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IN COMPETITION NO. 1933 you were invited to supply a piece of historical romantic fiction of the pre-Buchan era containing the words: "The ace of spades be damned," he whispered, and fell back dead into her arms.'

Lord Rees-Mogg, who suggested these words as suitable for his fantasy bestseller, had some other stirring alternatives up his sleeve, which, if space had allowed, I would also have offered you: for instance, 'Colonel von Blitzen's monocle fell into the brown windsor soup. "Mein Gott, ma'am!" he spluttered' or, 'As he kissed her swan- like neck, his cavalry moustache caught awkwardly in the lacing of her bodice.' 'Pre-Buchan' has been only loosely applied — I didn't realise that his first successful

Moggery

Jaspistos

book, Prester John, was published as early as 1910. It was, in fact, quite a tough assignment; it wasn't easy to avoid the obvious gaming table and the turn of a sin- gle card. The prizewinners, printed below, get £20 each, and the bonus bottle of Isle of Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky goes to Colin Shaw.

'The ace of spades be damned,' he whispered, and fell back dead into her arms.

'Oh, Miss Hermione,' she heard the old housekeeper say. 'Praise be to God, he's gone.' Hermione could only nod. The tears sup- pressed during so much of her son's wasted life- time were now free to flow and did so unchecked. He had been a villain, exchanging pain for every act of kindness, and yet it was a mother's heart which still beat for him within her frail body. She thanked Heaven for those Afridi spears which had brought his father an early and honourable death, so sparing him all knowledge of the boy's successive acts of shame. Best of all, he had missed those terrible words of defiance to the old sailor's curse with which the lad had now breathed his last.

'Let me do that,' said Mrs Beddoes, bending forward to close his eyes.

`No, no.' Hermione's voice rose in a despair- ing cry. 'Let me, it is a mother's right.' (Cohn Shaw) 'You are not the first to leave Georgetown in a hurry,' sneered Captain McEwan. Jim Sprake, the lowland Scot, did not take kindly to insinuations from highlanders. 'Tend your schooner, sir; and leave my affairs,' he said.

'Best concealed are they?' sneered the Captain. This was true. Since Melanie Sprake had absconded, Jim had been like a whipped cur. He had taken passage Home under Captain McEwan, an abrasive figure with a veiled wife aboard, who was reputed by the crew to be black as the ace of spades.

Jim drew his sword. 'Shall we discuss the mat- ter?' he offered.

'Willingly,' said the Captain, and lunged hard and well. Jim staggered back, cannoning into a veiled figure who had emerged from a cabin, and dislodging the veil.

'Ah, God, Melanie!' Jim gasped. 'The ace of spades be damned,' he whispered, and fell back dead into her arms. (Paul Griffin)

Rile est toute qui survit,' he muttered to himself as he slumped back into a chair too lumpy and distorted by the years to be comfortable, but nonetheless comforting in familiarity. Once, this chair had been a symbol of his power. Now it was no less a symbol of his impotence. Here he sat turning cards and courting oblivion in cheap yin de table.

He laid the third and final card: the two of spades. After so many victories old age had taught him defeat, defeat by his own failing body and mind, by the younger men who had robbed him of his status, and by young women who had deprived him of his manhood. And now defeat by luck itself. 'She's all that's left,' he sighed again of the old chair. 'The ace of spades be damned,' he whispered, and fell back dead into her arms. (Eric Bignell) The evening air lay heavy with smoke and the sickly smell of death. The broken army, shat- tered that day, retreated in disarray on the road south, but against the shrieks of injured men and the clatter of hooves could still be heard the timeless chorus of the countryside, the whirring cicadas and cascading calls of unseen larks.

Around a large table outside the inn, over- looking this chaos, sat the remnants of d'Orsay's cavalry, their regiment destroyed only hours before in an act of heroic futility. The survivors awaited their advancing victors and certain doom with disdain.

One young officer, his uniform bloodied and torn, turned slowly, his face wracked in an ecsta- sy of pain, to the daughter of the innkeeper by his side. 'Twist,' he gasped. They played for the Colonel's silver hip-flask. 'The ace of spades be damned,' he whispered and fell back dead into her arms. (Rupert Kempley) 'How did you escape?' asked Virginia, drawing two cards. 'All in good time,' replied Carstairs. 'What filthy swine the Huns are. Oh, I know they seem jolly fine chaps when they're playing the tuba, but there's a cruel heart within. The Kaiser craves world domination. He'll stop at nothing.'

'Golly!' Virginia said. 'Then this affair might have cost you your life.'

Carstairs lit his pipe.

'Yes. I was lucky to get away with a whole skin. Oh, they tried to make me talk. The details would sicken you. And they've everything ready: the ships, the weapons, the ruthless trained army of blind, fanatical cannon-fodder. Not to men- tion their slow-acting poisons. As a matter of fact, slow-acting poisons are their speciality.'

He picked a card, and suddenly left his chair to embrace her.

'The ace of spades be damned,' he whispered, and fell back dead into her arms.

(Basil Ransome-Davies)