charge of a grey mare in this awful weather. She knows you’re a one for the booze and the ladies, and I dare say she doesn’t like it. It’s a wonder she puts up with you.’ He was laughing as he summed up Mrs Bowler’s feelings and demeanour in a nutshell.

‘Don’t be soft, Dusty, I’ll get the whiskies in now. One for the road, eh?’ Tommy replied, swaying over to the bar. It was all good-natured stuff, but Tommy, for all his faults, knew they were right. However he had another few drams before finally deciding he had had enough for one night. But not before one last toast. He raised his glass allowing the glow from the fire to filter through the amber liquid making it appear to effervesce and dance.

‘On the anniversary of your birth, we salute you, O great bard! To Robert Burns, may your memory endure eternally!’

They touched glasses. ‘To Robert Burns!’ they exclaimed in unison, heads high, minds drifting far, far into history, palates savouring the usquabae to the last drop. Johnnie’s dog, a tan and white fox terrier, lying quietly under the table, raised his head too and stared into the distance, his tail wagging slowly.

The time had come when Tommy had to get going. Resisting his friends’ suggestion that he should call a taxi, he pulled on his coat, grabbed his cap and gloves, and opened the door to a howling gale that tried to blow him back in.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he slurred, ‘the wind will sober me up!’

Annie saddled Megen and after a long embrace, helped Tommy up, ensured his stirrup lights were on and bade him a fond farewell. ‘Take care, Tommy, love. Watch out for those ghosts and owls. See you tomorrow.’ She had to shout as the wind rattled the old shed roofs and whistled through the loose box like a banshee. She gave the mare a gentle smack on the rump, and they were gone.

Tommy made his way through a copse and onto the heath that stretched for two miles towards his home in Blackstone village. Between him and his good wife he would have to avoid bogs, ditches, flooded pits and quicksand and also ride over a two hundred foot hill before reaching the old Roman road at Blackstone. As he neared the old clay pits, wind and rain searing his eyes, he held dearly onto his cap as he looked over his shoulder lest something might be chasing him. On a calm, moonlit night the ride over the heath was easy and beautiful; tonight with heavy, leaden clouds discharging copious amounts of rain, neither moon nor stars lit his way. The paths were treacherous. Flashes of lightning glowed in the distance. The wind pulled on Megen’s mane desperately trying to heed her valiant progress. The mare was equal to the challenge and bending her head low into the storm she cantered on. Tommy whistled a tune in Megen’s ear, reassuring her – and himself. They approached the loading bay on the disused railway where he took a right turn onto the heath proper, towards the rickety shed left by the clay diggers. He then veered left and expecting to be plunged into the heath’s deeper darkness, both he and Megen were taken by surprise. The shed was brightly lit from within and pulsating with noise that even eclipsed the wailing wind and thundering clouds.

If he had had only a few beers he would have exhorted Megen to flee with utmost haste, but inspired, fortified and emboldened by whisky, his curiosity got the better of him. Against his trusty steed’s desire to keep away, Tommy urged Megen forward to a vantage point above the old pit. Their mouths agape, eyes wide with astonishment, they peered through a hole in the shed’s corrugated iron side and couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

Around a lower pit area was, seated and standing, a mass of excited, heaving humanity, faces flushed not only from the effects of alcohol which was being served out by scantily-clad young ladies, but of something much more primeval. Bookies with tally-boards were shouting the odds and wads of banknotes exchanging hands as the punters raced to back their hunches.

At each corner there stood a vast furnace belching out heat that Tommy could feel on his anxious face. It was so hot inside that many ladies had stripped to their underwear, urged on by their licentious partners. Many couples had moved to shadowy areas where the light from the many hurricane lamps did not quite reach, to embrace amorously as if in private. Tommy took the whole picture in and then began to look at the individuals. The Master of Ceremonies, who sat on a window seat at the east end of the shed and commentated and announced through a maroon-painted megaphone, was none other than the Chief Constable of Brassetshire. Tommy spotted the vicar of his parish church,

two Members of Parliament (one of whom was a government minister), several so-called pillars of the county’s business community and a recently retired Law Lord.

The objects, in the lower pit, of the crowd’s attentions and concern were two huge Bull Mastiffs, fighting to an agonising death for their pleasure. Several kennels stood at the sides, petrified dogs cringing inside. Spectators near the fence around the pit were spattered in blood and other canine bodily fluids and revelled in the sheer brutality of the proceedings. Their terrible expressions were such that Tommy almost vomited. He had sobered up rapidly in the face of such barbarity and Bacchanalian debauchery and being a newspaper person he envisaged a massive scoop if he could get some evidence on paper. No worthy hack would be without a camera; Tommy’s was nestled in his coat pocket. Without thinking of the consequences, he set the exposure and focal length and fired it off on automatic.

The series of flashes and whirring that emanated from Tommy’s camera brought the festivities to an abrupt end. As one, heads turned and faces gazed querulously up towards the source of the intrusions. At once there was silence, even the dogs were still. The lights and the furnaces were doused and a huge hue and cry arose: ‘Get him! Don’t let him escape!’

Tommy was already kicking Megen on, although she did not require any encouragement; she was into a full gallop within seconds. Out of the shed issued a hellish legion of ranting, screaming and enraged humanity, a burgeoning phalanx of angry bees hell-bent on murder. Many made for their Jeeps and Land Rovers, the remainder just ran after the fleeing horse and rider.

Tommy knew he had only a few minutes start as the vehicles were not as a rally starting line up. The thunder and lightning was directly overhead and the rain came down in sheets; the clayey trails were already like glue, and becoming more treacherous by the minute. This was to Megen’s advantage and she pounded steadfastly onwards towards Manley Bottom, where the usual six-inch deep stream was now a torrent eight feet wide.

If the chasing pack had been witches, Tommy thought ruefully, he and Megen would have been safe after crossing running water. But they were worse, they were human – and unpredictable in mobs. The wind was at Tommy’s back as they forded the swollen stream, the water up to Megen’s girth; yet she was sure-footed, pulling out of the surging water, galloping on towards Lone Pine Hill. Tommy turned in his saddle momentarily and could see the headlights of the first of a column of vehicles only a few hundred yards behind – but they had not yet reached the stream.

‘Come on, Megen, my bonnie lass! Up and over the hill, that’s quicker than going round.’ She understood, and head down she powered towards the winding path that would lead them up the steep slope. Suddenly she lost her footing and slithered backwards and downwards. Tommy held on and calmed his trusty mount. ‘Easy girl. No problem, we’ve got them licked. Up you go now, walk on. The gate is only a quarter of a mile from the top. They won’t chase us onto the public road.’ As Megen recovered Tommy heard the revving of the nearest of the chasing pack, a 4-wheel drive Land Rover. An amplified voice cried out above the thunder and lightning crashes and roaring diesel engine. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot.’

Tommy’s thoughts flashed to the copy he would file the next day shouting back, ‘I’ll see you in hell first. Come on, Megen, up,up,up! Good girl!’ A shotgun blast spurred her on more than any cajoling, her eyes wide, but determined.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Tommy. ‘It’s like the flipping Wild West!’

The Land Rover cut left to go round the hill as Tommy and Megen reached its summit, and the race was on to the gate. Megen redoubled her efforts, Tommy hung on desperately as they pounded along the sandy plateau at the top that fortunately gave more grip to the horse’s hooves. They could see the headlights coming round the hill to their left, and the gate now one hundred yards in front of the galloping steed.

‘God!’ said Tommy, ‘I’d forgotten it was a five-bar gate – and padlocked. We’re doomed!’

Megen and Tommy sped past where the two paths converged, just pipping the Land Rover. Incongruously, Tommy thought, ‘what would Harvey Smith have done faced with a five-bar gate?’ He need not have worried. Megen was going to jump it no matter what – and she did! But just as they cleared the gate by a good twelve inches, a shotgun went off and Megen whinnied with pain. Most of her tail had been shot off! However they landed beautifully and reached the tarmacked road and safety. The Land Rover slithered to a halt at the gate, furious red-faced men shaking their fists at the disappearing tail-less rump.

*

Epilogue

In his dash across the heath, the camera must have fallen out of his pocket and despite weeks retracing the epic ride hoping to find it, it never was traced. So the major scoop never happened; and there being no evidence to be found of the dog fighting and illegal drinking and gambling, no body believed his story, nor how Megen saved his life – and lost her tail.

The story’s moral could not be better put than by Robert Burns himself, as written as the last stanza of his celebrated narrative poem, ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ and which I have inserted, with the utmost deference, at the beginning of this tale.

Amen to that.

THE END