Sentence The Fourhundredandninth 

The sudden and unexpected collision of Professor Sir Clement Dane's nose with the cricket bat, still slick with the succus of Bob Cherry's deceased cat, flung by a small and inoffensive-looking man brought the American soldiers up short; they crowded around the unfortunate academic, where he lay among the brushy growth on the hillside, anxious about his well-being and were gratified to see that he had suffered no serious injury, though he was obviously once again concussed and rather confused, asking them to dial 999 and have him taken to the BGH – the medic and the captain conferred: could this be some sort of code? does the BGH refer in some abstruse way to the VC, the NLF, or even to the Pathet Lao? were they caught in some kind of inspired foozle, missing some aspect of the truth about the situation? then one of the men spotted a small party of men and women

wearing different uniforms spread out in front of a long row of houses climbing the hill to their right, and then they heard the voice – English, or maybe Scotch – speaking clearly and slowly through a loud-hailer: “this is Detective Constable Isa Urquhart of Police Scotland, please put down your weapons and allow us to come up to you – we are unarmed, and have Paramedics who can tend to your injured,” and Captain Dick Turpin nodded to his Sergeant – the man possessed of a Parade Ground volume to reply: “we are United States Army, and have an injured man here, with four others in the Cavern, advance with your hands raised and we will put our weapons down,” and so, a few minutes later, Professor Dane was being assessed by the Paramedics, while Turpin and his Platoon sat around and the Captain spoke with the bright-eyed WPC; but before he was taken to the BGH, Dane asked urgently, “what date is it, day, month, year?” and the vivacious WPC laughed: “is that what a

bonk on the conk does for you, Professor Dane? it's Sunday, 15^th of May, 2016,” and noted the shock on his face: “the time, please, if you will?” he gasped; the elegant WPC glanced at her wristwatch and looked Dane in the eye: “7.15, is that important to you?” and was surprised by a sudden tremor which possessed him; “we've missed it, the Flying Scotsman!” but Isa's gentle laughter was like a highland burn trickling o'er granite, “maybe not,” she said, “it was so overbooked it's on it's second run today, my Aunts Daphne and Maude are on this one, due in, oh, 20 minutes, I believe,” and “quick,” he instructed, “please take me to Tweedbank Station, we may yet be in time!” and although she could not grasp the reason for his urgency, she instructed the Paramedics and two of her other officers, with the exuberant Trainee WPC Gertie Mountcastle in charge, to take the Professor down to the Ambulance and go straight to the Station, and as she saw them hurry down the hill, she wondered what on earth the Professor could be in such a fret about, but then turned her attention to the dusty, smoke stained and clearly confused soldiers and said: “I think that, before we interview you, you need baths, fresh clothes and some good food inside you, and took them down the hill and towards Auntie Crist's house where, alerted by a quick call, all hands were assembled (after their brief stay in the cellar until the eruption was over) boiling kettles, preparing food and running baths for their new

influx of boarders! and open on the kitchen table where she had been re-reading it for the umpteenth time, earlier in the day, Professor Sir Clement Dane's inimitable critique of, and indispensable companion to, John Ruskin's justly celebrated The Stones of Venice with annotations by the Author and published under the auspices of and bearing the celebrated colophon of, The Oxford University

Press, which had also published Dane's dissertation on Ruskin's earlier work, The Seven Lamps of Architecture - “my,” she had thought, and not for the first time, “he's made a fair old living and reputation by deconstructing and reconstructing the original works of others, when is the silly old goat going to publish something entirely original himself?” and as she slapped a wodge of pizza dough onto her floured surface and began to roll it out, she wondered if her new visitors would like pizza, it's always so hard to predict, these days!