Buried for Pleasure

‘Well, sir, I think perhaps that answers your question. There may be some points I’ve missed, as the monkey said when he fell over the hedgehog…’

Captain Watkyn was professionally impressed.

‘You’re a natural, old boy,’ he said soberly. ‘Can you keep that sort of thing up?’

‘Indefinitely,’ Fen assured him. ‘The command of cliché comes of having had a literary training.’

‘Then we’re in the money,’ said Captain Watkyn. ‘Here, we must have another drink on that.’

They had another drink, and Captain Watkyn, sighing contentedly, said:

‘Well, I don’t mind telling you now, Professor Fen, that I was a bit nervous at first about how you were going to turn out. I’ve had some queer customers to handle in my time, and sometimes it’s been touch-and-go whether they could put a complete sentence together impromptu. Thank God we don’t have to worry about that.

‘Now let’s map out a plan of campaign. My idea, in addition to the regulation meetings, is to make a separate appeal to each section of the community.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, I’ve been over the ground pretty thoroughly,’ said Captain Watkyn, ‘and I think I’ve got a fair notion of what we’re up against. This is an easy constituency in a way, because it’s completely apathetic: half the people won’t vote at all, for anyone. And a good proportion of that half are the women. These country women tend to think the whole thing’s a lot of idiotic humbug suited only to men, and I won’t say,’ Captain Watkyn added handsomely, ‘that I think they’re far wrong… Anyway, we don’t have to appeal to the women so much as we should elsewhere, so you can tone down the brave-resourceful-queueing-housewife-and- mother angle.’

‘And that leaves what?’

‘It leaves the farmers and farm-labourers, chiefly. Do you know anything about farming?’

‘Nothing whatever.’

‘It’s just as well, perhaps. Your best line with them will be to attack the Ministry of Agriculture, which they all detest. I’ll try and collect some actual local cases of meddling for you to use, but you can always get on in the meanwhile with the usual man-on-the-spot-knows-a-sight-more-about-the-job-than-a-pack-of-Civil-Servants-in-Whitehall angle.’

‘I can manage that all right,’ said Fen. ‘Who else is there?’

‘There’s the Sanford Morvel crowd, mostly shopkeepers. The small-trader-is-the-backbone-of-national-prosperity will do for them, only you’ll have to remember that agriculture’s the backbone of national prosperity, too.’

‘And everything else.’

‘Everything else that goes on in this constituency,’ Captain Watkyn amended. ‘Then there’s Peek. Peek’s not going to be too easy. Peek, between ourselves, is one of the most ruddy awful places I’ve ever come across in my life. The only thing I can think of that’s likely to appeal to Peek is a sort of general prospect of getting something for nothing.’

Fen felt whatever principles he had slipping finally and irretrievably into limbo before Captain Watkyn’s determined and far-reaching doctrines of expediency.

‘Is that the lot?’ he asked weakly.

‘There are still the professional people, upper middle class and so forth. Not many of them, but they tend to vote.’

‘And what tale do I spin them?’

Captain Watkyn seemed hurt.

‘Look here, old boy, don’t you go getting any wrong ideas about me. I know as well as you do what a grand thing democracy is. But the way I look at it is this. You’re obviously the sort of clever, high-minded chap who ought to be in Parliament. Very well, then. But how are you going to get there? Answer: you’ve got to be elected.

‘Now, these Sanford people don’t know you as well as I do,’ Captain Watkyn pursued, with a confidence which their quarter-hour acquaintance did not seem to Fen entirely to justify, ‘and since they’re mostly chronic imbeciles they’re quite likely to elect some scoundrelly nitwit who’ll help send the country to the dogs. Therefore, they’ve got to be jollied along a bit – for their own good, d’you see?’

‘As Plato remarked.’

‘As whatsit remarked, yes. Once you’re elected, then your principles and so forth come into play. See what I mean?’

Fen, on the point of drawing attention to the well-known fact that means determine ends, came abruptly to the conclusion that the moment was inopportune and subsided again.

‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he said reservedly.

‘Then we’re all set,’ said Captain Watkyn. ‘Now, today’s Saturday. My idea is to concentrate all your meetings as close to Polling Day as possible. This afternoon, of course, there’s the nomination business in Sanford Morvel. Then tomorrow evening I’ve arranged for you to hold a kick-off meeting there after church hours. On Monday morning you’re going hunting—’

‘I’m what?’

‘Hunting, old boy. Cubbing, actually. There’s a very keen hunt in these parts. Get you a lot of votes if you turn up.’

‘But I’ve never hunted in my life,’ said Fen. His knowledge of the subject was derived almost exclusively from Surtees and the Irish Resident Magistrate.

‘That’s all right,’ said Captain Watkyn easily. ‘You can ride, can’t you?’

‘In a way.’

‘Then don’t worry, old boy. I’ll be there to give you moral support. And I can easily get the loan of a couple of quiet nags.’

‘No,’ said Fen.

‘If you went,’ Captain Watkyn urged, ‘it’d give you a lot of pull with a certain sort of people, because neither of the other candidates will be there. The Conservative man can’t ride, and the Labour man daren’t, for fear of offending The New Statesman… Just think it over.’

‘No.’

Unlike Oxford, Captain Watkyn had no time to waste on lost causes. ‘All right, then,’ he said regretfully, ‘we’ll cut that out… Now, let’s see. Most of the rest of the week you’ll have to spend touring about to God-awful places like Peek, and talking at street corners. But, of course, we’ll hold a slap-up final meeting on the evening before Polling Day.’

‘That sounds satisfactory,’ Fen agreed. ‘And are there any people who are going to canvass for me?’

‘Well, not yet,’ said Captain Watkyn. ‘There aren’t actually any such people yet. Matter of fact, I tried to rope in the chaps who are nominating you, but they turned a bit nasty. Still, I shall find someone, never fear.’

‘And have I got a loudspeaker van?’

‘Well, yes. It doesn’t work very well, because it’s rather an old one, but there’s an electrician johnny in Sanford Morvel trying to fix it up.’

‘And a car?’

‘I’ve seen to that, too,’ said Captain Watkyn. ‘We’ll pick it up after the nomination.’

‘And do we need a committee room? I dare say I could get a room here if necessary.’

‘Well, we haven’t got a committee, have we, old boy? No, I think we’ll dispense with that for the time being. No point in burdening ourselves with unnecessary expenses – the law only allows us a certain amount of money to play about with, you know… Now, is there anything else, I wonder?’

‘What are the other candidates like?’

‘Oh, they’re not much,’ said Captain Watkyn with contempt. ‘The Conservative – chap called Strode – is a farm-labourer who’s been to night classes. And Wither, the Labour man, is a big industrial magnate from somewhere up north. They’ve been chosen that way to try and make an appeal to the sort of people who aren’t normally expected to vote for their Parties. Of course, it won’t make the slightest difference in the end, but it gives Party H.Q. the illusion of being-up-to-the-minute.’