I am astonished (it will later be surmised that Prinz’s real targets, ever more ascendant, were B. & B., not A.; he had better gone after C.). My betrothed, however, seems scarcely surprised: in the same motion with which he leaps clear, he whales Tucker Vol. 1 at Reggie’s head, and seeing either that his aim is off since the famous First Conception scene or that Tucker’s history is a less accurate missile than Richardson’s novel, unhesitatingly he pulls half of the burning flat itself — a flimsy thing which the storm is breaking loose from its supports — down upon his adversary, knocking him into the mud!

No injuries on either side. Merope and I restrain our macho mates from further such exchanges. Right on, the hippies cry. Cook applauds and resumes his recitation. T-Dum and T-Dee exchange meaning glances and take up their stations.

I pass over other such notable moments to sing their culmination. The mise en scène is a flat representing the Tripoli Monument in the Washington Naval Yard, whose original was defaced by a British demolition team. We are to turn its (painted) sculptures into the following tableau vivant: Merry B. to represent Fame, as indicated by a great bronze palm; myself to represent History, wielding a similarly impressive pen (these props Cook claims to be the originals, long in his family’s possession and much coveted by the Smithsonian). At a certain signal, “Director” and “Author”—both of whom have long since been usurped of their functions! — to see which can snatch what.

Places, everybody? But wait: I have not mentioned that our signal is to come, not from A. B. Cook, IV or VI, or any other of us, no, but from the United States Navy itself. Bloodsworth Island — as everyone seems to know except me — is mainly an aerial gunnery target, uninhabited below Barataria except by very intrepid herons and muskrats. At 2200 hours there is to commence a night-firing exercise in the Prohibited Zone, just south of us; there will be helicopters and patrol boats to insure that the area is clear before the fighters roar in from Patuxent Air Station, across the Bay. It is half after nine already; there they are now, the choppers, blinking and flashing and raising a frightful racket, obviously interested in our floodlights and smoking scenery. Cook waves at their searchlights. The hippies raise clenched fists and shout obscenities. The cameras roll. We take our places.

Am I mistaken in remembering our last sight of Jerome Bray (not counting the sound of him at the Ft Erie Magazine Explosion) to have been his departure by Newswatch helicopter, early in August, from Delaware Park in Buffalo? Well, sir: as if reinvoked by these awesome, clattering navy machines (we do not know how in fact he arrived; Cook alone seemed surprised to see him), just as Fame and I take our rain-soaked places, and Reggie and Ambrose toe the mark some metres off, and Cook makes ready to flag the start, a Union Jack in one hand and the Stars & Bars in t’other — it is 2155; it is 2156; we await the roar of jets—

Yup. Jerome Bonaparte Bray, on top of our trompe-l’oeil monument. Had anyone doubted the man is mad? Then picture him now, as Brice’s cameras do, in archetypal madman’s garb: his alleged ancestor’s tricorn hat; the cutaway coat with turned-up collar and epaulets; the waistcoat under; and, yes, the wearer’s right hand tucked in above the third button. He has escaped from Elba, Bray declaims, to aid the U. States against G. Britain: also from St Helena, to establish his Second Empire in America! He claims for himself both palm and pen, in token of his “conquest of letters by numbers.” Able was I, he concludes, and I swear I quote him exactly: Able was I… er…

Here the chopper drowns him out; the fighter planes blast in at heart-stopping low altitude to fire tracer shells and heaven knows what else into the marsh below us; the storm has paused but not passed, and contributes its own apocalyptic sound-and-light background. Taken aback by Bray’s appearance (in both senses) and by the racket, we are spellbound — all save Merope, who at first sight of him shrieks, flings away the palm, and runs. Reg Prinz jumps the gun and dashes for her trophy. Bray comes down at me, loony-eyed; it is the pen he wants (thank God), and I find myself, despite my alarm, in a proper tug-o’-war: plain limey stubbornness, I suppose. Wham! Here come the planes again, taking all our breaths. Ambrose rushes to my assistance: everyone is shouting over the din, myself included; Bruce and Brice impede my lover with lights and dollies; Prinz trips him up, swings at him with that palm. But like Perseus at the wedding feast, Ambrose wades through all obstacles to my side and snatches up the pen. Bray flees at once, behind or over the Tripoli flat, whither lately flew Fame.

Had we thought this subplot done? Reggie regroups and reassaults, catching A. a stiff clout on the shoulder: these symbols are no tokens, but heroic-scale bronzes weighing half a stone each! Perfectly furious, Abmrose deals him in reply a pen-stroke that might have split his directorial head, but happily only smashes once again his spectacles. Prinz gives a cry and comes down with the palm on Ambrose’s wrist. The pen falls (I grab it); Author tackles Director; they thrash like schoolboys in the mud; the planes roar out as the storm moves back in — and at this appropriate moment the electrical generator fails.

Enough, A. B. Cook and History agree. Brice and Bruce are with us. We separate the soiled combatants: Reggie’s cheek is cut and bruised; Ambrose’s wrist (we shall learn) is fractured. Both are mucky and disabled; neither is in terrible pain. There is a general move toward shelter, but Cook and I — and Ambrose, when he gets his breath — are concerned for Merope, who is not to be found with the others back in the lodge. Nor, ominously, is the Emperor of the French. A search must be mounted: if the storm re-retreats, Cook informs us, the navy might well resume their firing exercise.

I am forbidden to join the party. Not male chauvinism, Ambrose explains (holding his right wrist), but reasonable concern for my condition. I yield; it is awfully messy out there. Prinze declines the invitation: true, he can scarcely see without his glasses, but he seems to us not much to care. Indeed, he appears if anything disgusted with his protégée for having thrown in the palm and bolted (our host has retrieved both emblems, tisking his tongue at their misuse). In the end it is Cook, Ambrose, and three of the hippies — comrades of Merope’s from the Marshyhope commencement bust — who sally out into the swamp with ponchos and pocket torches.

They find no trace of the abdicated emperor. There is some concern that he may have strayed into the Prohibited Zone, since at its perimeter (marked with large warnings of unexploded ordnance) they discover poor bedraggled Fame. She is intact, not apparently injured, but quite dazed, sitting in a puddle in the marshy path, propped against the warning sign. They wonder whether she has been raped: Her jeans are open, and there is a fresh bruise on her bum. Nope, she says, dopily; she “took a leak” and then “sort of zonked out.” I shall wonder later, as I tend to her back in the lodge, whether she did in fact take some sort of drug, voluntarily or otherwise: one of her comrades, a black girl named Thelma, intimates surprisingly that Bray is involved in the narcotics trade! In any case, our starlet is most certainly woozy. We put her to bed.

I am obliged to speak well of Mr Cook’s management of this wacky emergency. Despite his incongruous and now mud-spoiled costume, he is all authority and good sense in his organisation of the search and his solicitude for Ms. Bernstein. He now insists that Author and Director declare, if not a truce, at least a cease-fire for the duration of their visit to Barataria. He will telephone the navy at once concerning Bray; given the weather, he does not believe that firing will be resumed; on the other hand, he thinks it useless to pursue the search for Bray before morning. We should all go to bed. The filmists as usual will bunk about the floors and porches of the lodge; we lovebirds are to do him the honour of using the guest apartment in the caretaker’s cottage. The man even bandages, and expertly, my lover’s wrist, which is now sore and swelling, accompanying his first aid with ribald innuendo. Tweedledee remarks that we did not really “do” the accidental explosion of the navy yard, per Andrew IV’s letter. Andrew VI opines that we have enough big-bang footage to serve, and bids us good night.