SHOCK TACTICS BY SAKI (HH MUNRO)
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Hector Hugh Munro is a writer who is known for his
whimsical style of writing, his amazing sense of humour, his love of animals,
his generous nature, and his consideration for others. He took the pen name of Saki, the name of the
cup bearer in Omar Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat. He was called the master of the
short story even as he satirized Edwardian literature and culture, regaling
readers with his rich political satire, his intriguing characters and his
narrative style. The story titled ‘Shock Tactics’ is replete with all these
characteristics.
The story begins on a late spring afternoon as Ella McCarthy
was siting listlessly in her garden when Bertie appeared before her, and sat
down on an adjoining chair. She was elated to see him and began thanking him
for the lovely handkerchiefs he had sent to her as a gift. She had wished to write
and thank him for them immediately, but when she said so, Bertie’s face fell.
“’You know what mother is,’ he protested; ‘she opens all
my letters’.”
The fact was that if his mother had found out that he had
been giving a girl gifts, she would talk about it all fortnight. Ella was
shocked, Bertie was almost nineteen and she felt there was need for him to keep
his correspondence private. Bertie and his two sisters had argued with her repeatedly,
but their mother paid no heed.
Saki’s sense of humour is pronounced in many parts of the
story. For instance, when Bertie met his friend, Clovis, at the swimming pool
that evening, the latter asked him what the matter was. Bertie wondered why he was asking him that.
“’When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a swimming bath,’
said Clovis, ‘it’s especially noticeable from the fact that you’re wearing very
little else.’”
When he realised that Bertie was upset about his mother opening
all his letters, Clovis was surprised that he had let her do so. He advised him
to lie on his back on the dining table and throw a fit, or wake up the entire
family at midnight to hear him recite one of William Blake’s poems.
A day or two after, a letter addressed to Bertie Heasant appeared
in the letter-box, landing up in the hands of his mother, who was “one of those
empty-minded individuals to whom other people’s affairs are perpetually
interesting”. Intrigued by the word ‘private’ inscribed on it, as also with the
delicate but penetrating aroma from it, she opened it hastily. The letter
addressed Bertie as carissimo (my very dear), and it questioned whether he had the
nerve to do it. “Don’t forget the jewels.” The sender’s name was Clotilde, and
she did not want Bertie's mother to know of her existence.
The excitable mother who had been hunting for proof of Bertie’s
indiscretions for years screamed, “’Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress.’”
She and her daughters discussed incessantly about his guilty secret. When
Bertie arrived, his mother demanded to know who Clotilde was, but he denied her
existence and escaped to his room with a few hurried scraps for supper.
An hour later, a second letter landed up. It began
abruptly.
“So you’ve really done it.” It mentioned someone as “poor
Dagmar” and went on to say, “You did it very well, you wicked boy. The servants
all think it was suicide.” The letter exhorted him not to touch the jewels till
after the inquest. The letter was signed with the name of Clotilde.
Bertie’s mother
was distraught.
“’Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?’”
Bertie denied knowing Clotilde and even said that he
would fetch a doctor to treat his mother for her delusions. There seemed no explanation
forthcoming from Bertie. However, the last post of the evening brought another
letter for him. This letter made things clear to both Bertie and his mother.
It was from his friend, Clovis Sangrail.
“I hope I haven’t distracted your brain with the spoof
letters I have been sending in the name of a fictitious Clotilde.’” It went on
to say that Bertie had told him about his letters being tampered by the
servants, or somebody at home. “So I thought that I would give any one that
opened them something exciting to read. The shock might do them good.”
Bertie’s mother was chastened. She knocked at Bertie’s
door telling him that it had all been a stupid hoax by Mr. Clovis Sangrail who
had written all those letters. Bertie was on his way out. He told his mother
that he was going to get a doctor to see if there was anything wrong with her
as no one in their right senses would have believed all that rubbish about
jewels and suicide and murder.
His mother whimpered, “’But what was I to think of all
those letters?”
Bertie had the perfect opportunity. He told her that it
was her own fault for opening other people’s correspondence. Anyhow, he was
going to find a doctor.
Bertie’s mother knew she would be an object of ridicule
of the story got about. She was willing to do anything to hush it up.
“’I’ll never open your letters again,’” she promised.
From that day onwards, Bertie was Clovis’s devoted slave.
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